How Am/Are I/You/We Being?: Let's Be Radical … Together!

Hmmm … the ride seems to be getting wilder. 

I feel like I’m living in a Carole King/James Taylor song with the Earth movin’ under my feet and the sky a-tumblin’ down. When I ask myself, “How am I being in relationship with what is happening in our world?” … I take a cue now from the Beatles … “with a little help from my friends.”

Contemplations arise:

When it seems like the world is falling apart, how might we come together? 
How do we shift the trajectory from fragment-ing to fractal-ing?  
What assumptions underlie separation and othering? What is the shared reality that we are not paying attention to?
What is more deeply true?

Imaginings unfold:

I find myself in a forest, walking among what-appear-to-be-separate trees and plants, listening to the song of birds and wind. Seeing a mushroom, I am reminded that beneath my feet, below the surface, there is a network of life-supporting connectivity and mutual nourishment being distributed to all the life forms above – the miraculous mycelium.  

It seems that many of us, particularly in the Western world’s culture of Modernity, have forgotten that, like the trees in the forest, we are part of a vast ecosystem. We have drifted into a delusion of separation, hierarchy, and materialism, and we are surprised that we feel lonely, powerless, and unfulfilled. As the impacts of uncertainty and change are felt more and more strongly, there is increased grasping, reactivity, fear, and anger – perspective narrows and hearts are hardened. 

But here’s the paradox:

At this same time, there are, all over the world, people and organizations who are coming together to engage an ecosystemic perspective … to move into relational thinking and being, to embody a different way of being together and in the world. Rather than breaking down, there is a breaking through … a leaning into a new way of being human that is beyond the limitations of rigid roles, definitions, identifies, schedules, and divisions that try to insert control and separation into a world and Universe of creativity and entanglement. Perhaps we, individually and collectively, are experiencing an initiation that moves us from suffering and disconnection into healing and belonging. 

Sounds like a good idea to me. In fact, that’s how I’m choosing to be in relationship with climate (and everything!) change.

Two questions that I reflect on daily are:

• How am I being?

• What is the quality of connection that I am cultivating here?

Bringing the qualities of openness, presence, curiosity, compassion and equanimity to my being informs my doing and deepens my relationship with all beings. Blocking of these qualities is my mindfulness bell for healing, tenderness, and encouragement in service of evolution – of increasing complexity and connection. This is my wish for myself and for all beings … and for the people and community of Monterey Bay Meditation Studio.

This wish is at the center of expansions that I’m bringing to my psychotherapy practice, to my Studio teachings, and to my daily life. In all of these arenas, I am bringing a relational focus that engages meditation practice, skillful communication, reverence and reciprocity with Outdoors, creativity, and conscious action.

Back to the mycelium:

The word radical comes from Latin radicalis, “of or having roots;” it has been used to refer to what is “vital to life” or essential. Fungi played an essential role in the origin of complex life forms on Earth. They maintain the health of soil, decomposing dead matter and nourishing plants. They regenerate ecosystems after environmental disasters. They create networks of communication. … And we are just beginning to discover their intelligence.

Perhaps we can follow their lead – maintaining health of Earth, composting beliefs and structures that are no longer needed, nourishing life in all her forms, healing harms, and cultivating connection. I invite us into co-creation of Radical Community, one that embodies willingness to explore, discover, and reveal who we are as we engage consciousness in our becoming.

In 2018, MBMS offered a 3-day retreat, “Awakening to Interconnection.” In 2019, we offered a 3-day retreat, “Awakening to Interbeing.” Little did we know then that we were laying groundwork for the qualities of relational being that would be needed throughout the world as conscious response to entering an initiation of global healing, transformation, and evolution.

Radical Community, indeed! 

For Radical Engagement Treats and Inspirations:

• Attune to this offering by Beautiful Chorus: “Brilliant Mycelium”;

• Watch (or re-watch) the documentary Fantastic Fungi;

• Read Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures, by Merlin Sheldrake.

  
  Marianne

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