Author: Tenneson Woolf

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…

John Kesler is my patner in work with the Center for Engaging Community. He is a man of great vision. He attracts incredible people around him. He is very humble. And a great catalyzer of efforts. Together we co-direct the Center.

Last week, John and I were checking-in. Projects. Imaginations. Plans. A central point of our efforts is an initiative called Culture of Connection. We launched this effort in many ways with a large community event last spring. Today it lives in many people, committees, and community relations.

I wanted to name this initiative because last week John and I had one of those moments where we revisited purpose and a few agreements. We weren’t trying to per se; but it became clear that in our phone conversation, that is what was happening. These all spoke to me…

• Bring capacity of conversation
• When we find competence and passion, help to catalyze the self-organizationt that manifests flourishing community.
• We can look through multiple lenses.
• Be a trusted neutral convenor, not an advocate.
• Grassroots community engagement.

This also spoke to me, three anchors. We support flourishing community by…

1. Convening, training, connecting, practicing in conversation.
2. Supporting technology that connects, both in content and social community (this a project that we are just starting to imagine)
3. Grounding our work in specific domains — currently feeling the biggest need in a bipartisan legislative dialogue project, and, and exploration into supporting and integrating immigrant and refugee communities in the Salt Lake Valley.