Seeds for a happy planet

Apoligies for my English readers, but we started yesterday our very first Art of Hosting in Dutch; in Flanders. Might seem like a small event, 15 participants and 4 hosts, but to me it is quite meaningful… I have hold the possibility for many years, now it is here, happening!

Vandaag zijn we begonnen met een eerste Art of Hosting in het Nederlands. Een Vlaams avontuur, vier Vlaamse trainers/hosts/gastheren-vrouw…

Al in het eerste gesprek – een World Café rond de vraag van Wat brengt je hier? – kwam er ontroering in mij op… Er zit diepgang in deze groep, en een hoop intelligentie. Mijn hart lijkt te klein om te bevatten wat er hier gaat geboren worden. Maar ik moet het niet bevatten, het mag gewoon stromen…

Uit onze eerste cirkel na de pauze:

Een punt voorbij het spreken
En daarin gaan staan
voorbij ‘een mening hebben’
tussen de regels…

persoonlijke missie en talent komt samen
hoe wordt 1 +1 = 3?
En tegelijk uw plek innemen?

Een roffel
Vreugde dat mensen bij mekaar willen komen – ook al begrijpen ze het niet – maar het willen laten gebeuren

Ik voel een urgentie die vanuit rust ademt

Ieder heeft een eigenheid, iets unieks
Van daaruit kunnen we een veld creëren
Waarin ieder geraakt wordt

Feest van verwondering over de aanwezige kwaliteiten

Ik proef een diep verlangen naar verbinding met een groter geheel
Het comfort van de kleine, bekende kring en de spanning van de grotere kring

Een actief wachten op wat gaat komen

Verhalen… van vroeger, van nu, van morgen…
De relaties mogen nog geboren worden
We zijn nieuwsgierig naar ons verhaal – het wacht op ons. Ieder heeft een draad in het weefsel… in het midden ontstaat ons verhaal

Blije veelkleurigheid
Kleuren die willen samenkomen in een schilderij
Dat iets wil vertellen
Het is om van te genieten
Samen willen schilderen met mooie, blije kleuren

Een zoektocht naar betekenis, naar geluk
Het schilderij geeft hoop

Behoefte aan stilte en alleen-zijn
Parole, parole, parole…
Kijken, horen, voelen

Een delen van ontevredenheid, een zoektocht

Lef! Samen lef opbouwen!
Hoe weven we het lege canvas waarop we samen schilderen?

Verbinding
Van ik naar het collectieve
Open voor mogelijkheden

Ik zie een cirkel van mensen die zich – met hun kwaliteiten – willen verbinden in een proces in  het kader van een hoger plan

Kwaliteiten van de Vlamingen, ze zijn kort en bondig én heel poëtisch
Misschien is het belangrijk hoe we het schilderij samen maken

Het was tijd om naar hier te komen, de mensen zijn hier helemaal en niet in stukken gekapt

Gaan kijken in den hof, daar begint het!

Enorme diversiteit
laat komen wat komt

The first leg of my journey ‘at this side of the pond’, as George would say, has ended. It was an amazing journey.
Arriving here in Canada, in the province of Nova Scotia, with a size bigger than Belgium but only 1 million citizens, the first thing that catched my eyes was: space! Kilometers and kilometers you only see threes, threes, a lake, and threes again. Only now and then a few houses!

We gathered here at The Shire, a learning centre near Yarmouth, with some stewards of the Art of Hosting network. Purpose was to see how a next level, or a next step in governing/stewarding this self-organising web of practitioners could look like, could take form. It is a worldwide question how a self-organising web of people can be guided to the next step of its evolution, that is also in alignment with values as openness, open source, courage, leadership, constant learning etc. We can’t govern ‘old style’, not even ‘new style’. It needs to be ‘emergent style’. It needs to be supportive of the growth, the evolution, the brilliance of the web and all the people in it! This style needs to be an expression of and add to the unfolding of being a learning-full and leader-full network. As someone said in the gathering: I want to be a leader with no followers.

Wouldn’t it be great when everyone was a leader in this way?

This theme is exactly the focus of the workshop I will participate in at the Shambhala Summer Institute in a few days.

I love this learning with others, this collective inquiry that leads us to emergent learning.

I always find it inspiring to read Chris Corrigan’s blog, and especially this recent entry: 30-day learning journey. Chris is a deep learner of life, he is about learning from head till toes. Most of the time you can see his eyes sparkling, and sometimes he get bloody serious. Serious is not the good word here: focused, grounded, standing for his values; that is how he is too.

He shares: “Last month, I was in Ontario with a friend of mine and he asked “What are your goals? What would I see if I talked to you in six months?” I told him that I don’t have any goals, but instead I run these little research projects. I get curious about things and start noticing them in my life and work and I usually use a combination of this blog and a moleskine journal to record my results. It keeps me moving forward.”

I have always felt unconfortable with goals and strategies. For a long time I thought I needed to do something about, needed to develop my masculine side… Since some time I don’t think so anymore. I have developed and learned a lot without setting goals, without using strategies. I go with what attracts me, with what makes me curious, with what becomes clear before my eyes.

And like Chris, there is always some kind of question that somehow guides me. Since last summer I was holding the question: What do I do when I am holding space? I gained some clarity on that, wrote a little on it and I will write more in the following weeks.

Now my question is somehow shifting to: How can I support that the different communities of practice about social technologies become a (bigger) system of influence? This question is ‘taken’ from the article of Meg Wheatley and Debbie Frieze. The communities of practice that I have easy access to: Art of Hosting, World Caf�, Berkana, Open Space. Others might be: Presencing, Appreciative Inquiry, PeertoPeer and maybe more… I plan to have a little learning journey in the summer to start conversations around this question… the learning will be longer than 30 days though.

“We are the system
- the system is not outside ourselves -
it is our own broken relationships that need to heal
- my relationship to myself, to life – to this earth – to the others – to the world -
that is how systemic shifts happen.

I am the need in the world – we are the system – we are the solution.
Meaningful conversations and real learning space heal our relationships.

We are invited to enter living from the heart….
From disrespect to respect,
from I know better to curiousity,
from judging to understanding each other,
from fear to love.
This is what we need to host now between us,
this is part of the Work of anyone who wants to help the world at this time.”
Collective insight during Art of Hosting training in Brazil, December 2007.

In March ‘08 there will be another Art of Hosting training in Belgium, to which you are invited! Look at the website for invitation and registration form.

The evening of the second day, at dinner it was tangible that something had happened; that we got some clarity together: the Art of Hosting Meaningful Spaces, as a diversification from the Art of Hosting meaningful conversations. A next level up on the spiral, but still very much connected to its roots. There was energy and laughter in the air…

We saw how a community is forming within a community. Which is after all a very natural step in evolution: making differences more clear – diversification – to be able to hold more complexity, or in other words, more wholeness.

Being the caller is really something different than being a host; we saw deeper into these differences. It is only the callers themselves who lived the experience who can really speak of it. Being a caller for a certain place takes a longer and different commitment than being a host, who can come and go.

The spaces we are holding in the learning centers, are the places where people and place can work together. Where there is place for conversations like this: “That tree is so happy that you all are harvesting it!” (said by Panaoiti’s mom when we were helping them with the olive harvest). Basically we are learning that we have to love the earth, the places we live in. Part of this learning has very, very deep roots. There can be much pressure around finances, but we take a stand in not let the land be prostituted.

Enough is enough!

When we gather in these places all aspects of life are welcomed; also the children. We invite this kind of softness in, even when it makes us vulnerable.

We are here to learn again the lineage and learn again about relationships; instead of ‘things’.

The conversation went on…
You will notice how the conversation ‘struggled’, until at a certain time we reached collective clarity on ‘The Art of Hosting Meaningful Spaces’, as a next level or a new branch in the overall Art of Hosting community. Here is most of what was said:

* I’m holding a lot of resonance from the morning circle. We were touching into this heaviness… I feel called to speak… the strength of meaning is held outside… as if we are supposed to do the AoH in a certain way. Personally I am invited to step into hosting every moment! With real issues!
The AoH training is a doorway, and the Learning Centers is a new way. The community seems to value more the work in the world; but this is also the work! I don’t want to go into the judgment space. I live real emergence here. We are practicing the next level. The locations are inviting the integration. Hosting is huge! It is bigger than ‘hosting meaningful conversations’. If we don’t tend the fire, we are cold. If we don’t tend the food, we are hungry. It is in every moment. Learning Centers are a practice ground to send people to. For me it is a way of living. I want to find, to identify what is really going on here.
And there is something about the questions we each hold; they need to come to the front more.

* Here we have a good “f” product: the Art of Hosting; we have the best people, and the best places in Europe. Let’s start to walk, one step after the other! And yes, we don’t know where we are going!
How much are we really willing to put in? Are we scared?

* Are we feeding the wolf of fear? There is a difference in elder and steward. Who declares who is a steward or not?
A lot of consultants have taken the AoH training. Are they ready to deliver? Why are we crunching about the guru word?

* (To Maria and Sarah) You are now the elders of this place. Don’t look for others who are not here. Don’t wait for support from certain others. Be proud of what you do, and ask help from the ones who wants to offer. That’s the lesson we learned.

* Hierarchy – when it is good – it visualize who is most wise; something we have to pay respect to. Now hierarchy is mostly related with the one who gets the most money… How do we get rid of the burden… I think we need ‘to lift as a flock’… I’m asking for help here.

* If this land (Axladitsa) is part of the community that we are all part of, then we can look deeper and support this place; as a learning lesson for myself too. If we talk about the not-present world, it doesn’t work. What is the gift here, beyond the AoH community? What are you missing here? What is here and now the significant question?

* The AoH training is not ‘wrong’; everything has its own place. One sentence was very strong for me: life as a metaphor; or life as itself. ‘Flow’ and the other AoH concepts stop to be only tools and metaphors. AoH is now becoming my life and now it has meaning and I can explain it to others. AoH is a tool and a framing for some people; Learning Centers is another doorway equally important. The AoH and my harvesting-gardening becomes integrated. Next year as I will be harvesting olives I will have learned a lot.

* The layers upon layers of AoH… this is a living learning center… it is a pallet that we are learning. AoH is upgrading to the next level; bridging the masculine and the feminine; and it are only the first steps! Keep inviting!

* In the Greek language – the indigenous people – the word ‘hieries’ means the ones who were committed and practice the mystery. The word hierarchy comes from that root. My personal purpose is to bring back the ‘mystery school’. I am a doorway holder. I am a ‘hiera’, I do it with reverence, … I am not “a door”, only a doorway holder. ‘Guru’ is an imported word, so I don’t use it. I do know what an elder is, it is the lineage holder; that watches and makes sure it is passed on.
AoH is only an element of that. I would love to talk about Axladitsa, the practice of receiving. How to you open and receive? Instead of: you ask and it then means you are weak. The underlying issue is: What are we really doing here? How do we do it in a capitalist context and still holding our integrity?
Now I am a guardian, not an elder yet. I will become that. I am a student of the land. I am fierce about protecting its pulse. This land and we are birthing something very important here. The friendship with our neighbor will grow, but we have to wait till the timing is right.
I did great work and have deep friendship with some of who are not here. My path is at a different angle, I had to work with that: to be a host of a place, buffing down my sharp edges.
The root of AoH is very strong. My deep desire is to look deeper into the connections between the learning centers.
Bob Ziegler asks the question: If the Learning Centers are as a mandala, what is the core quality of the different ones? Then we can see the wholeness of it all. Is there a structure that would help and support us all? What is the flow of income of this place?

* There is a song that sings about the different levels of love. The first is an attraction on a physical level. The second level is the sexual relationship. You could have it with different people. The third level is being, is living together. Few people still do it. This is the diamond in Axladitsa. The fourth is surrendering your self to one another. Hosting is about that level, in surrender to the field.

* We are now offering the Art of Hosting meaningful spaces – and not meaningful conversations alone. We will evolve this practice and train people in it etc. It is important that some people stand up as the masters of this. Hosting is like giving love to someone.

* My legs are trembling… we are speaking about the legs now!! The diversification is happening, the next level of the spiral, but still connected to the root.

* It is about hosting meaningful life!

* This is THE meaning! We have to be careful not to close in on the financial issue… money is just one of the energy forms. We really have to focus on making it bigger than one plus one plus one. We are dealing here with big matters.
I am one of two (part of a couple); I/we are asking for help. Let’s meet as much as possible in each other’s places and doing the things together. It brings out the best in people. Instead of talking, let’s do it!

* I’m wondering if the next thing we need to talk about: are there patterns in the learning centers to get it into the tangible… bringing in the patterns of the places.

* It would be really important to hear the story of the different places and what are the needs and the ideas. And just listen for the pattern and the learning’s. Can we sprinkle some water on the spider’s web?

* Isaac Mendelssohn talks about this fourth level: One thing that is specific in this pattern is the practice of offering. And he says: part of being human is the act of offering. Being able to speak where the need is, is making the offering possible.

* We have now seen the shape of the legs. It is good to close this circle, and maybe we come back to it…

Further conversations happened while others were preparing dinner…
later more conversations on the financial issue…
but too much from preconceived ideas…

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.

Today was the official start of the Art of Hosting on ’growing legs’ for the AoH community. When we just drove back from the farmhouse to our little studios here in a local hotel here in Platania, the local fishing port, we could hardly imagine that this was just one day!

Total strangers shared some of their personal stories and we did all the other stuff that makes a good community: making and eating food together and doing some physical work together. We harvested the olives from the last seven trees. I will never complain any more, or wonder why olive oil is so expensive. If you want to understand make sure you know how they are harvested! For me it was fun to learn a new gardening art: how to use the long sticks with the least effort but with the maximum of result. And fun too to climb in these old trees, to be able to reach the highest branches. I loved it.

The check-in of this morning revealed how most of us, eleven participants, are ‘at the bottom of the U’; at a point in life where it is not so clear where to go, or when to move on. We joked about that this is why so many people didn’t make it to join us: they were probably sure about their lives and didn’t need to be here?!

Like in the Art of Hosting on Art of Hosting, in June in Belgium, we used the tarot cards after we returned from the physical work outside, and laid out a certain pattern that could inform us about the deeper meaning of our gathering.

At the center, at the heart, was Eight of Swords, reversed. It tells us about the letting go of any thoughts, realizing that we are not limited by them, as they are not the actual situation. “We don’t have to grow legs, we have to use them!”

North was Five of Wands, which tells us about: What’s present? What is visible to the world? What we show is the trying out, the creative energy. So maybe it tells about growing up, do something with what we already have?

What comes in our consciousness? The Night of Swords: about the personal level of this community. Showing the world what we stand for (values and principles) and taking action from there. The sword brings the clarity of mind.

What do we need to let go of (past)? Again swords: Seven of Swords: the nightmare of the perfectionist. The person is carrying already five swords, and can’t take the two others that are left. We related it to the many different ideas we had as we were envisioning this gathering and none of them came through. Maybe we have to look at what works and go with that.

Again more swords (Ten) came for the question: What is the near future? It spoke of letting go anything that pins us down. There is something that the world is ready for this resonance; not fighting the system, but show it to the world, because it is now ready. We can come out of the unclarity.

Maybe our harvest is being stewards of clarity, and also take the time to gain this clarity; to find the clarity in the practice.

To close our session we took another card as a piece of advice: the Wheel of Fortune reversed. The wheel of fortune is the real change, and it seems to point us in looking where something is stuck, or not aligned.

A last question was how to heal that? Knight of cups: finding your grail, your own passion. Taking action on what we love, guided by the heart.
Tova spoke once about ‘the Heart of Hosting’; and Chris Corrigan spoke in June about ‘the Art of the Open Heart’. Our own passion is so essential; in these days we need to act from there.

Of course conversations didn’t stop when we had dinner together afterwards. Personally I had the sense that we were still not touching the deepest ground. In one way or another we came to speak about it, because nobody was stepping up to do the facilitation for tomorrow. Here are some snippets of different conversations:
- needing more silence
- holding the deep feminine
- the power of giving birth and being pregnant
- not to take on the masculine projections
- using the law of two feet in regular life
- do the grounding of the place in the collective!

We are in this cosy time after dinner, dishes are done, everybody gathers around the fire place (stove). One more guest – participant arrived just before dinner (Ravi) and two more are on their way, driving through the night (Judith and Lieven).

I had a wonderful day, for me like summer. Most of the people here went to Volos today, the nearby city – one and a half hour drive – to buy a lot of food and stuff, and to receive and send emails. Three of us stayed here; and I worked in the little garden – weeding – and clearing some more space from the brambles to have more place to sew and plant the vegetables. In the afternoon we went with Maria and Sarah’s Greek friend to a place to press the olives. Amasing when you never saw it. We had this time more than 1000 kg of olives; and we came home with 220 liters of olive oil; very nice, clear, green olive oil. Of course it is a totally organic oil, and the guy from the press – who analysed it – was really impressed by the high quality it had.

So we had something to toast on! Grilled bread dipped – better say soaked – in the fresh oil, together with some locally brewed … (like Ouzo) as the starter for dinner. The Greek way of living, eating at the big table outside, lots of talking, toasting, some wine; funny if I realize it is November,..

Last part of the evening we looked into the design of our first half day tomorrow. Simple and elegant, diving deeper into the stories which led to this gathering. Asking ourselves what does it mean ‘to grow legs’ for our network of Art of Hosting practitioners? And then there is this funny, amasing, wonderful thing called emergence… How come four people of the original hosting team, and two of the participants couldn’t make it? And why did others showed up, even when it looked different than what was the original plan?

Are we growing legs for emergence?

Today, I had my first day in the Learning Centre in Greece, called Axladitsa – Avatakia. It is far away from big and small cities. The last part of your driving there, the last hour and a half, is up and down along very windy roads. No electricity, no internet. But a lot of olive trees, with olives ready for harvest.

I’m here in preparation for the Art of Hosting gathering on Harvesting, which will start in two days. Besides Maria and Sarah who live here, and who call themselves stewards of the land, six other people are already here, from all over the place: Turkish background, Belgium citizen, two Danish men, someone living in Canada and somebody on the move…

We live right now in open space, meaning that nobody is the boss or takes the lead, but we do what is needed, according to our own competences, passion and interests of the moment. I did many things today: sitting in circle this morning to check in with everybody and the work that needs to be done or can be done; helped cleaning the community space, harvested some olives, had a walk to the beach and now sitting here next to the woodstove, while others are preparing some dinner ‘by camping light’.

What is special here? First of all the people; everyone is deeply involved with living sustainable and with living in a self-organised way. We will even experiment the next couple of days with a Conscious Kitchen. The invitation says: “we would like to create a conscious kitchen in which food is prepared with consciousness and responsibility as part of a natural cycle that nourishes our bodies and our earth.” Then there is also the land in itself, next to the sea with both a source and a well on the little pathway between the sea and the house. It is wild land, just as you imagine in your dreams! A good place to be!