Human to Human: Blog and Podcast • Tenneson Woolf

February 13, 2019

High Heat

Heat. High heat.

Heat can be painful. Nobody likes to be burned by the kitchen stove, or the spattering from the fry pan. Heat can also grow things. Like the sun heat that brings seeds forth from spring ground, and delights us with a patch of radishes later in the summer.

In the online class of The Circle Way, it’s my co-convener and friend Amanda Fenton that shared, “The higher the heat of the meeting (or topic, or issue), the more circle components that are needed.”

I always love this orientation. Amanda is one who lives circle as much as anyone that I know. And she’s naming a difference, both in types of environment (everything from a casual exploration in which everyone knows they get a chance to speak, to conflict laden historical issues in which you’re not sure anyone will speak, nor if there will be anything more than tensions lobbed at individuals), and in skills of the people (from those who resist methodology to those that know circle in their bones, and are ready to sit for hours).

Circle is a container. Or as one recent participant in the same online class shared, a nest. I often find myself saying that circle is, on the one hand, a methodology (a convening tool, an important skill), and on the other hand, a way of being (an irrepressible commitment to a form that knits and makes connection visible).

“Heat,” I would add, is not a failure, as if you / we have done something wrong. Heat, rather, is inevitable. Because we live in times in which we are perhaps defined not by the difficulty that we avoid, but rather, by the ability we have to learn with integrity, together, in any of the heat that comes with living in these transforming times.

Heat comes from conflict. Or tension. Or disagreement. Or hurt feelings. Or intensity. Or deadlines. Or complexity. Ability to be skillful in the heat grows with application of circle. It’s the components that Amanda and I speak to in the class. For example, having principles in place that remind us to rely on wholeness (funny, my auto correct function in this editor just changed “rely” to “relay” — relay wholeness ain’t bad either). Or it’s having practices in place that remind us to listen with attention, because, such a practice is lifelong and for all of us. Or, it’s other components from the comments wheel, that are long-tested and lived as ways that help with the heat.

I’m glad for these components that give me courage, or sometimes, less fear. I’m also glad for 20 years worth of learning circle that have helped me to be in many heated places, with some inclination of what might help us not just reduce fear, but welcome the unique gift of heat.

February 12, 2019

Quiet Mind; Open Heart (with Ram Dass)

Photo by Amanda Fenton

Ram Dass is an American Spiritual Teacher, former academic and clinical psychologist. He’s 87. He’s one who has bridged western and eastern ways of knowing.

A friend, Joan Hitchens, recently recommended a Ram Dass book to me, “Walking Each Other Home: Conversations About Loving and Dying.” I’m interested because, well, aren’t we all seeking love, perhaps loving. And, well, aren’t we all dying.

I notice that I am sipping this book. Sometimes picking it up to read just a paragraph. And then giving myself permission to let those few words abide in me.

Here’s an example of a sip:

If I’m going to die, the best way to prepare is to quiet my mind and open my heart.
If I’m going to live, the best way to prepare is to quiet my mind and open my heart.

I love the contrast that calls for the same action and practice.

I remain a person committed to giving attention to the thing behind the thing behind the thing. It’s rather irrepressible in me. Sometimes it’s fun. Sometimes it’s really hard. Sometimes it feels philosophical. Most of the time it feels utterly and essentially on the ground.

It is my belief and experience that groups too, seek the deeper paths together. Groups too, seek meaning and purpose together. Groups too, sense that there is more to what is happening than what is happening. The language in groups is often more obscured, but I don’t think the desire is. The complexity is often more intense, but I don’t think the essential impulse is.

Groups too, seek process, to quiet mind and open heart. Groups too, seek healing beyond default pattern.

That’s my story. I’m sticking to it.

February 11, 2019

Pay Attention to Everything

(photo by KSL News)

I love the Zen phrase — “Everything is connected. Everything changes. Pay attention.” It guides me in my personal life. It guides me in work with groups. It guides me when I need to drive in a snow storm, which is what happened last night upon my return to Salt Lake City’s International Airport.

Truth be told, I kind of like the feeling of needing to pay attention to the whole system of things. I like it that it matters. And, truth be told, I kind of like the feeling of activating my Canada driving skills to carry me from the airport to my home, a 45 mile drive.

Fast forward — made it last night. All good. And to be clear, if I felt it needed, I would have stayed with a friend in Salt Lake City to wait out the storm until day light. I also feel that I should knock on wood — to continue to invoke providence and good luck in the circumstances in which there is no such thing as “control.”

Pay attention to everything — here’s a bit of what that looked like for me last night.

Wear my boots; not my shoes (which I’d packed with me knowing this storm was a likelihood).
Wear my coat; have my gloves and hat ready (vulnerability is great, but being without gloves is just stupid).
Check the weather app for forecasts at the time I land; yikes, it was 80-90% chance of snow (and visibility was very low, looking out my airplane window).
Notice how long it would have been snowing; did it just start or had it been going on for hours (new circumstance or old pattern).
In riding the “Economy Lot Shuttle” to get to my car, ask the driver who I am standing next to, what he knows about the roads (he was 60s ish man originally from Idaho, and spoke simply — “When you have trouble breathing, it’s cold. Same thing when it’s hot.” That wasn’t super helpful, but it was endearing. The snow was falling heavily as he drove. The cars in the parking lot had 4-5 inches of snow on them.
Check the current temperature. It is above or below freezing? It will make a difference on whether ice is forming on the roads or if we are just dealing with the snow.

Now I’m in my car. The wind is blowing slightly. Flakes of snow are large and remind me of Star Trek movies and what the stars look like moving at warp speed. It’s actually really beautiful, as is the quiet that only comes with snow.

Keep paying attention.

There remains slush on the road. That’s a good sign, as long as it doesn’t get to freezing soon.
Keep ample distance from others for extra room to do everything slowly. No sudden stops. No frivolous lane changes. When I say ample, I mean like 10-20 car lengths.
Watch others’ brake lights. If they brake, tap my own to learn from what I can’t see but what they may be seeing ahead of me.
Feel the road. Are my tires making good contact. (I do have newish winter tires for these purposes).
Watch extra for the highest elevation, “Point of the Mountain” where there is most often more snow.
Watch for vehicles pulled off to the side (do they need help, and, those might be extra tricky spots).
Listen to the radio report on road conditions; then turn it off so that I can hear the road more carefully.

And a few more things.

Pay attention — everything is connected.

I made it last night. Grateful. It was a trip of 20-40 miles per hour rather than 70-75.

Judy Brown wrote a poem that I often use, called “Fire,” in which she includes an invitation to learn about groups the way we learn about tending fires.

“When we are able to build
open spaces
in the same way
we have learned
to pile on the logs,
then we can come to see how
it is fuel, and absence of the fuel
together, that make fire possible.”

I feel something similar about learning about groups (and self) from what we learn about paying attention, exquisitely, to snowy road conditions.

When we are able to pay attention
to each other and to groups
in the same way
we have learned
to connect everything
when driving in a snow storm,
then we can come to see how
it is connection, and more nuanced connection,
that make wholeness possible.

Pay attention to everything. I hope to continue to learn to both give myself to this connected reality, and to surrender to it, skillfully, to the much greater unseen that requires us to be in connection, and attention, and change.

February 7, 2019

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.