Elder People with Young Spirit and Eyes of a Child

I feel lucky. I feel blessed. In my life I have a chance to meet elder people, who are very young in spirit, and whose eyes are beaming with curiosity and childish smile, and whose works are very contemporary.

These people are becoming younger with age. And I feel sad we, younger generations, didn't build a strong connection with such people. And I feel sad, for those elder people are looking for an opportunity to meet the youngsters and have a good conversation.

Today I met an illustrator or cartoonist, in his 60s. I came to his workshop, he was doing illustrations for children for 45 years now. Before jumping into project I came with, he showed me his works, his stories in pictures, and heros of the cartoons. Some of the cartoons are breathing with the Ukrainian traditional fairy tails. I was so grateful I could meet this person. He was so grateful, he said: "It's rare, almost never that young people come to my workshop".

We! were! thankful! to! each! other! for! just! being! the! way! we! are!: young and elder. Together. In conversation. Listening to stories and asking questions. Being present to each other.

Together with my Mother, Bliss Browne, the President of Imagine Chicago, USA, and her daughter Caroline, we are conceiving a conference on motherhood in 2011. To bring the connection between the young and the elders...

What do the elder bring to the world?

What do the younger bring to the world?

Summer time, and the living is...

Despite all the difficulties to obtain the visa to Vienna, I'm here now, sitting at the wooden table in the Hub Vienna.

The cup of coffee, lots of light, new people, and old friends - Alexis, Hinnerk, Matthias, the co-founders of this social business that became such by signing the seven key principles.

Ahead is the Summer Retreat for four days, organized by the Emersense crew, which was the foundation for the Hub to appear here in Austria.

Look forward to it, actually... It's a good chance to stop, look back, look in the future, re-define yourself, and move on. More soon ))

Why Ukraine?

Me and a group of people who attend the training program of Max and Ellen Schupbach are extremely happy and blessed to have it here. Ukraine was chosed by Max and Ellen several years ago, and here's why, according to their words:

• We love Ukraine.
• We are Kyiv-crazy (it's Paris in Eastern Europe).
• Ukraine has an important function to bridge between Russia and Europe. It's both, and it understands both.

And here comes the inspirational quote from Max:

"Ukraine is a best-kept secret in Europe, it's the most important country in Eastern Europe and Western Russia. In the lonf-term, looking back from the future to today, the process in Ukraine is fantastic, the Orange Revolution is fantastic, the President is fantastic (forgive me, please, those people, who think otherwise in the meantime). You're in the perfect place and you've got the brains for it. The whole region needs you."

There is a great plan cooking for Ukraine. It's incredible. Watch closely...

First steps in Facilitation - with Max and Ellen Schupbach

There is an intention to resume my diary of the warrior without weapons, and do it with reflections from the 4-day training program with Max and Ellen Schupbach in Kyiv, Ukraine. I'll post some of the quotes, learnings, insights.

DAY 1: How does the body help you lead?

A body symptom is something, which is strange, "not me", not good or positive. Yet body symptoms are meaningful. To find the meaning out of it we could use our subjective experience. Instead of saying: I wonna get rid of it, use it to find information about/for yourself.

For example: foresightedness tells you - to see the bigger picture, rather than focus on details. It's new and unusual when it starts, and later it becomes part of a person who wears glasses. Part of the identity. Or another example: tiredness might mean to relax, take easy and enjoy things, take one step at a time. It tells you something about another type of being. And you can take a lot from noticing it, naming, feeling and catching it.

What's the process in pairs?

a. describe your project you're currentily in, what are you facing now?
b. scan your body and notice a symptom
c. how do you experience that? show it with the hand movement (then - amplify it with another hand, to feel the unknown or X-energy and become this energy)
d. what are your feelings? what might be a slogan or branding phrase for the feeling?
e. follow this energy and make some steps
f. notice what kind of figure is walking (person, clown, animal)?
g. what is the ghost role in your society that is opposing this figure? what is the relationship?
h. what does it tell you? what kind of support do you need to help the figure manifest in your project?
i. how does the new identity impact the bigger field/your network/circle of friends and colleagues?

It's incredible to have this wisdom from Max and Ellen: "Every time you change a little bit, you change the Ukraine". Even minor change matters. Moreover, why the politics are not the change agents? Their role is defined, and it already point to the past and present. What points to the future is the ghost role. That's why, for example, to quote Max: "Usually future hopes of people are connected with the President, but he/she is the history already, and you are the people who could bring changes".

Some additional questions to think about:
+ what's your growth edge as a facilitator?
+ how does your unknown or X-energy helps you in the facilitation process?

During the group process, ask yourself as a facilitator:
- What do I think is happening here?
- Who should I have to be the opposite to it?
- Notice the signals, and changes in the atmosphere (not for the good or bad, but just notice)

Usually, groups are organized in the simple structure, compared to the individual (1-on-1 process), who has a very complex system to grapple with.

Some additional questions to think about:
+ who irritated you the most in this group process?
+ how could you use it in the positive way?

Insight: to use the body symptom or something which is "bad" or disturbs you, and find the most valuable information for you, take the most out of it, and direct to learn from it and apply in your leadership. Oftentimes after that the symptom disappears, as well as irritations and frustrations. What a wonderful gift for today!

The Day with the Heart

Today was the day I'm celebrating now. Simple, yet profound; full of new people and knowledge, yet very light and natural/free. I feel myself empowered by this day. That simple. So, what was today on Friday?

I slept one more hour, taking the day off at work.
I woke up anticipating the day and smiling.
I drank a glass of water from the well.
I played the Ney and prayed.
I sent the invitation to the Hub Open Club meeting on Feb 4, 2010.
I went to the Conflict Resolution Deep Democracy module (1st day) with Stanford Siver.
There we went through the current conflict at work with a wonderful coach - Dima.
There was a lot of learning points of me. And I took away some quotes from Carlos Castaneda (below).
Then I ran to the Start-up Crash Test to get a sense of what's cooking in this area and meet good friends and new people.
I bought the brie cheese, and the Ukrainian bread.
Back at home, I'm sitting at the laptop with a cup of wonderful hot lime flower tea, enjoying these quotes of Castaneda:

• A warrior chooses a path with heart, any path with heart, and follows it; and then he rejoices and laughs. He knows because he sees that his life will be over altogether too soon.
  
• Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore, a warrior must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if he feels that he should not follow it, he must not stay with it under any conditions. His decision to keep on that path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. He must look at every path closely and deliberately. There is a question that a warrior has to ask, mandatorily: ‘Does this path have a heart?’
  
• A warrior must cultivate the feeling that he has everything needed for the extravagant journey that is his life. What counts for a warrior is being alive. Life in itself is sufficient, self-explanatory and complete. Therefore, one may say without being presumptuous that the experience of experiences is being alive.
  
• If a warrior is to succeed at anything, the success must come gently, with a great deal of effort but with no stress or obsession.
  
• Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge. A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges. The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.
  
• The most effective way to live is as a warrior. A warrior may worry and think before making any decision, but once he makes it, he goes his way, free from worries or thoughts; there will be a million other decisions still awaiting him. That’s the warrior’s way.
  
• The self-confidence of the warrior is not the self-confidence of the average man. The average man seeks certainty in the eyes of the onlooker and calls that self-confidence. The warrior seeks impeccability in his own eyes and calls that humbleness.

The purity of my language

Beyond all the activities I’ve decided to go to the course on dramaturgy. Yesterday was the first class. There are several answers to “why?”:

• to learn on how to create and tell your story
• to learn to write in the way that keeps me evolving
• to have a stimulus to read more, pay attention to the feelings and outer world, and write/express it better

Lately I’ve started to worry about the purity and quality of my language. I’ve noticed that once I mechanically repeat some set phrases, I roll back, and don’t have an opportunity to move forward. It started to mean a lot to me on what words I use, how I speak. This all affects the inner world. Let alone the external world. Pushkin, the Russian poet once wrote that we never know how our word echoes in the world.

We in Ukraine, with almost 70% of population who speak Russian, have only one national language. This is good for the Ukraine, yet I would dream to have at least 2 national languages. For I realize that I became poorer in terms of language, making mistakes and mingling two languages (plus, adding some English words from time to time). As a result I have no real purity in the way I speak. And somehow it affects my personality. So, I’ve started to mind it, somehow seeing it as an opportunity – to grow as a person, be present and alive.

Are you missing life, lady Y?

Yesterday I put a list of practices for the coming months... and now I realize - I shouldn't miss life by doing it all...

I'm lost a bit, doing a lot of things at the same time, and nothing really deep and specific. But I'm trying to sit with it and enjoy this period anyway - to find the way, finally. Go for what I could't stop going for...

Besides practices I need to set my heart and ears and actions open - to go with the flow of life, and don't write the Divine Plan myself with enourmous efforts, but try to catch the wind and live this Plan of Divine nature...