Good morning!
As I settle comfortably at the keyboard… first coffee of the day gratefully within easy reach… I am mindful of the sounds of a new day beginning, as they stream through the open window behind me. The light of dawn and dusk hold a special promise. Light softened yet still allowing for all to be seen, there is a peace as the harsh light of day relaxes into a more forgiving view of our world. Perhaps we might consider that as a possibility in our own thinking.
Day 4 and the stress fractures are beginning to show. The structures that hold our version of ‘reality’ in place rarely come down without a fight… and they rarely fall away in one clean cut. They begin to show wear and tear – the outcome of a scrutiny that will not abandon its curiosity and be shamed or threatened into simply going away. Separation comes as one layer differentiates from another, loosening the grip on the whole. We start to feel agitated and restless… and we stumble, looking for an exit or at least, something to hold on to.
And how could it be otherwise!?
Even after decades of engaging with others, I am always struck by the degree to which we are wired for sound bytes of an alternative…. tiny nibbles at the edges of our potential rather than the innate right to engulf Life and feast on new thought. Even as Day 4 dawns, we become aware that it is a challenge for us to spend so much time and effort focused on our inner world, while embracing the worlds of others; seeking to find our ability to trust that even when our reality begins to falter, we know there will be more.
How easily we tire…. finding ourselves longing for the executive summary rather than investing ourselves in the depth that detail brings and demands.
We notice how much time it takes out of our day to pay attention to ourselves… inner turmoil ramping up from our having been taught to consider this endeavour as frivolous… as time wasted or unproductive given that its only outcome is our own evolution.
How easily we become overwhelmed by the spectre of yet ‘more’ looming on the horizon (i.e.more days, more thoughts, more posts, more responses, more challenges, more possibilities, more truths, etc.), feeling the pressure to race to the finish line and discover the ‘right’ way… the answer…. simply to bring closure and make it stop. The inner uncertainty is less bearable and less acceptable than a more defined path that will lead us to our own inevitable destruction.
In our early family systems, we have learned well. Look away when it does not meet the social norms. Pretend that it’s not so when indeed, the mounting evidence struggles to be ignored. Deceive ourselves so that we may better deceive each other. Given that we, each and every one of us, are exposed to this process in some way (i.e. home, school, church, etc), it makes perfect sense that the larger collective of our global society would be drawn to do the same. And so, here we sit: 2016 and a collapsing biosphere.
It seems like I’ve been in this exploration forever……
Each of you, as an expression of some aspect of my own consciousness, is calling up within me a different facet of this prism of exploration. I read and re-read your thoughts many times, allowing what moves to stabilize before I move on. I am choosing to be in this process with a relaxed rigour: rigorous in my commitment to discover and relaxed in knowing that whatever it is will be perfect. For me, the key has always been to relax into the agitation rather than find ways to flatten or avoid it. Perhaps it is the magic of that, that has helped me to be so welcoming of the provocations.
For me, that I am both willing and able to simply BE…. and trust that… is my personal version of ‘doing’. In my decades of working with others, I’ve come to recognize the difference between someone ‘doing’ because it is meaningful and their ‘doing’ to avoid the much deeper (and more disturbing) level of meaningful, in their lives. In a culture that presses for outcomes, the results of ‘being’ are not always evident to an outside audience.
From another, the reminder call: ‘You cannot have the children!”… and how so few are able to be awake to that. Slumbering/comatose adults/parents are helpless to declare such an intention. They, themselves, are still captive. I have long held – and spoken to any and all who could hear – that the parenting process IS the primary delivery mechanism for ensuring that the next generation is inculcated with the inability to act from internal reference but rather, are held hostage to any and all perceived as an external authority. Deeply, deeply disturbing in the recognition that unless and until the current generation of adults free themselves, there is little to no hope. As the Jesuits say: give me a child until they’re 7 and they will be mine for the rest of their lives.
Families. Siblings. Partners/mates/spouses. Children. Colleagues. “Bosses”. Friends. Lovers. Etc. Etc. Etc. My freedom does not lie in being released by them but in my releasing of them; for them to live as they choose, unencumbered by my efforts to change them, fix them, appease them, punish them, etc. When I set them free to live as they see fit, I discover that I am free to do the same. If my freedom is bound by their willingness to let me go…. to approve of me, understand me, validate me, hear me, agree with me, value me/my world view, etc… I will die a slave to their expectations. Even my death is in the good fight against them! Regardless, I am still bound with them, in their world.
So many times, in my years of working with others through their greatest challenges, they discovered that it was they who were holding on to another; holding on to a memory, of a time long gone; of a possibility, long lost. It is difficult to escape the prison of our own mind. In that, the thought must change before anything that might follow, can change.
My first thought this morning was of a bee hive. Born into a hive; with a droning set of expectations that will ensure that I am forever in service to the hive. I sometimes wonder: what happens to a stray bee? Would they know how to survive without the hive, given that they are trained to believe their very existence is FOR the wellbeing of the hive? The problem with that is that tomorrow can only look like yesterday.
In our world, that is no longer viable.
Can we live meaningfully and vibrantly without belonging to a collective? Can we stand alone, knowing that we can weave into and out of any collective we choose, without being taken hostage by it… being owned by it…. and still be well? Is the collective of ‘humanity’/human race just such a hive?
I long for that spark. A Spark sufficient to fracture the thick shell of cultural conditioning and cause us to emerge – with the parenting process as the delivery mechanism; reinforced by all existing institutional processes, in its support – and pulsate through the collective mind as that ripple through space/time that, in an instant, transforms us all.
What is the required process; the appropriate ceremony? Not like a magical ‘doing to another’ but a ceremony that is The Call to the awakening of that Spark; one that is irresistible to those who hear it; and loud enough… present enough…prevalent enough to be heard by the masses.
I don’t know what that is – and its emergence… its creation…. its existence… haunts me. Its imperative will not leave me alone!
This Ceremony of Sparking…. of penetrating and igniting…. must occur on a scale that allows for far more than a few who know deeply. And as Margaret Mead (yet another woman) has said: ” Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
I read those words and I wonder: Is this small group of thoughtful, committed readers/responders/engagers sufficient to be that spark that can change the world? I believe it can.
In this moment, I pause….
Yesterday, I shared this thought with one who is engaging in this process and feeling the agitation:
“To choose a different path, we must first take full ownership of the one we’re on. Perhaps not of its creation, in full… and for sure, fully for the fact that we’re still on it!
In the many, many years that I have engaged with others (particularly women), I am mindful that without breaking up the concrete, no number of…. volume of… amount of… seeding will ever take root. It is not enough to have great ideas and dynamic vision. First, we must be able to stand our ground in the face of the myriad invitations that will pull us to our knees. For that, we must first have freed ourselves.
There is no short cut. I started this journey when I was 18. I just turned 66. And I’m still in that conversation. I’m wiser… more grounded… and much better able to stand my ground, to know that I can and will and must hold two opposing notions at the same time.
The notion that I am a powerful Force of Creation, carving out my own life.
The notion that I am alive in a place and at a time that relentlessly clamours for my surrender and the collapse my own intention.
They constantly co-exist… and I get to choose, from one breath to the next, which I will claim as my own.
Choice. We must choose. We must make a mindful and present choice. The invitation in this process (on Day 4 of a 10-day Great Adventure!) is to explore from within our unique Self: “How else might I choose to live MY life, today! ”
And then, engage!”
With deepest gratitude, appreciation and RIG for you all!
Louise
Louise, your words, ‘stress fractures’, caught my attention in the reading of this post. These are words that I deeply resonate with. It is Day 4 and I have avoided being in this conversation. As I read Nancy’s comment from Day One that she had read the invitation and thought, ‘Been there, done that’, I owned how ‘heavy’ the invitation had felt in me to engage, yet again, in this writing process. I was hell bent that I was not going there and every day the email in my inbox triggered my own expectation to comply. And, today, ‘stress fractures’ are revealing themselves.
Your recent text message to me about Nancy’s and Deb G’s and Deb O’l comments sent me looking for them. I looked on the Engage page of your website and I could not find the comments. So, I started looking for your blog. There I found them and there, long into the night, I read and I wept. I experienced the acid reflux in the throat, as I changed physical position from sitting to lying, from back to side. My sitting bones, even in bed, could no longer tolerate my discomfort of it all, even as I sat in a soft bed.
All of the comments are rewiring my body, particularly those by Deb. O. I recognized that I live, surrounded by woods and, yet, I never venture into them, save for, perhaps, a couple of feetI The last time I was deeply immersed in any forest was more than 35 years ago; my 3 year old son was riding in my back-pack seat and I was lost and fearful that I would not be able to find my way out. I did find my way out and I did find myself way off course with a much longer than expected walk ahead of me. I had fallen behind the group of women and their kids I was with; a couple of women who knew the way; women who could SEE the forest AND the trees. Oh, the metaphors…
Why do we so doubt ourselves and our capacity to really live?
I have never been so deeply moved by such relentless authenticity, as I have experienced in the reading of these posts and comments.
It was only today, that I actually read that the Engage page was carrying the ‘excerpt of the blog’. What this revelation says to me is that I had put everything in place to not engage. I have been so entrained to believe that seeing the forest for the trees is somehow not a good thing, I swallowed the metaphor, literally. And what this has awakened me to is that when I felt an expectation, my body has gone into, ‘Oh no, not again!’. And that is when I have called upon cynicism and confusion to hide myself from my own inculcated expectation to perform, to meet what I perceive to be another’s expectations. I have not performed well without the presence of a ‘Guru’ and I have always made sure that I chose the best. I have been unwilling to hold myself as equal; in that, I have created huge separation in/for myself. My own glass wall. My own personal judgments have held it all in place. And, I have judgements about my judgements (I am not sure what day you wrote about that, Louise) and now I am seeing it all.
Cynicism, confusion; expectation and performance; compliance and judgment: these have been the guide posts for me living my life. Warning: Danger! Danger! Who knew? Truth is, at the deepest, most subterranean levels of my being, I have known.
My awareness that I have avoided penetration of the forest is huge for me. I am thinking it is time – my time – to step beyond the periphery of what I can see – or allow myself to see – into the unknown depths of it. Last night, as this knowing flooded my being and my body, I knew that I MUST engage it. At the age of almost 71 with such an awareness of the collapsing biosphere, will I continue to deny and avoid what has been waiting for me for so long? I am in tears as I write this; I have been so out of touch with the deep woods of who I AM.
There are still thoughts rumbling in me re: ‘stress fractures’. A huge house fire in Chelsea, just south of our home, last evening, 18 volunteer fire fighters attempting to get to a home removed from a highway that is all torn up with construction and delays. Sirens and more sirens,,, incessant. Black smoke and darker clouds. Transformation and ash.
I agree, we are not in Kansas, anymore.
Thanks,
Sheila.
Thank you for your engagement’ Sheila, it moved me deeply.
Today is day 4. It is the 4th day where I’ve chosen to not read Louise’s provocation. Just knowing that it’s in my in-box is enough to inspire a stream of consciousness that I know is pertinent for this experience.
This morning I woke up early and walked the dogs in my favourite rainforest on the coast: Hidden Grove. It’s a beautiful forest with a few exceptionally big old trees that have not been obliterated by men. It’s a sacred place for me.
I watch my canine family run through the woods…poetry in motion. Their lips peeled back in smiles. They run through the forest with such grace, never looking down at their feet. It amazes me how attuned they are with to their bodies. They’re so present. I try walking on the trails without looking down at my feet and I feel like the lumbering biped that I am. I’m committed to relearning…rewilding and accessing the primal nature that knows how to walk (and run) without looking down. It’s hard. Conditioning runs deep. Animals and the natural world are my greatest teachers. They show me what pure presence is, pure joy is, pure love is.
I was the only one at the park when I arrived this morning. It was quiet…at least as quiet as it can be in a manworld. Among the sounds of the robins, woodpeckers and squirrels was of course, the incessant, sleepless drone of machines…manchines. A thought came to: the reason why the manchines never sleep and why they’re so fucking loud is to silence the pleading cries of the Earth; to silence the death screams of the animals butchered en masse in slaughterhouses, lakes, rivers, streams, oceans, forests, and mountains. I believe that the incessant noise also exists to dumb down our senses and ensure our ongoing separation. This is the essence of our modern civilization: the numbing of our humanity. Add to this mix a technological addiction that retards our minds, and we are no more than “civilized” slaves.
As Guy McPherson says, we are all born into slavery. We are born into the enslavement of our family systems and the enslavement of industrial civilization. Technology is another form of slavery, however I feel this is more a choice than the others. I choose to not enslave myself within my enslavement so I keep my technological connection to a minimum preferring time in nature instead. I happily own no cellphone, iphone, television, or even a stereo. I’m happy to not be on Facebook, Twitter and all of their distracting ilk. My trusty old iMac is my workhorse to get things done. It is not a pacifier, babysitter, distractor, or mechanism for numbing. It’s my tool to get shit done and that’s that.
The family system enslavement…I’ve chosen to heal myself from my family shit (ongoing). I realize that there’s no such thing as a functional family. Every parent is responsible for the conditioning of their children, thus the wounds that ensue. As Francis Xavier said, “Give me the child until he (or she) is seven and I will show you the man (woman).” Parenting is where it all begins.
I know I can heal from the wounds imposed by my parents. My commitment is unwavering. As much as I loved them with all of their warts and flaws, it’s easier to heal from their nonsense when they’re dead. In that respect, I’m at an advantage I guess…although there are times when I would give anything to be able to be with them one more time.
I feel like I’m flitting about today…
My hunger for more of my soul is voracious.
I choose to be present in my humanity. I choose to be present to the whispers from within. I choose to be present to the voice of the Earth.
I wonder: what would it take for the collective to just STOP…
…and breathe…
…and feel…
…and to immerse themselves in the fullness of their humanity without editing or suppressing who they truly are? What would it look like?
The sad reality is that I can’t even fathom this. There have been times when Deb and I sat by the beach with our canine family—family time we call it—and just admired the remaining beauty of this world. I once threw out a question, “What would the world look like if there was no trace of humanity?” We looked around and started rhyming off what would no longer blight the landscape: no houses, pesticide laden lawns, domesticated yards, telephone poles and wires, roads, garbage, clearcuts, plastic, slaughterhouses, etc., etc. It became overwhelming. We chose instead to just imagine what it would look like if there were no traces of humanity without eliminating the blight first. I remember the image in my mind of true nirvana. The deafening sounds of LIFE, not of manchines, but the rhapsody of birds and insects and animals…of Gaea. It would be so lush and green. The ocean would be crystal blue and teeming with life. Sea life jumping, dancing, playing without concern for oil spills, entanglement, crab traps, tug boats, tankers, and so on, and so on, and so on…
I breathe into this imaginary world and I feel like I’m home again.
What kind of world has been created where I feel more at home in my imagination? I feel like an alien in the world we call “real”.
Maybe I am…
I’ve given up fighting. The manchines and those who control them have no need to stop. So they won’t. I haven’t given up on my voice though. My voice will always speak out. Whether it falls on deaf ears or not is irrelevant. It’s my souls work. It’s what I’m here to do. I can’t not speak out. Activism is in my blood.
This afternoon an email arrived as follows:
My name is Gabriela, I’m 24 years old and I live in Mexico City. I just read your essay “Letting go of a World in Collapse” and you moved something in my heart. I feel terribly sorry about your concern and I understand.
The reason I’m writting this message is because I hope you can help me to start. I studied Control and Automation Engineering, and I am actually working on an Natural Gas Industry, you know what fracking make to our world right?. Well the thing is that all my decision brings me here and now I realized how wrong decisions I’ve made, I want to change but I don’t know how to start and the principal reason is that I’m afraid to leave my job, because we live in this horrible system with this dominant culture that wants to finish with our world, but we´re immersed here and I don’t find the way to go out.
I hope you can give me some words about how you started or maybe show me some way to start.
My english is not that good but I hope you understand me.
I look forward to hear from you.
I feel her pain. I haven’t yet replied. All I can come up with is, “Trust yourSelf. Listen to the voice of your soul. If you don’t, the dissonance will eat you alive. Follow the impulse that prompted you to reach out to me and trust it. This is the impulse of truth.”
She already knows what she needs to do. I can’t tell her how to live her life, but I trust that she will find her way. Fear tends to cloud our vision and silence our hearts, but it sounds like the voice of her heart is overriding her fear and she just needs support. Don’t we all.
This world is eating us alive as a collective, but we have the power to say no as individuals. It’s fucking hard though. My life is so simple, yet I’m still fearful about next month’s food and rent. I really, really despise this. I do my heart’s work, but it doesn’t pay the bills so I have to find other ways that align with my integrity and profound sense of justice.
I’m really not meant for this world.
The cultural enslavement…the noise…
I think of a story that Deb told me a few weeks ago. Listening in on a conversation at a deli counter at the local grocery store, she heard a young woman complaining to an older man about the incessant noise of the loud motors (likely refrigeration) that were driving her crazy. His response, “If you tune it out, you won’t hear it anymore.”
There you have it, our world summed up in ten words.
Deb
Thank you…I resonated with your words!
Day 4
I spoke to my mom tonight. She and my step-dad are working on selling the house that she has lived in for over forty years. To say that her home is familiar to her is an understatement, of course. Her home has come to represent safety to her. Unlike me (who has lived in 10 different houses, including aboard a boat, over a 14 year span), she can’t imagine the ‘adventure’ of living anywhere else. The idea of moving evokes a lot of anxiety for her.
She and I spoke about the collapsing biosphere, as it is mentioned (repeatedly) here. Of course the topic brings up fear of the unknown for both of us. I mean, who wants to talk about the end of time? What comes next? I asked her (my long time teacher and fellow student) why she is afraid of the unknown? I asked her if she wanted to live the rest of her life playing it safe, or if she ever fantasized about jumping into the deep dark end of life, so she could really experience living? She never answered me, but I sense that some seeds have been planted.
Two of my friends, recently, and unexpectedly, died, and yet another is in hospital fighting for his life as I write this. Something gelled for me around safety and living of late. Playing it safe, keeping everything familiar, driving in the same old predictable tracks… tracks we have dug out for ourselves over the course of many years, is, in my opinion, a waste of this one life.
One thing I know for sure is that I will die. We all will. So why are we so afraid of living? Many of us seem to live our days worrying about our inevitable death. So, we stay safe. I love the visionaries, the artists, the different ones….the people who march to the beat of their own drum. I am inspired by the people who do not listen to the fearful opinions of others; the ones who do not have places to go and people to be…they are good with being who they are. I am inspired by the people who are so love with living, that they don’t have time to notice (much less judge) what everyone else is doing. This is what I want for my life. I am getting closer.
I love spending time alone. I do not need anyone to tell me what I need to think, do, eat, wear, look like, sound like, what to create, how to create, what not to create, how to be accepted…etc. I am too busy pushing myself out of my cultural safety net.
I watched a pod-cast by Elizabeth Gilbert interviewing Brene Brown, the other day. They talked about how the idea of j’ump and the safety net will appear’, is all wrong. We don’t jump to be safe. We jump to feel alive; to really experience this life. More often, the safety net does not appear, and we fail. But failure is not a bad thing (even though that was the message I got growing up). Failure means we are truly living. It means we are not sleeping in safe coffins, waiting for the grim reaper to come collect us and take us out of our boring existence. I wish I had been taught to risk, and to make more mistakes. I believe that the braver, more courageous and brilliant we are, the happier and more fulfilled we will be.
I want to really live this life. I want to do my best…do my part for the environment. And I do. But I do not want to waste my whole life consumed with death. I want to relish each and every day…no, every second, every kiss, every hug, every accomplishment, meet new people, see the best in them, open my heart fully, get hurt, be embarrassed for putting myself out there (and for being naive), fail. and I want to stand in the midst of the manifestation of my craziest dreams, and say, “Wow, I did that. What a ride” And, I know that this can only happen if I am not living in fear.
Hi Louise did you post today? My system is down at home so I am sitting in a parking lot hoping my emails will come in.
Sent from my iPhone
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Hi Cathy! I greatly appreciate the enthusiasm and, through that, the evident welcoming. Looking forward to seeing you on Sunday! 🙂
Heavy sigh, emptying thoughts, and a profound presence pulsates with the possibility of life. Life in this moment – no ties to my past or connective tissue to the future – I stand in the present unfolding into this moment – this breath – in this way of living. I literally do this many times a day… I am beginning to see how much it disrupts the on going conversation around the status quo, this presence disrupts the relentless chatter that at times surrounds me and my creations. My presence invites the possibility for a different reality. there was a few years where I’d really attempted to harness this presence and spent much of my day in the illusion that I was cultivating this for others healing… it was a masterful technique… As it kept me in a false state of mindfulness and kindness.
I remind myself this breath – in this way of living,,, choice point up…many times a day, this moment, this breath, your body is quantum open and surrender over and over. I can feel the emergence of a deeper layer of intensity building in my body, thoughts and expression of my spirit amidst the contractions throughout the day… contractions that expand into limits I thought no longer existed – yet they reappear slightly twisted..ready for a deeper dive and interconnections, I am ready, now.
I am so aware of my understanding of embodiment, living fully in my body’ and this process – I continue to run into others that seem to think its all so new- hungry eyes and inspired heart they present. The bewilderment that this is new – no longer derails me, and most times my jaw no longer drops in disbelief at the entrenchment into the status quo so many have. all this just a remaindered to take an HONEST look at where within this process I have become complacent in my habitual response. Its required that I own my truth, my experience first before any action is taken.
Silence, and breath, silence and breath that is the pulse and vibration of my being in this moment.
As I pause and invite the expansion to happen from within a sense of stability, vulnerability and deep authenticity emerge. nothing to do it this moment. And truth be told, the emergence has already happened.
I am exhausted; eyes barely open.. wondrous thoughts and shape shifting dreams have been visiting me the last two nights… with minimal rest for my device. This exploration is requiring an ownership in my process very different than before, the inner cues, reading the words being shared have all fuelled a larger expression of me to be heard, seen and witnessed. Coupled within this larger expression is the urgency to further awaken and to take meaningful action given the state of the planet… this is very pressing for me… as is sleep in this moment. that’s it for now…