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FollowReflections on Humanity #2
September 17, 2015
Today I was at Hauptbahnhof, Vienna’s main train session and my impressions were similar to those I experienced at Westbahnhof the previous day. Everything was orderly. There were abundant volunteers cooking and serving meals and playing with kids and taking groups of refugees for showers. The refugees were well behaved and respectful.
There was also an unbelievable amount of donated stuff: clothes, shoes, toys, blankets, sleeping bags, bottled water… Literally tons of stuff. More stuff than what the current refugees could possibly use. The stuff was in cardboard boxes and many plastic bags piled high for several blocks outside the train station. And a major storm was forecast in about 5 hours so we had the task of moving all this stuff (after string it and transferring much of it from bags into boxes) stacking and covering it on pallets or moving it inside, many hands make light work and we accomplished an amazing amount of work.
Working together physically is an excellent way to build teamwork and to practice collaboration. The tired muscles felt good. But I couldn’t help but wonder why the refugees were left to lie around with nothing to do while the volunteers did the work. It seems like we still have so much to learn about how to practice collaboration and participation. It is said that “it is a gift to ask for help” and I think that we do the refugees a disservice by not inviting them to be a part of the work.
Tonight I attended the Vienna Salon which was a participatory conversation on taking action to support the refugees. We had 30 participants and some wonderful interaction (even if I couldn’t understand much of it in German). What really contributed to the conversation were the three Afghani and two Syrian refugees. The hosting team only today realized that no refugees had been invited and they reached out to include some. What a difference they made. Maybe we are slowly learning a little about true participation but it is not easy and it confronts our prejudices and blind spots. But this practice and this learning is why I am so optimistic about the possibilities that can emerge from this “crisis and why I am so grateful to be here.
Reflections Upon Humanity #3
What a night and what an immersion into the refugee situation! About 1am as we were concluding a beautiful circle in which friends were expressing their exhaustion and their learnings from the past two weeks of intensity, we received news that hundreds refugees were arriving in Gyor Hungary without food or water. So, as the newest and least exhausted, I volunteered to drive the supplies to Gyor. The abundant stockpile at the Vienna train station was tapped and I arrived in Gyor in a pouring rainstorm around 4am.
What I experienced at the train station was beyond anything I could have imagined. The train station was crammed full of a couple thousand refugees – many families with young children – who had been shuffled about like tired, hungry and thirsty chess pieces by confused and overwhelmed governments over the past several days. One told me that he has had one shower in the past 15 days. One woman was trampled in the crowded station. This whole scene was overseen by 4 overwhelmed volunteers and 20 policemen.
At least we had brought a load of food to help, we thought. But we were quickly told in no uncertain terms not to unload any food for fear that it would incite a riot or panic. We were also informed that the refugees would be transported to Hegyeshalom where they would presumably be left to walk the final 3 km to Austria.
So we drove back toward Austria to assess the situation at the Hegyeshalom train station. What we found there was quite the contrast. There were no volunteers, only 4 policemen and a group of drunks at the adjoining bar. Quite the reception committee and not a safer place to distribute the food.
So, next we drove to Nicklesdorf, the Austrian border town and found a large Red Cross shelter with a couple hundred beds, a portable kitchen and tons of semi-organized clothing and shoes. The refugees arrive only minutes after us and were greeted by a stressed out Red Cross commander yelling and threatening and trying to control a terribly chaotic scene. The next hours are a blur of ripping open the plastic bags of carefully prepared lunches, removing the cans of beans for which there was use, separating out the apples which refugees don’t like and won’t eat, distributing the prized unsquashed bananas and disposing all those that had become casualties of the bean cans and putting out the rest of the food (along with thousands of unsustainable bottles of water), and rummaging through piles of clothes to find ones that would fit the needs of each refugee. Interspersed were moments of appreciating the beauty and patience and respect exhibited by most of the refugees and questioning the need for uniformed and armed soldiers who were utilized by the Red Cross to impose order.
In the midst of the exhaustion and the overwhelming conditions at the shelter, we learned that between Three and four thousand refugees were now at the border without food and all our resources were depleted. And there were another TEN THOUSAND coming in the next 24 hours. So, I contacted Waltraud the coordinator of the network of volunteers in Vienna who began mobilizing 50 volunteers and loads of food to be moved to Nicklesdorf. And I had to accept the consequences of having been going close to 30 hours without sleep and head back to Vienna to care for myself. Later this evening I will probably return with Mischa and Melinda to work another shift.
I am deeply moved by the enormity of humanity moving through this region, by the implications of this migration upon Europe, by the ineptitude of government systems and by the truly amazing response of civil society. The magnitude of this situation today is beyond words. How can we as a global community of humans hold this with consciousness and love?
Reflections on Humanity #1
Impressions from Westbahnhof Vienna…
I’ve arrived a day late, maybe. I’m not needed here as the level of caring and response is so strong. The urgency and adrenaline rush of the past weeks has subsided. Hungary has closed its borders and most of the refugees have moved on to Germany or elsewhere. The train station seems almost normal and peaceful. Of course I may be comparing it to an Indian train station and not a normal Austrian station.
Everyone is decently dressed in western clothing and there are few headscarves and no burkas. Everyone appears quite European and this makes me recognize some of my stereotypes of Middle Eastern people and of refugees. I would not guess from looking at them that many have been walking for weeks or that many are seriously traumatized by war experiences, by losses and by the demands and violence encountered on the road. It all seems so normal today.
I am struck by all of the acts of generosity: people handing out bottles of water,shopping carts full of bananas being distributed, fast food meals being given randomly to strangers, the huge amount of clothes and shoes and diapers and other supplies being constantly dropped off. Trucks are being loaded with the abundant surplus to be transported to the next place of need. This contrasts with reports of supplies being turned back at national borders because they lacked required customs clearance. This crisis is not over, just being forcibly displaced by the Hungarian government which is compelling desperate and resourceful refugees to find different routes other than through Vienna. Government attempts at control, personal human expressions of compassion and generosity.
I am noticing the absence of conflict here. Everyone seems to be getting along, smiling. There is laughter, children playing, cooperation. I am also noticing how clean the area is. Yes, there are volunteers collecting trash but I don’t see anyone littering.
A father playing with his adorable toddler is approached by two adolescent girls who ask whether the little girl has shoes for winter. “Yes”, replies the father. ” And does she have paper and crayons to draw with” they ask. When the father says that they do, I can almost feel the disappointment of the would-be donors that there is nothing they can give her.
I am moved to tears by what I am seeing here. So many people moving through this transition to their new lives. So many stories of loss and destruction. Yet, so much courage and kindness. So much cooperation. Such generosity. People wanting to give food and clothing and toys and having difficulty finding anyone left to give to. A donation box with 50 and 100 Euro notes in it. A phone company distributing free SIM cards and even asking me if I want one. So many stereotypes and prejudices being illuminated and challenged. This is such a beautiful display of humanity expressing humanity and maybe discovering more of itself in the process. Are we witnessing the emergence of a new and more compassionate world? Can we sustain it once the immediate crisis is over? And can we find ways to prevent such crises in the future?
June 25, 2015 Tui Spain
Sometimes it seems like life is insistent upon reminding me of my calling to hold space for pain. And I wonder what this means. What am I to do when I encounter someone in pain?
Yesterday I had three electronic encounters with friends who were struggling. From feeling heavy with the cares if life to resisting the urge to re-engage in an unsatisfying relationship to feeling so outside the “normal” world as to question her sanity. From my perspective, each of these painful experiences are emotional responses to healthy and courageous decisions to live life more fully and not to settle for normal. And yet, those courageous decisions have consequences. The road less traveled can be a lonely one and swimming upstream against normalcy can be so tiring.
Today I heard from another friend who has made a similar choice to step out into the unknown and to discover how her gifts can serve the world. In addition to her own struggles she also shared with me about the divisiveness in her former place of employment, a place that I know and have worked with and that I care about. Key leaders have been forced out and there are deep personal and organizational wounds that will likely never heal.
So I was walking today with all of this on my heart while also feeling the warmth of the sun and reveling in the beauty of nature. And as if there were not enough pain and sadness to carry… “There is more here to pay attention to” – at least that is what I think the universe was trying to tell me. I was passed suddenly on an empty road by a bright red electric motor scooter- it alone was enough to get my attention. It pulled off the road a couple hundred meters ahead of me and I could see the young woman rider talking on a mobile phone. As I got close it became obvious that she was in despair, crying loudly. My heart was deeply touched. I felt it open and embrace this stranger. Without words, without even eye contact, I connected with her pain without any idea of its source.
Not far down the Camino, I came upon a simple capela that was open (an unusual occurrence) so I took advantage of the opportunity to meditate. During my meditation my mind kept wandering back to the woman on the motorbike. What was mine to do in that situation? Was there anything I could have said to her? Of course not! My Portuguese would not be helpful in any situation. What if I had made eye contact or sat down nearby to visibly hold space? Would this have done anything more than cause discomfort over a creepy old man showing unwanted attention? I don’t accept that this was none of my concern. I could not not see her and I could not prevent my heart from being touched (it seems that a more open heart is a symptom of the Camino for me). Is this enough? Is it part of the role of a “sacred outsider” to “just” witness and to feel pain? If so, what difference does it make? Does it make any difference? Does it matter if it makes a difference? Is my concern with doing and making a difference and mattering – is this all attempts by my ego to make this about me?
As usual, I don’t have answers to these questions but I do feel like I have a deeper understanding of what it means to be a sacred outsider and a pilgrim. I can’t say how or why but I know that this practice of walking, of opening my heart and feeling pain of others is what I am called to do. It is a part of the gift of who I am and it contributes in some unknowable way to a more peaceful and loving world. I can’t explain it but I believe it and I intend to continue to practice living with more openness. To be able to feel deeply is a gift and one that I was ignorant of for many years. So I am so grateful to be able to feel and to practice now.
Posted in Reflection
Tagged camino, Camino Reflections, Holding Space, Reflection, Sacred Outsider
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Questions from the Global South
Its been four months now that I have been in India and China with the intention of “preparing the field” and it feels like it is time to be harvesting some learnings from this journey. My hesitance and procrastination suggest something different and I realize that I have more questions than learnings. If I wait for the answers, I may not ever write anything. So, maybe now is the time for identifying questions and setting an intention to write more about each of them.
So far, my experience is that this work is much harder than I had anticipated but I am also discovering that my knowledge and experience base is much deeper than I realized. Over and over, it feels like I am stewarding and being an elder in ways that surprise me. And I am definitely living on my learning edge, wondering what I am doing and wishing that I had someone more experienced to support me.
For what am I preparing the field? What shifts if we focus on developing a community of practitioners instead of offering an AoH training? A training for the sake of what? What am I trying to accomplish at a personal and systemic level? Is the vision of an Art of Hosting training too small and too rooted in Global North experiences? If not preparing for a training, how do we set an intention and a shared vision to work toward? How to engage and sustain a core team without a training event to focus on?
Is it time? What is time anyway? What does time mean in the Global South? Is there a commonality in how time is experienced in the Global South or is it much more specific to each culture? What can I learn from the cultural differences in how time is experienced and how do I work with these differences? How does my personal experience of time affect how I work and what is possible? How does the shortness of my time here feed the intensity and how can it be sustained over the long term?
What is my work? What does it mean to be a Sacred Outsider? How do I stay clear with what is my work and what is not, what is my role to play and what I need to allow others to do? How to live my work in every moment seeing every interaction as the real work – living for the journey and not focused on the destination? How much responsibility to take for tasks and processes and how much to allow others to learn by doing? Do I add any value by planting seeds over a couple of months and then leaving an area?
What does it mean to be called or invited? How to discern between what I want to do and what is really calling to me? Is it necessary for the call to be deep and strong or can I work to amplify and strengthen the caller and the call? How to distinguish between old protective patterns of saying “no” and the wisdom of knowing when conditions are not conducive and wisely saying “no”?
How do I sustain myself in this work? Practices that I can integrate into my nomadic life? Finding mates in faraway places? An economic model to support the work of a Sacred Outsider? Who is my wisdom circle and how do I learn to access them?
What is me and what is not? When I notice emotional reactions in myself, how do i tell if these are personal issues or they are disturbances in the field that I am sensing? How to compassionately and effectively deal with disturbances in the field?
How much is my world view is integral to the work that I do? Is it possible to train people in the processes and practices without also imparting an integral world view? How do I love and accept people at whatever their developmental and experience level? How do I respond to people who seem to only want to learn to imitate the methodologies? If the culture really values keeping one’s emotions private and avoiding “negative” emotions, is there a place for a conversational approach based upon acceptance and expression authentic emotion?
Posted in Hosting, Reflection, Uncategorized
Tagged Art of Hosting, China, questions, Reflection
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Being the Sacred Other
It was 5:55PM and we were scheduled to begin at 6:00 and still we did not have the design. Narayan, my co-host, and I had just met for nearly three hours with four young Chinese women to sense into the design for a World Cafe around the topic “Dream and Reality in the University”. This group repeated the messages that Narayan and I had been hearing repeatedly about Chinese young people in conversations over the past couple of weeks:
- They are programmed to compete and to achieve
- Their educational and career paths are chosen for them and they have no choice but to follow it
- They have no experience in self reflection and no self awareness
- They don’t trust and will not express vulnerability or deeper feelings in conversation
- As only children, they have large responsibilities to their families and feel very alone and isolated
- They are excellent at accepting their fate and enduring it.
- Being happy is their goal and it is attained only through financial success and material security
- Alternatives such as working for an NGO or as a social entrepreneur are totally unattainable so best not to dream about them.
It breaks my heart to hear these stories, to feel the loneliness, isolation and resignation in them. It terrifies me to imagine the future of our planet with this huge population of youth entering the Chinese economy with such limited vision. The students in this small group were all members of a student organization called Green Student Forum, an environmental action group, and they admitted that they could not allow themselves to think about bigger issues of environmental sustainability and the consequences of the path that they are on.
The young people say that they are afraid to have genuine conversations and that they don’t have self awareness and don’t know how to dream. Yet, every conversation we have had in the past couple of weeks was real and genuine and reached a level of depth and intimacy that surprised everyone. It is my sense that there is a hunger for meaningful conversation despite all of the obstacles and fears.
So, the question was how could we get the participants in the World Cafe to experience such conversation? And we were stuck. What would be the “right” question that would trick them into an experience that all of their experience and belief systems said was unsafe and off-limits?
Personally, I was stuck and frustrated. I wanted so badly for this to go well. I wanted to create an experience that could touch these students that I had come to care so much about. And I wanted to demonstrate the potential of participatory processes and my skill as a practitioner. While I am consciously working to avoid assuming that I know what is needed and to avoid being a missionary bringing the truth to China, I am also wanting to share what I know and to encourage the development of an Art of Hosting community of practitioners here. I had also been invited here as a “steward” or an “elder” of this work and I wanted to do well and to live into that role. All of these personal motivations and agendas were just contributing to the stuckness.
As we walked to the venue in those precious five minutes before the event, I discovered something in myself. I focused on my breathing and upon my deeper intentions of being present for the participants and I let go of all the scheming and planning and thinking and just allowed myself to feel and sense what I knew of the participants and their needs. Suddenly, like a sword cut, I sensed the questions for the three rounds:
- What are the conversations that you are not having?
- What is preventing it?
- What is the next step to get unstuck?
This felt so right and yet it also felt like stepping into the fire and challenging a level of honesty and depth that we had been warned against.
I accessed an unfamiliar part of myself as I shared the questions with Narayan and prepared to set the context for the conversation and to invite the participants into a different kind of experience. It is a place of deep and powerful presence, the place of a caring and compassionate warrior. It is the space that my friend Bob Stilger has identified as the Sacred Outsider archetype. From this place, I knew that my energy would fill the room and that I could speak with respect and love, naming the patterns that I have been hearing in conversations, that I could touch the loneliness and fear in the participants.
The meeting began with several “get acquainted” games hosted by Zoumei and when the time came for the cafe to begin around 7:00, the group was ready. Narayan and I spoke from the role of the Sacred Outsiders, naming and amplifying the themes we had been hearing and expressing how touched we have been by them. Then we invited them into a different kind of conversation. Within two minutes of the cafe beginning, we knew could feel the energy of six deep and meaningful conversations. These courageous young people acted against all of the societal prohibitions and in spite of their own fears. They let down their barriers and defenses and spoke from their hearts.
What a beautiful night it turned out to be! Despite it being the 9:00 scheduled time to adjourn, we invited a check-out circle and heard person after person talk about the power of the experience and about not feeling as alone in his/her confusion. There was new sense of hope and a desire to continue relating at a deeper level.
Twenty-eight young people out of 1.3 billion Chinese… No, its probably not going to change the world. But seeds were planted and I trust that some lives were touched and that new possibilities were activated in the students. What I do know for certain is that I was touched and changed by this experience. I don’t fully understand it and cannot express it well, but I know that I discovered something in myself related to that warrior spirit and the Sacred Other that is a gift. This is a part of myself that I want to learn to access more and to use with love. I am so grateful for the continuing gifts of learning and authentic experiences that I am receiving on this journey.
Posted in Hosting, Reflection
Tagged Art of Hosting, China, Sacred Other, warrior, World Cafe
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If you want to be happy, be grateful
The one thing all humans have in common is that each of us wants to be happy, says Brother David Steindl-Rast, a monk and interfaith scholar. And happiness, he suggests, is born from gratitude. An inspiring lesson in slowing down, looking where you’re going, and above all, being grateful.
Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk, meditates and writes on “the gentle power” of gratefulness
Remove Mutual Enmity ~ Imam Ali
“To remove mutual enmity, ill-feeling and hatred is better than recommended prayers and fasting.”
~ Imam Ali written to Imam Husayn and Hasan. (from “letter 47”)
Lessons from the Universe ~ Ask for What You Need
My nomadic journey has been founded upon the intentions of being involved in meaningful work, following where life is calling me and of trusting that if I give of my gifts freely I will receive whatever I need to sustain me. Believing in these intentions does not come naturally or easily. I have been conditioned to figure things out, plan where I will be and what I will be doing and generally to make things happen. So I am most comfortable when I have clarity and a set of plans to live by. Thus, it has been a rich and challenging experience to let go of most of those plans and efforts to figure out where I am going and to learn to go with the flow.
Yesterday I finally acknowledged to myself how much discomfort I have been experiencing in my current situation. While I have avoided making a lot of detailed plans, I have generally known where I would be a couple of months in advance. These plans plans included going to India in September after completing work in Zimbabwe. Recently the India project fell through and I was left without any sense of the place or the work that was calling me. Since I’ve been in Cairo I have not had the energy or initiative to work on a new project as I had anticipated. I attributed this lack of endergy to the heat and Ramadan and a cultural adjustment from my two months on the Camino; I had not consciously connected it with my lack of direction and the resultant sense of groundlessness.
Our brains operate on the principles of quantum physics according to Jeffery Schwartz in the book The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force. He explains how our mind, through the power of intention and attention, selects from multiple possible alternative futures in each moment. While we have well established neural pathways and associated ways of thinking and behaving, we also have choice of where we direct our attention and this allows our minds to rewire our brains. I resonated with this as I recognized my own process of rewiring my brain. It is my intention to experience living life as it wants to happen rather than trying to control it and, in doing so, I am rewiring my brain to accept that life will provide what I need including meaningful work and learning to live in the place of not knowing.
Fresh from having finished Schwartz’ book and based upon these implications of intention and attention, I decided around 4pm yesterday to ask the universe “what’s next?”. I began preparing to write to friends around the world to ask for input and I actually began looking at where I could get the cheapest flights from Zimbabwe (always good to have a rational plan to fall back on if the universe doesn’t come through for me).
At 6pm I went out to dinner to celebrate the end of coaching with a friend and former coachee. After dinner we went to a coffee shop to meet someone she knew. It turns out that this person is a hero of the Egyptian revolution and a leader in one of the alternative political parties that is working to find a nonviolent way forward. By 10 pm we were sharing experiences and dreams and possibilities for a project focused on compassion and forgiveness to support dialog between rival factions as an alternative to violent confrontations. By midnight we were joined by another friend who is a leader in another Egyptian organization working toward similar goals. By the time we headed our separate directions around 1:30am, we had another meeting scheduled to develop a this conversational process, I had a new possible new coaching client, I had been asked to return to Egypt in September to train and support revolutionary leaders in hosting dialog groups, I was exploring opportunities for applying social healing approaches with traumatized survivors of revolutionary violence and I had been asked if it is possible to provide Art of Hosting, Warrior of the Heart and Art of Practicing Peace trainings to leaders in the revolution. In other words, I had more than enough work to occupy me here in Cairo beginning in September. What a rush to have my request answered so quickly and with such abundance!
I have to admit that I still cannot quite believe this. To have asked for what I need and to have had it provided with such abundance within eight hours is seriously challenging my old patterns of skepticism and my need for rational materialistic explanations. The universe, life, some power heard my request and generously gave me all that I could want (well, maybe an airline ticket from Zimbabwe to Cairo would also have been nice). The path ahead is not necessarily an easy one. There will likely be no income from this work so I will be giving it as a gift and trusting that my needs will continue to be met. The situation in Cairo is becoming more chaotic and unstable meaning that I will need to pay more attention to safety and security issues and to be prepared for a lot of uncertainty. Doing this work will be challenging and will likely stretch me in many ways. But this is my journey. This is a wonderful fit with so many of my skills and gifts. So, once again I am in awe and gratitude for this amazing journey of life.
Posted in Reflection
Tagged Attention, Egypt, gift, Intention, Jeffery Schwartz, Neuroscience
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