#thecircleway • Tenneson Woolf

January 11, 2017

Men In Circle

This article was posted on The Circle Way website. I’ve also uploaded a PDF version here.

It starts with a drum beat, often. Eleven of us, all men, aged between late 30s and mid 70s, standing together around a three foot diameter drum suspended before us. We each have a drum stick, which we begin to use together in simple, collective beat. The drum itself has a story of where it came from, just as we eleven each have a story of where we came from, that we are eager to explore in this semi-annual retreat. “We” includes those that work in regular 9:00 – 6:00 jobs. Some are retired from 30-40 years of career, and wondering what is next. Some now volunteer with local communities. Some are fathers, and sons. There is ceremony in this drumming together, in this beginning. It feels natural and potent. We are gathered for men’s work, which will have many aspects to it. Circle and it’s premises will help us shift from social connection to a deep listening group of men together.

Circle will help us find our stories together. Get past an initial not knowing what to say with each other. A bit like an oxygen mask restores what our autonomous nervous system knows to do — breath and restore circulation. We will pass a talking piece. Many times over three days together. Each of us will have opportunity to share, to think out loud. Each of us will have opportunity to witness and do what is long forgotten for many, yet so needed. We will debunk a pervasive mythology that we are alone in our stories, and that we should carry them in separateness. Alone in our suppressed emotions. Alone in our not knowing how to return to what American poet and author, Robert Bly calls “original radiance.”

From many experiences over the last twenty years (in most, 25% men and 75% women), I havelearned that men want to be thoughtful together. Whether in men’s work, or in the contemporary lives of leadership as doctors, lawyers, government officials, educators, mechanics, plumbers and such. It’s just a story that men don’t want to share, or can’t share. Men want to share openly. Men have much to contribute.

My friend and colleague Quanita Roberson started a project a few years ago that demonstrated this yearning that men have to contribute. Her project started as a a few bits of advice to gift to a thirteen year old boy, but then turned into a book. She asked me and 65 other men, “What do you wish someone would have told you when you were 13?” The men she asked ranged from their 20s to 70s, were born and raised in eleven different countries, and were from diverse stages of life, artistry, spirituality and sexual orientation.

Says Quanita, “What struck me most in their responses was how generous and thoughtful they were in sharing their wisdom with me, and therefore with Jason, a boy that only one of them knew. In the questioning, and their answering, I realized that we [as contemporary society] are asking men for everything but their wisdom, and that they are desperate to share it. There is something in them that knows this wisdom is needed now. There is something in them that knows our boys are lost without it. Maybe some of them have been lost without it as well.”

Wise together. It’s different than wise alone. There may not be a drum in the room. But there will always be the possibility of a circle. Men, joining with women, people joining together, to be wise. Many men, but gladly not all, have just forgotten form in a way that many woman have not. We’ve forgotten how helpful it can be to slow down to listen with ample pauses. To include silence as part of our speaking. To just feel, not fix. To elder each other into a presence and ability to stand in today’s complex world.

The circle is for men too. Never doubt it. This is a call to men. Men, please hear it. Join in circle. Make it part of you. Make it part of your leadership. Be part of an evolving and available healthy masculine. Listen. Share. Discover. Be moved. Be moving.

It was one of the other men, Chandu, whom I have met now at two weekend events, who summed it up nicely for Quanita’s book given to her 13 year-old friend. “Remember perfect doesn’t mean infallible; frail doesn’t mean weak; strong doesn’t mean right. Start with empathy; love will follow.” That’s what men have to contribute, and remember in circle.

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A footnote: I read a draft of this article to my 11 year-old son. I think I wanted to share it with him to seed an idea and alertness in him, perhaps more for his future 21 year-old self. He was working on a picture puzzle when I read it to him, moving the orange colored pieces around at that moment. I asked him if it would be ok for me to read to him what I’d been writing. His response surprised and delighted me, which he added without blinking. “I have one more thing to add. Men have been mean, you know. Like not letting woman vote. And they have been told to protect their families and told not to cry. But men have feelings too. They’ve just been taught to keep them inside and not share them. But we need to because if we can’t it can hurt you for the rest of your life. And now women are acting like men used to act. Some are being mean. That’s not right. We all need to be who we are. And let it out. It’s awful not to. We all have things to say, but we are scared of being judged.” Maybe Quanita’s next book might be asking a bunch of 11 year-olds what they want to say to grown men.

October 6, 2016

A Center

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The center of a meeting space is a physical space. Yes. A point to which people have equal access. Or perhaps, unimpeded access. Or, shared access. It could be the center of a circle of chairs, a point on the floor with a book. Or flowers. Or cloths and bowls like in this above photo for a group of 120. It could also be the center of a table, marked by even a pen. A center is different than a front of the room. Yes, a front of the room is called for at times. Good. As always, don’t forget that there are choices. Physically, what I tell people that are just starting to learn participative leadership, is to get used to moving chairs. So that there is a center.

The center of a meeting space is also an energetic space. Yes. An area that can act as holding place for people’s intentions, questions, worries, imaginations, aspirations. It’s an area to place a thought, daring to let it rest with thoughts that others are also contributing. It’s an area to let energetically simmer what is arising from people interacting. I often think of the center as a giant pot for cooking soup. The ingredients for that soup are all that people add to the figurative middle of important work and discovery that we human beings need to cook together.

I love the photos scattered around this center. They were used as physical images in an exercise to invite people to come to the middle, in silence, and to select an image that represents some of how they feel about the business that we would be up to together on this day.

A call to come to the center of the work. A call to go to the center in themselves. They both matter. Physically. Energetically. Repeatedly.

September 27, 2016

Own Your Container

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In the last month I’ve been able to use Open Space Technology as a key part of working with groups in multi-day gatherings. One of the things that I consistently see, and love, in Open Space is that people open up in a different way. They get what they want and feel a kind of “aha” — even surprised shock, that it worked. A bit like realizing that the simple turning of the key (or pushing the power button) of a car actually does turn it on. I’ve seen the “aha” in participants ranging from the really onboard types all the way to some heavily skeptical types — there’s nothing quite like seeing skepticism cracked open to satisfied accomplishment.

One of my key insights in the last month has been about, what I would call, “owning you container.” Open Space is a container. Just like World Cafe is. And The Circle Way. Yes, there are nuances between them. But they are containers for people to do a particular kind of good within them.

With Open Space, I’ve noticed a myth that feels off to me. It is that there is no structure. “You can do whatever you want.” This is one of those statements that is kind of true, except when it is not. Yes, there is freedom intended and amplified in the process of creating an agenda / market place. Yes, there is freedom in self-organizing where to host and what to host. Yes, there is freedom in the law of two feet — go where you can learn and contribute. But all of these principles of freedom are intended to create, or add to, a sense of responsibility — the group taking responsibility for its learning.

If you own the deeper purpose or responsibility, then self-organized working groups are not anything at all wishy washy. And the “owning the container” part for anyone hosting, is to set structure within which an enormous amount of freedom can flow. It’s just like an Ultimate Frisbee game. Though the game is very fluid, and depends much on honor, there are still rules that create the container that is Ultimate. It’s not the structured plays of an american football game. But it is a container for a particular kind of game to occur that emphasizes working with the moment. To invite people to play Ultimate you must own the boundaries and rules that are Ultimate — or you’ve got something else entirely.

It was one of my friends, Toke Moeller, that I best remember talking with about the “gift of the river bank.” The river bank prevents flooding, creating boundaries for a body of water to flow, never being the exact same river in any two moments. So it is with Open Space and other participative process — flow within a container that is different than scripted steps within a presumption of certainty, often imposed by a few on behalf of many. By being clear in yourself about what is happening in Open Space, oh my, people are deeply satisfied by the gift of that container.

September 12, 2016

Connective Tissue

It was as an undergrad university student that I remember first learning about the corpus callosum, the connective tissue that links the left and right hemispheres of our brains. I was at the University of Alberta in the early 1980s. I was studying psychology. One of my grandmothers had taught me before about typical differences in left brain and right brain. I remember my professor marveling about the millions of connections that help these two hemispheres (I thought of it as two brains) talk to each other. Without the connective tissue we are very different humans.

That image of the corpus callosum has remained with me through these years. A bit like an old postcard buried underneath papers and pens and scissors and paperclips and rubber bands in a junk drawer — I don’t think of it every day, but it is there. The corpus callosum — the connective tissue — has proven really helpful as I’ve tried to understand more about energetic fields in groups of people meeting, learning, and planning together. You see, I’ve hosted many groups over the years (sheesh — decades). I’ve hosted many circles. I’ve hosted many times when I’ve been trying to understand more about what is happening in those groups that feels so energizing. Why are they connected so well? What further questions will help connect the group? What will help them / us move our attention to actions and experiments?

I have observed many times the phenomenon that is, “when together, it all seems so clear. But then when apart, what once was so clear, becomes much more difficult to remember.” I’ve felt silly. What’s wrong with my brain. With groups, thinking about designs for upcoming workshops, feeling it is crystal clear and that I don’t even need to write it down (or save writing it down until after the workshop). More times that not, I’ve lost the clarity after the workshop. A bit like losing the dream that felt so unforgettable in the the night that is completely beyond awareness a mere thirty minutes later in waking. The connection is gone. The connection to a kind of group knowing.

Energetic fields are like that. In short, I believe that interaction emits energy (never mind good or bad or other for the moment). Interaction — conversations, sharing stories, asking questions, playing. I feel like my work, a layer of the deeper work, is so often about hosting a container to help organize the energy of many interactions. It’s creating a kind of connective tissue. A corpus callosum. The group brain connected to itself, if only even for a momentary experience that can be remembered later.