At a recent get together with a few friends who are envisioning a new type of Mystic Haven, we talked about how NOW seems to be a time of awakening – individually and collectively. And we discussed that we can’t seem to find a good definition for what that is. I think we lack the language to explain what “awakening” is, because it is experiential, not intellectual. Without going into a lot of detail here about my personal journey, I do want to share some things I believe about awakening:

• Realizing there is an unseen yet profoundly true reality adjacent to this brick and mortar life is not something one can plan, design, or execute on like we do with work and physical world things. Instead, it is more of having the vision/getting the download/feeling the intuition and then using strategic mind to make what we didn’t plan happen. This is why we gather with other seers who have overlapping dreams so we can piece them together into something more whole.
• Each person’s experience is unique. This is why we gather and share rituals. These rituals may be ancient and time tested, and they may also be emergent new rituals called for in this unique time. Either way, the ritual serves as a common experience to orient us, and then to learn from each other about all the ways that the practice can be experienced.
• Awakening, by its very nature, can be disruptive, surprising, and ungrounding. This is why we need community to help reflect our experiences, show us what different parts of the path look like, and to help us steady ourselves to integrate what is emerging.
• Mental wellness and awakening are connected, but they aren’t the same thing. This is why we need both spiritual and emotional/mental support throughout our entire lives, and to apply the right medicine to our ailments.
• It is non-hierarchical, even though we live in a culture that tries to label some as teacher/leader/boss and others as student/follower/subjugate – no one has the authority on my experience, and my experience might support yours, but I’m not here to dictate that to you.
• We are not alone or even all that special in this experience. Everywhere I go, I meet people who are getting the impulse to gather, create community, build something more sustainable and interdependent. We may feel alone within our family of origin or in the capitalist structures at work and school, yet there are others to join where we feel belonging. And when that more authentic belonging is expressed enough in us, it can become an invitation for those others to come belong with us (rather than the other way around).

So we can’t plan it, but we can invite it and then execute planfully on what is realized. Each person’s experience is unique, but we can share time and space to be in community with other seekers and share that presence. It will change the status quo, and we can ground each other in co-defining what is emerging. We can offer and ask for support. And we can work together to co-create this thing we all are wishing for, but none of us have experienced.

This is the reason for Circle. If you are here, you are invited to count yourself a part of this circle. You have gifts to offer, and things to learn, and so do I and so does he/she/they sitting also in this circle.