Introducing Beloved Earth Communion - a relational field incorporating Beloved Earth Community and more.
Beloved Earth and the Gathering Gates
As part of our journey reviewing and updating the aims and vision of the Gathering Gates, we've agreed that the 'intentional community' element of our vision will now form a separate offering as Beloved Earth Communion with its own website in due course. This project will be one of a number standing shoulder to shoulder alongside others consciously oriented in the direction of systems change, cultural renewal and inner transformation.
Community and the enigma of our times
Alongside partners within the Gathering Gates coalition, I'm looking to engage with the reality of what is falling apart in our times and to embrace what appears to be a unique liminal space that we currently find ourselves in, in which new and potentially more benign possibilities for the human race are coming into view.
For me, there's an imperative within these wider objectives around seeking creative, heart-centred ways of meeting the fear, uncertainty and volatility that is currently circulating (and escalating) in the political and economic arenas, both locally and globally. It seems to me that the need to come together in new ways and form communities of care and transformation is at the heart of the core enigma of our times, and perhaps a key to meeting the challenges in our path.
The evident growth of interest around the idea of community confirms the deep knowing of my own heart and soul: that individual healing and transformation is inseparable from our collective wellbeing. It's a comfort to me to know I'm not alone in sensing the increasing urgency to find ways of bringing about the re-union of peoples and planet.
My personal quest for community
The question "How we can restore the lost circles of life?" has been a central theme and an active inquiry throughout my 55 years on this planet. This has led me to study, train and practice a number of collaborative modalities including Sociocracy 3.0, Dragon Dreaming, the Way of Council and more.
It's also taken me to the work of tending grief in community, and I've been active for some years now as a facilitator and organiser with Norfolk Grief Tending. This is a powerful way of, amongst other things, activating the common bond that joins us heart-to-heart with each other and also with the wider lifeworld of which we are a part.
My decades-long involvement in the 12 step recovery movement has given me a firm spiritual orientation towards my own life and my participation in the wider lifeworld. From this foundation, I have developed a spiritual practice and outlook that is rooted in both Christian mysticism and in what I think of as 'earth spirituality'.
I have been offering spaces for contemplative practice for many years, initially through the Norwich Christian Meditation Centre and Contemplative Outreach and, more recently, through the 'Julian's Window' sacred chanting group which was meeting regularly last year. I have plans to continue offering spaces that include this more overt spiritual dimension.
Within all this is a conviction that we need to find our way (back? forward?) into a relationship of deep and reverent reciprocity with the land – with the nature that is both within us, under our feet, and all around us. Without this, I don't believe we will be able to make any meaningful headway in bringing about the radical repair of our lifeworld that is the call of our times.
This ongoing quest is the motivation behind the 'Beloved Earth Community' project, and I continue to seek connection with others who resonate with the idea of forming a land-based intentional community.
Bringing it all together
I'm in an ongoing inquiry around how to bring together these aspects of my life into one coherent whole. I sense this could enable me to more fully bring my gifts in service of ever-deeper communion with the all-that-is, and to more effectively open up spaces where others can bring their gifts too.
What has emerged is the idea of 'Beloved Earth Communion' as an umbrella of sorts for sheltering a relational field that may encompass both intentional and what we might call 'unintentional community' (thanks to Dita Vizoso for introducing me to this idea).
As I see it, intentional community is about, amongst other things, bringing conscious intention to what we wish to manifest and it is a prayerful act of co-creation in solidarity with the divine. But what if our heart's longing corresponds with a desire that goes even deeper, a cosmic 'ishq' that is also held within the earth itself? The idea of unintentional community could be a way of taking into account what we don't know we don't know – in other words, making space for the prayer that is already praying us.
Another way of speaking to this is the term 'communitas', which I rather like – it has a warm feel to it. It's used in cultural anthropology and the social sciences, and it gained prominence through the work of Victor Turner. Wikipedia describes it as a community or fellowship that transcends social structures, a phenomenon that arises during liminal periods, or 'between states', characterized by a sense of shared humanity and equality. All of which resonates for me as part of the direction of travel here.
Either way, Beloved Earth Communion feels like a subtle but important shift for me, something that can hold the idea of cohering (or communing) together in both these ways. It shapeshifts the idea of community as a fixed, static entity, towards something that is perhaps more fluid and dynamic, a wide open sense of 'being in communion'.
Land-based co-living
Forming a conscious land-based co-living project continues to be a core part of the vision. Beyond that, I envisage multiple lines of connection and inquiry within this broader frame (intentional communion?) flowing around a core aim of hospicing with love what is coming to an end, and midwifing with care what is emerging in the crucible of the collective awakened heart.
Intentional and unintentional community, communitas, land-based co-living, contemplative practice, ritual and ceremony, grief and praise tending, music medicine, song and chant, creative conversations... I'm feeling excited and curious at the prospect of mixing it all up, of bringing all the ingredients (and more) into a sacred alchemy.
We've been toying with the idea of 'apprenticing to love' – I have a sense that this is what it all adds up to. I hope that may be the signature tune for the journey ahead, as we fall ever-deeper into the Heart of Love. Where else is there to go in these times?
Some re-jigging of website content and mailing list configurations will follow soon. In the meantime, comments, contributions and feedback all welcome.
With heartfelt thanks to Jackie Stewart and Jenny Haycocks for being alongside me as co-conspirators in this dreaming, for providing the inspiration behind much of the contents of this piece, and for supporting with love and patience what is coming through this shaky human. I hope, in turn, I am able to do the same for you both.
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