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--- transiency_maja_kuzmanovic [2017-02-19 08:09] – maja
+++ transiency_maja_kuzmanovic [2017-03-21 18:50] – [July 2016] maja
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-As I was "binding my negative energy" and describing my [[hosting/july_2016#conundrums|conundrums]] in the closing circle, people felt the need to "help", defend themselves or prove me wrong. A known impulse in situations when it is easier to give advice than to sit with the discomfort. I find advice in such moments completely counterproductive (it makes me feel incompetent), but I was too caught up in the whirlwind of hosting and participating (aware of the time slipping away) to recognise what was going on while it was happening. I did what I needed to do, but not exactly in the way I was hoping to. No matter, it’s all a part of the practice…
+As I was "binding my negative energy" and describing my [[hosting/july_2016#conundrums|conundrums]] in the closing circle, people felt the need to "help", defend themselves or prove me wrong. A known impulse in situations when well meaning feedback is taken personally, when it is easier to give advice than to sit with the discomfort. I find advice in such moments completely counterproductive (it makes me feel incompetent), but I was too caught up in the whirlwind of hosting and participating (aware of the time slipping away) to recognise what was going on while it was happening. I did what I needed to do, but not exactly in the way I was hoping to. It’s all a part of the practice…
+My conundrums about the hosting community:
+  * How can we, in this community, find a good flow between creative and receptive energies, between collective, goal-driven activities and supporting/nurturing individual members (think of the flow in the yin-yang symbol)?
+  * How can we co-create a light and clear community structure to avoid the "tyranny of structurelessness" (see quote below), allowing the group to become agile and adaptive?
+  * How do we balance the drive to hang out together and co-create new activities with the "time & money" pressure the individual members are struggling with?
+  * How can we be available, committed, reliable and punctual, so that we can enjoy "being and doing" together? So that the logistics and co-ordination tasks can be evenly and effectively distributed and exchanged, while also having time to socialise, celebrate and relax, i.e. enjoy each others' company?
 While we were cleaning up, Kathleen came back from the metro a few minutes after she left, having witnessed someone jumping under the train. This refocused everyone’s attention. Stevie and I had planned to improvise a guided meditation which didn’t happen during the Open Space, but it now it seemed more than appropriate.
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 Stevie played the hurdy-gurdy while I spoke, asking questions that I asked myself in the difficult month of June: What does distress feel like? What’s underneath this feeling? What does this difficult situation want to teach me? What does it tell me about this moment? What do I notice right now? What if I had only a year to live? A month? A day? An hour? Just a few moments? What would really matter? We closed by acknowledging the preciousness of being alive. Letting everything else fade into the background, as Stevie's sound gradually faded into silence.
-At the end of the meditation we were all shivering, with tears in our eyes. All my doubts and fears temporarily dissolved. I felt in the flow again. I sensed what was needed, poured all my intention and artistry into creating an experience through improvisation. The experience was nurturing, while I got my "fix" of compassionate leadership and improvised creativity. A flow of yin and yang, of masculine and feminine drives. Goal-driven, creative nurturing that worked.
+At the end of the meditation we were all shivering, with tears in our eyes. All my doubts and fears temporarily dissolved. I felt in the flow again. I sensed what was needed, poured all my intention and artistry into creating an experience through improvisation. The experience was nurturing, while I got my "fix" of improvised creativity. A flow of yin and yang, of masculine and feminine drives. Goal-driven, creative nurturing that worked.
 A slightly longer flow experience for me these last couple of weeks was co-authoring the [[:/future_fabulators/making_things_physical|Making things physical]] essay with Nik, Tim and Tina. I enjoyed the collaboration immensely. The topic was Physical Narratives, which Time’s Up explored more actively in the last years, but we at FoAM have done our fair share in the past. I took the lead, setup calls and proposed a structure. We discussed it, everyone made comments and we jointly made changes. Time’s Up started the first round of actual writing, sent us a draft that was about 1000 words too long, so it was our task to shorten it without losing the essence. It was a major rewrite, but I thought it was much better for it. As this was happening at the same time as the hosting gathering at the end of June, I was terrified that I had bulldozed over the text in the same way I did with too firmly framing the workshop. To my delighted surprise, the response was very positive. The article improved, and it didn’t matter who did the improving. Relieved, we spent a few more rounds of touching up and nudging the text and images until we were all satisfied. At the beginning and the end we spent time socialising and cheering over skype. There was time and space to talk about our lives, but none of our personal issues impacted the flow of the work. Our egos were left at the door and when we got onto working, the quality of the article was all that mattered. While the agreements were generally respected, there was also sufficient flexibility so that when something had to change, everyone was informed and could adapt, without stress. We finished the article three days before the deadline and could all stand behind the results.