My friend Colleen Taylor is taking a big leap, of the job change sort. Her story sparked some reflection about my own leaps and edges.

As far as I can tell, for all my leaping, I have never really gotten over the edge. Even when I thought I’d literally stepped off “the big one” some years ago, and fell to the rocks below, it turned out to be just 15 feet of falling and tumbling.

That one literal leap aside, it seems the edge just keeps moving closer to and then deeper into who I am. The leaps, even the apparently big ones, dissolve into so many daring little internal shifts.

just in from the campfire (still at no mind) where a very few of us lasted until 3am, a german accordian player, a swedish singer, myself and a few others, writing a song as the sun came up in the middle of the night.

“…feel how precious it is to have grace walking beside you… holding your hand… loving you now… flow through your heart… the seeds in your hand… bloom in the land.”

how lucky to be along for this ride and be able to add a few words along the way. grace.

This is a new word for this American blogger, but clearly “festival” means something to my European friends this week, here at Ångsbacka, a spiritual or heart center in central Sweden. I’m here in week two of the No Mind Festival, seeking to support and extend openness, acceptance, love and compassion into the world. Some bits of the scene here, mostly observed as I walked across the central lawn space yesterday afternoon…

…day four of the second week… sunny blue sky and bright sun continue… rolling green meadows bounded by forest… couples sitting together in practice, or lying together on blankets… parents with little kids napping… some kids perpetually fascinated with the small fountain and goldfish pool… some of the wee ones naked and painted, running and giggling… some adults painted too… one old guy comes to lunch wearing nothing but blue paint, but doesn’t stay very long…

some meditate in the grass… or trade massages… a wild-looking viking sort of guy journals quietly… a young woman sketches in a diary in the shade of a small fruit tree… blankets and a few tables scattered around, a big family picnic… the pulse of african drumming comes from one corner of the festival space… spiritual music and chanting from another direction… somebody yells powerfully, releasing something into the forest… heart music from the big barn “may i take peaceful steps upon the earth… i bow to you a flower… i love your fear… walk slowly… i want to be your lover baby…”

…a woman knits a fuzzy orange scarf in the cafe… the wind lifts long brightly-colored satin pennants from the tops of 20ft sticks… long blond hair and loose frilly skirts… chocolate covered ice cream on sticks… a guitar strummed for some at the fire circle… the ashes of yesterdays food boxes whipped into the air… conversations a light buzz over cups of tea on the deck… a meadowful of tents, one of cars, trailers and housetents in the parking lots, other packed into small dorm rooms… volunteers cooking and cleaning and smiling… two guys with boxing gloves sparring in the parking lot…

…at campfires, i’ve heard mostly beatles and bagpipes, and almost no dylan, denver, or other folk tunes… some bicycles, a nearby lake beach, small village, a creativity space full of paint, fabric, plaster and more… kids on swings and dipping in an inflatable pool… open stage, drumming, dancing, healings, tantra, concerts, and a wee bit of open space technology growing into the mix this year for the first time… and absolutely no one appears to be “in charge” of anything but the organic vegetarian kitchen… so perhaps the chef rules all… for now.

the thing that stands out is the spirit of love, the steady flow of music, the freedom of movement, the quality of smiling, openness in so many faces… open hearts and open eyes everywhere, it seems.

more on how we took over the kitchen and changed the world in my next posting.

At the end of our wedding, Jill and I went to a big gathering drum, started a pulse together, and invited our friends and family to come join us. Thanks to Chris Corrigan for capturing that celebration drumming in a big (7.6MB) .WAV file.

We just don’t know what his name is. Two weeks ago my sister-in-law Amy was dancing at the wedding. Last night she and Mark were up all night at the hospital, until successful delivery about noon today. Welcome to the family, small fry, whatever your name is! Congrats and Thank You, Mark and Amy!

Looking forward to some time with this one before I jet off this Wednesday to facilitate open space for 600-800 at the NoMindFestival in Sweden.

UPDATE: It’s Charles “Charlie” McIntyre Herman, named for my Dad and Amy’s family. Held him tonight and he’s a solid little guy! woohoo!

Something more than a week later, we’ve got some photos from friends and family posted. We thoroughly enjoyed the whole of it, from planning little surprises and having dinners with family in the days before, to having so many great friends in one place, telling stories and making music together in middle of the ceremony itself. I hope some of the fun of it all will come through in the photos.

Light blogging ahead while I enjoy the ripples, paint a few rooms, post more photos, and scribble a lot of thank you’s.

UPDATES: Our online Photo Album is done. We think we have all the photos we’re going to get now and we’ve spiffed the layout. Maybe someday we’ll have a go at cropping and captions, but for now we think it’s a pretty good view.

Well, I guess it’s started. Had dinner with Jill’s parents and grandma last night, just in from Texas. Tonight we add my parents to the party. Tomorrow the rest of family and a few cast and crew friends, more dinner than rehearsal. Then everybody for the (not really so) big wedding moment on Saturday.

Finished with cake and catering details yesterday. So the party is assured. Still working on writing those vows.

This shot is from our retreat in February.

If all else fails on the wedding-writing scene, we can always go back to these Dr. Seuss wedding vows.

Pastor: Will you answer me right now
These questions, as your wedding vow?

Wedding planning is in full swing here. One week and counting. The to-do list is getting lots of attention, even though mostly everything is decided. Now it just a lot of last minute logistics.

And the surprises. Or as I like to call them, as of today, Special Operations. These are the things that need to be on the list, but that Jill doesn’t know about. Little surprises. But how to keep track of them, and get time for them, if not on the list?

Code names, of course. So along with beverage shopping and airport pickups, we have things like Operation Corner Pocket, Operation Crystal Temple, Operation Frosty Krinkle, Paper Chase, Mouse Factory, Port and Starboard, and Handlebar on the task list.

Now, if we could just finally have a good run at Operation Write the Vows…

Somebody called today with a situation, an opening, a “better-than-zero” chance to propose a plan to take an old bureaucratic program to a new level using Open Space Technology. What to do?

I referred him back to the four questions from the Inviting Philanthropy post two days ago, re-framed a little bit into the context of him going to his boss and boss’s boss to inquire:

• What do you want (to see in the world, or in the program)?
• What do we already have (what’s working, what to keep and grow)?
• What do you need (to have, or see, or show, to support a shift)?
• What are you willing to do (approve, support) if you get what you need?

I suggested he make his own list. Run through it with his boss, adding the boss’s list to this. Then take it higher up to check their list against the chief. If nothing else, these four questions cut through a lot of potential crap. And saves my buddy from busting it on a proposal that goes nowhere.

Meanwhile, I see these four could be the very active punchline to the Inviting Leadership story that Corrigan and I are cooking:

• Embracing Heart: What do we really want? Do something that matters.
• Inviting Focus: What do we have to work with? Find a place to start from.
• Supporting Flow: What do you need? Ask and offer the things that make the difference.
• Making Good: What will you do? Got what you needed. Good. Use it. Do something.

My favorite place of action just now, by the way, is a new blogging project for Chicago Conservation Corps. Oh yes, and wedding planning… T: -1 weekend and counting. Blogged our organic wedding cake bakery today over there at C3. Yum!

Susan Walker quoted historian John Brooks last week in The Daily Reckoning:

[It] came with a kind of surrealistic slowness … so gradually that, on the one hand, it was possible to live through a good part of it without realizing that it was happening, and, on the other hand, it was possible to believe one had experienced and survived it when in fact it had no more than just begun.

He was writing about how it felt to live during the Great Depression, 1929-1933. She was writing about US housing markets these days. I wonder if it might not apply more broadly than that.

At what point does not knowing become worse that any one of the possible outcomes? Isn’t that the moment when the next big things really get to begin? The moment when we finally decide? And what if some billions would decide all at once?