A common definition for Container is: an object that can be used to hold or transport something.
In my kitchen I have my various containers, the one for morning coffee, the one for water, the one for tea, the hand-thrown bowl for evening meals, and the pretty plate for breakfast. Dinged up, chipped, the cast that tea tends to leave on the glaze all make the containers feel intimate, like we’ve been knowing each other for a long time. In life outside of my kitchen there are the less categorical yet no less substantive containers, the primary relationships in my life that hold me tender, that hold me to account, that hold me for no reason other than to hold; the secondary relationships that hold my work, that hold my body when I am in motion, that hold my process; and then there are those moments, those ineffable moments when the feeling of being contained is just so pronounced because an experience happened, and it was moving, and it was only moving because it was held.
We get to be that for our people, that kind of container that supports the expression of the people with whom we are in relationship in real time. What’s more? It can be an intentional practice of reciprocity. I can feel the generosity of the person holding space for me to process whatever is happening currently, and I can access that same quality in myself. Un-manufactured reciprocity is a revelation and can strengthen relationships in such beautiful ways, not least of which is our unrehearsed, of-the-moment loving nature coming through to remind us that it is only through relationship that we are known to ourselves, completely connected to all that have come before us and bound to all who will follow. Our lives are containers, they hold our spirits, our dreams and visions, our fears and traumas, our capacities to heal and grow, and so much more. Everything, in fact.
Xenana is, in one sense, like a nesting doll: a larger container holding sequentially sized containers inside of itself. It is a living, breathing being because of the beings it contains, and is enhanced by all of our experiences–it’s a feeling, an ineffable feeling. Unlike the dolls, the containers intersect and overlap, we are changed by one another and that is glorious. We look forward, truly, to being a part of what holds you in your revelatory experience of yourself, and how that, in part, shapes us. Let’s be together when we can.
