Category: General Learning

I think it matters a lot these days to have contexts of ripple. Where we create ripple. Ripple of learning. Ripple of connection. Ripple of courage and clarity. It’s gentle. Yet quite clear.

I see a stone tossed into a pond. The stone has impact. The rippled waves carry and convey that impact. Sometimes it is wind that creates the ripple, that moves the water.

This week I gathered with men online — Men In Circle, that I cohost with my buddy Corry.

Our format is simple. 90 minutes. Circle-structured for check-in (presence) and for check-out (witness). And stuff in the middle.

I love the movement. I love the way this group shares bits of stories that they don’t get to share in other places. I love the way we love the showing up, and are rippled by it.

Some gems from us, attending to our healthy masculine and medicine together…

• how fear can so easily become normalized (and what that does to our bodies and those around us)
• how we hold our breath when we are scared (and often don’t know it)
• “we are all one, housed in different bodies”
• work and contribute with the scale that you’ve got
• “I am you. You are me. We are one.”
• “Catching up can wait. People need help now.”
• “Be more like still water.”
• “Their wounding is not my wounding.”

And, and. It’s great to be with people in meaningful ways. It’s great to be with men, celebrating and rippling.

This is a group you can come to once. Or many times. There is light exchange between gatherings in a Private Facebook Group. If you wish to explore, or know someone that might wish to explore, reach me. No charge. All ages.

Bring a ripple. Come ripple together.

Confluence is the coming together of things. The flowing together of things. Sometimes rivers. Sometimes important things. Sometimes systems of thought. Ideas of process. Invitations to practice together.

Got much of that happening now.

One river for me is the connection between personal and universal. A colleague and I were crafting a retreat yesterday. I was helping her craft questions that start with the personal, but then connect to the communal, and the universal. It’s good question-crafting skill. Sometimes people skip the personal — thinking, “gotta get to the real work.” Truth is, exploring the personal makes the communal that much more alive and relevant. Here’s to the courage that any of have to insist on the personal.

A second river for me is the simple that is Circle and Circle-based practice. I wrote Gifts of Circle and created a set of supporting Question Cards — get them here. Circle is the practice that has most changed me in my life and learning. Meeting with people in Circle — sometimes formally, sometimes not — is what most enriches most of my work and personal affiliations.

A third river is my Becoming & Belonging Series. And Wander School. Really all of the programing I offer is grounded in some form of Circle, Turning To One Another. I like centering these efforts on the deeper yearning that most people have, this Becoming & Belonging. Jump into that here. I’m creating. I’m looking to create with others. And to experiment my way forward with what matters most.

In my life, I’ve fought a few confluences. Some knowingly. Some unknowingly. And some confluences have arrived, just right timing, without effort. I feel like I’m in one of those now. Personal life. And some great opening in my professional life.

Grateful to the many of you that read, share, connect. Let’s keep that mystery moving.

From a collection I picked up recently.

Suddenly it is now
the trees are full of leaves again
the grass is damp
with early sun

the night
and all her dreams
are nowhere to be seen
the awakening thoughts
forgotten

light
and all the dappled shadows
we dance to

silence
and all the echoing
songs of life

emptiness
full of absent spaces
where memory
refused to lie

listening
even breathing
can be enough
to bring the whole world
to life.

I suppose the line, “Suddenly it is now” captures me. My appreciation for nowness. My body’s surrender to it.

I suppose a part of me is wishing spring. Awakening and budding from the great winter that has again left fresh overnight snow dust.

I suppose part of it is so loving “songs of life.” With my beloved. With what moves in and around us. With our upcoming marriage ceremony.

I suppose it is my love of stillness, morning practice yes, and way of being, that wakes me to a flowing nature and the joy of all that.

A new local friend / colleague spoke it last week. Marshall Opel is his name.

Marshall reached out to me to explore and connect locally. He had interest in Flow Game. His demeanor is calm. Grounded. Well-paced. Appreciative. Curious.

“It’s not reckless if you’re checked in.”

Perfect.

Marshall’s business is taking people (sometimes men’s initiatives) on multiple day bike and hiking trips in Utah and Montana. Aspects of Circle. And Ceremony. And nature. And challenge.

I asked Marshall if he ever has men of my age (62) participate. He thought for a bit, imagining some of the climbs, paths that they follow. He smiled.

That’s when he said, “It’s not reckless if you’re checked in.”

True for his circumstance. And quite true for many circumstances of life, right.

Thx Marshall.