I'm planning to go off line for a couple days as I take some time to reflect and regroup. It's been a very packed month. But here's what I gleaned from this week...
After years of unofficial, volunteer work as a neutral mediator, I thought that some formal instruction would sharpen my skills and provide some new tools for guiding groups to find mutually acceptable resolutions. Through several role play scenarios I was reminded that the process isn't about the mediator discovering/creating the "win-win solution" (mediators are to guide others to find their own answers). Neither is it my job to encourage compromise (because that means both parties lose half of what they want). It's not my job to fix things or convince people of ideas but to create the safe space where they can find creative collaborative answers. It's also not arbitration (where one wins and one loses) or match-making.
I found myself daydreaming during a break about the idea of re-assembling my twenty classmates, a room full of experienced mediators and these instructors to guide the crafting of the final version of the Universal Code of Sacred Sites. Could they spend time in caucus with Dakota elders and political leaders, then caucus with government leaders, guiding these groups to chug out a collaborative solution? Could this group facilitate the dialogue that could find answer to Bdote / Fort Snelling issues? Could these mediators effectively ask the needed questions that would lead to Truth Telling and healing 150 years after the Dakota-Indian War? Could this model be reproduced in communities to guide discussions about sacred sites and to sites of consciousness? I'm thinking yes! And more importantly, there are a bunch of trained mediators who think so too!
