Easily Amazed

here’s a new word game. it’s a twist between the game memory and those magnets that may be on some of yours or your friend’s refrigerators… you can either scatter the words together in sentences or pick two that you think go together… (or if you have another idea…do that!)

**********humility ********** freedom ************ giving ************ hope ************** unbounded

entitlement ************ grin ***************** boundless ************** nourishment *************

*********** love ************* language ************** container ********* crisp ********* rare bird *****

passionate *********** potential************ ordinariness ********* existence ******** grok ********* healing

******** whole *********** transparency ********** unfurl ******** surfboard ********* optimism *********

have fun!

in response to the dialogue about parenting and invoking individuality, i was told that i am entitled to nourishment and encouraging as well as being surrounded by positive light. WOW… what a blessing that we are each entitled to such divine attention.

the same person went on to say that “entitlements are best enjoyed (in my humble opinion) when they eventually evoke a sense of responsibility as to how to internalize and actualize all the feelings and then determine how and to whom you are going to pass them along. You obviously embrace this responsibility.”

i love this notion of evoking a sense of responsibility to internalize, actualize, and share.

i think that i feel more comfortable with the word “gifts” than “entitlements”… but i also know that i get hung up on the word entitlement. any thoughts?

comments:

and then entitlements… these things that come with our names, our births, our being here… the word works okay as reminder to give these things to myself… but what about when these entitlements are things from or through others that might subtly or not so subtly define or name us? the entitlement language is trickier then. gift language seems more to do with the flow and esp outflow of time, talent, treasure, leadership, hope, attention, that must flow through all of us… seems less about making some mark or statement on or about us… still mucking about it this for sure.

michael herman

“you are not accidental. existence needs you. without you something will be missing in existence and nobody can replace it. that’s what gives you dignity, that the whole existence will miss you. the stars and sun and moon, the trees and birds and earth — everything in the universe will feel a small place is vacant which cannot be filled by anybody except you. this gives you a tremendous joy, a fulfillment that you are related to existence, and existence cares for you. once you are clean and clear, you can see tremendous love falling on you from all dimensions.”

~osho

birgitt williams posted this on the oslistserv:

“For those who study the ICHING, you will know that the first hexagram is all

masculine or dynamic energy. I see this equal to the energy of wanting to

scatter seed (very masculine) anywhere, see where it lands and whatever

happens is the only thing…. The second hexagram is all feminine or

receptive energy. This provides the container for the seed to have a place

to land and to flourish.”

to which jake stewartresponded:

“The energy potential held in a container of fertile soil certainly surpasses the kinetic energy of a tossed seed.”

and this line was among a quote from christy lee-engel:

“God creates an empty space, and only then, in that space, can the world emerge from the divine womb of being!” Rabbi Marc Gafni

as i string these three jewels together on a necklace to hang around my neck, i’m thinking that the divine womb of being is analogous with a container of fertile soil… and the energy potential of tossing seeds into such a place, the land upon which they’ll flourish, is the role that each of us plays in the emerging of the world.

what do you think? what kind of seeds are you tossing? what kind of seeds do you think need to be tossed?

comments:

i think the divine womb of being calls forth her own workers too.

all the potters with muddy hands, the basketweavers working by night.

and all the microbial activity of de-conditioning y’all were talking about yesterday. tireless, relentless, sometimes solitary, breaking down non-useful forms into nourishment. all the shedding skins, all the little deaths.

the night-time noises from the forest floor, the music-before-music.

chris weaver | Email | 04.08.04 – 2:35 am | #

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I’m playing with the idea of a container right now, not doing much but holding open the potential for everything to unfold. Working with one group of youth and I’m in the self-appointed role of “One-Who-Believes-That-Anything-Is-Possible” and letting the youth take care of the rest. When they hit a snag I just say “anything is possible!” and they conmtinue on their way.

Boundless optimism is the quality of good compost…even weeds grow beautifully in it…and the weeds I’m taking out of my actual garden right now have this lovely strong vibrant quality about them. So I toss them back in the compost!

Chris Corrigan | Email | Homepage | 04.08.04 – 3:00 am | #

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wow that smells good chris!

thank you so much for the One-Who-Believes-That-Anything-Is-Possible mantle – can i just put that on?

we have 84 teenagers arriving for camp on monday, and you have just invited me out of stressing over logistics and into holding space.

chris weaver | Email | 04.08.04 – 4:06 am | #

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in my masters in organization development, our teacher antonio nunez used to piss us off royally.

we’d ask him, antonio, what do you do with your clients? and he would say, i love them.

no, antonio, really, what do you do? and he would say, really, i love them.

(antonio was one of the original openers of space – brought hho to CIIS on my birthday in 1989 for my first taste.)

jeff aitken | Email | Homepage | 04.08.04 – 2:20 pm | #

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so it wasn’t until recently that i began to really grok what antonio was saying. what a gift.

now “one who believes that anything is possible FOR YOU” might be a definition of love?

jeff aitken | Email | Homepage | 04.08.04 – 4:19 pm | #

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welcome jeff… and chrises… what treasures you each have scattered in this comment box. delight-full!

i would definitely say that believing anything is possible for another is a definition of love. i like hearing you say that this was a line that your professor said. i often bite my tongue in my counseling classes…

at this point in my career, the bottom line for me with my clients is to try and fall in love with each of them. to open the space for any type of growth, healing, and awareness that they desire to be possible… for them and for me. i love them, but i also find a part of them that i can fall-in-love with. this opens the door for me to fall in love with the entire person. i can’t think of a better type of therapy!

but unfortunately language is still a bit limiting here in denton (north of dallas)… there’s a strong flavor of the “fix-it” menatlity. and a constant challenge that i watch professors struggle with… how do you teach empathy?

ashley | Email | Homepage | 04.08.04 – 4:52 pm | #

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Boundless optimism … that sounds related to the medicine of unbounded joy that i’ve been drinking lately.

ashley | Email | Homepage | 04.08.04 – 4:54 pm | #

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Music-before-music: like “your face before you were born”? The pure potential of each of us present in the transparency, before its unimaginable density abruptly flung itself infinitely outwards (at least, in that creation story!)

To see another’s potential, to hold that particular spacious container, can be tender and electric. Especially when they recognize in a flash that what you see is true.

And this container/comment box! Full of such concentrated seed energy, entirely invisible till conditions are right, and then voila, boundless optimism and unbounded joy are unfurled! (like sea monkeys!–do you remember those?)

Christy Lee-Engel | Email | Homepage | 04.09.04 – 1:29 am | #

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hi jeff, hi christy

no words, just smiling

Anonymous | 04.09.04 – 7:53 am | #

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“To see another’s potential, to hold that particular spacious container, can be tender and electric. Especially when they recognize in a flash that what you see is true.”

what does one do when fear accompanies this recognition that the potential is real? fear and a yearning to pull away, run…

do tell more about the sea monkey, por favor.

and christy, your words answered some deep questions of mine in quite a timely manner. thank you.

with love,

ashley

ashley | Email | Homepage | 04.10.04 – 2:31 pm | #

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i’ve posted about this on the oslist in response to birgitt and of course it ties in with what you’re saying in my comment box today, too, ashley… so now i post here just to be obviously here in such good company!

michael herman | Email | Homepage | 04.10.04 – 9:29 pm | #

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Oh, yes, the fear part! (and I think it can be scary &/or embarassing for the recognizer as well as for the recognized when the recognition is rejected!) …fear of being judged for not living into one’s possibility, and fear of disappointing the ones who believe in them. And maybe fear that growing into what’s possible will be too hard. So, I think, the love that sees that anything is possible for someone is also love that assures that person that even if they shy away or somehow miss what they *could* be, what they *are* is really fully precious. I have had a few patients who didn’t come back for a year or three, and when they did come back they were ready to step into their lives in such a fuller way.

Christy Lee-Engel | Email | Homepage | 04.11.04 – 12:32 am | #

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Oh, and sea monkeys! They were (are?) advertised in the back of kids’ comic books, with a cartoon of little monkeys in a fish bowl. Really they were dried up brine shrimp who magically unfurled back into life when you dumped them into the water. What’s not to love about something that comes back to life from dried-up nothing?– speaking of believing that anything is possible!

Ashley, I’m so happy to know that our thinking is mutually supportive!

love, Christy

Christy Lee-Engel | Email | Homepage | 04.11.04 – 12:41 am | #

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so if humility and vulnerability are related… then when we vulnerably give way to fears of being judged for not living into our possibility, and fears of disappointing the ones who believe in us. And maybe fears that growing into what’s possible will be too hard. when we vulnerably open ourselves up to these fears, we are showing humility.

through this sacred humility and vulnerability emerges assurance that even if we shy away or somehow miss what we *could* be, what we *are* is really fully precious.

i like that!

ashley

lama surya das spoke about conditioning.

everything is about conditioning. re-condition skill-fully to de-condition.

osho speaks of society as being the force that constructs personality. we must de-condition this personality and re-condition our own individuality, individuality that is given to us by existence. Osho states that society “gives you a personality, a cozy personality, nice, very convenient, very obedient. Society wants slaves, not people who are absolutely dedicated to freedom. Society wants slaves because all the vested interests want obedience.”

the world is amuck (can i use that word that way?) with people dedicated to freedom. one exciting endeavor is an Open Space Giving Conference in Chicago in july. the word about it is buzzing around these wires of computers and contraptions. visit wealth bondage, global chicago, or parking lot to find some varying twists on the tale.

comments:

i agree with you that society tries to condition people’s personalities to conform, but i think too that it’s the parents’ responsibility to encourage a child’s individuality so they grow up to be a unique nonconforming but still contributing member of society. i think the fact that we’re writing about this in a venue like this means our parents succeeded in that endeavor, don’t you? granted we’re not JUST a product of our upbringing, but models in the home are generally the models we follow in the beginning. and if unconventionality is the model we see, then that’s what we’ll more than likely become. hopefully!

becky | Email | 04.07.04 – 10:22 am | #

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I diagree becky…I think I’m actually writing here IN SPITE of my ubringing, in a lot of ways.

For me, it’s most important to find that freedom within ourselves, taking our own responsibility for cultivating it and putting it out there. We can only empower ourselves, and although that sometimes means overcoming disempowering situations, it can’t ever happen if we don’t do it ourselves.

I’m thankful to my parents for some of the privlege I had growing up, but I dodged a number of bullets that came with those privleges too, bullets my friends and family didn’t necessarily dodge. And I think my mom would be the first to tell you that I didn’t at all work out according to the plan. She is “easily amazed” that I worked out at all!

The answers are right here, right now! And so are the questions…

Chris Corrigan | Email | Homepage | 04.07.04 – 5:47 pm | #

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i think that regardless of what the parent encourages or discourages, it is the task of a living being to unwrap the identity one is given and grow into the individuality that one is. by letting go of attachment to our personality, we set free the potential of our individuality. this seems to be the process of skill-fully re-condtioning ourselves. right here. right now.

i am immensely thank-full, however, for the individuality that my parents encouraged and nurtured in me. and equally as grateful for the positive light that they shined on being a non-conforming citizen!

thanks mom and dad!

ashley | Email | Homepage | 04.07.04 – 11:48 pm | #

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yes, everyone has to unwrap the identity one is given… and please dispose of all wrappings in the receptacles provided near each door. [grin] m

michael herman | Email | Homepage | 04.10.04 – 9:38 pm | #

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that’s kind of like: please leave your “shoulds” at the door before entering.

ashley

in the jewish religion, we celebrate the first night of passover at sundown tonight. i’d like to share with you some words from a hagadah (the book that guides the evening seder) that my friends Mandi and Brad Rubenstein wrote:

“The Passover Seder…provides a setting of family and love and unity in which all can rededicate themselves to the ideal of human freedom…We gather tonight to tell the ancient story of a people’s liberation from Egyptian slavery… We must re-taste the bitterness and must rejoice over our newfound freedom…We remember slavery in order to deepen our commitment to end all suffering; we recreate our liberation in order to reinforce our commitment to universal freedom.”

“Tonight we drink four cups of fruit of the vine. There are many explanations for this custom. They represent, some have said, the four corners of the earth, for freedom must live everywhere; the four seasons of the year, for freedom’s cycle must last through all the seasons; or the four matriarchs: Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, and Rachel.”

“Our celebration today is also shadowed by our awareness of the continuing sorrow and oppression in all parts of the world. Ancient plagues are mirrored in modern tragedies. While we may rejoice in the defeat of tyrants in our own time, we must also express our sorrow at the suffering and the many innocent people who had no choice but to follow.”

“Just as the food of our Passover supper has nourished our bodies, so the experience of the human spirit gives meaning to our lives. As a full expression of the hope and joy of this combination, let us sing…”

may we all honor the suffering and the joy, and find strength in the human spirit and the meaning in our lives.

comments:

In each one of us there is an Egypt and a Pharaoh and a Moses and Freedom in a Promised Land. And every point in time is an opportunity for another Exodus.

Egypt is a place that chains you to who you are, constraining you from growth and change. And Pharaoh is that voice inside that mocks your gambit to escape, saying, “How could you attempt being today something you were not yesterday? Aren’t you good enough just as you are? Don’t you know who you are?”

Moses is the liberator, the infinite force deep within, an impetuous and all-powerful drive to break out from any bondage, to always transcend, to connect with that which has no bounds.

ashley | Email | Homepage | 04.05.04 – 10:52 am | #

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But Freedom and the Promised Land are not static elements that lie in wait. They are your own achievements which you may create at any moment, in any thing that you do, simply by breaking free from whoever you were the day before.

Last Passover you may not have yet begun to light a candle. Or some other mitzvah still waits for you to fulfill its full potential. This year, defy Pharaoh and LIGHT UP YOUR WORLD. WITH UNBOUNDED LIGHT.

-words and condensation by Tzvi Freeman

ashley | Email | Homepage | 04.05.04 – 10:54 am | #

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Thank you Ashley, for the role you played in liberating a part of me this year.

Chris Corrigan | Email | Homepage | 04.05.04 – 3:12 pm | #

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hi chris.

moses meets moses, on the beach?

love.

chris weaver | Email | 04.06.04 – 5:40 am | #

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Heh. …yeah.

Chris Corrigan | Email | Homepage | 04.06.04 – 3:58 pm | #

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you two are making me blush. the one who likes to preach about compliments feels a little shy!! (thank you!)

you’re welcome, chris c.

hey, let’s all keep at it. let’s just keep liberating parts of ourselves until there’s nothing left to liberate. freedom exploding every where! it’s the new game that all of the cool kids are playing!!

ashley | Email | Homepage | 04.07.04 – 12:48 am | #

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ashley, I am not sure if i liberated a part of me that i don’t remember or i got cought in cyberspace without a speller after a sleepless night just by double clicking to see your Passover wisdom…

Help! and thank you

Tova Averbuch |