Much of HOPE’s work today is helping people expand conscious awareness of the presence of a soul within themselves. I have described the difference between soul and spirit in these pages. I have also given you the details of the process of Circling the Soul: Coming Home to Yourself™.

This kind of expansion of knowledge and awareness is linear, which is to say it moves in fairly straight lines from one person to another and maybe to a small group. The expansion of this way of teaching is not going out like ripples on the surface of a pond into which you have thrown a pebble on a quiet evening. Imagine what that ring of ripples looks like and see how it expands and expands and expands. This metaphor of ripples has been with me for the better part of my life. It was a key part of my ability to recover from a traumatic wound of childhood, and it has been a key part of the way we have thought and worked in HOPE these many years. Now, having created Circling the Soul: Coming Home to Yourself™; and given many of these workshops, we have people who not only want to run these workshops themselves, but who want to teach people to run these workshops.

Circling the Soul workshops are easy to do. We have worked out the details of the method. There are simply four elements of the workshop, the Soul Map, the Soul Crystal, the Image of Becoming, and the Affirmation of Becoming. There is the all-important and wonderful context of the workshops, which are contexts of love, caring, and hope. The way to establish the context is proven with 300 years of Quaker experience, and is easily taught. The teaching follows the teaching that benefited me as I learned to become a surgeon on the one hand, and to fly airplanes on the other hand. I had a coach or a guide, also known as an instructor, who watched me perform a given operation or a way of flying and then certified me to be able to do this on my own. As I have learned a surgical procedure, however, I was asked to teach that procedure to somebody who was junior to me in the training process. So I believe it to be with the Circling the Soul process.

Many people who have circled their own souls in these workshops want to continue to do the work, and they have notified us here that they want to continue the work. We have placed their names on a registry of apprentices to the process. When we schedule a workshop, we invite apprentices to come and guide small groups.

Three people have done enough of this work that they want to present the evening talk I give to introduce the subject before the next day’s workshop. I am delighted to turn over to them the slides and notes that I have created on which the talk is based. The essence of the workshop the next day is contained in this material, and because of their familiarity with the material, two of the three will be giving the Friday night talk at the On Balance Circling the Soul: Coming Home to Yourself™; workshop that is to be held on September 18 and 19. These two fine people will team up to give the talk, because that is how they want to do it. It is essential that they produce this talk in their own way. I will be there to support them in their process. If they perform as well as I expect they will, I will certify them to do this Friday evening talk without me. If the workshop on Saturday goes well I will certify them to be able to do that part of the process on their own. The next time that they give the Circling the Soul workshop, I will probably be in Yakima, Washington, doing the same thing with some friends out there who have already participated in this circling, spreading the ripples even further.

It is an exciting and wonderful process, and to all of you who would like to become more deeply involved in Circling the Soul, a simple telephone call to 207-743-9373 and a talk with Laurie will be your introduction to greater involvement in this wonderful process.

HOPEr's Stories:         
The following prayer was written by HOPE’r Vi McKenzie of Biddeford, Maine. Thank you, Vi, for sharing!

January 1990
Dear God:

Thank you for the gift of life, and a brand new year. A chance for me to share my experiences, strength and hopes. To show my gratitude for the growth I’ve made and the awareness of the growth that’s yet to come.

God, don’t let me forget that I can do it "One Day at a Time" and that I can handle it, if it is "Just for Today," "Keeping my life Simple" will take the worry and expectations out of it. And "Easy Does It" brings such a calm and serenity that who on earth would not want that for themselves. When it becomes too difficult, give me the strength to "Let Go and Let God" and to "Live and Let Live" as best I can.

Let me "Listen and Learn" from others in the fellowship. Always remind me to "Think" before I speak, as to not hurt others with harsh words. Putting "First Things First" will help keep the focus on myself and allow me to be in better control of my feelings.

Thank You most of all God, for the very special gift of Al-Anon you helped me find for myself.

With Gratitude
One of Yours, Vi

Tracking Down a Poet         
You may have seen the poem After a While You Learn. There is some confusion about its name brought about by the fact that it got spread across the country by others without her knowledge. A version called Comes the Dawn was published in Ann Landers’ newspaper column in December 1992 and it came to HOPE's attention at that time. We used the Comes the Dawn version of this poem as a resource for HOPE guides in the early 1990's until the Spring of 1998 when a HOPE group participant gave HOPE’s founder, Ken Hamilton, a somewhat different version of the poem with the title After a While. After some research and some extraordinary help from perfect strangers, the mystery appears solved.

To date this plaintive cry of a teenage woman has been published in 21 books including Chicken Soup: A Second Helping and Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul. Maybe because this poem touches people so very deeply, it has been plagiarized, revised, and edited many times over the years. The original version is printed here with the author's request that she remain unnamed. 

After A While You Learn

After a while you learn the

subtle difference between

holding a hand and chaining

a soul,

 

And you learn that love

doesn't mean leaning and

company doesn't mean security.

 

You begin to learn that kisses

aren't contracts and presents

aren't promises,

 

And you begin to accept your

defeats with your head up

and your eyes open, with

the grace of an adult, not

the grief of a child,

 

And you learn to build all

your roads on today because

tomorrow's ground is too

uncertain for plans.

 

After a while you learn

that even sunshine burns

if you get too much.

 

So you plant your own

garden and decorate your

own soul instead of waiting

for someone to bring you

flowers.

 

And you'll learn to endure;

that you really are strong

and you really do have

worth.

 

We would love to have your HOPE story for Ripples! Please send it to the HOPE office, PO Box 276, South Paris, ME 04281 or email it to hope-at-hopehealing.org. If you don't think you are a writer, record it onto a tape and send it to the office. The editor will transcribe and edit it for you!