Tag Archives: community

June 28, 2018 · 4:36 pm

Together

Plethora – Word of the Day

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Augusta, the beach near Skippy Rock.

A plethora Black Nerita (Nerita atramentosa) a type of Mollusc or sea snail, lining the beach. Tough little shells, but such tender contents, surrendered to the ravages of tide and sun, or predators. Somehow, though they are a common and certainly not a beautiful shell, together en mass they make an eyecatching vista along the shore, one that pleases the eye and draws you to them. Wrecked, faded, empty, but yet varied, together a canvas of colour.

A single shell might go unnoticed, but no one could ignore a multitude. Together their faded, ordinary selves become something else, something to behold. Together there is a strength never achieved alone. What is singularly ordinary with many becomes a spectacle. As we approached this section the shells stood out boldly, and we stood for some time taking it all in.

It’s an analogy that works for me, the idea of being imperfect, a little broken, some faded, all different. That if we apply that to humanity, it works. Individually we are fine, but together we can be more, our colour shows, we are stronger, varied yet one in some ways. We complement each other, enable each other, provoke and challenge, support and carry at times. And we too are sometimes empty, broken, a little faded. Life can be awesome, but it can also be flat at times, and it can be painful too. Community doesn’t have to be clautrophobic, cloying, or homogenous. Like the shells that line the beach we can line each other’s lives with connection, closeness, time, support and more. Together we bring out each other’s colour.

sole black nerita
faded, empty, washed up
now we shimmer blue

©Paul Cannon

Paul,

pvcann.com

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January 9, 2018 · 1:28 pm

Together – Brilliant!

via Daily Prompt: Brilliant

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Another permaculture garden being constructed, using the same brilliant principle as the Keyhole Garden, with the compost in the center. Newspapers form the compost retention area, straw and waste fills the void, while scraps continue to be added to the compost bin over time, and then, joy of joy, the worms come and do theri bit too. It all breaks down at different rates and contributes to the garden. So all round – win/win. This one worked a treat (though if you notice, there neeeded to be more inner space) and was also a great fun community day. Together we work, together we grow, together we reap, together. Just brilliant.

Paul,

pvcann.com

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January 7, 2018 · 2:51 pm

Funnel Of Love

via Daily Prompt: Funnel

I love C.S. Lewis (author of the Chronicles of Narnia, among many offerings). Lewis published “The Four Loves” in 1958, from a set of radio talks. I encountered the work in the 1980s, and was captivated by the idea that love is not singular.

In short, and by way of a summary, Lewis' the Four Loves are:
Storge (στοργη) - the empathy bond, the love that comes through familial or family love.
Philia (φιλια) - the love between friends, companionship.
Eros (ερως) - Being in love, desiring the one, rather than the many. Sexual love.
Agape (αγαπη) - Unconditional love, natural love, God love, community love.

But what Lewis arives at is that love is not selfish. We must love ourselves if we are to even begin to love others, but that is not selfish in a negative sense, it is positive in a healthy, integrating and mature sense. Self love is the begining of love.

Gary Chapman picks this up and progresses it with his wonderful work “The Five Love Languages”, which is now a major best seller. Chapman believes that we all have a primary love charism, or love language (Physical Touch, Receiving Gifts, Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Acts of Service), and if we understand our love language we will understand those we are intimate with on any level much better.

Carl Jung said: “Where Love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking.” And Abraham Maslow ranked love as the third level of the hierarchy of needs.

The risk they all point to is obsessive love, posession of the other. And the risk of a negative, selfish love – it’s all about me!

But what captivates my desire, my imagination, my hope for the world, is that as we seek and engage all forms of love, that there is that one shred, that chink of light, the moment of possibility of community. That with all our flaws, with all our selfish ways, with all ME in the mix, community is possible and real. In that sense, in our most imperfect self, we’re still a funnel of, or for, love. For me that is hope for the world. Love is not singular!

Paul,

pvcann.com

 

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December 23, 2017 · 3:17 pm

Communal

via Daily Prompt: Communal

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The glorious Banksia. This is a photo of a spent fruit. It is not a nut or a cone, which it is often erroneously called. The fruit which at its peak consists of thousands of tiny flowers grouped together. The fruits are hard and woody as you can plainly see. There are 173 species of Banksia, and all but one occur in Australia (they are common to all of Austrlia, Papua New Guinea, and parts of Indonesia). In the photo you can see the ‘lip like’ follicles which are open, which means the seeds have been sent to the earth. The Banksia is the epitomy of community, birds thrive on their abundant nectar, as do insects. Spiders and all sorts of bugs live in the spent fruits. The Banksia communes with its neighbours and friends. Their leaves provide a great mulch as they break down more readily than do eucalyptus leaves, and they carefully sow their seeds, fire or extreme heat is required to open the follicles, and when they get that heat the paper thin seeds float and hopefully land in receptive soil. Indeed they are communal, relational.

Community, communal, communion, consist of com = with plus union (together, and in that sense it is used in the Christian church to explain the reception of bread and wine – the people and God are in communion), unity (onness), unal (onness, one). so the words generally mean together with. Common unity, common union, communal are all about a sense of diversity being as yet in union, there is a working together in a common way that only nature understands. There is a onness of which we should be jealous. If we understood it, it would revolutionise the world. Imagine that, if we all joined together in positive common purpose – together with!

 

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Here’s one in all its glory.

Paul,

pvcann.com

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December 16, 2017 · 2:43 pm

My Way to Silence

via Daily Prompt: Silent

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Since the late 1980s I have been a meditator. I have enjoyed several forms, but mainly across Christian and Buddhist ways of meditating. In the end I have stayed within my own tradition and using a Christian form – the method explored by John Main. Labyrinth is another form, and walking meditation I find helpful, and not least bush walking or hiking. But whatever the method, the goal is silence, not an external silence, of course, but a deep inner silence, a peacefulness, a sense of internal unity. It is the closest to a tangible sense of integration. For me there are real experiences of calm that last long after a session, and encounters with emotion, necessary unburdening as the unconscious is loosened and long buried things can be faced. Strangely, I have a strong sense of unity with others within the corporate silence, so that even in a room full of meditators there is connection.

I find I can meditate almost anywhere, but the bush is my special place for meditation, I find that it is already offering a form of silence unencumbered. The photo shows one of my former haunts, Billyacatting Rock near Nungarin. I was based not far from there for a few years, and on my long drives through that district I would take a break and walk and climb the rocks, arriving at a quiet spot, perhaps to sit by a rock pool or gnamma hole and meditating for a time. The wind and the birds were a welcome backdrop. Best thing I ever did, the silence was healing and energising, and was a lasting inner silence.

Paul,

pvcann.com

 

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October 9, 2017 · 10:06 am

The Journey

I’ve been pondering this quote for some time.

“To take shape a journey must have fixed bearings, as a basket has ribs and a book its themes. The clearest way to understand … our journey … is to look at a single woven basket’s basic design … First, two splits or reeds are centered, like the cardinal points of a compass. Then, two more splits of equal size and length are added. These are the ribs of teh basket. Weaving begins at the center … over … under … over … under … until it is finished. From the simplest basket to the most complex … this principle is the same. The ribs must be centered and held in balance. In a sense, they are the fixed bearings that guide the rythm of weaving.” (from: Marilou Awiakta Seiu, ‘Seeking the Corn Mothers Wisdom”)

And therefore, the bearings that guide our journey. In short, we need to have a guiding principle, we need a frame, a community, a place in the world. And we need to be held by that community, held by those principles. When we have these things in our lives, when we are held, when we are centered,  we weave a journey that is rich, under, over, under, over, until we are finished.

Paul,

pvcann.com

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