Your Being Wishes To Know You, Just As You Are

I’m grateful again to Michael Meade for his posts and shares. I’m drawn to this one above that points toward being from a deep center.

For many of us in facilitation work, it is the deep center that we try to cultivate. To grow. To animate. To center the work of the day or the season.

There’s a poem that I included in Most Mornings, which is now coming up on a one year anniversary of publication. It was that last line — “You’re being wishes to know you, just as you are.” — that was compelling me in this poem. It was a time of trying to remember that my relationship with the deeply inner helps to clarify so much of what I do in the outer. It was a time of trying to remember the utter fruitfulness of stillness.

The poem is called Start Here.

Start Here
Tenneson Woolf

Generally,
don’t start with noise.

A program,
a podcast,
music.

Email,
an article,
a book.

Start instead
with stillness.

Breath,
emptiness,
feeling.

Pause
that honors
new day.

Your being wishes to know you
just as you are.

Much of my work continues these days, helping to bring being and the deeply inner. Helping to cultivate such sustained orientations in learning and leadership. I’m beginning to recreate, expand, and nuance some of the work that I love — facilitating, speaking, teaching, sharing poetry, coaching, and guiding — that brings more fulfilling ways of being in work and community. Perhaps some of this also calls to you and your being, in your work and in your community. The first step is always a call to begin the possibility.

A bow.

One Reply to “Your Being Wishes To Know You, Just As You Are”

  1. and a bow to you as well.

    I love the reminder of this poem.

    Start instead
    with stillness.

    Breath,
    emptiness,
    feeling.

    There is something about starting with that pause in the morning. I love that the window beside my bed is large, and the light comes up gradually, along with the bird song in the not-yet-risen morning sun.

    it’s not perfectly still. I am breathing. The birds are calling.

    I usually wake up before my 5am alarm. it feels like sacred time. time to ponder that elusive dream. time to settle in to the freshness of a new day. perhaps a new poem.

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Gifts of Circle - Question Cardsasd
Gifts of Circle is 30 short essays divided into 4 sections: 1) Circle's Bigger Purpose, 2) Circle's Practice, 3) Circle's First Requirements, and 4) Circle's Possibility for Men. From the Introduction: "Circle is what I turn to in the most comprehensive stories I know -- the stories of human beings trying to be kind and aware together, trying to make a difference in varied causes for which we need to go well together. Circle is also what I turn to in the most immediate needs that live right in front of me and in front of most of us -- sharing dreams and difficulties, exploring conflicts and coherences. Circle is what I turn to. Circle is what turns us to each other."

Question Cards is an accompanying tool to Gifts of Circle. Each card (34) offers a quote from the corresponding chapter in the book, followed by sample questions to grow your Circle hosting skills and to create connection, courage, and compassionate action among groups you host in Circle.

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In My Nature
is a collection of 10 poems. From A Note of Beginning: "This collection of poems arises from the many conversations I've been having about nature. Nature as guide. Nature as wild. Nature as organized. I remain a human being that so appreciates a curious nature in people. That so appreciates questions that pick fruit from inner being, that gather insights and intuitions to a basket, and then brings the to table to be enjoyed and shared over the next week."

This set of Note Cards (8 cards + envelopes)  quotes a few favorite passages from poems in In My Nature. I offer them as inspiration. And leave room for you to write personal notes.

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Most Mornings is a collection of 37 poems. I loved writing them. From the introduction: "This collection of poems comes from some of my sense-making that so often happens in the morning, nurtured by overnight sleep. The poems sample practices. They sample learnings. They sample insights and discoveries. They sample dilemmas and concerns."

This set of Note Cards (8 cards + envelopes)  quotes a few favorite passages from poems in Most Mornings. I offer them as inspiration. And leave room for you to write personal notes.

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