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Monthly Archives "March 2015"

This morning’s dialogue poem

March 10, 2015 By Chris Corrigan Art of Hosting, Poetry

The four fold practice meeting the Diné healthy communities framework

The four fold practice meets the Diné healthy communities framework

Harvest from a three hour check in circle this morning, building a social field among 40 health promotion practitioners from across the Navajo Nation.  The circle was at times tender and wickedly funny.  It built a beautiful field to begin our three day training.  Here’s the poem:

Yá’a tééh! It’s a good day.
I am here for the wellness of our nations;
we have stationed ourselves inside our families
where we teach and learn
reach each parent and turn around
their minds to a kind of space
that is safe to face
what flies over our heads
as we sit on our sheepskins
and keep the teachings in the home.
It’s a warm feeling, healing even
to be basking in being hosted
with a ticker that ticks and keeps on giving
and my Converse laced up and I’m ready for living
I love growing the food my family is eating
preventing cancer and diabetes
whispering the secret of healthy people
teaching through recreation and schools
reaching youth so they don’t act like fools
and see peace and respect as cool.
I work in recovery which is a kind of discovery
for the men coming back to us from the pen
bringing them back to the traditional life
to be in harmony, connected to family
receiving the gifts of community and ceremony
to counter the drama of trauma
“Lying in the road hurt” means that my work is about healing
getting up and feeling the body
feeling the advocacy that I speak
fixed by the gaze of a grazing sheep
that reminds me of my grandmother’s teaching:
this is the way that it has to be
to spread my wings and see
how I can develop me and then how we can move forward
to see possibility and leave our conversations happy.
I start with myself, and build out from there
circles of care that come from the sheepskin,
the ancient wisdom, and tools that help us weave
the stories that leave us tightly bound.
Tighten up your buns, there’s work to be done,
Doesn’t matter if it’s your hair or your derriere.
And take a look and make sure your corn beef is cooked.
I am a believer in hope and change
for a positive exchange of the art of the heart
grounding in respect so we can expect
to find out why place matters.
I help to bring wholeness with a focus on food
a wholesome and fullsome way to collude
with kids and youth who pick up the positive attitude
that comes from our culture
harmonize our bodies and our eyes.
I’m a traveller, an unraveller of
unhealthy ways, weaving teachings about how to raise
communities, raise gardens and harvest our best
bring our heart to everything we do
deal with our fears so we can be here
present to what wants to appear
with minds clear.
I’m a first generation relocation baby
thinking maybe I have a giftedness that will lift the people
bring them to fitness
and give back what I have learned on this ride
to see pride inside everyone in our tribes.
It all comes down to helping others
coaching kids, approaching mothers and grandmothers
who share their respect with us
I’m from the beach boys
and a blond haired grandma and traditional speakers
who infused in me a possibility
to change the dysfunction I see, conversationally,
for the benefit of the community, to support the wellness that starts from me.
We know our own patterns and carry them in our blood
transport them everywhere flood of memories
leaving this world better than how we found it
better harmony, better family.
I might be out of words.
Overwhelmed at everything I’ve heard
and here to hear with my ears and heart
to get a head start on addressing the fears
Here, I can see where my prayers are going,
and what has come to my knowing,
my leadership is calling me back
and I can see that I stack up.
The talking happens at the rug,
drawing people into the snug corner of the home
where we share the honest lessons we have learned
pray the prayers that burn in our hearts.
All over the world, we understand weaving
(even though our sweater doesn’t meet five days from leaving)
each one of us is teaching in this room
each one bringing our strands to the loom.
I work in the struggle
creating the space where families can face their challenges
with something as simple as reading
or as powerful as seeking out the strengths
or going to great lengths
to build leaders who feed their own learning
turning back to the language and values.
I am related to the world my relations unfurled
like a ball of yarn that leads us to our tools
a school of weaving leaving us loved and moved
coming back to what was lost
as we chased a living across the south
now I’m getting the language in my mouth
and find myself at a junction
where I support functional community
and do the work of spirit.
Yá’a tééh! It’s a good day.
and good to start in a beautiful way.

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Back to a simple teaching of chaos and order

March 4, 2015 By Chris Corrigan Art of Hosting, Complexity, Conversation, Leadership, Learning, Organization, Travel One Comment

Tenneson Woolf, Caitlin Frost and I are snuggled into the attic rooms at the Capitol Hill Mansion B&B in downtown Denver, listening to some jazz, eating some pasta and salad and finishing up a productive design day together.  We are preparing to teach the Art of Hosting to 60 leaders from the community at St. John’s in the Wilderness Cathedral in Denver.  St. John’s is a high Anglican Gothic Episcopalian cathedral in the heart of Denver.  We have been working with the cathedral community over the past couple of years to build the capacity among the 1700 members to be able to host and engage in conversations that matter.

As we’ve done this work, I’m struck at once by how simple it really is and how little space we make for it in our lives.  People are busy, rushed and worried about deadlines and results and as a collective society we tend to defer the slow and clear attention to the quality of how we are together.  Quality gets sacrificed at the alter of timely outcomes.

And of course this is no more ironic than in the myriad church communities we have been working with over the years, which, at their best, host a place to slow down and consider the nature of the relationship between peoples and to attend to the sacred quality of the spaces in between.

For me there is something in the richness of returning to the simplest way we know of to slow down and host good conversations.  This evening as I write by the fire, Caitlin and Tenneson are preparing a simple teaching of Circle practice.  Earlier we were thinking about the simplest way we know of to discuss the relationship of our traditional notions of chaos and order.

While I have been diving deep into the nuanced explorations of the Cynefin framework, it is becoming necessary to find ways to invite people easily into the mind shift that complexity requires.  In the Art of Hosting community we have, for a long time, been inspired by Dee Hock’s work on chaordic organization.  At the simplest level noticing the polarity of chaos and order, and noticing how our reactions to chaos and uncertainty often take us to high levels of control becomes an entry way into a different way to think about strategies for achieving goals in the complex domain.

So tomorrow, I’m looking forward to Tenneson’s leading on the chaordic path, a simple teaching worth returning to.

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