Community, Connecting, Connection, Vulnerability, writing

When a Place Is No Longer a Place

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Leslie getting her Diploma in Counseling at The Haven

A Diploma in Counseling from Haven. What does that even mean?

Sometimes, with all the changes, people leaving, and people dying, I forget.

Yet there I sat, in a room of elders and newbies, gathered to honor an amazing woman as she joined the “club” of Haven graduates.

A graduate in what I can only describe as Human Being and Doing. Or maybe a leader skilled in backbone and propelled by heart.

At least that’s what I felt in my being as I joined this group to recognize the journey of a new Haven graduate.

Of course, moments after the celebration, I was back in another room, witnessing and being with couples doing the work of real relating.

Now I’m back home in Montana, trying to make sense of the ache and confusion I feel about staying engaged with this place I once called home.

I love Haven. And I don’t quite know what to do with that love these days.

In my confusion, I can get all caught up in what went wrong—blaming, projecting, or injecting my own stories into the mix. Trying to make sense of something that may not be mine to make sense of.

I want to find a way to step into collaboration and a new vision. Yet I also recognize how much of me is still holding on to the old one.

That old vision is gone. Or maybe scattered in pieces among us aging faculty. And I wonder if we’re each holding a piece, believing it’s the whole.

Haven was a place. At times, I think its essence was the heartbeat of humanity. Founded by doctors studying the science of relating and how it could enhance health and well-being.

I wonder where that heartbeat lives now.

Certainly in the people. Those who have been here for decades, those who have left, and those just arriving. Maybe it’s not lost at all. Maybe it’s simply harder for me to recognize when the forms I’ve known are changing.

I can find myself looking for reasons. Was it our reliance on names and charisma? The many leadership transitions? Our inability to find a shared way forward?

Or maybe it’s me—an aging faculty member trying too hard to hold on to something that needs to change.

I don’t know.

But something happened in that room as we gathered to celebrate another graduate.

People who may not even talk to each other these days came together to honor, share, and celebrate.

And in that moment, I felt my heart. The resonance. The essence.

Not just the form or the map. The essence.

It was still there.

Maybe it has always been there, even when I couldn’t feel it.

And if we want that essence to live on for future generations, somehow we have to find our way back to each other. Not to recreate what was, but to discover what wants to emerge.

Now that Haven is no longer simply a place, perhaps the invitation is to discover what it means to carry its essence forward.

Not a name. Not a face. Not even a place.

An essence. A heartbeat.

Can we do that?

Yes, I’m talking about my Haven. But I can’t help thinking this goes far beyond Haven.

It’s a global moment.

Where is our heart? Our essence? Can we find a way to resonate and connect, even in the pain, confusion, and angst?

I don’t know.

But I have to believe that connection and heart are our last, best hope.

Connecting, Connection, Life Experiences, Valuing Differences

It Still Comes Back to the Waiting Room

When Ben and Jock started Haven, it grew out of something they had discovered in their medical practices:

Healing was often happening more in the waiting room than in their offices.

Their patients were very different—elderly people and teenagers—and their backgrounds included acupuncture, emergency medicine and psychiatry. Yet it wasn’t necessarily their medical expertise that was making the most transformative difference in people’s lives.

It was what was happening relationally.

People were talking. Sharing stories. Seeing themselves in one another. Feeling less alone.

Ben and Jock wanted to take that further. Eventually, they let go of their medical licences to focus on group dynamics, relationships and embodiment.

By the time I arrived, relational programs had been happening for years, and the work had found a home on Gabriola Island at a place called The Haven.

Some of the core programs from those early years are still offered today—from Come Alive and Couples Alive to month-long programs devoted to personal development, relationships and leadership training.

The leadership month was called New Horizons. The name reflected its exploration of new and cutting-edge ideas in psychology, science, philosophy and medicine, alongside both Eastern and Western ways of understanding human experience.

What I remember most was the spirit of the program:

Touch on everything. Then blow up every theory and structure.

Not to dismiss what could be learned, but to crack the structure open. To help the mind grasp that there isn’t one right way.

There are pieces—fractals of truth—in all systems and theories. What makes them living is how they respond to the actual human being who walks, talks, breathes and relates out in the world.

What we believe matters. But it doesn’t have to become permanent. It doesn’t have to become “right.”

Of course, Ben and Jock had strong opinions, as did the many people who led and worked alongside them. But the highlight of New Horizons was when each participant pulled together and shared their own living model.

In some ways, each of us was being asked to create our own waiting room—a place where people could gather, experiment, discover and meet one another more honestly.

Then people would go back into their lives. Some returned to intern, assist, lead and contribute to the ongoing educational process. They brought what they were learning from their own lives back into the room.

Not every way of relating or working was agreeable to Ben and Jock. Some people found their feedback confronting. At times, I did too.

But there was also something deeply enlivening about it—and, for me, incredibly valuable.

No matter how often I got knocked for being a victim or acting entitled, I still wanted to come back.

I wanted to understand.

I wanted to throw my opinions into the room and hear what came back. I wanted to encounter different experiences and different ways of coping, loving and living in what often seemed to me to be a very harsh world.

Over time, I became less afraid of the bumps, the bullies, the righteous certainty and even the hate.

I began to recognize that much of what frightened or angered me was another person’s attempt—sometimes clumsy, defended or harmful—to be loved, accepted and to belong.

That didn’t make every behaviour okay. It didn’t mean there was no need for accountability, boundaries or repair.

It meant I became more interested in what was happening between us than in proving who was right.

I am so grateful I kept coming back, even when it seemed I wasn’t very good at empathy or at getting beyond my own pain and blame.

I kept coming back.

And slowly, I learned to lead more with my heart and with my best human self.

I made mistakes.

I learned.

I repaired.

And I kept weaving those experiences into becoming more human, more real and, actually, more loving.

Along the way, I gathered all sorts of skills and training—from family systems, somatics and emotional release work to psychotherapy, Satir Family Reconstructions, addiction work, business consulting, coaching and equus work.

There was mystical and spiritual work, too. So many programs, theories, books, teachers and resources.

I value all of it.

But for me, it still comes back to that waiting room and the relational tools.

Life isn’t fair. Horrible things happen. People hurt one another, sometimes knowingly and sometimes while believing they are doing the right thing. No amount of training can promise that we will never cause harm—or create a space in which nobody will ever feel hurt, unseen or misunderstood.

What we can learn is how to stay present.

How to listen.

How to speak honestly.

How to notice when certainty has closed our minds and hardened our hearts.

How to take responsibility for our impact, repair what we can and remain in relationship long enough for something new to become possible.

Expertise can inform us. Knowledge can expand us. Training can help us recognize what we have not yet learned to see.

But no amount of expertise or knowledge means much without heart and connection.

That is what I believe Ben and Jock discovered in the waiting room.

And after all these years, it is still what I believe makes transformation and yes maybe healing possible.

Communication, Community, Connecting, Embracing Unknown, Life Experiences, Vulnerability

The Cry Beneath Conflict

CrisMarie introduced me to Gene Keys—a synthesis of practical wisdom meant to guide a deeper understanding of the self.
It’s a bit like astrology (rooted in birthdate and place), the Enneagram, psychology, philosophy—all woven together.

I was curious when I generated my free Gene Keys profile. What surprised me was how closely it mirrored my life’s purpose and path.

One line really spoke to me:

“Walk into conflict with an open heart—and peace will walk out with you.”

My life has been a long walk through conflict, crisis, and change.
Likely yours has been too.

Early on, I learned that when there is a cry for help—whether it sounds like grief, rage, accusation, or even war—I need to listen.
At first, I believed my role was to solve the cry, to eliminate its source. I spent years living inside that idea.

What saved me, I think, was that nature and spirit, laughter and play, music and movement were woven into my days. They seemed to know something I didn’t yet understand: that solving or silencing pain isn’t the only option.

Pain became something strangely familiar—intriguing even. A reminder that I existed. That I was alive.

What was much harder was finding ways to be heard.
My voice didn’t fit the dominant narrative. I didn’t fit the norm. So I learned where I could fit, where I could belong.

Oddly, I’ve often preferred people being upset rather than calm and quiet. Because in my world, calm and quiet were often layered over deep pain, fear, rage, and doubt—and I could hear it humming underneath. When I named what I heard, I was shut down. Told I was making it up. So I learned to share with trees and animals instead. Or through songs—where the truth could scatter, land softly, and not rattle the thick armor of the adults around me.

And now—I am one of those adults.
I have armor. I know how to numb. I know how to block the sounds and vibrations.

And still, I feel the elements calling: earth, fire, water, air.
I feel the larger web. The unified field that holds us all.

We are terrified of that web—those arms, those roots.
And yet we long to rest in them.

Here’s the deeper truth I hesitate to admit: if I stand fully in that field, the separate “me” begins to dissolve. And that scares the hell out of me.

And it calls to me.

That unified field often shows itself right in the middle of battle. Not in the shouting—but in the quiet pulse of the person beside me. In the ones standing hand in hand at the front. No words. No frantic movement. Sometimes just a soft song that reaches the heart:

We are one.
We are love.
It is how we treat each other—nothing more.

Beneath the rage that has surfaced, that song is still there.
You can hear it—if you listen.

That is how peace walks out with me.
With you.

Connecting, Embracing Unknown, Vulnerability

So Many Different Worlds

So many different worlds,
So many different suns,
And we have just one world,
But we live in different ones.

Those lines from Brothers in Arms — old words still not yet lived — echo with painful resonance today.

We are still at war.

Not the war of battlefields with clear lines — but a war of competing realities and a nation torn at its seams.

In Minneapolis this January, the killing of Renée Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen shot and killed by an ICE agent, sparked shock and outrage. Her death — now ruled a homicide with multiple gunshot wounds by medical authorities — has ignited protests, legal scrutiny, and national debate over use of force by federal immigration agents. 

And just this weekend, another person was fatally shot by federal agents in south Minneapolis — the second such deadly encounter in recent weeks — drawing tens of thousands into streets and fueling massive demonstrations. 

These are not distant battles. They are here, on our streets. They touch parents, neighbors, nurses, clergy, ordinary people who showed up to stand for peace — and now grieve a life lost. 

“Now the sun’s gone to hell, and
The moon’s riding high…”

I was profoundly moved by the moral courage I saw — people standing in the cold in Minnesota, clergy on their knees at the airport to block deportations, risking arrest, refusing to look away. 

And I was moved by the words of Mark Carney at Davos — proud to be Canadian, urging cooperation, common ground, shared humanity.

Yet even with all that heart and hope, someone was killed.

Again, there are many conflicting narratives about what happened, but murder is murder and should not be happening when people rise to protest and speak out. These deaths deepen the grief and fracture the fragile trust we have in each other and in our institutions.
“Every man has to die… But it’s written in the starlight…”

We are fools to make war — on our brothers in arms, on our own people — and it sure feels like our government is bent toward that very thing. 

I don’t understand the venom, the dehumanization, the hate that is so casually dished out — across media, across lines of ideology, across dinner tables.

I do believe we are being torn apart.
And I don’t know what will stop it —
But it won’t come from guns, bloodshed, and hate — I am certain of that.

Maybe — as Mark Carney suggested — if nations, if people, act together from the middle ground; if middle states find shared humanity rather than competition; if compassion becomes the law of the land… — perhaps then we will remember that might does not make right.

“We’re fools to make war
On our brothers in arms.”

Community, Connecting, Embracing Unknown

I Want It To Make Sense – It Isn’t Possible

Here’s the thing for me — I want to understand it.
I want it to make sense. I want to settle the fear.
But that isn’t possible anymore.

Every time something horrific happens, I get driven to the news, to the screen, trying to make sense.
9/11. January 6. George Floyd. The COVID outbreak.
And now ICE and the recent shootings and deaths — the one in Minnesota is another I want to understand — and I can’t.

Then comes the political spin — “all self-defense,” “they deserved it.”
That enrages me on so many levels.

Murder is never a solution — much less something that is good for anyone.

I have talked to enough people who have killed to know this:
none of them believe that was what they wanted.
None of them walk away untouched.

War veterans with PTSD carry this truth in their bodies.
The people sent to “protect” our country often return unable to metabolize what they have seen — or what they were required to do.
That is trauma. Not victory.

So when we say that someone — anyone — deserves to die or be shot, especially on our streets, we are denying what we already know to be true.

Law enforcement.
Citizens.
Undocumented immigrants.

No one needs to be gunned down.
And saying that it’s okay — saying it’s justified — only deepens the violence we claim to be trying to stop.

And still, it seems we need an enemy.
We make them because it is unbearable to say, I was wrong.
To feel the shame of actions born from misinformation or partial truth.
So we defend, protect, blame — and that reflex spreads everywhere.

I watched Wicked: Part II last night.
Did you know the original Wizard of Oz came out just before WWII?
I couldn’t watch that one — the monkeys terrified me.
But Wicked, especially Part II, speaks directly to this moment.

The Wizard — someone who knows they are powerful will use anything and everything — and the look on his face when he realizes what he has destroyed.
That moment landed hard.

But what moved me most was the relationship between Elphaba and Glinda — and of course, the song.
A song about true forgiveness.
About being changed for good.

I so wish we could get that.

Even here, Elphaba leaves because people need someone to call wicked — as if goodness can only be embraced by casting someone out.

Do we really need that?

I know in myself how hard it can be not to want to destroy the perpetrator — or at least the one I believe is the perpetrator.
We can get so far down the road of right and wrong that it feels like there is no way back.

And yet — there is.

The way through may require feeling so deeply, and owning our part so fully, that it feels like sitting in the middle of a wildfire we ourselves set.

Yes — our bodies may burn.
Certainty may collapse.
Stories we tell about ourselves may turn to ash.

But real connection does not burn away.
What is true holds.
Even in the fire.

Our hearts keep beating — not despite connection, but because of it.

Maybe the flames don’t destroy connection at all.
Maybe they reveal it.

And maybe that is the only path to joy.

At some point, we have to risk that.

Can we?

Communication, Community, Connection, Leadership, Valuing Differences

Finding Truth In The Chaos

There are many roads to travel.
Lately, I keep trying to find a thread that isn’t all ache, rage, or worry.

There’s a lot of that these days.

I don’t want to be someone who simply looks away while my country feels like it’s sliding toward something darker—something closer to a dictatorship than a democracy. And what unsettles me most is not just what I see, but how unsure I am about what to believe.

The news.
The scrolls.
The certainty with which everyone seems to know exactly what’s happening—and exactly who’s to blame.

In my world of connection—real conversations, eye contact, shared meals—people are concerned. They’re worried. They’re tired. And yet, walking down the streets in Oregon, through airports, sitting next to strangers, listening to their fears and stories, I’m not encountering the same apocalyptic certainty that fills my screens.

That dissonance messes with me.

I know the history. I know the comparisons people make—Germany, other moments when horrifying acts were sanctioned while everyday life continued and people didn’t act soon enough. I don’t want to be that person. The one who says later, I didn’t know or I thought it would turn out differently.

I just finished a Louise Penny novel that felt uncomfortably close to our current reality. I’m rewatching The West Wing—loving the idealism, aching for that version of leadership—while also noticing how even there, politics slide so easily into sides, certainty, and storylines that leave little room for real collaboration.

So I keep asking:
What does all of this actually mean for me?

Yes, I can call my senators.
I can voice my concerns about a government that seems increasingly unaccountable, a Supreme Court that feels overtly political, a justice system that appears uneven and sided.

And I do believe those actions matter.

But I’m also deeply aware of another truth I live by: I am not separate from the world I’m critiquing. I am participating in it—through my fear, my projections, my righteousness, my silence, my love.

I believe that beneath all this separation, we are connected. Not as an idea, but as a lived reality. And I believe in love—or something divine, or intelligent, or larger than me—that I don’t get to own, define, or control.

That belief doesn’t let me off the hook.
It actually puts me more squarely on it.

Because if connection is real, then the work isn’t only “out there.” It’s also in how I listen. How I stay curious. How I resist the urge to collapse people into villains or heroes. How I choose presence over numbness and relationship over retreat.

I don’t have a clean conclusion.
I’m not offering certainty or a solution.

What I have is a commitment—to not look away, and also not harden. To stay engaged without letting fear be the only voice at the table. To keep choosing connection as a form of responsibility, not avoidance.

Maybe that’s the thread I’m following right now.

Not certainty.
Not righteousness.
But relationship.

And the willingness to keep asking:
How do I want to be in this moment—while the road is still unfolding?

Communication, Community, Connecting, Connection, Life Experiences, Vision, Vulnerability

Forgiveness

I’ve never been particularly comfortable with the word forgiveness.

Yet here I am considering it my word for 2026.

Here’s a popular definition of forgiveness:

Forgiveness is the conscious, voluntary decision to let go of resentment, anger, and vengeful thoughts toward someone who has wronged you, freeing yourself from the pain of the offense rather than condoning or excusing the act.

It sounds reasonable.
Even generous.

But I get stuck on one idea:
“toward someone who has wronged you.”

Because as long as forgiveness is organized around they wronged me, it stays trapped inside a courtroom.
Someone is right.
Someone is wrong.
And someone has to rise above it.

Real forgiveness—at least the kind that actually changes something—doesn’t live there.

For me, forgiveness begins when I’m willing to question my certainty.
Not erase my experience—but loosen my grip on the story I’m telling about it.

I don’t actually know what the other person intended.
I don’t know what they were seeing, hearing, or feeling in that moment.
I don’t know what shaped their choices or what fear, pain, or blindness might have been operating.

When I truly own that, something shifts.

The work of forgiveness stops being about them
and becomes about my willingness to step out of righteousness and victimhood.

What I’ve discovered is that suffering is real—but blame only hardens it.

Forgiveness happens when I stop insisting on being right
and start telling the truth about what I cannot know.

In those moments—when I land there in real presence—
my heart opens, but my spine doesn’t disappear.

There’s clarity.
There’s connection.
And there’s a surprising strength in not needing anyone to be the villain.

It doesn’t feel passive.
It feels liberating.

Which is why I don’t think forgiveness can be thought through or performed correctly.

Forgiveness is experiential.
It arrives in moments of curiosity rather than collapse,
innocence rather than innocence lost,
wisdom that comes from letting a rigid story soften into something truer.

And when it’s real,
the freedom moves both ways.

Community, Connecting, Embracing Unknown, Life Experiences

Maybe Community Lives in An Aphorism

I recently read a great article about aphorisms—those pithy observations that carry a general truth or a thought-provoking point of view. The piece was adapted from James Geary’s book The World in a Phrase: A Brief History of the Aphorism.

I loved it.
Not just because the lines were clever, but because they sparked thought. And conversation. And difference.

Some Aphorisms from Geary’s peice:

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach wrote:
Those who were carried to a goal should not think they’ve reached it.

Magdalena Samozwaniec said:
Love is that short period of time when someone else holds the same opinion of us as we do of ourselves.

And then, a line that became the seed of Geary’s life’s work:
The difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

What I noticed is that each of these doesn’t tell you what to think.
They invite you to think.
They open something rather than close it down.

That feels like something we’ve lost a bit in the world these days.

I often find myself wondering why community on Gabriola Island felt—and still feels—more alive and thriving for me than many of the places I’ve lived since moving back to the States in 2000. I mostly attribute that to The Haven.

There, I learned relational skills. I discovered just how vital difference, intimacy, and dialogue are to aliveness, health, and thriving.

Yes, I loved the programs. I believed—still believe—that those programs were a foundational playground for community. And maybe the place itself held some magic.

But it wasn’t really the space. Or the rooms. Or even the brilliance of the teachers who carried The Haven. Those mattered, of course—they were the mud, bricks, and mortar. But they weren’t the thing itself.

What I’m slowly learning—gathering some grit around—is that Haven isn’t just a place. It’s a space I can create inside myself, one that connects me to the world around me. And that space is always shifting, changing, evolving.

Community isn’t a place you arrive at—it’s a way you stay in relationship with uncertainty.

So I ask you:

What is it that leads you to a place where you can love the shifting, not just the beauty of a new location?
What lets you listen to all kinds of music—not only the chords and tones that harmonize easily or touch a familiar, sentimental place?

What I’m realizing is that what I learned, I could have learned by taking many roads. What makes any road special isn’t the route itself—it’s the connections, the conversations, the deeper roots, and the invisible threads that weave us all together.

There’s no single “right” way to come home.

What we’re offered, again and again, is a choice: more connection or more isolation.

And those aren’t always about proximity. Some people hike alone and are deeply connected. Others sit in crowded rooms and feel profoundly alone.

Connection—and intimacy—run deeper than what meets the eye.

Communication, Community, Connecting, Family, Life Experiences

Carrying What Matters

A year-end reflection

This past year held a lot.

I said goodbye to my mom—at least to her human form—and discovered that grief doesn’t arrive in a straight line. It comes as an undertow. Quiet at first. Then suddenly pulling up old family currents I didn’t know were still alive in me.

It was also a year of aliveness.
We returned to Finding Your Mojo in Montana.
We launched Pop-Ups for People.
Worked with new and old clients in new forms.
Traveled, taught, learned, loved.
Studied together. Studied Apart. Created. Said yes to what was alive.

And somewhere in the middle of all that living, my body slowed me down.

An extended stretch now of being sick.
No skiing. No Peloton. No real movement.
At first, I didn’t care.
And then—when the fog lifted—I noticed something surprising.

I wasn’t rushing back to the discipline I usually rely on to “keep myself in check.”

Instead, I found myself reaching for comfort:
Mochas.
Craft beer.
Pizza.

Not because I don’t know what supports my body—but because sometimes comfort feels like a small shelter in a world that feels loud, divided, and relentlessly intense.

Recently, in a Tarot reading, the card that landed in the physical position was Burden.

I realized how much I’ve been carrying:
Grief.
Concern for the world.
The desire for connection without always knowing how to create it consistently.
The tension between what nourishes me and what soothes me.

And yet—here’s the other truth. In this seeming world of rage.

Up close. Face to face. In real conversation.
I’ve experienced genuine connection with people who hold very different views.
I’ve found common fears. Shared hopes. A longing for understanding.
That part gives me hope.

Still, the headlines keep coming.
And some days, that part is hard.

As this year comes to a close, I find myself asking quieter questions:

  • Where was I touched and changed?
  • Where did I show up with my full heart?
  • Where did I hold back?
  • What actually mattered?
  • What no longer needs to be carried into the next year?

This season—of lights and darkness, tradition and reinvention—seems to invite both grief and possibility.
Promise and pain.
Joy and uncertainty.

Maybe that’s the work right now:
Not fixing.
Not resolving.
But noticing what we’re carrying—and choosing what’s worth bringing forward.

So I’m curious about you.

What touched your heart this year?
What feels heavy—and what feels essential?
What are you ready to set down?

May this season offer you moments of peace.
May the questions that rise lead you toward connection.
And may whatever you’re carrying be met with kindness.

Communication, Community, Connecting, Connection, Life Experiences, Vision, writing

I Don’t Want a Platform—I Want a Campfire

Sometimes I get caught in spinning.

I want to do something—
move toward something purposeful, meaningful, alive.

But I don’t have a job like that.
I don’t work from an office or keep set hours.
I try to stay in service to our work, and sometimes that starts to feel like marketing or overselling, when really I just want to connect.
To share.
To see what might be offered—or received—in relationship.

Instead, I’m in my house in Montana.

I could go downtown and sit in a café and write.
Have a coffee. Maybe chat with people doing their thing.

I could go to the mountain—
ride the chairlift, talk about life and politics, take a few runs, eat curly fries.

I could walk the dogs and exchange small, human moments with people I pass in the woods.

I’d love to share more online.
But honestly, there’s so much noise there.
Ads. Rants. Performance.
So where do heartfelt words belong?
Who is really listening?

I’ve explored platforms—Substack, Mighty Networks, and the ever-growing list of “the next best thing.”
I’m not looking for big.
And I’m not looking for viral.

What I want is simpler—and maybe harder.

Camp Connection wants to become a small, human-scale space.
A place for stories, questions, and unfinished thoughts.
Not a funnel.
Not a brand.

More like a campfire—
where people wander in, sit down for a while, listen, speak when something feels true, and leave a little more connected than when they arrived.

As an Enneagram 5, I know I can get stuck in thinking and refining.
Coming close, then pulling back.
Wanting to share, then needing more quiet first.

Sometimes it’s hard being me.
And—this is me.

If you’d sit down at this campfire, let me know in the comments.
That’s enough to start.

with Susan Clarke