Today is my tenth day of taking nothing but water, tea, and spicy maple lemonade, a spring cleaning ritual.

I missed it last year in London, while I was working as a cook in a meditation center, so this year has been a welcome return, timed perfectly with the arrival of spring in Chicago. When I started, it was 40 degrees. Yesterday and today, it’s 70 degrees.

This time has been totally different from any of the past five. Busier and quieter, if that makes any sense. Harder to keep going in some spots and the first year that I really feel like I’m just getting started after these first 10 days. I’m just starting to really “get it.” And slow down. Fast.

This comes from my friend and colleague Ram Raut, on the occasion of the New Year in Nepal. The mainstream news out of Nepal these days is about hundreds being arrested in protests and a people teetering on anarchy. Here is an inside view, a heart view, from a guy who’s home was bombed only months ago, and who has since lost his brother suddenly in an accident.

Dear all
Namaste

We are bye bye year 2062after 26 hours.In this year We got many many good things and learning.Loktantrik movement took high hight.perhaps We will get inclusive Democracy soon. NAINN got alot of success.we successfully organized second National Summit.
Great achievement is we got David L.cooperrrider in the position of Patron.
We spread AI throughout the country.and We expan our Network and we built good relationship in the international Level.
these are the great successof our organization.personally all the freinds got more achievement even our counrty had suffering from autocracy and arm conflict.

In this occasion of new year 2063,I wish for your every success and sound health.I hope we will see new loktantrik peaceful and prosporious new Nepal soon.

In this new year we will get new success and great change in our life . plz do well. we Invite to all to join our Imagine Initiative movement for positive societal transfomation thourgh out the world for make a new peaceful world.

with appreciatively
Ram Bahadur Raut
National Chairperson
NAINN (Nepal Appreciative Inquiry National Network)

Ram and his colleagues remind me again that real peace movements must begin and be sustained by peaceful people. Imagine that. Hoping to see them again this Fall for more Open Space, too.

a small lightbulb went off today on the phone with andy mitran, professional musician and founder of the men’s art forum.

i’ve been reflecting on the importance of that forum lately, as i consider what of my own creativity i can and can’t bring to my work, sometimes tempered by how much my clients are willing/able to bring or not bring, or what they’re willing to invite/allow others to bring… noticing how much i am enjoying my half of wedding planning, too, working with the flow of gathering, drumming, storytelling, and the rest of the ritual process in the mansion space we’ve booked… remembering, too, the easy enjoyment of the work i was doing in london, in the maintenance of the meditation center.

i’ve been wondering about how to describe and invite this more actively in my current working. then today, andy got me thinking about my art again, whatever that is. i guess my medium, interest, and aptitude (or at least genuine fascination) is with space and flow, how things move or flow, happen or get done, with ease, and in time. but what kind of “art” is that? maybe some sort of performance art? yes, what i do is artful. and yes, there is a bottom line. flow and cash. creativity, design, measures, frames, etc. yes, this fits.

it follows then, that what we so often do in business is focus in on the measures. if we did that in music, there’d be nothing but lines, no notes. and no images inside of frames. no surprise and no joke. so i want to find ways to bring this conversation into more of my working situations. this makes space for meetings that are more than method. makes space for the messiness of actors to actually get in and do real performance, beyond a tidy little script. business and community, connecting and collaborating, as performace and art. bravo!

i wonder, does this view change how i practice? …and what else does performance art mean or do or change?

A fascinating interview with His Holiness the Dalai Lama appears in the Daily Telegraph online today.

…a short, squat man runs through the rain from his garden into his sitting-room, his maroon robes flapping behind him. The broad face, set into permanent laughter-lines, is unmistakable. He is chuckling.

“At least monks don’t need hair-dryers,” he says, chortling. His readiness to break into laughter is his most striking characteristic: his laugh is uncontainable and uncontrollable, ricocheting around the room even when he is discussing atrocities.

On life in the West…

“It is fascinating,” he says, speaking in slightly stilted English. “In the West, you have bigger homes, yet smaller families; you have endless conveniences - yet you never seem to have any time. You can travel anywhere in the world, yet you don’t bother to cross the road to meet your neighbours; you have more food than you could possibly eat, yet that makes [some people, with eating problems] miserable.”

The West’s big problem, he believes, is that people have become too self-absorbed. “I don’t think people have become more selfish, but their lives have become easier and that has spoilt them. They have less resilience, they expect more, they constantly compare themselves to others and they have too much choice - which brings no real freedom.”

On eating…

Like all Tibetan monks, he eats an early breakfast, then lunch and no supper. “My younger brother, who lives with me, teases me and says I rise so early only to get to the table first because I am so greedy. I eat what I am offered. It’s the pig diet - a little bit of everything: porridge, meat, Tibetan dumplings, vegetables.

On marriage and happiness…

He has lived as a monk since childhood, but the Dalai Lama views marriage as one of the chief ways of finding happiness. “Too many people in the West have given up on marriage. They don’t understand that it is about developing a mutual admiration of someone, a deep respect and trust and awareness of another human’s needs,” he says. “The new easy-come, easy-go relationships give us more freedom - but less contentment.”

“To be happier, you must spend less time plotting your life and be more accepting.”

So, how about wedding “plotting” as a practice of mutual admiration and being more accepting? Nice to mix this into all the catering, stationery, and other details that have seeped into my once-upon-simple life.

Wondering, too about those couple of hours I spent this morning absorbed in economic data and financial investing. Not always so simple to know (and accept) that we already have what we need!

Funny that I should run all of this together in one post, but such is life these days.

First, I’ve been meaning to blog something for the last couple of days. I’ve got plenty of things to post, but the one idea that keeps screaming at me is that there’s nothing like a heavy dose of wedding planning to screw up what used to be a perfectly good blogging practice.

Then this showed up in today’s Daily Reckoning email…

…imagine a typical householder. We saw him just the other day, courtesy of a Fed study. He has a house, but he has almost no money. He has no pension, no stocks, no bonds, and no savings. Nada. Zilch. His real hourly earnings are either flat for the last several years, or actually going down, depending on whose numbers you believe. He can barely pay his mortgage. He cannot seem to pay off his credit cards. When the week’s bills are paid, he has less money left over to spend as he pleases - according to Elizabeth Warren’s calculations - than he did during the Carter administration.

Now imagine that his house suddenly doubles in value. Is he really better off? What can he do but borrow against the inflated value of the house. When he borrows, the air holes grow smaller. He’ll have an even harder time paying his bills. He can barely breathe as it is. Being a fatter cat makes him feel good about himself, but it doesn’t really help.

Somehow it’s all about Money and Illusions, except the wedding is actually shaping up pretty nicely. Think Appreciative Prairie-style Catholic Buddhist Open Space Hippie Solstice Drum Circle and if that doesn’t really mess you up, you might just have some sense of what is actually goin’ down this June.

Walkout Challenge Day coincides with the day that Gandhi reached the sea and made his own salt (April 6). It is a chance for us to look at what we have been able to walk out of and walk on to, and where we feel like taking the next plunge. It’s an opportunity to honor the risks we are taking in our own lives and the exciting adventures we are embarking upon. And it’s a day to get together with friends, new and old, and remember that we have companions in our life’s journey.

On this second day of Spring, with wintry winds still howling here in Chicago, I’m hoping that it will yet be warm enough to start my (mostly) annual fasting routine to coincide with this day. For me, the walkout day is about cleaning up one’s act, taking responsibility for that which we can and must do for ourselves, like body, food and health. Changing ourselves is the most important kind of SmallChangeNews.

Thanks to my friend Shilpa Jain at Shikshantar - The Peoples’ Institute for Rethinking Education and Development, in Udaipur, India, for this.

I’ve written previously about the four essential practices of Open Space Technology:

• Opening Heart
• Inviting Attention
• Supporting Connection
• Grounding the Energy

When I first applied this view to my work, after 10 years of opening space, I found they made everything easier. I could do opening heart, during set-up. Then I could invite attention to start the meeting, and so on. One step, one task, one practice at a time.

In my latest facilitations, however, my learning progresses. I am finding that all I really need to do is the first practice, opening heart, and the rest happens almost automatically. This feels more like a river current carrying me and the rest of the event along.

I can see the other practices go by. I know that I’m doing them. And not doing them. At my best, they are becoming more like things that go by in a river, rather than goals or tasks I swim toward, accomplish, or do.

As I rest, relax, and open the space that we might normally refer to as heart, I find that the mental and physical state that arises leads naturally into the next thing, inviting attention. That attention allows supporting connections. Energy flows in and from the connecting and conversing, and automatically seeks ground in some tangible (real) action or product. And those actions and products, however large or small, become the foundation for deeper rest, relaxation and opening.

I find it easiest to start with heart and opening, but I suppose we can start anywhere, as long as we’re willing to be carried through all four seasons or dimensions of practice. If I can’t relax my heart, I can go back to past results, or back further, noticing whatever supporting connections I might have available. But more and more, it is the physical sensations of heart that tell me most clearly where I am, when is right, and what to do.

I’ll be gone on retreat for the next couple of weeks, resting in practice. Find me again here in March, or join us in April!

People sometimes ask me this question, usually because of my monk-like hairdo or some other Buddhist-like things I say and do. I always have a hard time answering. While some of my teachers are well-known Tibetans, what to say when they talk like this…

In Buddhism we have an incredible arrangement: universal education from beginning at birth up until death, as an old person. I feel these things could be put into a universal language. Give up religion, give up Buddhism. Go beyond the Buddhism. Essential aspect of the philosophy put into the scientific language. This I feel is my aim.

…about Essential Education? So, I don’t know if I’m a buddhist or not, but I care about awareness, education, practice, wisdom, and compassion.

I lunched at RecentChangesCamp with Jon Ramer and Jair. Our storytelling is well summed by this bit from Jair’s site:

You have — within you — the fuel to thrive and to flourish, and to leave this world in better shape than you found it. Sometimes you tap into this fuel – other times you don’t. But the sad fact is that most people have no idea how to tap into this fuel or even recognize it when they do. Where is this fuel within you? You tap into it whenever you feel energized and excited by new ideas. You tap into it whenever you feel at one with your surroundings, at peace. You tap into it whenever you feel playful, creative, or silly. You tap into it whenever you feel your soul stirred by the sheer beauty of existence. You tap into it whenever you feel connected to others and loved. In short, you tap into it whenever positive emotions resonate within you. — Barbara Fredrickson, Positive Emotions & Psychophysiology Laboratory @ University of Michigan

Jon mentioned some conversations he’s been having with others about “Unimagined Capacity.” He tells remarkable stories of people discovering this unimagined power. It seems to me that we need more conversations about this. When was the last time you discovered some unimagined capacity in yourself or your people?

Blogs are about being changed, more than changing others.

Bonk. This Johnnie Moore line really smacked me. Still reverberating in mind, a week after I read it here. And the whole notion of blogging for the disruption of it, for the internal and indirect effects it has, as illustrated by Hugh Macleod in the case of doubling of sales for Stormhoek wine.

Fascinating to consider what we’re disrupting in the Open Space practice community with the blogging we’re doing at OpenSpaceWorld.ORG. Perhaps the notion of who really is the open space practice community anyway!

Challenging in my own practice, two… disrupting myself and what I have come to think my business is all about. Consultant, facilitator, teacher, manager, practitioner, coach, writer, partner… running together in new ways these days.

How fun is this, emailed recently from Stephen Powell in London? See the Opera photos, too.