13: an opening toward a whole mind worldview

This study has taken a unique perspective relative to the literature on Open Space. Because Open Space emerged from the field of organization development, and is well suited to the work of whole systems change in organizations, much of the published literature has been focused upon the impact of Open Space upon the organizations with which it is used.

Open Space has also long been used as a design for conferences, and there is a small amount of discussion on the Internet focused on conferences which incorporate Open Space, including conferences which include members of communities among which there is significant conflict. More recently, the use of Open Space in community settings has led to discussion, again on the Internet, regarding the dynamics of emergent community capacities which arise in Open Space. There is also a growing body of published literature and Internet discussion focused upon the practice of facilitating Open Space, and the learnings that emerge from working with this subtle, robust process.

This study, however, has focused upon the individual experience of Open Space participants and its impact in an ongoing way upon the lives of individuals. It grew out of my own story of being a participant in several Open Space conferences and noticing the shifts in attention and perspective which resulted. It was shaped by my experience of engaging indigenous worldviews not as an anthropologist but rather as a cultural person, standing in my deepening cultural roots, seeking exchanges of knowledge based on traditional protocols rather than Western sciences.

The long history of domination and appropriation that characterizes the relationship between Euro-American culture and indigenous cultures continues in less overt ways, as Euro-Americans, influenced by New Age and neo-shamanic ideologies, attempt to will themselves to be indigenous by using indigenous spiritual practices out of context. This includes the use of drumming to evoke shamanic journeys, singing native songs and chants, and so on. There is considerable and conflicted discussion about these issues among indigenous peoples, their non-indigenous allies, and people who support such activities. This discussion is beyond the scope of this dissertation.

However, I have in this dissertation investigated encounters with a practice, Open Space, that has theoretical roots in at least three indigenous traditions. Its originator did not come up with the idea in order to enter the lucrative New Age neo-shamanic marketplace, but rather in search of a better way for people to meet than the usual design for a professional conference, which then became a better way for people to meet in many settings. And I have found, in this limited study, that participation in Open Space evokes an opening toward a whole mind worldview as described by one of my indigenous teachers.

What are the implications of this finding? Is the boundary between Euro-American and indigenous worldviews more permeable than I have been taught by my teachers? Is the boundary illusory because we are all just human beings? I will say no to both questions. The work of recovering indigenous mind is truly deep and painstaking; and the distinctions among us are important even though, or (better) because, we are all human beings. It is in our nature to be diverse and unique, individually and culturally, as much as it is to be united as one.

Instead, I will return to the theoretical sketch I presented in an earlier chapter. Open Space is a practice which enables an opening between these worldviews, and offers a bridge for communication between people from these worldviews. Open Space supports people from both worldviews, but in different ways. Non-indigenous people find it refreshing and empowering, a new and yet somehow familiar, more natural way of being and working together. Indigenous people find it refreshing and empowering because it reminds them of (or reinforces) how they have always done it. If Open Space shows us how to be more fully human, it’s because (as Vav pointed out) the Prussian model of elementary education, and its implications for the design of all of our organizations, has left Euro-Americans, and those upon whom we forced that model, less than human in our interactions.

What are the implications of the finding that a couple of days of Open Space seem to produce significant shifts in the worldview of Euro-Americans? First, more research would be needed to document any sustained shifts in worldview. However, if it can be shown that lasting shifts or openings are experienced, it may indicate that (using my model) the journey from the center to the boundaries of the Euro-American worldview is not a difficult one. It will be another task to cross over completely and reach the center of the whole mind.

What are the implications of Open Space narrowing the gap between these two worldviews? Does this mean that indigenous and non-indigenous people can find their way into harmony, trust, and rich cultural exchange in Open Space? Here I want to make a distinction. I now feel more confident that Open Space is a process that can engender collaborations among indigenous and non-indigenous people that serve their mutual interests. The non-indigenous people will learn by experience (and through the dynamics of Open Space) the qualities and behaviors that are expected of them, assuming that the indigenous people are willingly engaged. If there are mutual interests, much can come of this, even in situations of conflict.

However, a non-indigenous person cannot assume that such an event is an opportunity to learn deeply about the culture and spirituality of the indigenous people who are present. The kind of deep cultural exchange that may be possible in ceremonial settings requires a deeper preparation. Here again is where my theoretical model distinguishes between the permeability of the border between the worldviews, and the movement of a non-indigenous person toward the center of the model, in whole mind.

There are limits to this study, most prominently the fact that the Euro-Americans whom I interviewed are all active in the sustainability movement, which is already oriented toward a perspective about ecology and progress which is different from the center of the Euro-American worldview. Living in the San Francisco Bay Area, they have also been exposed to wider experiences and notions of consciousness than many white people. To a certain extent, these people are predisposed to be more open to indigenous ways of knowing. (On the other hand, none of them indicated any new interest to recover their indigenous roots.)

It would therefore be useful to expand this kind of study to include Euro-Americans and other non-indigenous people from many communities and ideologies who have had the opportunity to encounter Open Space, such as the employees of Boeing or the Bank of Montreal. Does Open Space influence people of “mainstream” modern culture toward an ethos of sustainability and balance?

Also not attended to in this study is the influence of Open Space upon people of many other cultures around the world, all of whom are influenced in various ways by modernity, traditional knowledges, capitalism, governments, religions, and other institutions. It would be fascinating to extend this kind of study to a wide range of individuals and their worldviews.

12: themes – worldview, process, sustainability

Now it is possible for me to reflect upon the six interviews in relationship to one another. I did not invite the people I interviewed into a reflection circle, as some researchers who use organic inquiry have done, but here I paraphrase what could have emerged from such a circle: the insights of these six people which emerged through their experience of Open Space. I have organized these insights around three themes.

Theme One

The experience of Open Space supports a shift in worldview. This shift may be characterized in differing but overlapping ways: An expanded consciousness, an experience of following inner knowing, an increased interest in diverse points of view, an experience of what enables healing, and a deepened sense of authentic humanness. Such a shift might take place in one event for some people, or over the course of several events for others.

“Open Space informs us about how to be human, and shows me that sustainability is about how we ARE with one another, more than what we DO with one another.”

“This is a simple way to consciously align with the natural human process of conversation and organizing.”

“Open Space is a practice that enables us to break out of the imposed worldview.”

“Open Space helps us to become conscious about how open the space always is.”

In a couple of days of Open Space we can find an interpersonal space which is different from the cultural spell which is based on external constraints and relating in alienated ways. We can find an expanded state of consciousness, in tune with the creative process of life.

Open Space demands that we use holistic faculties that may be dormant in us because of conditioning. We can trust that these faculties will come back to us, although we do experience some freedom shock.

When I reread the raw stories, prior to using a lens of “indigenous ways of knowing” as an analytical framework, I see unmistakable evidence that Open Space experiences have had fundamental and lasting impacts upon the worldviews of five of the six participants. In the sixth person, Dalet, the impact seems to be one of troubling her worldview, opening it to new questions, without shifting it. I believe that this may be a precursor to a shift in worldview. I also observe that Dalet raises important questions about Open Space grounded in her commitment to effective leadership toward sustainability. I hope that there will be further opportunities for Dalet to engage these questions.

Theme Two

Open Space creates a container in which people pay attention to the process of engaging one another, as well as to the content of their engagement. The process enables experiences of inclusiveness, safety, mystery, responsibility, and trust.

“In Open Space every voice is elicited and heard.”

“I saw respectful sharing of points of view–people expressed things that they had not voiced before–we all grow when we hear a range of perspectives.”

“The field created in Open Space is safer and more robust than the circle for holding the intensity of conflict.”

“Open Space enables true anarchy, which is order by agreement, a natural order created when each of us follows our inner guidance.”

“In Open Space we learn to honor the unknown.”

“Open Space enables us to learn how to be responsible to co-create the circumstances.”

“I love having 2 days in Open Space so that the conversations deepen.”

“A group is trustworthy when we frame the challenge and invite them to work within the constraints.”

There is some overlap here with the first theme. With this theme I have drawn out a range of experiences which indicate that participants are paying attention to process as well as the content of their conversations. This might be a product of the particular interests and capacities of the six people I interviewed.

Nevertheless, I will claim that Open Space brings awareness of process out of the background for most participants, even those who are mainly focused on the content of their work together.

I believe that this is an educational function of high value; literally it evokes learning by experience from participants who might not sit still for a lecture about group process. And with experience and learning, and the opportunity for reflection, comes the development of deeper capacities. When the experiences are evocative ones such as those quoted here, rich with the potential for new insights about human life and human nature, the learning might be transformative.

Theme Three

Open Space is well suited as a process to engage a community in conversations for inspiration, creativity, and collaboration toward restoring the health of their communities and the webs of life that support them.

“For sustainability we need to empower people, and optimize our creativity; to use all of the intelligences available to us in our communities, and Open Space enables this.”

“It’s important that after our conversations we have a process for convergence of ideas and, ideally, an organizational container for ongoing activity.”

“Open Space enables increasing awareness of the rhythms of individuals and groups. Being acutely aware of rhythms helps us to manage our relations with the living land.”

“I see Open Spaces, around the theme of the health of the region, that will enable us to tap into the spirit of the place.”

I personally am still really excited by the idea of having a gathering for sustainability activists for networking, movement building, ideally three days–much better than two!–and it would be outdoors, with camping, every year, building solidarity, building a larger movement. I can’t imagine a better process for building a larger movement than having an Open Space format and inviting different groups who already are generally aligned.

I will devote space to a deeper analysis of this theme in the final chapter.

"the (whole systems change) field has exploded"

Congrats to Peg, Tom, and Steven Cady for the second edition of The Change Handbook. What better evidence of “emergence” than the rapid appearance of communities of practice around the world dedicated to learning and spreading these methods into every organization and community.

In 1999, the first edition of The Change Handbook provided a snapshot of a nascent field that broke barriers by engaging “whole systems” of people from organizations and communities in creating their own future. In the last seven years, the field has exploded. In this completely revised and updated second edition, lead authors Peggy Holman, Tom Devane, and Steven Cady profile sixty-one change methods–up from eighteen in the first edition. Nineteen of these methods are explored in depth, with case studies, answers to frequently asked questions, and details on the roles and responsibilities of the people involved, conditions for success, and more. This tremendously expanded second edition–400 pages longer, nearly twice the length of the first edition–will undoubtedly become the definitive resource in this rapidly expanding area.

Table of Contents

Introduction and Essential Fundamentals

Part I: Navigating Through the Methods

1. The Big Picture: Making Sense of More than Sixty Methods
2. Selecting Methods: The Art of Mastery–Steven Cady
3. Preparing to Mix and Match Methods–Peggy Holman
4. Sustainability of Results–Tom Devane

Part II: The Methods

Adaptable Methods
In-depth:
5. Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Revolution in Change–David L. Cooperrider and Diana Whitney
6. Collaborative Loops–Dick Axelrod and Emily Axelrod
7. Dialogue and Deliberation–Sandy Heierbacher
8. Integrated Clarity: Energizing How We Talk and What We Talk about in Organizations–Marie Miyashiro and Marshall Rosenberg
9. Open Space Technology–Harrison Owen
10. The Technology of Participation (ToP)–Marilyn Oyler and Gordon Harper
11. Whole-Scale Change–Sylvia L. James and Paul Tolchinsky
12. The World Café–Juanita Brown, Ken Homer, and David Isaacs

Thumbnails:
13. Ancient Wisdom Council–WindEagle and RainbowHawk Kinney-Linton
14. Appreciative Inquiry Summit–James D. Ludema and Frank J. Barrett
15. The Conference Model–Dick Axelrod and Emily Axelrod
16. Consensus Decision Making–Tree Bressen
17. Conversation Café–Vicki Robin
18. Dynamic Facilitation–Jim Rough and DeAnna Martin
19. The Genuine Contact Program–Birgitt Williams
20. Human Systems Dynamics–Glenda H. Eoyang
21. Leadership Dojo–Richard Strozzi-Heckler
22. Evolutions of Open Systems Theory–Merrelyn Emery and Donald de Guerre
23. OpenSpace-Online Real-Time Methodology–Gabriela Ender
24. Organization Workshop–Barry Oshry and Tom Devane
25. PeerSpirit Circling: Creating Change in the Spirit of Cooperation–Sarah MacDougall and Christina Baldwin
26. Power of Imagination Studio: A Further Development of the Future Workshop Concept–Petra Eickhoff and Stephan G. Geffers
27. Real-Time Strategic Change Robert ‘Jake” Jacobs
28. SimuReal: Action Learning in Hyperdrive–Catherine Perme and Alan Klein
29. Study Circles–Martha L. McCoy
30. Think Like a Genius: Realizing Human Potential through the Purposeful Play of Metaphorming–Todd Siler
31. Web Lab: Small Group Dialogues on the Internet Commons–Steven N. Pyser, JD, and Marc N. Weiss

Planning Methods
In-depth:
32. Dynamic Planning and the Power of Charrettes–Bill Lennertz
33. Future Search: Common Ground under Complex Conditions–Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff
34. Scenario Thinking–Chris Ertel, Katherine Fulton, and Diana Scearce
35. Search Conference–Merrelyn Emery and Tom Devane

Thumbnails:
36. Community Summits–Gilbert Steil, Jr., and Mal Watlington
37. Large Group Scenario Planning–Gilbert Steil, Jr., and Michele Gibbons-Carr
38. SOAR: A New Approach to Strategic Planning–Jackie Stavros, David Cooperrider, and D. Lynn Kelley
39. Strategic Forum–Chris Soderquist
40. Strategic Visioning: Bringing Insight to Action–David Sibbet
41. The 21st Century Town Meeting: Engaging Citizens in Governance–Carolyn J. Lukensmeyer and Wendy Jacobson

Structuring Methods
In-depth:
42. Community Weaving–Cheryl Honey
43. Participative Design Workshop–Merrelyn Emery and Tom Devane

Thumbnails:
44. Collaborative Work Systems Design–Jeremy Tekell, Jon Turner, Cheryl Harris, Michael Beyerlein, and Sarah Bodner
45. The Whole Systems Approach: Using the Entire System to Change and Run the Business–William A. Adams and Cynthia A. Adams

Improving Methods
In-depth:
46. Rapid Results–Patrice Murphy, Celia Kirwan, and Ronald Ashkenas
47. The Six Sigma Approach to Improvement and Organizational Change–Ronald Snee

Thumbnails:
48. Action Learning–Marcia Hyatt, Ginny Belden-Charles, and Mary Stacey
49. Action Review Cycle (ARC) and the After Action Review (AAR) Meeting–Charles Parry, Mark Pires, and Heidi Sparkes Guber
50. Balanced Scorecard–John Antos
51. Civic Engagement: Restoring Community through Empowering Conversations–Margaret Casarez
52. The Cycle of Resolution: Conversational Competence for Creating and Sustaining Shared Vision–Stewart Levine 53. Employee Engagement Process–Marie McCormick
54. Gemeinsinn-Werkstatt–Project Framework for Community Spirit–Wolfgang Faenderl
55. Idealized Design–Jason Magidson
56. The Practice of Empowerment: Changing Behavior and Developing Talent in Organizations–David Gershon
57. Values Into Action (VIA)–Susan Dupre, Ray Gordezky, Helen Spector, and Christine Valenza
58. WorkOut–Ron Ashkenas and Patrice Murphy

Supportive Methods
In-depth:
59. Online Environments for Supporting Change–Nancy White and Gabriel Shirley
60. Playback Theatre–Sarah Halley and Jonathan Fox
61. Visual Recording and Graphic Facilitation: Helping People See What They Mean–Nancy Margulies and David Sibbet

Thumbnails:
62. The Drum Café: Building Wholeness, One Beat at a Time–Warren Lieberman
63. JazzLab: The Music of Synergy–Brian Tate
64. The Learning Map Approach–James Haudan and Christy Contardi Stone
65. Visual Explorer–Charles J. Palus and David Magellan Horth

Part III: Thoughts for the Future from the Lead Authors
66. The Emergence of Inspired Organizations and Enlightened Communities–Peggy Holman
67. High-Leverage Ideas and Actions You Can Use to Shape the Future–Tom Devane
68. Hope for the Future: Taking Our Field to the Next Level–Steven Cady

Part IV: Quick Summaries

Part V: References Suggested by Multiple Contributing Authors

Codepink and the Speaker of the House

CODEPINK is one of my favorite activist groups: strategically savvy, brilliantly theatrical, and deeply committed (they GO to Baghdad, Bush’s acceptance and State of the Union speeches, Crawford.) Their new strategic/confrontive dance with Madame Speaker and the Democrats has, it seems, just begun.

Golden Gate Bridge walk and march to Camp Pelosi
Sunday, April 8 2007
meet at noon on the Golden Gate Bridge
CODEPINK returns to Camp Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi’s home at 2640 Broadway in Pacific Heights, San Francisco, for an egg hunt. Bring eggs decorated or filled with peace and impeachment messages for the hunt. Wear pink, a great color for spring, renewal, peace, and hope.

San Francisco BEACH IMPEACH
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Spell out “IMPEACH NOW!” in 100-foot high letters with our bodies at Ocean Beach in SF, with helicopters filming overhead. CODEPINK members and supporters will gather and lay down at the letter “C”. CODEPINK will also have a large booth, bake sale, coffee, tea, and water available.

Arrival time 10:30am– photographers/helicopters overhead at 11– finished by 11:30 or so. January’s BEACH IMPEACH had 1,000 people; the A28 event will have 2,000 or more. REGISTER NOW at this link.

Following the filming, CODEPINK and other peace and impeachment groups will march to Camp Pelosi, with a 10-foot high Gandhi sculpture on wheels leading the march. Arrival at Camp Pelosi expected to be 1 p.m.

11: open space as a braided way

During my meeting with Angeles Arrien she spoke to me of a “braided way” which brings together past and future, indigenous and modern paths to knowing (pers. comm., 1998). Can Open Space be understood as a braided way, that is, a holistic inquiry designed to bring about healing and balance?

Shortly after interviewing Arrien…I felt called to go to the central traditional site of the Coast Miwok, called Olompali–the former home of the tribal Hoipu (chief) who greeted Francis Drake on the coast. A reconstructed Miwok village now stands there. After making offerings and prayers, walking around the site, I discovered a beautiful, foot-long braid of tule fibers laying on the ground. Using protocols that I had learned, I took it, in exchange for a song from my ancestral tradition. The braid of tule became a central tool which has guided my work.

The work of braiding indigenous and modern worldviews is not simple. The Traditional Knowledge and Recovering Indigenous Mind doctoral programs are attempts by indigenous leaders to train people to serve as mediators, or bridges, between indigenous and Western communities and ways of knowledge, such that exchanges can take place in respectful ways (Colorado 1996). The work is not to synthesize the worldviews, but to braid them, such that their unique strengths remain intact.

At this point I have chosen two touchstones of indigenous science as analytical tools for use in my inquiry: wayfinding and concourse.

My journey of inquiry now turns toward the hypothesis that, as a braided way, Open Space could be uniquely suited for the work of facilitating intercultural resolutions toward sustainability and balance.

My research question focuses on one necessary dimension of the work. What effects can the Open Space process have in opening the worldview of non-indigenous people toward indigenous ways of knowing? Looking back at my own story of encountering Open Space, I was first attracted to the experience of “crossing open space” into community; then to the practice of wayfinding, and the opportunity of diversity as concourse; later, to genealogy and protocol as opposed to New Age shamanism; and finally, to a deeper sense of concourse which includes spirit(s) and the specifics of the natural lifeplace, inviting native and non-native people together in search of balance.

…The narrative of this chapter can be intertwined with the narrative of the preceding chapter, my journey toward recovering a whole mind worldview. I had conducted my genealogy research, and then walked back my ancestral migrations thru Los Angeles, Maryland, New York, Kernew, Cymru, Carpati, and Israel, leaving prayers and offerings all along the way.

And I had begun to actively pray and make offerings to the spirits and keepers of the lands where I facilitated or participated in Open Space gatherings: at the coast near San Diego, on Esselen ancestral land near Monterey, on Paiute ancestral land near the Truckee river now called Squaw Valley, on Ohlone land in San Francisco.

Upon my return home from Israel, I was invited to two Open Space events near the Columbia River, which were dialogues about group renewal, watershed restoration, and recovering indigenous knowing. I made prayers and offerings for that river, its keepers, and “totem” salmon (House 1999), using protocols I have learned from teachers and colleagues where people gathered to talk about their futures together. A new term began to occur to me, which I called “Open Space in Place”; how to foster Open Space as concourse, a richly diverse immanent conversation on our past, present, futures here together.

Soon after, I received an invitation to conduct an Open Space on the topic of sustainability in Sonoma County; which includes the ancestral land of (and is home to several communities of) Pomo and Miwok people. I conducted three Open Space events with the theme of sustainability in Sonoma County in 2000…These are the three events from which I have drawn the first five people whom I have interviewed in this inquiry.

I am interested in evidence that these events might be similar to concourse. However, it was evident that 95% of the participants of the three events were Euro-Americans, and therefore the opportunities for richly diverse concourse were limited. Therefore, I am most interested in the impacts of these Open Space experiences on the worldviews of four Euro-Americans and one Latina who are all participants, residents of Sonoma County, and sustainability activists. My sixth interview is with a Native colleague who practices Open Space. I will use my own story as a lens through which to respond to the interviews, and focus on the two analytical tools which emerged in my indigenous science inquiry, wayfinding and concourse.

10: open space and shamanic concourse

Harrison Owen frequently counsels facilitators against making Open Space too complicated–in fact, he often talks about his quest to find one more thing NOT to do when working with a group (pers. comm., 1999). I do not want to make the process more complicated; but I am interested in paying attention to certain things I consider important. In order to investigate whether Open Space honors indigenous ways of knowing, I want to ask whether those things which are important to indigenous life are made welcome. Here I will turn to Jurgen Kremer’s model of communication called concourse.

Kremer’s (1994) writings are marvelous explications for modern people of those things to which indigenous life pays attention. Here is a most concise statement:

The process of the native mind can be pointed to by saying that a traditional person stands at the center of such processes as community, ancestry/ancestral spirits, ceremonial cycles, tribal stories, seasonal cycles, larger astronomical cycles, nature/place, protective and other spirits as well as personal medicine.

Healing in this sense means being placed at this center for balancing or, if you wish, engaging in the conversation in all these “dimensions” in the most intense way possible . . . Recovering indigenous mind means resuming this conversation (whether it has been interrupted recently or thousands of years ago.) (33)

Here we have a significant challenge for modern whole systems practices of organization and community renewal. If a modern (or in particular, neo-shamanic) practice is to be as deep and impactful as a real indigenous practice, or more precisely if such a practice is to meet its healing potential from an indigenous perspective for the specific group of individuals who take part, we must fill in the huge gaps in our modern attention to those things which matter.

Kremer (1994) offers a set of coordinates to evaluate the quality of a meeting from within an indigenous worldview. They arise from a model of interaction he names “shamanic concourse” (or “participatory concourse”), which is a coming together of diverse people, using many different ways of knowing, toward attaining resolutions about balance with full appreciation of this diversity.

1. Are the different aspects within the human in balance? What is the relationship or dialectic between cognition, emotion, the body, sexuality and spirit?

2. Is the relationship between human beings in balance? How is the relationship between genders defined? Are constraint-free and sincere interactions supported? Is there room for all aspects of the human being?

3. Is the relationship between human beings and wilderness in balance? What is the human impact upon the environment? Are the spirits of the plants, rocks and animals heard? What is the importance of the seasonal cycles?

While words are important in participatory concourse, the knowing of the body, the knowing of the heart, the knowing of the rock, plant and animal spirits, and the knowing of the ancestors are valued equally. An agreement about the state of balance needs to be anchored in all these dimensions. (109)

From the moment I first read these passages, I have been intrigued by the fact that, while Open Space does not require participants to pay attention to these dimensions, it is perfectly capable of welcoming them, more so than any other whole system practice that I have come across. It may require that there be participants who seek these different dimensions, but then again, the process itself might invoke these dimensions for participants who do not seek them.

The potential that excites me is this: that the lean, indigenous-inspired Open Space might be ideal for concourse among people who pay attention to the dimensions of indigenous knowing, along with those who desire to do so. Open Space might be a setting in which indigenous and modern people can engage with one another in a way that crosses the boundaries among their worldviews.

Open Space seems to enable a communal, creative, transformative journey for its participants. Open Space is not indigenous ceremony, but it is inspired by indigenous ways. And I think that the indigenous science at the heart of the Open Space process is given profound expression–and invokes the dimensions of shamanic concourse–when people who live in a place meet together in Open Space to talk about their histories and shared future in that place.

This is a capacity for community healing which most attracts me to continue working with Open Space. Such grounding in place is one way to help remove the conversation from abstract realms and situate us into embodied, present-tense, relationship-oriented dialogue. Within such a context, the elements of Open Space enable a communal, creative, transformative, wayfinding journey for the participants.

Other contexts, such as seasonal and cultural calendars, may deepen the conversation further. Here I return to the notion of facilitating cultural exchanges in their fullness, as distinct from a generalizing, abstracting practice of knowledge creation.

Or another idea: placing Open Space within the context of a traditional ritual. I have often experienced junctures during the Pesach seder in which our rabbi has spoken powerfully about the opportunity which this ritual makes possible for the transformation of our communities–and I felt so drawn to stand up and “open some space” for conversations around the room, before we return to the text of the haggadah. He says that the seders in Israel often continue until nearly sunrise; I take it there is plenty of intense conversation, not to mention the use of “corrective processes” such as the four ritual glasses of wine.

I make other assumptions regarding the contexts in which these Open Spaces may resemble “shamanic concourse”. I believe that the power dynamics of the situation which brings participants into Open Space makes a difference. A meeting which not just invites and values but thoroughly honors the participation of each person is a requirement for success in any Open Space event. In an organizational setting this requires that the leadership let go of control over the outcome–although they may, in advance, announce specific boundaries in order to honor their responsibilities, and specific decision making processes into which the outcomes may be fed. (Owen 1997b, 69)

A deeper level of power dynamics can be seen in the makeup of the participants in an Open Space event. It is clear that race, family of origin, class, and other social divides and dynamics all have influence upon who participates, particulary in public Open Space events. I therefore do not assume that an event fairly draws on the panoply of voices available; any inquiry must pay attention to the social and cultural location of those who participate.

I believe that the thematic focus of the Open Space event plays a vital contextual role: to frame the meeting around a shared interest of the participants. Better for focused conversation is a theme which assumes a shared future for the participants (see Weisbord 1992); best for an event which evokes shamanic concourse would be a theme grounded in embodied daily life in the natural world, and the opportunity to explore the spiritual and intuitive as well as practical and relational realms of such life.

All that said, there is a problem: Most Open Space events meet some but rarely all of these criteria. The theme is usually based on a shared interest of the participants, often regarding a shared future for the participants, whether as part of an organization or community. And the power dynamics of the organization or community are usually kept in mind by the consultant who attempts to frame the event such that any resolutions that emerge will have a good chance of being formally approved and pursued.

But it is much less likely that seasonal calendars, natural cycles, or ways of knowing such as somatic and sexual would be highlighted in an Open Space event. Therefore, as I consider concourse as a second analytical tool for my inquiry into Open Space and whole mind, I consider it a model of what is possible rather than what is commonplace. Can Open Space lead toward concourse?