From the Trail

October 3, 2009

Living and working in networks and communities of practice makes a lot of really helpful information available. Emails. Websites. Stories. Reports. No shortage whatsoever of great stuff.

My friend Chris Corrigan has taught me what to do with this. He gives attention to several RSS feeds and provides links on his blog to that plethora of good stuff. He calls it "From the Feed." Go see and subscribe if you haven't already. I've picked up many gems from those posts that I've used and forwarded to clients and friends.

I'm beginning to play with that practise today. I'd name two containers for these links.

- stuff that is just interesting. Lots of room in that.
- stuff that furthers the practice of hosting conversations that matter, or as my colleagues and I explore in Berkana as core brand issues: 1) in support of healthy and resilient communities, 2) in support of emergence, and 3) in support of life-affirming leadership.

The intent is not more mass of information. It is more sharing of information / tools through good relationships centered in an identity of leader as host.

Abraham-Hicks Emotional Guidance Scale -- A list of 21 emotions intended to move to the energy of joy. Each of these serve as an interesting base from which to ask powerful questions. E.g., What brings you joy? I've asked this kind of question and seen it shift a group. Similarly to ask something "lower" on the list. E.g., What do you fear?

Six Degrees of Separation from Reality -- A blog post by Tom Atlee of the Co-Intelligence Institute on the seriousness of global climate change.

The Shield -- An exercise shared by Max Neill from the Art of Hosting listerv on helping groups to check in with imagination and dreams.

Feeling Connections -- A blog post by my friend Ashley Cooper who just moved from Seattle to North Carolina. Ashley has a gift for noticing and inviting wholeness. She offers some guided meditations too. Her blog is a good read. Subscribe here.

Quotes
- "Far more powerful than any dogma is an awakened organic collective and its capacity for contagion. That's what makes it so terrifying to the status quo."
Louise LeBrun, friend of my AoH Colleague, Allister Hain in Ottawa.

- "If I took psychadelic drugs I'd be in Google Earth all the time."
Wayne Knox, a colleague in men's work in New Zealand

- "The call, rather, is to enter the flow more deeply. To become the instrument of knowing in action. We are the harvest, and it us the universe's deep yearning to know itself whole that is it's immanent volition."
Glen Lauder, hosting colleague in New Zealand