THE COVID MONTHS | SHARING CIRCLES
Phil Smith shares his experience of leading a Sharing Circle with school children after the first Lockdown
Somewhere above a bird sang. Most birds that I know had taken their leave of the Northern Hemisphere, migrating in search of warmer climes. Not the one that I could hear, clear in the autumnal sky. It reminded me of spring; that strange time when human life withdrew indoors and wildlife flourished with renewed vigour. While most birds now withdrew from the oncoming British winter, the human cost of lock down was slowly coming out into the open. Faces around me sat before a small camp fire that was keeping each of us warm as we spoke and listened to one another. The smoke from our fire silently rose into the endless sky above us. Occasionally a breeze would blow and for a moment one of the group would be wreathed in this white smoke. A memory from spring was recounted, accompanied by tears of pain and remembering. I watched as the faces of the others listened, hearing the voice of the speaker. One, connecting with the sadness that the story of the speaker had stirred up within, began to interrupt, eager to also be heard; ‘There is no scarcity’, an evoked companion reminded me.
I read a book recently that argued dinosaurs were not actually extinct. Birds, the author argued, are the direct evolutionary descendants of dinosaurs. I think back to the dinosaurs that have appeared in countless sand trays that I have observed. Dinosaurs in one form or another still stalk these lands. I hear about dinosaurs now; the rough edge of a voice; the clumsy put down; the arguments, the shouting, the worry, and worse. Some children did not have gardens to sit in when venturing out of the house was not allowed. Some children did not have a safe person to confide in when going to school was not possible. Isolated, from the supportive adults around them; Isolated from their friends. Perhaps this circle can offer an outlet, a place to share? A wet stick popped and crackled as the moisture within it was heated up and escaped through a small hole in the wood. They wrote down what they felt. They drew and painted what feelings they noticed. They showed these to one another, listening, speaking, sharing. Taking it in turns to move round the circle. We had a break and played a game of ‘blocky’ in the small copse at the bottom of the school field. ‘Men can’t run’, once voice assured me. It turns out this one could as we all raced to get back to the blocky post, smiling and laughing and gasping for breath.
Over ten weeks, this group struggled to sit, to speak and to listen to one another. I use the word ‘struggled’ because I think that to really sit, speak and listen to one another requires work. To find one another and to tune into one another amidst the noise of internal memory, need and concern takes time and commitment. The sharing circle was one such place where children and one man committed themselves to this process.
After the ninth session of the group and full of thought I took my leave of the school and began to walk down the path and out of the school grounds. As I did so then I noticed twelve faces pressed through the gaps in a fence. They were children from reception class. ‘Phil…’ they whispered; I didn’t know how they knew my name. ‘Come here…’. I walked over; ‘What are you looking at’ I asked. ‘Look’, pointed one boy, ‘it’s a cat’. ‘A cat…’ I turned to look and saw a beautiful tortoise shell cat stalking through the undergrowth of the verge. I sat down with my back against the fence and watched. ‘I wonder where its been’ I asked aloud. A story ensued as the faces beside me took it in turns to hypothesise with dexterity the journey that the cat had been on in order to reach this place in time and space before us. The wondering mantle was taken up by another voice; ‘where is he going?’ A second discussion emerged as the children dreamed out loud as to where this cat was heading and what took it there. We discussed what we thought the cat was called; Rodrigo, Boris, Cynthia, Theresa May, Herbert... How old was the cat… and where did it like to go on its holidays? The bell rang summoning the children back into class. I stood up and continued my journey along the path to my car. I drove home wondering about that cat and smiling as I remembered this unlooked for encounter with the children. It had made my day, perhaps my week. It reminded me that while Brexit, Covid and a whole host of other global, national and local news cycle around in our immediate awareness, beneath this surface cat’s are wondering around still, dinosaurs are blundering through the streets, buds are gathering their strength for spring and children are shaping the world around them. As I drove home I was reminded of a poem I have long known which stumbled back into my remembering. It is by the Welsh poet R.S. Thomas and it is called ‘The Bright Field’;
I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
