Because I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, I could not resist
attending WOSonOS 08. I am not doing much consulting work these
days.
I've just got one client and mostly that's a love connection. I am
lost in life. Don't fret on my behalf. Yes, I am lost but I am lost
in Open Space, where only the right things happen, at only the right
moments. All I have to do is pay attention to what has heart and
meaning for me. Follow my bliss, as Joseph Campbell once said!
So I followed my bliss to WOSonOS.
I almost didn't go. A few days before the event, I wrote and told
Lisa
Heft, the registrar for WOSonOS 08 (and the famous Access Queen) and
suggested maybe I wouldn't come.
Throughout the event, I decided to leave. Then I would have a
butterfly conversation, which would lead to another butterfly
conversation. . . and then another. I was there from beginning to
end. . .
The highlights of my experience:
Chris Corrigan's children, Aine and Finn, and John Engle's children,
Daniel and Leila (I may spell her name wrong).
Watching these children (holding Leila, a six-month old beauty)
restored my soul. One evening, Aine and Finn danced while wearing
some cheap neon necklaces that I had brought to the party. There
were
thirty of these necklaces and the children had almost all of them
wrapped around their wrists, ankles, neck and waists. I was reminded
of fireflies glowing in the dark of the cosmos that evening. During
the day time, watching the children bowing and bending through the
day, I was reminded of watching wildflowers bending in a meadow under
a light summer breeze.
Suddenly, all the participants at WOSonOS began to appear to me like
fireflies and wildflowers.
We met at a very beautiful location, at the Presidio, which used to
be
a military base. The venue was high on a hill overlooking the very
beautiful bay, with the Golden Gate bridge within view, as well as
Alcatraz (an island famous for once housing a prison!!) and the jewel
of the city of San Francisco. Blustery winds, soft breezes, blue
skies and white sailboats dancing on the water.
I didn't go to any sessions but one. I attended the Open Space
Institute/USA session, which serves as our annual meeting, which we
are required to hold.
I had a wonderful, fantastic time.
But there were some rough moments. It is these rough moments that I
wish to report.
I kept having a wonderful time, beautiful moments in which I glimpsed
the sparkle of love, much like I kept catching glimpses of sunlight
dappled on the bay. I would remonstrate myself, telling myself that I
"should" go to some sessions, I should act professional, I should do
this and I should do that. I would tell myself that since I wasn't
going to sessions, I ought to just go home. Each time I came to this
turn in my thinking, one of the people I already knew and already
loved would appear and talk me 'down' by reminding me that in OS I
didn't have to go to any sessions.
It can be tough, scary work to follow what has heart and meaning. It
had much heart and meaning for me, over these several days of WOSonOS
08 to be like a firefly in the night and a wildflower in the daytime,
bending in the breeze. When I succeeded, when I surrendered to just
showing up and just being alive in the space, I was just fine.
Bending, bending felt good.
What if, by finding my right place in each moment, what if I really
am
contributing to the whole of humanity? And what if everyone was able
to find their right place in each moment and to then find the next
and
then the next? Would everything that 'needs' to be done get done?
Would someone harvest the fields and maintain the roadways? I think
so. I hope so. I don't know, not for sure, but I had these
moments. . . these magical moments when I completely knew that
self-organization is the central power of the universe and
self-organization is love and if everyone extends themselves in love,
guided by the quickening that moves us from one room at an OS event
to
the next, from one moment to another. . . . I have these fine moments
when I am sure that all is well. . . or, at least, all will be well
soon.
I don't really know what happened at this WOSonOS. I scarcely heard
any of the Evening News or the Morning Announcements. There were
people making merry, children bobbing in the sunlight and Ms. Lisa
Heft making me feel special just because, lucky me, Ms. Lisa Heft
glanced at me.
And I glanced back.
It might have been my imagination but each time anyone looked at me
or
looked at someone else, it seemed to me like rays of light, like love
rays. What does draw people together to accomplish shared goals?
What drew the first circle of humans around the first fire? I submit
that love draws us together.
I think many of us would edit the 'principles' of OS, rewrite
Harrison's initial inspiration. It wouldn't really matter if we did
such a rewrite. . . and, of course, people present suggestions all
the
time, on this list. Me, when I hold space, when I open space for a
group, I always want to talk about love and trust, hope and faith.
It is a beautiful, warm-but-not-hot, sunny-and-not-humid perfect day
in Mountain View where I live, where I am writing this. I am not
sure
if the glow I feel is the glow of the sun or the glow of the magic of
the space we created at WOSonOS.
I love Open Space.
WOSonOS 09 will be in Taiwan! WOSonOS 10 is planned for Berlin.
Mark
you calendars. Show up if you feel called to show up. Open Space.
Then
open some more.
--
Love rays,
Tree Fitzpatrick
http://thecultureoflove.blogspot.com/
. . . the great and incalculable grace of love, which says, with
Augustine, "I want you to be," without being able to give any
particular reason for such supreme and unsurpassable affirmation. --
Hannah Arendt
1335 Montecito Ave Apt. 35
Mountain View, California 94043
(650) 967-9260
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