Welcome to the first issue of
Conscious Symbiosis: Changing the World Relationship by Relationship
In this issue:
Introduction
What is Conscious Symbiosis?
Codependent with all the Problems of the World?
Introduction:
This issue is perhaps longer than others following will be. I want to keep my messages concise and direct, motivating and inspiring. In this one I wanted to share, as an introduction, what I think Conscious Symbiosis is, and also to address the impact that all the world’s problems can have on us individually.
It is my wish that the ideas I share reach far and wide and inspire people to begin the healing of our planet within their own hearts. It will ripple out from there.
Many Blessings,
Niara
What is Conscious Symbiosis?
Symbiosis, according to Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary is defined, in part, as: “the intimate living together of two dissimilar organisms in a mutually beneficial relationship; a cooperative relationship (as between two persons or groups).”
The same resource defines conscious to mean “aware; capable of or marked by thought, will, design, or perception; being concerned or interested; perceiving, apprehending or noticing with a degree of controlled thought or observation.”
Conscious symbiosis is about choosing, in an aware manner, to create these mutually beneficial types of relationships. It’s about educating oneself in as broad a spectrum of knowledge as needed to facilitate implementation of conscious symbiosis in every necessary aspect of life and living on this planet.
In one respect, people are alike, we all feel things with the same senses, most of the time we all have two arms/hands, two legs/feet, a torso and a head. But a quick inventory of the state of the planet at this time would tell us that we also, from individual to individual, from collective group to collective group, have vast dissimilarities as well!
In the Conscious Symbiosis newsletter, I want to create a place to explore how we can not only survive as a species but thrive. I want to explore and propose ways of being, communicating, and sharing that can consciously create the symbiotic relationships between individuals, groups, organizations and even nations, that can create a world safe for all living beings to live in together, be they human, animal, bird, plant, insect or simply the natural and living beauty of the Earth itself. This will be a place, not to oppose what is wrong in the world, but to create the world, through building sharing relationships, that I believe the majority of people in the world would choose.
In prehistoric and ancient times, people banded together in tribes and villages because they learned that their ability to survive the harsh elements in nature was enhanced by living in a social group. Individuality may have often been discouraged or seen as threatening to the central nature of the group and its survival. Ways of doing things that seemed to provide the best results became entrenched and “traditional”. In society today, we still see much evidence of this. People fear change. They are used to the ways things are “always done”. People who dare to step outside the mainstream ways of thinking and doing are often labeled “strange” or even ostracized in one way or another. (They can also be the innovators and visionaries of our world tribe!) I’ve been around long enough to see yoga’s evolution through this process. Once upon a time it was strange, and regarded with suspicion. Today, it is found in nearly every health club, and is a starting point for many people to open up to their deeper, inner spirituality—one that has nothing to do with religiosity in many cases.
So, is the tribal or village model of life outmoded and over and done with? Or could it have a renaissance? With new attitudes and ways of problem-solving that have evolved over the millennia since ancient times?
Dr. Christiane Northrup once mentioned in one of her videos that we are not emotionally designed to absorb news, particularly bad news, from all the things going wrong all around the globe. She advised people (her audience primarily women) to focus more attention on what is going on in their immediate locality and community.
People are essentially, and perhaps genetically, wired for village life. An inundation of the global problems confronting humanity that affect the entire planet’s ecosphere and all living beings can be overwhelming and paralyzing. As in any case where overwhelm is a problem, by breaking things up in to manageable, handle-able pieces, overwhelm dissolves and things get done. What happens in our locale with people, places and things, has a direct effect on us. And by taking action on issues at the local level, we can have a direct impact on them.
So what do we do? I’m not advocating becoming narrowly focused on only our immediate local, regional communities. Communities today exist in many forms. There are virtual communities all over the internet, focused on a vast array of topics and ideas. But what I do think is healthy is to develop what I call a “weather eye” for what we see happening around the globe. The statement, “Think globally, act locally” has a great deal of wisdom in it!
So what is a “weather eye”? A weather eye is a peripheral form of awareness of current events—cultural, social, environmental and political weather and how it’s impacting our world. The rest of my time and energy goes into what kind of life I want to create for myself at its very best, in livelihood, in relationships, in community.
I envision a global paradigm shift created by the process of conscious symbiosis, and this means examining and putting energy into improving relationships in our lives that are mutually nurturing and beneficial. It means creating new relationships that also serve in this way. These relationships begin between individuals but don’t stop there. They also need to be created and sustained between groups, organizations, corporations, and governments.
Conversely we also can look at the relationships in our lives that have the nature of a host-parasite relationship. What relationships do we have in our lives that are draining and one-sided? As individuals, as groups, as organizations and on up? Can those relationships be shifted to conscious symbiotic relationships, or should they be let go of? When we set a boundary and don’t allow a host-parasite relationship to continue, we create a fertile ground for that entity’s evolution into developing a more conscious symbiotic relationship in the future. In what ways has the empire of the U.S. government become a parasite, not just on the American people, but on the world’s population and resources itself? How can we help to shift this relationship back to one that is healthy and symbiotic through our local actions? The answers to the first question are many and complex. The answers to the second question are a living, learning and growing evolution of ideas to put into action, test the results, and then continue to take fresh actions, fine-tuning as part of the learning process.
Codependent with all the Problems of the World?
These are challenging times to live in. There is so much hanging critically in the balance with global warming and increasingly erratic weather, and the interrelated impacts of population, war, and opportunistic exploitation of natural resources that threatens the survival of all life on this planet. Many of us feel in the grip of the need to do something to alleviate what’s wrong, and at the same time feel overwhelmed at the immensity of just how huge the issues are facing us all. Overwhelm can contribute to a feeling of helplessness, sadness and depression. And that’s deadly, because we start out already feeling tired and pressured in what we do set out to do.
There is the old analogy of being on a plane in trouble, oxygen masks dropped and dangling in front of everyone, and making sure you give yourself oxygen first before looking around to render aid to others in trouble. This applies here as well. We need to take the time to give to ourselves and create happy and vibrant lives. We can all find something to smile about, to laugh about, some activity in our lives that brings us joy. Creating a life of joy is vital. We need to fill ourselves up to overflowing, and let that overflowing joy spill over into the world that needs solutions to heal the ecosystem and social systems on this Earthship. Solutions come best to a mind fully alive, fully joyful, and energized with possibility. I find that when I’m depressed and tired, my mind barely works or functions at all.
Do I want to be aware of what is going on in the world? You bet. Do I want to let it paralyze, depress and overwhelm me? No way. When we allow that to happen, we become part of the problem.
I've first and foremost been a deeply spiritual person all my life, from the cradle up. The more I've learned and experienced, the more I've found that what I focus my attention on expands, and so I choose carefully what I place my attention on. I choose to put my energy and attention on what I can have a direct effect on. Those things beyond my control I intend and visualize as I would like to see them unfold and trust the Universe to handle what I cannot.
The movie "What the Bleep Do We Know?" and then even more, "The Secret" has driven this point home – “Where do I place the majority of my attention to create what I want?” These ideas are catching fire and creating a wave of rising consciousness, not just of political, social and environmental activism, but of the internal consciousness shift that is needed to truly create the inner and inter-dimensional change that can heal this planet and all living beings that reside on her.
So my ongoing, evolving wonder question to myself is how can I personally help this evolution of consciousness happen? In studying the work of Teilhard de Chardin, quantum mechanics, holographic theory, spiral dynamics, integral theory and other disciplines, and my own hard-won experience, I KNOW inside myself that it all starts within my own being. By deciding how to best live my life from the values that mean the most to me, and DOING IT, teaching and touching others by example. I believe we can change this world through teaching by example and touching other people's hearts and minds in the process. So I cultivate joy in myself. I have done this by facing my feelings as they arise, embracing them, loving them and integrating them, because I know that no part of myself wants to be reviled or excised. I do my art which creates bliss in my being then touches those who see it. I like to think of creating art to light up consciousness at a deep level beyond the mental, straight to the core. And I want to share my ideas with the world through this newsletter I'm creating, "Conscious Symbiosis".
I would encourage each of you to find what it is that you value, that which makes you happy, and focus on it, do it and increase your joy and happiness, no matter what maelstrom might be whirling around you. Love and joy from each individual heart is the only thing that will change and save this world, not depression out of continually observing what is wrong with the world. You want things to be right in the world? Envision the best you can and take what personal steps you can to achieve it. Join with like-minded others.
How can we sustain positive change on this planet if we have not created the internal environment within each of us to hold and continually co-create that positive evolutionary wave of expanding consciousness? Think of those people who win the lottery but are then back in poverty in a year or two. They did not become prosperous internally and created the same poverty conditions they started in. Paul Twitchell, of Eckankar, said that a miracle is a changed consciousness. From a changed consciousness, our bodies are healed from life-threatening illness… stories of such healing abound. Our world can be healed with the same shift in consciousness. We can't heal the world if we are filled with rage, anger, bitterness and fear, and the depression that arises from being in the grip of that and feeling helpless.
In future issues we will look at the skills of building conscious symbiotic relationships, first between individuals, then expanding outward from there—as well as other information that we can apply in a conscious and aware manner to creating a better world, one of caring cooperation where each individual can find and be appreciated for their own value and what they bring.
Cultivate your own joy in life and living!
Many Blessings,
Niara
Creator, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
