Sylvia's Journal

Over the last 7 years I have developed a ritual at OBTC, which is the writing and reciting of a poem that chronicles the conference from beginning to the (nearly) end. It arose spontaneously one year and since then there is a bit of an expectation that I do this each time. For 6 years in a row I have been more or less successful at this. The poem slowly writes itself as the conference progresses. On Friday’s talent night it is ready for the microphone.

This year I was too preoccupied with my own sorry self state and the muse was not able to cut through the stress. Cheryl said, it is OK, you don’t have to do it, but I saw Jerry sit with his sign up pad and he indicated there was a spot for me. I surprised myself when I did not feel any of the self-imposed pressure I am so good at generating.

The appearance of the hummingbird on Thursday morning, the focus on design, the invitation of possibilities brought the muse back. What emerged was not your ordinary detached chronicle poem but rather a poem about turning a corner, the process of letting joy back in. I marvelled at the resilience of the creative process and surprised myself (and others) when the finished product emerged.

I knew some form of stress is important for any act of creativity but I didn’t think on Thursday that the tangle of my emotions could let anything creative through. But it did and with that I place my final step across the watershed.
And so, at the last day of the conference I finally began to enjoy being where I was and let in the new ideas that are to nourish me for the coming year, inform my practice and guide my sense making. Late, but not too late.

By the time Peter Vaill showed up, on an immense video screen, I was wide open to receive his wisdom about learning, co-inquiry and practice. Addressing an audience of academics he spoke about practitioners and in doing so he spoke directly to me.

Feeling, judgment, sense, proportion, balance and appropriateness – he kept repeating the words over and over, like a strange hypnotic mantra. Together they form the essence of Practice. He compared it to the dark matter without which the universe would disintegrate. In this case the universe of practitioners, that what holds it together in the face of the daily onslaught of emergencies, tangled relations, unspoken expectations, pressures, strong emotions and other messiness that need to be acted on, one way or another, or else; amplified in my case by the cross-cultural experience of living in Afghanistan and the stress of knowing what can happen in that place.

It was a very comforting image, this dark matter: allowing for feelings, judgment that draws from experience, common sense (is that what he meant?), relationship to the whole (not too big, not too small), balance between me and them, here and there, now and then, and appropriateness, this is Afghanistan I live in, not the US.

I left the conference more (though not completely) centred so that I can enjoy the last two days of my vacation, and get that coveted rest and recuperation.

After a day of flying East I was picked up by Axel in a small shiny black car – the result of a trade in of our tired old Blubaru that is nearing its quarter million mile anniversary. This one has only a tenth of that and should therefore be able to serve our household for the considerable future.

At home I found everyone plus some enjoying a fire on the beach, making music and enjoying the cool summer night, bathing suits and towels scattered all over the place, the remnants of lobster tacos and, by our bed, a small gift from our offspring that we would not have tolerated in their bedrooms 12 years ago. It made me repeat, in my mind, the question, so often asked, why the heck did you move to Kabul? Indeed. I will have a fairly good answer to that later this week.