What is safety on the soul level?

Finn talking at Rivendell last November. Chris sitting nearby. Two of my mentors.

What is safety on a soul level?

Crossing Boundaries

“Crossing the boundary from personal to transpersonal takes will...
takes the will of soul… and that’s fearful.”

~Finn Voldtofte

photo source

Letting Go, Passing Away and Coming Together

A few nights ago while I was at the coast in LaPush, sinking into a powerful place during a time of deep change, learning from the raging winds, enormous waves, wisdom of the land, and lessons of community, I had a powerful dream. While I was writing the dream the next morning, I felt my friend, Finn Voldtofte, very strongly and very close. Since being together at the gathering on Bowen Island, Finn has been mentoring me and I believe many others in a process of letting go. Prior to being connected to a resperator and being held in sleep, Finn knew that the work he was doing was soul work, having to do with setting himself free at a soul level. He asked that all people assisting him in this difficult time set him completely free. This invitation created a wave of collective intention that very palpably ran through Finn's vaste local and global community. I sense that we have all been on a deep journey as we hold this space with and for Finn and as we ourselves surrender to letting go and setting free. This dream touches many places in my own life and development (such that I'm a little embarrassed to be sharing it here). I think that it also touches on themes emerging at a global and universal level too. I am very grateful to Finn who has been mentoring me and helping me to deepen my sense and understanding of this process in so many ways.

Dec. 20 Last night’s dream:

There is a small child, maybe 2. She keeps coming to me and telling me exactly what she needs. She’s very connected. Very clear about what needs to happen. Very strong willed. Not pushy, not aggressive but very assertive. She is clear as to what must happen and I am her confident and the adult that can help her with her needs. She has been preparing the ground with this one particular woman. The time comes that she is ready to go to the woman and surrender… to be given over to, fully adopted and cared for by this woman. She is ready to be born anew, arriving as a child with a mother… being a part of a unit, connected to a family.

She comes to the woman… more as an infant than a toddler. The woman is aware of the divinity that this child embodies and knows the high task of companioning her through this passage. There are 4 of us surrounded around the small body of this child and yet energetically, there a HUGE expanse of presence between us. The child is in a deep sleep, coma-like. It is clear that she is going through intense struggle. It is unclear as to whether her life will survive. There is some fear within the adults… to see this innocent child in such a state helplessness, tinkering so close to the edge of death. And yet, she is there with a huge amount of presence.

There are two adults on each side, one below at her feet and me above her head. Her arms are crossed upon her chest. My hands rest upon her hands, my legs cradling her head and shoulders. The other women are showing up powerfully. The woman who is the new mother is across from me. She is actually not below at the feet but is holding the child. I feel now that the child is in both of our laps with her head resting in my lap, my hands upon her hands and heart and she is really cradled by her new mother. The other two women are essential in holding the container together… in creating a dense space where time stands still and we hold our full attention, being together. Holding space. Letting go. Supporting. Encouraging. Granting permission. Breathing.

I feel some of the fear of the other women. This child seems so vulnerable and in such ‘bad shape’. I reassure them that the child who had been guiding me up until this point was extremely powerful… filled with a huge amount of determination and understanding. She walked consciously to this point and it is our opportunity to be with her consciously, accepting and surrendering to the letting go that is happening now.

Yesterday I found out that Finn passed away a couple of nights ago. I feel so blessed to have been able to know, connect with, learn from and love such an inspiring human. We met at an Evolutionary Salon where I was touched on a non-personal level by his wisdom and experience. He continually guided and invited deep connection with the presence of the magic in the middle, not through instruction and lecture, but experientially in the ways he engaged with himself and the group. I also had the opportunity to learn from him and with him through facilitating together on the final day. After the salon we connected some online.

It was at the gathering on Bowen and the time since then, however, that it became (and is becoming) clear to me what a profound teacher he is to me. Now isn't the time for putting this part into words, but I want to honor it.

I breathe deeply as tears well in my eyes... A seagull flies above the trees out my window... My heart and soul honor with deep grace and gratitude the life of Finn... A huge grin leaps upon my face... My heart and soul celebrate the life that continues to thrive as the being that was Finn continues to inspire, guide and love.

I give thanks to Finn and to Martin Ehrensvärd and Tina Ranløv, Finn's close friend and wife, who have not only showed up in unimaginably powerful ways but who also continue to share the wisdom and growth with this broader community. I leave you with words from Tina as she shared the news of Finn's passing and invites each of us into a calling:

It has been and it is to me a lifegiving process and I feel in me and the people close around me a call from life to grow, to share, to evolve, to come together, to ask for help.

A Story from the Salon

I had my first experience of hosting a large event when I was at the Evolutionary Salon. I was fortunate to be a part of an amazing team of four. We hosted the final day and for each of us it was a powerful experience... as Peggy came to name it, a shamanic act of creation. In order to tell our story, we each wrote our own individual story and then I wove them together into one luscious tale! This story now lives at a new webl, Stories from the Field of Hosting, as well as at the Evolutionary Nexus site.

The dedicated hosting team for the final day of the 2nd Evolutionary Salon, Peggy Holman, Finn Voldtofte, Tree Fitzpatrick, and Ashley Cooper, share a flow of thoughts on how we each experienced that last morning. We each wrote with the intention to tell our individual story and then for them to be merged and woven together, ending up as one story about what happened in the final stages of the salon gathering, in service of the ongoing, communitywide holding of the space for what emerged, and still is emerging.

Forms of Personal and Collective Practice

Inquiry is an essential part of my personal life practice. A current inquiry: the relationship between personal practices and collective practices.

One way of describing practice is the process of listening deeply, becoming intimately engaged in a certain way of being. For example, a person who practices piano learns to know the instrument, the notes, and their own personal relationship with the process of playing the piano and creating music. At first practicing may look like reading a sheet of symbols and pressing keys to create sound. As the person becomes more practiced at listening deeper into the experience, an intimate relationship with the process develops as the music begins to move through the instrument and the player in a seemingly effortless flow. The person develops a new way of being that surfaces when they are playing the piano.

In the initial stages of practicing there is often a strong emphasis on what we are Doing. We practice doing... dribbling the soccer ball, holding a yoga position, looking people in the eyes, etc. As we become more practiced, the doing begins to fall away as we are becoming our practice. The ball is coming towards us (we are observing all the cues) and we immediately think to dribble; we are in a yoga pose and by listening to our body, we know that it would benefit us to rest here longer; we see someone approaching us and noticing a desire to connect, we remember to raise our head and look them in the eyes. As we become masters in our practice, there is no thought or effort needed to engage our doing. We are able to rest in a state of Being as the practice naturally arises through us. The ball touches our foot and we are dribbling, breathing into a position we hold it as it moves deeper into our body, engaging with another our eyes are drawn into a place of deep connection. As Thomas says,

In this field time falls away and we are absorbed in an unbounded eternal resonance, suspended at the peak of an effortless leap beyond here to there.

I am interested in our capacity to listen... to sense into an experience, opening ourselves to be revealed to the sensations, the colors, the flavors, the feelings, the quality, the texture of this moment... folding into now, showing up with presence.

We can do this individually as part of our personal practice and we can do this communally as part of our collective practice. My hypothesis is that the more developed we are in our individual practice, the greater capacity we have to engage the collective practice.

Finn Voldtofte writes at Evolutionary Nexus about Inquiring from the middle, a collective process of listening deeply and becoming intimately engaged in a collective way of being. I have only pulled out pieces of his writing, please follow the link for the full expression.

The practice was to sit in silence for a few minutes, centering attention and settling the activity of the mind - and then to hold the intention of directing ones attention from a silent place within towards the middle.

Aligning with the silent place within is a personal practice and intentionally directing towards the middle is the personal practice expanding to include collective practice.

After a period of "attending to the middle" start sharing whatever one senses in the middle, but without making interpretations of what was sensed. "Sense" means see, hear, feel, smell, taste, but also intuit and give it words.

... The shared experience seems to be that something of being comes into existence, or manifests, or emerges, or reveals it self - something that is not a concrete physical form, but is there as opposed to in me and as opposed to the feeling of the group energetics.

...One has to think of oneself as potentially at any time being the one through which the abstract middle can acquire voice. In very practical terms it can simply mean: Speak as you are moved to. A skill to be developed is distinguishing between when an impulse to speak really is from the middle or when it is a personal impulse. The skill is about making one self available and letting go of personal fears and desires. The skill is also about showing up in all of your capacity. Any holding back from the individual side holds back the entire field. Holding back is relative to your highest capacity – so you can not tell from the amount of words said or the brilliance of them whether it comes from fully being on ones own edge or it is really more cleverly hidden holding back.

The interplay and intimate relationship between personal and collective practice is essential when engaging in these fields. I am excited to be diving deeper into the experiential play of this inquiry and recognizing patterns that arise to feed my equally present intellectual curiosity. Please join me if you feel called!!