Hello to each of you that responded to us that you were going to join us on September 21st of 2001 to co-facilitate the intentional opening of space for harmony in the world.
We acknowledge you in the network of people who are holding this space that we began on the 21st and will hold throughout our lifetimes. Dont worry if you are having a bad day and you cannot hold that higher vibrational frequency, that frequency of love. Just remember that you are not alone. You have many helpers holding this space with you. And no matter how much turbulence comes along, we encourage you to hold steady. And we hope that in time, millions of people will join us in the co-facilitating of the holding of space for harmony. The first step is us and believing. The next step is welcoming any more people who will join us over timeplease pass the word along and people can join in this holding of spaceand if they were willing to send their name to us at [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> we will add their name to our growing list of people. Below our signatures, please find some comments and commitments from people around the world who joined us on the 21st. Most joined us at the energetic level. 17 individuals were here with us in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA were we gathered outside amongst the trees and made a circle of stones to symbolize our commitment and to silently open the space after each of us had said the words we wished to. Thank you for the beautiful people that you are, Birgitt and Ward Williams On the 21, I formed a circle with my daughter Phoebe (who was to be 20 months old the following day). We sat on the lawn under clear blue skies in the exact same spot that you and Ward and the rest of my family had occupied in the summer. My thoughts were around the subject of stewardship and how we can pass on a world and life truly fit for Phoebe's generation. I can't speak for Phoebe's thoughts but there were were lots of smiles and giggling. I'm sure she appreciated the sentiments. Much love Terry from New Forest, UK During the 7am opening this morning, I was on the ridgeline a half a mile above my home, and I had a marvelous and mysterious encounter with two coyotes who moved with great deliberation northward through the mist up toward the Black Mountains, and also with an owl, who heralded the dawn. Love Chris from Asheville, North Carolina, USA I had an incredible meditation this morning. I lay in bed and spent about half an hour focusing Reiki energy towards your gathering and into the world. You could feel the connection to the great amount of energy that was building in and around your home, and the energy that was coming in from everywhere else. I could picture your house (the image in my brain is much like the image in the photo you sent me) but that image gave way to this powerful rose colored healing energy. It was like a large ball, deep into the earth and reaching out into the sky. It appeared to be spreading everywhere. What a powerful occasion to be a part of. Thank you for facilitating it. Love, Rachel from Calgary, Alberta, Canada Birgitt, thanks for this message - three of us met at Roffey to hold open space between 12pm and 1pm here - really glad to be a part of this network and looking forward to holding this space for the future. Hope things went well there. Best wishes, Barbara from UK Related to this special day, September 21, I made a reference last week of >From the Four Directions, an initiative of Meg Wheatly and a number of others. It is also aimed at creating a network that mentors new leadership serving others to achieve harmony in the world. I am a part of a From the Four Directions Circle in my home town and I think you would probably like to know more about this. Their website is http://www.fromthefourdirections.org/. It is a little funny to be emailing you while being in your house, but this way you have the link in your computer to click on whenever it suits you. I am so happy to be here Love Koos Dear all around the world! We see, we feel and we visualize that millions of poeple (in every country and in every religion) are doing so, so much for harmony in the world ... day by day. The time is right to connect more and more of this energy to let grow a special critical mass. What can we do in our daily life to support this? I decided for myself as a founder and leader of a small company to have the courage to speak about this vision not only in my private environment. Harmony needs WHOLENESS. In my daily work I am working for this goal. I am speaking about this issues with my staff. I am speaking about this with my business partners and with others. Harmony needs also the COURAGE to see our own limited behaviours. Harmony needs UNDERSTANDING for other countries, for other cultures, for other religions and for other languages. Harmony needs more COMMUNICATION. Harmony needs change of perspectives. Harmony needs HUMILITY, TOLERANCE and RESPECT for others. Harmony needs a new definition of the WE in general. WE are the citiziens of our little world. For all that we should spread LOVE, LOVE and once again LOVE. Love in our families, Love in our companies, Love between our neighbours and specially Love to that poeple, which don´t like us. Today at 13:00 pm (7am in North Carolina) our time in Germany we will invite our staff to make a conscious break for two hours. We decided to go with our staff in a little restaurant having a candle on our table and be aware of this special connection today. I am happy to join you in a few hours.... LOVE, LIGHT and PEACE Gabriela from Berlin, Germany Thank you Birgitt, for organizing this opportunity for a collective effort... what amazing timing this ended up being... the world needs something like this right now... THANK YOU LIGHT AND LOVE, Emily from USA I will commit to opening and holding space at 7:00 EST tomorrow. The rest of the day I will be helping to set up for a weekend gathering beside a whitewater river. We will be sharing music, food, skills and healing arts for the next few days. Greetings and love to us all! Eric from Eagle Lake, Ontario, Canada Dear Friends all around Oz Here is a way in which you may choose to participate in, and contribute to, the flow of love and wisdom now pouring forth around our little planet. Tonight at 9pm Eastern Standard Time in Oz, 8.30 CST and 6pm in the West there will be a world wide 'opening of space.' This is at the initiative of Birgitt Williams and her husband Ward. Birgitt is a pioneer in developing Open Space Technology internationally, including in our country. It has been planned for some months and so it could not be more timely. Alan from Adelaide, Australia I will join you and the many others who are opening space for harmony tomorrow morning. I will commit my energy here in Vancouver 10:00 eastern (which is 7:00 am for us) and continue with conscious intent thereafter. Julie from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada I am Ulla from Germany - and I have been reading your OS-messages for almost a year now - ever since Lisa and Laurel (HI THERE !!!) took me to the OSonOS in Berlin, from where some of you might know me. (I would have loved to see you again in VAncouver - but could not make it this year.) I have been thinking about writing to the list myself before lots of times - but mostly, there were so many (good) words already that it did not seem necessary to me. Anyways - I am writing NOW to say that I will join you in opening space today. Ulla from Germany How did this unfold? I was connected in prayer on September 21; we need this. I am concerned about the earth after the tragedy on September 11 and the following actions to come. Let me know about the website. Lynn from Seattle, Washington, USA Just to let you know that I opened space at 7:00 a.m. for peace and harmony and made my commitment. Rather than post topics following the opening, I journelled some of what that might mean to me. It was wonderful to know that many people were joining me. Love Michelle from Ancaster, Ontario, Canada I was given a 'wake up call' around three weeks ago to get very serious about my meditation, raising my own conscious and working only in a higher vibration. As the heavier forces rise so are the subtle vibrations awarken to bring about the change and soften the impact of such heavy forces. Darline from USA Since I was alone, I asked for support and blessings and opened the space: Opportunities and choices for nurturing life as though creation is precious and our Creator matters. I changed this a bit to Opportunities and choices for nurturing life because all life is precious. I imagined my colleagues in a circle in Raleigh and then it somehow naturally expanded to add all those in every corner of the world who were also with me. It felt very similar to meditating and I simply let the thoughts run through me pushing out positive energy and holding myself open for all the wonderful energy that I knew was floating around out there waiting for me to join. I began to think of all the people over my life who had mentored me, invited them into the space and thanked them as I remembered all of their wonderful gifts and how wonderful the nurturing felt. I began to think about mentoring and how, in the past almost two years, in a new culture, that I had rarely had the opportunity to mentor, at least not in the way that I had in the past in North America, and how much it had meant to me and resolved to shift my thinking prism and to mentor in not just in my professional work, but in my volunteer work and in my day to day life. I remembered shying away from 'living my life in open space' I was always afraid that I would set myself up to fail, and feel as if I have made that first step. I thought about the tragedy in New York and began to realize just how important the theme of this open space is - and how important it is for us all to keep the space open for nurturing all life because it is precious. I have decided to deliberately leave London this weekend to stay in the country to keep the space open as consciously as I can. Blessings to you all Lin from London, UK Open Space report, 21 September 2001, 1230 UK time Convenor and reporter: Martin Leith Participant: Maria Canney We formed a circle of six chairs. One was occupied by Maria, the other five were empty. I stated the theme: Opportunities and choices for nurturing life as though creation is precious and our Creator matters. We discussed the theme and amended it to: Opportunities and choices for nurturing life because creation is precious, and for harnessing human wisdom and creativity for the greater good. We discussed the similarities between this theme and our companys vision, which is for a world in which co-creating is the norm. I reminded us of the four principles and one law of Open Space Technology, and we talked about basing our business, and our whole lives, on these. The words Be here now seemed to be important to us. Our matrix of times and places had times on the horizontal axis, reaching from 2001 to infinity, and places on the vertical axis, reaching from the UK to the entire cosmos to infinity. We imagined an Open Space facilitator, invisible and infinitely wise, doing nothing and holding the space. We reminded ourselves of all the other people around the world opening space at this time (1230 UK time) and throughout today. Our conversations included the book Talking With Angels (www.daimon.ch/Mallasz4.htm) which has been a profound influence on my life (see below), A Course in Miracles (likewise) and The Transformation Game, which for many years featured in my work. The angels say that there are seven souls of life: CREATED WORLD (matter) 1. Mineral 2. Plant 3. Animal * * * * * * * 4. Man (sic) * * * * * * * CREATING WORLD (glory) 5. Angel (peace, silence) 6. Seraph (radiating force, pure joy, shining power) 7. The Seventh (mystery) The task of humans is to live on the fourth level and become a conscious link between the created and the creating world, so that the seven souls are united. To do this requires love, freedom, giving, awareness and living our individual tasks. Imagine a menorah with seven candle holders. The fourth level is the central candle holder. When humans live up to their full potential, the first candle holder connects with the seventh, the second with the sixth, and the third with the fifth. The seven chakras and the seven rays seem to be significant here too. We should not focus solely on matter (lower chakras), or on spirit (higher chakras), but on an integration of matter and spirit. I noticed how Open Space gives people a taste of living on the fourth level. (Here at The Innovation Agency our code word for this is co-creating.) The space was declared open. We moved on to the next session. * * * * * * * Martin Leith NOW, I was going to join Birgitt's circle of OS for harmony, when we were going to meet with my collegue Marina Tyasto (she was trying to join the list, but somehow couldn't - if somebody can help her? her address is [email protected]) when she called me and ask If I would like to Open Space for BOSS-club in Novosibirsk. They were gathering more then a year already, and want to make a meeting "What's next?" they like the meetings, though it is EVERY week, and all of them are busy.... but like to gather there. Marina and me are heading in a week to Khabarovsk - it is East from Baikal Lake, somewhere in the middle of the distance between Vladivostok and Baikal lake (do you have a map of Russia yet?), on the Amur river - the boarder between Russia and China in the East of Russia/China. There will be the 5 day workshop on Effective Communication in Organizations, so we are going to make some mix of everything including 1 day OS divided in evening and morning sessions... and presentation of Future Search Conference. And on Friday the 21st, when we were going to meet at her office (that is in the center of Novosibirsk, half an hour drive from my place in Akademgorodok (Academytownship with 20 research institutions here), though there are only 25 kms distance, but with very slow roads...if to be law-listener and behavour... Well, so she called me and asked me if I would like to join her - we are invited to the BOSS club to make the short (3 hours) OS event on the topic "BOSS-club, where are we heading?" Well, that was in Novosibirsk, where I was just going to go to Marina, so we would just do different things... as usual, when we meet on some other topics...so we did meet and we did go to the meeting of the BOSS club and there was a sort of a Board, about 10 people, and we made all introductions needed to start OS meeting, and there were like 5-6 topics, and some people started to classify them in order, so I did try to ask them, that they can do it of course, but if they could try not to do this and discuss them in several groups, but that is up to them and so on.... but they put the table with tea and coffer in the middle of the room back and told us, that they would discuss topics in turn, all of them and will write resume on all discussions which they did not, but the secretary did, that was her usual job.... so they did it the same way as they are used to, but we were siting in the nearby room, which was one of the several rooms supposed to be used for small group discussions and we heard the very good discussion of the group. We did discuss that probably they are a very good community as well, and OS work better for people, who know each other less, then they, and also that they do discuss it in high tensity all the time with small pauses, so there is a good discussion on topics,... So they were done in an hour, instead of 1,5 hours (2x45 minutes sessions we were agreed on) and on the closing sessions one person told us, that there is nothing new... in the method, So we spoke a little of possibilities of OS, and how to use it - when there was our turn to speak with microphone (our tibets bells in hand). one person was very concern to use OS it he would not do the things which would be decided by the group, and we discussed that: that OS should not be used in topics, where he knows the decision, but when he doesn't and nobody does, -that is the stage for OS. Another - bank manager, was talking that he would not ask people because that is HIS job to decide on conception and strategy of the bank (otherwise he would be fired), and he just manipulates with people that they do what he wants, and we discussed that, and that the current tendency is to involve more people in planning and decision making as one person can not know all the information, it is a lot now...of it... but there were very few time, so we can not talk too much, and it was justsmall introduction of everything.... so now I'm thinking.... if they used (nearly) the old pattern, they could not learn anything new...though the secretary said thank you to us, as they usually talk too long with no decisions, And now (Friday) the new method gave them more structured talking - on the topics, which were interesting for those who post them and as it appears - for all of them, and several (if not all) were close ... but still they were posted... articulated and gave them idea what to talk about. they are all leaders, and OS - looks like a very simple, not much structured for them and they just don't want to hear, what they don't want... the typical behavior of Russian leaders... you know may be ... it is the same everywhere, when it is possible... we need to do it unpossible.... so, now, my idea is to propose them a new discussion. the reflexing on topics around that event.first I want to tell them a funny story, which was retelling in our summer school of young programmers (computer scientists), may be you know it. My husband told me about it as the scientific experiment, but when I called the originator of this story, he laughed at me and said, that it is an anecdote(funny story), so I was confused, and upset that it was not real story, which I loved... 5 monkeys were put in a cage. the banana was lowered for them on the rope from above, but when monkey ran to it and tried to reach it, the cold water was thrown on them. when any of them approached the banana afterwards, the cold water was thrown on them ALL. so after a while, when some monkey was going to approach the banana, the other beat it and did not allow it to approach the banana. then 1 monkey was changed, and the new one which was brougt in the cage wanted to take banana, which was lowered from above. but all other monkeys beated it and did not gave it the possibility to catch the banana. then the other monkey was changed and everything was the same. So, in some time there were only new monkeys, which did not know the reason why they were beaten, when they approach the banana, but they still beat the other new one, which was going to approach the banana.... I mean to tell the story to this bosses, as they are really leaders, they did not want to listen us to try a new method and made it their way, but, whether it is always good to use old methods? I also want them to learn about life cycle of organization and probably grief cycle, so they can widen there knowledge, which they of course know, but that will be probably a new approach and visioning for them. As the time is very limited, it is always like this hear, except when we agree on some several days event - that is really the goal of us to go there, so we are trying to make some small portions of learning which are asort of complete but short... how do you think? So we did try to Open Space and we did think about harmony and talk a little bit about this on the meeting but the different way I planned, ... but that is our life here. be ready for everything and let it go... best wishes to all of you Elena from Novosibirsk, Siberia
