THank you so much for this most beautiful mix of mythology, metaphor and experience to point to a most complex and elegant process. Also with love, Skye from Maine US
Skye Hirst sk...@autognomics.org lifeworks beautifully knowing itself On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 11:31 AM, Kári Gunnarsson <kari.gunnars...@simnet.is > wrote: > Last week has been wonderful for my start-up Open Space consultation > businesses. With new clients that have ambition to get out of the way for > self-organization to take place. > > A small private school and kindergarten system invited the leadership and > key-employees of the 17 institutions to discuss how we can prepare for the > future now that the first generation of visionaries will no longer be as > active in the organization. We had two-day open space filled with learning > and longing. Extremely positive comments from participants, two of my > favorite were: > 1. Why did we not meet like this many years ago? > 2. We need to meet like this for a full uninterrupted week. > > The sponsors are seeing the grief process at work within the leadership of > the institutions and I told them a wonderful story of Icelandic myth. It is > a story about a man named 'Fúsi', he finds himself at crossroads during > midnight at the changing of times. He knew that the elves travel the roads > at these times and will offer their gifts to anyone sitting at the > crossroad. But one should be careful accept any one gift from the elves or > one would go mad. Many elves came and offer him gifts of gold and pleasure > and laid them at his feet. And as the night grew, he became hungry. One > elven maiden came with a dish full of eatables, a dish called "Flot" and > offered to him, he said to the maiden, "Sjaldan hef ég flotinu neitað" > (Rarely have I 'been a' "Flot" naysayer), and he became mad from the day he > ate from that dish, then I add that we should not jump to conclusions with > easy solutions and let the emerging open space take its place, for > otherwise we rob ourselves from the leadership development that is > necessary for a healthy organization. > > > My little story on grief is a follows. It goes like a berthing exercise, > first there is something that happened, we lose our breath and freeze in > out track. It is good stop if there is danger, but we can't do much without > breath. Anger helps us recapture our breath and move away from danger. > Anger lets us draw our breath and drop whatever we are doing so that we can > react promptly. Now that we are out of anger and other tasks like feeding > the children come to the agenda, then the Denial is like gold. Now as we > move in our daily tasks the memories of what happened come to us and we > negotiate them into our personal and organizational life stories. As our > stories have changed so have our prerequisites for our hopes and plans, it > can be a painful process to let go and disconnect from them, but as we do > this, we find new space open up in our lives. The methodology of Open Space > draws its name from this stage of the grieving process. When here, it is of > value to learn from the Story of Fúsi and the elves, and not fill up the > space with old ideas, but to let the gifts of the open space unfold. For > the next stage holds the promise of a new hope, a new power, a vision for > the future. a common direction that is essential for effective strategic > planning. > > With love from Iceland > Kári Gunnarsson > k...@openspace.is > > _______________________________________________ > OSList mailing list > To post send emails to OSList@lists.openspacetech.org > To unsubscribe send an email to oslist-le...@lists.openspacetech.org > To subscribe or manage your subscription click below: > http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org > >
_______________________________________________ OSList mailing list To post send emails to OSList@lists.openspacetech.org To unsubscribe send an email to oslist-le...@lists.openspacetech.org To subscribe or manage your subscription click below: http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org