The Boston Marathon, bombs exploding, life not making any sense. These are times when It is hard to have any sense of self, of being human, that makes any sense.
Yet these moments of horror, confusion, dismay and ungroundedness are exactly the moments when we must have a strong, centered, and calm inner experience of selfhood.
The year after 9/11, I spent hours and hours in conversation with my friend Bethene LeMahieu, building a picture of the individual that would allow each one of us to contribute to “a new ordinary life.” The six hour audiobook we produced, “GROUND ZERO AND THE HUMAN SOUL” THE SEARCH FOR THE NEW ORDINARY LIFE,” presented imaginations of the fourfold, threefold, and twofold experiences of being human and argued that without this inner sense of self there would never be a 9/12, that we would remain stuck between the naivete of 9/10 and the horror of 9/11. You can download the audiobook here. Listen to it. It is both comforting and challenging.
THE BASICS OF I course begins on Thursday. The Boston Marathon Madness is a call to all of us to pay attention, to learn the language, to build the imagination of the I that can transform the future.
Last Friday morning at the conference “Contemplative Practices in a Technological World,” I heard Rich Ferandez, the individual in charge of people development at Google, speak about his experience as a surfer during his undergraduate days at UC San Diego. There is not a bachelors degree offered that provides the wisdom that his surfing gave him. He said “You can’t change the wave, but you can change how you surf it.”
THE BASICS OF I will give you the inner I-skills to surf all waves from the nightmare waves of the Boston Marathon to the gentle waves of falling in love or taking a walk with your grandchild.
Please register now. Just click here.
So pray from your core, calm, centered I for all those harmed in body, soul, or spirit by the Boston Marathon terror. It is only the I that can truly bring about the slow, steady, restoring gesture of love that is so needed right now and over the coming years.
Today is also the anniversary of the mass shooting at Virginia Tech seven years ago. The conference I attended a few days ago was on the Va Tech campus. I spoke with many members of the faculty and staff who were there and still struggling with the unresolved feelings of that nightmare. We need to know ourselves, the Basics of I, so that we can make the inner distinctions that allow us to hold our I-center when the rest of us is falling apart.
PS: This course is inspired by Anthroposophy, Rudolf Steiner’s worldview based on the wisdom of human consciousness. I integrate Steiner’s fundamental insights with the reality of 21st Century daily living. I will be sharing some very warm, creative, powerful, juicy and useful perspectives and applications for being human and becoming I. It is Steiner’s wisdom riding the new waves of our times and our personal lives.
