Circle of Three

Bonnie dedicates this final episode to Marj Heinrichs, a dear friend who died unexpectedly. Bonnie tells how Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese weaves through another deep river of sorrow that holds surprise, delight, and gratitude. Thank you Marj, for living our truth: ‘we do not have to be good’. For showing me, in your ways of outrageous generosity and deep presence, how ‘we belong in a family of things’.

To find the written version of this episode, go to beingbeloved.ca, to "letters". 

In episode 5, this blessing of Oliver’s completes their conversation:  “Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination”. This blessing launches a celebration of Oliver’s body of work, and then invites these questions:  Where are we inspired to to live boldly? Where are those places that honour “the soft animal of our body”? What changes when we see that we belong to a “family of things”? 

Visit www.beingbeloved.ca for more conversation with Circle Of Three.

Episode 4: Wild, Clean and Home, words used in Oliver’s poem Wild Geese, guide this conversation about belonging. It touches on Bonnie’s love for volleyball, her messy house, those places where we ultimately belong: places where we “do not have to be good”. 

Visit www.beingbeloved.ca for more conversation with Circle Of Three.

In episode 3, Bonnie and Katharine step into the river of sorrow and open their arms wide to the surrender of grief.  “Meanwhile”, and Oliver’s poignant use of that one word, holds the arc of Bonnie’s journey as she reflects on the unexpected death of her sister almost 7 years ago. As Katharine holds space, Bonnie steps deeper and deeper into that river of sorrow, and shows all of us how to surrender ourselves to its wisdom.  

Visit www.beingbeloved.ca for more conversation with Circle Of Three.

In episode 2, we lean into 11 words from Mary Oliver’s poem, Wild Geese: “Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine”. After Bonnie tells about a poignant moment in her 5 year journey with a woman who suffered a degenerative disease, Katharine guides the conversation towards the wisdom gleaned from the habits created inside this intense journey of belonging. 

Visit www.beingbeloved.ca for more conversation with Circle Of Three.

Circle of Three, Season 2 invites you into a conversation between Katharine Cherewyk, Bonnie Loewen and Mary Oliver’s poem Wild Geese.  One episode at a time, this iconic poem slowly unfurls while igniting reflective conversation about our human journey. We shed armour that keeps us from our true self; we claim habits that embolden and protect the soft animal of our body; we   live wildly, honestly and authentically, understanding our place “in the family of things”. 

In this 1st episode of season 2, we listen to Mary Oliver’s poem, Wild Geese. Oliver’s first lines: “You do not have to be good...you only have to let the soft animal of the body love what it loves” ignites this conversation. We wonder how external voices define “good” and how personal and collective habits get us back to the wild within. 

Visit www.beingbeloved.ca for more conversation with Circle Of Three.

In Episode 5 we claim our ways of bringing our song into the world. As Martha Postlewaite writes in her poem “Clearing”,  “only then  (after you step into your forest, get completely lost, find the clearing, hear your song) will you know how to give yourself to this world so worthy of rescue.” And sing, we will. 

Welcome to Circle of Three, a conversation between two friends and colleagues with an invitation to you, the listener to step into the circle. Through poetry, story and an offering of personal and collective practices, Bonnie Loewen and Katharine Cherewyck aim to spark your own reflection — on your voice, your wisdom, and your practices of self discovery.

And for those who want to take an even deeper dive, head over to BeingBeloved.ca for resources referenced and reflective questions.

This fourth episode looks at how we recognize the unique song that belongs us. As Martha Postlewaite writes, “Wait there patiently until the song that is your life falls into your own cupped hands and you recognize and greet it.” It’s not a song written or certified or amplified by someone else. It’s a song held in our own cupped hands. 

Welcome to Circle of Three, a conversation between two friends and colleagues with an invitation to you, the listener to step into the circle. Through poetry, story and an offering of personal and collective practices, Bonnie Loewen and Katharine Cherewyck aim to spark your own reflection — on your voice, your wisdom, and your practices of self discovery.

And for those who want to take an even deeper dive, head over to BeingBeloved.ca for resources referenced and reflective questions.

In episode 3, we accept that it is a daily, ongoing discipline to experience a stillness that has us listen deeply.  Martha Postlewaite writes, “create a clearing in the dense forest of your life and wait there patiently.”  We stepped into the forest, we found the courage to get completely lost and now, here we are, at the place where we patiently listen for the gifts given inside the stillness of a clearing. 

Welcome to Circle of Three, a conversation between two friends and colleagues with an invitation to you, the listener, to step into the circle. Through poetry, story and an offering of personal and collective practices, Bonnie Loewen and Katharine Cherewyk aim to spark your own reflection — on your voice, your wisdom, and your practices of self discovery.

And for those who want to take an even deeper dive, head over to BeingBeloved.ca for resources referenced and reflective questions.

In this second episode, “we do not try to save the whole world or do anything grandiose”, as Martha Postlewaite writes in her poem “Clearing”.  Instead, we wonder why is it so important to be lost in our forest? And what is the connection to being lost in the forest of our lives in order to be found in our clearing? 

Welcome to Circle of Three, a conversation between two friends and colleagues with an invitation to you, the listener to step into the circle. Through poetry, story and an offering of personal and collective practices, Bonnie Loewen and Katharine Cherewyk aim to spark your own reflection — on your voice, your wisdom, and your practices of self discovery.

And for those who want to take an even deeper dive, head over to BeingBeloved.ca for resources referenced and reflective questions.