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Category: Tenneson Woolf Poetry

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Deep Invitation

I had one of those nights that wasn’t all sleep. The sleep was good, when I slept. And about 4:00 I woke with lots of ideas and dreams coming to call on me.

It’s regular practice for me to journal. To catch some of those ideas and dreams. And over the last five years, the form of that journalling has become quite prosed. Truth is, it just helps me to see it better. Not that different than the seeing better that many of us find in images. Or pause. Or sound. Or…

For inspiration.

This is a time 
when I’m called 
to live more deeply 
into the values that I so espouse for and with others.

A season,
of courageous listening and practice,
of aspirations and clarity that lift
life and love.

It’s not too surprising 
that I, or anyone seeking to live alive and awake,
would feel such times of change and challenge.

Kindness seeks kindness.
Consciousness organizes with consciousness.
Mystery wants to play with mystery.

Perhaps Life is working me and us,
or playing me and us, 
or inviting me and us.

Or just doing what Life does,  
what it can’t not do,
like the sun does what the sun does,
and like the river does what the river does.

What a delightful miracle
to feel aliveness,
alone and with others,
in this continued unfolding
of deep invitation.

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Invitations from Crocus

Fun to see the Crocus arriving,
as it is every year.

They are the first of the flowering bulbs in my garden
that find their way to blossom.

They hold my attention,
inviting a bit of wonder,
and beauty.

They invite my commitment,
to a day of wonder
and beauty,

in the things on my calendar,
and to the unplanned spaces between.

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What of the Loudness?

My offering today is another expression of relationship between “quiet” and “loud.” It is true for me that the world often feels loud. That it overlooks a contemplative way that I so love, and that it overlooks an “emptied” experience.

I doubt that this will change much. So, I return myself to how I orient myself, my sometimes denied inner loudness, to live as a kind human being, contributing in what I hope are mostly good ways. I don’t like the competitiveness that can live in loudness. The way that loudness hijacks the game, or the life path.

And so I keep noticing, sometimes through poetic form.

What of the Loudness?

I suppose it is true
that an inherent quietness lives within me.
That I seek to enjoy the slow turns
that honor transitions, blending one soft now to the next.

What of the loudness?

But then it is also true
that there is a normed loudness in the world that defaults to provocation.
That persists with volume,
that aligns with amplification, 

There is the loudness of circumstance.
It is world’s news of this and of that, real things,
that exceed a human capacity to attend,
and thus is so often elevated to categorical extremes.

What of the loudness?

There is the loudness of people doing what people do.
It is the passion for this and of that, real things,
people in varied causes,
shouting over needed distinctions of yours and ours.

What of the loudness?

And then there is the loudness that is deeply and personally within me.
It is the hope of this and that, real things,
that brings forward long buried fears,
silenced voice that lives under old hurts.

What of the loudness?

I suppose it is true that like many others,
I am coming to terms with the loudness in me
that wishes witness,
and companionship with that sweet beautiful quietness.

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Living Beautifully

One of the narratives that I most appreciate from Fire & Water, the Rite of Passage program that Quanita Roberson and I created, is the narrative that invites wisdom and soulfulness. I appreciate it because it lifts up a fruitful way of being. Because it points to a reality of the human condition — that we are more than the narrowed stories and distortions of contemporary pattern. That we are meant to open our hearts and to welcome life and love to live with and through us.

This book above by Pema Chodron, Living Beautifully With Uncertainty and Change, remains one of the most helpful books I have encountered. It helps me to live with more wisdom and more soulfulness. It helps me to do so in many circumstances. It helps me to grow inner courage and practice that I can then invite with others — be that in friendships, in teams, in committees, in formal organizational leadership, and in everyday acts of common participatory leadership.

Pema’s energy (I know her through words and voice; not through meeting her personally) inspire me to find simple clarities that help navigate paths of uncertainty learning and of change learning. It isn’t resolved problems. Rather it is real-time principled continuances and clarity, including these words that I wrote in my journal this morning.

Have courage.
Act on it, even if in the smallest of ways.

Welcome blessing.
That which arises to move from one step to the next.
From one moment of being to another.

Live flow.
There is life that so adores each of us.

What a thing to be alive in these times. Living with what is sometimes the deep and painful churning, and then also with the sweet claiming.

Pema Chodron finishes Living Beautifully with this paragraph:

“May we all learn that pain is not the end of the journey, and neither is delight. We can hold them both — indeed hold it all — at the same time, remembering that everything in these quixotic, unpredictable, unsettled and unsettling, exhilarating and heart-stirring times is a doorway to awakening in a sacred world.”

May it be so. Fruitfully. And beautifully.

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Gifts of Circle - Question Cardsasd
Gifts of Circle is 30 short essays divided into 4 sections: 1) Circle's Bigger Purpose, 2) Circle's Practice, 3) Circle's First Requirements, and 4) Circle's Possibility for Men. From the Introduction: "Circle is what I turn to in the most comprehensive stories I know -- the stories of human beings trying to be kind and aware together, trying to make a difference in varied causes for which we need to go well together. Circle is also what I turn to in the most immediate needs that live right in front of me and in front of most of us -- sharing dreams and difficulties, exploring conflicts and coherences. Circle is what I turn to. Circle is what turns us to each other."

Question Cards is an accompanying tool to Gifts of Circle. Each card (34) offers a quote from the corresponding chapter in the book, followed by sample questions to grow your Circle hosting skills and to create connection, courage, and compassionate action among groups you host in Circle.

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In My Nature is a collection of 10 poems. From A Note of Beginning: "This collection of poems arises from the many conversations I've been having about nature. Nature as guide. Nature as wild. Nature as organized. I remain a human being that so appreciates a curious nature in people. That so appreciates questions that pick fruit from inner being, that gather insights and intuitions to a basket, and then brings the to table to be enjoyed and shared over the next week."

This set of Note Cards (8 cards + envelopes)  quotes a few favorite passages from poems in In My Nature. I offer them as inspiration. And leave room for you to write personal notes.

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Most Mornings is a collection of 37 poems. I loved writing them. From the introduction: "This collection of poems comes from some of my sense-making that so often happens in the morning, nurtured by overnight sleep. The poems sample practices. They sample learnings. They sample insights and discoveries. They sample dilemmas and concerns."

This set of Note Cards (8 cards + envelopes)  quotes a few favorite passages from poems in Most Mornings. I offer them as inspiration. And leave room for you to write personal notes.

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