This event was amazing.
From Friday 9 through Sunday 11 February 2024, right when the Year of the Dragon began on the 10th, the Awakening to Humanity’s Sacred Mission Symposium took place. We had over 2400 people register from 86 countries with dozens of organizations and over 50 Keynote Speakers and Keynote Listeners. At any given moment over the three days, between 160 and 300 people were in the Zoomroom and many more participated via the livestreamed sessions. A truly amazing event just for the sheer magnitude of it!
But what made it really stand out was the way it danced. The whole event danced, and everyone in it, from Visionary Speakers to Space Holding Meditators to Movement Flowers to Breakout-empowered Participants, we all swayed and pulsed and flowed throughout the three days. But what was the music that danced us so?
An experience of deep listening
The Symposium was designed as a wake-up call, but not so much one with alarm bells and awooga blaring klaxons and instead one that recognized that, as the saying goes, “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for” … and we’re not waiting any longer! With a delicate balance of presensations from well-known figures at the vanguard of consciousness studies and practices of how to human well, to movement and stillness exercises that brought us inward and outward in connection with life, to breakout sessions where we could engage in petite conversation with two or three others, to dance and poetry and sharing from around the world. It was the kind of wake-up call that said, “hey, you already know this! We’re all here and connected to life in the sacred dance of Interbeing and interesting becoming – how could it by ever have been otherwise?”
Two Paths of Syntonizing
The symposium gently led us onto the dancefloor of participatory co-emergence, or what is more commonly referred to as conscious evolution. We explored two “paths” into augmented sentience. One came through the classical activities (and “non-activities”) of the going inward path that helped us embody and engage our sacred mission. That path involved quieting “the monkey mind,” releasing into the moment (without the need to “do anything” with it, just being present — fully present), and making yourself “available” to what arises in and through you. These three stages augmented our ability to connect and be in syntony with all that occurs within, through, and around us. The four preparatory non-movements of syntony associated with these stages include –
- slowing
- grounding
- centering
- aligning
This path of practice is one of not trying to do something or to act, but of being moved to act. It’s the difference between trying to dance and finding yourself being danced; allowing life to dance you.
The second path is one often practiced by Martial Artists and Qi Gong masters. This path involves opening all the senses, being fully present and aware of your surroundings, coming vibrantly alive and attuned to everything that’s going on in and around you with heightened sensitivity. There is a beautiful scene in the classical film by Akira Kurosawa called The Seven Samurai in which ronin samurai are being recruited for a cause. To test whether they really are samurai, they are invited into a little hut to meet the recruiter, but unbeknownst to them, someone is standing just inside the doorway entrance with a stick that they intend to bring down on the ronin samurai as they each enter the hut, one at a time. The accomplished samurai will have quick enough reactions to be able to meet and deflect the attack without any problem, but those that get bonked on the head are not considered worthy of joining the crew. Now, what happens next is really interesting and perfectly illustrates this second path of syntonizing. One ronin samurai approaches the building but stops just before entering, saying “ahh, no no no, there is a trick here – I will not enter.” His senses were so keen that he could tell there was someone just inside waiting to pounce on him even before he entered the building. He was immediately recruited.
The sort of anticipatory sense-ability involved in this second path of syntonizing can indeed be trained and cultivated. But to my way of understanding, truly awakened connection requires both paths — that of going in and quieting, and that of opening out and enlivening — and it requires them in simultaneity. Awakening to our sacred mission is all about dancing both of these two paths at once.
See my article on “Are You Available? Augmenting Access to the Akasha Dimension” featured at the bottom of the Syntony Starter Kit page for more on these two paths.
Recuerdos del Porvenir – memories of things yet to come
(title of a novel by Mexican journalist and screenwriter, Elena Garro)
Awakening to Humanity’s Sacred Mission is a re-membering of our roles and response-abilities as dancers in the cosmic jam session that has been playing since time immemorial. Time to shake a mean leg – or perhaps a more gentle, loving, and mystery-imbued one. Session 5 on Day Three of the symposium was focused on what became the Embody & Engage session, though I had originally designed it as a session to move from Vision to Action through the theme of “Practices of Interconnection: embodying and enacting our Sacred Mission.” I wanted to move beyond words into sensing sacredness, living into the ideas and words of the Visionary Speakers in the first part of the session — or rather, letting their words and ideas live in and through us. The participatory, immersive, experiential activities of the second portion of Session 5 were designed to help us sense into our individual and shared Sacred Mission — as “human tuning forks” engaging our sense of coherence, of resonance, and in the process, cultivating our Syntony Sense.
In any event, the idea behind the whole thing was to start with this vision-casting symposium and to use it to galvanize an action-engaging movement. That is, to go from the Awakening to Humanity’s Sacred Mission Symposium into another stage of Birthing Humanity’s Sacred Mission Movement. To do this, we realized that embodying and engaging were not enough, though they were a useful shorthand for the full process that flows as follows:
Embrace → Engage → Emerge → Empower → Embody → Enact → Evolve
Now there’s a dance challenge worth of Homo Sapiens syntonicus!
Joining the Sacred Dance
At the end of the three days, we were reminded that this is not the end of anything at all. Rather, it should be seen as the beginning of a movement where, together, we embody and engage in the dance of humanity’s sacred mission. It had become clear that Humanity’s Sacred Mission is not a destination. It is not an objective to be attained. Rather, it is a way of being, of breathing, of being danced.
I realized that it is truly a matter of humaning well every day, from moment to moment. When it becomes a regular way of being, there is no difference between the individual/personal Sacred Mission and Humanity’s Sacred Mission. This is a wonderful way to embody and enact the syntony quest.
If you’re feeling the rhythm pulse through you and you’ve got the urge to dance and be danced, come join us on the dance floor at Jon Ramer’s amazing interactive Kumu map. By clicking on the ‘focus’ button in the legend on the top right, you’ll be able to zoom into any circle you select and see all the people, organizations, and initiatives swinging and swaying together!
To see what this event was all about, check this link on my Events Page where you will find a recording of the session that I designed and ran.