2 february: On our first day of gathering we introduced the morning check-in circle and an evening check-out closing circle. To regulate ‘Possession of the Word’ we used an available pomegranate as a ‘talking piece’. Later we switched our piece of ripe fruit to an elegantly rounded, prized stone from possible volcanic sources. (Within days we became addicted to this tool; once when we fell into a spontaneous round table discussion, an impressive big green pepper was grabbed as a stand-in.) Perceptible shades of content classification have gradually evolved to accompany this ritual.
4 february: Our prototype collective meeting/eating table was assembled from six pallets in our only warm room. As a tradition we now always start everything as a prototype.
5 february: A rigorous daily ‘Liturgy’* was sketched and quickly adopted on our organic prototype basis. It plotted conventional clock demarcations to provide slots for meals, meetings and work sessions. We eagerly could assign ourselves tasks and locate one another in our concerns. *available as a
6 february: As the need for decisions descended upon us, we performed a dissection of the decision process itself. During the day, proposals for collective agreement arrive on their own field on our process board wall to face that evening’s ‘consensus circle’ decision making apparatus (usually at least one proposal exposed to the consensus circle make us laugh a lot). Items can languish in the ‘not yet discussed’ field before being promoted to agreed actionables.
6 february: Proposals that don’t necessitate a decision became labelled as invitations. The unadage that we ‘Trust the Process’ provoked many a nod of agreement.
6 february: The morning planning session that organically emerged from the previous morning circles becomes our ipso facto modus operandi. The desire to get ‘to work’ provides a disciplinary pressure to keep this gathering streamlined and effective.
7 february: Initiation of the resounding Morning Bell at 0700 hours and collective lingo-physical training occurs in unseasonal sunshiny day.
7 february: First dumpster diving yielded its small treasures: three marginal oranges, genuine card board for our endless need to make notices, small crates that shall become kitchen.
It is in the nature of perspective than one requires the desired distance.
It is the nature of life that it is immediate. It may have been the stones.
Written records indicate that one of the core elements of practise that enabled the earliest unMonasterians to successfully expand and replicate their triumphs was le Cappatoste and their willingness to embrace their disasters.
Roughly translatable as ‘the Hardheads’, the guiding principle of Cappatosta proved key to the installation of the first four-month iteration of the unMo at Matera. In turn, generous amounts of this ‘applied stubbornness’ allowed several of the first unMonks to refuse to digest the conceptual constraints of this time limit. Living and waking in rocks, time is not fleeting - permanence permeates. We stand stabile. Alterations would be inevitably earthshaking; they occur on a geological scale. .
Building upon reality and at the same time refusing to acknowledge the limitations it places upon us; we have evolved the rhetorical tool of the 200 year’s timeline on which to stretch our decisions about unMo life. Being from the beginning a ‘prototype’ all potential choices are viewed as proposals; personal initiatives are considered invitations. We are inventing traditions, while the traditions are inventing us.
Il Libro delgli Errori is undertaken as a meditation on our mistakes: not to apportion blame or to chastise co-workers or ourselves, but as a message to the future. Some of our initial fumbles, classical conundrums, persistent attacks of stubbornness may escape our notice. Where we have noticed them each category may require its own tailor-made bookkeeping strategy. We need to isolate where we are perhaps over-reliant on our flexibility and goodwill…
Along the way it seems equally relevant to catalog our triumphs, where we failed to fall into potential traps: the very first unMonasterians created a spontaneous infirmary; to offset a compromise on the health of a member caused by the extreme damp conditions in the unheated dormitory, a night at our favorite B&B was commandeered. As Rita put it in today’s morning circle: it may become a huge Book of Mistakes, but hopefully not a Book of Huge Mistakes.
