Let’s come together in “communities of practice”

Perhaps one of the most difficult findings of post 911 is the lack of trust between people. Research tells of a significant decline in faith between citizens and leadership and, too, between individuals and their friends and colleagues. Ouch. This has led to a breakdown in cooperation and community building at virtually every level of society.

When there is a rupture in the external collective, it is often preceded by a dysfunction in the internal experience. We usually imagine the order as the other way around. First comes the profound distress caused by planes exploding into buildings, fires/floods raging out of control, violence resulting from inequity, then, occurs our internal pain and suffering.  But I am not certain that this is the order of things.

I believe that when we stop tending to our inner community, those soul companions we name angels, demons, ancestral spirits, then there is real trouble upstairs.  As below, so above.  A different perspective for sure.

The trust and compassion we so desperately crave in our workplaces, homeplaces and in our body politic begins with our care for the companions of soul. When we bring our willingness to tend these inner relationships, something new unfolds. In turn, they care, even love us. Yes. From the inside out.

Within our extended Alumni Community let’s double down. Let’s come together in “communities of practice” and support one another ever more so. Together we can/will offer to each other the ways we have found helpful in hosting our inner soul companions.

In doing so we will become more active than ever in realizing our desires for a more just and compassionate world. We will bring an Archetypal Activism, an advocacy responsive to the guidance of psyche’s call, rather than an outrage reactive to the manipulation of commodification’s hunger.

Together, let’s build a better day and future for us and for the generations who will follow. Let’s realize the beauty of what brought us together in community from the beginning, a love of our vision. Anima Mundi Collende Gratia, for the sake of tending soul in and of the world, begins with turning inward and nurturing the persons and landscapes of deep imagination.

Steve Aizenstat