Kathy Jourdain

How to go even deeper

How to have an understanding at all levels of the organization at all times

that this is an operating process

How to help senior organizational leaders release control

Chris Corrigan

”   Sensing into what is next, into how we ultimately "throw this work in the river" and live through into another interation of the pattern together (not that there is any urgency...but still)

”   Wrapping the gift of the AoH approach in languages that communicate and active its deepest essences with anyone.

”   The challenge of the finger pointing at the moon.  How does one talk about the practice of hosting that underlies and generates the art of the practitioner without the practice seeming like yet another tool?  ANd so how do we communicate the embodiment of hosting practice?

”    Letting go in general, both into the AoH community and then away from it, as I oscillate back and forth.  How to do this without getting hooked.

Bob Ziegler

It is easier for me to see how a meeting might be designed than a project managed over the longer term using AoH principles and processes. More than once I have seen the excitement in an AoH room around the emerging vision, only to be followed by inaction, lack of follow-through, or dispersement. I honestly don’t know why this is. Maybe designing high-point events is easier that the day-to-day toil of getting things done. Maybe processes and principles for one or two or five people are not as clear to me (and others) as for large groups. Maybe AoH is still reliant on its stars. Maybe there is more work to do in the area of conflict. Maybe there needs to be an up-front commitment by the clients for longer-term attention, i.e. that hosts need to be more discriminating about the gigs they undertake. Maybe AoH is inherently good at the down side of the U, and more hierarchy and control is needed on the upside?

My questions:

What separates AoH events with long-term outcomes versus those that generate momentary benefit?

How can one use collective wisdom practices within hierarchical situations (and not get run over)?

Phil Cass

The AoH as an organizational culture is an emerging process and requires some level of tending and watering.  However, I do think that there is a treshold that once crossed feels more like watering and tending than pushing a rock up a hill.  We seem to be in this watering, tending and discovering phase.  It is hard to articulate to others who came in and out of our organization.  It is also the case that our Boards have been working with this as well but are still a bit in the pushing the rock up a hill phase.  So learning how to work with these variations of development that are part of the same organization is a challenge.  Also I fundamentally don't like the feeling of pushing the rock up the hill.  The paradox is that the more I personally let go the less I feel like I am pushing and the more things move forward.  However, there is a certain amount of initiating energy that seems to be required to get to that threshold.  So I do have questions about initiating a cultural AoH movement?

Brenda Schroeder

The deep question I feel has been under all my life path and that I am now stating explicitly is "How do we find/see the barriers that exist in us that do not allow us to shift to more inspiring, sustainable ways of being? And once we witness these barriers - how can we support each other in removing, knocking down, climbing over those barriers?"

Helen Titchen Beeth

I, too, am intensely curious about how to bring AoH into large, hierarchical organisations. My target is the European Commission - challenged with an immense diversity of cultures as well as some pretty heavy command and control structures, on the one hand and yet stirring and calling for something more flexible, agile and humane... Thankfully we're not alone - the guiding hands of George and Toke have already helped us take the first steps.

Susan Szpakowski

Are meditation and the Art of Hosting mirrors of each other, in that they

are each holding open a space of possibility/emergence, one individual and

the other collective? If so, what can the one learn from the other? What

happens if they are introduced as two expressions of the same deep

principles of openness/boundary?

If we open a space of emergence, do we have some responsibility to keep

holding it open until others can hold it for themselves (to support what

we have begun, as long as the invitation is there)?

Is there a collective journey that is catalyzed/awakened through the AoH

that can be mapped, with guideposts (just as there is for meditation)?

What would it be like to host a province (as in Nova Scotia)?

Toke Moeller

What is the minimum that makes hosting the Art of Hosting ?

How do I host myself ?

Whom do the Art of Hosting serve ?

Who do I serve ?

What could the Art of hosting also be ?

When and Where will we meet as a Fellowship ?

what could be good purposes for such Gatherings ?

How simple can it be ?

Tim Merry 

- the incredible and sometimes terrifying speed that things (life) want to self-organise - learning to hold onto my hat and also my centre