23 December 2007

Tribe Talk

I'm recycling a small-group email I sent back in April. When I use the word "tribe" --as in, "searching for my tribe"--this is some of what I'm talking about.

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From: Alex Mercedes
To: (bcc)
Subj: Why am I sending this to you?
Date: Mon, Apr 9, 2007 at 11:39 PM


Because the passage spoke to me
and I wonder if it speaks to you

this is not an exam
but it is a kind of test I guess
or I'm fishing or showing my hand

there's more than one kind of loneliness

Here's my dream:
I have two...or maybe even three....friends who live in my town
we might find ourselves doing anything, talking about anything
doing nothing
talking about nothing
doesn't matter

we know that when we're together
and we're real

it's God

I am sharing this Cohen quote with you, all of you,
because I don't remember us ever talking about this
not outright
but
except for the fact that we don't live in the same town
I'm either wishing or believing that you're one of the friends in [my]dream.

Glad you're on the planet and in my life.

Love

Alex


When God Listens

When people come together and get real, which means go beyond ego, a powerful presence instantaneously enters into the room. Lack of pretense equals presence. And what is that presence? It is the Authentic Self, the creative principle, the god-impulse. When people get real, God starts listening! But when there is pretense, the creative impulse doesn't listen, doesn't pay attention. It is only when human beings stop pretending and begin to authentically engage with the life process that God realizes there are some sentient life forms that are available—available for his or her creative purpose, available to be conscious vehicles for the emergence of the future.
Andrew Cohen
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1 comment:

  1. PamMon Dec 24, 12:03:00 PM

    Ahh! So your tribe is the goup in which you feel the possibility- the actuality?- of expression of yr own authentic Self, experience the authentic Selves of the group?
    and when you've verbalized longing for "people like me" in tribe converse, you 're meaning people who're fully Present, no pretense? Authentically engaged with the life process?
    I like the Cohen quote- the idea of the Felt Presence.... that's close to my experience of creative process; I've noticed how, even in groups of strangers, the creative process is opened when we're all engaged in Making or Visioning... also in groups when revelations seem to manifest (good example is the first Bring Back the Sun festival & parade almost 30 yrs ago, now the burgeoning Carnaval SF).
    Do you feel the presence also in situations like love with R, who doesn't reflect back what you want? Is authenticity, engagement with the life process, possible for you in situations like that, or situations where you experience yourself as unseen, unheard? (not that you experience that with R.... I'm trying to explore possibilities of personal authenticity, full engagement in life process, in the solitary- or does it depend on the response of Others?
    Also interesting to me: Cohen's idea of conscious vehicles- my own most creative, personally future-defining moments have largely been born in sub-waking conscious, asleep or not... the emergence of the "future" a flower from many, many seeds, mostly unknown or unrealized at the time of planting, which is every very MINUTE of all of us, all together, whether we "know" it or not....

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