Seeds for a happy planet

This second day nobody stepped forward to be the facilitation team. I opened the circle with ringing the bell, and asking people to settle into the silence. Then I spoke about ‘listening to the middle’. Can we speak from Source, instead from our personality? Take the time so that you can speak from the unknown, the unformed inside yourself. Take the talking piece only when you feel the urge from deep within, and not for re-acting on what was said before by somebody else.

I give here the conversation more or less as how it was, without the names of who was speaking. (This might not be interesting for someone outside the AoH community…)

* How open is the space in the Art of Hosting community? What can be new patterns, or maybe beyond that?

* What if there is a structure, a hierarchy in the Art of Hosting that is holding it back? Do we need stewards, who wants them? There is fussiness about who are the stewards… maybe there is too much being held in order to keep its integrity… What needs to be held and what needs to let go?

* I saw a cauldron – basket – container, a deep one; and the word ‘lineage’. I feel that at the heart of what we do is piecing back our lineage, stitching it together, stitch by stitch. It has to do with Europe; the ancient indigenous lineage. It was dis-connected from the land, and this spread all over the world, with capitalism and imperialism as its vehicles. What is it that we are stitching together? The Learning Centers are like the cauldron… the creating of these places, the sensing into what is going to happen here? This is part of the ancient practices.
If you have been to Tibet there you find a lineage that has not been broken. The Buddhist lineage is very intact; ours is not. Many ancient wise people were killed and many simple practices went with them. What is build in into the pattern of Art of Hosting has something about this stitching together, to do that in whatever way to manifest it together. It is a DNA-transmission thing. The dominant world still needs to know Who is the leader? Why do we need one person to be named, why can’t it be the community?
The lineage we stitch together is not the “one leader”, but the “all leader”. Learning Centers are the centers were that can be amplified, ‘baptized’… maybe I saw the font…

* I heard three things inside of me: the first was the fountain of love; it wants to come out in the things I am doing. The second …; the third: keeping the space open in my mind.

* What comes to me are two directions – movements. One is defining the borders of identity – the membrane… maybe that is what we are doing. The other one is opening up, letting come. Also something about speaking to the ghost – the elephants – there seems to be something unspoken. Maybe that is part of finding the identity… I think one of the ghosts I have to speak about is: not being quiet sure how I fit in here; having been only in one training… blocks me here… where is my ground? I see also the many possibilities in the AoH… it is just about being who we are…

* I am busy with the metaphor of olive harvest. We are shaking with the different branches… a little bit of confusion.
I don’t feel a hierarchy here in this circle… maybe it is outside this group… talking about something outside us, doesn’t speak to me… what about my personal leadership? the values I stand for?
The AoH is not a tree that has to be cut down, because it is just starting to grow – it needs to grow it’s second layer. What inspires me is Nature, and what we can learn from it… now it is dark inside, and the light is outside.

At that very moment the sun starts to come through the clouds, while it has been raining and a grey sky since the morning. Panaoiti, the Greek friend and neighbor calls that they are going to harvest some olives… we are almost ready to help him.

* I am at the edge of the AoH community. It was born out of the collective, and now some people get more jobs out of it… hierarchy?… Open Space has ‘elders’… What does ‘growing legs’ mean? More people… more trainings… more …??? Is something blocking this?

* Lots of stories and ideas while people were talking; but I wanted to speak from Source. What comes back is a grandmother story. She tells her grandson “There is a fight in my heart, grandson.” He then asks:” Who is fighting then in your heart?” “Two wolves are fighting in my heart.” “Who is going to win?” the grandson asks. “That depends on the whom I am feeding.”

* I am not here for Art of Hosting, for me it is about harvesting, about Learning Centers; about being here. AoH doesn’t define me. It is rich, useful and gives words to many things, but AoH is not the destination, but it is feeding us, as a way to go forwards. I want to visit the other centers and the other people… I feel it is right to be here, because something is happening…

* From the beginning of this conversation I had a lot of pain in my heart and it becomes heavier; and it is not only from me! I don’t want it to be ignored. We should do something with ‘the ghosts’, it is heavy and it is closing my heart… it is difficult. Maybe some kind of offering…

Then we organized ourselves to help Panaoiti and his mom in harvesting the olives. We walked to the neighbor’s land, helped them a few hours, and then had a picnic lunch between the olive trees.

Today was the official start of the Art of Hosting on ’growing legs’ for the AoH community. When we just drove back from the farmhouse to our little studios here in a local hotel here in Platania, the local fishing port, we could hardly imagine that this was just one day!

Total strangers shared some of their personal stories and we did all the other stuff that makes a good community: making and eating food together and doing some physical work together. We harvested the olives from the last seven trees. I will never complain any more, or wonder why olive oil is so expensive. If you want to understand make sure you know how they are harvested! For me it was fun to learn a new gardening art: how to use the long sticks with the least effort but with the maximum of result. And fun too to climb in these old trees, to be able to reach the highest branches. I loved it.

The check-in of this morning revealed how most of us, eleven participants, are ‘at the bottom of the U’; at a point in life where it is not so clear where to go, or when to move on. We joked about that this is why so many people didn’t make it to join us: they were probably sure about their lives and didn’t need to be here?!

Like in the Art of Hosting on Art of Hosting, in June in Belgium, we used the tarot cards after we returned from the physical work outside, and laid out a certain pattern that could inform us about the deeper meaning of our gathering.

At the center, at the heart, was Eight of Swords, reversed. It tells us about the letting go of any thoughts, realizing that we are not limited by them, as they are not the actual situation. “We don’t have to grow legs, we have to use them!”

North was Five of Wands, which tells us about: What’s present? What is visible to the world? What we show is the trying out, the creative energy. So maybe it tells about growing up, do something with what we already have?

What comes in our consciousness? The Night of Swords: about the personal level of this community. Showing the world what we stand for (values and principles) and taking action from there. The sword brings the clarity of mind.

What do we need to let go of (past)? Again swords: Seven of Swords: the nightmare of the perfectionist. The person is carrying already five swords, and can’t take the two others that are left. We related it to the many different ideas we had as we were envisioning this gathering and none of them came through. Maybe we have to look at what works and go with that.

Again more swords (Ten) came for the question: What is the near future? It spoke of letting go anything that pins us down. There is something that the world is ready for this resonance; not fighting the system, but show it to the world, because it is now ready. We can come out of the unclarity.

Maybe our harvest is being stewards of clarity, and also take the time to gain this clarity; to find the clarity in the practice.

To close our session we took another card as a piece of advice: the Wheel of Fortune reversed. The wheel of fortune is the real change, and it seems to point us in looking where something is stuck, or not aligned.

A last question was how to heal that? Knight of cups: finding your grail, your own passion. Taking action on what we love, guided by the heart.
Tova spoke once about ‘the Heart of Hosting’; and Chris Corrigan spoke in June about ‘the Art of the Open Heart’. Our own passion is so essential; in these days we need to act from there.

Of course conversations didn’t stop when we had dinner together afterwards. Personally I had the sense that we were still not touching the deepest ground. In one way or another we came to speak about it, because nobody was stepping up to do the facilitation for tomorrow. Here are some snippets of different conversations:
- needing more silence
- holding the deep feminine
- the power of giving birth and being pregnant
- not to take on the masculine projections
- using the law of two feet in regular life
- do the grounding of the place in the collective!

We are in this cosy time after dinner, dishes are done, everybody gathers around the fire place (stove). One more guest – participant arrived just before dinner (Ravi) and two more are on their way, driving through the night (Judith and Lieven).

I had a wonderful day, for me like summer. Most of the people here went to Volos today, the nearby city – one and a half hour drive – to buy a lot of food and stuff, and to receive and send emails. Three of us stayed here; and I worked in the little garden – weeding – and clearing some more space from the brambles to have more place to sew and plant the vegetables. In the afternoon we went with Maria and Sarah’s Greek friend to a place to press the olives. Amasing when you never saw it. We had this time more than 1000 kg of olives; and we came home with 220 liters of olive oil; very nice, clear, green olive oil. Of course it is a totally organic oil, and the guy from the press – who analysed it – was really impressed by the high quality it had.

So we had something to toast on! Grilled bread dipped – better say soaked – in the fresh oil, together with some locally brewed … (like Ouzo) as the starter for dinner. The Greek way of living, eating at the big table outside, lots of talking, toasting, some wine; funny if I realize it is November,..

Last part of the evening we looked into the design of our first half day tomorrow. Simple and elegant, diving deeper into the stories which led to this gathering. Asking ourselves what does it mean ‘to grow legs’ for our network of Art of Hosting practitioners? And then there is this funny, amasing, wonderful thing called emergence… How come four people of the original hosting team, and two of the participants couldn’t make it? And why did others showed up, even when it looked different than what was the original plan?

Are we growing legs for emergence?

Today, I had my first day in the Learning Centre in Greece, called Axladitsa – Avatakia. It is far away from big and small cities. The last part of your driving there, the last hour and a half, is up and down along very windy roads. No electricity, no internet. But a lot of olive trees, with olives ready for harvest.

I’m here in preparation for the Art of Hosting gathering on Harvesting, which will start in two days. Besides Maria and Sarah who live here, and who call themselves stewards of the land, six other people are already here, from all over the place: Turkish background, Belgium citizen, two Danish men, someone living in Canada and somebody on the move…

We live right now in open space, meaning that nobody is the boss or takes the lead, but we do what is needed, according to our own competences, passion and interests of the moment. I did many things today: sitting in circle this morning to check in with everybody and the work that needs to be done or can be done; helped cleaning the community space, harvested some olives, had a walk to the beach and now sitting here next to the woodstove, while others are preparing some dinner ‘by camping light’.

What is special here? First of all the people; everyone is deeply involved with living sustainable and with living in a self-organised way. We will even experiment the next couple of days with a Conscious Kitchen. The invitation says: “we would like to create a conscious kitchen in which food is prepared with consciousness and responsibility as part of a natural cycle that nourishes our bodies and our earth.” Then there is also the land in itself, next to the sea with both a source and a well on the little pathway between the sea and the house. It is wild land, just as you imagine in your dreams! A good place to be!

I was just reading an article from Anthony Judge, which gives the perfect words to what happened in our experience of Women Moving the Edge (read previous blog posts).

“For participants who have attended many meetings in different contexts, the ultimate expression of appreciation for a meeting is that “it was magical”. This tends to imply that somehow the right people said the right things at the right time, without any apparent form of orchestration. Together these contributions are then perceived to create what have been named “transformative moments” — when there was a genuine shift in the configuration of forces and insights.”

“Magic, like advertising and poetry, does not “work” because its propositions are essentially real or true; it works because practitioners become imaginatively involved in these propositions. Those affected can grow through the patterns, emerging beyond them into a clarity of awareness that was not possible before the experience of transition and transformation.”

These quotes are taken from an article “Cultivating the Songlines of the Noosphere. From presentations by representatives to embodying presence in transformation” on his website that gives like 10 or more perspectives to write or look at a gathering. Many times I find his articles way too abstract to be able to follow, but this is ‘just beautiful’. I got the link from another blog where was said: “a must read”.

Right!

From one of the participants:

Take time to watch a cloud

Changing shape before your eyes,

Holding its shape so lightly,

Willing to die for love of the whole

Who is this ‘I’ who holds its shape so tightly,

Clinging to form as though it’s all I know.

Would we were like clouds

Willing to be known only for a moment

As ‘That’

by Wendy Webber

As stated by Gregory Bateson: “One reason why poetry is important for finding out about the world is because in poetry a set of relationships gets mapped onto a level of diversity in us that we don’t ordinarily have access to. We bring it out in poetry. We can give to each other in poetry the access to a set of relationships in the other person and in the world that we are not usually conscious of in ourselves. So we need poetry as knowledge about the world and about ourselves, because of this mapping from complexity to complexity.” (1972, pp 288-9)

We came to our last morning on Monday. Everybody was still full of the many learnings the constellation had brought. The dialogue started from there. It is so rich (and long), but I wouldn’t know what to leave out…

* Perceval had to re-trace his steps. In retracing your experience you consciously understand. The healing of the wounded king is when we ask the question “Whom does the Grail serve?” This is about alignment. Our task is to stay connected in the epiphany to that alignment and then right action comes out of that.

* If we look back on these two days – what did we do, what made it happen? Reflecting back and making it available to the collective is important. It is not about us only, it’s about laying these cosmic grooves to make it accessible to all.

* In the meditation this morning I realized how being in this circle calls me to be no more and no less than fully present. “It is not up to me” meaning: I don’t have to do this by myself, I’m part of the collective’, and “it is totally up to me” meaning: when I’m not present (and coming from story), the full resonance potential of the group doesn’t manifest. The image of the crystal singing bowl is helpful here – where every point on the circumference of the circle is in harmony, (i.e. it isn’t a loose, floppy circle). The emptiness of the bowl reminds me of Source, of unmanifest potential, and when invited by the striker, sound comes forth.

* There is something about this circle that doesn’t trigger the ego in the usual way. I can be here in a way I don’t usually experience myself… still reeling from the implications of being Source. No ‘me-ness’, only ‘Is-ness’, there’s nothing foreign, not lost everything by not being me. It is a complete paradox that I would relinquish me and receive so much more. Like dropping my clothes, and everything is off me. Yet my place in the world is not less, and my place is vast. There’s no gravity to bring you off the top of the cliff. The thing I’ve looked for I already am, and so are you.

The alignment is a natural evolution, it is a natural expression into action. The ground of Being is raw impetus, highly energized impetus – into form. How do I experience/express myself if I can’t be you and everything?

Dropping of the boundaries of self because there’s a tangible resting point that’s everywhere, the anchor is in the in-between.

To leave here and have something sustainable is the meat of it – it doesn’t give itself to us if we don’t open up to it. We are unlimited possibility.

What we ask for is what’s given – no more and no less. Until we come to accept the vastness that we are, the more we limit the possibility of anything being possible.

There’s a relationship between the question and my willingness to hold a selfless self, without a ‘me’ to gain. Me being willing to be me in the presence of Source is to let it flow through – a new balance is needed.

* How to bring the Empress (from the Tarot) forth – the feminine, creative, loving? Being the Empress is accessing Source. Is the bowl, is the CircleBeing, accessing, opening to Source?

* There’s a formless quality to this gathering, which has no words to describe it – fullness of the silence, the experience of the spaciousness. Not so much asking the question, but I will leave here being (in) the question: Who is it in us that wants to take form, meaning – is it the ‘She’ coming from the formless place?

* “How can I continue to live the question of working with community and diversity?” How can we transcend the I to the WE, the SHE? How to deepen the understanding of the WE? I had a real experience of transcending the me/I this weekend. I transcended it to ‘We’, that might be Source.

The ‘We’ is the pathway into Source.

* The huge awakening (for her representing Collective Knowing) is that the world wanted me – is inviting me – at some level there’s a readiness, an invitation, a birthing.

So those of us who can sit in circle like this can move into this rarefied space. We’re creating grooves, for something to move forward in a new way, and we can consciously align.

I see the collective ‘We’ as the pathway – the next stage of development in human consciousness – to move out of the ‘I’ into the ‘We’.

This connection to the world is so important. We come to this kind of space and struggle to know how to re-enter. A piece of it is togetherness, collaboration – I’ve always tried to do everything alone – why? True collective leadership is about finding your collective – no attachment to my piece, but also owning my gifts in giving them freely. We’re still learning how to be in alignment with Self/Source and other, so we won’t always do it perfectly. There’s something about the feminine that can work with the subtle, creative impulse, that force coming through, and begin to create those pathways in the manifest world.

* Source wants to move, so have no anxiety to manifest the new, it will come through. Source is robust – it’s our human understanding that is fragile! What is unique about you – you will form Source into uniqueness. It’s not a weak supply! The more our ‘Yes’ is there, the more it’s available. There’s deep and profound meaning in the movement itself – inherent in the very movement is the meaning.

* There seems to be a book with the title: “Things are going great in your absence” (absence of our ego – it’s all about getting out of our way)

* ‘The tone of being magnified’ – it penetrates through everything – the vibration is the healing and the action.

* How can we hold the space as we leave, without going into our distraction?

* I acknowledge the multiple modalities of access we’ve had here this weekend – art, movement, poetry, constellation, sharing etc. – very non-linear, whatever is the next thing that emerges – a feminine way of being. The underlying order is always present and we pop up like mushrooms.

Like in the first Women Moving the Edge gathering, on the evening of the third day it felt time and the right thing to do a systemic constellation. In the previous days different participants had talked about their experiences with it, and the ones who didn’t know were curious about it.

We identified our question as: What is coming through us now?

As facilitator of the constellation I decided to let people choose for themselves which element was relevant within this question, which they would then represent. Two felt tired and started as observers, while lying on the sofa. Later they were asked to be representatives too: one as the Real World and one as Joy-Playfulness.

In silence the representatives set themselves up: Collective Knowing, Moving the Edge, One (later named as Source), Power, Being, and the Unmanifest.

In the beginning Moving the Edge stood apart, facing away from all the rest, looking outside ‘to do’ something, later…
I didn’t feel a lot of real movement in the whole constellation, and everything was quite ‘up in the sky’ with all these abstract elements, that’s why I chose to ask one of the observers to be representative for the Real World. This was attractive to Collective Knowing.
As a facilitator, I sensed a lot of seriousness in this constellation, there was no fun or joy. So I decided to bring in Joy, who immediately started to jump around and do little dances here and there. Everyone got a smile on their face. This was much better!
As we were all totally involved in this powerful experience, below you find our reflections afterwards.

Being: As Being I felt the underlying support. I had no need to do anything, just to exist; to remain constant. Manifestation would take care of itself. The power that comes out of Being, the power of love was a good addition. I felt very intimate with Power. (Being and Power stood back to back in the constellation for a long time)

Power: When I leaned against Being, my backache went away. Then it felt as if she was pushing.

Being: I liked the closeness.

Unmanifest: I felt like an impersonal presence that had an opening (between other representatives), but somehow the conditions were not there to move forward. Then when I moved to the manifest, yes, I need the manifest. The pathway is there, but I can’t move; there is no movement yet. The conditions were not right to move. When we were shaken up by Joy, it was a shaking. I was an impersonal energy. “It doesn’t matter!” came from that unmanifest plane. It did feel lighter. At the end, feeling with One and Being (standing with the three of them next to each other), it felt very strong. I could stay there; I was gathering strength. What happened in front of us became irrelevant.
Power: I felt very good with the three of you behind me, the truth was of connection and satisfaction as I looked at the scenario in front of me (Collective Knowing was invited by Real World to be next to her). It felt better when I come closer to The Edge. I felt more connected with what was behind me. I was beginning to feel to sit at the foot of the Real World.

The One: As the One the first experience was a vast, impersonal condition. I realized there was nothing separated. I also noticed that I am real, the veil of the unmanifest. I engage only when I was summoned, I was so vast and full. Not one time did anyone turn to me and use it (this vast resource)!I rose up in the presence of being. There was a symmetry: The Being, the One and the Unmanifest, they were common. The only way of moving was by invitation, but nobody engaged us. Don’t you understand that something is here for you!!! I can’t join the world; it wouldn’t be weak, it couldn’t be … I wanted you to know that.. the veil of the unmanifest would be pierced and form would happen.

Edge: I was realizing what you spoke – just now – Moving the Edge needs to turn inwards to Source first! I was facing out in the constellation instead of in! I remember feeling very isolated in the beginning, and later connected with the Real World; it felt more connected but still not fully connected, not connected back here, and so not connected to the world.

Joy: I gave myself a role as Resting before. It was part of the whole: out of Resting came Play! It seemed to me that the sense of loneliness began to shift when the Playfulness came in. It brought everybody together, there was giggling in the back, a sense of connectedness that eased it all, when I came in.

Collective Knowing: There were multiple things going on for me. Immediately I felt I wanted to be connected with everything. I wasn’t sure how to make that happen. I was the way through for Source. What was really an awakening was that the world wanted me next to her! Maybe Collective Knowing is closer to the world than I imagined. Maybe it is closer than we know. Maybe it is just that close. It was as if I had a baby in my arms. Yet there had to be a stepping back from the World to still be in a place to work with the other elements. The playfulness is so important!!! All the pieces are important! They were so close, Collective Knowing is so close to moving from the unmanifest to the manifest.

Real World: Collective Knowing was the portal. I still don’t get ‘that’ (One, Being and Unmanifest in the back). If you (Collective Knowing) come closer then maybe I can get ‘that’. With Collective Knowing close there was at least a glimpse. Felt really hard, it didn’t flow… we still don’t know what this is all about. It still spoke about the challenge we are in. An ease not at all concerned with the world; a groove happening …

Power: Remembering a sequence: Moving the Edge was looking away (in the beginning) and then looking at me and then moving back; later facing back again… the three goddesses behind me (One, Being, Unmanifest). I was on the ground, and I moved forward… a progression of relationship between those elements that became more coherent in relation to the world; it was not complete…

Being: I remember when you (Power) turned toward Being …

Oneness: about devouring… what came to me was that I am equally between manifest and unmanifest. It doesn’t have … new things can arise … it doesn’t give me a chance that… I had a real relationship with unmanifest. It stood before me. No one knows the vastness of what is available and it is ultimately knowable. In an impersonal way; the desire to be pulled into possibilities. Everything that could be is there. If one had the faith to look beyond the unmanifest; I am here, I am there, I am available, I am present. A very different relationship to Source and the Unmanifest. Ultimately not being given full viability. You are of it, it is of you, and we are not other than…

Power: We are all aspects of the One.

One: I held the belief that there was a separation, it was an illusion…

Joy: Maybe for me the place where I got stuck was almost that the Oneness or Source is so fluid… you are nowhere and everywhere at one time. It didn’t feel right to be in one position. Maybe also for the Unmanifest… Collective Knowing found the right place, but the One and Unmanifest needed to be all over the place, instead of behind (where they ended up in the end) or at the side, that could have made it more coherent.

Collective Knowing: What I saw at a certain point: Playfulness brought in a sense of lightness. And that brought a clarity of seeing and knowing that was not there before. We can see more clearly when there is fun around.

The One: Just ask!! It refers to the Biblical mandate: Ask and it shall be given. The power of the invocation; the known laws of the universe…
When did we forget to ask? Perceval (in the legend of King Arthur) doesn’t ask the question, because he wants to be polite. The question was: Whom does the Grail serve? It took him 5 years to find it out he needed to simply ask the question.

One: I had the experience of transcending your personal identity, it had the appearance of arrogance, unquestioned knowing, no ambivalence… contraindication in the feminine model… it still pushed the limits of what I could speak… it had no … it knew self so well, there was only the Is-ness. There was no such thing as unclear, or pause, … If you want to take that position… a very interesting place to explore. You can’t stop anything!

Being: I had the ongoing question: Why isn’t the One with me? I was not in the place of the all powerful aspect. I see now I have been equating Being with Source, but I was the consciousness aspect. As Being I saw myself first as unmanifest, but it changed to a more manifest Being, the inbetween space, between Source and manifestation. After this shift, I felt the different role… my back did stop hurting…. I am still not clear… There was more an idea in the beginning; it came out differently.

Edge: I am sitting here with a thought “I let the side down”. If I take off that edge of what stopped me asking. What struck me the most is what One said now. The grail serves the grail king; the source… it is like a turn around in my head, in my knowing I know the truth. I let down by not asking, into the real world… I can’t disentangle myself form the role. How much is me? How much is the role? Still the question is: One was waiting to be invited. I only realize now that I was looking outwards, instead of looking in, we don’t do this asking! In the hot tub this morning… the sun before us, and there is the moon… at the back. How to have it both at the same time? I started off in the constellation to look outwards, even when I looked inwards, if I am not viable that is OK to abdicating the power. I am the power by asking.

Power: I felt met, I felt resignation, to move the edge is going to be really difficult and sort of squeezing of something, but I will do it sort of thing. But if everything is One or Being, then moving the edge isn’t difficult. Power is simply alignment; that is what it is.

Being: you were rebuffed by Power… the rebuff of power seemed to have an impact on the situation.

Unmanifest: These are representations, it is a holographic picture. It is a representation of everybody here. Let the roles come back into the center or shake them off…

Being: It was perfect. You are not responsible for the role you stood in; for all of us.

After these powerful images of the feminine force I was wondering: If we’re giving birth here to ‘something’, what/where was the conception? Or what is the driving force that made us come here?
This led to the question by one of the participants about our intention for this gathering.

It wasn’t easy for me to give words to what I saw as the answer.

“I hold in my body the space of the unmanifest potential… I recognized the first evening that I needed to go to deeper levels in myself in order to hold more, to create a deeper container, in order to let others in this container manifest themselves or something.

I know deep inside me that some people have to give birth to the new ‘we’ space while being a totally autonomous individual, centered in themselves but in service of the circle or the collective space.

The questions of our time can only be held by circles – it’s the only way to navigate the complexity because no mental thinking will be enough; and innovative answers will come out of it. It seems to me that women are better wired to do this. If we know something that can change the world, then it’s us that need to bring it out; from the unmanifest to the manifest – without rushing, but there is an urgency.

I can see we are making new grooves in the collective consciousness. If we go there, to this collective We-space, it will be easier for others to go there too.”

Judy added: “It was born out of some kind of deep collaborative inner knowing, and I feel both urgency and responsibility to bring the collective form into being as it’s emerging now. It’s needed now – the feminine way of leadership, and it’s so important – we can only discover it together. Every time we come together in this way, we are creating new grooves in consciousness – and then it’s easier for others.”

Les agreed that it is ‘authentic embodiment’ that is at the root of why this circle is working.

The dialogue went deep and again we were invited to join Eve-Marie in her longing to use color and express our images of the collective She or the feminine power. Judy: “I remember sensing that this emergent feminine energy carries this power of the self-generating fire storm, a powerful image for me. I recall my drawing was much bolder than any before. The emergent feminine energy holds all the dynamic tension of the ‘gentle fierceness’ that came through in the first Women Moving the Edge. It holds Wholeness of Knowing, of Being, of Doing.”

I let the drawings speak for themselves: