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"We do not think ourselves into new ways of living,
we live ourselves into new ways of thinking!"
"Thanks for sharing these wise thoughts. I particularly like ... Living truthfully into [as yet] imagined circumstances."
Jeremy Lent
The caterpillar voraciously eats unconcerned with the consequences!
Why?
Because it is simply what it needs to do!
The caterpillar spins a cocoon!
Why?
Because it is time to retreat into a protective shell!
This sounds like the story of our current caterpillar culture, doesn’t it, voraciously eating everything in its path and then rigidly doubling down within our comfortable cocoon in order to protect, enshrine and conserve our familiar yet destructive ways?
In the cocoon the caterpillar begins to dissolve!
Why?
Because It is simply time!! It can no longer sustain itself as it is!
Collectively we face a constellation of crises of our own creation! We sense the inevitability of change, knowing that our caterpillar culture must evolve! The time of the butterfly is near, but how to get there?
Nature Is Our Guide
In the soup of dissolving caterpillar "Imaginal Cells," the precursors of butterfly emerge.
Why?
Because they do, they must, it’s their time, they are the next step!
Who in our world are these "Imaginal Cells"? You, I and all of us that carry the potential that imagine a new way of being in the world is possible are the ones who will breath ife into this shared potentiality.
A new journey is about to begin!
The "Old Guard" the remnants of the caterpillar's immune system, attacks the "imaginal cells"
Why?
It realizes these new cells are alien, not of the caterpillar as it knows itself to be.
Is it even possible for a caterpillar to imagine it could ever become a butterfly?
Is it even possible for us to imagine what it would be to evolve into EcoSapiens,
to imagine what an ecological civilization might look like?
The attack of the "Old Guard" forces the new imaginal cells to join together into coalescence.
Why?
So, they can survive!
The individual Imaginal cells join together forming “imaginal disks,” the nascent butterfly.
Why?
Because their collective relationships and biological intentions protect them
while simultaneously propagating the emergence of a new fully transformed being!
Our birthright ability to create authentic community, responsive organic associations and holistically oriented organizations will lead the way!
“The opposite of Anthropocentrism is Everything ... What a relief to realize that, unlike Adam and Eve, we haven’t been severed from the Garden. The Everything still includes us.”
The Parable of the Caterpillar and The Butterfly:
Nature's Metaphor as Organic Methodology!
... Richard Rohr
This could be the story of our evolving human presence
with, on and of our living Earth
Sophie Strand - poet and writer who focuses on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling & ecology.
The Three Core Transformational Questions From the Chrysalis;
Once we recognize the need for change!
First
• We identify and maintain only those essential elements required for our organizational
continuity. What cannot be lost?
Then
• We identify any organizational habits, structures and practices that impair our organizational
evolution ... What must we let go of?
Then
• We recognize, accept and support those individuals and groups who embody
change ... What must we embrace in order to transform?
Why butterlfy?
And why rehearsal?
Why butterlfy?
That's why butterfly!
What does that have to do with rehearsal?
"Growing An EcoSapien Civilization"
The working title of the unfolding play we are rehearsing!
A group of theatre practitioners actors, a director, sage mangers, designers & technicians gather to begin rehearsing a play. They choose to form a temporary community as they truthfully live into the imagained world of the play.
It is likely that they don’t know each other in the “real world” outside of the rehearsal studio and they all live by the same rules as we in “real world” abide by; however, they also choose to regularly gather and enter the imagined world of the play, to explore, learn to "live into" their as yet shared unknown and creating the conditions that skillfully promote its unfolding.
Their rehearsal process has at its core the singular intention of breathing life into the complex imagined world of the play and then share it with a living audience in the theater. I submit we cultural creatives, we the imaginal cells wish to do the same only now on the world’s stage.
there are three main phases in any rehearsal process.
Each phase of the rehearsal process, if approached organically, truthfully adds
increasingly complex living levels of specificity to the unfolding culture that is
embedded in the world of the play.
The everyday garden variety magic of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly holds
within its biology a structure for transformation that we can emulate. Each phase
of the rehearsal process echos' this sequential transformationational and it can
serve as a model for profound cultural transformation Just as an organic
rehearsal process can breath life into a play so to can it breathe life into an
EcoSapien presence on, of and with the living tapestry that is Earth.
Our Aspiration
"Recognizing that we are not separate from the rest of the biosphere brings a deep sense that the whole earth is our body and an aspiration to live-out the implications of such realization"
David Loy - “In Search of The Sacred”
Mr. Loy’s quote succinctly captures the main aspects of any rehearsal process.
First there is “Recognizing,” individually coming to intimately, subjectively
”know” what it means to live truthfully as your character from within the world of
the play. In our casewe need to re-member, engage in the process of living into
the perspective that we are not separate from, but rather a proactive participant
in, on and of Earth’s living body.
Our two core meditative improvisations, our baseline practices: Being Held as
members of a living Earth, and the Reciprocity of Life Breathing Life as a way of
coming to know living from within that ecological perspective will explore that.
In the second and third part of the rehearsal process we, the newly informed
individual characters, “live into” the story of the play itself. Here we begin to
explore how these new relationships inform us as we collectively negotiate our
way through the emerging cultural OS of our “Growing An Ecological
Civilization” world. Throughout, just as theater designers and technitians build
the sets costumes and propsduring the rehearal process, we too have begun to
build the cultural infrastructure that supports our process.
Mr. Loy correctly identifies this as the aspiration (the ongoing quest) to
collectively “live out the implications” of our newly recognized relationship as
members of our living Earth, to “grow”, to manifest our ecological civilization here
on Earth.
The approach
“We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.” ― Richard Rohr Franciscan friar and ecumenical teacher
A baby begins to crawl. They try and walk. They fall. Try again. Fall again. Fall
again and again until they “know” what walking is. This is a form of structured
play. They are rehearsing walking while not knowing what walking actually is.
The same is true for us. We are rehearsing Growing An Ecological Civilization on
a moment-to-moment basis without “knowing” what it actually is. As Mr. Rohr
observes “we live ourselves into new ways of thinking” and I will add new ways
of being.
The process is an organic, sequentially iterative series of carefully selected
subjective explorations that promote the truthful unfolding of the characters
living within the unfolding cultural context embedded in the play.
At this point you might ask who is the audience we will present our play to? I
would suggest it is all non-human and marginalized human communities we share
this world with. They will critique our efforts and write our reviews.
• First, as actors and director coming to experientially know the world and
the place the play inhabits.
• Secondly, revealing our individual place and intentions in that world; who
we are, what we want and how we go about interacting to achieve it.
• Lastly, as the life of the play begins to emerge through the characters
interactions, we place it all in its physical world, the scenery, costumes,
props, music sounds and lights that support the life that is unfolding.
“The historical mission of our times is to reinvent the human – at the species level,
with critical reflection, within the community of life-systems ...”
Thomas Berry “The Great Work
We are all explorers!
Welcome to The Inevitability Of Butterfly Expeditions!
The everyday art of living truthfully into our (as yet only) imagined world!
