With so many things CoVid related, circumstances can change multiple times within a half day’s time. So much is fast, yet slow too, as people adapt. I’m home. I’m reaching out to both clients and family with support. I’m writing. “We don’t need to figure it all out; just be with it.” I remind myself.
I’m glad for this poem below by Lionel Philippe, a friend from the Soultime Men’s group gathering Fall 2019. With his permission, I post it below. He wrote it after the three days spent together at Soultime as a group of eleven, among trees.
Because in these days of CoVid change, we should speak of intimacies, and of things that move our hearts, and of meaning that congeals, and rests with us, right?
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A Circle of Men
by Lionel Philippe
Eleven men, meeting in a circle, on an island, in the middle of a hut
Brothers, companions, fathers and sons
Story tellers and shamans
Leaders without followers, followers without leaders
Stories of men, shared and held in the presence and silence of men
Delicate tenderness and strength between men
Men at heart and men with heart
Men that love and men that cry
Men that laugh and men that dance
Men that celebrate and men that honor
No first, no last, just a circle of men
The sum of the whole is not equal to the sum of each individual; it is much more
There is an invisible and powerful synergy within this circle that unifies and connect each man
There is something real, special, something magic here
The fuck, the shit, the tears and laughters, the deep and the shallow, everything is there
The silence of men holding the presence of each man
The talking stick holding with reverence our stories, thousands of them
Strong and delicate to our touch, it is moving from one man to the other, being just a witness
It supports each of us in being able to unwrap our stories, our hopes, fears, shames, struggles, anger, laughs, wonders and all the rest.
