Our society is changing faster, getting more complex and the old methods aren’t working very well, leading people like noted Ashland philospher-author Jean Houston to decide that a new generation of “social artists” need to be trained as leaders of constructive global change.
Houston, author of 26 books and a teacher of many consciousness-raising seminars around the world, has for 10 years, led her Social Artistry Summer Leadreship Institute at Southern Oregon University, training people to carry out projects in the US for health care reform, community development through the arts, environmental education, Native American housing, prison education and literacy to overcome poverty.
This August, she will lead her training on a cruise to Alaska, with a fund-raising benefit brunch, lecture and art auction July 17 at Blue: Greek on Granite Restaurant in Ashland.
Houston, an Ashland resident for 13 years, has located her nonprofit Jean Houston Foundation in Ashland -- and the event will be an attempt to reach out more deeply to the Ashland community, which, says the foundation executive director Peggy Dean, has a lot of retired people of accomplishment and means who want to do social artistry.
Working with the United Nations Development Program, her teams have been training social artistry leaders abroad - in Albania, Kenya, Nepal, the Philippines and the Caribbean to organize basic life functions, such as sanitation, food supply, small business support, dairies and literacy, said Dean.
“It’s giving people hope and purpose with hands-on skills, using a sensory-rich strategy,” said Dean, noting that social artistry incorporates local myth, storytelling, dance, music, theater and folkways, rather than coming in and imposing Western-style planning and organization.
“As the old structures fail, it becomes them-and-us but this brings about the ‘we’ again,” said Houston, noting that social artistry works to counter the hopelessness and immobility resulting “when 1 percent of the population has more income than the lower 90 percent.”
Houston adds, “Now, more change is happening faster, old traditions are collapsing and the economy is not going to get better. We’ve lived through the good times, having good incomes, comfort, scientific advances and good education. Now, instead of good times, we’re having what I call ‘great times,’ meaning that what’s expected is the unexpected at every level.”
To cope with such levels of change, instability and complexity requires people skilled in social artistry, Houston says, adding that at her trainings people often come in teams or form into networks, then leave to conduct specific projects
“We’re always looking for the emerging story (in the local culture), then you have your reason for being and you create that communal bond that allows the community to go forward,” says Houston.
Gloria Rossi Menendez, owner of Blue (the Ashland restaurant) and “creative working partner” with Houston, says, “We lift our local lives into the much bigger story and it carries and lifts you, creating a web that does not have a weaver.”
Houston adds, “It’s an artistry that focuses intentionality and brings out so many inner skills. This is important because we’re not prepared for this time. The average person now has 100 times the experience of people a century ago...the level of our development has to keep pace with our crises -- in the economy, ecology, terrorism...”
Houston, 74, works to integrate skills and wisdom from both genders and all cultures and quips, “Too many white males I meet are prepared for the challenges of 1926.”
Dean works on social artistry with Microsoft Corporation and says she teaches business people to move beyond the old models of management.
The social artistry model of leadership, says Dean, includes expanded intellectual capacity, systems thinking, strategic problem-solving, partnership building, “gender mainstreaming,” human rights, personal imagination, initiative and appreciation for the local culture and wisdom, along with lots of “rhythmic response, jokes and laughter.”
The difference in social artistry, notes Houston, is that it’s sensory, physical, psychological, mythic, symbolic, spiritual and integral -- all qualities developing beyond the old business and management styles.
Often employing mind-stretching phrases and concepts, Houston sums up the purpose of social artistry by saying, “Indigenous peoples know we have access to a wide spectrum of personas, which we can train people to take on. We’re not just these bags of skin we drag around.”
Houston says she wants to step up her use of skilled area residents because “Ashland is ancient Athens without the slaves. We have music, arts, the best theater in the country, tremendous healing centers, more mind-body workers per square foot than anywhere in the world. It’s a town vigorously involved with itself.”
Houston’s work has roots in ancient Greek mythology and values, as do her Mystery Schools, taught annually in Oregon and New York state. The event at the Greek restaurant is $35, includes brunch and will feature an auction of art, including some from her collection.
The Alaskan cruise training, called “Navigating the Wilderness, is August 3 through 13 and starts with a three-day training in Seattle. Information is at www.jeanhoustonfoundation.org. For tickets for the Ashland auction, call the Social Artistry Foundation, 541-482-4240 or the Jean Houston office, 541-482-1200.
No comments:
Post a Comment