Toke Paluden Moeller from Art of Hosting: Learning to Be a Good Democratic Citizen
Are you feeling the roller coaster of emotions after the inauguration as so many are? How are you going to cultivate yourself as a democratic citizen going forward? How can we educate citizens who believe in working together, taking care of each other, and yes, listening to one another?
I have the tears and shedding of all the trauma I didn’t know my nervous system was holding today.
I feel the grief at the many lives lost to Covid and the desire to blame.
I feel utter glee that a woman, and a woman of color, is the VP of the United States.
I feel relief as the executive orders roll in that are about rehumanizing and caretaking.
I feel hope, always hope, that we can learn our way out of anything (typing this line made the tears roll down my cheeks).
What I know is creating hope requires our own devotion, a brave and courageous devotion, to our consciousness, self-responsibility, and growth. This is not a call for growth rooted in righteous shaming or moral superiority.
This is a call for growth rooted in a deep love for our shared humanity.
After the capital building was attacked by domestic terrorists, I had the honor to interview one of the early creators of Art of Hosting from his home in Denmark, Toke Paluden Moeller, for the Sidewalk Talk podcast. For me, speaking to those older, wiser, and not peddling “the rules for living” and “their coaching masterclass” on social media, but elders who hold a wise grasp on a wide and deep lens of what it means to be a democratic citizen has been how I have made it through the last eighteen months.
I decided I had to share with you this dialogue before it goes live today. Toke is subtle so huddle in close. When you listen deeply to someone who has been cultivating their consciousness for as long as Toke has you get a transmission, good vibes, wisdom through osmosis. Don’t listen for answers. Listen to receive his spirit, his energy into your being, ok?
See the interview below or access it on the Sidewalk Talk YouTube Channel Here.
I feel proud and humbled to be just at the beginning of learning in several communities, how to be a good democratic citizen. Everything prior, I learned from capitalism and top-down power structures. They were inhumane lenses. Perhaps my own spirit called me to the sidewalk to heal that division in me: the machine-like way and the embodied, connected, earth-based, and multigeneration human way.
Toke is pretty fierce at the end of the dialogue. He encourages that we Sidewalk Talk Listeners must continue cultivating ourselves and press on in our listening practice. Every consciousness cultivating project is doing their own small piece of the work needed for the whole world to heal. We all must do our small part to help humans cultivate their consciousness and learn our way out of this mess together. Listening is our small part.
We can be homo brutalis or homo sapiens. The only thing that has allowed humans to not get eaten by predators was our ability to work together, according to Toke.
I send gratitude to the Art of Hosting Community, to Toke Paluden Moeller, Sarah Huang, Building Belonging, the work of Deep Democracy, the Sidewalk Talk Racism Listening Circle, and Randi Buckley and her work around boundaries as values and the holding space of my Deep Cohort.
I am devoted to my own practice of growth as a democractic citizen. I am on fire for more listening practice. I have been at it for over twenty years and feel an utter beginner at this moment spending time with the folks above.
It is an utter joy to dance with intellectual humility every day, an utter thirst for growth, and at the same time a new clarity of what I stand for and my unique gifts. These shits in me have called on me to;
Facilitate more than solve.
Decentralize more than control.
Participate more than act.
Cultivate more nervous system resilience.
Remain in the liminal unknown.
Messily co-create in larger diverse community spaces, rather than alone.
Uphold boundaries to support my values-focused living, not to reject or punish.
Learn the need for routine and filling my cup.
Devote myself to meditation and consciousness practice every dang day. ( I do this every day on Instagram LIVE if you ever want to join me here at 6am PT/ 9am ET / 3pm CET).
Offer my talents with embodied confidence, not arrogance.
Hear others with my whole heart and companion them.
Now it is your turn. Share in the comments your list for cultivating your own democractic citizenship?
Some gratitudes: I am so grateful for all those who have given input into Sidewalk Talk’s new HEAR with Heart training. Over 200 people have piloted and weighed in. It looks very different than how it started. Like a baby now fully grown. We are so proud of HEAR. I am so proud of HEAR.
If you feel called to cultivate your citizenship through listening:
To loosen up the parts of you that have you judge or emotionally react to people
To resource your nervous system
To work with your bias and assumptions
To gain better cross-cultural nuance
To become a person who is receiving and showing hospitality
To practice in an 11-week community of friendship and belonging led by a wise facilitator
We are proud to serve the community with HEAR by Sidewalk Talk.
This 11-week practice was gestated on the sidewalk, birthed in the redwood forests of California, and nurtured into being in community. We ask for an exchange of your livelihood in exchange for ours. This work supports both our facilitator’s livelihood and our many other FREE offerings. This is the first cohort price. It is $379 ($35 per group meeting). We will offer another cohort in May at $579 ($53 per group meeting). We will always offer scholarships (email Hear@Sidewalk-Talk.org for more scholarship info).
