Heart Politics 2024 Ecology of a Gathering

Ecology of Gathering

Welcome:

you arrive with a familiar set of interests, passion, concerns, questions, and ideas.

Open Space:

the familiar interests and questions create a shred context for inquiry.

Home Groups:

a regular, set space where the personal process of the gathering gets met and held

Morning Circle:

a daily, collective space where the community engages

Down time:

space for whatever retreat, reflection or connection you may need

Sharing Circle:

stories and reflections from the emergent heart of the gathering

Celebration:

the heart sings (and plays, and dances...)

Integration:

the crucible for insight and transformative learnings

Farewell:

you return to the familiar world with a changed way of seeing and – perhaps – being.

In the early days, a Gathering comprised of a series of wonderful presentations, speakers and workshops, curated around a theme. It was great - and, people regularly commented on the precious and rare opportunity of hanging out together talking about what really mattered to them. We realised that we already know what we want to learn, share or explore with each other, and how this will benefit our lives and work. But we rarely have a chance to explore this outside familiar circles and siloes that so often limit how we tell the stories that describe our lives.

Harrison Owen's Open Space technique gave us a way to move on from the approach we called "Heart Politics Presents...", but we felt that something precious could get lost. Founding trustee, vivian Hutchinson, convened a Wananga - a learning event - around our Gathering culture. What emerged was an appreciation of the Pillars. These create the space in which "Heart Politicians are Present, Together".

Which, of course, begins with us showing up. We look forward to being there, with you, all together under a big sky, with all thats cooking in the Deepdown....

The Pillars

Pillars That Hold the Sky

The Welcome:

in moments of welcome we participate in an acknowledging of being present together - to ourselves, each other, a place, intention and purpose. Its a moment when all the stories we bring, and all the stories that will unfold, begin to dance together. A welcome between 50 people or so is a moment dense with possibility, encounter and recognition.

Home groups:

sometimes it is good to know that, at some point in the day, we will be meeting a known group with whom we have been checking in each day. The groups, which are usually 5 or 6 people, meet for a period of time, but with no set agenda, other than whatever best serves the well-being, energy and inspiration of those present.

Unfolding the Space:

having been welcomed and then met each other, and begun to settle in physically, the first evening sees us unfold the themes, topics, processes and content that will inspire and inform the Open Space of the Gathering. At times the Unfolding can seem somewhere between a market, an auction and even the party game Charades, as the Gathering self-actualises its co-created participative heart. In a surprisingly short time, the empty timetable is full of rich offerings, with others still jostling on the edges, and the simple protocols of Open Space have been shared: we are ready!

Social Dreaming Matrix:

this doesn’t always happen but since a Gathering is a multilayered occasion dreams are part of its inner landscape. Those who choose to meet together just after waking can enter a space of interpenetrative consciousness in which the imagery and happenings of people’s dreaming take on unexpected meaning and participative insight.

Morning Circle:

the whole group gathers after breakfast, sharing news, programme changes, or emerging themes, setting a tone for the day before heading off into the Open Space programme.

Place’n’Space time:

whilst Open Space offers every opportunity for people to attend to the rhythms of their own self-care and well-being, the dominant paradigm and our busy lives (surely dimensions of the same phenomenon) often fill up with busy-ness. Our society seldom has cultural space for just being where we are – and noticing what that's like. So we will be more intentional about that over this weekend.

Celebration:

The last night is a night of harvesting the riches of the Gathering. Home groups may have a skit; individuals may have a song; raconteurs may surprise us with a mime!

Distilling and Integrating:

having closed Open Space, we begin the process of distilling threads, learnings and insights from our co-created experience to inform our lives and practice in the world. The form that this facilitated space takes will usually reflect the quality and tone of the Gathering, in ways which may be quite spontaneous and unusual, or which may be comfortingly familiar. The intention is that we approach the Farewell enriched by the experience, empowered by new connections, and embraced by opportunities previously unimagined.

The Well:

we have already shared ideas, challenges, successes, dreams, laughter and stories, maybe even some tears. `those who choose to come together on the last morning in quiet reflection. We may have an inspiring reading in mind, or from a book; we may have a deceptively simple phrase runnng around in our hearts; we my not even choose to share any of it. This is the Well, still, deep and refreshing, that we draw from in our lives.

The Farewell:

in moments of farewell we participate in an acknowledging of being present together - to ourselves, each other, a place, intention and purpose. Its a moment when all the stories that have danced together find a moment to stand still in their fullness. A farewell is a moment dense with possibility, encounter and recognition.

Sharing circle:

in New Zealand, this sharing circle time became known variously as “waikorero” - a word in te reo Maori that can translate as the flowing together of words - or “whaikorero” – a wandering, threaded ecology of story telling. However, one of the Maori elders who joined us said the experience was more like “whakawhanungatanga”, the practice of bulding relationship through shared experiences, working towards cohesion and uniting as one.

By whatever name, this space is a crucible that unfolds stories into a dense, multilayered compendium, like a book of transformative spells, encountered in sacred space.