by Mary Bryan
Well first off, it’s AWEmazing to be part of women’s lives. I have yet to meet one woman who has not inspired me, from whom I have not learned something. And usually I’m learning how to be a better human from them and my co-facilitator. I am blown out of the water at the resilience, creativity, vulnerability, power they have to keep saying yes to their lives and their families lives when facing dire circumstances and challenging situations. I get to see courage in action, without exception, in every single circle, which just by it’s very nature, is empowering, where every voice is heard, everyone has something to offer and a willingness to share whatever it is they have or are.
There is an aliveness I experience in We Can Circles, Juntas, Women’s Spirit Circles, Si se Puede circles. I believe it comes from holding the Center, each individual’s core as sacred and precious. Participating with folk when they are coming alive again, reclaiming themSelves, also creates a vitality that we all recognize and lean into, each helping the other, generously so. There is an eagerness to lean into healing, to seek and claim a good life, a welcoming to wholeness that each person brings in their on way, their own time, as they can, without judgment clouding the waters in a We Can Circle, and always possibility and hope and the sharing of a life with each other that creates that crackling connection that sparks a current of healing that keeps on giving. Love hearing them speak into what they’ve learned and tried and how someone else’s story helped them and see that spark change to flame in their eyes and their bodies and their choices and how that spills out into our community. Not much better.