Inner Regeneration, Part 1 (Poem from my Upcoming Book)
"Suffering is Never Alone But Shared"
Thank you for your engagement with recent posts introducing Symbiotic Culture. Today, I’m sharing an experience that’s much more personal — a poem from my upcoming book, Birthing the Symbiotic Age: an Ancient Blueprint for a New Creation.
Inner Regeneration is distinct from but supports regenerative community efforts. As Daniel Christian Wahl once said, “regenerative cultures are unique expressions of the potential inherent in the people and places of a given bioregion.”
But, how do we release the potential inherent in a local community if communities are divided into silos of separation? My lifelong, I suppose you could say “nerdy” spiritual quest, has been to discover how to bring people together, in spite of the fragmentation in society.
Inner Regeneration, in the way I mean it, is a process where we become capable of a deeper self-giving Love — even for those whom we might dislike.
Why is this important? The main challenge of building a new culture is growing beyond old patterns of just connecting with people who agree with us on issues of politics, religion, or even regenerative communities.
Essentially, inner regeneration is about becoming community Uniters rather than unwittingly acting as community Dividers.
It’s hard to do — as we live in a hyper-polarized world, where things seem to be degenerating into “every person or organization for themselves”. It makes sense that we might hunker down in our own tribes and silos. It’s more challenging to unite people because it’s easier for us to divide. We really do live in an immersive “matrix” of separation where we might not even know that we are in our own separate “echo chambers.”
My book teaches you to unite communities in spite of the fact that each of us has a shadow self that keeps us locked into separating patterns that no longer function! I will share many stories of overcoming what is endemic to the human condition and many of my own challenges and how I overcame them — and getting to the root of our divisions and conflicts.
So, Symbiotic Culture focuses on this “spiritual” crisis of division, underlying what appears to be interrelated social, economic, ecological, and political crises.
The poem, “Suffering is Not Alone, But Shared” describes an experience of waking up, even given the suffering that’s been happening to us individually and to the world. It’s hard to make sense of what’s going on — what seems like insanity is part of the ongoing pattern of what I call the “Culture of Separation.”
My book will discuss this Culture of Separation and its antidote, a Culture of Connection — and how we can implement this in a very practical way right in our communities.
Here’s the book excerpt:
”The following poem may give you a clue into what I was going through as a young adult — not running away from suffering but trusting that it is part of the more extensive, necessary process of unfolding.
Suffering is Never Alone But Shared
“I feel and see the flow of life and death inside and outside me.
Sometimes, I resist in despair, saying —
Why should this be, all the senseless misery?
Tears are unleashed.
Torrents of liquid stream from me, dripping onto the sunlit ground.
At first, it was a puddle, then a vast pool of tears — an ocean of sorrow from all the suffering.
Oh, the flesh cries out with confusion.
My little ego reels under the awesome sight, ripping and tearing.
Life must be more than the struggle of birth, sickness, pain, old age, and fear of death.
Some drown the pain in distractions: with some, it’s drugs and material possessions; still others, it’s power, fame, sex, or false love, with others, religion, politics, or social movements.
None of these satisfy me now.
Naked, I expose my body and mind. Open, there is no place to hide.
Raw, I face the elemental forces of creation.
Finally, there is a glorious surrender as I break through the veil of darkness.
The spirit of the Great Mystery works through me with more intensity.
I feel connected to all beings.
Suffering is never alone but shared.
It is not aimless. There is purpose and direction.
Pushed to let go of our silly games, pretenses, petty lies, and deceits until we contact the Truth and Reality inside and regain memory of our divine nature.
To see the beauty that is eternal, continually bringing creation and destruction, life and death, eternally striving for awareness of the Great Mystery.
Suffering and supreme peace fit together like hand and glove.
My heart bursts open as the energy of compassion streams through me.
The blood from my open heart, so red, shoots up into the sky further and further. Then, like a cloud burst, countless droplets begin to fall towards the Earth. In mid-flight, they change to flowers. A colored multitude of roses and lotus blossoms float downward in perfect harmony.
Falling with purpose and direction, they land in a wide ocean.
They congeal in masses on the water, taking new shapes and forms.
Arising from the flowers are rescue boats, many rescue boats
Moving slowly on the glistening surface of the sea.
Where are they going?
The boats move onward towards a tranquil island in the ocean.
Now and then a living being is seen in the water, lost in the boundless sea.
On the boat, people of all kinds reach out and help those lost climb aboard to safety.
Together they go in universal kinship, to help everyone, all heading for the same shore, the same island of unlimited joy and boundless, Cosmic Love.
The island inside us, found in the silence of the still heart.
Suffering is never alone but shared.”
Even without having the words for it at the time, I recognized my purpose in life. It’s not about rejecting the world itself, but the patterns of the world that divert us from “what’s written in our hearts,” the beautiful life of the spirit, and the “more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.”
The poem sums up part of the human condition, which is the same today as it was when I wrote it more than forty years ago. It’s really the same condition as it was thousands of years ago! The main difference is that today, with the advent of exponential technologies such as AI and the fact that our civilization is global, means that any breakdown will also be global.
My sense is that there are already many millions of people and organizations working in tens of thousands of local communities. Instead of coming up with a new separate project, and creating just another competing silo, let’s join forces to connect the good already happening in our local communities, into a more effective power for change.
As St. Maximus the Confessor, a 7th-century Orthodox Christian monk once said, it’s time to “gather the Cosmos together in Love” to participate more fully and deeply in the divine creation we are embedded in.
St. Maximus elsewhere writes that love is the goal, source, and highest of all Good and that the “power of love, gathers together what has been separated, once again fashioning the human being by a single meaning and mode.”
I believe the time has come for a more radical approach — to gather the Cosmos together in Love.
Hope you enjoyed this small window into the inner aspect of building a new community. Would love to encourage you to share your comments below.
Have a wonderful week, Richard