Day 3 – Listen to the bubbling

Story of day 3

Written by Eric Tseng

The morning started with a morning meta harvest to remember the day before and how it touched us. Again, the amazing space & beauty team re-decorate the center pieces. Today’s metaphor is four adorable toy animals represent the four-fold practice. We were invited to stand up, walk around to share what you are resonate with it. I am pondering how can I use this four-fold practice framework not as facilitator role which I am proud to be, but from individual human level.

What followed was a deep Circles Check -In. The circles were hosted by volunteers – participants themselves stepping up to experience the role of hosting this methodology first-hand. I joined their previous night coaching session. The volunteers were introduced the circle way, how to prepare, invite, open and close the circle. They prepared the space (including center pieces, talking pieces and posters), hosted the conversation and cared for the participants and the time. My circle host used withered twig to arranged an Ying & Yang center pieces. She created a beautiful container by introduced the context and key principles of circle: speak with intention, listen with attention, and care for the balance/needs of all participants. The center question is

What is bubbling in you?

Some of the thoughts shared that I personally resonated with were around how to be present, host yourself, really connect and listen to myself and others. Not just only focus on the facilitation process and output. It relative to our overarching theme: What could happen in our relationships when we listen deeply to ourselves, to other beings, and to what want to emerge? I was assigned as guardian. It is the first time I experienced the role. The guardian teams with the host to help the circle stay centered and intentional. I ringed the bell when five air force aircrafts took off which interrupted our conversation, I explained the reason for pause and invited them back to centered.

There’re a few tools we’ll dive in today. Follow Circle practice, the next one is “The Breath Pattern,” which illustrates the shape of a conversation or a process. We went outside of the classroom for this session . We experienced the breath in and breath out which our body took care of us every day. We walked on the divergent – emergent – convergent phase and had conversation on the feeling, pattern, expectation of each phase. It recalls my learning from Sam Kaner’s diamond model. How to hold the participants well in the grown zone so they can really listen to each other and come out (converge) a better emerging future, The 8 breaths pattern gave me a comprehensive overview of process architecture. I used to focus on design the meeting, Now I will pay equal attention to The Call: the caller’s initiative issue, Clarify the purpose so can design and Invite core team. Design the Harvest and Reflect is two breaths I want to study more.

Before lunch we have a nature walk time. During the solo walk, several questions are arising in me.

What is blocking me from listening to myself and others being? What if I let go of the ego to host others, what will different to me? What will happen to a facilitator if he is not designing a meeting, but he starts from design a Harvest? How can I listen deeply to other beings which include birds, dogs and my wife?

Afternoon we moved on to Open Space Technology. The host introduced the four principles and law of mobility. The volunteers thoughtfully designed the meeting location names with lovely pictures, such as Miso Space, Kimchi space, Stinky Tofu Area, Yogurt Space. The most impressive to me is one of the volunteers said it is first time she hosts OST and she is very grateful to have ths practice opportunity. (They went through the coaching session previous night and prepared the market place till 23:00). They stand up to design such a creative way to support the process which was really impressive to me. I joined the topic: “What is Art of Hosting?”. In our session, several seasonal facilitators exchanged our experiences of AoH.. Yurie (the stewed) joined our conversation and provided her insightful perspectives. I really appreciate this training and we were discussion how to build the community of practice in Taiwan. We talked about the possibility to host another training in 2025. We had two rounds in this OST.

After debrief OST and self-Journaling to reflect the learning, another high point to me is the final session: Art of Harvesting. It is the practice of listening, sense making and taking wise action collectively. Trang and Elliie teach this part in a participatory and playful way. They layout the “Tangible – Intangible”, “Collectives – Individual” posters on the ground. We used the question: “What did we harvest from OST session?” to understand the method. They stood in each quadrant, explained what it is and invited input and example., When they stood the “Intangible” quadrants, they said they want to make the “Intangible” into “Tangible” by using improv theater to play it out. It is so so amazing once they receive the feeling words, they immediately acted the words alive in front of us. (such as Connection, Curiosity, Deep listening, Respect, Confusion, etc ). It is so touch to see their show and at the same time learned this Harvesting model in a joyful way.

We had a celebration party with good music, song and play together.

A song composed by a participant during the Nature Walk & sung in the celebration night.