Belonging is something you receive. It’s a feeling that happens to you when you walk into a room, and the room is glad.

Community is different. Community comes with a set of obligations. Real community is built on the thing you do not want to go to on a Saturday afternoon but you go anyway. Sometimes it is work.

I also read her new book, Beyond Wellness, and highly recommend it.

Another person I’m enjoying is Lissa Rankin on her Substack, The Body is a Trailhead. She has strong opinions about a variety of things (not all that I agree with), but she really does poke at some of the big cheeses in the spiritual and human development marketplace. Warning: she may very well poke at one of your sacred cows.

Here are two titles from recent postings:

What’s Wrong With The Power Of Now? Deconstruction Eckhart Tolle, Ram Dass, Byron Katie & Other Presence Teachings Through A Trauma-Informed Social Justice Lens.

Fear is NOT the Opposite of Love: Deconstructing A Course in Miracles: Why choosing love over fear is not necessarily a miracle and how such teachings can be perceived through a social justice lens.

Enjoy.

I’ve enjoyed writing most of my life. Off and on, I’ve wanted to be a WRITER. It’s been said over and over: Write every day. You want to publish? You have to put it out there. Substack gets me into the practice of publishing my writing… so what do I do when I feel unfocused? As Chagdud Rinpoche used to say: Keep Going. Maybe I need to adopt wholing as the word- a process word.

“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” George Santayana.

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.” Unknown, though often misattributed to Albert Einstein.

“Every story I write creates me. I write to create myself.” Octavia Butler.

In Butler’s view, we write and rewrite our story. Now. Then we revise, edit, revise, edit, revise…. Maybe the problem is that we get hooked on creating a storyline, as if it’s a novel that needs to be finished for a publishing house. Do you love a well-constructed story that matches an idealized worldview, or the horror of life, or its comedy and tragedy? What if there is no beginning, middle, and end that flows in a straight line? We plagiarize our fantasies and dreams from others, then create an identity, dissolve it, and recreate it… over and over. What happens if we really sink into the messiness of muddling through and let go of our need to have our shit together while creating enough structure so we can all get along? What if contentment and satisfaction are the hallmark rather than happiness, excellence, and awesomeness? What if coming to terms with our confusion, drama, and moods, just as they are, is the point? A dear, dear friend once asked me, “What if there is no meaning to life except what we create?” What if wholeness isn’t a wonderfully crafted rhubarb pie but also the dust on the floor and the burned stuff on the bottom of the oven?

Ecosystems are made up of biological processes; biological processes have underlying chemical interactions; chemical activity follows the laws of Newtonian and Quantum Physics. Mystical traditions point to the substrate of all these, and they hold that adepts can experience it directly. Some don’t believe in the linear materialist process and say there is a way to supersede physical reality. Who do you believe is right? Who holds the truth? Who holds enough of the truth that you believe in enough to construct your life around?

New Age systems borrowed ideas, concepts, and practices, put them in the Cuisinart of modernity’s socio-psychological smoothie, and produced something that made sense in an ego-centric materialistic world that biohacks life to avoid the struggle. This isn’t the first melange in history: Christians co-opted the Sun festival of Rome and Buddhists built stupas on the ruins of Bön shrines. This is co-creation, evolution, stealing, borrowing… You choose the descriptor.

We are meaning makers. We create stories to make sense of the inexplicable and unexplainable. What stories do you weave to make meaning of the world?

Astronomers put the Earth at the center of the universe. Remember Copernicus? Well, 1600 years before him, Aristarchus of Samos described a similar world. The world used to be flat, until it wasn’t. The Earth formed 4000 years ago until it became 4.54 billion years old. Abused people believe they had a happy childhood, and alcoholics believe they don’t have a drinking problem. Bio-tech billionaires believe they don’t have to die. We create stories based on history, what we believe to be true, and what we want to be true. Then we weave a meaning that lets us make sense of the world. Or we borrow someone else’s system to explain a world that makes no sense to us. As humans, we need some coherence, security, and safety to navigate life. People without organizing principles find it impossible to navigate life. But what is the psychological diagnosis for a conventionally healthy person who is part of a system that is ill?

Is there a “reality”? When we are immersed in our nighttime dreams and totally involved in them, is it real in the experience? When we wake up, is it unreal? Is consensual reality the “true reality”? Is the ultra-rational scientist who is able to point to the cause and effect of chemical interaction in our bodies the sane one? Or does sanity reside with the tribal members who can see the spirit world while the onlooking anthropologist who sees nothing is the ill one? Once we move into the human mind and away from transactional cause and effect, do we lose touch with the ability to have an agreed-upon reality? Is it a free-for-all where we make up our own truths and then settle on a loosely held truth? In this time of rapid change, massive unrootedness, loosely held social contracts, individualism, and hyper-psychological orientation, are we finally moving to a mass understanding that there is no ultimate, everlasting truth other than impermanence/change? What is the role in such a world of creating a conventional, consensus reality that people don’t believe in? Maybe we need a state of mass disorientation to reach a healthier, still-to-be-understood wholeness. Maybe we have to hit rock-bottom to create something useful again.

Some have said there is a state where we can find liberation, purpose, lasting happiness, and freedom. What if the truth is that some people are gifted at finding a state of stability, just as Beethoven could create, Michael Jordan could play basketball, and Martha Graham could dance. Maybe some people are gifted to “wake up” while most of us must learn to be content with muddling through and just be ordinary.

The spiritual teacher I’ve worked with for over 30 years continually points me toward trusting myself and not comparing. I’m much closer than I used to be. He doesn’t tell me, like some have, that I’m doing it wrong and I just need to keep doing more of his system until it finally makes sense. There is a historical system and process (Buddhism), but just assimilating and regurgitating isn’t the answer. It doesn’t answer the question of finding one’s own calling, psychological health, or creative expression. Doing someone else’s path is impossible. We have to figure it out for ourselves. We have to be willing to be lost, confused, angry, happy, found, lost, found, lost, confused…

Maybe in an age where change IS the social contract, ultimately wholeness comes down to being comfortable with ourselves while being a healthy partner with all the rest of the ants, whales, trees, rivers, and humans. That’s it. No fireworks. No perpetual, orgasmic awakened state.

This is my mind-in-muddle phase. This is how thoughts have rattled around inside me for as long as I can remember- even as a pre-pubescent youth. Today, I love this. Today, it is a little easier to see the play of this (lila in Sanskrit). Tomorrow? We shall see. But if history is any indication, an episode will come when my state will be likened to someone reading the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy at a conference of statisticians.

In Tibet, pilgrimage has been a part of the classical aspect of practice. One of the things they say about a true pilgrimage is that there will be adversity. The path to wholeness will have adversity, struggle, obstacles, setbacks, getting lost… and then returning to one’s own foundation. The pilgrimage toward wholeness will have adversity. If there isn’t, it isn’t a pilgrimage.

The scientific method is one of inquiry: coming up with a hypothesis, testing it, and trying to disprove it. If we let go of our capacity to think logically, then we are not making use of our fullest humanity. The Buddha was purported to have said: Don’t take my word for it; try it out and see if it is true. Test out the hypothesis of the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, and others; test it out to see if it is true, and then adapt accordingly. Whatever your path, does it stand up to the rigor of deep inquiry (and an openness to the Mystery)?

René Descartes ‘ statement of “I think, therefore I am.” (Cogito ergo sum.) is a cornerstone of objectivism. He was driven to establish a fundamental set of principles that could be known by an individual without a doubt. He concluded that the only thing he could know for certain was his thinking process. In Buddhism, there is the disciplined analytical inquiry where we persistently inquire about the nature of reality, the nature of our mind… can we find that which we claim to be the “I”? In a way, Descartes has a similar process, though the outgrowth of it isn’t the same result or underlying intent of wholeness practice.

On the other hand, in my own physical pilgrimage in ’81-82 through China, Thailand, Burma, India, and Nepal, I experienced a number of things that I can’t explain. One of those was standing in the ruins of Nalanda University. In its day, it may have been the largest university in the world. Though it is mostly known as a Buddhist University, people from many different religions and practices came there. While there, I had an “out-of-body” experience and felt like I was returning home. It was an indescribable, transporting experience. I had a similar experience sitting at the base of the Mahabodhi Temple reading a classic text, The Bodhicharayavittara (composed by Shantideva at Nalanda). It was like the words pored into the very core of my being. I had no previous experience that led me sequentially to these experiences. My scientific mind met a phenomenon that I could neither prove nor disprove: rebirth.

At some point in this journey, we may find ourselves at a place where we cannot prove or disprove something. This is the place of faith. There are plenty of places in our lives where we develop faith and beliefs. We hold those near and dear to our hearts as a place of refuge, while also allowing for doubt. In Buddhist philosophy and belief systems, it is said we must come to a definitive understanding. I wonder if that is “true”. If the only thing that is ultimately true is that everything is impermanent, then does that mean that impermanence is impermanent? (That is a deep philosophical point that has been debated for millennia.) How can we come to a definitive understanding if everything is always changing- in the conventional and existential world? Again, enter faith and belief.

How can we ever come to a stable state of wholeness when existence itself is changing? If we are honest with ourselves, we can’t. The creation of heavenly destinations of attainment is a helpful placeholder for a human mind that craves safety and meaning. When we are dissatisfied with the unknown, purposeless, confused, or lost, we create images, processes, concepts, and narratives that bring us comfort, but they hide the underlying reality. Nothing is permanent except impermanence.

Being whole requires that we allow for the human capacity to think and reason to intermarry with our emotions, intuition, belief structures, and physical body; all within the interdependent milieu of our social and ecological context.

The riparian zone is a place where the water and land meet. (In Tibetan Buddhism, there is a term, bardo. It is often translated as the intermediate state between something like birth and death.) A riparian environment is messy and in constant battle for water, air, and sunlight. It is a place often flooded in the spring or by flash floods. Metaphorically, living on the edge between the flowing river and a stable, mature forest is our path to wholeness. There is no answer for everything as scientific purists desire, and yet there are conventional truths that can be proven. We now know electromagnetism, genetic patterns, and the pathways of electricity through the body. Yet, we don’t know what consciousness is, what happens after our physical bodies die, or why some people wake up to the nature of reality, and some don’t.

Zen is sometimes called the graduate school of meditation. It cuts through belief structures and forces one to directly confront oneself in a very rigorous way. In Rinzai Zen, a student is given a koan; one of the more famous contemplations is “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” This contemplation is intended to induce cognitive dissonance and open a direct experience of one’s true nature. But it cannot be done without the ability to focus, hold one’s mind stable, exert the power of will, and to practice an internal scientific process of inquiry.

My root teacher, Lama Padma Drimed Norbu (Nyingma and Dzogchen tradition of Tibetan Buddhism), has often said that most of us aren’t dealing with a metaphysical/existential problem, but a mechanical one. We just need to stop, rest our minds, sit on the cushion, and attend to the rising and falling of our experience. It is a matter of “just do it”. There are many examples of Olympic-level meditation athletes who achieve expansive states of awareness, sit in caves for long periods of time, or go on extensive vision quests. However, for most of us it is more mundane. While we might not have the genetic (or karmic) disposition toward effortless awakening. Most of us just need to make a commitment, put in effort, and keep doing that over and over. Otherwise, we will continually be dissatisfied with the vagaries of everyday life. This is true in meditation and all of our other inquiries into wholeness. Deal with the adversity that arises. Get lost, lose your conditioning, refine the way. Keep going. Wholeness is work, joy, clarity, confusion, and moments of uncontained love, joy, compassion, and expansive awareness.

I wish you deep rest.

Language is tricky. It represents an experience, and it is not the experience. Translate spirit from one language, and we can often miss the mark. In English, the word can be traced to Latin: breath or breathing. In Middle English, via Old French, it becomes a concept denoting the vital, animating force in living beings (for today, we will forgo consideration of life force/consciousness inhabiting non-animated beings). For some others,  it is a non-embodied force. There are those who honor the spirit of ancestors and believe that they exist in another realm. For some Christians, the Holy Spirit/Holy Ghost is understood as a force emanating from God, and God is an actual presence. I’m not a spirit scholar or a religious studies expert (though I’ve spent most of my life engaged in spiritual inquiry), and I don’t believe that anyone can give someone a definitive answer on things of this nature. The best that can be done is to point in a direction, and then we live with it for a while. This is a lifelong inquiry.

The language and definitions we use with others and for our own understanding are important because they are placeholders for experience and social connection. I don’t think Webster, Claude, or Gemini will be able to tell you the meaning of spiritual at a level that brings personal meaning to any of us. Coming to an inner understanding of spirit-spirituality can be a struggle, and, for most of us, I think it is supposed to have dynamic tension. Just like some people struggle with their sexual-gender identity as it interacts with the social milieu, there are people who struggle with their identity in their spiritual journey as it connects to living a full life.

Arriving at a definitive conclusion about the nature of reality is central to reclaiming wholeness. No one can tell you what IT is; we have to discover it and then hold that discovery lightly. There is a saying in Zen: if you find Buddha along the road, kill him. This expresses the idea that if we have a definitive answer for what the Buddha is, or the animating force of life, or the meaning of life, or God, or Allah, we have created an object of that which is ephemeral. One of the things I’ve enjoyed about Islam is its refusal to paint an image of God in its recognition that mere humans could never capture the wholeness/vastness of God.

For some people, spirit is connected to a transcendental perspective, in which our work is to transcend human existence and enter a state or realm beyond all suffering. For others, it is to enter into a kingdom beyond. Beyond, beyond, beyond. Inherent in that perspective is a judgment about human life: that, in some way, it is broken and needs to be escaped. Now, it is beyond my pay grade to have a definitive answer about this, but I do have a belief. For me, the transcendentalist viewpoint makes it easy to dismiss our responsibility in this life. It can lead to avoiding work to make this world a better place. It also easily leads to the belief that this body is unclean and needs to be denied. This worldview, in my humble opinion, is partly at fault for the treatment of this planet.

I lean into the belief that an animating force courses through all existence and expresses itself through us in a unique way. So then the question is, from whence does this life force come?

There is no origin. 

This animating force is an expression of the Self-Organizing aspect of All-That-Is (ATI). It is in the interpenetrating nature of ATI. Energy is the underpinning of existence, whether we call it spiritual or not. I liken this to physicialist/materialist science and the discipline of physics, where they categorize the four primary forces of the universe: gravity, electromagnetism, weak force, strong force (the latter relevant to the realm of subatomic particles. Here’s a link: https://science.nasa.gov/universe/overview/forces/ ). I believe that meditators who delve deeply into the fabric of being are experiencing the actual forces of the universe, including electromagnetism. They experience the pulsation of energy that permeates ATI. Sanskrit has a term that names this force: spanda. The essential vibration of All-That-Is. While physicists explore the energy of the external world with material instruments, mystics explore the inner world with their heart-minds (citta in Sanskrit). I don’t know if physics and spiritual inquiry are the same, but it is possible that spirit and the material energetic pulse coursing through material existence are the same. 

To feel whole, I don’t think we can come to a place of satisfaction without coming to terms with spirituality. But we might also have some historical healing to do that has nothing to do with anything as lofty as the spiritual. We inhabit a body and experience a psychological state. It is rare that a person will find spiritual stability in a therapy room, but I do believe we need this psychological work to come to terms with our spiritual nature. It isn’t required. We have proof that for millennia, people came to an understanding of the spiritual without any therapy room interventions. (Healing happens in spiritual inquiry, but it might not involve a physical therapist using prescribed techniques. Anyone who has done any extended meditation retreat knows that it is a deconstruction process that is often very painful and therapeutic.) Modern therapy is a unique technology fit for our times. It may be partly rooted in our separation from elemental forces, social structures/community, prescribed roles, and other aspects of modern social evolution. But that is for another posting.

Spirit is ephemeral and indescribable in most written languages. Poetry points at it; dance expresses it; visual arts paint and sculpt it. It is that force that moves through us- through our uniqueness. It is the life force that animates. To be truly satisfied in life, we must find a way to experience it and, hopefully, stabilize our recognition of it. For some, it is through a tradition that points the way, and for others, it is through a personally designed path- both paths are methods that are helpful and filled with danger. There is a saying ascribed to Buddha: “I can show you the door, but you have to walk through it.” (Morpheus in the movie The Matrix also said it.) In the end, it has to sit well with our own skin, our own worldview, and our own psychology. Otherwise, we are running someone else’s program.

I wish you well on the journey to nowhere. 

The lack of motivation stems from the last draft of this posting. It was all about having read Viktor Frankl’s autobiography. If you haven’t read his seminal work, Man’s Search for Meaning. It is a great book about his time in a concentration camp during WWII, and the approach that allowed him to keep his humanity. His biography fills in his life story. It isn’t great literature, but it was a good look into the man’s life.

The low motivation came from how serious and academic my writing sounded. It reminded me of someone who wanted to sound important and learned. Recently, Tenzin Palmo, a Buddhist teacher, made an insightful comment that in the lands where Buddhism originates, people have a sense of lightheartedness and playfulness toward it. In the West, we have adopted a serious tone about it all. In Sanskrit, there is a term, lila. In Tibetan, a similar term is rolpa. They point to the concept of the play of the universe and its display. I have some theories about why this is, but then I’d digress into concepts, theories, and other ideas that tend to capture my highly trained cognitive intelligence. The Dalai Lama is well known for his smile and laughter. Here is a man who had his country overrun by the Chinese and lost so much that was dear to him. He has said, if you can do something about it, do it. If not, don’t dwell on it.

So, I was tired of writing about someone else’s philosophy and theories and needed to get my attitude wrapped around something else.

Enter the Being Wholly Human series of workshops and a retreat. I’m spending a lot of time creating a series of workshops that address four areas: EcoSomatics (our relationship with our body and connection with the more-than-human world), Imaginal (our capacity to dive into the Imaginal spaces through creativity, poetry, art, movement, dreaming, and other liminal spaces), Spiritual (particularly focused on the interaction between Buddhist practices and Modernity), and the Socio-Emotional-Relational (how we engage others and using parts work as a means for experiencing the world). I have some professionals who have helped me in this work: Susan Crocker is helping me with the details and keeping me practical, Brody Hartman is helping me with putting all this into a mythopoetic lens and keeping me true to my intent, and Bridget Bailey (no relations) is assisting me as a coach and therapist to keep moving forward. I also want to acknowledge Susan Harper of Continuum Montage, who has supported me over the years in somatic and conceptual ways to bring this to life. Lastly, Lama Drimed, who has encouraged me in my teaching to help others on their path, and for his and Susan Harper’s retreats.

Now, onto what I am creating and the underlying intent. First, I believe that modernity, in particular the market-based approach to life, has turned our focus onto resource utilization, productivity, efficiency, and possessions as our sense of meaning and purpose. Even people who push against this model are caught in it by the very nature of being linked to pushing back. Spiritual practices in the form of meditation have become ways of increasing our efficiency, hatha yoga has become a way of maximizing our body’s capacity, creativity has become a way of getting an edge in the market. I could go on and on.

I believe that capitalism, ego-centrism, environmental destruction, the acquisition of toys, and other problematic behaviors are a developmental stage that humanity needs to move through. The maturation of humanity won’t occur by any hero saving us. I think the Hero’s Journey has reached its end. Thich Nhat Hanh gave a talk long ago when he said that maybe the next Buddha will be the Sangha (community of practitioners). He is pointing to the idea that a single person with a controlling agenda has had its time.

I also believe that we have lost touch with the more-than-human world and, in doing so, turned trees, animals, and the elements into commodities to consume rather than ecosystems that we are part of. BWH will have practices that engage us in conscious experiences that reconnect us somatically and sensually. Thankfully, there are other programs that are focusing on spiritual ecology, EcoSattva practices, and Forest Bathing. At BWH, we will also focus on identifying our ecological niche (which is heavily influenced by Bill Plotkin’s work).

In spirituality, there is a tendency to focus on the transcendental and Oneness. While there is also our individuality, and finding our sense of personal identity. In spirituality, there are practices about resting in the direct experience of being. Spiritual materialism that has created a whole spiritual marketplace. Many people have entered this marketplace in search of meaning and purpose. That is not the intent of spiritual practices, and there are other personal and social technologies to assist in that inquiry. In BWH, we will look into both spiritually informed practices and meaning and purpose influenced by many different approaches.

The investigation into the Imaginal leads us into liminal spaces where creativity, art, dreams, and music lead us into subtler realms of experience. This is an invaluable part of being human and informs our identity far more than our next paycheck does.

Lastly, the psycho-social-relational. It is a common error to conflate all these practices with personal growth and psychological discovery, forgetting that we are not alone in this inquiry. We cannot feel whole without nurturing our relationship with others while exploring our inner world. Hyper-individualism creates an illusion that we are separate from others. Part of the next movement of humanity is learning how to create the both-and of self-reliance and interdependence. I like taking this even further with the concept that Thich Nhat Hanh coined: Interbeing. In this program I’m working on, it will focus on strengthening a strong sense of self and Interbeing.

I’m still working on this, and I’m going to use this forum to post ideas about where the program is going and my hope for humanity. Partly to overcome my tendency to keep this in ideation and partly to explore ways of expressing my approach. All of us have skin in this game. The game of conscious, co-evolution. Ancient technologies from the Wisdom Traditions and modern technologies need to be brought together in our next step forward.

Howard Thurman was a civil rights activist, mystic, and educator. He served as a spiritual advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights activists. One of his quotes that I contemplate as it relates to Being Wholly Human is:

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is more people who have come alive.”

Frederick Buechner, an American minister, theologian, and author, wrote: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

Lilla Watson, an Aboriginal Australian activist-educator, is attributed to the following quote. She attributes this to the Aboriginal rights movement of the 70’s: “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

Robin Wall Kimmerer, an amazing writer, botanist, and Potawatomi member, writes: “Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting.”

I’ve pointed out before that it is common for people living a modern, materialist life to believe that they have to “get their shit” together before they can really be of service in the world. Personally, this path has led me into some myopic and self-centered perspectives. This is another version of dualism- the belief that I am separate from you and that I come first before serving you. This viewpoint points to a both/and worldview. I wonder if the psycho-therapeutic, trauma-based worldview isn’t fomenting the sense of dis-ease many people carry around with them.

The quote by Thurman points to one issue that I hear from coaching clients and my own inner voice at times, “I don’t know what I love. How do I know what I love?” First, my view is that love isn’t an emotion; it is a perspective. There are people who have an emotional response they label love, and there are people who don’t “feel” love. It is a mistake to say that someone who has diminished capacity of physical experience of emotions is broken. So, what does it mean to do what you love? From a self-perspective, it means looking at the recurring patterns in what you choose to do. (Yes, it is also true that we behave just to repeat a habit, whether we like it or not.) From a relationship perspective, what do we give to others to help them have a fulfilling life? How are we kind, generous, and compassionate?

Another approach is to look at your historical patterns of choice. What have you chosen to do because it was a preferred choice, and what have you done because you don’t want something? In the latter, the negation points toward what is wanted.

It doesn’t mean we don’t work on healing our wounds and trauma. This worldview is that we seek out a fulfilling, soulful life, but it is parallel to doing something for/with the world. I also think that some of us lean more in one direction than another. While one person might be very socially oriented and inclined to give too much, another might be more individualistic and self-centered. It is a dance of getting the mixture just right.

Lastly, I don’t think we Become Wholly Human at one point, and that’s it. It is a process of adjusting to the winds of life’s circumstances. There are some inner guideposts we may discover, but the mix changes as social circumstances shift and as we sail through life’s developmental stages.

Let’s close with a quote from Bayo Akomolafe: “The times are urgent; let us slow down.”

This is not going to be a piece on economics unless we consider that the word is derived from the Greek oikos, the root of both economics and ecology. The meaning of which is “house or dwelling”. For today, I’m focusing on Homo ecologicus as a future-directed perspective, in which we are consciously engaged in forming part of the next stage of our social evolution that includes the more-than-human world. Homo sapiens could be a wise choice of words if we choose to embrace our place amid the place of all things, rather than Homo economicus, which is driven to suck dry the earth and disempowered people.

So, what does this have to do with being wholly human? It is not possible to recognize our wholeness if we don’t allow ourselves to loosen the barriers between our constructed sense of self and our spirit, persona, body, mind, and emotions. Central to reclaiming our wholeness is learning practices (not just ideas and mental models) that consciously reconnect us with others, human and more-than-human. We need to reclaim our connection in practical and behavioral ways. Later, I will get into some things that anyone can do to consciously recognize this intimate connection with others outside our skin.

First, another term. I use the more-than-human world term rather than nature because the latter is often used like this: “I’m going out to nature,” As if we are separate from nature. We are not.

Second, a pre- and historical perspective. We have evolved over centuries from hyper-vigilant mammals threatened by predators who wanted us for lunch. Our survival depended on our being able to respond to a threat. Even our neurology is wired to recognize danger more quickly than a non-threatening option. (Negative political ads leverage this innate response.) Then we moved into eras in which clans, tribes, and nation-states brought violence and conquest to an art form. Brute force, dominance using tools, and colonialism to extract resources all were outgrowths of this aggressive worldview. Co-operation and reciprocity also evolved in parallel with the more destructive model, but that worldview of nurturance and working together didn’t lead us to ecocide. Where a certain strand of humanity chose greed, anger, and dominance as virtues, other cultures continued to work with the natural world.

One of the victims of the worldview of power over others is an intimate relationship with the more-than-human world. That perspective of “natural resources” as having value only as economic leverage to achieve a higher standard of living for humans. This is built into the natural process of seeking greater security and safety to protect oneself from hunger and the elements. Comfort was a natural evolution as the threat from external agents lessened.

Then we move into the Age of Enlightenment, where the rational man (yes, man was the focus) was the epitome of human evolution. The “noble savage” was romanticized with their connection to the land, but they were seen as savages and lacking in civilized ways of life. “Nature” was meant to be subdued and controlled. We moved away from an intimate connection with the earth. In the United States, Australia, and other parts of the world, the original inhabitants became less-than-human, and slaves were ripped from their homelands.

There are many people who have kept the human’s intimate connections with the non-human beings and elements. It is from many of the First Nations and tribes that we are being reminded of the behaviors that reconnect us with the animist reality of our world. It is unfortunate that some of those practices are being “appropriated” to serve economic interests without attribution to the original cultures from which they come. However, for those of us who have lost contact, we need to use those long lines of practice to reconnect with a personal sense of wholeness. Our loneliness isn’t just about isloation from human society. It is because we have also forgotten practical connections with others who live beyond the built environment and technology. We have bought into a religious and philosophical worldview centered on transcendence rather than here-endence (immanence). (I don’t know who first coined here-endence, but I love it.)

I believe that the evolution of humans through this destructive phase is a natural evolutionary phase (similar to humans’ adolescent phase of development). For those of us concerned about the way the world is going, we need to consciously choose behaviors (not just ideas) that may run counter to historical and evolutionary patterns. We need to be willing to sacrifice our comfort to train ourselves so we can evolve to the next stage. If not, it becomes a major catastrophe.

One retraining can be seen in teaching people to meditate. Our neurological system evolved to prioritize regularly scanning the world around us for threats. In the training of our attention to not do that, it requires effort to keep the “monkey mind” from being the predominant way of seeing the world. For anyone who has developed a meditation practice, you know what I’m talking about. You are fighting against the evolutionary trajectory of humans. It takes effort, persistence, and self-control to manage some of our most basic instincts.

I believe that returning to tribal and clan life, or romanticizing our animal nature, is not the answer. We need to incorporate our animal nature and traditional practices into modern life, but in a new way. We need to incorporate practices that reconnect us with the larger world. We also need to recognize the origin of these practices and to invite the traditional holders of these lineages to be our teachers. For those of you who like to read, I recently bought two books: Woman Who Glows in the Dark and Native Science. The first is about a curandera who shares Aztec practices, and the latter is recognizing that there is a science that is more than the materialist science of “the West”.

Now, to some suggested practices:

- Turn off the computer and go outside to feel the elements.

- Turn off the computer and listen to the sounds through the whine of cars

- Turn off the computer and have a technology faste day (yes, it can be as hard as going without food.

- Find a place under a tree, by some water, in the desert, or in a park. Put a blindfold on and listen.

- Find someone who practices a traditional way of reconnecting with the earth and elements.

- Put your hands in the soil. Take off your shoes. Feel and listen.

- Train your heart-mind through meditation or any other practice that helps you be present.

Walk outside with a child and let them be your guide to discovery.

The path to wholeness isn’t just about your psychological health; it is a reconnection with the other inhabitants of Earth. It is about having a spiritual sense of the universe. It is about finding your place and your role in this world. We all need to take responsibility for the next step, not just take.

The Peace of Wild Things
by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives might be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Fast forward to today, when I finished reading a great book, How to Be Sick, by Toni Bernhard. She writes about having Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ Myalgic Encephalomelitis (CFS/ME) and using Buddhist principles to live with this condition. She has some great strategies and perspectives for people living with chronic illness and their caregivers. Great read for any of us in this situation, or for anyone who wants to understand the world of people living with chronic illness. It hit home because my wife and her two sisters have CFS/ME.

So, what do dwarfism and CFS have in common? They are on the edge of generalities based on a socio-cultural determination of normal. Pick any outlier from perceived normality, and these two conditions fit right in. What does it mean to be wholly human when a person is an “outsider” looking into a culture with defined boundaries of normal? (All cultures have a midline of normal.)

In modern purpose/soulwork, there is a tendency to lean into the metaphor of the First People’s vision quest/walkabout. This points to the process in which a person goes out for an extended period with minimal (if any) food or water to seek guidance for their life. The stories we read are of the revelatory insights that guide a person on their ‘hero’s journey’. (Less often do we hear of the people who get no insight and come back dispirited or never return.) The visions are more than personal; they are societal. It is about their path, as it is part of the whole social group/society/culture. In modern vision-seeking, it is too often about the individual armed with the belief that each life has a purpose and mission that can be conceptually understood. I’ve come to believe that this can be another whip for each of us- a way of beating ourselves up because we can’t find THE reason, THE purpose, THE vision. Maybe for some people, wholeness is following our noses, walking through whatever door opens, and following breadcrumbs. (Pick your metaphor). In this world of efficiency and productivity, where does the person fit who just wanders?

There is a wonderful Scottish word: stravaig. Thanks to Robert MacFarland, this word came to my attention a few years ago. The definition that I love is- to intentionally wander aimlessly. What if your purpose is to intentionally wander aimlessly but have adapted to fit in with a society based on the marketplace’s efficient use of resources (and you are a human resource)? There is some adaptation needed to contribute to society and not be a burden on others, without completely giving up your underlying nature.

What makes us whole in a society that is highly fragmented, unmoored from place, and strongly individualistic in focus? What is wholeness when your condition isn’t ‘normal’? How do we become whole when our experience is one of isolation, disenfranchisement, or discrimination? If wholeness is about one’s self and the eco-social context, then what do we do when we are in an unhealthy state?

First, there is no answer that fits everyone. We all need to start from where we are. There are plenty of programs, religions, and philosophies that detail the specific steps one must take to achieve enlightenment, heaven, or entry into the Great Mystery. I have spent a lot of my adult life in Buddhist practices that, at times, prescribe a path and, on the other hand, point in a general direction. There have been times when I’ve found myself caught in what I should do based on someone else’s path. That works as a model or a meta-map, but it doesn’t work for the details of an individual’s path. Then there have been times when I’m caught in the midst of doing what I want, when I want to do it without too much focus on the impact on others. That doesn’t work for those around me. This latter approach is contrary to the Zulu perspective of ubuntu- “I am because we are.”

I have used this map in my coaching work. It is from the Japanese concept of Ikigai- a reason for being. The thing that I really like about this model is that it includes what the world needs of us, not just what we need of the world or what drives us internally. Can you find yourself in this model? Are you skewed to one side or another (most of us are)? No matter your physical stature, mental or physical health, this method has proven itself helpful.

Alfred Korzybski is attributed with popularizing the phrase, “The map is not the territory.” That means the Ikigai map is a model that isn’t the same as the object it represents (you). Any model that says that it represents all of who you are is mistaken. However, maps, processes, and paths are useful, if not prophetic. I have my foibles, blind spots, confusions, as well as certainties, strengths, and gifts. The lifelong journey of wholing is about seeing ourselves just as we are and choosing how we respond.

There are many positive things that technology has brought into our world, but one of the biggest losses is the capacity for our own introspection into the edges of cognitive knowing. The drive to use Wikipedia, chatbots, and web searches is to know information. Have you ever been at a meal with someone else and, while talking, you do a web search to find the ‘right’ answer to a question? In working directly with the inner aspect of consciousness, there is a lot of not-knowing mind. Meditation, conscious movement, dreams, and spiritual ecology practices are all ways to delve into the spontaneity of the not-knowingness of experience. Maybe a better way of saying it is that these practices help us dive into the direct knowing of experience. Contrast that with our normal mediated experience, rooted in what the marketing world wants you to become. In these practices, you are invited to strip away the conditioning that has formed your social persona. It is the way to experience what Thich Nhat Hanh called Interbeing.

Contrast this with the need to always know and the social conditioning that says we need to have an answer. In 1977, my first college marketing class revealed a world unknown to me: the world of conscious manipulation through images, words, and social pressure. Naivety was a strong part of my 21-year-old persona, and it surprised me that marketing firms hired psychologists to convince people to buy things by intentionally exploiting human psychology.

Selling people things they don’t need and confusing our minds with an altered reality has been with us for a long time. It was true when Erik the Red sailed from Norseland and settled the ice-covered land of Greenland, then rushed back to tell people about his settlement, in contrast to Iceland. I imagine such manipulation of social views went on before that, but it’s the one that stands out (maybe because of the year I spent in Greenland). People of my generation and the early generation revered Walter Cronkite for his “truthful reporting”. But all news is filtered; the internet is filtered, your social media feed is biased, and AI chatbots use confirmation bias to keep us in our bubbles. There are people out there who expertly manipulate our views to believe what we already believe.

The beauty of disciplined scientific research and the scientific method is the drive to disprove a hypothesis. However, scientist after scientist have been caught in an old way of thinking that gets in the way of seeing what is truly present. We engage in intimate romantic relationships to heal wounds with parents. We assume that the more-than-human world is only for our use. We arrogantly assume that our worldviews are the right views. We are in a forest and call the trees timber. We drive by a lake and judge whether it is swimmable. We assume a quiet mind is a problem and need to fill it with an endless stream of information, data, and images. We live with a culturally influenced mind that sees the world in conservative, liberal, libertarian, capitalist, or socialist mindsets. We all have our biases, we all discern the differences between things, and we make judgments about what we see.

The question is… do we see this? Can we see if we are caught in a bias? Can we understand that a product display that arises on Facebook hooks us into a craving that didn’t exist before? Do we have the tools to make an informed choice? One story I recently read about the Dalai Lama when he was in Los Angeles and, each day, was driven by stores selling technology whose use he didn’t know. By the end of the week, he wanted them even though he didn’t know what they were for. This is a man who has trained his mind for nearly 90. years, and he still got hooked by the expert manipulation of modern technology. BUT, he could see that.

The problem isn’t biased AI, Facebook, Fox, NPR, or Mother Jones. They are great sources of information. The question is, do we notice the hooks that grab us? Do we train our heart-minds to discern between the tool and the effect? Can we notice what is deeply harmful and what is useful? Can we engage the more-than-human world beyond our concepts? Can we discern the difference between a dream and our waking world? Can we notice when we are caught in the waking dream of our daily life and the underlying reality of presence?

Yes, AI is high-energy and environmentally destructive, and it manipulates the human desire for convenience. It is also capable of processing massive amounts of complex data and suggesting solutions to our problems. AI makes it possible to create virtual realities that mimic exploration of an ecosystem, but it doesn’t afford the opportunity to immerse ourselves in the odors, winds, and textures. It may be able to model solutions that prevent us from clear-cutting trees that communicate with each other. However, human cognition is required to discern whether it is a beneficial solution.

We live in a very complex world, and I believe that the only sane way forward is for us to train our heart-minds to see the world just as it is, to live by an ethical and moral code that honors all creatures, and to reclaim our physical bodies and creative processes. Then we use technology in a way that actually serves the greater good.

I encourage anyone reading this to have a day of fasting from technology, to get out of your door and feel the wind on your face, to move your body in a conscious way (beyond athletics and fitness), and to learn to quiet your mind. What do you have to lose?

(No AI chatbots were used in the creation of this piece, though I did get help from Grammarly in some of it.)

In the early 80’s, my graduate studies exposed me to Gregory Bateson’s theory of change. This systems theory pioneer described First-Order and Second-Order change. The former is about surface change and the latter ‘deep’ change. There are many people who crave a Second-Order change in the world but are faced with First-Order change solutions. There are people who recognize that the personal change they are seeking must be deeper. There is another connection to Bateson here, rooted in his Theory of Logical Types. Basically, you can’t expect to use change practices rooted in one arena (personal change) and apply them to another context (social change). People dive into psychological deconditioning and restructuring. That psychological intervention isn’t necessarily applicable to mitigating the insanity at a larger social scale. Just like spiritual techniques for waking up don’t always translate into psychological healing.

I used to do a lot of Organizational Development consulting, coaching, and training for employers, and one of the topics often requested was “Change Management/Leadership”. One of the things I used to tell people in positions of authority was that if they wanted people to stay the same, they should stress them out. If a person is stressed out, they don’t have the bandwidth to change. Piling more and more work onto people in shorter periods of time means that people must rely on preexisting patterns of behavior to accomplish the desired outcome. There is no room to change. It is easier to control people who are in a stressed state of disorientation and to keep them addicted to First-Order rewards. This applies to the insanity we are facing right now: economic drivers push people to consume more and work harder to afford what they consume. Inciting fear creates greater instability, raising people’s stress levels and making them easier to manipulate. This drives people into the psychotherapy industry, cultish religiosity, and the self-help industry, seeking solutions to wholeness in a fragmented world that are often based on preexisting patterns that lead them to first-level changes. I don’t believe the complexity of this insanity is totally calculated, but it is another version of a self-reinforcing system that is destabilized and being fueled by forces that benefit from this instability. This is similar to us being caught in our crazy patterns that lead to our own illnesses that further feed our unwholesome mind to seek unstable solutions.

These times are wacky, screwed up, painful, confusing… name your descriptor. At this time, the United States is presenting itself to the world as if it has had a psychological breakdown and is acting out in self-destructive ways. Manical, sociopathic, narcissistic… again, choose your descriptor. ( I know there are plenty of people who think the U.S. is finally coming to its senses and being the adult in the world, but that isn’t a belief that I hold.) In a word, it is a version of insanity. We must ask ourselves, what is sanity?

In Buddhism, the belief in an isolated and completely independent self is insane. Sanity is knowing our true nature as an expression of all-that-is. (Buddhism does posit that we are “originally pure” and that it is confusion that keeps us from seeing this.) But even in secular terms, sanity is knowing ourselves interbeing with all others around us. We are a vast interactive system.

The insanity in which many of us participate (me included) is in creating our own silos of existence. Some of us live in our single-family dwelling units and associate with people who are closely similar to us. (I’ve also talked to immigrants to the U.S. who are very grateful that they no longer have to deal with crowded conditions and the repeated drama of family dynamics.) This is a habit I’ve tried to break, but haven’t been all that successful. We consume resources without considering the consequences. (One of my favorite examples of this is eco-travel, which requires us to fly to places to consume an experience in order to stave off our boredom with our lives where we live.) Again, this is something that I’ve participated in, yet it is another form of insanity- living a delusional life as if our actions don’t create the conditions that we live in.

Wholeness is about breaking our patterns that keep us fragmented. It is about seeing things just as they are, persevering to achieve our desired state, being willing to confront our own deeper conditioning, and exerting the effort to anchor a sane life. Reclaiming our wholeness is a lifelong process that isn’t just a psychological state; it is a social and ecological endeavor.

It isn’t helpful to wallow in self-deprecation for an inability to change embedded cultural patterns that have hijacked our self-concepts. We are not stronger than the world around us. In the beginning of the Dalai Lama teaching Westerners he didn’t even know about self-hatred. That concept was completely foreign to him. Once he learned this he adjusted his teaching. He has been heard to say, “If you can do something about it, do it. If not, let it go.” We are part of the whole, and it is about claiming our piece of that sane wholeness that brings us back into conscious “right relationship” with all around us. What can you do? What do you need to let go of?

The first step in changing a habit is to recognize it. The First Noble Truth of Buddhism is to recognize that the human condition naturally has dissatisfaction as an aspect of our lives. Then, the work begins to do something about it. We enter into psychotherapy, we march in the streets, we give people control in their work lives, and we find a way to dive into a sacred/spiritual/religious honoring of the greater Mystery.

A mentor of mine (Bob Trask of the ARAS Foundation) once told me, “You have to get rid of some things in your closet before you add more.” In Hebrew, there are the words tikkum olam. This refers to the forms of actions we take to help repair the world. Yes, we need to repair deep inner obstacles, but it isn’t enough. So, the question is, what is one thing you want to take out of your closet that brings you and the world into greater balance?

Today, most of Earth’s terrain above the oceans has been mapped. But in 1975, there were many places in the world a person could travel for which there were no maps, and the only guidance was stories of those who’d gone before. There is a corollary to our own body and inner world. The terrain of the human body has been mapped in great detail, but the specifics of our unique body and genetics must be discovered and experienced firsthand. For the less tangible aspects of our self-experience and consciousness, we have been given a map by our social, cultural, and familial conditioning. But the reality is our inner world is mostly terra incognito and can only be mapped by our own dive into the unknown and mystery.

There are ancient maps of the spirit from the wisdom traditions that come to us through centuries of practice and cultural confirmation. Then we have the more contemporary maps of Western-based psychology, along with a wide array of others. All these generalized maps provide a language and a general direction, but they are extrapolations that may hinder or help each person’s unique path.

Being Wholly Human is about finding one’s uniqueness within a broader social-cultural milieu. We are both individuals and collective; both personal and transpersonal; both animal and intellect. The conceptualization of each of us as an individualized being is contrary to the way the world operates. Some perspectives that align with my work: Bill Plotkin’s perspective that we are who we are as part of an ecological niche; Thich Nhat Hanh’s perspective of Interbeing; the Zulu/Bantu word ubuntu- a nuanced word in a variety of African cultures that points to the concept that “I am therefore we are”.

In these times, many people are seeking “purpose,” “soul,” and their “true north.” They do this primarily through an inner inquiry. It is not uncommon for this to also be part of a psychotherapy journey of healing historical wounds. Carl Jung popularized a philosophical perspective of individuation. That then became part of the belief that a person can find their “true self” only by separating from their history and finding their own way. I believe part of the rampant/ epidemic experience of loneliness is the belief of being completely separate from others, and that we are a bunch of objects that periodically connect. This isn’t to say that the healing of wounds/traumas is a problem. It is my contention that we cannot do that without an ecological, transpersonal, social, or cultural context. Our inquiry into meaning is personal, social, ecological, and spiritual. It is about our capacity to be in a healthy relationship with self and others as a contributing member of society, to engage our imaginal/creative aspects, to embrace our somatic experience, to inquire into the spiritual/existential nature of existence, and to accept our cognitive/thinking aspects.

We are a self-organizing system engaged with others as we work to understand who we are within the larger system. This can be likened to a sound mixer board used to produce music. These mixers blend together a variety of sounds to make music. In produced music, we have the broad categories of bass, treble, and mid-tones, and in larger mixers, there is a wide variety of possibilities. In human experience, we each have a unique blend of tones: gender, psychology, genetic expression, family history, psychological makeup, education, all within a cultural context that shapes what music is part of the surrounding culture. (The cultures of rap may not fit with classical; the culture of Japanese music might not fit in sub-Saharan Africa)

Part of the experience of becoming more consciously human is to find both our uniqueness and our place of belonging. In my adopted culture of Buddhism, there is the concept of Awareness/Buddha nature as the universal state of our true self, but we also have our unique display in this world. This Substack is about asking questions like: what calls to you? What makes you unique? Where do you fit in socially, ecologically? What are your unique talents?

I’ll leave you with these questions: What are some common threads in your life? What are the activities, philosophies, or people who have been companions for most of your life? If you were to continue this throughline into the next ten years, how would it express itself?

Now we fast-forward to 2016, when I retired from a college faculty position and began my own extended solitary retreat. At one point, I ask myself the same question posed to Christopher 34 years earlier: Given my knowledge, skills, and abilities as a facilitator, mediator, coach, educator, and organizational development consultant, what value do I provide the world by entering into a solo retreat? Am I only being self-centered? Deep, deep down- what is my motivation?

In the Vajrayana/Dzogchen tradition I’ve practiced for over 30 years, there is the concept-practice of Bodhicitta. It is a commitment to practice for the benefit of all beings, and to become liberated/enlightened only when every last being has escaped the bonds of suffering. We enter retreat to minimize distractions and noise in life, taming our heart-mind and uprooting our conditioned negative patterns while building stronger positive behaviors and view. Then, when we leave the retreat, we are better able to be present in the world and to serve all beings. There is more to it, and maybe during the course of this writing, I’ll bring more to the front, but for now, that’s it.

The key point, as it relates to this Substack, is that at one point I asked: What does it mean to be human? Is it enough to be a good person and a contributing member of society, is it to be enlightened and escape suffering, or is it to make this world better than when I got here? At one point, my contemplation turned to questions like: What is the soul? What is my purpose? In response, my teacher and guide, Lama Drimed, suggested I read Bill Plotkin’s Wild Mind.

It proved to be a monumental suggestion for me, as it aligned with my love of creativity, movement, outdoor adventuring, spiritual inquiry, and ordinary-world relationships. Plotkin’s perspective and its impact on me will appear in these writings as we go forward.

During solo retreats, one is confronted with one’s conditioning, beliefs, and world models. This time offers an opportunity to delve deeply into one’s psychological, socio-cultural belief structures and spiritual values. As it turned out, it was a deep dive into deconstruction. (In Buddhism, the belief is that we are all Buddhas, and the thing needed to be done is to remove the misconceptions that hide our ’true’ nature.)

A few of the many conflicts that confronted me were the belief structures of a liberal, secular Christian, the belief (or lack of) in rebirth, and the idea that spiritual practice was at the apex of life. Imagine Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and at the very tippy-top is spiritual practice. I left retreat with that belief dissolved.

The beauty of that type of retreat environment (a simplified life in rural Oregon and living in a 92 sq ft cabin) and intense spiritual practice is that insights arise. One of those moments of clarity was that our overarching purpose in life is to be a whole human in a fragmented world- not to plan an escape to another life. This means to work on the fragmentation associated with :

• Childhood conditioning (whether traumatic or not)

• Dehumanization connected with a society intent on turning people into economic units and the dominance of an economically and militarily possessed culture (Homo economicus)

• Dissociation from our physical body (loss of somatic awareness)

• Severing of our intimate kinship with the more-than-human world

• Devaluing of the imaginal world and creativity

• Spiritual orientations that are non-existent or only focus on transcendentalism

It came clear that my purpose was to help people become whole (Homo ecologicus) and develop a reclamation project that weaves these aspects into an integrated whole. This isn’t to deny the need for the logical-rational person or organizational structures that manufacture the things we need. Jobs, GDP, unemployment figures, and retirement plans aren’t sufficient for a world in the future.

That is the purpose of this Substack- to lay out a worldview and practices that can help people evolve toward a saner world. As we move forward, this will have a flavor of Buddhism, Spiritual Ecology, Imaginal Empowerment, Somatic Awareness, and Relationship Reclamation. At times, I’ll share materials developed with my coaching and mentoring clients, as well as the workshops I deliver.

Thanks for being along for the ride.

(Lastly, I have another Substack called Streamweavings. The first few posts have been about my relationship with using AI chat bots. I end each with a statement about where I’ve used this technology to create the post. I will do that whenever I use technology to help me write. In this case, no part of this was created with them.)