Hosting and holding space

doug os at footprintsinthewind.com
Wed Jul 7 19:12:52 PDT 2010 

Michael--

When you were host and facilitator, what did you want to see happen?
Please be specific to each event, if you are able.

I'm wondering if there was some attachment to outcomes and how that
might play into it.

But saying they will take care of themselves seems to be too easy an
answer. No, you are not there to solve their problems for them. But you
can help them shoulder the load, even if you never say anything. So for
instance, have you ever sat in on the sessions but not said anything?

What would a host do that is different from standing aloof?

I don't know any of the answers, I am just thinking out loud with all of
you....

			:- Doug.





On Wed, 2010-07-07 at 22:58 +0200, Michael M Pannwitz wrote:
> Thanks Wendy and Doug, got it.
> Facilitating ost events is a professional role and activity for me, I 
> make a living at doing this.
> In some situations, I was closer to the issues and the "business 
> question" than in others (I faciliated a series of ost-events in the 
> highschool that all of our six kids graduated from...after they 
> graduated, my service being pro bono).
> Hosting I see as an activity of the sponsor of the event, he is the 
> host. So, for me, host and facilitator always were clearly seperate roles.
> In the close to 200 events I was involved in there were two occasions 
> where I was both host and facilitator which made me feel very 
> uncomfortable, unhappy, torn, unfocused...miserable enough not to try 
> that again...in all the other events I felt different degrees of 
> liberation, happiness, wholeness...
> Reflecting on this I feel that I have no stakes in the aspect of "what 
> they need to thrive in the space". My stake and focus and interest 
> centers on the aspect "self-organisation". What can I contribute to 
> expand space and time for selforganisation to do its thing? As I am 
> travelling down that road it becomes clearer to me (still am in a haze 
> on how to do this really effectively)that my main contribution is to 
> step back. And collecting glasses and cups has been a means for me to 
> stay away from doing anything else but that.
> I guess, I am clearer on the assumption that what people need to thrive 
> in "the space" (in the sense of space in which selforganisation is more 
> readily active) is something they will take care of themselves.
> Still, assisting the sponsor in the planning of an OST event, I do spend 
> a lot of time on going through all the stuff he can and should do to 
> reduce barriers for selforganisation to unfold...and that also means 
> paying attention to  safety, catering, material, fresh air...and the 
> myriad of other things a host would attend to BUT with the focus on the 
> relationship to the unfolding of selforganisation (and with this I 
> really mean selforganisation itself and not how participants organize 
> things themselves).
> One thing that keeps popping up for me is the medicine man at a spirit 
> session at one of the OT events ho used to organize...the only thing 
> that he did say during the several hours we were together was: I love 
> you but I dont care for you.
> Greetings from Berlin
> mmp
> 
> 
> Wendy Farmer-O'Neil schrieb:
> > Hi Michael,
> > 
> > To clarify, it was Doug who asked the question. My post was a response 
> > to it.  Doug's post is below:
> > 
> > W
> > 
> > On 7-Jul-10, at 12:34 PM, Michael M Pannwitz wrote:
> > 
> >>>>
> >>>> 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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> >> -- 
> >> Michael M Pannwitz, boscop eg
> >> Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany
> >> ++49-30-772 8000
> >> mmpanne at boscop.org
> >> www.boscop.org
> >>
> >>
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> > 
> > Wendy Farmer-O'Neil
> > CEO Prospera Consulting
> > wendy at xe.net
> > 1-800-713-2351
> > 
> > The moment of change is the only poem. -- Adrienne Rich
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
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