AoH Stewards gathering in the Shire, June'08

Back from the break…
How and what would we harvest?

The circle of the morning added a new reality…
previous conversations
on Shadow and Structure,
on What is Stewardship?
on What has Love got to do with it?
the connection with the Stewards out there
had ‘done’ something…

Everyone came to see that the initiators/founders were stepping into another role – the role of being elders? – and that there was space for others to step in. There was now an understanding of ‘the field’, of ‘it’, which had created the conditions to understand that as a collective we have work to do! We are beginning to allow this practice of participatory leadership.

One big learning was that – even when we want to hang out with friends – if we want the next level of the field to arise, it needs to be hosted. It doesn’t arise because we all are used to hosting; it arises when there is a field created between co-hosts, which then can invite the bigger field into the next level.

“It needs a field to host a field.” (Finn Voldtofte)

Bob W. used the metaphor of a Celtic knot, something that is woven and he has (been) allowed to be woven in and he had enjoyed a ‘ride on the waves’ of other strong strands. Now he offered to be the ground, to take the charge… knowing the strand is different and not knowing what it will mean to do this.
Ria joined in, seeing this as her natural work to do.
Later, in the next round of the circle, both Chris C. and David joined in.

Art of Hosting was named before as ‘leading from the field’, but it seems more appropriate to name it ‘hosting (the whole) from the field’. It is sacred work.
“Can you know the field and make it hum?”
“I think the field is a friendly current, and I am willing to swim in it.”

In Art of Hosting there are no persons in the centre, it is the work that is in the centre. Our centre is always open and everyone can come right into it; but it also holds a responsibility.
What we hold is our fear, in its many forms. The hosting team that holds the whole field of the Art of Hosting is maybe just holding a pinpoint… for a leader-full and learning-full field, full of stewards, each holding their own piece of the whole…

It seemed to us that a field makes decisions by resonance. Harmony is consent in a field.

I can’t transmit the intensity,
the depth,
the intimacy,
the emergence,
the sacredness…

It was 2.30pm now and we deserved our lunch. We had our closing circle between 4 and 5pm. We had work accomplished, we had cracked the next level.

Skype Call: connecting people in the gathering with others ‘out there'
June 15, 2008 - first day of the gathering

hosted and harvested by Ravi and Ria 

Check-In
What called you here?  What purpose are you bringing to this circle?

• Called to experience this ocean of energy available to give to this dance of co-creation

o    Rejoicing in being present to this special moment
o    Circumstances are drawing me to being with the field in a deeper way
o    Something larger than us that we are in service of
o    In awe - feel engaged with all parts of my being - nothing left out

• Called by two connective things

o    Continuing to explore/ express stewardship, is it the same as governance/ holding?
o    One stream I've chosen to steward is AoH - is AoH also the Art of Stewardship?

• What does deep stewardship truly mean? tenderness, nurturing?

o    We're in the time where what is deeper than the streams (AoH, World Café, Berkana...) flows into a larger river - nurture the complementarity of these streams into a mighty river , ‘to wise action' is important

• Family - home of common birth - you are my tribe

o    Feel deep responsibility (as opposed to duty) of how this unfolds
o    Responsibility to gather with others I'm linked to with umbilical cord
o    Want to bring the voice of feminine, deep source, so it sits next to masculine - need to be quiet and listen more to voice of feminine

• Sadness and longing to be at the Shire

o    Share sense of responsibility - curious what will become present
o    What does it mean to be working as a field? and what becomes possible? What will serve the field?
o    Come together in different constellations in service of what needs to be born
o    Can there be a call later to share harvest of Shire gathering and to find out what the field is asking of us as stewards?
o    Feel the language, friendship, deep emergence that comes through

• Feel gifting of being at the last gathering, of being here this way

o    I live this pattern and it has deep meaning to me
o    Inviting the questions evolving from the middle


Sharing of what happened in Open Space sessions so far.
Schadow and Structure (Ravi):
structure needs to be flowing - structure is like a trellis for flowers; it is about the flowers - training skills is different from stewarding people's growing/journey
Stewardship (Monica):
stewardship is a sense of responsibility and nourishment - more than anything else it is stewarding our own practice! - it is a responsibility and accountability towards yourself - through that we are calling others - stewardship is an unconditional relationship with something

Circle

• Guardianing as steward - have a connection to what's emerging so strong that can connect to the pulse/ heartbeat/potential of what's emerging - really a practice

o    Connect to what wants to emerge & help it emerge - connect to source point
o    Responsibility - give life to giving life - offering it to others

• Streams coming together - this is the time - be patient & support

o    It's a fusion - connecting - what we have been stewarding with AoH is a fusion point of social technologies - AoH is the first fusion

• Stewardship

o    Feminine - connecting to source
o    Masculine - full engagement, no kidding with what I'm stewarding
o    No difference between my own development and the development of the field; the more I am feeding the field, the more we each grow

• Individual & collective development

o    Stewardship is friendship, standing together in our learning
o    Deeper aspect: noticing what's happening in the field
o    Pay attention to field & what's needed in the field & in organizing pattern to help things grow
o    There are some things the field and work calls for, in practical ways - what simple forms will help the field grow in an easy and flowing way?

• How to be more human together?

o    Stewarding own practices while feeling alone in the midst of a collective. Is there an initiation there? Fundamental acceptance of ‘isolation'.
o    Act of courage required to accept my individuality and, in spite of this, to work towards bringing forward collective

• Inquiry into what individual & collective levels look like - spiral dynamics

o    Hosting people into wholeness (= Yellow), to experience their own power to change something. People who can hold their own ground can form new collectives (Turquoise)
o    Do we need the structures/order to invite us into the pattern of life?

• What is the Minimum Elegant Structure (MES) required to enable self-replication around the globe?

o    This requires a particular type of stewardship
o    A delicate balance now as world café becomes a teenager

• There seem to be 2 levels of stewardship being talked about - stewardship of our own practice and stewardship of the field (MES)
• Fusion of social technologies - seems to be a new level happening in Axladitsa, Columbus, Halifax, etc. - AoH and the U
• What is the MES that could be a container? - AoH is nebulous while café has more structure; perhaps afraid to pin AoH down too much

Check-Out
What question(s) do you have for those gathered at the Shire?

• What is the minimum elegant structure that will enable the flow and learning?
• If DNA recombining is how life evolves, then what could your harvest be? What are the gems from your heart and mind that can be seeds for a happy planet?
• How can we be in a space of openness sensing of what shape ‘it' might take? How do we invite these structures in a living system while honoring uncomfortableness with structure?
• All in life is a dissipative system (an open system, exchanging energy and matter with the environment); is the MES a dissipative system?
• No question. I'm grateful I organized this & to hear your voices. See and sense how it will enrich this gathering.
• Change ‘stream' metaphor to ‘threads' - What are the threads that are asking to be woven, and how do we allow the natural weave to emerge?
• What is the future of human consciousness calling us into being in the present?
• Are there different levels of stewardship being called for?

Harvest from our time here together comes slow... one thing you need know is that every evening we were sitting around the fire, and at some point singing and music would start... On Sunday we celebrated three different birthdays, and some music co-creations were really awesome! It was an experience where you could feel 'the field' at work - as opposed to 'a group' singing the same song...

 

One song is coming back through the days, and it is written by Chris Corrigan.

 

Song for the Cape

 

One stormy spring day
As I rambled at the Cape
And gazed out to the ocean
Where the seals sport and play.
From the sea foam and spray
There arose a fair maid
As she stepped on the rocky shore
To me she did say:

Oh the old world is dying, and the new is yet to come.
Oh the old world is dying, and the new is yet to come.

Her gaze met my eye
And she began to cry
And her keening stilled the south wind
In the far distant sky
Said she “Sir, you stand
Firmly rooted on this land
I appeal to your true heart
Will you give me your hand?”

For the old world is dying, and the new is yet to come
For the old world is dying, and the new is yet to come

The wind died away
And the sea foam and the spray
Took back the fair maiden
At the end of the day
In a grove of old fir
I felt my heart a-stir
To respond to her calling
And devote my life to her

For the old world is dying, and the new is yet to come
For the old world is dying, and the new is yet to come

Opening poem by Chris Corrigan
June 15, 2008, The Shire, Nova Scotia, Canada
Harvest from the opening circle of the AoH Stewards Gathering

Here to celebrate understand what I’ve learned
Passed a piece and turned to a
place where purpose is unsaid. I
am reminded of what wants to fly
what is woven into our ways
that we operate these days.
Stretching into and out of what is known
curious about humans, coming into my own
optimism, cynicism melding essence remaining
trembling and reframing
my connection to what this is what we do
staying in fierce speaking of truth
working with Toke and Tim and Marianne Knuth
and other circles that fed.
What do you see that I don’t see?
What comes alive when humans join the landscape
joining hands and take
time to party with mates?
I’m called by what we are, who we become
in the journey in the world when some
would stand for others without question.
This quest I’m in through naming and framing
and seeing what ‘s clear, regardless of what’s here
How is this helping me do good work?

It’s that stark. That stark,
It’s that shape the form the meaning of the worlds
that build a body warm
and nurtering beyond the canvas.
In the gifts of the land that hand us our
biggest teaching.
Tuesday gave birth.
There is inherent worth in this gathering of friends
All the signs send us back
to one another asking questions of
my own capacity to love.
This is a nebula with a name
meaning lies out of reach remains
elusive in the search but that
keeps the urge to be engaged alive
stewarding and evolving work and striving
to discover how we can serve, how far we can go
until the patterns dissolves and we know
finally the importance of it all.
Something here is bubbling
and maybe we are redoubling our efforts to
find the next level, an edge bevelled so
that the tipping point comes.
Something also may not quite come unless we
can strum the string of shadow.
We are clad now in the clothes
of a patterns that shows up everywhere I have been.
and these people seem
to give voice and shape to what I know
to help me go
into a deeper place of work and play.
What I am learning from Steiner is
that there is no finer work
then pushing the Spirit towards chaos
so that rigor and discipline may know us.
I am touched by much I am finding
in the transition to minding
sustainability and connecting us to others
who are working with these mother
sources.
I have been in the field of knowing what’s needed
belonging to longing and serving the sound
of all the voices around this rim
The quest is emergence of the we
and the call is to see where that goes
how the leaves know the wind’s blows
and the heart knows the field’s flows.
Maria, Sarah and Simone are at home
    and they say hi!
Great to be lost and found –
that brings me around always to Life,
service, hosting the field of what begs for birth
at the same time, all over the earth.
Open, question, act and build
centre learning, join a guild of practice
an actress in the play of collective inquiring
as a way of life. Noticing what is born`
there and being midwife to emergent forms
I’m touched and I don’t know why
I have never tried
methodology but I listen for
the glisten of collective purpose.
Hello.
There are different kinds of fires but only one heat
that warms us as our knowing burns
and our attention turns to the
fire of experience.
It is a treasure to rest in the company of
friends being bigger together than when we
pretend we are big enough along.
We are scared of the responsibility of stewarding birth
and welcoming consciousness to earth
but the child is work, possibility, dignity,
and the potential for peace
when we offer ourselves to each other
to mother
what arises when what we know
    simply dissolves
This is the knife
of practice
that makes us simple again
and serves life.

Hi all,

I'm with you in the Shire and around your campfire sensing the density of the holding and quality of the space.

Toke wrote: will you show up there ?

I am nurturing the idea x next year…

 

Some short thoughts regarding the questions x AoH stewards gathering in the Shire > from my vision and my level. Not sure I got fully the questions…

 

With love to all

Nicole

What is the call from the world to the Art of Hosting field?

- Take the right time / feel the rhythm – understand, sense the "invisible" with patience, wisely and boldly. We need proposals, guidance and pro-active interventions.

- serve the real purpose

– don't give it up.

- Stop to run individually and create/innovate in interconnectedness with each others

– organise yourself in collectivity with intelligence.

- hold us and learn together – don't be afraid to teach when it is needed and requested.

- our spiritual roots are denied by our social collective and there is a call for our re-connection to it so as to bring relief.

- we feel the need for a healing process

 

What do we need to answer that call?

- Provide the right conditions to enable transformation with stability - favourable conditions in the environment and creating a context safe.

- Discern the relevant.

- Be connected to our spiritual roots.

- be authentic and wise (as much as possible…)

- Be interconnected in collectivity with awareness – humbleness – be present – simply be – be in service of the real needs – leave in the reality. Practicing and learn together.

- Be on an inviting and receptive mode to enable things to happen.

- Be in the "no-thing" being "in".

- Listen and notice with all our senses. Trust and be courageous > don't be afraid to do good or wrong.

- high technologies: social, IT… and resources: human and budgetary.

 

What structures are emerging now to serve the AoH?

Webs – networks – community of practitioners… technologies, embodiment practises… a set of tools > the leaflets of explanations, trainings, constellations, mind mapping, action learning…

 

What is wanting to be born out of the field to serve the AoH at this time?

It is a difficult question (wicked) – a bit of all the points I mention here are already born but not felt enough or spread enough.

> Resonance – attraction – creation of spaces – trust. Holding sense…

> the right cycle – the maturation

> That AoH is not wired… but natural…

> Awareness of the collective.

> Systemic vision/picture

> Authentic leadership.

> More practicing showing by itself what AoH could bring.

> The need perception – openness…

> re-connection to our source and spiritual roots

> the sense of the collective

> More interconnectedness – webs…

What type of beer do you want around the campfire?

a tasty beer with endless soft and sparkling foam on the top to sharpen and excite the taste - fulfilling our thirst (for a while) inviting us to do it again in company and enjoying it together.