Human to Human

I quite loved receiving this book from my friend Meg. Its author, Mette, is someone I met a few times many years ago. I love it that she names “aliveness” as a criteria or encouragement for leaders (and for followers; and for those of us fluidly both).

Mette offers a simple model about the power and potency of several “p” words:

perspective
practice
pride
play
pause

Wonderful. It’s good to feel reminded. Encouraged. Nudged. Storied. Emboldened.

And then, what I love in the spirit of facilitation practice, Mette names a few questions that steer towards this animation that is aliveness.

1. Who are the people you work with (or commune with) that bring you alive?
2. Does your work (or community, or family, or neighborhood) bring you alive (in what ways)?
3. Does the way you do the work (community, etc) bring you alive?

The last question is the wicked one to me — it presumes that we can and should feel aliveness together in a regular way.

Many of us have many tools to use with groups. We have some that are meant for a short experience together. We have some that are meant to be engaged over many days or months. It is important to me, and insightful, to point to aliveness.

Why? Ur, because it’s enlivening. And why wouldn’t this be an important part of our purpose? Why wouldn’t we wish to get to the good stuff together. Why wouldn’t we wish to find and cultivate love together.

Well, enough for today. Check out Mette’s book. And maybe take these questions for a walk.

June 24th.

I’m glad to be hosting this 3rd Excursion. Yup, it’s online. Yup, it points to opening. To becoming. To belonging. It’s a place to settle in to the deeper inner (the seriousness and the playfulness of that) and how that matters in all the shades of outer.

I’m glad to be co-hosting with two people near and dear. Elif Poshor I’ve met through several B & B gatherings over the last two years. Saoirse Charis Graves I’ve known through many lanes over the last decade. I’ve learned much with and through both of them. I’ve learned much through the life that is invited on such an excursion.

Here’s a description. A few intents. Come jump in. The water and the company is good. The simplicity of depth might be timely.

Many of us recognize multiplicity in ourselves. Sometimes we are this. But then sometimes that, in the day to day. I wrote yesterday about “every phase of life is developmental.” That means that there is nuance available. That there is learning available. Enrichment too.

David Whyte’s poetry inspires often. Recently, I got link to one of his called, My Courageous Life. As he so often does, David gives voice to the nuanced differentiation, and, to the nuanced integration.

Enjoy this. I did (thx Jeremy Nash of Poetry Tribe for sending). It refreshed my courage and a certain kind of joy.

My Courageous Life
David Whyte

My courageous life
has gone ahead
and is looking back
calling me on.

My courageous life
has seen everything
I have been
and everything
I have not
and has
forgiven me,
day after day.

My courageous life
still wants
my company:
wants me to
understand
my life as witness
and thus
bequeath me
the way ahead.

My courageous life
has the patience
to keep teaching me,
how to invent
my own
disappearance,
and how,
once gone,
to reappear again.

My courageous life
wants to stop
being ahead of me
so that it can lie
down and rest
deep inside my body
it has been
calling on.

My courageous life
wants to be
my foundation,
showing me
day after day
even against my will
how to undo myself,
how to surpass myself,
how to laugh as I go
in the face
of danger,
how to invite
the right kind
of perilous
love,
how to find
a way
to die
of generosity.

I typically have a few ways to catch interesting phrases that people speak. One is a folder on my desk. It holds scribbled notes that inspire on this or that for the connective brain and heart. Another is my inbox. Some random stuff there that occasionally dries with aromatic scent.

Today, Tuesday — three things that move my imagination.

1. The phrase I just read from the 1440 news digest. It’s the jazz musician Miles Davis.
   
   “I’m always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning … Every day I find something creative to do with my life.”
   
   Yup. I like the call to create. I like it for the creation — words, art, music, movement, etc. I like it as antidote to destructive noise so prevalent in contemporary reality. I like it for a centering feeling.
   as
2. Then there’s my buddy Glen who is good for wise phrases on the spot. I don’t remember who he was quoting, but it goes like this from our recent call:
   
   “Every stage of life is developmental.”
   
   Glen and I were talking about the new things we are each learning in our respective late 50s and early 60s. We were talking about confusions and clarities. In early life, development is quite physically obvious — you grow a foot at some point. Later, the development is still substantial. Just less visible.
   as
3. Then there’s a pastor that I’m often in conversation with. Michael is someone I enjoy a lot. What he spoke in a recent call, on foolishness…
   
   “I’d rather tell the truth and risk looking like a fool than not tell the truth and be a fool.”
   
   Amen. We were talking courage. And in particular, courage to stand in uniqueness, to stand clear with what comes through our more intuitive knowing.
   as

Tuesday potpourri. To bring some beauty, some learning, some wonder.