Hi folks, this is strange: I have been reading all these mails on 'os and ethics' today catching up on this list again. And with every mail I became more astonished because the first sentence that came to my mind has not yet been written. Okay, now I do:
"Whoever comes is the right people." Is that not the first principle? To me it is my job as a facilitator to make clear what my work / what open space is about. Like inviting others to my session. And then: Be prepared to be surprised - and open up to who comes. I thought open space is about letting go all these "should have's, could have's and would have's" and dealing with what is happening. Not only in an OST-meeting but in daily life as well. And I deeply trust that - knowing what it is about - whoever wants to do an open space is the right people. Can I imagine a group of people who's main interest is taking away others space wanting to do their work in open space (and is that not somehow what all the given "bad" examples are about?). At the moment: No, I can't. But if this happened - can I imagine how I would respond to such a request? At this moment: No I can't. Because I am NOT in that situation NOW. I am dealing with my permanent daily decisions and the 'ethics' they are based upon. To develop my consciousness as Funda pointed out. And the more I am in contact with that the more I can trust myself to do whatever feels right at a given moment in the future in whatever situation I may be part of. And then - being asked (= when it starts) - it will be the right time to decide. I feel a bit like a lawyer in her pleading fighting for the freedom of my client: open space. I admit I am self-nominated. Marei Part II: I wrote the first part of this mail yesterday sitting in a park in Berlin with my laptop and could not sent it immediately. On my way back by bike I wondered why I had gotten so emotional and to be true even somehow agressive (this is what I then realized). And as my getting agressive always has to do with the feeling of not enough space I asked myself "Why did I have the feeling my space was shrinking?" Here is my answer: In this discussion about 'ethics' I smelt some odour of moral superiority (and as you can guess I am sensual to that smell because I know it from myself). May only be my nose but I did and this is what I reacted to. Seeing us (os-folks) as doing something esp. valuable and deciding who to give it to and who not to - I see a big danger in that thought. Even the idea of 'helping others to transform' includes the own judgment that the state they are in now is not okay and they should change. And it seems to include seeing oneself on a 'higher' level. And that is something to be very careful about, too. That is all for the moment. Looking forward to your responses. Marei * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
