My friend Roq and my son Finn, learning from one another
Over my entire life, I have been incredibly blessed to work with amazing people. Being a curious person by nature, I have come to appreciate that there are teachers everywhere, if only we have the ears and the open heart to listen and experience another’s life as a teaching.
One of the reasons for starting this blog in 2002 was to capture what I was learning as I travelled through the world. I’m thinking a little about slipping some of this stuff between the covers of a book at some point and in reflecting on what has seemed important about my work and life, I started compiling a collection of things I’ve learned. You can read them on this page, and by following the link up there in the upper left hand part of your screen. I’ll update these as we go, and I’m still digging through the archives looking for stuff, but there it is so far.
Photo of the rock wall at Window Rock, on the Navajo Nation, where I was visiting and working last month.
Links that I have come across recently:
- A comprehensive list of theories about how we think, feel and behave.
- From Vision in Action, a long piece by Elisabet Sahtouris on a Tentative Model for a Living Universe – parts one and two. Thanks to Dave Pollard.
- Otto Scarmer on The Blind Spot of Leadership.
- Jordon Cooper prints his list of useful (and mostly free) tools for Windows machines.
- Peter Merry’s blog. This is my friend Tim’s brother. Helen Titchen-Beeth is also on Gaia. Plenty of good reading at both.
- More Samurai wisdom: the Hagakure
- Kurt Hahn’s writings, via Michael Herman, who writes more here.
- Dustin Rivers explains Skwxwu7mesh leadership.
- A really good guide to formal consensus decision making. My own method for decision making follows this map, although I rarely have call to use a process this formal. Still, it’s a great redux. Another hit from Pollard.
- Dave Snowdon on archetypes and stereotypes.
Photo by Nathan Ward
Little elements that showed up lately:
- A beautiful periodic table of the elements by printmakers
- A reason why I love the web: Indian cooking on YouTube
- Johnnie brings it on with a great find on power. Bonus is that he also introduces me to Greater Good magazine.
- Dustin Rivers on unschooling as decolonizing liberation. Dude rocks my world.
- Jack Martin Leith, a fellow Open Space traveller, has been providing interesting resources on collective genius and innovation for years. This is his recent offering, an engaging power point presentation on world views and pathways to collective innovation.
- I’ve pointed to her before, but here again is Kavana Tree Bressen’s facilitation resources. Tree is a long time member of intentional communities and so these resources have especially useful application there. But I love her deep practice of consensus.
- “We come up the hard way, and blues is the way you feel…”
- The Mindmapping Software weblog
- Niyaz: new music for the 21st century.
- MungBeing magazine: worth a look and a listen.
If you would like a flavour of what happens at workshops on the Art of Hosting, here are some links to give you a sense of things.
- Audio from the Art of Hosting workshop in southern Indiana last fall. These files were made by Jeneal King, one of the participants who took an active role in harvesting the event. Lots to listen to here. Best I think to download and listen off line. Update: No longer up as of August 12, 2008.
- Ravi Tangri in Nova Scotia has been making a number of videos about Art of Hosting teachings on the chaordic stepping stones, harvesting, world cafe and the art of calling. Browse ArtOfHostingTV.net for more.
- A video from my mate Thomas Ufer of the meta harvest from a recent Art of Hosting workshop in Brazil. This path that he is walking on has notable quotes from the whole three days. Participants walked the path, reflecting on ther experience and then contributed a further thought on the meaning of the experience. THis is a really creative way of find higher and higher levels of collective meaning making.
- Andy Himes made a short video of a number of us playing with candles and music at last week’s gathering on Whidbey Island. In the evenings there is often creative play and chilling out that we get into. When the weather is nice we often build a fire outside and sit around telling stories of hosting. On Whidbey we did it inside.
This just gives you a sense of the diversity of the experience. If you are interested in attending an Art of Hosting workshop contact me, or check in at the website to see if there is one coming up near where you live.
Those of you interested in exploring the Art of Hosting, our pattern language for working with conversational leadership in living systems, might consider joining Teresa Posakony, Tenneson Woolf, Christina Baldwin, Ann Linnea and I at teh Whidbey Institute near Seattle in the New Year.
Invitation and information is here. You presence is desired!