Chris Corrigan Papers

Two papers I have recently written that may be of interest to those in the hosting community:

• Six obeservations about seeing
  
• Language and leadership for dialogue

Enjoy!

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Mapping Dialogue

From Zaid Hassan at WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Mapping Dialogue:

"Those of us working for social change should have one key idea flash-burned into our consciousness. If the communities we wish to benefit have not participated or been involved in decision making processes then there will be a lack of ownership and the initiative will most likely fail (if not sooner then certainly later). This key idea is forgotten again and again and the results are sadly predictable. Dialogue is a key tool in ensuring that this particular trap is avoided. Given the frequency with which this particular trap appears on the landscape of social change and development projects, a map to the terrain is no bad thing to be carrying.

Produced by Pioneers of Change (whom I have worked for in the past), 'Mapping Dialogue' is a research project profiling dialogue tools and processes for social change. It was written and published out of Johannesburg, South Africa and commissioned by GTZ (the German development co-operation agency) as part of their support for the Nelson Mandela Foundation's dialogue programme. This means that it is not only cognizant of African realities but also richly draws upon them."

37days: Choose your seatmates wisely

37days: Choose your seatmates wisely:

"On this flight we call life, choose your seatmates wisely. Sit with people you would embrace while going down, who won’t hog the armrest or steal your peanuts or take your in-flight magazine. Sit instead with people who will comfort you when you’re scared, who you would take off your sharp jewelry and glasses for, who you would give up your time at the pool for."

The light returns

The season of light returning to the world is upon us. This illuminated tree was a gift from a foggy day in November here on Bowen Island. The land still offers its inspiration to you.

May 2006 be a year of light and peace for hosting colleagues and fellows worldwide.

Solstice Greetings . . .

Although the Winter Solstice passed a few days ago, it is one of my favorite days of the year and the only holiday that I celebrate during this time of the year. (In case you didn't notice, I'm a much bigger fan of Halloween than I am of X-mas!)

My dear colleague Bob S. sent out this beautiful poem celebrating the dark, pensive and reflective nature of these short, cold days. Some of you may also have received it . . . I definitely wanted to share it with you, my dear AoH family:

Snowy Night
by Mary Oliver

Last night, an owl
in the blue dark
tossed
an indeterminate number

of carefully shaped sounds into
the world, in which,
a quarter of a mile away, I happened
to be standing.

I couldn't tell
which one it was,
the barred or the great-horned
ship of the air,

it was that distant. But, anyway,
aren't there moments
that are better than knowing something,
and sweeter? Snow was falling,

so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more

than prettiness. I suppose
if this were someone else's story
they would have insisted on knowing
whatever is knowable would have hurried

over the fields
to name it - the owl, I mean.
But it’s mine, this poem of the night,
and I just stood there, listening and holding out

my hands to the soft glitter
falling through the air. I love this world,
but not for its answers.
And I wish good luck to the owl,

whatever its name
and I wish great welcome to the snow,
whatever its severe and comfortless
and beautiful meaning.

© Mary Oliver

Hold the Heartstone . . .

Painting from our second virtual circle call. Lots of love to you all this holiday season. Enjoy!

Mastery in practice

A classic Taoist story. I love the line "now I go out to meet it with my whole spirit and don’t think only about what meets the eye."

Ting the cook was cutting meat free from the bones of an ox for Lord Wen-hui. His hands danced as his shoulders turned with the step of his foot and bending of his knee. With a shush and a hush, the blade sang following his lead, never missing a note. Ting and his blade moved as though dancing to “The Mulberry Grove,” or as if conducting the “Ching-shou” with a full orchestra.

Lord Wen-hui exclaimed, “What a joy! It’s good, is it not, that such a simple craft can be so elevated?”

Ting laid aside his knife. “All I care about is the Way. If find it in my craft, that’s all. When I first butchered an ox, I saw nothing but ox meat. It took three years for me to see the whole ox. Now I go out to meet it with my whole spirit and don’t think only about what meets the eye. Sensing and knowing stop. The spirit goes where it will, following the natural contours, revealing large cavities, leading the blade through openings, moving onward according to actual form — yet not touching the central arteries or tendons and ligaments, much less touching bone.

“A good cook need sharpen his blade but once a year. He cuts cleanly. An awkward cook sharpens his knife every month. He chops. I’ve used this knife for nineteen years, carving thousands of oxen. Still the blade is as sharp as the first time it was lifted from the whetstone. At the joints there are spaces, and the blade has no thickness. Entering with no thickness where there is space, the blade may move freely where it will: there’s plenty of room to move. Thus, after nineteen years, my knife remains as sharp as it was that first day.

“Even so, there are always difficult places, and when I see rough going ahead, my heart offers proper respect as I pause to look deeply into it. Then I work slowly, moving my blade with increasing subtlety until — kerplop! — meat falls apart like a crumbling clod of earth. I then raise my knife and assess my work until I’m fully satisfied. Then I give my knife a good cleaning and put it carefully away.”

Lord Wen-hui said, “That’s good, indeed! Ting the cook has shown me how to find the Way to nurture life.”

Translated by Sam Hamill and J.P. Seaton (The Essential Chuang Tzu, 1998)

Rivendell Revived!

Aerin captures the follow-up

More magic at Rivendell

Rivendell above the fog

Friends -- today I was at Rivendell and the fog was socked in on the channel below. We were in starling sunlight above the pea soup below. I went up on the hill behind the building to photograph it as the elves might have imagined it: floating in the sky above the clouds.

I was there to harvest learnings from a process that I co-lead in Victoria. My partner Lyla Brown and I were facilitating the Aboriginal engagement process for the Victoria Urban Development Agreement.

We used several hosting processes for the work we were doing, culminating in a one day community open space with a half day cafe designed to create strategies for keeping the ideas alive. There is more information and links to photos at my Parking Lot weblog.

My partner and our client decided that we needed to escape to Rivendell to harvest learnings about the process and help to organize our report. As a result of being back in that environment (we used the same room) we were able to get a handle on the heart language that we will use to create the report that conveys the richness of what happened in our work. When that report is finished, I'll post here so you can all have a copy.

At any rate, I thought you might appreciate having this view of Rivendell on a magical November day.

Some offline resources

In response to Lenore's post of a couple of minutes ago, I am linking to an ever evolving list of books that I find especially useful to share with people when they want to know more about this work.

Lenore, perhaps a thing to do would be to begin to add links in the sidebar of the blog to lists of resources such as these and the resources at Berkana. You can do that by editing the template and replacing the links that say "Edit Me."