June ‘25 Micro-blog

“What if joy and pain are fundamentally tangled up with one another? Or even more to the point, what if joy is… also what emerges from how we care for each other through those things? What if joy, instead of a refuge or relief from heartbreak, is what effloresces from us as we help each other carry our heartbreaks?...  

My hunch is that joy, emerging from our common sorrow (which does not necessarily mean we have the same sorrows, but that we, in common, sorrow) might draw us together. It might depolarize us and de-atomize us enough that we can consider what, in common, we love.

And though attending to what we hate in common is too often all the rage… noticing what we love in common, and studying that, might help us survive. “                     - Ross Gay

I think this is a really good description of something I witness a lot, (in fact, more or less constantly), when holding circles for groups of humans.

In the practice we call Way of Council, we sit in a circle so there is no hierarchy. We mark the centre because that’s where we put the difficult stuff while the process works on us. We use a Talking Piece so we remember to speak one at a time with no interruptions, and we speak honestly and in the moment - and we really commit to listening to each other from a deep place of presence: no judgement, no meddling, just presence.

And within that extraordinary space of shared vulnerability, authenticity, and respect, we encounter each other. Not as arguments, not as positions, but as real, raw people – other members of our own tribe, no longer ’the other’ – that illusion is washed away – but as another human heart feeling, longing, trying, suffering, falling, getting back up, dancing, laughing, weeping, mourning, learning, growing, healing – just like us. Just like us.

This is the practical experiencing of Zen Master Thich-Nhat-Hanh’s interbeing (“we inter-are”), or South Africa’s Ubuntu (“I am, because you are”), or the Mayan In Lak'ech Ala K'in (“I am another of yourself”). As Blues singer Eric Johanson says: “There’s no them, there’s only us”.

In this place we transcend labels, hostility, and all the desperate attempts of the tyrants to divide us. In this place we understand. We care and are cared for, respect and are respected, see and are seen.

The issue ‘they’ used to divide us? It’s either been revealed to all as the con it was, or if real, we find we have together birthed a profound solution, one we can all embrace as wisdom, and as justice.

The cure for these grief-filled and dangerous times is not ‘My country right or wrong’, it’s not Generative AI, or ‘strong leaders’ or what we’ve been told to think of as democracy.

Nor is it Identity politics, or perpetual victimhood, or yet more performative outrage.

No, it’s more circles. Brave, tear-stained, snot-nosed, real circles of shared sorrow and shared joy, powerfully generating connection, solidarity, compassion, and change.

And if all of that calls to you, stirs something in you, you are most welcome to come and experience Council for yourself at our next Introduction to the Way of Council training: September 5th-7th, Great Glemham, Suffolk -

Dave Bingham, founder and chief assistant to alchemy at True Circles.