Feedback from Jack Semura

1)What are the things you valued most?

In the evening of the first day of Evolutionary Salon I said: “I fly 10,000 miles to be here but expect nothing, because I know that I will gain something.” And I gained some insights about self-organizing process, experiencing the process of contemplative seeing and thinking and many deep connections with some remarkable people.

I love the emerging conversation or accidental conversation at the “periphery”. Sometimes you start a “polite” conversation and then it turned to be reflective and generative conversations that you didn't intended. It was an emergence of new quality of thought, a “fresh thought or fresh eyes” for both of us. Or sometimes we started our conversation in early morning at the kitchen table in the Farm House and then we immersed ourselves in the subject that we started to make inquiry and we learned intuitively something “new”. The evolutionary salon at Cinook Center were packed with a lot of high quality participants that made a very intense but relax atmosphere for experiential learning that generate and deepen collective intelligence. I never have so much deep and thoughtful conversations that occurred everyday as I did in Cinook Center.

2) What advice do you have for those organizing the next salon?

I am very satisfied with everything from supporting staff (specially Terri, our “mama” and our host “Joy”),  food, accommodation etc .There is one thing, I myself also struggle with it. “How to make ‘reflection forum’ in the evening into more effective, reflective dialogue?” It is a very difficult task for every facilitator to make people reflect without “thinking”. How can we see the “whole” and “talking whole” without to be in the whole group (plenary session)?

3) How do you imagine your gifts contributing to the future of this movement (of which Evolutionary Salons are but a part)?

I consider myself as a node in evolutionary networks (salon) in South-east Asia, which could evolve as a hub in Asia in the future. Or I could be one of the memes in the evolutionary thought contagious, and my work now in Thailand is already a part of evolutionary edge. I may share my works and learning with other evolutionary persons to foster  “fractals” of  evolutionary salons.