Crash Course in Nonviolent Communication

What are we learning being conscious social systems?


Peggy Holman, convened
Tracy, Anne Stadler, Tree Fitz, Gabriel Shirley, Finn, Michael Cook, Ashley Cooper . . . a few others may have come in but the notetaker was taking notes.  Please add your name(s) if you were present.

Discussion at the wall about merging Tom’s session.  His is focused with the strategy of salons over time.  This is focused on what are we learning from our experience in the here and now.

Harvesting, meta level of our own awareness. . .

I am literally seeing the carpet move (oriental!). . . it is rippling

What we are learning is doing this, using it as a practice

Things are moving faster in the group silence, bringing the silence in to the middle. . . it is about the collective . . . a presence with ourselves and a presence with the group. . .

I’m noticing the group silences have an intense sense of crucible, the chamber where the intense heat builds and allows us to refine the energy for ourselves.  We’ve now spent enough time together that we’ve had time to be in this container/crucible and burn off some of the ambient energy that we walked into the space with.  We are beginning to resonate in a collective field in the way we were not when we arrived.  I hear question floating around:  can we be intentional about getting to that place sooner?  Recognize, that is something to play with, not to require.  We play with idea we might get into the crucible but we don’t require it.

There is something about the nature of the call.  The invitation, the call that went out, that brought very disparate streams together.  There’s been a lot of uncomfortableness, fuzziness, about the exact nature of that call.  Many requests for clarity.  I’ve been noticing that every intention of making a clear call in one way or another has gone sideways.  It has remained a very soft intention.  I take that as what is called for in the moment.  Part of that is just noticing the role of evolution, we are not in charge aspect, some larger force operating  . . . I don’t think it is an operational thing.  The invocation is being sounded in a soft way, not a laser way.

What came up for me was communicative practice and how even that is vague to me.  Part of that is this invitation you have talked about.  I had some struggle through the whole process of wanting to know but knowing I probably shouldn’t because then I would shut down the possibilities, esp. with so many convergent possibilities coming together.  I’m not clear that there is a call to clarify.

Invitation.  I don’t know where I have landed on it.  There is an interesting. . . it collides into my second learning.  The power of social networks.  I believe the people here now is an illustration of the power of social networks.  The invite did nothing for me but the social connections interested me.  Those are people I would enjoy playing with so I came on the strength of that.  I believe that is true for a lot of others.  And then there were people called by the content.  I loved the metaphor of the dance this morning.  These three days have been a dance, an interest and some personal passion for a body of content, knowledge, that is cognitive and then another strong interest of social systems and what are some of the other currents. . . the practical designer in me says could we be more explicit in those kinds of invitations.  This is what it is and if I were involved or doing something similar in the future, what is the role of the invitation. . . context keeps coming up.

Was there an awareness in the planning that people would come form networks or did they think people would come form the invitation?

Out of first salon, came idea of conscious movement for increasingly conscious social systems.  So as we looked, we asked ‘what does that imply about who needs to be in the room?”  Tom made a list:  activists, evolutionary story, artists, etc.  Juanita, Tom, Peggy and Michael reached out to their networks.

I see a parallel between question of silence and invitation.  In terms of both, the extent to which my heart is open.  I can feel it and sense it, silence is the etent to which the depth of silence grows in me.  The extent to which, by, which the invitation comes from this place of inner silence and heartfulness, which is whatever the innerness of the call is is where the clarity I seek is in the invitation.  I see all of this is possible in this invitation.  Nexus of several impulses, a field that spoke to me, to me this is totally critical in the invitations that we issue now.  I think we don’t have a clue what we really want to have clarity about.  I think we do have a clue that aif we come together with open hearts and allow ourselves to be in a place where the forms that we use allow us to mingle and receive guidance, we will get the clues we will need to get to the work.

The role of the invitation is to transmit the quality of the field that we want to convene.

I felt that invite from Peggy because of my social connection.

I didn’t read the invite carefully.  I knew the invitation was what I thought.

The deeper the listener of the convenors, the more magnetic the appeal of the invitational note.  It is a magnetic invitation, soul to soul.  I saw invite and it wasn’t about that.  It was a call and I got the call.  Around what didn’t really matter, in the end it is all about the same thing.  It is about how we respond to life.

It so fits the experience I have been noticing here.  For me, the experience itself has been noticing the flow of the energy, has been personally richer than the content.  I haven’t shown up in any content sessions.  It was not where I was meant to be.  I have been aware of this quickening in very rapid form of increasintg consciousness in the way people are showing up here.  I was calling it turns the other day, in terms of conflict that might have taken weeks resolving itself in hours.  Or things that go awry quickly finding path back.  The energetics is, somehow, isn’t in the content and that is consistent with the call.  The call was far more than the content.  It was in the quality of the asking.

The group capacity emerged to take care of something right within the group.

The form of the container was being disrespected.  Since that charge moment, I’ve generalized it to say I think there is real value is being conscientious in the magic of creating a form and a container and respecting it. *****

Yes, and the learning being, evolving that container further. . .

The resilience of the container. . . .

It might have even happened more quickly if we had just gone to silence and not felt a necessity to present our own points of view about how this should happen.  If you go to silence, often, whoever speaks has whatever the collective wisdom is.  It is right there.  It is in the field but we are not listening while we are expressing our own viewpoints.

We are learning that now what could or should have been done, at that time we collectively had opportunity to use the container, to use silence and make use of it.

What is rich in regards of the container, it was whittling down what is essential in the container. . . .

We haven’t yet been consciously transparent that we are all holding space here. . . in the whole circles.  There is something tremendously powerful that invites people to step up and take responsibility in the whole.

It is both leading/holding and participating.  I have been challenged to be present in everything I am doing it.  

Re:  my role (Peggy speaking):  the idea of building a movement was certainly in the thread of conversation, it wasn’t until I was here, using the evening reflections that I realized that it is a practice of nourishing a community.  It’s criticality to the event might be secondary but nurturing the community it is vital.  It has made me aware of how much those meetings have been the meta meeting.  They are the learning aobut our learning.  I think it has been part of this exceleration, the intentionality that has come through has been of the quality of attention that has gone in to those conversations.  My own personal role has been to become clear of holding space for that quality of community building to take shape.  

The other piece is I have physically experienced being that container, knowing that as fast I could I wanted to grow that so more of us were holding the field. We are all holding this field.  It has shaped the quality of the energy and my physical response has been that last night I got a good night sleep.  It was a huge energetic learning, no matter how much I was allowing to whatever wanted to show up. . .the larger capacity was her ein the room.

And today, I (Peggy) called a session) so I have been able to move more into service.

I hear that the edge is the consciousness of the system being able to hold space for itself to emerge.

I fully get that at a meta level, things are as they should be.  I am also curious at a purely cognitive level. . . it seems like the the great cosmic story is kinda the story that was put out as the thread on which we could hang things. . . it could have bene other things but that is what showed up.  I think there is a certain amount and energy that can be set at ease by having that thread be really clear.

We could have had Michael present Thursday night and it would have been a different conference.

With the journalism work, Fetzer’s mission is love and forgiveness.  Fetzer made awesome link between love and forgiveness as first small event.  Then with thirty more people. . a different person was doing it and then the link between love and forgiveness was never made at the second event but at the end of the conference there was an embodied sense of the connection and if they had been told about it, they would not have gotten it

We’ve spun the thread out of our own being, which I think is the calling.  Michael was telling us what the threads were but we are called to spin them our of ourselves.    The ability to allow for constant upgrading and being invited to let it emerge out of ourselves. . . we are living our own story so we are the living story and we are inviting others to live in our own story. . .

Thinking of Practice of Peace:  time was set aside to share his message, it was his energetic spark that brought the event together. . . it provided the thread for those that needed the thread, grounding for those who needed it . . . but what happened after went everywhere. . . .I am curious is what would have been the different tension if we had taken care of some of this.  If some of the surface had been removed, maybe some of the juicier tensions might have had space to emerge.  Burn things off, off gas, get to the essence. . . we are getting to beautiful essence but I am curious from a design perspective:  are there other ways?

There were three and a half of us holding the container and I was really clear that it was not going to be enough.    One of the things I new would come out of this would be a larger opening so there can and will be people holding. . .

This morning:  if one is opening space and it is clear at the beginning what the foundation of opening space is, which is take responsibility for what you love, and recogtnizing that every one in the circle is going to be bringing something of great value to whatever form we use. . . then that perspective and that starts with the convening. . . it informs the forms so that the world café opening is all part of the opening of space. . . whatever the form in the marketplace is part of opening space. . . .it is not:  now we are going to do open space.  We are still captivated, at some level, at some distinctions about form, which get in the way of understanding where that is coming from.  Maybe the field as not quite grounded in the welcoming of all the different forms that can open space.  It might make it difficult, it would then create slight tension in the evolutionary process to stepping into another part of the open form.

It has felt to me like the overall container, I was less clear about the overall container than about the specific pieces.

I am questioning whether the form of the café is valuable where it was used. . . maybe that is not the form for the process at that point. . . was the world café on Sunday morning the right container.

That is a great design question that should be asked but anne is talking about something a bit different. . . if the energy for the space is set from the getgo, whatever forms that show up and whatever happens, the forms are in service. . .

If you see it all as one and it isn’t” Here’s the piece that is world café, here is the marketplace, there is a different energetic alive in the field. . . howsabout world café at suppertime?  Then it is a part of the whole, part of the palette that we are all working with

The forms are there to serve. . . we have sorta become aware of different stages:  sounding of call, gathering, relationship, building community, collective inquiry, then harvesting, then carrying it out. . . if those are the phases, whatever form is needed to preserve us through. . . if you plan it ahead of time, how malleable is that?  I am looking for forms that can resond in the moment to the sense of the wisdom in the group.

Not sure if this is happening or if it is my own dissonance:  there is not clarity about what this event is.  I don’t think there is a unity of resonance among the people who have called the gathering themselves. . .

The invitation has attracted more people than are here. . . a LOT more people. . . that says more than we are unclear. . .