Prompt: Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011? Cali Harris (Day 7 Reverb10)
Prompts for the last few days make me feel like someone is looking over my shoulder at my life.
I discovered Community on line 5 years ago when I started blogging. Maybe it wasn’t readily apparent but I was in the process of connecting with folks with whom I am connected to this day. Do not tell me these aren’t friendships. There are women on line that I talk to more often than my face-to-face friends (although some of them I keep up with daily too!). A lot of that switched over to Facebook which presents itself as opposed to having to go chase blogs (although I will say that I absolutely subscribe to all my favorites that have a way to do that. Sadly, even now, all don’t).
A Mastermind group I pulled together for a few sessions at the beginning of 2010 stayed alive and turned into a community of art gals who get together monthly or so – to chat, to share ideas, to try new things. This group has no formal name. We sort of refer to ourselves at the Artchix but there’s another group of women who use that formally for art shows, so were we to go out as a group we’d have to figure out something else. In the meantime, it isn’t the name that’s important. It’s the community.
I signed up with a coach for the year. It was my hope that we who were traveling together would coalesce into a community. But I got fired as a client or mutually decided to end the relationship after less than 5 months (I’m still not sure which actually occurred), and the “community” was mostly still born for me. That has been a big disappointment for me this year in a lot of ways. And it basically what I was writing about for the “letting go” prompt.
What I have started at least talking to others about this year is an arts salon. I had hoped to work that through some of the art organizations in the area but it looks like I’m going to just have to go ahead and figure out how to do it on my own: a community of artists and art supporters (It takes a community to make a living as an artist!). That’s on my horizon for next year. Also on my absolutely going to do this list is a retreat. More thought leads me to believe that several one day workshops will lead to what will probably be a weekend retreat. In journaling about what *I* want from this, community was at the top of the list – and I wasn’t even aware of that until I wrote it out (just last Saturday while I was waiting in line for Maker’s Mart).
Community is a funny thing. I’ve been members of other communities, ones I’ve created and ones I’ve joined, and then not a member – usually a falling apart. For a while there I was convinced that, in this lifetime, community was not in my stars. But humans are communally oriented. So I’m back at it (it’s been 10 years, time enough to heal, rest, regroup, revision and look around and see what has shifted).
Dear Universe: I am the one constant in all those communities that have come together and fallen apart. Help me see this is a natural occurence. That all groups cycle, part, regroup (just look at bands!), and especially those that are intense. Humans may be made for community but they are not made for 24/7 intensity and adrenalin rushes. Also help me see that I can begin without ending, move with for a while without either beginning or ending, end without beginning, play without working. Help me see that where I am at any given moment is right where I am supposed to be. And that is okay. Help me celebrate that and the abundance which all of these communities have brought to my life – for long after the community ends, the energy that has swirled together remains. Help me continue opening up, remembering always that closing down is the wrong direction. Amen.
Wylde Women’s Wisdom
Decisions are made in a person’s life by small moments of knowing, each moment opening until, like pieces of a quilt, one day everything comes together in a precise, clear knowing. Linda Hogan.
Just so the seed crystal, dropped into a supersaturated solution, crystallizes into a larger and more complex pattern: You are that seed crystal when you are in a state of dynamic complexity and openness to interactive systems, people and ideas. You are available to be seeded for new forms of action, formings, evolutionary strivings, co-creation. You become co-creative with the whole. Jean Houston
1 Comment
Interesting thoughts about communities. That’s something I really need to be working on and have taken baby-steps into.
I really like what you say about being the one constant in all the communities. What a great way to look at it.