by Heather Plett | Nov 1, 2010 | Leadership, Uncategorized
As life and time take me further and further away from that incredible circle of women who met by a lake last weekend, I continue to reflect back on the powerful things that can emerge when we sit together and imagine “what transformation can we birth if we share our hearts in circle and story?”
Let me share one of the stories I’ve brought with me from that weekend…
In the middle of the afternoon on our third day together, we had free time to replenish ourselves in whatever ways we needed to. Two beautiful older women (“crones”, we came to call them, and not in a negative way) who brought the wisdom of the labyrinth into our circle invited me to join them in creating a labyrinth out of the fallen leaves outside our meeting room. I was eager to join them, but knew that first I needed some time to myself to wander in the woods.
The golden energy of so much wisdom and authenticity and yearning and love that had been shared around the circle that afternoon carried me off into the woods on a cloud of peace and fullness. Or perhaps, to use a more personal analogy – carried me off on a horse named Sophia. We had been sharing that afternoon about how much we yearned for more feminine wisdom and energy in our workplaces, our halls of learning, and our communities.
Punctuated throughout our circle time that weekend, and again as I headed into the woods for some personal time with God and Gaia, were the sounds of gunshots from the other side of the lake. Geese hunters, we presumed.
The sharp contrast of the circular, gentle, feminine energy on one side of the lake and the violent, loud, masculine energy on the other side of the lake was a constant reminder of the tensions that exist for all of us. Not only in society as a whole, but within each of us individually, there exists both masculine energy (animus, from Jungian psychology – rational, direct, practical, assertive qualities) and feminine (anima – creative, intuitive, feeling, visionary qualities). Both have beauty and yet both have the possibility of becoming corrupt or too all-encompassing.
As I followed the path through the woods, and listened to the rustling of the leaves, the honking of the geese flying overhead, and the occasional gunshot across the lake, I found myself yearning to (figuratively) row into the middle of the lake to meet the men for a pow wow. To move past the tensions and find a way for the masculine and feminine energy to co-exist without either swallowing the other up. To encourage both men and women to embrace their feminine side along with their masculine side. Yin and yang together in a circle.
Despite the gunshots, the walk through the woods replenished me as I knew it would, but then something happened to deplete my energy once again. Near the end of the trail, someone had dumped a lot of big household garbage – an old couch, old appliances, etc. Standing there with the tranquility of the woods behind me, and the jarring presence of garbage in front of me, I found the sadness welling up within me. This garbage suddenly represented oil spills, the plastic island floating in the middle of the ocean, and all of the other travesties humans are causing all over the world (including, shamefully, the garbage that comes from my own household.)
What blights we allow to appear all around us when we stop caring about the way we treat our earth!
Carrying on down the path, I spotted a path marker – a weathered old wooden sign standing with its back to me. When I reached it, and read what was written on the front, I stopped short. Just one word – “Lifeline.”
In that moment, God whispered in my ear “You are called to offer a lifeline. All of those things that saddened you back there – the tension with the (distorted) masculine energy across the lake, the garbage marring the face of Mother Earth – they represent a lot of lost and hurting hearts. They need a lifeline. Badly. And it’s you. And your circle of powerful women.”
Wow. That’s a pretty huge calling! I felt a little shaky. I had to stand there for a moment before I was ready to move on.
As I got closer to the retreat centre, I paused for a few more photos in the woods. On the ground, half buried in dry leaves, I spotted something white that was clearly not organic. Moving the leaves away, I realized it was a bowl.
I almost ignored it, but then the voice came again “you can’t do anything about the couch or all of that big garbage, but you CAN do something about this bowl.” Right. Just do my small piece.
So I picked up the bowl and carried on. As I fingered it, though, it became more than just a ceramic bowl someone had discarded. It became a begging bowl, like the ones the Buddhist monks carry into the village every day, trusting that it will be filled with just enough food to sustain them for that day. It was a reminder that, if I am called to offer a lifeline, I also need to trust that God and my village will sustain me with the energy and hope that I need every day.
Back at the retreat centre, I found the women near completion of the labyrinth. I rejoiced with them as they swept the last of the leaves into their designated circles.
And then, because it seemed like the right thing to do, I walked to the centre of the labyrinth and danced with my begging bowl, honouring the labyrinth, and honouring this incredible circle of women who were filling my bowl with so much goodness to sustain me for my journey away from the circle and into my future.
Note: it is never my intention to point blame when I talk about “masculine energy” or to imply that men have it wrong (gunshots) and women have it right (circles). That would be far too simplistic and not at all what I believe. I do, however, believe that we have not sufficiently learned to blend the feminine in with the masculine when it comes to leadership and organizational structures in our politics, communities, businesses, and homes, which is why I am working on launching my Sophia Leadership site soon.
by Heather Plett | Oct 27, 2010 | Uncategorized
With Christina Baldwin at the Listening Well workshop
Why do we write?
Why do we come to the page day in and day out and pour out our souls? Why, especially, do we who are bloggers regularly choose to send our words, our hearts, and our hurts, into cyberspace for all the world (or at least a dozen or so people) to see?
Let me tell you why we write.
Eight or nine years ago, I was in a dark place in my leadership journey. Working for the federal government as the Communications Manager for the only Level 4 lab in the country, I was the proverbial fish, swimming against the tide in water that was not my own. (Side note: thank you Kelly for being the other fish swimming with me.) Surrounded by scientists, I would often sit in meetings in which I was the only one in the room without a PhD attached to my name. I was also the only one who didn’t spend half of the meeting trying to peek under the table to check what was going on in Blackberry world. AND sometimes I felt like I was the only one who had a clue (or even cared) about the poor morale running rampant in the building.
The problem was, in the land of high-end science, there’s a tendency to promote good scientists into leadership positions because that’s the only way they can think of to reward them. Unfortunately, nobody stops to figure out whether they’ll make good leaders, nor do they bother to train them to think differently than they’ve thought all those years lost in their little worlds of test tubes and beakers. In my experience, what makes a good scientist rarely makes a good leader. (There are exceptions, of course, and I like to think some things can be taught, if you put some effort into it.)
Needless to say, it wasn’t a happy place for this right-brained artist who looks at a dna strand and can only imagine what a pretty necklace it would make. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a happy place for a whole lot of other people either, including people who were much more science-minded than me.
I’ll admit, I soon gave up on trying to swim upstream. Early on I tried to help create a more positive leadership culture, but it didn’t take long for discouragement to wear me down.
All the while, I kept thinking “there must be a better way! There must be a way to stem the tide of all of this negative energy we are all swirling in. There must be a way to lead people that makes them feel valued and that helps us all move forward in a positive way.”
I don’t remember what rabbit trail I followed to get there (perhaps I was Googling “alternative leadership models” – though we may not have called it “Googling” back then), but one day I stumbled upon the PeerSpirit website. “Life and leadership through Circle, Quest, and Story.” Ummm… what? And might I add… WOW? (I don’t really know if those were the exact words they had on their site at the time, but something to that effect certainly drew me in.)
More beautiful words have rarely been spoken to this right-brained artist/leader. Leading with circle, quest, and story? It sounded a little like nirvana to me, and so far removed from the culture I was living in.
I dug a little deeper and found out this was the work of Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea, two incredible women who’d become disillusioned with the status quo and were looking for ways to engage people in meaningful conversations that are about how we can all contribute to the transformation of our world. At the time, I read everything I could find of theirs and vowed that some day I would meet them and learn from them and perhaps even work with them.
For years that quiet little intention was buried in the back of my mind. Life happened – I had another baby and switched jobs – and mostly I forgot about PeerSpirit or the impact Christina & Ann’s words had on me at the time. But then last year some time, their names started popping up again in things I was reading or in conversations I was having. I started perusing their site again, and started dreaming of going to one of their workshops.
When I decided to quit my job this summer, I knew that I wanted to invest in at least one learning event that would help launch me into this new work. As luck would have it, Christina was traveling to Ontario to present a Listening Well – Circle/Story workshop together with some other facilitators. I jumped at the chance to participate.
In the opening circle of the workshop, I shared my story with the group – about how it had felt like someone had lit a candle for me when I discovered Christina’s writing eight years ago.
When it was Christina’s time to speak, she got a little choked up when she said “you know, when you’re a writer, sometimes you feel a little lonely, not knowing for sure who is reading your work and if it’s making any difference. But then when I hear a story like Heather’s I’m reminded that this is why we continue to write – to light candles for people we may never meet.”
Christina’s words continue to reverberate in my heart.
I don’t always know who shows up at this blog, and I don’t always know if it’s making a difference for anyone. But I will continue to write in the hopes that for someone who’s feeling lost or alone, a candle will be lit and they’ll begin to see the way more clearly again.
by Heather Plett | Oct 25, 2010 | Uncategorized
When something profound has happened in my life, like this past weekend at The Listening Well workshop with Christina Baldwin, I often find myself sitting with images and music for awhile before the words are ready to emerge.
I have been changed by a circle of 16 women who came to the shore of a lake to sit in a circle, tell stories, dream of a transformed world, listen deeply, stand beside each other, and pass tissues when necessary. We talked, we laughed, we cried, we walked through the woods, we played on the swings, we crunched in the leaves, and we built a spontaneous labyrinth. It was magical.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDFjHeafcq8]
Note: if the video doesn’t have any sound, try this version. I tried to use a song that became meaningful to us this past weekend (Calling All Angels, sung by Jane Siberry), but YouTube was threatening to strip the sound from the video. I created an alternate version.
On the last morning there, a song was on my heart. I didn’t know where it came from, and when I Googled the lyrics, it appears I may have rewritten them, but I kind of like the lyrics my heart wrote better than the original.
I could not ask for more of the earth below me
could not ask for more of the sky above
I’ve got all I’m searching for
and I could not ask for more.
by Heather Plett | Oct 18, 2010 | Uncategorized
Recently, I was invited to join a blogging circle made up of Tara Sophia Mohr, Lianne Raymond (two contemplative thinkers whose writing inspires me) and myself, to consider, together, our response to the recent blogging trend of promoting a lifestyle detached from possessions and place (“location independence”). I’m delighted to be part of this circle and I invite you to visit the blog posts written by Tara and Lianne on the subject.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… I am a wanderer. I am truly happy when I can spend an afternoon wandering aimlessly through an unfamiliar part of the world (or even just my own city), usually with my camera in hand.
I grew up dreaming of being a gypsy. I read every book I could find about gypsies and wanderers. Sometimes I’d pack a lunch, wander into the woods around our farm (on foot or horseback), and pretend I was an explorer, miles from civilization. My friend Laurel and I would build teepees out of dead trees, concoct stews out of garden vegetables over small fire pits, and scheme about how we could live in the woods forever (or at least until the rain or snow chased us into our warm beds), with our horses as our trusted friends and transportation.
Even now, I read books like Tales of a Female Nomad, and I fantasize about selling all of my possessions, packing a backpack and my laptop, and wandering around the globe making my living as a travel writer. Almost every spare dollar I have goes into some version of travel (in fact I leave on another trip this week) – I just can’t get enough of it.
With such wanderlust coursing through my veins, I fully understand the appeal of those bloggers who are following a trend right now to write about reducing our attachments to things and places and choosing a location independent lifestyle (living and working without a permanent home base). I’ll admit it – part of it feels so attractive to me.
But… there’s another side of me that knows that I could not be fully happy without some connection to place. I like to wander, but at the end of my wandering, I like to come home. Not only do I like to come back to a place that feels comfortable, but I like to renew my aquaintance with some of my favourite things. I slip my feet into my worn out old slippers. I curl up under the comforter made from the wool of my dad’s sheep. I drink chai tea from my favourite pottery mug. I pull my favourite books off the over-crowded bookshelf.
This is my place, in this house, in this Canadian prairie city. I am a prairie girl through and through. I have traveled far and wide, and I love the mountains and am drawn to the ocean again and again. But this prairie landscape – these wide open skies, these impossibly flat lands, these rivers and maple trees and tall grasses blowing in the wind – it calls me home again and again. I can be drawn to tears by nothing more spectacular than the way a simple prairie horizon slices through the big, bold, blue sky.
There is just something about the power of place that one cannot fully understand. We are connected to our surroundings and that’s the way the cycle of life is meant to be. I think of the pilgrimages I make on a regular basis – pilgrimage to my home town where echoes of my childhood still reverberate; pilgrimage to my husband’s favourite fishing hole where our relationship has been shaped by this mist on the lake, the loons, and the giant dying tree that – from year to year – has fallen further into the lake; and pilgrimage to our son’s grave where I sit and wait for wisdom to find me. These are all places that are connected to me and through them, I connect to Spirit.
I think there’s a danger in becoming too flippant with our connection to place. A nomadic lifestyle might work for some (and I certainly wouldn’t be one to judge it), but if we as a culture choose transience and lack of connection as the norm, then we risk treating our earth as just another disposable, temporary possession.
Just as yesterday’s styles no longer suit us and closets full of clothing make their way quickly into a trash heap or second hand store, yesterday’s homes and yesterday’s trees and yesterday’s soil become disposable and “not my problem anymore”.
If I don’t fall deeply in love with a place (the kind of love that means being loyal through the ups and downs – including the harsh prairie winters) – if I’m going to move on tomorrow anyway, to the next interesting location – then it doesn’t really matter to me what becomes of the green-space or the landfill sites or the endangered animals.
It might sound simplistic, but I think it’s something we all need to ponder. I think it might be worth considering the different ways that tribes or cultures who have been in one place for generations or centuries treat their homes compared to those who have less of a connection to the place they live. Is there a difference? I suspect there is.
Tonight I took my daughters to see Toy Story 3, another great story in the saga of the toys who want nothing more than to have permanence and to belong to someone who cares about them. As the toys fight to survive a number of evils, including a landfill site where all of the trash gets shredded and burned, they hang onto each other with one belief giving them strength – they belong to somebody and they matter. It’s a beautiful story about how our connections to things can give them life and meaning.
I am not suggesting we should all become materialistic, and I don’t think our possessions should ever hold a higher place in our lives than love and compassion and generosity, but I do think that by honouring our homes and our dearest possessions and the places on which we stand, we show respect and love for the earth and her Creator and all that she provides for us.
by Heather Plett | Oct 14, 2010 | Uncategorized
There may come a time, my friend,
when you have lived too many lives
that are not your own,
followed too many rules that broke your spirit,
and mastered the art of imitation.
This will be a time when you’ve forgotten your own shape
and you find that you no longer remember
just how to be a woman.
Believe this: you can remember again,
you can fit back into the shape that you were meant to be.
It hasn’t truly gone away.
Start by taking a deep breath
and sit quietly while you
listen to the wisdom written on your heart
by your God/Goddess.
Be kind to yourself
caress your skin, your hair,
your breasts,
all the body bits that make you woman.
Gently touch the flabby bits, the too-skinny bits,
the old bits, the not-perfect bits
Stop to kiss Mother Earth, Gaia,
bend your knees, run your fingers through her soil
hug her trees, blow kisses into her wind.
Twirl your skirts
kick up your heels
and dance while you listen
to the music nobody else hears.
Then, when you are ready, turn your head in the direction
your own journey calls you
and don’t look back
even when you hear the cries
of those who feel betrayed
by your leaving.
Stand tall, my friend,
you need to be courageous for this remembering
you need to be ready to break things
shift things
disturb the status quo.
You need to be powerful,
and wise, and steadfast,
in this re-birth
because it is what is expected of you
by all of those waiting for you to lead them.
Make no mistake –
they ARE waiting for you to lead them
because they are afraid,
they are hurting,
and they have lost their way.
They need your strength,
your courage,
your beauty,
your art,
to lead them into this new place.
But first,
be gentle,
sit quietly,
for you need this time of rest
to prepare you for the journey.
by Heather Plett | Oct 12, 2010 | Uncategorized
My friend Christine invited me to join Graciel’s blog challenge to go out and find/make signs that reflect what we need in our lives. Since I wanted to wander back into the woods to find my enchanted purple-leaf-hideaway anyway, I grabbed my camera, a Sharpie, and some paper, and set off into the sunshine.
It turned out to be a much more meaningful exercise than I expected. (And… oh my! What fun I had with my camera!)
Here’s the evidence:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxjUSJbCHSc]
(with music from Hot House Flowers)
