My Podcasts & Videos • Tenneson Woolf

Podcasts

Human to Human + Back Episodes

Human to Human is both Podcast and Blog. Both emphasize a simplicity and central importance of humans in connection together. Read the blog here.

Human to Human, The Podcast, has a theme for 2024 — Practicing for Peace. I’ve got so many friends, colleagues, and mentors that have been encouraging inner peace that goes with outer peace. It’s an important framing and invitation that I find centers and grounds. Episodes are 45 minutes ish in length (as our the 2023 episodes) — because I wanted more space for more story and more learning and more laughter together.

Human to Human, The Podcast remains at the heart, a conversational (convercircly) space to meet with interesting people, and with the most simple of questions — what’s it like to be you…? what has your attention now…? what does that have to do with who you are or who you are becoming? It’s starting anywhere and following it everywhere. Enjoy.

Episode 26 — Nadia Von Holzen “Unhurried” (August 2024, 51 minutes)
Episode 25 — Rowan Simonsen “Connect to Stillness Within” (June 2024, 51 minutes)
Episode 24 — Toke Moeller “The Art & Heart of Practicing Peace” (May 2024, 58 minutes)
Episode 23 — Tenneson Woolf, “Attentive Peace” (April 2024, 28 minutes)
Episode 22 — Samantha Slade, “Practice Peace, Big Self” (March 2024, 55 minutes)
Episode 21 — Cory Thorell, “Choose Peace, Love Gigantically” (February 2024, 58 minutes)
Episode 20 — Dave Fearon, “Practice” (November 2023 — 51 minutes)
Episode 19 — Katie Kinnemeyer, “Listening for Field” (October 2023 — 47 minutes)
Episode 18 — Janice Steiber Rous, “Stop. Exhale. Ground.” (September 2023 – 53 min)
Episode 17 — LaTanya Wilson, “If You Have A Desire To Meet Spirit, Spirit Has A Desire To Meet You” (August 2023)
Episode 16 — Amaha Sellassie, “Live Real in a Real Time” (July 2023 — 46 minutes)
Episode 15 — Dr. Myriam Hadnes, “Global Community of Practitioners” (June 2023 — 54 minutes)
Episode 14 — Chris Corrigan, “Support is Life” (May 2023 — 55 minutes)
Episode 13 — Beth Tener, “Kinship” (April 2023 — 49 min)
Episode 12 — Lawrence Kampf, “Higher Expressions of Selves” (March 2023 — 48 min)
Episode 11 — Linnea Bjorkman, “Holistic Living, Circle” (February 2023 — 49 min)
Episode 10 — Relational Leadership: 3 Questions (5/17/21 — 12 minutes)
Episode 9 — Violence of the Binary & Kindness of Multicpicity (2/2/21 — 16 minutes)
Episode 8 — For Guidance: 8 Orientations to Grounded Journey (11/25/20 — 18 minutes)
Episode 7 — For Question Designers Everywhere (8/19/20 — 12 minutes)

Shades of Life (Kathy Jourdain, Jerry Nagel, Tenneson Woolf)

August 2024 — Shades of Life 11 (5 minutes). It’s our invitation to jump in to these conversations. So, yes, welcome. Next up is September 10th on the topic of Shifting Narrative; Changing Lives.
June 2024 — Shades of Life 10 (39 minutes). We talk a bit about The Art of Hosting. About connecting. About belonging. And tattoos! It’s a spaces where we three curious learners get curious.
May 2024 — Shades of Life 9 (55 minutes). I love the openness to explore. Sometimes it feels like wandering. However, I think of it as some expanded connecting. To know the stories of our attentions — yup, there is something quite healthy in that.
April 2024 — Shades of Life 8 (40 minutes). A bit on the importance of knowing self. That’s code for becoming more curious about self. That’s code for coming to more nuanced relationship with self. It turns out that that influences how we see and interact with the world.
March 2024 — Shades of Life 7 (42 minutes). We take on a few notions of overcoming the fear of conversation. And wonder a bit on what it takes to change that.
February 2024 — Shades of Life 6 (38 minutes). Kathy, Jerry, and I explore the relationship between the visible and the invisible, the certain and the uncertain. It’s three friends and fellow professionals in learning and wonder. And some laughter.
January 2024 — Shades of Life 5 (50 minutes). This one is on courage. As quality. As invitation. One a delightful wonder together. It’s a wonder among many of us. I love it that we are serious and playful together.
December 2023 — Shades of Life 4 (38 minutes). A little jazz. A little leadership. A little being with the music. A little being the music. Fun to wonder with my friends again.
October 2023 — Shades of Life 3 (47 minutes). This third recording gives a bit of our attention to creativity and what it liberates. Playful. Yet purposeful.
September 2023 — Shades of Life 2 (43 minutes). Fun to continue this conversation. This time on the importance of social connection and healthy well-being.
August 2023 — Shades of Life 1 (36 minutes). Fun to be in connection and learning with Kathy and Jerry. We talk grandparenting, parenting, learning in groups, a bit of music, belonging, and the importance of the open heart.

Fire & Water Back Episodes

Quanita Roberson and I started recording some of our conversations and learnings (from 2018 – 2022), particularly as they pertained to our 16 month cohort program, Fire & Water Leadership Journey & Rite of Passage. Episodes were conversational, typically 15-25 minutes.

Episode 36 — Care in Community with Eileen Reed (1/5/23 — 45 minutes)
Episode 35 — Wild Cards (12/19/22 — 21 minutes)
Episode 34 — Fire & Water Rest (11/15/22 — 38 minutes)
Episode 33 — Navigating the Muchness of Life (9/26/22 — 22 minutes)
Episode 32 — Circle Immersion (8/5/22 — 21 minutes)
Episode 31 — Most Mornings (7/5/22 — 35 minutes)
Episode 30 — The Water Spirits Are Alive (6/7/22 — 18 minutes)
Episode 29 — Deserving (5/5/22 — 30 minutes)
Episode 28 — Holding Space with Christina Baldwin (4/5/22 — 38 minutes)
Episode 27 — Reflections on Our Wisdom Series, Forgiveness (3/5/22 — 17 minutes)
Episode 26 — The Masculine & The Feminine (2/4/22 — 31 minutes)
Episode 25 — The Innerground Railroad (1/4/22 — 20 minutes)
Episode 24 — Trauma: Finding Our Way (12/4/21 — 22 minutes)
Episode 23 — Talking With Our Elders, David O’Fallon (8/16/21 — 49 minutes)
Episode 22 — Departure as Part of Initiation (6/5/21 — 26 minutes)
Episode 21 — Staying In the Journey (5/10/21 — 22 minutes)
Episode 20 — Independence? (1/12/21) — 30 minutes)
Episode 19 — Sacred Surrender (12/4/20 — 48 minutes)
Episode 18 — Fire & Water – A Reflection (11/18/20 — 6 minutes)
Episode 17 — On Rites of Passage (11/11/20 — 29 minutes)
Episode 16 — A Conversation on Fear (9/29/20 — 26 minutes)
Episode 15 — The Need for a Cohort Journey (9/7/20 — 19 minutes)
Episode 14 — Nature, Presence & Encountering Life (7/31/20 — 6 minutes)
Episode 13 — About Race (7/14/20 — 34 minutes)
Episode 12 — Circle Buffet, Part 2 (7/3/20 — 22 minutes)
Episode 11 — Circle Buffet, Part 1 (5/25/20 — 23 minutes)
Episode 10 — Human Experience or Spiritual Experience (5/4/20 — 18 minutes)
Episode 9 — A Cadence of Despair (4/16/20 — 20 minutes)
Episode 8 — CoVid Anger, Sadness, Confusion, and Hope (4/1/20 — 13 minutes)
Episode 7 — Paying Attention: The Thing Under the Thing (3/26/20 — 21 minutes)
Episode 6 — On Initiation (9/4/19 — 14 minutes)
Episode 5 — Grief, Part 2 (2/23/19 — 17 minutes)
Episode 4 — Grief, Part 1 (2/10/19 — 17 minutes)
Episode 3 — Fire & Water Teaser 3 (12/1/18 — 6 minutes)
Episode 2 — Fire & Water Teaser 2 (11/20/18 — 7 minutes)
Episode 1 — Fire & Water Teaser 1 (11/20/18 — 2 minutes)

Other Podcasts

March 2024 — Practice Podcast with Dave Fearon (38 minutes). Dave’s a sweet man. And a forever educator and encourager. He has great guiding insights. I so enjoyed his questions as we talked a few notions of being with groups in learning.
January 2024 — Big Decisions and Ways of Knowing (50 minutes). I was guest of Beth Tener for this episode. Fun to think with her. To be in her stories. To share a few of my own. From her “Living Love” series.
February 2023 — From the Outside with Tim Merry and Tuesday Ryan-Hart (59 minutes): Tim and Tuesday are thoughtful people. They’ve worked a lot of scaled work. We’ve shared a lot of learning. And we have friendship that began near two decades ago. We talk about bigger picture. We talk about working with and across race. We talk about what works and about what doesn’t. Recorded in September 2022, yet released in 2023. Grateful for the learning.
April 2022 — Workshops Work (1 hour): I enjoyed being a part of this podcast, Workshops Work. It’s hosted by the thoughtful Myriam Hadnes. This episode features Quanita Roberson and me on the topic of facilitation, turning to one another, turning in to self, and I would suggest, some of the kindness required to work our way in complexity. Enjoy the listen (it’s an hour). Thx for sharing as inspired.
February 2022 — Radical ReImagining (32 minutes): Tenneson Woolf – Radical (Re)imagining S3 E2 Radical (Re)Imagining hosts Deven Wisner, Tiffany Tovey, & Libby Smith welcome Tenneson Woolf, a facilitator, teacher, coach, circle host, and poet. This year our conversations will focus on who we are in the work and how we make moves towards showing up as our full human selves in the work. Tenneson is also a host (with Quanita Roberson) of the 18-month Fire & Water Leadership Journey & Rite of Passage and the Fire & Water podcast.
December 2020 — From Uncommon to Common (75 minutes): Recording of a workshop that Quanita Roberson and I offered as part of Myriam Hadnes’ Festival, Never Done Before.
September 2020 — Attachment Theory in Action & The Circle Way, Part 2 (35 minutes): Fun to continue the conversation with Karen Doyle Buckwalter connecting circle practice to health and healing.
September, 2020 — Attachment Theory in Action & The Circle Way, Part 1 (30 minutes): Karen Doyle Buckwalter invited me to a conversation about creating safe and brave spaces that connect attachment with wholeness that can be found in circle process. What I loved in this conversation is the commitment to welcoming the whole human being, and some awareness that a lot of contemporary meeting formats don’t do that. Circle helps restore and invite wholeness, among other things.
September, 2020 — Irenicast: Continuing the Conversation (A Cadence of Despair (57 minutes). My friend Casey Tinnin and his colleagues continue their serious and playful inquiry together, exploring what it means to be in a few engaging questions together that I often ask. Who are you? What’s it like to be you? What has your attention? What does that have to do with who you are and who you are becoming?
April, 2020 — A Cadence of Despair (68 minutes). My friend, Pastor Casey Tinnin hosts me in talking about my publication of poems and reflections — A Cadence of Despair: Poems and Reflections on Heartbreak, Loss and Renewal. This book maps and invites a relationship with despair, including not just the ascent, but the richness and rawness of the descent.
Beyond the Spreadsheet Brain: How to Invoke Participant Brains, Hearts, and Bellies (2019, with Myriam Hadnes in Amsterdam, 49 minutes). I loved her questions. I loved her playfulness. I loved her desire to bridge the practical and the poetic.
Podcast — On Leaning In (2019, with Jim Strader-Sasser, 30 minutes). Glad for Jim’s podcast, Circuosity, and his invitation to me to think out loud about circle as container, and leaning in as needed human endeavor.
Building Leaderful Communities: Capacities and Practices to Support Thriving Transition Communities (2015, 72 minutes audio) — I enjoyed creating this with Jeff Aitken, who unfortunately became ill on the day of our scheduled seminar. I enjoy being part of the Transition and resilience efforts.
Art of Hosting: Participatory Leadership Practices That Change the Way We Meet (2013, 71 minutes audio) — With Teresa Posakony, in support of Transition US efforts.

Video Appearances

Riffing With Rijon (2024, 75 minutes) — Fun to join this Cincinnati based colleague who is bring music together with group facilitation. It’s a playful live-streamed conversation. I loved the feeling of new learning coming through real time on music, magic, mystery, and some other thing that go along with working with groups. Rijon created 7 short video clips — see them here.

New Normal (2020, 5 minutes) — This is Ari Kuschnir’s project, “Together.” It was fun to speak with him and be included in this inquiry of what “normal” does or could mean.

The Art of Hosting, Bowen Island (2017, 12 minutes) — This captures some of the spirit, heart, and skill that goes into the practice and art of participatory leadership and The Art of Hosting. I was part of hosting this group over 15 years annually, and learned a ton together.

Minneapolis Art of Hosting (2012, 4 minutes) — From an event I was part of, compiled by Katie Boone, a bit of what 130 people in a ballroom look like.

Rural Ontario Leadership Summit (2012, 8 minutes) — From the summit that I worked at in 2012 with Alicia Evans, Jean Ogilvie, Erika Bailey and others. It represents a shift in format for this conference to a participative format. Captures a few images and impressions for what that looks like. In this case, 2 days with 75 people in a hotel setting.

dusty trail on left side with large shrubs left of the trail and field to the right heading towards a mountain on overcast day tenneson woolf videos and podcasts

Videos From Others

As it is with other resources I include on this site, these videos come from my paying attention to what shows up in front of me. What I use. What people share with me. What I get excited about. When helpful, I create categories. Below find Open Space Technology, The World Cafe, The Art of Hosting and Harvesting, Thought Provoking.

Open Space Technology

Open Space Technology: The Power of Self-Organization (2010, 7 minutes) — This is a trailer featuring several OS practitioners (German with English subtitles). Gives images of what it can look like, principles, and some of the possibilities.

Time Lapse Open Space (2006, 30 seconds) — From Johnnie Moore, a one day meeting with BBC. Fun to see the movement of people in groups, regrouping, etc.

US West Open Space (16 minutes) — Helpful reflections from Harrison Owen and participants (some of the doubts leading up to) on using the process.

Open Space on Open Space — Melbourne, Australia (2002, 5 minutes) — From David Smith, shows a bit of what it looks like over three days.

The World Cafe

World Cafe (2011, 4 minutes) — Jake Voit and Ginny Belden-Charles sharing some overarching description of what The World Cafe methodology is and how it happens.

Proaction Cafe (2011, 3 minutes) — Dan Frank, Phyllis Braxton, and my friends Jerry Nagel and Toke Moeller describe some of this methodology, one that I’m using often. It is a marriage between the naming of projects that happens in Open Space Technology and the use of The World Cafe to help move projects along to actionable items.

World Cafe Guidelines and Principles (2009, 5 minutes) — A clear and precise description of some key aspects of imagining and hosting a world cafe, particularly for first time participants. Offered by my friend and colleague, Holly Masturzo.

The Art of Hosting and Harvesting

Building Leaderful Communities: Capacities and Practices to Support Thriving Transition Communities (2015, 72 minutes audio) — I enjoyed creating this with Jeff Aitken, who unfortunately became ill on the day of our scheduled seminar. I enjoy being part of the Transition and resilience efforts.

Art of Hosting: Participatory Leadership Practices That Change the Way We Meet (2013, 71 minutes audio) — With Teresa Posakony, in support of Transition US efforts.

Minneapolis Art of Hosting (2012, 4 minutes) — From an event I was part of, compiled by Katie Boone, a bit of what 130 people in a ballroom look like.

Divergence and Convergence (2011, 13 minutes) — From an Art of Hosting training in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

2-Loops: How Systems Change (2011, 6 minutes) — A core model for taking social innovation to scale, voiced here by Deborah Frieze.

Our Optimal Health: Change Through Conversation (2011, 4 minutes) — Digital story told by Berkana friend Tuesday Ryan-Hart of efforts to create change in a Columbus, OH health community.

In Commons (2009-2012) — This is a broad collection of videos (7 at present) over four years that show some key models and reflections from the Art of Hosting work taking place in Minneapolis. Additional videos from the same period are here, with teachings from Phil Cass, Jerry Nagel, Toke Moeller, and other colleagues. I was able to be a part of this work in December 2012.

Thought-Provoking

Enso House (2014, 5 minutes) — This film was created at The Whidbey Institute’s 3rd Annual Thriving Communities Conference. I include it here because it has some important perspective about hospice, caring, and death. It pertains to people in this movie. It also, however, pertains to systems. It was shared with me by Cynthia Trenshaw, who is a volunteer featured in the film.

How Wolves Change Rivers (5 minutes) — I found this one through Jerry Nagel on the Films for Action site. It’s a great piece on how systems change, telling some of the story of the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park.

H-Town Stories (2013, 2 minutes) — From Angela Blanchard and others at Neighborhood Centers, Inc. I love this line. “When you will stand next to somebody, and work with them on the thing that matters most to them in the whole world, you don’t have to worry about motivation. All you have to do is be there. Because they have already decided, one way or another, come hell or high water, they are going to get this done.”

A New Story of the People (2013, 8 minutes) — Narrated by Charles Eisenstein, and created by Chris and Dawn Agnos. Wise words. Charles has a simplicity that makes so much sense. I love the way that he is inviting and challenging a different story, a commitment to the more beautiful world that we already know is possible.

Why Transition Now (2013, 2 minutes) — World-famous musician, author, scientist and pioneer of a new paradigm in consciousness, Dr. Ervin Laszlo presents a message about this time of great transition on our planet. I love the reference to the “human adventure on our planet.” Interviewed and filmed by Peter Engberg.

How Bacteria Talk To Each Other (2012, 9 minutes) — This NOVA program features Bonnie Bassler, Molecular Biologist. Very helpful imagery that I loved about how bacteria in community have the capacity to light up, a capacity not present when alone.

From Consumers to Citizens (2012, 55 minutes) — Dr. Manfred Hellrig, Director of the Office for Future Questions in Bregenz the Province of Vorarlberg in Austria.

Hunting the Hidden Dimension (2011, 56 minutes) — Very helpful background on fractal geometry (from PBS), the mathematical side of simple expressions that create complex patterns.

Body Dialogue (2010, 5 minutes) — This video is by my colleague Janice Stieber Rous. I love how she focusses on breath.

Bodhisattva on Metro (2010, 7 minutes) — For me, this seemingly unrelated video shows a lot about the work we do in hosting groups. Some deliberateness, some play, and a quiet kind of knowing in working with the energy of a group.

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