Women leadership in creating online sacred space

Ria, Ashley & Sheri – April 1, 2006
Skype call – Notes initially by Sheri with additions by Ashley and Ria.

Initially this call was convened to hear Ashley share about the girl geeks gathering. It grew into Ria sharing more about the evolution of Moving the Edge and how some of these threads wove into the Boulder gathering. Each of these circles and gatherings are distinct, with different characteristics, and different momentums in terms of their own unfolding and how that can be expressed. We want to acknowledge this piece as a way of not trying to find just the threads that are weaving and that we are discovering between them all, but as a way of seeing how their differences can ultimately serve the whole of our evolutionary community. This is a conversation that is just beginning.

Entering into our meditation space, what are some words or themes:

Women’s leadership
Sacred online space

Image offered by Ashley that we shared going into our meditation:

SILENCE

CHECK-IN
Ashley – just come out of two days being sick; one day back into my school world. No reflection of the girls gathering yet. Excited about this call to do some of that. Thankful for your invitation Ria. So much attention is on my stomach…stomach is hard….gravitating down there. Interesting centering of everything in that field of my body.

Ria – had a day with Andrew Cohen: …good, inspiring. New insights were dropping down on me. I’m really curious about what you girls did last weekend. Finished a phone call with Judy Wallace (US) from moving the edge, doing a study on conscious evolution and she’s making a paper and she was asking me to reflect on MtE for her paper… full of good energy.

Sheri – How to communicate when we are not together? The different circles and the different contexts? To find my place, as a woman; wanting deep dialogue; holding space for our evolution together… thrilled and exited.

We each attended a different gathering recently:…boulder, moving the edge, girl gathering….

IMAGE ON OUR SCREEN REMINDING US: This image of jelly fish and its lessons on transparency and vulnerability and the silent invitation.

GiGi’s – Girl Geeks, Ashley

There were 8 of us present and the idea was to come with the awareness of: What is the role of the feminine in online space? With the awareness of the world café at the forefront, but bigger than WC, how it applies in each of our worlds… This type of invitation around one specific purpose that connects to many larger purposes kept resurfacing in our gathering, noted as a powerful way to invite.

And invitations in general. What is the art of invitation? When feminine essence is infused in an invitation it reaches into heart space, into relational space. In that theme of inviting, we found a lot of power.
I invite you to look at the picture created in our space on the first night
http://www.flickr.com/photos/78084501@N00/119916396/
…I’ll use it to explain where we were coming from and what was emerging for us that first day.

We came with a big YES. And then a dam broke! (see pictures)
The dam broke and the computer and keyboard are there, and the eyeball is a globe.
There was this big blockage against the relation of everything that is unfolding, that is CI, and all the memes, and how all that feeds into the online world and technology. So in the first day, we were sharing the stories of how we all came to this and discovering little pieces of knowledge we have about tech and other such stuff. There was a real sense of something being birthed and we were unclear about what that was. I think that is something powerful about the feminine, its capacity to hold the presence of something birthing but not needing to know what it is and not rushing to fill in the space. In this case (the picture) it's a pomegranate. Swirling and electricity. There is not the hurry to go in and DO and make clear and make known… it is as if what is emerging and the unknown empty space has to incubate. Letting that unfold.

Here's the final drawing:
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=119916552&size=o

Powerful concept: the role of the feminine for bridging.

Bridging capacity for dualities, for conflicts: Social systems and social networks and process arts and relation to tech. All these dualities kept showing up and the vision of how we see them going together. Seeming impossible. The online world actually is helping to train people to be more present in the face to face world. We were really sinking into what are our roles as bridges, bridging capacity. Then a raven landed, as we emphasized this piece, the raven opened its wing, dropped a bone and cleaned it.

Cleansing in service of bridging

As we’re at a place of so many different memes and modalities, there’s a need to include and embrace that which is most essential and transcend that which needs to be transcended. The place of cleansing: we often don’t recognize what needs to let go. We often grasp what we need to let go! Cleansing in service of bridging and honoring the wholeness.

See the graphic image: the dam… it was beautiful and whole as a dam. It was needed for whatever reasons to exist as a dam. And it needed to be broken through. The need to be attentive to what needs to be cleansed. To what we’re holding on to. What we’re clutching instead of embracing and discerning what really is in service now for the greatest good. In other times, the dam was essential. And yet now, it no longer serves us…..but it needed to be there.

ATTACHMENT

Another piece, and this piece I really centered around The World Café … I really value about TWC how it brings aesthetics in, it invites and shows people how to do these things (visually express ourselves) in new ways, easy ways. And hosting, TWC offers an on the spot beginning intro into being a host. People get to experience that and learn tips for doing it. I value the experiential teaching that is being offered through those two pieces.

The presence of heart. The feminine of heart. We are not just the presence of heart, we are guides for heart. There’s a lot of openness and readiness to receive the feminine flowing through, there also needs to be that complementing guiding/direction orientedness (masculine) on how to actually engage and be with in new ways. The women who were there have strong masculine aspects as well, we had that integrated in a way.


Another thing I valued was that Juanita was interested in how does the technology effect the largest population. How does technology reach every day people?

Nancy gave us a tour about tools that are already out there, that already exist: Flickr, tagging. Fernanda and I were exploring the relationship between tagging and taxonomy of content. TOC is defined already and tagging is evolving, everyone is creating them. So you can follow what the greatest whole is defining and have the taxonomy. The balance of those two.

BEAUTY

We talked a lot about beauty. Nancy W. had only been the one working on the drawing and then during the conversation about beauty 4 more people joined. It birthed new capacities. On one of the walks, we explored "what is the essence of beauty?", listening and paying attention to reflections in the natural world. How do these things translate into online world? symbols and metaphors. How can we be as generic as possible and yet as evocative as possible?

Beauty online

One of the valuable things was to surf the web together. Getting a group of people together, really starting an exploration into beauty online together. Meeting regularly. Last easily amazed meditation…images, were the language of the meditation. Deepen that conversation.

Beauty – bridging and cleansing…

Beauty as it relates to other means of expression….i can feel it when I stumble upon it.

Biggest thing that birthed – the whole that we could finally name was recognizing that we see the potential for creating some sort of common language in online space that links all of these evolutionary and process oriented arts, that are weaving into this same vibrant whole. So looking at the open space world and world café and evolutionary salons and evolutionary nexus, moving the edge. What if there is a common language online? What if they use the same symbols?

Ria named it: WE ARE BUILDING AN ONLINE CULTURE.

At the end we tried to define our guiding inquiry:

THE FEMININE STEWARDSHIP OF TECHNOLOGY IN SERVICE TO COMMUNITY….and then we took off community to be more inclusive, and then we added it back and added relationships, and left it that it was evolving!

Ria – Moving the Edge

What touched me most is the building of this online culture. You named it common language. I wrote something about this: Beyond events. What we are doing or learning or creating is a collective capacity that is not just related to these salons and the next gathering. It’s a growing of a culture of a community, a big community of people who are inventing their language and habits and…. like starting with silence and using the bell, working with the talking stick. Finn calls it social technologies.

And it’s great that beauty comes in. In MTE we made a beginning with bringing in movement and dance. First we spoke about it, at a certain moment it just happened. It was natural that it happened. That will become part of the culture too.

The other learning from MTE: the ‘success’ of the gathering is in a large part due to the convening of the hosting team who was a really a collective being, which kind of opened up and embracing all participants but it was actually one flow. On the 3rd day in the afternoon, it was magic! As a hosting team, the first evening we did this kind of reflecting back like we did in the salon: How was the day and how will we facilitate the next day? We decided not to facilitate and to just let the field work. So the leadership was there for everybody. A lot of things happened in the group, little pieces of emotions and pains and things like that and it was all possible to have it in the container. The second evening people were asking: Are we having a meeting about facilitation? I don’t know, but you are already the 5th person to ask, so maybe it is. There was a facilitating meeting with everyone who felt called to go there, but not Finn or I. It was a big shift.

The next day Finn announced world café, we had tables, flowers and then something happened and again we were sitting in the big circle and giving it attention. In the afternoon this real CircleBeing, came to life. It was magic. This kind of listening to the middle, speaking to the middle with nobody saying so and everyone did.

That too is building a collective capacity, building a culture of how can we be really a collective. How can we have such a big container that everything can happen what needs to happen.

Peggy has some hand motions for these things. We talked about a container with our hands as a bowl, and then flat and that’s a field, and then hands behind our back, because we don’t really need them.

Building of an online culture: What do we do to create this culture, to bridge the different languages? to connect these communities? Back to the bridging!
Every community builds its own culture. When we have gatherings, rituals, own language, own symbols; that’s what makes it a community.

Ashley - Two things that jumped to me in regards to that are:

1. Peggy’s insight to follow the energy that is present!
2. Anne Dosher inviting us to ask: What are the minimal, elegant next steps?

Sheri – Boulder Sacred Circle

I am a bridge weaver and I love this image that you shared Ashley of the bridging work that women are doing. I feel this energy. I am still in the gestation and integration phase of my experience in Boulder and it was so rich and deep that I need to reflect and perhaps write more before I can share as clearly as both of you have done. We are starting to do this. Eric has begun this process and I have been inspired to join by writing up a deeper reflection piece. We have a sacred circle wiki that is beginning and we are doing the initial gardening and nurturing together and I see the fruits of our time together being shared with our larger community as things move further in the birthing process. Your description Ashley of how the feminine holds the patience of the birthing process and the patience to suspend wanting to know what is happening and what should we be doing feels so alive for me and was a strong theme in Boulder. This dance between the doing and the being and the unfolding of something we are creating and birthing together. The role of the women holding space and how we are learning how to all do this holding in the online building of our cultures. I am seeing these connections between all of our different cultures and communities. The power I feel is how we really begin to share our “best practices” and our learnings through these birthing processes together. I will also share that I am not always sure about how to hold space and what happens when I feel alone in doing this. And how perhaps that is when I must be even more patient with myself during this birthing.

Ashley – sensing into all that I heard and felt from you Sheri, and this that you last spoke of, opening into what is holding space and what is clutching and holding on too tight? Playing with that duality, and the presence of what’s behind the deep emotion. They are touching something so potent and powerful that when we allow them out, we allow that power out into the whole.

Ria - Holding space when you were/are not part of the convening and hosting team is probably not really possible…

Our connection felt out/sensed into:

“A collective being … feeling its vulnerability in the manifest world and staying connected beyond..”

Ria – this is so rich this conversation! I’m trying to sense what is in the middle?

Holding
Birthing
New life forms
Birth pains

Feeling the center within me and how that center is the same as the center of we…. the middle of me is the middle of the whole…

Holding the space, the bridging of the dualities. Holding space big enough so that dualities can be in it and can be embraced.

That connects in with my image: The bridge that is the connection between the center of me and the whole that is the same…

Awareness of women’s role: is changing in this birth process and a great, exponential kind of responsibility for holding space for this..

Feeling it all fluttering through…

Birthing process for ourselves: I don’t know who I am and I’m in love with who I’m becoming…

This culture that is birthing itself and how in love I am what is becoming!!

A big lesson is releasing some of the stress of what you’ve been holding, that emotional release of holding space and a real letting go of trying. I don’t feel attached to trying to create anything with nexus…and yet I’m so passionately in love with this opportunity to create. Follow the energy that’s present and that’s flowing. And not push against and force where it doesn’t get us anywhere.

Not trying, but a flowing!

This brings me great insight into how I hold my own dissonance and how I can bridge the dualities I experience. And to flow with the river. I can not push or try, I can flow. And move around the large boulder in the stream. And I love what Ashley said about maybe stopping and sitting with the boulder as well and basking in the sun might be a great thing to try as well. I love this image. It allows me to be free to love what is, moment by moment.

Thank you ladies!