A way to form a hosting team

Framing:

Earlier this year, a group in Sao Paulo called an Art of Hosting for November 2008.  This will be the third AoH in Brazil in the past couple of years.  There are four people on the calling team and a hosting team of seven Brazilians has formed.  In July Thomas Ufer issues a call to the international AOH community for additional members of the hosting team.  Since most of the Brazialian hosting team members are relatively new to the pattern, they wanted to include some international members with more experience.
 
Seven people responded to this initial call and the calling team determined that there would be resources to pay for two or three international airline tickets.  Over the past week there have been three skype calls to discern who and how many hosts to include.  These calls were hosted by Thomas and have included several of the Brazilian team.  From the outset, we were clear in our intention to have the circle make the decision, as difficult as this might be.  Two of the original seven voted with the law of two virtual feet by not participating in the calls.  Another member opted out during the first call due to scheduling difficulties.  This left four people who were all very interested in the two or three slots.
 
This morning, we had our final call in which we listened deeply to each other and to the need.  There was consideration of depleting the scholarship  fund to allow all four to attend.  There was consideration for the size and the balance of the hosting team and two of the members seemed obvious.  Eventually, one of the remaining two, Simone, volunteered that she would drop out.  While this decision makes sense for a number of reasons, it was also very painful as we recognize the value that Simone would bring and we could hear her desire to be part of the team.  In the end, there was a long and deep silence broken by emoticon tears and very real tears shed in four continents.  Thomas added a chime and we all acknowledged the difficulty and the rightness of our decision.  Simone has also agreed to be a virtual member of our team, participating in our planning and design calls and holding us from a distance when we meet.

About this morning:

What an honor to be in circle this morning.  Something powerful happened and I want to name it.  Despite being on 4 different continents and it being the middle of the night for me and having skype crash several times, something magical happened.  We experienced the power of the circle and we experienced limbic resonance in a virtual space.  I would invite us to reflect on how this happened and what we can learn from it as I believe that it represents a very powerful pattern for working in this global network.
 
"Why does this have to be so hard?" someone asked near the end of the call.  This is an important question, I think.  My sense is that this was so hard because we came together in authenticity and we were willing to open our hearts.  This conversation stuff is nice when we are all together in a comfortable location with plenty of good food and music and candles, in an environment where abundance is abundant.  But, the reality is that we are also living in a world of limitations and hard, painful choices.  This is the world that is calling for our conversations.  And in this process, we dealt with the tough realities of choosing while also keeping our hearts open.  We brought love and critical thinking together.  We kept our focus on the issue in the center without losing our connection with each other.  We were responsible in acknowledging the pain of our decisions.  To me, this is the deep level of leadership and conversation that the world is calling for.  Thanks to each of us for contributing to this beautiful process.
 
in deep gratitude and awe,
Steve