Seeds for a happy planet

It is Sunday morning now. I am up pretty early, the benefit of the jetlag. I started my day in the hot tub here, watching how the light took over from the night. You don’t see it changing and yet it changes. Like the flowers who are in the center of our circle. We noticed that they were opening and yet you can’t pin it down and say: Now I saw it!

This has a lot to do with what was in our focus yesterday: emergence.

We started with noticing that at the breakfast table the centered and loving space from the meditation had changed in some heady conversation which left some of us closed down, stressy and agitated. Ego is so eager to take over! To do what it thinks will deserve� him/her a place in the circle… but in doing so we loose the essential, that what gives real meaning. Once again we realised the importance of our ability to notice in the moment, to be able to check if we are really present or not.

Someone shared a story of a boy giving a taped box to his dad. The dad didn’t understand what was in it. �It is me!� said the boy. If we open our soulboxes, share our love and our thinking, and if we are aware of the links between, the web that it creates, then a New Being has emerged. This is the potential of Collective Presencing. The Circle Being that is in itself a higher level of complexity, a next step in evolution, with the capacity to sense deep into deep and complex situations.

Suddenly the right moment was there to share the story of how Women Moving the Edge came into being and what we learned along the way. Next our energies went into the body: someone sleeping, the rest working with sound in the body, which fluently resulted in expression with colors on paper.

�I don’t belong at my desk anymore, although I created myself.� Resonance in the circle around this theme… �What I desire is not created yet.� A lot of talk about the precipice, the gap between what is and what we desire, the difficulty of going there… but is this real? Is it really hard? Or is it fun? is there excitement when we live on this edge? Do you know the aliveness when jumping of the cliff?

The sentence changed during the conversation to: What we desire is being created now! Life is here; it doesn’t need to be done! Leaping to lightspeed is not-knowing the form that is being created. But there is intention, there is a guiding question, there is� asking what we want.

We realised the limits of language, the limits of concepts, the limits of the already known. It is a ‘language +’ that we need. In the emerging we need all channels and there is the possibility to speak right from Source, without words being processed through the mind first. When spoken, these words carry with them the field where they are coming from; you feel the difference. It is this quality that we are seeking also in our acting. Are we able to notice and discern the difference?

We came to our last morning on Monday. Everybody was still full of the many learnings the constellation had brought. The dialogue started from there. It is so rich (and long), but I wouldn’t know what to leave out…

* Perceval had to re-trace his steps. In retracing your experience you consciously understand. The healing of the wounded king is when we ask the question “Whom does the Grail serve?” This is about alignment. Our task is to stay connected in the epiphany to that alignment and then right action comes out of that.

* If we look back on these two days – what did we do, what made it happen? Reflecting back and making it available to the collective is important. It is not about us only, it’s about laying these cosmic grooves to make it accessible to all.

* In the meditation this morning I realized how being in this circle calls me to be no more and no less than fully present. “It is not up to me” meaning: I don’t have to do this by myself, I’m part of the collective’, and “it is totally up to me” meaning: when I’m not present (and coming from story), the full resonance potential of the group doesn’t manifest. The image of the crystal singing bowl is helpful here – where every point on the circumference of the circle is in harmony, (i.e. it isn’t a loose, floppy circle). The emptiness of the bowl reminds me of Source, of unmanifest potential, and when invited by the striker, sound comes forth.

* There is something about this circle that doesn’t trigger the ego in the usual way. I can be here in a way I don’t usually experience myself… still reeling from the implications of being Source. No ‘me-ness’, only ‘Is-ness’, there’s nothing foreign, not lost everything by not being me. It is a complete paradox that I would relinquish me and receive so much more. Like dropping my clothes, and everything is off me. Yet my place in the world is not less, and my place is vast. There’s no gravity to bring you off the top of the cliff. The thing I’ve looked for I already am, and so are you.

The alignment is a natural evolution, it is a natural expression into action. The ground of Being is raw impetus, highly energized impetus – into form. How do I experience/express myself if I can’t be you and everything?

Dropping of the boundaries of self because there’s a tangible resting point that’s everywhere, the anchor is in the in-between.

To leave here and have something sustainable is the meat of it – it doesn’t give itself to us if we don’t open up to it. We are unlimited possibility.

What we ask for is what’s given – no more and no less. Until we come to accept the vastness that we are, the more we limit the possibility of anything being possible.

There’s a relationship between the question and my willingness to hold a selfless self, without a ‘me’ to gain. Me being willing to be me in the presence of Source is to let it flow through – a new balance is needed.

* How to bring the Empress (from the Tarot) forth – the feminine, creative, loving? Being the Empress is accessing Source. Is the bowl, is the CircleBeing, accessing, opening to Source?

* There’s a formless quality to this gathering, which has no words to describe it – fullness of the silence, the experience of the spaciousness. Not so much asking the question, but I will leave here being (in) the question: Who is it in us that wants to take form, meaning – is it the ‘She’ coming from the formless place?

* “How can I continue to live the question of working with community and diversity?” How can we transcend the I to the WE, the SHE? How to deepen the understanding of the WE? I had a real experience of transcending the me/I this weekend. I transcended it to ‘We’, that might be Source.

The ‘We’ is the pathway into Source.

* The huge awakening (for her representing Collective Knowing) is that the world wanted me – is inviting me – at some level there’s a readiness, an invitation, a birthing.

So those of us who can sit in circle like this can move into this rarefied space. We’re creating grooves, for something to move forward in a new way, and we can consciously align.

I see the collective ‘We’ as the pathway – the next stage of development in human consciousness – to move out of the ‘I’ into the ‘We’.

This connection to the world is so important. We come to this kind of space and struggle to know how to re-enter. A piece of it is togetherness, collaboration – I’ve always tried to do everything alone – why? True collective leadership is about finding your collective – no attachment to my piece, but also owning my gifts in giving them freely. We’re still learning how to be in alignment with Self/Source and other, so we won’t always do it perfectly. There’s something about the feminine that can work with the subtle, creative impulse, that force coming through, and begin to create those pathways in the manifest world.

* Source wants to move, so have no anxiety to manifest the new, it will come through. Source is robust – it’s our human understanding that is fragile! What is unique about you – you will form Source into uniqueness. It’s not a weak supply! The more our ‘Yes’ is there, the more it’s available. There’s deep and profound meaning in the movement itself – inherent in the very movement is the meaning.

* There seems to be a book with the title: “Things are going great in your absence” (absence of our ego – it’s all about getting out of our way)

* ‘The tone of being magnified’ – it penetrates through everything – the vibration is the healing and the action.

* How can we hold the space as we leave, without going into our distraction?

* I acknowledge the multiple modalities of access we’ve had here this weekend – art, movement, poetry, constellation, sharing etc. – very non-linear, whatever is the next thing that emerges – a feminine way of being. The underlying order is always present and we pop up like mushrooms.

After these powerful images of the feminine force I was wondering: If we’re giving birth here to ‘something’, what/where was the conception? Or what is the driving force that made us come here?
This led to the question by one of the participants about our intention for this gathering.

It wasn’t easy for me to give words to what I saw as the answer.

“I hold in my body the space of the unmanifest potential… I recognized the first evening that I needed to go to deeper levels in myself in order to hold more, to create a deeper container, in order to let others in this container manifest themselves or something.

I know deep inside me that some people have to give birth to the new ‘we’ space while being a totally autonomous individual, centered in themselves but in service of the circle or the collective space.

The questions of our time can only be held by circles – it’s the only way to navigate the complexity because no mental thinking will be enough; and innovative answers will come out of it. It seems to me that women are better wired to do this. If we know something that can change the world, then it’s us that need to bring it out; from the unmanifest to the manifest – without rushing, but there is an urgency.

I can see we are making new grooves in the collective consciousness. If we go there, to this collective We-space, it will be easier for others to go there too.”

Judy added: “It was born out of some kind of deep collaborative inner knowing, and I feel both urgency and responsibility to bring the collective form into being as it’s emerging now. It’s needed now – the feminine way of leadership, and it’s so important – we can only discover it together. Every time we come together in this way, we are creating new grooves in consciousness – and then it’s easier for others.”

Les agreed that it is ‘authentic embodiment’ that is at the root of why this circle is working.

Like in the first Women Moving the Edge by lunchtime it was time for us, facilitators, to lean back and give the leadership to the whole group. Meantime it was pouring rain outside, so much so that we couldn’t even see the trees on the other side of the grass field.

And what did we do? If I would give a bullet list of all the different activities you could never understand the depth of what happened. We had some silence, there was conversation, we did a presencing-movement exercise; we danced ‘the Temple dance’; we sat in circle again. There was the sound of the big crystal bowl, we made sound and music together…

But I can’t hardly describe what happened in us and in between us. First it was named as a not-knowing, and later also as a not-talking… but then, what is it?
We seem to listen, to tune into, to sense…
into what?
the delicate, the subtle, the fine, the intangible…

It seems to be possible to access – in our bodies – the unformed, the unmanifest…
the sound of silence…

silence…

collective silence…

suddenly it was there:

a connected silence;

a tangible in-between space;

a sacred space;

a space full of possibilities;

a generative space…

Grace had arrived! The We is pregnant!
And you know what? Rain stopped, the mist was gone, we could see again the trees and the whole environment!

“Dear Friends,

This is the time for the emergence of a new feminine archetype. I call it the “feminine cocreator.” As we have fewer children and live longer lives, as the world heads into its “crisis of birth” of a new humanity, this feminine cocreator is arising. We are giving birth to the authentic feminine self and our work in the world because it is necessary for the survival and thriving of our very species.”

This is the first paragraph of an email send out by Barbara Max Hubbard (visionary, futurist, author) to announce the Women’s Wisdom Conference: Touching Greatness, Igniting Purpose and Passion, and also the book The Power of Yin.

Just now – today – when I want to announce the second Women Moving the Edge gathering, which I host and organise with Judy Wallace from the US. This is the first paragraph from our invitation:

“A purposeful gathering of conscious women who will:
• explore and move the edge of what it means to know, sense, and be our emergent collective future potential
• hold, embrace, and birth the unfolding wholeness together
• and in this process of discovery co-create new grooves in consciousness beyond our individual and collective edge

In this gathering we will not only explore the edge, we will be it, we will do it. Our world requires of us the courage to open, to engage, to inquire, to suspend, and to explore beyond what we think we know. Together we will co-create and be the vessel to awaken the inter-subjective “We”, the Being who comes alive through all of us together, who awaits our invitation to bring collective leadership into the world.”Although they are both about The Power of Yin, the difference is that the first format is about ‘Presenters’ and the second one is about ‘Participants’…

For people who read my postings on the gathering Women Moving the Edge, you might remember that the closing of this event went in total flow!

What I didn’t know is that Helen captured the sound of it. She names it: “A little fuzzy inspiration from the women at the edge.” You can listen to it, it only takes a few minutes…

It links with one of our insights. Question was: What is the transformative dynamic that we experienced here?

The answer was: A community that has the willingness to be called into presence, and the practice to tune into the notes of grace…

Yesterday something new happened for me and I think it is important for the leadership of the future. Years ago, in the autumn of 2000, I initiated a women’s group, which was called the FiveStar. Later the name changed to FourStar as one of us left our circle. This women’s circle was very important for me and to all of us. We all used it as our safety net and as our mirror and deep profound feed-back opportunity. Being all trained as therapists, you can be sure that we inquired into all bits and pieces of our emotional life. At a certain point silence ‘came in’. We didn’t decide to have more silence, but as we trained ourselves in following the energy that was present, silence happened. We learned to meditate together and used this collective state of presence to ask for information regarding questions or issues that were important to us. It was in itself a learning cycle – over the years – of co-sensing, until the point of ‘the eye of the needle’ as Scharmer names it in his U-process. I, or we, didn’t know this theory, only later I could see how our journey was a kind of U-process, at least the left side of the U: the process of coming to an Open Mind, an Open Heart and an Open Will. It was so fascinating for me that I wrote an article about it.

In this article I’m talking about the CircleBeing, this collective identity, that can arise when the members of a circle can all be fully present in themselves and with one another. The final question of this article is my hunch that CircleBeings become present because they have a CircleTask. You can see it as how individuals have all their individual life-task.

In one of our collective meditations, many months ago, we saw what this CircleTask is for us. But I got frustrated over time when I didn’t see any energy to make it manifest. Part of this frustration became constructive energy in the creation of Women Moving the Edge, about which I blogged recently. So I entered yesterday’s meeting with the question: Is our circle dying or is there energy for the emergence of something new? We had a deep dialogue about it and finally got again into a collective meditation around the focus question if we were to end our circle, and if not – why not, and if yes, why so? In the information we got it was crystal clear that ‘the form’ of our gatherings had come to an end and that there is a seperate path to go for each of us before we can realise our true potential, or our CircleTask.

So we left with no new appointment in our agenda and in total peace with our new insight. No blame, no conflict, no attachment to what was before… I knew right away that this was something important: not to be attached to the form or previous content of our meetings. Being able ‘to flow’, to be present to what is needed, not only related to content but also to form!

This seems to me an ability that is needed for the right part of the U-process. Because the trap of falling back into ‘known’ procedures, meetings and organising is very tempting when related to make things manifest.

I’m curious for the future to come…

It is Saturday already, and I still want to share the last part of our fascinating gathering. Our harvest on Tuesday morning still had the same quality of a collective sensing field that started on Monday morning. There was an overall opening to a collective and deeper knowing, in the form of questions ànd answers.

We were wondering about: What is the transformative dynamic? What made us come to this point, this state of collective wisdom, this Circle Being? Many elements were named…
start from silence…
deep listening…
walk the talk…
contain the pain and destructive forces…
holding chaos…
emptying for the whole word…
start from diversity…
trust the system…
listening to Life itself…

But the real answer was to me:
A community that has the willingness and the practice to tune into the notes of grace.

(more…)

This I wrote on the second day, that Judy earlier named as a day of chaos.

I started today with a strange feeling. Normally when facilitating a group I don’t have a fixed design, but when I sense into it some time before I always get a clear idea of what needs to happen. Not today! I contemplated on it for some time, but no: no idea would show up! And the ideas that Judy and I came up with some days before didn’t seem to fit neither. But strange enough, there was not any anxiety about it.

Arriving at the venue where others were eating breakfast it suddenly became clear, although we were talking ‘about’ the edge, and many good things happened and were shared, we were not on the edge. So I invited everyone to some movement and dancing with some questions: Are we still in a comfortable place, or our we really on the edge where it is risky? Are we sensible enough to listen, hear, feel the information from the collective field in between us?

Reflecting on this I could see – in terms of the U-process – how we had shifted to an Open Heart and an Open Mind, but that the step into an Open Will was much more difficult to take. It is almost funny to see when you know that this phase of chaos needs to happen and everybody is trying out her own pattern of survival and lots of proposals are done, but none is followed upon. The ‘hanging in’ here is important, because sooner or later the shift to real community will happen if you stick to real truth. The message spoken through one of us made us realise that we were a ‘real’ collective.

Just for dinner, on the second day, this clear message came through one of us. It made us all silent and we all knew the words were true. We offer it as a gift to others and hope you treat it with the same respect as we did.

“Be aware that what we do here is important. The new groove of consciousness is a collective one. Be aware that this is very important for the world. Although you might not know where it leads you, please follow the track. Stay tuned with your bodies, or your senses and your womb. It is a sensing organ because there is space, emptiness to receive. This is what makes you special as women, not in a way special as better. But special as this certain capacity that is needed in this being, this living organism.

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