Human to Human

Dana and I walked last night. High above, two crows huddled. Or maybe one pair. I loved the silhouette feel against the late sky blue.

Recently I was in conversation with a fellow Wanderer. We were exploring what is common across the Becoming & Belonging Sessions. We were finding clarity together, about the intent to connect more of the inner with the outer. And about seeing in wholes (one pair, not two birds…).

I named these three commonalities or B & B process:

1. We Pay Attention — this is the most consistent of invocations among consciousness traditions, isn’t it. Mary Oliver starts with “Pay attention” in her Instructions For Living A Life. Pay attention to what is nudging for your attention. Create an attentive field in yourself, and with others. Create attentive relationships that are known for their attentive ways. Perhaps there is more than randomness to such attentive practice that has a way of organizing us.
2. We Notice — to notice is really an invitation to explore, to be curious. To dwell in the attentive state. Not working too hard with meaning making. Not forcing. Rather, letting it come as if a stream, readily continuous, refreshing your feet on a hot day.
3. We Connect Inner + Outer — this is so much the work. It matters less where we begin, whether inner or outer. Both will point to each other. And it matters less that we get it all. Rather, it matters that we start somewhere, that we develop the habit of legitimizing this connection. Alan Watts wrote, “we recognize the illusion of distinct selves.” One pair. This is the direction that attentiveness can move us, perhaps wants to move us.

My fellow Wanderer and I continued, arriving at an alchemical understanding.

Processes like these — to pay attention, to notice, to connect inner and outer — well this changes the being of who we are. Individually. And together. The outcome of the moment may matter to some degree, but this change in our being and in our seeing and in our perceiving (one pair, not two birds) — well this is what I so wish for as a human navigating the many stories of purpose.

On it goes. I like the work of alchemy in me and with others.

Good one. Michael Meade (thx Rebecca Holt for sharing).

To come into that kind of flow, clarified by source — yup, that’s the big stuff.

I like it that Virginia Woolf and I share a last name and spelling. I don’t know of any relationship via lineage. But I’m content to feel that little spark of joy.

She lived in the late 1800s through mid 1900s. English. I like it that she was known in her writing for developing the inner lives of her characters.

I so relate — in Wander School and in Becoming & Belonging. That’s crafting ways to explore more of the inner life connected to the outer life.

Earlier this week I found a few pieces written by Woolf (from the Marginalian). I took a few chunks of that writing to invite reflection in a Men’s Group.

For inspiration. And some attention to the inner life.

“Beyond the difficulty of communicating oneself,
there is the supreme difficulty of being oneself.
This soul, or life within us, by no means agrees 
with the life outside us.”
…
“The man who is aware of himself is henceforth independent; 
and he is never bored, 
and life is only too short, 
and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness.
He alone lives, while other people, slaves of ceremony, let life slip past them in a kind of dream.”
…
“Let us simmer over our incalculable cauldron,
our enthrallling confusion, our hotch-potch of impulses, our perpetual miracle —
for the soul throws up wonders every second. 
Movement and change are the essence of our being;
rigidity is death; conformity is death;
let us say what comes into our heads, repeat ourselves, contradict ourselves,
fling out the wildest nonsense, 
and follow the most fantastic fancies without caring what the world does or think or says.”