Embodying Community
Had an interesting conversation with Murray Journeay and Penny Scott on the ferry on the way out of town… a chance to work a bit more on this notion of wholeness in community, a chance to talk through this view of community as being and body.
Looking at our three dimensional process of community development there, we considered Municipal Government as power, finance, and pelvis. It is the underlying power structure that can move things forward and can support/hold a space for our Community Dialogues. Those conversations, which we just held in OpenSpaceTech, are where we invite contribution, caring, and connection in an inclusive, embracing sort of way. This is the heart of community, which needs the power and funding support of the Municipal Council and out of which bubbles up visions and stories and ideas. The most compelling of these bubbles feed the brain of the place, the Community Viz mapping and visualization process. It’s that process that looks around and ahead so that the community grows in smart ways.
If we notice that the Municipal movement is guided directly by what comes out of the Mapping brain, then we see that the energy of the community moves in a circular, up-and-down way very similar to energy moving through individual human bodies. The route to well-being can be the similar too, aligning, nesting, resting down, easing together, trusting the different and essential contributions of each, letting each one touch and inform the others.
Want to work more on how people, groups and processes do this. Also, how does this translate into organizational terms. This seems to offer the possibility of an organic, human approach to organization and community working that transcends and includes specific methods, tools and techniques. This springs directly from my work with Julie Henderson and Zapchen Somatics.