Learning more about the four fold practice

At our art of hosting water dialogues this morning, several insights on the four fold practice of hosting:

• on hosting ourselves, one of the participants who used to work in emergency medicine shared his team’s mantra: in an emergency the first pulse you take is your own,
• participating means coming to any situation with curiosity and an ability and desire to learn something
• the practice of hosting doesn’t mean you need to be an expert. To convene you simply need the desire and courage to call and hold.
• the practice of co-creation is born from generosity and sharing resources, skills, opportunities and knowledge.
• as we move through the four fold practice we evolve from a learner to a community of learners to a community that learns. This last shift is often the hardest.
• at the core of this practice is intention. To come to the practice with intention is to activate it.
• it is surprising how quickly we can move to co-creation when we have practiced together once, we did a signing exercise that took the group through two rounds of co-creation and we quickly moved to creating music together that was unimaginable 10 minutes before.

I love how groups just spark insights. You can teach this stuff dozens of dozens of times and there is always something new to learn.