Call to a collective initiation

There is a gathering sense in my body, a shift of somatic gnosis that signals a message getting stronger. It begins wordless, as a feeling of a particular kind of energy. As it begins to push up into consciousness and take on words, a question arises, like a koan, that has no strategic or logical answer… It is one of the ways of being guided by Mystery and Earth; through what is capturing my attention and the question that is arising through my consciousness at this moment…

I have learned to notice and track what is calling my attention, and right now, this is what I am hearing from Earth and those I am in relationship with: 

~ What if the times are a call for collective initiation, the crisis that is the dying of the old life requiring our surrender and descent?

~ What if these times are exactly what Earth is dreaming through and as us, that we humans might die to the old ways of being/Modernity and become initiated into understanding our ecological niche as a species?

~ What if this is the generative disturbance needed for evolution that is Earth’s cycle of rupture and repair?

OK, in order to really let these questions have their scope and breadth, I invite you to back up with me here into a larger framing of initiation, if you will…

Let’s say that initiation is the psycho-spiritual maturation from adolescent to adulthood which involves dying to who we were to become who we were born to become. And let’s further agree, if you do, that this initiation is essential to the renewal of human Earth-centric and Soul-centric culture. And perhaps one step further, that this human journey from human baby to Elder is not a given (like the journey from birth to death which every being experiences), but a series of passages and layers of embodiment that are guided by our Soul, one definition of which, is the blueprint or shape of our particular place in the Web of Life. There is, in our current culture, no guarantee that we will move through initiation nor to Elderhood, as there is not a culture wide worldview that frames the journey of a human life in this way (as most indigenous cultures have and do, recognizing the pattern of Earth’s cyclical journeys within the human body and psyche as this initiatory journey from baby to adult to elderhood).

Through my training as a Soul initiation guide, I have not only experienced my own journey, but have also learned to guide others through the deep ecstatic and exquisite albeit treacherous and transforming terrain some call the underworld. This bears naming, when I use the word, what I mean as the underworld is; the place where the unique essence of all beings, places, creatures, gods, unseen ones live and are in communication. It is where we descend to in order to re-member our own essence, or Soul, which part of us is simultaneously also home in and as one’s eco-psycho-spiritual place of belonging in the relational web we call Earth community or the Wild. This journey of descent, dismembering of the old life worldview and ways of being, revelation and re-membering of Soul as well as the re-shaping of our ego and our worldview could be called the “individual” soul initiation. Why would we go on such a ridiculous, glorious and harrowing journey? In my worldview, it is necessary to unfurling our most potent gifts from our essence, the revelation of the particularity of how we love the world and who we are called into being by loving in that way. This is part of the journey of the life of a human, to move from an adolescent psyche of consuming to an adult psyche of gift-ing, of world-making. World-making is the practice of soul embodiment that psycho-spiritual adults and elders participate in with Earth. Children and adolescents are supported and nourished by these world-makings.  Ok, that is the pattern of initiation that I am working within and the context of the questions I am hearing from Earth. One could say, the way Earth is world-making through me…

White Sage, Mission Gardens, Tucson AZ by Author

Now let’s zoom out, into the larger patterns of what is happening in these times. The initiatory journey always begins with a crisis and a descent, a dying to the old life and way of being in the world and a dismembering of who we have thought we have been up until this point. Given these circumstances and the extent of the crisis we are now facing on all levels of existence, you might join me at this point in asking; what if this were a species wide, collective initiation into understanding our place as humans in the Web of Life?

If this were true, which I believe it is, from that understanding and framing, it would mean that our way of being modern humans up to this point, has been an adolescent consuming of resources and a necessary crisis that this way of being is no longer possible. There is no way of going back to how it was (no matter how many politicians promise that it is). There is only a going forward, and perhaps, a descent. If we would have the courage and the inner resources to answer the call that Earth’s Soul is singing to us. If we would say yes to this dismemberment and re-membering that Earth is calling us to.

My question is:

~ Will we respond to the call, and if so, how?

~ Might we ceremonially say yes and die to the old ways of being?

~ Do we have the courage to surrender our comfort and privilege that is destroying Earth and actually let go to Earth’s dreaming?

~ Are we healthy enough to relinquish our attachment to our addictions, our victims and perpetrators and inner and outer critics (and all the other beautiful protective strategies based on fear and hurt that we enact)?

Here is what is possible, if we are able to say yes- this initiation would shape us to co-dream with Earth which ways of reciprocity and relationality are our true inheritance, or our true way of being in the world, as a species. And from there, within this Earth-centric, community, we might create healthy Soul-centric communities of people within which the dreaming and initiation of each of us might be held, witnessed and honored. I’m gesturing towards at least 500 years from now. This initiation makes possible the idea that that is promise enough.

There is so much more to share, but I will stop here. Next letter I will share more of my personal journey and the current threshold I am in as a Death Doula for the Great Dying.

Catalina State Park, Santa Catalina Mountains by author