Author: Tenneson Woolf

A beautiful effort from Vicki Robin, who I know through the Art of Hosting world and other connections. Join in…

Dear friends,

The table is set and you’re invited. Conversation Week March 24-30 is waiting for you. Please read this whole email – it’s 5 minutes and I want you all with us at least in spirit.

Please click here to see the map of where in the world conversations are already planned – and sign up to host face to face or online with Global Mindshift.

I invite you to my 12 podcast about Conversation Week and what it means to be a host. Imagine you asked me, “What’s so cool about CW?” and I am telling you.

The 10+1 questions are powerful. 600 potential questions were submitted, then winnowed to 50, then voted on by 1500 people in 39 countries to find the top ten questions in the world today. This is an experiment in thinking globally and talking locally, at having the experience of sitting down to talk… and listen… with people around the world.

If you speak another language, watch this video invitation to translate one or more questions, speaking them into your webcam and sending them to http://www.quantumshift.tv/. We want Global Conversation Week to be truly global – in lots of languages.

What we learn in our conversations will be summarized and sent to global leaders to reveal what we discovered in our searching conversations.

Review of the steps to host a Conversation Café during Conversation Week
Sign up (you can come back to fill in details later)
Forward this email to invite your friends to host as well. We’re hoping for 150 conversations on 7 continents.
Take the phone training if possible.
Pick your favorite question from the top ten plus one.
Read the short Conversation Café manual
Find a location (your home with friends, a café or library or public space for the community)
Set a time, allowing 15 minutes for ‘settling in.’
Invite people. Use email. Download a flyer and post.
Have perhaps the best conversation of the year
Tell us what you learned. Return www.conversationweek.org at the end to respond to the survey. Write on the blogs.

One of the questions for Conversation Week is “How do we shift from “Me” to “We” on both the local and global levels?” I’m discovering that Conversation Week itself is an effort in that direction and teaching all of us working on it how to let go of the “hub and spokes” model of social change campaigns, releasing this light, sturdy CW framework to be filled through networks beyond our imagining. More like a happening, less like a performance. More participatory at every level, less canned. More like a party, less like a training. More like open space, less like a packed conference agenda. Our early dream for the Conversation Cafes was that they would spread with integrity and fidelity – that people would pick up and use the method freely yet as designed, respecting that it truly is a minimal structure that allows maximal depth and breadth of conversation.

I hope you’ll join in to this global experiment and feel the “magic in the middle” of both your local conversation and the worldwide inquiry about these questions we’ve picked as the top ten for 2008.

All the best
Vicki

P.S. – here are the questions but i do recommend you read them in context:

How can we best prepare our children for the future?
What does sustainability look like to you? How do we get there?
How do humans need to adapt to survive the changes predicted for this century?
How do we shift from “Me” to “We” on both the local and global levels?
How can you, as Gandhi said, be the change that you want to see in the world?
What kind of economic structures can best support a shift to sustainable living?
How should we re-invent the political process so that people feel that they have a voice?
What kind of leadership does the world need now?
How can we balance our personal needs with the most pressing needs of our community and the larger world?
What can we do to reduce or eliminate violence in the world?

A two minute video sent to me by my daughter Zoe. It is a social experiment. 207 people that agree to stand frozen for five minutes in Grand Central Station. Try this one at home…

http://www.maniacworld.com/frozen-in-grand-central-station.html

I have just returned from working in Navajo Nation on a four day art of hosting focused on wellness in community. I find myself filled with many insights, each of which are worth much more description and illumination. I also find myself aware that I will never harvest all that happened there. In fact, in one of the exercises we did, led by Roq Gareau, I set an intention statement to Harvest Quickly. This was an exercise of refinement and clarity, first asking 10 questions of myself in an open thought stream. My intention moved to Harvest Simply and with K’e. K’e is so many things. However, the greatest clarity I had was that k’e is a respect for all relations and all creations as if there were no separation. It is a word that describes wholeness. At this point in the process, we began to meet with others for rapid fire questions about our intent. Mine then shifted to Harvest with Purpose. We then met as a group of four to simply ask for whatever we needed. The exercise closed with a guided meditation to the center of a mountain to listen to a wise one. The wise one told me, “you are the harvest. Relations are the harvest. Live well.” I carry this in me now. And I want to note simply a few of the experiences that are very alive.

• Our team, Teresa Posakony, myself, Roq Gareau, and Chris Corrigan have a beautiful wholeness with each other. Each of us brings something to working together. It is our k’e, our natural love of each other that deepens us and opens us to working with the group.
• Our internal team is equally beautiful and lovely. Tina Tso, who came alive for me this time with all of her beauty. Karen Sandoval, Orlando Pioche, and Chris Percy. These are people working at the heart of wellness in Navajo Nation. Our hosting work is alive in them. They have taken it in to new levels.
• Teachings = gifts = medicine = stories = questions. There may be a few more to add on here. But these are the ones I see now. So often the people from this group would reference our teachings as medicine. The Navajo as a culture, as a people, are so open to receiving the gifts, the learnings as medicine. It is quite amazing to be received this way. It surely does not feel like a simple little facilitation anymore.
• Treatments that I feel will live for a long time. I felt like the experience was a multi-layered treatment. It included a sweat hosted by Orlando Pioche. Four rounds of about 15 minutes each in the dark space, the womb that held room for 12 of us to sit in circle round rocks from the fire, sprinkled with sage, sweetgrass, tabacco, and cedar. There were songs, chants, prayers. It was a holy, a ritual in this case with men, that I have not experienced before. This was just one. There was the treatment of energy that I received as healing. There was the treatment of relations in being together. The land — the four directions. The people — k’e and ina twho, the river of life. There was the treatment of teachings from Chris Corrigan’s story of talk saving lives. Marge, a medicine woman encouraging all of us to trust what is in our hearts and to watch for our dreams. I was just thinking I wanted to separate out more teachings from treatments — however, in the spirit of k’e, I think these belong here.
• A few comments I heard, offered in thanks. “You helped us to remember what it means to be clan.” Well, coming from a group that states clan upon meeting, this as remarkable. The thanks offered were about depth of clan.
• “There is no bad corn.” The Navajo use what they have. Even corn that has bugs in it will go to the animals as feed.
• Ritual — I learned this in the sweat. Ritual is alive in this group. It is alive as passage. As healing. As connection and relation.

I feel deep gratitude for working with these people. I feel very blessed with and by them. I feel very well.

Chris Corrigan’s blog post — In the Land of K’e

Photos — Mine, Chris Corrigan, Chris Percy

Two days ago I cohosted with Terri Martin a dialogue on preserving Utah’s wildlands, and in particular, how to engage faith communities and involve young people. We were invited by Deeda Seed, SUWA’s Development Director.

Three journalists were present to harvest some of the event…

Holly Van Woerkom, BYU Daily Universe — Holly did a great job, capturing with clarity the main purpose.

Caleb Warnock, Daily Herald — This one felt a little less clear on the overall intent — less on the importance of engaging in dialogue and listening — but did include some specifics from the faith communities small group.

Amy Stewart, Deseret News — Also a helpful write-up.

The event itself was good. As Holly noted at the end of her article, people left with hope, enthusiasm. In participants words, one word each around the circle to seal the space: Hope, community, dialogue, motivation, spirit, responsibilities, compassion, community, sharing, promise, empowerment, understanding, wilderness, possibility, optimism, different view, hope.

And, I feel that a bigger vision needs to take root — not just one time gatherings but connecting people into more connection. Or to a bigger event that could birth more. Hmmm…

And here, a few photos…

And here, a harvest of flip chart notes…

And here, a beautiful harvest document from SUWA…