Category: Tenneson Woolf Poetry

It’s Day One, with this University Leadership Cohort about to arrive. My colleagues Chris, Caitlin and I get to guide three days of program. Circle. Cafe. Open Space. Pro-Action Cafe. Chaos & Order, Four-Fold Path, The Work. And a bunch of things that live in between.

On a morning like this, sun not yet risen, tucking in a few last details, before heading to the venue,I find I often want to remember values that guide me in the work. Values that anchor and animate clarity of purpose and opportunity.

I often put these into my private journal. Here’s sharing some of that for today, in a bit of prosed form.

So much to learn.
So much to encounter. 
Listen for the needed truth of the day,
the story of our jobs,
and
the bigger story of humans claiming who we get to be together.

Pay attention 
to the flow 
of just the right things 
arriving at just the right time.

Do good.

Day One. Here we go.

I’m learning. Just right. An important life story. 
It’s an operating system. Personalized indeed. But not just for me.

It’s this.

I have to move with yes energy.
Yes to self.
Yes to circumstance.
Yes to life flowing.
Yes to learning of hard things.
Yes to acting, taking steps in the inherent mess, but also in the inherent beauty.

This is different than all the no energies.
Including many of my favorites.
This is different than moving with fear or to prevent fear.
This is different that moving with failure or to prevent failure.

At the core,
trusted belly and trusted people in my life
have been guiding.

Trust life to flow.
And flow with it. 

Surprise and magic
then have a way of showing up and growing.
And laughing. And delighting.

Yes, learning.

A story to guide most of the other stories.
A story to enjoy and carry and live everywhere.

It’s true that companioning has been top of my list of profound experience over the last year and a half. So much learned, of love, in new form. So much celebrated, of together, in both simple and profound ways. This moving of the heart — what delightful surrender. This weekend, cheese fondue. And kayak paddle. Cheers D.

Yup, so, just sayin’. Companioning matters on many layers. This weekend highlighted a particular kind that I’m glad to carry into this week.

This companioning,
what sweetness.

This going together,
what opening.

This creating together,
what wonder.

This life flowing,
what joy.