I've been inspired by the Awakin Circle for more than a couple of years.  I check in with the weekly readings and have used many of them as inspirations for reflections in my journaling.  I sat around yearning for something like that...waiting for it to come to me.  Sitting and wishing.  Three or four months ago I got brave enough to see if I might find a circle to join and fired off an e-mail to the closest one on the map...waiting for a reply to come to me.  Looking at my inbox and wishing.  Finally, the lightbulb went off and I stopped wishing for what I imagined was out there and got to work on what I could actually do with what I had right here.  So I reached out to the yoga instructor asking if she would be interested in having a group in her studio.  She welcomed me and my small idea with such energy! With the gift of her networking efforts and student connections, we convened the first Meditation Circle here in our small corner of southwest Mississippi in the United States.

We gather for an hour and half of meditation, sharing and tea.  I am organizing the time, managing the correspondence and leading the activities. I am naturally introverted and flush beet red with more than one pair of eyes on me at a time. It was quite an hour and half!  Six of us gathered together and listened to a guided meditation. I shared a haiku poem and reflection from the book Haiku Mind by Patricia Donegan. We shared around the ideas of Pausing and Patience. Our tea time was filled with laughter and we learned the history of how a yoga studio came to be in a field by a highway in rural Mississippi. We have a date set for our next gathering and so a small spark has just lit up in the forests of the deep south.