The guide begins here.

Hey Everyone! I’m happy you landed here.

Like many great adventures, the route I took to arrive at this moment

(where I’m actually sitting down to create a blog to host my work on my Masters of Education in Sustainability, Creativity and Innovation project, EEK I can’t believe it!!)

has been decades in the making, and is evolving even as I write these words.

This work is deeply interconnected to my roots as an eldest daughter of German-Polish-Dutch homesteaders who arrived in Southern Alberta with hope in their hearts and a tenacious spirit for working together to create a life with purpose and playfulness.  

This blog will be a guidebook, curated for those of you who are beginning to step into leading and working in ways that makes use of our deep interconnectedness and imagination.

For those of you who know in your bones that true solutions and innovations come from dreaming together and tapping into our collective intelligence. It is designed with the purpose of strengthening your learning for facilitating genuine, meaningful dialogue practices to address increasingly complex problems in a polarized world.

This guidebook is designed to help facilitators:

• Embrace the mess: Get comfortable with complexity, uncertainty, and the constant changes we all face.
• Lead with confidence: Develop the courage and skills to tackle challenges that don’t have easy answers.
• Build stronger relationships: Foster stronger teams and partnerships within your group.
• Unlock hidden talents: Broaden the skill set within your group, so everyone feels valued and empowered.
• Make work more enjoyable: Create a more effective and enjoyable work environment for everyone.
• Spark meaningful conversations: Engage your team, organization, and community in dialogues that build resilience, foster a sense of belonging, and drive real, lasting change.

This is a living document

My intention is to roll out the guide book in a series of blog posts over the next two-ish months. This deadline aligns with the completion of my Masters of Education in Sustainability, Creativity and Innovation from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. This blog and website were created to host the project titled Sustaining Emergence.

An Ocean of Gratitude

This blog-guidebook wouldn’t exist without the incredible work of many thinkers, writers, activists, and artists who have inspired me throughout my nearly two-decade career as an educator, facilitator, and non-profit leader. I’m deeply grateful for their contributions.

In particular, I’m grateful to the Art of Hosting (AoH)/Art of Participatory Leadership (AoPL) community. This amazing group of humans shifted the course of my life & teaching career in 2017. They’re dedicated to helping us all respond to the challenges of our time with more agility, creativity, and collaborative spirit. It’s the most important community of practice in my life and it continues to shape my work.  

This blog-guidebook reflects some of the core assumptions and worldviews of the AoH/AoPL community. It also incorporates the latest learnings and methodologies from practitioners around the globe. You’ll also find valuable transdisciplinary facilitation resources and materials curated by me, and my mentors, colleagues and friends.

Proper attribution is given throughout & on a reference page linked here.

Are you ready to dive in?