Pot Pourri

November 4, 2009


Vision for Inclusive Community -- Good to see this one from Valmae Rose in Australia and her work with a national non-governmnet disability program. A group of us from the disability sector (an unusual alliance of people who are passionate about the future for people with disabilities but who don’t usually work together) got our act together and created a vision for the future using a scenario building process.  You can check out the process and the scenario at www.blue-skies.info.  We had a launch a few weeks later in the botanical gardens, with ministers from both federal and state govt and 350 members of the community involved.  We have since engaged about 500 people in conversation  and we’re planning a statewide schedule of conversations around the question of inclusive community on December 3 which is international day of people with disability.


Chaordic Drumming -- Last week I spoke with friend and colleague Sally Wolf. Sally works in restorative justice efforts in Illinois. We've had several conversations now about how to work at the scale of community. We talked about the model of the chaordic path. It is the search for the sweet spot between chaos and order. As Mitchell Waldrop speaks it in his book, Complexity, "enough form to be sustainable and enough freedom to deserve the name of life." Sally was describing drum circles she has been a part of. At first chaotic, without particular rhythm. But then they find a rhythm, even for people without particular music skills. And often, once that rhythm is found, people can't help but introduce some variation, a bit of chaos, that people then reorganize around. Looking forward to trying this one.