I saw this video a couple of months ago, but lost track of it. Not again. It is worth seeing. A 20 minute piece on the production and consumption pattern in North America. A great piece to stir conversation and reflection on sustainable living.
The Simple Work — Version ?.?
I don’t know what version of the simple work this is. It is just one of them that I’m seeing now. It comes out of experience, three in particular this month — Tampa Bay Art of Hosting, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance Activist Training, and Streetwork Open Space Workshop — and also the New York area Art of Hosting Community of Practice, whose gathered in circle two nights ago. It comes among some other simples that I’m relishing, those beautiful moments of emergence and clarity that are difficult to not notice.
Build Community
Do the Work
Build Community
Yup, that’s pretty simple. This one came from a Harlem, NY corner coffee shop conversation with Chris Corrigan. We were designing the day in front of us, a second day with people from Streetwork, an incredible bunch committed to consciously choosing the future for their newly located Harlem drop-in center. It was not coincidence, I feel that this was coming after working with Chris for this gathering and two weeks prior in Florida. Chris and I laughed at this simplicity. It’s hard not to when this moment come. And that opened us into a bit of what that means.
We noticed the thirds quickly. No, not as formula. Yes, to the weightedness. And to the order. Build community first. What’s that. At Streetwork, it was amplifying something that was already in practice. Helping people to see each other, see each other as a group. Creating a safe enough space — need another word for safe but can’t find it now — to begin reimagining with each other about what could be possible. Shifting the conversation to one of possibility. Providing, inviting, challenging just enough shape to make sense of some of the chaos that is there. Meg Wheatley’s words come to mind — “there is no power greater than a community discovering what it cares about.” One level of that caring is about each other. I love the moment when the group shifts its attention to each other in a way that smacks of family. It is the openness, the “whatever we choose to do will be fine — and I know that I can help choose that if I want too” moment.
Do the work. At Streetwork it was about everything from reinventing the monthly non-supervisors meeting to imagining a new identity for the Harlem location. It was about about finding the right questions to further anti-racism work to redefining the spaces in which the groups can meet. At Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, it was everything from how to we help this group to stay a group to shifting the global image of protecting Utah’s red rock.
When there is relationship, when there is community — this work shows up with more excitement, more invitation, more energy. It shifts from todo list, often held in despair or anger, to “we’ve really got something started here.” Not perfect, and yet oh so much more real and sweet.
Build community. When in work together, born of community, the community gets better and the work gets better. What a lovely cycle.
Principles for Harvest
I recently co-hosted a world cafe and on-going conversation space at an assembly of over 1,300 Jewish Day-School leaders. I met today with people in the calling and convening group, Partnership for Excellence in Education (PEJE), as well as co-hosts from the Art of Hosting community of practice — Maria Scordiolas, Sarah Whitely, Teresa Posakony, and Cynthia Lyon. Today’s call was a focus on harvesting. What to do with the notes and piles of post-it notes that contained bold ideas about the issues of affordability and leadership?
This is a good challenge and opportunity to learn. It is too easy to default to typing up notes, creating a large report or manual that is a lot of work, yet holds little life. And to learn when those kind of reports are helpful.
I learned much with this wonderful group. I was particularly interested in the principles that I heard the group of nine of us speaking today. They inform a next level for me of framing a harvest to make it helpful. They inform me of the underlying energy of harvest, rather than just the volume.
– Work with the processes you have — often their are already channels with which to make visible the new learning
– continue in beauty — it is beautiful to see people engaging and creating. It is beautiful to continue in this energy with harvest
– experiment with another way — there is always another way
– stay in the pursuit of wiser action — this grounds the process, this belief that our actions can also be something else. Our relations feed wiser action.
– must marry content to process — process by itself is interesting but not sustainable
– for a field to hear, it doesn’t need all to hear each person — this is such an invitation to train to listen for patterns rather than volume
– welcome the simple — often more sustainable — and not to be confused with reductive
– questions give us entry — so often I have seen in myself an others a kind of apology that the outcome is questions rather than answers. Questions can be such gifts to keep us in our most imaginative selves in concept and action.
– story is a medium for learning – what is done and what is starting to be imagined — such richness to tell stories with each other, and to gift each other with directly applicable insights from seemingly unrelated contexts
– imagining is required
– support self-organize (name, connect, nurture, illuminate) — you can’t really manage large systems in the old ways. But you can support conditions for emergence to occur, and with deliberateness
– integrate assembly to PEJE and field
– support conditions for self-organization
– notice what is different in participating from representing — another zinger here. To participate is to create. So often, representing is to present, even perform. Creation is far more impactful, and a principle of living systems — people support what they create.
– let the transformation of the assembly transform PEJE — our work in systems, in the outer happens simultaneously with the inner
– doesn’t matter where ideas come from — training into the voices that speak the clarity of the system
Noticings
A few things that have shown up lately…
Food and Society Conference 2008 — What Could Good Food Also Do? A gathering for connecting and inspiring leadership and community for the Good Food Movement. Included an open space for 550 hosted by Art of Hosting friends.
Wiser Earth — serves the people who are transforming the world. It is a community directory and networking forum that maps and connects non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and individuals addressing the central issues of our day: climate change, poverty, the environment, peace, water, hunger, social justice, conservation, human rights and more. Content is created and edited by people like you. Thanks Gilles Asselin for this link.
Seeds of Compassion — A 5–day gathering in Seattle to engage the hearts and minds of our community by highlighting the vision, science, and programs of early social, emotional, and cognitive learning. Welcoming the Dalai Lama. Thanks Teresa Posakony for stories of her hosting in this event.