Harvesting Arcs Listened for During the Gathering
- What is needed to develop and support practitioners in order to build even more capacity?
- What are stories of new contexts where AoH is being applied?
- What gifts could be fed back to the larger AoH practice community?
- As our practice and our context changes - What is new, what is needed, what is missing?
- What are we learning about communities that practice and co-create together?
- What does stewarding mean in light of these other harvesting arcs?
- What are you learning through the role of the Witness?
Collective Harvest by Participants
As our practice and our context changes what is new, what is needed, what is missing?
We find ourselves in a new context in the world: old systems are failing and new ideas are coming in (Teal movement, and so much more).
It seems that we are evolving from ‘hosting conversations that matter’ – which is with awareness and with a lot of practices – to a real integration of ‘hosting and harvesting’ and ‘hosting, harvesting and organising’.
Another way of naming this is that we see more and more integration of many different elements that were before more on the edge, or not so conscious, or not yet visible, or more in polarization and so on. Here are some integrations that we see:
Host every day as if we were hosts – host life itself: practice in spheres where we might not be comfortable… which are not ‘projects’ or not ‘with clients’…
Hosting our own organizations and businesses AS our practice:
This all builds on a deeper integration within ourselves.
It is not ‘just’ the rising of the feminine, but the integration within ourselves of feminine and masculine aspects, who work in synergy within ourselves, and between us, in true co-creation. So, it will ripple out to society.
This might ask for a next-stage practitioner training, building the capacities that sit underneath our methodologies; but in the end it was said: this kind of practitioners’ gathering is like the next-stage training!
It seems that we are evolving from ‘hosting conversations that matter’ – which is with awareness and with a lot of practices – to a real integration of ‘hosting and harvesting’ and ‘hosting, harvesting and organising’.
Another way of naming this is that we see more and more integration of many different elements that were before more on the edge, or not so conscious, or not yet visible, or more in polarization and so on. Here are some integrations that we see:
Host every day as if we were hosts – host life itself: practice in spheres where we might not be comfortable… which are not ‘projects’ or not ‘with clients’…
Hosting our own organizations and businesses AS our practice:
- joining up in an organization as practitioners to forge new organizational practices and tools that make more sense, using them ourselves
- Develop organizational operating systems based on our practice: open conversations on power, money and compensation, decision making
- co-ownership is a great way to create sustainable systems
- use generative decision making process
- experiment with novel organizational practices -> develop a prototype, test out ourselves, test with clients -> transfer out and add functionalities -> share out the new practice, wide and far
- develop a community of organizational practice
- Trojan Horse design: help people in the mainstream system to think in a new way
- Reaching out to business and management education & aboriginal entrepreneurship
- Work intentionally with the IT world to develop ‘alternative’ organizational tools (like Loomio and co-budget)
This all builds on a deeper integration within ourselves.
It is not ‘just’ the rising of the feminine, but the integration within ourselves of feminine and masculine aspects, who work in synergy within ourselves, and between us, in true co-creation. So, it will ripple out to society.
- Another integration is the embodying and deeper understanding of complexity, and its implications
- Embracing our shadows and our blind spots
- Even with all our experience, be open and ready to learn something new
- The practice of making the implicit (the subtle, the intangible) explicit
- Recognize power and rank within our organizations; recognize power and privilege (and ways to work with it)
This might ask for a next-stage practitioner training, building the capacities that sit underneath our methodologies; but in the end it was said: this kind of practitioners’ gathering is like the next-stage training!
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What gifts could be fed back to the larger AoH practice community?
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Some practical, tangible gifts
Complexity practice:
Coping with conflicts:
Organisational:
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More intangible gifts & insights
How can we share these gifts?
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What are stories of new context where AoH is being applied?
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Stories contributed during the GatheringLucie: Working with HR professionals
My story is that I’ve been doing AoH for 2 years. I haven’t made the basics so I’m just lost. I have a bachelor degree from a fancy university from Montreal, but I don’t understand the question. When I feel that I just stay there and take what clarity will come. This is a technique I used when I learned karate. You just show up and you learn something. And a lot of practice. As an HR chartered professional, I facilitate community of practice of HR generalists and professionals. I’ve been doing that for 5 years. This is the classic practice for 15 years, but now, as of last year, we started to do it in circle and this year we’re doing it as a real circle where participants are invited to co-create, co-facilitate and this is a revolution. People would just sit and “feed me!”. The theme is innovation – ok feed me! They have to do a certain amount of training – can it be more formal than that. The association is called the order of chartered HR professionals – can it be more formal that? More and more AoH practices are coming in. Through the Designing for Wiser Action exercises I could better see my challenges and have clarity on what the next action should be. Outside – an action plan -- as well as inside – what are my fears, what blocks me inside. Janja: At the Museum Bring the story harvesting into the Museum & Galleries of Ljubljana has made a big difference. Stories are a natural communication tool. But bringing the harvesting into the story makes a difference. It connects the participant and brings out a new value for everybody. What I would really like to do is share this with my other museum colleagues. Catherine: Permaculture & Social Innovation This past 8 months we were in India and did our first permaculture design course. This led us to be in the first AoH in India and two other AoH events. Then we went to Nepal with this new learning of permaculture and AoH. Cisco is into the social work and I’m into the environmental work – this new piece of learning. On the second day we met a girl at restaurant. She tutors young girls who need support. She put us in contact with her boss and two days later we had dinner with her boss. When she heard about what we are doing she invited us to stay for the next two months. They have a big backyard but the girls can’t use it – water up to the knees. The perfect project fell in our laps. We designed a permaculture garden with the girls 8 – 17. We did circles with them and the flow of the day. We did World Café with them – we did different teams in every round about what they wanted to do. We placed a map on the ground to scale and took the elements and moved them around. They discussed between them what made most sense. The goal was to involve them in decision making to create something themselves. It was a new learning and new context. It was wonderful. We spent 3 weeks applying the design, digging ditches and planting trees. They didn’t mind working hard because they had been part of the design. They were super creative in doing things in the field. It was our first project where we could really see what we could with ourselves. It allowed me to see how to involve others. To me, these two months were so busy, but at the same time I never felt that I was working. It was so interesting and so much fun! That was eye-opening on what could be. Dee: Everywhere! There was a moment in AoH Sydney three weeks ago where there was a lady from Perth, and she’s been in contact periodically over many years. She’s keen for us to do more together. We were in a Flow Game during Open Space and there were two wonderful things that happened. One was – only two people came to the Flow Game, not thinking they knew each other, both nervous and quite anxious. I looked at them, they sharpened their questions and then came back. I said: “Do you two realise that you met at the Melbourne AoH in 2008?” They looked at each other new and old and it formed an amazing circle. This lady was very open to sharing her context. After we walked back to the venue, she said: “Dee, do you realise that you affected me in such a deep way with one sentence about AoH?”. Asset Based Community Develop (ABCD) is my core work, the strength I come from and for 8 years blending it with AoH. And this lady always on the fringes. She said to me that the sentence I said that is still very alive and real for me was: “AoH is how you do affective ABCD.” So AoH is the soul – it is so true. In all of the ABCD conversations I have with people around the world, there are great stories, but that essence and that soul comes from the people I meet who apply AoH into the context. I’ve applied it into the Australian Defense Force, about to use it in Aboriginal affairs. I’ve applied it in equine therapy. About in all the silos you can think about. It’s the soul. It’s the blue music that’s playing at the back of a bar. Samantha: In the classroom I’m a former classroom teacher and I have a very good friend who has been teaching ever since and has become a practitioner and is now 2 years from retirement. As the school year was coming she started to reach out frantically – “I can’t do it the same way I’ve done my whole life. I want to do it differently. The practice has to be the core, not just sprinkled on the top. Can you come?” That was the call. I went – it was Day 3 of the new school year. We agreed that the purpose of the day I was there and we agreed the purpose would be that the students would the opportunity to decide the seating they wanted because that’s so fundamental. We’re talking grade 6 classroom, aged 12. 31 children came in and sat in circle on the flow. We did a soft check in – what’s the last circle you’ve seen. They named all kinds of beautiful circle. We did an applied improv game to connect to the space. And then I framed a generative decision making process in which their teacher would be an equal participant with them all. And we let them know this was new for everybody and let them know this was new for everybody – everyone having a voice. We opened free conversation until we could feel a ripeness of a proposal in the air. And I named it like that to the kids. And very soon this little Chinese adopted girl – tiny – she raises her hand ferociously “I have a proposal!” We go through a clarification round where people can ask questions around her proposal that we have two weeks where everyone sits where they want and that helps us think about what would be best for us. Thereafter we go through a reaction round where everyone is obliged to share the reaction this proposal provokes in them. Of course the children have plenty to say! The proposal is refined to Version 2 and respoken to the group. Then the beautiful moment is the objection round. An objection is considered valid if the objector can explain that there is a risk or backward movement for the group. These were spoken to the facilitator (me) and if the proposal is valid, then the proposer – the Chinese girl – would need to take that objection into the proposal. The children are enthusiastic about voicing objections, bu the first 6 or 7 objection are rejected because they are voicing personal preferences, etc. One boy raises his hand: “I think I have a valid objection and its not because I’m sexist. If we look round this classroom at the boys and myself included” – he points to all the boys – “What do we see? What is the one word that would describe us? That word is silly. Because the boys are silly, this proposal will not and I would suggest modifying it to say that the way people sit, they should be mixed groups with both boys and girls in them.” I need to decide is this objection valid or not – I’m thinking it through, I haven’t spoken when the little Chinese girl speaks up fiercely. She looks at me and points: “Samantha, I don’t care if you tell me its valid or not valid, I will not be integrating it and here’s why – the boys are responsile for themselves, it is not the girls’ problem to take care of.” And so the proposal is adopted as is and we all eat cookies. Circle of safety around a person who has paedophilia Three of us – me, his mum and him. We do it over Skype since we’re not all in the same place. The flipping of the idea of him as utterly reprehensible, excluded and shunned, unable to speak what’s wrong, to a person worthy of love and attention, who has a disorder and needs support not to act on it. There are few or no places for people who experience paedophilia to be honest with others, and secrecy is at the heart of feeding the acting on paedophilia. Shifting this to speaking what is true for him in the safety of the circle and offering him a way to receive wisdom. If he’s being triggered, how can he keep himself safe, as well as the children around him. It has been an absolute gift which allows us to stand at his back and also meet our responsibilities as citizens and mothers. |
Natalija: Simultaneous Pro-Action Cafés
In two weeks, we will have Pro-Action cafes around Slovenia in 8 cities. It was our long ago wish that we would bring Pro Action cafés into every Slovenian village – working, speaking together – our motto was this. Somehow it came together that in the international week for facilitation 17 – 22nd October we will do this. We were looking for partnerships with municipalities, NGO networks, etc and inviting people active there into this event, to do it together. Our hopes are that when people see and experience it, it will be easier to go on in this community. Also energetically it will make a difference – 8 Pro Action Cafés in one week will make a difference. It is a step forward. We started in the city museum of Ljubljana two years ago, almost every month we met. We made a public announcement and anywhere from 20 – 45 people came. We started in this way to make the field. Now we are around Slovenia with this. It is developing. Moze: Peer Learning In Australia there is a national disability insurance scheme being rolled out over the next 3 years – a fundamental reform from a broken system where people are lucky to get service to a system where people have fundamental choice and control – you can choose your provider, you can choose how and where you spend your money. It is an incredibly equitable model. The idea is that it will save money in the long term. During this time of reform, the government needs to skill very vulnerable people. 70% of people using the scheme have an intellectual disability. One in four have been abused in the current system – they’ve been neglected, in group homes, institutions. We got some funding to help people with intellectual disabilities to learn about the scheme. We supported people with intellectual disabilities to host a circle with others. Our role was not to present but to host the hosts. Sometimes a support person would get too involved and we had to pull them back. The leadership that arose in the peer groups. One gorgeous young man who had autism and wanted to read from a script to get it perfect. By the end he could answer an off the cuff question at a conference. We used talking pieces and scripts and repetition. It was beautiful. Such a beautiful model – our role has been to nurture and support people. It was always in circle – co-design, the peers would give feedback. We had to help people to learn to host yourself – it starts at home. We had one man who would forget deodorant and to dress himself and we talked about you get ready and think about how you look for the day. It was amazing. To see people flourish and to see a group of people who are inherently vulnerable in our world and abused in the system, they will now be able to respond – how do you make a choice when you haven’t had it before. They will now be ready when they get the funding to make choices. It was a privilege to do this work. Rita: Education This is about the MSLS context. At first I didn’t know it was AoH we were doing, but the classroom and how we were taught and how we shared our learning was how I always dreamed about a university class. From how we were doing, how we were learning, to be able to share that with each of our classmates is what made the learning so rich and powerful for all of us. After Karlskrona AoH, we found out it was AoH. It was right when we were working in our thesis groups. We had been applying check in and circles. The three of us were in the training and decided to applying everything we learned to our practice. We would always check in, sit in circle and use a talking piece. It was a 5 month process that seemed it would be too hard to do – we were advised, but we had to find our way. We all had written a thesis, but all individuality. I think they were the best months of the year, sharing what we learned together person to person. Looking at other teams doing the same thing, what worked was taking the intentionality and using the tools and they worked. Nadine: At work in a village I created a co-working space 2 years ago in my village. In the previous year I found I wasn’t the only one creating this work, creating this way of life. Others were also in a transition to create a new life. I said to myself – it could be nice to bring these people together to see what happens. I announced a simple invitation to the co-workers – the ones wanting to share their experience about beginning something new for their life come together – it will be next week. I was expecting 4 or 5 people. We were 14. The room was almost too small. I was so surprised that in the moment I didn’t know what to do. I tried what we did in Montreal – an entrepreneur circle. There are 8 circles over four months, a training to help entrepreneurs to focus their intention. I said to the group – let’s try to have 4 circles together – we’ll help each other. We did it. Four new stories came from this – four initiatives are now grounded and exist. People are coming to me now and saying “I don’t know what you did, but obviously you did something!” The co-working space now has a rich soil to nurture things. People are coming to see and find themselves again. They see that some things happen – we want more of that! We organise a lunch circle every week on Monday. We talk about our stories together. It helps people to network, understand they are not alone – others are looking around, maybe about different things, but helping each other. Based on that we have a mailing list of 180 people from the village — almost 20% of the population of the village and it is growing. Alenka: Teachers We do seminars with teachers who are coming from different schools. The challenge is to create a space where they can speak with safety. The environments they come from they are afraid of not having the right answer or even having an answer. It is a lot of rational talking, a look of emotions which is taboo because you always have to be supportive, can’t bring your answer, you’re afraid. Once we had a 5 or 6 day training for teachers and educators who work with kids with intellectual and learning disabilities. We always start working in circle. They think they always work in circle, but it is not intentional. Slowly it becomes a ritual to start the day. There was this teacher who had obviously just learned something. I asked: “how was that?” and he said: “ I will tell you tomorrow in the circle.” I thought “wow there is something starting to emerge”. So the next day he tells it in the circle. When he got the talking piece he said he felt this was the place to tell it. The next day when we had a walk, he told me it was the first time he felt really heard without someone judging. The last evening we had a party they organised. I arrived almost last and they had created a circle! Working with young people Working with international volunteers who come to Slovenia, they have a 5 day training when they arrive and after 5 or six months another. There are clear guidelines that come from the European Commission about what should be in these trainings. We try to make it meaningful. When we started to look at it as a living experience, not just voluntary work. This is tour life, what do you want to do with it. How do you want to combine your learning with what you want to do in community. It started to shift and be in dialogue. For the “on arrival” group, we started to create trust and asked them “what is dialogue for you?” and we started to bring that up in circle and create together. For the mid-term training, we started to ask “what do you want?” and we created it on the spot. For young people, it can be challenging, coming directly from school – it is not what they are used to. We asked already on the 3rd day, how is it for you. They said it was really great, but doesn’t work in the real world. Especially at the mid-term many realise I am in charge – it is my story and I can start creating it differently.” I think this process is much more smooth than if we didn’t use the AoH practices. Many of them start to use more courage to try out something new. They come with ideas during the training, we invite them to try something new during the training and we can support them. Many are doing these things after the training. It really helps to connect them. And there is more communication on Facebook and with us trainers because they really feel what happened. Tamer: Inside the prison system in India It was obvious to me in the beginning – I was quite worried when I saw these 6 high placed prison guards from Hydrabad sitting in the first AoH training in Goa. When they walked out and were quite clear they wanted to use these practices to co-create their living together with the prisoners, which was not the case before. They were clear to co-create it with the prisoners because they have to live together. The prisoners were not going anywhere, they had to live there. I feel this is a totally new context. They started implementing this 2 days after the training with some help from Toke and Marc. I think they are still doing it. They got into the room because Dr Beena, a professor of psychology who became an AoH practitioners – she was a co-host in the Goa training and a caller for the AoH at the Hydrabad University. She’s retired now, but her work has been in the prisons. She asked for 6 high level wardens to come to the training. They had no intention to be there – they had to come. You could see in the beginning they didn’t want to be there. Seeing the change happening in them was so remarkable for me to see. Hugging each one at the end – I could see each one’s heart and capacity to get in there. For me it was a completely new context to apply this work. I’ve been called to go into the prison to do men’s work. |
What are we learning about communities that practice and
co-create together?
There is a quality in community that emerges. It cannot be found when you are on your own or even when you are in a group that is not a community.
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These are qualities we see, which are specific to communities:
Practices and conditions that inspire consciousness and listening:
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What adds to the collective wisdom:
Implications for the individual:
Applications:
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Are you learning through the role of the Witness?
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What does stewarding mean in light of these other harvesting arcs?
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Reflections on stewarding from stewards:
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From the spoken harvest:
Next wise step Tracey, Jane and Sophia agreed to start a new conversation on the stewards list around the need for or not-need for heuristics / organising principles, and to share that conversation later with the wider practitioners list. |
