Over these past three days I’ve had the honor of participating in the Evolutionary Leaders Annual Advance. We have had annual retreats, but on Barbara Marx Hubbard’s urging we called this one an Advance. It’s been a high privilege in so many ways. Sometimes we say about a relationship with a person that they complete us. I felt that about this gathering with these people. They complete us at Sunrise Ranch.
Last year the event was held in Santa Barbara, and it was a wonderful event. It was my first time going after being nominated as an Evolutionary Leader by Barbara Marx Hubbard and Steve Farrell of Humanity’s Team.
Many of us found that the event this year has risen to another level. There could be many reasons for that but one them is that it is being held here. As a participant, I have had the great pleasure of seeing how Sunrise Ranch uplifts events. There could be many reasons why the event was different from last year, but I know a big reason is us.
Just this morning, Deborah Moldow, who is one of the key organizers of the event, acknowledged our service here and wanted to thank us. So I am passing on the gratitude. But more than that, I’m passing on my witnessing of you and my appreciation of you. They can’t stop talking about the food—they want to take Barrett (Barth) home with them. And there are many other kindnesses that have been shown to people from the event. The organizers of the event spoke to me about the serious interest that there was on the part of Sunrise Ranch that Gabriel Avruj, who is in a wheelchair, be cared for here. And behind all the diligence and care from Sunrise Ranch is simply the atmosphere created by this community.
I also know that it’s been hard work for those who have supported this event. It’s been blood, sweat, and tears, and no doubt some frustration and challenge in the middle of it. Anybody feel any of that over the last while? What came to me so strongly was that in doing all those things that we do—with all that blood, sweat, and tears—the question can come up, Is it worth it? Where is it going and what is it creating? Is my service worth it? Or should I just hang it up and do something else more self-serving?
I am affirming to you that your service is worth it. It has created something beautiful that I’ve been witness to. I believe what we’re doing together is destined to have a great impact in the world. It is already doing that, to some degree. But beyond what we might imagine, what we are doing here is adding up. All the little acts of kindness, all the care and diligence, all the times that we follow through and go past what seems to be some kind of limit—it is all leading to something, is all creating something.
I do believe that people around the world are asking, Is it worth it? Where is it all going? And so we need visionaries who see where it’s going, who know that it’s worth it.
This knowing is born from spiritual centering. I spoke recently about the feast that we have the opportunity of enjoying as human beings. The feast is a metaphor for all of Creation and for our participation in it. Our life has the opportunity to be a feast.
And what is the feast? Yes, it’s the food—and we do thank Chef Barrett for all the wonderful food that comes out of our kitchen here. But more than that, the feast is the enjoyment of the creative spirit that gives us life to begin with. It is a feast of love, if we’re up for it. We are infused with love every day, and in fact every moment. Upon rising, it’s there for us. The feast is present. We have to be spiritually centered and open to receive the life that’s coming to us, and then to let it in and let it through to serve a feast into the world. We have a feast to put on. But we have to receive it from inside to have it to share.
What is it like to offer the feast into our world? Uranda named it with this simple imperative: Let love radiate without concern for results. Why would he have said such a thing? Obviously there are the results of letting something pour out from us. But he knew that we have a tendency as human beings to monitor the results and to react to our perception of what the results are, and then, in that reaction, to become distracted from the very act of letting love radiate.
On the world scene, we see nations reacting and keying their reactions to the reactions of other nations. And there’s the very clear possibility of mutual annihilation, all because the imperative Uranda gave voice to, isn’t being followed. That leads to incredible ignorance—and that’s really all it is. Wisdom simply asks us to let love radiate without concern for results.
On a bright and sunny day, that seems like an easy enough thing to do. And yet the power of it is when we are so deep in our spiritual centering and so unwavering in our giving that no matter what happens, the prime directive is known: Let love radiate, let it flow out unstoppably. As we do that—each one of us, young and old—we find our own power as a human being. We find our own power as a creator. And no matter what happens in our life, we come back to a deeper centering and to that prime directive, and know that through this the power of Creation comes through me.
The power of Creation in me is bigger than any block or limitation that I think I have, and the same is true for you. It’s bigger than any wound that I believe that I have. It’s bigger than any of the wounds in the culture around me. It’s bigger than the chaos around me. The power of Creation is within me and within all things, and I am with that. I use the challenges in my life to commit myself more and more to my own centering. I commit myself more and more to being that power in expression. I let it in and I let it out.
That originating power forms the energetic shape of Creation, which is the torus. And if you’re not familiar with the torus, it is simply an energetic donut with tremendous power coming out of the center of it, circulating around the shape and coming back into it.
Today, I am committing myself to a deeper centering. I am committing myself to a greater resolve, and to a greater allowance of the unwavering power of Creation, the power of Love that wants to come through me into the world. I invite you to think about whether such a commitment might be right for you. I know that it’s right for me; I know there’s something more that I’m being called to.
Whatever our life is, it’s filled with all kinds of manifest things, all kinds of things we do and say, all kinds of projects. I believe that at the heart of it there is a pattern of energy, there is the feast. What manifests and what we do has significance because it’s part of the expression of the energy of Creation. That’s what feeds the feast.
When the energy that’s flowing for us as a human being is right and good and loving and powerful and unwavering, the things that manifest on the current of that energy are beautiful, wonderful and life-giving. Getting the energy right for us as an individual and getting it right among us is everything, and everything good comes out of that—and everything bad comes out of the lack of that among us as human beings. We are not meant to live a life together of chaotic energy that’s reactive back and forth between us. We don’t thrive in that kind of environment. Nations don’t thrive, communities don’t, families don’t, friends don’t. We are meant to live and thrive in the current of the unwavering and unstoppable power of love coming through us in a wellspring that is the torus. That is the feast for us to share together and to celebrate together in life. And we thrive in doing that.
That current of Creation can create all kinds of things: domes and music and services and gardens, organizations, so many different things. But it is the energy itself that is the determining factor on what manifests. And how energy flows depends on our conscious practice of spiritual centering and our conscious commitment to allowing that energy to flow as a Creator Being. As you do that for yourself and I do it for myself, we are in the flow together.
We have the opportunity to enjoy that flow, but at the same time be unmoving at the origin of the flow, steady and still and at peace. And when we see ourselves being drawn into the chaos, we have the opportunity to re-invoke our spiritual centering, to come back to the very center of our Being, to the central axis of the torus, to be in our power and our strength—which is simply in our peace and our stillness at the center of Creation. There’s power in giving, being unashamed and unabashed in the giving of our gift of energy. How powerful do you need to be? How powerful are you called to be? Do any of us have shame about the depth of that power, how big it is or how big we are?
At the center of Creation there is also the receiving of what comes back in the flow of Creation—another grand opportunity for distraction and reactivity. I don’t like what you did. You didn’t do me right. I don’t like the feeling of what came back. I don’t like how you said it. And it goes on and on. Where is the person who, in the middle of what’s coming back, can stand still and receive what is coming and perhaps not like it but know that it’s there to be received if it’s coming back to them? Whatever it is, it can be put upon the fires of Creation to be consumed, to ascend in that fire, having been received in a state of gratitude. Thank you. I might not have liked it, but thank you nonetheless, because behind what I don’t like is the power of Creation that is coming back that I love. And I love that about you. I love that about all of Creation, and I receive.
Loving the feast, we refuse to crimp the flow of Creation at any point in the process and so we do not shut it all down and destroy the energy field. A person who lives in gratitude and in grace allows it to flow and allows that energy field to become powerful. They become a powerful person in this world.
I and we are needed at the center of the torus. This is the place of the origination of creative power. At the same time, it is the place of reception. When we are there, the torus is at work in our world. Ten thousand people coming for Arise need us to be that. Fifty Evolutionary Leaders who are here with us now need us to be that, and we are being that for them. The whole world needs us to be that.
Is it worth it? Is pulling that weed, making that bed, answering that phone call, getting up in the morning for what the day brings worth it? I say it’s not only worth it, we’re called to that. The world needs you and needs us to be present fully in our stillness, in our power, in our ability to receive.
The Twenty-Third Psalm says this: You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. In the presence of the chaos of the world, and in the presence of the chaos of your life and my life, there’s a feast. The verse doesn’t say, “Go up to the Himalayas, there’s a feast up there. Go to the beach down in Mexico, there’s a feast.” No, it said that there is a feast in the presence of the things that seem adverse to who you are as a human being and what your life is about.
Enjoy the feast. Be the feast. Serve the feast.