How do we collectively re-align in these turbulent times? — the power of ‘pop-up communities’.
Amalurra, Spain. Pop-up communities — part 2 (part 1 here)
What happens when the vision of a gathering with more than 30 people — with a team of 6 and the number of participants expected to be over 20 — ends in the reality of ‘just four of us’ actually meeting? Result: the intention still worked out; although in a different kind of way than we expected: we stepped into the planned inquiry, we lived together in an apartment, we organised a co-working space amongst ourselves in the morning, we deepened our relationship, new plans were made and we came to many great insights!
It was actually in the check-out circle that I fully realized what was the ultimate answer to our question! Not to say that all the insights gained through the days, in dialogue and through systemic constellations, were not important, not at all; but the penny dropped really in these last minutes. I am always amazed how life ‘does’ this.
This gathering was in the making since a similar, previous one, 2 years ago in Florida. The big learning for me then was that if we focus our conversations and other work on ‘healing’ then we will always see troubles and problems of the past that are in need of attention. If we focus on what is to come — we called it ‘life-affirming actions’, generative actions is another way to capture what we want to create — then some healing might be needed at specific points but only when we feel stuck to move forward. By focusing on what we want to create we actually see more of the picture, and are more able to see what I call ‘the gift hidden in the trauma’.
The full question that we gathered around, and that, as the hosting and organizing team, we crafted over quite a long time was:
How can we collectively re-align in these turbulent times,
with each other, our bodies and the land,
in service of life-affirming actions?
I don’t know exactly what I expected as answer(s), but the simplicity and matter-of-factness of Luea’s check-out comment came as a surprise to me. She shared that how we had lived together through the days had left a deep impression on her. It had nurtured her how we were able to live together in an apartment, using the living room as our co-working space, having meals in the restaurant with perfect food and long-winding conversations, in the afternoons meeting somewhere on the land to deepen our shared inquiry etc. Suddenly this simple structure/practice struck me as an important answer to the question we had been holding! I guess, unconsciously, I had expected something more complex or complicated.
In that check-out round, I shared how I love this flow of working! We went through our days with a minimal agreement on structure: after breakfast a short check-in round, having a shared break if you feel like it, going together for lunch, and then a wide open space of working together on our question till dinner. As we are all practitioners of circle, and of hosting meaningful conversations, flow between us came easily: we didn’t need to make agreements who was going to host/hold which part of the program. Spontaneously, one day I opened the check-in, the next day it was someone else. One day MH made the tea for the break, the next day it was L. We each tended to the whole as felt right in the moment, with no need to make explicit agreements about it beforehand.
This was such a simple answer to what had seemed like a difficult question!
How do we collectively re-align in these turbulent times?
· By being together in physical space — living together, if even for a couple of days. Sharing breaks and meals and ad hoc conversations.
· By getting to know each other better through stories, small and big, of our life.
· By regular check-ins, as we did daily after breakfast to start our co-working and with more focused check-ins in the afternoon when we started working on our shared inquiry.
· Through sharing our expertise and knowledge whenever that made sense, either personal or professional.
· By paying attention to and caring for the land and place you are in — as we choose different spots outside to do our work and were grateful for the care taken by the people in Amalurra for their environment.
· By keeping attention on our bodies and its energies: moving away from conversation to more embodied practices when we received the signals from our bodies.
In other words: This is a good starting list of elements of what to pay attention to when teams or networks go on (half) yearly retreats! These elements are mainly speaking of HOW to take care of these retreats. As I was traveling from this gathering on one side of Spain ‘with just the 4 of us’ to another one near Barcelona with +/- 40 people, all coming from different networks, I realized — again and more deeply — the power of these ‘pop-up communities’ as I had started to write about last summer. This led to another blog post, elaboration a bit more and in depth on this small starting list and also speaking a bit more of the WHY of these different elements.
