Thanks Chris for your thoughtful response. So based on several responses received I am hearing some key themes in relation to the question of raising Spirit in organisations: 1. The need for grief to be recognised and processed/healed 2. The potential for an unhelpful burden of administrative overload (procedures, rules etc) to quench Spirit 3. Lack of clear shared purpose and the importance of story telling (shared myth) to help people to express and connect with organisational purpose. Cheers, Michael
Hi Michael, Posing your inquiry this way, I think there is lots to talk about. Both Harrison and Birgitt Williams have paid close attention to the grief cycle as an aspect of what's happening in any organization. I haven't read Waverider yet, but I imagine that there are many connections. Describing my own interpretation of concepts I have gathered from a lot of learning with Birgitt: In a world of constant change, most humans suffer from the results of our ego-attachments, in that changes, even "positive" ones, can send us into a cycle of "grieving" as a way of integrating those changes. Based on Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's work, we tend to go through the steps of shock-anger, denial, and memories before we are ready to reframe and move forward, and often we cycle through these stages numerous times and not necessarily in a linear fashion. I believe that both Harrison and Birgitt have recognized that when folks are in these earlier stages of reacting to change, their "spirit" is not fully available for the forward-thinking qualities that make an OST experience joyful and full of externally-focused momentum. My own view is that of course spirit is always present, but when we are attached and grieving in the face of change, the spirit applies itself to healing, which manifests in lots of ways, some challenging, some internal, some appearing "unspirited" on the surface. Of course, OST works magic for all of these processes too. But there are other ways. From the standpoint of an organizational leader, member, "participant," I think that there are many choices available for how to "inspire" people, and that most of them relate to transpersonal healing in some way. That's fodder for a whole other discussion. But I also think that there is another aspect to people displaying a lack of inspiration, at any time, including in an OST meeting. This is simply a lack of awareness of purpose. In many organizations, we come together as a bunch of folks who are spiritually asleep. We're not aware of individual or organizational purpose ~ not "mission statement" purpose, but the deeper purpose that is always in the realm of mystery ~ the mystery that *is*reality. I imagine that readers on this list have a wealth of personal reflections about the process of "waking up," of achieving greater awareness...and of how to facilitate awakening in others (which according to the mystics is all about becoming aware oneself). Back to the quesiton, "Was Jesus a waverider?" ~ Having not read Harrison's book, I don't know have an answer, but I happily share my own understanding that Jesus is certainly the reality of an aware being inviting awakening (healing) in "others" across time and space as we know it. In other words, *raising spirit.* Make sense? Chris _______________________________________________ OSList mailing list To post send emails to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] To subscribe or manage your subscription click below: http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org
