Finding your community – whether it is the one you were born into or one you had to search far and wide for – is a goal that almost all of us yearn for at some deep level of our being. Few of us find it in fully satisfactory ways, though.
What does it mean to find your community – to be in common-unity with others, be they people who share your values and way of life, or an extended family of aunts and uncles and grandparents and brothers and sisters of the heart, or even a community of animals and plants? A baseline definition I like to use is that, at the very least, a community consists of:
- two or more people or beings
- with a shared identity and
- a common purpose
- committed to theĀ jointĀ creation of meaning.
But clearly many forms of community comply with these criteria, and some of them can be highly dysfunctional. We don’t want that. What we’re after is some form of Healthy and Authentic Community (HAC). One where we can come together with a sense of interconnectedness and mutual respect. One where we feel safe and yet not stifled; able to stretch and grow and be stretched and grown with others.
And yet, even that can get old after a while. Such communities can become cults or communes and are often only interested in the self-preservation of the community, itself. We don’t want that, either. What we’re really after is some form of Evolutionary Learning Community (ELC). One where we can learn about ourselves, about life, about how to relate to others (be they people, animals, forests, or the entire living planet), with curiosity and care. One where we celebrate life and the joy of living, surfacing the sources of awe and sacredness that continually transform us and our community.
How do we find these sources of common-unity that feed and empower us in mutual Interbeing? The answer, in part, involves following the Evolutionary Learning Path along the Five Spheres of Syntony. But there’s more to this story than just curating ELC in and around you. It also involves connecting with other ELCs, near and far ā forming an Evolutionary Learning Ecosystem of thrivable communities of community.
If you want to find out more about how to curate ELC in you ā how toĀ humanĀ better through syntony ā here’s a little article that provides some clues –Ā https://www.earthwisecentre.org/blog/learning-how-to-human-better-through-syntony