luminous edge, inside out, upside down, and backwards

Chris sat still for a while, as everyone moseyed out to chat in the lobby following Thomas' performance of Luminous Edge last night at Seattle Center. When he could speak again, he said with sparks of wonder lighting up each word, "Have you ever seen someone make art of what you do?" I thought (out loud), "it's like seeing yourself inside - out up there."

Chris writes more here about the intimate patterned dance of chaos and order, and the "process artist" practices of uncovering and understanding and supporting the natural patterns of human conversation and relationship and organization, and the way that Thomas (and Ashley, who was a matrix-deep collaborator in the creation of the show) illuminated it all in a deep and beautiful weave of sound and story and movement and image.

Two nights ago, I got to sit next to Ashley and her dad, Paul, and my friends Chris and Rick, for a talk by Paul Hawken who is on the lecture circuit with his latest book, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming, which I wrote a little about last month. You can read the beginning of the book in issue 43 of Ode magazine.

Paul Hawken speaks with warmth and a sweet sense of humor, and deep appreciation for all of the many ordinary (and the few celebrated and extraordinary) people who have been growing the roots and branches of this movement.

Since first hearing him speak at the bioneers conference in October, I have been thinking a lot about his conviction that

The environmental movement seems to have the upper leg because the house is burning down. Literally. So it is very easy for the environmental movement to turn to the social justice movement and say, yes I know how important your issues are, but the house is burning down. You should come and join us on the environmental bus. I think that it is upside down and backwards. Global warming is injustice. It is a type of colonialism. If we are going to be effective over the short time we have, we have to slow down, stop, and change the bus. I think the environmental movement has to get on the social justice bus.

Whatever we call that bus, I think the process artists have an important and useful role to play, perceiving and nourishing and connecting and integrating the deep patterns that are most restorative and regenerative and healthy for the human and more-than-human lifeworld.

Photos by Ashley and Thomas

meeting space

We are just back from a few days visiting family in northern California, where I grew up and where my mom still lives.

If you peer very closely at this view of the Marin headlands, facing south towards San Francisco, you really can see the top of the Golden Gate bridge peeking up in the dip between the hills. One of the trailheads up to the headlands, part of the Golden Gate National Recreation area, begins just up the hill next to my elementary school (well, from the school you wind your way up the hill through a development of multi-million-dollar homes, then you get to the trail)

A special treat on Thursday was getting to meet with Jeff Aitken face to face for the first time, after a long while of being words-on-a-screen friends through the Open Space world community, and its warm loose confluence of bloggers connected in heart and soul if not in time and space.

Here we are at Caffee Puccini, one of Jeff's neighborhood favorites where we told stories and laughed and drank coffee with an opera soundtrack for a background.

Looking west from the trail, you are met by this view of the Pacific ocean.

real work

"I do like my work," she said to her friends over coffee and chocolate biscotti. "When I'm in my practice, I'm engaged, and doing good work, and people seem to be benefiting. But, when I'm not in the office, I think of my real work work as this," she said. She waved her arms vaguely.

"What is "this"?" her friends asked kindly.

"This -- the medicine of hanging out together," she said.

"Ooooo. That's good," said her friends.

sacred conversation

Peggy Holman recently posted a beautiful article called "Evolution, Process and Conversation: A Foundation for Conscious Evolutionary Agency" to the Open Space listserv, originally written for the Evolutionary Life e-magazine.

In it, she wonders/suggests:

"Could it be that consciousness is the latest evolutionary innovation that, when applied to conversation, catalyzes a new form of social system, the conscious co-creative collective, the radiant network of deep community? I believe that conscious conversation is the path to what Thich Nhat Hanh imagined when he said: "It is possible that the next Buddha will not take the form of an individual. The next Buddha may take the form of a community, a community practicing understanding and lovingkindness, a community practicing mindful living. And the practice can be carried out as a group, as a city, as a nation." [Thich Nhat Hanh, "The Next Buddha May Be a Sangha" in Inquiring Mind, Vol 10, No.2, Spring 1994]

which reminds me of a teaching I read a couple of years ago -- a similar co-evolutionary idea in a different costume:

"'Messiah' in the original Hebrew is understood by the Kabbalists, quite astoundingly, to mean 'conversation'. Master Nachum of Chernobyl, mystic and philosopher, points out that the Hebrew word for messiah, Mashiach, can be understood as the Hebrew word Ma-siach -- Messiah, meaning 'from dialogue' or 'of conversation.' [Me'or Enayim, Parashat Pinchas] His assertion radically implies that the Messiah is potentially present in every human conversation -- every mutual act of voice-giving.

"All conversation is sacred. The ability to have an honest face-to-face talk in whihch both sides are true to themselves, vulnerable and powerful at the same time, is messianic. Simply put, sacred conversation is the vessel that receives the light of Messiah."

a radiant network

twinkles & sparkles

"Twinkles" is what our Japanese friend Kaori-chan* said for "twins" (her charming English also included "Mekeesko" for "Mexico," and that has become my preferred pronunciation too ;-))

In the past week I've gotten to have time with two good friends who seem quite different on superficial first glance but whom I now realize are "soul twinkles," including the way that both of them sparkle and fizz up a room. Last week deep and buoyant, easily-amazed Ashley was in town to visit, and today I got to have lunch with elf-friend Anne Stadler, as curious and playful and exuberant in her 70's as any 6-year old. It turns out that Ashley and I had tea, and then Anne and I had BBQ chicken and coleslaw, on different days in the same place: the great community living room (that is, a living room with a bookstore, restaurants, a farmers' market and a bakery), Third Place Commons which Anne and her husband Dave helped to found.
I met both Ashley and Anne at the Practice of Peace last November, an extraordinary Open Space gathering (most all Open Space gatherings are extraordinary, according to those who have had lots of experience, but this one was especially special) that continues to ripple out into the world in good works and heartful connections. With both Ashley and Anne, I have the sensation of being held in very spacious embraces, able to bask in their radiant and warm wonder and joy, which relaxes and nourishes many of my little crimped corners and dried rootlets, and gives me modeling and support for the ongoing practice of remembering to pay deep attention to what Swami Omkar calls Adorable Presence, as well as to what Anne calls "the new We" (-- sounds like the same thing, to me).

When Ashley comes back through Seattle next month, I'll get to reconnect the two of them with one another and bask some more -- just as good as a vacation in the sun.
(*in Japanese, adding -san onto the end of someone's name is an honorific and indicates respect; adding -chan is like a "cute-erific" and indicates affection and mostly you would use it with girls and women younger than yourself)