Hosting and holding space

[doug]

Hi--

In a recent post, http://chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot/?p=2839 Chris
Corrigan says "there is no outside."

Chris has got me thinking again of the interplay of hosting and holding
space.

As I see it today, holding space means having a view towards the health
of the whole system that is in the room—a global view that is larger
than the participants might have. So it is not noticing themes, because
my experience is that the facilitator is not into the trees enough to
notice the paths in the woods.

It is more that the facilitator is seeing that the woods is healthy for
all the beings there—little animals and large, birds and insects and
flowers and trees. Of course that is an impossible task, since no one is
managing the forest. The forest self organizes itself.

So we pick up the coffee cups and candy bar wrappers and pop cans that
people semi-consciously leave behind and we let those who are active in
the conversations know by our invisible presence that they are doing
things exactly right: whatever happens....

So can this be done from within the system? Is there any outside? Is
there not a certain hubris in thinking we can stay above and outside and
hold the space...what? Together?

How is hosting related to holding space? When can the space holder enter
the conversation swirling about?

				:- Doug.

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