Hello Brother’s and Sisters,
It’s been sometime since I wrote a letter “from the chair” and I apologize for being out of touch. Here is a new offering.
At our last California Council meeting in San Diego, some council members came a day before our formal meeting to meet in a “talking circle”. This is a practice that has evolved in many indigenous cultures to make important decisions from a deeper place than that of debate.
The talking circle seeks to integrate the voices of the tribe so that each individual’s voice can be deeply (“reverently”) heard and help the tribe to proceed in wholeness (in a sacred manner).
I asked those who were willing and able to come “early” so we could talk and listen to each other perhaps more deeply than we do when conducting “business as usual” in our more formal meeting with the pre-arranged agenda.
I believe that this kind of conversation among us is bringing an essential ingredient to our efforts. In our more formal meetings we get things done. In these circles we get to know who we are.
I got one gem for myself from this circle It was a new awareness about the meaning of communication, which was spoken by our vice chair, Elizabeth Trudell. She said that a key purpose of communication is to “nourish the community”.
So I hope that what I say here may be of some nourishment to our community. I am coming to understand that pictures communicate in a way that can be very direct, so here’s one called Awaking the Dreamer.
Theoretical physicists have predicted that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in one part of the world can initiate giant weather changes at a great distance.
So too, a small act of kindness may eventually generate a beautiful world event. Do one today, and together we can unleash a wave of butterflies.
One group of indigenous people name what we call God “The Universal Life Energy in Motion”. It moves in small circles and large circles, making waves in the invisible that manifest in the visible.
We are all connected in so many ways and move with God’s energy in every action we make. The wave is in the Dolphin and the Dolphin is in the wave.
I look forward to being with you again the next time we meet.
With affection, Robert