I sat in the hallway of a space I’d been before. Shoes littered the ground, barefoot friends and comrades milling about.
I sat and took a deep breath this time. Feeling and sensing into the space, the people, the interactions, mine and others. Slowing way d o w n . . .
I sat and reminisced on the year before. Running towards solutions for grief (Read Last Year’s Quarter I: Living in FLOW), towards living an embodied fulfilled life, running away from pain.
This time, I sat in it all. Watching the weaves, the arcs, the crests of these feelings, sensings and noticings. I sat and wondered what if I stopped running? And I already had.
We came together at 1440 Multiversity on February 17-21, 2020 to immerse ourselves into the infinite. Before any pandemic tricklings started in the U.S. To learn, to connect, to meet and know, to arrive together for “flow”. This coming, joining, and connection with who we really were and where we really were as individuals, as a group, as old friends, as strangers and as a collective.
The Sanctuary, so brightly lit, housed with years of lectures, connections, gatherings all started as a Bible College, and now expanded into those words… Multi-Versity. As if we were one, individual, one, together, learning, disseminating and expanding all the same. Different, alike, unique, intertwined, unveiled.
Definition of multiversity
Honestly, I really wasn’t sure what I came here for this time. But I learned enough in the past year, grazing through grief, holding and noticing my own sensations, baring witness to another, to know that there was nothing I really needed to DO, other than to BE and that I really would find my way, the best way, for me amidst this crew.
I got to meet so many unique, bright, multi-faceted and even quite shattered individuals. The constant reminder swirling, We are more alike than we are different. And finally coming to an understanding of, “Don’t mistake the map for the territory.” Meaning, who you think you see is not who they really are. The mask fades. Cultural roles display and disappear. And newness, trueness emerges. Oh to be seen and felt in this way! I wish it were so on the day to day. On our streets, in our classrooms, homes, kitchens, beaches… all the places.
If at most, I have learned that the stories I grew up with, may not be true and yet there is a tenderness within them and so not to cast them aside. Even bearing witness to my own stories, letting them be and then asking another question, inquiring deeper across the vast land and sea so as to become more accustomed with “the territory” even if it is ever changing.
Meeting people who remind us of ‘others’ and coming to find they aren’t who we thought they were at all. They are an unfolding and in the process of coming to meet you here I am reminded of parts of myself amidst this same unfolding. Parts of me that are not as stagnant as I claim them to be, a fleeting memory of an identity.
I am held in the midst of my own unfolding, even if there are still parts of me that are holding back. I have come to appreciate all of these aspects for to be fully unfolded, fully authentic, fully open, fully here, or there, in and of itself escapes the moment.
I am closed in some ways and I am also very revealed. Reacting to you as if you carry the thread of interaction to a long lost memory. I’ve missed you again.
Coming closer into the you and the I, separation disappears. Subject/Object. Teacher/Student. Writer/Reader. Creator/Created. When did all of this become so clear?
We dance and I find myself holding your heart, with mine, in time. Unafraid who sees. Unafraid of the need. Dissolving stories, so we both can BE.
This is my gift to you. This is where I let the tears fly free. Feeling the truth amidst the trees. Holding, relaxing, dancing, encapsulating. Dissolving again.
I find myself ever increasingly tired of stories. The stories that only seem to separate us. I find myself wanting to know where you are, who you are now, tell me about all of that. And yet I also find myself a little fearful, for I may need to show up fully in this space of all the feels in all the nows, right now. Can you do that? I ask myself.
Breath centers me again. A long winding road of joys and disappointments, and leaning into tomorrows, forever away…
TODAY, I say yes. Dipping my toe into the water gently. Observing quietly. Moving with you tenderly. Inquiring lovingly. Reacting less haphazardly.
We come to this place in search of, attuning to, listening for, feeling through, sensing ourselves, connecting with other, becoming one, to a friend and another.
May your journey be as bright, as frought with tears, as laden with burdens and solutions. May you find your helpers, your kin, the ones who know you best. May you come to know yourself through the other. May we make peace together. May you learn to dance in cocreation together, side by side, intertwined. May we meet here and there and everywhere. And like they say, “I’m going to love you and leave you.” And then, may we meet again.