From the Bowen Island Lodge, looking out across Deep Bay.
I’m grateful for places that inspire this hosting work.
Venue matters. A horizon to expand in to matters.
Design — Bowen Island AoH 2017
I think the first Art of Hosting on Bowen Island was in 2003. It’s impressive and delightful that 14 years later, we are still hosting here.
The design is always customized. Bowen Island is a place where our hosting team brings many of our edges. This landscape map shows some of what it will look like this year.
Some teaching. Some methods. Some experience. Some meals. Some shared offerings from participants.
All for skills, friendship, courage, and imagination together.
It’s not a small thing.
Space and Freedom
Today I’ve returned from six days of hosting. Two of those were with a core team, six of us. Four of those days were with the group of twenty-eight at The Art of Hosting. These were the kind of people and the kind of experiences that alchemically change who I am, and who I feel I am in the group. Powerful.
Today I have only one call scheduled. One meeting for which I’ll need a bit of preparation. It’s different than the three to five meetings that I’ll typically have scheduled on a day. I’m grateful that those meetings are mostly with good people and in good projects. My day today, however, is more filled with todos and touch points before leaving tomorrow for another six days of hosting.
In meditating / breathing this morning, in the wee bit of extra spaciousness that I had, I became more aware of a nuanced insight around meditating. My practice in meditating is very simple. It’s more about breath for me. Stillness. Pause. It’s perfectly imperfect. Sometimes I can really empty. Sometimes my mind tracks ideas.
I’ve often experienced meditation as creating space. Space within me. Space in my day that helps ground the fullness and busyness of the day. Space is what many of us yearn for. Whether the space to have an uninterrupted cup of tea or the space to give full concentration to a big idea that we care about. All good, right.
The nuancing of insight for me today was that what I particularly appreciate in the space of meditation is the momentary experience of freedom. Freedom to be. Freedom to let go. Freedom to detach from thought (yes, I’m aware this was a thought itself that arose during the meditation). Freedom to not tend to time. Freedom to release a list.
And further, that freedom isn’t about running from stuff. It’s not eating the whole bag of potato chips because nobody is watching. The freedom for me is about another layer of connection to source. To vitality. To integrated energy. To the place within me that emanates out rather than always seeking from without. It’s the place within that I sense is connected to so much more than just me.
Source. Space. Freedom to momentarily encounter a less distracted emanation. Perhaps that’s the next layer for me and for many of us — welcoming the more clear essence of the irrepressible creative life force that we are. Wow! That’s a bit of flowery language this morning. But then, quite a few of us are searching for words that reveal more of the story of who we are, right.
Yup, I guess this meditating is pretty good stuff (and I bow to those who started me on a practice, fifteen years ago).
Team
A fun one at that.
We finished today hosting The Art of Hosting: Rising To Our Potential.
Left to right: Me (my foot looks huge from this angle), Robin Athey, Jeremy Nash, Chris Chopyak, Rachel Rambo, and Erin Gilmore.
For most of us, it was the first time working together.
The container that is The Art of Hosting, and some good knitting intention and practice in each of us, makes that possible. It’s where strangers become best of friends.
In gratitude for powerful learning in a format that brings me hope and learning.