Greetings friends and colleagues-- Harrison you wrote:
"The other day I got a note which said in part, "I was surprised to find out that there was a hierarchy in the OST community and everyone having a specific place to hold, voices are not equal and politics prevails in certain circuits Just the same old same old... I'm not sure this is what you envisioned with OST." I have no idea what the specific circumstances were, and less interest in finding out. But presuming that we have the creeping tentacles of elitism sneaking in - a good dose of the Law of Two Feet and a clear recognition of the Universal License of Open Space (everybody has one by birth) should do the trick. Or something." I would love to hear more from the person who wrote about hierarchy in the OST community. What is meant by "hierarchy" here? Isn't there hierarchy everywhere? Is it a bad thing? The question is what kind of hierarchy do we have in the OST community? Is it a hierarchy that feeds us, strengthens us? And how do we choose to engage with it as a community? Do we create the spaces to talk about the power differentials within our practitioner community in a way that, well, builds more capacity within us? Quakers, for example, acknowledge that voices are not equal within the life of a Monthly Meeting. They have the concept of "weightiness" or a "weighty Friend." In other words, these are the elders within the Quaker world. And doesn't the OST world have its elders and sages? I, too, have heard (and thought) that the OST community is the "same old...," - heck, some of that "same oldness" shows up on the list from time to time- *and* I do not know of a more generous, welcoming, inspiring facilitation community. We either choose to engage with the OST community as it is, or...well exercise the law of two feet. Raffi * * ========================================================== [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
