‘We’sdom

 

These poems are created “in the moment” to record, or harvest, the collective wisdom in conversation. 

The Art of City Making - Session with Charles Landry at Canadian Institute of Planners conference in Winnipeg, July 2008

The Artful Path of City Making

Words 
Useful and not
We find words that mean more
Than what we mean

We name to be in control
The challenge is to relax
It’s just a word
Sparse prose

City making
Art (vs. formula)
Thoughtfulness, thinking, calmness
Abstraction in big picture
Core principles are
Our art of living together

The solutions are there
In layers visible and invisible
We are inside and outside
We know too much and too little

Vision of a place
Likes, wants from what I know
Do I know what I don’t know?
Am I imitating the imitation of the imitation?
What is out there that I haven’t conceived of yet?

Do I see
The mixture?
The story in the place?
Am I appreciating all there is to appreciate?

Description and prescription is rational
Planning
A new offering
Frame works in the organic
The art of intersection
The language of language
Honoring and cultivating place
Embedded in culture

The more you go with the grain
The more things will change
Are we good enough?
Are we confident enough
To resist sucking, negative, tunnel energy?

A path
Embrace the ambivalence
Embrace the ambiguity
Of transformation
Just listen and receive
Language as source

Via Beth Sanders

 

Art of Hosting Discussion at Shambhala Institute for Authentic Leadership 2008

Check in – what makes me tremble

(Our check-in around the Circle in response to the question, “What makes you tremble?”)

An Invitation to Tremble

An invitation to tremble
That I accept
We’ll see what comes of this 

Waiting for everyone to arrive
Be in the room
Be present
We’ll wait a while…

We are here
We have shown up
We are connected
We gather to explore the unknown
Explore questions
In Circle
To find what we already know

A five day journey on a path
To find connections
To find living treaties
To walk in two worlds
Art fully hosting
Conversations

Let’s come to the fire
With what makes us tremble…

I tremble to jump into chaos
Yet I do
I worry about not capturing all the right things,
Though I might

There is crap until we connect
As we explore and poke at an
The invisible frames of reference
That are so hard to know, to penetrate

Not understanding
Not listening
Not conversing
Not bearing witness
Destruction

Trees and forest are life for survival
We’ll find “good enough”
We’ll have answers

Ohhhh there are indeed
Things that make me tremble
Children that teach me to listen, not to tell
Children  with trembling teachers that need
Conversations that matter

But those rocks
Are hard to focus on
When I share me
I am vulnerable

Facing death and
The fear in the world
The misuse of power

Being still with
Opposites that come together, and
Finding the deep question
To make the good work happen
But remember – The planes are still flying

I have witnessed the death of elders
And what they took with them
They have left something behind
The passion to keep it alive
Is here.
Trembling with fear and excitement

Increasing darkness and suffering
Yet there is inspiration in working with
I have anger, yet
My fundamental inheritance is gentleness
I will use this in a good way
I am waiting and dancing tango

Telling the truth brings
Trembles and joy
Yet I still don’t know my place

Cynicism and hardened hearts
That so many of us see
My privileged life
Our inability to act

Waiting for the vulcan to come to me
Being in the presence of warriors
And care despite trembling a long long time

Individual and collective wisdom is coming about
It is time
A distant rumbling that
Makes me tremble with excitement
There is a crack to work with

Trembling inspires me to keep going
I will live until I die
I will tremble with creativity and beauty
I tremble as I stand and show up
Though I am not sure who I was and who I am

Together we have a
Sense of community with balance
In this human place
In this human space

Trembling with fear
Trembling with life
Trembling with excitement
Trembling with purpose
Trembling

 via Beth Sanders

 

Intimate Hosting

(A small group conversation about intimate hosting)

A host without judgement
Leaving responsibility with me
Love and trust
While I stew in it

Let’s skip the arguing
To get to the sweet spot
A safe spot to find
The small tremors
Miss the earthquake

I ask for a connection to family
To sustain myself
It happened
It is practiced

How would you like it to be?
What needs to change?
What’s getting the way?
Trash to treasure
I have potential

This is the way I live
A practice not a theory
Stop talking
Be the change
Call your loved ones

The talking piece
Is warm and loved
I desire to be real

Intimacy is a
Place to start
When the remote
Is put aside

I hunger to check in with
My kid
The dog and the
Dog catcher

It is time for courage
To jump and experiment
Invitations without hesitation
Move my professional practice
To include personal
To move intimate to the professional

Am I ready to
Be vulnerable?
What is my choice?
The most intimate?
Hosting myself

I do not expect perfection
I do not expect success
There is no perfect circle
I practice
I am ready
To be uncomfortable
To be lonely

I will show up
With intention

My trash is treasure

via Beth Sanders

 

Check out

(Our check out at the end of the week – what we are taking with us.)

I know how to dress the table
A new approach
Relying on my intuition
That others will be right

Space

I practice – alone together
In sync out of sync
With the energy of the unknown

Luscious lovely life
No holding back
Acceptance
If I love it is relevant

I don’t know what to say

I embrace the warrior heart
In fields of energy
Completely

The space in between
Everything
I have heart from you all
Rock balancing
Art makes physical the lines of life

Joy at the bonfire
Sometimes too hot
Sometimes too cool
I am thankful for the warmth
Of our company
There are always fires burning

I take you home
With everything there is to take
With Warriorship

I practice my warrior and
Midwife hearts
Chaos does not cause fear
I host it
With men’s and women’s voices

Every conversation
Hosted from the heart
Is a sacred trust

I embrace the sensei
And the birth of practitioners
Born into the next level
In relationship

I am a warrior
With a big strong heart
Courage to host what
I need to host

No words

I offer support and
Generosity to my mate
To my humble hobbits

The fire is kindle
I will be brave
I step into the fire

I will always know you
With or without spoken words
Our balancing rocks keep appearing
Holding our power
Between four eyes
In difficult places
With strength from you all

Poetry

via Beth Sanders

 

Ginger Group Collaborative Placemaking Inquiry 2008

Off-road discussion

The apache greeting song
Called out to us

People make a physical place a bigger place, but
Is there place without people?
There is so much life here yet
I have been doing so much clumping around

Notice what you notice
Awareness is going beyond us
Closing our eyes reminds us of
The edge of the frozen lake and
The sliver of sun rising where
The inside of us and
The outside of us is blurred

Are the clouds low or are we high?
Cloud formations we have never seen before
The mountains we thought we know
We do not know.
The horizon pulls us around to
Explore the infinity of it all.
The essential good in and of it all
In place

We have been in places at the same time
And we didn’t know it
Life is vital
A spirituality of place
The cool, fresh aliveness of this place

Shadows are not always negative
Paths to escape
Caves to hide
Stories abound
Trauma is alive
With opportunities to hear and heal

Nature is high and low
Light and dark
This is Nature’s learning
Death and suffering
Life and hope
Healing rivers of
Blood and celebration
What was once horrific
Is again filled with song

Are places disturbed and undisturbed?
Are they just places?
Is there such a thing as a non-place?
Is there place and non-place?
Is there a river we can find to swim in?

via Beth Sanders

 

Place I

Place makes us
And we make us.
Some places are harder to stand tall in
We experience places differently
We call on different imaginations
Place is not separate from the rain, clouds,
Sunshine and snow
We interact with the outside world
With climate
The elements
How to people orchestrate our places?
We attune to something larger than ourselves
What is this?
When we listen deeply
And bear witness
We can connect to something bigger.

via Beth Sanders

 

Place II

Place is many things
in its whole
It cannot be shrunk

via Beth Sanders

 

Place III

What happens inside
affects what happens
in space and place

Thinking about a place where I am alive and at home
Rejuvenates and refreshes
From now on the place will not be the same
How we perceive place affects our behaviour

Wants choke us up
We’re thankful they came up
We may become extinct
But we need to do everything we can

Earth is a place.
We’re called to look after it
With all we have available.

Talking about place is away to
Enter conversations.
Loosen up tight conversations.

Talking about places leads to
Sharing stories
That we all then carry.

Place can be evil
They can be reclaimed
They should be reclaimed
Reminders remain. 
Stones and shackles and shivers.

Powerful places affects us physically
We have the power to create them
And recreate them.

What we bring to place making is like
4 lanes of thoroughfare bicycle traffic
Transportation that allows experiencing each other
In a place.

We bring the interior of the place.

Let’s witness our own witness
And deepen our own dialogue
Where stories build on stories.

via Beth Sanders

 

Nourishing

Nourishing ourselves to
Be holding and beholding

A community of practice
Living in complexity
Embracing complexity

We dance and draw
In silence and song
Separate and together

A whole with purpose
Is the Ginger offering
An alchemy that provides service to the world

via Beth Sanders

 

Rhizomes

Sharing and linking
Rhizomes
Available
A Ginger ale
A freeing space
A making of place
A gift

via Beth Sanders

 

We do know each other

We don’t know where we are going
We know how we will be.
We are all one
In a world that needs healing

If I don’t know you and
you don’t know me
We will follow the wrong star home.
Yet we know each other because
We are here
With the same intention.
We are following the same star
We do know each other.

via Beth Sanders

 

Root cause

Our commitment and love can
Heal the root cause 
Mindset

via Beth Sanders

 

Goodness and love

I exist in relationship to you
When I engage with you
When we engage
I am alive

via Beth Sanders

 

A thought

Healing the world is an inside job

via Beth Sanders

 

Why we gather 

Reenergize ourselves
That is why we gather
Learning
Integrating – ourselves and others

via Beth Sanders

 

Integrated design fishbowl

How to change collective mindset?
Things are slow and fast at the same time
A messy process
Where the Architect is not God.
A collective shift
At a higher level.

Our children will leapfrog over us
And we welcome that
New public force to shift
Our collective will.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh
The public doesn’t know
what it doesn’t know.
What are the risks of waiting?
What is our role?

Create the demand
Create the dream
Titillate and provoke
Give them the language they already know

Tap into our imaginative elders
Combine the time and worry
Look for new solutions
(But we might scare the shit out of them)

Scare the shit out people!

How do we and
Should we?
We are where we are.

There is lots for us to do
Motivate with opportunities and solutions
In our jobs
In our professions
In our lives
With our skills and all our
Passions
Desires
Beliefs
Hearts

Find what we don’t know
With questions

Give possibility
Invite engagement
Invite complexity
Experiment with choices
Seek collective success
Fearlessly. 

via Beth Sanders

 

The edge

Framing action for our agendas
Personal and collective
What have we made of all this

A list of things to explore
So many possibilities
A search for the common thread

What are the practices that are deliberately involved?
In our work
In our lives

Collective wisdom
Colletive action
Collective making of place
Collective intelligence

The quickening has begun
Before we enter a system
Revealing synchronicity

In an alchemy world
We find people where they are at
Get on the center of their edge
In partnership

via Beth Sanders

 

Marsh Road Meditation (Beth)

A squirrel darts across my path
To remind me of whose place this is 
Winter’s grasses remind of the past
And also remind us of the grass to come
Hollow and light
Tall, fluffy at the top
reaching for the sky
Most, but not all
Strong against the weight of the winter snow

Deer prints
Birds in the bottom of the grass
Birds at the top of the grass
Birds in the air.
Birds I can not see.  Just hear.
Birds I can not see.  Birds I can not hear.
A place to remind me of whose place this is
Mine, others and Nature’s.
There is so much life here.

Beth Sanders