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My first Open Space Facilitation

Peggy Holman

Sun, Jan 26, 2025 7:18 PM

Isaac, thank you again for your stories and questions!

OS, dreams, spirituality, sentence structure…many thoughts come my way. Two in particular that I’ll say a few words about…

...feeling my grandfather’s presence while on the Trans-Siberian railroad from Irkutsk to Ulan Ude when part of a team doing workshops, including an Open Space in 2001. (My grandfather died almost 30 years before I was born.)

…Harrison telling me about how he came to chaos and order as a framework for organizing that informs Open Space coming from his background as an Episcopal priest.

But first, Jeff, I found your wonderful poem in the archives: https://oslist.org/empathy/thread/RGHICMF7CHS5JXDTVMSNGMXM6K5VMK2K?hash=RGHICMF7CHS5JXDTVMSNGMXM6K5VMK2K#RGHICMF7CHS5JXDTVMSNGMXM6K5VMK2K

Also copied below.

Meeting my grandfather’s spirit
The only connection to Open Space for this story is that this spiritual visit from my grandfather happened on my way to doing workshops in Siberia that introduced Open Space to the participants. I know very little about my any of grandparents’ journeys to the U.S. from Eastern Europe. So I was stunned when I was on the Trans-Siberian railroad in 2001 as part of a team of five American women doing workshops for women who were forming NGOs following the fall of the Soviet Union. I had the strongest sense of my mother’s father on the train with me. It was like my grandfather was trying to get my attention to tell me I was following his path as he left Ukraine for the U.S. in the early 1900’s. Today — almost 25 years later — I recall the sense of his presence as if it were yesterday. During our visit, we went to a museum in the town of Ulan Ude, 30 miles from the Mongolian border. There was a whole section in the museum on Jewish migration through that route! I had no idea that was the case. I kept looking for his picture in the display even though I really didn’t know what he looked like. The experience left me with a sense of his love and caring even though we never met. About three years ago, my sister and I did a session with a medium to connect with him. (My sister is named after him.) I heard her expressing that same sense from that experience: our grandfather greeting us with open arms, letting us know he loved us. He is always with me. Brings tears to my eyes as I write this.

Harrison’s study of chaos and order
When Harrison and I did an OS workshop together in 1998, while participants were in OS breakout sessions, Harrison told me of his dissertation work, done in the 1950’s. He was fascinated by chaos and order. He said at that time, the view was that the many contradictions in the Old Testament were seen as errors. The basis of Harrison’s research was that assuming you would put the very best scholars on creating this important document, the contradictions must have been on purpose. An immanent and transcendent god were both expressions of the sacred.That we need both chaos and order. Then they started burning churches in Birmingham, Alabama where he was based and he left his academic work to join the civil rights movement. So he never finished his PhD.

Years later, when he ran into Stuart Kauffman’s At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity, https://global.oup.com/academic/product/at-home-in-the-universe-9780195111309?cc=us&lang=en& he was thrilled by science that also embraced chaos and order.

I always loved that I had language to talk about the theory behind Open Space either through the language of science or the language of spirit.

Probably more than you needed or wanted but that’s what you evoked for me.

Warmly,
Peggy

Re: 2nd Biannual OSLIST Restricted Form Poetry Contest

Sun, April 16, 2000 11:50 AM

will it work again?
look at their faces.
I did not sleep
a wink, as usual.

except for a dream:
grandma Shoshanna beckons me
to walk beside her -
narrow Carpathian shtetl path.

begin the circle walk.
slowly speak those words
and beneath them, hers:
I love you - you -

come, have some soup,
tell us your story!
rooms bursting with conversation
time for a nap.

One should always sleep on a poem, say I who did not do so. I will defer to
the judges as to whether a second try will count in the contest! :-) But I
want to send it around anyway. Jeff

Jeff Aitken

On Jan 26, 2025, at 7:32 AM, isaac a via OSList everyone@oslist.org wrote:

Thanks for sharing such a beautiful story Jeff.
I wonder if there's something about the relative freedom felt in OS, the collective (conscious and unconscious??), the often unpredictable and emergent energies we experience and/or anticipate, the unfolding of stories, and the emotional charge felt, often collective. And circles, of course. So something deep about circles... It truly feels like magic. I'll ponder and reflect.
Best wishes.
Isaac
🙏🏿❤️
From: Jeff Aitken via OSList everyone@oslist.org
Sent: 26 January 2025 15:17
To: OSList everyone@oslist.org
Subject: [OSList] Re: My first Open Space Facilitation

Hi Isaac.

I had a dream before an OST event that I facilitated. The event was in a ski resort in the Sierra Nevada mountains, so the air was crisp and there was fresh snow that morning.

The dream was of my grandmother Rose I had never met. She was gently leading me along a path in the Carpathian mountains near the shtetl where she lived. It was a quick dream, but very moving.

I wrote a poem on the oslist (for one of our biannual poetry celebrations back then) that I can't find right now. The essence was that I repeated her words in the dream as I walked the opening circle: "Come, have some soup, tell me your story!" That spirit/soul gesture of welcome and care is the essence of opening space for me.

Harrison once called the opening walk "the shaman's walk". I resonate with this, honoring the depths of life and experience that are invited to come forward and make contributions to the space. (We can talk about the term but that's another conversation.)

The Fourfold Way-finding that Angeles Arrien brought to Open Space is another expression of these depths.

The following year I walked in the snowy Carpathians on a brief visit to my grandparents' birthplaces and my great grandmother's grave site, to complete that circle in my own life. That dream was also with me on that morning.

Thanks for your posts Isaac!

Warmly
Jeff

On Sun, Jan 26, 2025, 3:07 AM isaac a via OSList <everyone@oslist.org mailto:everyone@oslist.org> wrote:
This might be fairly trivial or it might be deeply profound.
I've been reflecting on my first facilitation of Open Space last Friday, and it's entered into my dreams.
In the dream and experienced OS facilitator was correcting mistakes and I was getting very impatient because attendees were about to arrive.
I was scared they were going to unravel everything, including the main question.
The main question was "How can curiosity and creativity inspire and develop new ideas, and meaningful connections and collaborations"?
Although I was freaking out, there was one thing I found fascinating. He deconstructed the sentence by picking out the words 'curiosity', 'creativity', 'connections' and 'collaborations' (and maybe one or two others, 'ideas', maybe...) and reconstructed a number of alternative questions by rearranging the words and offering synonyms...etc. Deconstruction and organised reconstruction. It was beautiful, although I was really stressed out waiting for people to arrive. It wasn't so much about starting on time, it just felt like all my efforts would be pulled apart, minutes before the event started
So, my questions are:

Being vaguely aware of the 'magical' and 'spiritual' aspects of OS, does this resonate? Are there any articles I could read, or talks I could listen to about the more 'spiritual' aspects of OS, particularly dreams and dreaming.
Deconstruction and reconstruction of words to craft questions. Does that also resonate?

... and, in writing it out, I've just realised what the dream was about. Minutes before the event started, one of the janitors at the library bullishly approached me about something he completely misunderstood, and I felt like he was going to derail the event. It was actually quite upsetting. Despite the (now apparent) obvious source of the dream, I think there was an alchemy in turning that upset into something more constructive, albeit frustrating.
Still, OS, dreams, spirituality...etc. and sentence construction, any thoughts anyone?
Best wishes!
Isaac 🙏🏿❤️

From: Peggy Holman via OSList <everyone@oslist.org mailto:everyone@oslist.org>
Sent: 25 January 2025 19:08
To: Open Space Listserv <everyone@oslist.org mailto:everyone@oslist.org>
Subject: [OSList] Re: My first Open Space Facilitation

Congratulations Isaac!

Many thanks for sharing your story. You never know who or what you will inspire.

Peggy

Peggy Holman
peggy@peggyholman.com mailto:peggy@peggyholman.com

Bellevue, WA 98006
206-948-0432
www.peggyholman.com http://www.peggyholman.com/

Enjoy the award winning Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity https://peggyholman.com/papers/engaging-emergence/

"An angel told me that the only way to step into the fire and not get burnt, is to become
the fire".
-- Drew Dellinger

On Jan 24, 2025, at 6:35 PM, Chris Corrigan via OSList <everyone@oslist.org mailto:everyone@oslist.org> wrote:

Way to go Isaac. Keep opening space. And as Harrison would almost certainly tell you, keep telling the story.

Chris.
Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 24, 2025, at 5:11 PM, isaac a via OSList <everyone@oslist.org mailto:everyone@oslist.org> wrote:

I want to say a MASSIVE THANK YOU, to everyone who helped and supported and adviced me in enabling me to do my first facilitation of Open Space, for 64 Million Artists and Hull Libraries.
I've been asking for all sorts of advice over the last few months and weeks, like "can facilitators call sessions"? "How, when, where can I incorporate a drum circle"?...etc.
It was such an intense period of reflection and deep thought, of trying to figure out so much.
In hindsight, I now know that there were so many unknown unknowns, and the best way to know is to just do it, get some of it wrong and learn.
A few days prior to the event, which happened yesterday, I had the audio recording of Harrison Owen and video of Chris Corrigan opening space, playing in my headphones on repeat, over and over.
When it came to the event I had moments where my mind went blank. I felt I made so many mistakes, but the feedback I got was that it went very well.
The (optional) drum circle went really well. It echoed the "whoever comes are the right people", and it felt right as a way to celebrate together after the closing circle.
So much learned, so much more to learn and, so grateful to have this wonderful group of people to help, support and advice.
Thank you all, so much.
Isaac

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OSList mailing list -- everyone@oslist.org
To unsubscribe send an email to everyone-leave@oslist.org
See the archives here: https://oslist.org/empathy/list/everyone.oslist.org

Isaac, thank you again for your stories and questions! OS, dreams, spirituality, sentence structure…many thoughts come my way. Two in particular that I’ll say a few words about… ...feeling my grandfather’s presence while on the Trans-Siberian railroad from Irkutsk to Ulan Ude when part of a team doing workshops, including an Open Space in 2001. (My grandfather died almost 30 years before I was born.) …Harrison telling me about how he came to chaos and order as a framework for organizing that informs Open Space coming from his background as an Episcopal priest. But first, Jeff, I found your wonderful poem in the archives: https://oslist.org/empathy/thread/RGHICMF7CHS5JXDTVMSNGMXM6K5VMK2K?hash=RGHICMF7CHS5JXDTVMSNGMXM6K5VMK2K#RGHICMF7CHS5JXDTVMSNGMXM6K5VMK2K Also copied below. Meeting my grandfather’s spirit The only connection to Open Space for this story is that this spiritual visit from my grandfather happened on my way to doing workshops in Siberia that introduced Open Space to the participants. I know very little about my any of grandparents’ journeys to the U.S. from Eastern Europe. So I was stunned when I was on the Trans-Siberian railroad in 2001 as part of a team of five American women doing workshops for women who were forming NGOs following the fall of the Soviet Union. I had the strongest sense of my mother’s father on the train with me. It was like my grandfather was trying to get my attention to tell me I was following his path as he left Ukraine for the U.S. in the early 1900’s. Today — almost 25 years later — I recall the sense of his presence as if it were yesterday. During our visit, we went to a museum in the town of Ulan Ude, 30 miles from the Mongolian border. There was a whole section in the museum on Jewish migration through that route! I had no idea that was the case. I kept looking for his picture in the display even though I really didn’t know what he looked like. The experience left me with a sense of his love and caring even though we never met. About three years ago, my sister and I did a session with a medium to connect with him. (My sister is named after him.) I heard her expressing that same sense from that experience: our grandfather greeting us with open arms, letting us know he loved us. He is always with me. Brings tears to my eyes as I write this. Harrison’s study of chaos and order When Harrison and I did an OS workshop together in 1998, while participants were in OS breakout sessions, Harrison told me of his dissertation work, done in the 1950’s. He was fascinated by chaos and order. He said at that time, the view was that the many contradictions in the Old Testament were seen as errors. The basis of Harrison’s research was that assuming you would put the very best scholars on creating this important document, the contradictions must have been on purpose. An immanent and transcendent god were both expressions of the sacred.That we need both chaos and order. Then they started burning churches in Birmingham, Alabama where he was based and he left his academic work to join the civil rights movement. So he never finished his PhD. Years later, when he ran into Stuart Kauffman’s At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity, <https://global.oup.com/academic/product/at-home-in-the-universe-9780195111309?cc=us&lang=en&> he was thrilled by science that also embraced chaos and order. I always loved that I had language to talk about the theory behind Open Space either through the language of science or the language of spirit. Probably more than you needed or wanted but that’s what you evoked for me. Warmly, Peggy Re: 2nd Biannual OSLIST Restricted Form Poetry Contest Sun, April 16, 2000 11:50 AM will it work again? look at their faces. I did not sleep a wink, as usual. except for a dream: grandma Shoshanna beckons me to walk beside her - narrow Carpathian shtetl path. begin the circle walk. slowly speak those words and beneath them, hers: I love you - you - come, have some soup, tell us your story! rooms bursting with conversation time for a nap. One should always sleep on a poem, say I who did not do so. I will defer to the judges as to whether a second try will count in the contest! :-) But I want to send it around anyway. Jeff Jeff Aitken > On Jan 26, 2025, at 7:32 AM, isaac a via OSList <everyone@oslist.org> wrote: > > Thanks for sharing such a beautiful story Jeff. > I wonder if there's something about the relative freedom felt in OS, the collective (conscious and unconscious??), the often unpredictable and emergent energies we experience and/or anticipate, the unfolding of stories, and the emotional charge felt, often collective. And circles, of course. So something deep about circles... It truly feels like magic. I'll ponder and reflect. > Best wishes. > Isaac > 🙏🏿❤️ > From: Jeff Aitken via OSList <everyone@oslist.org> > Sent: 26 January 2025 15:17 > To: OSList <everyone@oslist.org> > Subject: [OSList] Re: My first Open Space Facilitation > > Hi Isaac. > > I had a dream before an OST event that I facilitated. The event was in a ski resort in the Sierra Nevada mountains, so the air was crisp and there was fresh snow that morning. > > The dream was of my grandmother Rose I had never met. She was gently leading me along a path in the Carpathian mountains near the shtetl where she lived. It was a quick dream, but very moving. > > I wrote a poem on the oslist (for one of our biannual poetry celebrations back then) that I can't find right now. The essence was that I repeated her words in the dream as I walked the opening circle: "Come, have some soup, tell me your story!" That spirit/soul gesture of welcome and care is the essence of opening space for me. > > Harrison once called the opening walk "the shaman's walk". I resonate with this, honoring the depths of life and experience that are invited to come forward and make contributions to the space. (We can talk about the term but that's another conversation.) > > The Fourfold Way-finding that Angeles Arrien brought to Open Space is another expression of these depths. > > The following year I walked in the snowy Carpathians on a brief visit to my grandparents' birthplaces and my great grandmother's grave site, to complete that circle in my own life. That dream was also with me on that morning. > > Thanks for your posts Isaac! > > Warmly > Jeff > > > > On Sun, Jan 26, 2025, 3:07 AM isaac a via OSList <everyone@oslist.org <mailto:everyone@oslist.org>> wrote: > This might be fairly trivial or it might be deeply profound. > I've been reflecting on my first facilitation of Open Space last Friday, and it's entered into my dreams. > In the dream and experienced OS facilitator was correcting mistakes and I was getting very impatient because attendees were about to arrive. > I was scared they were going to unravel everything, including the main question. > The main question was "How can curiosity and creativity inspire and develop new ideas, and meaningful connections and collaborations"? > Although I was freaking out, there was one thing I found fascinating. He deconstructed the sentence by picking out the words 'curiosity', 'creativity', 'connections' and 'collaborations' (and maybe one or two others, 'ideas', maybe...) and reconstructed a number of alternative questions by rearranging the words and offering synonyms...etc. Deconstruction and organised reconstruction. It was beautiful, although I was really stressed out waiting for people to arrive. It wasn't so much about starting on time, it just felt like all my efforts would be pulled apart, minutes before the event started > So, my questions are: > 1. Being vaguely aware of the 'magical' and 'spiritual' aspects of OS, does this resonate? Are there any articles I could read, or talks I could listen to about the more 'spiritual' aspects of OS, particularly dreams and dreaming. > 2. Deconstruction and reconstruction of words to craft questions. Does that also resonate? > > ... and, in writing it out, I've just realised what the dream was about. Minutes before the event started, one of the janitors at the library bullishly approached me about something he completely misunderstood, and I felt like he was going to derail the event. It was actually quite upsetting. Despite the (now apparent) obvious source of the dream, I think there was an alchemy in turning that upset into something more constructive, albeit frustrating. > Still, OS, dreams, spirituality...etc. and sentence construction, any thoughts anyone? > Best wishes! > Isaac 🙏🏿❤️ > > From: Peggy Holman via OSList <everyone@oslist.org <mailto:everyone@oslist.org>> > Sent: 25 January 2025 19:08 > To: Open Space Listserv <everyone@oslist.org <mailto:everyone@oslist.org>> > Subject: [OSList] Re: My first Open Space Facilitation > > Congratulations Isaac! > > Many thanks for sharing your story. You never know who or what you will inspire. > > Peggy > > > _________________________________ > Peggy Holman > peggy@peggyholman.com <mailto:peggy@peggyholman.com> > > Bellevue, WA 98006 > 206-948-0432 > www.peggyholman.com <http://www.peggyholman.com/> > > Enjoy the award winning Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity <https://peggyholman.com/papers/engaging-emergence/> > > "An angel told me that the only way to step into the fire and not get burnt, is to become > the fire". > -- Drew Dellinger > > > >> On Jan 24, 2025, at 6:35 PM, Chris Corrigan via OSList <everyone@oslist.org <mailto:everyone@oslist.org>> wrote: >> >> Way to go Isaac. Keep opening space. And as Harrison would almost certainly tell you, keep telling the story. >> >> Chris. >> Sent from my iPhone >> >>> On Jan 24, 2025, at 5:11 PM, isaac a via OSList <everyone@oslist.org <mailto:everyone@oslist.org>> wrote: >>> >>> >>> I want to say a MASSIVE THANK YOU, to everyone who helped and supported and adviced me in enabling me to do my first facilitation of Open Space, for 64 Million Artists and Hull Libraries. >>> I've been asking for all sorts of advice over the last few months and weeks, like "can facilitators call sessions"? "How, when, where can I incorporate a drum circle"?...etc. >>> It was such an intense period of reflection and deep thought, of trying to figure out so much. >>> In hindsight, I now know that there were so many unknown unknowns, and the best way to know is to just do it, get some of it wrong and learn. >>> A few days prior to the event, which happened yesterday, I had the audio recording of Harrison Owen and video of Chris Corrigan opening space, playing in my headphones on repeat, over and over. >>> When it came to the event I had moments where my mind went blank. I felt I made so many mistakes, but the feedback I got was that it went very well. >>> The (optional) drum circle went really well. It echoed the "whoever comes are the right people", and it felt right as a way to celebrate together after the closing circle. >>> So much learned, so much more to learn and, so grateful to have this wonderful group of people to help, support and advice. >>> Thank you all, so much. >>> Isaac >>> >>> OSList mailing list -- everyone@oslist.org <mailto:everyone@oslist.org> >>> To unsubscribe send an email to everyone-leave@oslist.org <mailto:everyone-leave@oslist.org> >>> See the archives here: https://oslist.org/empathy/list/everyone.oslist.org >> OSList mailing list -- everyone@oslist.org <mailto:everyone@oslist.org> >> To unsubscribe send an email to everyone-leave@oslist.org <mailto:everyone-leave@oslist.org> >> See the archives here: https://oslist.org/empathy/list/everyone.oslist.org > > OSList mailing list -- everyone@oslist.org <mailto:everyone@oslist.org> > To unsubscribe send an email to everyone-leave@oslist.org <mailto:everyone-leave@oslist.org> > See the archives here: https://oslist.org/empathy/list/everyone.oslist.org > OSList mailing list -- everyone@oslist.org > To unsubscribe send an email to everyone-leave@oslist.org > See the archives here: https://oslist.org/empathy/list/everyone.oslist.org