Revision of Practices to support ”inquiry from the middle” from April 26, 2008 - 13:21

To find ”the magic in the middle”, or to engage the collective intelligence of a group of people, requires that a meeting actually happens, that the participants are capable of bringing themselves present and be available for the meeting. We can not take that for granted under all circumstances. Being in real meeting can be challenging individually and socially, so practices to support processes, where ”inquiry from the middle” is intended, can be of value.

Here I suggest what some of these practices can be. A practice is an established understanding, supported by a pattern of behaviour, sustained and repeated over time and circumstances. There can be all levels of unfoldment of a practice - from initiatory experiences to mastery and teaching level insight.


Personal practices

1. Inquiry

With a metaphor: Inquiry is to be able to go to the edge of what I know, and from there look at what I do not know, with open eyes and curiosity. Inquiry as a practice is a state of mind. Taken to mastery-level, all of what I do can be done as an inquiry.


2. Stretch

Standing at the edge of what I know, looking into what I do not know, and from there taking bold steps into the unknown. The bold steps can be physcial, mental, emotional. They always require my choice to do it, and there will always be uncertainty about outcomes. There are in any given moment and circumstance always possiblities for stretch.


3.  For the sake of contributing or being seen

The practice is about being willing to and open for whether my way of being present, of participating  and contributing, of relating to others is informed by the intention to contribute to the larger purpose that has brought us together, or if I am really more doing what I am doing in order to be seen.

The point is, that the practice is not about what my actual behaviour is – it probably sometimes is for the sake of the whole and sometimes for the sake of myself – the practice is about my willingness to access this theme with regard to myself.


Social practices

4. Being silent together

One thing is to be able to be silent on your own, to settle the activity of body, mind and heart into silence. It is another thing to be able to do this together. It is a practice that can be developed by excercise.

Silence together can take the form of just a few minutes break from activity, but staying present together, with attention on the whole of the group. It can also take the form of practicing meditation together, for instance as a start of a days work together.


5. Reflecting on process

As a social skill this practice is about being able to go into a reflection on what is going on right now in the inquiry-process. It can be supported by a common framework for understanding the unfolding of process in stages. The skill is to be able to reflect on the process without creating a division between me/us and the process, that is without objectifying the process. ”I sense this in me.....! I think what I sense in me relates to what we are doing right now in this way....!”.


6. Listening for what is emerging

What can happen now in this stage of the inquiry, what wants to be said, what can now be named?

As a participant in an inquiry from the middle I shall think of my self as one that potentially can give voice to the middle. As the middle does not have physical manifest form it does not have voice it self.


7. Hang in until a pattern appears

Each participant in a meeting can be as a backdoor kept open while we fire up the house to heat it. Keeping the backdoor open happens if I am not fully committed and decided on participating and staying in the inquiry.

The social skill is about being able to negotiate, confirm and notice each others commitment to hang in.


8. Using tools to remember to go slow

As the energy in a proces that engages magic in the middle can be very intense, and thus require fine atunement in how each participant is engaging beyond what most people normally have experiences with, it is helpfull to remember to go slow in the proces as the energy gets intense.

Use of a talking stick or the like, invocating silence with a bell and other such practical agreements helps. They should not be used all the time – that would establish rules – but agreements can be made on how and when the tools can be put in use.

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There are probably more useful practices to be discovered. I have found the ones mentioned here consistenly making sense in repeated experiences and experiments with engaging magic in the middle over the last two years. This is true both for processes where the purpose of engaging magic in the middle were explicitly stated, and in proceses where I as a procesfacilitater used magic in the middle in a specific inquiry, but without stating this perspective and these practices explicitely.

I have also written about inquiring from the middle in a reflection on a session during Evolution Salon 2, and in an introduction to Magic in the Middle. I recommend the article Archetypal Practices for Collective Wisdom by Tom Hurley. I think he is adressing the same themes, from other perspectives and in more depth, than I have done here.

April 2006
Finn Voldtofte