Author: Michael

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Inviting Winter in the City

zamboni.jpg

The end of a long week left me crazy restless Friday night. Needed to move. I told Jill I wanted to go ice skating (of all things) but the big City indoor rink doesn’t rent hockey skates. So that was out. As a last resort, I went out for a long walk along the Lake, in 4 degrees of cold, not counting the windchill.

Walked all the way downtown to Monroe, about 3 miles, where I was suddenly inclined to turn back into the City. At Michigan I turned back north, with no conscious destination in mind. Two blocks later I stumbled onto the new Millennium Park rink! I had only a light pair of cotton socks, so I couldn’t skate. But I dragged Jill back, in that same freezing cold, for her first-ever skate, last night. I loved it so much I went back today for four hours.

I grew up just north of Canada… in Detroit, that is. Dad used to flood the backyard for us to skate. Later we skated at a local rink. Must have been sixth grade, my family went to a Superbowl party at an ice rink. I spent the whole time trying to learn to do crossover turns. I fell a thousand times. Never did get the turns figured out. But the next time out, like magic, I could do them.

Same magic this year. Last night felt a bit stiff and unstable. Today, I’m bobbing and weaving and turning all over the place. As good as ever. What a blast.

And what is it about this crazy machine? Such fun to watch all the little kids mesmerized by the magic of it. This kid too.

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Inviting Winter

I enjoyed this view from Terra Brockman at the Land Connection, just as winter finally got revving…

I’ve noticed a great difference in the weather comments from my local farmers and my city friends. The city folks are generally annoyed by the cold and ice, while the country folks are relieved that it has come at last. Farmers know that the work of winter is indispensable to summer’s harvest. The cold reduces pest populations and prevents fruit trees and grape vines from budding out too soon. But its main and irreplaceable value is that it rejuvenates the soil through the thaw/freeze cycles — loosening the soil and creating channels for spring rains to run down deep.

I gaze out over the hills and imagine the water in Henry’s fields finally turning to ice (our first cold snap in December happened when the ground was covered with an insulating blanket of snow, so the ground did not freeze then). The ice (expanded water) pushes against the soil, creating the spaces that will allow moisture to trickle all the way down to the subsoil, which will keep the vegetables alive and growing even if summer (and global warming) should bring another drought.

Chris Corrigan has been thinking a lot about “harvesting” in open space and other inviting and hosting work. I suppose there’s a connection to be made here. Perhaps between the freezing and unfreezing of “the final draft of the invitation” that opens more space for people to go deep, and the “harvest” grow rich.

I’m always relieved when clients finally get the first draft of an invite “frozen” on a page. Then we start the real work of freezing and unfreezing, until something really Springs.

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Inviting Aspen Again

aspen daily news

We did a second round of Open Space, 10am to 3pm, on the Entrance to Aspen on Saturday. Another 50 people showed up, reviewed the posters summarizing Wednesday’s conversations, posting another dozen or so issues. The focus was more squarely on asking the questions and bringing ideas that might “change the conversation” in the direction of resolution.

Where Wednesday had seemed to be focused on establishing positions, among perhaps a dozen or more different possible solutions, Saturday’s conversations were more about connecting and cross-pollinating. Several people remarked that they had changed their positions as a result of Saturday’s conversations. Skeptics from Wednesday offered that they were grateful and heartened by the quality of this second round.

Going forward, the City of Aspen will help keep the newly-spirited conversations going with a kit they call a ‘meeting in a box’ which will offer informtion, discussion questions, and citizen comment forms to anyone in town who would like to host a conversation on this 37-year-old question of what to do with the highway coming into Aspen. Then on April 12th, they’ll host and evening of keypad voting on questions that will be shaped by all this community conversing.

Saturday’s conversations were perhaps “less focused”, but that seems to be just what was needed for folks to soften their positions and start to listen and connect with others’ ideas and interests. After 26 ballot initiatives, this year might yet deliver real resolution to this question.

I worked with Claudia Haack on this one and together we wrote a nice set of finishing questions. These might be my new default set for closing circles. We asked participants to reflect on these things and then offer one short comment, maybe just one line, what might be their response to a friend asking “So what happened at that meeting, anyway?”

  • What was your experience here?
  • What are you taking away?
  • What did you learn? Any a-ha’s?
  • What was strange or different here?
  • How might you/we keep this going?
  • What new or next questions might make a difference now?

Meanwhile, I can also report that I skied all afternoon at Snowmass on Friday. Great snow, freezing cold (zero degrees, before counting the wind) outside, toasty warm in old hacker gear, no wrecks, but totally wore myself out. Some serious motivation for making body stronger this year.

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Inviting Connections

Chris Corrigan shared this from an Art of Hosting conversation, linking back to the four-seasons view of Inviting Leadership Practice that we’ve developed over the last few years…

This reminds me of the “four karmas” in Buddhism, which describe how one acts skillfully, as an expression of compassion and in accord with the natural order. The correspondence isn’t exact, but I can see the same general direction flowing through your four categories. Which makes sense if we are talking about the same reality. There’s only one, after all!

The first karma is “pacifying” which is also about opening a space or portal of awareness, and taming the ground by clearing away any negative energies. There is no distinction between inner and outer in this sense. Or you could say, it is all inner. Or all outer. So opening and clearing one’s mind is expressed in how one relates to the environment or situation, and vice-versa. Pacifying is represented as a circle.

Then comes “enriching” which is a square, reminiscent of a square hearth or the foundation of a house. So something about cultivating the earth, drawing out the richness, generating something or letting something emerge and develop.

Third is “magnetizing” which is represented by an open half-circle, which invites possibility, play, communication, wealth, power. This is karma of leadership.

Fourth is about action. If the frame of reference is how you work with obstacles, this one is called “destroying.” i.e., you don’t cut until you have first worked with the other three. If it’s about how you take action in the world, this one is about accomplishment. This is a triangle.

I think it’s cool to see how aligned these patterns are.

In a related Shambhala system, there’s also a post-action piece, which is the letting go after the stroke or the cut. Opening up again, which is suggested by your arrow in the middle. Coming back to wide open space and wide open mind.

Easy to imagine the first one as a circle, an “oh!” that is Opening. The second as the square piece of paper that is posted as Invitation. The third, half circle, as the bowl space of Hosting. And the fourth, the triangle, as the spear of Action. Leading back to “oh!” and Opening. Nice.

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Inviting Aspen

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This was the scene last night at the high school in Aspen, Colorado, in the first of two open space meetings to address a set of transportation issues that has generated 26 ballot initiatives in 37 years. This is the kind of space that you do the opening, unplug the microphone, and keep it with you, just in case. Participants posted 27 issues, which after combinations generated 18 working sessions. The Aspen Times (photo) and Aspen Daily News both had good things to say about our progess on their front pages this morning. We’ll have another round on Saturday.

In the meantime, today was my first time on skis in 10 or 12 years. Let’s just say that nobody skied the Greens at Buttermilk as hard as I did today! Hoping to make it a big Blues day tomorrow at Snowmass.

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Inviting Again

To blog or not to blog? Well… okay… blog. It’s been a grand experiment, but there are things I put here now that I don’t have any other place to put. Much to my surprise, and chagrin, there is more to say. So without further ado, here is where I’ve been, mostly gladly, spending big piles of attention these last four months…

  • Four weeks of being very much out in the world, in India and Nepal, honeymooning, retreating, and training in Open Space (notes for the latter, totally redesigned, forthcoming)
  • Learning to use a cellphone. Yes I finally caved, converted my oldest landline, so the number remains the same. And yes, learning… still catching myself listening for the dial tone before dialing. (grin)
  • Rebuilding the best bicycle I ever had (1981). Photo forthcoming, when it gets launched on the first good bright sunny day of Spring.
  • Tearing around Lincoln Square area on foot and on my other bicycle, learning to ride in the cold again, for first time since high school — and looking for a HOUSE.
  • Learning to ride the bike and talk on the phone.
  • Long holidays with the WHOLE family.
  • Facilitating the 2nd Annual Chicago Area Food Policy Advisory Summit, especially rewarding as this is the most lively growing edge of what started in a statewide Summit I facilitated in 2001.
  • C3 summit project, C3 weblog, green dinners, WorldChanging, and Massive Change in the City.
  • Updates to MichaelHerman.com and OpenSpaceWorld.org
  • Opening Space projects, including one for the City of Aspen, a community-wide affair to cultivate broad community support to resolve a decades-old debate about what to do about inbound traffic there.

The Aspen events happen later this week, so I’m off to the airport. Inviting Again. Call me on the slopes, I’ll think I’m going to need the rest breaks!

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Inviting Everything

All at once, Life seems as chaotic and coherent, pressured and peaceful, stirred up and stable as I can ever remember. All of my energy and attention seems fully deployed, into three nested spheres and three separate blogs — Open Space World, Chicago Conservation Corps, and here Inviting Life — each one a tidy list and squirming heap — of thinkings and meetings and doings.

The strangest thing now is how all three lay claim to being my center of everything. I’m Body alive, radiating energy and taking action, in Chicago communities and a global Open Space movement. I’m facilitating Open Space meetings, inviting leadership in community, and practicing intimacy with Life. And I’m balancing it all on my bike. Most everything that’s really working and getting done these days has some sort of grounding within riding distance.

Of course, the big exception to that last one is that Jill and I are leaving on Sunday — for four weeks in northern India and Kathmandu, Nepal. We’re going to eat and explore, to see old friends and big mountains, for a practice retreat and a honeymoon, and (another) bit of Open Space work with NAINN. Go figure. I guess we’re going for everything.

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Inviting Digital Literacy

Michael Maranda is doing short interviews with people on the street, asking them what they know about the Chicago citywide wifi proposal, where they get their news, what they know about the internet, and how they use it.

This is all part of his work locally, statewide and nationally to cultivate digital literacy, otherwise known as bridging the digital divide. He’s organizing 77 community groups citywide to make sure that the citywide wifi contract will serve ALL of Chicago’s neighborhoods.

He’s posting the interviews at YouTube. I guess, in a few days, he’s going to post the one he filmed with me earlier this week — so go look now before that one posts! And Michael — I think your demographic sampling is a bit off!

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Inviting Comfort

From the Christian Science Monitor…

Previous school shootings, notably the 1999 murders at Columbine High School, have led to calls for any number of useful, preventive measures, such as tighter security, more federal gun control, antibullying training for young children, more parental vigilance in communities, and closer screening of wayward students. And perhaps, as a result, many shootings have been prevented.

Those Old Order Amish who live a secluded life near the school at Nickel Mines, Pa., have a different idea. Their faith in the power of forgiveness led them to invite the widow of the nonAmish killer, Charles Carl Roberts IV, to the funeral for four of the slain girls. One Amish woman told a reporter, “It’s our Christian love to show to her we have not any grudges against her.”

This isn’t surprising. It is common for the Amish to invite car drivers who have killed one of their community members to the funeral. Such a compassionate response reveals a belief that each individual is responsible to counter violence by expressing comfort – a sort of prayer in action.

more…

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Inviting Guide — Updated

I’ve just posted an updated edition of my Inviting Guide for the practice of Open Space Technology. This version makes some relatively minor refinements throughout, but also includes a new piece on writing the theme of an event.

If it weren’t for the long coaching conversation I had over lunch today, I might be worried that I’ve just about written myself out of a job. I think this new version is pretty good… AND I’m grateful there are still people around who would rather pay me to meet and eat and work with them than to wing it from the text. There’s more to practice than pixels!

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Inviting Pause

I read last week that Congress has approved a total of $507 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan wars and that our current “burn rate” is $8 billion per month. What does this really mean?

I did some math — on the basis of 300 million Americans — which is the most generous possible way to do this calculation, as we’ve not quite reached that and it includes a LOT of kids and elderly who can’t (and didn’t) pay anything for these wars.

Appropriations to date: $1,700 for every man, woman and child in America. Currently burning at $27 per person, per month. I wish I had a households number, or total employment number, to do this calculation, but I couldn’t find one. Still, I’m sure I’d get a lot more value out of a cell phone contract than all this military spending.

And… if you think these numbers seem low, when viewed per person, per month, consider this weekend’s report from PwC that for twice that, $1 trillion, we could cap global emissions of all greenhouse gases. Gasp. Cough. Cough.

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Inviting Justice?

In the wake of the Senate’s passage of the tribunals/torture bill, officially the Military Commissions Act, it’s tempting to point out that their vote to deny prisoners’ the right to file writs of habeas corpus, to argue that they have been wrongly imprisoned, actually sets the judicial system back 700 years. Think pre-Magna Carta.

Now, if that sort of intellectual case doesn’t work for you, try this one, found in some comments to a Louisville Courier-Journal article:

Who would Jesus torture?

 

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Inviting a Return to Integrity

There were many things “lost” on 9/11. One of the most surprising, however, seems to be that we lost any sense of journalism. Remember, journalism? When people go out, gather facts and observations — and report the patterns they find, rather than just reporting and encouraging acceptance of the way officials “say” things are?

In today’s news world, these two bits by Keith Olbermann are stunning. Breath returns. I can suddenly feel a little more life in my tissues. The world starts to make sense again. What’s that? Could it be somebody speaking the truth? It’s so foreign, it’s stunning — but body recognizes and welcomes it just the same.

Olbermann on the Clinton/FoxNews thing, and then he checks out the Clinton and Rice stories, to see how they match up to the evidence. This Olbermann guy makes me want to buy cable — another stunning thought!

“The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him.”
– G.W. Bush, 9/13/01

“I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority.”
– G.W. Bush, 3/13/02

We don’t tolerate this flim-flam in our personal lives. We don’t trust it in business relationships and leadership. So, how do we invite a return to integrity in the White House? I’m not really partial to any one guy or party, I have no special bias — I expect the truth from everybody.

Leadership — in any organization — and Democracy in any nation — are more than saying the right things. We have to mean them, stand by them, follow through on them. They have to be true. Telling the truth is the first great task of leadership — and an early casualty in the downfall of any organization, large or small.

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Inviting Structures for Neighborhood Improvement

Mike Morin shares an interesting, practical, (and concise) neighborhood-based approach to rearranging our economic systems. He proposes a new structure, what he calls a Neighborhood Improvement Fund (a local sort of mutual fund), as the core of the shift. He favors equity unions over micro-lending arrangements, suggests a list of core operating principles (ideals), and outlines the basic structure and function of a Neighborhood Improvement Fund.

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Inviting the Great Turning

Weekend of September 30th, David C. Korten, author, veteran, engaged citizen, speaks at various local places and times.

David Korten’s, When Corporations Rule the World, was one of the first books to articulate the destructive and oppressive nature of the global corporate economy. Now, ten years later, Korten shows that the problem runs deeper than corporate domination—with far greater consequences.

In The Great Turning, Korten argues that corporate consolidation of power is merely a contemporary manifestation of what he calls “Empire” — the organization of society by hierarchies of domination grounded in violent chauvinisms of race, gender, religion, nationality, language, and class. The result has been the same for 5,000 years, fortune for the few and misery for the many. Increasingly destructive of children, family, community, and nature, the way of Empire is leading to environmental and social collapse.

The Great Turning makes the case that we humans are a choice-making species that at this defining moment faces both the opportunity and the imperative to choose our future as a conscious collective act.

via Nurul Eusufzai

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