Human to Human

It’s a moment of waiting for this BC Ferry. At Courtenay, on the way to Powell River. Hard not to get excited about such a moon rise over mountain and ocean.

I’m so grateful for a group of men gathered at Soultime. We tell stories. We sing songs. We cook food. We do deep work of the psyche and soul. We bring it back with us on the ferry to our families, to our work, and to our communities. I’ve been involved for over 15 years.

The most basic yet impactful of patterns at Soultime is reflection alone and together to the question — what is your detail? A “detail” is a noticing. Something that stands out to you. From the external story. From the internal story. From the external stimuli. From the inner wonder. There’s no wrong answer to such a question. There’s lots of gift in the permission to notice without needing to summarize. There’s a lot of gift in welcoming Life’s bigger patterns to organize our insights.

And then, a pivot to meaning and purpose. What does, or might, your noticing of that detail have to do with the life your are unfolding? Or wishing to unfold? Or struggling with?

It’s simple pattern. Repeated. That offers such rich insight. That lifts aliveness. That shares it. This time, among a Circle of Soultime Men.

Grateful.

This time on Texada Island, home to Bob and the yurt he built. Will be looking for whales from the ferry ride. And the whales and other creatures that show up in this gathering that has so moved many a heart.

I write about Soultime this way in my upcoming book, The Gifts of Circle (Fall 2024).

I’m grateful to a group of men with whom I’ve been meeting in Men’s Group for over 15 years. That’s in-person weekend retreats twice per year as able. That’s also 90-minute Zoom calls every other week, again as able. We explore together what it means to be men. We share stories. We listen. We ask questions. We create ritual. We create beauty together.

Circle is our primary container. It holds us in journeys big and small. We know how to pass a talking piece together. We know how to get past the joker that men so often employ to bond, yet that so often also blocks a craved authenticity.

We are a small, small pocket of men in a big, big pattern of meaning-making. That seeks to heal toxic wounds so often found in masculinity. We are a small, small pocket of men in big, big celebration. For who we are as men. For who we are as men with strong feminine capacity. For how we learn together about all of it.

Circle — with all of its invitations to listen and to share — has had profound influence on us as men. Freeing influence. Circle has given us structure to hold us as we connect through dreams, stories, losses, finds.

Another Shades of Life Conversation recorded here.

Exploring the importance of story. And how story can create belonging.

Thx Jerry, Kathy, and guest Janet.

Enjoy.

It’s a weekend of return. From work and friendship and family in Edmonton, the city in which I lived the first 20 years of my life, to Utah, the sweetheart and home that now opens my heart oh so fully.

Yes.

There’s a William Stafford poem that my friend Jeremy reminds me of. It’s called “Yes.” I like the way that it points to today, to what is here, oh so fully.

Yes

It could happen any time, tornado
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.

Or sunshine, love, salvation.
It could, you know. That’s why we wake
and look out — no gurantees
in this life.

But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.

Yes.

Yes to what is simple. Yes to what reminds, or creates, home. Yes to people, here now, figuring it out, sometimes in sunshine, sometimes in thick and overwhelming mud.

Yes.