Easily Amazed

from an email from chris weaver: some lovely words, interesting to consider a sentence at a time, that made me think of living in-love.

When I meet new people, in my mind there is no barrier, no curtain. As human beings you are my brothers and sisters; there is no difference in substance. I can talk with you as I would to old friends. With this feeling we can communicate without any difficulty and can make heart-to-heart contact. Based on such genuine human relations-real feeling for each other, understanding each other-we can develop mutual trust and respect. From that, we can share other people’s suffering and build harmony in human society.

The Dalai Lama

below is a cut-and-paste of shawn foote  and david bond’s  words from a discussion at integral naked  on the topic of worrying:

Why do we worry? It’s like many things…it’s because we don’t trust!

… we are choosing to deny or shun our true selves.

what parts of yourself are you choosing to shun or deny in favor of worrying?

Imagine if everyone was engaged in a way that honoured the gifts they have to offer.

chris’  statement leaves me wondering… what do you consider to be a gift? i often find myself in situations in which people believe that their genuine pain and suffering, confusion and misunderstanding are burdens upon others and are far removed from having giving qualities. and yet so often, it is in these moments of being completely raw and vulnerable that some of the most genuine gifts are given, that true teaching occurs. (i put the word genuine in green just to separate open honest sharing from thought-less, habitual complaining.)

leela  talks about the power of being 

validated and encouraged to take the space to just be…. getting used to freedom is an interesting process. Trusting that its not only ok to be who you are, but being loved for just that person it something most people never experience.

and then jeff  ponders the challenges of just being in a public forum,

when i’m wrestling deeply with shadows and karma sometimes, i feel either unable (too immersed), unwilling (simply private), or hesitant (skittish) to blog on these things.

phil has said that blogging is

Just a gradually evolving relationship.

connecting*the*dots, i’m left thinking that giving the gift of openness, honesty, authenticity, genuinity, humility, and vulnerability (just being) while also accepting and loving others just as they are is a treasure beyond measurement. blogs are one of many ways of reaching out to one another and expressing/sharing our inner worlds, thus creating a stronger, more vibrant inner net…even if and especially when it means sharing some of the not-so-sunny sides. my deep gratitude  for all of these perspectives.

comments:

Ashley, once again your words (and the way you put together your thoughts) is just beautiful. I’m so glad to have met you in Chicago.

Ted Ernst | Email | Homepage | 07.26.04 – 2:22 am | #

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I feel like jeff alot, feeling skidish to share. But I have found that even though I feel overly exposed at times, I am also really seen more often than not. And I am amazed that the people that see me love and/or appreciate me. This helps me know that the changes that I feel I have made from the deepest parts of myself are really manifesting in my actions. It feeds my hope that we are all growing ever closer to the heart.

I am humming that old Rush tune as I wrap this up, damn those guys had a vision, didn’t they?

hugs,

~leela

comments:

Ashley,

I don’t tell you enough how beautiful and inspiring you are.

As true as I know all your words are, and as many years as I have been living in the Truth my heart still feels this sense of heaviness combined with excitement when I read what you write. I get so lost in this “me” some times that I forget the interconnectedness that is happening all over the universe right now. I come up for air from digging in the dirt and see how blue the sky is and how blessed I am. How you are out there in the “inner net” and you are right here in the inner with me. Thank you for reminding me. We are waking up right here right now, being open and honest, awkward and fragile. I love having you as part of the tapestry of my life.

~leela

leela | Email | 07.24.04 – 7:11 pm | #

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dear leela, this is so lovely, thank you for sharing…

waking up, right here right now…

chris weaver | Email | 07.25.04 – 1:37 am | #

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hi leela,

your words slip in through my eyes and burrow warmly around my heart… embracing my soul. all that i could ever ask to do is to remind and experience the inter-connectedness of our innerselves… knowing that we’re each right here in the inner with one another, landing peacefully in the inner with ourselves. you are so welcome, leela, and thank you for being open and receptive.

your words made me think of my motto (adapted from gestalt therapy):

right here, right now,

you and me,

let’s get whole.

with love,

ashley

ashley | Email | Homepage | 07.25.04 – 9:47 am | #

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this morning i’m yes so appreciating this format for sharing inner worlds, and yet

when i’m wrestling deeply with shadows and karma sometimes, i feel either unable (too immersed), unwilling (simply private), or hesitant (skittish) to blog on these things.

so i wonder if others’ blogs are rather sunny in this way as well?

love

jeff

jeff aitken | Email | Homepage | 07.25.04 – 2:22 pm | #

chris is reviewing the book, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property by lewis hyde, over at parking lot. here’s a taste from the book itself:

The gift moves towards the empty place. As it turns in its circle, it turns towards him who has been empty handed the longest and if someone appears whose need is greater it leaves its old channel and moves towards him. Our generosity may leave us empty, but our emptiness then pulls gently at the whole until the thing in motion returns to replenish us. Societal nature abhors a vacuum. Counsels Meister Eckhart the mystic: “Let us borrow empty vessels.” The gift finds that man attractive who stands with an empty bowl he does not own.

comments:

cool, i have to jump over to parking lot next. way back in 1985 i had the chance to attend the sitka summer writer’s symposium. the faculty that june included robert hass, margaret atwood, barry lopez. it was margaret atwood who held up a copy of The Gift, which had just come out, and said, read this book, people. i did, & loved it, all those years ago…

my brother just sent me a copy of derrick jensen’s book Walking on Water: Reading, Wriring, and Revolution. this morning i flipped it open and read a chapter called Love. how amazing, when people have the gift of returning us, of reminding us of the path to circle back to our full selves.

chris weaver | Email | 07.21.04 – 5:09 am | #

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that book sounds delicious also, chris:

“This is Jensen’s great gift as a teacher and writer, to bring us fully alive at the same moment he is making us confront our losses and count our defeats. …a lesson on how to connect to the core of our creative selves, to the miracle of waking up and arriving breathless (but with dry feet) on the far shore.” www.derrickjensen.org

and andy goldsworthy on the cover… a man after my own heart!

ashley | Email | Homepage | 07.21.04 – 5:50 pm | #

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Ah yes Chris…I have the Sitka Reader “From the Island’s Edge” in my hands at the moment. it contains one of my favourite essays ever, by Barry Lopez called Landscape and Narrative.

Lucky you to have been there.

Chris Corrigan | Email | Homepage | 07.23.04 – 7:20 pm | #

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hey chris!

it was marvelous. each year when i receive the brochure for the next symposium in the mail i drool, but i’ve never made it back. carolyn servid, who i think is still organizing the symposium each june, has done an amazing job including indigenous writers on the faculty. at the ’85 event i was 21 and to save money i slept in my tent in the rainy forest near sheldon jackson college, where the event is held. barry lopez was still in the middle of writing arctic dreams, and he spent a lot of time telling stories about listening to inuit elders talk about animals…polar bears who walk upside down on the underside of sea ice…& polar bears who, when hunting, will sprint toward a seal on the ice, dive into a slide, and, knowing that its nose is the only point of black in the whole snowy world, will cover its nose with its paw to ensure that the seal doesn’t see anything until the moment of impact. imagine that.

love,

chris weaver | Email | 07.25.04 – 1:31 am | #

my mom asked me the other day about “that space thing that i’m involved in.” she was referring to open space technology, but i kind of like calling it that space thing! often i trip over my words when i describe open space to others, “technology” kind of tumbles out of my mouth after the fresh release of “open space”! many people use this process as a means for facilitating groups, and many of those same people live their lives in open space. when chris weaver first turned me on to open space, i felt an immediate resonance with it and a congruence with the way that i was aiming to live my life.

 

recently Zelle Nelson posted a great account of the law of two feet, one of my favorite tools used in open space. the law of two feet states that if at any moment you find yourself in a situation where you are not learning from nor contributing to, it is your responsibility to use your two feet to go somewhere where you can be more productive. Harrison owen says,

All too often we sit politely, getting angrier and angrier, while our time is being wasted. The lost time will not be redeemed, and the anger pollutes the environment with negative energy.

but not always do we use our power to move as a means to escape from anger. the main reason that we are moving is because we’ve become interested in something else, our attention has shifted into a new direction. it is our responsibility as living beings to be aware of our attention and, depending on how we choose to live our lives, to allow our attention to responsibly follow our passions. so, here’s what zelle nelson posted to the oslist:

we choose our responsibility as it matches our passions in each moment, rather than sticking to a responsibility choice made 10 minutes ago or 10 years ago.

 

Some examples…I’ve experienced it in Open Space so many times…You go to the Marketplace, it’s session 1, you choose to attend topic Q that looks compelling which will be held in session 3, you tell your friends you’ll definitely be at topic Q, session 3 rolls around and topic Q that was a passion 3 hours ago is now not as compelling, or something else has become more compelling, you don’t go to topic Q. In Open Space you’ve just used your two feet and you feel good about yourself, where you’re going, what you’re doing. No one questions your integrity – they praise you for it.

 

That same situation outside of OST…It’s 10am, you plan to go to a cafe to meet some friends at 1pm, you tell others that you’re so excited about meeting your friends at the cafe at 1pm and tell them to join you, 1 pm rolls around and you’ve used your two feet and are in the park reading a great book, you don’t go to the cafe. You’re not in “formal” Open Space and your friends wonder where you are, they question your ability to be responsible, to keep your word, you’ve failed to do what you said you were going to do, you might feel guilty.

 

Thankfully many of my friends do not question where I was, or why I didn’t let them know I wasn’t coming after I said I was. They don’t question my integrity. Still, some of them, sometimes, do.

 

I usually don’t question my identity or my ability to be responsible when I choose a different passion at a moment when I said I was going to be somewhere else. But sometimes I do. Sometimes I feel guilty for following my two feet when I’m not in the bounded realm of OST. Sometimes I question my identity when I’m not somewhere I planned to be, even if I never told anyone but myself that I would be somewhere or do something at a certain time. And that’s just in a space of 3 or 4 hours. And in my experience, I’m not the norm in our society.

 

What about the person who’s done the same thing, held the same kind of responsibility, for years. Do they have the space to question what passions they will follow now that they’ve discovered something new? Will they stop doing something that has been seen as valuable by themselves, or their peers, or their organization without the space to even decide to choose where their passion and responsibility lie?

 

I believe we have a roll as facilitators to hold that space where people can answer the questions: “what is our shared vision? what do we need to stop doing to make space for what we want to start doing? how do we honor what we will stop doing? and, how do we walk forward and create our future together?

comments;

i have similar feelings about the technology appendage… having learned open space before the word technology was added to it (and actually that was done originally in jest) i’ve never gotten used to it.

i know that people also feel a certain weightiness in the full three words. ok, i can live with OST among friends…

jeff aitken | Email | Homepage | 07.22.04 – 2:34 am | #

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So THAT’S what it’s all about!

I’ve been ondering myself these long years!

Chris Corrigan | Email | Homepage | 07.23.04 – 7:21 pm | #

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…only one perspective!

ashley | Email | Homepage | 07.23.04 – 8:59 pm | #

new friends in the neighborhood… a warm welcome to ted ernst at humanize the earth and susan kerr at creativity and connection.

in a personal email to susan i said: i can’t wait to hang out with you in words. that’s what blogging is to me… hanging out with friends in the shape of words!

you all really are cute in your word-form!!