Dear Dorothy

By Freya Secrest and Friends

Our friend Dorothy Maclean is 97 this month and we celebrate a friend whose life and work has highlighted the sacredness within all incarnate life. If the work of Dorothy Maclean is new to you, perhaps the following reflections (from workshop participants and dear friends) will give you some idea of the impact she has had on those who know her and encourage you to explore for yourself through her books what she has offered to the world.

I think the way you, Dorothy, have touched my life the most deeply has been through your unwavering knowing of your relationship with God, the God Within. As you told my son once in a conversation at the dinner table, “I don’t have faith there is a God, I don’t believe there is a God, I know there is God.” In a time when using the word ‘God’ is often shied away from as outdated or limited, you have not been afraid to speak of your lived experience because the God you know is the “life force in everything.”

For me, your power as a model is that you held ‘ordinary’ and ‘mystic’ together, one experience strengthening the other. Sheena, your own teacher/mentor gave you the affirmation to trust in your inner knowing and follow its path and you have passed that gift along to all you have touched, from friends and family to the public through your many presentations, books and workshops. By stepping forward to share your encounters of the Joy, the Love and the Truth of the God Within, others, including myself, are affirmed in their own direct experience; we are stronger and the world is richer for it. You are a treasure! Happy Birthday, my friend – Freya Secrest

 “Thank you so much for the gift of your time. Your message of Love and God is a service to the world.”

Dorothy, one of my fondest memories of you is watching you swing on the hammock strung between two of our trees out our driveway. You were here holding a workshop. You were 89 or 90 I believe, an icon for me of aging with beauty, joy, and grace. When I first read about you and Findhorn in the seventies I felt connected. Close friends knew of my sense of you and gave me your various books of “messages” over the years.
 
When I found you holding a class in Issaquah I was there immediately, soaking you in. Your training with your inner guidance teacher was similar to my training, your connection with the Devas more lyrical than mine, yet I could always resonate with your truth deep inside me. I loved that you are a “just do it” kind of person and teacher. And I still use your technique of connecting with Awe, Beauty, and Love with clients to help them find a “God connection”.  
 
Although I was already communicating with plants, being in your presence cemented it into me and helped me to expand my exploration. That you love trees so deeply and were able to communicate their love to the human realm was truly inspirational. Oh my, I still read from your books and every one of your writings brings me reconnection and joy. How ordinary and extraordinary you are! –Christy Carl

“I found myself coming more and more into my true nature and seeing everything and everyone as beautiful, including me.”
 
As I read your book Choices of Love, so many passages remind me, Dorothy, of your wonderfully blue eyes, how you encourage as well as challenge all who speak with you, your incredibly tender tone with all that seeks to grow or share this earth with us, your interest in all spirituality that is eminently practical, and your abiding love for God:
 
"We (Eileen, Peter and Dorothy) have been taken as models, and our ordinariness is our strength: if we can touch something divine—and we did—then anyone can. The point is that anyone can. We are part of the sacred all the time unconsciously, or we could not draw breath or have a heartbeat or experience emotions or thoughts. To be aware of what we are, of our divinity, and to live it on earth is our loving destiny."
 
"…when I followed constant inner reminders to do everything with love, I felt better, things worked out, relationships with others improved. I have experienced many examples of the practicality of choosing love or connecting with the soul level and of how the results of these choices changed my life."
 
"Choosing love does not mean that we lose all discrimination or cease acting on behalf of the whole or of any particular situation. More clearly than ever we are open to recognizing inequalities, cruelties, harshness, and so on, and to taking any action for which we can be responsible. We need to follow our inner integrity with greater faithfulness than ever. We commit ourselves to the whole, to the planet."
 
Thank you for the endless nourishment within the story of your life, your faithfulness to your chosen path AND your wicked sense of humor!  May you have a joyous birthday and all the cake you crave!–Claire Blatchford

“Thank you so very much for the loving workshop. I loved being in your presence and hearing your stories- so human and real. I see what a life committed to God and Love can look like – kind eyes.”

Dorothy, you have always been a model for me of loving the earth, and listening to earth wisdom, in deeply practical and real ways. That practical aspect has been so important to me. When I was first starting to explore spirituality back in the 1970’s at Findhorn, I found plenty of resources for learning about the spiritual concepts that I responded to intuitively. But there you were, saying, “Where do you find joy, and beauty? Just listen to the flowers.  Listen to the vegetables. Listen to the soil, the mountains, the landscape, the water, the clouds. Listen to the God within.” You had even listened to the Rue deva!  

You helped me to understand that these spiritual concepts weren’t only beautiful and uplifting ideas, they were living presences that could shape my life. I loved your no-nonsense honesty. It gave me permission to be my Self, and have my own experience of spirit.  I am still learning how to do that.

Thank you, Dorothy, for being in the world. Thank you for your own inimitable unique presence. I am so glad and honored to know you.  Happy Birthday! With so much love. –Rue Hass

“What worked well for me (during this workshop)? Dorothy - her presence, her voice, her reading, her smile, her bright blue eyes, her laughter.”

Whenever I think of you, Dorothy, I think of yellow, of basking in warm sunlight. The first time I met you was at a weekend class with David. Your book, To Honor the Earth, had recently been published and you came to share it with us. You wore yellow and you glowed. I knew your name and relationship with Findhorn, but only in a superficial way.  As years past we came to know each other, first as participants in some of David’s workshops, then as friends. I might have been in awe of you but there was nothing about your no-nonsense, down-to-earth presence that would allow for that.

We shared a wonderful and adventurous weekend when we went to the annual Fairy and Human Relationship Congress together. You were offering a workshop and participating in a panel discussion. On the rural road to the Congress, we stopped for a white male peacock who stood in the middle of the road. He unfurled his magnificent tail and displayed before us in the morning sun. Time did not matter in the presence of that magic.  And I will always remember our drive home, you and I in our little silver car whizzing down the ribbon of highway, the Cascade Mountains on either side, with Beethoven’s 8th Symphony and the 3rd Leonora Overture playing as loud as we wanted, both of us grinning.  Shining, full of life, ready for adventure - that is how I know you, Dorothy.– Madelyn P.

Happy Birthday, Dorothy. This month, and always, we celebrate you!

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If you would like to “meet” Dorothy and experience her wisdom, please visit the Lorian Bookstore. Lorian also offers a self-study module with recordings of one of Dorothy’s workshops in which she leads you through her “Doorways” exercise.

9-11 and 11-9

By Annabel Chiarelli

Editor’s Note: The Lorian Association, as spiritual community, is nonpartisan, but our writers and readers come from diverse social and political backgrounds. With the nation so divided and the future on nearly everyone’s minds, it’s inevitable that some of our blog posts may reflect certain political leanings. Always our goal is to promote an Incarnational viewpoint. In the upcoming weeks we will be publishing blog posts from both liberal and conservative perspectives that offer insight into how real people in our nation are coming together and bridging divisions, even and especially the ones within themselves.

Tarot friends of mine have pointed out the correspondences between 9/11 and 11/9 and the burning, collapsing Tower card.

In many ways, this election and its evolving aftermath remind me of my 9/11 experience, but not in the way you might think.

I was working in an office just 4 blocks away from the Twin Towers and was one of the many people escaping in that beige cloud of dust and particles that enveloped the whole area. We literally could not see two feet in front of us.
 
Rumors were flying, and as far as we knew there were other planes set to bomb all the major landmarks in New York. People were scared— to say the least.

And yet, in the midst of this tragedy and terror I felt the energy of fiery hope and joy–not the ordinary emotion, but the joy that is at the root of the generative mystery. I saw beautiful acts of humanity.

The director of my office, a family man with young children, had gone downstairs before the first tower collapsed to see what was going on and saw the towers burning with people jumping out of the windows. He could have easily cut and run to save himself for his family’s sake, but instead he came back upstairs to do his duty as the fire marshall of our floor, to warn everyone to evacuate immediately.

The building supers and doormen who waited in the lobby and handed out masks to all of us as we emerged from the stairwell.

The people who came with their private boats to help evacuees who lived in New Jersey get home.

The cabs who offered people free rides uptown.

The shopkeepers who handed out bottles of cold water to those of us covered in dust, making our way home on foot.

Our defenses were down and we were there for each other. Yes, there were a few people who thought only of themselves, a few shopkeepers who tried to take advantage of the situation by price gouging, but the vast majority stepped up and responded with love and human kinship. We were all in it together.

In a city where people go out of their way to avoid interacting with strangers, you could talk with anyone on the street and feel like you were talking with a friend. This most horrible day of my life was also in a strange way the most beautiful.
 
Right now a good portion of our country is caught up in anger and panic on the one hand, and gloating and denial on the other. I understand how that feels. Right after 9/11 and the spiritual epiphany of that day, the enormity of what had happened landed in my psyche with a huge thud and I descended into a dark period of worry and terror and rage. (Watching the news didn’t help.) I was furious with those who tried to lecture me about how this was karma, the result of U.S. foreign policy. I was furious with the perpetrators and with the people I saw on TV apparently ululating with joy. I was scared to ride the subway, sure that would be the next target. I was scared to go anywhere there might be a crowd.

But there was also some part of me that knew I couldn’t go on like that. Some part of me that knew that that wasn’t who I really am, who I wanted to be. “The Scream” (David Spangler’s name for negative energy on earth generated by human hatred, wars, rage, etc.) is powerful, and it feeds off of and abets our negative energies and emotions, but the Light is equally powerful, much more so in my experience. I think of that line by Leonard Cohen, “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in,” and that has proven to be true for me over and over again, through the dark times I’ve been through, even the one that most traumatized me and shook my sense of safety and identity.
 
What I mean is that I’ve found it to be very hard work to dwell in anger and fear over the long term. The Light is always looking for any little crack to get in and it takes a lot of work to keep pushing it away. It took me a very long time to understand this, but I came to see that all I had to do was let the cracks open, to not resist under the misconception that somehow my fear or my anger would make me safer or stronger.
 
I am well aware of the ugly facts and the potential dangers that we face. But I am also a “responder,” a servant of Gaia and of humanity, and this is where the rubber meets the road. The principles of Incarnational Spirituality aren’t just intellectual concepts, they are very real presences. David hadn’t even articulated them yet, but I didn’t need that mental framework to know in my deepest self that they were there for us on 9/11 and they are here for us now.
 
However you are feeling about the election, I share my experience with you in the hope that you consider allowing the cracks in your life to open where the Light can get in. That is where real strength and courage and safety dwells.

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Happy Holidays! Views from the Lorian Community is taking a short hiatus to honor the season and will be back in January 2017. Much gratitude to all of our subscribers, readers and followers on Facebook for your support this year!

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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.

And There Was Light

By Claire Blatchford, Art by Deborah Koff-Chapin
                                            
Shortly after the election I felt the need to reconnect with someone I admire, someone whose way of being in the world has always been an inspiration to me. I’ve actually never met this man in person—only through his writings—yet regard him as a close friend.

 Jacques Lusseyran may also be familiar to some of you. He is best known for his book And There Was Light. He was born in Paris in 1924 and became totally blind from an accident when eight years old. Yet he discovered early on as a child that, although he couldn’t see in the usual way with his physical eyes, he could still see. And this “seeing” could grow, expand, and move in different directions. Here is how he describes the start of this discovery in his memoir:

I began to look more closely, not at things, but at a world closer to myself, looking from an inner place to one further within, instead of clinging to the movement of sight toward the world outside.

Immediately the substance of the universe drew together, redefined and peopled itself anew. I was aware of a radiance emanating from a place I knew nothing about, a place that might as well have been outside me as within. But radiance was there, or, to put it more precisely, light. It was a fact, for light was there.

I felt indescribable relief, and happiness so great it almost made me laugh. Confidence and gratitude came as if a prayer had been answered. I found light and joy at the same moment, and I can say without hesitation that from that time on light and joy have never been separated in my experience. I have had them or lost them together.

I saw light and went on seeing it though I was blind.

This may sound rather poetical to you-- Jacques’ writing is full of poetry—but for me, when I was 28 and first read of his different way of “seeing”—his words were more than merely lyrical, they rang true.  I, myself, am not blind but am profoundly deaf. Like Jacques I lost my hearing suddenly at a young age and began my journey into the discovery that there are many ways of hearing even if one’s physical ears are damaged. The larger discovery, though, was that I, too, found confidence and gratitude in the “radiance” Jacques describes. I was unable to name this radiance, this light, as he did till much later in my life. We can know and yet not know something-- and when I first read his book -- my immediate response was, “Yes, I am pretty sure I know what he’s talking about!”  This is why I go back to his words, and the way he lived out his understanding of and connection with light, that light which can be found within each and all of us, and especially when the darkness feels pronounced. As it does now in these confusing times.

In his book Jacques describes being able to “see” objects by way of the inner light. Because of it he was able to find his way not only around his home and the neighborhood he lived in, but when walking in the mountains as well.  The light stimulated other forms of seeing within him. For example, in his home or neighborhood, the felt sense of familiar objects around him, their placement, the spaces between them and their light-- for all that is incarnated has light-- enabled him to “see” and thus to move with confidence. When in the mountains an even deeper seeing was awakened in such a way Jacques could instinctively see the rise and fall of the land. He struggled to explain this seeing to his best friend who had normal eyesight:

The reality—the oneness of the world—left me in the lurch, incapable of explaining it, because it seemed obvious. I could only repeat: “There is only one world. Things outside only exist if you go to meet them with everything you carry in yourself. As to the things inside, you will never see them well unless you allow those outside to enter in."

Especially helpful to me was Jacques’ discovery that, if he was angry or fearful, in short wasn’t attuned to the light, he had great difficulty, stumbled, banged into things, was unable to find his way. He showed me how I can become altogether deaf when I’m out of sorts, lacking in gratitude, oblivious to the radiance in the world and myself.

When Jacques was fifteen, Paris was invaded and the German occupation began. A year later, with a few close friends, he formed and headed an underground resistance movement of six hundred youths. Because of what his comrades called his “sense of human beings”  Jacques was chosen to interview all recruits. He could “see” into men, could see the light or the dark of the thoughts they held in their hearts. Being able to use this seeing for the good of his country guided him day by day.

I was madly happy to be doing this work, to have men in front of me, to make them speak out about themselves, to induce them to say things they were not in the habit of saying because these things were set too deep in them—suddenly to hear in their voices the note above all others, the note of confidence. This filled me with assurance that was very like love. Around me it drew a magic circle of protection, a sign that nothing bad could happen to me. The light that shone in my head was so bright, and so strong that it was like joy distilled. Somehow I became invulnerable.

From there Jacques’ story took him into Buchenwald after the one man he was uncertain about was recruited, and later betrayed Jacques and his comrades to the Nazis. That he came out alive-- though mere skin and bones-- and went on to become husband, father, university professor and writer was a testament to the Light within.

*

I hope at this point that I don’t sound as though I’m just writing a review of a book which is both luminous and incredibly suspenseful. What became clear to me as I tracked down my heavily underlined copy  is how very important the admiration connection is right now. It’s said we become what we admire. In this time of ugly words, thoughts and deeds I feel the need like a hunger: to draw close to the enlightened words, thoughts and deeds of those I admire —here and on the other side too.

Jacques’ discoveries as a blind man not only helped me make sense of my discoveries as a deaf woman, helping me to connect with the essential wholeness that is within everyone of us even if physically different or chronically ill, they showed how we can be blind and deaf in more ways than the physical. The conditions we are in can blind and deafen us to the light within and without.  Jacques’ message is more relevant now than ever: And There IS Light!

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How are you finding Hope these days and kindling the Light within? Please email responses to drenag@lorian.org.
   

Our Lives Belong to Us

By Mary Reddy with Pat Reddy

Editor's Note: The Lorian Association, as spiritual community, is nonpartisan, but our writers and readers come from diverse social and political backgrounds. With the nation so divided and the future on nearly everyone's minds, it's inevitable that some of our blog posts may reflect certain political leanings. Always our goal is to promote an Incarnational viewpoint. In the upcoming weeks we will be publishing blog posts from both liberal and conservative perspectives that offer insight into how real people in our nation are coming together and bridging divisions, even and especially the ones within themselves.

On election night, when it became obvious that Trump would win, my body slammed into fight-or-flight mode. Adrenaline pumping high, stomach twisting—it took me long hours to physically calm down. I knew right away that I’d fallen into my childhood response of shunting strong emotion into my somatic field before I could even begin to feel it. Perhaps this served me well when I was very young. But as an adult, I’ve worked on opening to my emotions, because I understand how they serve me. I understand that they will not kill me or anyone else.

But sometimes the old pattern switches into gear before I can stop it. And I had one of those nights. As I lay sleepless, trying to soothe my body’s frenetic pulsing with measured breathing, I began to feel my emotions. They crept out of hiding. And they brought with them a great longing to be with people I love. Being together with loved ones felt like the most important thing to do in the face of fear and loss.

When the sun rose the next day, I spoke with people by email and by phone. My brother Pat sent me an email in which he wrote so beautifully about where he stood, that I asked his permission to share it more broadly.

“We still have power, individually and collectively, to shape and respond to our present and future. I look outside my window now and wonder if I will still be in this wonderful place in 2 years. There are so many aspects of our future, once seemingly stable, that we feel are up for grabs right now. The list seems endless, and our minds and hearts do what they are supposed to do in these circumstances. We freak out and look for an exit, but there does not seem to be one.

We have power, the power to dance with our own emotions and to dance with whatever the future brings. We have deep power. In my quiet space I will let my terror and revulsion, hopes and fears, dreams and gratitude flow into my consciousness without judgement or any attempts to control them. If this is a disaster, it will play out in slow motion, and fight or flight impulses will not be what get us through. When the dust settles in my psyche, I will look for that collective resilience that is part of our common nature. We cannot individually control what will happen. We each can go through our grieving processes and heal internally. Then it will be clearer to us how we should act. We will be able to let go of whatever it is we need to let go of. We will be able to choose whatever new thing it is we are meant to choose. Self care and at some point working together with all who share this connection to what is good and true will give us the power to dance with whatever comes.  

All I can do right now is surrender to this process. I am willing to not think of things I cannot control or join with others to fight them, whichever ultimately makes sense. I am willing to jettison aspects of my life or my expectations for my life or fight to keep them, whichever ultimately makes sense. I did not choose a future with Trump, and I will not let him defeat my spirit, but this morning I feel the terror that has gripped millions. An uninformed and fearful portion of the country has made a choice that puts all of us in jeopardy. I will not hand over my joy and hope to their fears. These are mine now, and I will do whatever I can to share them with those I love and those in need. I will do whatever I can to receive wisdom and strength from others. I will wait for those deep inner powers and faculties, deep in our souls where all things are connected. I must wait for them to console me, to show me my reality, and to take over the dancing when the shock and grief have subsided. These inner realities are much bigger than what just happened to us and more omnipresent. Our lives belong to us."

Karla McLaren, in The Language of Emotions, writes about the great gifts our emotions offer us, if we wisely honor them and allow them to flow through us—especially the so-called negative emotions. Fear alerts us to focus our attention on our environment. Anger energizes us to firm up our boundaries or move into right action. Grief allows us to release, to let go, in the face of loss. Weeks after the election, I am once more feeling my feelings. And in that alive state, I am reunited with fiery hope. This is my life, your life. We are here together. Oh, the things we can do!

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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.

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.