I have had an interesting few days working with Aboriginal leadership from around North America. In Michigan last week, I helped convene 24 folks interested in what indigenous leadership means, and today I am here in Port McNeil BC, hosting a community to community forum between First Nations and local governments. One of the things that folks in the rest of indigenous North America don’t realize about the cultures of the west coast is how radically different they are from the cultures of the plains, desert and forests of the rest of North America. This is true in many ways, …
Following a great talk from Gil Fronsdel on how self is constructed, I had a nice insight yesterday about personal identity. Fronsdel says that when something happens, there are three things going on: There is the reality There is what we think about the reality There is the “I” that is thinking. These are conditional, that is, they depend on and arise from each other. When I see something, I think something about it and my self in strengthened. For example: It’s raining today I hate rainy days. I’m not suited to living in a rainforest! In Buddhism, …
Last year I was invited to give a talk on the shapes of community engagement for a conference sponsored by the BC Treaty Commission called Forging Linkages and Finding Solutions. This is the slide deck I used and here is a transcript of my talk.
In many large group processes I use, small groups are asked to facilitate some of the process. Recently, on the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation mailing list, there was a call for easy guides to help people facilitate these kinds of groups. Turns out that there is lots out there, including: 37 guides collected on NCDD’s own website Some resources from a climate dialogue project in Seattle The Conversation Cafe guidelines Bare bones version of the Let’s Talk America guidelines More detailed issue guides from the Everyday Democracy project And a few more that I use: Hosting …
From my dear friend Peggy Holman: A few weeks ago, I spontaneously created a new form of convergence with a group of about 20. I think it can work well with groups of 60 or less, and perhaps with groups up to 100 or so. I was intending to do what I always do these days – follow the energy and re-open the space for what has heart and meaning for taking a next step. Instead, because the meeting was intended to both give the group a chance to bond as well as set priorities for their work, something …