Greetings, Many thanks to all of you who shared your hospitality, company, and heart-felt dialog during my just-completed tour of the West Coast (San Francisco thru Victoria and beyond). I learned a lot, made many new contacts, and I hope was able to contribute some useful ideas and energy to the mix. I'll be following up personally with everyone, but I wanted to get out a general 'thank you' first, and take the opportunity to outline some of the highlights of the tour. (Also, if you mentioned a book or website to me in our chats, please take a moment and remind me by email. :-)) I met with three groups of people who are involved in, or who are interested in starting, a Wisdom Council process in their communities. The first was a group in Oakland California, across the bay from San Francisco. They were still in the early planning stage, and were seeking to expand their convener's group to include greater representation from the diverse Oakland community.They were experiencing this as an obstacle, something they weren't confident about tackling. I tossed in the suggestion that they might aim for a neighborhood instead of the whole city, and there seemed to be some energy around that. Someone pointed out that the convener's group would be easier to assemble, and the publicity would be much easier as well, and they could use non-media channels...word of mouth, posters on bulletin boards, presentations in coffee shops, whatever. I haven't heard how their thinking has gone since then, but I hope to stay in touch. I am of course biased toward a small-community focus, because I am convinced that is the path to a transformed society. But I can't expect others to choose a local focus for that reason, if they have a different political understanding. I was happy to learn that the impetus toward a local focus was emerging spontaneously out of the convener experience, based entirely on short-term considerations around the question, 'What makes for a successful Wisdom Council?'. This parallel recognition of localism resonates with the principle -- 'the means always become the ends' -- and is therefore favorable from the perspective of an 'emerging democratic movement'. --- Quite by chance, if there is such a thing as chance, my next WC-related visit was to a small community with a definite sense of identity, accentuated by their proximity to the comparatively anonymous mass of Vancouver. In this case I'm looking at the whole Sunshine Coast as 'one community', because there's a lot of mobility within the Coast, and a clear distinction between 'on island' and 'off island' cultures. It's not really an island, but it might as well be -- you can only get there by ferry. My theory is that the 'ideal community' -- most ready to awaken as We the People -- is one that has only a few thousand people, has a reasonable sense of identity and boundaries, and has developed clear and hardened divisions around a problem of urgent importance to the community. In such a scenario, the opportunity is maximized for achieving useful 'breakthrough outcomes' that will be visible to the community at large, and serve to bring people together and dampen factionalism. These are the kinds of 'early outcomes' that could spark a general interest in continuing on with 'getting it together' as an empowered community. The greater the initial divisiveness, the more 'juice' there is to spark the harmonization process. You can understand then, my anticipatory excitement as the ferry pulled into dock on the Coast, where I could see in visceral terms before me a special kind of heavily-wooded, far-northern, water-isolated, rural community. Fortuitously (?) I had a day before my scheduled talk and my host (Lee) made every effort to introduce me to people and give me a chance to find out what was on people's minds. It soon emerged that the big thing was logging, with reckless practices (ie, clear-cutting and old-growth cutting) about to be adopted, and the local greens & loggers at each other's throats...."Save our water!" vs. "Save our jobs!". In addition, many people felt betrayed and manipulated by the powers-that-be. All in all I was excited about the potential for a Wisdom Council to serve this community in a useful way. The logging issue provides 'juice' not only for a future WC, but I found it also enlivened my presentation considerably. And the 'local briefings' enabled me to make things more 'real' for the audience. Instead of speaking in abstract terms, I could tell my story in reference to their shared circumstances. On the night there were about 30 people gathered in a very homey coffee shop / community center. Everything just felt right, and when I stood up to talk I somehow knew we were going to be communicating in some kind of special way, something to do with resonance. In any case, I was in 'good form', the gathering was keenly interested, and I could 'feel' how people were responding, and frame & pace what I was saying so it could make sense to everyone. It was an interactive experience even though questions and discussion were deferred until the end of the talk. I was able to cover the whole spectrum, from 'civilization = elite rule' to the 'scam of democracy' to 'real democracy via community harmonization' without that sinking feeling that I'm losing people, and without awkwardness in transitions -- it was a 'relaxed but energetic' space that night. The proof was in the pudding -- ie, the questions and discussion that followed. The questions were perceptive and relevant, indicating a deeper kind of listening than I've encountered elsewhere with public talks. People brought in their own stories of various kinds, and they all seemed to build toward some kind of convergence, many ways of looking at things, all of which lead to a stronger sense that community is important, that community is about respectful dialog, and the like. At the end of the evening, people were approaching Lee, and offering their names to continue the discussion, possibly leading to convening a Wisdom Council. Lee and her friend Jeff were already dividing up responsibility for some of the convener tasks! ...A moment of high bliss for yours truly :-) Fortunately (?!) this unusually-good-energy talk was filmed by Digital Debbie, a brilliant young film maker introduced to me by Lee. She has state of the art high-definition equipment and knows how to use it to good effect. I'm hoping we can produce something interesting based on that material. --- My next WC-related event was a week-long marathon affair in Victoria, what turned out to be the natural culmination of what the tour was about -- seeking harmonization within the wise-democracy movement itself. This gathering included Jim Rough (inventor of Dynamic Facilitation and Wisdom councils), DeAnna Martin (his close colleague and head of their Center for Wise Democracy), most of the main conveners of the Victoria Wisdom Councils, myself, and a few people who were there because of the training being offered in DF. We had three days of formal training in DF (Weds-Fri), a meeting at someone's house on the Weds evening, and then a final session on Saturday morning. The Saturday session was special: DeAnna facilitated, and the rest of us were 'in process' -- using our own harmonization tools on ourselves. Our 'shared urgent problem': "How to make the next Victoria Wisdom Council even more successful than the first two." In fact, this question was on the table long before the week began, and was one of the reasons why the gathering was created in the first place. Many of the conveners had been disappointed in the outcomes of the first two events, and they wanted to take lessons from the experience and explore new ideas. As a consequence, all of our interactions during the week, including our exercises during the training, amounted to preparation for our Saturday 'finale'. I did of course make the case for choosing a neighborhood, rather than the whole Municipality of Victoria -- it would have been 'unauthentic' of me to 'withhold my passion' (and others were already leaning that way as well). The idea initially met with mixed reactions, but the notion kept hanging on as a theme we would come back to from time to time. We eventually converged around the metaphor of 'kindling' -- you want to cluster your kindling all together if you want it to light. Someone then suggested a particular neighborhood (Fernwood), and from then on we were in 'high production' mode, with all kinds of synergies and serendipities falling into place, and clear action items emerging. As in the Oakland discussion, it became clear that a smaller community greatly simplifies the convener's tasks: the process of public outreach, recruitment of Council members, and the encouragement of various kinds of ongoing dialog in the community (Conversation Cafes and the like). And it wasn't all about 'small size', I was simply using my favorite theme as an example. There were loads of creative ideas that wove into a coherent re-affirmation of what worked well in their past experience, along with a unanimous and enthusiastic realignment of certain elements, eg, a neighborhood focus and (I believe) a longer Council duration. One of the themes they 're-affirmed' was a strong emphasis on building relationship between the convener group and the people who have agreed to sit on the council. When someone 'signs up' that is only the beginning of a process of offering support, answering questions, and relating generally at an authentic, personal, welcoming level. With the Fernwood focus, people soon began identifying potential community allies, people who can help spread the word in their networks, who could arrange for presentations to their constituencies, or whose venues would be suitable for various kinds of presentations and gatherings, etc. This theme evolved into a general notion of 'cultivating the community' -- seeking to get the the community involved and interested in the Wisdom Council project prior to attempting invitations. Again this was about relationships, building relationship in this case between the conveners and the community, with the conveners acting as community-building facilitators, not as would be 'community organizers'. I think these were amazingly productive outcomes, and I was honored to be invited to participate, and grateful for many things learned. The Victoria team has momentum, commitment, focus, and purpose -- and for my money they've converged on a near-optimum (based on what we now now) approach & attitude for their next phase of activity. Best of all they have a dynamic outlook, a clear willingness to respond to events as they unfold, seizing opportunities and re-examining tactics as necessary. Knock on keyboard, but our 'intensive week' might turn out to mark a turning point in our fledgling quest for a democratic society. One of the women (I'm afraid of giving the wrong name, so I won't try) offered a lovely poem at the end that tied everything together in an interesting way. It built on the kindling theme, and was about how the spaces between the logs are just as important as the logs in allowing a fire burn. She pointed out how this related to our own experience, with adequate spaces between our week-long meetings, enabling a 'fire' to build among us, leading up to the final day. And of course the 'spaces' metaphor applies to the endeavor in Fernwood -- building relationship happens over time, with spaces as part of the process. Jim and DeAnna did an outstanding job of facilitating our progress during the week. They were 'fully present' not only as professionals, but as heart-involved humans. I think we all came to love both of them by the end of the week, I know I did. In general, the experience built trust and mutual respect among all of us. This was my first direct experience of processes I've been writing about for some time, and my faith was rewarded in more dimensions than I anticipated. I'm hoping to remain part of this 'convener community', albeit from a distance, and continue to learn, and contribute as the occasion arises. --- I feel like I was engaged in 'real work' on this tour, something quite beyond 'giving talks to groups'. Not merely planting ideas, but interacting collaboratively with 'others on the path'. I feel less alone than before, at some deep level, although you cyberjournal folks do 'keep me company' quite nicely, thank you. I feel an ongoing engagement with activities in several places, activities that are very promising in their potential, and whose lessons can be shared with all of us. I've been often disappointed in the past about the Internet not fulfilling its promise, in 'bringing us together' as a society, given its incredible ability to enable connections and networks. Attempts at consensus so often lead to pointless debate, etc. In this case, linked to concrete local initiatives, with face-to-face familiarity among many of the participants, and a shared vision, I think our remote connectivity can serve us nicely. I urge everyone directly involved to get on the "Wisdom Council Enthusiasts" list (http://groups.google.com/group/wisdomcouncil) in addition to your own mailing lists. This would provide a convenient channel for highlights and lessons and the like to be shared among all of us. warm regards to all, back in wexford, richard -- -------------------------------------------------------- Posting archives: http://cyberjournal.org/show_archives/ Escaping the Matrix website: http://escapingthematrix.org/ cyberjournal website: http://cyberjournal.org How We the People can change the world: http://governourselves.blogspot.com/ Community Democracy Framework: http://cyberjournal.org/DemocracyFramework.html Film treatment: A Compelling Necessity http://rkmcdocs.blogspot.com/2007/08/film-treatment-compelling-necessity.html Moderator: •••@••.••• (comments welcome)
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