“Our goal is to create a world-wide beloved community and this will require a qualitative change in our souls
as well as a quantitative change in our lives.”
— Martin Luther King, Jr.

“The technology we need most badly is the technology of community – the knowledge of how to cooperate to get things done.  Our sense of community is in disrepair.”
— Bill McKibben, The New York Review of Books

There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability;
there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community.
— M. Scott Peck, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace

It has been said many times before, “now is the time, we are the ones we have been waiting for.”  We have heard and read about and are now personally and globally experiencing The Great Shift —  the dissolution of institutions, systems and behaviors based in fear and domination and the uprising of a new world humanity based in unity and interconnection.  Yes, we are truly living in the “end times” and the “beginning times” – a Great Death is occurring and simultaneously so is a Great Birth.  We are collectively situated on the razor’s edge – a choice as the late mystic Pierre Teilhard de Chardin referred to as a choice between suicide and adoration –  “The day is not distant when humanity will realize that it is faced with a choice between suicide and adoration.”

We have arrived at this choice point and there is no turning back now.  What does it mean to choose the path of adoration?  What does it mean to be the ones we are waiting for?  What is the new consciousness calling us to embody and create?  And how do we endure the darkness of the night and as we mine the gold for a new tomorrow?

There are many answers to these questions and yet one clarion call rings true over and over again in my own mystic’s heart.  The whisper from the new world that beckons to us is calling for the co-creation of a world-wide beloved community – to live our native Oneness in and through our relationships with one another – locally and globally.  It is calling us to fully live and embody the Christ Consciousness and the vow to ‘love one another” and in so doing, create a world that works for all.

Authentic spiritual community is central to and essential for our current personal and global transformation – without it the shift in consciousness cannot and will not be fully revealed and lived.  It is one of the most powerful vehicles for grace, wholeness and transformation we have in our “arsenal” during these times as well as a manifest form of the new consciousness of the Living Oneness.  It is in and through community that a world that works for all can and will be conceived, created and lived.  And it is in and through community that a wholly, holy new divine human being will emerge.

If we accept the veracity and urgency of this call, how do we begin?  And what is the essential curriculum for such a community?

We begin with a radical searching of our own hearts and listening to and responding to the call we hear from within.  We listen to the depths of our own longing and from the depth of our knowing we move forward with clarity and with courage to call the community forth and into being. And yes, this takes an incredible courage and a surrendered willingness to face ourselves and one another, to drop the well crafted-masks and release the tight grip of our rugged and protected individualism and become something and someone new.  We begin by recognizing and acknowledging, with a radical humility, that as far as we may have come in our personal evolution that we still carry fear, distrust and resistance when we turn towards each other with unguarded hearts.  This is not an assignment for the faint of heart or spiritual dabblers, for authentic community calls forth the brightest of our light and the darkest of our shadow.  And, it is in the safety of that communal crucible that a powerful alchemy of love, compassion and embodied oneness can and will be born.

In the summer of 2008 I was called to begin a community in Portland, Oregon, to gather with people committed to taking the journey into love together.   It is through my own personal journey of traversing the landscapes of community over the past year and a half  and enduring the trials, tribulations and exhilarations that I have come to discover seven essential elements – flames of Divine Love that need to be tended to in the creation of sacred space and the nurturing of community.

• Flame #1:  Becoming  One— Creating a sacred space for the consciousness of Oneness to be the guiding force and intention – knowing for certain that there is One Purpose seeking to emerge in and through the community and the fabric of relationships.  Attuning to the One Presence rather than staying trapped in the fragmented and separate arena of the ego.  Actively practicing and returning to the consciousness of ‘when two or more are gathered.’
• Flame #2:  Emerging through Endurance — Creating a sacred space for the emergence and birth of a new Divine Human – a divinized human being working humbly with the One to transform life on earth.  This requires endurance, perseverance and commitment – a mystical, emotional and psychological staying power.  The ability to endure the darkness and mine for our personal and collective gold – the reclamation and integration of the Soul and our innate wholeness.  Endurance is an essential ingredient for the grace-filled, tender and oftentimes treacherous journey into love.

• Flame #3:  Transforming Grace — Creating a sacred space for Divine Grace to flow and harmonize and guide our interactions and relationships.  Surrendering to a Higher Intelligence and allowing the Divine Curriculum to emerge through the experiences that naturally arise in authentic community.  Everything that occurs in the community occurs in and through Divine Grace and Providence and is embraced in both shadow and light with compassion and love.  Everything and everyone is welcome and vital to the emergence and transformation.
• Flame #4:  Revealing Vulnerability — Creating a sacred space for our well-crafted masks that have been designed to protect and defend to melt and dissolve.  Revealing the True Self, the authentic Self as well as the fears and insecurities that we naturally experience as human beings.  Allowing ourselves to be seen in our light and in our shadow and to be unconditionally regarded and embraced in our humanity and our divinity.
• Flame #5:  Healing through Shadow Work — Creating a sacred space for the Shadow to be revealed and acknowledged, the parts of our psyches that are frozen in constriction and fear and unconsciously drive us and cause harm to our well being and the well being of others.  Becoming present to the disharmonious and disowned aspects of the Self and bringing them into a cohesive whole through compassion and clarity. Entering wholeness through the doorway of humility with the courage to face the darkness together.
• Flame #6:  Sharing Presence — Creating a sacred space for stillness, silence and resting in the Presence and in one another’s presence.  Entering into a state of suspended knowing to allow the mystery of what is seeking to emerge to reveal itself.  Seeing one another in the consciousness of “namaste” – seeing the Divine beauty and brilliance in the unique and diversified expression of each person.  Celebrating and honoring one another’s presence and being beyond roles, achievements and identities. Seeking and calling the Soul of each individual and the collective Soul into being through presence in each moment.
• Flame #7:  Bestowing Blessing — Creating a sacred space for giving our gifts and acknowledging and celebrating the gifts of others.  Blessing one another through the witnessing and naming of our essential nature and native gifts.  Receiving and perceiving one another as integral aspect of the whole and an essential expression of the One.  Honoring and respecting the diversity of the individual as it expresses in communion with others.  Lifting, encouraging and cheering one another on as we continue to say “yes” to doing our heart work!

“The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”
— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

When I was on my 40-day silent retreat in July/August 2007, I was guided one afternoon to pick up some pods that I had been calling “the seeds of new life” (blessing and dowsing with the daily Eucharistic wine) — and take several of the seeds and acorns and drive 20 miles to the nearest Barnes and Noble bookstore.  Upon arriving at the bookstore I was guided to place the seeds on the shelf that I wanted to have my book appear on.  I looked around and found the “Mysticism” section, and noticed that there was a woman cleaning and dusting the shelf.  I obviously needed to wait to place the pods/acorns/seeds so I wandered into the children’s section and immersed myself in a Bible picture book.  After awhile, I went back to the shelf. As I browsed the titles, I noticed Carolyn Myss’ book Sacred Contracts on the shelf and pulled it to me.  I placed one single acorn in the book sleeve and put the book back on the shelf with a few seeds and pods around it.  I whispered a silent blessing for Carolyn and “the seeds of new life.”

Today (October 20, 2009, approximately 2 years and 2 months later), if you visit www.hayhouse.com you will see the book I co-authored with James Twyman on the “e-shelf” right above Carolyn Myss’ new book “Defy Gravity.”
The Proof:  A 40-Day Program for Embodying Oneness. Miracles do happen…every moment we tune into and act upon the subtle guidance of our soul!

I am reminded today of two quotes:

“Trust in the Slow Work of God”
~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

and

“It is the entelechy of the acorn to grown into the oak tree.  The entelechy of a caterpillar to grow into a butterfly.  And yes, every single person is born with the entelechy of greatness.”
~ Jean Houston

And so it is. It’s in every one of us.  Amen.

All over the world psyche is now emerging, larger than it was. What had been contained in the “unconscious” over hundreds and thousands of years is up and about and preparing to go to work. This fact is the news that rarely makes the News, and it will have consequences greater than anything we might imagine. The negative consequences of this revivification of hidden content are there to be seen on the media — violence, oppression, the explosion of old fears and hatreds in countries that for decades had been contained under the lid of totalitarian regimes, the frequency of alcohol and chemical addictions, especially among those who feel that they have extra life to kill. “Thank God, our time is now,” poet Christopher Fry says, “when wrong comes up to meet us everywhere. Never to leave us, till we take the longest stride of soul men ever took.” This stride of soul must carry us through every shadow towards an open possibility, in a time when everything is quite literally up for grabs. We can do no less. The psyche requires its greatness, as do the times.

~ Jean Houston ~