From Fear to Empowered Engagement October 5, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Community, Society, Transformation, articles , add a comment
What does the current world situation bring up for you? This question produces a variety of responses depending on who you ask. There are seriously alarming things playing out right now many of which are major global events such as climate change. Beyond that we seem to be creating increasingly oppressive governments even in our so called free western societies. Our society at least to me appears to be suffering from a degenerative sickness which is entering a terminal stage. The degradation of our society is evidenced by many symptoms including increasing extremism, a poisoning of the food supply due to genetic and toxic contamination, a health care system that is based on profit instead of healing and sells poison under the guise of medicine, an almost complete lack of honesty and morality in government, a numbed out population that spends its time entranced by mass media promoting extremely dysfunctional behavior and propaganda and an economy where both greed and manufactured scarcity run rampant.
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A Vision of Community, sharing the burden and the benefit April 1, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Community, articles , 6comments
Some friends of mine and I have been discussing the idea of creating our own community house as an alternative to our various living situations. That discussion has prompted me to look at what community means to me now and in the future. Community has been quite important to me but I’ve started to realize that it has also been very limited compared to its potential. I have a community of friends and we maintain connection, support each other, and even share certain resources like food, services and such. This is a wonderful thing but I’m interested in taking it much farther.
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Service March 11, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Community, Relationship, Spirituality, Transformation, articles , 2comments
I’ve been working more lately with what it means to offer service, well really with what service actually means for me in practice. Service is a major part of my spiritual practice not only as a means of expressing my connection with others but also to express my gratitude for the incredible gifts I’ve received in my life and to give some of that back while reducing self-centeredness. I really had a limited idea of service up until recently imagining that it had to be some clear fixed activity that was labeled service and offered as such, something like volunteering for a charity or spiritual organization.
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Living in community and exploration April 12, 2008
Posted by bodhidude in : Community, Relationship, blog , add a commentFor most of my life I’ve either lived alone or with a partner but for the last several years I’ve felt a draw to live in community but haven’t been able to let go of my comfort zone until now. However what I’m finding is that I’m not sure I really know what it means to live in community from an experiential perspective. I feel a pull to share resources, connect with people in an intimate way and co-create a shared vision together. On the other hand I have tended to be a very private person who really enjoys time alone. The question becomes is there a middle ground between these two poles. I believe there is but its an interesting process of discovering that middle ground.
Currently I’m living in a community house with some very wonderful people whom I haven’t had much of a chance to get to know yet. The vibe at this place is very open and grounding and that feels really good with where I’m at right now. Its going to be interesting to see to what degree I fit in and connect with the space and the community here. Its a bit of an experiment and that seems to be where I’m at right now, in an experimental and exploratory phase. I’m not sure where its going to lead but it seems my difficulty right now is directly related to the degree that I grasp at things being settled and stable. The reality is that they are not and when I’m able to embrace that things begin to feel powerful and open and ok until the grasping returns.
The real challenge is letting go of grasping and realizing there is nothing to hold onto. Damn that is hard to do at times, the pull to grasp, solidify and need things to be the way I’m used to is sneaky in the way it creeps in and powerfully frightening when its fully activated. I’ve put myself in a situation where I have no choice but to let go because I have released most of what I was using for my sense of security. At a deeper level I know that community living is the right path both for me personally and for the future of our society and planet but I just don’t know what that will look like for me or how it will manifest yet. The process is certainly moving forward in any case……
Connecting without labels November 11, 2006
Posted by bodhidude in : Community, Relationship, blog , add a commentThere are so many damn labels associated with love and relationships and I’m really getting tired of them mostly because they seem to solidify a connection before it ever really develops. I find that I want to connect without so many labels but there seems to be such a tendency to want to assign certain labels to people from the outset. Are you mono or poly? Are you into kink? What are you looking for: LTR, FWB, friends only? And on and on. The thing for me is that I don’t identify with any of these things overall. They take shape based on the connection and the person I am relating to. I might meet someone and just be friends or it might feel right to be somewhat physically intimate or just emotionally intimate or maybe the connection is so strong we want to be in a monogamous committed relationship but I don’t know that until I get there. My intention in meeting women is to be open and see them for who they are and see what naturally unfolds and allow it to progress in whatever direction the connection takes it without expectations or attachment. That seems so simple and yet so hard to actualize. Sorry if this doesn’t make much sense, I’m in a place of redefining my relationship to relationship so its a bit confusing……..