A bit of the story so far

At the end of the 90´s there was a growing desire and awareness of a need to invite and involve others into a conversational or participatory space - find a more participatory way of engaging people to act more wisely in what really matters now.

 What started as an attempt to write the Art of Hosting story for the annual Berkana report by Teresa – in one paragraph - ended as a rich email conversation with almost 20 postings! - here are some essences....all written March 2007.....

“I decided to include more of you as this conversation as it is growing beyond the initial focus…  in order for many voices to be heard and good collective clarity to emerge....” - Toke

“It has been born as a spontaneous collaborative and truly co- creative effort by some of us…” - Toke

 “When we shared the stories of our first meeting with the AoH at the Shire (AoH Stewardship Gathering 2005), it seemed that we had all been drawn to and been working with dialogue and other interactive ways since somewhere in the mid 90´s. The seeds seemed to have sprouted many places at the same time.”
- Monica

“I feel there was a lot of work happening that was all in the same pattern - some of that was emerging out of From the Four Directions, some of it out of Days LikeThis, some of it out of Engage!, some of it out Pioneers of Change, some of it out of the yearly gatherings at Castle Borl, some of it out of Horizons and Ante's work in Croatia, Zoe and Una's Life works in the UK ... and many other places. It was like a perfect storm ...  ... it was something happening to all of us - that none of us owned but deeply trusted. It is still happening.” - Tim

 

“What about honoring and naming a legacy, a circle of friends and community of practitioners - warriors of joy and peace? I actually dare suggest that we humbly and tastefully name ourselves as the first ones - … - in order to create clarity, inspiration and share our learning.” -Toke 

“I do know (from the field of systemic constellation work) that for every individual and for every organisation it is a good thing to know from whom they received - life, or skills, or... - or who were the ones that came before you. So that you can honour them and respect them for what they did, and by receiving in a respectful way you are in the best place to pass it on to others.” - Ria

The Borl stream: Monica, Jan Hein, Marianne Knuth, Meg, Bob Stilger, Carsten, Alenka, Toke and Tim

 

The USA stream: Meg, Christina, Ann, Ann Dosher, Juanita, David, Tenneson, Bob Stilger and Teresa

The UK stream: Maria and Sarah, Una, Zoe ......

The Engage stream: Tim, Arjen, Peter

In other words:
“Some of the networks that gave rise to the Art of Hosting include: Berkana,Days Like These, Engage, Interchange, Pioneers of Change, PeerSpirit,and The World Café.  (alphabetically listed)”
- Teresa

“And has been further inspired and nourished by the Shambhala Institute’s Authentic Leadership Conferences since 2002.” - Toke

“How very beautiful to feel the place and space, energy and heart the AoH emerged from.  I too sense the importance of naming the pattern and community that gathered as the first students and stewards! With deep gratitude for the way AoH has been nurtured, co-created, and offered into the world, and for how we keep spinning our learning!” - Teresa

“My first clear AoH training happened in Pema Ling where Toke, Jan & I hosted a few days of an early art of hosting with the Pioneers of Change. This was in 1999 as far as I remember.
Tim, Maria and Sarah shared similar stories at the Shire. – That’s why I call it fly-eyed (as all networks are) - because the view depends on where you happen to be looking from - and as in all networks - there is no one singular or specific center.
Another pattern we noticed in the stories was the significance of meeting places - where these initiatives were connected and we started to share and inspire each other. From the 4  Directions was such a connector/connecting place - and Borl was another- where people and networks were brought together. Shambhala, the Learning Centres etc. are other places like that.
The richness of experience, heart and knowledge in these connecting networks makes this journey alive - and the AoH seems to be evolving with it.” - Monica

“… is my recollection of us at Hazelwood House in December 2000.  Marianne, Tim, Toke, Monika, Christina, Ann Linea, Meg, Bob.
I will never forget the experience of explaining the circle process toour African colleagues from West and Southern Africa, and how energized they became as they remembered being taught circle by their grandparents, or their father using it at Christmas.  In that moment traditional ways were blessed by modern western ways, and I believe weall experienced a deep connection to the circle and conversation as the generic way we humans meet.
And we have this extraordinary photo from that time, with 8 nations represented as we held a large cloth andbounced the world around—a portend of what was to come.
This event was the beginning of From the Four Directions, where we eventually succeeded, through the dedication of everyone at Hazelwood House and beyond, to convene circles in over 30 countries.  And learn how to work together as we took this work forward.
Blessings,” - Meg

Following on Meg's email, a patterns I see here is one in which the Art of Hosting seemed to arise at a particular time for a particular reason.  It's interesting to note this the week after the Nexus for CHange conference was held.  It seems that in the last 10 years there has been a shift in this work from methodology to practice and that there is a fundamental piece of that practice that is named by the Art of Hosting.  Once named, it becomes an operating system upon which the software of methodologies can work.  And so, in my own experience, it was through hosting as a practice that I began to deeply explore other methodologies beyond my beloved and well treaded Open Space.
I came into Circle, and World Cafe and AI and other pieces THROUGH hosting.  Ten years ago, I would have been attending many specific workshops and trainings on the methodologies.  It seems now a deeper groove has been scored, a deeper tune is being sung.
There is something about the timing - perhaps it is the millennium, or maybe just an arising in the human consciousness that we have moved beyond the theory of meeting one another differently and into the practice where the names of things disappear and instead we find ourselves gazing across a pregnant centre into one another's eyes, engaging in the deepest work and questions of our time, focused only on this work in this moment, this relationship, this purpose.  All unified in a swirling one.

When we have achieved this moment together what explodes forth is Art of Hosting, From the Four Directions, and the many other communities of practices that are stewarding the emergence of these questions, directed at the extinction level events of our time.  We are finding our way with the capacities for evolving the consciousness we need to live on this planet. 

Perhaps I am putting this observation into too grand a scheme of things, but I have a strong sense that something is tipping.  People no longer call me with a problems and expect me to have solutions...instead, people call asking for Open Space, World Cafe...looking for hosting.  The methods are in the mainstream, the hosting capacity is tipping there too and we are becoming wiser and wiser about self-organization and it's power.  There is something about the emergence of AoH that seems intimately linked to this macropattern that I just feel is important to name.
With love and gratitude, - Chris 

“I met Toke in october 2001 when he hosted an conference in Rovinj, Croatia - great, life-changing, participatory experience which led me to AoH in Borl 2002 (?) and opened for me the doors to all of you and processes you treasure.
I am learning since then from all of you,trough AoHs, emails, conversations, and I do not see the world with the same eyes as before this. I am deeply grateful for your efforts and persistance to open and hold spaces for all of us.
I was a student of AOH and still am.
Hugs and love to all." - Miljenka

“Itis such a joy to see the "lineage" of all of this wonderful hosting work.  On a very personal note, I might add the loving time David and I spent with Monika and Toke on the coast of Nova Scotia ( after the second year Toke and Monica came to Shambhala), where together we birthed the hosting chapter of the book on the World Cafe, and played the flow game about the future of our lives.

It was such a stroke of "luck" when David and I somehow felt that it was important to bring more international voices into Shambhala early on and suggested that Toke and Marianne would be a great team to lead the Strategic Conversation module thread we'd begun there with Michael and the Chender family, from our early conversations about it in our kitchenwith Michael (recommended to Michael by Meg, I might add--amazing the weaving). And then to see this whole movement blossoming... the WorldCafe, AoH, Berkana, Shambhala....with so many  added voices and hearts.....what greater love can a child of the 60's  feel!!
And our greatest hope over these years has been that "conversation as aco-evolutionary force" will come into greater conscious awareness across the globe.....and our AoH community is a great vehicle for that to happen....as "conversations that matter" becomes a  household phrase! - Juanita

“I encountered AoH at the Shambhala Institute in the summer of 2002, before it was yet named, when Juanita suggested that Marianne and Toke be given a space and time and people to play with. I'd like to name the Shambhala Institute as an incubator, but as importantly, as a benificiary and co-learner with the AoH network and forms.
Also, the "Big Idea", that brave, exciting, huge plan of Zoe's which
begat a small, intimate, magical weekend in Norfolk in 2002 might be a part of this story.....
Love and a big smile to everyone.” - Claudia

“I bow to the weavers of networks.
Harrison Owen has named different types of organization from reactive, over proactive to interactive and inspired organizations. Where the proactive might say "I did it" - the interactive would say "we did it!" - and the inspired would say "no-body did it!" - it just happened.
I honour this network of connectors - weavers - seed holders -contributors etc. - each for your contribution. - Most of the time weare in the "nobody did it" place - and every now and then it feels good to say thanks to the weavers - initiators - seed holders etc. - because it is like seeing each one for what we give.
thank you all! - Monica

“The question: “who are the first ones?” for me is answered: “our ancestors.” What I see happening in the life of PeerSpirit and Art of Hosting and World Café and Open Space and AI is that we are all engaged in a profound practice of remembering this piece of our social genetic wiring for inspirited collaboration.
 Ann and I speak two beliefs about circle over and over:

1.We did not design the circle, the circle designed us. Humanity was made by the circle, by the need to find ways to gather and sustain ourselves and come into agreements of socialization that allowed us to flourish into bigger and bigger units;

2. The circle was the paradigm shift at the foundations of our human evolution, and collaborative conversation is the paradigm shift again that will prevent our extinction. It calls us into practices of remembering ourselves that reattach us to recognition of each other and to skills of living with the earth, rather that this night marish attempt to dominate the earth.
 When ever we speak this, something happens in the room: an invocation is present. We are called into the archetype. The circle is the Metaform activated within all forms of hosting. I think what is making all of our hosting work so potent, so global, is that the archetype activates possibilities in us that we had not been aware of until the field starts to shimmer and shimmy and cook.
 
I appreciate how we are all willing to hold our contributions and donate them to the evolution of conversation itself. … We are noticing that the structure, what we began calling “the bones of circle” when we introduced it at Hazelwood House, has held—and our learning of how to hold it has evolved and evolved and evolved.  
 Blessings on all our work and our dreams!” - Christina

“…I thank and acknowledge those of you who came long before I did to this field of practice for welcoming me and hosting me in its midst.  I am happy to be a grandchild of your work, vision and spontaneouscreativity.” - Chris

“I just want to express my gratitude and love to so many of you who have held & let go, in ebb & flow... for me to jump in, ride and splash around in the second wave of what has emerged from places and conversations of deep meaning that have also been part of my growing...Thank you.” - Tatiana

It has taken a lot of effort, trust and practice to host ourselves - each other and "THIS" to where it is a this point in the world - a learning journey I am very grateful for ......and will treasure my whole life in what is left of it.” - Toke

“I have come to feel that there is much waiting to be born in
this world. I hear it in myself. I hear it in others. I sometimes hear it in the center. I sometimes hear it in the wind, or as I sit in the trees, or as I look up at the Wasatch Mountains that surround the valley in which I live. It is as if something wants to be channeled into another kind of existence.
There is no one chanellor. And no one time. Together, I find I'm able to feel much more of the core of this, and then feel the immense freedom to co-create it in many forms and with many people. To hold this energy is sweet for me.
From a sunny Utah morning. Daffodils standing tall. Tulips working their way in.”
- Tenneson

 

In sharing learnings of the Art of Hosting practices the following patterns or conclusions emerged from our individual stories...

• A ”Hosting” consciousness emerges.

• A consciousness of hosting emerged from the field between practitioners.

• When you enter the “hosting consciousness” – you realize that there is more than one form or modality, to open space for community consciousness and wise collective actions.

• Places - gathering points - become important for the consciousness arising.

• Places connect networks.

• There is a shared understanding of living systems and natural practices.