Harvest of this Art of Hosting
What was emerging in this Art of Hosting?
What is emerging for the future?
In the debrief of this workshop by our diverse hosting team (in age, in culture and different parts of the world) we came to see some patterns that will nurture the future of the hosting trainings. First of all, because it is very close to my heart, we see that the hosting ourselves, or the ‘be present’ became more in the centre of the training. Every day there were two opportunities to train for individual practice, Aikido or meditation. ‘Hosting yourself and others’ was the theme of our second day. As presencing exercise participants were asked to walk the circle – in silence – which was very intense and meaningful. It invited everybody to show themselves in an authentic way and becoming comfortable in a circle of human beings. Toke called it: weaving humanity back into the field. Because of this little training we saw a lot of new hosts walking the circle in confidence, whether for opening space or for the opening or closing of the day.
Another point of the new design was that there was a teaching about the Chaordic Path on the first day, as part of the theme of the day: What is this? This created a safe environment, a good container, for all participants as they understood that being in chaos and feeling uncertain was part of the path to go. It was a collective meaning making and became part of the language for everyone.
What we see afterwards is that the stories of the eight little helpers, combined with the Kufunda story and later the teaching on the five breaths, combined with the story of the Health Care Systems in Columbus, Ohio – even if they are about large scale change, which can be very far from the actual day-to-day experience of some participants – actually it gave a story of hope! One of the participants said: “This gives me hope for my country!”
The Flow Game was used on the last day as a converging tool, which worked out in a good way. Participants had a safe environment and some focused time for their own, personal question. This was a good preparation to make the bridge to their own situation in life.
We saw a very strong closing of the three days where there was first a longer poem, then the invitation for everyone to write a little, reflective poem and then to sign up for commitments we are going to take in the future. The speaking out of some of these commitments in front of the whole group was a very powerful ending.
In our collective looking back we came to see that there is, within the Art of Hosting, the Art of Design and the Art of Harvesting. In an open space session we saw that harvesting is actually about reflecting back the process, the learning or change that happened; and not about what was said or done. The use of metaphors, pictures, poems, important quotes and testimonies is a good way of making a creative presentation instead of a dry report. What is needed in the future is probably that in the preparation both a facilitation and a harvesting team is set. They can both invite apprentices to train on the spot.
In our hosting team we see that in the future the Art of Hosting can become a 5-day training – or even longer – with more time for individual practice and good, explicit teachings. Maybe it becomes the Art of Hosting Life, or the Art of being hosted by Life; as we see within ourselves and within the Kufunda community here that all areas of life need to be included if we use Art of Hosting as an operating system for meaningful communities.
As a last point we see that a follow-up gathering or the start of Art of Hosting Practitioners Circles can or will be the next level of the Art of Hosting training(s).