Here is an opportunity to use OST for learning together about the
Commons Transition to describe a series of ongoing actions that reflect
the needs and creative input of civil society. What are the components
of such a transition, and how do they turn into concrete actions?
You are invited to attend or host a Time for a Commons Transition study
group, message me or Click for details;
https://primer.commonstransition.org/#home
Thanks again for creating our tomorrows,
Tony Budak, Lead Convener at TimeBank Mahoning Watershed
On 1/6/2020 6:42 PM, Michael M Pannwitz via OSList wrote:
Dear ho,
the cybergremlins did not interfere.
I received your message twice via OSLIST.
Stuff still seems to work.
Have a great day
mmp
Am 06.01.2020 um 23:21 schrieb Harrison Owen via OSList:
I tried this as a response… the cybergremlins intervened, so here
goes another!
ho
Sagit … I confess that my response to your note was equally, or
perhaps mostly… a response to the present moment. This is not the
first time that Planet Earth in general and/or your particular part
of the world has hovered on the edge of serious chaos. Each of us may
hold whatever opinion(s) we wish, and I certainly have mine – but
several facts are indisputable: Nobody really understands what’s
going on, even less do we understand where it might be headed, and
most of all -- nobody has the exit plan. Under these circumstances,
and while we hold our breath, a little conversation with our fellows
might be in order. But how?
There are some 8 billion of us on the planet, divided at least 8
billion ways … not all of them happy. Having a useful conversation
under the circumstances seems rather impossible. Doubtless there have
been processes, procedures and structures developed for human beings
to pursue their issues by less than violent means. But all of them
seem rather inadequate right now. We do not have sufficient
facilitators, interveners, therapists, parliamentarians, process
re-engineers, conflict resolvers, etc… for the job, and even if we
did have the number, the necessary time for positioning and
preparation doesn’t exist.
Are we out of options? Maybe --- or then again there may be an option
we’ve had all along and never quite took seriously.
Some people call it Open Space, which could make it sound like a
novel procedure or process to be applied immediately and globally. In
my experience those words sound nice, maybe even comforting, but do
not describe reality. Open Space is nothing new, strange or different
– it is precisely what we have been doing for the past million years,
or however long it is that /Homo sapiens/ has been doing whatever it
does. From the very beginning we sat in a circle, posted our wishes
and dreams (sometime on the wall of a cave), opened a market place to
trade and share our ideas… and then we went to work. Sometimes these
circles formed on a more or less regular basis (weekly market sort of
thing) but the really critical and important ones happened when they
happened … but always when there was an issue that grabbed peoples’
attention, that was so complex that nobody could figure it, involved
so many different sorts of folks that nobody could count their kind,
stirred great passion and usually conflict, and had to be dealt with
NOW.
Over time there was a move to institutionalize this primal circle and
give it a name like Senate or Parliament. And it didn’t take long for
some to think they were in charge. Often this worked rather well and
it seemed like the established order was maintained. Every so often,
however, A BIG one would come along and suddenly we were back to
basics. Even in the 21^st century that can happen.
So how do you have a meaningful conversation with 8 billion people?
We have the means, and it comes with our genes. I suppose the issue
of the moment is to get out of the way, and let it happen. Doing that
may well open the door to a whole new understanding of who and what
we are, where we are going and how to get there. We even have an
electronic assist that our precursors could never have dreamed of. To
all of this I can add my own personal experience – that never in 30+
years, often in extreme conflict situations have I seen any sort of
physical violence and ALWAYS witnessed the previous combatants in
respectful relations with each other… sometimes surprisingly so. They
shed common tears, danced together, laughed and even hugged each
other. They did it all by themselves with no prompting and no
assists. Wonderful!
But what about now? How to get the ball rolling, so to speak?
Truthfully, I really don’t know. I can also imagine that it will
happen, if only because it has happened before. If anybody out there
is searching for a mission, something useful to do with their life
and talent … opening this door might well be a good place to start.
Or there are other possibilities I would really rather not think about.
Harrison
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