Re: SV: Testing and Close and closeness

[BJ Peters]

Eva-- I loved your shared thoughts below. It reminded me that friends and colleagues of mine often iterate the principles when talking about any gathering of any kind for any purpose. Be Peace --BJ Peters

Eva P Svensson wrote. . .

 I am thinking that what if I just could live the principles and the law  - always think that I am meeting the right people, that whatever happens is the right thing, that when it’s starts its starts and when its over it is and if I don’t like it – take my feet to where I better would like to be. It looks so easy but it’s so difficult just for one to live, to “walk the talk” in every days life.  But there where it has to start isn’t it – if we all start right where we are I am sure that it will make a different because through my behaviour I will affect others. As a tiny example I hade a conversation to day with my very best friend and we where talking about that she should spend here time where she wanted to spend it and not where she thought she was supposed to because of traditions, expectations etc. If she had went to where she was supposed to and not wanted to – it would have shown through negative energy.

So I think that one way to open my personal space is to live the principles and the law, although I will have to deal with fears (my own as well as others), breaking “behaviour rules”, and most important finding my own truth.

And in my ongoing work of trying to find that, (my truth and needs), I just stumbled over the English word close. To close the door, to close the space. But if you put some more letters to the word it has the total opposite meaning – closeness – to be close to another person, to be close to one an other.  It was when a person said to me “you must look for closeness” and I keep on thinking on the meaning of “closing something” instead of what she really mean (to be close to someone), that I started to think about it.  I don’t know but in a way there must be a meaning with that. If I take same words for close and closeness in Swedish there is nothing similar at all.

That some two cents or two öre thoughts late at night.

All the best

Eva

 

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Eva P Svensson

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-----Ursprungligt meddelande-----
Från: OSLIST [mailto:osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu]För Harrison Owen
Skickat: den 24 april 2003 23:37
Till: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu
Ämne: Re: Testing

 

At 06:44 PM 4/24/2003 +0200, Eva P Svensson wrote:

So quiet - just have to test that I'm still connected to you all!

The silence is in fact deafening. And particularly noticeable for this group. When silences come I find the reasons are usually three: a) Nothing to say. b) Nothing need be said. c) What could, or should, be said takes people to a place they don't want to go. I vote for c)

The events of the past month are, indeed, a little overwhelming. The US invades Iraq, SARS breaks out. And now North Korea threatens to do a nuclear demonstration -- whatever that might mean. Sufficient to take your breath away. Forget about talking. And the prospects for the immediate future are hardly encouraging. Speaking just for myself, I can say that at such times, space becomes claustrophobically small. And my daily activities verge on the irrelevant. Silence. Very quiet.

It is quite possible that we are really in the midst of very, very, deep doo-doo, from which there is no easy or obvious escape. Under the circumstances it is always nice to have somebody to beat on and blame. George the Shrub comes immediately to mind. But regardless of what he did do that he shouldn't have -- or didn't do and should have, the situation is probably well beyond him. From where I sit, he remains what he has always been -- an embarrassment. As Birgitt might be tempted to say -- We have a lot of Dead Moose.

And yet in such moments, there is the possibility of enormous learning. For ourselves, how do we open our personal space so that in this present moment we can be fully here -- fully alive? And for our neighbors, colleagues, clients and friends, how can we open that communal space so breath (and meaningful conversation) becomes a possibility? Opening this sort of space is rather different, I think, from filling the air with trite platitudes and the power of positive thinking. It goes to a deeper place.

Slightly less than a year ago, I was privileged to work with a group of Palestinians and Israelis in Rome. Relatively speaking, the world at that point (compared to the present moment) seemed almost idyllic -- but for those coming from The Middle East it appeared something other than a rose garden. And in their presence, I could only share something of the brittle fatalism reflected in the forced smiles, and nervous laughter with which we began our gathering. Knowing full well that I could never be fully where they were, I nevertheless felt compelled to share my own vulnerability -- In my opening of the circle on that first day I said something like..."I had come because I cared for my friends in Palestine and Israel, and also for myself and my children. And although the people in that circle may feel themselves isolated and alone in their own private Hell with their own agonizing story, that story was also the story of our world. Like it or not they were in the hot crucible of the future of humankind. The future of all of us is being created in that strange place known as the Holy Land, even as it has been for millennia. So I cared, but I was also on the edge of despair or beyond. I could not think of any way out. The issues were so deep and intractable that movement appeared denied. Space was closed. But still I came, and still I cared – as I presumed was true for each of them as well."

My learning during those days in Rome was profound. It became startling clear that neither I, nor any single person there, had the wisdom, courage, strength or perseverance to get us where we needed to go. But none of us were called upon to do that -- we all were -- and all rose to the challenge. In that rich space which contained all of our hopes, fears, frustrations and  anxieties, we collectively found a collegiality which included and transcended them all.  Needless to say, we did not bring peace to The Middle East, but we surely experienced peace in that moment. And that was a moment we will never forget.

So maybe it is time to break our silence here on good old OSLIST -- share what we are, and what we are learning.


Harrison

Harrison Owen
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Potomac, MD 20854 USA
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Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com
Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
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