The Sticky Part of Belonging In Activism and Spirituality Spaces
I have had a lot of private conversations with friends who I consider to be deeply-embedded in their hearts. We don’t all agree on every single thing, but we have this one thing in common: we are deeply committed to using our own perspectives in the world, not to run over other ways of seeing, but because true intimacy cannot be had with a person who does not know who they are.
Another thing many of my friends have in common is the tendency to try and understand the other before going into their own experience. This is why I am surrounded by people who ask deep questions, not just about spirituality but about everything.
They want to understand the cultures of the world, the systems of the world, and how to fine tune their truth antenna down to the etymology of everyday words.
They always ask what they can give or how they can help before they ask for what they want. And many of them are learning that in a way, this default “giving” is yet another trick of the ego, another way of shirking responsibility for one’s depth, power, and gifts by one-dimensionalizing one’s identity in order to be easy to file, easy to understand, and difficult to hurt.
What many of the dreamers of the world fear more than anything else is disappointment. The disappointment of how it will feel when their dreams land in their reality and aren’t quite what they imagined. This ongoing fear of disappointment makes sense for the people who resonate with me… many of those who understand or are drawn to my outlook are otherworldly… whether they are from star systems far away from here or an ancient world they can remember doesn’t matter. What matters is that many of ‘my people"‘ feel they are from places that don’t look like this planet, that don’t feel like this planet, that don’t operate in the bizarre norms of this planet, and yet… here we are.
I could go into some diatribe about star systems and angelic realms, but I will leave that for another day. Suffice it to say, that I am surrounded by people who have always felt outside in some ways from the general population, but who also deeply deeply deeply care about the world, from their relationships with their own siblings to the “weeds” that grow in their yards to the strangers they see calling out for help all over the world, the people who are drawn to me have this in common: they care.
The issue is that we all care differently from each other, and many of us have been socialized to feel a baseline sense of insufficiency to such a large degree that we do not trust our care. On top of this, those who have felt different than most people in the essence of our being
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Garden of the Imaginal: Weaving the stars into the earth to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.