Wow, this is really juicy, this self-organization/complex adaptive system stuff.
In the interest of clarity, I must say I have not read Jay Vogt's comment with the David Whyte quotes, but I was moved by what Birgitt said and made curious by the relative silence on the topic since then (except, of course, for Jay). I don't know what I've read that speaks to these topics. The books on Chaos lose me on about page 3. I love to say stuff like "complex adaptive system" and "morpho-genetic field." It's the verbal equivalent of eating crunchy carrots. I confess I'm pretty clueless about the actual meaning.of such phrases. But it seems like Birgitt is experiencing the same soreness I get when I bump up against some of these ideas, and far be it for me to leave a friend in distress, so a couple of thoughts that have helped me... I, too, have wondered why volumes are written about simple things. Like sex, for example. Whenever I get to feeling somebody has gone and deliberately confused us, I do two things: 1. I look into the eyes of my pussy cat. Guaranteed to help. 2. I recall the statement by the late American judge, Oliver Wendell Holmes. He said, "I don't give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity." Here is what else I have thought in reflection on Birgitt's (and Harrison's) words on this. The only truly self-organizing system is the universe. Everything else is literally a sub-set of that. If this is true, it means that whenever we open space for folks, we're tapping resources from the pre-existing system and offering them an opportunity to adapt and reflect on themselves. If they do something as a result, so be it: it's an adaptive response. Every time we do OS, we're serving the larger pre-existing system, which we assume is capable of adaptivity. What powers the original universe? Beats me. The Big Bang produced a rather large, rather lasting booster shot, but what gave rise to that? Some say it was God's intention. Cosmologists say everything came out of that original explosion. If so, then opening space is just another strategy the universe uses to keep on creating, keep on diversifying, keep on giving each of us subjective experience, keep on showing us how we need each other. Thus, inside every opened space may be a drop of cosmic fuel which juices the deal and keeps it moving. Do we really need, then, all the technique and philosophy of OS? I certainly think I need the parts I use of it. But will I always? Can I pare away pieces here and there as people increasingly get it? Less is definitely more. But how far does that go? If you go all the way to "nothing," does it become "everything"? Perhaps Harrison is saying this: if we get rid of the "technique" of OST over time, i.e. gradually delete the use of posters, specially-marked bulletin walls, post-it notes, carefully-worded openings, talking sticks, the law of two feet, etc. then maybe all that will remain when people gather to talk about something they care about is a bit of galactic petrol and maybe that's all we need, once we have communally absorbed the wisdom of the four principles, the circle, etc. Oliver Wendell Holmes may have understood something of this.. I'm told that the Hindu religion promotes the having of sex. Have all you want, so that you can get past it and break through to the point where you move beyond it, to another plane. We should all be so lucky. Ralph Copleman
