Author: Tenneson Woolf

I’ve been creating a few new learning programs. They’ve been creating me. It’s my desire to get to the core of things, to the heart of things. And to create practice and community with that. A few holes in the plan; it will unfold. But it’s time to raise the curtain and go. I keep having this hunger. I keep seeing it in others.

At this phase of my life, I recognize the need to get to the core of things. Beneath facilitation that points to learning and accomplishment lives hunger for more fulfilling life and story. Lives hunger for becoming and belonging. Becoming more of who we are really meant to be, whatever our circumstance. Belonging to life and community in shared passion and awareness. Most of my work these days grows from this core. Most of my heart lives in invitation to explore and practice together. Most of my hope lays in helping people everywhere get to the deeper journey and to the more life-giving contribution.

Flow Group is ready to go.
1. Flow Group is a monthly small group (typically 5-6 participants), 90-minute online (Zoom) hosted experience of The Flow Game. Each participant comes with an overarching intent or question to explore. The group reflects together on question prompts from the game. We harvest insight and intuition, clarity, and connection.

Wander School is ready to go too.
2. Wander School is a monthly 90-minute online facilitated format, held mostly in Circle, and guided by questions that invite your attention on what has your attention. It is group and personal learning. It is skilled attentiveness to intuitive wisdom. It is creativity in connection. Wander School grows from this belief — “If something has your attention (in life, work, family), it likely has some medicine for you. For your inner state, for your outer conditions. For you now, or for you in your longer arc.” That medicine helps grow who you are and how you respond with depth. 

Registration is here. And links to more info.

From my heart to yours.

This book, The Exquisite Risk by Mark Nepo, has meant a lot to me going back to when it was written in 2006. Nepo’s words are compelling. His images. His stories.

And, isn’t it true that authenticity remains at the core of going with wisdom and kindness together. In relationships. In teams. In governments. In personal and communal maturation.

I’m a person that loves to scribble notes in the margin of my books. I found this book yesterday on my shelves — haven’t visited it for a while. I loved seeing a few passages important then and now.

“To my dear friends who have stayed in the conversation —
together, we somehow see into the center.”

“We cannot change the world by a new plan, project, or idea.
We cannot even change other people by our convictions, stories, advice and proposals,
but we can offer space where people are encouraged
to disarm themselves, lay aside their occupations and preoccupations
and listen with attention and care to the voices speaking in their own center.”
Henri Nouwen

“If I dare to hear you,
I will feel you like the sun
and grow in your direction.”

Megan Sheldon and her husband Johan Hoglund have created a great set of practices and learning through their organization, Being Ceremonial.

I spoke with Megan a while back about men in ceremony. About the need for micro ritual, tiny practices that bring depth.

The 3-minute clip is here. You can explore the full 45-minute conversation on their site.

If you’ve been reading here for a while, you know that healthy masculinity is both an intention and a practice that I bring. I included four chapters about men in Gifts of Circle. Men that can listen. Men that can share. Men that can slow down. Men that can appreciate nuance. Men that can be authentic. Men that can surrender. Men that can feel and intuit. Men that can appreciate and create rituals both big and small.

My buddy Cory and I have formed an every two-weeks ish Zoom group, Men in Circle. Reach me if you want to explore.

Megan has accepted my invitation to the Human to Human Podcast. Watch for that later this month. She and I are also offering a conversational hour later this spring to further explore ceremony.

Jump in.

All of this today is from my friend Katharine Weinmann (picture & Mary Oliver poem). Katharine is quoting Mary Oliver. And saying other things. Saying other things that I needed to hear this morning.

There is a kind of gloom that I feel as I watch North American politics maneuver. Watch national friendships diminish. Watch petulance rise in power. Trade wars. Physical wars.

This stuff has always been happening, true. And it will continue. But what is new is the scale?

I need poetry for this layer of scale. Many of us do. I need reminders like Katharine offers. Many of us need something that calls out the good in me and in others, even with very hard things.

Bullying power and petulance have impact on the world. They lower the bar. I prefer values and actions rooted in kindness and cooperation — that kind of warriorship is so much more needed than this adolescent downgrade.

I also need thoughtful men — glad to be gathering again tonight Men in Circle, where we have room to listen and learn. There is medicine there. We are a small group. Getting some solid legs over the last three months — reach me if you want to consider participating.

And enjoy the poem and Katharine’s words on her site.

What can I say that I have not said before?
So I’ll say it again.
The leaf has a song in it.
Stone is the face of patience.
Inside the river there is an unfinished story
and you are somewhere in it
and it will never end until it all ends.
Mary Oliver, “What Can I Say”