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Our principles are interconnected with our practice. We believe:
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Learning is an experience we participate in with all our senses. |
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What remains unsaid is vital material for understanding each other. |
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The creative process challenges us to discover new ways of thinking and being. |
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We may open ourselves to learning in every relationship and any organizational system. |
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When we exchange knowledge, share resources, and engage in the evolutionary progress of conversation, we are able to co-create human systems with meaning and intention.
"Living Learning" is our motto. Our work is process continually in motion. As we honor the flow of the work, we balance ourselves with concrete questions that promote accountability.
One question we often use when entering a new relationship or group dynamic is: How do we conserve what is viable and liberate what is emerging? That is, how do we support and strengthen what already works (or how do we just get out of the way) while also encouraging and clearing a path for what is new and unknown.
We offer a simple outline to focus this inquiry: Here. Now. Next.
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First, we ground in, listen to, and value the layers of what lives Here, wherever we meet, where we are. This includes present people and group dynamics as well as cultural and historical realities, the stories and experiences of success, loss, and what has remained unrealized or unspoken. |
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We then deepen our understanding of what is here with directed attention to Now. Of all the dynamics past and present at play, what most calls to be heard, to be understood, to be investigated? As we surface the core questions or issues, we create a common language and a safe field in which we may all begin to operate. |
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Next, we identify and commit to first actions. Long-term planning and visioning is important, yet the intention and clarity with which we enter the early phases of creation is critical seeding time. Crystallizing a few simple, manageable, and agreeable first steps opens the way for generative unfolding. |
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As we stay connected with the practice and each other, we naturally revisit what is happening and how the process is or is not working. Therefore, we may think of the fourth step as Here Again.
We physically experience this process when we walk forward, grounding here as the heel hits the earth, sensing more deeply our position now as our toe makes contact, and then releasing our weight for the next step.
Our awareness of our breath also offers this sensation: Inhaling what is here; deepening that sense through the suspense of that turning moment between inhalation and exhalation; then returning our internal process to the external world.
Try it. Think of a problem. Walk with it or breathe with it in this way. It is "simple," yet is a practice we too readily forget or rush through and may hold as much complexity as we bring to it.
We also invite you to experiment with an excerpt from the Our Ellipses Here-Now-Next journal. [link/pdf]
Our Ellipses is delighted to share with you best practices from a range of methodologies.
Explore on your own, or invite us to discover with you how they may enhance your learning:
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