Tag: community

It is Always Now

Mommy, they’re not growing yet!”  protested the child about the seeds he had planted with his mother three days ago.  “We put them in the dirt, and gave them water and light, and they’re not growing.  I need them to grow!”

His mother left the computer and joined her son at the planter they had set in a sunny window.  “They will grow,” she reassured him. “It just takes time.  We need to wait until they are ready.”

“Why do we need to wait, Mommy?  I don’t like waiting.  I want them to grow now!”

“We all need to wait sometimes,” she replied.  “I have to wait for you to finish getting dressed in the morning, and sometimes for you to put your coat on before we go out.  You need to wait for your friend to finish his lunch before he can play.  Waiting is OK.”

“I still don’t like it,” he grumbled.

“May I tell you a secret?” the mother queried.  “It’s about now.”

“What is it?” the boy asked curiously.

“In this minute,” she explained, “it is now, and you are saying the seeds are not growing now. Yesterday, you asked me if we could plant seeds now, and we did.  If the seeds grow tomorrow, you will look at them and say, ‘Now they are growing!'”

“So?” her son asked.

“I think,” remarked his mother, “that it is always now.  There isn’t any other time than now.  Whenever you are, it is now.  So, the seeds do grow now, even if we don’t see them right away.”

“Oh,” he replied, not quite understanding. “So, they are going to grow now?”

“Whenever they grow, it will be now,” she explained again.  “There is a big word that says what we do to help it be always now.  The word is patience.  Sometimes patience is hard, but as we grow, it gets easier.   Do you think we can practice having patience now?”

“OK, Mommy,” he answered.  Agreeing was easier than more complaining.

Giving his mom a big hug, he ran outside to ride his trike.

How can it be that whatever time it is, it is always now?  First, time is a mental construct.  It is a component of physical life and is so familiar to us that it is hard to conceive of a way things could be different from linear time, the past merging into the present and leading to the future.  In the world beyond, called heaven, the creative matrix, the Void, the pre or afterlife, there is no concept of time as we know it.  It is not only always now, but is always now with the past, present and future as we know them existing at the same time.  In that overarching aspect, it is truly always now; there is nothing else but now.

Our physical world, with which we are familiar, also reflects this.  It is said that the past is gone forever, and the future never comes.  The only thing real is now, and it is on now that our attention needs to be. In other words, it is always now.  We may remember what we call past, and imagine what we call future, but we do that remembering and imagining in the now.

Most of us equate patience with waiting.  We either wait as someone recounts or processes through their memories, or we wait for something anticipated in the future to appear in a form that our physical senses can perceive.  Sometimes it is a long wait.  Yet, if all that exists is now, then it follows that what we have wished for, hoped for, imagined is not something in that future that never comes, but in that “future” that is part of now, and that what we have wished for is now.  We have already received, and it is appropriate to give thanks for what we receive.

Patience, then, is the sister of gratitude.  Patience tells us that whatever we have conceived, wished for or imagined is already there.  If we maintain awareness of it through our gratitude, and do not cancel out the gift by changing our minds or hold it away by failing to understand the now and averring that what we have perceived with our minds is always in a future that never comes, then through grateful patience we will assuredly perceive what we have intended through our senses, so long as we are in this world.  Patience allows us to firmly center ourselves in the now.  Patience, like her sister Gratitude, is powerful.

The child’s seeds will grow, and the mother has correctly observed that when they do it will still be now.  The child is keeping patience by no longer probing the issue, insisting that the seeds are not growing, and by doing something else during the linear time of the world that Is elapsing for the child.  Not understanding the concepts, but still holding faith in the seeds and their growth, he quits worrying about it and occupies himself with something else until he is able to perceive the growth of the seeds with his senses.  He practices patience.

It is the same for us.  What we envision and hold in the now manifests.   In groups, the coalescing of the visions held by members of the group manifests.  The mechanism is the same.  It is always now.  We are free to cancel our visons by changing our minds, or to hold them away by placing them in a future that doesn’t arrive.  We need to keep focus without strain or worry; we need to practice patience.

We need also be mindful of what we envision.  It is a fallacy to imagine that our good can exist independently of the good of all, or especially contrary to the good of all.  The visions must first embrace the well-being of the Earth and its denizens, of the human species, of the various groups that inhabit the Earth, of our communities, of our families, and then ourselves.  By so doing, our visions provide multiple blessings, all of which we enjoy, as we are part of the whole.  What we nurture, nurtures us.  That vision, too, exists in the now.

Let us take heart as we develop our ongoing skill at practicing patience.  Let us also be aware as we use our minds to birth what is called “a new normal” that to create an order which is viable for ourselves, we must first create one that embraces the well-being of all.  Patience is, after all, a virtue well worth increasing.

Peace, Diane

Nature Teaches Community

The other day, I turned on the TV to a relatively slow-moving documentary in hopes of a few minutes of spacing out or relaxing without thinking too much.  Flipping through the channels, I chose a nature documentary, as I love nature and relax when I can spend time with it.  Then, I got drawn into the program, and emerged sometime later impressed by how in nature, with the exception of a few lone creatures such as some predators, life grows in community, in flocks, hives, herds, packs and, even in the plant kingdom, groves of trees and other plant species.  Cooperation and community seem to be one of nature’s imperatives, structures which ensure that various groups of living species can thrive.  I had been subliminally aware of this before; now, it impressed me.  Perhaps the nature that many of us humans seem intent upon destroying is giving us an insight into how we ourselves may survive.

Much human organization is in large units called countries, states, cities, and the like, but historically and increasingly these huge, organized entities are less and less like a true community, in which the benefit of the smallest member is as important as the benefit of the whole.  For the majority, the true organization seems to be separate.  Once there were extended families and close neighborhoods.  Those morphed into the mobile nuclear family, and then into units of singles or of temporarily allied singles, roommates.  At the same time, relationships became more fluid and of shorter duration.  All that may have benefited the consumer economy, as multiple units of fewer people each required, for example, each its own vacuum cleaner or dishwasher or clothes dryer.  However, it has left the majority of us separated from each other, from nature and from community.

Those of us who will look can see for themselves the effect of the combined lifestyles of the mainstream.  Weather has become more destructive and unpredictable.  Soils are becoming less fertile as our pesticides destroy them.  The rainforest is disappearing.  The extinction rate of species has accelerated exponentially.  The ocean is acidifying, and parts of it are dying.  We ourselves are facing the aesthetic and health impacts of pollution, and – whether we realize it or not – of separation from each other, from nature, and from the creative matrix from which all emerges.  It is not only species of our fellow beings here on Earth who are facing extinction, but also we ourselves.

In our state of separation, we seem to have turned to our science and technology to save us from the truth that we are connected not only to each other, but also to the Earth itself and all the species on it in what is often called a web of life.  For many of us, the belief that we are masters of all other life, and that we do not have to change our ways because our science and technology will absolve us of consequences and will create habitats for us that are safe and nurturing, despite what happens to everything else.  Even though the wisest of scientists understand the connection to nature and that much of scientific progress has been an imitation of nature, many people seem to be unaware that in taking the stance we do, we are destroying ourselves along with the other life that we destroy.

What would it be like if we returned to community and taught ourselves to live sustainably on the Earth?  What would it be like if we were to seek out nature, respect nature, and develop ways which were in harmony with nature?  What would it be like if we had as much access to trees, soil, clean air and water as we currently have to concrete, cars and pollution?  What major changes would we need to make to ourselves to achieve that?

We have models; groups of people have for some time now banded together to create what is called intentional community.  Not all of them are the same; many are quite different.  In nature, a herd is not the same as a hive or as a flock.  Some are urban; many are rural and are learning and practicing sustainable and regenerative agriculture.  There are artists and scientists and craftspeople, farmers and businesspeople and educators, and people of different persuasions.  People of like mind tend to live together, and each group respects the life and orientation of groups which are different.  This is a new system.  It does not rely on a large, overseeing government to regulate and provide for us as if we were children who could not do that for ourselves, as if it were OK for us to not think very deeply.  It does not rely on what is outside of ourselves, the products of corporations or the results of politics to find and implement the ways in which we need to behave to reverse the process of destroying our Earth, its denizens and ourselves.  Community presupposes that we in cooperation with others are responsible for these things.

It is crisis time.  We inch closer and closer to an irreversible tipping point.  It is time to wake up, to save ourselves from collectively hurling ourselves off a cliff.  It is time to transcend our distractions of pandemics, differences (all of us are equally human), wars and internal conflicts that would silence or eliminate whichever group of us “lost” political battles.  It is time that we realized that we are all in essence one, coming from the same source, equally valued and equally responsible.  It is time we work together and form community – learning from those of us who have begun before us and contributing our own perspectives as we grow.  We need the time of cooperation; continued competition and conflict, continued emphasis on “winning over” will succeed only in destroying us all.

Let us all, whatever groups we affiliate with, whatever beliefs we hold, whatever our wounds or state of healing, realize that the other is a sister or brother and come together to create community.   Let us learn to work cooperatively together.  Our well-being and our survival depend upon it.

Peace, Diane

Gratitude and Compassion

I grew up believing in the importance of giving, expressed both as putting forth energy to be productive and as charity by donation of time and resources to others in need.  I was taught that giving is greater than receiving, to always go the extra mile (being productive so that others would recognize my value), to exert effort to achieve and to maintain, and that giving is a position of power.  Sharing with siblings and others was also a given – it was “wrong” to withhold.  The best people were always givers.

In contrast, there was a certain shadow around the act of receiving.  We were made aware that, quite possibly when we received something, someone else had gone without.  There was guilt attached.  We were indebted to the giver and must always remember the person who had been kind enough to give something to us.  Often, that meant giving in to or obeying the giver.  Receiving implied that we were lacking or needy.  There was shame attached.  To accept charity was considered shameful. 

It was okay to “get” – especially if one was a boy.  “Getting” was a means to have what one needed or wanted by competing with others and putting out effort to achieve.  It was a way for goods and energy and esteem to come in other than by receiving without putting out the usually competitive effort.  It was a way of providing for oneself (and one’s family) without admitting any need for the help of others.  One earned what one had; therefore, it was not a gift.  We were to cultivate the qualities of self-reliance, rather than exhibit any kind of need, including politely refusing assistance when we could.  Although competition to “win” was encouraged, taking something away (as in snatching or stealing or deceiving) from someone else was not.   We should earn everything we got.

The result was an imbalance; it is an imbalance many of us share.  Our culture is more individualistic; it emphasizes self-reliance, pulling oneself up by the bootstraps.  The concept of cooperation is there, but the society itself is not particularly cooperative.  Most of us are familiar with giving, either as a duty or a self-esteem enhancing act, but do not know what it is to simply receive.  We are either one-sided, or we practice neither giving nor receiving very well.  

Here is a secret; giving and receiving are the heads and tails of the same coin.  One cannot give unless one has something one has first received to be given; the act of true giving opens one to receiving.  It is circular.  

Saints and sages, masters and mystics have for as long as people can remember exalted the qualities of gratitude and compassion.  The spiritually adept of all religions have practiced them, understanding that the qualities of gratitude and compassion are intimately connected.  They are on the same continuum.  Compassion is giving love in action; gratitude is opening oneself with love to receive.  It is not possible to practice compassion for long without also receiving, being filled with not only the motivating love to give, but also with the resources to do the giving.  Receiving money, one can give money; receiving skills, one can use those talents to help others; receiving knowledge or understanding, one can share those with others.   It is a circle, a continuous exchange within life.  We give, and we are given to.

When we look upon receiving as shameful, we block the flow of life through us.  I am deliberately using the term “receiving” as opposed to demanding, taking, feeling entitled to, or amassing.   Receiving is humble and relaxed, requiring no struggle to “get”.  It is trusting that the Universe, God, the One will provide what is needed, and then being open to perceive that we are being given to.  The trust and the perception are the basis of gratitude, the feeling of joy and well-being at being provided for.   We cannot be grateful if we do not perceive that we are being given to, or if we do not trust in that provision.

Mother Teresa is more known by what she gave to others.  Less is known about her trust and her acknowledgement that she was indeed provided for.  Somehow, what she needed would always come to her so that she could, in turn, give to others.  The circle was intact.

Giving, too, is a humble action.  Giving in order to increase one’s power or the esteem in which one is held or to increase our own inflow is not true giving, no matter the amount that may be put out.  Giving to charity intentionally in such a way that the gift is actually an investment which comes back in the form of increasing profits for companies in which one is invested is not really giving.  It is business.  True giving regards the gift as simply belonging to the receiver; it is a natural reaction to feeling compassion or a concern with justice.  It does not take a great deal of effort to do.

As a culture, we seem to lack the humility and the communal consciousness which allow us to receive, and to perceive those blessings with gratitude.  This weakness results in difficulty with true giving, skewing many of our gifts to be those which increase our power, are meant to increase our esteem in the eyes of others, or to return profit to us.  Lack of the ability to feel gratitude also limits our compassion.

Change starts in the present moment.  Now is the time to turn our attention to cultivating the ability to feel and express gratitude, while simultaneously keeping our eyes upon the quality of our compassion.  The world needs both if it and we, too, are to grow.  Our individual practice and mastery of gratitude and compassion are essential. They are a component of the growing world to come.

Peace, Diane

Regaining Our Connection

The news was on in the background as I worked on my computer, proceeding as news normally does, when my ears picked up some words that did not at all sound like what is regularly on the news.  It sounded more like a part of a science fiction show, or perhaps a section of a movie about healing via a strange version of the esoteric.   I focused and was astounded by what I saw (although I admit that afterwards I laughed at the absurdity).  An elderly woman, ostensibly a doctor, was passionately warning people to make sure God was watching when they had intercourse to make sure that they were not sleeping with spirits and demons (which was the cause of illness) and that vaccines were made with alien DNA.  Was this really a news program??  It was, and this was the person with whom Trump wishes to replace the current senior advisor on the pandemic, Dr. Fauci.  Replace Dr. Fauci with a witch doctor????   (Not to be confused with shamans, who are sane.) Alice in Wonderland had just expanded exponentially.  I have my reservations about vaccines, especially about the designer vaccine being hurriedly developed to ward off the Coronavirus, but I am certain the vaccine has not been made with alien DNA.

The news is also telling us that we need to come together to defeat the virus.  This is partly true.  However, the news puts out mixed messages about connecting with each other.  It says we should stay connected virtually and by acts of charity performed within the parameters of distancing, connecting at a surface level but continuing to wear masks and stay in our houses, or at least six feet away from each other.  I believe the reasoning is that if we do this, we will feel satisfied, rather than isolated from each other.  People do not like to be deprived of touch and of proximity.  Despite the surface nature of its pronouncement, the news is not incorrect in this matter.  We do need to connect, more than virtually, more than just sharing a meal outside a restaurant at tables six feet apart.

 I am not talking about being sheep in a herd, led by the latest official direction and pressure from the bandwagon.  People who connect respect the individuality of each other; they listen and discuss; they cooperate without pressuring each other to conform. For example, whatever I may think of masks, it does not hurt me to wear one either out of concern for the safety of others or simply to refrain from adding to the already overwhelming anxiety that many people feel.  Being vaccinated with a vaccine I do not think is safe and doubt is effective or being tracked to ensure that I get vaccinated is a completely different matter.  There is a difference between radical cooperation and tyranny.  We need to come together in cooperation at a deeper level, to sustain each other, to survive as a species and to influence the evolution of events towards a healed Earth,  disease-free living, and a just, compassionate and respectful social and economic order.

One concept we have for a long time been taught is that life is competitive; it is everyone for him/herself and for his/her immediate family.  Our schools, with their system of grades, are built that way.  The economic inequality we currently experience is built on a foundation of competition, winner take all.  Now that we are faced with the challenge of the pandemic (and also the ongoing challenge of an ever-warming Earth), we seem unable to come together to solve it using the standard competitive paradigm.

To achieve the deep cooperation we need is a major undertaking.  We once had that kind of cooperation, when people lived in tribes, or even in small neighborhoods, and worked together for the benefit of all.  Sure, there were disagreements then, but the disagreements were not allowed to destroy the well-being of the whole.  In various ways, the community would help the members who were at odds with each other work out their differences in ways that allowed life to go on.   We have lost that.   Now we have competition, fights, wars, winners, losers, and increasing chaos.   The mainly competitive path is not working. 

To succeed in reclaiming cooperation between ourselves, we must change the directive which instructs us that life is every man or woman for himself or herself, and that we need to defeat someone else in order to be successful or happy.  We have to give up some of our defining individualism, sacrificing some of it to the benefit of the whole.  No, our individual identities will not go away completely.  We are, after all, each unique, each an irreplaceable individual.  The value of our talents, though, must be geared towards helping the other unique individuals with whom we live.  The community supports us; we support the community.  That is the essence of cooperation.  We work together towards what we all in our wisdom perceive to be the best.  That is quite different than a government, or corporations, deciding what is best and giving us the illusion that if we just do it their way, we may manage to succeed, and life will be good for some of us at least.

Cooperative community is the way of the future.  It is in process; the substance is still evolving.  In community, each voice is heard, and time is taken to reach consensus.  Consensus is possible because people have learned to listen, and to discuss their differences and respect another’s stance without needing to feel that they have ‘won’. People work with and support each other.  The wisdom of even a few is not only heard but incorporated into consensus decisions.   Because the process takes time, the pace is slower, less frenzied.   This is new to us; if there are even distant memories of how it was, we still need to learn or relearn the patterns.  However, this ‘road less taken’ is the one that can lead us into a healed, peaceful world, prosperous equally for all.

Now is the time for change; now is the time for action.  If we shy away from this deeper working together, we are abdicating any influence we might have on what evolves.  Do we wish to live in the world some distant authority prescribes for us?  We can see the beginning of that now.   Let us pause now to think, to come together, to know each other as the wonderful, creative people we are at heart, and to use our combined talents to build a world in which we wish to live.

Peace, Diane