Category: Edited

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.

I enjoyed convening this event earlier this week. To introduce Meg Wheatley to several of my local colleagues and vice versa. To share some of the stories that our harvested in the book Walk Out Walk On, coauthored by Deborah Frieze. To further seed and support a shift toward a participative leadership culture in the Salt Lake Valley. To further support a global shift of how humans can be together in deliberate choice of belief and practice.

It was lovely. I enjoyed seeing so many friends in the room. Nice, simple format. Context setting and welcome from me. Simple identifiers with the participants (stand up if you…). Meg spoke for 20 minutes. Some on two loops model for how systems change, and some on the experience of walking out walking on. Lovely poetry. We had two rounds of small group discussions. The first on “when have you experienced walking out.” The second on “what have you learned from stepping in to the abyss and going to the edge.” A bit of that harvest is in this photo. Lovely points. Lovely connection. In the book signing time, many appreciations.

I think I’ve always been the kind of human that seeks for the principles beneath the structures, the plans, and the programs. It helps me to generate patterns and begin to imagine wildly beautiful and complex systems from a starting point of simplicity.

Tonight I am co-convening a Walk Out Walk On event in Salt Lake City. It features the work of Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze, found in their book by the same title. I’m excited to have many local friends meet Meg and to engage with each other around principles of healthy and resilient community.

Yesterday, in speaking with Meg, we were starting to name the general focus of the event. Meg spoke it as this basic premise: “It is possible to change at the level of belief. When you do, much more becomes possible.” Nice, isn’t it. Change behavior by changing at the level of identity. A nice invitation to awaken to a broader story of what it can mean to be human and what is possible. And from Meg and Deborah’s book, lots of good stories of this.

This fits well with my teachings and training designs of the last month. On Bowen Island in October, over the course of three days, our team invited people to explore “provocative questions,” carry them with them, and later move to “provocative premises,” that help to make belief visible.

I’ve been teaching in particular about three groups of premises. For example, from living systems theory — if you want a system to be healthy, connect it to more of itself. From emergence (and thanks to Chris Corrigan, whom I first heard this from) — emergence is what happens when everyone leaves from the party with something that nobody came with. It is an invitation to pay attention to what arises from our interactions. From self-organization — order is for free; it is the naturally occurring state from a systems view.

I’ve been inviting people to notice these, and name their own. Premises that change the game that we are playing and attending too. Premises that make irrelevant some of the things that fill most of our time.

It was similar in New Brunswick earlier this month. Kathy Jourdain and I taught about these from the perspective of “portable principles.” There were many in the group that were seeking an application level. Some of that is meeting design and project planning. Great to be in that. Some of it is also getting more of what works underneath. Portable principles to carry back to the office and reshape design and plans.

One of the best sets of portable principles that I use often comes from The Berkana Institute Engaging Communities Tool Kit. It contains a set of principles and key questions good for many settings. I often reference them as principles of freedom in design.

To change the behavior of people, change the identity. With appreciation to my many friends that work and explore at this level.