Let’s Be Honest About This -
We are ready - but we are out of practice with relationship.
Remembering Life’s Sacred Living System. Returning to Aligned Living. Restoring the Collective.
There is something we need to be honest about.
Not gently.
Clearly.
What we are currently doing is not building relationship.
And without relationship nothing we say we want to build will hold.
We are living in two very real patterns.
There are those of us who feel secure enough
that we don’t see the need for community.
Because we believe what we have built - financially, structurally - will hold us.
But at some point, that gets tested.
And when it does money does not replace relationship.
It does not grow food.
It does not create belonging.
It does not hold us in the way life requires to sustain itself.
And then there are those of us surrounded by conversations about connection.
Talking about community.
Sharing ideas about how we should live.
But not actually in relationship!
We follow. We like.
We consume.
We agree.
But we are not relating.
We are not building anything that can hold.
And so we need to name this properly.
We are not lacking the desire for connection.
We are lacking the capacity to sustain it.
Not because we are incapable.
But because we have not been living it. (because our lives do not have the time or space for this to be considered)
And this has a consequence. (look at where we are)
Anything built without relationship will not sustain.
Not movements.
Not communities.
Not systems.
Not even the lives we are trying to secure.
Because relationship is not an addition.
It is the foundation.
And without it everything sits on something that cannot hold.
We have to realise this - relationship - is the glue. Life uses it as the glue for creation. We need to realise this is our glue as well.
Look at any example of beginning to build - people will come to listen or learn or to be a part of something BUT THEY WILL ONLY STAY IF there is Community / Connection/ Relationships!
So if we are serious about living differently…
we cannot skip this.
We cannot think our way into it.
We cannot observe our way into it.
We cannot follow our way into it.
We have to live it.
This is where we begin.
Not by building something new.
But by returning to what we have moved away from.
THE RELATIONSHIPS
To place.
To people.
To the relationships that actually sustain life.
And beginning again….
This will not feel familiar.
Because we have not been practicing it.
It will feel slower. Less certain. More exposed.
But it will be real.
This might look like knowing the people where we are not just living near them.
It might look like staying in conversation when it becomes uncomfortable.
It might look like building something small with others and staying with it.
It might look like learning how to relate to the land that sustains us.
This is not theory.
This is not content.
This is practice.
And if we are going to live differently…
we have to begin from what is real.
Not where we wish we were.
Not where we think we should be.
But here.
Because this is not something we already know how to do.
It is something we return to.
And we learn by living it.
Together.
And if something in us is recognising this… that matters.
Because this is not something we do alone. This is something we come into together.
And stepping in, even if unsure means we are leaning into these relationships, into a place where this is already being lived.
Not perfectly.
But honestly.
We can find our way back to it here.
That's a very important piece. Thanks @Cari!