Gone Grillin’

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This was a delightful meal, Saturday evening, with a visiting friend at my home in Lindon, Utah. Sliced, small, golden potatoes and onions in the foil, salted, peppered, and lightly buttered. Pork chops seasoned with Montreal Steak Spice and BBQ sauce. Sliced peppers and zucchini (from my garden, picked the same day) marinated and brushed with Italian dressing. I love grilling vegetables like this. I love the freshness with the charred edges. I love the bounty in the meal and in the friendship

Though I’m not grilling each day this week, I’m taking a week off of blogging as I turn my attention to The Circle Way Practicum on Whidbey Island, Washington. I’ll be co-teaching with Amanda Fenton and convening with a really fantastic group of 24 people  in a location that is as delicious and fulfilling as the grilled meal above. I love the teachings in The Circle Way, that help us reclaim a deliberate container to be wise and thoughtful together. I love the community that forms as we dare to encounter and witness each other in story, imagination, and lended courage to go further with our respective bodies of work and interest.

Here’s to all of us in thoughtful learning and journey and friendship.

 

My First Circle — A Story by Karen Doyle Backwater

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The Circle Way Newsletter is monthly. It’s loaded with good. Story. Tips. Invitation. Connection to community. Just sign on to get it — for perusing, or to accompany a good cup of tea, or to guide your practice of convening.

This month (August) features a story by Karen Doyle Buckwalter. Karen was a participant in one of the online classes that Amanda Fenton and I hosted earlier this year. Karen is thoughtful. She’s committed to questions that shape her applied use of circle. She’s committed to supporting circles, to using circles, because, well, it just makes a big difference.

Karen’s “First Circle” was focused on the importance of self-care (in rather complex and demanding times). I love Karen’s inclusion of this line from Brianna West —

“True self-care is not salt baths and chocolate cake,
it is making the choice to build a life you don’t need to regularly escape from.”

In the way that I know of Karen, I imagine she has a lot that she could offer by way of guidance to people. She could offer some pretty good and helpful answers — she is a social worker and psychotherapist by profession. But Karen’s point in hosting the circles, three of them, was to convene the space in which participants, including herself, could be wise and thoughtful together. The Circle Way is after all, a container for such exchange to happen. It’s an organizer that helps us lean in with honesty and wisdom to find what is among us, all of us, rather than just isolated and individual forays.

I love Karen’s overarching questions for her three Saturday sessions.

  1. “What are three things you are grateful for? What do you need in your life right now to thrive?”
  2. “What part of you is calling out for healing right now? What brings you joy?”
  3. “What was most meaningful for you about our Circle and what will you take with you?”

It’s simple design. It’s powerful interaction. Thanks Karen. Read her full article in The Circle Way Newsletter.

Circle is the root of most of the convening work I do. I’ve often said, if you want to get better at all of the participative methodologies, go deeper in circle. This sentiment and practice continues to grow in me.

Join, yes, please, in the offerings. Or stay connected globally with others, growing in applied use of circle. For self care. And for a pile of other things that matter.

Get Out

Most of my life I’ve been seeking a relationship with the unseen. It’s a search on the outside and on the inside. It’s a search with succinct deliberateness and with passive roaming. It’s a search through my heart, mind, belly, and spirit. There were chapters of life in which I would have called it a search for the divine. At others times, spirit. Or, the other worlds. Or, or, or. But it has been most of my life.

I like posts like this from friend, Charles LaFond, “Go Ahead, Get Out!” Pick your own reason.

For me,

  1. it’s just thoughtful writing.
  2. it’s informed — one of Charles’ callings as been as an Episcopal Priest, and he knows a pile of history that I don’t.
  3. phrases like “lost to all but God.” This lost business is common.
  4. the courage it takes to get out. To trust. To leap into a chasm. To dare to find what is beyond the confines of so much numbedness and protection.
  5. phrases like “wound of knowledge”. There are times when I wish that I could lose myself as easily as my young teenaged son does into a video game.

Enjoy Charles’ writing. Sign on for his posts through The Daily Sip. Stay curious. Stay moved.

To Be Seen

Wise words from Marianne Williamson, American Author and Speaker.
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“Our deepest human need is not material at all: Our deepest need is to be seen. We need adventure. We need meaning. We need identity. We need love. Someone who has seen us through loving eyes has awakened us from the ranks of the formerly dead. Most people bear the terminal stress of walking the world unseen, a mere number or cog in a lifeless machine. Mystical romance is a space of resurrection and repair. It does more than help us survive a soulless world; it helps us to transform it.”
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I’m glad for the friend that sent me this passage.
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And always, to take material like this and invite some attention and inquiry. With self. With other. It’s great human sharing. It’s great for a check-in or check-out prompt.
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How have you been seen today?
How do you want to be seen?
How have you seen others?
What is the journey?
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Endless questions, right. From wise and beautiful passages.