Category: Edited

This morning I found myself absorbed in an e-book shared by a new friend in Utah, Carla Moquin. She is a dynamo. Info on her book, Babies at Work: Bringing New Life to the Workplace, and the institute she started, Parenting in the Workplace Institute, is here.

This book comes from a deep passion and direct body of experience in Carla. I love the many levels in this book. The practicality, advantages, and challenges of starting a program. The depth of research and story. The deeper philosophy and invitation to one of wholeness. The challenge to industrial era thinking and structures of separation and efficiency. And perhaps mostly, the fire and gentleness that I’m coming to know a bit more of in Carla.

I’ve offered to explore the background I have in hosting movements at scale through social technologies, working with groups. Tea or lunch in the next couple of weeks.

A poem by Wendell Berry, American writer, poet, and essayist. I’ve found myself using it quite a bit lately. For enjoyment. And to invite a kind of surrender to what is through not-knowing.

The Real Work

It may be that when we no longer
know what to do
we have come to our real work.

When we no longer know
which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled
is not employed.

The impeded stream
is the one that sings.

Last week was learning-filled for me at the Art of Hosting Boston: Getting Our Important Work Done Together. Teresa Posakony and I were invited to join an inspired local team — Sibling duo, Deb and Jon Gilburg, Carla Kimball, Sky Freyss-Cole, Naava Frank, and Ginny Wiley.

I loved the strength and experience of this team. Being with people that can dive deeply into the science and simplicity beneath the magic of shared, collective space. I loved the experience of inviting a format that helps bring out the best of people in the room. The way that the “we” feeds into an expanded sense of individuals. I loved the friendship. I loved the start of a local Community of Practice.

A few harvest pieces below:
–Closing Poems, Pictures, Objects, and Clay
–Photo Collection (including individual shots on the poems)
–Photo Collection from Madeline Snow (placed into PPT document)
–Audio Reflections on Bridging Language (from the group – 12 minutes)

This visual illustration from Sky.

This last piece took place on the last day. It included suggestions for translatable definitions of the Art of Hosting, as well as some helpful and playful discussion.

Boston Art of Hosting
Group Reflection on Bridging Language
(Hosted by Amy, Leith, Karl, Peggy, Lee…)
January 28, 2011

What is the hosting?

– Innovative ways of collecting data and ideas.
– A way to help people deal with change; a set of tools for dealing with change.
– Creating a social architecture to have strategic conversations in order to create innovation and change.
– One of the best practices for convenors who pride themselves in what they do.
– A way to share, hold, and deal with complex challenges so that a larger group of people are invested in solving problems together.
– The how of bringing communities together, including in large forums.
– Four words: Ways to help groups. “Well, you know how people spend a lot a lot of time in group meetings and have a hard time getting things done. I help with that. Which means that groups will be able to _____.”
– Imagine if you went to a meeting and everyone was engaged and from that everyone was involved. I can help with that.
– It isn’t about changing the language. It is about framing that allows the conversation to begin.

I so enjoyed this book, written by Garth Stein, a Seattle author. What a treat to read a novel! The book was loaned to me by Ginny Wiley, whom I worked with last week. Just the right timing for a couple of airplane reads and a few hot baths. Just the right mix of delight to hear a story told by a dog, Enzo, and deep-hearted concern of human beings in the reality of human life. A story of family, of conviction, of humility. Background themes intelligently woven in from the world of car racing. Laughter in the beginning. Aches in the middle. Tears in the end for me.

There is one passage at the end that felt like a signature. It makes it seem like the book was much about racing. This paragraph was, for me, about wholeness. Just keep learning this one.

“I know this much about racing in the rain. I know it is about balance. It is about anticipation and presence. I know all of the driving skills that are necessary for one to be successful in the rain. But racing in the rain is also about the mind! It is about owning one’s own body. About believing that one’s car is merely an extension of one’s body. About believing that the track is an extension of the car, and the rain is an extension of the track, and the sky is an extension of the rain. It is about believing that you are not you; you are everything. And everything is you.”