Dear Newell, Jeff, Peggy, and friends, Thank you, Newell, for opening this inquiry, and Jeff, for bringing your early training and lived experience into it. I’ve also encountered Angela‘s work and I love her entreaty: “ do you remember: when did you stop dancing? Your description helps me feel how the four folds can be enacted throughout an Open Space gathering. This conversation also brings Peggy Holman’s *Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity* to mind. Peggy’s exploration of disruption, differentiation, and renewed coherence offers another way to notice what is happening as we gather. Her practices of welcoming disturbance, inviting diversity, inquiring appreciatively, and taking responsibility for what we love as an act of service feel very alive alongside Angeles’ and Harrison’s contributions. There is a personal thread here, too. Peggy generously endorsed my commissioned book, *Yoga Radicals*, published by Singing Dragon in 2021. One sentence from her endorsement has stayed with me: “As a student of systems change, I trust the body’s wisdom more deeply now.” The book gathered 36 stories of practitioners whose personal journeys became offerings to their communities. Since then, that inquiry has continued to unfold in my Embodying Emergence work: how do we notice, embody, and act upon what is becoming possible between us? With Geisa Paganini De Mio, I have been exploring this through somatic grounding, generative dialogue, and simultaneous generative scribing. Movement, silence, image, and words give us different ways to listen. In our Listening from the Land work, this inquiry also includes our relationships with place and the wider living world. Much of that inspiration came while in Kenya, participating in Wosonos with many landed Africans, who were working in stewardship in Conservation. It was extremely inspiringThe conversations have continued. Now, here, I am curious about a Potential Dialogue, between *engaging* emergence and *embodying* emergence. Peggy’s work already welcomes participation through head, heart, body, and spirit. What I am exploring is how we become more sensitive to that participation as it happens—how a shift in breath, posture, attention, or relationship might help us recognize what wants care, expression, or action. Perhaps we might look again at Angeles four folds. We can be sitting in the opening circle while some part of us is still elsewhere. Heart and meaning may first announce themselves as a bodily stirring, before words arrive for an agenda topic. Speaking truth without blame or judgment asks us to notice tightening, certainty, or fear. Openness to outcome becomes a practice each time someone’s choice changes the gathering, as it unfolds and moves toward the timeless design on the marketplace board The folds seem to keep moving through the whole event. Each encounter offers another opportunity to arrive, attend, speak, listen, and release. It’s dimension of awareness an enfoldment awaiting it’s perfect unfoldment. 🐛🦋 The Law of Two Feet brings this directly into movement. How to recognize where to learn or contribute? What helps us sense whether we are being drawn toward something, moving away from discomfort, or discovering that a conversation is actually complete? Perhaps Newell’s inquiry is an opening for some cross-pollination among our practices: attending together to how emergence becomes perceptible, how we participate in it, and how that participation carries into service. Jeff, I would love to hear more about what helped the integration you describe become something you could feel and trust. Peggy, I would also welcome what you are noticing now in the relationship between engaging emergence and the body’s wisdom. With appreciation for this continuing inquiry, Allie Integrative Leadership Practices

Great inquiry Allie. Due to our multiple intelligences including physical, how we access our knowing and our questions, the time it can take unique to each individual and situation, we need to experience enough space and time. I don't believe this can be done in an OST meeting of any time less than a half day, and even this is a significant reduction in time from what Harrison was doing at the start with his multi-day OST meetings. Warmly, Birgitt Warml [image: Birgitt Williams] Birgitt Williams (she/her) Senior Consultant Dalar International Consultancy Life Nourishing Leadership +1 919 522 7750 · call, text, or WhatsApp LinkedIn <https://www.linkedin.com/in/birgittwilliams/> My working hours may differ from yours – please reply when the time is right for you. [image: Dalar International Consultancy] <https://www.dalarinternational.com> Explore upcoming workshops <https://www.dalarinternational.com/learn/> [image: Genuine Contact Steward] On Sat, Nov 7, 2026 at 2:29 PM allie middleton via OSList < everyone@oslist.org> wrote: > > Dear Newell, Jeff, Peggy, and friends, > > Thank you, Newell, for opening this inquiry, and Jeff, for bringing your > early training and lived experience into it. I’ve also encountered Angela‘s > work and I love her entreaty: “ do you remember: when did you stop dancing? > > Your description helps me feel how the four folds can be enacted > throughout an Open Space gathering. > > This conversation also brings Peggy Holman’s *Engaging Emergence: Turning > Upheaval into Opportunity* to mind. Peggy’s exploration of disruption, > differentiation, and renewed coherence offers another way to notice what is > happening as we gather. Her practices of welcoming disturbance, inviting > diversity, inquiring appreciatively, and taking responsibility for what we > love as an act of service feel very alive alongside Angeles’ and Harrison’s > contributions. > > There is a personal thread here, too. Peggy generously endorsed my > commissioned book, *Yoga Radicals*, published by Singing Dragon in 2021. > One sentence from her endorsement has stayed with me: “As a student of > systems change, I trust the body’s wisdom more deeply now.” > > The book gathered 36 stories of practitioners whose personal journeys > became offerings to their communities. Since then, that inquiry has > continued to unfold in my Embodying Emergence work: how do we notice, > embody, and act upon what is becoming possible between us? > > With Geisa Paganini De Mio, I have been exploring this through somatic > grounding, generative dialogue, and simultaneous generative scribing. > Movement, silence, image, and words give us different ways to listen. In > our Listening from the Land work, this inquiry also includes our > relationships with place and the wider living world. Much of that > inspiration came while in Kenya, participating in Wosonos with many landed > Africans, who were working in stewardship in Conservation. It was extremely > inspiringThe conversations have continued. > > Now, here, I am curious about a Potential Dialogue, between *engaging* > emergence and *embodying* emergence. > > Peggy’s work already welcomes participation through head, heart, body, and > spirit. What I am exploring is how we become more sensitive to that > participation as it happens—how a shift in breath, posture, attention, or > relationship might help us recognize what wants care, expression, or action. > > Perhaps we might look again at Angeles four folds. We can be sitting in > the opening circle while some part of us is still elsewhere. Heart and > meaning may first announce themselves as a bodily stirring, before words > arrive for an agenda topic. Speaking truth without blame or judgment asks > us to notice tightening, certainty, or fear. Openness to outcome becomes a > practice each time someone’s choice changes the gathering, as it unfolds > and moves toward the timeless design on the marketplace board > > The folds seem to keep moving through the whole event. Each encounter > offers another opportunity to arrive, attend, speak, listen, and release. > It’s dimension of awareness an enfoldment awaiting it’s perfect unfoldment. > 🐛🦋 > > The Law of Two Feet brings this directly into movement. How to recognize > where to learn or contribute? What helps us sense whether we are being > drawn toward something, moving away from discomfort, or discovering that a > conversation is actually complete? > > Perhaps Newell’s inquiry is an opening for some cross-pollination among > our practices: attending together to how emergence becomes perceptible, how > we participate in it, and how that participation carries into service. > > Jeff, I would love to hear more about what helped the integration you > describe become something you could feel and trust. Peggy, I would also > welcome what you are noticing now in the relationship between engaging > emergence and the body’s wisdom. > > With appreciation for this continuing inquiry, > > Allie > > Integrative Leadership Practices > > > > 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

Hi Allie. Yes I shared that simple formulation from a memory of delightful conversation with Angeles in her Sausalito offices one day around 1998. And after writing, I was immediately aware of how the formulation was a starting point only. As we have understood over time, the deeper truth of the Fourfold Way in Open Space is much more subtle. I love how you bring this forth. And I greatly respect the somatic and ceremonial and mindfulness and psychedelic and other practices that deepen us, alone and together. I agree with Birgitt, and can report that the multi-day OST meetings were extraordinary opportunities for deep learning and practicing embodiment. I recently returned to the site of a very impactful Open Space in my life: the longhouse, now called s'gʷi gʷi ʔ altxʷ -House of Welcome - built in 1995 at The Evergreen State College. In July 1996 it was the site of the 14th Symposium on Organization Transformation, a multi-day Open Space event. To return there was very moving for me on many levels. One memory to share now is the greatly expanded sense of "Two Feet" / Mobility that carried me in that place and time. With appreciation for the gathered participants, I was moved to walk out of the building and over to the library, where I found a Masters thesis on the stories of building the longhouse. It had taken a long and difficult journey of struggles, since 1972 and earlier, that finally culminated in the approval, construction, and opening. I brought that story to the evening circle and felt its impacts. The next day, the Law took me to the shore of the Salish Sea, and back to the evening circle, bringing learnings from the natural world. I had been reading Jurgen Kremer's work in "recovery of indigenous mind" preparing to join his doctoral program, and this event was an opening to ground and embody key insights into different ways of knowing. I also enjoyed convened sessions; and still the spatial freedom that I experienced was a great new understanding into Open Space. As Chris C later said, "when you leave a talking circle you leave the meeting; but an Open Space is a field of play." We can bring our learnings from the wide field, back into the closing circle and convergence, and the ongoing life of the imaginization. The subtle guidance that leads in one direction or another is indeed something I have learned to trust. I know that some tai chi and Zen training have helped me access the dantian, just below the navel, energy center from which movement flows. Oracles were taught by Angeles, as tools to access synchronicity. I also honor that the experience of transformation can look and feel like "crashing and burning" - and rising from the ashes! It all can extend outside of an OST meeting context and into the long walk of life. With appreciation On Sat, Nov 7, 2026, 9:31 PM Birgitt Williams via OSList < everyone@oslist.org> wrote: > Great inquiry Allie. Due to our multiple intelligences including physical, > how we access our knowing and our questions, the time it can take unique to > each individual and situation, we need to experience enough space and time. > I don't believe this can be done in an OST meeting of any time less than a > half day, and even this is a significant reduction in time from what > Harrison was doing at the start with his multi-day OST meetings. > > Warmly, > Birgitt > > Warml > > > [image: Birgitt Williams] > Birgitt Williams (she/her) > Senior Consultant > Dalar International Consultancy > > Life Nourishing Leadership > +1 919 522 7750 · call, text, or WhatsApp > LinkedIn <https://www.linkedin.com/in/birgittwilliams/> > My working hours may differ from yours – please reply when the time is > right for you. > > > [image: Dalar International Consultancy] > <https://www.dalarinternational.com> Explore upcoming workshops > <https://www.dalarinternational.com/learn/> [image: Genuine Contact > Steward] > > > On Sat, Nov 7, 2026 at 2:29 PM allie middleton via OSList < > everyone@oslist.org> wrote: > >> >> Dear Newell, Jeff, Peggy, and friends, >> >> Thank you, Newell, for opening this inquiry, and Jeff, for bringing your >> early training and lived experience into it. I’ve also encountered Angela‘s >> work and I love her entreaty: “ do you remember: when did you stop dancing? >> >> Your description helps me feel how the four folds can be enacted >> throughout an Open Space gathering. >> >> This conversation also brings Peggy Holman’s *Engaging Emergence: >> Turning Upheaval into Opportunity* to mind. Peggy’s exploration of >> disruption, differentiation, and renewed coherence offers another way to >> notice what is happening as we gather. Her practices of welcoming >> disturbance, inviting diversity, inquiring appreciatively, and taking >> responsibility for what we love as an act of service feel very alive >> alongside Angeles’ and Harrison’s contributions. >> >> There is a personal thread here, too. Peggy generously endorsed my >> commissioned book, *Yoga Radicals*, published by Singing Dragon in 2021. >> One sentence from her endorsement has stayed with me: “As a student of >> systems change, I trust the body’s wisdom more deeply now.” >> >> The book gathered 36 stories of practitioners whose personal journeys >> became offerings to their communities. Since then, that inquiry has >> continued to unfold in my Embodying Emergence work: how do we notice, >> embody, and act upon what is becoming possible between us? >> >> With Geisa Paganini De Mio, I have been exploring this through somatic >> grounding, generative dialogue, and simultaneous generative scribing. >> Movement, silence, image, and words give us different ways to listen. In >> our Listening from the Land work, this inquiry also includes our >> relationships with place and the wider living world. Much of that >> inspiration came while in Kenya, participating in Wosonos with many landed >> Africans, who were working in stewardship in Conservation. It was extremely >> inspiringThe conversations have continued. >> >> Now, here, I am curious about a Potential Dialogue, between *engaging* >> emergence and *embodying* emergence. >> >> Peggy’s work already welcomes participation through head, heart, body, >> and spirit. What I am exploring is how we become more sensitive to that >> participation as it happens—how a shift in breath, posture, attention, or >> relationship might help us recognize what wants care, expression, or action. >> >> Perhaps we might look again at Angeles four folds. We can be sitting in >> the opening circle while some part of us is still elsewhere. Heart and >> meaning may first announce themselves as a bodily stirring, before words >> arrive for an agenda topic. Speaking truth without blame or judgment asks >> us to notice tightening, certainty, or fear. Openness to outcome becomes a >> practice each time someone’s choice changes the gathering, as it unfolds >> and moves toward the timeless design on the marketplace board >> >> The folds seem to keep moving through the whole event. Each encounter >> offers another opportunity to arrive, attend, speak, listen, and release. >> It’s dimension of awareness an enfoldment awaiting it’s perfect unfoldment. >> 🐛🦋 >> >> The Law of Two Feet brings this directly into movement. How to recognize >> where to learn or contribute? What helps us sense whether we are being >> drawn toward something, moving away from discomfort, or discovering that a >> conversation is actually complete? >> >> Perhaps Newell’s inquiry is an opening for some cross-pollination among >> our practices: attending together to how emergence becomes perceptible, how >> we participate in it, and how that participation carries into service. >> >> Jeff, I would love to hear more about what helped the integration you >> describe become something you could feel and trust. Peggy, I would also >> welcome what you are noticing now in the relationship between engaging >> emergence and the body’s wisdom. >> >> With appreciation for this continuing inquiry, >> >> Allie >> >> Integrative Leadership Practices >> >> >> >> 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 > > 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 >

Hi Allie, You specifically asked what I notice about engaging emergence and the body’s wisdom. My quick answer is that emergence is a whole-body experience. The more head, heart, body and spirit are involved, the more I trust whatever insight, impulse, hunch, action has emerged. And when it resonates with others, all the more encouragement to explore it. In different ways, both Jeff and Birgitt spoke to this. Emergence, by definition, involves mystery. Engaging it is a lesson in embracing uncertainty. The more capacity we develop to open to it with curiosity and compassion for ourselves and others, I find the better equipped we are to notice its whispers. I don’t think I’ve named this before, but I find the more I listen on all “channels” - thinking mind, feeling heart, bodily sensations, intuitions coming through spirit - the more equipped I am to notice what is emerging. Something like that. _________________________________ Peggy Holman peggy@peggyholman.com Bellevue, WA 98006 206-948-0432 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 Nov 8, 2026, at 7:20 AM, Jeff Aitken via OSList <everyone@oslist.org> wrote: > > Hi Allie. Yes I shared that simple formulation from a memory of delightful conversation with Angeles in her Sausalito offices one day around 1998. > > And after writing, I was immediately aware of how the formulation was a starting point only. As we have understood over time, the deeper truth of the Fourfold Way in Open Space is much more subtle. I love how you bring this forth. And I greatly respect the somatic and ceremonial and mindfulness and psychedelic and other practices that deepen us, alone and together. > > I agree with Birgitt, and can report that the multi-day OST meetings were extraordinary opportunities for deep learning and practicing embodiment. > > I recently returned to the site of a very impactful Open Space in my life: the longhouse, now called s'gʷi gʷi ʔ altxʷ -House of Welcome - built in 1995 at The Evergreen State College. In July 1996 it was the site of the 14th Symposium on Organization Transformation, a multi-day Open Space event. To return there was very moving for me on many levels. > > One memory to share now is the greatly expanded sense of "Two Feet" / Mobility that carried me in that place and time. With appreciation for the gathered participants, I was moved to walk out of the building and over to the library, where I found a Masters thesis on the stories of building the longhouse. It had taken a long and difficult journey of struggles, since 1972 and earlier, that finally culminated in the approval, construction, and opening. I brought that story to the evening circle and felt its impacts. > > The next day, the Law took me to the shore of the Salish Sea, and back to the evening circle, bringing learnings from the natural world. I had been reading Jurgen Kremer's work in "recovery of indigenous mind" preparing to join his doctoral program, and this event was an opening to ground and embody key insights into different ways of knowing. > > I also enjoyed convened sessions; and still the spatial freedom that I experienced was a great new understanding into Open Space. As Chris C later said, "when you leave a talking circle you leave the meeting; but an Open Space is a field of play." We can bring our learnings from the wide field, back into the closing circle and convergence, and the ongoing life of the imaginization. > > The subtle guidance that leads in one direction or another is indeed something I have learned to trust. I know that some tai chi and Zen training have helped me access the dantian, just below the navel, energy center from which movement flows. Oracles were taught by Angeles, as tools to access synchronicity. I also honor that the experience of transformation can look and feel like "crashing and burning" - and rising from the ashes! It all can extend outside of an OST meeting context and into the long walk of life. > > With appreciation > > > On Sat, Nov 7, 2026, 9:31 PM Birgitt Williams via OSList <everyone@oslist.org <mailto:everyone@oslist.org>> wrote: >> Great inquiry Allie. Due to our multiple intelligences including physical, how we access our knowing and our questions, the time it can take unique to each individual and situation, we need to experience enough space and time. I don't believe this can be done in an OST meeting of any time less than a half day, and even this is a significant reduction in time from what Harrison was doing at the start with his multi-day OST meetings. >> >> Warmly, >> Birgitt >> >> Warml >> >> >> >> Birgitt Williams (she/her) >> Senior Consultant >> Dalar International Consultancy >> >> Life Nourishing Leadership >> +1 919 522 7750 · call, text, or WhatsApp >> LinkedIn <https://www.linkedin.com/in/birgittwilliams/> >> My working hours may differ from yours – please reply when the time is right for you. >> >> >> <https://www.dalarinternational.com/> Explore upcoming workshops <https://www.dalarinternational.com/learn/> >> >> On Sat, Nov 7, 2026 at 2:29 PM allie middleton via OSList <everyone@oslist.org <mailto:everyone@oslist.org>> wrote: >>> >>> Dear Newell, Jeff, Peggy, and friends, >>> >>> Thank you, Newell, for opening this inquiry, and Jeff, for bringing your early training and lived experience into it. I’ve also encountered Angela‘s work and I love her entreaty: “ do you remember: when did you stop dancing? >>> >>> Your description helps me feel how the four folds can be enacted throughout an Open Space gathering. >>> >>> This conversation also brings Peggy Holman’s Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity to mind. Peggy’s exploration of disruption, differentiation, and renewed coherence offers another way to notice what is happening as we gather. Her practices of welcoming disturbance, inviting diversity, inquiring appreciatively, and taking responsibility for what we love as an act of service feel very alive alongside Angeles’ and Harrison’s contributions. >>> >>> There is a personal thread here, too. Peggy generously endorsed my commissioned book, Yoga Radicals, published by Singing Dragon in 2021. One sentence from her endorsement has stayed with me: “As a student of systems change, I trust the body’s wisdom more deeply now.” >>> >>> The book gathered 36 stories of practitioners whose personal journeys became offerings to their communities. Since then, that inquiry has continued to unfold in my Embodying Emergence work: how do we notice, embody, and act upon what is becoming possible between us? >>> >>> With Geisa Paganini De Mio, I have been exploring this through somatic grounding, generative dialogue, and simultaneous generative scribing. Movement, silence, image, and words give us different ways to listen. In our Listening from the Land work, this inquiry also includes our relationships with place and the wider living world. Much of that inspiration came while in Kenya, participating in Wosonos with many landed Africans, who were working in stewardship in Conservation. It was extremely inspiringThe conversations have continued. >>> >>> Now, here, I am curious about a Potential Dialogue, between engaging emergence and embodying emergence. >>> >>> Peggy’s work already welcomes participation through head, heart, body, and spirit. What I am exploring is how we become more sensitive to that participation as it happens—how a shift in breath, posture, attention, or relationship might help us recognize what wants care, expression, or action. >>> >>> Perhaps we might look again at Angeles four folds. We can be sitting in the opening circle while some part of us is still elsewhere. Heart and meaning may first announce themselves as a bodily stirring, before words arrive for an agenda topic. Speaking truth without blame or judgment asks us to notice tightening, certainty, or fear. Openness to outcome becomes a practice each time someone’s choice changes the gathering, as it unfolds and moves toward the timeless design on the marketplace board >>> >>> The folds seem to keep moving through the whole event. Each encounter offers another opportunity to arrive, attend, speak, listen, and release. It’s dimension of awareness an enfoldment awaiting it’s perfect unfoldment. 🐛🦋 >>> >>> The Law of Two Feet brings this directly into movement. How to recognize where to learn or contribute? What helps us sense whether we are being drawn toward something, moving away from discomfort, or discovering that a conversation is actually complete? >>> >>> Perhaps Newell’s inquiry is an opening for some cross-pollination among our practices: attending together to how emergence becomes perceptible, how we participate in it, and how that participation carries into service. >>> >>> Jeff, I would love to hear more about what helped the integration you describe become something you could feel and trust. Peggy, I would also welcome what you are noticing now in the relationship between engaging emergence and the body’s wisdom. >>> >>> With appreciation for this continuing inquiry, >>> >>> >>> Allie >>> >>> Integrative Leadership Practices >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> 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 >> <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