Liberating Structures

The elegance of physical form greeted my camera lens yesterday evening.  Statuesque structures rising out of the base frame, etching the beginnings of a shape the will be a home to so much in the future.

I have been musing this week about how this building process has been consistently inviting me to let go – to liberate, transcend and include the next level of form – again and again.  Every day I see a shift in the physical creation – and have to let go of any attachment to what it was like before.  It is developing, evolving…

So too is this quality present in the conversations of the need sensed by many people that it is time to liberate the financial, governance and democratic structures that have housed nations, regions, individuals – and that no longer serve what is needed now.

My perception is that when we liberate existing structures, we aim to tend the process with love, consciousness and with right timing.  Sometimes holding onto the existing structure is the rightful thing to do – if in service of wholeness, until which time it is clearly time to let go.  It also seems that wherever possible, enough intentionality / safety / holding / alignment are ideal prerequisites in order to do so.  Sometimes, though there aren’t sufficient amounts of these things present – its simply time, or even overdue to liberate the structure – and its painful!

What is really needed in the depth process of letting go…so that the next level of wholeness can emerge?

This process is so visibly present in the building process here.  Every step requires a conscious giving up to the next level of form – of wholeness – and a knowing that letting go is part of the natural evolutionary process – and that something new will emerge.

Slowly, slowly the same is true in Syntagma – but perhaps on a perception, values – more than a visible / outcome level.  The structure of meeting day after day in the Square IS the evolved structure that houses what is currently being explored, for now.  Yet, what other structures might be needed?  Many of us are working on evolving these possibilities right now – and when right timing, will be shared more widely.

The structures are shifting on multiple levels.  It IS time to ask the questions of what serves now – and what needs to evolve, be liberated.

With this too, I have been left wondering what in my personal internal / external restructuring does this affect too…?

Firstly, through the act of inviting the Collaborative Space Making, Maria and I are prototyping the next level of partnership and co-creation, real time – with Linda and Valerie.  We are holding this evolution together – and the level of commitment for us to collectively hold this IS the next level, in terms of the physical land of Axladitsa.

This act of collaboration IS heralding a new phase – with much still unknown, but it is palpably different in quality and presence.

We sense that the time of Maria and I holding the deeper work physically here on the land is coming to a close.  This Space Making became tangible in the conversations and interactions during the May Immersion, showing that this impulse we had sensed together was true – and in right timing.  It was present in how we lived in our conversations and in our naming of sweet intention that we simply wished to share more life together.

Secondly, we are co-creating with Vanessa, the next level of structure of the Living Wholeness Institute – that has been co-stewarded between the three of us – and informed by the presence, interactions and consciousness of our selves and many others here on the land and elsewhere in our work in the world.

Thirdly, I am in the deep work or writing my book Time to Wake Up – currently restructuring the form, as well as excavating some of the deeper impulses of the journey Maria and I lived during the years of wishing to create a place of learning – and the story of moving to guardian Axladitsa – revealing of the living wholeness work and pattern – fueled by the journey, others and in the last few years, with the unique passion, creativity and life-experience of Vanessa.

There are other levels at play too…

With all these multi-level impressions spiraling in my field of awareness – my physical structure felt a ‘snap’ inside, a week ago.  A nerve caught (or something like this) creating a huge amount of pain around my kidney area that compelled me to sleep and caused me to struggle to stand up.

Perhaps my ‘lightning rod’ structural capacity was overloaded with impressions that only sleep, rest and conversations could integrate – giving time for the subtle noticing of all that is present.  Perhaps too, something in me was being asked to be liberated, in order to give space for the new form.  I had to take a moment to acknowledge the shifts at play, that consciously witnessing them was necessary, in order to step into the new.  Perhaps too, something more physically significant was at play and I needed to see a Dr or I that I was more tense than I realised and I needed a massage!! 

At some level it was clear that liberating structures in myself was needed too!

As we create these new structures to be able house the new life, it is important to consider the scale that is now necessary.  This morning in a skype call, I spoke of a termite mound…the incredible natural form that is created by the collective efforts of many builders.  It is the largest structure relative to the size of the creators on earth.  They are the master builders. This highly sophisticated design and build process is a combined act of creating intricate, internal latticework structuring, enabling the scale and stature of the external form.  This too liberates the structure of the community as a whole to bring their actions in collective effort and service.

Who holds the termite ‘ground plan’?   How do they know what to build where and when?  Somehow, they all do – it is embedded in their DNA, in their knowing.  Can they see the entire structure?  Probably not – yet they do their part and ultimately it creates a coherent whole.  The nature of the build might also be connected to it being a place of protection and safety for the community, but requires constant tending and nourishing to maintain it structural and integral health.

Perhaps we know the nature of what needs to be created too.  It is simply a question of allowing the impulse of interconnectivity to be at play and to trust each other – be in service and do our work.

Another image that came this morning was that of a suspension bridge – again with intricate latticework creating flexibility, dynamism and strength – yet also have strong steel chords in connection with the latticework, for the literal bridge to be held.

Perhaps what comes from the earth, from the natural is what is needed at this time – on all levels.  It is time to bring our individual efforts in service of the whole.  The structure’ needed to house the new are beyond any one of our abilities – even perhaps beyond our imagination, our vision – but collectively, I believe, we will see it.  And the reality is, we simply cannot do it on our own.

We need to create structures that are strong, resilient, and dynamic.  We need to tend the latticework – inner and outer – and bridge the realms that allow the movement from one structure to the next – with support, love and consciousness.  We need to tend, maintain, and nourish that which provides a protected and generative home place – a place that we can live together. We need to liberate the structure of community from our DNA knowing and bring our individual actions into collective effort and service – with the termites as our guides.