Author: Tenneson Woolf

I’m in Circle today. Part 2 of an online series that I host, Learn (To Be) Circle Here. It’s been fun to offer.

That means I wake up this morning, a couple of hours prior to starting, with some fresh ideas for today’s circling up. Back in the day, the late 2020s in our work together, Amanda Fenton was the one that named this waking up clarity as “overnight news.” I’ve loved it ever since.

Overnight news is a bit of nuance. A bit of framing. A few of those bits are below. The bits arrive not so much as cognition, but rather as morning sun. Kinda shows up in the body.

• Circle is a kind of regulation, meaning mental health care for the group. It’s a practice for so much of the disregulation that occurs in much contemporary culture.
• Circle is hygiene for the group. Just as is teeth-brushing and wearing socks. Groups need such hygiene. So as to create well-being for the person and for the group attempting to go well together.
• Circles don’t need to be perfect. It’s not the perfect start. It’s not the perfect setup. All of that matters. And yet, I often feel as a host, my job is to help get the circle started (sometimes I talk first; sometimes I wait for others, or until the talking piece comes my way). Once started, it builds on it’s own life.

I’ll stop there. It’s good to work in threes. Yup, fun to offer in a space of shared learning and practice.

I host Flow Games as part of my Becoming & Belonging Series. Yes, that’s B & B. Some great people show up. To be in learning. To be in a consciousness of friendship. To experience, well, flow. Life lifes us, as I’ve been joyfully sharing over the last year.

A few other phrases showed up this week that thicken the invitation and the experience:

• small things that are big things
• pockets of friendship
• summoning breakthrough ideas (thx David Pearl)
• life wants to be in partnership with us
• structure to bring flow

The formats, including Flow Game / Flow Group are simple. Yet deliberate. A moment of spa.

A theme that I continue to notice and learn is about relationship to noise (meaning, jeepers, it’s important to have a few practices of detaching from noise), which is to say, many of us are learning about availability for intuition and inspiration, particularly when we show up to listen, witness, and wonder together.

It all goes on.

Jump is as inspired — typically 90 minutes online, groups of 4-6. For a one-time try. Or, if inspired as others are, for a regular practice.

Zoom has brought many things in life. Yes, non-locality for its excitements and for its challenges. We can show up in each other’s living rooms. We can ask questions together — or personal and of professional natures. We can see some facial cues that add insight. We can enjoy company.

Zoffee and Zeer are a couple of Zoom formats that I appreciate. Zoffee (Zoom + Coffee). Zeer (Zoom + Beer). Both are fun invitations. And tend to signal the desire for a good hello together.

I have a few regulars with friends that I love dearly, yet have not seen geographically for many months or many years. What Zoffee and Zeer do is bring out a playfulness together. And an intimacy. And a geography of the heart. Shared on a screen.

So often, connection is the work. And friendship. And many forms. Simple things that are big things.

I invited a friend to Zeer this week. We met 12 ish years ago. He was a client. I was a facilitator for his group. Friendship arose quickly. And connection. We’ve seen each other in person ten times or so. But it’s been a couple of years. So, Zeer it is.

Anticipation. Zanticipation.

It’s been a full week. A fun week too. I’ve hosted a few groups. I’ve felt much learning.

B & B this week was the format, Pick a Card. I used a new deck, Live Your Values. The richness of the format so often is about bringing curiosity to a life circumstance. The cards offer a lane to explore more kindly within self, and with others.

And then there was my Circle Workshop, Learn (To Be) Circle Here. Such good folk showing up. Some old friends. Some new, wishing to grow in practice and in community.

In the spirit of Start Point and End Point, I invoked (read) excerpts from a John O’Donohue’s Blessing For The Traveler. I loved connecting the blessing to the travel of learning together.

For The Traveler
John O’Donohue

Every time you leave home,
Another road take you
Into a world you were never in.

New strangers on other paths await.
New places that have never seen you
Will startle a little at your entry.
Old places that know you well
Will pretend nothing
Changed since your last visit.

When you travel, you find yourself
Alone in a different way,
More attentive now
To the self you bring along.

…

When you travel,
A new silence
Goes with you,
And if you listen,
You will hear
What your heart would
Love to say.

On we go. Full.