two great events

The first is a story in business conference this weekend. See http://goldenfleececon.org/ It draws a wonderful community of people and I find it an extremely valuable, stimulating and enjoyable conference. I will be presenting this year, for people who are interested in learning more about how to use simulations in their work with clients. If you miss it, check my website, usoni.com, next month for an article on the topic, which will also be featured at pelerei.com.

The second is in October, but you should register now if you are interested. For years, I have wanted to bring Susan Aaron to the area, and it's finally happening! Susan is a Shiatsu bodyworker, Psychotherapist, and Psychodramatist. What I love about her unique method is the way she combines her knowledge of the ways the physical body releases toxic energies with her ability to guide individuals through the powerful process of psychodramatic therapy. She and her team will run this training October 7-9 (9:30-5 daily). Some of you who know Susan's work have already sent your registration - thank you! For the rest of you, don't delay. I believe that one of the best things you can do for your long term health is to let go of toxic emotions. I don't know if these are literally stored in the cells, but if you agree that the mind-body link is a powerful determinant of both happiness and health, don't miss this one-time chance. Susan works from Toronto, and has never given a workshop in the DC area before.

I'm happy to answer any questions you may have, or you can mail your registration to me at 1204 Lamont St NW Washington DC, 20010 ($400.00 before September 1, 2006 — $435.00 after September 1, 2006. The training will take place at 2939 Van Ness Street, NW. Learn more at www.youremotions.com or aaron@youremotions.com)

army peacemakers

Check out the April 10 issue of the New Yorker for an article by George Packer about lessons from an iraqi town called Tal Afar. In the absence of a coherent strategy from above, some army commanders used a hammer and some used their eyes and ears to figure out what was needed and how to build it. Shia and Sunni are butchering each other in some towns, and sitting down to exchange accusations without bloodshed in others. I love these little driblets of truth, however grim, that show freedom of speech is still alive!! But what I loved most about this was the nitty gritty description of how one commander went about taking account of the human side of the invasion, and building incremental, fragile peace in Tal Afar against all odds, as if he'd just taken a course from Eastern Mennonite University's Center for Justice and Peacebuilding!

If you find this interesting and want to learn more about Army Civil
Affairs Units and the way they work, Prof. Jayne Docherty of the CJP recommends the book "Waging Peace: A Special Operations Team's Battle to Rebuild Iraq" by Rob
Schultheis.

"oil addiction"

They have these signs up around downtown DC - "It took us 125 years to use the first trillion barrels of oil. We'll use the next trillion in thirty." Every time I see it, I think, my god, the failure of leadership! How can we know this and the administration is just accelerating oil use? SUBSIDIZING it?! Existing to help it... And I look at the changes in the environment over just my lifetime, and think, "Double this? We'll all die!" People act like I'm crazy when I say things like, "We're so lucky to be able to go anywhere in the world, I should really travel now, while there's still jet fuel." But, really... Like any "addiction," it's easier to indulge than count consequences. Consequences don't enter the addict's equation.

http://us.oneworld.net/external/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.globalexchange.org%2Fupdate%2Fpublications%2F3884.html
(About alternative energy.)
http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000309.php

See the recent New Yorker article that focused mainly on homelessness, but the point was that some problems don't fall on a bell curve; in police brutality, homelessness and auto emissions pollution, a tiny percentage of the worst culprits are the vast majority of the problem and cost. But our policies and legal responses don't account for this and treat it like a general problem, thereby letting the real offenders fall through the cracks.

Collaboration as Auxiliarizing

My colleague Seth Kehan asked me for a few words about collaboration; a great topic! Life itself is collaboration, because we in fact don’t exist except in relation to everything else. I don’t mean only physically, with our dependence on oxygen, wheat, gravity, etc. Although we have that somatic self, as well as a part that is a conduit of the spontaneity that lies at the heart of things, what we think of as our human existence is social; who you are to yourself is based on the mirrors around you. We are all a collection of roles, starting early in life with somatic roles like The Eater, but moving on to social roles like The Daughter, The Student, etc. Some roles are latent within us and haven’t yet been fully realized or acted out on the stage of life. To emerge, these roles require other people, or auxiliaries. To me, this is the foundation of collaboration. Beyond cooperating and mingling ideas, we need other people to “auxiliarize” the emerging role that spontaneity wants to express.

Let me explain what I mean by collaboration as auxiliarizing. It applies not only to “reciprocal roles” (you can’t be a teacher without being auxiliarized by at least one student, for example), but also to friends or mentors who see your possibilities as already extant. Are you brilliant or beautiful, for example, if no one thinks so? You may say that your own belief in your beauty and brilliance is enough, but if you truly believe it, it is because you had an auxiliary at some point. This is why it is so important to mirror to children, with verbal and nonverbal delight, how great they are.

Take a moment to think of the last time you took on something new and succeeded, or perhaps realized that you had reached a new threshold in your personal growth – of self-acceptance, or patience, etc. Can you identify an auxiliary somewhere in that picture? Who was it that collaborated with you in the sense of seeing or responding to your emerging role? Are you aware, in your collaborations with others, of your power to auxiliarize, or stifle, their emerging roles?

People who annoy us can also be auxiliaries. The invasive friend who pushes your boundaries, for example, is taking a role that helps you in your process of learning to stand your ground. (Imagine actually having a thankful heart about that person!) An auxiliary can also be unseen, which we experience as spiritual guidance.

In this swirl of matter and energy we are all dancing in, collaboration is not so much an effort, as it is a fact. When you do things “alone,” you are still collaborating, albeit with an old set of auxiliaries. These same stories in your head might still be adequate, or it might be time to broaden the conversation.

I picture the self as an empty circle in space and time through which pass different forms of energy/information: your cells, the force of spontaneity, various emotions, and thoughts or conversations among accumulated stories that tell us who we are, starting with the unspoken words in the loving eyes of our mother and going until this very moment, when I just told you you are an empty circle! There is another part, when we remember to have it, which watches all this. Becoming conscious of the entity that can pick the right auxiliaries will make you able to seek other voices, weed out the stories that stifle you, and provide stories to others that nurture the roles in them that want to emerge.

tiny update/new post

The current administration doesn't have much more time. And I think people are realizing SUVs don't either. Has this whole empire peaked too? Spring is here, the cherry blossoms are already gone.