Seeds for a happy planet

Lots of enthused people for the first Art of Hosting Learning Day, but finally we gathered with six – and a baby. And a learning day it was!

My body held still some sadness as I arrived, triggered by some last minute cancellations. I felt my face was closed.

We were welcomed by Rik in nature – his favorite working space – and by the sound of his flute. We stood in circle under a very old tree, hearing the sounds of working machines and closeby stood some building materials. It felt right to include them in our circle… including the ones who choose to do some ‘work’ and not to be here with us; and including the world ‘out there’…

I felt that nature, the silence and slow pace of our conversation and the music opened me up again… what a relief! My face opened up, my breathing became deeper and the smile returned on my face!

We were then invited to have a creative presentation as an answer to the question: In your wildest dreams, who – what – where do you want to host? Of we went for 20 min to let the ideas come up…

When we gathered again Sander was the first to invite us to join him in putting our nose to the window glass of the big room where he sees himself hosting leaders of the world. What did we see or hear while looking inside? This picture is what Helen saw: looking through the window, through the room, through the window on the other side, throught the garden, and through the gate and still seeing Sander’s reflection! Amasing lessons were shared from these small observations and Sander had the impression these answers were why he came all the way from the Netherlands to join us in this day.

Next was Hannelore to tell her wildest dream of having a farm and a garden connected with the Heerlijckyt, so that ‘a whole life’ experience can be offered to all visitors. She invited us in the field with the three donkeys…

Now it was Rik’s turn, and to keep his – and our – fire burning, he invited to build together a structure with some wood we could find around the place. This was an amasing experience! Nobody took the lead, the men were more collecting the sticks, women tended to build the foudation of the structure… and we managed to build something that was nice and exceptional! Again different lessons about working together, how things can emerge with no plan beforehand and lots more!

All this strenghtened my idea of how important it is to include the wholeness of knowing – all the different ways of accessing knowing.

Time for lunch!

This time we gathered around the fire-place inside, and I started harvesting on a big sheet of paper what we already got out of our conversations. If you ever were part of this kind of flowing, inspiring conversations you know it is almost impossible to capture. So rich, so many links, deep silence, building on each other, deepening our understanding together…

Some of the sentences:
We host the new world, as it emerges. Hosting means: holding the field outside the content; hosting the container for questions; hosting the process between people; hosting the trust.

We are creating the new, conscious groove.

What spoke to me the most was: We come together as hosts – without content – as the field, and this is an evolutionary, collective act and practice.

It was clear to us, after some time, that we were not here to organise something or to find a next step for some kind of action. This coming together, our search for deeper meaning, this inspiring conversation was our purpose!

Since earlier in the conversation we were talking about the history of the venue, De Heerlijckhyt van Elsmeren, where we were gathered and that we all have a strong relationship with. It was here that the first Art of Hosting happened last October. Julian remembered his first visit, when I showed him the barn that is used these days for storing wood and all the working materials. Somebody proposed to visit it right now, and of we went…

It is truly a remarkable place… a deep silence is almost tangible… an emptyness…

Rik started playing his flute, two others joined in with sound… Who is singing? Who is singing me?

The last words on the flipchart:

simplicity of love

power of silence

the mystery

as a gift

Thanks to Helen, who made so many beautiful pictures, go and visit them here! I’m pleased that I could use some of them to beautify my blogposting. The harvest team is building!

We started our third day again with some music, movement and dancing: to become present in our bodies, to be able to receive precious information from that source of wisdom and knowing. Actually the start was earlier. We all arrived more or less on the scheduled time, some were lightning the candles, clearing away stuff from yesterday that we didn’t need anymore; putting the flipcharts on the wall etc. Only then we were invited in to the dance and at the end we let the words in of Sheila Chandra:

Women, I’m calling you!
Yourr wisdom can not be lost,
your spirit can not be broken!
Your wisdom is in dreams.

(more…)

In the Art of Hosting community more and more attention goes to the Art of Harvesting. In email exchanges these last few days I saw some good, useful stuff and some challenging questions.

A beautiful, nice and simple presentation was made by Cris Corrigan for one of his clients, but it can be inspiring for all of us: What else could harvest be?

Last week I sent out an invitation for a follow-up day from the last Art of Hosting training in Belgium. I stated my own learning as: “How to design a gathering like this that will feed into the next step, in the best possible way?” I really don’t have a clue, it is on the edge of knowing and not-knowing…

Simone answered with some more questions: “There are a few questions about harvesting, with which I have been sitting many years now: Can the harvest become something that just naturally emerges from a gathering? If yes how? How can harvesting the outcome of a gathering become a natural, joyful and creative task? … ”

Hilde Vandormael responded: “Isn’t it so, that the harvesting is there, all the time, as we are witnesses of our lives? How to become aware?”

Also for the workshop Women Moving the Edge, early March, we are confronted with this question. How to design this gathering not only for the days we are actually together but also for afterwards? What is the harvest that we want? What format will serve our purpose best? How to integrate harvest on the spot?

Last a little harvest jewell by Lenore Mewton :
“Harvesting is reaping the simple elegance and wisdom of our souls and hearts—- leading to inspired action.“

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).