My week has been underpinned by a conversation, or lack of conversation about community. I work in an organisation that offers learning experiences within a community. The beauty of community is it can not be forced. It is organic. It is invitational. And everyone moves through and accepts that invitation in their own way, in relation to their own needs. Community is not synonymous with conformity. This week I have seen how community untangles itself when people are invited into experiences that do not serve them or do not meet their needs. The result is disentanglement and a community fraying at the edges and fragmenting. Again I repeat, fraying and fragments is not synonymous with failing, rather it simply highlights or indicates places in which attention is needed to be focused. Tending and mending not fighting or flighting. It's all about perspective here and what story you see to be told.
I pause a moment to notice what I am experiencing and go back to the words of Sobonfu Some, who says, 'In my tradition community is the guiding light behind any being, any person, that helps that person or being achieve their life purpose. Without a community an individual is lost without a place to contribute, without a place where a light can be shone upon them.'
This week my community has carried on in it's practices, ways, structures whilst we notice anomalies, disturbances and interruptions. It's all feedback into the system to use a language of science. People are voting with their feet, electing to be somewhere else, anywhere else but in the place they have been invited. In a community that practices open space this is how it should be. From that perspective all is well. And yet it isn't. The disturbance could potentially put at risk a new venture, a new attempt to create community and a place of learning. It is also causing hurt to some individuals as well as confusion to others. How to be and how to respond in these circumstances is challenging. The invitation from our teachers is to track what is happening and to surrender to what is happening. Letting go into this confusion feels very counter intuitive to me. When all around feels unfocused, ungrounded, without meaning or purpose or a centre the desire to step in and reconfigure some semblance of order is strong. And yet I am learning that force and imposition is not the way either.
What is the gesture, the way to be in these times of confusion and uncertainty, of grief and hurt?
What can I offer?
A loving heart .
A willingness to participate .
A commitment to continue listening and track what is unfolding.
Is this enough I ask?
In my discomfort I recognise I do not have any answers except to know I cannot do this alone.
I need a community to be in community.
I am filled with hireath, saudade, longing and yearning for a HEALTHY community to see me, to see one another so that everyone has a place to contribute and shine.
I pause a moment and return to the words of Sobonfu Some, 'Community basically goes into the real nitty gritty of our human need. It is at the core of our human existence. Upon community becomes relationships. We all know healthy relationships are at the heart of every human life. Without a healthy relationship we will continue to do therapy until we comeback and die again and nothing is going to change. What we are yearning for is basically a place that will give us that home. Not just a physical home. A lot of us have homes and we even have alarms in them. Sometimes we go home and the alarm is still going off and we are looking in the closet in case someone got in there. The home we are really longing for is not something that is outside somewhere. The homes that we are looking for is actually in the heart, in the soul of other people out there. This notion that you cannot go back home is true and it is true the notion that you can go home. ' [PARADOX]
When faced with this paradox, all is well, all is not well, what to do then? How do go home when your community is dysfunctional to some degree (frayed and fragmenting) or not there even? Or maybe I am being too harsh and focusing on the fraying and judging it. Maybe what I need to do is practice gratitude and to bring appreciation of the beauty and joy that is present alongside the grief and chaos.
Sobonfu Some says, 'You can go home to the heart of a people who hold you in, or who have always held a space for you. As long as someone has a space in their heart for you you will always go home. This is why in the Dagara tradition they will say, either we are all going to go home or no one goes home. And that is why people who are homeless help us look at our own homelessness. It's not because we live in a home that we don't feel homeless. We still feel that longing for someone to recognise who we are. This is beyond the need for other people to make us be what they want us to be to make them feel comfortable. It's people who really know there is a spirit in this person. That there is a spirit that has come with a purpose whose gift needs to be seen so they can be freed. IF WE'RE NOT HERE WITH GIFT THEN WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE? The power of a community is to find that gift within the community were we belong. The gift that our community must receive. That is why we are continuously creating clubs. That is why we are continuously looking for one more degree. Hoping that it is now going to give us permission to go out and live our purpose instead of making a living. In a context [a community] where your gifts are valued what you bring is exactly what the community needs. You don't need to make a living. All you need to do is be yourself, live your purpose. That is part of the reason why the government doesn't like artists very much, because we don't conform. Artists will continue to do what they need to do - thank god. If artists don't create art we will all go crazy. Art is what keeps us sane. How do we then create this [community] space?
Sobonfu Some leaves me there, hanging upside down, with the words 'We'll find out'. At this I smile because she seems to have the humility to recognise that this is where we all find ourselves in our collective earth community today. In a place, stepping into the uncertainty, unknown space of finding out. And for me she points to ways of being ... creative, artistic, non-conformist ways of being to keep myself and my community sane.
I am left at the end of this week with a few words as guides in a dark place.
Trust
Simplicity
Surrender
Tracking
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