Leslie, the Seattle PoP conference was a little bit different than the other PoP events that I am aware of and, as I already indicated to Melinda, I believe our invitation and design explains the difference. We seed the field with people from around the world actively using OS in high conflict situations . . . and that was what we got. . . it was seeding this energy that attracted people from twenty five countries to our little gathering of 130.
One participant at 'our' PoP felt called to have a PoP in her hometown of Albuquerque, Suzanne Maxwell. I was thrilled to be able to attended Suzanne's PoP in September 2005 and Harrison was there leading us each day and it was a wonderful event but it was not very much like the one my colleagues and I (some of whom are on this list right now: Lisa Heft, Peggy and more) co-created in the Seattle area in 2003. So, when you ask, Leslie, if you can attend a similar PoP in 2006, are you asking someone knows about another event that will be designed around Harrison's book "The Practice of Peace" and which actively works to attract participants from all around the world who are actively working to resolve human conflicts in the world? To my knowledge, there are no such events scheduled. If you are interested in helping to organize an event similar to the one we held in Seattle, Leslie, I know that several members of the core team of organizers for the Seattle 2003 PoP are deeply interested in doing more of them. I invite anyone reading this to let me and/or the list know and maybe we can co-create another one. I hesitated to share these thoughts, to compare and contrast one PoP conference from another, especially because I know some people on this list have had wonderful PoP experiences led by Harrison and in several countries and that each event was wonderful. But to my knowledge, having invited guests working with hard conflicts as a clear part of the intention for the event has not been done or achieved the same kind of results as 'our' Seattle PoP 2003 achieved. . . . we set the intention of having high conflict as central to the event and that's what we got. At the one I attended in Albuquerque, as a matter of fact, many participants voiced their desire to have more conflict arise during the event. . . . but the people who did show up, all of whom were, of course, wonderful, did not really have a lot of conflict to share: we were mostly middle class white people wanting to practice peace. . . whereas at Seattle PoP we had Haitians and Israelis and Irish people sharing the very real conflicts of their lives. Seriously, I'd love to go to another PoP with an intention to invite people working with conflict. If you read this and are interested, let's see what might happen. With love rays, Tree Fitzpatrick Shaman, mystic, mother * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected]: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
