Friday 29 March
by Francesco Benvenuti
As the energy of the Solstice is still flowing strong these days, the sun is shining and the noises in the street seems to be slowly coming back to the level before lockdown started.
Yet, today I woke up feeling the desire of share a poem that came to me a few weeks ago. I wrote this inspired after organising and attending “the Reconfiguration Summit” in May 2020, an international 5 days Online gathering where a multigenerational soup of inspiring elders, youths, activists, spiritual teachers from all over the World gathered to share their vision and dialogue about what type of community and hubs we want to see emerge in the post Covid-19 scenario.
As restrictions are easing and the World seems to be wanting to rush back to “norMal”, I feel a deep desire to focus and remain centred in a vision of community I hope we can sow the seeds for in these times..
So here is my first solo blog post, hiding behind my shy words of this long(ish) poem :).
—————————-
What is community we ask? What is this word, what is the task?
As unwanted weeds, in between the system cracks
We are gathering in guilds growing off the beaten tracks.
The corrupted system defines us as out of place,
because they say that we ruin the “NorMality” of society’s face
Yet, as we thrive, expand and reclaim
the lifeless roads laid out in favour of the old patriarchic game
We re-member that the very same Sacred Ground
connects every single hatching crack that can be found.
And from the gaps we breach, fresh Light can enter
activating the dormant seeds of hope within humanity heart’s centre.
We did enough of raping the land,
Hoarding all of her fruits in our hands
Imposing our colonial dreams and our plans
What was her true demand?
We forgot to look at the “whole”
while busy defending our egoistic perspective
through our closed doors’ keyholes
So, where do we go from here, where do we start? We ask.
Acknowledging our shared inherited collective Trauma is the frst task.
We are a symphony of voices and unique sounds
Different branches of trees with roots in common ground
Fine tuning, through healing, our true vibe
to attract, by resonance, our tribe.
Reclaiming sovereignty over our internal sanity
We start with balancing our internal biological and psychological community
Change begins within they say, and then by resonant connection
we attract the soul family toward a unifed Worldwide Nation
There are as many life purposes on Earth as there are souls,
And diversifying our community types, to make space for them all, is our goal.
From hubs, to networks, villages and towns
Many slight musical variation of the same harmonized sound.
Encouraging a multigenerational soup of elders and youths,
We seek out diversity
Re-learning the power of sitting together as a tribal Circle
We deal with adversity
Taking and rotating responsibilities, we honour our past and mistakes
learning from life’s natural University.
We strive for inclusive networks of peace and solidarity,
sharing resources and skills, to rise above the victim- perpetrator polarity
Inclusivity is one of our main calls,
Ensuring we use Languages and terms accessible to all
Between Marginalized communities and privileged white people
An act of cultural translation is required,
Starting from giving back through concrete action,
to the people which land was stolen or unfairly acquired
Seeking to stay in a state of divine unimpeded Flow,
Prioritizing togetherness and fuidity over time our resilience can only grow
So we often gather around the fire to celebrate and pray
and to manifest praying together for a brand New Way
Through community rituals as well as learning local slants
We build physical hubs and grow friendships, like a colony of ants
Glued together by a long-term common vision
toward a shared meaningful direction, making horizontal decisions.
Yet we honour and don’t bypass conficts when they arise,
Knowing how to face the unavoidable shadows, the lows and the highs
Seeking through our Sovereign choices an archetypal resolution,
through mediation and compassionate communication,
knowing our efforts are required for a collective conscious evolution.
We embrace new open-source network technologies,
To enable the sharing of cross-continental mythologies,
Learning from traditional community practices and their Cosmology
We use more of our time for building new bonds
With neighbours and farmers, with birds, cows and frogs.
We honour life wonderers & nomadism,
Trusting in the simplicity of the present moment, with optimism
Weaving the dreaming and, like far-reaching bees
They carry and share inspiration, from hub to hub, for no fees.
Yet, let’s not forget where we come from
our roots , our home-land, our traditions and songs.
We became who we are by soaking its life vibration
Our mother-land hold and cradle our soul foundations.
Striving for new community stewardship, beyond patriarchal ownership
We all can stir together with passion this ship
Looking out for new miraculous opportunities
That might open to new forms of communities
Let’s dream into manifestation realities that the mind cannot yet understand
Let’s dream of many lonely landowners opening-up their lands
That some unpredictable new allies will start reaching out their hands
Sharing resources, from the Me to the We
A paradigm shift we all want to see.
We go back to planting seeds in the garden and in the land,
Observing nature unfolding as a fractal to understand
the biomimicry connection that can teach us how to stand
In a broader cosmic context, from galaxies to million grains of sand.
Cross-pollinating Natural time and law-keeping traditions
along song lines and sacred sites can be one of our missions
Building archives to retain ancient knowing
for educating our decisions as we are flowing.
Plucking resonant strings on the song-lines cosmic game-board to rebalance natural order
Each note part of the wider symphony beyond right or wrong,
As we keep building bridges of solidarity and connection ever so strong.
Painting a common picture from a micro-internal landscape of internal symbiotic revelations
Which draw strength from macroscopic universal prophecies of free-will emancipations
From ancient Nagas, dragon-lines, serpent dreaming toward new Times,
We build archives of shared mythology, storytelling and ancient cosmologies
Teaching our children the power of dreaming, ritual and radical astrology
Humbly offering for our privileges an apology,
We decolonize our inherited contraction through taking concrete direct actions
As we build community rooted in radical connection and compassionate interaction.
“We are only as sick as our secrets and our shame” they say,
and shame can only live in the darkness of our denial
and in the system of defensiveness we build to avoid a fair historic trial,
We hence seek to build the foundations of our new communities
Starting by naming the debt of privilege most of us carry, and by creating opportunities
to bridge divisions, nurturing social justice and seeking a new unity.
Rejecting the colonialist hedonistic new-age type
of foppy light-blinded compromised community stereotype
we chose to walk in non-duality on this earth
reclaiming our right of spiritual visionary activists by birth.
We can unify diverse communities through focussing on a shared desire for future unity
A better future for our children, through true education as opposed to propaganda intoxication
Starting from the Elders, we draw life-lines of hope from the new generations,
Paving the way for new revolutionary star-children arising across all Nations.
We make Global localization a priority,
restructuring our networks without central authority
We share what we have, our skills, our time,
Our knowledge, our wisdom, our strength and our mind
Many communities are born and soon they collapse
Yet we are willing to try, we know we might fall into a traumatic implicit memory ‘s relapse
Yet we gather courage and moral effort to keep building and failing
Letting go of attachment and we remember that the experience of failure is worth living
re-learning basic community skills, the Natural ways of “less taking, more giving“.
Growing food in empty spaces,
local food grown by multi-coloured hands beyond races
Permaculture as a tool for social activism
beyond societal frantic mindless consumerism
Overall, we are here trying as we truly care and we know its time
with a willingness to truly listen and tapping into our inner-child to make it rhyme
We “do the Work” our souls came here to take-on,
re-paying the debt of our privileged inheritance so we can all, as One, move-on.
Our commitment is to service, to SEVA and to each others
starting from the elders we step forward as brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers
As we know that our effort in the end
Will cause our Soul Dharma to transcend.
Francesco Benvenuti (24 June 2020)
FrancescoBenvenuti.ed@gmail.com
(Feel free to share this poem/post widely)
On Wednesday 10th January a group composed of the Salisbury Centre Board of Trustees, current staff and community members (Including…