On Being Better Humans — With Eric Bowers

 

Last week I got quite a gift. My friend and colleague Eric Bowers, shown above left on the zoom screen, invited me to an interview for his podcast on The Golden Repair.

Eric is an interesting guy. He’s an artist. A musician. A farmer. A group leader. An author. He plays a mean didgeridoo and guitar. I know Eric primarily through our connection at Soultime, a regular gathering for men’s work and men in community.

Eric recorded the program. The video is a bit wifi-challenged, but is here. If you prefer the audio only, you can download it here.

It’s a gift to be invited to reflect, which is what Eric did with me. I didn’t know the questions in advance, which is really how I prefer it. He surprised me with a few. It’s exciting to me to feel the improv-ness, the in-the-moment-ness of the encounter, the unscriptedness.

This is a long one (54 minutes). With slow-speaking. It covers a lot of territory, including some threads from my growing up years in Edmonton as a sports kid, my years in faith community when I was practicing Mormon. It carries forward to the work I do with groups and some of what I would call the fundamental issues of our times — being better humans, reclaiming an ability to live in the tensions, dislocating certainties, acknowledging the fears of our times, becoming adaptive, recognizing the medicine that men need from men, and sense-making that only comes with community.

It was fun to do, to reflect on these threads of life and work over the years. It’s some of my story, listened out of me in the moment, thanks to Eric.

I hope it might open some of your own reflecting.

 

 

Before First Light

 

Before first light,
there is a kind of joy
I feel
in being awake
in the quiet and in the dark.

Before noise comes into the day
from within me,
or from persistent scratching at windows
that is untended grief
masked by accomplished society.

When the world is quiet
I too feel invited to quiet,
to dwell with faithful companions
of unfettered and awakened heart
in undisturbed stillness.

Before noise comes,
the awareness
of dreamtime
still sips coffee with me,
to remind me of what is also true.

Before noise,
I remember,
animated, integrated,
and needed,
soul work.

Affirmational

 

Last summer, I was spending some time with a friend who was struggling. He was losing sight of his path and gifts. He was filled with doubt. He was in a lot of pain. He was lost in the tall grass, so to speak.

It was a bit difficult to watch. But, my job as friend, included helping him remember a bit more of himself. Pulling back some of the grasses. With honesty, yes. This wasn’t about fabricating sunshine. But also with affirmational support.

All of us forget. All of us need out friends to help shine a bit of light on what feels utterly lost in the shadow of personal, but is actually, quite communal and universal. I’m glad for these friends in my life.

I wrote a few words to give him. Core bits about being loved, enough, and gifted.

Funny how it works, that often, our affirmations and guidance and reminders that we offer to others, are what we need to hear for ourselves.

Rest in what is.

You are loved, just as you are.

You are enough.

You are wildly exciting
in your spirit, heart, mind, and belly.

Let go of all the chatter.

Rest in what is.

Remembered.

The Undressing — Rumi

I’m appreciating my friend and colleague Kinde Nebeker (New Moon Rites of Passage) today. She is supporting and guiding so many deep and needed layers of change.

I went to her to get some help working with grief. In the spirit of Francis Weller’s “apprenticeship with sorrow.”

Kinde hosted me through a process of listening, council / dialogue, and shamanic journey. This is the kind of work that is so much needed for many of us these days.

I’m grateful to Kinde for her knowing stuff, and for her intuition of knowing what’s helpful and when.

Kinde also offered me this poem, from the 13th century Persian poet, Rumi. To help learn the sweetness of grief.

 

The Undressing

Learn the alchemy
true human beings know.

The moment you accept
what troubles you have been given,
the door opens.

Welcome difficulty,
as a familiar comrade.

Joke with torment,
sent by the Friend.

Sorrows are old rags of clothes
and jackets that serve to cover,
and then are taken off.

This is the undressing
and the naked body underneath
is the sweetness that comes
after grief.

Rumi