Author: Tenneson Woolf

Some harvest below from friend and host of our recent Practitioners Circle, Lorrie Gaffney. I love her call to remember the importance of meaning constructed in the group. And I love the place of vision and compassion from which I see her living.

Practioners Circle:  Kayenta Compassion

What a joy it is to write this, holding the gift of faces, gathered around a circle, sharing heart and mind.  Starting with “behold” is most often for me, so I can keep a piece of you – which makes me smile just writing this.

Learning can come in many unexpected forms but it leads toward where it needs to go regardless.  Some of the things I learned from our time together:

I often think abstractly and speak metaphorically and can find myself surprised when I realize I’m not “speaking the same language”.  For example, the word “shopping in Kayenta” to me means exploring the amazing amount of creative expression in the art village – I’m in awe at the limitless ways people find to share the ways they see the world.  But of course by putting that in the description for the meeting people had a different concrete image of what that typically entails.  Similarly, Silence, Celebration and Sharing, mean “ways of being”, more than activities, to me.  In silent contemplative prayer with a group of people I have experienced all three in a way more powerful than I have ever experienced any one of those separately.  Each of those words can have very different meanings that include specific activities.

With my bias, I came to the circle “assuming” we would dialogue about a general vision –not the concrete details.  I know the details are essential for success and it is out of love and compassion that people want to offer those knowing they can make or break the outcome.  And there will be a time I have to seek out the practicalities and write concretely, but for now I just want to build a strong foundation because what I’m offering is based on a deeply spiritual approach to life that is counter-cultural.   A market economy is at the heart of our way of life.  We don’t even consider another way (unless we know people in 3rd world countries who approach money and giving very differently and have experienced their teachings).

Even though I broke one of the 4 Agreements “Don’t Make Assumptions” (from a popular book some years ago), I have heard some very helpful wisdom that has helped clarify foundational  pieces.

1. Purpose of Renewal/Recovery – Important for those in compassionate work as compassion is an emptying or giving of ones’ self.
2. Spirituality in Action describes the type of compassionate work I am inviting to renew/recover
3. Invitation – I thought I wanted it broad – but it is really for those intentionally living out compassion as central to one’s spiritual journey
4. Definition of compassion varies:  two components essential for me:  empathy & meeting needs“identifying deeply with the value of another and acting to meet needs or improve life”
5. Just do it:  have fun inviting groups and encouraging their input in the weekend
6. Being Curious… open to what honors the stated values and purpose

I appreciate the gift of you… individually unique voices… yet somehow all quite the same where it matters!

Lorrie Gaffney

• Leaders as hosts (not heros) – an article I’m using a lot from colleagues Meg Wheatley and Deborah Frieze: http://bit.ly/eMTPp4
• Clarissa Pinkola Estes: One of the most calming & powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up & show your soul
• A gathering in the spring for youth and the young at heart that involves friend Edgard Gouveia Jr. Consider it: http://bit.ly/fvi6gz
• From a local friend on the challenges of fresh water and our relationship to it — fact sheet from Johnson Foundation: http://bit.ly/hprbto
• RT @SMHoenig: RT @spreadingJOY: Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly. ~Rose Franken #nuggetsofJOY
• RT @dfrieze: “If this world does not have a place for us, then another world must be made.” Zapatista saying
• RT @katiaroha: Great resources in education + online: 100+ Online Resources That Are Transforming Education – http://on.mash.to/fvAUI1

I feel like I’m in a kind of conversation, a kind of learning, a kind of yearning. And I’m having a bit of a tough time feeling eloquent about it. It once felt new. Or perhaps newer. It is the kind of conversation that is about exploring and creating new systems in relation to new consciousness. It is not so much about maintaining old systems. That conversation is starting to feel much more common. And in that commonness, perhaps even a bit more exciting. Maybe even relieving – not so alone.

Recently I was in one of those conversations with colleagues Jane Lindsey and Sue Guttenstein of ADIEWA Centre in Ontario, Canada. Jane, Sue and I renewed are association last fall. We have been meeting by phone ever since to explore roots of change and action. Those particular roots are about consciousness, resonance, energy. We have a commitment to keep exploring and creating an event to convene others later this year.

It is a great sign to me when the framing of the inquiry includes references like this:
-the world is not operating as it was before
-it is important to keep grounded when things are changing as they are
-it’s moving time
-there are so many worlds in a world
-the stuff of this world invites learning and unlearning
-the importance of the other me (the hidden parts of us) to become more visible
-we haven’t a clue how it turns out
-trusting that what comes through me is what is needed
-creating containers for the infusion of energy, flow, and inspiration
-presencing
-radiating

Jane, Sue, and I have laughed as we have explored all of this. When we imagine inviting others in, expanding our circle of learners, there is a basic question — Are you having a reaction here? If the new ways of framing the world are real, then what happens to our conception of reality and how we work together?

We are committed to an exploration — the underlaying assumptions about how to tap the intelligence of a group and of fields.

I don’t know what this wave, this loop of consciousness is. In fact, I think I’ve felt more clear in times past. Now it feels as though I’ve gone further into those new learnings, and begun a chrysalis kind of shift and transformation. It feels gooey. And yet, ultimately compelling.

Here’s hoping for the new. Here’s appreciating the many shifts and the many friends who also feel compelled.

• Nice piece here created by a local (Utah) animator and dancer. On yearning. Love. Humans being humans. http://youtu.be/OBk3ynRbtsw
• My son Elijah (5) enjoying his inner fish handstands. http://yfrog.com/h4x9hkaj
• Bag It Trailer (3 minutes) — A story from the average guy on our relationship to plastic: http://youtu.be/dEW1e46tC_k
• In Utah after #AoHCalgary. Grateful 4 new friends, old friends. Full of learning. Tender & excited in learning edges. Glad 2 C my kids.
• In living systems there are no finish lines. There are only adaptive starting conditions. Chris at #AoHCalgary.
• Chris at #AoHCalgary: Work is action. Work and learning is wise action. Work, learning and relationship is wise action that lasts.
• Chris Corrigan at #AoHCalgary: Public meetings are a place that social capital goes to die.
• Monica at #AoHCalgary: “Dialogue and learning is action. I feel it working in me now.”
• #AoHCalgary: meta harvest to be created at www.aohcalgary.webs.com. Leading Change Thru Dialogue, Learning and Action
• Good day with the Calgary team. Creating and setting a container that can hold us in our AoH jazz of the next few days. Indian food too.
• On my way to Calgary (from Edmonton via Red Arrow) to begin an Art of Hosting training. Quite liking this bus with internet and power.
• Nice post here from Tom Atlee on the changing roles of concentrated wealth and our relationship to it. http://bit.ly/hDk4cL