Let’s Fall In Love

July 24, 2009

I’ve heard many people talk about the importance of relationships in the critical work of today. Building trust. Improving communications. I’ve deeply appreciated the friendships and working relations with those that speak so boldly and honestly about love. Sharon Joy Kleitsch is one of those. A lovely and fierce activitist for shifting consciousness. We spoke together earlier this week, the day after her 71st birthday, about the work needed in these times. It was a gift to me to notice what thoughts were sparking for me as we talked about supporting a shift of consciousness through IONS and other means in the Tampa area. Here’s a few of them:

– Let’s fall in love. Naming the importance of dropping barriers and coming into the energy and resonance of love. It occured to me that as we open ourselves to the resonance of love — no, not the romantic kind, though it has its appeal also — we drop the barriers so that our resonance can mingle and entangle with others. In so doing, we open ourselves to love, and thus to creating together. Things that are created in love — projects, initatives, programs — have a much better chance of lasting and accomplishing what we care about. Particularly in community and networks where authority structures can’t impose actions.

– What we give our attention to, grows. This is a common principle I use in explaining participative leadership and in particular, appreciative inquiry. What a thing to think of an energy and resonance of love growing, of deep relationships, that can support our work in these times. It’s needed, no?

– This is not a rehearsal. This is the fierce voice from Sharon Joy. I know many sweet qualities and experiences with Sharon Joy and others in her community. She, like myself, like many others, are feeling an added fierceness about the call of these times now. Not a rehearsal. We are called now to hold to the deepest purpose. I’ve heard Sharon Joy state this many times. One recently, regarding the IONS conference. The purpose is not conferences. It is a shift in consciousness. What a gift to see that fierceness and feel it strengthen in me, and in many of us.

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Journey in Consciousness

December 9, 2008

Two days ago I spoke on the phone with a good friend and colleague, Caitlin Frost. Caitlin is among many things, a deep practitioner of “The Work,” as described in Byron Katie‘s books. I have learned that when I talk with Caitlin I want to have a pen and paper close by. Insights pour through. Some from what she shares of her journey. Some from what becomes open and clear in my journey in this space of friendship.

Our conversation two days ago had a heading for me of “Consciousness.” I invited the conversation. I wanted to share some of what I was noticing through my process of journaling of the past week, in which I was focused on letting go of stories. Life stories. Ones long lived, but not with enough of my consciousness. Some surprising ones that were actually quite harmful. I needed to give attention to this, with a question:

“What are you/we/I learning about becoming more conscious and awake? In particular, about clearing stories?”

At the center of this learning was clarity, for me, that consciousness is such a journey. It often feels that doors open to reveal many, many, many more doors. And some of those doors aren’t new. They are the ones we missed a while back and have showed up anew. Funny. I laugh in the rooms behind some of those doors. I cry in some of them too.

A couple of gems among many, that help me in this part of the journey.

Notice the Fish — If not doors, perhaps fish. Swimming in the water. Sometimes difficult to see, but then with a turn in the light become fully present. We all carry stories with us. Some we are aware of and have chosen to keep. Some we are simply blind too. The choosing, and the blindness, influence who we are, what we see, what we feel, what we do. I love how Caitlin described the fish. “Sometimes you run into a shark.” Seemingly small things can actually create access to very important and far-reaching stories. A variation of this – I know I’m mixing metaphors but they all seem to help — is to shine the flashlight within ourselves. It’s not that what we see wasn’t there before. We are just shinging a bit of light on it.

Put It On Paper — To put it on paper is to welcome a different relationship with it. In Byron Katie’s work, writing is an important part of the process of becoming more awake, clear, and conscious. This rings very true for me. To write it is to come to know it in a different way. And to know it is to invite more choice in how to be in relation with it. There was an important addition that Caitlin offered. “If I believe it for five minutes, it can link to a whole life.” Funny. And powerful in many directions here. For example, to believe an “incompetent” story for five minutes can energetically infuse so many unrelated contexts with incompetence. Fun to think of the flip side of this too. To believe a competence story and have it infuse other contexts.

The point for me is not a manipulation of self. Not a shallow motivational approach. It is to notice the complex beings that we all are. Self. Other. Community. And to come to know more of the simple steps and practices that help clear us — self, other, community — to be in the journey that most needs us now, and the work that is so perfectly advanced because of our journeys in consciousness.

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