Guardians of Balance

 

Poem By Bryan Hewitt, Art By Deborah Koff-Chapin

So
This happened
It is terrible
But not unexpected
If you were really
Looking

The question
Is what do we do now?

We sing our own songs
Standing by fires
Built by many hands

We hold those same hands
In a circle made by our intentions
And laugh
At words from each others' lips

We tell stories
Of the past that is really
How the future could be

If we learn
To build it piece by piece
Without asking
For a savior
For an answer
For someone else
Who can tell us what to do

Let's grow gardens
And pick wild plums
Instead

Because if we learn how
We might also learn
That we need each other
The earth and us, that is

Her Guardians of Balance
We can be if we
Sing the right sounds

Because

Now is a time for bards
To draw out the words
From the darkness and shape them
Into the plans for how to meet
What has been coming
For a long, long time

I stand here listening
And ready to speak
The careful song
of strength and longing
Of love and truth
To hold up those
Who would hold me up

Special thanks to Bryan Hewitt and Deborah Koff-Chapin for sharing the artistry of their hearts. How are you finding support and inspiration these days? If you'd like to share from your wellspring of hope, please email drenag@lorian.org. 

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Hope in the Trump Election

By David Spangler

I went out for a walk around my neighborhood Wednesday morning. The sun was still shining brightly above me, and the sky was as blue as ever, dotted with familiar white clouds. The evergreen trees lining the streets were as green as they were yesterday while on their deciduous companions, the leaves were turning bright colors or had already fallen onto the ground. In short, everything looked normal for a November morning.

This was reassuring, as a revolution had occurred the previous night. Against all expectations except his and his staff’s, Donald Trump was elected the 45th President of the United States. This was the 57th Presidential election since the founding of the American Republic (the numbers don’t match since Presidents have been re-elected, and one, Gerald Ford, was never elected at all). For fifty-seven times, the winners have felt like a new world was beginning and the losers have felt like a world was ending. This was probably never more true than last night, given that all the polls said unequivocally that Hillary Clinton would win and be the first woman President in American history.

But as my walk showed me, the world hadn’t ended when Wisconsin was declared for Trump, giving him the necessary 270 Electoral votes and a bit more. Indeed, while half the American population, terrified of a Trump Presidency, fell into depression and disbelief, the other half, equally if not more terrified of another Clinton in the White House, rejoiced and were relieved. Whichever half you fell into, the world itself continued as before.

Not that things haven’t changed. The Supreme Court may become more conservative. The rights of women and the LGBT community may be curtailed under a Republican controlled government. Immigrants and minorities may have reasons to be worried. The divisiveness in the country may become worse. All politicians lie to some extent; it’s built into the job description. But Trump raised lying to levels unseen in recent elections; the fact that he won now validates this behavior for future politicians and their campaigns. Why bother with facts when the reality we make up out of whole cloth will get us elected? Already our country, influenced by the Internet where anything can be said and veracity is irrelevant, is drifting away from a regard for the truth. Trump’s campaign, fueled by hyperpartisan websites, may accelerate this, to the detriment of trust and unity in our society.

Or none of these things may happen. Trump may turn out to be a terrific President, contrary to expectations. He may be just what the country needs. After all, Nixon, the arch-anticommunist, was the one to open the door to relationships with communist China, something no liberal President could have done. Maybe Trump will be the one to convince his followers that climate change is a real threat and mobilize government resources to deal with it.

Trump is a volatile personality, as much at odds with the Republican establishment he now heads up as he is with the Democratic establishment. There is no law that says he cannot rise to the occasion, if given a chance, and honor the office to which he has been elected in ways that truly benefit the country and break up the partisan gridlock and elitism of Washington D. C. in so doing.

No, the world did not end last night, but we are in new and unknown territory, for who knows what Trump will do as President. He may not know himself. It’s a scary place to be, I admit. But…

In Lorian and in the teachings of Incarnational Spirituality, there is a concept called “Fiery Hope.”This is not a wishy-washy, “Gee, I wish that such and such would happen,” kind of hope. Rather, it’s the hope that keeps the door firmly open to new possibilities. It’s fiery because it’s passionate and strong, giving a light that shows the way to those possibilities. Where depression and despair constrict our thinking and close down possibilities, hope expands our awareness so that we can see new opportunities. It’s a hope that acknowledges that the world is constantly renewing itself, and we can renew ourselves right along with it. In other words, it’s a hope that doesn’t see the world as ending but rather sees it as being newly born each day, unfolding opportunities that were not apparent before.

Thinking of a new Trump Presidency, I don’t “hope” that he will be a good Chief Executive for the country (while also holding the expectation that he won’t). I want to keep open the possibility that he will grow into the job and be better than anyone expects. I want to offer him that possibility in my thinking and not burden him with projections of any negative emotions I may feel.  

But—and this is the source of Fiery Hope—I realize that in my own life, his election has not closed the doors of my own growth. My life has not become lessened overnight. Rather it is as open to new potentials and possibilities of creativity and service as it has ever been.  And I’m sure this is true for you, too.

What do we do now?

I believe the Soul of America is struggling right now to rise to its full spiritual potential to be a source of benefit and blessing to a world that is rapidly changing and in some ways becoming more challenging. It can’t do so when it is riven with division in its own house, when it is in fact at least two countries, if not more, within its borders, countries that at the moment don’t trust or appreciate each other. However we name those “countries”—urban/rural, men/women, educated/less educated, religious/secular, costal/heartland, rich/poor, white/people of color—we cannot be one nation forging unity from creative diversity if these divisions continue to widen and deepen. In some ways the recent election has contributed to these splits, but in a more important way, it has brought them forcefully to our national attention so that we can take action to heal them.

There is nothing new about this. It’s been the challenge of the United States ever since its founding, brought into stark relief during the Civil War, but continuing ever since. So what we do now is what we have always done: draw on our courage, our hope, our creative intelligence, our wisdom, and our love to build the unity that has always been the dream and the promise of this nation.

We are the servants of our country’s soul—a soul embracing all who come to its Light--and as such, we stand for justice and liberty for all. We oppose darkness, oppression, and anything that diminishes the promise of each individual, no matter where that danger comes from. We rise above preconceptions, stereotypes, and lies to see each other as clearly, as accurately, as we can and to proclaim truth as firmly as we can wherever and whenever it is in jeopardy. We honor and appreciate our differences and draw on them for new insights and deeper understanding. And we never, never doubt our ability—and that of our countrymen and indeed of all humans—to rise to the noblest levels of our nature and act from our loving power to create wholeness if given a chance and the encouragement to do so. And when people don’t do this and act from hurtful motives, we stand ready to protect those who may otherwise be harmed.

The election was a shock, I admit. Like millions of others, I fully expected Hillary Clinton to be taking the oath of office next January. But that it will be Donald Trump doing so instead has not brought the world to an end. It has not diminished the spirit within each of us. It has not destroyed the promise of the United States. Life is as vital and wondrous as ever, and no matter who is President, we can still choose to participate in its vitality and its wonder in all the days ahead, celebrating the country and the Earth that we love and doing our best as always to ensure that hope, wholeness and blessing manifest in our world.

Views from the Lorian Community publishes essays from a team of volunteer writers expressing individual experiences of a long term, committed practice of Incarnational Spirituality (and the general principles shaping such a practice.) Views expressed do not necessarily reflect the sentiments or thoughts of any other person in Lorian or of Lorian as a whole. If you would like to subscribe, please visit our website and click on Follow Our Blog Via Email. Or email the editor:drenag@lorian.org.

Faux Pas in the Deli: From Conflict to Connection

By Julie Spangler

Having been blessed with some acute senses, I move through a world brimming with sights, sounds and smells. Given that I share that world with a partner who has no sense of smell and is partly deaf, I am especially aware of how much I depend on these senses. Last week my dependence on my nose was brought uncomfortably to my attention.

While in the local grocery store shopping for a crusty bread to complement our dinner, I stood surveying the options. To my pallet, some artisan breads are tastier than others, and I depend on my sense of smell to tell me which one to choose. Standing by the array of breads in their bags, I carefully sniffed them, discarding the sour ones, trying to decide between two finalists when a woman nearby said, "People might not appreciate your nose in those bags!"

My response was defensive. "I am drawing air in, not blowing out." In my mind I was being careful, not touching the bread, not contaminating it. We went different directions while I stewed for a bit. Then I asked myself why I was upset. OK. I was embarrassed. Even if I thought I was being careful, I had to admit she had a point. Some people, if not all, might not appreciate my nose so close to bread they would like to buy. Though I was still embarrassed, accepting her point of view I felt the tension I was carrying in my body ease.

My practice when encountering stresses in the world involves first noticing the place in my body where I am feeling uncomfortable, naming the cause, and then allowing my awareness to step back into the space where I can stand in what I sometimes call "Big Julie". This is a felt sense within myself of a wholeness which is more than the specific emotional experience in the moment, in this case of “embarrassed Julie.” I gather into my expansive self the small embarrassed self with loving forgiveness. This love fills all of those embarrassed spaces, holding them and accepting them. Yeah, I am not perfect, and that is ok. I let this love surround and permeate the discomfort in my body, permeate the space around me, and flow out to my sense of the woman who spoke to me. It is from this place where I can love the stranger who caused me distress.

When I got to the checkout lines, there were three to choose from, one of which would take me right behind this woman. Noticing her felt uncomfortable. Do I hide from her and let this discomfort continue? It seemed as if she was studiously avoiding seeing me. I decided that I would push through my embarrassment and reach out to my neighbor, perhaps alleviating her probable discomfort at the same time. I pulled into line behind her and touching her gently on the shoulder, getting her attention, I said, "You are right. People might not appreciate my nose in the bags.  Thank you for pointing it out to me."

It was not a particularly comfortable moment for either of us. She apologized, I apologized. We found ourselves in that social ritual of each wanting to make the other more comfortable, which was actually difficult under the circumstances. But we could laugh a little. Much better than leaving a small cloud over our shopping experience to linger throughout  the day. We did not become friends - there wasn't enough time for that - but I suspect we could have.

To me, this is a form of subtle activism. It is these little daily moments of turning a potential conflict into a moment of connection that can make such a difference in our world.

Would you like an opportunity to deepen your capacity to meet daily moments of choice with an attitude of wholeness, love and blessing? Would you welcome the chance to develop your practice of subtle activism with others of like heart and mind? From December 4-10, join us for Sphere of Blessing, a six-day Incarnational Practice. Click here for more information or to register.

What is Subtle Activism? An Introduction

By David Spangler

Subtle Activism is based on the fact that both the Earth and you have both a physical side and a non-physical or “subtle” side, a personal subtle energy field or “subtle body”. Subtle activism brings these two together in a positive way to give help in a particular situation. It is a method of engaging and affecting the currents of subtle energy flowing within a particular environment in ways that can affect the probability of what happens in the physical realm. It is a complement, never a substitute, for physical action. Combined with responsible physical activism, though, it may make a difference in how things unfold.

Subtle energies respond best to your presence—the wholeness of who you are—rather than just to your thoughts or feelings alone. So the foundation of any subtle activism project is to stand in your unique Sovereignty and individuality with an attitude that embraces and unites all parts of you—body, mind, emotion, and spirit—in a loving and appreciative wholeness. Subtle activism is also enhanced by the degree to which you can “ground” and attune yourself in loving and appreciative ways to your immediate physical environment. The combination of your whole presence attuned to the physical and subtle environment where you are gives your subtle energy field a powerful, coherent boost when engaging and setting into motion subtle energies.

Subtle activism is possible because at the subtle level, distance makes no difference. Wherever I can think myself to be, that is where my energy presence is, carrying with it whatever subtle qualities and energies I have gathered within myself as part of preparing to do this subtle energy work. Subtle activism works by changing the quality and flow of subtle energies in a given subtle environment; this in turn can affect the probability of outcomes. For instance, if a child is buried in the rubble after a bomb strike in the city of Aleppo in Syria, doing subtle activism for that environment can enhance the possibilities of her being found and rescued. The presence of healing and protective energies held and radiated by your presence within the subtle environment around her heighten the life forces and
can tip the probabilities in favor of her living rather than dying. Further, holding strengthening, calming, and loving subtle energies in that environment can empower the ability of rescuers and first responders to do their work with emotional and mental clarity and can protect them from the worst effects of any negative subtle energies that may well be present. This can enhance the probability that they will be alert to opportunities for rescue and help and not make mistakes.

These examples illustrate the realm in which subtle activism can work, for our thinking and emotions can be affected either positively or negatively, usually in unconscious ways, by the currents of subtle energy active within a particular environment.

These examples also illustrate two important principles that are key to doing subtle activism. The first is, “Don’t Impose!” You are not doing something to someone else; rather you are doing something in their subtle energy environment to which they can respond or not as dictated by their own choice and attunement. You want to honor the spiritual, energetic, psychological, and physical Sovereignty of the people for whom you’re working with subtle energies. Tempting as it may be, you’re not there to make a particular outcome happen. When that kind of force is applied in the subtle environment, it is just as likely to produce resistance and a counter-reaction that can make things worse.

The second important principle is, “You Project What You Are!” Whatever thoughts and emotions are part of your personal energy field when you do your subtle activism will also be brought into the subtle environment in which you wish to work. Thus, an important part of subtle activism is to take time to clear a mental and emotional space within you into which you bring only those qualities that you wish to affect the energy environment into which you are projecting your energetic presence. To paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, “What you are speaks so loudly, I cannot hear what you say.”

Would you like to experience a guided practice of Subtle Activism? Click here to read, listen to and download Subtle Activism for the Busy Person.

Other Sorts of News

By Claire Blatchford

“More horrible news,” says Ed as I come into the bathroom to brush my teeth. Ed listens to the radio every morning while shaving. I put my hands over both ears to tell him I’m not ready for it and he switches the radio off.

“Sounds like we’re getting our first frost tonight,” he adds.

“How certain is that?” I ask.

“Quite.”

Word of the first frost reminds me of the dahlias. It's another sort of news, I think, as I start the coffee. Dahlias have been the major headline in the garden for over a month. Yellow blossoms the size of dinner plates, orange fireworks, purple pom-poms, and my favorites, the smallish sun-set beauties with pink-gold-scarlet petals. And now what? They always go black overnight beneath the touch of the first frost—all of them, all at once. It happens every year and is a powerful and dramatic moment. I often can’t remember, as I look at the charred remains the next morning, which was which. Was this shriveled plant tall or medium-tall? Was its flowering occasional or prolific? What color were the flowers?  All individuality wiped out in one shot.

All individuality wiped out in one shot. . .. That thought, in turn, turns my mind in the direction of Aleppo and the bombings, where lives are being wiped out daily. But then my friend Debbie’s story— which will likely never be broadcast—pulls me back into our warm kitchen. Debbie has been raising funds for the Syrian-American Medical Society. She told me yesterday about a meeting where a visiting nurse from Aleppo didn’t mention a single name (Assad, Russia, Iran) during her report, spoke only with calm eloquence of the need to start every day with hope. Yes, lives were being lost but lives are also being saved no matter how grim the news. What hope that nurse gave me!  

I whistle to the dog, grab my winter jacket from the back closet, and step out to fetch the newspaper on the road. Yup, the air has a cold edge to it, a teeny-tiny sliver of ice. I zip up, pull up the collar and slip my hands in the pockets. Pocket space has gone forgotten for five or six months now. My fingers rediscover old companions from last winter and spring:  a cough drop, a pale stone, a bright penny, the cap of an acorn. Back then when everything political gobbling up the media’s attention sounded like a wild, crazy soap opera and made me walk further, faster and harder than usual. Then I thought the drama would end; how much wilder and crazier it is now!  

Herbal cough drop, smooth stone, shiny penny, exquisite acorn cap: I squeeze them gently and put them back in my pocket. We have more speed walking to do together. Ha! Did I feel one of them return my squeeze? Maybe....

On my way down the drive, with the dog excitedly checking out every scent on every leaf and blade of grass, an early shaft of sun light pulls my eyes upwards to a circle of orange within one of the maples. Amazing! An orange circle within the lingering summer green of one tree shouting, “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands…”

I stop and salute it, inwardly joining in the joyful noise. I thank this tree not only for its orange lollipop but for the reminder that the earth is still firm underfoot, the sky is still open overhead, the sun is up and about its business as usual.  

As I turn and walk on I realize there’s more front page news: the dog is sniffing furiously, poking and pawing up ahead at what looks like a series of tiny brown pyramids emerging out of carefully groomed, longish summer grass. I’m aghast. Mole hills already? Isn’t it awfully early for the moles to be seeking out grubs? Don’t they usually begin in February or March? Aren’t there other things for them to eat?

I whistle again, afraid the dog is going to launch into a feverish campaign to evict the moles. That would be the end of our summer lawn.  And, hey, what’s that…? A bit further on, at the edge of the garden, I see one, then two, then three mushrooms that must, despite the chill in the air, have popped up overnight because they sure weren’t there yesterday. They’re perfectly round and look like beautiful clean white buttons. I thought we were in the midst of a drought but mushrooms they are. And mushrooms mean moisture, so that’s reassuring.

And, wait a minute, what’s that odd mound of bumpy bead-like shapes over there beside the orange dahlias...?

*

Ten minutes later I’m back in the kitchen with a pocketful of nasturtiums seeds (the bumpy bead-like shapes), one last enormous bouquet of dahlias (pick them all when you can!) and the folded newspaper under my arm. The coffee’s ready. And I’m actually already all filled up. Filled up with the local, all-around-me, find-what-you can news. The news that makes me glad and excited to be here.

Okay now—and Good Day to the whole wide world—I’m ready to open the newspaper.

Views from the Lorian Community publishes essays from a team of volunteer writers expressing individual experiences of a long term, committed practice of Incarnational Spirituality (and the general principles shaping such a practice.) If you wish to share how your life has benefited from your relationship with Lorian and IS, please email the editor at drenag@lorian.org. We prefer submissions between 700-900 words. We rarely accept previously published material (including blog posts.) We also reserve the right to decline or to edit your submission. Any accepted submissions will be published in the order that best fits our topic schedule.

Great Freedom Experiment Called America

By Mary Reddy

I was born into a great experiment in individual freedom—the United States—founded on the values of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Experiments exist to test what’s possible and this one asked, “What can bring a vast multicultural and multiracial population into a life of shared governance and mutual respect?” One does not experiment where everything is already known, where the solution has been found. My country’s democracy did not begin as a perfect realization of the ideal. The government stole land from native tribes. It reserved individual rights for some while excluding others. Over decades and after valiant struggles, the democracy opened wider to include women and former slaves. But the push continues for a just society, with full participation and equal access for all. 

The risks and tensions posed by this experiment were less visible to me as a child. I experienced my country then as a more homogenous culture. I lived in small suburbs and went to school primarily with Irish Catholics, like me, mixed in with Italian Catholics. The big conflict in this crowd was whether St. Patrick or St. Vincent was the more glorious saint. It looked like community. 

But underneath that broad overlay of “togetherness through sameness,” we still organized into vying units: Irish vs. Italians, Christians vs. Jews, city kids vs. suburban kids, boys vs. girls. And underneath the sameness of the archetypal happy suburban family, I suffered as a child struggling to survive an abusive parent. I felt like an outsider, hiding a dangerous and shameful secret. I could not know I was not alone in feeling that way. The “good life,” apparently enjoyed by all, was ringed by rigid boundaries. How many people had to contort themselves to fit in and feel like they belonged?

Just when I began to learn about the world beyond my home and school, the Civil Rights movement hit the news. Then Vietnam. Then the Women’s movement. My simplistic understanding of “America” as land of the free shattered. I had to love my country while recognizing that it was not always the good guy. It was jarring but I sensed a wider landscape, one that quickened my breath. Our differences as a people suggested a more dynamic path for emergence of a new model of community.

Decades later, the complexity of our experiences as Americans—and those of other countries as well—is on view in all its glory across the Internet and social media. We cross thresholds as our sense of global community broadens. Many of us now count among our communities people from other races and cultures; multiracial colleagues, friends and family members; gay married couples; gender-fluid people, some who identify as “they”;immigrants and migrants. All challenge old definitions of community.

In a hierarchical or status-based society, these different groups may perceive our democracy as a zero sum game—whatever one side gains is lost by the other. It’s easy in this environment to fear that a familiar way of life is threatened, that power will be stripped from one group and handed to another, that beloved definitions of good and evil will be overwritten. Fear often begets rage; rage can lead to violence.

I ‘get’ rage. I spent years in therapy working to heal from childhood trauma, sexual abuse, and rape. During one stage in the healing process, I walked around in a barely controlled ball of anger and grief. I needed to do that. And I discovered that most of my friends did not want to hang out with me while I raged. So I am sensitive to those who coalesce around anger and who organize based on an urgent need to fight for change. It’s harder for me, but not impossible, to stretch that understanding to those who strike out in anger from an unexamined resistance to change. But on the receiving end, anger intimidates, makes people uncomfortable, and causes them to retreat or go on the defensive. 

So how do we call for love and healing these days while also respecting people’s need to gather around anger, to demand systemic change? Can we allow ourselves to tap into love when confronted by crowds calling for violence? Can we grieve together over those lost in violent shootings or terrorist bombings without having some one asking which side we are on? How can we open to new ways of relating when fear and defensiveness overshadow our communal experiences.

We’re in an uncomfortable place. But these days, I appreciate discomfort. The times I feel uncomfortable are usually the times when I get to peek behind the curtains at my own shadow, when an inherent bias of mine reveals its unvarnished self. 

In a recent Views from the Borderland, David quoted one of his subtle colleagues saying that we incarnate humans “have a sense of organizations but not of organisms, thus it’s hard for us to understand and appreciate the sphere of interconnectedness and wholeness in which souls normally function.” We “project onto the subtle worlds …  images of hierarchy, rank, status, and specialness.” 

What if we saw life on our planet as that of a single organism, where each individual played as valuable a role as any other? Rank and status no longer a measure of value? We don't cut off our noses to spite our faces. In discomfort, we remember that our own truth ranges from the good to the bad and ugly, both light and shadow. The mixed bag that is we each are essential to the life of the whole organism. Our differences and discomfort push us to reach from one concept of wholeness toward a new one. The organism—the planet—evolves. Wholeness is never static. 

As another of David’s subtle colleagues said, we have an opportunity to “deal with those fragmenting elements that arise from your incomplete wholeness—your wholeness-in-becoming—that divide you within yourself or cut you off from others or from the world and create obstacles to love, to connection, and to collaboration.”

Sounds good, you say, but how do we condition ourselves to respond to hate with love? It’s like practicing for a sport or musical recital. A daily practice which includes attunement to loving the world around will allow us to stand comfortably in love in the midst of discomfort and discord. One exercise, called the Touch of Love, is a wonderful addition to daily practice. It helps me build pathways of connection and flow within my various selves and from me to my environment. If we can strengthen these connections while under no duress, we'll be more likely to respond with love when under stress.

Imagine if, each time we speak to another from a place of our own discomfort, we do so with love and it creates a tiny impulse toward change. Imagine a multitude of those impulses accumulating until they spark a quantum leap into a new national and global understanding of community.

Manifestation is often seen as a way of getting something. But from the perspective of Incarnational Spirituality, it’s an act of identity, of becoming something. It’s an act of ‘incarnating’ a new pattern of ourselves into reality, and growing into a new expression of ourselves. Join us on Sunday, October 16, for a Free Teleclass on using the principles of Incarnational Manifestation to shape a life you love. Click here for more information.

Responding to Road Rage and Other Daily Reactions

By Claire Blatchford

About a month ago my husband Ed and I were driving down the main street of Greenfield (a nearby town) around 4:30 pm. I was at the wheel, going about 20 MPH, there were no cars close behind us, we were on our way back from a 9 hour road trip to Boston, and were eager to get home.

Suddenly about 20 feet ahead a pick-up truck with oversized tires appeared on a side road on our right and began rolling aggressively onto the main street. As far as I could see we had the right of way, but the driver, a burly guy who looked to be in his mid 50’s, was shouting at us and giving us the finger. Neither Ed nor I could understand what he was saying.

I slammed on the brakes. The truck quickly maneuvered into our spot and went roaring on down the road.

“WHAT was that about?” I asked. Ed looked as startled as I felt.

I usually shrug off incidents of this sort. Maybe the guy had been arguing with the person in the passenger seat beside him (whom we couldn’t see clearly) and that argument had spilled over into road rage. Maybe something about us reminded him of someone he didn’t like. Maybe he just felt like provoking us in the same way Linda (a deaf girl in one of my classes long ago) liked to provoke her teachers by giving them the finger every now and then, though she didn’t know what the gesture meant. That she got our attention whenever she did it was all that mattered.

But the road incident stays with me because the driver’s anger made me cringe. And I find myself cringing a bit too often. Not just uncivil folks on the road, but headlines on the news hour, in the newspaper, or on Facebook, make me cringe. Not to say I don’t have wonderful exchanges every day--but I’ve been thinking about the nature of this cringe. I feel it as a tightening in my stomach, often accompanied by the thought, “What next?” Sometimes— when it’s a really big cringe— my hands form in fists or I grind my teeth. I don’t want to listen to, or read, the rest of the news after reading the headlines because I assume the rest is ugly, fearful, disturbing, not to my liking. I have no interest in hearing more and feeling worse than I already do. What can I do about any of it anyway? Along this line I assumed that Saturday there was no point in initiating any form of contact with the driver of the pick-up truck. Why put us at risk by stopping in front of him or chasing after him? Who knows what he would’ve done if I’d tried to communicate with him.

This physical and psychological cringing has drawn my attention to the fact that I may be spending more time these days reacting to the world rather than responding to it. I asked myself what’s going on when I react. One dictionary definition of react is, “acting in opposition to a force or influence.” On my own I came up with a bunch of words: when I react I may become defensive, aggressive, constrictive,  prickly, itchy, emotional, hot! Though I’d avoided an outer crash, I realized my reaction-- if I wanted to keep replaying it—could, to speak metaphorically, turn into an inner crash, a festering, an inability to move on.

It was clear to me at this point that a few too many of my reactions are about me—my irritation, impatience, outrage. While response, on the other hand, is, when it’s genuine, about the other or others. The feeling of response is so different. It can be generous, welcoming, opened handed. It’s about giving and taking, then giving some more, rather than pushing away. Reaction can be closed, as evidenced in the clenched fist. There’s often a finality to reacting. And, of course, there are times when that’s called for. Thank goodness I braked that Saturday! Response, however, reaches further and deeper than instinctive or impulsive reaction. 

To explore a bit further the feel of the genuine response, here are two recent moments when I knew I was responding.

Cliff, a classmate in my pastel class, was showing me a composition he was working on. His paintings are architectural, of streets in towns with tall, unusual buildings alongside the road or in the distance. I could understand the sketch he was showing me but couldn’t see what was puzzling or bothering him about it. As I was eager to get on with my own work my inclination was to say, “It looks fine … keep going.”

Yet from the look on Cliff’s face I knew he was asking for more than that. I looked again at his drawing, more intently this time, saw there was an unclear spot and saw too how it might be rectified. When I pointed out my suggestion, his face lit up. This was a five minute exchange yet, within those few minutes, I knew my response to be an acknowledgement of relationship, not just between two people but between two people and a world of possibilities—as they were being revealed in an art class. This was response at it’s most hopeful and joyful.

Then, a few hours later, a long-time friend threw me a curve.

Ann (not her real name) and I ran into each other at the store and I mentioned thinking Hillary Clinton was showing herself to be quite a work horse.

She stepped back, away from me, and snapped, “Don’t even say her name…she’s evil!”

Evil? I was astonished. I knew Ann had been a Bernie supporter, but I thought she would appreciate my sharing an observation that Clinton sure goes all out for what she wants to work for. Ann’s reaction made me feel a bit as though I, too, was evil because of the way I’d spoken of Hillary.

I wanted, in self-defense, to say,” Since when have you started throwing stones?” But knew that would be me reacting, me throwing a stone at her. My response was not to respond, at least not verbally. I gave her a quick hug and we went our separate ways.

This was response as self restraint.

I’m still listening into what Ann said, how she looked, where she might be. Listening, hoping, leaving the door open.

                                                                        *
When in the sanctuary of my home—both our physical home and my own innermost center and place of refuge—these thoughts on the difference between reacting and responding make sense and sound great. However, when an aggressive driver in an over-sized pick-up truck suddenly, seemingly from out of nowhere, nearly whams into us or an old friend says something that feels like a punch in the stomach, such thoughts may seem like a luxury. But I don’t think they’re a luxury. For me at least, they’re very much a necessity. Because when I respond –rather than merely react—I can feel the difference. I know I’m altogether happier, kinder, more ready to be helpful, more here. More incarnated.

This personal discovery is ongoing. It is buttressed by a quote I came across the other day from Viktor Frankl: "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

Manifestation is often seen as a way of getting something. But from the perspective of Incarnational Spirituality, it’s an act of identity, of becoming something. It’s an act of ‘incarnating’ a new pattern of ourselves into reality, and growing into a new expression of ourselves. Join us on Sunday, October 16, for a Free Teleclass on using the principles of Incarnational Manifestation to shape a life you love. Click here for more information.

Inner Campfire

Exercise by David Spangler, Introduction by Susan Beal

In response to my blog post last week about the Yulin Dog Meat Festival, a blog reader inquired about the exercise from David Spangler I referred to. I first experienced the inner campfire exercise when David introduced it in the Path of the Chalice program I took several years ago. Later on, David talked about using the image of the inner campfire as a way to transmute difficult emotions into compassion, understanding, even blessings, kind of like an inner compost heap turns scraps into rich soil.

To use the exercise this way, I simply envision the same scene David describes:a clearing in the woods, a fire pit, and surrounding forest. I spend a moment visualizing the fire—its light, its warmth, the cheer and sense of safety or comfort it brings me. I see it shining into the forest around me and allow the sense of light and warmth to suffuse my body, so that it becomes a felt sense, something I experience with more than just my mind or thoughts.

Then I imagine whatever difficulty I am working with—whether it be a painful emotion, a confusing decision, a challenging situation, or whatever—as scraps of wood or coal, or even bits of trash that I can gather from the forest floor and toss into the flames. Sometimes I imagine something written on each scrap that represents what I want to transmute in the fire. Sometimes instead of picturing something to toss into the blaze, I tune into the sensation in my body of whatever emotion or thought I’m working with. Then I envision the fire as blazing up within my heart, expanding outward and dissolving any knots or bits of tension or resistance, until I’m in the center of a brilliant, cleansing flame.

When I’m ready, I follow the same steps outlined in the original version below, stepping out of the flame, bringing my awareness slowly back to my physical body and surroundings, and coming back into normal consciousness with gratitude for the experience.    —Susan Beal

Imagine that you are camping in the woods. You are in a clearing at the center of which is a fire pit. In the forest around you, you see plenty of dry kindling and pieces of wood that you can use to build a fire and keep it going.

Imagine yourself gathering wood and putting it into the fire pit. Only each stick of wood represents something within you. It may be a quality of love, such as appreciation, honoring, recognition, respect, courtesy, affection, friendship, acknowledgment, and so on. Or it may be a memory of achievement, appreciation for yourself, good memories that make you feel OK about yourself, memories of times when you have felt your power, your wholeness, your competency, your skill, your integration. As you gather these qualities and memories in the form of sticks and logs and pieces of wood for the fire, take a moment as you place each piece into the fire pit to reflect on what it means to you. Have a felt sense of the quality or of the memory. Feel its power within you as you place it in the fire pit. When the fire pit is full to your satisfaction, stretch forth your hands. You are going to work Fire Magic!

Holding your hands over the wood in the fire pit, affirm that you are going to light a fire of love and appreciation. Let the power of this love flow out from you as a blaze of fire, setting the wood aflame.

As the fire grows in the fire pit, spend a moment just to enjoy this camp fire. Feel its warmth upon you. Feel the security it gives, the light it radiates.

Become aware that there are stirrings in the forest around you. Unseen beings have gathered, attracted by your fire. Invite them to join you at the campfire. Each being that comes forth (it may be human, animal, or something else) represents a part of yourself: parts that you appreciate and perhaps parts you don't; parts that make you proud, and perhaps parts of which you are ashamed; parts representing your soul, your personality, and your body. All the parts that you feel are within you and that comprise the wholeness that is you come forth from the dark invisibility of the forest and become seen and known as they respond to your invitation and gather around the campfire with its flames of love and appreciation.  Some of these figures may be beautiful, some may be frightening, but they all respond to the call of the campfire you have built, and in the light it gives, you have no fear of any of them.

Take a moment just to sit all together in the clearing around the blazing fire pit. Feel the companionship, the comradeship, the partnership and collaboration with all these parts of you. Feel the warmth and light of the fire as it radiates to all this group.

When you are ready, stand up. The group stands up with you, forming a circle around the fire pit. See yourself and all the members of this group joining hands. Then all together, step into the fire pit. Step into the flames, which grow large enough and spacious enough to encompass and embrace you all. You feel no pain or discomfort, only a welcoming embrace of light, warmth and love. For a moment feel all of the parts of you joined with you in this fire. Then they melt in the heat of this love and flow into you, becoming one with you, each contributing and adding to your wholeness.

Pay attention to the felt sense of this. Stay in the fire as long as it feels right and comfortable to you.

When you are ready, form the intention to return to everyday awareness. As you do so, the fire pit and the campfire burning within it flow inward to a place in your body where you can still feel the flames creating wholeness within you through the power of its love. Give thanks to all the parts of you and to this flaming Light, and return to your everyday life and affairs, carrying this blazing campfire within you.

Views from the Lorian Community publishes essays from a team of volunteer writers expressing individual experiences of a long term, committed practice of Incarnational Spirituality (and the general principles shaping such a practice.) If you wish to share how your life has benefited from your relationship with Lorian and IS, please email the editor at drenag@lorian.org. We prefer submissions between 700-900 words. We rarely accept previously published material (including blog posts.) We also reserve the right to decline or to edit your submission. Any accepted submissions will be published in the order that best fits our topic schedule.

Eating Love

By Susan Beal

One evening last month, it was clear my mother's golden retriever, Winston, was dying. I could see in my Mom's face the same devastation I feel whenever one of my own dogs has died. She was going to have him put to sleep the next morning. Saying goodbye to a beloved animal companion is utterly heartbreaking, every single time.  

Mom and I haven't always gotten along well, but even during the worst stretches in our relationship we have connected through our shared love for dogs. It makes sense to me because I am certain dogs are here on Earth to help humans learn about unconditional love, both how to give it and how to receive it. The love of dogs brings out the best in us. Many of us aspire to greet each experience in our lives with love and acceptance, to be more forgiving, to see the best in everyone around us. It's a big struggle, worthy of a lifetime of effort. Yet dogs do this effortlessly, a reminder that we're not the only beings on this planet who can love and bless and help illuminate the world.

Unfortunately, for reasons I struggle to understand, dogs also bring out the worst in us— maybe because unconditional love can be hard to receive. It burns painfully into the shadowy places within us, triggering our defenses and all the ways we deny it. Not long before Winston died, I learned about an event in China, the Yulin Dog Meat Festival, that celebrates the torture and slaughter of dogs for meat. I watched nightmarish exposé videos in an effort to bear witness instead of turning away from a horror I didn't want to know existed. It felt as if some delicate, vital mechanism in my heart snapped and broke and every bit of grief and sorrow I’d ever felt poured through the broken place. I cried on and off for days, struck mute with grief, wishing I could unsee the images or shake the despair I felt.
If our hearts have Achille's heels, mine is animal suffering. The dog meat festival hit me where I am most vulnerable, triggering all of my worst fears and greatest sorrows about humanity’s relationship with animals. Dogs were the very first animal be domesticated, throwing their lot in with ours over 15,000 years ago. Perhaps because they have allied themselves completely with humanity, loving and serving us since we sat in skins around campfires, the deliberate abuse of dogs seems the worst form of betrayal.

Learning about the dog meat festival was a watershed moment for me. It forced me to acknowledge and take stock of the myriad ways I protect myself from seeing what I don't want to see. How precarious is my faith in the goodness of the world if I must buffer myself from darkness in order to believe in light. The festival is a drop in the ocean of pain—animal and human—on Earth. To try to stay open to it all, or help in any significant way, is utterly overwhelming.

But I have always believed, deep down, that everything is part of a grander, loving wholeness (although I have questioned that belief more than once!). I wanted—I needed—to place the Yulin Festival within the context of a loving universe, to see if I could gain a higher perspective. And so, taking a cue from the ability of dogs to accept whatever comes their way, I opened up to the pain and grief I felt instead of resisting them. I remembered David Spangler talking in my ordination program about our consciousness being like an inner campfire, and how all of our experiences are fuel for the fire. He described an exercise in which we could feed difficult emotions to the fire, like logs, transforming them into light. It was an exercise in learning to witness life with love and compassion, to let the fire of consciousness transmute pain, anger, and sorrow into something finer. In that way, he said, we are like stars in the making, fueled from within by our experiences, to the point where we ignite into full consciousness, and radiate our light outward for the benefit of the cosmos. 

So with no small struggle, I quieted my mind and felt into the pain. There were areas in my chest and throat of restriction and achiness, a mixture of ice and inflammation, of heaviness and disembodiment. As I focused my awareness, the pain and tension gathered and intensified and became a throbbing in my chest. My heart flaring hot, I tossed the images and my reactions and feelings onto my inner campfire, offering my anguish up as fuel. Breath by breath, my heart lightened up, and the fire flared brighter. My pain became a bright radiance, at the center of which, amazingly, was love.

I began to wonder if dogs' main service to humanity is to accept our brutality, our ignorance, our pain—all the parts of ourselves that cower and snarl when exposed to the brilliance of unconditional love—and transmute it through their own love, into something pure and bright that slowly and surely adds to Earth's illumination. It came to me that the dogs of Yulin, and the many millions of animals who suffer at our hands are part of this cosmic cycle of transmutation and illumination, helping to redeem us from our own darkness.

The world is full of pain, of suffering layered upon suffering. We can't possibly bear it all. Of course we shut down in self defense, reacting with denial, avoidance, and ignorance. To do otherwise is to burn out, to suffocate the bright flame of that inner campfire under too much weight. I can't stop the Yulin Dog Meat Festival, much less all suffering in the world. I have to be careful about what horrors and pains I expose myself to, lest I get pulled too deeply into their darkness. But from a safe and bounded place within my heart, I can bear witness, and anchor my love into Earth's vast depths by taking action in some way, however small.

In that spirit, my husband, daughter and I have begun adoption proceedings for Tulsi, a dog from the Soi Dog Foundation, an organization in Phuket,Thailand that rescues dogs from the dog meat trade, and I am helping my mother do the same. I've added the rescue organization to the list of groups I support with regular donations. I have begun a practice of tuning in to the vibration of Love as a sort of first response whenever I catch myself getting angry, despairing or grief-stricken about something. It’s a way of transmuting my anguish into action—not as a reaction to horror, but as an invitation to Love where it is most needed. 

In what ways are the challenges of life inviting you to a deeper experience of oneness and love? How do beliefs and action work together in your life to bring about healing, transformation and wholeness? We want to hear your stories.  Email drenag@lorian.org.

Rising Together to Meet the Challenge of Our Moment

By Guest Blogger David Nicols, Introduction by David Spangler

 

I had the pleasure of meeting David Nicol about 7-8 years ago when I was on his Doctoral Committee. To my delight and surprise, his PhD thesis was on subtle activism, its history and its modern application. This was right up my alley!  I had been teaching the same thing under the rubric of "energy activism" or at times, "energy hygiene." I had no idea, though, that it had risen to the level of being a valid topic for a doctoral dissertation in a university. I found David's use of the term "subtle activism" more pleasing to my ear as well as more broadly descriptive of the practice itself. So I changed my language to bring it into line with his in his thesis. This was one of the benefits I gained from coming to know this remarkable man. I found him congenial to work with, insightful, and deeply attuned to the spiritual and energetic needs of our time. His work with the Gaiafield Project is an excellent example of this. Even after he earned his Doctorate, we have remained friends and colleagues. I was delighted to see his thesis turned into a book, Subtle Activism, published by SUNY press. I strongly recommend it to all of you who have been working on subtle activism with me over the years. His approach is a bit different from mine, more focused on collective work whereas I have focused on the individual, but our aims are exactly the same, and the context and history he provides in his book give an important foundation to this needed service on behalf of the world.--David Spangler

 

It is very apparent that we are passing through a difficult time together on planet Earth. There is a growing recognition that our conventional social, economic, and political systems are no longer working well enough (if they ever did) to bring about a just, sustainable, and spiritually fulfilling world. However, while many responsible voices have identified the need for a fundamental evolutionary shift, other forces are exploiting this climate of discontent for their own ends.

Like many people, I have been disturbed by the recent spate of violent incidents around the world and the rise of extremist elements in our politics. A spirit of reckless destruction is afoot. One senses the determination in these forces to provoke the rest of the world into endless cycles of conflict.

It can be difficult to know how to respond effectively to these nakedly aggressive influences. Is it best to oppose them with unwavering strength and moral clarity – or to offer them extraordinary compassion and understanding? Or is some combination of these (or other) qualities called for?A few weeks ago, I woke up with a clear inner knowing. I realized that these forces use the energy of fear and hate as fuel. They possess the instinct of the dark that is not bothered by negative attention, but in fact thrives on it. If we direct our own hatred and contempt toward them, they use that energy to grow.

The best way to respond, I realized, is to avoid the temptation to react. Stay calm, stay positive. Choose to have faith that basic human decency will prevail. Keep your practice strong, if you have one. Find the funny side of things. The dark must be confronted courageously, but it is counterproductive to allow ourselves to be drawn into a fight on its own terms.

I posted those insights to my Facebook page, and it generated a significant discussion. A friend drew my attention to Hexagram 43 of the I-Ching (Resoluteness), which offers quite similar guidance for how best to engage in a struggle with "inferior people."Here are some of the key principles I learned from that discussion that built on my own intuitive understanding (quotes are from Richard Willhelm’s translation of the I-Ching):

1.   "[Negative forces] must under all circumstances be openly discredited."

One has to stand up to a bully. A compromise with the dark is not possible. One must not be afraid to speak the truth about the danger.

2.   "Begin at home, by examining our own shortcomings."

In a struggle with dark forces, our own reactions and limitations are provoked. Thus, it is a good time to do our own inner work. In this way, "finding no opponent, the sharp edges of the weapons of evil become dulled."

3.   "The struggle must not be carried on directly by force."

If we attempt to fight the dark with its own weapons, we will lose in the end because we become entangled in hatred and fear.

4.   "Make energetic progress in the good."

The best way to combat the dark, therefore, is to engage wholeheartedly in a positive undertaking.

If you would like to "make energetic progress in the good," I invite you to join the WiseUSA subtle activism campaign, offered this year by the Gaiafield Project, the Shift Network, and several other partner organizations.

WiseUSA is designed to engage thousands of people all over the world in regular meditation, prayer, and other sacred activities that allow divine grace to flow into the consciousness of America and the world at this critical time.

Although the Gaiafield Project has a strong global focus, this year we feel a special calling to uplift the hearts and minds of the American people in the 2016 election cycle and beyond. We want to start at home, in our backyard, to do what we can to call forth the highest potentials of the USA, so that it can serve as a mature and responsible actor on the global stage. And regardless of where we live on the planet, we all have a stake in wise leadership emerging from the USA.

The core intention of the campaign is expressed in the following WiseUSA Declaration:

We the people
The ancestors of our great, great grandchildren
Call forth the deepest wisdom
The greatest joy
And the highest compassion
From the heart and soul of America
For the benefit of all life on Earth
And the next seven generations
May wisdom prevail in the United States of America
May peace prevail on Earth.

Through building a strong field of collective intention, we seek to inspire a wave of like-minded initiatives that bring a creative and heart-centered approach to addressing the many challenges facing our nation and our world.

David Nichols' book, now in paperback, is available on Amazon. Click on the links provided for more information about the Gaiafield Project and WiseUSA. 

Subtle Outreach

By David Spangler

My neighborhood has been alive lately with roaming groups of children—and no few adults either—walking the street, smartphones in hand, hunting invisible entities called Pokémon. They are playing Pokémon Go, a game that uses your smartphone’s GPS tracking capability and its camera to create the illusion of cute “pocket monsters” appearing in your physical vicinity. If you see such a Pokémon, then you can attempt to capture it which, if you are successful, will net you points and raise your overall rating as a Pokémon hunter. It’s as if your smartphone gives you a kind of technological clairvoyance to see beings that otherwise are invisible to the eye.  (How amazing it would be if there were an app that truly let you see into the subtle realms, but that’s a whole other discussion!)

Though I’ve not played the game myself—I don’t own a smartphone or, for that matter, any cell phone—some of my kids do, and they’ve shown me how it works. It’s a clever bit of programming, one that has the merit of getting people outside and actually exercising and interacting with their environment rather than just sitting and staring at a screen. I can understand its appeal, particularly for a generation of children, now adults, raised on the original Pokémon card game and television show.

I bring this up because I was recently sent an article that was critical of the whole idea of subtle activism. The author saw it as an indulgence on the part of people who don’t actually do anything in the real world to make a difference but who like to think they are because they are “working” in some mythical subtle realm.  

I can understand this author’s point of view. To anyone who doesn’t have a direct experience of the subtle realms or of subtle energies, subtle activism has all the reality of playing Pokémon Go, which is to say no reality at all. It makes you feel like you are accomplishing something when in fact you are only participating in a fantasy, racking up points that have no meaning outside the virtual world of the game. The fact that the subtle realms have an objective reality is easy to dismiss in our materialist culture. Metaphorically, one has to turn on one’s “inner smartphone” of attentiveness, attunement, patience, and discernment to become aware of subtle reality, and for many people, there is no compelling reason to do so.

My intent here is not to defend the idea of subtle activism—you either accept it or you don’t, and that choice will largely determine whether you can experience it as something more real that a Pokémon. Instead, I want to suggest that part of the problem raised by this article’s author lies in semantics. Frankly, it’s a misgiving I share as well.

It has to do with the use of the word activism. I’m more guilty than most in promoting its use. After all, it’s a convenient term denoting the taking of an action, and there’s nothing passive about the true application of subtle activism. Still, the word has niggled at me, too.  Activism suggests the doing of something in the physical realm. It implies the taking of some physical action that at least intends to make a difference. A purely subtle action, one composed of thought, feeling, and spirit that shapes invisible energies, is of a different order of engagement all together. While one cannot guarantee the effects of physical actions in a situation, it’s even harder to guarantee—or even see—the effects of subtle actions within a physical context.

Apart from the article’s dismissal of the subtle realms as fantasy, there was a useful and genuine critique of a tendency to use a term like activism, which has such a rich history of taking physical actions on behalf of positive change in the world, to describe inner work.  The fact is that we are not purely subtle beings. We are all incarnate, and this means that we must take responsibility for engaging our world, however we choose to do so, in tangible, incarnate ways. That we also have a subtle nature that can and does engage the subtle aspects of the world simply adds to our toolbox of resources, but this doesn’t mean we cannot or should not act physically as well when and as opportunities arise.

To be fair, the teaching of subtle activism never suggests that it can stand alone as a substitute for physical action. The two are meant to be complementary, each contributing in its own sphere of activity and effect. For instance, I was recently admitted to the hospital in a dangerous state of dehydration brought about as an unexpected deleterious effect of medical treatments I’ve been receiving. The doctors and nurses immediately took physical actions to restore my blood chemistry to its proper balance and bring me back out of a deteriorating physical state. But at the same time, their obvious caring, compassion, gentleness, and love buoyed my spirit and calmed my jangled nerves and emotions. The healing presence of my nurses was as important to my recovery as the medical actions they took. Had they only stood around loving me and feeling compassionate, offering me prayers, chances are I would not be here writing this essay; on the other hand, had they been impersonal and uncaring, treating me only as a collection of symptoms and not as a person, I would have been hard pressed to recover my mental and emotional equilibrium enough to participate in my own healing. In other words, there were both physical and subtle activities on my behalf, and both were needed.

Physical and subtle actions do not simply take place in different realms of being; they operate differently. All subtle work depends on our state of being in ways that our physical actions do not. If I am a skilled carpenter, I can hammer a nail straight and true whether I am happy, depressed, calm, or angry. My emotional or spiritual state need not enter into the effectiveness of my action (though it certainly can!). The inner state of the emergency room nurse who administered the cocktail of chemicals that brought my blood chemistry back into balance did not affect the biochemistry of what he was doing, though his calm and caring nature, as I say, was deeply reassuring in that scary moment.

However, if I am going to work with subtle energies, I have to understand that those energies emerge from and reflect my own state of being as much as anything. To project love or peace into a situation, I have to be that love and be that peace.  For subtle “activism” to be effective, there’s no getting around this.

In this context, we’re not so much “activating” subtle energies that are separate from us as we are reaching out into the world from our own state of being. My nurses weren’t “beaming” caring at me; I was being held in the caring that was part of who they were, held in their loving field, so to speak. It was that caring and healing spirit that led them to become nurses in the first place, and I, like all their patients, was the beneficiary of the natural outreach of that spirit.

Activism suggests actions I can take that are goal-oriented and intended to produce a specific effect. But while subtle “activism” can certainly be directed towards a desired end, it really is being-oriented that creates a relationship more than a product.  It’s a way of being in the world that creates connections and wholeness. In other words, subtle work is one of identity. Here is another area where the term activism may not best serve us in our inner work. It creates a label—I am an “activist”—which has connotations of acting upon the world as a separate force, as one who manipulates rather than as one who participates. This can also lead to a form of glamour, because being an “activist” sounds much more impressive and congratulatory than simply being oneself. Yet, effective subtle work is all about—and depends upon—simply being ourselves, without labels but with a discerning awareness of our current state of being. Put another way, taking on the identity of an “activist” can get in the way of appreciating and working with the identity of being just who we are as a presence in the world.

For all these reasons, the more I learn about and practice subtle work, the less inclined I am to think in terms of “subtle activism” and more in terms of “subtle participation,” or “subtle outreach,” the offering of my state of being out into my world in deliberate ways that hopefully will bring blessing. The more I am grounded in who I am in the reality of all the levels of my world, the less chance I will turn my inner work into merely hunting Pokémon.

Views from the Lorian Community publishes essays from a team of volunteer writers expressing individual experiences of a long term, committed practice of Incarnational Spirituality (and the general principles shaping such a practice.) If you wish to share how your life has benefited from your relationship with Lorian and IS, please email the editor at drenag@lorian.org. We prefer submissions between 700-900 words. We rarely accept previously published material (including blog posts.) We also reserve the right to decline or to edit your submission. Any accepted submissions will be published in the order that best fits our topic schedule.

From the Archives: A Vision of Holarchy (Part 2 of 2)

By David Spangler

(Click here to read Part One of this essay.)

Holarchy is not necessarily the opposite of hierarchy. They are two different perspectives, each capturing a truth. Hierarchy often describes structural and functional relationships: how a system operates and how responsibility, power, and energy are distributed and dispersed throughout that system. For example, at Microsoft, Bill Gates was the head of the company and directed its operations; vision and decisions flowed from him through a traditional business hierarchy throughout the organization down to the lowliest janitor cleaning up the offices at night. Gates’s responsibility was for the whole company and its success while the janitor’s was just for the rooms he was cleaning.

Holarchy, on the other hand, describes how information and such qualities as love and caring are distributed within a system. In the early days of Microsoft, for instance, using intraorganizational email, a janitor could contact and dialogue with Bill Gates directly and offer suggestions and insights for the good of the company. Information flowed in non-hierarchical ways in that useful and important ideas could come from any level, and a janitor could have just as much love, creativity, and caring for the company as the CEO. Holarchy is the system—or the attitude—that allows information, love, caring, and creative energy to flow between levels of a system without regard for rank or position. The janitor and the CEO occupy different structural and functional positions within Microsoft, but each can be equally filled with and part of the spirit of the organization.

In a holarchy, there is no “higher” or “lower.” There is difference and the creative value that such difference can provide. In a hierarchy, the structure itself imposes clear rules on communication and evaluation; information flows in a regularized way up and down a chain of command. A hierarchy imposes order. In a holarchy, order and integration are co-created in the moment at the boundaries between people; rules are often made up in the moment based on the conditions and requirements of the unique relationships that are present at the time. It can appear chaotic, though in fact it is not. Negotiation and openness rather than position provide organizing factors.

Love – the Primary Organizing Principle
I would go further to say that in a fully functioning holarchy love is the primary organizing principle. This is not necessarily affection or even any form of emotional attachment or response but rather a respect and honoring for each individual as a source of sacredness. The basic premise is that each being has something to offer that is unique, that every being is potentially a teacher, and that I can learn from anyone or any situation. Certainly, as both a teacher and a parent, I experience this all the time. I may be the authority in a class and have knowledge the students do not, but this doesn’t mean that learning is a one-way street from me to them. Learning is much more than just the passing on of information; it is the co-creation together of a relationship in which new perspectives and insights emerge for everyone concerned.

In working with beings that are, by every standard I have, more evolved spiritually than I am, I have discovered again and again the grace and love with which they engage with me and their openness to what I have to contribute, small though it may be. I recognize that they honor the Sacred in me, which is beyond all rank and position, and do what they can to lift me up and acknowledge our equality before God. Indeed, when I encounter a being that does not do that and insists upon its allegedly “higher” position, its “adeptship” or exalted state of evolution, I can be pretty sure that it is not a reputable source. A sure way to discern that a particular entity is not very highly evolved is its reliance upon some claimed position in a hierarchy as a sign of its authority. Over the years, I have found that the more evolved the being, the more it proves the saying that the greatest of all shall be the servant of the least.

For several thousands of years, humanity has constructed its cultures and civilizations largely around hierarchical models, so much so that they seem to be part of the way things are, as natural a part of creation as gravity and sunlight. But the study of holism and ecology shows that this is not necessarily the case, that there are other, more holistic, models of organization and relationship. While hierarchy can be and often is a useful and efficient tool for getting things done, it can fail at the deeper need to establish a rich, co-creative field of mutuality and partnership. This is a critical failing in our time when there is a need for humanity to cease seeing the world in hierarchical terms, with itself at the evolutionary peak, and begin relating to the various visible and invisible kingdoms of nature as partners.

Likewise, a hierarchical view of the spiritual worlds, particularly one that elevates the Sacred to the top of an imagined pyramid of authority and power, can blind us to the sacredness that is within ourselves and within all things, disempowering us at a time when our loving and creative spirit is urgently needed.

The implementation of holarchy is not difficult. It is the loving application of the idea that each person, being, or object I encounter has something to offer and can be, however momentarily, a partner in mutual evolution. It is the idea that we are dependent on each other, whatever our status or rank, for our well being, and that we are all co-creators in the processes of cosmic emergence. It is an application of openness, a respect and honoring for the least as well as the greatest with an understanding that the one can well be the other depending on the situation. It is the realization that good ideas, love, spiritual energy, grace and goodness can come from anywhere and are not dependent on age, rank, position, status, evolution or form.

Mostly it is an understanding that when it comes to creating wholeness—to being part of a holistic universe—we are all partners together and we each have something important to contribute.

From the Archives” features essays and book excerpts by David Spangler that are out of print or not readily available. The first part of this essay (digitally published by Seven Pillars House of Wisdom in 2008) appeared last week. For more information, please email drenag@lorian.org.

From the Archives: A Vision of Holarchy (Part 1 of 2)

By David Spangler

By the time my first child, John-Michael, was born in 1983, I had already been a spiritual teacher for nearly twenty years. A major perennial topic in my lectures and workshops was love, and I felt I reasonably understood what love was about. But the first time I held my son in my arms, I realized how incomplete my knowledge was. I knew immediately that this new person was going to teach me things about love that I had never known before. And he has, along with another son and two daughters who came to join him as my teachers over the years.

When we think of the relationship of parents and children, it’s common and natural to think of what parents do for their offspring. We are responsible for them. There would appear to be a natural hierarchical relationship here with knowledge, love, wisdom, power, and authority flowing down from the parent to the child. But as any parent knows, the relationship is not so clear-cut; love and knowledge flow back from the child and as he or she grows older, wisdom and authority do as well. Parents and children may not be equal, but they can be partners each enriching the other in ways that neither could do for themselves.

Holarchy and Holism
This relationship in which different and unequal participants nevertheless enhance each other and co-creatively make a larger wholeness possible is what I call holarchy. It honors each participant and looks not to their relative ranking as in a hierarchy, but to what they can contribute by virtue of their differences. Thus in a hierarchy, participants can be compared and evaluated on the basis of position, rank, relative power, seniority and the like. But in a holarchy each person’s value comes from his or her individuality and uniqueness and the capacity to engage and interact with others to make the fruits of that uniqueness available.

The idea of holarchy conceptually grows out of the larger idea of holism. The word itself was coined by the South African statesman, general, and scientist Jan Smuts in his 1926 book, Holism and Evolution. After reading it, Albert Einstein said that the concept of holism was one of two paradigms that would govern human thinking in the 21st century (the second, he claimed, was his own theory of relativity). As in many things, Einstein has proven prescient. While no one would claim that politics, commerce, and social development as yet follow holistic models, the need to develop and implement such models is becoming increasingly apparent.

Smuts defined holism as “the tendency in nature to form wholes that are greater than the sum of the parts through creative evolution.” This idea found fertile soil in the science of ecology, which studies the patterns of interrelationship and wholeness that make up an environment. Consequently, the word has come to mean a condition of interdependency and interconnectedness such as characterizes the web of life on earth. In human society, it represents an attitude and lifestyle that perceives and fosters that condition in all areas of our personal and collective life.

Inner Worlds or Supersensible Realities
For me, the idea of holarchy comes from my experiences with the non-physical dimensions of life, what Rudolf Steiner called the “supersensible realities,” or simply the “Inner Worlds.” I have had a form of clairvoyant access to these worlds since early childhood. As a young man in my late teens and early twenties, I became familiar with theosophically related cosmologies that described these non-physical worlds in terms of layers, planes, and hierarchies, rather like a wedding cake with the physical realm at or near the bottom. Beings of greater spiritual presence and power occupied the upper realms and passed their wisdom and creative energies down the levels to us, rather like parents passing their knowledge and care down to their children. But when on occasion I would find myself in the presence of such a higher being, I did not feel any sense of hierarchy or ranking any more than I felt my own children to be “below” me. Instead, what I felt was a sense of embrace and love, of honoring and attentiveness from this being to me. I recognized that while it might be more powerful energetically than I and possessed of greater insight, this being and I both shared a universal life. We were different in capacity—in what we could do—but we were equal in value and in a shared sacredness.

Over the years, I have experienced the inner worlds more like a vast ecology whose various levels function less like ranks in a hierarchy and more like biomes, each with its own unique characteristics and dominant forms of life, energy and consciousness. Rather than flowing in one direction from the top to the bottom, creative energy, inspiration, and spirit flows between these regions in patterns of mutual co-creation and support. The Sacred—the Generative Mystery—is everywhere present, the force of life and presence within the entire ecology, rather than being centered in one part of it.

The Physical World as a Radiant Presence
In particular, I find the physical world itself to be a radiant presence, a “star” of life. It imposes unique characteristics upon consciousness due to the nature of matter, but it is hardly the “densest” or lowest of places. Rather than simply receiving inspiration and guidance from above, it is a source of spiritual energy in its own right, and makes its own important contribution to the co-creative process of the evolutionary whole of which all the dimensions are a part. While one world or level may indeed emanate from another, once it comes into being it begins to radiate and unfold in its own unique way, becoming a member of the larger planetary and cosmic spiritual and energetic ecology. It becomes a partner, not a dependent.

“From the Archives” features essays and book excerpts by David Spangler that are out of print or not readily available. The last part of this essay (digitally published by Seven Pillars House of Wisdom in 2008) will appear next week.  For more information, please email drenag@lorian.org. 

Souls Who Want to Be Here

By Claire Blatchford

Ed and I were pretty excited when we first became grandparents nine years ago. And the excitement hasn’t lessened as three more grandchildren have joined our family. Though each arrival has been a story in itself, there seems to be a common tune. All arrived early, up to two weeks before their due date. All experienced some bumps either on the way here or for awhile after landing. And, despite that, all responded in the same affirmative way to the welcome they received. Perhaps the tune could be called, “Hey, everybody, I’m here!”

For our first granddaughter the “bumps” had to do with her environment: there was a fire in the apartment her family lived in shortly after she was born. Then her mother took a job in another town and mother and daughter had to be apart during the week for some months until the whole family could be together again. Our second granddaughter had to wear casts on both legs for eight weeks, then a bar between her legs at night for up to a year to straighten her legs out of the curve they’d settled into when in the womb. Our third granddaughter had to come via C-section after her heart rate faltered. Then, less than a week later, she ran a fever that put her back in the hospital for two weeks because of a meningitis scare. The fourth grandchild—our grandson—had—and still has—this unbelievable appetite. And he’s not the least bit plump. His dad is 6’7”, his mom 6’1” which may explain the amount of growing he’s likely headed into. During his first year his parents were up at all hours of the night to feed him. We still joke about his “hollow” leg having to be be filled promptly and completely.

Yet, despite the bumps-- maybe even because of them-- I’ll never forget meeting, truly meeting, each child eye to eye as I held them in my arms during their first or second week. I’ve experienced this with other newborns too, so please don’t assume this is just another doting grandmother speaking here. (Though I’ll readily admit I am a doting grandmother!)  

If you have met and held the gaze of a newborn, or a baby, you will know what I’m talking about. This experience can move—even shake-- you to your core. Who is this soul looking right at you, into you, through you as though sizing you up? A new born can look not only very new born but actually quite ancient. Tiny physical size and young age-- as we’re accustomed to counting them in days and hours-- suddenly evaporate before the mystery of incarnation.  It’s as though wisdom and love in the steady, curious, unperturbed gaze of this little one are reaching out to touch, even finger, the world it has chosen to enter. And some times there’s been more than just a meeting and a greeting. On occasion I’ve felt the arriving soul asking, “Can I trust you?” Not me, specifically, but humanity as a whole.

Recently, when remembering this calm, penetrating, yet always “bright” look which I saw in the eyes of our grandchildren when they were babies, I was reminded of something David Spangler said when speaking of the incarnational process:

"Much as the nuclear processes at the core of a star cause it to give off heat and light, so the incarnational processes within the embodied soul…..naturally give off a quality of spiritual radiance I call our “Self-Light.” In a sense, this is a spiritual force indigenous to the incarnate realm. It’s not coming from a transpersonal level (though there are qualities and currents of Light that do come to us from such “higher” dimensions); it is produced, generated and emerging right here in our midst within the physical world. In effect, we are each like stars, producing our own radiance, rather than like planets that have to reflect the radiance of others. We are each generative sources." (from Surfing a Wave of Conflict forum, Spring 2016) 

The star-like quality is really there though our grandchildren don’t look at me the way they did when new born. By “brightness” and “star-like” I don’t mean “smart”, “clever”, “unusual” or “superior.” I’m speaking rather of how the radiance I saw shining in their eyes when we first met eye to eye, is now shining not just in their faces but in their bodies. The stellar brightness David describes is being generated by their movements, actions, explorations, ongoing discovery of language, others, self, indeed, the whole world both near and far. This energy has so many forms and colors.

Take the determination of the 2.4 year old who recently pulled a chair over to the kitchen counter, climbed onto it, got the car keys from his mother’s pocketbook, went out to the car, got in, and put the keys in the ignition!

Take the independence of the soon to be 3 year old who insists on dressing, eating, climbing, pretend-writing, pretend-swimming, and racing on ahead, all by herself. No faltering heart beat there!

Take the kindness of the 5 year old who laboriously wrote her name and her mother’s name within a heart shape. Then colored and folded the heart and solemnly gave it to her mother to take on the business trip her mother didn’t want to go on.  

Or the exuberance of the 9 year old upon completing a challenging climb up one of the highest mountains in New Hampshire.

These are just a few examples of some of the bright qualities we see in them. I hear them as variations on the tune, “Hey, everybody I’m here!” Sure our grandchildren whine and have melt downs. Sure, I wish they’d stop grabbing at the dog’s tail, would sometimes walk and talk a bit more softly, especially at 5 AM, would dare to eat more than familiar old macaroni and cheese. Sure, I’m always happy when they arrive at our house and often exhausted when they depart. It’s hard work keeping up with a young star!

But here’s the thing I never cease to marvel at: they have come in these dark and difficult times. I am certain that all over the world you can find them, recognize them, meet them. And in meeting them meet your deepest hopes for the future of our world. They have chosen to incarnate, they want to be here. What can one say but, Welcome! Thank you for coming! We need you!

How do we use the principles of Incarnational Spirituality to engage these turbulent social and political times?From October 2-8 join Lorian Facilitators David Spangler and James Tousignant for Standing in the Eye: Creating Calmness in a Season of Storms. This week-long forum will provide practical exercises and approaches for conscious engagement during this election season. For more information or to register click here. 

The Scent of Sacredness

By Freya Secrest

Moving to the Midwest, as I shared with you last month, has me looking around my garden with fresh eyes. Just identifying the plants in my new Michigan backyard has brought a number of delightful surprises. One recently was a large shrub I could not recognize. It was mature, tall, and lanky – having grown up in the shade of a maple. But I couldn’t quite place it from just its leaves or shape. I watched it slowly come awake in the spring and then walked out one morning this summer and was delighted to see it had started to bloom. I was still unsure of its identity– until I smelled its flowers. The fragrance instantly brought forward its name – Mock Orange! I loved finally recognizing this old friend who I only knew previously as a vigorous, but more managed, princess. Growing in the shade without as many blossoms as the one in my northwest garden, this Mock Orange still clearly and fully brought forth the fullness of its unique signature in the perfection of its shape and fragrance.

When next I picked up Dorothy’s Seeds of Inspiration, it fell open to this message from the Mock Orange:

We are here before you think of us. We are always with our plants. We are attached to each little charge because we love to see it grow, have the keenest delight in being part of its development out of nothing into a perfect example of the pattern we hold. Not one little pore is out of line. Out of the elements we carve and unite, and carve again a living example of one design of the Infinite Designer.

And what fun it is! Holding each little atom in its pattern is a joy. We see you humans going glumly about your designs, doing things without zest because “they have to be done,” and we marvel that your sparkling life could be so filtered down and disguised. Life is abundant joy. Each little bite of a caterpillar into a leaf is done with more zest that we sometimes feel in you humans – and a caterpillar has not much consciousness. We would love to shake this sluggishness out of humans and have you see life as ever brighter, flowing, more creative, blooming, waxing and waning, eternal and one.

While talking to you I am also peacefully promoting growth in the plant.  All over the world wherever I grow, I hold the wonderful designs for each plant to confirm. Maintaining life in countless places, I yet remain free, utterly and completely free, because I am the life of the One. How I rejoice to be alive! I soar to highest heaven, I become part of the heart of all. I am here, there and everywhere, without deviation holding my pattern of perfection. I bubble with life. I am life. I am One and I am many.

I have leapt lightly into your consciousness. I bow out, glad to have been with you, glad that you have appreciated what I have said, and still more glad to be back in our world of light. Think well of us, think of us with light.

Such a delightful synchronicity! It makes sense to me that the amazing aroma of a Mock Orange that is so beloved and distinctive could only come from such a spirit of joy and zest for life. For how else could such a fragrance arise? "Nothing comes from nothing", as the song says; the essence of a being reflects through all parts of its expression and what more natural source than joy for such an evocative scent!  

Unlocking our sense of smell and all the information it holds for us is a frontier that has been associated mostly with perfume and cooking, not(for me anyway!) with the mystical. It is thought-provoking to consider how fragrance is sourced from the quality of being that underlies its chemical formula. Smell is one of our interfaces of perception with the world, perhaps it could be more seriously considered as one of the voices of the subtle. It is a language which draws together so many layers of information for us as we step to discover those realms.

And it is not just flowery smells that inspire and express those mystical roots. The sweat of hard work and effort is an earthy smell, honest and grounded in itself. The tang of ocean, the freshness of laundry dried in the sun, the bitter hit of some herbs……the Sacred takes shape in a multitude of scented expressions and our noses are placed front and center to interact with them.

As we work more from qualities such as joy and gratitude, hope and courage, we too mix together a unique blend of presence that wafts out as a fragrance. Not all noses are equally tuned to its frequency but it is there as a gift of our sacred self, a gift of uniqueness carried by the wind, adding its note to the harmonies of the world.

I am inspired, humbled and definitely committed to strengthening the fragrance of joy my newly discovered yard-mate has brought into my life. I would love to think I could create similar delight with my own scent.

For an exploration of the sacred at the heart of our incarnation, join us for a free Teleclass on August 28, 2016 – 7:00 pm Eastern / 4:00 pm Pacific. Then, from September 12-October 16, join us for “Journey into Fire” – a five-week online class exploring ways in which we can discover our inherent sacred fire and learn to fully shine our “star” essence into the world. Click here for more information or to register.