There is something ineffable about being held in a space that is hosted. One of the key things that simply can’t be taught in any facilitation training is “presence.” It’s possible to talk about it, to model it and even to help others connect with it, but you can’t transmit it. It is not a technical piece. It is a practice.
I make a lot of connections between hosting practice and martial arts practice. Today, looking through some of the handful of martial arts weblogs I read, I discovered this post:
Regardless of how many years you’ve spent in the dojo, the possibility always exists that you’ll encounter something you’ve never seen before in your training. So how do you avoid this ugly scene before it happens? Believe it or not, this starts by how you present yourself to the world. If you appear arrogant and look for trouble, there’s no doubt you’ll find it. However, if you perceive yourself as a victim or a loser, you’ll end up for sure as someone’s target practice. The key is to combine equal amounts of humility and confidence that you have developed from your training into your daily life. Humility and confidence are the yin and yang of the martial artist’s persona. The great swordsman/strategist Miyamoto Musashi once said, “The warrior must make his warrior’s walk his everyday walk”. This is a quality of living that can’t be faked, and its essence can be felt even by strangers. I’ve read accounts of how martial artists should carry themselves in public; exuding grace, good posture and so on, but I believe that there’s an ineffability to the martial artist that goes beyond the physical.
You can discover more advice from Musashi in The Book of Five Rings. I’m always curious about how others describe this ineffable part of working with people. What’s your practice?
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I’m really enjoying finding poetry that seems to relate, in an off-handed way, to hosting and the process arts.Here is Andrea Baker, from the new issue of TYPO 9:
PROPOSAL
Each
point was also a centerat the grief
which was
many-centeredand gatherings hungered
in the throat
and at the mouthof each many-grief
which all foamed
to begina new burden
to lay fresh
on the worldso
I set out a bowl
for light to rest inas long
as the long breath pushingbut what is random
never quietsand the will was random
was pullingthe shadow into darkness
and spreading itself
or wrapping its own
wondercontent
and fresh
about the worldPROPOSAL
Small crumbs of darkness
swept about the field
as wind campaigned against
the breathand in the heat of the breath
laid down its own burdens
which the wind insists
are small
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Ted Ernst pionts to an article on leadership in participatory culture. The artile contains the following list of capacities:
- trust others and trust in the collective ability of a group
- draw attention to commonality between participants (rather than dividing them with differences)
- demonstrate active conscious commitment to vision, values, and goals as example to others
- act responsively to feedback and help grow feedback loops among participants
- show their humanity, making them credible and proving their integrity regularly
- listen actively and deeply with distributed credit so decisions seem to come from collective
- instill a sense of togetherness, a sense of “we can do this if we each do our part”
- defend the collective to outsiders and represents their needs
- hold each participant to their greatness
- open to seeing how the pieces fit together–open to emergence
- willing and ready for new opportunities
- able to respond with compassion in times of stress and difficulty
This is a very interesting and relevant list, especially in light of the exploring some of us are doing around the Art of Governance.
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I have gone almost completely paperless in my business. How about you?
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This film is Akira Kurosawa’s adaptation of Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s short story dealing with the subjectivy of eyewitness evidence in the solving of a crime.
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A nice introduction to the math and science of chaos. Rich ground for generating analogues in the organizational world.
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New Agey site but contains useful information on how the science of fractals can contribute to a consciousness that does not separate science and spirit.
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An older paper on three major ways that chaos is viewed and the respective responses by systems of order. A paper in the social and cultural realm.(tags: chaos organization)
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Nice blog post with great comments on complexity, evolution and emergence.
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A translation of the classic text on samurai sword wielding.
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From a paper on Korean poetry comes this poem by Ko Un, “Ode to Shim-chong:”
Indangsu sea, shine dark blue,
come rising as a cloudlike drumbeat.
The waters, the sailors who know the waters, may know
the dark fate of the world beyond
that lies past the path that sometimes appears,
the weeping of children born into this world,
and the sailors may know my daughter’s path.
How can the waters exist without the world beyond?
Full-bodied fear
has now become the most yearned-for thing in the world,
and my daughter’s whimpering stillness in the lotus bud will be such;
might love be a bright world and my eyes be plunged in utter darkness?
Daughter, already now the waters’ own mother,
advance over the waters,
advance over the waters
like the mists that come dropping over the waters.
My daughter, advance and travel through every world.
Shine dark blue, Indangsu. Weep dark blue.
Are we not called to be in those waters, as sailors who know the dark fate of the world beyond, willing to stand in the full bodied fear that this world craves?