Author: Tenneson Woolf

I am a student of simplicity. I find myself in search of what is most simple — not to over simplify, nor to be reductive — but to create the most essential ground from which to create.

I learned the following this weekend training with Flow Game hosts. I realize these are actually minimal guidelines and conditions for many hosting practices.

Purpose: Flow. Of what? Consciousness, knowing that is not limited to the mind.

1. Have a personal question that you have a stake in.

2. Take turns. Pause between turns.

3. Listen to each other.

4. Offer something to your mates.

5. Harvest

Serving: Each other and projects we care about.

Lately I have been giving much attention to magic. One form of this is a question I am living about what is underneath methods for engagement and participation. At Flow Game training, one of the questions asked was “How to feed the magic in the middle?” I appreciated friend, Toke Moeller’s response. Toke has long been a teacher of such for me. We have become fellow students of such. Here is a bit of what he shared that felt very resonant for me:

– trust magic

– trust the space

– trust the heart of everyone

– don’t control it or hold it

– don’t expect magic, but be grateful when it comes

– be the jester, the student, the juggler, you

– respect form, but don’t get lost in it

– we can’t not sit in circle; it is who we are

– unite with the vertical

– enjoy the beauty of detachment

I loved the Open Space experience I had last week on the Vancouver Island, Art of Hosting. One group was called on credentials. It began as an inquiry into what it takes to do this kind of hosting work. Had some of that feel of “what training?” It really came alive for me as it shifted to “what practice?” Chris Corrigan offered a few points. The group reflected on some. It fed the list I was noting in my book and helped me to see at a next level, a new paradigm for credentials.

1. Credential as Practice — An older kind of thought would be credential as certification. As bestowed. Yes, there is value in this. I get the part about integrity of training and learning, etc. I get the part about key skills. Yet, there is also immense freedom to think of being credentialed by our practice. By our doing. By our “here is what I’ve learned lately, incomplete as it may be.” It is a nice shift into emphasizing the learning process rather than the learning event.

2. Work with Friends — Lots of friends. Practice together. Learn together. Feed off of each other to sharpen skills to see at the next level. To notice at the next level. To act from what we see emerging.

3. Offer Something — A harvest. A story. A poem. A question. An invitation to work together. An invitation to create together. The shift in paradigm includes re-relationing from the authority of an institution into working within a web of people, into a community of practice. From “is it my place,” sometimes restrained by organizational form into “gift to offer” that can then be received by those ready for it within the community.

4. Learn in Public — Make it transparent. Open. Like the physical office windows or doors in many well-designed contemporary learning organizations. Learn as you go. And in front of people with you new ideas. Half-cooked ideas. Learnings. Insights. Learn on behalf of the whole.

5. Have a Presencing Practice — With my friends at The Berkana Institute, I learn that this work is about emergence. It is about how we are creating the conditions for emergence within human systems. This is closely connected to learning about next levels of consciousness. It requires an ability to notice the seemingly invisible. The way that the whole of the room is speaking on behalf of any of the individuals. I find this to be a different kind of noticing. It requires me to be comfortable with stillness. With uncertainty. Presencing practices help me to hold myself and others better in that noticing and uncertainty. Meditate. Chi Gong. Yoga. Tai chi. Journaling. Something that helps you know enough stillness to hold self and others in chaos.

6. Examine Core Beliefs — Keep this as an active conversation. For example, one of mine is the innate need to create. It riffs off of what I’ve often heard from Meg Wheatley about humans in living systems — “People support what they create.” My sense is that the desire to create — solutions, innovations, structures,, clarity — this is innate for us. It is a need, as strong as a need for food, shelter, love. I’ve discovered a few core beliefs along the way I’ve let go of. I’ve found a few new ones too. Credentialed by the ability to let go and construct fundamental beliefs.

7. Learn Global. Connect Regional. Act Local — Another one I learn with friends at Berkana. It is good to learn together with people at conferences, in person, around the world. Amazing to think how we are changed by meeting the hearts of others. And to connect in regional efforts often is to strengthen courage. All for acting local. Doing the work in front of us.

Gratitude to the eight or so people that helped to created this learning.

Taking a few moments to notice powerful learning showing up at this Flow Game Training. I am in Columbus, Ohio with several good hosting friends. We are in a 3-day training offered by Toke Moeller and Monica Nissen on the Flow Game. It is a board game that is centered in the practice of reflection and asking questions. It is a tool for helping individuals and teams learn and deep levels. We each carry a question into the game. Mine is “What next levels of emergence, consciousness, and good work can become available through the Flow Game?”

Yesterday was a full day. I loved hearing more of the place we were meeting in. Friend Matt Hobash offered the space, a beautiful wearhouse that is now the new home to the Mid Ohio Food Bank. They are the 10th largest food bank of 260 nationally, distributing 33 million pounds of food in 2009. Twenty percent of that is local. The food bank captures and redistributes excess food. It has a vision that it is living — to become a center for hunger and nutrition education, to become a community center for many levels of wellness and inquiry.

The checkin round was full. Honest, real expressions of “not knowing.” Of being “between worlds.” Of intention to learn and to practice together a rich level of listening. The contexting gems started to surface as I began to imagine how I will use the game, how I will speak it.

– a way of accessing ancient wisdom, the kind that is carried in our togetherness and accessed only in our togetherness

– a way of working deliberately with emergence, consciousness, good work

– a way to be letting go of the definitions we have allowed to become real. Things like dismissals as soft of the simple act of working in love and relationship with each other

– a way of practicing from the heart

– a way of working on key needs — good story here from Toke of a 13 year-old in Zimbabwe who’s question was “How can I help my friends not become pregnant before it is time?”

– a way to strengthen the warrior of the heart in us

It was a full day. As we met for 20-30 minutes for each person, it required deliberate listening. I found that I learned much in others questions. Another experience of wholeness as my learnings peaked through another persons questions. I was tired by the end. Tired in the way that I see many through my hosting work — energized from the experience, yet fatigued because of the energy commitment it takes to create together. We are all strengthening those abilities.

I learned my about artfulness in the game. The art of offering, whether it be a story, something that I love, a question, a song, a poem, an image, a vision, or a simple witnessing. I learned about connecting question to purpose and to the impressions inspired by the cards of the game — from the seven directions of North, South, East, West, Heaven, Earth, Integrated Whole.

Looking forward to the next days of learning with this.