naming the still point

“What we call the beginning is often the end.”
-T.S. Eliot

We opened Good Bye with T.S. Eliot. For me, his words have a way of naming something that feels true before I can fully explain it.

Another line of his has stayed with me for years:

“At the still point of the turning world…”

My mother, now ninety-two, can still recite verses she learned as a child. Sadly I cannot retain poetry and yet this line stayed.

I put it down, then returned to it. Took it on my walks.

At one point I brought it to my supervision group. We reflected on it together. We talked about what it meant in our work. That session moved us all.

It was then I knew I was naming something already alive.

In coaching and team sessions, leaders often arrive carrying noise. Packed calendars. Competing demands. It can take a moment for them to become fully present.

The turning world does not pause for them.

Part of the work is to create a still point inside that movement.

I had seen that pattern many times before I had language for it.

As I turned over the phrase “the still point,” another dot connected.

My years studying systemic constellations came back into view. That work pays attention to history, belonging and order. It reminds us that people sit inside systems, and systems carry memory. When something is unseen or out of place, tension travels. When context is restored and what belongs is acknowledged, decisions become cleaner. That needs space to see.

What looks personal is often systemic.
What feels like a deficit is often complexity not yet fully seen.

The line from Eliot did not create the work. It named it.

When I recognised that, there was a quiet moment of clarity. Yes! The Still Point is the name we now give to something we have long been practising.

It captured the essence.

The turning world is not going to slow down.

Even in dance, there is stillness.

And it remains where we begin.