Art of Hosting – What we learned

Upon returning from the three-day Art of Hosting Workshop in Geetbets, Belgium, I captured my version of the collective sense-making session at the end of the last day. It is a session where the participants who feel like it, pick up the talking piece and then express something that they sense the whole group has learned.

We have learned

We have learned that the Art of Hosting
Is the art of breathing together as a group,
Each of us stepping up as and when called for,
At the service of our higher purpose.
At the service of the community.

Through a careful crafting of the invitation,
Generous attention to the space,
And the abundant offers of food,visuals and setting,
We have learned that the Art of hospitality
Is also the art of beauty and of intention.

We have learned to honour all of our relations,
Including the intangible ones,
For it is through presence, bonding and connecting
That we create the necessary conditions
For deep and meaningful conversations.

Though we have discovered the frustrations
And the groaning pain of not moving forward,
That acquiring the processes and the methods
Is secondary to modelling the practices,
We are learning to appreciate the tension
Of listening to both order and chaos.

We have learned that the Art of Hosting
Is also the art of harvesting the stories,
The silence, the poems and the questions
That cultivate the seeds of sense making
So that we feed forward our collective mind.

Brussels, 9th of February 2016