Community of Consciousness

My post today comes from an experience that was brought to my attention this past couple of days. Some of our elementary schools have hired police to help keep peace in the school and grounds of the school. The culture diversity is growing and this discrimination and injustice is getting out of control is affecting everyone. The students are afraid; the teachers are stressed to their limits, parents are not aware of this or unable to cope. This prejudicial injustice is affecting everyone, and the problem is growing.

It takes a community of consciousness and concerned individuals to see and deal with this issue. A community is not simply a collection of houses and buildings it is a community whereby we connect with others as a way of living life. A place where we know our neighbors well and share the joys, burdens, concerns and sorrows of everyday life. We need communities whereby we nurture one another in times of need, and we look out for the well-being of each other’s children as well as our own. We need communities that send the clear message to our children whereby they feel safety knowing they are living in a community that securely holds them. I’m talking about the most natural nurturing environment for children to grow up within. Our children are biologically wired to give and receive love, but that is not what we are seeing today and it’s wreaking havoc on our quality of life for ourselves and for our children in countless ways.

As parents struggle to make ends meet enormous pressure is on them, especially single parents and parents who are new to the community, don’t speak the language etc., which conscious community building could help alleviate. Instead we are seeing that community services have been cut, teachers have been cut and programs that would benefit our children have been cut. Our priorities have become distorted and unclear as we attempt to meet so many conflicting needs at once. We feel less safe and more anxious without the known boundaries, expectations and support of a well-known group of people within our own community with whom to grow.

We are currently living within a society that has physically and energetically restructured itself around a whole new set of priorities. It’s a profit before people model, which threatens the wellbeing of nearly everything we are wired to protect. We’re being forced to create all of that for ourselves

Perhaps we are living within a system that tends to hold tight to our ideals and parenting paradigms, even when doing so divides us, in an attempt to feel safer and less overwhelmed by so many ways and options. Our children’s natural way of being is compromised, as most neighborhoods and communities no longer witness roaming children with whom to play, explore, create, and nurture their curiosity. The children are addicted to their electronics and parents rely heavily on social media for a sense of connection, which often leads to feeling even more isolated and inadequate.

I recall the best parts of playing outside as a kid were those times when the sun would dip down and the sky would begin to get dark. Hide-and-go-seek was much more fun then, as was just about any game, because it was that perfect evening light and it always cooled down just a touch.

Have we really forgotten what “normal” looks and feels like, and have we replaced normal with feeling as if we’re not doing enough, or enough of the “right” things. I see parents running around like crazy trying to make up for the lack of music, arts, languages and yes social interaction, stimulation and learning opportunities that were once within walking distance in the community, and a place where we would meet our friends and neighbors. These centers are now placed in major centers to handle the masses, we need to drive to them and they are operated as profit centers

I see parent’s spending money they don’t really have on things they don’t need in an attempt to fill the voids we feel. I see neighbors in communities who feel lonely and unseen, even when they’re surrounded by people.

I see parents and caregivers feeling guilty for just about everything: not wanting or having time to be our children’s primary playmates, not working enough, working too much, allowing too much screen time in order to keep up with our never ending perceived responsibilities, etc.

Joy, lightness and fun feel hard to access and happiness is not to be found. Perhaps most tragically of all, the absence of the conscious community is distorting many others’ sense of self. It’s causing them to feel that our inadequacies are to blame for our struggles, which further perpetuates the feeling that we must do even more to make up for them. This behavior and attitude then becomes a self-perpetuating cycle; a distorted reality that derives its strength from the oppressive mindsets still in place despite our freedoms.

I don’t see the parents and caregivers as the problem at all. YOU ARE DOING PLENTY. You may feel inadequate, but that’s because you’re on the front lines of the problem, which means you’re the ones being hardest hit. You are the ones absorbing the impact of a broken, still-oppressive social structure so that our children won’t have to. And that makes you HEROS, not failures.
I’m not referring to oppression in the same ways that we used to be (nor in the ways other cultures are still are around the world), but in the absence of the conscious community, we’re disadvantaged like never before. We may have more freedoms, but our burden remains disproportionately, oppressively heavy.

In the past and in some cultures still to this day we completed our daily chores while laughing at splashing toddlers and mourning the latest loss of love or life. We wove, sewed, picked, baked, tidied, or mended while swapping stories and minding our aging grandmothers. We tended one another’s wounds (both physical and emotional), relied on one another for strength when times were tough, and sought counsel from our community’s wise, experienced, and cherished elders. Community life inherently fosters a sense of safety, inclusivity, purpose, acceptance, and importance. These essential elements of thriving were what we called normal.

I’m optimistic and hopeful by nature, this experience that came to my attention this week has left me pondering on how entire communities shift this massive concern while individually and collectively weakened by the absence of the very thing we so desperately need. Major cultural shifts in prioritization, structure, and power are clearly in order (and I do believe they’re happening, however chaotically). In the meantime, each of us can make a choice to commit to doing our unique and essential part in creating change, starting within us and working our way out.

We may not experience what it’s like to raise children in a conscious community in our lifetime, but that’s okay. That’s not what this generation is about. This generation is about waking up to who we really are and what we really want, and resetting society’s sails accordingly. …..Love and Light Christina