Is harmony one note that everybody is singing? Or is it a whole lot of notes that are in vibrational harmony with each other? When you give your attention to anything, the Universe responds to it. When two of you are giving your attention to it, and there is no contradiction, it is a powerful vortex. That’s why a gathering such as this can achieve a great deal as you come together in greater and greater harmony and take thought beyond that which it has been before. ~ Abraham

As Dana and I consider expanding OdaBe as a gathering place for community, I’ve been exploring elements for safety and sacredness in our community setting. In a workshop, we often co-create safe space for sharing, like calling one another to presence (and away from our phones), and like honoring confidentiality. Going further than safety, how do we create community codes supportive of honoring, harmony and soul-growth? How do we create balance of giving and receiving (what we call ayni in our shamanic tradition), which is the foundation for vibrancy and health? How do we support our collective evolution into healthier and more vibrant forms of relating?

Caroline Myss talks about how we often relate through the lens of our “woundology,”  coddling our own and one another’s wounds instead of supporting one another in transcending them. For example, we may insist that others follow certain rules we create, in order for us to feel safe from feeling echoes of past abuse that we have yet to heal. We may even fight over who has the biggest wounds, as if it’s a contest to win. Or we may discourage another from healing because that would bring a level of uncertainty that triggers our own wounds into an uproar. Believe me, I know how painful and limiting all this can be from first-had experience.

When a wound becomes our identity, we tend to perpetuate the same dramas into the broad expanse of our entire lifetimes. How can we own our stuff without becoming identified by it, thereby creating space to finally release it?

How can we support one another and ourselves in becoming aware of the infinite Divine spark that we each hold in our souls? How can we acknowledge and support each one of us as heroes on the hero’s quest?

Intending that I grow beyond any residual woundology I may hold, and desiring to share that dance in community, here are a few community codes for honoring and harmony that are emerging for me thanks to awesome coaching with my coach, Laura, and through feedback through Facebook community too. I don’t know all the ways to get there, and I don’t think the journey is about perfection, but about willingness (so much easier to BE with). I am willing to dance into a new paradigm, to choose love over being right. I welcome your thoughts in how to expand these, as a collective and collaborative creation that honors the essence of community. Please feel free to share in the comments section below or privately if you prefer. 

• Willingness to heal ourselves through the courageous act of self-discovery.
• Willingness to turn monkey mind into the voice of wisdom rather than empowering it to take us into downward spirals of fear and scarcity.
• Willingness to look at our shadows and projections, acknowledging and embracing the light and darkness in ourselves and all others who show up in service as our mirrors. As much as possible, we focus on the perfection of each person and path before us, including ours, without judging and comparing.
• Willingness to embrace the deep wisdom that the mistakes we make are Hero’s tools, informing our sense of “Self” on the path to becoming our Future Selves.
• Willingness to forgive ourselves and others for any perceived wrong-doing, along with the willingness to see from the eagle-view the inherent perfection of our journey, including our pain.
• Willingness to speak our Truth with loving compassion, owning our role as masterful creators of our experience. We acknowledge that every thought and word can be a prayer or dagger, and we respect the power of that knowing.
• Willingness to embrace life as an expression of joy, love, ease, laughter and beauty as much or more than pain, fear, struggle, tears and trauma.
• Willingness to see that we don’t have to earn the right to be incarnate and that we are worthy of blessings always, and at the same time, we enjoy the privilege and joy of showing up as Love.
• Willingness to seek behind the veils of illusion, to explore the deeper mysteries that inform a more blessed and magickal experience of life.
• Willingness to focus on creativity and positive creation, knowing we are all infinite expressions of the Divine.
• Willingness to be stewards of the Earth, living in gentle harmony with the seasons and honoring all of life as precious.
• Willingness to embrace ceremony, ritual, and the deep essence of a life-fully-lived with presence, consciousness, and grace.
• Willingness to be vulnerable and to accept life on life’s terms, or as Joseph Campbell says, “We must let go of the life we had planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.”
• Willingness to live and breathe gratitude and to embody peace.
• Willingness to choose love over being right.

As I’ve pondered, I remembered a chapter of a book I’ve read so many times over the past 25 years. You may remember Alice Walker as the author of The Color Purple, the story of Celie who had a hard life, just getting by, until her husband’s lover, Shug (pronounced like the beginning of the word “sugar”) came to teach her to laugh, play and love. My very favorite Alice Walker book is The Temple of My Familiar. The pure beauty and magic of this story opened my life and spirit remarkably, in ways that I never could have imagined… from exploring past lives to non-traditional relationships. Here’s a short chapter from that book that inspired me to consider the coming of a new age on Earth way back then, which of course we are all witnessing now. I will share, in deepest honoring of Alice Walker as visionary and artist.

“The Gospel According to Shug” (excerpt from Alice Walker’s Temple of my Familiar, pp. 287-9):

HELPED are those who are enemies of their own racism: they shall live in harmony with the citizens of this world, and not with those of the world of their ancestors, which has passed away, and which they shall never see again.

HELPED are those born from love: conceived in their father’s tenderness and their mother’s orgasm, for they shall be those – numbers of whom will be called “illegitimate” – whose spirits shall know no boundaries, even between heaven and earth, and whose eyes shall reveal the spark of the love that was their own creation. They shall know joy equal to their suffering and they will lead multitudes into dancing and Peace.

HELPED are those too busy living to respond when they are wrongfully attacked: on their walks they shall find mysteries so intriguing as to distract them from every blow.

HELPED are those who find something in Creation to admire each and every hour. Their days will overflow with beauty and the darkest dungeon will offer gifts.

HELPED are those who receive only to give; always in their house will be the circular energy of generosity; and in their hearts a beginning to a new age on Earth: when no keys will be needed to unlock the heart and no locks will be needed on doors.

HELPED are those who love the stranger; in this they reflect the heart of the Creator and that of the Mother.

HELPED are those who are content to be themselves; they will never lack mystery in their lives and the joys of self-discovery will be constant.

HELPED are those who love the entire cosmos rather than their own tiny country, city, or farm, for to them will be shown the unbroken web of life and the meaning of infinity.

HELPED are those who live in quietness, knowing neither brand name nor fad; they shall live every day as if in eternity, and each moment shall be as full as it is long.

HELPED are those who love others unsplit off from their faults; to them will be given clarity of vision.

HELPED are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conception, and realize a partnership in the creation of the Universe that keeps them responsible and cheerful.

HELPED are those who love the Earth, their mother, and who willingly suffer that she may not die; in their grief over her pain they will weep rivers of blood, and in their joy in her lively response to love, they will converse with trees.

HELPED are those whose every act is a prayer for harmony in the Universe, for they are the restorers of balance to our planet. To them will be given the insight that every good act done anywhere in the cosmos welcomes the life of an animal or a child.

HELPED are those who risk themselves for others’ sakes; to them will be given increasing opportunities for ever greater risks. Theirs will be a vision of the world in which no one’s gift is despised or lost.

HELPED are those who strive to give up their anger; their reward will be that in any confrontation their first thoughts will never be of violence or of war.

HELPED are those whose every act is a prayer for peace; on them depends the future of the world.

HELPED are those who forgive; their reward shall be forgetfulness of every evil done to them. It will be in their power, therefore, to envision the new Earth.

HELPED are those who are shown the existence of the Creator’s magic in the Universe; they shall experience delight and astonishment without ceasing.

HELPED are those who laugh with a pure heart; theirs will be the company of the jolly righteous.

HELPED are those who love all the colors of all the human beings, as they love all the colors of animals and plants; none of their children, nor any of their ancestors, nor any parts of themselves, shall be hidden from them.

HELPED are those who love the lesbian, the gay, and the straight, as they love the sun, the moon, and the stars. None of their children, nor any of their ancestors, nor any parts of themselves, shall be hidden from them.

HELPED are those who love the broken and the whole; none of their children, nor any of their ancestors, nor any parts of themselves shall be despised.

HELPED are those who do not join mobs; theirs shall be the understanding that to attack in anger is to murder in confusion.

HELPED are those who find the courage to do at least one small thing each day to help the existence of another – plant, animal, river, or human being. They shall be joined by a multitude of the timid.

HELPED are those who lose their fear of death; theirs is the power to envision the future in a blade of grass.

HELPED are those who love and actively support the diversity of life; they shall be secure in their differentness.

HELPED are those who know.

So many wonderful Alice Walker adventures I’ve taken on my literary path.