The word author comes from the ancient root word aug, meaning “to increase.” That same root became the English verb augment.

In Latin, the origin of author was auctor, which could refer to a responsible person, and literally “one who causes to grow.” In Old French, it could mean “creator.”

The word author is the root of the word authority, which has two words that arise from it. The word authoritative has positive connotations, and the word authoritarian has negative ones.

The origin of words can sometimes reveal a deeper truth, which is so here. When we are the author of something, we have a natural authority over what we have created. If we paint a painting, we know it like no one else. If we build a house, we have authority over the care of it. And if we start a business, we have authority over it that naturally comes to us.

If we experience ourselves as the creator of our life path, we have authority over our path and the sphere that immediately surrounds us.

Collectively, the same is true. Democracy is an attempt to allow the citizens of a nation to have authority over its governance. In the Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln referred to a government of the people, by the people, for the people.

It is becoming increasingly evident that we, as humankind, have the powers of creatorship on Planet Earth, for better or worse. We have collective authority over what happens on the Planet, dramatically affecting other forms of life and even the climate around the globe.

If we could see how we create together now in the light of what we potentially could be and how we could potentially create, it’s possible that we would look at our current state as an immature way of creating. Generally speaking, the desire of human beings is not the pure desire for life to flourish in the sphere of creatorship in which we each find ourselves. Self-serving interests override the pure desire to create. In this sense, how humankind creates is childish. We have not fully evolved to fulfill our potential.

This is clearly so on the global scene. Our impact on Planet Earth reflects it, and so does the process between people that yields that result. Instead of the natural authority of the Creator, we have authoritarianism.

What would happen if all of us who read this article experienced ourselves as a constellation of creators, bringing the prayers of the Creator to our world? What if we knew ourselves to be the pure desire of the Creator, authoring a new experience for humankind and Planet Earth? This is so different from the human conspiracy to get a piece of what we want. Sometimes, even the best of our politics amounts to that. And so, we have our innate harmonious synergy turned into a shadow of itself. While that shadow is considered to be the inevitable flow of human affairs, seen in the light of the possible—a lit-up constellation of creatorship—it is grotesque.

Like many organizations, Sunrise Ranch, where I live and work, has organization charts. Our human resources department publishes them, showing departments and who reports to whom. It is a complex affair because there are about 70 of us here, and most of us wear multiple hats.

That’s the human org chart. We make the best of it in an attempt to bring clarity to the operational level of function at Sunrise Ranch. But there is so much more needed for the Ranch to fulfill its purpose and mission in the world. There is so much more to happen for us to assume our natural authority for the creation of all that Sunrise Ranch is.

What would the spiritual org chart for Sunrise Ranch look like? What would it look like if it included all of us who share this Pulse of Spirit? As I picture it, the spiritual org chart would show each of us in the constellation of consciousness we form together. It would depict where we are in relationship to each other as the prayers of the Creator reverberate through us spiritually and move into the world.

Who are we on that org chart? Where are the lines that connect you to other people? And where are dotted-line connections? What is the holonic pattern it portrays?

The spiritual org chart shows an experiment in oneness. There are all the individuals on the chart because oneness isn’t sameness or homogeneity. Nonetheless, the spiritual org chart shows us all as a part of one constellation of consciousness, bringing the prayers of the Creator to the world and lifting the prayers of the world to the Creator.

We each have our unique gifts to bring to the spiritual org chart. We have gifts to give to each other that allow our spiritual economy to thrive. Altogether, we are a prayer engine, lighting up our world.

We are creating this field we share, and because we are the ones building it, we have authority over it. That transcends any human patterns of authority that often end up placing power in the hands of a few. Those few are often elevated to exalted positions and then knocked down off their pedestals, which then await the next person to be elevated.

On the spiritual org chart, we all bring the authority of the Creator.

The power of prayer is at work through the spiritual org chart. Our prayer to the Creator brings us into union with the Creator and to a place where, with loving understanding, we know the Creator’s heart. We feel the Creator’s intent, and we feel the Creator’s love. We feel the honor and power of the Creator. We open to it and join with it through the magic of prayer.

We are praying over each other. Think of the people with whom you feel and know a vibrational connection. Their presence is with you. Their prayers are with you, and you are nourished by them—prayers of love and care and surround, prayers full of higher will and light. And your prayers are with them.

We are each bringing our powerful, spiritual gifts to the spiritual org chart. Certainly, there is a practical dimension to those gifts. At Sunrise Ranch, I appreciate people’s practical skills. We couldn’t operate the Ranch without them. And yet, behind the practical skills is something else that is so much more important and without which we do not have Sunrise Ranch, or at least not something worthy of the name. Without the gifts of creative power and authority lighting up the spiritual org chart, we cannot fulfill our mission.

What does the spiritual org chart look like? And by the way, where am I on it?

We could get lost in imagination. Or think we know how it is supposed to look and then try to set it up that way. I’m far more interested in building the spiritual org chart for real, being a part of it, and lighting it up than theorizing what it would look like. I want to be able to say, It looks like this. It looks like us together. As we can say that, there is a template for any human being and for all humankind. It’s like this.

We can describe some of the principles behind the spiritual org chart. It is powered by reciprocity—giving and receiving, then giving back and paying it forward. Reciprocity is opening ourselves to the prayers of the Creator, letting them in, and being the prayers of the Creator for each other and the world. Reciprocity is giving back—offering the gifts that come to us to each other in gratitude to the One who is behind it all.

We create the spiritual org chart when we weave the fabric of oneness—when the presence of the Creator is welcomed through us all.

There are no cliques in the spiritual org chart. Yes, constellations within constellations—but all interrelated and not isolated from each other.

The spiritual org chart is a grid that transmits spiritual power and authority. The people of this grid have something closely related to the word authorship—authenticity. Authenticity includes grit, a quality of people who walk their talk and make the spiritual real. Grit implies that people are the same all the way through. What you see is what you get.

The spiritual org chart is formed by people who take their place. They sense the unique and essential role they are playing, and they embrace it. They are there to answer prayers and to speak the prayers of the Creator over the people they are with.

Playing our part on the spiritual org chart is also noticing who we are with and what another person might need from us. It’s unique, and it’s different for each one.

The spiritual org chart is powered by prayer: my prayers for you, your prayers for me, and our prayers for this field that we hold together. It’s powered by a higher will moving through us, felt deep in the heart, and then expressed in the spirit we bring to life every day.

When we light up the spiritual org chart, the human org chart can sort itself out. It is not that there isn’t a human org chart. There is. There are physical operations of our world and the way we synergize with each other as we carry them out.

All by itself, the human org chart is dysfunctional. It can’t resolve its own dysfunctionality. That’s because it is designed to be lit up and powered by the spiritual org chart—by a higher level of our relatedness, all too often ignored in human culture.

I invite you to pray with me over the spiritual org chart we share. Let us blow on the embers of it, pray for each other, and open ourselves to the Creator within us who is orchestrating it all.