Several times in the last week, I have heard from many voicing a single dilemma: how do we join into a song of connection when we notice that someone is moving forward with a project or activity that we suddenly want to inform so it can meet our needs as well?
On an interpersonal level, this is the "no" from a child or other intimate in my life. "No, I don't want to do what you asked me to do. I want to do my own thing." Where does this leave me?
On a community level, this is a project that has been long in the thoughtful birthing but taken to action by an individual who felt ready to begin. And now they have begun, isn't it their own project now? Where is there room for the rest of our community who may want to co-create in that space?
I know that there are infinite other manifestations of this awkward dilemma -- the yes within the no. It is archetypally significant in what it offers us personally and as a culture in its invitation to consider all needs while peace-making. This is cutting edge stuff.
If I hear only the "no" from my child without also listening to the needs my child is meeting by responding to my request in this way, then the live circuit between us is essentially shut off. I can no longer support my child in meeting his needs, nor can I receive his support in meeting mine. My energy turns inward to nurse the pain from that disconnect, and it will be some time before I am available to open myself to other possibilities to meet those needs.
If I hear my neighbor saying,"I will do the project this way because it meets my needs to do so," and I assume that my needs and our community's needs are no longer a consideration to them, then we are both left in isolation to determine our separate ways and means to support only ourselves. (Hmmm... political "parties?")
We are not meant to work alone.
Experientially, the greatest gift I have received from my bees is to watch and touch the fruit of their labor in all aspects, to take in the tightly woven web of the hive in community as a single entity. When one is highly alarmed, many rush from opposite quarters to sting. The queen is only a slave to the workers enslaved to her, and all are free, indentured servants by choice to the hive.
And this, perhaps, is what is most difficult to integrate: our free will with the will of others or the group. Joining becomes a letting go of our individual fears rooted in scarcity as we embrace the limitless possibilities available to us, assuming that our needs will be held in community. Our willingness to hear the yes in the no requires a trust that we can sing our truths into the choir again and again, the song ulitimately making room for incremental shifts in harmony, rhythm, and tune.
We are at a critical juncture in our time here on earth. If we cannot find that instinct within us to sing with each other, even after a "no" shifts the music, then we are in danger of ending the song altogether. We, as a culture, have come to think for ourselves, do for ourselves, acquire for ourselves, alone.
If we are to survive as a whole, it is because our resources and our power grows exponentially as we come together. The investment of our energy into independence is lost unless we also develop our capacity and willingness to sing with others, taking their needs in to hold as preciously as our own, turning a deaf ear to perceived separation.
Come. It is our moment to sing together.
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