March 28, 2009
From SolSeed
Contents |
Opening Words & Reflections (5 min)
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells, Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.
--from As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Dragonflies Dráw Fláme by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Check In (10 min)
Lion: saw Art, new people, vision focusing, focusing in general -- "Confessions" by Mark Driscoll, http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Reformission-Rev-Leadership-Innovation/dp/0310270162
- Join Me! by Danny Wallace http://www.amazon.com/Join-Me-Danny-Wallace/dp/0452285011/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238253016&sr=1-1
Brandon: Reflecting on poem... Everything cries out being itself. At work, I seem to create conflict...
Shelley: likes as well; relates another song "all my organs doing their jobs, no help from me" - whales swimming "it just does what it does"
Arthur: saw everyone present in his travels this week; "Lion was very gracious in our conversation, given how central the tenants of scientific thought are to what he's building." great spending time w/ everybody
Lion: I saw art this week, we met at Barbara Marx Hubbard video at IONS / Indra's Rainbow gathering, found 5 or 6 people interested in learning about Spiriata, trying to figure out how to carry that energy, I've made phone plans and will call them up ... this week has been about focusing ... reading about Mars Hill (book mentioned above) ... recommends the book because we are facing the same issues (recognized in first chapters areas we're already facing in Spiriata) ... when formal leadership? what to write down? ... growth issues all the way up to 10,000 ... I highly recommend the book
Brandon: SolSeed call - Brenna met someone while wearing jacket and didn't know what to say; We'll talk about later.
Topic - Stages of a Conversation (20 min)
Wisdom Course "stages of a conversation" / conversation with trajectory
Distinctions from Landmark Wisdom Course
If you have a new vision/conversation/idea that you want to engage people in. Think of Sol Seed / Spiriata / "Unnamed" Church as a new kind of conversation that nobody else is really having. How do you take it from the level of non-existence to the point where EVERYONE is inside that conversation and it seems weird to think that there was ever a time that it wasn't like that?
Example: Brushing your teeth. There was a time NOBODY did it. What was it like for the first people who tried to spread that idea? Now it is so ubiquitous, that it's almost strange to think of somebody inventing the idea.
Through the whole process you are consistently doing three things: Adding time, Adding membership, Adding Media.
Media: anything that shows up and reminds you, or shows up and reminds others (often have to invest in media for selves first)
In the list below, each stage is comprised of two parts, the energy that characterizes the stage is on the left, the barrier that you have to transform your relationship to is on the right.
Stages of a Conversation [ consider these stage in light of the above ]
1. Listen / Express 2. Remember / Forget 3. Strengthen & Build Support / Fail (projects fail before they succeed) 4. Predict & Tune / Succeed 5. Enhance / Flood 6. Distinguish / Understand & Explain (person just gets it, not necessarily understands it ... even if you understand it you may not be able to do it ... distinguishing gets people to doing it) 7. Enroll / Lose
Name/Character of stage on left, thing you have to transform yourself through on the right.
Listen / Express
Something heard, something supported, but not yet capable of expressing. The kind of conversation that keeps you up late -- something new that you're hearing, something new that connects with you. The conversation is expressing a breakthrough: "Wow! This is a life-altering conversation. This changes the whole conversation of my life." Week goes by, and you remember the conversation, but life didn't alter all that much. Stage that may be forgotten.
(Next call may be on expressing, ability to express.)
When there's an idea that's sort of new, we can forget that we have infinite capacities for expression. Metaphor, stories, drawing pictures, ... Creating new ways of expressing is what bumps you through the stage.
Remember / Forget
Conversation probably came and went, in early days. (Brandon concurs.) Arthur is experiencing presently. Conversation comes and goes.
Adding time, people, and media -- keeping the conversation growing in mass.
Have another phone call scheduled; Have a SolSeed conversation scheduled. The thing in the calendar is a "Media" item.
Damanhur: Action, and then continuation.
Brandon: Pamphlets, trying to get in the newspaper, websites.
Anything that shows up and reminds you or anybody else is media. For example, Brenna's jacket is media.
If you don't break through the thing on the right hand side, you don't make it through.
If you don't remember to continue the conversation, then it dies with time.
Strengthen & Build Support / Fail
When the conversation starts to become something in the world, projects are attached to it.
Start turning it into a project that accomplishes something. Now failure is possible.
Build support -- adding media, time, membership, and now finding what supports the conversation.
And that effort can fail.
Brandon: We have a number of projects going in SolSeed movement right now, that are in danger of failing. Enrollment book, Sol 2009 planning, Water project, ...
Lion on Spiriata, Damanhur. Starting small, and gradually growing larger.
"Emergence" -- just an idea, but there's nothing to really fail at.
Back to #2: Remember that forgetting happens, use media to substitute and to move past forgetting to building support and failing.
If you start big or small, there is still the possibility of failure. Normal thought is the end game is to fail or succeed but Projects always fail before they succeed. Conversation has gone from non-existence to possibility of failing.
Alt. school in Denver, but failed to open in first year. 8 months into school, but then not having enough students, and not opening that year. "I remember the strange () I had when I realized that I had a lot of friends with a lot of ideas and who were talking about starting a school, but not one of them had failed to start a school. I had made it."
(moment of appreciation)
Creating church/movement/society is a big undertaking. Many people haven't made it to the point of failing on this.
Predict & Tune / Succeed
One of the things that happens as you create projects, and turn them into physical forms -- you start to make promises, and you're falling short of goals, and hitting *some* of your goals. Complications.
You started something, and then you get to a bump. Things felt fruitful, but you fall short.
You have to fine tune what produces success. Conversation, project being managed, ...
Newcomers are still in stage one. What stage is the conversation in? What stage is each person in? Help them transform their relationship to expression, to forgetting, to, ... Getting everyone up to speed. Transforming relationship to success to get beyond this stage.
Projects have outcome -- success or failure. "That's the end game." Failure ends? Hey, guess what: Success also means "game over." What's our vision on the other side of success? Discomfort with what's on the other side of success.
Enhance / Flood
things get out of control -- too many people, too many projects; but if you want this to keep going, you have to transform your relationship to success, and to the flood. What we want to do is run & hide, when it floods, to go retreat back to some place safe, to go back to "success." Need to keep pushing, keep going, keep inventing. You have to keep adding more (of what *actually* what was successful.) Keep doing that.
Leadership & delegation structure key things here. You have to fractalize in flood, everybody managing their own miniature structure, to spread across light enough to manage the flood.
Distinguish / Understand & Explain
People are asking you, "What happened? How did you make this happen?" Mark Driscoll must be trying to explain right now. We're very much in explaining / understanding perspective.
People may get better at distinguishing our success than we are.
Understanding & explaining does NOT communicate the distinguishing.
(Incommunicability.)
Coach from High School -- distinguished things for people, rather than explaining them to them. "Act like your knee is being pulled by a rope" when doing hurdles. Distinguish something in a way such that they can actually do it.
Brandon: Distinguishing high performing individual from a coach. Coach provides distinguishment.
Distinguishing so a person just "gets it" -- they don't have to understand it.
Putting a lot of energy into understanding. You can understand, but not be able to do.
Knowing stuff that doesn't make a difference.
Enroll / Lose
Everyone gets enrolled. You lose the conversation as "ours."
It's just part of the human DNA or the cultural DNA.
So successfully distinguished it, and now everybody is on board.
Everyone's just in the conversation now.
Logistics
- Call moving to Sunday at 8:00 AM. [All concur.]
Frustrations with conference bridge -- different technology next time? Skype or Meebo or something.
Arthur will take on the technology bridge.
Brandon will set up bridge as a **fallback.**
We need 10 minutes to get the technology meeting, so 7:50 AM is a better start time.
Shelley: Shelley and Brandon will be early so we can start on time and end on time
SkypeIds: BrandonCsSanders, LionKimbro, ShelleySchoepflinSanders
Ted Ernst - yes Ben Sibelman?? - Is he invited brandon? I think he's welcome. That's just me, Shelley (flood) I nominate Lion and the church growth thing Book report. Go Lion!
{:D}=
Closing Words (5 min)
AS kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme; As tumbled over rim in roundy wells Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name; Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells, Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.
Í say móre: the just man justices; Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces; Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is— Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places, Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his To the Father through the features of men’s faces.
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918.
