Transition Open Space – the future will be together

The future will be together

At the beginning of July, I attended an eight-day Transition Open Space festival in Flanders. Here is an excerpt from the invitation that gives a flavour of what the gathering was about:

“Many people find that we must do things ‘differently’, but don’t know how. Some people feel that they are personally ‘in transition’, while others are seeking to change course in their professional lives … Many are searching, experimenting, learning and taking a first step. But what’s next? We see many beautiful mushrooms: permaculture, local transition initiatives, transition arenas, the Art of Hosting, systems thinking, sustainability, participation, local economy, etc. But who has noticed that there is an underground, invisible system – the mycelium – that connects all these visible mushrooms? What is possible if we see this together, experience this together, and take our next step from there?”

What I experienced and observed during our week together nicely illustrates some of the recurring patterns I am witnessing in the cultural shift beginning to peek through the cracks in mainstream civilization:

• The core team
• Containers for self-organising and diversity
• Alternative currency as a means to surface the shadow of money
• Learning to live together with the land
• Intentionally spreading the seeds of possibility
• Healing the relationship between the masculine and feminine
• Witnessing & reflection as practices that birth collective wisdom
• Omnipresence of Spirit and Earth
• Understanding diversity as wholeness
• Be yourself!
• Staying local to support the trans-local.

I’ll be sharing more of the story, together with my thoughts and observations about these patterns over the coming days/weeks – in the meantime, here’s a lovely short video by Berto Aussems with photos and film taken during the last two days of the festival.