Patterns & Metaphors
Meetings as social activities
Template:
The following may be used as metaphors to explore alternative ways of understanding meetings:
[1. Orchestra:] The challenge of interrelating participant view points to produce a new balance between harmony and dissonance may be seem in terms of an orchestra.
[2. Theatre:] The possibilities of drama, dramatic tension, the roles of actors, and the audience relationship have often been used to describe meetings.
[3. Dance:] The rhythmic interweaving of dancers may also be used to describe the rhythm of meeting processes and participant interaction.
[4. Temple ritual:] The meeting as a ceremony of celebration of the values to which the participants subscribe may be seem in terms of temple processes with extremes of sacrifice and communion accompanied by ritual chants.
[5. Ceremonial and celebration:] The gathering may be decided as a grouping of sub-ceremonies culminating or constituting some macro- event. This may involve, or be seen as, the high point of a pilgrimage with associated festival activity.
[6. Community:] Some may prefer to experience the event as an "instant community", enriched by the presence of children, old people, the handicapped, etc.
[7. Group formation:] For some there will be ways of using information which could make of the whole gathering a gigantic experiment in forming and reforming groups until the most mature groups emerge suitably empowered and able to relate appropriately to other groups emphasizing other energies.
[8. Drama:] The gathering should be dramatic, and some may want to participate in it in such a way as to heighten the dramatic effects and the significance of the event as a whole.
[9. Learning pathways:] To those oriented towards education, the gathering may best be understood as a complex set of interweaving learning pathways.
[10. Quest:] The gathering may be attractive to some when interpreted as a mystical quest or an exercise in collective alchemical marriage.
