The human need to connect and gather dates back to the beginning of our evolutionary path. Given the last year of physical separation and the emotional toll of numerous challenges for so many of us, we were inspired to host a community event for connection and to cultivate compassion for ourselves and each other. Women’s International History Month was a wonderful reason to celebrate, to honor our ancestors, and to reflect, practice, and support each other.
The Women’s Global Compassion Gathering on March 28 welcomed participants from forty-one different countries around the world. Presentations from Kenya Casey, of The Carter Center, Liz Grant of the University of Edinburgh, and Monica Worline of Stanford University were interspersed with time for community reflection, sharing intentions and poetry, and restoration.
Kenya Casey “Paying homage to our ancestors and to sisterhood.”
Kenya began with an invocation from Christina Gutierrez and called everyone back home to their internal home – their soul home – and then shared the power of her personal journey to her own soul home. As an American-born named Kenya, she felt deeply connected to the continent of Africa, and in college joined an African rites of passage organization, Nzinga – which means intertwined – named after Queen Nzinga. This community was grounded in five principles: humility, nurturing, spirituality, wisdom, and forgiveness. Kenya described the experience as her first introduction to compassion and self-compassion. More than just the principles, though, Nzinga taught Kenya about sisterhood and the importance of promoting gender equality, saying, “We have to stand near and by each other, pray for one another and share the joys and difficulties that women face in the world today.”
Throughout her life, Kenya has found a community of elder women who invested themselves in her success. She now has a personal policy of always responding to young people who reach out for guidance and advice. She is maintaining and building that community and sisterhood that has been passed down to her across the ages.
Kenya offered her own five guiding principles. First, each of us has reached where we are with the guidance, love, and support of others. So, pay it forward. Second, if you don’t have a community or sister circle, create one. Next, invest in your relationships by staying connected to those who genuinely want to see you succeed. Fourth, be intentional with your friendships and professional relationships. Finally, practice self-compassion and love first so that you can then offer compassion and love to others. Kenya even shared a bonus principle! Laugh and dance as much as possible. As gratitude to the women who have believed in her, who have pushed her, and who have accepted her, Kenya offered her support and celebration to each and every one in the Compassion Gathering.
Liz Grant “A journey in Celtic spirituality”
Liz Grant offered as an opening the beautiful hymn Bí Thusa Mo Shúile (Be Thou My Vision) sung in Gaelic by Talyn Prescott. The words to this hymn were written sometime between the sixth and eighth century in Ireland, in a time of extraordinary change; in a time of a paradigm shift. We, too, are living in a time of extraordinary change and as leaders are called to shape that change.
Liz explained the symbolism of the Celtic knot with three points interwoven in an endless connection. These three points represent our relationship to the heavens, to the earth and sea, and inward to ourselves. Liz emphasized the importance of our recognition to the connection to the land and others at this time of climate change and the dangers that brings to the earth. Women have a special place in sustaining the creation that is around us, and in creation itself. The Hebrew words for compassion (racham, רַחַם) and womb (rechem, רֶחֶם) come from the same root. Compassion and creation are deeply intertwined. Part of the message of the three-pointed Celtic knot is that we are not alone, and can claim the support of each other and the support of something that is beyond ourselves.
Liz shared the legends of St. Brigid, one of the patron saints of Ireland, to teach us to take what we have, work with it, and use it. The lesson is that women working together in community can be much more powerful than working alone. She teaches us to cast a bold vision and not be put off by structures or sentiment or refusal, saying, “We have the power to bring about change.”
In closing, Liz shared words from the late 20th century Irish poet, John O’Donohue, “You travel certainly, in every sense of the word. But you take with you everything that you have been, just as the landscape stores up its own past. Because you were once at home somewhere, you are never an alien anywhere.” And in reflecting the words of the song “How can I Keep From Singing?”, Liz asked, “When we hear the words that we carry in our heart, the words of our womb, the words of compassion, how can we keep from singing?”
Monica Worline “Awakening compassion in a global gathering of women”
In offering a community approach to bring compassion into the world, Monica began with the concept of “inscaping,” a word from the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, and which means “The way that we can work with the essence that’s most fundamental to something’s inner shape.” The inner shape, in turn forms and is actually also the thing’s outer work. For any social change we want to accomplish in the world, we must live it as a daily experience on the inside.
Inscaping involves three different forms of relational work – inside-in, inside-out, and outside-in, and Monica brought three poems to speak to each of these forms of work. The first poem, “Phase One” by Dilruba Ahmed, speaks of forgiveness, and the forgiveness that we must offer to be successful with our inside-in work. She closed her reading of a portion of the poem with a moving, “I forgive you. I forgive you.” Next, she shared “Kindness” by Naomi Shahib Nye, speaking to the inside-out work of compassion, to the challenging reality that to know compassion, we must first know suffering. Building on the poet’s analogy of threads in a whole cloth, Monica concludes, “when we see ourselves as a thread woven into the whole cloth, then kindness and compassion is the only thing that makes any sense.” Monica’s third poem, “Twenty-One Love Poems (XVII)” by Adrienne Rich, speaks to the outside-in work of compassion and the radical acts of love to heal the suffering in the world, whether it be hatred or torture or exploitation or terror or famine, which are all radical acts of love.
Community Reflections and Impact
The wonderful presence and contributions of all the participants who gathered reminded us we are not alone and we are here to support each other. Many women chose to connect more deeply in small breakout groups after the main presentations. Remarkable and random, these breakouts offered a quiet, confidential space to reflect on the themes of interconnection, compassion, ancestry, and hope.
When the whole group came back to the main room to bid farewell and offer thanks, we all felt the profound sense of love and caring. In their own words:
Stacia Stepak: Thank you all for sharing your compassion today.
Judy Tobler: Thank you for this lovely space for allowing us to be threads in the cloth of compassion.
Jennifer Greenberg: Thank for all for this profoundly inspiring hour.
Annie Kollar: Honored to have been here. Thank you for so much beauty. I have so much gratitude in my heart.
Che Sabalja: Thanks to all the presenters. Let’s keep spreading compassion!
Darlene Charneco: Deep gratitude in my heart.
Melissa Chambers: What a gift to be here today.
Rima Syed: Thank you for all your valuable insights.
Lisi Desai: Feeling connected.
Gemma Colbert: I am deeply moved and inspired.
Amy Giddon: Thank you all for sharing this special moment.
Eline Postma: My heart is wide open.
Nani Lata: Very moving and amazing energy
Susan Mazonson: Beautiful, healing, and inspiring!
Anne Heynen: I feel nurtured and connected.
Mary Meyer: Inspiring for what is possible for all of us.
Shirley Thompson: Intention to bring reconciliation, equity, diversity, and inclusion to my workplace in a better way, a good way.
Joni Roberts: I’m feeling calm and more accepting.
Callie Elwayns: Thank you for this gentle, loving gathering – soothing and expansive.
Next Time
Many at the gathering wanted to know when we will do this again. While we didn’t plan for this to be an ongoing activity, the community response was so heartfelt and powerful that we will call us all together again. There is no doubt we all need spaces for communities of practice and support. We hope you are inspired to create your own communities of practice in your organizations. And we’ll let you know as soon as we figure out a next time to gather through our compassionate leadership community. We’ll look forward to seeing you then.