Becoming a Place, Episode 426
Earlier this week we ran a workshop for our Thirdspace coaching graduates on ‘supervision’ - the practice of supporting one another in being of service to others. Our source this week comes from one of the participants in that day, and asks what it is to ‘become a place’… in which we stand stable without dissolving, in which we hold a field of possibility and relationship without being claimed by it, in which we can be both ‘flame’ and ‘vessel’.
We know what good ‘places’ can be in human life. At their best and most resonant they are affordances for us to find our courage, love, presence, realness, generosity. When a place is made with care and attention it can awaken in us awe, wonder, a sense of home, belonging. They can turn us towards one another in genuine reciprocity. And so, we ask in this conversation, what is it to cultivate our capacity to ‘be a place’? And what might that make possible?
This week's Turning Towards Life hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.
Here’s our source for this week:
I bring my small universe with me,
the part that simmers,
the part that stews,
the part that grows roots in uncertainty, and still feels everything.
And yet, I remain my own.
Autonomous. Upright. Or lying down
Always a quiet spine of presence
in the storm-light of relation
This is the work:
to stand stable without hardening
to share without dissolving
to hold the field without being claimed by it
to become a place
I remember myself as both flame and vessel.
Ella Dessington
Photo by Robert Lukeman on Unsplash