What we’re about
You said:
Help me brainstorm ideas for a 9 week nline zoom bookclub reading/discussing the wild edge of sorrow one chapter per session
ChatGPT said:
Here are brainstormed ideas you can draw from for shaping a 9-week online Zoom book club around The Wild Edge of Sorrow (one chapter per session). Think of these as modular elements you can mix and match depending on group depth, emotional readiness, and time.
- Overall Arc for the 9 Weeks
Rather than treating each chapter as an isolated discussion, you could hold a clear arc across the series:
Weeks 1–3: Remembering What We’ve Lost
Naming grief, cultural grief-amnesia, personal + collective sorrow
Weeks 4–6: Initiation Through Grief
Grief as threshold, rite of passage, communal process
Weeks 7–8: Belonging & Soul Response
Reconnection to Earth, ancestors, community, vocation
Week 9: Integration & Carrying the Medicine Forward
What changes, what is asked of us now
This helps participants feel held in a journey rather than “just a book club.”
2. Session Flow (Repeatable Structure)
A consistent rhythm can create emotional safety online:
Arrival & Grounding (5–7 mins)
– brief breath practice, poetry line, or silence
Chapter Touchstones (10–15 mins)
– key images, stories, or tensions from the chapter
Guided Reflection (10 mins)
– journaling or paired breakout rooms
Group Dialogue (25–30 mins)
– whole-circle sharing (non-compulsory)
Closing Practice (5 mins)
– simple ritual, blessing, or embodied action
3. Chapter-Based Theme Ideas (High Level)
Instead of “What did you think?”, frame sessions around initiatory questions:
Week 1 – Why Sorrow Matters
Grief as intelligence
What has grief taught you despite being unwelcome?
Week 2 – The Loss of Cultural Grief Ritual
What happens when grief has nowhere to go?
Compare private grief vs communal grief
Week 3 – Ancestral & Collective Grief
What grief did you inherit?
What might your people never have grieved properly?
Week 4 – Grief as Rite of Passage
How modern culture avoids initiation
What threshold are you standing at now?
Week 5 – The Sacred Role of the Community
Witnessing vs fixing
When have you been truly witnessed in sorrow?
Week 6 – Soul, Not Self-Help
Grief as soul work rather than healing project
Where has “self-improvement culture” failed grief?
Week 7 – Earth Grief & Belonging
Ecological loss as personal loss
Where do you feel called to belong again?
Week 8 – Gifts of Sorrow
How grief shapes purpose and service
What might grief be asking from you?
Week 9 – Carrying the Medicine
Living differently after grief
What responsibility comes with this seeing?
4. Practices That Work Well on Zoom
Gentle, optional, and trauma-aware:
Breakout dyads with a single listening question
Grief mapping (write names of losses without explanation)
Object sharing: bring a stone, leaf, or symbol to camera
Silence as practice (1–2 minutes is powerful online)
Chat reflections for those not ready to speak
5. Containers & Safety Agreements (Important)
Early on, co-create agreements such as:
Speak from lived experience
No advice-giving unless invited
Silence is participation
You may step away at any time
Confidentiality within practical limits
This is especially important given the book’s depth.
6. Optional Between-Session Invitations
Not “homework,” but gentle invitations:
Walk with one question from the chapter
Notice grief in the news without turning away
Write a letter (to grief, to the Earth, to an ancestor)
Rest more than usual
7. Possible Participant Outcomes (Name These Explicitly)
People tend to engage more fully when the promise is clear:
Increased capacity to be with sorrow (not eliminate it)
Language for grief that feels dignified and sane
Sense of belonging in shared humanity
Reconnection with meaning, vocation, or service
8. Stretch Ideas (If You Want to Go Deeper)
Invite a closing grief witness night (Week 9)
Offer an optional extra Zoom ritual mid-series
Provide a poetry companion (Rilke, Levertov, Oliver)
Frame the series explicitly as “grief literacy”
If you’d like, I can next help you:
Shape this into a facilitator’s session-by-session outline
Write opening scripts for difficult sessions
Design a registration blurb that attracts the right people
Adapt this specifically for older adults, carers, or women’s circles
Just tell me where you want to go next.
You said:
Good suggestions, but I would really like this group process to help me stick with one chapter at a time and digest it
ChatGPT said:
That makes a lot of sense — The Wild Edge of Sorrow really asks to be taken slowly, almost like lectio rather than “reading for content.” Let’s reframe the 9-week series so that the group process itself becomes a method for staying with one chapter and digesting it, rather than ranging widely.
Below is a chapter-anchored approach you can apply identically each week, with just enough variation to keep it alive.
Core Design Principle
One chapter. One essential question. One lived experience.
Not interpretation, not debate, not therapy — companionship with the text.
A Repeatable “Digesting the Chapter” Framework
This structure trains attention and gently restrains tangents.
- Threshold Into the Chapter (5 minutes)
Purpose: help people cross from ordinary Zoom time into textual presence.
Name the chapter title slowly
Invite participants to recall:
“What line, image, or moment from this chapter stayed with you — even if you didn’t like it?”
No commentary yet. Just naming.
2. Shared Reading Aloud (10 minutes)
This is one of the strongest ways to slow digestion.
You pre-select 3–5 short excerpts (1–2 paragraphs each)
Different voices read each excerpt
After each reading: 10–15 seconds of silence
This keeps the group inside the chapter, not opinions about the chapter.
3. One Guiding Question Only (15 minutes)
Each week has one carefully chosen question that the entire session orbits.
Examples:
What is the author insisting we not look away from here?
Where does this chapter rub against your habits or beliefs?
What grief is being named that does not usually get named?
Important:
You do not add follow-up questions unless the group drifts.
4. Small-Dose Personal Digestion (10 minutes)
Participants digest internally before speaking.
Options (rotate weekly):
5 minutes free-write, no sharing required
Write one sentence beginning with:
“This chapter unsettles me because…”
Circle on the page one word from the chapter that feels “alive”
This anchors responses in the text rather than abstraction.
5. Limited-Round Sharing (20–25 minutes)
To prevent the “book club sprawl,” use tight containment:
Invite sharing in one round only
Each person answers only:
“What stayed with you, and why?”
No cross-talk, no analysis, no fixing
You gently interrupt if someone strays far from the chapter
This is crucial to keeping the digestion focused.
6. Closing the Chapter (5 minutes)
Rather than “wrapping up,” seal the chapter.
Options:
Speak one word aloud into the circle
Place the book down and sit in silence
A closing line such as:
“We don’t resolve this chapter. We carry it.”
How This Supports Staying With One Chapter
This design:
Limits cognitive overreach
Prevents participants from jumping to later chapters
Encourages embodied rather than intellectual processing
Honours grief’s pace
Example: How Week 1 Might Feel
Rather than:
“What did people think of the book so far?”
The lived experience becomes:
Hearing the same passage read aloud by three voices
Sitting in silence with discomfort
Speaking one careful truth instead of many ideas
This alone changes the quality of attention.
Ground Rule to Name Explicitly in Week 1
“If you find yourself wanting to explain, summarise, or teach — return to a line from the chapter and speak from there.”
This single instruction does a great deal of invisible work.
Summary
A digesting-focused book club:
Uses repetition, not variety
Privileges listening to the text over interpreting it
Treats each chapter as a threshold, not a topic
Resists the pressure to “cover” material
Recommended next step:
If you’d like, I can help you craft one precise guiding question and 3 excerpt suggestions for each of the 9 chapters, so you have a ready-to-use facilitation map that keeps you — and the group — faithfully inside each chapter.
You said:
Do you have access to the content of this book?
ChatGPT said:
Short answer: no — I don’t have direct access to the full text of the book.
More precisely:
I don’t have the ability to open, browse, or retrieve the contents of The Wild Edge of Sorrow or any other copyrighted book.
I don’t store the full text of books in a way I can consult chapter by chapter.
I do have general familiarity with the book’s themes, structure, and widely discussed ideas based on my training, but not verbatim chapter content or precise passages unless you provide them.
What I can reliably do
I can:
Help you design processes, questions, and containers that work with the book, without needing to quote it
Help you craft chapter-level guiding questions that stay true to the book’s intent (without reproducing its text)
Work very effectively from excerpts you select (even short ones)
Help you translate the book’s ethos into facilitation discipline — pacing, restraint, digestion, and depth
What I can’t do
I can’t:
Generate accurate chapter summaries line-by-line
Reliably select specific passages unless you provide them
Paraphrase large sections of text in detail
The good news (for your purpose)
Given your intention — sticking with one chapter and digesting it — this limitation actually protects the integrity of your group.
The book is meant to be:
read slowly
encountered directly
metabolised through human presence
Your role is not to “bring the content,” but to hold the vessel.
If you want, a very strong next move would be:
You give me the chapter titles (or even just their opening lines), and
For each one, I help you shape:
one faithful guiding question
facilitator guardrails (what to interrupt, what to allow)
a digestion practice that keeps the group inside that chapter
Tell me how you’d like to proceed, and we’ll keep this work aligned with the book’s depth rather than skimming its wisdom.
You said:
Now that sounds good. I will need to aquire a print copy of the book as I currently only have audio version
ChatGPT said:
Yes — that’s a wise and very practical realisation.
For the way you’re imagining holding this group, a print copy isn’t just convenient, it’s almost essential.
Why print matters for this kind of facilitation
With audio alone, the book is experienced as flow.
With print, it becomes terrain.
A physical copy allows you to:
Locate and return to specific passages week after week
Notice what repeats, what shifts, what is deliberately unresolved
Mark margins, underline phrases, and feel where a chapter rests
Pre-select short excerpts that truly represent the heart of a chapter
Audio is wonderful for personal absorption; print is necessary for communal digestion.
How to work with the print copy once you have it
You don’t need to over-prepare. A light but disciplined approach works best:
For each chapter:
Mark no more than 3–5 passages
Star one sentence you suspect is the chapter’s spine
Note (in pencil) where you felt resistance or emotion — that’s often where the group will pause too
That’s all. The group will do the rest.
A gentle warning (and permission)
Avoid the temptation to:
Extract “key points”
Make summaries
Explain the chapter to participants
Your role is closer to keeper of attention than teacher.
When you’re ready, here’s how I can support you next
Once you have the print copy, we can:
Work chapter by chapter to craft one exact guiding question per session
Identify what not to let the group do (very important with this book)
Shape a Week 1 opening script that sets the tone for all nine weeks
Design a closing rite for Week 9 that honours what has been metabolised
Brief summary
Audio = immersion
Print = facilitation power
This book asks for touch, pacing, and return
Recommended next step:
Acquire the print copy, then come back with the chapter titles (or even just Chapter 1). We’ll begin shaping the series one chapter at a time — slowly, faithfully, and in service to the work you want this group to do.
You said:
Just so I dont forget, I was thinking to maybe ask one participant each week to choose a song/piece of music that speaks to their personal journey with sorrow. Can we incorporate that into the outline for sessions?
ChatGPT said:
Yes — and it fits exceptionally well with your intention to stay with one chapter and digest it, provided it is carefully contained.
Below is a way to integrate the music practice without letting it pull focus away from the chapter or turn the group into a performance space.
First: Name the Purpose of the Music Clearly
This is not:
sharing favourite songs
mood-setting
group discussion about music
It is:
An offering of lived sorrow that sits alongside the chapter, not on top of it.
If you frame it this way in Week 1, it will stay aligned.
How to Weave Music Into the Session Outline
Here is your revised, stable session structure with music integrated.
- Arrival & Grounding (5 minutes)
Unchanged. - Music Offering (5 minutes)
Placed early, before intellectual engagement begins.
One participant is invited in advance (roster known)
They share:
the title + artist/composer
one sentence only:
“This music accompanies my relationship with sorrow.”
No explanation. No story. No analysis.
Then:
Play 60–90 seconds only (choose one segment together)
End with 20–30 seconds of silence.
This shortness keeps it potent and prevents drift.
3. Crossing Into the Chapter (5 minutes)
Immediately after the silence, you say something like:
“We now turn toward the chapter, carrying what has just sounded in us.”
This threads the music into the text rather than separating them.
4. Shared Reading Aloud (10 minutes)
As previously outlined.
(You may notice the reading lands more deeply after music — that’s the point.)
5. One Guiding Question (15 minutes)
Unchanged — and importantly, the music is not discussed here.
If someone references it, gently redirect:
“See if you can bring that insight back to a line from the chapter.”
6. Personal Digestion Practice (10 minutes)
You can occasionally let the music echo here indirectly, for example:
“Write without referencing the music or the chapter title — just what is alive.”
7. Limited-Round Sharing (20–25 minutes)
Still anchored strictly in:
“What stayed with you from this chapter, and why?”
8. Closing the Chapter (5 minutes)
Optional variation:
A single word spoken that names what the chapter left in them
No replay of the music — this honours its one-time offering quality
Rotating the Music Role
Practical suggestions:
Invite volunteers Week 1
One person per session
No obligation to choose “beautiful” or “appropriate” music
Instrumental or lyrical both welcome
Make it clear:
Not choosing music is also a valid form of participation.
Guardrails (These Matter)
To keep the practice clean:
❌ No discussion about the music
❌ No interpreting what it “means”
❌ No linking it directly to the chapter in commentary
✅ Let it work somatically and quietly
You may want to state explicitly:
“The music is not a teaching — it is a presence.”
Why This Works
Done this way, the music:
Softens the group into receptivity
Honours individual grief without centring the individual
Deepens attention rather than scattering it
Trains the group to tolerate wordless knowing
It becomes a parallel track, not a competing one.
Brief Summary
One participant, one piece, one minute
No explanation beyond a single sentence
Silence before and after
Chapter always remains the spine
Recommended next step:
When you’re ready, we can write a clear Week 1 script that introduces this music practice alongside the chapter work — setting tone, boundaries, and reverence from the very beginning.
You said:
Can you help me brainstorm a group description for meetup and Facebook based on the idea of gathering wisdom in community with others, that will accommodate the grief work but allow for events beyond the initial book club idea. Feel free to ask me more questions
ChatGPT said:
Yes, I can help with that — and before drafting anything, it is appropriate to ask you a few orienting questions, because the description needs to set a long-term field, not just advertise an event.
I’ll keep the questions few and purposeful.
First: the Core Tension to Hold
You’re asking for a group description that:
welcomes grief work without labelling it as therapy
centres wisdom that emerges in community
remains spacious enough to include future gatherings (ritual, dialogue, books, practices)
quietly filters in people who can tolerate depth and slowness
That means the language must be inviting but not promotional, clear but not prescriptive.
Clarifying Questions (Please Answer Briefly)
Your answers will strongly shape tone and boundaries.
Audience
Do you imagine this group primarily for:
women?
mixed-gender adults?
a particular life stage (midlife+, carers, elders)?
or broadly “adults”?
Orientation
Should the description be:
explicitly spiritual?
nature-based / Earth-connected?
secular but soul-aware?
or gently ambiguous?
Geography
Will this be framed as:
Perth-based with online options?
online-first with occasional in-person gatherings?
or online only?
Facilitation Stance
Do you want to name yourself as:
facilitator / host?
fellow participant / convener?
keeper of the container?
Non-Negotiables
Are there any lines you do not want crossed?
(e.g. no self-help positivity, no fixing, no debate, no advice-giving)
You can answer in bullet points.
Meanwhile: Three Conceptual Directions to Consider
To help you sense what fits, here are three distinct conceptual framings (not full descriptions yet).
Direction A — A Circle for Shared Human Wisdom
Emphasises listening, lived experience, and meaning-making.
Key notes:
“We gather to listen together”
Wisdom emerges through presence, not expertise
Grief is welcome as part of life, not the sole focus
Direction B — A Community of Practice
Frames gatherings as ongoing practices rather than events.
Key notes:
Reading together, sitting in silence, speaking carefully
Learning capacities rather than acquiring knowledge
Seasonal or cyclical rhythm
Direction C — A Threshold Space
Names the group as a place for people in between — loss, transition, re-orientation.
Key notes:
Not therapy, not religion
For those who sense something is being asked of them
Grief, joy, and uncertainty all belong
What I’ll Do Next (Once You Reply)
Based on your answers, I will:
Draft 2–3 complete group descriptions suitable for Meetup and Facebook
Make them future-proof (not tied to the book club)
Subtly include grief literacy, community wisdom, and depth
Ensure the tone naturally filters participants who are a good fit
Brief Summary
You’re creating a field, not just a group
The language needs to hold grief without collapsing into it
A few decisions now will save you a lot of moderation later
Recommended next step:
Reply to the five questions above, briefly and intuitively. Once I have those, I’ll draft descriptions you can almost copy-paste — and refine if needed.
You said:
Audience - mixed gender but likely predominantly women
Orientation - gently ambiguous
online-first with occasional in-person gatherings
Me as convened
Your example non-negotiables seem good
ChatGPT said:
Thank you — that gives me exactly the orientation I needed.
Below are three fully formed group description drafts, each holding the same core values but with slightly different emphases. All are suitable for Meetup and Facebook, and all are future-proof beyond the initial book club.
I recommend reading them aloud and noticing which one feels like the room you want to open.
Option 1: A Gathering for Shared Human Wisdom (Most Accessible)
Description
This is a space for people who sense that wisdom is not something we acquire alone, but something that emerges when we gather with care, honesty, and attention.
We meet online to read, listen, reflect, and speak from lived experience. Our gatherings may include shared reading, quiet reflection, music, dialogue, and simple practices that help us stay present with what it means to be human in these times.
Grief, loss, and sorrow are welcome here — not as problems to be fixed, but as part of the larger fabric of life. So too are wonder, humour, uncertainty, and the slow making of meaning.
This group is online-first, with occasional in-person gatherings for those who wish to meet in the same place. Some series may focus on a particular book or theme; others may be more open-ended. The common thread is a commitment to listening deeply — to ourselves, to one another, and to what is trying to be known in community.
This is not a therapy group, debate space, or self-improvement program. It is a place to practice being human together.
Option 2: An Ongoing Community of Practice (More Explicit About How)
Description
This group exists to explore how wisdom is cultivated in community — through careful listening, shared reflection, and the courage to stay with experiences that are often rushed past or avoided.
We gather primarily online to engage with books, themes, and practices that invite depth rather than quick answers. At times this includes grief and sorrow; at other times it may include belonging, purpose, joy, or the questions that arise at life’s thresholds.
Our way of being together values:
speaking from lived experience
listening without fixing or advising
allowing silence to do some of the work
letting understanding unfold slowly
Some gatherings will be structured series (such as a shared reading); others may be stand-alone conversations or practices. The group is convened and lightly held, rather than taught or led.
This space is for adults who are drawn to thoughtful, reflective engagement and who are willing to meet others with respect and care.
Option 3: A Threshold Space for Those Drawn to Depth (Most Selective)
Description
This is a gathering place for people who feel the pull toward depth, meaning, and shared inquiry — especially in times of change, loss, or quiet re-orientation.
We meet online to explore what becomes possible when we slow down, listen well, and allow difficult and beautiful experiences to be held in community. Grief may be present here, but it is not the sole focus; it is one voice among many that shape a fuller, more honest way of being human.
Our gatherings may involve shared reading, music, silence, reflection, and carefully held conversation. We are less interested in conclusions than in attention, and less interested in answers than in presence.
This is not a space for debate, advice-giving, or fixing one another. It is a space for those who value respect, listening, and the gradual emergence of wisdom through relationship.
The group is online-first, with occasional in-person gatherings as opportunities arise.
Optional Short “Group Culture” Add-On (Highly Recommended)
You could add this at the end of any description:
Group Culture
This space values listening over advising, presence over performance, and lived experience over abstract discussion. Silence is welcome. Participation is invitational, not compulsory.
Brief Summary
All three descriptions accommodate grief without being grief-only
They leave room for books, rituals, dialogue, and future evolution
Tone is gently ambiguous, depth-oriented, and self-selecting
You are positioned as convener, not expert
Recommended next step:
Choose one option as your base, then tell me:
whether you want it shorter (Meetup skimmability), or
whether you’d like a one-sentence tagline to sit above it.
We can refine until it feels unmistakably yours.
You said:
I am more drawn to option 1, although I really like the opening paragraph of option 2
ChatGPT said:
That’s a very coherent instinct — those two pieces belong together.
Option 2’s opening names the purpose cleanly, while Option 1 creates warmth and spaciousness. We can braid them without losing either quality.
Below is a refined composite version, using Option 2’s opening paragraph and the body of Option 1, lightly tuned for flow and future-proofing.
Draft Group Description (Refined Composite)
Description
This group exists to explore how wisdom is cultivated in community — through careful listening, shared reflection, and the courage to stay with experiences that are often rushed past or avoided.
We meet primarily online to read, listen, reflect, and speak from lived experience. Our gatherings may include shared reading, quiet reflection, music, dialogue, and simple practices that help us stay present with what it means to be human in these times.
Grief, loss, and sorrow are welcome here — not as problems to be fixed, but as part of the larger fabric of life. So too are wonder, humour, uncertainty, and the slow making of meaning.
Some gatherings will take the form of a structured series (such as a shared reading of a book); others may be more open-ended. The common thread is a commitment to listening deeply — to ourselves, to one another, and to what is trying to be known in community.
This group is online-first, with occasional in-person gatherings for those who wish to meet in the same place. It is convened and lightly held, rather than taught or led.
This is not a therapy group, debate space, or self-improvement program. It is a place to practice being human together.
Upcoming events
No upcoming events