The Need to Belong

   In this time of Lives where we are all part of something, and yet so separate from one another, I wonder about why people feel the need to belong.  My first assessment is that its as simple as this: we are mammals, we prefer groups for safety and comfort.  Does our greatest growth come from a feeling of safety and comfort or from a raw edge of uncertainty, or trust in our foundations, or moving through the old experience into the new?  As we move past the point where we have been before, out of the realm of our comfort, we move into a space where there is no net of previous experience to catch us.  We have to grow, to move, to fly.

     There is something deeply purifying about isolation, or time in the desert, as some call it. You have to see yourself and be with yourself. When there is no other sound, you must listen to the voice of your heart.  You must be confronted by loneliness and keep pressing onward anyhow. You must have resilience. You have to wrestle with truth. Its vicious and luscious and it pushes you to the limit. Everybody, to the limit! How far will  you go in your pursuit of personal freedom, and creating a society of liberty? Are you aware that the first thing that must change is the level of access to clean water, food and health care provided to all citizens of this planet?  It is crucial.  When there is not clean water flowing in a place, that place is thirsty, and less able to participate in the global awakening within this dream. Along with that is the struggle for food.  When we are trying to create lasting change, but a huge portion of the world is going to bed hungry, what chance do we have to make progress?

     The awareness is there, and the tools are in place. How can we make more rapid progress towards these

goals, and become more conscious in our use of each moment and each day?  Though most of us would like to think that we are fine, and things could go on like this forever, that none of it can touch the bubble of the world we find ourselves in, its touching your life right now.  The ever increasing pressure of life, relationships, finances and culture itself is pressing daily. Our gas prices, our work hours, the place we live, all being forced into the forefront of our conscious minds by the need for change everywhere.  But, still, we feel the need to belong.  We find ourselves moving with the herd before we even realize it. Its nothing to be ashamed of. Its natural. And some are at the fringe and some are in the center. The liminal, the edge of perception, the lunatic fringe is inhabited by dreamers and scientists, explorers and pioneers.  And when that new place has been mapped, the new rules defined, the new territory delineated, it becomes the new standard as more and more people become comfortable with the new way of doing things. 

    People more comfortable with a conservative perspective  may want to scoff at the inherent presence of this "edgy" presence, but it is needed to give breadth to our experience. Otherwise we over-emphasize similarity and scorn innovation. That attitude is counter productive to our growth and to our increasng awareness.  If we only seek to know things like what we have already known, then we lack refreshment of our perspective, and end up going in circles of self-consumption instead of spirals of growth. Closed systems can thrive but they still require infusion from the outside, even if they have no output. They cannot maintain energy independently forever. 

     In fact, the truly closed system can never occur here. Everything is connected to everyone, and nobody touches nothin',  We cannot help but be entwined in a system where our perceptions and expectations collectively create reality as opposed to our independent perception seeing an independent thing called "reality".  To this point, science and spirituality have both come again and again. Sometimes they even collide here, in the arena of startling truths.  What we see is what we expect, what we know, and what we need.  This conversation between parts of ourselves, the collective awareness, and the rules which are imprinted in us form birth is our Conversation with God. It is our experience of Truth. The way we respond to the responsibility of this connectedness is emanated by our life.

    We tell one another what is ok while we are seeking so much more than what is, on the inside.  We need to belong. But what of the possibilities awakened when we all agree that we are Sons and Daughters of the Holy, OneLove, Pure Consciousness, I Am That I Am... what happens when we agree we are One With Jah?  That Peace is With Us? That the One Who is the All, the Compassionate and Merciful, the Severe One, the Judge, the Mind of All Creation is in Each of US? Can we understand that? Are you able to read the words without your internal censor reacting to my choice of words, or conversely, are you reacting to the fact

that our perception is responsible for our experience of this creation, and that I would dare to call that exalted.  I dare to say that every piece of this mess is redeemable, in light of this truth. Something essential for us all to remember, something essential: to begin to live with a real intensity.

    Science and Spirituality, much to the chagrin of both, collide as a infinite plane of possibilities, our past and future dictated by choice within a system much larger than all of us combined, yet smaller than a mustard seed. Who is it that explores these possibilities?