I’ve been home for four days and I still feel like I’m away.
A solid circle practice starts with a check-in, a simple way for everyone to arrive and tune in to both self and the group. It can be as simple as one word, or several minutes each, and it is an essential activity that allows me to “arrive” to a gathering, rather than be there physically, but not mentally, emotionally or spiritually. Today, I feel the need to check in with myself. Continue reading Checking in with the Hermit in me
I am a 45 year old experiencing nourishing and harmful experiences with the baby-boomer generation ahead of me. I see two extremes of behaviour in this generation about to turn 70: stepping into elderhood and nurture those that follow, or stepping into fighthood and flail about, harming those around them, including themselves. Continue reading Elderhood vs fighthood
The gifts of generations
Who put honey in your heart of fruition? in your belief in your soul? in your fantasy?A shifting course A hersterical shifting course lives in us profoundly donating self to the sponge of self and other here for me and you to receive without words mystical moments that bless us with lifted veils I am held thank you for a home for my candle of sacred grace burning, singing a delicious legacy of source energy that trusts in me and how I sit in _____ A poem caught in the moving check out of The Circle Way Practicum I co-taught last week with Katharine Weinmann, Ann Linnea and Christina Baldwin. October 4, 2015, Strawberry Creek Lodge, Alberta. _____
One morning last week I noticed the ground shifting.
As the fog lifted while I completed my morning ceremony at the top of my city’s riverbank, I decided to harvest some of the wee bit of sage there. After starting to collect it, I realized I need to make an offering. I stood up. Took a breath.
Then I noticed that some of the sage, and even the land on which I have placed a foot, is starting its descent into the river valley. The land is drifting.
I offer the gift of clear seeing when things are drifting.After a few moments, I walk away, to make my way to my work day. My mind drifts to an affirmation that has been nagging at me for many months, testing me to see if it is still true, about my ability to see cities. I’ve been asking myself if my work has anything to do with cities anymore.
I notice a truck in the driveway of a home nearing completion of its construction. The name of the company on the truck:
City Glass.Glass: a lens or optical instrument; a mirror; a drinking vessel; a greenhouse or cold frame; a window or windowpane; a barometer; a hard, brittle substance usually transparent or translucent made by fusing sand with soda and lime and cooling rapidly. Glass is something we see through. Cities are something I see through, even when drifting.
As glass can be shaped to be a vessel for drinking, the city is a vessel for its citizens. Or the city is a way to see citizens, society, who we are and what makes us tick. This is what I see and understand. This is my work.
Today, I notice that the answer to my question about the role of cities and city-thinking in my life came to me when I gave it time. Over the summer, my visits to the river valley have been rare, but it is in this time, in this place, that the understanding came to me. The place from which I asked the question is where the answer came, both the physical place, and the mental, emotional and spiritual place.
The city and I are deepening our relationship with each other.
I ‘see’ all this about myself as the fog that hovers over Edmonton lifts. And as I make my way through the streets and alleys back to my home, I have to make several detours to avoid a gas leak and the many crews of the utility company tending to essential infrastructure. A foundational piece of my part of the city had shifted.
What is the essential gift you give to your city, allowing it to come out of the fog?
_____
I have been quiet as I dig into the radical work of my find out what my soul has to tell me.
I have been quiet in blog land these days, pondering the effects of a second wilderness quest in June, and and stepping into an apprenticeship in this work. True to the quest pattern, trials have appeared, to test me. The first was the betrayal of a professional friend that invited me to discern the fiery gifts of the dragon. The second challenge was my husband’s fall and broken leg in the backcountry, where I noticed that ‘trail’ and ‘trial’ are almost the same word. In between these two events, I was starting to notice a deepening in the work that is calling me forth.
Though not writing here, I have been writing in my journal, looking for the things that are simply meaningful and heartfelt to me, but extremely meaningful and heartfelt. ‘My looking ripens things,” as Rilke puts it.
Here are a few clues I have about what’s ripening, of where I’m headed:
As I was pondering all this last week, I was asking myself what it all means. I went out for a walk to my sage spot, and as I was walking I asked for a sign. It came on the side of a van:
ARGO
This word has meaning for me because my kids love it when I say the line from the movie, Argo: “Argo f$%# yourself!” I dug around to find the meaning of the word. The argo was the ship in Greek mythology in which Jason and the Argonauts sailed for the the Golden Fleece. It is the vessel that accompanied Jason and his companions to fulfill their quest. Argo is a vessel, a container. It holds and supports the travellers. A receptacle.
This word has further meaning as I reflect on last year’s wilderness quest, and my relationship with a green bottle – a vessel that allowed me to see my soul hungers.
I am stepping into a relationship with the paired twins of Nature and Soul, who I now recognize as the two trees I spent my solo time on this year’s wilderness quest.
I am stepping into radical work that will support people as they find their way and step into the work that is calling to them from the depths of their soul – rather than from external sources, or the inner voices that are external sources in disguise. This work is at every scale, from self to the city and beyond, and it always starts at home, with self and soul.
How do you circle up with your soul?
Are you the vessel your soul needs you to be?
Three weeks ago today everything changed, 12 km behind the largest mountain in the Canadian Rockies, on a steep slope of unstable shale. Broken and wobbly leg bones. A fabulous EMT on holidays to take charge, layers of splints, 8 volunteers to carry a big man down to a helicopter waiting to get husband Peter to an ambulance, then a small hospital, then a large hospital for surgery. Angels of water kept us hydrated on a hot afternoon. Angels of strength carried our packs down the mountain for us to collect later. Angels of friendship, with big eyes, gave high-fives on their way by.
At long last, Peter found himself in the warehouse – a nursing station that looked like the halls of The Home Depot. Shelves of supplies in the corridor, nurses who showed up to do the bare minimum and left him to fend for himself. Swelling that means a 5 day wait for surgery will be delayed? Well, get the ice for yourself. Motrin to keep the swelling down? Well, we’ll only get that for you if you ask for it. The trick is, as with all do-it-yourself endeavours, it only works when you know what you are doing.
When you can’t move, you sit and wait, hoping for the best. In Peter’s case, he laid on a shelf, and someone came to dust him off now and then to check if he still had a pulse. Mostly, he hoped that no one forgot he was there and needed attention.
Then the call on day 6, on a minute’s notice, for surgery. In the operating room, purpose is clear. Here, what will happen is explained in detail. There is even a laugh – will they find a nail long enough to fit the long tibia bone in his leg (he’s 6’6″). Then he’s asleep and they get to work with a big nail, a drill, mallet, screws and a screwdriver. The power and hand tools of The Home Depot merge with the technology of X-ray vision to guide the work of deft hands to put things back in place and set Peter up for the needed mending.
The next day, as Peter hobbled about on one leg, he was tentative. He’d spent 6 days on his back, and the last time he was vertical he violently twisted himself into this predicament. As I watched, this question came to mind:
It is possible to hobble with confidence rather than fear?
I thought of the warehouse nurses. I have no idea if their indifference to their work is endemic to the whole hospital, or to their unit, but their lack of care was startling. Among the nursing staff, the disconnect from self and work was palpable. The collective disconnect was even more palpable. In contrast, a custodian was friendly and careful to make sure an extra chair arrived to accommodate our family of four. An orderly attending to another patient made sure a wheelchair fit Peter properly to get him to our car and take him home. The nurses didn’t help send him home well or safely at all. They were hobbling with a lack of confidence in their purpose to care for people waiting, in pain and discomfort, in the unknown.
As I watch Peter figure out his relationship with crutches, more questions come to mind:
In many ways, the leg repair is do-it-yourself. Peter’s body will heal itself, but there are specific junctures where he needed the help and care of others. He couldn’t get off the mountain by himself. He couldn’t keep the swelling down by himself. He couldn’t get the bones in place by himself. In the weeks to come, he will test out his new leg, Mr. T he calls it. He will slowly put weight on the leg and see how he and Mr. T are going to get along.
He will slowly stop using the crutches.
Eventually he will throw the crutches away.
Then he will decide about going back to the mountain.
Noticing synchronicities, and responding to them, is one of the ways my deeper Soul-Self tells me who I am, and who I am longing to be. Today, the synchronicity is found in two Sauls: Richard Wagamese’s protagonist Saul Indian Horse, and writer John Ralston Saul.
Last year, I packed up and headed out on a wilderness quest. This year, I went again, as an apprentice guide, deepening into a pattern of being in better relationship with the land, and, more importantly, being in better relationship with myself. Following each experience, I found myself enjoying slow and relaxing time at the family cottage, beside a lake. I also found myself, upon both returns, reading the work of Richard Wagamese. This year, Indian Horse.
Saul Indian Horse is a young man reclaiming himself after the trials of losing family and a way of life, of residential school, and amazing hockey skill that brought him face-to-face with racism and hatred. His will to survive is tremendous, and in doing so he visits his land, and is able to tell his story.
I’d close my eyes and feel it. The land was a presence. It had eyes, and I was being scrutinized. But I never felt out of place. I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t run the risk of someone knowing me, because I don’t take the risk of knowing myself. I understood then, as fully as I ever understood anything.Saul tells the story of what it takes to be honest with oneself, to truly know oneself. Wagamese tells a story of the stories my country is telling and hearing, of the betrayals of Aboriginal peoples by non-Aboriginal people in residential schools through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the inherent racism that surrounds the schools and non-Aboriginal views of Aboriginal people. We are all starting to look the truth in the eye.
Saul’s exchange with his great-grandfather is as insightful for him as it is for my country:
‘The journey you make is good.’ ‘What am I to learn here?’ He swept his arm to take in the lake, the shore, and the cliff behind us. ‘You’ve come to learn to carry this place within you. This place of beginnings and endings.’My country is in transition, and the nature of that transition is articulated by another Saul, John Ralston Saul, in The Comeback. Saul charts the formation of our country, one where newcomers arrived and were treated as guests, with the expectation that hospitality would be returned in some way. Then oral agreements, treaties were signed, full of the notion of reciprocity brought by the First Nations way of being and agreed upon by the Crown and its representatives.
Balance and reciprocity. Much of what works in our society is based on balance and reciprocity. Transfer payments. Health care. The only group not to benefit is the group that actually installed this concept of governance. Again, for each of us as citizens it is a matter of being honest with ourselves. We must act to ensure that balance and reciprocity are applied in indigenous relations, as agreed to in the treaties.The notion of balance and reciprocity, a founding pillar of our country, originates not from European ‘founders’ of Canada, but from First Nations. In return, we ensure a lack of balance and reciprocity toward these same people, and even choose to destroy these people. This is a betrayal that has lasted for centuries now.
Saul wonders if the crisis we face in Canada is not in the Aboriginal world, as we think, but in ourselves.
But is the more profound crisis not in the non-Aboriginal world? If not, why would we find it so difficult to listen – to listen seriously – to the points of view coming from the founding pillar of our civilization? Are we so insecure? So frightened to absorb views that after all have been central to Canada’s establishment and survival? Or is it a lack of sensibility? An emotional wall constructed unconsciously to protect ourselves from the reality of this place? Or a simple lack of consciousness? Or all of the above?And the words of Grand Chief David Courchene in 1971, as cited by Saul:
We ask you for assistance for the good of all Canada and as a moral obligation resulting from injustice in the past, but such assistance must be based upon this understanding. If this can be done, we shall continue to commit ourselves to a spirit of cooperation. Only thus can hope be bright that there might come a tomorrow when you, the descendants of the settlers of our lands, can say to the world, Look, we came and were welcomed, and then we wrought much despair, but we are also men of honour and integrity and we set to work in cooperation, we listened and we learned, we gave our support, and today we live in harmony with the first people of this land who now call us, brothers. We hope that tomorrow will come.These Saul stories are the stories of my Soul, my desire to draw on the Indigenous nature of me, the land I call home, and the Indigenous people who were here before my descendants. These Saul stories point me to a new place for me and my work as a non-Aboriginal Canadian, to restore the principles of balance and reciprocity that are the foundational pillars of Canada.
I will say it, Grand Chief David Courchene, for myself:
We came and were welcomed, and then we wrought much despair. I am a person of honour and integrity and I set to work in cooperation. I have listened and I have learned and give my support. I desire to wish to live in harmony with the first people of this land, my brothers and sisters.
Aho.
I have spoken.
_____
Sources:
John Ralston Saul, The Comeback (Toronto: Penguin, 2014)
Richard Wagamese, Indian Horse (Madeira Park: Douglas and McIntyre, 2012)
Two weeks ago, a board I serve on was brave enough to look the dragon in the eye and see the truth: it was time to let our organization die with dignity. Despite her fading spirit, we were expending excessive energy keeping her alive. Before it faded too far, we needed to find a new home for her spirit, a place to serve what she longs to be today, without the substantial, gloomy baggage that has been bringing her down and holding back her potential for years.
The people closest to her heart, the board of directors, knew the status quo was no longer possible. We named the decision to celebrate her dignities and wind down her current ‘home’ so she could have a fresh start in the fullness of possibility. As we started to talk to others, in confidence, to figure out how to do this with the greatest of care, a colleague and friend tweeted the news out to the world. We were chucked under the bus, unable to get up when battered with accusations of misconduct and hate mail. Our ability to respond well to reasonable demands for information were lack-lustre. We weren’t ready because we were just figuring out how to handle the news ourselves. Everyone was hurting.
But let’s pause here for a moment . . .
The dynamics in play are bigger than the people involved, including me and my twitter friend. It is a cultural norm to do whatever is necessary to deny endings, and in doing so we refuse to see the possibilities that come with an ending. An ending does not have to be an end. It is only a catastrophic birth – a transition from one stable state of being to another stable state of being with a messy, awful feeling in the middle.
Assume for a moment my colleages and I were accurate in discerning a diagnosis of “terminal illness” for our organization (I’m always open to a second, informed opinion). As we reached our decision that day, we realized that we had been experiencing the stages of loss and grief (Elisabeth Kubler-Ross http://psychcentral.com/lib/the-5-stages-of-loss-and-grief/) humans feel when facing death in loved ones. Our love for our organization and the loss and grief of its end are no different:
This is what transition feels like, when we move from one reality to a new reality. A typical first reaction is that we don’t want change so we deny the transition is needed or we get angry. These are natural human reactions my colleagues and I recognized in ourselves, and we knew would be experienced by the members of our organization. This is exactly what happened after the tweet and the ‘diagnosis’ spread: demands for facts, new facts, better facts, precise facts; anger and fury and frustration; and even bargaining to find a way to keep her alive.
My sadness in this whole endeavour comes not in the death of the organization, because I accept that it is the right thing to do, but in our inability to tend and care for the people affected by the diagnosis. We did not have an opportunity to figure out how to do the ‘ending’ work with care. In an effort to make me feel better, a friend said to me, “the band-aid came off quick and at least the band-aid is off now.” My colleagues and I feel like someone swooped in an punched us in the face before pulling the band-aid off. Mostly, I feel bad that there was no opportunity to care for people, even to feed them the facts they were looking for. We had just reached the realization ourselves and it wasn’t as simple as, “the cancer has spread throughout your chest cavity and is inoperable.” It’s like the doctor’s friend took on sharing the doctor’s diagnosis because it seemed like the patient shouldn’t have to wait a day or two, even though the doctor had a role to gather the evidence in a way that would be helpful for the patient. It was the doctor’s information to share, not the friend’s.
I feel a dragon in my midst.
The dragon isn’t my friend, but rather the feeling of betrayal, swooping down on me each day, breathing hot fires of sickness and disappointment on me. Searing tears from a wound deep down in my soul come forth, rocking me, demanding a deeper-than-usual inquiry between my ego-self and my Higher Self. A Higher Self that is not from a ‘high’ place, but a deep place. I need new language to describe my Higher Self, but I’m struggling to find it. My Deeper Soul-Self?
The metaphor, or symbol, of the dragon has shown up a few places this week, calling me to look at what is difficult for me to face inside me, not in the outside world. The friend that betrayed my confidence is a metaphorical dragon. What does the betrayal activate?
Here’s the gold I met behind the dragon: the truth is I don’t believe I am good enough. Deep down, my ego-self believes I deserve to be taken out at the knees. Deep down, my ego-self believes I deserve to have 200 colleagues continue to kick me while I’m down.
The true betrayal is that I have betrayed myself.
The betrayal has nothing to do with whether I was right or wrong when it came to ending an organization. That was right. The betrayal was my lack of confidence in trusting the decision we made, and feeling shaky about that decision in the face of powerful forces that work hard to keep change from happening, that keep improvements and evolution at bay. It was a much deeper betrayal.
It was a test of me, revealing that my ego-self does not trust my Higher Self, my inner authority, or my Deeper Self, my Soul Authority.
That is the power of the status quo – it works deep inside of me. Even when I feel I am immune to it, I am not. It is deeply at work, tricking me into feeling weak, tricking me into thinking that transition is not what I want. All along, it was lulling me into indifference, denial, anger, bargaining and tears. Then undermining even my acceptance of Me.
Wow.
The powerful force in the world that does not want change works on my ego as much as it works on others’ ego.
In unwrapping the betrayals I am experiencing, I have so far received 10 fiery gifts from the dragon’s mouth.
What I now understand about the world around me:
What I now understand about me in the world:
From a short distance of time, I see that the essential kernel of truth is out there – that the status quo of our organization is no longer possible. While sad we were unable to share this realization in a healthy way, I trust that this is how it needed to happen. An effort is underway to renew life support, and perhaps this long absent cry for life will embolden her spirit, or, better yet, fuel the fresh start that is waiting for our energy.
My fresh start is elsewhere.
This is my next discernment.
These words of Joseph Campbell – the catastrophe of birth – help me see that what feels catastrophic is a flag for transition in me. I am letting parts of me die off, and welcoming deeper, truer parts of me.
I am engaging in extreme – but humane – self-inquiry, and I have a choice to make. Will I midwife myself into being more Me?
There is a fiery Beth emerging. In dancing with dragons, she will shed her skin over and over again, renewing and regenerating, ever finding ways to live from and embody her Soul.
Every ending is a beginning.
The more I write, the more I aim to say what I mean in as few words as possible. And the more I look at what others say and dig in to see what they really mean.
For example, this headline:
The words, “Citizens can’t be spectators in urban planning,” sparked two things in me.
First, the words do not tell us what citizens should be, a missed opportunity to reinforce the message of the article, that citizens must participate in the process of making cities that serve people well. This is as much about city governments involving citizens in decision making as it is about citizens simply getting involved. Citizens can get involved in the formal engagement process from city hall, and also take initiative to improve the city around them, in any way they see is needed. (Remember – work is the force that generates cities, so it is important!)
It’s easy, in our privileged corner of the world, to think that things are good, that we don’t need to engage ourselves in communal life around us. We have great disdain for corners of the world ruled by dictatorship, vaguely thankful that we live in a democracy. And even then, we often feel that our governments are distanced from us. At which point I ask this question: are you a spectator or are you engaged and participating in the city around you?
The second spark from this headline is the word spectatorship. If you are a spectator, you are contributing to the real dangers in our midst: apathy and indifference, even anger, usually served with a healthy dose of complaining. A spectator lets spectatorship rule. Remember, you have citizen superpowers at your disposal. The choice is yours.
Are you a participant in city life, or a spectator?
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