EcoGathering

If we step away from the dominant culture’s compulsion to classify, measure, quantify, and know everything it can, we find ourselves in the realm of mystery. There is a whole other side of the world that cannot be known, but only marveled at and dumbfounded by. There is a whole other kind of knowing not ground in causal certainty, but a certain kind of intuiting, or feeling, or experiencing. Join us this week as we explore the mysteries in the world around us and appreciate the mysteries in our own lives.

Though most of us are now raised under an institutionalized, empire-approved form of either (monotheistic) religion or aspirituality, many of us still feel some more-ness exists in our experience of the universe. This week, though we might lack the cultural and social means to grasp and explain it fully, we'll explore that more-ness in the world through the perspective of spirit.

This shorter cycle’s will focus on slower, quieter themes as we begin the new calendar year that will surely be full of more disruptions and uncertainty. As winter begins to settle in deeper for us in the northern hemisphere, we’ll sit with the elements that accompany this time of year (but are relevant, of course, anywhere on Earth at any given time, no matter your hemisphere of habitation): presence, darkness, and patience.

Modernity pushes us into ever more rapid performance, consumption, and reaction. In the accelerating chaos unfolding around us, we can all benefit from some stillness in our lives. Whether through meditation, prayer, habit, rest, even sleep, stillness has quite a lot to offer.

Darkness — non-metaphorical, the lack of light in the physical world — is an increasingly rare phenomenon, although it certainly feels like we have an abundnace of darnkess in these northern hemisphere winters. Darkness — metaphorical, all the difficult things in the world – is, unfortunately, not an increasingly rare phenomenon. For this call, we’ll focus mostly on the former, but just as it’s crucial to acknowledge the necessity of darkness for the critters and habitats on Earth, it’s neccessary to acknoledge the darkness we feel (gently, of course — we don’t need to dive too deep into the darkness of the world).

What lessons can we and, whether we want to or not, must we learn from darkness, physical and metaphorical? On this call, we'll figure a bit of that out together.

"Good things come to those who wait." “Patience is a virtue." Perhaps, but at the very least we all have experienced the necessary practice of patience in our own lives. On our final call of this shortened cycle, we'll convene around the practice and lessons of patience, which can feel especially challenging when we feel so much urgency.

Humans are offered – forced into, really – relatively few roles and identities in modernity. On this first call, we’ll unpack how we’ve been made to live as conquerers, occupiers, Homo colossus, separated from and domineering over the living world. Our population, our consumption, and the myths we've been offered all inform this role we can choose to resist.

What is our place in the world? What should it be? What do we have to offer Earth and her living and non-living (so far as we think we know) communities?

We regulary see appeals to the privilge or necessity of humans as stewards of the Earth. But what do these claims imply — ownership, power over, posession? Are we above the Earth, separate from her, as her managers? Where does our stewardship lead — or, how do we choose to make decisions as stewards? Do we choose what’s best for all beings, or do we consciously or unconsciously shape the world for our specific benefit?

The idea of being a steward does get at an important point of course: we can and should have a role in co-creating an abundant, diverse living world. Could we do that as stewards? Or perhaps it’s better to imagine ourselves as siblings or neighbors, a more horizontal relationship with all other non-human members of the living world.