What Really Matters

What if you had the opportunity to listen to wise individuals share teachings about some of the most fundamental questions facing the world today?  What if you could sit in circles, or groupings of people who were interested in discussing what really matters to them? 

When I think about what is taking shape in Toronto at the end of August at the fourth Spirit Matters Gathering, I feel strengthened, inspired, and engaged.  On August 24-26, Indigenous wisdom keepers from around the world will gather to have their knowledge honoured and shared with the public.  In addition, this gathering will bring together all people who are asking one of the fundamental questions of our time:

How do we make the shift from an industrial culture that has hit a crisis point, to a sustainable, life-affirming reality for all who inhabit the Earth?


Instead of pretending that there is nothing happening, or that there is little we can do about the major events overtaking our communities and our world, we have the opportunity to come together in a safe, sacred space to share and to speak what is on our minds and in our hearts.  This conference is an invitation to gather as whole human beings - as citizens of the planet - connected in our deep care and concern for all life.  We can no longer put our heads in the sand and hope the messes that continue to threaten our eco-systems will be magically solved without our contribution.  We can no longer repress the knowledge of Indigenous peoples that has so much to contribute to healing our relationship with the web of creation.

Now is the time to honour what is life-affirming.

Now is the time to speak on behalf of creation.

Now is the time to act with purpose and integrity.

Now is the time to affirm that our spirit truly matters in this process.

For more details about Spirit Matters: Honouring Indigenous Worlds see:


http://www.spiritmatterscommunity.com/

A More Authentic Education

I am proud to be an educator.

I feel privileged to work in the field of education on a daily basis.  It's very challenging and demanding work. Yet it is often joyful, rewarding and, at times, positively miraculous.

Educators are profound cultural workers.  We communicate, transmute and, if we have a critical and holistic vision, transform culture through our work.  In formal educational settings, we teach the skills and concepts necessary to engage meaningfully in the world through literacy, numeracy, scientific inquiry, athletics and the arts. We assess, cajole, praise, and deliver consequences when necessary. In addition to this, our role is to create an emotionally secure environment so that learning can happen without fear, intimidation and threats to the integrity of our students.

This year, our school has committed to running a weekly whole school circle.  Based on traditional ways of being in community, the circle is where we sit as equals. This initiative started in September, and we have all (teachers and students alike) noticed how our strong sense of community has been enhanced by this weekly one hour commitment.  Passing around the talking piece and offering each person within the school a chance to express themselves and be heard has been profound.  Tears, laughter, silence and wise-beyond-their-years insights have woven us closer together and made us all more real to one another.  Bullying at our school is at a true low. 

This circle, backed by a strong anti-bullying policy and commitment to emotional safety that has been in place since the school's inception, has become the place where we make authentic communication and respect a living, integrated reality.   It is sacred time during the week because it is the space where we:

....are seen

....are heard 

....are different

....are similar

....agree

....see things from diverse perspectives 


Through the powerful simplicity of the circle, we remember that we are interconnected.

Where We Go From Here....

Today I share with you an excerpt from a powerful editorial written by Nancy Roof of Kosmos: A Journal for Global Citizens Creating the New Civilization.  If you have never seen this journal, I strongly recommend you check it out.  It is full of inspiring articles, artwork, and insights dedicated to the great paradigm shift of our times.

Nancy writes:

Many of us think that by changing ourselves we can change the world, while Second Axial Spirituality recognizes the expanded need to change the way the world works so that it expresses our basic values.  Alone, we are disempowered and victims of mass media propaganda - designed to scare us into numbness in order to preserve the system.  We urgently need to link our global efforts in a spirit of cooperation, as people in every country wake up to the reality that all issues are interdependent and need to be connected.  Even more importantly, it is up to you and me to change the world - not alone, but together.  Whereas the average person is appalled at the worsening situation and feels helpless to do anything about it, let's consider that there are so many more of us - let's find our place in this era of need.  Let's find out what amazing things we can do together.  Help ignite the worldwide protests!

What would happen if we widened our vision, deepened our ideas, focused on our strategies and experienced our felt-compassion to embrace the plight of every single individual on the planet?  What if we were energized by the possibility of making a difference, rather than being defeated by incessant bad news?  What if we designed new systems that expressed a higher turn of the spiral of our human potential?

If you care abut one billion hungry people without clean water to drink.  If you care about the 100,000 Iraqis who died in a war they never wanted.  If you care about unpiloted drones killing people without human guidance and much more, please join the Global Citizens Movement (GCM): A Global Community of Conscience, Integrity and Action at http://www.kosmosjournal.org/.

We care - do you?

While We Can...

Late in the summer, my partner and I got into the series Six Feet Under on the recommendation of a good friend.  We became riveted, and found ourselves watching a number of episodes weekly.  For those unfamiliar with it, the show is set in a family funeral home, and it explores the lives of those who must deal with death on a daily basis.

Intelligent writing and unexpected story arcs were only part of the appeal, we soon realized.  We found ourselves becoming transformed by the process of having to face mortality in the same way that the funeral directors had to face it - as an inevitability.  What always rescued death from its almost banal march through people's lives could be found the emotion it prompted around those who surrounded the deceased - the memories, the connections, the emotions (including complex feelings of regret and anger) and the intangible essence of the departed soul

I've written about the paradox of life and death before, but it has a slighlty different tone for me now.  I saw the characters, in a very unsentimental way, struggle with life amidst death.  Always they tried to reach for what made them feel most alive, as if to act as a counterweight to what they witnessed.  Each had their own way of trying to make peace with that which they realized could not be avoided.  Sometimes they made unwise choices, and at other times they redeemed themselves with their sheer humanity.

Our culture often has a way of making violent death 'normal', yet the true feelings and awareness of our actual death are often unmentionable and the reality, as well as the true grief, remain hidden.  As I witness some brave souls around me facing serious illness, as well those coming to terms with the onset of advanced age, I am reminded that the true gift of life is found in all that we share while we can.

Brave Men

I am currently reading two books, both very different yet culturally necessary, and each written by someone I would consider a brave man.


The first, The World As it Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress is written by Chris Hedges.  He is uncompromising in his indictment of our current economic and political system in the West, which he considers morally and ethically bankrupt.  Hedges points out that we are living in times where we have lost our cultural memory, and as a result, we are ever more vulnerable to the forces of totalitarianism.  In addition, he laments the violence and greed which characterize American society, and the ease with which war and militarism have seeped into the psyche of the nation, serving as a reflex response to any threat to its interests.


The second, Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman is written by Malidoma Somé.  In this autobiography, Somé shares his painful journey of transversing the colonial intervention into his culture, and finding his way back to a spiritually rich and precious heritage.  Through his story, he reveals the depth at the heart of the shamanic traditions of his people, while trying to build a bridge of understanding to the Western mind - a mind that has lost touch with the ground of its being.


Both men are deeply troubled by the violence and alienation which are so prevalent in the world today, and both call for a remembrance of core human values, and the absolute necessity to honour these values in times where environmental, ethical and political decay are seeping into the collective at an alarming rate.  In addition, while each man comes out of a different religious and spiritual tradition, both are loudly beckoning for a re-sacralization of what is best in us as human beings.


Chris Hedges and Malidoma Somé help to redefine our notion of the Warrior, and reclaim it as beings who honour the integrity and beauty of life.

A Thought to Ponder...

Today I offer you this reflection from Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee:

As this era of masculine dominance comes to an end and a feminine understanding of life’s wholeness is included, we are beginning to experience a different world in which physical, mental, and spiritual well-being are interdependent. We see the signs of this in the new age movement. But the new age movement is often limited by its focus on individual well-being. Our real concern is the well-being of the planet and the whole of humanity. Central to this is the understanding that the physical world cannot be healed from a solely physical perspective, but requires a shift to an attitude that contains a multi-dimensional approach.                                                                         

Confronting Fundamentalism

The events which transpired in Norway this past week are deeply disturbing and horrifying.  The portrait emerging in the news is of a madman so devoted to his own twisted ideals that he could kill so coldly; he clearly feels no remorse, no shame, and no compassion for his victims. So in thrall was he with his vision of a 'perfect' Norway - a white Norway - that he meticulously devoted his resources, time, and energy to fulfilling his own messianic role in a "cleansing" of political elements not in line with his vision of the world.  Shades of fascism rearing their heads within our world yet again.

Last night I watched Rex Murphy of the CBC present a passionate and indignant response to these events.  I kept waiting for him to connect the powerful dots of his arguments to the bigger picture.  He did not.  I was very disappointed.  He wanted to individulize this event, and not turn it into a "political football" (his words).  At the same time, by avoiding the clear racial and ethnic dimensions involved in these acts, he weakened his own moral position.  I wonder if he would have individualized these attacks if a Muslim had committed them in the name of Islam.  I am not so sure - but this remains my speculation in light of the deep bias that is often at work in situations such as these.

In fact, in the hours that followed the attacks, the media were already (erroneously) suggesting that these acts were committed in the name of Islamic fundamentalism.  It's always uncomfortable for the West to examine the shadow of its own culture - its own fundamentalism, racism and hatred.  The fundamentalisms at work in our world today mirror each other.  Fundamentalism and extremism are the scourges tearing at the fabric of unity, diversity, love and compassion - regardless of whether these beliefs are being exercised by a Muslim or a Christian.

Our task, as a global populace both individually and collectively, is to transform fundamentalism and extremism.  There are, and will continue to be, disagreements about how to best do this - and about the degree of cultural openness a society can expand towards while honouring the paradoxical aim to preserve cultural traditions and values.

The symbol of this task is best embodied not in a particular religious symbol, but in the sacred and universal symbol of the circle.  Each individual sits in the circle in their full integrity, but the circle can ever expand to hold more difference and diversity without erasing the identity of its participants. Indigenous cultures - ones which were often subject to the kind of  ethnic "cleansing" the Norwegian extremist espoused - often practiced the wisdom and truth of the circle that the world so desperately needs today. 

The circle is inherently inclusive, loving and infinite - without beginning or end.  It envelops us all in an embrace of belonging, as our deepest source of belonging does not reside with our families or even our cultures, as central as these forms can be to our identity.  First and foremost, we belong to the earth and to all that is - to this great cosmic mother whose various creative chemical and biological permutations through billions of years resulted in the extraordinary event of each one of our births.  When we deny this truth, our hearts shrink and close, and we become more intent on control and perfection. The identification with an ideal that lives outside of the earthly realm becomes a fantasy of "purity."

United in the truth of our deep connection with the earth, our hearts can expand to receive and honour all of life.  In so doing, we can hold an ever increasing consciousness of the truth of diversity.  Diversity supports life - it is at the heart of the life process itself. 

May this wisdom come forth to guide us through the rocky storms ahead.