For quite some time, I had the idea of forming of Conscious Living Group although, admittedly, I wasn’t exactly sure what that would look like. Delaying no longer, I put my foot down, set the date and decided we’d… uh, figure it out at the meeting. There, one of my own suggestions was for the group to do some kind of project that would make a positive difference in the community.
Upon request, attendees contributed their input regarding the group’s direction. One spoke up and said, “I’m not looking to change the world, I’m just looking hang out.” It proved quite an echo for me. In the weeks following, I wondered, what exactly makes a group “conscious”?—of more than each other, that is.
The basic idea of promoting consciousness, or so I thought, is to develop ever increasing levels of awareness, inner & outer, world & self. With the natural offshoot being to eventually engage in behaviors that support and enhance our own well being, planet & person.
Which brings us back to the group. What exactly to tell them? I’m not quite sure I can instruct someone in how to “just hang out” consciously. Not that they’re unwelcome, but growing green wallflowers is not what I originally had in mind. Maybe for some a group is too much. Maybe, ultimately, we are all in this separately. And if that’s true, then what it comes back down to… is me, as just one guy in his own right. Whether I’m at the head of the group – or the feet—little matters. I must do my part. That inexorable urge to change your outer world once your inner world has changed is the natural photosynthesis of we all who’ve felt such sunlight in our lives.
For me, I’ve been changed by changing little world’s one spine at a time, my own included. And the urge to move from a sequence of transformed patients to patients who themselves transform was as natural as putting my backbone where my wishbone used to be.
So what is your job, your skill set, in this? Perhaps mine is aligning people, like so many vertebra, so that, like Atlas, they can shoulder the world – not just their own (though that’s plenty) but the planet’s as well. And since it is, in the end, about energy, then it’s no wonder that I’ve undertaken such an extraordinary labor-intensive expertise in a nutritional counseling nearly as transformative of personal worlds as my method of chiropractic.
What I’m feeling when I think of a conscious living group almost borders on a Mission Statement, that: “Collectively, as a human race, we make choices that determine our individual health as well as the health of our environment. The health of our environment, relative to toxicity and function of the ecosystem, in turn, exerts its omnipotent influence upon us. The choices we put to our bodies and environment spawn a long arm of consequence for both. Ultimately, people experiencing higher levels of consciousness understand the intricate interconnectedness of the world and their role in creating a positive impact upon it.”
See, it’s a vast concept. Readable, listenable, likable. But like most mission statements, it fails to motivate the mission.
Even as human beings who love we often have to be reminded that love is not a noun– but a verb. “Conscious living” is also a verb, not a noun. So, surely, the being in “human being” is a doing as well. I would say to anyone wanting to be a “human doing” – then act. The prescription? Just Do One Thing. Not two, not three, one. One doable something. Oh, and it must be small. Small always get finished, while large just gets tired. If all you can manage is just to show up at a group for conscious living, as a noun among verbs, then that’s at least something. Life and the planet both benefit better from a rain of small incessant droplets than from a flood, which wipes out both flooded and flooder. The Just-One-Thing that you do may seem paltry, even vaguely pathetic, but it’s important that you do it. Be the droplet; or the place where they can drip. For however terribly insignificant it may seem, it matters immeasurably.
Just ask the bucket.
And keep dripping.