Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Finding solutions to community discord in a dream


We have created a storm.  A cold front of litigation, investigation, accusation and counter-accusation. A storm of social media threads so dense that it feels like hard rain.   So how do we find solutions to our community discord?  I have discovered some solutions in a painting of a dream. 


Here is the full painting. Number 6 in the on-going series of 47, each based on one of my 47 Journey Oracle cards.    And here are some insights I found while musing about the meaning of some of the details in this work titled: Are you dressing appropriately for the weather? 

 

Get rid of the fence.  Fences are barriers made mostly of fear.  Fear of trespass, fear of escape, fear of violation, fear of change.  This fence looks old and flimsy.  Probably could be pushed over, if the people just turned around and put some effort into it. We may each need to ask "What am I afraid of?" and then sit in a circle and tell our answers to each other. 

Dress appropriately for the weather.  What are they thinking?  Such a strange combination of vulnerability and formality.  What are the most practical ideas and useful actions to wear in a storm of  bullying negativity and misinformation?  Let's figure those out and wear them instead.


Send kind words to everyone. Energy follows the path of purpose. Have a word with yourself about your own purposes in participating in the whispering conversations, the media threads, the long phone calls. 


Stop breaking more glass.  Reconciliation is not retribution, and certainly not revenge. Questions help to join the edges of our perceptions and reality together, demands break us apart.


Remember why we live here.  We love this place.  We each had to make an effort to arrive on this Cortes island.  Its not just a gradual meander along the road to the next likely location, but a place that requires crossing a moat.

Aldous Huxley, who for years owned little more than an automobile and a few books, said, "I must confess, I regret the chains with which I have not loaded myself.  In these moods I desire a house full of stuff, a plot of land with things growing on it; I feel that I should like to know one small place and its people intimately, that I should like to have known them for years, all my life.  But one cannot be two incompatible things at the same time  If one desires freedom, one must sacrifice the advantages of being bound." (as quoted in On Trails, by Robert Moor)

I think most of us who are trying to find solutions to our community discord are doing so because we are bound to this place.  I believe this is our higher unity.