Contemporary concepts of belonging are often relegated to a proscribed set of relationships and interactions with other humans. We may identify our intimate sense of belonging with our partners, families, friends, even our pets, and a wider social sense of belonging within our communities and organizations, our affiliations to sports teams or cultural interests, our ethnic heritage, our online networks. And yet, many of us carry around a dim, unsettling, and inarticulable sense that we “don’t belong.” Why is that? Could it be that our reliance on other humans to provide the sense of belonging we long for is not enough, and puts an inordinate amount of pressure on our relationships? Is it time we all let each other off the belonging hook? Sound, Belonging & Wholeness invites us to remember and reclaim what indigenous cultures and spiritual communities have known and practised for millennia: - That our deepest belonging both includes, and transcends, the human-centered realm.
- That the essence of belonging is a dance with Wholeness (or as 13th-century monk, Dogen, taught: “… is intimacy with all things”).
- That our lived experience is enfolded within the ever-evolving and unfolding Wholeness of all that is. the Universe, the sun, the moon, the earth, our human and more-than-human communities.
- That health, healing and integration are inseparable from our innate belonging in Wholeness.
How do we get there? Like all of life, it is an ever-evolving journey that calls us to Embodied Presence. And the news is good!—because each of us possesses powerful Embodied Presence portals: our own self-created sound, and our capacity to listen. They're always with us, they're free, and we can use them anytime and anywhere. They require no electricity or special skills to operate. What they do require is the
willingness to explore with curiosity, and to open with self-compassion to where they want to lead us in the moment.
This is the journey of Sound, Belonging & Wholeness.