I have thought about enlightenment for years. For a long time I sought it out, demanding it from the Universe, praying for it, meditating for it, intending it with groups of people, going to sacred spots, and trying to find community that was interested in moving toward Enlightenment together. At some point I decided to give up on it, hearing that is the way to achieve it. And there were even times in there that I thought I was enlightened, sometimes other people did too.
My favorite story is when I was visiting a community in WV, I was on a journey visiting many places at that time in my life. I had given away almost everything I owned and left a commune I was living in with $150 and a lot of faith. Two days after leaving the commune, I had a vision/enlightenment experience...I called it receiving Christ Consciousness for a while. I was meditating everyday at the time, and doing everything based on my intuition. In the "vision" I got all sorts of information about what is happening on the planet and what my life is about. I felt amazing for months after this experience. It was during this time I was visiting the community in WV. I was basically thinking of myself as enlightened, but wasn't telling anyone that I thought that...but perhaps had convinced a few people of that by my way of being. I'm chuckling now thinking of it, because what happened to end my belief of being enlightened was that I was in a garden with some of the other young adults in the community. They had bee hives, and suddenly a bee is buzzing near me. I scream and run away in fear around the corner. I'll never forget Bevin saying something like, "I thought you were enlightened." All the wind came out of my sails and I no longer believed I was enlightened...but here is the key, I also no longer acted like I was enlightened. Beliefs create our reality. If we think we are enlightened, we act it. If we believe we are perfect, we act like we are perfect.
If this is the case, why are we told by our culture from an early age that Human Nature is evil? What if we were told we were enlightened from an early age? What if we were told we were perfect? We see the evil that comes from cultures like America, where we use huge portions of the world's resources and labor to make objects for us to hoard and covet. We destroy the planet and use up people's lives in meaningless ways. We go to war for oil to supply us with our endless need for stimulation so that we don't have to feel the pain of our separation from ourselves and others.
One community that I've connected to in my research that does tell themselves and their children that they are perfect is Lafayette Morehouse. http://www.lafayettemorehouse.com/ My understanding is that by doing this in community, if someone is behaving in a way that is not enjoyable, by being approved of, they find empathy for themselves and make different choices in their behavior in the future. I heard a story from a woman who grew up there that in her teens, when her father died, she started acting out. By being loved and approved of, she could see her behavior clearly and decided to change it herself. Interesting to me is that what I call enlightenment, Morehouse calls sanity. And they seem to acknowledge that we go in and out of states of being sane. Its my impression that they actually set up their teachers for courses to be able to be their most sane for when they are teaching. The way I think they do this (I have not confirmed this- its my theory) is that they make sure the teachers of the course have all their needs met before and during a course (they have people actually waiting on them, making them food, bringing them drinks, etc) and I'm guessing they have some rituals that they do before and during the course to keep them having good attention for the students. My guess is that they do a process they call with holds to keep charge down, and make sure that everyone's nervous systems are grounded.
To my mind, enlightenment/sanity, actually then becomes a formula, that anyone can do. And then when I see gurus who sit on a stage and give out love and wisdom to large groups of people, while having every need taken care of...I think its a huge sham, an act. I've given out huge bursts of love and spiritual energy when all my needs are met, and given wisdom that has changed people's lives. Put me up on a stage, take care of my every need, support me in every desire I have to help the world through helping me with my ideas for charities and such, and I could be an enlightened guru too. My bet is that almost everyone on the planet who has had the opportunities for growth that I've had, and has done the personal liberation work, has committed to listening to their inner voice, could also be an enlightened master on the stage, given the opportunity. The time of gurus is over, its time to take back our power and know our enlightened birthright, and create a world where everyone knows themselves as enlightened.
My theory/formula for enlightenment/sanity is something like this: create a community of people who are committed to personal liberation/enlightenment. Make sure everyone's basic needs are met (all needs is even better- Nonviolent Communication is great for distinguishing needs from strategy). Have containers/technology within the community for the personal liberation work to happen, and make sure there are at least a handful of people who have done enough of this work to have attention for people who haven't done as much or any work. Have a lot of focus on having fun, bonding and loving one another. Individuals are committed to listening to their inner voice/re-wilding to the best of their ability, and the community is committed to finding win/win solutions for everyone. The intention and containers/technology may be enough on their own, but the process may be more painful or feel more chaotic.
I'm going to break this down in upcoming posts, giving examples of what I mean, and how it works, where I've seen it work, and how I've seen it not work. I know enlightenment is possible for every Human on the planet, and its possible this lifetime. I'm not sure why we have been told its not, or why humans believe we aren't, but I think it has something to do with this ecological mess we've gotten ourselves into. And I think group enlightenment is the way out.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Liberated mind
I believe in the "Law of Attraction." I hear the quantum physics is proving it out, I just know it works for me. I see over and over that what I intend to create in my life, gets created. And I notice that everything that is in me that stops that creation from happening comes up to be released, every limiting belief, every health problem, every stuck emotion. What ever constructs are in my consciousness that keep me from having what I want have to be dealt with.
This past week is a good example. I want to have a life where my words and vision for the planet are taken seriously by many people. I want to be out there doing public speaking and leading workshops on the topics I write about in this blog. Last week I got triggered by someone in my life who I felt was projecting on me. In my full PMS glory I pulled out my "sword of truth" and whacked him with it. He then said some things that really had me doubting myself. When I finally got to the bottom of what was going on, I realized that I had beliefs based on things my mother said to me as a child about being an idealist and unrealistic. Those tapes were still playing in my head. I needed to have that experience to find those unconscious thought patterns and root them out by expressing my feelings in a safe container.
I think most people talking Law of Attraction, miss this piece. They think they are creating their thoughts, and so when their thoughts are negative they beat themselves up instead of finding the gold, finding the unconscious belief that is holding them in the negative thoughts.
My fantasy is to create a group or groups of people that support one another in holding space to release those unconscious beliefs that were programmed into them at an early age. Leaving people to feel empowered in creating their life the way they want through their liberated mind.
This past week is a good example. I want to have a life where my words and vision for the planet are taken seriously by many people. I want to be out there doing public speaking and leading workshops on the topics I write about in this blog. Last week I got triggered by someone in my life who I felt was projecting on me. In my full PMS glory I pulled out my "sword of truth" and whacked him with it. He then said some things that really had me doubting myself. When I finally got to the bottom of what was going on, I realized that I had beliefs based on things my mother said to me as a child about being an idealist and unrealistic. Those tapes were still playing in my head. I needed to have that experience to find those unconscious thought patterns and root them out by expressing my feelings in a safe container.
I think most people talking Law of Attraction, miss this piece. They think they are creating their thoughts, and so when their thoughts are negative they beat themselves up instead of finding the gold, finding the unconscious belief that is holding them in the negative thoughts.
My fantasy is to create a group or groups of people that support one another in holding space to release those unconscious beliefs that were programmed into them at an early age. Leaving people to feel empowered in creating their life the way they want through their liberated mind.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Awakening to our Perfection as Humans
Many people commented on my piece about the collapse of the Empire on Truthout, and a number of them said its isn't possible, its not in human nature to share. I totally disagree. I think we have been sold a bunch of lies about what human nature is and isn't. Many will have us believe that all that is good in humans is really Divine, and all that is bad is human. I had this belief myself for a while, that I had a Divine spark of God inside of me, and then there was my humanness. Or I split myself between my higher self and lower self. I have now come to a place of integration, and see how that view served me for a while, but was utterly wrong.
Where I am now is that what we have been calling our Divine self, or God self, or Christ consciousness is just us as humans in our natural state. That what we have been doing for the last ten thousand years is heaping more stress and trauma on each generation, causing blocks to experiencing our authentic selves. Then those of us that have had experiences of ourselves free of the blocks for short amounts of time think its something magical and mystical and not of our selves but of God. I'm generalizing here, but I think you get the point,and everyone uses different language for these experiences. More open minded people may still try to love their "humanness" or "inner child" while still feeling embarrassed and less than enlightened by the strong impulses and emotions that are coming up, less open minded people will deny those aspects and think the devil is out to get them. Most people handle all of this by numbing out through TV, food, alcohol and other drugs.
What I see is that those "unruly" impulses and emotions that are coming up are places where our blocks to experiencing ourselves as integrated whole beings are. That all of our impulses are opportunities to integrate, and what we need most is attention and loving space to unpack those places inside of us. I think this is my work in the world and think it may be the work of this time. Seeing that what we have been told is enlightened and evolved is actually just our natural state once we release the traumas and unpack the repression.
I recently read a book by Chellis Glendining called "My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization." She posits that the move from being hunter-gathers to agriculturists created a separation that caused trauma for humans which has been passed down from generation to generation and that most people raised in Western Civilization show signs of PTSD. That to stop the damage we are doing to the environment, we need to do the trauma work inside of ourselves so that we can reconnect to one another and to nature. Human beings who are not traumatized feel empathy and connection to the world around them.
From doing my own trauma recovery work over the years, and living in multiple communities with many people, I can see how Glendinings theory plays out. Doing the work to end my own repression has caused me to be more kind and loving, having more attention and empathy for others. And let me just say that for myself, the process was a shit show. I'm not going to pretend that it was pretty, I had to go deep into shadows and impulses that had me acting in ways that embarrassed me to my bones, wanting to just curl up and die on multiple occasions. And yes, at times I even thought I may be possessed. But it was worth it! I am freer than I've ever been, I still have some places I repress myself, but they are small compared to how dis-empowered I felt for so much of my life.
I think most people may think to themselves that they don't really have trauma in their childhood or past and so what I'm talking about doesn't apply to them. Unless a person had trauma that was outside of the norm for people in our culture, we don't think of our childhoods as traumatic. Here is the problem, for something like 99% of human history, the way our bodies evolved was in hunter gatherer tribes. For the last ten thousand years, everything has changed. We are evolved to expect certain things in our childhoods that we need for optimum development. Babies and children know this instinctively, but because most adults have lost the ability to listen to their own instincts, they through their unconscious actions do things that are traumatizing to the baby and child. Some of the things we expect because of our evolution are to be fed foods that are natural for humans to eat, (what we ate as hunter gatherers including breast feeding for a few years), to always be with a protective adult when a baby (including sleeping), to be held most of the time until ready to crawl, to integrate into the larger community through imitating the adults around us, to get grounding through the Earth's electromagnetic pulses, to get sunlight, and to express our natural impulses and emotions as they come up in a loving attentive container with clear boundaries. This is not a complete list, but its some of the basics. Children raised in tribes where they get these needs met tend to be happy healthy productive adults. Jean Leidoff http://www.continuum-concept.org/ studied and wrote about such a tribe in South America. She didn't seem to think adults who aren't raised this way could recover, but I think we can and will.
I believe that an awakening to our own beautiful, perfect Humaness is possible, through loving containers where all of people's impulses toward integration are held with love and seen as perfect. I have experienced these containers myself, and have experience holding this kind of container for others. I see this as key to the fall of the Empire, empowered happy people sharing resources and living from our passions.
Where I am now is that what we have been calling our Divine self, or God self, or Christ consciousness is just us as humans in our natural state. That what we have been doing for the last ten thousand years is heaping more stress and trauma on each generation, causing blocks to experiencing our authentic selves. Then those of us that have had experiences of ourselves free of the blocks for short amounts of time think its something magical and mystical and not of our selves but of God. I'm generalizing here, but I think you get the point,and everyone uses different language for these experiences. More open minded people may still try to love their "humanness" or "inner child" while still feeling embarrassed and less than enlightened by the strong impulses and emotions that are coming up, less open minded people will deny those aspects and think the devil is out to get them. Most people handle all of this by numbing out through TV, food, alcohol and other drugs.
What I see is that those "unruly" impulses and emotions that are coming up are places where our blocks to experiencing ourselves as integrated whole beings are. That all of our impulses are opportunities to integrate, and what we need most is attention and loving space to unpack those places inside of us. I think this is my work in the world and think it may be the work of this time. Seeing that what we have been told is enlightened and evolved is actually just our natural state once we release the traumas and unpack the repression.
I recently read a book by Chellis Glendining called "My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization." She posits that the move from being hunter-gathers to agriculturists created a separation that caused trauma for humans which has been passed down from generation to generation and that most people raised in Western Civilization show signs of PTSD. That to stop the damage we are doing to the environment, we need to do the trauma work inside of ourselves so that we can reconnect to one another and to nature. Human beings who are not traumatized feel empathy and connection to the world around them.
From doing my own trauma recovery work over the years, and living in multiple communities with many people, I can see how Glendinings theory plays out. Doing the work to end my own repression has caused me to be more kind and loving, having more attention and empathy for others. And let me just say that for myself, the process was a shit show. I'm not going to pretend that it was pretty, I had to go deep into shadows and impulses that had me acting in ways that embarrassed me to my bones, wanting to just curl up and die on multiple occasions. And yes, at times I even thought I may be possessed. But it was worth it! I am freer than I've ever been, I still have some places I repress myself, but they are small compared to how dis-empowered I felt for so much of my life.
I think most people may think to themselves that they don't really have trauma in their childhood or past and so what I'm talking about doesn't apply to them. Unless a person had trauma that was outside of the norm for people in our culture, we don't think of our childhoods as traumatic. Here is the problem, for something like 99% of human history, the way our bodies evolved was in hunter gatherer tribes. For the last ten thousand years, everything has changed. We are evolved to expect certain things in our childhoods that we need for optimum development. Babies and children know this instinctively, but because most adults have lost the ability to listen to their own instincts, they through their unconscious actions do things that are traumatizing to the baby and child. Some of the things we expect because of our evolution are to be fed foods that are natural for humans to eat, (what we ate as hunter gatherers including breast feeding for a few years), to always be with a protective adult when a baby (including sleeping), to be held most of the time until ready to crawl, to integrate into the larger community through imitating the adults around us, to get grounding through the Earth's electromagnetic pulses, to get sunlight, and to express our natural impulses and emotions as they come up in a loving attentive container with clear boundaries. This is not a complete list, but its some of the basics. Children raised in tribes where they get these needs met tend to be happy healthy productive adults. Jean Leidoff http://www.continuum-concept.org/ studied and wrote about such a tribe in South America. She didn't seem to think adults who aren't raised this way could recover, but I think we can and will.
I believe that an awakening to our own beautiful, perfect Humaness is possible, through loving containers where all of people's impulses toward integration are held with love and seen as perfect. I have experienced these containers myself, and have experience holding this kind of container for others. I see this as key to the fall of the Empire, empowered happy people sharing resources and living from our passions.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
The Gentle Economic Collapse of the Empire
I've been thinking of Revolution or the fall of the Empire, radical awakening of unity consciousness for years, as early as 1994 I was thinking about the fall of patriarchy and some movement that included all the different causes. But in 2001, the year I was thirty, I started to see a way we could could create an economic revolution that was sustainable and dealt with inequality. My vision of what is possible goes something like this:
Small groups around the country see the need for a totally different paradigm to live in, and are willing to give up current ideas of what security means and success to work for a larger vision that includes everyone getting their needs met. This means physical, emotional and spiritual needs. These groups, or maybe its just one group...lets stick with one group, because its easier for me to imagine, though my understanding is that many people all over the world are already working in this direction. So one group of say ten people buy a large house in a city. They commit to income sharing like Federation of Egalitarian communities do, http://thefec.org/. I especially like Emma Goldman Finishing School's (http://egfs.org/) model of income sharing, where people "pay" into the house 20 hours a week in either domestic labor or their income for 20 hours at their job. They have a computer program to figure out how much money and labor they need each month, and are small enough to be able to be flexible enough to work with each person's ability and needs. In exchange for this payment, they have all of their survival needs met...heck they even had fancy organic shampoos, olives, a clean house and organic veggies from their garden, when I visited a number of years ago. The rest of their time is freed up to their art and activism...some of them also work more to pay off loans or save money personally.
So this group is dedicated to spreading their vision of income sharing households, I personally like the idea of eventually taking over a city and surrounding countryside with these cooperative households. This one group uses some of their income to save enough money to purchase another home. In addition to living together, they have been doing the personal liberation work I talk about in my last post, so they are creating a culture of love, non violent communication and transparency between them. At some point they have enough money to buy another property and do so, splitting the group and adding new members to each household. Eventually they may own the entire block. At this point I like the idea of ripping out the alleys and barriers between yards and creating gardens with food, building a central kitchen for everyone on the block, having solar panels and composting toilets, grey water systems and living roofs. Workshops for coop businesses that the group has created in the basements and perhaps garages and in the homes. Shared libraries, offices, and features such as hot tubs and saunas for the block. Oh, wait, this is already happening in some ways!
Ganas community (http://www.ganas.org/) in New York has something like five collectively owned houses with adjacent backyards and various businesses that are in their neighborhood, they are also dedicated to the personal liberation work. Twin Oaks (http://www.twinoaks.org/) has been income sharing for 40+ years and lives collectively on 400 acres in Central Virginia, with shared gardens, homes, businesses, a person made pond, river, sauna and an amazing playground or two. Emma Goldman was saving money to give to another group to buy property to create another community when I visited them five years ago, I'm not sure where they are in the process now. The thing is that none of these communities are doing all of the things that I think would make a successful long term revolution, AND they each hold such important pieces of the puzzle.
What if these small coop houses spread like Starbucks or McDonalds do? Creating a culture of transparency and love, egalitarian living, with everyone in agreement about the larger movement or vision being economic revolution, moving from a capitalist culture to a gift economy, on a grassroots scale? Each community saving up extra resources to grow the concept, to create more cooperative businesses and communities to serve the whole movement. Put the land into land trusts, not big land trusts, but small ones that may only own up to ten homes, workshops, hospitals, farms, etc, so that you don't have more than 100 people having to work together to decide what to do with the land, and so that the power of controlling the land can't get out of hand.
At some point there is a tipping point. Hundreds or thousands of people living in a space of love and peace with one another, getting all of their needs met without being controlled by corporations or the government is going to look pretty darn good. Good systems to grow the culture and revolution will mean it will be easy for people to see what a good life they could have by joining the new grassroots revolution. All the while the Empire falls, gently, without hurting a soul.
Small groups around the country see the need for a totally different paradigm to live in, and are willing to give up current ideas of what security means and success to work for a larger vision that includes everyone getting their needs met. This means physical, emotional and spiritual needs. These groups, or maybe its just one group...lets stick with one group, because its easier for me to imagine, though my understanding is that many people all over the world are already working in this direction. So one group of say ten people buy a large house in a city. They commit to income sharing like Federation of Egalitarian communities do, http://thefec.org/. I especially like Emma Goldman Finishing School's (http://egfs.org/) model of income sharing, where people "pay" into the house 20 hours a week in either domestic labor or their income for 20 hours at their job. They have a computer program to figure out how much money and labor they need each month, and are small enough to be able to be flexible enough to work with each person's ability and needs. In exchange for this payment, they have all of their survival needs met...heck they even had fancy organic shampoos, olives, a clean house and organic veggies from their garden, when I visited a number of years ago. The rest of their time is freed up to their art and activism...some of them also work more to pay off loans or save money personally.
So this group is dedicated to spreading their vision of income sharing households, I personally like the idea of eventually taking over a city and surrounding countryside with these cooperative households. This one group uses some of their income to save enough money to purchase another home. In addition to living together, they have been doing the personal liberation work I talk about in my last post, so they are creating a culture of love, non violent communication and transparency between them. At some point they have enough money to buy another property and do so, splitting the group and adding new members to each household. Eventually they may own the entire block. At this point I like the idea of ripping out the alleys and barriers between yards and creating gardens with food, building a central kitchen for everyone on the block, having solar panels and composting toilets, grey water systems and living roofs. Workshops for coop businesses that the group has created in the basements and perhaps garages and in the homes. Shared libraries, offices, and features such as hot tubs and saunas for the block. Oh, wait, this is already happening in some ways!
Ganas community (http://www.ganas.org/) in New York has something like five collectively owned houses with adjacent backyards and various businesses that are in their neighborhood, they are also dedicated to the personal liberation work. Twin Oaks (http://www.twinoaks.org/) has been income sharing for 40+ years and lives collectively on 400 acres in Central Virginia, with shared gardens, homes, businesses, a person made pond, river, sauna and an amazing playground or two. Emma Goldman was saving money to give to another group to buy property to create another community when I visited them five years ago, I'm not sure where they are in the process now. The thing is that none of these communities are doing all of the things that I think would make a successful long term revolution, AND they each hold such important pieces of the puzzle.
What if these small coop houses spread like Starbucks or McDonalds do? Creating a culture of transparency and love, egalitarian living, with everyone in agreement about the larger movement or vision being economic revolution, moving from a capitalist culture to a gift economy, on a grassroots scale? Each community saving up extra resources to grow the concept, to create more cooperative businesses and communities to serve the whole movement. Put the land into land trusts, not big land trusts, but small ones that may only own up to ten homes, workshops, hospitals, farms, etc, so that you don't have more than 100 people having to work together to decide what to do with the land, and so that the power of controlling the land can't get out of hand.
At some point there is a tipping point. Hundreds or thousands of people living in a space of love and peace with one another, getting all of their needs met without being controlled by corporations or the government is going to look pretty darn good. Good systems to grow the culture and revolution will mean it will be easy for people to see what a good life they could have by joining the new grassroots revolution. All the while the Empire falls, gently, without hurting a soul.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Imagine a World, more on the fall of the Empire
Imagine waking up with your loved ones and walking outside to gardens between your home and other's homes. Picking your breakfast of berries right off the bush in front of your house and walking a few blocks to the a collective workshop where you do the work you most love to do in the world for as long as you feel like doing it. Once done, you join friends and family in the gardens, singing, playing, and eating your fill of food. Later you go off to another workshop where you do different work, or you teach a group of children how to restore a building, or empty compost, or make dinner for your household...all in a place that once was considered concrete jungle.
I believe in this vision, of people living in harmony with one another and the earth, while living from their passions, getting their needs met and doing the healing work that it takes on a personal level as well as a global level to live this vision. I've spent the last twelve years studying intentional communities (ICs), living in numerous ICs for up to two years at time, visiting others (upwards of 60 I'd guess), doing a lot of communication and personal liberation work and facilitation of others in intentional communities and networks of like minded people, like Network for New Culture and Morehouse in the Philly area. What I've noticed is that for people to live lives of radical resource sharing and move beyond using money (which is in my opinion the only way we can get through what is happening on the planet and thrive physically) we have to be able to get along. Not only are the practical skills of gardening, building sustainable buildings, raising animals, and various other physical survival and thrive-al skills and talents needed, but we have got to learn to cooperate.
How many ICs have failed because the people involved couldn't get along, couldn't find a win-win for everyone involved? Its in the hundreds, perhaps thousands. I can't count the number of people who when I have told them about ICs say something like "Its a great idea, but I can't live that closely with other people, I need my space." I think the answer is doing the personal liberation work to unpack the trauma and repression that this society has heaped on us. The best book I've read to date on this topic is Chellis Glendinning's, My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization. http://www.newsociety.com/Books/M/My-Name-is-Chellis-and-I-m-in-Recovery-from-Western-Civilization
Not only do we personally need to do this work, but to provide places in our communities and movements to do the work and hold the space for others. For ICs, the best process I've seen for holding everyone in love while unpacking what is going on under the surface is the ZEGG Forum. http://www.zegg-forum.org/what-is-zegg-forum.phtml. ZEGG is an experimental community in Germany that found that when trying to do consensus, emotions would get in the way of coming to solutions that worked for everyone. How many times have you seen this, one person controlling the process, most likely because of some childhood wound than anything actually going on in the group. ZEGG found that when emotions came up in their consensus process, they could get through with more clarity and unity if they addressed the underlying issues first. They stop the logistics meetings and do a Forum to bring transparency to the issues. Once people are settled back into a space of love and unity, the deck is clear so to speak, they go on with decision making. This takes longer in some ways, but its much much shorter to deal directly with what is happening with people's emotions, than spending years in meetings trying to avoid the elephants in the room.
This does two things, it clears the deck, but it also brings to light the shadows at play in the people involved, which helps to create more intimacy and trust while sometimes healing people's personal traumas. To be clear, ZEGG forum isn't meant for healing people, but when shadow comes to light, integration happens. I think there are better processes for doing the deep trauma release work, groups like Shalom Mountain have a process they do in their retreats, I used the clearing process from Mankind project to get in touch with a lot of my shadow, there is Heart of Now, Revaluation Counseling, and a multitude of other ways to do the more intense work.
Becoming personally liberated makes us easier to get along with and to get along with others, needing less space, which in turn means needing less stuff. Imagine a world where people spend their free time enjoying other people instead of the TV, drinking, buying stuff, playing with the stuff they just bought, over eating, etc. Right now for most Americans, though lonely, the thought of sharing themselves intimately with more than a handful of people (if any) creates so much anxiety and pain, they would rather go home and sit in front of the TV or computer than do anything else. The revolution is happening, its happening in the groups of people brave enough to try to get along with others, trying to cooperate, trying to find a way to love one another. Anyone doing this work is supporting the vision of sustainability on this planet, because without learning to love one another, we can't have peace and share resources on the level that needs to happen to create true sustainability on the planet.
I believe in this vision, of people living in harmony with one another and the earth, while living from their passions, getting their needs met and doing the healing work that it takes on a personal level as well as a global level to live this vision. I've spent the last twelve years studying intentional communities (ICs), living in numerous ICs for up to two years at time, visiting others (upwards of 60 I'd guess), doing a lot of communication and personal liberation work and facilitation of others in intentional communities and networks of like minded people, like Network for New Culture and Morehouse in the Philly area. What I've noticed is that for people to live lives of radical resource sharing and move beyond using money (which is in my opinion the only way we can get through what is happening on the planet and thrive physically) we have to be able to get along. Not only are the practical skills of gardening, building sustainable buildings, raising animals, and various other physical survival and thrive-al skills and talents needed, but we have got to learn to cooperate.
How many ICs have failed because the people involved couldn't get along, couldn't find a win-win for everyone involved? Its in the hundreds, perhaps thousands. I can't count the number of people who when I have told them about ICs say something like "Its a great idea, but I can't live that closely with other people, I need my space." I think the answer is doing the personal liberation work to unpack the trauma and repression that this society has heaped on us. The best book I've read to date on this topic is Chellis Glendinning's, My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization. http://www.newsociety.com/Books/M/My-Name-is-Chellis-and-I-m-in-Recovery-from-Western-Civilization
Not only do we personally need to do this work, but to provide places in our communities and movements to do the work and hold the space for others. For ICs, the best process I've seen for holding everyone in love while unpacking what is going on under the surface is the ZEGG Forum. http://www.zegg-forum.org/what-is-zegg-forum.phtml. ZEGG is an experimental community in Germany that found that when trying to do consensus, emotions would get in the way of coming to solutions that worked for everyone. How many times have you seen this, one person controlling the process, most likely because of some childhood wound than anything actually going on in the group. ZEGG found that when emotions came up in their consensus process, they could get through with more clarity and unity if they addressed the underlying issues first. They stop the logistics meetings and do a Forum to bring transparency to the issues. Once people are settled back into a space of love and unity, the deck is clear so to speak, they go on with decision making. This takes longer in some ways, but its much much shorter to deal directly with what is happening with people's emotions, than spending years in meetings trying to avoid the elephants in the room.
This does two things, it clears the deck, but it also brings to light the shadows at play in the people involved, which helps to create more intimacy and trust while sometimes healing people's personal traumas. To be clear, ZEGG forum isn't meant for healing people, but when shadow comes to light, integration happens. I think there are better processes for doing the deep trauma release work, groups like Shalom Mountain have a process they do in their retreats, I used the clearing process from Mankind project to get in touch with a lot of my shadow, there is Heart of Now, Revaluation Counseling, and a multitude of other ways to do the more intense work.
Becoming personally liberated makes us easier to get along with and to get along with others, needing less space, which in turn means needing less stuff. Imagine a world where people spend their free time enjoying other people instead of the TV, drinking, buying stuff, playing with the stuff they just bought, over eating, etc. Right now for most Americans, though lonely, the thought of sharing themselves intimately with more than a handful of people (if any) creates so much anxiety and pain, they would rather go home and sit in front of the TV or computer than do anything else. The revolution is happening, its happening in the groups of people brave enough to try to get along with others, trying to cooperate, trying to find a way to love one another. Anyone doing this work is supporting the vision of sustainability on this planet, because without learning to love one another, we can't have peace and share resources on the level that needs to happen to create true sustainability on the planet.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Opening my Heart
This past weekend I got triggered by my new love. It was an old pattern, it was painful. I acted out in an old way that embarrassed me, calling him three times until we actually talked. I spent the better part of the afternoon shut away in a room in the home I was visiting, feeling triggered, meditating, holding myself, and trying to get a hold of him. We finally talked, it didn't do anything to change my heartache, to reassure me, the scared little girl inside who was afraid that I was too much, not lovable. I called a dear friend who listened to me let off my charge, who has been through hell and back with me, and knows me better than I know myself at times. I held my self, and my new man in compassion while talking to her about the pain in my chest. I finally got centered enough to be present with my friend and was able to enjoy the rest of my visit with friends in PA. The next morning I awoke early thinking about that pain in my chest, and understood on a gut level that though I love this man, he isn't someone who is a good partner or match for me, not because of the triggers. It just isn't a good time for us to try a love relationship.
I was hurt, and thought about lashing out by just not seeing him again. We had an agreed upon date the following night, Monday. I felt a bit of dread about it, thinking of it as the breaking up date. I decided to go through with seeing him, but felt at a loss about what the time would look like. I felt scared and would have rather just gone home than think of being rejected, or rejecting, or whatever other awful thing that could happen. I mostly tried to put it out of my mind.
Monday afternoon, I'm sitting in a coffee shop a few miles from the metro where I'll be picking him up in an hour, watching snow fall and drinking green tea. I pick up one of the books I brought with me, Finding God Through Sex by David Deida. I start reading some piece about opening your heart through your resistance, how we guard our hearts, and the process of unguarding the heart looks like all kinds of emotions and behaviors coming up...from unmitigated hate, to laughter to baby talk. I understood something right there and then, my panic in my chest was my heart wanting to open up. All the years I thought this man or that man had taken advantage of my open heart, all the years of closing it down to men, the fear, rage, tears, my little girl begging to get my needs met, had come out, these were all in service to my opening. Granted, I didn't set very good boundaries with some of these men, but the times I was wide open to them showed me the way to a wide open heart with everyone.
And voilà! I had found my way to have the "break up talk," to open to the love I feel for this man. To open my heart wide and express what ever shadows were guarding my heart. That night we told each other we love one another for the first time in our relationship, and we decided to not continue a sexual connection. The intimacy and love is stronger than before, the mutual sharing is powerful and transformational. Our intuitions are telling us no or not now, and we are committed to enriching each other's lives. Was there pain last night? Anger, sadness, tears? Yes, and I understood they were inside of me, not from him. In that space he was able to love and hold me while I went through my process, and at times I was able to hold and love him through his.
Who says relationship success is measured by the length of time one is in it? This may have been the most successful relationship I've had to date and it lasted a grand total of a month. I got what I wanted, I fell out of love with him, and into a space of openness and Love for all, I lost my attachment to having my openness depend on one person.
I was hurt, and thought about lashing out by just not seeing him again. We had an agreed upon date the following night, Monday. I felt a bit of dread about it, thinking of it as the breaking up date. I decided to go through with seeing him, but felt at a loss about what the time would look like. I felt scared and would have rather just gone home than think of being rejected, or rejecting, or whatever other awful thing that could happen. I mostly tried to put it out of my mind.
Monday afternoon, I'm sitting in a coffee shop a few miles from the metro where I'll be picking him up in an hour, watching snow fall and drinking green tea. I pick up one of the books I brought with me, Finding God Through Sex by David Deida. I start reading some piece about opening your heart through your resistance, how we guard our hearts, and the process of unguarding the heart looks like all kinds of emotions and behaviors coming up...from unmitigated hate, to laughter to baby talk. I understood something right there and then, my panic in my chest was my heart wanting to open up. All the years I thought this man or that man had taken advantage of my open heart, all the years of closing it down to men, the fear, rage, tears, my little girl begging to get my needs met, had come out, these were all in service to my opening. Granted, I didn't set very good boundaries with some of these men, but the times I was wide open to them showed me the way to a wide open heart with everyone.
And voilà! I had found my way to have the "break up talk," to open to the love I feel for this man. To open my heart wide and express what ever shadows were guarding my heart. That night we told each other we love one another for the first time in our relationship, and we decided to not continue a sexual connection. The intimacy and love is stronger than before, the mutual sharing is powerful and transformational. Our intuitions are telling us no or not now, and we are committed to enriching each other's lives. Was there pain last night? Anger, sadness, tears? Yes, and I understood they were inside of me, not from him. In that space he was able to love and hold me while I went through my process, and at times I was able to hold and love him through his.
Who says relationship success is measured by the length of time one is in it? This may have been the most successful relationship I've had to date and it lasted a grand total of a month. I got what I wanted, I fell out of love with him, and into a space of openness and Love for all, I lost my attachment to having my openness depend on one person.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Dandelions growing in the cracks of the sidewalk...or the downfall of the empire.
"In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete. That, in essence, is the higher service to which we are all being called." Buckminster Fuller
For years now I've thought about the problems with our society as it is, and how to make it better for all of Life, especially humans. My twenties I spent as an activist, resisting the systems that were problematic. I spent my college years fighting my college administration to recognize our Lesbian organization as a legitimate group that could meet and receive funds from the school's Inter Organizational Counsel (IOC) instead of being relegated to the counseling center as a support group. I'm happy to report we won that battle, though we had to face threats by the administration of not being able to meet, and ignorance by students who wore bathing suits in the showers so lesbians wouldn't see them naked. After three years of dealing with a homophobic (yet mostly closet lesbian) administration, I was burnt out and shaken to my core about changing any bureaucratic systems.
I continued to try, as a Lesbian Avenger, we brought our issues to the public eye through visibility actions, such as kiss-ins, a giant dyke puppet at the Promise Keeper's rally, a Laugh-in at the Religious Right's conference in DC where Bush Sr. was speaking, graffiti on a bill board to read "Queer without fear" vs the original pantyhose ad "Sheer without fear" and a poster campaign calling politicians in Maryland who voted against the Anti-Discrimination bill, bigots with a picture of the politician on the poster. That last one taught me even more about how fighting the system works, not only did the politicians call in the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) because our theme "Be the bomb you throw" felt like a threat to them (really?) but the organization that was doing the lobbying work for Gay and Lesbian rights attacked us for being too radical. This was something like year six that the same bill hadn't gotten out of committee, at what point do you take action? I will never forget the call from a friend who was a lobbyist at the time telling me that the ATF was looking into our posters, because they thought we were terrorists and how we had been thrown under the bus by Maryland Equality Now. At the time I found it all fascinating, but also saw how ugly people could be when working with the system of politics. My friend called me because she was afraid for me, she was much closer to the establishment than I was, and understood better that there were things to fear in attacking the status quo.
Years went by, my spiritual life became more important than my political life. I decided that I wanted to create community. My activism in the Lesbian community had me producing fun social events for lesbians as well as actions, and I noticed I craved more intense connection with the people around me. I chose to move to an Intentional community in rural Baltimore county. I became fascinated by the communities movement in the US especially and started visiting Intentional Communities when ever I was able. A year later I moved to Twin Oaks, a commune in central VA which is kind of the Mother of secular ICs to my mind.
I lived there for about two years, when everything in my life shifted in some dramatic ways. I fell in love for the first time, which paired with some healing work I had been doing and my Mother dying, left me free to explore new realms in consciousness through following my intuition. I gave away almost everything I owned and left Twin Oaks on a spiritual journey that lasted years. I now think my journey was misguided and ungrounded in profound ways, while being the most magical and mystical experience in my life thus far. I found God, and had visions, miracles happened. I also left many thinking perhaps I had lost my mind.
That experience was like what others experience on hallucinogenic drugs, and the visions I had remain as inspiring influences in my life. This is when I started to see the possibility of the fall of the empire through a quiet revolution that happened through small groups of people creating lives together that put less or no influence on money, but lived a real goods economy, sharing resources and eventually living a gift economy where everyone produced what felt good for them to make for the world, freely giving it and receiving what they need in return. I believe this is the future of humans on the planet, living peacefully within a gift economy of real goods that are made by human hands with sustainable energy.
By focusing on real goods, and our true needs to survive and thrive, we can topple this empire that is hurting everyone and everything on the planet. I'm torn about resisting the system or trying to change it, I wonder if my friend Pax who fights Nuclear reactors being built (or reopening), or Jas who fights for a carbon Tax, or dear Sam who is trying to stop war in the Middle East through journalism are actually creating positive change in the world, or fighting inner demons. The results look good, it gladdens my heart when I see what they are doing, and I think about the idea on a personal level "What you resists, persists" and how it may apply on a political or global level. They all three inspire me in many ways, and so I'm torn between what I've seen for myself personally by fighting or trying to change a system that is to my mind fundementally
The way to bring down the Empire looks like people pulling their resources out of the money system, using their skills and talents to build small scale communties that deal in real goods, like food we grow, clothes, art and homes we make by human hands. Right now there is talk of the 1%, if we pulled our labor and resources out of the money economy, the 1% would no longer have the power, it would be back in the hands of the people, doing the work. I think the interim would look like buying up land and putting it in non profit land trusts with very specific eco regulations. It looks like people learning to live together and share resources peacefully, like at communities like Twin Oaks. It looks like people believing we are powerful enough to create a new reality, and stop trying to put time/energy/attention on a system that does not work for anyone, even the 1%. And this is where our real power lies, in understanding that no one is truly the enemy and what we can create can include everyone, once they see how the Empire doesn't serve anyone.
Like dandelions growing in the cracks of the sidewalk, we can push up through the chaos and create true beauty.
For years now I've thought about the problems with our society as it is, and how to make it better for all of Life, especially humans. My twenties I spent as an activist, resisting the systems that were problematic. I spent my college years fighting my college administration to recognize our Lesbian organization as a legitimate group that could meet and receive funds from the school's Inter Organizational Counsel (IOC) instead of being relegated to the counseling center as a support group. I'm happy to report we won that battle, though we had to face threats by the administration of not being able to meet, and ignorance by students who wore bathing suits in the showers so lesbians wouldn't see them naked. After three years of dealing with a homophobic (yet mostly closet lesbian) administration, I was burnt out and shaken to my core about changing any bureaucratic systems.
I continued to try, as a Lesbian Avenger, we brought our issues to the public eye through visibility actions, such as kiss-ins, a giant dyke puppet at the Promise Keeper's rally, a Laugh-in at the Religious Right's conference in DC where Bush Sr. was speaking, graffiti on a bill board to read "Queer without fear" vs the original pantyhose ad "Sheer without fear" and a poster campaign calling politicians in Maryland who voted against the Anti-Discrimination bill, bigots with a picture of the politician on the poster. That last one taught me even more about how fighting the system works, not only did the politicians call in the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) because our theme "Be the bomb you throw" felt like a threat to them (really?) but the organization that was doing the lobbying work for Gay and Lesbian rights attacked us for being too radical. This was something like year six that the same bill hadn't gotten out of committee, at what point do you take action? I will never forget the call from a friend who was a lobbyist at the time telling me that the ATF was looking into our posters, because they thought we were terrorists and how we had been thrown under the bus by Maryland Equality Now. At the time I found it all fascinating, but also saw how ugly people could be when working with the system of politics. My friend called me because she was afraid for me, she was much closer to the establishment than I was, and understood better that there were things to fear in attacking the status quo.
Years went by, my spiritual life became more important than my political life. I decided that I wanted to create community. My activism in the Lesbian community had me producing fun social events for lesbians as well as actions, and I noticed I craved more intense connection with the people around me. I chose to move to an Intentional community in rural Baltimore county. I became fascinated by the communities movement in the US especially and started visiting Intentional Communities when ever I was able. A year later I moved to Twin Oaks, a commune in central VA which is kind of the Mother of secular ICs to my mind.
I lived there for about two years, when everything in my life shifted in some dramatic ways. I fell in love for the first time, which paired with some healing work I had been doing and my Mother dying, left me free to explore new realms in consciousness through following my intuition. I gave away almost everything I owned and left Twin Oaks on a spiritual journey that lasted years. I now think my journey was misguided and ungrounded in profound ways, while being the most magical and mystical experience in my life thus far. I found God, and had visions, miracles happened. I also left many thinking perhaps I had lost my mind.
That experience was like what others experience on hallucinogenic drugs, and the visions I had remain as inspiring influences in my life. This is when I started to see the possibility of the fall of the empire through a quiet revolution that happened through small groups of people creating lives together that put less or no influence on money, but lived a real goods economy, sharing resources and eventually living a gift economy where everyone produced what felt good for them to make for the world, freely giving it and receiving what they need in return. I believe this is the future of humans on the planet, living peacefully within a gift economy of real goods that are made by human hands with sustainable energy.
By focusing on real goods, and our true needs to survive and thrive, we can topple this empire that is hurting everyone and everything on the planet. I'm torn about resisting the system or trying to change it, I wonder if my friend Pax who fights Nuclear reactors being built (or reopening), or Jas who fights for a carbon Tax, or dear Sam who is trying to stop war in the Middle East through journalism are actually creating positive change in the world, or fighting inner demons. The results look good, it gladdens my heart when I see what they are doing, and I think about the idea on a personal level "What you resists, persists" and how it may apply on a political or global level. They all three inspire me in many ways, and so I'm torn between what I've seen for myself personally by fighting or trying to change a system that is to my mind fundementally
The way to bring down the Empire looks like people pulling their resources out of the money system, using their skills and talents to build small scale communties that deal in real goods, like food we grow, clothes, art and homes we make by human hands. Right now there is talk of the 1%, if we pulled our labor and resources out of the money economy, the 1% would no longer have the power, it would be back in the hands of the people, doing the work. I think the interim would look like buying up land and putting it in non profit land trusts with very specific eco regulations. It looks like people learning to live together and share resources peacefully, like at communities like Twin Oaks. It looks like people believing we are powerful enough to create a new reality, and stop trying to put time/energy/attention on a system that does not work for anyone, even the 1%. And this is where our real power lies, in understanding that no one is truly the enemy and what we can create can include everyone, once they see how the Empire doesn't serve anyone.
Like dandelions growing in the cracks of the sidewalk, we can push up through the chaos and create true beauty.
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