FootprintsintheWind.com

Christopher Alexander in The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of Building and The Nature of the Universe, Book Three: A Vision of a Living World, p 438, says something about a room which applies also to meeting. Permit me to rework his words just a little, to say something we all knew before, but had not yet put into words:

A meeting is the sanctification and illumination of the lives of those meeting, of life. It is life made manifest. The meeting, like a cradle or a gathering together of life, is, in its essence, the place of a thousand joys and sorrows, the receptacle of our lives and our children’s lives, the embodiment, in physical order, of what our spirit has been and is becoming.

That is, perhaps, the true purpose of a meeting. It is comfort, but true comfort, an inner spiritual comfort. A comfort of action as well as solitude.

:- Doug.

How might we make nursing homes fun?

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 993

Much of what I long for in the world is summarized in the garden first example: We want and need to belong to the world. We want to be at home in the world. And to do that our buildings need to be at home in the world. So we must first find them a home, a garden, in which to sit and look over the valley and the mountains. If we try to construct a house first, it is ego-filled, and stands in front of the garden, blocking its sunlight, and then we have a garden that is sickly, and a house lacking soul, and a view we care not to see.

So what is the shape of the space we care to see?

Please pass it on.

© c 2009, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Our task is making wonderful.

:- Doug.

What big thing is your small group doing? What big thing are we about in this group? If it is merely gathering money so someone else will do something, what good is that? Luke warm is to be spit out.

:- Doug.

We have the ability, with our tools and technologies, to make the world more human and more supportive of living. Let us do so.

:- Doug.

If we want someone else to solve our problems for us, then we must give up to that person our right to complain.

:- Doug.

Know what the leaf said when it let go of the twig? Whee!

:- Doug.

The most important things are verbs: go, do, meet, go, do, love.

:- Doug.

Life first, gardens first, then we live!

:- Doug.

Gardens first: converse first. Meet: find life; generate living. Once we’ve got the life right, then the next step is clear—and good tending to wonderful.

:- Doug.

What if the talent show got down to the top 4 or 5 contestants and then we worked out a way to fairly share the Million Dollar prize among them? All are clearly winners—why would we want to deliberately choose to turn 75% of them into losers?

:- Doug.

Get as far from a show as possible.

That is more profound than it seems. Political decisions are presented just that way: a show. Making winners and losers.

We have created so many losers when we have approached public process this way. That’s why people scream and shout and come near violence—guess what’s next?

So what if we really engaged each other and worked on solving the questions, one step at a time, starting from the start? What if we allowed the ideas of the big players only an equal voice with those of the little folk? What if we brought good heads and good hearts together? What if we looked for our common ground and ways for everyone to not just have an opportunity but to actually be substantially better off, and got off our win-lose idea that almost everyone has to lose?

:- Doug.

Open Space Technology does one step at a time: We gather. How shall we gather? In a circle? What shall we do? See what people want to do. What next? Choose where our contribution or learning is the most and go there. What next? Get to work.

It is as far from a show as possible.

:- Doug.

Conversation is a garden. If the conversing is luxuriant, so will be the life coming out of it.

:- Doug.

Let’s say there is something going on in your town or in your work that you feel strongly about. What might that be?

:- Doug.

So much of the argument in the political realm these days, say health care, is around and around ego-driven concepts, not what really matters at base. What matters at base is not the cost of health care, for the cost of unhealth is much higher. That is not to say that we will pay any price.

What matters is that we and everybody we touch is healthy.

The questions then about how do we get there are mere details. If we can steer away of ego and of the ego-driven need to fill this pocket or that at the expense of another, we can get there.

:- Doug.

Nothing happens until someone meets someone.

:- Doug.

Help small groups do big things.

:- Doug.

Each piece of reality—person, process, happening—distends the straight lines of the world and I can no longer see the whole way in any direction.

:- Doug.

Help people move the world.

:- Doug.

People are levers for moving the world.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 992

Intimacy with G*d
calls me to open
with
even when I do not want to

calls me to open
to joy
to others
with

the white crane lifts off
gently
with my eyes
a part of G*d

Please pass it on.

© c 2009, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com