Welcome to the eighth newsletter from fireside.rs, ‘unlocking creative productivity by gathering humans effectively.’
This month the fifth fireside.rs workshop was hosted by TED-Style Talks + Discussions in the capital city of Aotearoa / New Zealand with 36 community members participating:
A purely analogue, synchronous and novel learning experiences, not mediated by screens or technology but instead amplified through the sharing of space and time with the intent to nurture human connection.
These are experiments in sketching with humans, designed to allow those involved to get a sense of mattering merely through participation. To feel seen. To feel safe. To feel curious to learn / do more.
Currently have three workshops lined up during my upcoming Brisbane and Melbourne October trip, after which the ‘no-fee’ offer will be phased out.
So if you’re interested in bringing this unique learning experience to your community / staff (just cover my expenses), please do get in touch.
Until then, take care of yourselves and each other,
DK
fireside.rs Founder and Creative Gatherer
LISTEN TO THE PODCAST
Where we feature, celebrate and learn from those who craft spaces for humans to actively belong and be, introducing:
SHOW NOTES & PULL QUOTES
- Douglas Drummond LinkedIn
- Weaving Waters Collective
- Esalen Institute
- Gabrielle Roth’s 5Rhythms
- Embodied Belonging course
- Moving Men: An Embodied Inquiry course
- Tom ‘Little Bear’ Nason quote attribution
2.11: “They were doing a lot of reconciliation work and working with their premiers, a lot of land reconciliation, restoration work, and a dive deep into that perspective of the impact of colonisation and the tension and the calling to the conflict resolution and how effective gatherings and true manaakitanga hospitality can bring us together.”
9.23: “And the Esalan Institute in its history, founded in 62, amazing academic scholars, predominantly white psychologists, psychiatrists, mental health immersion, Aldous Huxley and Abraham Maslow and many other incredible academic pioneers founded and seeded their work there.”
10.28: “And this continuity, again, of reconciliation working with Indigenous groups, for me, it’s apex in terms of the calling of the type of work that I wanted to do. And quite a bit of that discord around diversity, equity, inclusion as a movement. But for me, it was always about human rights. How do we treat people with respect and dignity?”
16.41: “And we gather consistently in families, workplaces, these retreats, conferences, ceremonies, community. But being physically together doesn’t necessarily mean we are connected. And so to me, that effective gathering begins with this, I would say, a simple understanding that people want to know that they matter. And I might say that people want to feel loved. And want to feel connected and they want to feel that their participation has meaning.”
17.19: “So I always kind of bring it into these three levels of relationship, which is the relationship to yourself, ourselves, the relationship to another, and the relationship to the group and the community. And the premise and the real lensing of the methodology that’s helped me deliver this is through the work of Gabrielle Roth’s work, which is called The Five Rhythms, which is a moving meditation practice. And that really does run through predominantly the facilitation work that I do.”
18.36: “So when we walk into a room and our bodies are already reading this narrative,it’s certainly for me, and it’s definitely been shared in response and feedback from others, is do I feel welcome here? The question of who has status here? Who are the folks in the room that feel the most comfortable? Who looks like me? Who do not look like me? Is there a place where I can speak openly and truthfully? Can I disagree with people? Have I been watched or surveilled in some way?”
19.35: “And one of the distinctions I find useful between fitting in and belonging, and like fitting in might say I can be part of this if I can understand the rules and adapt myself, and then belonging would sort of suggest is there enough room for me here to participate without losing myself, And so it’s belonging without sameness. We really celebrate the differences and the diversity. And can I remain myself and still remain in relationship with someone else? Can you disagree with me without becoming an enemy or without becoming an adversary? And the connection doesn’t require agreement.”
23.44: “So we bring a lot of competency. We look at status, play with a lot of humor. There’s elements of strength. But if those currencies are the only ones available, it can be difficult to say, I’m frightened. I don’t know. I’m lonely. I need help. Or simply like, I’m just not sure who I am right now. So Moving Men is partly about creating enough relational permission for men to encounter those places without shame.”
29.31: “So effective getting becomes much more than how we run a good meeting and the deeper questions become like, you know, perhaps who has authority there? That’s really important around the protocol. Whose knowledge has been centered? What has been promised previously? Who carries the labor of maintaining the relationship? And it’s really important to acknowledge those before in the past and those may still very much well be there. And then are we listening in order to respond or listening to be genuinely understood?”
30.34: “And you can’t schedule a reconciliation workshop and declare the work complete. And often in that Western mindset, sometimes it can seem quite linear, but it’s very relational. And, you know, it gets built on repeat encounters and following through, returning, listening and getting things wrong. And then also just having the honesty and the vulnerability to acknowledge that. And then we can start leaning into the repairing and listening and continuing. the effectiveness of the gathering often can’t be measured simply by how people felt when they walked out of the room. That’s often the measure when it happens three months, six months, a year later.”
37.08: “You can’t understand a river without understanding the landscape around it. You can’t actually understand a human interaction without understanding the wider system and looking at culture and history and asking questions around power and identity and community and then bring it back to self, like to the body and the stories you mentioned before, the stories we carry. They’re all in the room. They’re all with us when we come together.”
Podcast music attribution: All I Did Was Wait For You: The Upbeat and Positive Track for Podcast or YouTube by kjartan_abel — https://freesound.org/s/543781/ — License: Attribution 4.0
Some creativity, productivity and gathering related content for the brain / heart:
“Three chords and a domain name.
I. WE ARE THE DIY KIDS
II. WE OWN THE MASTERS NOW
III. NO A&R, NO VENTURE CAPITAL, NO GATEKEEPERS
IV. THE ZINE NEVER DIED, IT JUST GOT A DOMAIN
V. MAKE WHAT YOU NEED, NOT WHAT “EVERYONE” NEEDS
VI. WEIRD IS A FEATURE
VII. IT’S AN ALL-AGES SHOW
VIII. THIS IS THE COUNTERCULTURE NOW.”
The IndieWeb Is Punk Manifesto
“By 1176, Lord Rhys ap Gruffydd, a medieval Welsh prince, had become one of the most powerful rulers the country had ever known. He’d successfully banished Norman invaders from his lands, made peace with King Henry and rebuilt Cardigan castle in stone. Prosperous and secure, he threw a grand holiday tournament, inviting bards and musicians to play and compete under his patronage in the first recorded eisteddfod, roughly, a “sitting together” – a tradition that still lives on today. This year’s national eisteddfod, a celebration of Welsh language, culture and creativity, has returned to its roots near Lord Rhys’s castle for its 850th birthday.”
‘It’s Glastonbury on wheels’: Welsh eisteddfod cultural event celebrates 850th year | Festivals | The Guardian
If you’re on a Mac / using iOS then check out this free ambient sounds app Blankie.
Explore Dark Hours and see if it’s worth going out tonight to look at the stars and other celestial bodies.
Thank you again and please do get in touch with any ideas / comments / insights / suggestions etc. plus encourage others who care about ‘unlocking creative productivity by gathering humans effectively’ to subscribe also: