Although we are not separate, we are each unique. Unique does not mean special. Unique means specific. In order to know our uniqueness, we must get specific. Which does take practice. Teachers, techniques, texts... these can help guide the way, but they are not a substitute for our intimate self knowledge. We are the only ones who know how our uniqueness manifests in this world. We practice listening in, feeling, understanding, experimenting, processing – to align ourselves with our unique nature.

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Especially when eyeballs + screens are involved – we can become overstimulated but be undersensualized. It's up to each one of us to recognize that we are out of balance. I can usually tell because I have a hard time disconnecting from technology and/or I become restless when doing "nothing."

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Most of us will not live in a community like Camphill, but each of us can cultivate our capacity to live in ways that honor our inherent interconnection. Through intimacy and imagination we can consciously create the world we live in together. Through belonging, we connect to ourselves, each other and everything and, ultimately, remember what we are. We are freedom. We are joy. We are love. We belong.

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It is entirely up to me to remember this fundamental truth: I am a grown-ass adult human, and I AM FREE. Remembering is the challenge. I can forget that I am free and fall into the trap of thinking I must get free. We will not get free once everything is resolved; we ARE free, right in this moment... And this one. If we allow ourselves to feel it.

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In meditation, we learn that our busy minds, our heartache, the pain in our bodies, the fear we feel for the future, the weight of collective grief, the exhaustion that overcomes us... none of these are to be sidelined or bypassed. AND, we also do not need to deny ourselves wellness because there is suffering. In fact, everything is included in our awareness. Heartache and fear as well as joy, strength, love, pride, peace...

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For many of us, soul and spirit are not elements that we bring to our change work (whether that work is personal or collective). But change is sacred work. As bell hooks said (in a Buddhist magazine, no less): If you’re fucked up and you lead the revolution, you’re going to have a fucked up revolution. If we aspire for change in our world, we must start with ourselves. The revolution will not be secularized. And recognizing all as sacred is revolutionary.

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Sacred trust knows that everything is always as it should be because it could not be otherwise. Trust is the foundation of our mindfulness practice. Ultimately, in life we are learning to trust... life. Period. Trusting life does not mean this moment is not challenging, overwhelming or heartbreaking. Trusting life does mean meeting life and every moment as an opportunity for waking up (which may mean challenging what we encounter).

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I have written before (so much!) about my intentions, attempts, and challenge to balance being and doing. Like many of us, I can get caught up in what Chela Davison calls “the pathology of productivity” – a pathology that has us trapped in endless cycles of progress. Practice can also get caught in this constant activity, in the momentum of always trying to get somewhere… else. Of course, this is the opposite of the awareness we develop to be present to each moment.

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I am so thankful for all the hours and decades I devoted to learning how to be with my experience with clarity and care – to see things clearly and to meet them with kindness. This capacity allows me to do the related work of knowing these patterns did not start with me.

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Let it be invites us into a more nuanced understanding that ultimately practice (and everything!) is paradoxical. The transformation we seek comes not from control and manipulation but from the subtle play of aspiration, action and allowing.

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It’s said that the Buddha referred to dharma practice as flowing “against the stream” of society… these days our spiritual practice is up against a tsunami—of chaos and lots and lots of collective pain. When we are not mindful, rather than just FEEL the pain of what’s happening around us in the present moment, we can become flooded by fears and anxieties.

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Here’s the deal: We ARE nature. This entire giant ball of aliveness hurtling through space (you know, Earth), this is nature. The space itself—nature. All we can see and not see, feel and not feel: all nature. And we are all connected to it.

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Belonging is not about bypassing crises so we feel better within our individual bubbles. It (unfortunately) makes perfect sense we have a planetary crisis that impacts people unequally. We should not be surprised, even if we are heartbroken.

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In some schools of Buddhism, this paradox is called the “Doctrine of Two Truths”—the absolute or ultimate truth of interconnection and the relative or conventional truth of difference. Belonging flourishes within this paradox: everything is connected, yet everything is experienced as separate...

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When I am truly present to the moment without pushing and pulling, without grasping or rejecting... I cannot help but be filled with love — for myself and everything.⁣

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I write about belonging because I’ve spent most of my life longing for it. And through all of my searching what I’ve learned is this: ⁣ We all belong to absolutely everyone and everything. ⁣
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To. ALL. Of. It. ⁣ This does NOT necessarily feel good.⁣
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