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Oregon
Mastery Conference at Netarts 2008
THE
ARK and InnerDialogue
An ark
Herbert
(Austria)– Alicia (Oregon) – Dorotheya (Russia) – Tomas
(Montana)
meet themselves as we move back from the sea after a symbolic
dipping in the ocean to commemorate our new relationship as an
InnerDialogue™community
We thought it was pertinent for you all to hear about what occurred
during the two-week Ontological Mastery workshop and Conference
here on the coast of Oregon, during September. We were very
fortunate in having 29 people work with us during the two halves
that made up the workshop. We were also blessed by continuous
sunshine, as we overlooked the beach from our grand, open
balconies. This gave us unparalleled views of the beauty that
is this part of Oregon's coast. Five or so of the whole group
were also fasting for Ramadan, so we were privy to a glorious
succession of wonderful mornings. Our lone kayak was frequently
seconded as participants nipped off to brave the ebb and flow of
the tidal estuary that fronted the property, which was particularly
popular just after dawn, when the night mist wafted clear and the
weak but brilliant morning sun rose upon a flat ocean and pelican
lined estuary bank.
We had participants from 6 countries other than the US: Costa Rica,
Sweden, Ireland, England, Austria and Russia. We had rented three
rather grand beach holiday houses, side by side, and a small less
formal fourth, half a mile away for some of the late-comers.
The main job of the workshop was to teach the full gamut of the
work, which in shear numbers takes up over 4000 pages of data, and
includes about 1400 hand modes. Obviously the work cannot be
taught in such a way, by working through page after page, so I
taught it as a Dbase project - in that the participants learnt how
to use the Dbase creatively, and were able to lump groups of modes
as 'ideas' or as a conceptual framework - so that they were able to
dialogue with their peers using the work by coming across multiple
possibilities of language (modes and files) rather than being
restricted by a single hand mode which limited the conversation to
a monologue or a particular nuance. Just to complete this
picture we had on the second half of the workshop twenty-four Macs
and five PCs all with glowing pixels during the workshop hours, and
all using the latest version of the Dbase. I feel that we had all
of the participants up and running and were all pretty competent in
their use of this complex and sophisticated program which enables
practitioners to really use the work as a language and dialogue
based systems rather than a therapeutic modality.
The Djinn
During
the first week I took topics and used them as an introduction into
whole areas of the Dbase, getting the participants familiar with
what had been abstract ideas until then; they would meet up with
the old model of how I taught the work with a new map and approach
which we now use. For many of them the subject matter may
have been intimated or heralded by cryptic comments by me in their
previous workshops, but they were really encountering the work as
completely new. One of the subjects was about genetic
predispositions and patterns, which we inherit or trigger.
This subject is rife with superstition and misunderstanding
as this spectrum of the work is called the djinn, after the Arabic
word, jannu, for something hidden or concealed. The etymology of
the language allows us to see how jannu, morphs into jinn or djinn,
is taken into the French genie, is paralleled by the Latin genius
as in creative spirit, and has a nuanced correspondence in
hereditary as in genus, gene, genetic and genome.
I was talking about the first time I had really seen how the
correspondence of our own internal predispositions, character and
personality could influence things - in this case, matter. I
described an experience of a force exit me and enter my computer
and crash it. This occurred repeatedly, and eventually predictably,
as I began to see the force exit me and enter my Mac! I understood,
as I recognized the dark and smoky shape, that the force we call
djinn or genie was indeed an elemental force which could influence
and switch on or off material things, in this case the software
code in my computer, making it freeze. This force was, of
course, an element of mine and corresponded to a character flaw,
which my inner self was getting me to notice. A flaw that
made me play with my computer and become distracted, taken off
track, so that the work at hand was not completed. The
resulting, and common, computer foul up was the physical
manifestation - and this used to occur often with me at the end of
projects - so that the work was completed but only by the eleventh
hour. This massive extra effort on my part to right the
computer glitches (usually printing) gave me a proverbial 'well
done, what a good a chap', as I wrestled the seemingly arcane
idiosyncrasies of a computer gone wrong. In reality, the code
in me had sabotaged the machine.
So here I was telling this, one of several stories that fill the
lexicon of 'what is', to the assembled group; suggested that we
work with these forces to understand their nature, only to find
that a similar thing occurred within moments of starting the
exercise with the group. I had told the story of the djinn in the
box, a well known story from the Thousand and One Nights, a grand,
rambling, esoteric series of teaching stories compiled in the 10th
to 16th centuries that recount, story after story, as if told on a
nightly basis by Sherhezerade as she beguiles, seduces and entices
her husband from making love to her, as his morning sequel is to
execute his deflowered bride. His fascination for the sequel to the
story stays his executioner's hand as he waits for the next night's
continuation. (This is a bit of a distraction, when you have so
much already.)
In the exercise I was asked to release within Ad Humanitas (rather
than me) a djinn in a box, inferring that there was some new
instructions (codon) that we, as an organization, needed to
initiate. I did so, and within twenty minutes or so, both mine and
Alicia's hard discs failed. We both had our computers go
completely blank, with screens on, but no hard discs available, a
blank screen. It appeared that this new djinn or activator of
our genome was illustrating that we, Ad Humanitas, needed to start
afresh, with a proverbial blank screen. As I accessed it, the
dialogue came through that this new set of instructions were about
speaking and thinking from a common, spiritually nourished voice.
To speak with one voice: the idea that each part of us, each nature
speaks with the same voice, there is no dissent, no rebellion.
Each one of us on this common enterprise speaks with one
voice, teach with one voice, work as if one voice, and pray as
One.
The
dialogue
The next day we got the group to work with Alicia and I as
representatives of the community and of Ad Humanitas. They
worked with us as a couple, holding hands, being accessed with the
work as a dialogue; and making sure that each one of us accepted
the modes in both Alicia and my hands, so that the dialogue was
clear and concise. The process actually took the whole day,
and yet the community was fully present and engaged as we worked
out a common new map or model for our community.
This is where the idea of the ark evolved. The dialogue that
we provided as each mode was placed in, was a clear new set of
instructions of how to make a community for those who were
embracing the work at this level.
The dialogue presented in clear terms that we were a community, on
a boat, buoyed and supported by the waters of Life, the feminine,
and guided by the Divine, like Noah's ark, all knowing our
horizontal order within the community - knowing our place; what we
can each provide of our talents and gifts, and whether we saw
ourselves as recording and maintaining records and history,
providing resources, establishing guidelines, manuals and
curriculum or seeing ourselves as future teachers or assistants.
Alicia's and my role will change, more as parents rather than
matriarch or boss and that although I may still be captain of the
ship, we are taking orders from our Creator, and that I have a crew
who I need as much as they need me. In the dialogue we found that
the keel and ribs of the ark had engrained within them the old myth
of the curse of Eve and Adam, inferring that the fabric of (any)
human organization carries within it the historical sense of finger
pointing: 'she is to blame, he's to blame'. This judgmental
historical curse needed to be let go and cleaned, and at the least
acknowledged, for without our tacit understanding the force would
permeate the boat. Interestingly what also got pulled up was
the need for us to let go of spiritual union, the need to reach up
to God, to make the work too spiritual, too lofty, but to surrender
that need, so the work simply works from the premise of dialogue -
to allow the Logos to come through.
InnerDialogue
Consequently
we finished with an understanding and inner feeling of complete
satisfaction by all of the participants that we had started a
process whereby the work that we will call InnerDialogue® is and
will be ours, and that together we can shape it and present it to
the world in a renewed and invigorated way. Each one of us saw a
common understanding arise: a common feeling and common purpose -
which is still being shaped - and a common voice. We finished
by all going down to the ocean together and, in a long line holding
hands, stepped into the water to symbolize this new
beginning.
We found an ark, we have begun to board it, it can be accessed via
FaceBook under the Ad Humanitas organization, and you can ask to
join the community, which has superseded our use of the old list
servers, but provides a forum for thought, questions, ideas and
protocol. Please feel free, if you have done the work, to
join. For those who are viewing all of this from the
viewpoint of client, or participant in a Being Human workshop then
we will be providing a new blog on the new web site which will be
open to you to respond, as well as a separate InnerDialogue web
site which will be the new face of the
work.