Feeling My Way to the Village

I have never experienced such a high intensity of sadness moving through my system as I did yesterday during an Emotional Healing Process with Martin Salanda* holding the space.

It began with pain in my head and eyes and shoulders, and fear of the anger and resentment I have had stored away inside me from growing up, and then raising children, without a Gaian Village, without the care, attention, love and support of a whole village.

I felt the fear about this anger, fear that I would let it out and use it to hurt people when I felt angry again, sensing lack of authenticity, clarity, love and Radical Honesty in a space, or when people’s Boxes block the form being in a space more fully.

As I inner-navigated with Martin’s collaboration, I discovered that I felt joy because in the many many years with this anger and resentment inside me, it took a lot for me to become overwhelmed to the point of hurting others. I felt sad to notice this, to notice the story I let dominate, that I am an angry resentful person, and not trustworthy.

As Martin coached me to let my sadness be as big as it really is, I discovered that my own sadness was not enough to wash away the ashes and residues of my old, burnt-out anger, which is stuck in my brain and the muscles of my shoulders and neck.

I discovered that I can connect with Gaia’s sadness, the Archetypal sadness of how it has been for humans, during these ages of warring, on large and small scales, most of all within ourselves, and in spaces where children are being raised to know and use the strategies of war.

As the sadness flooded through, my body folded itself over my knees in the chair, and washed the ashes out through the top of my head, and down my arms through my hands into the earth. Ashes fertilize Her, and I felt joy to relinquish them for this.

I had flashbacks to another process I did, alone, when I was 26, the single mother of two boys, grieving the loss of my father, who had loved me with so much love it made up for the loss of many villagers.

On that day long ago, I had dropped into this sitting draped-over-my-knees-in-a-chair position, and in time I had slowly, slowly breathed myself upright to a new beginning.

I told Martin my body did not have strength in it yet and I thought it would take a long time for me to come upright. I told him I could do it alone.

He said, “You do not need to do it alone.” He called Christine* to come beside me and hold my hand, to sit with me. My body suddenly was strong enough to sit up and look into her eyes. What a sight.

What an experience, in my bones and body in the here and now.

I am not alone. I have Christine, I have Martin, and I have a network of Gaian Villagers-in-the-Making. These people are, as I am, extraordinarily committed to finding out how it goes, to make villages such as the one I missed as a child, and as a mother with children.

My experience as a mother without a village especially informed me, painfully, about what was missing, and this made it possible for me to envision what Gaian Village could look like, and to seek out others who were envisioning it, too.

During the years — especially since my anger and resentment contributed to the breakdown of my partnership with the man who was supporting me and my children — I have devoted my life to discovering the pieces of the path that make ma a Gian Villager and bring me to a Gaian Village.

I have clarity about what it looks like and what it takes to get there, from the inside out.

I can articulate and transmit this to others, and I can notice what is missing from the visions of others.

I have done experiments creating a microcosmic Gaian Village, and have been considering what upscaling would take. I have been treasure hunting: gathering and using Distinctions, Thoughtmaps, Tools and Processes that initiate grownup humans into Authentic Gaian Adults doing Gaian Ecovillaging. I have been treasure hunting — and finding humans who have been discovering and creating Distinctions, Maps, Tools and Processes, and using them with others so that ever more people might receive the embodied knowledge and build the embodied experience of Gaian Ecovillage.

This morning, after grieving and sleeping the rest of yesterday, I woke pain-free and spacious.

As coincidence would have it, the first space of the day was Leonhard*’s 333 space doing Anger and Fear. In this space I reestablished, using my anger, my skeleton, my Presence and my Clarity — about my Clarity. I am here for this!

Using my Fear, I discovered I feel fear about dishonesty, about pretence, secrets and pretending, I feel scared about what I am not able to sense into, make contact with. I feel scared of anger used for unconscious action, including my own. I am watching, I am ready to start again.

As the space created by the sadness was made distinct using my anger, and filled with aliveness using my fear, joy started to arise. The morning sun shone through the window, and in front of me were two men committed to feeling, committed to coming alive, becoming more Radically Responsible.

My wildest dreams of Gaian Ecovillage are unfolding here and now. No matter what happens, I am with this, til the end.

Love, Nicole

*Martin is a teammate here at the Possibility Coaching Bridge-House, a Possibilitator and Maker-Mage

*Christine Durschner is the originator of the Possibility Coaching Bridge-House, and of the Possibility Coaching Training specialty in the Possibility Management Gameworld

*Leonhard Geupel came to the Bridge-House as a Client and Possibilitator