Sunday Contemplation # 31 We Need Two Hands To Hold Awakening

Start Close In, With The First Five

Photo by Ave Calvar on Unsplash

• This Week’s Quote

• This Sunday’s Contemplation

• A Guided Meditation

• Grateful For

• This Week’s Community Chat

• Upcoming Activities

This Week’s Quote

If we are willing to embrace the challenge of becoming whole, we can’t do it alone. We all need other people to invite, amplify, and help us listen to our inner teacher. We all need trustworthy relationships — tenacious communities of support — if we hope to sustain the journey towards wholeness.

Parker J. Palmer

This Sunday’s Contemplation

Hello My Friends: I hope that you have had a week of peace, or I hope you have had a week that can move you towards peace.

I want to give you a bit of context for today’s contemplation. Some very good friends and I are about to launch something we are calling The Wisdom Path Project. The essence of our work is to do our part to bring wisdom, which we believe is central to who we are as humans, into the activities, businesses, communities and institutions we build together. The work has at its core the idea that awakening to who we are, is not an individual pursuit.

To wake up the world will require us to build networks of awakening, firstly within ourselves, and then with those closest to us, to those we work with and act with in the world. From these networks close to home we can join the networks and communities of others.

I spent a day this weekend at a workshop given by David Whyte. He is my favourite writer and poet, and in my experience he is gifted with mystical insight. He has said…”that a blessing is the act of wishing for something for someone that they had not allowed themselves to desire or deserve”.

I wish for you all today the gift of resilience and peace within in these very challenging times, and the strength for us to stand together so that we all may discover, and make real, peace.

Now to today’s contemplation for your consideration.

We Need Two Hands To Hold Awakening - Start With The First Five.

Awakening is the process of discovering who we really are. It is the discovery that opens our eyes to the sacred and essential nature of each person and of life itself.

I wrote recently about this awakening being the beginning of our real journey, not the end, and that at its heart it is not an individual journey but a journey on behalf of us all, and with us all. We need a team, a clearness committee (a term used by Parker J. Palmer), a sangha, a community.

I would like to explore this more.

We have two hands. Our hands are designed for carrying, for creating, for holding, for joining. They provide the foundation to understand what we need to awaken, to hold that awakening, and to share that awakening.

As I describe these hands, and what I think they represent, we will explore the qualities of support and love and inner community that humans need to have the strength and resilience to live and act in the world. This examination is a tool. What I ask you to think about is not a pass or fail process, or a competition to measure how enlightened we are. It is merely to help you and I to consider our inner networks.

Look at your left hand - palm up

…as the symbol of building your “first five”.

Think of about your life starting with considering what your little finger could represent. Is there someone in your life you can love, and can love you, like a child? They may be a child, your child, or someone who allows you and needs you to mentor and cherish them with an open heart.

Think of your next finger, often used to carry a wedding band. Is there someone in your life, a partner with whom you can share all things unconditionally, who loves you, and you can love without judgement? Don’t think of the Pollyanna romantic novel version here. Think of the one you have probably had to forgive or be forgiven by often. Think in the long span, not of last night’s kitchen argument.

Think of the middle finger. Is there a teacher in your life? Is there someone whose wisdom and example informs how you consider your life?

Think of your fourth finger. Is there a friend in your life who tells you like it is, sometimes bluntly, but always meaning to love and support you? Are you that to someone?

Think of your thumb. Is there a guide in your life? Is there someone who helps you “hold it together" through the many twists and turns, or perhaps a deeply cherished philosophy or teaching that informs your values and actions in your life, and helps hold your life together?

Considering our hands like this is symbol for the close in relationships in our inner life, that we need to become strong, stable, enriched and resilient. How rich and stable do you think your inner life could be if you were surrounded by and supported by, child like love, a real partner on the journey, a teacher you can look to, a real friend, and a holding- my- life- and-contradictions- together guide.

My own clearness committee (left hand) has one person who holds two of these roles, and one who is no longer on the planet. I am blessed, mostly because the walls I ran into and the mistakes I made, caused me to surrender the illusion I was OK “on my own”. I reached out, or someone reached in to me. Either way I gave up the arrogant belief that I didn’t need help. Even God said to me one day whilst I sat on a rock in my isolated, singularly mindful way…”are you kidding me you idiot. I designed you to need help!” (My translation of the feeling of being clipped over the ears).

If you are missing one of these supports in your life? Is there something you can do to build that quality of support into your life?

Of course this is just an image and process. I am sure you may think of many others we need in our inner lives. Please just use this approach to consider if you have the support of others to strengthen and stabilise your INNER life and journey.

We need substantial moments of stillness in our lives. These will often be carved out in time alone. We may meditate or pray alone, as we should. Our lives involve holding deeply to our inner roots, so that we may stand strong in the windy environs of life in the “real” world. We will need to nourish these roots alone and in stillness, but let’s not pretend that we can grow those inner roots alone, without the help and support of others.

We build inner resilience and stability by entrusting the most precious parts of our inner life to others. It is a surrender, a vulnerable supplication, a recognition that we need help. That is a key part of our awakening.

Look at your right hand - palm up.

Our hands hold our life’s most precious gifts. They are, on one hand, the inner relationships of the left hand, our clearness committee. To help awaken the world will require us to reach out. Let’s think of the right hand as the hand that reaches out to be the builder of teams, communities and networks of awakening. This is the hand of our movement in the world.

This movement is most challenging. To do this in the world means to carry the entrusting, the surrender, the vulnerability, the love, so critical to our left hand, into the right hand of engagement with the world.

This is where the awakened rubber hits the unsafe roads of the world. A product warning - this can get messy! No neat little thought experiment this. As you read this imagine reaching out in the world as you now know it, not the simple world you wished it would be.

To build activities in the world that contribute to awakening the world, we must start close in.

Are there people I can work with who share my vision, my purpose, my hopes, my dreams? Can I trust them to hold my purpose and dreams close in? Can they trust me to hold their dreams and purpose close in?

Many people dismiss this thinking as the delusions of naive dreamers. I say they are profoundly wrong.

Wherever I have worked in my life I have worked next to and with dreamers, humans of purpose, longers for love, givers and needers of trust. Last time I checked this is the nature of most humans. The key thing that defined the quality of the experience of the work was the extent to which those people felt safe to show their dreams, schemes, hopes, trust and sacred hearts.

We need not wonder about the scarcity of dreamers and those capable of purpose, trust and dependability. There is no scarcity of such people. The scarcity is only in the environments where people are safe to express the abundant resources of their inner lives. Wisdom abounds. The courage to build teams and networks designed for real humans is what is missing. For the courage and the skills to build that environment, we need each other. We need our right hands.

So start close in. Find five people. Are there five people who I can act with in the world where our purposes align? This may be in something local. This may be in a club. This may be in a new business. This may be in a team at your existing work. This may be on a cause central to your passion. It may be all of these.

The right hand holds two essential capabilities:

* The capacity to hold your purpose safely, and to reach out to find those who share that purpose, or where their own purpose aligns with yours, though expressed differently.

* The capacity to bring the qualities of connection you have built in your left hand to your movement in the world. There are parts of you, and parts in every other person that need to be honoured, held close and respected, like a child, a partner, a teacher, a guide, a friend. The qualities of such connections held back from the world creates the suffering we see, at work, at play, in the body politic, and in the world.

This is why we must start with our left hand, those who support our inner resilience, safety and peace. Those who love us and empower us to explore the sacred within. As we strengthen our inner clearness committee, our left hand, the work of our right hand becomes stronger.

Our power to connect with others authentically grows. When we experience in our own inner life, the wonder of a good good teacher and guide, we are better equipped to see those qualities in those we build with in the world. If we know within what a good friend feels like, we can spot more potential friends around us.

We need only one strong left hand. That hand powers the work of the right hand to reach out to many many “fives”. Don’t hold me to the exact numbers here, but contemplate the possibility that you can reach out to build small groups, (teams) with high quality connections anchored in trust, resilience, sacred respect, and reliability.

The community within, and without.

There is so much despair, and such a focus on division, derision and violence. Of course we should not close our eyes to the injustices nor the violence. We have much to do.

But more importantly, we must not turn away from the most powerful resource we have to combat hatred. We must not close our eyes to the abundance of wisdom, trust and aligned purpose that exist right in front of our eyes.

Wisdom, trust and sacred purpose are the most abundant resources we have. They require only a right hand of respect and friendship to be extended. Start close in. Start with five or so. Don’t put daisies in gun barrels, find those you live with and near, and extend your hand of purpose. Find the other fives. Build the many fives. Therein lies inestimable power.

This process will likely be more messy than eating a Nathan’s hot dog on a New York summer day, but it will be worth it! Don’t stop at the mess. If you wanted neat and tidy, you were born on the wrong planet. This is our address. Start close in.

The intent of derision and division is to blind us to the abundant resources of hope and community that are a hand reach away. You and I, we cannot make this world better alone. In fact we cannot make ourselves better alone. We are designed to need each other. We are designed to need help, and to give help.

I wish you all peace. I wish you love.

I wish you the strength to start close in.

Thank you for reading this. See you next week.

Feel free to leave a comment. I really value and appreciate your thoughts.

A Guided Meditation

I have received quite a bit of feedback that a guided meditation connected to the topic of these contemplations has been appreciated. When appropriate I will provide one each week. I will post this week’s guided meditation in a couple of days. It will be called The Two Hands Of Awakening.

Grateful For

I include this section because I found that when I read or hear about what others are grateful for, I tend to think more about what I am grateful for. Feel free to share what you are grateful for in the comments. I think it is a beautiful service to others.

Yesterday I had the chance to hear David Whyte speak in person at Byron Bay here in Australia. For three hours I felt transported to the windy Irish and English coastlines, and to the most beautiful places of the heart. There is something to cherish about someone who can use words to bring us closer to the wordless. He and his creations are a gem for our age and beyond.

This Week’s Community Chat

The theme in the chat this week is:

The two hands of awakening.

What do you think about the idea that awakening is not just an individual pursuit, but an inner and outer journey?

Of course, feel free to share anything in your heart.

Thank you.

Upcoming Activities

My friend Sally Avison and I have been hosting Wise Hearts Circle zoom meetings. We are on a break right now and reconsidering our approach. We will certainly let you know our next plan when we have formulated it.

Should you want to message me directly, please feel free to do so.