May 18th & 19th at the Living Prayer House:
Earthen plaster at the Port Townsend Ecovillage
The movement of our bodies
The songs of our soul
Become these walls
The songs of our soul
Become these walls
Though the Living Prayer House is the most conventional project I have worked on from a strictly construction standpoint, there's a great strength in the social vitality of this Place, and - for a variety of reasons - it's generated the most Love I have felt in a group project.
On the beach with a friend last week, we were speaking to the quality of healthy, regenerative cells in the body, and living until we are ready to die. I have a sense it is possible for humans to live well for a very long time, given we nurture the liveliness of our Being... replenishing our cells with living foods, thoughts that make us happy to be alive, and actions that feed our spirits. Even 100 years- more common even now than one might think - is a generous amount of time. If the owners of this house we've been plastering live to be 100, well, they're only 70ish, so they have more years left than I have even been alive.
As I think all at once about the things I want to do or learn or realize, all of my life come to pass, and the sensation of the sun warming the winter out of my body, it feels Truthful to me to feel the potential of a long and vibrant life because it is already so. Sometimes I already feel as though I have been alive for eternity...!.. Time sometimes feels like it's blown by quicker than strong westerly winds off the sea, and other times it feels non existent like it's cradling the texture of the early sunrise on a dewdrop. Sometimes I feel impatient, sometimes I feel frustrated and overwhelmed by our society and what we have chosen to create, and most times I feel in awe.
My friend from the beach says the book The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos rises, "The sun, each second, transforms four million tons of itself into light. Each second a huge chunk of the sun vanishes into radiant energy that soars away in all directions."
And still, after all this time,
the Sun has never
said to the Earth,
"You owe me."
Look what happens
with love like that.
It lights up the Sky
~ Rumi
What can we learn from such a gift? Culture is redesigning itself, remembering old and reliable patterns found in nature. Quite frankly because the patterns it's playing out now are unhealthy, unsatisfying, and unnecessary. Some people say there's nothing natural about our culture, but if we embrace the idea that we are not separate from Nature, and our current culture is Nature too, it is only natural that with so much dysfunction, we see so much hurt. The destruction of our planet and the disconnection from our soul are perfect reflections of each other. We're in the middle of a global revolution that is about coming [back] to a place where we feel supported in who we are, and hold responsibilities to each other by valuing our interconnection as a means for imagining our lives - collectively - to our fullest potential. And I do not mean "fullest" as in maximizing modern terms of 'success', or 'power' - I mean we look at the Sun and understand what it means to give. To fully be ourselves, and as an action of such realization, to give our gift away to the community with Joy and Presence.
Gift economy works this way. I cook a meal for you because I want to. There's no "getting even" in this situation. We don't need to tit-for-tat by you doing the dishes or cooking for me later - unless you want to. I love troweling and plaster work, so here I find myself doing it! Nettles do not demand the fir and cedar to grow in order to support and protect them, and the river asks nothing of salmon. Trees drop their leaves for mulch. A mother nurses a child. Giant rocks ware into sand. Each piece does what it does. Exchanging fixed sets of money or even barter only represent our confusion in understanding who we are - that we try to quantify our worth based on what we guess others think our work is worth to them. Instead, we can live from a generative place, a place of Gifting.
Charles Eisenstein calls this manner of behavior "Interbeing", well explored in The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible.
When we're ourselves, we can give it away unconditionally. When I'm around children, I notice they do it all the time; they're constantly giving away drawings, little possessions, flowers, fresh picked strawberries, and stories... Somewhere inside us, we bring along who we are at five, dipping our feet in the water to watch the minnows, and who we are at seventy, building our new home with deep rooted intention and vision. We have no need to wait for anyone else in the world to respond to the resonance of our Spirit. Everything we came from, and everything we Will, we carry with us as an expression of our thoughts, emotions, posture, energy, and actions... and there is no limit to how much we can heal and how bright we can shine.
We are always all of our ages. From stardust on.
On the beach with a friend last week, we were speaking to the quality of healthy, regenerative cells in the body, and living until we are ready to die. I have a sense it is possible for humans to live well for a very long time, given we nurture the liveliness of our Being... replenishing our cells with living foods, thoughts that make us happy to be alive, and actions that feed our spirits. Even 100 years- more common even now than one might think - is a generous amount of time. If the owners of this house we've been plastering live to be 100, well, they're only 70ish, so they have more years left than I have even been alive.
As I think all at once about the things I want to do or learn or realize, all of my life come to pass, and the sensation of the sun warming the winter out of my body, it feels Truthful to me to feel the potential of a long and vibrant life because it is already so. Sometimes I already feel as though I have been alive for eternity...!.. Time sometimes feels like it's blown by quicker than strong westerly winds off the sea, and other times it feels non existent like it's cradling the texture of the early sunrise on a dewdrop. Sometimes I feel impatient, sometimes I feel frustrated and overwhelmed by our society and what we have chosen to create, and most times I feel in awe.
My friend from the beach says the book The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos rises, "The sun, each second, transforms four million tons of itself into light. Each second a huge chunk of the sun vanishes into radiant energy that soars away in all directions."
And still, after all this time,
the Sun has never
said to the Earth,
"You owe me."
Look what happens
with love like that.
It lights up the Sky
~ Rumi
What can we learn from such a gift? Culture is redesigning itself, remembering old and reliable patterns found in nature. Quite frankly because the patterns it's playing out now are unhealthy, unsatisfying, and unnecessary. Some people say there's nothing natural about our culture, but if we embrace the idea that we are not separate from Nature, and our current culture is Nature too, it is only natural that with so much dysfunction, we see so much hurt. The destruction of our planet and the disconnection from our soul are perfect reflections of each other. We're in the middle of a global revolution that is about coming [back] to a place where we feel supported in who we are, and hold responsibilities to each other by valuing our interconnection as a means for imagining our lives - collectively - to our fullest potential. And I do not mean "fullest" as in maximizing modern terms of 'success', or 'power' - I mean we look at the Sun and understand what it means to give. To fully be ourselves, and as an action of such realization, to give our gift away to the community with Joy and Presence.
Gift economy works this way. I cook a meal for you because I want to. There's no "getting even" in this situation. We don't need to tit-for-tat by you doing the dishes or cooking for me later - unless you want to. I love troweling and plaster work, so here I find myself doing it! Nettles do not demand the fir and cedar to grow in order to support and protect them, and the river asks nothing of salmon. Trees drop their leaves for mulch. A mother nurses a child. Giant rocks ware into sand. Each piece does what it does. Exchanging fixed sets of money or even barter only represent our confusion in understanding who we are - that we try to quantify our worth based on what we guess others think our work is worth to them. Instead, we can live from a generative place, a place of Gifting.
Charles Eisenstein calls this manner of behavior "Interbeing", well explored in The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible.
When we're ourselves, we can give it away unconditionally. When I'm around children, I notice they do it all the time; they're constantly giving away drawings, little possessions, flowers, fresh picked strawberries, and stories... Somewhere inside us, we bring along who we are at five, dipping our feet in the water to watch the minnows, and who we are at seventy, building our new home with deep rooted intention and vision. We have no need to wait for anyone else in the world to respond to the resonance of our Spirit. Everything we came from, and everything we Will, we carry with us as an expression of our thoughts, emotions, posture, energy, and actions... and there is no limit to how much we can heal and how bright we can shine.
We are always all of our ages. From stardust on.
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