[Ailist] Re: re positive core of America - APRRECIATIVE INQUIRY IN PORTUGUESE

[Mary-Alice Arthur]

Bom dia, Augusto!

I'm dreaming of a hammock under an avocado tree I know of in Abidiania near
Brasilia...

> language is a huge framework of our thoughts, so if you can explore AI in
> more than one, certainly better! Very interesting the conversation about
> inquiry using universal languages - motion, music, drawing...

You are reminding me of a meeting I facilitated a year ago this month.  The
group had been focusing on transformational conversation and what it meant.
They had already taken part in a short one-on-one appreciative interview
when a Cook Island participant said to the group:  "This is not how my
people do it."  We inquired further and he meant people didn't sit face to
face and tell stories to each other and he found this a very strange thing
to do.

I thought about that deeply when we broke up and I considered that in a
village like he came from of course people told stories, its just that
they'd be doing it over something they were doing together.  I knew he
teaches Cook Island drumming and often performed. In that vein, I invited
him to our next meeting with the challenge "What would transformational
conversation sound like as a drum beat?".

We had a fantastic session!  We learned about how the drums communicate and
which drumbeats meant certain things and who was supposed to be involved and
how he was stretching the boundaries teaching palangi and women to drum.
And we danced imagining we had an apple on one hip and a pear on the other
(swing them like this:  apple, pear, apple, pear, apple, apple, apple).
Wow, what a fantastic time!  The brainstorm we had after that around how we
would reach people wherever they are was rich and creative.

Brazil, hmmmm....  What would Appreciative Inquiry sound like as music and
look like as a dance?

Mary Alice



Mary-Alice Arthur
SOAR
PO Box 10-868
Wellington
New Zealand
mobile:  +64-21-687-627
email:  mary-alice at getsoaring.com
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