Borders of identity…
This second day nobody stepped forward to be the facilitation team. I opened the circle with ringing the bell, and asking people to settle into the silence. Then I spoke about ‘listening to the middle’. Can we speak from Source, instead from our personality? Take the time so that you can speak from the unknown, the unformed inside yourself. Take the talking piece only when you feel the urge from deep within, and not for re-acting on what was said before by somebody else.
I give here the conversation more or less as how it was, without the names of who was speaking. (This might not be interesting for someone outside the AoH community…)
* How open is the space in the Art of Hosting community? What can be new patterns, or maybe beyond that?
* What if there is a structure, a hierarchy in the Art of Hosting that is holding it back? Do we need stewards, who wants them? There is fussiness about who are the stewards… maybe there is too much being held in order to keep its integrity… What needs to be held and what needs to let go?
* I saw a cauldron – basket – container, a deep one; and the word ‘lineage’. I feel that at the heart of what we do is piecing back our lineage, stitching it together, stitch by stitch. It has to do with Europe; the ancient indigenous lineage. It was dis-connected from the land, and this spread all over the world, with capitalism and imperialism as its vehicles. What is it that we are stitching together? The Learning Centers are like the cauldron… the creating of these places, the sensing into what is going to happen here? This is part of the ancient practices.
If you have been to Tibet there you find a lineage that has not been broken. The Buddhist lineage is very intact; ours is not. Many ancient wise people were killed and many simple practices went with them. What is build in into the pattern of Art of Hosting has something about this stitching together, to do that in whatever way to manifest it together. It is a DNA-transmission thing. The dominant world still needs to know Who is the leader? Why do we need one person to be named, why can’t it be the community?
The lineage we stitch together is not the “one leader”, but the “all leader”. Learning Centers are the centers were that can be amplified, ‘baptized’… maybe I saw the font…
* I heard three things inside of me: the first was the fountain of love; it wants to come out in the things I am doing. The second …; the third: keeping the space open in my mind.
* What comes to me are two directions – movements. One is defining the borders of identity – the membrane… maybe that is what we are doing. The other one is opening up, letting come. Also something about speaking to the ghost – the elephants – there seems to be something unspoken. Maybe that is part of finding the identity… I think one of the ghosts I have to speak about is: not being quiet sure how I fit in here; having been only in one training… blocks me here… where is my ground? I see also the many possibilities in the AoH… it is just about being who we are…
* I am busy with the metaphor of olive harvest. We are shaking with the different branches… a little bit of confusion.
I don’t feel a hierarchy here in this circle… maybe it is outside this group… talking about something outside us, doesn’t speak to me… what about my personal leadership? the values I stand for?
The AoH is not a tree that has to be cut down, because it is just starting to grow – it needs to grow it’s second layer. What inspires me is Nature, and what we can learn from it… now it is dark inside, and the light is outside.
At that very moment the sun starts to come through the clouds, while it has been raining and a grey sky since the morning. Panaoiti, the Greek friend and neighbor calls that they are going to harvest some olives… we are almost ready to help him.
* I am at the edge of the AoH community. It was born out of the collective, and now some people get more jobs out of it… hierarchy?… Open Space has ‘elders’… What does ‘growing legs’ mean? More people… more trainings… more …??? Is something blocking this?
* Lots of stories and ideas while people were talking; but I wanted to speak from Source. What comes back is a grandmother story. She tells her grandson “There is a fight in my heart, grandson.” He then asks:” Who is fighting then in your heart?” “Two wolves are fighting in my heart.” “Who is going to win?” the grandson asks. “That depends on the whom I am feeding.”
* I am not here for Art of Hosting, for me it is about harvesting, about Learning Centers; about being here. AoH doesn’t define me. It is rich, useful and gives words to many things, but AoH is not the destination, but it is feeding us, as a way to go forwards. I want to visit the other centers and the other people… I feel it is right to be here, because something is happening…
* From the beginning of this conversation I had a lot of pain in my heart and it becomes heavier; and it is not only from me! I don’t want it to be ignored. We should do something with ‘the ghosts’, it is heavy and it is closing my heart… it is difficult. Maybe some kind of offering…
Then we organized ourselves to help Panaoiti and his mom in harvesting the olives. We walked to the neighbor’s land, helped them a few hours, and then had a picnic lunch between the olive trees.