Author: Tenneson Woolf

Another harvest poem from a recent check-in circle in FL. It came after a teaching offered by Teresa Posakony on the birth and death of organization systems. Beautiful again. The words of participants when asked, “What makes you tremble?” and “Where do you stand?” I love the many entries in these words to the work that matters in our hearts, be it in FL or in other places of community and work.

The Place of Tremble

The place of tremble beyond right doing and wrong doing: I will meet you there.

Aware with attention, callin’ it back to center.
No need for a bender — just the mentor in the center.
Listen. Breath. How cool is that!

Sharin’ voice. Sharin’ choice. Sharen Joy.
Other council fires burned before ours, for hours.

I’m in the vision. I fear the rejection, the detection of my own judgment.

Out of the cave of like-minded people to the wave of new, seein’ my bein’.
In the magic of the profoundly open.
Is there danger in the stranger? Perhaps better in a manger.

Thirty years later in the land of gator,
so entrenched — views, words, labels.
Can we foster vision in the people?
Ownin’ it. No bemoanin’ it. Growin’ vision.

Shimmie on the bridge. Do I have the strength in my base to dance the curve?
I did the most horrible things, whispering my truth in the ear of my ex, among many in difference.

My passion makes me tremble.
Can we just get on better with each other, sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers.

Trusting in the bridges of possibility born on busses that plunged unknowingly.
In chunnels, tunnels, funnels of absolute authenticity.

Do we have the courage to let fall away?
The mired and the tired. Why are we holding on, we spirits in human form?

Am I really changin’? Can I trust my self, my self?
Trustin’ in the right place to be free.

I have visions. Is it real? Am I alone? Alone in this tone?

I think it’s tiiime we learn how to swim.
Gonna be a dolphin.
Letting go to the place of no story, trustin’ my dolphin muscles.
Knowing choice, choice in my voice.

When someone close dies, and goes away — that’s change.
I would like a place just as it seems.
No thinkin’. No red meat.
We have the will, but oh those snickers are good.

If I ain’t trembling, I tremble.
What if I forget?

Can I come to still?
What is the under this in unlearning? Grounded on my feet, and workin’.

I’ve always done work. What the hell am I doing?
Those old methods don’t work for me anymore.
No more fixin’. Just leap and float.

The ecstacy of near death has been with me all of my life.
What do you mean, no!
Ecstacy, frustration, anger, cry, laugh.

I can’t split. But I can walk back and forth
on rope bridges in Ireland lookin’ for birds above salmon.

I was in the bathroom, takin’ care.
It’s up to me – really – every day.
Awesome, fearsome.

I’m at the no point of every point,
trembling in the sacred, that wholeness.

Those toes, my toes, blistered and callused because I use them.

I wonder where that new flow is going.
I wonder with no blunder.

I saw these systems going away —
like unfolding flowers, showing it is possible.

Can’t be a hero of a story that your own creed created.
What if it were a new story altogether, the old that we’ve had all along in the new?

In another life, I thought I was bringing in change.
What if all organizations have soul?
Can we bring this back? What woud it mean to fail in soul?

It’s a new place. Bring my heart as I bend the curve.
Making the heart. That is my start.

I care about spirit and contributing when moved — this is my groove.

I’ve decided to be a voice for families of the future.
Living in the now, this how, not knowing where we’re going.
But knowin’ we could do better.
Kids deserve it. Our future. Knowin’ we can do better.

A harvest poem I harvested from a recent lovely circle in FL. It may not be true, but it is how I remembered it. The circle was hosted deliciously by Holly Masturzo. Literally — the talking piece was a FL orange. It was on the last day of a four day Art of Hosting training on Applied Practice in Change Leadership. This was a check-in circle, a circle of beauty, honesty, tenderness — human beings together in deep friendship and work. Each phrase takes me back to those who spoke and to the feeling of community and the commitment to work in a way that matters.

What is Ripe in You?

To the deeper essence — no pretence.
Embraced in the gravitational field.
Thanks and love to fierce Finn.

In and out at the same time.
With courage to live in the question without looking over my shoulder.

Embodied redemption — no exemption.
In heart, soul, body — living in the transforming.

I’m ripe in my silence. In beauty, churning and learning.

Hearing the Indian man chanting, I’m ripe for gravity.

I’m opening another aperture through hugs from my friends, and speaking my language,
knowin’ seeds, deeds of the heart.
Becoming me in becoming you.

Juuuuiiiicccyyy as Jiiiilllllll are these seeds.
I have people. I have people.
Greetin’ the next century breathing.

I’m a councilor but never thought the group could be so powerful.
Wow! What is this? Hmmm.
There really is power in the group and the people every day.

Sweet, the treat, feelin’ a day in two minutes.
Profound intimacy in the circle of meeting anew.

Cookin’ — ready to nurture in my family and in my self.

Lookin’ at Lina and seein’ it grow.
It? Shit! It? Friendship. Friendfull.

I’m missing my wife today. You remind me of her.
We so desparately need to bring the divine feminine, restoring wholeness, in men and women.

There is no wonder in the problem. I’m shifting to the dream.
The dream in the team of bigger, bigger, bigger.

As people laugh, I stretch my listening.
Even when I can’t hear, I see the glistening
of the blue sky and the simplicity of the rain.

Possibility is ripe. No hype. Keepin’ it in sight
this journey of being human, being spirit
renews my wonder to keep goin’, to keep seein’.

Sucked in as a newbee. Who knew!
New words embracing me as I cry out my sharing in this real world.

Tiiime for this girl to start swimmin’
in my joy and in my sadness.
My motion is to the ocean — being me. The gift of being me.

The utter beautiful power of love to create
at the core of the soar.

In the whiff of orange oil, I now know things I never heard of 15 years ago.
I’m holdin’ the course, even through broken teeth in the mountains and rivers.
Not just me. Remindin’ of my unity in community.

Hmmm. No words to give for this gift.
This looking in your eyes to the skies
of hope and all that is possible.
Willin’ to laugh and wiggle.

Keep practicin’. Keep learnin’. Even in the turnin’.
With people, I’m practicin’ being curious.

At Hope Community Center, we know what are people suffer from.
We know about living in the past and the present.
We can stop that in our presence.

I was invited here. To find out about others that are building like this.
To inspire and conspire.
I’m happy. Followin’ my heart, my part in the start.

What keeps coming is courage — time for me to show up.

I’m into the stuff that isn’t sexy. That’s sexy.
I’m not always drawn to the flesh and the juice.
But I am drawn to what feeds me, to what seeds me.
Just the rind.

I’m offering a piece. Without lease.
Back to my start of the dolphin.
Maybe I’m ready to get out of the chaos.

I’m back.
And I’m ripe now.
Through my heavy load, seein’ this place in my core that is spotted and has me not breathin’.
I’m into the space, into the space.
Breathin’ hurts.
Breathin’ helps.
Keep breathin’.
Keep showin’ up.

I love this photo of another way to create an OS market place.

From Nancy White on the OS List.

An initiative in Utah through the Salt Lake Center for Engaging Community. An invitation from Executive Director, John Kesler, as well as the text that has been broadly endorsed in the state. What I appreciate in this is the dedication it takes to create a document and invite support for it. Where I have most interest is now in the “how” of this happening. Bringing the guidelines to life in real-time practice and conversation.

Dear supporters of the Civility and Community Initiative,
If you were not able to make it to the Dialogue on Democracy gathering a couple of weeks ago, we were able to announce endorsement of the statement by the executive and judicial leadership of the State as well as the Utah State Bar and the Salt Lake Interfaith Roundtable.
We are hoping to obtain a joint resolution of support from the Utah State Legislature when the Legislature convenes in January, and in the mean time will be going after endorsement by the editorial boards of the major media in Utah.
The goal is then to pursue a handful of demonstration projects during 2009, and find ways to make a real impact after that. Future convening includes monthly meetings.

Download one-page document here.