Author: Tenneson Woolf

My friend Diana Durham continues to inspire me with passages from her new book. As she has before in this post on leadership and relationship.

“The organic, generative kingdom that is created out of the internal harmony of relationship between inner and outer, and then replicated in fractal growth, is the polar opposite of the Wasteland Kingdom presided over by the Wounded King. Here is the difference between an organization that has fossilized and one that has become what Peter Senge termed a ‘learning organization‘, where new ideas and practices can grow and take root. Here is the difference between a living system and the entrenched and dysfunctional organizational structures where precedent is the rule of thumb, and no one dares utter an original thought, where one thing is said, and another done. Here is the difference between the herd instinct, in which a Wounded King presides over the group’s collective abrogation of personal authority and responsibility, and the high potency possibilities of collective leadership.”

 

• “In practice, there is no grand chasm to cross. Just do the small act of kindness for the person in front of you, right now.” Nipun Mehta
• #utasman: Glen Lauder — “In every half hour there is a lifetime of living.”
• Enjoyed co-convening and hosting a Walk Out Walk On Event this week in Salt Lake City, Utah. bit.ly/sncaPY
• RT @sagesscientists: When I give to others, my community, and my society, I participate in creating consciousness in the world.
• RT @PeggyHolman: The more at peace u r w/the unknown, the more u can enter into it with a spirit of adventure.

Thanks to friend and colleague Bettylynn Stoops in Ottawa, Ontario for sharing this poem. Bettylynn was a participant at an Art of Hosting in November that had focus on holding deep fields. My learning always seems full and rich when in her company. I particularly appreciate the first line, “no, no, there is no going back.” It speaks to me to the deep shifts and lettings go.

          A Wendell Berry poem, for contemplation

No, no, there is no going back.
Less and less you are
that possibility you were.
More and more you have become
those lives and deaths
that have belonged to you.
You have become a sort of grave
containing much that was
and is no more in time, beloved
then, now, and always.
And so you have become a sort of tree
standing over a grave.
Now more than ever you can be
generous toward each day
that comes, young, to disappear
forever, and yet remain
unaging in the mind.
Every day you have less reason
not to give yourself away.
~ Wendell Berry ~

Appreciating this Hafiz poem, offered by a participant and new friend, Gina Cenciose, who does much in the field of non-violent communication. We were together at the Art of Hosting focused on holding deep fields, recently held at Pembroke, Ontario.

I Got Kin

 Plant
So that your own heart
Will grow.
Love
So God will think,
“Ahhhhhh,
I got kin in that body!
I should start inviting that soul over
For coffee and
Rolls.”
Sing
Because this is a food
Our starving world
Needs.
Laugh
Because that is the purest
Sound.