Good point Joanna! The effective meaning of words is most often to be found in the ears of the listener - no matter what the speaker may have intended. And that meaning can and does change. And with that change, very often comes new and deeper understanding - sometimes surprising new understandings.
I think this is really true with the 4 Principles and The Law. On first hearing, I suspect most people take them to be funny (odd) or outrageous. Maybe, outrageously funny. I am not sure how much our (the facilitator's) explanations change any of that. More to the point, I am almost certain that most people (participants) don't remember exactly what we said anyhow - but they do seem to remember the principles and the law. Probably because we have them posted around and about. Maybe I am stretching a bit, but I think that the original definitions are almost beside the point. What counts is the sort of dialogue that seems to go on between the participants and the principles/law over time. People find meaning, then new meaning, then deeper meanings as they go along. And our part in all of this seems to have less to do with the 15 minutes of fame we have up front (Thank you Andy Warhol!) than with the way we are over time. In a word, the most powerful statement/definition of the 4 Principles and One Law, so far as we are concerned, is our being - the way we are. The first principle comes alive (maybe) when we treat each participant as absolutely the RIGHT person. The 2nd Principle comes alive (perhaps) when people experience us as being totally in the present moment (absolutely present and totally invisible) - with Zero concern for what could have been, might have been, should have been. Harrison Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Drive Potomac, Maryland 20854 Phone 301-365-2093 Skype hhowen Open Space Training <http://www.openspaceworld.com/> www.openspaceworld.com Open Space Institute <http://www.openspaceworld.org/> www.openspaceworld.org Personal website <http://www.ho-image.com/> www.ho-image.com OSLIST: To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives Visit: <http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html> www.listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu] On Behalf Of Joanna Fletcher Sent: Friday, May 11, 2007 12:45 PM To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Subject: Re: whatever happens...is personal! Hello! [smiling and waving] I'm loving this discussion, and have a tiny contribution - that it seems clear from what people have said that everyone, facilitator and participants alike, hears the principles as they are. The principles cannot exist as dry, objective, concrete concepts; it's impossible, because they must always be filtered through a unique individual's perception. Resist them, fear them, embrace them.the reaction depends on the person. This is one of the things I love so much about storytelling - every listener hears a different story, the one they are ready and able to hear, and learns and grows from there. Stories, and people, are designed that way. Much love from sunny Calgary, Joanna Fletcher Lion Life Coaching 403-837-1866 The principles in Italy This is how normally people reacts to the principles here in Italy - at least in my experience (from the latter to the first one). 4. When it's over......: It's definitely the principle that hits more the imagination of the people. My feeling is that happens cause this principle invites people to break some of the rules that they can't normally break during their daily life. 3. Whenever starts.....: this is the Italian principle, as Harrison has always said. People don't seem to be really caught by it, probably cause this principle is so strongly part of Italian culture that for most of the people is simply "a fact of life". 2. what ever happens.....: same experience as most of you, a lot of the people reacts to this principle with a bad feeling - they perceive it as an invitation to be fatalist. More then a time it has happened to me that during the talking stick people have commented this principle, saying that in the opening they had a bad feeling while at the end they had understand the real meaning of it. 1. Who ever comes .....: normally people seem quite neutral about it. And some times my feeling is that they perceive it as a sort of justification of the work of the organiser - something like "I apologise for the absence of some important actors, it's not my fault and please don't be influenced by it". So in some way they perceive it as the exact opposite of what it should be. Presenting and explaining the principles and the law Few weeks ago I was discussing about how to open the space with a colleague, and she was saying that in her opinion the presentation of the principles should not take too long - exactly cause they are simply "facts of life", everybody knows them. And that their presentation is useful only to make clear that the big issue of an OST is the NOW. Now this is exactly the opposite of what I have been doing in this years (and she was suggesting me to change my way of opening the space). When I open the space I spend quite a lot of time introducing the principles. I do this cause: - I want to give participant the right (control) comprehension of the principles. - Even if the idea that the principles are "facts of life" is fascinating and probably deeply true, when I introduce the principle I normally end up with a sort of final invitation that sounds like "even if this principles and the law may appear to you not very important or even a little bit extravagant, be aware that they are really serious and that the productivity of this open space will depend strongly by your ability to follow the principles and apply the "one law" of the open space. You all know how difficult is to let them go :-). A big ciao ge Gerardo de Luzenberger SSF - Scuola Superiore di Facilitazione Via Venezia 23 20099 Sesto San Giovanni (MI) tel: +39 02 241 26 646 <mailto:i...@scuolafacilitazione.it> i...@scuolafacilitazione.it <http://www.scuoladifacilitazione.it> www.scuoladifacilitazione.it _____ * * ========================================================== 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 * * ========================================================== 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 * * ========================================================== 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