And here is a song I wrote about that space…which is written about a piece of 
land on the island where I live, but stands for all the moments we are perched 
in Open Space…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zFGoGyTjlE 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zFGoGyTjlE>

Thanks for the reminder Jeff!

Chris


> On Oct 20, 2014, at 9:34 PM, Jeff Aitken via OSList 
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> While tangential, it may be useful to remember that Harrison's own first 
> definition of Open Space was not the methodology we know. 
> 
> Rather it refers to the mysterious place in a journey of transformation - for 
> the individual, for the organization - 'between what was and what might 
> become.' (In 'Spirit: Transformation and Development in Organizations' 1987.) 
> 
> While the methodology showed up in 1985 to later become a powerful means to 
> support individuals and organizations 'across the open space' it was not 
> mentioned in the book.
> 
> 'For the organization standing at the edge of open space with a full 
> realization that the old way isn't working anymore, and the new way has yet 
> to be found, the primary issue is the passage through that Open Space, and 
> the articulation of a new story... a new way of being there. ... It would not 
> be stretching a point to understand the process at hand as a dramatic event 
> or sequence of events, with the leader as director or conductor...'
> 
> The job of the leader is 'leadership by indirection, which orchestrates a 
> new, positive story, created so far as possible out of the existing elements 
> of mythos, which captures and excites the organizational Spirit, and focuses 
> it in productive directions.'
> 
> And so we give thanks for Open Space Technology, which helps make all that 
> work SO much easier.
> 
> Jeff
> 
> 
> -------- Original message --------
> From: Jeff Aitken 
> Date:10/20/2014 8:21 PM (GMT-08:00) 
> To: Harold Shinsato ,World wide Open Space Technology email list 
> Subject: Re: [OSList] Earliest known reference to {holding the space} 
> 
> Brilliant work Harold. I also was thinking about the famous pediatrician and 
> therapist Winnicott and his theory of the mothering 'holding environment' in 
> which children develop. As the child grows, the space being held grows too, 
> tho not named that way specifically.
> 
> Another child therapist Sandner literally talked about an Open Space held by 
> the mother role along similar lines. He once came to a talk by Harrison.
> 
> Nozick reminds me of good old Werner Erhard saying we are a 'clearing' in 
> which bodymind and the world show up. Influenced by Heidegger et al.
> 
> Which takes us to the Kabbalist notion of 'tzimtzum' as the ein sof gets 
> lonely and contracts so that a space appears for a universe to emerge. Jewish 
> people who follow torah are rereading the first chapters of genesis this 
> week. But that's another story.
> 
> Jeff
> 
> 
> 
> -------- Original message --------
> From: Harold Shinsato via OSList 
> Date:10/20/2014 1:40 PM (GMT-08:00) 
> To: World wide Open Space Technology email list 
> Subject: Re: [OSList] Earliest known reference to {holding the space} 
> 
> Hi Jennifer!
> 
> Thanks for referencing such a great research tool. I looked at all the books 
> listed from 1900-1981. Check this out!
> 
> Nothing before '51, and over half of the 342 references were from 1951-54. 
> There was a dark age of holding space from '55-'70, with no references. And 
> of the 342, over 96% treated "holding space" as a noun, rather than a 
> process. They are about physical containers for stuff, livestock, or 
> prisoners.
> 
> Below I list the exceptions - some of which seem to hint at the way "holding 
> space" as an element of facilitation, though none do so directly. The Leibniz 
> and Kant papers were interesting in that they peered into the concept of 
> space itself, holding the concept if not actual space. Very interesting is 
> that the military concept of "holding space" related to the Vietnam war 
> starts to come close to the facilitation sense, but the last one by Robert 
> Nozick seems to come the closest.
> 
> 1953 - Princeton Alumni Magazine - "holding space" for slots in a talent show 
> at Princeton.
> 
> 1971 - The New Yorker Volume 46, Part 7 - page 85 - "Farther toward Green, a 
> young woman named Vaughan Kaprow, shivering in the evening cold, began 
> holding space for another organization that had a special greeting for Billy 
> Graham — the Pasadena Women's Liberation Group."
> 
> 1973 - A Paper about Leibniz's Philosophy which looks at space differently, 
> "holding space to be relational."
> 
> 1973 - the Michigan Library talked about "holding space" for sign ups for 
> tickets (flights to New York), similar to the holding space for slots in a 
> talent show in 1953.
> 
> 1976 - Ecology - Volume 57, Issues 1-3 - Page 286: "Porter (1974) speculated 
> that the high degree of coexistance on Caribbean reefs is due to a "balance 
> of abilities" divided among the Caribbean corals, such that no one species is 
> competitively superior in acquiring and holding space."
> 
> 1976 - The Philosophy of Kant Explained - Page 89 - "It is thus obvious that 
> we can only explain how we can have legitimate a priori synthetic judgments 
> in geometry by holding space as..."
> 
> 1977 - Object Relations Family Therapy - Page 72 - " the family therapist 
> gets transference information from the interactions in the shared holding 
> space of the family." Still a noun.
> 
> 1977 - All quiet on the Eastern front: the death of South Vietnam: "Time was 
> a secondary dependent variable, a function of our success in winning and 
> holding space."
> 
> 1978 - BBC transcript - Many reasons why: the American involvement in Vietnam 
> - "it's because you're holding this space in the territory of the rural 
> areas. Also you're holding space in another sense altogether"
> 
> 1979 - Arts Magazine - Volume 53, Issues 6-8: "Moss now opens wide gaps in 
> the grid, erasing large segments of the retaining wall that had been holding 
> space 'back'. A new spontaneity and elasticity develops between color and 
> field: an energy."
> 
> 1981 - Kant and the Transcendental Object - "And to all these impressive 
> reasons for holding space and time to be phenomenal, Kant adds the further 
> reason that there are a great many axiomatic principles which govern things 
> in space and time, which are not logically necessary, since ...
> 
> 1981 - Robert Nozick: Philosophical Explanations Page 83 - " The word "I" 
> might be the marker for the blank, holding space in which the self can 
> appear."
> 
>     Regards,
>     Harold
> 
> On 10/20/14 7:41 AM, JenniferHurley-HFA via OSList wrote:
>> If Google Scholar is any indication, the usage, at least in print, seems 
>> fairly recent:
>> https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Holding+space&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CHolding%20space%3B%2Cc0
>>  
>> <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Holding+space&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CHolding%20space%3B%2Cc0>
>> 
>> Jennifer Hurley
>> Hurley-Franks & Associates
>> 267-971-4598
>> Sent from my iPhone
>> 
>> On Oct 20, 2014, at 9:20 AM, Daniel Mezick <[email protected] 
>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>> 
>>> This is extremely helpful, Jennifer! Thank you
>>> 
>>> On 10/20/14 9:14 AM, JenniferHurley-HFA wrote:
>>>> I have no idea about the earliest usage, but it's a phrase often used by 
>>>> Quakers. 
>>>> 
>>>> Jennifer Hurley
>>>> Hurley-Franks & Associates
>>>> 267-971-4598
>>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>> 
>>>> On Oct 19, 2014, at 7:33 PM, Daniel Mezick via OSList 
>>>> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> 
>>>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> Since July 2011, I continue to wander, searching for the earliest known 
>>>>> reference to the term "holding the space." Anybody know?
>>>>> 
>>>>> http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/2011-July/334185.html
>>>>>  
>>>>> <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/2011-July/334185.html>
>>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoSn2Y-b6wI 
>>>>> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoSn2Y-b6wI>
>>>>> -- 
>>>>> Daniel Mezick, President
>>>>> 
>>>>> New Technology Solutions Inc.
>>>>> 
>>>>> (203) 915 7248 (cell)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Bio <http://newtechusa.net/dan-mezick/>. Blog 
>>>>> <http://newtechusa.net/blog/>. Twitter 
>>>>> <http://twitter.com/#%21/danmezick/>. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Examine my new book:  The Culture Game  
>>>>> <http://newtechusa.net/about/the-culture-game-book/>: Tools for the Agile 
>>>>> Manager.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Explore Agile Team Training 
>>>>> <http://newtechusa.net/services/agile-scrum-training/> and Coaching. 
>>>>> <http://newtechusa.net/services/agile-scrum-coaching/>
>>>>> Explore the Agile Boston  
>>>>> <http://newtechusa.net//user-groups/ma/>Community. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> OSList mailing list
>>>>> To post send emails to [email protected] 
>>>>> <mailto:[email protected]>
>>>>> To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] 
>>>>> <mailto:[email protected]>
>>>>> To subscribe or manage your subscription click below:
>>>>> http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org 
>>>>> <http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org>
>>> 
>>> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
>>> http://shinsato.com <http://shinsato.com/>
>>> twitter: @hajush 
>>> <http://twitter.com/hajush>_______________________________________________
> OSList mailing list
> To post send emails to [email protected]
> To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
> To subscribe or manage your subscription click below:
> http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org

Reply via email to