General Learning • Tenneson Woolf

March 13, 2018

On Practice — More From Gunilla Norris

I am one who very much relates to the term “practice.”

All of life as practice. All as attention, sometimes very nuanced.

All as imperfect, yet lovely.

Whether the art and history of serving a cup of tea or the practice I’m currently in to make a delicious pot of soup.

Whether learning to be conscious with self or to be convening a community.

Gunilla Norris, my favorite writer of the week, offers this wisdom on Practice from her book, Inviting Silence.

Walking, eating a meal, dancing, breathing, chanting —
anything can be a practice so long as we are mindful,
so long as we are fully present.
There are many ways, many traditions.

To bring silence into our bodies and minds,
we must learn to be quiet. We being by being still.
If a period of physical stillness is all we can muster,
that is enough. We have begun to practice.

If we can simply learn to follow our breath
in a steady way — attending to the inhalation
and the exhalation until we feel that we are no longer
breathing, but are being breathed
— we have grown in practice.

The point of practice is not to perform,
but to participate — not to achieve specific experiences,
but to develop a new relationship with experience itself.

Delicious, right.

Like tea, and soup.

March 12, 2018

Longing, Courage, Community

I love these words from the book above, that I began reading on the weekend. I sipped this book. Like a comforting cup of warm or hot tea.

“Throughout the years I have found that beneath whatever we might think our discontent is, we very much need three things: an awareness of our inner longing…the courage to act on behalf of that longing…and a sense of community to support and maintain our interior journey.”

Longing.

Courage.

Community.

I love it when I find references that feel so clear, practices that feel so grounding, and narratives that are so good for community.

March 8, 2018

On Circle — Not Mine, But Ours

Though The Circle Way Advanced Practicum that I’m cohosting with Amanda Fenton is nine months away, I find myself thinking about it much. It’s running in the background and foreground for me, like a song that I’m enjoying and is stuck in me. I find myself humming the tune of the practicum yet to be. Humming it into some choices of form.

That leads me to some reflections on circle this morning. It remains the tool beneath tools for me. It remains the way of being that has most altered my life and authenticity of interaction.

Living as circle is a way of being. It brings us into a requisite vibration such that we can now be in relationship to the heartbeat not mine, but ours. To the thinking and feeling not mine, but ours. To the grander scale not mine, but ours. To the inspired and tangible action not isolated, but integrated.

It’s as if we arrive to circle with our backyard simple stream, only to have it transformed, even for a moment, to the mighty Mississippi. We arrive with crevice created from an overnight storm, yet gain access to the wonder of the Grand Canyon. We come with dripping faucet, yet flow with others, for a moment, to the majesty and drenching quality of Victoria Falls.

Circle is the ultimate amplifier.

Humming, yes. Perhaps some of you will join us in December to evolve the practice, each other, and even the core of our personal being.

March 7, 2018

Famished for Awakeness

The last four weeks I’ve been co-teaching with Amanda Fenton an online class about The Circle Way. Twenty-eight people participated from nine countries. It’s been learning filled and delightful in relationship.

Yesterday’s class, the last in the four part series, was designed around people’s questions and interests — “what do you still want to give more attention to?”

Though it wasn’t a question asked directly, I found myself reflecting on why circle works (a question that is beneath many questions). “The circle working” is the desire that most people have, everything from crossed fingers to unwavering commitment. They want and need a more collaborative and thoughtful way of connecting and working together.

I came up with this clarity that I offered to the classes:

Circle works because people are hungry for it. They may not know it, but what they are famished for is hope, awareness, and awakeness. When they can experience that and apply it to their context of work or community, it is life-changing.

What feels important to me in this is recognizing that most people aren’t that interested in being sold on a process. They are not looking for another “thing” (even though mechanized society has so often taught looking for “things”). The grand aha of it, so often, is that through the structure, the invitation, and the most simple questions to engage, people taste an increased honesty and vitality, that is sadly rare in contemporary organizational structure.

That’s the moment. When famished transposes to fulfilled. Even just for a moment.

What a delight to offer this class, and to strengthen use and practice of circle with these good people.