Kathy Jourdain

Seeing possibility

Sense of connection

Sense of depth - people go where they have not gone before and there is a

sense they could still go deeper

Energy

New eyes

Perspective

Feeling of threads and that whatever work I do is part of a larger and

global thread

Things come up in the AoH processes that would not have space anywhere else

- sometimes risky things

Chris Corrigan

The gifts for me:

”   mates and a fellowship in the work

”   a generative set of relationships that helps me to see and understand the patterns of work in my world.

”   a practice ground of design and facilitation that is animated by love.  AoH is the first truly love-based organization I have been a part of.

Bob Ziegler

            As a beginner, the Art of Hosting promises a way for people to ride their collective undertakings, rather than have their collective undertakings ride them. AoH is particularly strong – and transferable – at the large group facilitation level and for gatherings that are at the stage of visioning. They also work well when there is a critical mass of shared language, experience or talent. There is a clarity and confidence about how to achieve collective intentions that I greatly appreciate and admire.

Phil Cass

Increasingly AoH is who I am and how I work and also a set of technologies.

The circle as a metaphor for community is becoming an archetype that I find myself carrying around.  The circle, I believe, is literally in our DNA (it is how our optics work), it is how we both operate and prefer to operate when we strip away all of the other stuff.   As such it becomes a barometer for me to measure the emerging health of our organization.  The more the circle is operative the more creative and effective the organization and its capacity to accomplish its purpose and mission.  When we add "principles of cooperation" to the circle (community) it then becomes a healthy and creative culture.  We are becoming a circle not just operating in a circle.  We are just really exploring what are and what it means to have principles of cooperation and exploring how they become real in our organization.  This all really is happening in our organization.

For me personally it is very fulfilling.  I think I have believed for a very long time that if an organization could operate in this way it would be operating from a very high order and could be its most effective at what it is trying to accomplish.  By replicating and being this deep pattern it could not help but be a force for sanity and a humaness in our community and in the world.

Brenda Schroeder

The Art of Hosting has given me space, tools, an approach that puts what matters in the centre in a way that we can talk about what is real and matters with respect, safety, trust... and we can find deep, meaningful steps that are possible to take.  Rather than seeing the barrier more clearly and feeling more overwhelmed and frozen, hosting gives the space and energy that allows us to face the barriers and walk through.

Susan Szpakowski

For me the people are the greatest gifts--the hosts I have met, their

quality of presence and loyalty to each other and their work, their

ability to hold stresses and strains and real questions without getting

frozen or stuck, the twinkle in the eye and genuine curiosity. Toke,

Marianne to start with, then Tim, Monica, Isabelle, Phil and others have

all been great gifts in my work.

And then too the people that show up in the hosting space, who soften and

open, each one shining as the gift they are, becoming a gentle reminder to

relax into my work, let my guard down.

Also the return to simplicity, echoes of humanity linking us through time.

The circle, the square, the young and the elder, the sacred space of

commun-ity, a campfire site for global villages. A place where

complexities resolve into simplicity without being dumbed down.

Toke Moeller 

To me the gifts of the Art of hosting in my life and my work are many, but in essence  

- AoH is a way to connect and experience collectively the vibration of life - and the feeling of love and being in our humanity

- it is a pattern that allows us as collectives to meet in the innocent part of us - an to be in conversation that matters to us now

- it is a practice and a discipline that invites and opens a space for the Nowness and real questions to surface

- it is an entrance to our WEness

- it is a field in which wise actions and good steps that create healing are born...

- it is a practice of peace and joy - an approach to deal with the fragmentation and problems in our world

- it is an operating system that can shift the way we think, behave and work together in new, inspiring and powerful ways that actually work 

- it is a way we can co create solutions that may not otherwise happen

- it is an Art to be enjoyed, explore and challenged - and held by 

- it is a a day to day path

- it is a fellowship of people who I trust deeper

- it offers a different meeting

- it is action and reflection in one

- it is a mystery

AoH is One 

a gift

and fun

Tim Merry

- Not being needed anymore - people just knowing it working it and then flying without me

- the incredible feeling of letting go into trust and seeing the sun rise in organisations, communities, schools,  governments, myself, people