From DSmith2361@aol.com Sat Mar 8 20:19:02 1997 Return-Path: Received: from bell-labs.com (castro.research.bell-labs.com) by drmail.dr.lucent.com (4.1/EMS-L SunOS) id AA29435 for neal; Sat, 8 Mar 97 20:19:01 MST Received: from emout05.mail.aol.com ([198.81.11.96]) by bell-labs.com; Sat Mar 8 22:18:02 EST 1997 Received: (from root@localhost) by emout05.mail.aol.com (8.7.6/8.7.3/AOL-2.0.0) id WAA18722; Sat, 8 Mar 1997 22:16:25 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 1997 22:16:25 -0500 (EST) From: DSmith2361@aol.com Message-Id: <970308221625_1216677449@emout05.mail.aol.com> To: calebb@teleport.com, Gestaltt@aol.com, KKrause105@aol.com, lfred@pps.k12.or.us, lhowe@europa.com, marshas@canby.com, mulan@ix.netcom.com, nancy_stueber@omsi.edu, nealmcb@bell-labs.com, pmorris@teleport.com, roconnor@pps.k12.or.us, skoch@teleport.com, stand@straight-on.com, stephen.thompson@mci.com, sue_ridge@class.orednet.org, tbakke@informationage.com, viacalx@europa.com, vmegler@vnet.ibm.com, wbean@pcc.edu, yates@europa.com Subject: Minutes/Hours of the meeting of 2/27/97 Status: OR Technology and Business Issue Committee Our Mission: Technology and change--exploring their effects on community and business The T & B meeting opened with a whimper but ended with a bang. No hollow archetypes here! Carol Sturdivant opened the meeting in a kinder, gentler way. Marsha gave us an update [never a downdate from this team] on the Friday program on March 7 to kick off the telecommunications series. (The Friday program was a great success, by the way!) And now to our program . . . . . Jolinda reminded us that archetypes (or images) are universal and that we were to focus on creativity and the imaginal (not virtual, not imaginary) world. We think initially in terms of images, then moving to emotional reactions and words. We were to concentrate on our own images as we looked at signature slides representing classic images of the archetypes. (Remember--no one is just one archetype, just as no man is an island.) We were to look for images that created strong reactions. We were to look for energy to see what the pattern was. The pattern is universal, but the expression of the pattern is varied. For example, Woman as Caregiver is a pattern going back to ancient times to the great mother figure with child, woman as creator of life, with attention on the body and function of creating--body as container that nourishes. Also note woman as carrier, the elementary [elemental perhaps] feminine. In the Christian religion we think of Mary and Jesus. Note classic paintings and the use of light over this pair. Next we viewed Innocence, and the reverence for the child, the idea of children as angels, bringing to us the connection with the Divine. The child can also represent the birth of an idea, freshness of vision. On to the Orphan, and the separation from harmony--the painting of Paul's temptation. The Seeker conjures up ancient tales of the quest--the search for the Holy Grail, Parsifal. [Why not Cantinflas? or Gawain and the Green Knight?] The Jester reminds us of reality--Monks laughing [their newest batch of brandy having just mellowed to taste]. The Warrior is the subject of numerous paintings--Moses, David & Goliath, Ulysses, Hercules [How about the Amazon women?] The Lover [ah, there but for the ill-grace of the archetypal gods......] depicted in Rodin's flowing sculptures [exhibited here in Portland just two years ago]. The Sage [often paired with Rosemary] [all the world's a sage and I but a poor jester], shown from the East as the Chinese wise man, the Buddha, the idea of reflection [perhaps thought of more as an Eastern image than a Western one]. The Ruler appears in classical pictures of the gods and in mythical kingdoms--Zeus, Odin, King Arthur. The hero's journey is our own deepest inspiration. [We all have our own "hero's journey" to undertake.] Imaginal thinking versus rational/logical thinking (right brain/left brain; Yin and Yang?). The imaginal path is a new way to get information--from the subconscious. Perception goes from image to word and back to image. Words can indicate only a fraction of what we get out of pictures and images ["worth a thousand words"]. We tend to "edit out" so much through our automatic filters. Notice the short poem by Kathleen Raine--to write down all she contains at "The Moment" would require pouring the desert through an hour-glass! On the other hand putting ideas down as fast as we think them can be used to solve problems, as in brainstorming. Exercise: Go back to something you respond to and reflect upon what image it evokes. We go from sensing [hearing, touching, seeing, tasting, smelling--Proust, Remembrance of Things Past] to images to words. One of the reasons there is such an interest in poetry in the workplace--it helps people to open up. In team building exercises, for example, we feel what diversity and difference is about. We don't just intellectualize the words--we experience them. People must feel what you say. The idea is to demonstrate conflict as not personal, but archetypal. Look at the different patterns or archetypes in any team. Exercise: Have members play other roles than the ones they are most comfortable with so they will truly feel how it is to be in the other person's shoes. (Remember Joseph Campbell's book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces.) Check your own workplace. What kind of organization am I in? How do I fit in? What's valued here? For example, a Caregiver in a Warrior organization will not be appreciated. [Without the Caregiver, however, the Warrior organization will probably self-destruct.] The entrepreneurial skills of the start-up organization may have to eventually bring in the managerial skills required of a growing organization. Knowing the archetypes makes us more comfortable with differences in people. Jolinda and Joell have used the archetypes in organizational settings where mission and values were being hashed out. What is the culture of the organization? What does it need? Exercise: Try Jabberwocky*, writing something in an unknown language, perhaps as a letter to a person, putting letters together to make sounds. Out of this you may hear a pattern, perhaps Lover or Warrior or Jester. Then translate it into English. [It may well lose something in translation!] Be aware of the call to adventure--the story of the Princess & the Frog. The beginning of the call may be a blunder or surprise meeting--the wake-up call. [Downsizing when you are the sacrificial clone!] Pick an archetype. Write down every word that comes to mind concerning the archetype [guilt by association in psychology]. Circle every third word. What do you get? Confused? Write your own Fairy Tale. Forget the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Mother Goose, Aesop, Scheherazade, Bill Clinton's spin doctors, the CEO's Letter to Stockholders. Start with "Once upon a time" and end with "happily ever after." Fill in your own peanut butter and jelly. Join us on March 13 for another living fairy tale at the City Club That Never Sleeps. * 'Twas brillig And the slithy toves did gyre and gimbel in the wabe. All mimsy were the borogoves And the mome raths outgrabe. (Or words to that effect) Ever so respectfully and unctuously submitted, Your co-chair