I love these images of mirroring and reflection. They are from Southern Utah. Photographed in early December. While I was with my 23 year-old son. I love the stillness in them. I love how easy it is to get lost in the reflection off of the lake, in momentary wonder of what is real and what is illusion, what is up and what is down.
Yesterday I was with a group of ten people that I met in 2017 at The Circle Way Practicum. These are all participants from that gathering that I co-convened with Amanda Fenton. They have been meeting regularly for over three years online. First, monthly. Eventually, dropping back to quarterly. I join when I can. To be in company.
Yesterday’s circle on Zoom, was largely about reflecting and mirroring. It was 90 minutes. It was some sweet and beautiful framing offered by two participants, Joy and Joan, including a poem, In Sweet Company, by Margaret Wolff. The line that most moved me, “In sweet company, I am home at last.” And then it was the ten of us speaking a bit of ourselves into the center. In sweetness. In realness. In wonder. Finding ourselves in the story of others. Finding others in our own stories. Finding ourselves in our own story.
And then it was time to check-out. With no more words. Just a gesture. Just some presence. Just some gratitude.
I found myself so animated in something simple, yet so profoundly impactful in circle. Circle welcomes us to find sweet company with others. I would suggest that because of all that mirroring and reflecting we even find sweet company in ourselves, and home at last. Or, as I am so learning, sweet company with mystery, and home at last. Sweet company with life itself, and home at last.
Margaret Wolff’s full poem is here (thanks Joy Onyschak for sharing).
In Sweet Company
We sit together and I tell you things.
Silent, unborn, naked things
that only God has heard me say.
You do not cluck your tongue at me
or roll your eyes,
or split my heart into a thousand pieces
with words that have little to do with me.
You do not turn away because you cannot bear to see
your own unclaimed light shining in my eyes.
You stay with me in the dark.
You urge me into being.
You make room in your heart for my voice.
You rejoice in my Joy.
And through it all, you stand unbound
by everything but the still small voice within you.
I see my future Self in you.
Just enough to risk
moving beyond the familiar.
Just enough to leave the familiar in the past
where it belongs.
I breathe you in and I breathe you out
in one luxurious and contented sigh.
In sweet company I am home at last.