Author: Tenneson Woolf

• Inspiring video on creativity and freedom. From Sue Austin, deep sea diving in a wheelchair. http://bit.ly/Xezdvn 
• #aohmpls2012 Sue: How lively life is when comfortable with not knowing.
• #aohmpls2012 Bob-E: AoH is a profound way to enlarge your sense of self.
• #aohmpls2012 Enjoying the expansiveness of reflective listening through story hosted by Jerry, Kathy, Myron.
• http://yfrog.com/esvwvztj  friends gathering I design and play. #aohmpls2012
• A new friend I’ve met, Joan Blades, doing impressive work with conversations and families: http://bit.ly/I9EP7N 
• If you’ve been moved by Circle as process method, please consider the Legacy Project in your holiday giving: http://bit.ly/12cJjBI 
• I’m renewing attention to what began for me 15 years ago. Ann Linnea of PeerSpirit describing some of that: http://youtu.be/jVy7ea4SeFw 
• Design today for Art of Convening in Faith Based Communities. Like us here for some harvests: http://on.fb.me/OociyD . And more at #aohfbc.
• A great publication, Yes Magazine. This issue — What Would Nature Do? http://bit.ly/QuKXgq 
• We are 47 for The Artistry of Convening Within Faith-Based Communities. Like us on FB for a few updates. http://on.fb.me/OociyD 
• Please explore / support my friend Carla Moquin’s launch, Babies in Business Solutions (BIBS). Imaginative work. http://bit.ly/QuHKxb 
• Inspiring public engagement work in Halifax, Nova Scotia that friend Tim Merry is a part of. http://bit.ly/Z5MlpE 
• 5 spots remaining for Artistry of Convening Within Faith Based Communities. We’ll explore the sacred and the skills. http://bit.ly/SAJBex 
• From Bob Wing. “Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing it doesn’t belong in a fruit salad.”
• And added to by friend Nana Dunn: Sacred is released in relationship and connection.
• A learning for me this week, voiced by new friend Dan of the Episcopalian tradition: Sacred is released in relationship.
• Great video from Jerry Nagel and others in Minnesota using that Art of Hosting pattern to help in their communities: http://bit.ly/SIPGcl 

It is a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye. I read it from Roger Housden’s book, ten poems to last a lifetime. I love his commentary:

“There comes a time when you have to decide what kind of life you are going to live. Will you live by the dictates of your social persona, or by the softer, more genuine voice that you hear sometimes in the twilight, or before falling asleep? Both have a place, but there are times when the latter must be followed, whatever the cost, if something precious in you is not to die.”

The Art of Disappearing

When they say Don’t I know you?
say no.

When they invite you to the party
remember what parties are like
before answering.

Someone telling you in a loud voice
they once wrote a poem.
Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.
Then reply.

If they say We should get together
say Why?

It’s not that you don’t love them anymore.
You’re trying to remember something
too important to forget.

Trees. The monastery bell at twighlight.
Tell them you have a new project.
It will never be finished.

When someone recognizes you in a grocery store
nod briefly and become a cabbage.
When someone you haven’t seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don’t start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.

Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time.

For the Sake of Strangers is the title of a poem by Dorianne Laux. I read it this morning. Laux is American. Her poem appeals to me as call to both appreciate the world as it is, in its patterns and obligations. And to step from its edge. Perhaps we all do this many times in our lives. Be in the simple. Step off the edge. Return to the simple. Step from the edge to the unknowns. Half the time wishing to eject from the absurdity and limit that is human life. Half of the time drunk in the beauty of the most simple forms of being, seeing, doing.

My current life calls for a step from the edge. To be in the weightless fall, as Laux puts it. It has much to do with consciousness. Much to do with restoring center. Finding places of collaboration. It is all there. Journey of self. Journey with others.

My step from the edge is in my learning these days is about being together. In self. In groups. With my partner Teresa. What does being together mean? What is the deep entanglement? What is the webbed consciousness that offers such promise? What is the quiet presence of nothing together. I know these. Funny to think that, as it is with deep knowing, these questions visit in their repeated seasons, returning again for a cup of tea, or even a prolonged stay.

Remove fusion. Restore choice. Reclaim big story. These are focal points for me.

Sip of tea. Watch for the default of fusion. The impulse as my friend Roq calls it. Attractive. Yes. But it isn’t the giving up of self that creates together. Some needed pause in that one.

Sip of tea. Restoring choice. Oh, yes. This is a big one. Live life because it is chosen. It is a luxury at so many levels. Perhaps. But the expression of life as commitment freely offered rather that obligation begrudgingly obeyed — that is important.

Sip of tea. Reclaim story. The big one. The one that folds in the time and the timeless. The one that has purpose in the now and in the past / future continuum.

For the Sake of Strangers

No matter what the grief, its weight,
we are obliged to carry it.
We rise and gather momentum, the dull strength
that pushes us through crowds.
And then the young boy gives me directions
so avidly. A woman holds the glass door open,
waits patiently for my empty body to pass through.
All day it continues, each kindness
reaching toward another — a stranger
singing to no one as I pass on the path, trees
offering their blossoms, a retarded child
who lifts his almond eyes and smiles.
Somehow they always find me,seem even
to be waiting, determined to keep me
from myself, from the thing that calls to me
as it must have once called to them —
this temptation to step off the edge
and fall weightless, away from the world.

I have not been writing as much lately in this blog. I know it. Today I felt like saying something about it. The last month I just stopped. Changed routines. Wandered further from some of my habits of needing to tuck all things in neatly. Given myself permission to just be. Quietly that is. I haven’t been on retreat. I haven’t adopted particularly new practices or meditations. I haven’t been to a particular workshop. I journal, as I have for years. Yet, my entries there have been short also. To the point it feels.

 

I’ve been burning a lot of candles lately. Candles that burn through the day. And often I leave them through the night. I don’t know why. I’ve somehow wanted fire. Not tea lights. Long burn candles. A flame to come too. A center where my thoughts and stories can sit. Stare into the middle. Even if I’m not there. Without words. The long burn.

 

I don’t know when I’ll return to more writing. I almost don’t want to know. Perhaps when I can remove the “almost” it will be time. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next month. Maybe after a sufficient experiment with attention to the churnings in other ways.

 

My partner Teresa just sent me a poem this morning that has some of this energy. Beautiful.

 

She Let Go’ a Poem by Rev. Safire Rose

She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.

She let go of the fear. She let go of the judgments. She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head. She let go of the committee of indecision within her. She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons. Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.

She didn’t ask anyone for advice. She didn’t read a book on how to let go. She didn’t search the scriptures. She just let go. She let go of all of the memories that held her back. She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward. She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.

She didn’t promise to let go. She didn’t journal about it. She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer. She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper. She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope. She just let go.

She didn’t analyze whether she should let go. She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter. She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment. She didn’t call the prayer line. She didn’t utter one word. She just let go.

No one was around when it happened. There was no applause or congratulations. No one thanked her or praised her. No one noticed a thing. Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.

There was no effort. There was no struggle. It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad. It was what it was, and it is just that.

In the space of letting go, she let it all be. A small smile came over her face. A light breeze blew through her. And the sun and the moon shone forevermore.