Human to Human

From one of those periods that has felt like in a blink a day turns into a week.

• Meeting here on the US Mexico border in El Paso. With healthcare leaders to focus on community health issues. http://yfrog.com/es37uanij
• Mothers Day breakfast on the deck with Teresa, Patrick, Kate. Sunny Seattle is nice! http://yfrog.com/ocxjubuj
• Back at the Secret Garden with much blooming. http://yfrog.com/esgg6hrj
• Big need and suggestion for RFI – a community engagement and continuous learning strategy. #rfc2012
• Alternative to “outsourcing” = “ruralsourcing” #rfc2012
• Matthew Rezac – “I take it as a given that we live in a highly networked world, which requires relationships and welcome.” Spot on. #rfc2012
• Sam Cordes asking witnessing and reflection questions to close the conference. Hopes. Challenges. #rfc2012
• Innovation comes from the meetings at the edge – people in relationship. Integrating imagination. Welcoming many answers. #rfc2012
• Open Space Conversations underway. 1 of 2 rounds. 17 topics. 200 people engaging & learning together. http://yfrog.com/ny779jsj #rfc2012
• Inspiring scale of vision for rural futures institute for Nebraska, The Great Plains. Bold to invite 400 people to its birth. #rfc2012
• With world population expected to be at 9.5 billion in 50 years, where will food and energy come from? Rural communities. #rfc2012
• Nebraska Gov Heineman opening Rural Futures Conference #rural_futures. Inviting innovation and integration of effort. Glad to host here.
• For World Cafe hosts, here’s a set of guidelines from my son’s first grade Reading Comprehension corner. Enjoy. http://yfrog.com/o0adkwej
• Just arrived in Seattle. Meeting Teresa, Chris, and Sono to work with NW tribal leaders and EPA.

OK, you know how you sometimes need a pause to catch your breath? This is one of those moments. One of those posts. In a blink, a month has passed. I’ve been in very full and focussed time. Important work. Important friendships. And seven different beds to sleep in.

A few of the stopping points include:

Tribal Leaders Summit — Co-hosting with my friends Sono, Chris, and Teresa an EPA Region 10 Summit in Grand Ronde, Oregon. It was hosting an Open Space part of the meeting for one day. 200 people. To explore needed collaboration on several key issues like (water, waste, air, climate change, salmon, trust relations). It was an invited intersection of traditional knowledge and western science. I took point on a harvest process and document for this one.
Rural Futures Conference — Co-hosting with Teresa a collaborative effort across four universities in Nebraska to birth a Rural Futures Institute. Again, we hosted an Open Space part of the meeting for 200 people. It was impressive to see the university system invite partnership and collaboration in their community. To look into the future of food and energy from a plains perspective. To have so much support across the region.
El Paso, Texas Community Conversation — This one had particular focus on retaining medical talent in the area. We used the Art of Hosting pattern to address the overall trend, particularly for family practice physicians of increased community need, yet with decreased availability (and retirement) of physicians. Teresa Posakony and I held this one together with a local calling team. In addition to hosting,  I offered a landscape map on whiteboards.

Grateful for good learnings with good people in these three efforts.

• Good call today with friend Brenna Atnikov in Calgary on Community Development Leadership project.
• Isaac, Elijah and I experimenting with Catnip / Catmint from the garden, drying it for tea. http://yfrog.com/hshovfmj
• About to start a 5K in support of Elijah’s school. 🙂 http://yfrog.com/nz6gncfj
• Great ideas from pal Chris Corrigan. He has been a core teacher for me about invitations, offerings, and practices. http://bit.ly/IWmAgF
• Meeting my friend to explore creating a local health and wellness network. Excited.
• Elijah cheesehead from WI. Didn’t take him long to put it on backward and call it gangsta-cheesehead. http://yfrog.com/mnmnjtbj
• Another good call today with Nebraska Rural Futures Conference Team focusing on how to integrate conference learning.
• Great call today with Alicia at Rural Ontartio Institute. Starting to imagine a fall conference team and design.
• Just finished reading Lynne Twist’s The Soul of Money. Excellent! http://www.soulofmoney.org/about/about-lynne-twist/

This is a phrase that I was reminded of recently in reading some of Meg Wheatley’s writings — optical delusions. In Meg’s writings, these were in a context of a number of unexamined prevailing stories that much of humanity is now living. For example, the story of the importance of unquestioned growth and the greed and scarcity dynamics that come with this. Also, the obsession much of our society has with metrics and the detriment in richness that is created from an imposed measurement hungry culture. Also, the call to remember wholeness. The illusion and delusion of separation has done much to over-run and over-use many of the resources on this planet, including the now often dormant inner resources and imagination of many human beings. Ah, so much to sit with in all of this.

In another related experience this week I went to a lecture, a “Last Class” given by one of my grad school professors, Bonner Ritchie. Bonner has been teaching for 45 years at the university level. This was his 99th semester. Bonner was a person that helped me to see some of those delusions 20 years ago. He helped me to see and name some of the beliefs that already resided in me, and that I was probably afraid to speak out loud back then. As I listened to Bonner, I began to remember some of beliefs that have shaped so much of who I am and how I think now. One was the belief that “all is not as it seems.” I later came to fill that in from a perceptual psychology and quantum perspective to add, “and all is as it seems at the same time.” I remember Bonner also talking about new truths. “Every new truth is just the next best lie about what is really going on.” Or, “In every new truth, there is more that false in that truth than there is true in that truth.” Again, much to sit with

I think I’ve always been a person that believes there is much delusion. There must be more that is happening. I’ve always been a person that hungers for next edges of learning, and the essential consciousness shift to get to some of that learning. Today is a day to notice and honor two important teachers for me. Thanks Meg. Thanks Bonner.