Confluence Formation Aram Mitchell

This is a meditation that I wrote for another thing, which I will tell you more about later, but meanwhile I want to share it with you here…
In the poem that she called Wild Geese, Mary Oliver tells us directly: “You only have to let the soft animal of your body // love what it loves.”
Lest we forget, we are animal every bit as much as our mammalian kin. Our tenderness and our ferocity are both animal qualities. We express and convey ourselves through the soft squish of our animal bodies and in our fierce compulsion to love the life that we are given.
Mammals with imagination. That is what we are.
We distinguish ourselves—or do our best to—by what we imagine, by making meaning. With our stories, our myths, our rituals, ceremonies, and symbols we take the raw matter of life and shape it into something lovable. 
We are mammals who imagine. Our imagination is informed by our animal instincts. Hunger compels us to eat. Fear compels us to flee. Frustration causes us to freeze. Injustice stokes in us our fight.
When we dance in our fullness we wed our instincts with imagination and find the audacity to feel our way into relationship with wild nature. As wild beings we conjure courage and playfulness to experiment with our own wild ways of being. 
Simply put, we make up ways of moving in this world.
So: Do that now. 
Move your body in some small way. 
Swivel your wrists.
Make a fist.
Scrunch your face.
Lift your chin.
Stick out your tongue. 
Or some other small movement. Or all of them at the same time. 
Move your body for a span of several breaths in ways that are informed by only your own instinct and imagination.
Go ahead, take ten seconds, do that now.
“Whoever you are,” Mary Oliver writes, “No matter how lonely // the world offers itself to your imagination.”
You make up ways of moving in the world, and your movements bring you into meeting with the movements of others. We are curious creatures. So of course we heed the urge to explore the movements beyond ourselves.
We love to learn from the wild ways of others. 
When we dance with others in our combined fullness we wed our imagination with our capacity to imitate. 
Salvador Dali said, “Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.”
In a sense, every swivel of our wrists, every vowel from our throat, every tilt of the chin is built on some imitation of those we witness around us and those who came before us.
So why not look to other wild ones, from time to time, and pretend we are them? 
Why not meow and howl?
Why not nap in puddles of sunshine?
Why not run in packs?
Why not, right now, up from where you are, go and do any of those things. 
Meow, growl, or howl. Nap or run. 
Or purr softly.
Or sit simply still like a stone for a while.
Or sway subtly like a tree.
Or honk like the wild geese “harsh and exciting // over and over announcing your place // in the family of things”.
Excerpts from Wild Geese, by Mary Oliver


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In my last reflection I wrote about the practice of having the audacity to suck at something. Here are two things that I have had the audacity to suck at lately:
* Improv comedy
* Fly fishing
And it isn’t even that you have to be terrible at the thing, really, to get the full benefit of the practice. It just has to be something that you are not already excellent at, that you are a little bit intimidated by, and that you are willing to try nevertheless.
Both improv and fly fishing are things that had lingered a long time on my bucket list before I opened myself up, through them, to the various practices of audacity, courage, deliberate mediocrity, good-enoughness, and being more comfortable with feeling a little bit uncomfortable.
Read to the bottom to explore how I can support you in your practices of audacity.

With improv, “Yes, and…” is the big thing. Holding a posture and practice of “Yes, and…” is about being willing to go with the flow of whatever emerges in the scene that you are creating with your co-creators. 
If your scene partner waddles up to you like a penguin, the best way to kill the scene is to fold your arms across your chest and say, “Penguins are dumb.” 
The best way to keep the scene going is to start waddling like a penguin right alongside of them and say something like, “I can’t believe we finally got out!!”
In the first scenario you end up with a stage with a grumpy guy on it standing at odds with a poor dumb penguin. There’s not a lot of juice to that scene.
But in the second scenario you’ve got a stage with two penguins who just escaped from the zoo. That scene can go somewhere.
With fly fishing, “Yes, and…” also applies. I think. I’m still catching on. But I know last month when I was standing in a stream in North Carolina and my line got tangled up I didn’t just chuck the rod into the water and walk away. I said yes to the tangle, and took a deep breath, and took my time untangling it, and noted why my cast went awry in the first place, and smiled at the all around beauty of the moment, and and and.
Do I need to reel you in on this one? Or do you see it? 
Do you see the ways that a practice of “Yes, and…” might help infuse some juiciness into your relationships? how that conversation with your partner or that interaction with the stranger might have played out differently by approaching it with a posture of possibility and co-creation?
Do you see how a posture of “Yes, and…” might help you untangle tangles in your work day? might help you shift from frustration, desperation, cynicism to patience, dexterity, perspective?
“Yes, and…” isn’t always about literally saying “Yes.” 
It’s about staying open, to the river’s flow. It’s about listening deeply, to your scene partners. It’s about being brave with your creative ideas while holding them generously enough to engage the co-creative process of a day.
It’s about showing up on the stage of your day paying attention, with curiosity, and ending up somehow on a penguin heist.
It’s about showing up to catch fish, and catching maybe a few fish (though maybe, also, none at all) but hooking firmly on, nevertheless, to the ways that the river moves and the fish think and the insects hatch and the shadows form.
Thank you for reading. This post is public so feel free to share it.

How can I support you?
I am now accepting clients who need a coach! 
If you want to make a difference through your work, if you’re striving to make a change in the world, and you feel overwhelmed, frustrated, or stuck:
* Read the About Coaching section below.
* Schedule a 30 minute Discovery Call with me.
* Then meet with me, to see if coaching might be the best next step for you.
About Coaching
Some people come to coaching because they have a big dream but they aren’t doing it. Some people come to coaching because that don’t have a dream but want to discover one.
Either way, coaching is a chance to m

I have been combing the internet for sources of insight at the confluence of wildness and spirituality. The internet is not the most relevant place to search for such things. The most relevant places to search are wild places and wild spirits, your very own and those belonging to others. But there is no shortage of wild wisdom out there—even among the ones and zeros—for those who have eyes to see. 
Along with everything else it is, the internet is an archive of story, conversation, perspective, poetry, and song all telling the tale of how a bunch of featherless bipeds made their way on the crust of this planet.
So I have been compiling sources from the archive to weave into my own contribution, the online course that I am designing, which is getting close to ready for release into the wild.
In my search I came on a conversation that adrienne maree brown had with Marcia and en Lee, the founders of Taproot Sanctuary, a permaculture community in Detroit. The conversation meanders a little too much to fit the constraint of the learning experience that I am designing, but I have gleaned some welcome wisdom from listening in. 
They spend the hour talking about the people who have shaped and inspired them, about the way that the world tilts toward change, and about how to go about getting in right relationship with change.
At one point en Lee says, “We have to skill up.” And that got me thinking about the sort of skills I spend my days trying to gain and trying to hone.
He says: “It should be a human right to be able to live in right relationship with our bioregion and with our neighbors, but we’re deprived of these skills that may have been passed down to us in the past.”
Then he says something that I found so delightful and true, as he was reflecting on the ways that we block ourselves from seeking new skills. We block ourselves with fears of failure, with imposter syndrome, with the misconception that we need to be properly enrolled on a path of expertise before we can even begin to glean and hone new skills. We block ourselves from acquiring the things we need in order to live our best lives.
To all that, en Lee said we should go ahead and give ourselves permission to suck at things on the way to getting better at them. “I can really suck at this,” he says, “But as long as I have a relationship with it I will get better and better.”
So today, rather than asking you: “What have you learned from life lately?” I am asking you this: “What have you sucked at lately, but had the courage to try nevertheless?”
This isn’t quite the same thing, but it comes to mind just now as I squint out the window into the the sun: That the flowering trees lining the sidewalks in my Cambridge neighborhood don’t get every blossom just right, but you wouldn’t know it from across the street, looking at the way they burst with the audacity to bloom, bloom, bloom.


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After Easter this year I flew from Boston to a conference center in a little corner of the Blue Ridge Mountains. They are called the Blue Ridge Mountains because the trees on the mountainside emit hydrocarbons that—when seen from a distance—huddle over the mountains in a haze of blue. When you are in the mountains, and not just beholding their hazy edges from afar, things are more vivid. Up close each tree communes with well-defined and tangible edges.
In the mountains, among the vivid trees, each day for a few days, I took folks out for a saunter on the trails. This was the third year in a row that I have traveled south to North Carolina to help shape the Discovering Renewal retreat.
The first time I guided hikes for Discovering Renewal I landed at Montreat a few days early. I had scouted the trails as best I could on some digital maps. But I hadn’t done much actual walking on the trails, which felt important to actually do before taking actual people for actual walks. 
I traipsed around the trails solo for a few days, took lots of notes, came up with a route or two that would work for a big group full of folks with different abilities and needs, then awaited their arrival, and dove in.
Last year, when I returned, I went a couple of days early and reacquainted myself with the trails, and with my trail liturgy, before guiding the retreat.
For every trip, retreat, workshop, course, or talk that I offer, I make some sort of liturgical flow to ground us and guide us through the experience. The liturgy tends to originate in my mind and notebook. Then, with a walk, I massage it into my heart. 
Usually the liturgy is a variation (or a collection of variations) on a simple thematic spiritual progression: Wrestle, rest, return. Sometimes I share the liturgy out loud, and sometimes I just use it as a quiet compass to keep me oriented in the work of facilitation.
But always, one way or another, I put the liturgy into practice by extending it to the group. They embody it. Usually there are as many ways to embody the liturgy as there are bodies engaged in it. By taking what I offer and embodying it, they transform the liturgy from something with hazy hues to something with sharp edges; from an imagined vision to a lived encounter.
This is like what happens at church, or any community of spiritual practice. When those who gather begin to embrace a string of stories, symbols, and songs with their voices, postures, emotions, and actions—worship takes place. The hazy hues of the divine come into focus through the expressions of practitioners.
This year, going back to Montreat, I felt familiar enough with the trails to not need a review. But I still flew in a day early, and took to the streams to commune with the trout. 
I caught only nibbles—and the branches of trees leaning over the stream above me, and the undersides of rocks, and the radical understanding that no matter how many times you step into it, you never step in the same river twice.
Speaking of, I’ll be back again after Easter next year, if you’re keen to join.
PS – Beginning next month, as part of my rigorous training with the Academy for Coaching Excellence, I will be taking on new clients who are in need of coaching.
If you are developing a liturgy (or outline or concept or plan of action) for any sort of creative project, and you could use some support to see it through: Touch base with me!
I’d love to connect and see if what I have to offer can help you bring into focus what you have to offer.


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arammitchell.substack.com

A sunrise like today’s makes me think about that sentiment that appears through the pen of the prophet who wrote: “His mercies never come to an end, they are new every morning.”
Sometimes I procrastinate a long while from doing a thing that I want to do, and then I wake up one day and I’m like, “Ahhh *deep sigh* new mercies.” And I just go ahead and do the thing.
I like to sit every morning at my desk and peek out the window askance at the sunrise, and write. 
But I don’t always do it. 
Because: Plenty of reasons—I have ten other projects going that all want my attention, I went camping for a few days because I needed some rest, and now I’m behind on my list, and I have to go to the dentist, and the grocery store, and make phone calls, and walk the dog, and fold the laundry, and put out the compost, and go to the library, and go to the coffee shop, and zero my inbox. 
I do have to do all (most) of those things. And honestly, I love the ordinary things that fill up life. All those things are beautiful. My dentist is great. But, sometimes when there is a simple thing that I truly want to do, like sit down and write for thirty minutes, I let all of the rest of it pile up in my mind until I’ve built a mound of justified inaction.
Then, when several days go by, then a week, then two, and I haven’t done the thing that I want to do, what I usually think that I need is a boost of intention to get going again. I think that I can shovel my way out of inertia with intention.
I’ll begin setting my intention at some point each day, noting how important it is to me to sit down and write the next day. 
“Here is a mound of inaction, and intention is my shovel,” I’ll say to myself. 
And intentions are like shovels. They can be useful. When they’re put to use. But, after a week or two of stating my intentions, I often end up with that original little mound of inaction sitting right next to a great big pile of shovels.
And I’m like: “Hmm, now all these shovels are in my way. Surely I need to build a shed so that I can store my shovels.”
You see how it goes. That’s familiar, right? 
For you it might not be sitting down to write. The thing you truly want to do could be pretty well anything. It’s probably something creative. It’s probably something that’s good for you. And—in order to do the thing—it is very unlikely that you need any more shovels or sheds.
Once we step around the mound it can all feel a little silly that we were treating it like a mountain. Haha. Silly me. Deep sigh. New mercies. 
But it’s no wonder we get stuck, because sometimes the legit mountains also get in the way. (Even though they are the way.) 
We have great big mountain sized ambitions: “I want to write a book.” or “I want to grow my business.” or “I want the lead role in a play.” 
These dreams and desires and ambitions are mountains, glorious in their grandeur!
And in the shadow of these ambitions it’s easy to let slip our grip on the value of the next doable thing.
“I want to write a book” is not my next doable thing. “I’m going to write for thirty minutes” that’s my next doable thing.
“I want to grow my business” or “I want the lead role in a play” are not the next doable things. 
If those are the mountains that you’re climbing, hurrah! I can’t wait to give you my money or watch you perform. And also, I can’t tell you what your next doable thing is. No one can. 
But I can tell you this, whatever mountain you’re climbing: 
* Your next doable thing is a whole lot smaller than the mountain itself, it’s something you can—well—do, in one stride. 
* If you’re willing to look—not up at the mountain (you can bask in its glory later) but right down at the path by your feet—you’ll see it.
* It’s very unlikely that you need a shovel or a shed to do it.


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to b

As a wilderness guide, the ability to pivot from your itinerary when the weather, terrain, group, circumstance, or who-knows-what requires it—that’s one of your most vital capacities. The same goes for any practitioner of wild spirituality.
It’s interesting though, because it’s seldom crystal clear whether the pivot is entirely necessary. It’s always some combination of managing risk and expectations, and about moving through with the confidence that you can alter course without needing to compromise the purpose of the experience.
Sometimes it is clear. Sometimes it’s clear because the risk calculus makes it so: The river is heavily flooded, this is no longer where we are going to cross. 
Sometimes it’s clear because an opportunity to enhance the experience becomes available: The group has been moving more quickly than I anticipated, turns out we have time for this epic side hike to a natural arch, and the group is game. Duh, let’s go!
I’m making a pivot.
This pivot is the latter sort. As I gathered some feedback from folks interested in Spiritual Formation in the Wild, and consulted with my collaborators at The School of Global Citizenry, I got a vision for a new route that is going to enhance this particular experience. 
I’m redesigning the course that I told you about earlier this month. I’ll be offering two experiences of learning and formation, rather than one:
* The first offering will be a stand-alone offering, with much of the same value of the original course, but more financially accessible as an on-demand, self-paced course. 
* The second will be a cohort-based experience that I will facilitate for folks who want to apply what they’ve learned on a deeper personal and vocational level.
Spiritual Formation in the Wild • Coming very soon!
This will be a self-paced online course with guided nature connection practices, lessons about the methods, history, and benefits of nature connection, and audio reflections by yours truly.
It will qualify learners for 2 continuing education units (20 contact hours) certified through The School of Global Citizenry. 
The course fee: $89 • Enrollment opening later this Spring. I’ll keep you posted!
Spiritual Leadership in the Wild • Coming in 2025!
This one will be a guided online cohort experience for folks who want to strengthen their calling and creative contributions. This experience will build on the personal practices and lessons from Spiritual Formation in the Wild, as I guide you on a multi-week delve into exploring wilderness as an arena of communal formation, and helping you find applications to your work in the world.
I’ll send out more specs around the bend. Meanwhile I’m keen to hear from anyone who might be interested in either or both of these courses: What excites you about them? What are the barriers that would keep you from joining?
Because I really hope you will join.


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arammitchell.substack.com