Human to Human

To wrap up a recent project, a 2008 planning meeting for CUPE’s union developers, I met with colleagues and cohosts Nancy and Angela. We met in phone council — checking in, naming a question, listening, harvesting, choosing wise action, checking out. Though the specifics of this conversation mattered less, the three of us work in beautiful partnership, I learned a lot about how to shape and feel this issue.

The questions we asked of each other:

What are your needs?
What flow can we create with this money?
What is best right-relations sharing of this pot?
What gifting might we decide to offer to others to support this pattern?

I love the agreement we came to with such clarity, beauty, and swiftness.

Split the pot equally.
Give some right-relations amount extra to the project lead.
Always ask for what you need and offer what you can.

And these very cool learnings / principles…

Whereas the old model for these decisions is more transactional, the new model is energetic. It is not about who did what work. It is about how we collectively invite, create, hold a field to work in before, during, and after the event.
As with design, work on logistics with open heart, enaged conversation, and clarity of action — beautiful.
Agree to this as a conversation each time, not a formula, to listen with attention and act with love.

Welcome the “when” of working and creating together again.

harvest/found poem — conversation with tenneson 07.27.07

what does the next look like?

lean into it
ask
what is real?

stand with
the deepening edge
be willing

to pause

hold yourself with
that big energy
this time of turning

tap into the purpose
the experience
of being human

greet this as an invitation

to our next wide ocean

of beauty

About six months ago I found myself very much in a need to simplify. Work was requireing much of me, my time, in a way that didn’t feel right enough. A key relationship was really charged. I wanted so much to dive deeper into readings and learnings on energy. I was struggling to find enough of myself in my spiritual community. I was overcooked and in need of insight that was simple enough for me to hold. It came, in the form of three commitments that applied to each of these areas:

1. Be open in heart.
2. Be couragous in story.
3. Be clear in intent.

This open-heartedness is very alive for me this week. And as I think of it now, I recall several times where people have helped me to learn more of this.

There was the September Art of Hosting in Indiana at which one of the open space breakout groups harvested this: “an open heart is a safe space.”

There was the November Art of Hositng in Pennsylvania at which the theme for the first day was open heartedness.

There were these recent words from Meg Wheatley and a group of friends, soul friends at I know Berkana Institute:

• we are companions for the journey as the world insists that our hearts crack open, not to break, but to grow
• broken-heartedness leads us out into the world where we can stand with people and offer our love
• in the end, all that matters is people standing together in the fullness of being human

These threads have lead me to something that feels important today…

• What would be different if we assumed that world does insist that our hearts crack open so that we can offer our love and stand together in the fullness of being human?
• Sometimes I don’t see because my heart isn’t open.
• Can we create and practice tools for opening our hearts?
• From this love, all becomes different, whole, healthy. Our work becomes our human being.

I’m thinking of this framing, feeling it, as I move into new client relations, designs of meetings, hosting of phone calls. I’m also thinking of it at home. This changes how I show up, what I invite, what I hope to create with others. It doesn’t remove me / us from “work.” It grounds us more deeply to animate and ground our “work.”