This morning at church 20 women held a rally. I am not sure if that is the appropriate name for what we did, but that is what we always call it, since these started 8 or 9 years ago. We use a metholology called Open Space for these rallies. Today was titled Creativity and Spirituality. We start with an opening circle, decide what sessions we want to run, feed each other lunch by bringing a potluck meal, afternoon sessions and closing circle. Women who paint, knit, write, analyze numbers, make mobiles, sing, make prints, make pottery, make and play bamboo pipes, compose music and probably some that I have forgotten got together. A nugget aka seed that was planted is that ALL of us are creative. When people start saying to us "That is a dumb idea" we start to self-monitor and sometimes believe that we are not creative. Interesting, this often starts when we enter grade school. Women today realize a broader definition of creativity. We closed the rally by saying individually to each other "I appreciate you and appreciate your creativity.
I am always a bit nervous about how these are going to go, but after this one today, I should just relax. I had an activity for our closing circle planned, but that was unnecessary. A group composed a song for us all to sing sung to the tune Dona Nobis Pacem. I was in tears as we sang it.
It was a good rally.
2 comments:
Hi Sally, It was a good rally and thanks for bringing us all together. Here are the words of the sing we wrote:
"Women singing, women together.
Sharing laughter, eating good food!
Cre-a-ting together
In a circle of good friends.
Sis-ters visioning together
Makers of peace, wisdom of the world."
Mary
If you're willing/able, can you say a little more about how the time was structured? Or was it? How long did you generate topics, how long did you work on them, and then how long did you use for wrap up?
The Open Space stuff looks great. Now I'm looking for an excuse to try it out...
Post a Comment