TheBanyanTree: seminar start up day

[A. Christopher Hammon]

All alone in the office this morning with sounds of John Mayer's 
"Heavier Things" album pouring out of my speakers and the aroma of a 
fresh carafe of Cherokee Triangle coffee (a local roast) hanging in the 
air, I sat down to my keyboard to start spinning the web of activity 
that would soon fill our learning center and connect a hundred voices 
and eight groups in dialogue. My fingers quickly picked up the beat of 
the music and started their dance, tapping out the rhythms to open 
rooms, orient new comers to our environment, and coax forth the flow of 
dialogue.  When the lights flickered on and the conversation started 
flowing as people joined their seminar groups, the irony of it all 
struck me again.
 
We are a continuing professional education facility and this morning was 
the first day of our February seminar session. When people ask us where 
we are located, we happily give them the URL for our virtual campus 
where our learning community gathers. Most people are surprised to learn 
that we only have two full time staff members and two small offices that 
are provided to us by a local church. Yet the introductions shared in 
the learning center reflect persons coming in from New England, the 
Rocky Mountain States, the Deep South, the upper Midwest, the Bahamas, 
South Australia, Wales, and other locations from here and there. Some 
have come to reflect on the Jungian imagery in films like Field of 
Dreams and its application to transitions in mid-life. Others came to 
join a dance in the dark at ¾ time to explore the realities of 
Alzheimer's. Still others rushed in to fill the limited seats for the 
second part of a journey to explore the healing power of stories.
 
Even though I've been working almost exclusively in cyberspace for more 
than a decade, this experience never ceases to amaze me. Here I sit, 
alone in the middle of all of these folks interacting with one another, 
in the center of a buzzing hub of activity, in a place that exists only 
in electrons and imagination. What I wish is that there was a way for 
everyone who is here to experience this sense of activity, that which 
goes beyond just the group in which one is participating. But as the 
keeper of the keys and the CEUs (continuing education units), I'm the 
only person that sees it all and the only one that hears the stories of 
what it means to the folks that come together as community here.
 
There is only one place I know that I can come comment on the sense of 
awe I feel in this experience and know that there are folks that 
understand - a greasy spoon on the info highway that has evolved into a 
Banyan Tree; a deep-rooted community of imagination and shared story.
 
As I sat writing this over lunch in a local coffee shop, three private 
messages came popping into email box from colleagues who facilitate 
seminars for us - three reminders of how interwoven our lives become 
within this virtual web. One celebrated coming back from summer 
vacations. One shared the news that neighbor's fire that also destroyed 
her home was the result of arson. The third shared how his day as a 
chaplain started with a tragic murder/suicide. The stories of lives 
weaving in and out,  transcending geography; sharing in the important 
and not-so-important moments of life bound up by threads of spirit and 
memory and imagination. Alone in my office again, pondering the day for 
a moment before logging off, I remain in awe of this creative new 
connected world.


Cheers,

Chris


_____________________________

A. Christopher Hammon
http://www.barefootontheweb.net/