Paul Levy's and others conversation about Self and self-organizing and improvisation helped me recall something from an acting method I studied years ago.
The method tried to teach us to work “off the moment” to be present to the moment and not want to control it, predict it, name it, or repeat it . It was the challenge of this acting method. I feel this may have relevance to SELF-organizing and self-organizing. Oscillation, between poles of contrasting “felt senses” creates a vibration, and if allowed, a hum. To know solitude, is to know also know connection. To know light we need darkness. To know ourselves, we learn of others and to know ourselves we can know others. And in that regard, to know ourselves small “s,” we can know the larger more inclusive “S” and whenever possible, to feel the larger “Self” we feel our “self” included. The ole song comes to mine; “To know him/her is to love him/her/us.” In this acting discipline, we practiced paying attention to the now, to the “felt sense” within, to sense what wants attention, what impulses are obvious as they arise within. Sometimes the impulse came from the other, something obvious that stood out, grabbed our attention as a beginning for our interaction, for an action, or reaction. To sustain such focus for any length of time was exceptionally challenging. It meant working off each moment. From such a process was the foundation of “improvisation.” But it was more than creating novelty. It was the awakening process of authentic behaviors within an actor or actors. When these authentic moments occurred, the audience was stirred, compelled to enter into the dynamic. As an audience, we recognized a moment that would never be again, a once in a lifetime event was occurring. And we were included; we belonged as humans in that process. The audience/humans recognized the connection, the belonging to a universal connection of being alive. Such moments lifted us all, including the actors. I believe Open Space(ing) offers this opportunity for authenticity, for oscillation between contrasting poles, an inclusion, an allowing that often opens us to what is always available, but doesn’t always occur and yet when it does, we are drawn into it, we feel included beyond “your opinion and my opinion. And yet our different opinions are included for consideration as a source of improvisation/organization, for greater/deeper Self/self knowing. In this dance of life, new possibilities arise that may never have occurred without it, and may never occur again just so. To work “off the moment” to be present to the moment and not want to control it, predict it, name it, or repeat it was the challenge of this acting method. I feel this may have relevance to SELF-organizing and self-organizing. Maybe the word “(S) (s) elfing” applies and allows for the oscillations of living process and the *hum.* Thanks all. -- *Skye Hirst, PhD* President - The Autognomics Institute *Conversations in Radical Self-Knowing* www.autognomics.org @autognomics New Phone Number: 207-593-8074
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