Community Building
by Mich Thill and Mizuki Wataname
Session Plan
Timetable (1.5 - 2 hours):
10 Energy Passing Game 5 Intro to games and Deep listening 10 Deep listening exercise and discussion 10 What is intentional community? 30 Stick Game and discussion 10 Phases of community building - Scott Peck 5 'Yes, but …', 'Yes and …' Game 10 - Break - 5 Counting game 10 David Bohm, collective intelligence 15 Discussion - Questions 5 Ending in circle with Song |
Needs:
2 Bamboo sticks, chart paper and pens, prepared chart on four stages of community building (scott peck) and meaningful conversation (David Bohm) |
Content
This will be a session on community building, and as you've seen this morning, People care is one of the ethics of Permaculture. The way we interact with each other and work with our neighbors and surrounding communities is of major importance.
In today world community goes lost very often, and is not a priority anymore as we've got everything, from substantial to superficial, from supermarkets, television and the rest of our consumer culture.
Only when we see that if we want to live sustainably again or maybe need to live from the land we realize that our television and the supermarket won't be of as much help as our neighbors.
In today world community goes lost very often, and is not a priority anymore as we've got everything, from substantial to superficial, from supermarkets, television and the rest of our consumer culture.
Only when we see that if we want to live sustainably again or maybe need to live from the land we realize that our television and the supermarket won't be of as much help as our neighbors.
The session will combine theory, games and exercises to install a sense of community. We're trying to make it as participatory as possible and also ask the participants to engage.
We'll start the session with something that is called Deep Listening. Short Deep listening exercises are very powerful also in big groups to immediately engage people and create connections between them.
In the exercise one person will ask a given question to a partner. The partner then has two minutes to reply to the question while the first person is listening with his/her full being.
What is important is for both to be fully aware of the qualities they can bring into this exercise. For both of them, but especially the listener it is presence, letting go of preconceived ideas and judgements while trying to listen with an objective mindful mind.
The one who talks is present, and just lets what he or she has got inside emerge and come out. When he/she does not have anything to say that's also okay. Both will sit in silence and wait for things to come up or not.
So the question partners are going to ask to each other is:
How have you experienced community in your life?
In a short discussion we'll ask: How does it feel to be listened to and to listen?
What types of communities come up?
Self, family, neighborhood, village, country/region, global, online communities.
This shows us that community is a part of everyday life, it is to be found in any aspect of our relationships. Nowadays in the modern world, we have more global and online connections, but less village, neighborhood, family and relation to ourselves. Work schedules, superficial time-pass activities, the virtual world and television are taking us away from living in healthy communities.
Because of this more an more people want to live in what we call intentional communities.
In the exercise one person will ask a given question to a partner. The partner then has two minutes to reply to the question while the first person is listening with his/her full being.
What is important is for both to be fully aware of the qualities they can bring into this exercise. For both of them, but especially the listener it is presence, letting go of preconceived ideas and judgements while trying to listen with an objective mindful mind.
The one who talks is present, and just lets what he or she has got inside emerge and come out. When he/she does not have anything to say that's also okay. Both will sit in silence and wait for things to come up or not.
So the question partners are going to ask to each other is:
How have you experienced community in your life?
In a short discussion we'll ask: How does it feel to be listened to and to listen?
What types of communities come up?
Self, family, neighborhood, village, country/region, global, online communities.
This shows us that community is a part of everyday life, it is to be found in any aspect of our relationships. Nowadays in the modern world, we have more global and online connections, but less village, neighborhood, family and relation to ourselves. Work schedules, superficial time-pass activities, the virtual world and television are taking us away from living in healthy communities.
Because of this more an more people want to live in what we call intentional communities.
Stick Game
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From here communities often go back to the first and second stage as changes occur. In a strong community these phases get shorter and the time spend in harmony gets longer. |
Exercise where partners get together and talk to each other using the yes but and the yes and reply.
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Counting game
Group tries to count to the number of participants each one saying one number, trying not to speak over each other.
Group tries to count to the number of participants each one saying one number, trying not to speak over each other.
David Bohm has studied quantum physics and the life of the smaller particles, their self-organisation to build a whole and how the wholes interconnect to make bigger wholes.
They have a natural collective intelligence that we humans have difficulties to copy. It is not a method, not an attitude. There is a 16th of the circle of knowledge that we know, and 8th of the circle that we don't know and all the rest we don't know we don't know. That's what we need to be aware of and what we need to want to know. |
Interested in that link he identifies dialog as opposite of discussion as the tool that can bring humans to this collective wisdom.
Inspired by quantum physics he identifies 4 principles of meaningful conversation: 1) Participation - playing your part, interact 2) Presence/ awareness - suspending judgment (link to deep listening) 3) Emergence - voicing, courage, trust, allowing things to happen 4) Connectness - respect, feeling into the group. |