At one point during this past weekend's consensus decision making workshop, one of the participants expressed concern about some deficiency or other. Our workshop leader pointed out our time limitations and said that, under the circumstances, things were good enough.
The concept of "good enough" was one of my take-aways from the workshop. It was a term I had heard before, but this time I got it at a new level.
The single incident that illustrated it to me most powerfully was our attempt to assist a blind man who participated in the meetings of our host community. A volunteer from our group sat next to him and reported to him what was happening. The idea was to help him as much as possible to access the information that was available to everyone else from non-verbal sources.
In chatting with the volunteer afterwards, the blind man expressed appreciation for her assistance. He described to her how isolated he felt and how, even with her help, there still had been some pieces of the meeting that had been missing for him.
When I heard the volunteer's feedback, I felt sad. Although I hadn't consciously put it into words, there must have been some part of my mind that had been in denial. It was as if I had been under the illusion that, if I just learned the correct protocol for interacting with a blind person, I effectively could give him eyes.
According to this world view, there was a magic wand that could meet every challenge. If I had just found the one perfect book on parenting and had read it from cover to cover, my kids would have had happy childhoods. If I could just get my hands on a book called Cohousing For Dummies, I could ensure a blissful future for my fellow cohos and me at Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community.
This weekend the realization sank in that I was not perfect and that the magic wand that would make me so did not exist.
Oddly enough, I felt relieved.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Consensus
Woke up at 5.00 a.m. today. Another half hour later. Woo hoo!
Doing these quarterly consensus decision making workshops is awe inspiring.
During each workshop the residents of the host community share with us a couple of their conflicts. They are issues on which they have tried, but so far failed, to reach agreement. We trainee meeting facilitators then attempt to assist them in clearing the blocks.
Both the participation in, and the facilitation of, the process are peak experiences. When people who had been in conflict reconcile, there rarely is a dry eye in the room.
Presenting the trainee meeting facilitators with a real life challenge with which the host community is grappling is far superior to presenting the trainees with a hypothetical exercise on which to work. The difference is huge.
In an emotionally charged scenario, it is particularly useful to introduce an exercise that encourages each meeting participant to share from the heart, to access their feelings, and to take responsibility for their contribution to the situation. Alternative meeting formats that employ elements of movement or art or storytelling or drama are amongst the skills that we are learning.
Elliott Willis and Judy Roberts during the lunch break at WindSong Cohousing Community yesterday. Elliott lives in Nanaimo, as I do, and she is a member of O.U.R. Ecovillage in Shawnigan Lake.
Doing these quarterly consensus decision making workshops is awe inspiring.
During each workshop the residents of the host community share with us a couple of their conflicts. They are issues on which they have tried, but so far failed, to reach agreement. We trainee meeting facilitators then attempt to assist them in clearing the blocks.
Both the participation in, and the facilitation of, the process are peak experiences. When people who had been in conflict reconcile, there rarely is a dry eye in the room.
Presenting the trainee meeting facilitators with a real life challenge with which the host community is grappling is far superior to presenting the trainees with a hypothetical exercise on which to work. The difference is huge.
In an emotionally charged scenario, it is particularly useful to introduce an exercise that encourages each meeting participant to share from the heart, to access their feelings, and to take responsibility for their contribution to the situation. Alternative meeting formats that employ elements of movement or art or storytelling or drama are amongst the skills that we are learning.
Elliott Willis and Judy Roberts during the lunch break at WindSong Cohousing Community yesterday. Elliott lives in Nanaimo, as I do, and she is a member of O.U.R. Ecovillage in Shawnigan Lake.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
WindSong
Yup, I woke up early again this morning. This time it was 4.30 a.m., so that was a half hour improvement over yesterday. But the good thing about my jet lag is that, although I have a full day ahead of me, I still get a chance to blog.
Along with some residents of eight intentional communities in Coastal British Columbia, I am participating in a consensus decision making workshop.
On this occasion the host community is WindSong Cohousing Community in Langley. This is the first time that I have seen the community that provided the inspiration for the design of my own community, Pacific Gardens in Nanaimo.
Here is the glass-covered pedestrian street that inspired the founders of Pacific Gardens. We too have an atrium. I thought it was an awesome design for the rainy winters of the Pacific Northwest. Ironically, I am experiencing it as a terrific design even during the glorious summer weather that we're having right now. WindSong has lots of young children, and it provides them with a wonderfully safe environment.
Here is another part of the atrium.
Some apartments and townhouses at WindSong obviously are home to kids .......
....... while others have a more sedate, adult look about them.
Here are the vegetables gardens .......
.......and next to them are one of a couple of different playgrounds.
During meal breaks, we workshop participants are able to spread out amongst WindSong's gardens.
These are my charming hosts, Marcus and Julian. When I return home, I will take with me instructions to give their Ouma Mia big hugs on their behalf.
Along with some residents of eight intentional communities in Coastal British Columbia, I am participating in a consensus decision making workshop.
On this occasion the host community is WindSong Cohousing Community in Langley. This is the first time that I have seen the community that provided the inspiration for the design of my own community, Pacific Gardens in Nanaimo.
Here is the glass-covered pedestrian street that inspired the founders of Pacific Gardens. We too have an atrium. I thought it was an awesome design for the rainy winters of the Pacific Northwest. Ironically, I am experiencing it as a terrific design even during the glorious summer weather that we're having right now. WindSong has lots of young children, and it provides them with a wonderfully safe environment. 
Here is another part of the atrium.
Some apartments and townhouses at WindSong obviously are home to kids .......
....... while others have a more sedate, adult look about them.
Here are the vegetables gardens .......
.......and next to them are one of a couple of different playgrounds. 
During meal breaks, we workshop participants are able to spread out amongst WindSong's gardens. 
These are my charming hosts, Marcus and Julian. When I return home, I will take with me instructions to give their Ouma Mia big hugs on their behalf.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Re-entry
Since yesterday afternoon, I have been back in the cohousing world. I am participating in another workshop on consensus decision making. This time it is being hosted by WindSong, a delightful cohousing community in Langley, BC.
I am billeted with Yonas and Julia Jongkind and their three cute little kids. They are the son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren of Mia Jongkind, one of my co-owners in Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community in Nanaimo.
This morning I woke up at 4.00 a.m. No doubt it's the result of jet lag. Luckily I am sleeping on a separate floor from the rest of the family. I'm in Yonas and Julia's study, which houses a computer that they kindly invited me to use. So I started organising my vacation photos. I will add more as and when I get time.
I am billeted with Yonas and Julia Jongkind and their three cute little kids. They are the son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren of Mia Jongkind, one of my co-owners in Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community in Nanaimo.
This morning I woke up at 4.00 a.m. No doubt it's the result of jet lag. Luckily I am sleeping on a separate floor from the rest of the family. I'm in Yonas and Julia's study, which houses a computer that they kindly invited me to use. So I started organising my vacation photos. I will add more as and when I get time.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Home sweet home
Well, I'm back. It is difficult to summarise an overseas trip that lasted over seven weeks. However, these photos may give you some idea.
Southern Africa was a kaleidoscope of cultures. These buskers at the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront in Cape Town were every bit as good as Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
The reunion to celebrate my mother's 80th birthday was heaps of fun. Here is our clan at Mbuluzi Game Reserve in Swaziland. My mother is in the centre of the photo, wearing a green sweater.
It was magical to walk through the bush and see wildlife like this.
Yet I also witnessed grinding poverty. People who live in a village like this one in Swaziland have a very tough life.
This roadside fruit seller in Swaziland told me her name was Anne. She said that, of the six children with her, three were orphans whom she had taken under her wing. My guess is that the children's parents were victims of the AIDS pandemic.
One of the downsides of South Africa is that it has a horrendous crime rate. The friends with whom I stayed in Johannesburg had a high wall around their property, topped by this electric fence. In addition to that, they and half a dozen of their neighbours had clubbed together to pay for a security guard outside their house, twenty four hours a day. They told me they felt like prisoners.
After Johannesburg, it was a relief to get to safe, environmentally-friendly Switzerland. This photo was taken in Berne.
There is no good reason to include this photo of Gruyeres, other than to show off. I liked the way the mist-shrouded castle came out.
Here I am this morning, at the home of friends in Burnaby, a suburb of Vancouver. Although my overseas trip was amazing, it is great to be back home in Canada. I am one very happy camper.
Southern Africa was a kaleidoscope of cultures. These buskers at the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront in Cape Town were every bit as good as Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
The reunion to celebrate my mother's 80th birthday was heaps of fun. Here is our clan at Mbuluzi Game Reserve in Swaziland. My mother is in the centre of the photo, wearing a green sweater. 
It was magical to walk through the bush and see wildlife like this.
Yet I also witnessed grinding poverty. People who live in a village like this one in Swaziland have a very tough life. 
This roadside fruit seller in Swaziland told me her name was Anne. She said that, of the six children with her, three were orphans whom she had taken under her wing. My guess is that the children's parents were victims of the AIDS pandemic.
One of the downsides of South Africa is that it has a horrendous crime rate. The friends with whom I stayed in Johannesburg had a high wall around their property, topped by this electric fence. In addition to that, they and half a dozen of their neighbours had clubbed together to pay for a security guard outside their house, twenty four hours a day. They told me they felt like prisoners.
After Johannesburg, it was a relief to get to safe, environmentally-friendly Switzerland. This photo was taken in Berne. 
There is no good reason to include this photo of Gruyeres, other than to show off. I liked the way the mist-shrouded castle came out.
Here I am this morning, at the home of friends in Burnaby, a suburb of Vancouver. Although my overseas trip was amazing, it is great to be back home in Canada. I am one very happy camper.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Four-leaf clovers, guardian angels, and their ilk
So far my overseas trip has been going extraordinarily well.
When I consider that I left the planning very late and that I shortened the UK portion of my trip by two days in order to squeeze in The Wall prior to my departure, it feels almost miraculous that it has been going as smoothly as it has.
If I am to see everyone I hope to see here, my UK itinerary contains no room for error. I have been incredibly fortunate that everything has lined up in my favour. In fact things have not merely worked out as well as could have been expected. So far they have exceeded my hopes.
My British rellies and friends have been amused by my assertion that I have horseshoes up my ass. But, if you had witnessed how obstacle after obstacle had evaported, I believe you would agree.
Although I had been reluctant to leave Nanaimo at a critical time in the life of Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community, I am very much enjoying my reunions with family members and friends in the UK. For the first time, I've also seen something of the UK beyond London. I've been to Wales and Devon.
I am enjoying the UK's gorgeous and charming old buildings but, in contrast to my previous visits to Europe, seeing all this history has not left me with a sense of deprivation. I do not feel as if Canada is deficient because it lacks this kind of architecture. I just feel as if Canada is different from Europe. Different. Neither inferior nor superior.
On the train between Wales and Devon, a woman asked me where I came from. I said I lived on Vancouver Island in Canada. She asked me what it was like there. I said I loved it. She said she was psychic, and she could tell that I was very happy. She said it was a burden being psychic. She said that, in light of the amount of unhappiness she detected on any given day, it was a pleasure to meet someone who was as happy as I was.
The woman may or may not have been psychic. I won't bother speculating about that. But, as my niece subsequently said, you didn't need to be psychic to know how I felt when I talked about Vancouver Island.
When I consider that I left the planning very late and that I shortened the UK portion of my trip by two days in order to squeeze in The Wall prior to my departure, it feels almost miraculous that it has been going as smoothly as it has.
If I am to see everyone I hope to see here, my UK itinerary contains no room for error. I have been incredibly fortunate that everything has lined up in my favour. In fact things have not merely worked out as well as could have been expected. So far they have exceeded my hopes.
My British rellies and friends have been amused by my assertion that I have horseshoes up my ass. But, if you had witnessed how obstacle after obstacle had evaported, I believe you would agree.
Although I had been reluctant to leave Nanaimo at a critical time in the life of Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community, I am very much enjoying my reunions with family members and friends in the UK. For the first time, I've also seen something of the UK beyond London. I've been to Wales and Devon.
I am enjoying the UK's gorgeous and charming old buildings but, in contrast to my previous visits to Europe, seeing all this history has not left me with a sense of deprivation. I do not feel as if Canada is deficient because it lacks this kind of architecture. I just feel as if Canada is different from Europe. Different. Neither inferior nor superior.
On the train between Wales and Devon, a woman asked me where I came from. I said I lived on Vancouver Island in Canada. She asked me what it was like there. I said I loved it. She said she was psychic, and she could tell that I was very happy. She said it was a burden being psychic. She said that, in light of the amount of unhappiness she detected on any given day, it was a pleasure to meet someone who was as happy as I was.
The woman may or may not have been psychic. I won't bother speculating about that. But, as my niece subsequently said, you didn't need to be psychic to know how I felt when I talked about Vancouver Island.
Monday, June 1, 2009
My Wall
This past weekend I completed a three and a half day workshop called The Wall. The objective of the workshop was to identify my driving needs and life purpose.
For me it was a profound experience. Prior to this, I had undertaken other activities that had been designed to help me understand who I was and what made me tick. I had gone into therapy, done other workshops, hired a life coach, read self-help books, kept a journal, and meditated. Along the way, I had found out magnificent and terrible things about my family of origin and about myself.
During this latest workshop, I peeled away another layer of the onion, and went deeper than I had gone on previous occasions. I realised that, almost my whole life, I had operated from the premise that, if I revealed that I was clever and capable, my father would kill me. It started out as a belief about my father, but later transformed into a belief about all men and, I would go so far as to say, a belief about the world in general.
If previous experience is anything to go by, my mother and my parents' friends would think I was stark raving mad if they heard this assertion. I once shared a much less significant revelation with them, and they reacted very negatively. "How could you say such a thing about your father? He was such a wonderful person."
Yes, I know what an awesome person he was. According to some people's values, he did great things for society. He also loved his family and gave us some happy times. When I was a young kid, he used to have "circus hour" after dinner every night. He would get down on the living room floor and do acrobatic tricks with us kids. Alternatively, he would take us outside, lie down on the lawn, look up at the sky, and point out the constellations to us. We lived on a farm without light pollution, so we had the luxury of a dark sky. He used to take us hiking, camping, boating and fishing. He adored the ocean. Whenever I'm at the seaside or at a lake, I am aware of his presence. I can feel the delight that he would experience in a scene like that.
So, yes, I do know that he was a terrific person and that he loved me. And, yes, I also know that he would have wanted to kill me if I had not dumbed myself down and protected his fragile ego.
I now have a better understanding of the terror that I experienced when I separated from my husband, bought into Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community, and moved from Calgary to Nanaimo. It wasn't just the uncertainty of leaving family and friends behind, moving to an unfamiliar place, and getting involved in a somewhat experimental venture.
Yes, to be sure, it was all of that. But it also was the fact that, like Bluebeard's wife, I was unlocking the door to the forbidden room and, if I was caught, I would die.
During my first couple of months in Nanaimo, when I was experiencing both exhilaration and panic, I watched a movie called The Void. It was about Joe Simpson's terrifying mountaineering ordeal in the Peruvian Andes. Simpson's courage and perseverance were a great inspiration to me as I stared into the abyss and broke into a cold sweat.
Tomorrow I will be leaving Nanaimo for eight weeks. Amongst other things, I will be participating in a family reunion in Swaziland to celebrate my mother's 80th birthday. Things have been crazy busy, and this was an insane time at which to take out three and a half days in order to participate in a workshop. Yet, as I was going into it, Kari, one of my fellow Pacific Gardeners who was a graduate of the workshop, said that it would be invaluable for me to do it prior to my meeting with my family. Having come out the other end, I wholeheartedly agree with her. I feel way more grounded and ready to see them.
I also am leaving in the happy knowledge that Pacific Gardens is even more closely aligned with my driving needs and my life purpose than I had dreamed. It's as if someone had taken my driving needs and life purpose and used them as a template to create a model. They then gave that model a name. It's called cohousing.
I am so glad that I scaled the symbolic wall that isolated me from a life affirming community and that I now belong.
For me it was a profound experience. Prior to this, I had undertaken other activities that had been designed to help me understand who I was and what made me tick. I had gone into therapy, done other workshops, hired a life coach, read self-help books, kept a journal, and meditated. Along the way, I had found out magnificent and terrible things about my family of origin and about myself.
During this latest workshop, I peeled away another layer of the onion, and went deeper than I had gone on previous occasions. I realised that, almost my whole life, I had operated from the premise that, if I revealed that I was clever and capable, my father would kill me. It started out as a belief about my father, but later transformed into a belief about all men and, I would go so far as to say, a belief about the world in general.
If previous experience is anything to go by, my mother and my parents' friends would think I was stark raving mad if they heard this assertion. I once shared a much less significant revelation with them, and they reacted very negatively. "How could you say such a thing about your father? He was such a wonderful person."
Yes, I know what an awesome person he was. According to some people's values, he did great things for society. He also loved his family and gave us some happy times. When I was a young kid, he used to have "circus hour" after dinner every night. He would get down on the living room floor and do acrobatic tricks with us kids. Alternatively, he would take us outside, lie down on the lawn, look up at the sky, and point out the constellations to us. We lived on a farm without light pollution, so we had the luxury of a dark sky. He used to take us hiking, camping, boating and fishing. He adored the ocean. Whenever I'm at the seaside or at a lake, I am aware of his presence. I can feel the delight that he would experience in a scene like that.
So, yes, I do know that he was a terrific person and that he loved me. And, yes, I also know that he would have wanted to kill me if I had not dumbed myself down and protected his fragile ego.
I now have a better understanding of the terror that I experienced when I separated from my husband, bought into Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community, and moved from Calgary to Nanaimo. It wasn't just the uncertainty of leaving family and friends behind, moving to an unfamiliar place, and getting involved in a somewhat experimental venture.
Yes, to be sure, it was all of that. But it also was the fact that, like Bluebeard's wife, I was unlocking the door to the forbidden room and, if I was caught, I would die.
During my first couple of months in Nanaimo, when I was experiencing both exhilaration and panic, I watched a movie called The Void. It was about Joe Simpson's terrifying mountaineering ordeal in the Peruvian Andes. Simpson's courage and perseverance were a great inspiration to me as I stared into the abyss and broke into a cold sweat.
Tomorrow I will be leaving Nanaimo for eight weeks. Amongst other things, I will be participating in a family reunion in Swaziland to celebrate my mother's 80th birthday. Things have been crazy busy, and this was an insane time at which to take out three and a half days in order to participate in a workshop. Yet, as I was going into it, Kari, one of my fellow Pacific Gardeners who was a graduate of the workshop, said that it would be invaluable for me to do it prior to my meeting with my family. Having come out the other end, I wholeheartedly agree with her. I feel way more grounded and ready to see them.
I also am leaving in the happy knowledge that Pacific Gardens is even more closely aligned with my driving needs and my life purpose than I had dreamed. It's as if someone had taken my driving needs and life purpose and used them as a template to create a model. They then gave that model a name. It's called cohousing.
I am so glad that I scaled the symbolic wall that isolated me from a life affirming community and that I now belong.
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