Author: Tenneson Woolf

Six of our seven-person team huddled for a phone call last week. We were the hosting team for an Art of Participative Leadership event at Ferry Beach, near Saco, Maine, earlier in April. Bob Stilger, Zizi Vlaun, Rachel Lyn Rumson, Lisa Fernandes, Katey Branch, and myself (and Jerry Nagel unable to join for that call). This was our followup, two weeks following the event. It was mostly for us to reconnect, but also to support each other in a scale of work that has been added to, locally, in the region.

Bob framed it nicely, four questions that are important to this group and to many others that I’ve worked with. These are questions that continue to get attention.

• What is the minimum rhythm to keep the crackle alive?
• Who else needs to come?
• What is the system for reconvening that is the most simple?
• How can we make our learning visible to the larger community and network?

There were several levels of harvest from this group:

• my photos as well as a few others from participants
  
• a blog post by Beth Tener
• a dialogue poem that I created at the end of our second day

I loved the reflections from our team in this call. They were offered in the spirit of reflecting on what stuck for each of us from the event.

• “Visibility of my tribe, of my people.”
• “Changing how people experience the world.”
• “I can’t take on all that I feel excited about!”
• “My language has broadened.”
• “We are dancing lightly.”
• “We are hungry humans — hungry for more real relationship around the things that we care about.”

Thank you team and all participants. In this particular event it was about creating an earth-friendly future together. I think we are changing the way that we and others experience the world.

A few words from participants in a reflection circle with Transition US and Resiliency Community activists at an Art of Hosting in Saco, Maine, April 11-13, 2014. Really fantastic people responding to a question from Bob Stilger, “What have you heard in these 24 hours together?”

What did you hear?
In the far, in the near,
the essence in twenty-four hours?

Better together says we and Jack Johnson.
Men, women, sharing time, sharing rhyme.

Stories, world view, one and two.
To be heard. In such a short time.
Oh my!

Deep dive, deep thrive.
In just twenty-four hours I feel the kindred spirits.
Hear it? Hear it?

Cheer it, this collegiality.
Trackin’ back to the edge of the forest,
to the edge of magic.
Yes, you said that!
Imagine that!

Serenity, unconfined, vulnerable.
Thanks a lot.
No, really, thanks a lot!

When the soil is healthy
transition occurs,
the foundation of soil isn’t a blur.

Bridging worlds,
curled together,
inner worlds of shared balance,
the vibe of I and we.

We are not alone,
the tone,
the wave,
the rave,
from the cave come these provocative questions.

No solutions?
No problem
in the depth there is awesome liquid,
soup, 
a primordial leading to the adjacent possible.

Just look. 
Just look.
Just look.

We have it.
Period.
Indeed.

Work,
play,
workplay,
playwork,
not a shirk.

In this form, 
I share; we share.

What is it from in us, 
already in us,
that heals?

Human group is our nature.
What if, what if?

Just look. 
Just look.
Just look.

We have it.
Period.
Indeed.

 

I’ve referenced Glen Lauder several times on this site. He is, among other things, a friend and colleague in New Zealand who can’t help but get to the core of things. He is one of the best I know in working with groups.

Glen offered these words below last year, which I recently shared with a group I was facilitating. I think of them as a kind of invitation to begin. They loved it. I wasn’t surprised. I post them here with Glen’s permission.

You may not get this 
Straight away 

The people who might get it straight away 
May not be here 

That might be an issue 
Because they matter 

And it might matter
That you don’t get this 

It might matter, that you Do 

The people who are not here 
Who might get this much more easily might be 

Women

Maori 

People who are not in positions of power or analysis 

People who in some way are alienated, excluded, 

Or have a different viewpoint.

Or they might be off building something.
Growing something.  
Unfolding something completely new.
They are our entrepreneurs.

You can be that, here.
You can be an Intrepreneur.

Someone who finds a better way inside where you are.

But not by being how you have been being.
Not the same.  
Not the same doing.
And not asking to have the same stuff as before.  

Not more Guidance that doesn’t work. 
Not more Process that you developed for others to follow. 
Not more policy that they have had no chance to own.   

But as an  intrepid explorer who travels with others in respectful partnership
That holds that the whole is important as well as the parts 
And that all the parts matter. 

Who is willing not to know 
To feel lost 
To admit despair 
To witness profound failure and not turn away.
Because we are facing profound failure right now, and turning away. 

Those who are willing to find this new way are turning to face that 
Turning to one another and saying
There must be a better way. 

That is 
what this is. 

Let us turn 
to that
Now. 

 

Yes, that is me, sitting on the back of Reverend Rick Dake, Clarkston, Michigan, United Methodist Church, kneeling underneath me. It is from a February Regional Event that I helped design and host in Orlando, Florida. It was a meeting to honor partnerships and celebrate community associated with Church and Community Ministries.

There are several things that I like about this picture:

• That Rick rescued me. This was during an improv exercise in which the players are tapped out of a scene while the remaining person hold’s their position. 
• The laughter that you can see in peoples faces. Part of honoring and celebrating is welcoming ourselves to some play.
• That there is some physical exchange here. Many modalities of engagement work. It’s good to have something physical, beyond the space of conversations and words that represent ideas and thoughts.
• In the center, to the left of Rick, are several items. Flowers, objects, pictures, wishes. Our primary meeting shape was circle. The center, used for our meetings and for worship, was created by participants.

My gratitude to all the people that gathered for this event. Church and Community Workers. Partners. Conference Leaders. Global Ministries Staff and Leadership. To Kathleen Masters, who continues to shepherd a large and inspiring vision within this group. And to Reverend Rick Dake for the seat!