The importance of practice

The World Café Kinship Gathering (Oct 20 - 24) was both an opportunity for a 30 years celebration and a potent reminder to me about the power of staying in practice. World Café is a methodology that has spread around the world. It appears simple and easy. Thousands have tried it.

And it is often done so badly or in name only. When the underlying principles are missing, there is only a list of action steps, like a recipe with no understanding for how the ingredients come together to make something nourishing. If we want what Finn Voldofte called "the magic in the middle" to show up, skillful hosting is a must.

If World Café is to live up to its potential -- which Juanita Brown names as method, metaphor (the world as café) and movement (conversations as a medium of collective transformation) -- it is important to focus on tending the practice field for the method itself. 

Practicing together is like learning how to pass the baton in a relay race. Each of us has sharpened our practice so that we can trust each other to take the baton and run with it.

Here is some of the harvest around the method, metaphor and movement theme -- some of what we learn when the World Café is at its best. It is a liberating structure -- giving just enough shape for people to tap into their solidarity and the simplicity that can arise between us when we talk together about what really matters.

A focus on encouraging and sustaining practitioners is at the core of the Art of Hosting, a field I have been deeply steeping in for almost 20 years now. There is a consistent invitation amongst us to keep practicing the work together. This call strengthens both my resolve to keep learning and my intention to do my own inner work to be conscious and clear. What is experienced externally around me is deeply influenced by what is happen within me.

I'm grateful for the new connections I made, the stories I heard and the deeper understanding I gathered about what it takes to be committed to transformation long term.