Where Do Ideas Come From?

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"That very night in Max's room a forest grew and grew and grew until his ceiling hung with vines and the walls became the world all around." Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are.

Children's books are subtle.  I believe that each of us is born with an inherent creativity  and longing to make a contribution to our world.  But often, those around us—parents, teachers, businesses, society—with good meaning, conspire to rid us of this creativity. Adults seem all to eager to turn children into productive, serious, on-track-grown ups. But, authors of childrens' books have a trick up their sleeve. They embed ideas into wonderful stories ... stories that as children,  we ask for over and over again.  Marice Sendek is such an author.  Sendak is the kind of author that won't let children forget what they inherently know. 

Children's books are subtle.  I believe that each of us is born with an inherent creativity  and longing to make a contribution to our world.  But often, those around us ... parents, teachers, businesses, social norms ... with good meaning, conspire to rid us of this creativity... these ideas that we long for and turn us into productive, serious, on track grown ups.  Authors of childrens' books have a trick up their sleeve. They embed ideas into wonderful stories ... stories that as children,  we ask for over and over again.  Marice Sendek is such an author. Sendak is the kind of author that won't let children forget what they inherently know. 

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Turn Around Sam

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"Anyone can talk to a tree but not everyone can carry on a conversation because they will not stay still for long enough. Sometimes it takes a whole day for a tree to tell you its name." Tokien

Joanna Macy speaks of the great turning... our turning away from a world no longer working to something more fit, more thriving for all those who are part of Universe, and in particular, Gaia, our Earth planet. In my day to day life, it is difficult to see the changes happening ... the great turning in the becoming. Rather, I keep wondering when it will begin. And then I think of Turn Around Sam one of the many characters in Tom Robbins' Skinny Legs and All. In the book, Turn Around Sam is a living statute that turns around so slowly that no one can see him move, yet move he does turning in a complete circle several times a day... everyday in a New York park.

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Community Escapes

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I recently joined in with a gathering of people who have identified themselves within the Dialogue & Deliberation community. It marked the fourth community coming-together I've been involved in with Tomorrow Makers this year—each of a very distinct nature and intent. From each and from the collection as a whole, I'm left with a clear recognition of the growing interest in and sophistication of organizing structures and processes used to compliment the content and body of knowledge.

Beyond the wealth of good "process tools" that are capable of adding significant value, there is a growing willingness and, in many cases, eagerness among organizers, speakers and participants to not only use these process tools, but innovate how they can fit together to amplified effect as a whole. Community gathering is on the verge of finding meta-structures and meta-processes which can transform or fundamentally reframe the community's awareness of itself and the world.

Successful design on this level utilizes and leverages the complexity and relationships created in the discrete modules. The whole becomes not only 'greater' than the sum of the parts, it emerges a different, deeper quality of experience. The system escapes to a higher order.

These escapes – or phase transitions – are the fascination and the essence of Tomorrow Makers' raison d'être. It is precisely these situations for which the system and method that we have been practicing and coming toward knowing since 1979 was invented...

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