This past week, I travelled to Asheville, North Carolina for the first meeting of a year-long program for business development and community. I made this year-long commitment of time, resources, and energy both to learn as well as to engage a community to benefit from vs continuing to work solo in the creative work of a business. And while my logical mind is always happy to deliver the “why nots” of a different choice in my life, much of the joy and satisfaction in my life has come through saying “yes!” to Life’s invitations to engage the unknown and often “impractical”.
I came back from Asheville reminded once again of both the need for adventure in our lives scheduled so full of roles and responsibilities, as well asour need for strong, healthy, and positive community…..community that gifts us with support as well as offering a loving mirror in which to view what we alone cannot see (and w/o seeing, cannot make different). The Greek and Latin meaning of the word “idiot” is “one who insists on only privacy and thus is ignorant” for even way back then, there was clarity on the need for community in a life healthy. Community, the Greeks believed, satisfied the need we have of each other for seeing both the angel and the devil that rests on each of our shoulders.
We all are part of community through relationships, roles, or work-and- belonging is not the same as engaging in healthy community in a pro-active and conscious manner. In this time of great change and human imperatives, it is critical we receive the benefits of healthy community. A community can be as small as two or as many as several; what is important is engaging each other for our goals and intentions through community. We alone cannot see what prevents our dreams and creating different choices; in a community of at least one other, and through calling upon the grace and power of the Unknown, there is nothing we can not transform or create!