What if we made a place within a place that exists, in the cool of riverside green and heat of summer fields, where we walked and talked and worked and loved to birdsong and howling winds, slept under star-strewn sky and woke to low morning fog stepping out of bed bare toed onto dew-damp grass-- what if we ate slow-growing food knowing names of every seed of every bean and grain set to plate before us, flowers filling vases spilling every spectrum hue and we could see and taste and touch and know the very minutes that it takes to make a life and to be alive-- what if we shared it all, inviting loved ones and strangers, creating spaces, making homes and neighbors with those who want to be part of a greater family, fostering care for handmade labor, ceramics and paints, florals and vegetables, heart-filled speech in word and rhyme, poetry spoken and lyrics tuned to instrumental accompaniments strummed in strings and pounded keys-- what if we lived our years learning how to be full and free, striving for the riches of meaning and joy in simplicity, making history-- what if we taught others how to do it too-- what if we made this place within a place that exists? Heaven On Earth Hannah Elizabeth King, from We Are Wanderers
Over the past couple of months I have explored some of the ways in which fear holds us in separation, and in which we find ourselves mired in battles rather than setting boundaries and seeking balance. This month I want to explore one more barrier that keeps us from adopting a more harmonious existence: one in which we no longer perceive ourselves as separate from each other and from our living Earth. That barrier is our isolation: the distance that we maintain, intentionally or unintentionally, between ourselves.
I would wager a guess that nearly everyone reading this feels isolated to some degree – whether we are introverts or extroverts, hermits or teachers. We might envy those who seem to have more friends or more community, not realizing that most of those connections lack real depth or are fraught with expectations and misunderstandings. To truly change this will require a shift in our collective ways of being, although it can start small and grow from there.
While I feel that I am generally good at setting boundaries and avoiding battle, and I have found my fear and anxiety much reduced in the last year, isolation remains a hurdle for me. I feel very much at home and at peace in the natural world, but much less so among groups of humans. So – even more than usual – I cannot claim to know the answers. That said, I do have some ideas.
As I see it, there are basically three steps to ending isolation – between each other and between us and the natural world. We have to realize that we are not truly separate, that we are all parts of a greater whole. We have to stop choosing isolation. And then we have to engage in acts of communion, of deeply acknowledging each other, of sharing presence.
The idea that all humans are sacred parts of a greater whole is fairly widespread among spiritual traditions, although some make an unfortunate distinction between “us” and “them” groups. Fewer extend this greater whole to fully encompass warblers and cedars and rivers and even fewer extend it fully into the realm of physical existence. We might believe that we are all equal and honored in the eyes of a God, but we don’t so often see the God – the spark of universal life force - in each other. This limits the depths we are able to reach in our connections. Our communion, if we practice it, is with spirit more than with our fellow beings.
The realization of wholeness and interbeing is at the heart of The Dendroica Project. It is my personal perception, my inner knowing. I can’t feel any resonance with the idea that we are self-replicating meat-robots that happened to evolve emergent and transient consciousness, inhabiting a chaotic universe that just happens to exist for some unknown reason or no reason at all. Similarly the idea that we are divinely created and then spiritually injected into a subservient and otherwise mostly inert physical world in order to be tested and allocated to one of two infinite ethereal afterlives strikes me as rather strange. For me, it both makes more sense and resonates as true that consciousness is not emergent but inherent, that each of us, and all matter, are aspects of a universal consciousness that is continuously creating reality on spiritual and energetic and physical levels. So to touch a tree, to immerse in flowing water, to look into the eyes of an eagle or a fellow human, is to engage and acknowledge the same life force that is within ourselves.
We might choose to maintain isolation because we have difficulty setting boundaries, and so any new connection opens the possibility of obligations and emotional labor and anger and battle. We might also choose to maintain isolation if we are afraid – of rejection, or judgment, or of breaking a shell we have formed around an old wound, or of fracturing a stoic detachment our mind-identity has crafted to keep existential fears at bay. Those latter two are probably the stereotypical feminine and masculine responses, and I would have to agree that stoic detachment featured rather strongly in my separate mind-identity that has been dissolving of late.
We might also have familial patterns of isolation that are challenging to overcome. Such was definitely the case for me, as both of my parents found themselves at odds with their natal families and rural communities around the time of my birth for their decision to leave the Catholic church, and to embrace an alternative spirituality, and to have a child without being married, and to generally break the prevailing rules. So I grew up expecting that I wouldn’t belong, that I wouldn’t be invited, and my experiences with bullies and cliques and a particular brand of toxic adolescent masculinity affirmed that expectation.
Let’s say we realize that we are all aspects of a sacred life force, and we are able to set boundaries and relax our fears and open ourselves to deeper communion. Then there is the challenge of how to actually achieve it. We can hug trees and lie on sun-warmed rocks and feel the softness of ferns, poke our noses into rose blossoms and verdant walls of moss, gaze at warblers and planets through binoculars. The warblers might fly away if we are too close, but by and large we can choose communion with beings of nature on our own terms. If we try any of these things with fellow humans, particularly strangers, well…let’s just say we probably won’t make many friends, and handcuffs are a real possibility.
I have long thought that I have social anxiety, but I don’t think that is actually the case. I don’t actually care that much what other people think of me, nor do I fear being judged or make attempts to fit in. Instead, there seems to be a mismatch between the sort of communion and mutual acknowledgement that feels natural to me and the delicate dance of small talk and smiles that is standard protocol in human interactions in our culture.
Last month, at a little folk festival at a healing arts center in the woods, I wandered into a workshop called “Somatic Explorations” not knowing what to expect. After some exercises focusing on grounding and embodiment, we moved to interpersonal interactions, noticing how our bodies and psyches reacted. The first assignment was to choose a partner and introduce ourselves, each talking for a minute or so. That left me feeling stressed. What to say? I see the light in you? Nope. May I give you a hug? Risky. I like your shirt? OK, but it’s just a shirt. How are you? Cliché and not really the best for a stranger. Where are you from? OK, as long as they’re white and don’t have an accent, otherwise possibly offensive. My mind doesn’t play this game well, and indecision creates anxiety that I then broadcast in body language and tone. The next assignment was to choose another partner and approach them, hold eye contact, deeply and silently acknowledge each other. To my surprise, that felt natural and stress-free. And having engaged in that simple act of communion, it was easy to move into conversation.
Perhaps I am in the minority in finding the dance from small talk into connection to be impossible to navigate. I have never been on a date with a stranger, and the number of friends I have ever made at bars and dinner parties still stands at zero. My deep connections have mostly formed through time spent coincidentally together building connection and camaraderie. My best friends from college lived on my freshman floor or sang in my a cappella group. Most of my closest friends even now were once housemates, or coworkers, or employers, or else they are friends of friends that have entered my circles that way.
This feels a bit arbitrary, and I sense that I am missing out on many connections, swimming on the surface of a pool that I could be diving into. I long for a world in which we greet and meet each other not with handshakes and shallow introductions but more akin to the Na’vi of Avatar: “I see you”, which means I honor and respect the being that you are, I see the light in you, I take this moment to be in communion with you. Perhaps that is too much to ask in a polarized world full of wars and feuds, but we can start small, create – as Hannah writes – “a place within a place that exists.” For myself, I am beginning to explore different environments, different social containers, where the rules of engagement are closer to my comfort zone. No bars, fewer dinner parties, more ecstatic dances and singing groups and somatic explorations workshops.
Today is my 39th birthday, and my goal for my 40th year on Earth is to focus on building community, intentionally finding and connecting with my fellow beings with whom I share a resonance. I wish to build and nourish an ecological spirituality rooted simultaneously in place on Earth and in human relationships.
Like many naïve young folks, I sought and aspired to life in community, only to watch my own and others’ communities and even families dissolve into battles and crossed boundaries, fears and separation and collapse of communion and mutual respect, friendships transformed into intolerance and estrangement. My hope, in this three-part series, has been to begin to light a path beyond that, toward resilient community in which each of us is doing our personal work, moving beyond fear and mind-identity, awakening to our own and shared divinity. It may be aspirational, but I believe it is possible, perhaps even inevitable.
Have a blessed (and slightly belated) Solstice, take a moment to gaze at the Full Moon, and I encourage all of you to check out (and subscribe to) Hannah’s new Substack: Field Notes.
"It may be aspirational, but I believe it is possible, perhaps even inevitable." The inevitability of communion. May it be! Thank you for expressing such hope.
I love following your thoughts and your writing, Markael. You always tap into something I've been somewhat aware of and help me better understand it. Thank you.