Sunday Talks with Rev. Renee Bledsoe
July 06 - One for All & All for One
July 13 - Leadership through Spiritual Partnership
July 20 - On Solitude and Inner Silence
July 27 - Vulnerability, Trust & Intimacy
No one is an island. We are all in this together. We are connected. Yet, even if we understand these things to be true from a spiritual perspective, as well as the physical, how do we reconcile our loneliness in a world full of 7 billion people? There is a big difference in "knowing" that we are interconnected, and living as if we are. That is where the rubber meets the road.
"And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people as one of many hoops that made one circle." - Black Elk
We are all craving something we cannot name in our relationships, a warmth, a closeness, an intimacy. Yet, often when we have made ourselves vulnerable in this way, we were hurt, abused or ignored. This had the effect of closing our hearts down for a time, until the pain of a closed heart became more painful than opening up again and risking letting others in. Or, when others opened up to us we hurt them, even inadvertently because we didn't understand how vulnerable they felt. In relationships where people are not taking responsibility for their own feelings either way, this leads to the inevitable shutdown, because we do not know what true intimacy looks like, and certainly do not yet possess a healthy sense of self. After all part of our journey here is to learn how to love.
“One can acquire everything in solitude except character.” ― Stendhal
Conversely enough, since we exist relationally, we cannot get a sense of self without the contrast of each other. So as we go into pseudo relationship, pretending to be connected, but truly not we still do not learn how to love. We get lost in blaming other people and forgetting that we are the common denominator in every single one of our relationships. Sometimes we are fortunate, with enough practice, to see a pattern emerging. When that happens we have the opportunity to understand that our whole process in relationship has not been some random propensity for isolation and suffering, but to introduce us to lost parts of our psyche. When we can clearly see this and make these connections there is a true softening of the heart and a coming to compassion for what has been at work in our lives.
“What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.” ― Kurt Vonnegut
We must remember that what occurs in the 3 dimensional/physical aspect of our lives is said to be only 1% of reality, as Grandfather Black Elk has said that this world is like a shadow of the real. Yet, it is giving us clues about what is going on in that mysterious 99% of our existence. If we are to bring heaven to earth in our relationships, we must realize that there is a great unknown that wants to be revealed here through the mystery of our relationships. For, we did not come here to get lost in a one on one relationship and never experience the depths of love that comes from loving humanity, this creation and the creator as passionately as we do our lover.
Our soul will not let us rest until we love God/dess and have a real relationship with our divinity and our creator. Therefore apparent separation has been a part of our soul's evolution... and could be thought of at this stage as more of an involution, or the inward enfolding of the heart becoming centered from within, as we come to realize that there is a perfect equilibrium that is possible if only we will keep working towards it, one for all and all for one.
“Lovers must not, like usurers, live for themselves alone. They must finally turn from their gaze at one another back toward the community. If they had only themselves to consider, lovers would not need to marry, but they must think of others and of other things. They say their vows to the community as much as to one another, and the community gathers around them to hear and to wish them well, on their behalf and its own. It gathers around them because it understands how necessary, how joyful, and how fearful this joining is. These lovers, pledging themselves to one another "until death," are giving themselves away, and they are joined by this as no law or contract could join them. Lovers, then, "die" into their union with one another as a soul "dies" into its union with God. And so here, at the very heart of community life, we find not something to sell as in the public market but this momentous giving. If the community cannot protect this giving, it can protect nothing...” ― Wendell Berry
Even as we come into community and truly connect with all our relations, we must connect not only spiritually, but also emotionally, mentally and physically. We must connect socially. We must connect from within, and from our heart fields unfolding. We must also connect etherically. Yet, we will not do this until we are ready for a kind of intimacy that outstrips anything we have heretofor known. This comes through a series of initiations. These are initiations of the soul and hearts readiness to truly love. But it is not just a readiness of desire, for their are certain structures and measures of character that must be present and whole enough to truly love, and to be a strong container for divine love, or agape to be held on earth.
"And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people as one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father." - Black Elk
The subtleties of tribal community in the modern world are being forged behind the scenes right now within our very own community, and within our hearts. For we are practicing the art of true community every day here. Tribal community is about much more than getting together and banging on drums... or even doing sacred ceremony. It is not just about anything we could physically "do" together. It is about the spirit and consciousness with which we gather. it is about an understanding that even when we are not physically gathered that we are still connected. This makes the gathering times that much more meaningful. It is about Cosmic universal Truth, that is abiding, and a reverence for the sanctity of life and this whole creation, including the unseen worlds.
“A proper community, we should remember also, is a commonwealth: a place, a resource, an economy. It answers the needs, practical as well as social and spiritual, of its members - among them the need to need one another.” ― Wendell Berry
True tribal community is about resonance and a harmonic convergence of souls. It is about absolute abundance of all things needful both spiritual and material. When we are ready to be on the path of love and release ourselves from the severity and the suffering path, we will come into true community. For it is here that life lessons are no longer learned through unconsciousness and malevolent shennanigans. Lessons are learned through true love. We live by the golden rule, and that is to treat one another as we would like to be treated. But the jewel in the crown is that the members of the community have and understanding of their own divinity and they have or are rapidly abolishing any distortions around the way they want to be treated.
“Without God man neither knows which way to go, nor even understands who he is... One of the deepest forms of poverty a person can experience is isolation... Poverty is often produced by a rejection of God's love, by man's basic and tragic tendency to close in on himself, thinking himself to be self-sufficient or merely an insignificant and ephemeral fact, a "stranger" in a random universe...The human being develops when ... his soul comes to know itself and the truths that God has implanted deep within, when he enters into dialogue with himself and his Creator... It is not by isolation that man establishes his worth, but by placing himself in relation with others and with God.” ― Pope Benedict XVI
True tribal community must emerge... naturally and organically, as a result of a recognition of a deep common ground in complete wholeness. Any one of the aspects missing will not build true community. We may not be an island, but we are certainly asked to go deep within, to make friends with solitude and to learn how to love and relate from the inside out. It is our community, these faces of God/dess that have helped us to defy gravity from within and allowed our individual souls to soar for all to see, experience and delight in. As this outpictures, the true community is not only there to support... but the real story is that they have been a part of the midwiving of each of us as a soul, all along.
"The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us." -Black Elk
ALL FOR ONE & ONE FOR ALL
I am free to be myself.
In being myself, I am free to Love.
I have the courage and strength to claim my free will.
I align my will with the will of my higher self.
My soul has been set free.
I practice freedom, by tending to my soul.
I love life and life loves me.
I am free to fulfill my destiny.
My boundaries and clear communication create a safe space.
I am a force for good to be reckoned with.
I am free to make mistakes.
The is conspiring on my behalf.
It jjjnnis by my purified and unified will that I set my mind in motion.
I gladly pay the priernal vigilance of the desires of my soul.
I set myself free.
I am free to express from the deepest parts of my being.
I surrender to my soul which leads me to the light.
I allow the phoenix within me to rise up out of the ashes.
I step into my highest calling.
I remember who and what I am.
I give myself permission to re-enter the garden.
My body is a vehicle for freedom and the actualization of my dreams.
I dream myself awake to all that I am.
I choose life and I honor that choice.
I take great delight in Life.
The will of my mind, the will of my body, the will of my soul are one with the will of God.
As freedom rings I embrace the joy of true interdepence.
I am all for one and one for all.
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