I believe in US. Universal Source. Unique Self. We are all one here with the Universe - the plants, the stones, the air, the water, the winds, the Earth. Interbeing could even be an understatement✨ so many manifestations of higher powers made visible❤️🕸️🌱🌈🪬
Crikey, Wendy. This is Gorgeous. I can feel the aliveness in this story especially as your origin story weaves with what is unfolding now and in the moment. It feels as though something is unfurling and there is more life yet becoming. I love it. Tingles.
I am so glad you like it! You sent me down the rabbit hole of Interbeing, and I came out right where I needed to be. I hope this proves to be a great conversation starter next week. I feel like it advances the convergence of all the various streams we all swim in. Interbeing is the ocean, and we all arrive through different byways, but once we find it, we don’t want to leave its shore. Can’t wait to see where the story goes next week!
Bruce Wilson was having difficulty posting and asked me to share these comments. For those who do not know Bruce, he is a retired Episcopal Priest and an amazing community cultivator working in Texas.
Thank you. Knowing you, I am not surprised to see this essay, but it is great good fun to see how you are organizing your thoughts and experiences, and creating them at the same time.
You know me, I share your journey, and I trust the process. It has been a source of insight and energy for me, as I just take one step at a time. I got onto the journey through Ken Wilbur’s work on stages and states of consciousness — which is both an individual journey and a collective one. I have seen and experienced the pushback of egoic and tribal consciousness as I have embraced the deepest truth of kinship and connection of the whole human race — personally and collectively. I am still new and working on the global or eco-centric stage of consciousness, such as your connection with the demise of your tree friends, and I can have occasional spikes (states) of higher levels of integrated consciousness — cosmic, etc. My personal pushback is mostly from accusing myself of getting to woo-woo, or new agey. But my horror is seeing the pushback of egoic and tribal stages of consciousness tearing apart our democracy in favor of a toxic and destructive rugged individualism and survivalism — every man and woman for themselves.
I fully embrace that God has always dealt with God’s creation as a whole. That the omega point has always been the apokatastasis (restoration of all things), where “all things” means “all things.” That was the mission of the main stream of Christianity for centuries — until the Protestant Reformation movement and the age of individualism. The central driving energy of Christianity was (not unlike other religions) the one-ness of all things — already and not yet. Now it seems to largely be just saving our own individual butts in the afterlife by believing the right things and behaving in the right ways.
But I believe that all of my unitive experiences are my brushes with the Kingdom of God as Jesus experienced and taught it — a Kingdom that is already at hand, already within and all around us, in the world but not of the world. Trans-individual. I love my neighbor because I AM my neighbor. And my I am meeting new and interesting neighbors every time I have the eyes to see and the ears to hear — the lilies of the field, the birds of the air, the mustard seed, the foxes that have holes in the ground, the Holy Wind/Breath/Spirit, as mush as my homeless community.
For me, the poets have always been alert and alive to interbeingness. “Ask not for whom the bell tolls” or “Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean” or “I don’t know exactly what a prayer is, but I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to stroll through the fields…” Poets are my eyes and ears to the connectedness of all creation.
I also know better than to just treat my backache with stretching exercises. My whole posture has to learn how to support my psoas and my bones and my extensors — all the time. It’s all connected.
I will add that the individual as well as the society and all creation, has an equal value, not a subordinate value but DEI value. You mention the mystic. The wisdom literature in our tradition is very individualistic, but in the context of connectedness. Everyone finds their own way their own way. We are all waking up individually, as well as collectively. But the individual and the collective are connected as well as everything else in creation. At the core of reality there is no duality, only unity. The journey of cosmic restoration is personally transformative. It couldn’t be otherwise. The restoration of ALL things is ALL THINGS — even the relationship between the individual and the ecosystem, the atom and the galaxy, the human and the divine. It is all one — for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. We are all just waking up, growing up, and walking each other home.
I consider it to fall easily within Christian tradition, especially Christian mysticism. In considering whether it would burn any bridges with other Christian traditions, I think of an M. Scott Peck teaching from The Road Less Traveled. He considers people to be on a spiritual spectrum that has chaos at one end, representing a life that is out of control. A rigid belief system can be helpful to an addict or teenager or someone who needs to get their life on firm footing. Thus, for some people a strict religious viewpoint (conservative) is growth from where they used to be. If they continue growing, the people who doubt everything will be the ones who they find challenging, and who they resist, but also the ones they can at least understand, and they are likely to begin to acknowledge that there really are grey areas that can't be explained by a strict religious perspective. If they move on to doubting everything, then there is the possibility of reaching a mature spirituality, in which one accepts paradox, accepts that there is much we can't explain, and that actually makes God and Spirit more real, instead of less. Peck wrote that people who are 1 step away from each other can talk and relate, but people who are 2 steps apart on this continuum are actually speaking languages that don't even make sense to each other. I'd consider your writing to be on the mature end (4th stage). Many will value it. But probably the majority of American Christians are at stage 2 and resisting stage 3, considering it quite threatening. For them, you are talking a foreign language. For those who become doubters of all things Christian or churchy, your writing may well be bridge builders towards a mature spirituality.
Thank you for being a bridge builder and for holding your faith in a way that all feel welcome and accepted. That is my hope for my Substack publication. I do, however, find myself drawn increasingly to those who feel like they are outside the walls of inherited forms of religion. The narrative of interbeing feels like such a beautiful and expansive way of holding space for everyone in a world that seems to continually fracture and separate us. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts so others can learn from your wisdom!
Yes, yes, yes! "life force is in the connections"!!!!
Susan Simard's work shows every time a tree has a choice between keeping resources for itself or sharing with forest community, they choose the forest every time. Every time! We have to unlearn the empire's definition of success. My new guiding phrase after Wild Roots is "all of this for every one". I want all of the communal love we experienced to be available to every being on earth. I can't possibly do that myself but like a tree I can send out what I have to the forest and those who need it can have it. I can spread the pollen of joy all over my corner of the world and pray the winds and waters carry it where it needs to go. Trusting the life force will grow and we grow our connections.
I believe in US. Universal Source. Unique Self. We are all one here with the Universe - the plants, the stones, the air, the water, the winds, the Earth. Interbeing could even be an understatement✨ so many manifestations of higher powers made visible❤️🕸️🌱🌈🪬
Thank you for reading and sharing your beautiful insights. I am so thankful for our local circle of freaky friends!
Crikey, Wendy. This is Gorgeous. I can feel the aliveness in this story especially as your origin story weaves with what is unfolding now and in the moment. It feels as though something is unfurling and there is more life yet becoming. I love it. Tingles.
I am so glad you like it! You sent me down the rabbit hole of Interbeing, and I came out right where I needed to be. I hope this proves to be a great conversation starter next week. I feel like it advances the convergence of all the various streams we all swim in. Interbeing is the ocean, and we all arrive through different byways, but once we find it, we don’t want to leave its shore. Can’t wait to see where the story goes next week!
Bruce Wilson was having difficulty posting and asked me to share these comments. For those who do not know Bruce, he is a retired Episcopal Priest and an amazing community cultivator working in Texas.
Thank you. Knowing you, I am not surprised to see this essay, but it is great good fun to see how you are organizing your thoughts and experiences, and creating them at the same time.
You know me, I share your journey, and I trust the process. It has been a source of insight and energy for me, as I just take one step at a time. I got onto the journey through Ken Wilbur’s work on stages and states of consciousness — which is both an individual journey and a collective one. I have seen and experienced the pushback of egoic and tribal consciousness as I have embraced the deepest truth of kinship and connection of the whole human race — personally and collectively. I am still new and working on the global or eco-centric stage of consciousness, such as your connection with the demise of your tree friends, and I can have occasional spikes (states) of higher levels of integrated consciousness — cosmic, etc. My personal pushback is mostly from accusing myself of getting to woo-woo, or new agey. But my horror is seeing the pushback of egoic and tribal stages of consciousness tearing apart our democracy in favor of a toxic and destructive rugged individualism and survivalism — every man and woman for themselves.
I fully embrace that God has always dealt with God’s creation as a whole. That the omega point has always been the apokatastasis (restoration of all things), where “all things” means “all things.” That was the mission of the main stream of Christianity for centuries — until the Protestant Reformation movement and the age of individualism. The central driving energy of Christianity was (not unlike other religions) the one-ness of all things — already and not yet. Now it seems to largely be just saving our own individual butts in the afterlife by believing the right things and behaving in the right ways.
But I believe that all of my unitive experiences are my brushes with the Kingdom of God as Jesus experienced and taught it — a Kingdom that is already at hand, already within and all around us, in the world but not of the world. Trans-individual. I love my neighbor because I AM my neighbor. And my I am meeting new and interesting neighbors every time I have the eyes to see and the ears to hear — the lilies of the field, the birds of the air, the mustard seed, the foxes that have holes in the ground, the Holy Wind/Breath/Spirit, as mush as my homeless community.
For me, the poets have always been alert and alive to interbeingness. “Ask not for whom the bell tolls” or “Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean” or “I don’t know exactly what a prayer is, but I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to stroll through the fields…” Poets are my eyes and ears to the connectedness of all creation.
I also know better than to just treat my backache with stretching exercises. My whole posture has to learn how to support my psoas and my bones and my extensors — all the time. It’s all connected.
I will add that the individual as well as the society and all creation, has an equal value, not a subordinate value but DEI value. You mention the mystic. The wisdom literature in our tradition is very individualistic, but in the context of connectedness. Everyone finds their own way their own way. We are all waking up individually, as well as collectively. But the individual and the collective are connected as well as everything else in creation. At the core of reality there is no duality, only unity. The journey of cosmic restoration is personally transformative. It couldn’t be otherwise. The restoration of ALL things is ALL THINGS — even the relationship between the individual and the ecosystem, the atom and the galaxy, the human and the divine. It is all one — for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. We are all just waking up, growing up, and walking each other home.
I consider it to fall easily within Christian tradition, especially Christian mysticism. In considering whether it would burn any bridges with other Christian traditions, I think of an M. Scott Peck teaching from The Road Less Traveled. He considers people to be on a spiritual spectrum that has chaos at one end, representing a life that is out of control. A rigid belief system can be helpful to an addict or teenager or someone who needs to get their life on firm footing. Thus, for some people a strict religious viewpoint (conservative) is growth from where they used to be. If they continue growing, the people who doubt everything will be the ones who they find challenging, and who they resist, but also the ones they can at least understand, and they are likely to begin to acknowledge that there really are grey areas that can't be explained by a strict religious perspective. If they move on to doubting everything, then there is the possibility of reaching a mature spirituality, in which one accepts paradox, accepts that there is much we can't explain, and that actually makes God and Spirit more real, instead of less. Peck wrote that people who are 1 step away from each other can talk and relate, but people who are 2 steps apart on this continuum are actually speaking languages that don't even make sense to each other. I'd consider your writing to be on the mature end (4th stage). Many will value it. But probably the majority of American Christians are at stage 2 and resisting stage 3, considering it quite threatening. For them, you are talking a foreign language. For those who become doubters of all things Christian or churchy, your writing may well be bridge builders towards a mature spirituality.
Thank you for being a bridge builder and for holding your faith in a way that all feel welcome and accepted. That is my hope for my Substack publication. I do, however, find myself drawn increasingly to those who feel like they are outside the walls of inherited forms of religion. The narrative of interbeing feels like such a beautiful and expansive way of holding space for everyone in a world that seems to continually fracture and separate us. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts so others can learn from your wisdom!
Yes, yes, yes! "life force is in the connections"!!!!
Susan Simard's work shows every time a tree has a choice between keeping resources for itself or sharing with forest community, they choose the forest every time. Every time! We have to unlearn the empire's definition of success. My new guiding phrase after Wild Roots is "all of this for every one". I want all of the communal love we experienced to be available to every being on earth. I can't possibly do that myself but like a tree I can send out what I have to the forest and those who need it can have it. I can spread the pollen of joy all over my corner of the world and pray the winds and waters carry it where it needs to go. Trusting the life force will grow and we grow our connections.