Forming Spiritual Community in Turbulent Times

In times of transformation, community becomes the olive leaf, the tool of nonviolent action that moves the people toward equanimity, peace, and ultimately a place of support for each of us to do our work in the world. Witness the youth in Egypt in 2011 coming together, forming alliances and rising up against 30 years worth of spoiling dictatorship. And later in the same year, Occupy Wall Street in the US spawning from an ever-growing community of the many, abused by the power of the few.

But “community” from an indigenous cultural perspective, is nothing new, and has always been the primary basis for the expression of everything important in life. The wealth of the individual is measured by the wealth of the community as a whole. And the true wealth and longevity of the community ultimately depends on its connection to the world of the unseen, the spirit world. For it is there that we find our kinship with the natural world that provides everything we need to survive.

Community can form, but it cannot survive without a connection to the divine natural world. And with this connection, the community has the strength and integrity it needs to avoid the abuses of power we have always witnessed in secular and religious society. As we move into 2012, we are entering a time of great change. We will need a strong and lasting community to get through the worst of it, to find sanity and the healing we will need as we meet on the front lines of great change.

Through ritual and ceremony, Sobonfu Somé will guide us on a journey into the heart of what it means to form community, to be a part of something that has the potential to extend beyond an individual human lifespan.