​How do we create the conditions that allow us to fall into play?

​Father Circle · Starting Sunday afternoons · July 26 · 12pm EST · 90 minutes · Online · Small group · Free, with optional donations · This page registers you for Session One

​This is a virtual circle where fathers gather to look honestly at the stories we’ve inherited, forgive ourselves for where we fall short, celebrate the joys of parenting, and remember how to be fully alive with our kids. It’s not a class or a support group. Instead, it’s a space to pay attention together, with real conversation, music, or art to start each session, a few quiet minutes near the end, and the company of other men who get it. Before I explain how it works, I want to share who I am, since I’m asking you to show up honestly, and that should go both ways.

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​WHO’S HOLDING THIS

​Hi everyone, I’m Carlos Rodarte, a single father to two daughters, ages 9 and 7. I grew up mostly with my single mother and a few father figures who offered guidance along the way. For me, fatherhood has become a way to reparent myself and reconnect with my inner child. I want you to know this circle is for me as much as it is for anyone. I benefit, my daughters benefit, and I truly believe society benefits when we create spaces like this.

​Being a father has reminded me that parenting isn’t something we do alone. It’s really a team effort, supported by friends and family if we let them in. It truly takes a village — not just because the work is hard, but because we’re all shaped by the people and forces around us, and so are our kids. The father figures who helped me, my mother, who took on many roles, and the friends, elders, and even strangers who leave their mark on a child are all part of that web. Learning to work with this, instead of against it, has changed how I see parenting. It’s taught me a lot about patience and accepting how little we can actually control.

​My path has been shaped most by my contemplative Buddhist practice. I grew up Catholic, but it never really became a big part of me. Over the years, spirituality and philosophy have stayed close to my heart. I’ve learned from many traditions and hold them with appreciation, not certainty. You’re welcome here, no matter what you believe or don’t believe.

​For over twenty years, I’ve worked where healthcare, technology, and contemplative practice meet. I’m a certified mindfulness mentor and a trained environmental and social scientist. I’ve also created retreats to support people with demanding lives. This circle comes from all of that, but mostly from being a dad.

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​WHY I’M MAKING THIS

​When I talk with other fathers, I hear the same thing: we don’t have many places to gather, talk, and reflect. We need spaces where being vulnerable isn’t seen as a weakness but as something good, and where showing up fully (with all our tenderness and "mess") matters. That’s why I’m inviting you to this virtual fathers’ circle, open to anyone carrying fatherhood energy, whether by blood, choice, or love. Join us for real conversations about parenting, music from hip hop to sounds from around the world, art, and guided meditation. If this sounds like what you’ve been looking for, I hope you’ll join me.

​There's another reason for this group. Research on men's well-being shows that sticking to the old ideas of manhood, with its emphasis on emotional control, self-reliance, and doing it all alone, often leads to worse mental health. These ideas make it harder for us to reach out, even when connection is what we need most. A generation ago, most men had several close friends they could be honest with, but that's much less common now. I know first-hand how hard it is to make new friends once you're a papa. This circle is a small, intentional way to help address that, too.

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​ABOUT THE TITLE, AND WHAT WE’RE REALLY DOING

​The question I keep coming back to is the one in the title: how do we create the conditions that let us fall into play? Play isn’t something you can force or make happen. It shows up when the conditions are right, which is why we fall into it rather than make it.

​Some of these conditions live within us, like patience, the ability to pause before reacting, and a certain peace with not being in control. Others live outside us, in the expectations the world places on fathers, the pressure to provide and perform and have it all handled, the sense that someone is always watching how we do this.

​Much of our time together is about setting that weight down, so play has room to find us.

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​WHAT YOU MIGHT LEAVE WITH

​There’s plenty of parenting advice and checklists out there, but that’s not what this space is for. Here, we want to create a sense of stillness and peace, so we can notice the stories we’ve picked up about fatherhood, look at them together, and see our own experiences in each other. It’s about learning to handle the uncertainty of parenting, knowing that our struggles and joys are normal, and feeling free enough to share them. I hope you leave feeling less alone, knowing that both the hard parts and the joys are real and shared, and that we can move through fatherhood with confidence and humility.

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​WHO I’M HOPING GATHERS

​Anyone carrying fatherhood energy is welcome — by blood, choice, or love, whether or not you live with your kids. New dads, grandfathers, stepfathers, adoptive and foster fathers, or anyone who has shown up for a child. Whatever your spiritual or philosophical background, you are welcome here just as you are. This circle is a space for genuine presence, not for convincing or converting. It will especially speak to you if any of the following feel true:

​The joy of all this is real, and you have a feeling you don’t celebrate it nearly enough.

​You observe patterns from your own upbringing surfacing in your parenting that you’d rather not pass on.

​You’re present with your kids and quietly certain you still have more to give.

​You’ve been wishing for other fathers you could actually be honest with.

​You’re curious about the spiritual questions fatherhood keeps stirring up, from whatever tradition you hold or none at all.

​You don’t need any experience with meditation or anything like “men’s work” to join. Just come as you are, and if this feels right for you, join me.

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​THE JOURNEY — SIX SUNDAYS [JULY 26 | AUGUST 2, 9, 16, 23 | SEPTEMBER 6]

​Each session honors the many doors into reflection, whether a question, a prompt, a song, or a piece of visual art. For each one below, I've included a question we might sit with and explore together, just one of many that tend to arise.

​Note: This page only registers you for Session One. The six sessions are designed to build on each other, so you’ll get the most out of it by joining the whole series. If you want the full experience, start with the first and continue through the series. After each session, you can sign up for the next one.

​1.  Presence

​We begin by arriving, settling into the circle, and noticing what each of us carries into fatherhood, including the quiet belief that time with our kids is somehow separate from our 'real' lives. We invite ourselves to arrive fully, with whatever we’re carrying, and notice the quiet moments that often get overlooked. Presence is an act of kindness to ourselves and those we love.

​What has shaped my beliefs about fatherhood, and what would change if this time with my kids was simply my life, not time away from it?

​2.  Release

​We honestly look at what we inherited from those who raised us and the wider world, the patterns we repeat consciously, and those that run quietly below the surface. The work is noticing what we’re passing on before we’ve chosen it.

​What beliefs about being a father am I handing down, and which did I never actually choose?

​3.  Belonging

​We turn toward lineage and the communal web that shapes us, resisting the myth that we parent alone. We explore where we come from and how the village, seen and unseen, lives on in how we father. And we sit with a quieter kind of belonging, the sense that we are already enough, already at home in our own bodies, worthy of being seen without needing to earn it.

​Where do we come from, and who are the people and forces, named and unnamed, still shaping how we love?

​4.  Tenderness

​We sit with what we most long to give our children that can't be bought or scheduled, and with the ways everyday life can crowd out its full expression. Together we make room for the tenderness that usually goes unspoken, and for what words alone often miss.

​What does our love want to express that everyday life rarely makes room for?

​5.  Freedom

​We examine the water we've been swimming in, the scripts about manhood and strength we absorbed passively. We hold "fatherhood" itself lightly here, as one of the gloves of experience we wear rather than the whole of who we are, and open to the freedom of sensing beyond binary labels into something more spacious. This is also where we practice the pause, the space between trigger and reaction, where a different response becomes possible.

​What labels have we been wearing that we never chose, and who might we be beneath them?

​6.  Play

​We gather the threads and turn toward play and spontaneity, not as something to achieve but as what becomes possible once we’ve cleared the conditions, inner and outer, that block it. We close by naming what each of us needs to fall into play, by touching the deep time we belong to, and by lovingly recognizing the eternal present that play enables.

​What are we becoming, and what is the form and texture of a loving orientation that admits uncertainty?

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​HOW OUR TIME TOGETHER FLOWS

​Each gathering is ninety minutes and follows a consistent rhythm, so you'll have a felt sense of where we are without it ever feeling rigid.

​Arriving and grounding: We settle in together with a simple grounding, a chance to land in our bodies and set down whatever we walked in carrying. You're welcome to share something of who you are and where you're at, as much or as little as feels right.

​Setting the ground: I'll open up the theme for our time together. In the first session, that means framing how we'll be together, and touching on things like the biology of fatherhood, how different cultures and societies have understood it, and the role all of that plays in shaping what we believe. Often, a piece of music or art will find its way in, since these tend to reach places words alone can't.

​Smaller circles: We move into smaller groups to reflect and share more intimately. This is also a space to listen deeply, and to notice where our paths might resemble those of other fathers. This is the heart of our time together.

​Coming back together: We return to the full group to share what surfaced, without fixing or advising, simply witnessing one another.

​A bit of stillness: A short, optional settling into awareness, a chance to notice how we're meeting our experience and where we sit with our beliefs and aspirations. Sometimes a guided meditation, sometimes simply rest.

​Closing: We close in a way that gathers a few of the threads from our time together, so you leave with something to carry rather than something left behind. Between sessions, I'll send a short reading or reflection now and then, a gentle thread to carry the circle forward until we meet again.

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​If any of this speaks to you, I invite you to join me. Come as you are! curious, uncertain, or anywhere in between. There’s a place for you here.