Learning to Support the Movement of our Evolution

Writing can be a very powerful way of doing inquiry, for the purpose of awakening and transforming our lives. All that it requires is a basic ground of willingness and commitment. Willingness to look at things as they are, not as they should be or could be—to face directly into the way it actually is, right now.

We can use writing for this kind of inquiry, asking ourselves basic and powerful questions like these: “What do I really want? What is my major obstacle? What happens to me when I don’t get what I want? What do I care about more than anything else? What is my strongest resource? Do I know how to ask for and receive support?”

We may think we know the answers to these questions, but we are not looking for a mental response when we inquire like this. We are learning to drop the question into our heart, into our body, into a place of deep listening. In this place, we are ready for whatever comes forth in response to the question. And this kind of response is not something old, something we’ve heard hundreds of times before. It’s new and alive and we feel it; we feel the impact of what we have discovered. That’s what makes the difference.

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I think learning to express yourself with freedom and creativity helps in all areas of your life:  physical, energetic, emotional, mental..and the practical side of life is not separate from the rest of it. This is the basis sense that moves me to work with people in ‘The Alchemy of Writing’ workshops and courses.

For things such as job interviews and grant applications, the same thing applies:  very often, the job or the grant will go to the person with the most developed capacity to express in words, who they are, what they are about, what creative intentions and values they are wanting to manifest through their business or project.

That’s the interesting thing for me, about learning to use words and language in a good way--you may be very gifted and talented at what you do, but if you can’t express what your work is about, what the benefits are, and how they actually occur...then it will be much harder for you to find and connect with potential students, clients and anyone else who might appreciate and support you.

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Beyond living and dreaming
there is something more important:
waking up
(Antonio Machado)

A man I work with was telling me about how he spent the Christmas holidays with his family. He went back home to the big city to spend time with them. Before he arrived, he decided to try something new: he followed the impulses and desires of his heart, his authentic being, instead of going along with conventional expectations and traditions. While he was there, the connections he had with his family and friends were intimate, surprising, and deeply fulfilling. One morning he had a spontaneous and life-changing conversation with his mother.

I was feeling a lot of joy as I listened to him speak. Then he said this:

“It was wonderful, to be so present and open with these people I love. And there was a lot of anxiety. It wasn’t overwhelming, but I could feel my heart fluttering a lot. And it was not easy to sleep at night.”

The kind of anxiety that was arising for him is what I call sacred anxiety. I used to experience it when I was engaged in a lot of public speaking. I learned, after struggling with it for a while, to welcome that anxiety, to open to it and let it move through my body. During that time I discovered that the best talks I gave were when that anxiety was present at the beginning, not the talks where I was calm and sure of myself at the start.

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Writing is act of affirmation, of courage, of faith. Writing is good for the soul.

These words come from a posting on my upcoming ‘Alchemy of Writing’ workshop:

Birds sing, wind blows, human beings write. 

Many people long to write, sometimes for their whole lives, and never take the plunge. I encourage anyone who feels the urge to write to jump right into the water. Writing is powerful medicine. It connects us with parts of ourselves that have been lost, hidden, shut away. It can be a form of guidance, deep learning, inquiry, prayer and transformation.

There is nothing academic in this approach to writing. You are inviting the full participation of your heart, your body and your emotions. There is nothing you need to know, nothing you need to strive for. As you learn to let go of your judgments, agendas and expectations, your writing takes on a life of its own. Breath by breath, you learn to trust your authentic voice, and follow where it leads.

Words to a friend who is organizing ‘the black ribbon’ campaign, in response to Canada’s black marks in Copenhagen: visit Rik Logtenberg, on Facebook and Twitter

We need to be very clear and hard--headed in the whole approach we take. I noticed when I listened to Michelle Mungal, our MLA, the other night, whom I love a lot, that she came across to me as enthusiastic, optimistic and naive..She kept saying things like “All Canadians care about the climate change, “ and I thought, “Well, Michelle, clearly that is not true, because I have friends that don’t even know what Copenhagen is..”

I don’t know if you are familiar with the work of Joanna Macy..it would be good to read some of her work, because she has been working for the last 15 years on helping to awaken people and mobilize their resources for skillful action in taking care of our environment.

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Reflections after being at our 350 candlelight vigil at City Hall

Standing in the cold last night, listening to how Canada has been obstructing the agenda in Copenhagen day after day, I struggled with a sense that this little blue-- green planet is pretty stuck, that most people are operating on a level of consciousness that is about survival, and being comfortable or distracted from difficulty and pain..

It was powerful for me to realize that Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who is now supporting this 350 movement, is someone who has been a part of enormous social change in his lifetime: the fall of the Berlin Wall, and of course, of apartheid..He was speaking this weekend about how demonstrations and petitions actually work, in the long run, as soon as there are enough people behind them.

That helped me a lot, because I find the general apathy and passivity of so many people can feel like a huge challenge. I was remembering when the Chinese invaded Tibet, and the Dalai Lama sent so many telegrams to the United Nations, asking for help, that they filled up a whole huge room. And nobody did anything. They left Tibet to its fate.

I actually had a good friend of mind on the weekend ask me, ‘What is Copenhagen?” That was a difficult moment for me--a shock to the heart.  I’ve been understanding that a more evolved level of consciousness allows us to keep persevering, the way Bill McKibben has, for the last 20 years, without getting overwhelmed, or angry at those whose capacity to participate is less developed.

Waking up from the emotional numbness, so that we can actually feel the enormity of what we are facing, is so crucial at this point. And then finding that place of freedom and balance, from which we can engage without being dominated by either fear or desire, is the other piece. I pray that more and more of us find our way to this level of consciousness, before things reach a point where they cannot be reversed.

This is part of an email to a friend, about the nature of intimate relationship: This feeling about the struggle you experienced in your relationship--- you expressed it like this: "It's not worth it, it's too much, I want to give up.."

This is the human imprint in your lineage, the conditioning that has come down to you through your ancestral line. ...It’s the very same thing that drives you crazy in your brother. (or used to) What is the point of withdrawing to a safe place, far from conflict and betrayal? As long as these feelings and fixations disturb us, we have to stay right where we are, in the middle of relationship, in the heat of intimacy, and allow the light of our awareness to penetrate through the conditioning. There is no way out but through..

As long as we run away and make excuses about how hard it is, we are fighting with the force of our own evolution.

Dialogue with a friend and colleague on Facebook: Thanks for your questions re 'what is our collective destiny' anyway? And also the article by Derick Jensen...I have followed his career and his writing for many years...and he is kind of an example of what I am talking about...when he actually found out what was happening to our eco-system on earth, he became extremely angry about it..advocating the kind of violent solutions you would resort to if someone was 'raping your mother.'

After a while, he changed his approach to something quite a bit more evolved, in which he began exploring the possiiblity of moving from a different place, without being dominated by either hope or fear. I respect his passion and intelligence a lot, and I am very interested in his evolution…

He has actually transformed the whole level of his consciousness, which is where I tend to be focused. My understanding right now is that without profound evolution and transformation of consciousness, we will never be able to collaborate successfully. We will either regress to some kind of patriarchal/dominator structure, or we will get stuck in a model based on consensus and equality, that makes it very difficult to take collective action. Without attaining a certain level of development on the level of consciousness, it seems to me that we will continue to fall into these extreme positions.

Working together, from a place of mutuality, transparency and equality---you don’t get there just be deciding to do it..Otherwise we would have done it by now. If I still need to look good, if I am afraid to admit my own mistakes and take responsibility for the consequences, if I cling to me own points of view, if I feel the need to defend myself in the face of attack, if I am unable to celebrate differences---I cannot really participate in the next stages of our evolution..Because that will require a kind of awareness and a capacity for collaboration that is totally new. It feels to me a lot like really growing up. No more temper tantrums, no more entitlement, no more inability to listen to other points of view. Emerging from our chronic position of self-preoccupation into another world--where we can take care of our own needs in a way that allows us to be present to the needs of something much much larger.

love