Earlier in November, 2020, I had three wonderful, one-on-one conversations with strangers via Zoom. One was with Brendan, who lives in Dublin, Ireland. I had posted my email address in the chat during a Collective Presencing session of The Embodied Book Club at The Stoa. Brendan contacted me and we set up a Zoom meeting. We talked for almost an hour and it felt quite comfortable, easy.
Brendan was involved with a recently formed small group of people wishing to practice collective presencing, as do I. He facilitated me becoming part of that group. I joined them for what I think was their third meeting.
Subsequently, the convenor of the group sent out a thought provoking email discussing certain group dynamics. Brendan responded and the discussion continued. The third email from the convenor contained a sentence to which I reacted very strongly. I do not know if it was meant for me personally, but it felt that way. I am now writing about this as a way to help me process my feelings.
The sentence read, “Our intellects need to be quiet and listen deeply to the space and whatever comes up on it.”
I was a strange teenager, one who loved book stores and reading nonfiction. One theme in my life is read, read read, learn, learn, learn. Since retiring in 2012 I have read about 100 books, all nonfiction. But my involvement with collective presencing seems to have caused a shift inside of me. It has introduced me to a new idea.
Following this path, you inevitably reach a point where you need other people who also live from this place of inner inspiration – not just for encouragement and support, but also in order to realise (even) more of your potential. I well remember the moment when I realised that I could no longer evolve on my own. In this practice of participating fully in life, I need others with whom to share and express more of what I am able to see and do. I need a collective (a group, a team – whatever you call it) to be able to go deeper into myself, to become more of who I am; not in the personality-habit sense, but in order to shed ever deeper layers of those habits and reveal more of what is latent in me. We need each other – I need you, because of us.
I now think that I can no longer evolve on my own by reading books. Of course I can still enjoy reading books and learning from them. But Ria Baeck makes a distinction between learning and evolving.
In her Introduction to the book, Ria touches on a profound idea that I have encountered elsewhere and encountered more often in recent years.
This human capacity is emerging neither as change within a level of context, nor even as a transformational change to a new and higher level and/or context. It is much more than that: it is a real turning point, a paradigm shift… a mutation in consciousness, as Gebser named it.
When I speak of an emerging human capacity, I see it as part of an evolutionary jump, a sudden leap in human capacities.
Understanding evolution, it makes no sense to think that homo sapiens today are the end of the story. And, to me, it makes no sense that genetic manipulation is the only possible path for further human evolution, although that is also a very intriguing idea. But it makes much sense that for there to be a better world there must be better human beings.
At the moment I feel rather conflicted. My intellectual self is part of who I authentically am, now, at this moment. My current aspirational self wants my future self to be considerably less intellectual. I am not implying that I am much of an intellectual, just that this captures a significant part of my orientation to life. I have contributed very little original thinking to aggregate human knowledge and I greatly admire those who do. Collective Presencing is primarily a how-to manual, but it is also an impressive intellectual work.
As a result of the convenor’s emails, which raised some very good points, I have gone back to the book. I now have more questions, which I will share with Ria Baeck. I hope that she will comment and offer her guidance.
Chapter 1 of Collective Presencing is titled I and Myself: Being Present.
And still, reading this book is not the experience! It offers you a glimpse of what is possible, together with some guidelines, practices and maps in case you want to try it for yourself or use it to evolve in what you are already doing. Hosting or facilitating processes of this kind calls for mastery in different domains. The easiest way to achieve such mastery is to apprentice to the practice, to become a committed practitioner.
I want to host a collective presencing practice but I recognize that I lack the mastery called for. I see very few others with such mastery. Now what?
Many people see this inner knowing or subtle perception as something that you either have or you don’t. My conviction, and my experience, is that you can learn it, we can teach it; everybody has it and does it. In fact, throughout history – even in the history of science – and in so many different cultures, this way of knowing has been essential to the human endeavour. When paying more attention to the subtle in our selves – and in others and in our surroundings as well – these perceptions seem to become more palpable, even more understandable. We begin to recognize that they are omnipresent. We become more able to speak about this dimension of ourselves and the world, and to articulate what we are noticing. Like any other practice, when we bring our intention and attention to bear on it, we become better at it.
I recognize that my inner knowing, my subtle perception, is not very well developed. I sense that others sense this about me. In my life’s journey, along the way more than one person has told me that I am too much in my head. This I accept as true, but it is not something that is easy to change. Some people may not like that this is what I would bring to a collective presencing practice. Now what?
The capacity for subtle sensing is dependent on the ability to be present and mindful in your experiences. By ‘being present’ we mean being open to what is in the moment, which is a doorway to being open to what wants to happen in the future. Basically this means being the master of your attention: being able to guide it and let it rest where you want it to be.
I only began learning about mindfulness and being fully present in the eternal now a few years ago. I have tried to live this way. I think I have made some progress but I still have much room for improvement. No doubt, when people come together in a circle practice, they bring with themselves very different levels of being mindful and being present. Can well developed individuals work effectively with less developed individuals, or would this simply lead to frustration?
Collective Presencing, the human capacity described in this book, implies a lot of awareness.
I have worked hard at raising my self awareness for several decades as I struggled to cope with life. I see lots of people who do not seem to be very self-aware. I see some of these people at The Stoa. Inevitably, we are unaware of our own unawareness. I wonder if highly self-aware people view me as someone lacking in self-awareness. How do we form circles of people who have some minimum level of self-awareness, whatever that means?
Where should I focus now? Do I need to do more Chapter 1 work before moving on? Or should I move forward with a one-on-one relationship as outlined in Chapter 2? That seems like an inviting path. But intuitively, seeking a collective presencing practice with a small group seems right for me at this time. Also intuitively, joining any group that lacks a well defined guiding question does not seem right.
At the moment, collective presencing feels hard and Ria Baeck has something to say about that in Chapter 8.3 What if it is easy?
This title, this question, is bound to be misunderstood. It is a real challenge for the Western-trained mind! The question does not imply that we should always seek the easiest way, with the least effort and no perseverance. Rather, it says that if things don’t flow easily, then something, somewhere, is not aligned, not in coherence, not in the creative flow. What if it were possible to live always in the ease of an unfolding, natural way?
I will look for a path that feels easy as a clue to how I should move forward.
I sent an email to the group stating that I would not be continuing with them and wishing them all the best.
And at this point I sent this writing to Ria Baeck, seeking her guidance.
As expected, Ria was both helpful and encouraging in her response. A key learning for me was her emphasis on the difference between hosting and facilitating. If the opportunity arises, I will try to be a good host and I will try to avoid being a facilitator.
Ria also reassured me that “our intellects don't need to be quiet, but need to be balanced with awareness of body and emotions.” I will continue to seek a better balance for myself. And I have more to say about emotions and awareness of the body, but not at this time.
Brendan and I have agreed to connect again in the near future.