reviving and revamping old models of support
thinking back on your life, when were the times that you felt most calmly, sturdily, and solidly in your power? not when someone else what telling you what to do or how to be, but a time when you truly had the freedom and safety to step into your truth, walk around a little bit, do some exploring, and find your own best next steps...
were there times when this type of experience occurred in the presence or with the support of others? was it around a fire? at a dinner table? at a support group meeting? in a parenting circle? what were the unique qualities of that group or that time that felt like they contributed to the atmosphere? what were the dynamics of and between the people around?
if you could bottle it, that perfect peer-supported empowerment, what would the ingredients list look like?
not back-patting people. not shoulda-coulda people. just present people.
for me, i've noticed these precious gem moments pop up very occasionally and very organically. for whatever reason, the stars are aligned and everything comes together, and poof--i have a safe and fertile and brave container to figure myself out, and the folks around me know just what i need in the moment (hint: it's rarely "answers").
it might be in the small moments with my team at a birth.
it might be in the breezy summer back-porch of the local bar on an off-call friday night (ah, remember off-call nights? ah, remember bars?).
it might be around a fire pit on a night so cold we're all only eyeballs and snow boots peaking out of mummy-wrapped woolen layers.
but what, i keep thinking, if we took the brave step to be more intentional about creating, growing, and supporting these spaces with and for each other? what if there were templates (hint: there are) for how we can purposefully create spaces to bring our questions, concerns, and experiences for witnessing and authentication and not for external "solving". places where we could speak our truths and be heard by our peers. places where we could learn not to fix each other but to ask the right questions to take each other more deeply into wisdom.
i'm doing a lot of dreaming and gestating around this right now, and i wanted to connect around what's coming up for me.
what if we did it?
what if we gathered groups of people all over the place to support one another in developing our own deep life wisdom? or even in our just-making-it-through life wisdom.
what if i could pass on to you what i know about how to do it (taught to me by older and wiser guides) and then turn you loose to run your own small groups?
your own wisdom councils.
your own wisdom.
your own.
would you be into that?
i'm going to stew on this one a bit, and then let you know what bubbles up to the surface. preliminarily, i'm thinking that i'd like to offer a framework for wisdom council creation as a workshop with both an asynchronous online course portals and live virtual (UHG, i know, more zoom) sessions. it would be done for individual small groups of your choosing, not random groupings of people. i'd give you tools and guidelines, we'd practice, we'd practice some more, and then i'd step out and you'd keep it going, with and for the people you care about.
you'd put together the groups. 5-7 people? less? more?
i'd give you tools, and we'd work together to develop the skills that you need to cultivate a chaplaincy-type wisdom council presence with one another (virtually or in person), and then i'd turn you loose to do that for yourselves.
do you have a group of support humans who want to do this work? let me know, and we'll make it happen. maybe summer solstice of this year? connect here, and let's do it.
be well, keep growing, keep going.
abby hall luca
the hearth chaplain