Stewardship

When my daughter was born, her nature was evident from the first moment of meeting. Calm, present, peaceful, accepting.

My role, as her parent, was to create the space and safety for her nature to blossom into its fullness. To not mess it up.

This is the principle behind stewardship. To create and hold a space for what is most wanting to come to life, to flourish. To not dominate, or contaminate.

The act of holding the space is a sacred act. It requires an ability to tune into the person, the project, the team, and the thing that is being stewarded.

Simultaneously, to tune into the larger field into which what is being stewarded will belong.

At times, stewardship and the act of stewarding look passive. Yet it is a constant act of attentiveness.

Within its domain is the ability to be comfortable with emergence – the unexpected, the surprising, the creative. To not control, not force, not dominate.

To do this we need to relinquish our own desire to be the controller and instead to partner with the dance of emergence.

It is, by its nature, magical and mysterious. Surprising and delightful, heartbreaking and moving.

December 27th 2018

Photo taken December 27th 2018