Category: Edited

A couple of stirring quotes for me from a stirring post from Dave Pollard’s, How To Save The World. I met Dave a few years ago. He is extremely thoughtful. Has much to say. One could journey far in the thoughts stirred and practices suggested in his blog posts alone.

For today, I find myself appreciating these quotes for the alternatives of reality that are available.

A human being is part of the whole, which we call the ‘Universe’: a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its astonishing beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely but striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation, and the foundation for inner peace.”

~ Albert Einstein

A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feelings through words. This may sound easy, but it isn’t. A lot of people think or believe or know they feel — but that’s thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling — not knowing or believing or thinking.

Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself. To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

As for expressing nobody-but-yourself in words, that means working just a little harder than anybody who isn’t a poet can possibly imagine. Why? Because nothing is quite as easy as using words like somebody else. We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time – and whenever we do it, we are not poets. If, at the end of your first ten or fifteen years of fighting and working and feeling, you find you’ve written one line of one poem, you’ll be very lucky indeed. And so my advice to all young people who wish to become poets is: do something easy, like learning how to blow up the world — unless you’re not only willing, but glad, to feel and work and fight till you die.

~ e.e. cummings

• http://yfrog.com/oethmuxj  Just plain fun at Art of Humans Being in Essex.
• http://yfrog.com/obnspsaj  Learning principles for systems of exchange at Art of Humans Being. Thru alternative currency play.
• http://yfrog.com/kgsm9fuj  Summer Essex beauty. The pond near the main entrance. Lilly pads. Frogs croaking. Great retreat center.
• http://yfrog.com/h4v0ihfj  the Susan McHenry porch on Green St near Pidgeon Cove Harbor. Great hospitality.
• http://yfrog.com/h2h23rrj  A day of design on new economy that integrates AoH, Women Moving the Edge, and School for Collective Leadership.
• Hot as I arrive in Boston for The Art of Humans Being: Exploring the New Economy. Friend Judy Wallace picking me up in a bit.
• A place I have sooo loved. Biwa Lake on the south shore. This photo from a morning jog. http://yfrog.com/nyu0yptj 
• Running a 5K this morning in Orem. My second of the summer. This one honors veterans. And stretches me a bit!
• Great days reconnecting with my kids. Planting tomatoes with Elijah. Cooking with Isaac. Helping Zoe choose a dance costume.

Returning now from co-hosting The Art of Humans Being at the Essex Conference Center and Retreat in Essex, Massachusetts. The subtitle or particular focus of this one was “Explorations in the New Economy.”

I loved working with this team. I learned a lot. I experience with Ria Baeck a calm and clear presence. She has a different relationship to time that seems more grounded. She has deep insights. Susan McHenry was the core caller on this team. She puts her heart fully into everything. It was her conviction and support for this event that was a big part of my saying yes. I learn something important with Judy Wallace each time I’m with her. She has a firm commitment to hearing more, listening longer, and welcoming the sacred. Teresa Posakony and I journey through much together. Our work. Our life. She has a way of bringing play, focus, insight, and direction together. And Essex, the retreat center on Cape Ann is really a spectacular place to hold a group of people in meeting together.

This is the second time that I have co-hosted under this title, a format that Judy and I were part of creating two years ago. It was a different kind of design experience, one that was more emergent. We would host a circle in the morning and then work with what we felt compelled to offer. I particularly liked hosting a money and currency game from that pace of emergence and improv.

The Art of Humans Being format borrows from the traditions of the Art of Hosting, Women Moving the Edge, and the School for Collective Leadership. I love holding as purpose in this format the attention to re-presencing, re-patterning, and re-storying. I love it that we give primary attention to our human beingness so that that can help in the domain of new economies. Lots that I suspect will stay with me.

Ria is putting together a harvest document. I few things that I have to offer to that are here:
– A Wordle image from the circle, “I am living the new story.”
– A video on YouTube from the money game we played (1 minute)
– Photos of flipcharts on Flickr
–Photos of people and place on Flickr
–Audio file of reflective learning from the Essex Currency Game (thanks Carla for recording)

I also offered a Rap poem, Humans Being, Humans Seeing. Those lyrics are here:

Humans Being, Humans Seeing
Tenneson — July 2012

Acknowledge. Celebrate.
Initiate.

Just create something.
Move it forward, toward

Networks. Alliances.
New finances.

Show up. There’s a job.
No robbin’

Each other, humans being.
Humans seeing.

From the heart.
That’s the start.

Complexity. Beyond hexity.
Beyond trances.

Spark, spark, spark, spark.
Hark to the spark.

Isn’t this reasonable!
Clever things for the all of us.

No stall for us,
but a fall for us.

Humans being, humans seeing.
Humans being, humans seeing.

The world is crying for integrity.
Accountability.

People are saying whoa!
Citizens awakening to whoa.

And saying be reasonable
in our season of able.

Any object contemplated upon
opens a new organ of perception.

Humans being, humans seeing.
Humans being, humans seeing.

I appreciate these words, offered recently by Kerry Edinburgh on the Open Space listserve.

1. It is all about participatory democracy, because the agenda is created by participants and all the conversation is open and transparent.

This one for the reference to participative democracy, the root choice or premise for why one would want to utilize OS. Also for how it points to democratizing the agenda creation process.

2. There are no talking heads and egos cannot dominate, because of the Law of Two Feet.

Though I find ego can still be a part of OS events, it doesn’t take the same hold for the reason Kerry suggests. Freedom to move mediates the invisible grip of power.

3. There is no hierarchy, top table or controlling influences.

Again, I think there is some of this that shows up. However, the surrounding conditions, including the principles, help to change this dynamic if it does show up.

4. It is driven by passion (care about your burning issue) and responsibility (do something about it.)

This gets right to the heart of it. It’s a key point of the narrative that I use when people ask why to consider OS as a methodology.

5. All voices are heard, because all participants are equal.

Or, there is a better chance that the voices that want to be heard, can be heard. OS is like the difference of a megaphone used by only one and instead, giving everyone present cell phones, texting, and web access.

Thanks Kerry.