Today I was able to talk with Jeannel King in San Diego, CA. Jeannel is a friend I met through the Art of Hosting at Wooded Glen in Indiana earlier this fall. She is completing her masters thesis for a degree from Regis University in Denver, CO. Jeannel invited me to provide feedback on her thesis. The real inviation was to be in a learning relationship together. This is what I experienced.
One of the threads from our conversation was about simplicity. How do you speak of the Art of Hosting in a simple way (not easy task to write about this in an academic form) that preserves the energy of the experience and doesn’t just end with “you had to be there.” Jeannel’s clarity was about hosting self, so as to be a resource for others. I heard this as a tuning, an ability to feel into what is happening in ourselves, the group, the space, the field. I liked the question we arrived at — what is the self of the group? What does hosting that look like? Feel like?
I also shared with Jeannel this simple model that good friend Chris Corrigan spoke as a change model. This is the most simple I’ve heard that speaks oodles. Open hearts. Engage conversations. Enable movements. Open hearts. To look through this model at the “things” of an Art of Hosting is helpful for me. Open hearts — participation, cocreation, rest, dreams, meals, play, listening, deep listening, connection to nature…. Engage conversations — methods, silence, structured, unstructured, self, partner, small group, large group…. Enable movement — harvest, convergence, simple clarity, tangible energy.
What if our work was to open hearts?
How would that change our plans?
What would that make available that typically is not?
What could our work also be?