this weekend i did a number of small things that i’d like to think must be part of some grander solution. perhaps you’re doing some of these same sorts of things.

on saturday morning, we woke up to a pile of new snow. so i shovelled our house and six or seven neighbors, plus the park on the corner and the lawrence avenue bridge across the chicago river.

later that day, we bought faucet parts from a tiny little local 30-year-old family shop where adam runs a service counter almost buried in every imaginable faucet part, old and new, as a steady stream of customers line up six deep for his help fixing or finding parts for all kinds of old faucets. on the way home we stopped in at the riverbank neighbors mid-winter planning meeting. then we loaned our folding chairs in support of a baby shower across the street.

tonight, i wrote and mailed a letter to our new governor recommending somebody for appointment to the metropolitan water reclamation commission (the folks who manage the river at the end of our street). this week i’ll send out an email reminder for our block’s next monthly potluck dinner. last weekend i distributed 1000 neighborhood newsletters to 30 block delivery people. it’s also time to make and distribute flyers for the neighborhood winter social event.

less locally, this week i’ll also have conversations about organizing meetings for the future of buffalo new york, the future of the credit union industry, and some other important projects where i might make some small contribution to others’ larger success. more personally, we’re still chipping away at a number of plumbing projects (with some borrowed tools) as we refinish an old house, still slogging away at the triathlon challenge mentioned a few posts back, and just getting started on painting the kitchen so we can finally order cabinets and counters.

mostly this doesn’t seem so much like working as just living. and when i stop long enough to notice, it seems quite lucky that i’m able to do any of these things.

it’s been almost 20 years since i ran three marathons in 12 months, but i haven’t worked out regularly since i fell of a small cliff ten years ago — unless you count bicycle transportation (sporadic and seasonal, at best) or all the demolition and rebuilding work i’ve done around the house in the last 18 months (not exactly cardio).

so running a real ironman triathlon is just totally out of the question in this lifetime. even my new gym’s invitation to cover ironman distances (2.4/112/26.2 miles) over the course of three weeks is going to take some pacing. in the last three days i’ve managed almost a mile in the pool, six miles running and 10.5 miles on the bike. not breaking any speed records, but hoping i can keep it going through this little contest. by then the new routine should be well established, anyway, and spring should be inviting running and riding along the river.

better, faster, stronger… or bust.

Being visible in the practice of open space technology brings a number of inquiries and requests for training and coaching and such. Being visible on this web, these come from everywhere around the world. It’s been a fun way to connect with people, or sometimes, discover connection.

Today I was chatting with Pete terHorst about open space and invitation. I mentioned that some of my approach to that comes from what I learned from my Dad, who worked at Ford in Governmental Affairs and Public Relations. He used to write things ended up in state legislation or on the bronze marker at Henry Ford’s birthplace, stuff where words really matter. So this is some of the sensitivity I bring to the crafting of invitations.

Well, it turns out that Pete’s dad worked for Ford, as well. Same group, different city, a ten-year overlap with my dad. I call home and ask, and sure enough, Pete’s dad is somebody well-known to my people. And this is some of why I don’t blow off any of these random requests for training and coaching.

It’s snowing again here in Chicago, even though Spring started last week. It’s probably not going to amount to anything, nothing to shovel. Not like last week, when I did finally have to get the shovel back out of the basement. (Ever the optimist)

Don’t get me wrong. I love snow. Really. And… I’m noticing that it’s not nearly as much fun or beauty in March as it is in December.

And now, back downstairs to work on a window box. Someday Spring will come, and the front of our house will BLOOM.

Nineteen years ago this week, I graduated from the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business, having studied Finance and Healthcare Administration. After two years of working long weekdays to crunch financial projections for huge hospital projects and working long weekends training for and leading Chicago Center Outward Bound programs for high school kids, I quit my “day job” and went north to Ely, Minnesota, and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, to lead wilderness trips for the summer.

The plan was to return to Chicago and run corporate programs to support the youth programs, but the Chicago Center closed a month after I returned from Ely. With only two years of “real” work experience, I dared to be self-employed rather than unemployed — and that’s what I’ve been ever since. After corporate programs work, with New York City Outward Bound and Chicago Center founder Steve Proudman, I eventually lost any formal ties to Outward Bound.

That said, the picture atop this post is from the first Michael Herman Associates homepage, in 1998. When Katrina hit, I sketched out a community preparedness curriculum/plan under the heading of “Ready for Anything.” It’s still here in my draft blogposts, never posted because I realized that I was essentially recreating Outward Bound. Another time, as we stood reading HRH The Duke of Edinburgh’s explanation of Outward Bound on the wall of an OB school in Scotland a few years ago, my wife, Jill, exclaimed “That’s what you do!”

And so it was an Outward Bound homecoming of sorts, as I worked with other alums this past weekend, to build raised beds for the students of Polaris Charter Academy to grow food this Spring. Polaris is one of 160 “expeditionary learning” schools that are grounding in neighborhood elementary and high schools the experiential learning principles of Kurt Hahn, refined through more than 60 years of Outward Bound wilderness practice. Polaris students, grades k-2 (so far), learn by doing. By getting out and exploring, finding out for themselves where food comes from, and where garbage goes. Learning to read and write and count and present in the process of exploring the World.

In many ways, from personal backcountry tripping and seventeen years of sole proprietorship, to my frequent framing of Open Space as a sort of wilderness expedition inside of organization, I really have been Outward Bound all along. To see my OpenSpaceTech and OpenSpaceWorld sites, I’ve certainly been educator. But I’m Outward Bound all over again these days — coming home from the wilderness, coming home to the wilderness, and wilderness coming home to Chicago, all at once. Confidence and Community. Ground touching ground. Breaking new trail in rugged old boots.

There is talk of two more expeditionary learning schools coming in Chicago. And of restarting the Chicago Center. I’m looking forward to an organizing meeting next month.

Revisiting this…

…ancient Zen practice is called the one bowl eating meditation. In this practice, you find a single bowl that becomes your eating vessel. For each meal, fill this bowl with any foods you want to eat and eat them mindfully. Do not eat anything between meals. This practice is harder than you might expect and even if followed one day a month, it will change your attitude toward food and the way you eat.

What to Expect

As you develop a relationship with your yi and work to heal and strengthen them, you will notice changes in your life. You may, for example:

* take on less but stay with the projects you start
* be able to say what you think and express yourself more clearly
* take the time to listen to your own inner voice and take their messages seriously
* feel more centered in your own self and be less thrown off balance by other people’s problems, needs, demands, or opinions
* begin to feel a sense of solidity; when you meet an obstacle, you stay clear on your intention and work to find a way to solve the problem and move ahead with your project
* hold your ground
* begin to feel as if your actions in the world result in a bountiful harvest; the world becomes a fertile ground for your ideas and actions

Thanks to Five Spirits.

Bill Wilson of Midwest Permaculture says Permaculture is a creative and artful way of living, where people and nature are both preserved and enhanced by thoughtful planning, the careful use of resources, mimicking the patterns found in nature (bio-mimicry) and a respectful approach to life. Thus embraced, these attributes create an environment where all may thrive for untold generations.

We’re intrigued. So Jill and I are signing up for the upcoming seminar here in Chicago. Join us?

Saturday, March 29th - 2:00- 5:00 p.m.
Hosted By: Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center
1246 West Bryn Mawr Avenue, Chicago

Fee: $50 Door -or- $35 with Pre-registration (by March 26, 2008)
To Register - Call Yoga Center: 773-878-7771 (MC/Visa)
You may call or email the center if you have questions.
The Sivananda Yoga Center is in the early stages of creating a permaculture design for their urban location.

Evening Meal and Discussion 5:30 - 8:00
Topic: Spirituality and Permaculture - Exploring the Connection?
Stay into the evening for an open discussion. Share your thoughts.
Suggested Donation for Dinner and Talk: $20

Three parks actually. Last night Jill and I went for a walk along the River. Walking only for walking’s sake. Strolling back through a grove of giant cottonwoods it suddenly felt like a very grown-up thing to be doing. Hooray for us.

Well, I’ve done it again. Changed my blog skin. Not the formatting this time, just the name. Maybe it’s just the name finally catching up with the format.

This blog started as GlobalChicago, a place to link global movements and learning with Chicago people and practice. When I went to London for a year, everything got a little murky and the blog became PeaSoup. Returning home and refocusing on Inviting Leadership Practice, the blog took on many names, until it came sort of full circle to Inviting Chicago.

Since March, I have immersed myself in the renovation of an 80-year old Chicago Bungalow that for its first 50 years sported a terra cotta roof, ultimately replaced by red shingles. I’ve done much of the work myself (between client calls and business trips) and am hoping to replace the old roof with a new set of terra cotta shingles. (Still trying to talk Jill into the latter!)

Along the way I wondered what “terra cotta” actually means. I like to know where words come from. Terra cotta, I find, is old. Baked Earth. Hmmm. I might call blogging Cooked Experience. Terra cotta’s timeless, earth used forever for cooking, construction, works of art, and symbols of strength and practice. Not too far from some of the main themes here. And besides, it fits the colors I’ve used for 10 years of writing about Invitation and matches the color of my roof. So terra cotta it is — for now. I’ll see what I can do about a proper photo.

…we’re three days in the new old house and i think i’m using everything i know… backcountry camping, financial planning, cleaning up, building out, design, meditation, meeting and greeting, parntership, muscles, brains, care, rain and shine… have all been marvelously swirling and practically applied these last few days. it feels good to be fully deployed.

some interesting finds… “millions of nazis surrender” from may 21, 1945 newspaper lining back porch floor… only key to the back door lock is an old skeleton key… and smashing apart a basement bathroom wall i find 2-3 feet of old level built into the wall, nailed in as structural member, glass and bubble intact — scrappy!

Our new home, as of today. You can see from the listing picture taken in the snow, it’s been a long Spring waiting to get into this place. We’ve got drawings, tradesmen, budgets and such already in place. Now we finally have our stuff inside. Come visit! …and bring a hammer a scraper or a paint brush!