Prince George, BC This week I’m here in Prince George, smack dab in the middle of British Columbia facilitating a two day roundtable conference on economic opportunities for Aboriginal communities. There are people all over BC here, and we’ve been treated to a performance tonight from Juno nominee (and new friend) Marcel Gagnon as well as tastings of the wines of Nk’Mip, North America’s first Aboriginal winery. As fun and interesting as all this is, today’s proceedings were stolen by several acts of overwhelming generosity. It all began in the evening news part of our program, during which I invited …
My four-year old son: Mom? My wife, Caitlin: Yes? Son: You know when you get really old? Caitlin: Yes. Son: And when you’re just about to die? Caitlin: Yeeeesss…. Son: Just in that moment… Caitlin: Yes? Son: Can you tell me where your wallet is? The kid’ll do anything for an advance on his allowance!
A propos of my post on facilitation and authenticity, I am becoming more keenly aware of the ways in which artists have been describing the process of “hosting.” Today, my pal Andy Boprrows posts a set of poems that speak to me, including this one by Wendell Berry: The Real WorkIt may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is …
Skypable? Is that a word? At any rate, I’ve finally got with the times and signed on to Skype. So feel free to find me and get in touch.
I’ve been facilitating groups for as long as I can remember, going back probably 20 years to high school when I ran both informal and organized youth groups with my peers. It has probably been about twelve or thirteen years ago that I started to actually pay attention to what I was doing. But only in the last five or six years, as I have been facilitating full time, have I noticed a deepening in my practice. Work as practice. And by practice I mean something akin to a spiritual practice, whereby one undertakes a life of value and meaning …