Seeds for a happy planet

This first day of our gathering of Meaning in Place was a collective orientation into the topic. During the day I didn’t have the impression that we were on to something, but by the evening my sense was that this will not be a ‘normal’ gathering, but that it will take us to the depth and width of the relationship of people and place. In other words we are dealing here with the relationship of Humanity and the Earth.

From our individual stories we were telling each other in the morning one thing really stood out for me: Place has massive influence on people! It is so obvious, but at the same time so unconscious! So obvious that we don’t really notice, that it isn’t a field of study (yet). If I translate this into the bigger picture we can state: Earth has a massive influence on Humanity, so obvious, but so unconscious!

Humans Creating Meaning
This gathering is about Meaning in Place, and how to host that. That is what we humans do all the time: create meaning. And in these challenging times we try to create a meaningful life with a new story, a new meaning we have to find together, as humanity. Because meaning is life-affirming to us.

We came to realize that a meaningful life these days means to live our full potential, nothing less. It requires our attention, our time, our commitment. To say it in other words, it is a practice.

What if meaning in place is grounding the disorientation in the world? (Maria S)

Earth and Nature
Of course many stories were about nature, about a sunset, the desert, the garden in our childhood, a special tree and so on.
Some quotes:
Nature goes straight back into the heart, into some kind of innocence, into a longing. Nature connects us back into the slowness of my soul.
A powerful place is when my spirit smiles.
The gift of nature and the nature of gifts.
Isn’t the Earth giving us messages about ourselves?
Where are the farmers, the guardians? What is the form of farmers or guardians in these time?

Home and Belonging
Belonging to – or relationship with – place seems key to make life meaningful. Without this relation meaning is hard to sustain. That’s why we garden, why we gather on our stoops and create gatherings like this one here. It seems to us that we need to (re-)install a culture of belonging.
But in these times, at least for people from the West, we are not bound anymore by a specific place, a specific profession, a specific religion, a specific relation… we have the choice! To the extent that it becomes overwhelming and we have no ground to stand on anymore. Lots of young people don’t know their place anymore… this happens on a variety of levels… there is a hunger for contribution, a hunger for new meaning…
Where am I welcomed?
Where is Home?

But places are calling for stewardship, and people are calling places into being. Let’s stop waiting!

Reconnecting Earth and Humanity, People and Place
It seems to me that we named a few basic, grounding practices during our conversations throughout the day. Maybe a better name is Intentions? Because having intentions is basically a human feature. Here are some:

The Act of Making Life
So many people on this earth are behaving as tourists, sharing only a few pieces of their life with the land they live on. We noticed that birthing our children, living with our children and our extended family, burying the death, drinking the water – on and of the land – is core in the people-place relationship. Of course our relationship with food is the same story. At least we can eat local and seasonal food, it’s a fast track to relationship with place. Grow your vegetables your selves will teach you to get into an intimate relationship with place.

The Act of Witnessing
Just noticing, witnessing, without attachment to how the outcome might look like is a huge power that awakens potential, both of people and of places. It is about being fully present to the piece of land you live on, without any intention to commodifying. It is about our capacity to listen deeply what is the right timing and the right thing to do in this moment. The act of witnessing activates the resilience that is lingering underneath.

Listening to centuries of sleeping stories. Rocks hold the stories.
The potential of the land is dormant until it is listened to again.

The Art of Welcoming – Community
Stories reminded us of doors that were open, kitchens where there was time to listen, gatherings where everyone brought something to the table, employees that wants a kitchen in their office so that they could eat and chat together over lunch. There is so much potential in these simple but profound acts of creating intimacy!

Place creates the ability to be heard and seen.

Honoring and inviting the Magic
There are infinite layers of looking at reality, at place, at the world. They all exist and it is up to us which layer we call in. Devas are everywhere. Our being on the land, in the world doesn’t need to be heavy! There is light energy and magical levels everywhere.

Something in the land is craving to be enjoyed!

Meaning making together – co-create
In order to create together you first need to be conscious of your own meaning, your own ground.

Another chance in evolution
In the evening we asked the Tarot cards what was the meaning of this gathering in the context of this time in the world. That was the point I began to get a sense of the deeper meaning of our people-place relationship inquiry. The card that was to give us advice told us that there were ‘three cups’ that had been spilled and that there is still a need to grieve about the pain of what we haven’t achieved yet; all this in order to be able to look at the ‘other two cups’. Listening deeply to the message, the group that was around the table realized that we had been together in another time and now we – as human beings – were given another chance to learn about the power of creation and to live in harmony with the earth. At that other point in time we didn’t live up to our real full potential as we were caught up in so many power struggles. And there is pain to deeply recognize that. One of the challenges is to balance the power of creating with humility and respect. The non-material energies need to be recognized again and become a science, because we didn’t use them or we used them in the wrong way.

People and Place
Humanity and Earth
Power and Love

Again on my way to Greece and Axladitsa, the sixth time in 1,5 years. (I’m writing this on the plane) I could never ever have imagined that this was possible in my life!

This journey is part of the Powers of Place Collaborative, which is an international stew of people, all – in one way or another – passionate about the relationship between people and places.
These days many people are expanding their awareness in many different directions and being aware of place, of the land and the buildings we are in is one of them.

It all started with Sheryl Erickson, who – with here ability to sense what field of practice and study is coming to the surface – send me an email at some point.
If I knew people or places which showed a special interest in this people-place relationship?

Yes, I did! Immediately I replied with a few names and links, just from the top of my head.

Sheryl was totally on fire with the information she got… months later a project proposal was written and later a grant received from the Fetzer Foundation in Kalamazoo (I love that name!), in the US. Last January we met in person with the very diverse core team of this collaboration, both people from the US and Europe.

At this moment I’m sitting on the bus bringing me from Thessaloniki airport to the big bus terminal to take a regional bus to Volos. I just noticed that the wheat on the fields has ripened already and is ready for harvest. So different than in Belgium where we have to wait some more months for that to happen. How would these differences in seasons and weather play our in our inner being; both individual and collective… I wonder…

From Monday till Thursday we will plunge ourselves into a deep collective inquiry around Meaning in Place. Some of you, readers, might be familiar with the Art of Hosting Meaningful Conversations. This art, which favors self-organization and invites people to (re-)connect with their own passion and responsibility, is in some places used as the operating system. One of the questions we hold is what becomes possible is we use this art to create meaning – or meaningfulness – not just in conversations now and then, but in relationship with place. And place can be a rural retreat/seminar center, or an urban business innovation space, even a little Learning Village like Kufunda in Zimbabwe or even a whole region.

Oh my god, cherries are ripe her too!!! This little open van had them piled up in the back! Too bad I can’t get of the bus! It is first crossing through the busy, Greek center of the city before arriving at the regional bus station.

We will look in our four-day gathering at what is the common ground in all our different practices, and of course into how we can cross-fertilize and improve them. The purpose of the Powers of Place Collaborative is “to catalyze a new field of study and practice based on the premise that right relationship between people and place offers the potential for transformative action toward what is needed at this moment in history.”

I’m looking forward to it!

Sounds, flowers, animals, spring…
I am almost overwhelmed…

The bees in the blossoming plum three,
the rooster from the neighbor’s house on the other side of the little valley,
seagulls far away near the shore,
an owl awake at daytime,
crows with their unique sound…

Two young dogs to feed and to take care of,
they are testing my leadership and unconditional love.
A pregnant cat who hides inside all day – mostly sleeping –
and goes out when it is dark.
Waking me up at dawn because she wants to come in and eat.

And flowers, so many!
Showing what spring is like:
the power of showing, of manifesting;
each with its own uniqueness.
My English vocabulary falls short here to describe the fragile colors,
to give you the names of the many wild flowers.

Am I fully participating in life, here?

My first day of eleven of being on my own. I am in Axladitsa, in a house with no electricity, and when you are outside there is just silence. ‘Officially’ I am here to look after two young dogs and a pregnant cat, but for me it is more like a solo retreat.
Yesterday, on the plane, I was musing over what would be my guiding question for today. The final version is this:
How do I participate fully in Life, in Love – here – with all the dimensions of my being?

Most of the morning I was tending the place. Doing little jobs no one had time for lately, taking care that new trees can’t be ruined by the young dogs etc. A certain moment my question came along: Was I fully participating in Life, in Love, here? I was surely not doing big things! Most of it would go unnoticed by many who would walk by. Still I could answer my own question with a full Yes! I was in a conscious relationship with this place and its many beings and its material stuff. I was taking care of them, loving them in a way.

I know since long this is the way I like to start when being somewhere for a longer time: walk around, seeing the place, do a little tending… that is for me arriving. Simple things, noticing… no complexity…
wrong word…
no complicatedness…
doing simple things and being aware of the relationship between it all, the complexity indeed. These simple things are worthwhile, have value, because they make that the whole, the complexity can flow and go on.

There is a quality in simplicity; there seems to be stillness in it.
The quality of simple beauty.
Fully participating seems to be simple, maybe even in matters of much greater complexity?
The next minimal elegant step.
Stillness

It has been a while since I wrote my last blog post in English. In the meantime there was the Art of Hosting happening here in Dutch, with lots of related activities and I just returned a few days ago from Greece. I was at Axladitsa, the Learning Center, initiated by Maria Scordialou and Sarah Whiteley. The first few days I was part of their landweek, helping out on the land and in the garden. We fenced the newly planted vines and cleared some more space around the house and what will become the next extension of the vegetable garden.

After this work outside we gathered with the hosting team – the three of us and Judy Wallace – to prepare for the collective inquiry: The Edge of Collective Sourcing. Below you find the document we put together on this day, right before the participants were arriving. You will see, it is a work in progress, not all points have flesh to the bones (yet).

LIVING WHOLENESS – Through the Practice of Collective Sourcing

This is wisdom generated by two ‘partnerships’, which have been inquiring into Collective Sourcing for some years. We have attentively been watching what happens when our will is opened intentionally – besides our mind and heart – and is held and practiced collectively. It evokes real emergence, whereby something totally new arises.
Partners are Maria Scordialou and Sarah Whiteley, who founded Axladitsa, a learning center in Greece that is researching Living Wholeness in action. Other partners are Ria Baeck and Judy Wallace who initiated the training Women Moving the Edge, which will soon have its sixth iteration.

ASSUMPTIONS
The whole is getting bigger
In order to live fully in a world with more complexity and ever more uncertainty, we know that we have to go beyond what we already know. Whatever context we find ourselves in – the corporate world, public sector, non-profits or engaging in our communities – we need to learn to hold many levels of paradox, conflict and disturbance. It is our basic assumption that the whole that we need to live into and embrace is getting bigger and bigger. We have to include all the wholes that we already know of and transcend them.

New Human Capacity
To live this wholeness we need new practices, new organizational patterns, new ways of planning etc. In general we need to activate a new human capacity. A capacity that sees the world more in terms of organisms and ecosystems instead of organizations.
In the gathering, the Edge of Collective Sourcing we are building or activating this new human capacity: the capacity to collectively hold both the highest question and the deepest sourcing. It is innovating a new collective practice, a secular practice. It is removed from new age kinds of spirituality and removed from ‘normal’ religious practices.
This new capacity is also a shift from being an individual to being of service to and through the collective – whatever that is.  Our point of gravity will shift from being ‘me in relation to the collective’ – the old way of communal – to a new expression of ‘being the collective’ or ‘being part of an ecosystem’.

The field of potential in need of us
We came to see that there is a collective field, a collective presence, or a collective potential that exists in itself before we gather(ed). It is not us individuals coming together and then creating ‘this field’ between us. The field with its huge potential to manifest newness was probably guiding us to come together in the first place. The field is in need of us, human beings, to make it visible and to make its potential manifest. It is only through us that it can be embodied and can result in wise actions.

We can see each individual in the circle as holding a pole of awareness, being in inner alignment. In between the poles – and in the awareness of it – the field becomes tangible. The program Edge of Collective Sourcing invites participants to practice this double awareness while doing it collectively, for collective purposes.

Restoring Balance
One of the aspects of the whole that is getting bigger in our consciousness is moving beyond our ‘global village’ to ‘being a part in the ecosystem of the Earth’. In other words, we aim to restore the balance between ‘being Citizens of the World’ and ‘being Inhabitants of the Earth’, because as both we constantly interact and mutually influence at the same time.

MENTAL MODELS WE BUILD ON

We build on three mental models that have given us deeper insights and a framework to make sense of our many deep experiences. We assume you are familiar with these models, as we only speak about a specific piece of each of them.

Spiral Dynamics
Spiral Dynamics is a developmental model to see how societies, organizations, tribes – all collectives – evolve over time, depending on the environment they are in.
Our practice of Collective Sourcing is a second tier practice, and has distinctions from the Green level – also collective – and the Yellow level. We are developing and prototyping a Turquoise practice in which this new way of being in the collective is in service – or in alignment – with the Earth, all this from a perspective of the bigger whole, which is the universe.

Presencing
Collective Sourcing is, in the language of Scharmer, a field 4 practice. The difference is maybe that we are very explicit that this is a collective practice. Although it is quite implicit in Scharmer’s theory that this generative space is where ‘I exist, because you are’. It is the consciousness where you live in a constant mutual exchange with other human beings. We add to that the constant mutual exchange with place and non-human beings.
It is also where we live in the space of Open Will, besides of course, the Open Mind and Open Heart. Collective Sourcing is living in this Open Will collectively.

Art of Hosting
From the Art of Hosting community we take the pattern that we saw emerging and which we named The Fifth Paradigm. This pattern takes the known organizational forms of Circle, Triangle, Hierarchy/Bureaucracy and Network to a next level where all core elements are integrated into a new organism, fitting our new wholeness.

UNDERSTANDING EMERGENCE: SPIRIT – SOUL MODEL
(I have been writing different pieces of this model over the last months/years. Soon more will follow, you can find an article about it on EvolutionaryNexus).
Creating from Source
Living the Turquoise level seems to us also about ‘seeing and acknowledging what is’ and creating from and with the potential. Giving form to Spirit, or creating Spirit on Earth, is to create from Source. A partnership with Source allows us to create beauty.

Wholeness of Knowing
“What if words aren’t the medium?”

“I remember speaking vividly about the difference of feminine knowing and masculine knowing. It was more a showing than a speaking actually! Masculine knowing is taking a step back (see me stepping away from the experience, it its talking about something, it is building a concept after the facts… Feminine knowing (not to be confused with women’s knowing! Men know this too!) is knowing IN the experience (see me stepping into the center again). It is about ‘getting something’ while drawing you never understood before; or ‘getting’ what you need to do next while walking in nature. The knowing is in the totality of your being, not just in your head; it is as if your cells understood something.

“I see a spiral staircase, a double helix, one band thin and one band thick. The thicker one is the downloading and the rational, the thinner the more insightful and intuitive. These are the threads and our intention is to create the weave of wholeness. The pole in the center – the evolutionary thread – is what connects us to what has gone before and what is emerging. This is Collective Sourcing. The challenge is to not disconnect from the thread. The staircase can connect us to the next level.”

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PRESENCING, ART OF HOSTING AND SOURCING
In the bigger framework the practices of Art of Hosting can be understood as aiming at opening the minds and hearts of the participants who engage in it. It can be seen as helping people travel down the left side of the U as we have come to know it through Otto Scharmer.
When people have practiced the opening of the mind and of the heart – and personal practice is being a part of it – they become ready to be at the bottom of the U. This is the point where we have access to Source, to the unmanifest potential; either of ourselves or of the project or the group we are in.
Seeing it in this way, the process of Presencing – going through the stages – differs from Sourcing, which is a direct connecting to the deep levels of unmanifest potential. Sourcing is being able to plunge directly to the bottom of the well and still being connected with the manifest level of daily life.
When this capacity is shared by more people, and we go directly to the bottom of Sourcing, our guess is that the right leg of the U-curve will become different than described right now by Otto Scharmer.

NEW HUMAN CAPACITY

Ongoing Spiral between Holding the Potential and Staying in Inquiry creates New Wisdom
There is an ongoing dynamic  – like a spiral going back and forth – between the level or depth of Sourcing and the level or depth/height of Awareness or Spirit.
The depth of the potential can only become accessible for manifestation and action when we are equally able to become aware of the intention or the clear purpose. This explains to us the importance of finding the good guiding question(s). If our question comes from a higher level of awareness it will invite in a deeper possibility of sourcing. In this widened field of wisdom, through many cycles, new wisdom can be generated.
The ship with the highest mast needs the deepest keel.

Embracing more Complexity
Related with this – and drawing it in the model – we realize that this dance between both poles in the spiral also relates to widening our reach in the manifest. The depth of sourcing and the height of the intention make sure that we can embrace more of the whole, which is so needed in dealing with the challenges of our time.

CONDITIONS – PRACTICES FOR LIVING WHOLENESS
Staying in not-knowing
The underlying condition to get to the point of Collective Sourcing is the ability to keep the space of possibility open until the collective clarity of intention arises. This means that we need to be able to stay long enough in the not-knowing. It isn’t only a mental not-knowing, but we see it as a total letting-go; the ability to sit in the void with no clue of direction or possibility. The not-knowing is a place you haven’t been before, it is a place of newness and innovation.
The ability to stay in the not-knowing is enhanced by the training we receive through our individual practices.

Function of Disturbances
We realized why we say that disturbances have priority. Disturbances make us become aware of some borders or blocking energy in the play of the widening field. Integrating the disturbance means we have to widen our perception, widen our perspectives, widen our holding space, rewording our guiding question. It always is an invitation to open wider; either the mind or the heart or the will.

Capacity of holding multiple relationships at the same time
- Be participant in the process
- Be an observer/witness of what is going on in your self
- Be an observer of the field, the group, the context you are in
- Be a leader, step forward with whatever you see or need or want to bring in
Awareness on all these levels is needed when practicing Living Wholeness.

Living as part of an ecosystem
Shifting our center of gravity from the individual to the collective. By collective we mean here all that is around us, not just the individuals or humans. At some point we used the metaphor of tango, where the man and the woman become ‘a being with four legs’. In a gathering, a workshop – or in life in general – this means one needs to know what the whole is about so that we can keep an eye on it, while at the same time also being aware of our own individual energy.

New Practice of Planning
If we tend to an organism instead of an organization, then what would be the practice of planning? It seems to us that the organic form of this is invitation. The point is to know/sense when and who to invite.

Being a new kind of leader
What does ‘being a leader’ mean in an eco-system?
There is no separation between being and doing;
It is living-as-the-system,
Living-as-the-field.
It is living-what-emerges,
No separation between leader and what is led.
There is no border,
No precipice,
It IS.

Intergenerational

Collective Harvest and Meaning Making

Harvest into the Wider Field

FEATURES OF COLLECTIVE SOURCING AS EMBODIED EXPERIENCE
What leads us to Collective Sourcing is:
•    We are asking questions that lead us deeper into not-knowing and bring us to an edge of clarity
•    We are in a rhythm and pace of speaking and listening that is both waiting and yet searching
•    We are accessing information that is below the aquifer, coming from intuition, story, images, previous experience
•    We are in a field of listening for pop-out points, for clarity and for newness.
The moment collective sourcing arises we can notice some elements of it.
•    we use our subtle sensing
•    there is a slowing down, we speak and act in a different pace
•    silence comes in naturally and spontaneous
•    our small self is gone
•    I am a vessel through which the collective presence speaks and acts
This means that Collective Sourcing is an embodied experience, and not (only) a state of mind.

OUR GUIDING QUESTION
What if Collective Sourcing is
becoming a human ecosystem
that teaches us
to be one, as the Earth?

Or:
What if Collective Sourcing is
second tier partnership?

Or:
Is Collective Sourcing the
next structure of community?

PARTNERSHIP OR BEING IN RELATIONSHIP
Partnership or Being in (Mutual)Relationship seems to be crucial in Living Wholeness. This Being in Relationship we have to understand on many levels, not just on the human level alone. These are the levels that we see right now and that we keep being aware of:
-    with other human beings, the ones present
-    with place: Axladitsa is very much a place where consciousness about ‘us and the land’ is lived day to day. For our gathering now, we keep the question in mind: How can the different physical places inform – show – amplify our different mental models?
-    with history and future: How can we balance local tradition and lineage on one side and innovation on the other?
-    with local and trans-local
-    with the weather, the buildings, etc.: the human and non-human environment
-    with all other non-human beings present here on the land

More inspirations:
Without love for the whole, collective sourcing is not possible.

Creating for beauty is feeding the wholeness.

What you find here below was written by Maria Scordialou, Sarah Whiteley and myself when we had five days of intense learning and living together in May ‘08 (Axladitsa Guardians Gathering). It gives a beautiful, and rich description of what is asked from us now.
Unless we engage our authentic selves, we cannot live the future now.
Unless we engage our fullness, we cannot take the leap individually and call in collectively.
Unless we tremble collectively, we cannot presence the new.
Unless we take a leap together, we cannot access and live the next level of our humanity.
Unless we are willing to hold the space open long enough for our collective clarity to emerge, we cannot shift our systems and behaviour for the better.
Unless we fuse the streams of practice and inquiry, we cannot see what else is possible and be prepared to meet our chaos.
Unless we acknowledge our collective identity, we cannot co-create our real work.
Unless we unlearn our complicatedness, we cannot find the simplicity of the next elegant step.
Unless we share our new insights immediately, we cannot not serve evolution.
Unless we live through our collective identity, we cannot become whole.
Unless we engage our authentic selves, we cannot live the future now.
Unless we engage our fullness, we cannot take the leap individually and call in collectively.
Unless we tremble collectively, we cannot presence the new.

Recently I attended three lectures, basically about different models of change and leadership for these times, and they all three ended with a similar kind of message.

The first one was Otto Scharmer who gave a workshop in a conference in Wurzburg. This conference was one in the series ‘Fields of Conflict, fields of Wisdom’ and this year’s theme was “I am. You are”. I value Otto’s book on Presencing and Theory U, because they gave words and a bigger framework to a lot of my intuitive knowing. I asked Otto afterwards the question of how to make sure that after going through the eye of the needle people don’t fall back into their ‘normal’ way of doing things. Basically his answer had two advices: be clear on your intention (don’t loose out of sight what you want to accomplish) and the second is to have a circle of friends to keep you in the creative spot.

The most inspiring lecture and workshop on the conference was given by Nicanor Perlas, a Philippine who has been integrating social activism and spirituality. He presented the Lemniscate Model, which uses the language of the hero’s journey of Joseph Campbell, and integrates more the ongoing iterations of the process than the U-process. One of the last points he named was that “a real living relationship and dialogue is a powerful entry point to a new sense of activism”. He named it the real ‘letting go’ and stressed the importance of a ‘a real relationship’ to be able to ‘return’ into the world after the moments or days of illumination. He named a real relationship ‘a spiritual path’, through which we can learn to hold our fluid state when we are encountered with boundaries in our self, in the other or in the organizations we live and work in.

Then a few days later I was totally amazed by a lecture by Julio Olalla, a man born in Chili, living in the US, but still showing his Spanish roots in jokes and even dance!
Fascinating enough he used the same language from Joseph Campbell! (The same book named in twice in three days time, I understand it as a sign to search for the book, somewhere on my shelves, and read it with the eyes I have now). The main point of this lecture was that emotional learning is possible and needed. He gave beautiful descriptions of the core qualities of different emotions: sadness, gratitude, passion, trust, tenderness… and stressed the importance of working with the body. He then pointed out that for ‘leap’ learning we need to gather in a ’sacred place’, which was named in former times “they sealed the temple”. In this space of care and trust the learning happens through speaking about your demons and emotions and when you are really listened to.

Real learning happens in real conversations, and conversations are as old as humanity.

Leadership in these complex times seems about providing a safe space where our humanness, in all its aspects, in its relational essence can thrive again. Whatever map we use, it seems to come down to “turn to one another”.

Since this summer I’m holding the question of: What is it exactly that I’m doing when I say that I am holding space?

Many in the Art of Hosting community, and other facilitators, nod their heads when we speak of holding space. They/we seem to understand, but I have never heard anybody explain it. Different experiences in the last months made me aware of some aspects, and I want to share them with you.

First there is the story as told by Chris Corrigan from a native Canadian tribe. In a little village fishermen set out to go on a whale hunt. It becomes a very difficult journey, as they first lose track of the whale and almost lose a man too. After many days, when they finally come back to the village the head of the tribe speaks to his wife and asks: “What have you been doing? We almost lost a man, and we lost the whale for some time too.” The woman answered that her attention was divided because one of the children had been very ill. This story touched me deeply, as I realized so few men – and women too – in our Western world understand what this man and woman saw as so obvious: that the women were doing something that was vital for the success of the hunting men. Their attention, their holding the space was needed for the whole journey to be successful.

Last summer I was with a dear friend on what he called a writing retreat. I expected to share breakfast and dinner together, while having inspiring and deep conversations, as we normally have. He would then dive into his writing and I would go and do my own thing: reading, exploring the neighborhood, enjoying the beautiful nature. Soon he would announce that his writing would be best supported by fasting and that he wouldn’t show up for breakfast, or for dinner. So, I went on doing my own thing, but missing the good conversation company I was wondering: What am I doing here? I still felt good about it, but why exactly was I here? I could read and explore nature anywhere. Holding this question for some time the answer came to me: I was holding space. There was relief in my body when I realized that. After the five days, as we were driving home, I told my friend about it, and I realized what an intimate thing it is to do; even more than having sex! This made me wonder…

A few weeks later in a conversation with another friend I told him that I was holding space for him and others while they are doing big strategic, systemic work in the world, which is not always easy. I told him too that this strategic work is not mine to do, but that nonetheless I have something to do with it: I am holding space for it. Tears welled up in my eyes while telling him! I realized that this holding space work is in need of language, of words and concepts that can make it more visible in the world. Another friend called it Grandmother’s Work.

Next came an experience within a Systemic Constellation training where I realised – through a difficult experience – that holding space, for me as a woman, was essentially something that I was doing in my body. Not in the mind. This realization was very grounding for me, as if finally I arrived at my right spot. It seemed that it was not just my personal experience, but many women were resonating with it.

But still: what am I doing when holding space within my body? I have known for a long time that my sensing of what would happen in a group’s process or in a systemic constellation, was not the same as people having visions of the future. Looking back at our experiences in the gathering Women Moving the Edge, it suddenly dawned on me that we never were speaking about Spirit, but we would always use the word Source. Why was this? Source would point to depth, to something deep inside; Spirit is more related to something high above… mmm… I started drawing and realized that Source can be seen as Unmanifested Potential.

Soon my answer to the question I was holding for many months became clearer. When I am holding space, I connect in my body with the unmanifest potential of this person, this group or this place. It asks for an emptiness and a deep stillness inside to be able to carry this potential. Maybe it is better to say to be a container for it, and I mean it in a very physical way. I open my body to be this container in service of something that wants or can become manifest.

This made a lot of sense when I spoke about it in Axladitsa, and explained that the callers of this Meaningful Place will always be and stay the ones who hold the deepest and widest container. They will always stay the callers and always form the core group. If they drop their energy the whole project will die. Others can become very active in this project, but when they leave, the project will go on. They are not in as deep a holding space.

In a sense women have a natural tendency to hold space for people, places and projects. But is has never been seen or realized or acknowledged, not even by themselves. It is time to change this, and this is my first contribution to it.

In this last day we are coming to the deep harvest. Ravi started right after breakfast with doing interviews with most of us. He prepared with Rowan some questions going from the very broad like What is Art of Hosting? and What is the U-process? to more and more concrete questions about this specific gathering in this special, specific place.

Another Open Space session that was posted (and also happened) was about the Conscious Kitchen. This is a way to bring the Living Wholeness – what is really at the heart of Axladitsa – into practice, both on a day-to-day level and in consciousness about every aspect of our food, our bodies, the energy it takes, the waste that is involved etc. Purpose in the long run is to become totally self-sufficient with zero waste. Of course, this will take time, but it is good to be aware of the overall goal.

Other sessions were posted in the morning, but because of the video harvest and a neighbor friend that came to cook with us – sharing one of the Greek recipes – they never started. By five we finally could gather for the closing circle. This was also video taped, but I want to give a little reflection here.

We started with the sound of the Tibetan bowl. Then Ravi and Rowan – who had been ‘the witness’ we could talk to, instead talking to the camera – gave some reflections of all the stories and answers they heard during the day. They both shared that they heard the same story through the many voices. Ravi made the link between the three streambeds, which are on the land, and the three – Maria, Sarah and the land – that makes the readiness here!

The interviewees shared the impact it had to voice the learnings before the camera. It challenged and invited us to become clear and conscious about our ideas. “That machine creates clarity!” And the position of Rowan added to that – witnessing our learnings to the next level.

Third day of our gathering. We started our circle after breakfast in the Skyspace, the beautiful round shaped structure, build higher up than the house and the kitchen. Maria invited us to pass around an invisible ball of clay and shape it into a form that would tell the others about how we feel right now. It was fun!

We now had ‘a leg’ that grew out of our conversations: the Art of Hosting meaningful places. We really mean ‘places’ and not ‘spaces’, because we want to make clear that it is related to a physical place. Some people now had some clarity, others were confused. Of course, through all these conversations, our individual search for meaning and clarity was also going on.

So we decided to let nature speak to us, to sense into a deeper layer of ourselves and have a walk to the well, sit there for some time quietly, then walk to the highest point on the land and each finding our own spot there. The question we took as our guide on this walk was: What are we sensing that we are not aware of?

The first thing that really spoke to me was seeing how the water of the little stream had cut through the waterbed in one night, somewhere in October last year. It revealed the following sentence: “There is big power in the soft that is flowing.”, which repeated itself in my mind for some time. There is big power in the soft that is flowing. Indeed, the soft that is in flow can move a lot! It also reminded me of a poem that ends with the line: “In the end the soft powers will win.” Good to be reminded of that.

Coming to the well, with the poplar tree and the little open space where the little streams come together, we each found our own spot to sit and I started writing:

“The deep well next to the highest tree on the land, a symbol of connecting Spirit and Matter. Spirit reaching to consciousness, the deep layers of Matter trickling down to Source.

Can we hold the tension of creation? Can we hold the slowness of co-creation? The gentleness of ‘touch’ that is needed everywhere. Touching the food, touching the land, touching each other… can we keep the awareness of all the in-between spaces? Am I aware of the relation between this little insect in front of me and my self? And how we are related with all – all – all round and inside?

Can we love all and everything all the time?”

The afternoon we spend on sharing our deep insights and messages from this walk and connecting with nature. It was incredibly deep, moving, inspiring and much more! It made us all aware how we all need this kind of knowing to really see, to sense, to listen, to really ‘know’. We videotaped this sharing and it will probably become available in a few weeks or months from now.

What I remember from it is that there was a sense of the masculine forces getting together, with a readiness to act; and on the other hand the letting go, which speaks more of the feminine quality. Combined together they can create!

Suddenly in this sharing I got the answer to one of the questions that was guiding us: What is the minimal, optimal structure of connecting? The minimal optimal is the natural!