On the first day,
You don’t really notice,
You’re head’s too full of human. Continue reading
Ecospirituality
Spring Vision Quest (Victoria)
“You know after any truly initiating experience that you are part of a much bigger whole. Life is not about you henceforward, but you are about life.”
― Richard Rohr
Vision quest is a powerful way to surrender to the greater whole. An opportunity to step into the wilderness, letting go of the expectations and roles that hold us in place Continue reading
Queer nature
My girlfriend has been doing a learning journey called Right Relations in Rites of Passage. She just made me watch the seminar ‘Archetypes of Gender and Sexuality Beyond the Binary’ and it has blown my mind. Continue reading
Subjugation
There is a force that has gripped the planet for hundreds of years. It is the force behind every marching army, every man who raises a hand against his wife, every school yard bully, every iron-fisted leader. It is the force behind slavery, behind colonisation, behind prejudice. Let’s call it… subjugation. Continue reading
Questing
There were a bunch of things that came out of my last vision quest but I’m wary of trying to capture them. Some seem like elegant nuggets, they can be named and shared, there is a temptation and a danger in reducing the experience to these.
Other things happened that have a felt impact on me but their meaning is elusive, Continue reading
Wild Mind 2015 – shame is a gateway
Space between stories
Charles Eisenstein is running an online course. I am quivering with excitement. His book, The more beautiful world our hearts know is possible (which you can read online for nothing), is the most transformative thing I’ve read in the last year. Below is some writing that captures my initial response:
I talk to strangers now. Not out of any sense of duty or obligation but because I appreciate our shared humanity. The universe in me recognises the universe in you. I acknowledge our beauty.
It extends to the more than human also, to the trees, birds and other creatures that cross my path.
All these little interactions matter now. Having shared Eisenstein’s vision through his writing, I can see that each of these little moments, even if they never emerge from the cloud of ponderings within my own skull, are important. Each moment is contributing to the creation of the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.
I pass over the great Birrarung/ Yarra River, twice a day and the view never fails to move me. Since reading this book I’ve begun to pay attention to my fellow passengers in the moments after crossing the river. I have noticed that I am never alone. There is always someone else paying attention to the beauty of the river, just like me.
Charles’ online course is called the Space Between Stories and the invitation is open to anyone if:
- You are in some way stuck in an old story (work, relationship, bodily condition, etc.) but you can feel it is unsustainable, that a change is on the horizon, that it is starting to break down. Or…
- You are in the space between stories. The old world isn’t coming back, but the new one hasn’t arrived yet either. Or…
- You are living in a new story, and it feels maybe a little tender or fragile, and you want support and a frame of reference to help navigate its challenges.
I think I’m somewhere between the second and the third category, depending on the day and the people who are around me at any given moment. It’s been a long slow transition over a couple of years now, sometimes it feels incredibly fast and sometimes painfully slow. Mostly I am grateful for the pace, it has allowed me to slowly transform each part of my life in turn yet been overwhelming enough to force me to surrender!
Let me know if you’re interested in coming on the journey, perhaps if there’s a bunch of Melbourne folk who are doing the course we could all meet up at some point. I have discovered this week that there are people reading this blog that I had no prior awareness of, it’s kind of thrilling and makes me really curious to know who’s out there.