Three “forces of nature” have come into my life,
beginning to plant seeds of co-emergent circle-community formation/work/play that I’ve yearned for for years. Robbie, DeJaNay (pronounced DEH-ja-nay), Cynthia and I coined ourselves the Faithful Four, which now seems to be becoming the Faithful For…?
We find ourselves gathering on the first Thursdays of the month for circle, for a time/space for women-healing-women. Our last two circles have extended invitations to other women in our lives, some of whom are beginning to show up. We’re living into that mantra of sacred bewilderment: Show up. Don’t know why. Do your best. DeJaNay's tagline is Watch Us Grow, which fits here too. This picture includes one of those showing up, Rene, alongside Robbie, (myself), DeJaNay, and Cynthia.
[Context: A dear friend asked some questions today that instigate this writing… Not only does it feel like a timely-sacred musing, to listen into the quiet, but a couple of the questions intrigued me. As is often the case with this spirit-friend. I’ve learned to trust her energies, her leadings, her questions…]
We are a fledgling community together, brought together by serendipity/providence and interconnections. A Fire&Water friend, LaTanya, was staying over at my place this past summer, so to go to a church conference in town. I went to the evening worship service with her, where I met Robbie. Coffee with Robbie lasted well over two hours, sparkling with possibility and sacred purpose from start to finish. Robbie’s a gatherer, so a couple weeks later, she gathered the four of us together. I feel deeply a part of this community even as I am exquisitely aware of my differences too. Each of us has spoken of this felt-sense, being called together for something sacred. I have prioritized this in my life as one of the most hope-filled and promising streams of presence, service, learning, receiving, offering…and I don’t really know what we’re doing. I’m the more formally-trained circle-holder amongst us, so I am taking the lead in holding the space when we gather. But we plan the arc of our time together, each voice bringing what she feels needs to unfold. This last Thursday, I brought the cards from my recent Flow Game training, organized around the four directions/Sky/Earth. We used those to invite one another into deepening conversation, shared insight, much laughter at the Mystery within/around us.
Do you have an ancestral/karmic connection with any of your Circle friends? This was the question that sparked me the most, to be honest. I often forget to ask myself this kind of question, as I live in a world for which this cosmology or expansive-worldview is deeply threatening to…(faith?)...(tradition?)...(religion?)...I don’t know. I’ve never experienced anything but wonder when I listen to questions like this…and yet I forget. Which is why I love being asked, reminded, so to wonder…
Given my experience of the energies I associate with karmic-connection or ancestral-lineage, I’ll guess that Robbie and I have some interwoven history/herstory, whether karmic or ancestral. We’re both gatherers. Our energies were immediately resonant and dancing when we met. I’ve met her for coffee, just the two of us, which I’ve not done with the other two in the circle. I’ve offered a respite time of rest/Sabbath for Robbie in my loft/upstairs ‘getaway space’, should she pursue the Sacred in that way. I feel at home with her, which makes me smile. We also laugh together easily enough, particularly when I try to get her to consider herself as a woman, as a black woman, with the Black Madonna beckoning her forward. She’s a woman of faith, whose faith has saved her from “her younger, wild life”, she’s often quipped. Impishly, I’d say she’s inoculated against the feminine, in a Black Church, sacred-lineage community kind of way. A blessed thing, just as is. Which is probably what makes teasing her into it impish, fun.
The whole journey has been one of surrender and voice, showing up and relinquishing, leading and following both. The vision I received ten years ago, the reason I started Women Writing for (a) Change, Dayton in 2014, was an image of cross-racial/ethnic circles meeting in Dayton, one of the most segregated towns in the country. Circle can hold the stories that need to be told, that need to be heard, I've always said. And I worked my a** off to craft this reality of circles with women of color...never quite finding the way that was ready, hospitable, open. Finally, post-Covid, post-leadership-training for WWfaC (in which I got hurt/chastised), I simply gave up. I un-affiliated with WWfaC, feeling nothing but relief. I gave up the vision of cross-racial/ethnic circles ever happening “on my watch.” I relaxed into the liminal spaces of post-WWfaC, post-Fire&Water, wondering…
One month after I relinquished the affiliate, I had three possible streams of holding circle with women of color, here in Dayton, or over Zoom. Three.
So this process has been exquisitely formative for me, reminding me of my finite place in the infinite flow of things. Sometimes you have to give up the vision you thought were you given, so to receive the reality of it, beyond your own making.
Counter-intuitive. So bemusing. And yet, so predictable too.
I expect to be learning how to surrender for the rest of my life. And then some.
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