Post Partum Suffering for a Greater Reality

This week Ecovillage Findhorn has immersed ourselves in a Purpose Quest. We learned from 5 Inspirational Sources (see full inspirations here).

Whole Community PurposeStrategic FrameworkGlobal Ecovillage NetworkDorothy MacLeanPatrick Lewington

From these inspirations, we drafted 8 Potential Purpose Statements (see them here).  And from these we identified 5 Themes:

Spiritual CommunityConnect with Intelligences of NatureEvolve and Support One AnotherRegeneration and ResilienceService to World

 While these interactions have inspired and woven and meshed our connections in community, I have been perplexed – even suffering? – about resistances and disconnections within and between community organizations. This reminded me to find my favourite Parker Palmer article: Thirteen Ways of Looking at Community (…with a fourteenth thrown in for free). (Read the whole wisdom here). Palmer’s discoveries about intentional community can be summarized in this table – and now I see my suffering is necessary … I wonder who else might support me as we open to our larger reality?

Old Ways of Thinking About CommunityPalmer’s Ways of Honouring CommunityCommunity is a goal.Community is a gift.We achieve community through desire, design, and determination.We receive community by cultivating a capacity for connectedness through contemplation.Community requires a feeling of intimacy.Community is not dependent on intimacy and must be expansive enough to include strangers, even enemies, as well as friends.Community is a romantic garden of Eden.Community is a crucible for our inner refinement and must endure hard times.Leadership is not needed in communities.Leadership creates “space” for human resourcefulness and creativity.Suffering is bad and should be avoided.Suffering is a necessary stage in opening the heart to a larger reality.