August 2006
The theme of this year’s Notting Hill Carnival was Aspiring and Achieving in Unity. Every nation, creed and colour represented was united in the rhythm of the day, whether it be Funk, Salsa, Brazilian, Latin Soul, Hip Hop, Reggae or R & B, for a brief moment we danced and moved together as one.
So I thought I would share with you some reflections on dance and mediation.
With love and best wishes
Jane
Corporate Peacemakers
Making Molehills Out Of Mountains
THE DANCE OF MEDIATION
Nancy Ferrell a civil rights mediator once described mediation as a dance. She said "I realised that when mediation and conflict resolution is really working well, the mediator can go in with the skills he or she has, but listen to the parties and move with them on their level of anger, frustration or indignation, empathising and understanding them, whatever their mood or tune, or dance is at the time. You have to be willing to understand where the parties are. Think about it in terms of being willing to dance with them. You have to start where they are and then move with them and get them to trust you enough to take the rhythm that you’ve got going for the mediation. If you're not willing to dance with them, they’re not going to trust you. They'll only play my tune later if I’ve danced with them. I think that kind of movement is what captures me when I'm thinking about mediation. It's exciting. You go in and some people are just doing the Tango and you've got to go with that, to try to get some harmony."
Dudley Weeks is a special friend of mine. A mediator known world-wide for his work in conflict resolution, he has worked in many regions of conflict including the former Yugoslavia, South Africa and other regions of Africa, Northern Ireland, Palestine - Israel, Central America, and areas of the former Soviet Union. Dudley Weeks has received numerous international awards, including The United Nations of Youth Peace Builders Award and two nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize. His work on behalf of human rights in totalitarian societies has resulted in his imprisonment as a political prisoner for more than a year. I met Dudley at a conference in New Zealand when he talked about his work and his imprisonment and read us his poem To Dance - by the time he had finished we were all in tears.
To Dance
If I had it all to do again
And we never have it all to do again
But if I did have it all to do again
I’d take much more time to dance.
"Dance", you say, "Who needs ballet?
Who needs to move and sway that way?"
But that's not dancing, just moving that way
When you celebrate each day, that’s dancing I say.
When you dare to be you, that’s when you dance
When you fall and get up, that’s when you dance
When you can laugh at yourself, that’s when you dance,
When you enrich someone’s life, then you have danced.
For dancing is feeling that whatever place you’re in
Can be made into a place where hope can begin
Dancing is reaching again and again
For the best that’s in you……..that's dancing, my friend.
By Dudley Weeks
Included in So Far To Go When We Get There, Copyright Dudley Weeks, 1992; and in On Love and Change & Other Subversive Things, Copyright Dudley Weeks, 1999.
www.DudleyWeeks.com
"Peacemaking is not something that we should do to or impose on others, it is the responsibility of us all to live its message"
© Jane Gunn 2006
www.corpeace.com | This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
