Wellness is a Communal Endeavor
Life is an ingenious inventor. And, after about 4.54 billion years of trial and error, upgrades and product recalls, the system we humans have been endowed with is a brilliant organic web of optimal functioning….that is, if we follow the simplest of operating instructions; if we learn and follow the practices of fundamental wellness.
The problem is, over the last few hundred years, with the invasion of industrial culture, it seems we have nearly entirely turned away from these simple operating instructions. At this point, remembering and following the simple operating instructions for optimal functioning is a radical and reclaiming act of rebellion. When we are genuinely well, we are smart in interdependence and interconnectedness.
At the Verdant Collective, we focus on wellness; on the systems and practices that restore and sustain deep radical wellness. It isn’t about yoga classes or hot cups of tea, though both of those could certainly be part of it. It’s about creating and sustaining communities of wellness that pollinate more of the same.
We define wellness as an individual’s capacity to respond to present moment situations with resilience, adaptation and ingenuity while remaining in relationship to all others in its sphere. We do not merely mean human others. We mean all others. Whether it is an individual or an entire ecosystem (though, an individual is an entire ecosystem) the measure of wellness is the capacity to attune, respond and adapt, in the present moment, while remaining attuned to self and the myriad other life. And in the interwoven reciprocal way Life works, this dance creates new, never-before-seen versions of Life. It creates next-generation solutions, some of which have staying power, serving deeper wellness and more resilience. And some simply fade out. Life is an eternal benevolent narcissist: it simply wants to experience more versions and expressions of itself, endlessly. And when we understand and utilize this truth, we benefit beautifully from its singular intention.
This morning I awoke at 5am and spent just a few moments in that dreamy liminal space. As the robin sang his Springtime morning ballad, and the Sun made its way through the tall trees in my neighbor’s yard, I slowly made my way from sleep to waking. And as soon as I met the conscious threshold I remembered what today was, and my nervous system came alive. It wasn’t a five-alarm-fire kind of alive. It was a butterflies-in-my-stomach that caused me to catch my breath kind of alive. It was the kind of nervous system aliveness that meant I wasn’t going to go back to sleep.
Today is the day my family will take the life of four of the male ducks in our flock of seven. It has been a while since we’ve done anything like this. And the last time we did, eight years ago, our family’s situation was very different. The last time we did anything like this, my older son was in the scariest, most uncertain part of his journey with addiction. My younger son and I were participating in a community ceremony to learn how to kill and use all parts of a sheep.
That day, eight years ago, was a swinging pendulum between extraordinarily beautiful, grief stricken and utterly terrifying. In the same moment it was both a mother’s nightmare, and a mother’s – this mother’s – dream.
Lying in bed this morning my triune autonomic nervous system did what it is designed to do. It surveyed the landscape, both past and present, to arrive at a determination for best action. Depending on how that day eight years ago had gone, had any one of the significant factors been different, I would be having a very different experience as I lay in bed.
Our autonomic nervous systems are designed to respond to acute stress with mental acuity and physical agility. This is one of our greatest, most evolved, and adaptive features. We mammals, and only some of us mammals, drew the true Wild Card of evolution – endowed with three (hence, ‘triune’) nesting, hierarchical responsive networks within the whole that is our autonomic nervous system.
But if we are not held within a well (enough) community, if we are not attuned to and cared for, we do not have access to the brilliant resilience and restorative ingenuity of all three layers. And soon we begin relying on the reactive patterns of only two and then, perhaps, only one. We devolve in our resilience and ingenuity, to become a creature that cannot participate in its world with conscious intention and presence. This may sound dire but the truth is, many individuals, families, communities and perhaps even entire countries are suffering from this devolution.
At the Verdant Collective, we do everything in community. And I do mean (nearly) everything. We lean heavy on, and teach to, brilliant, adaptive, vibrant, co-created and ever-evolving community, knowing that it is the most critical factor in our healing.
That day eight years ago, my younger son and I were so fortunate to be navigating one of the scariest days of our lives while immersed in a community ceremony, held in the attuned care of twenty-three others, while we were engaged in a community process, embedded in a thing that was, itself, being held with deep care. Our feelings were welcome – all of them. Our fear and our rage got to weave with the grief of taking this beautiful ram’s life, and with the gratitude for all the abundance this one animal would offer.
Over the course of the two day ceremony, we worked in the group as a whole, in smaller sub-groups, in pairs, and on our own, side by side with each other as we turned every part of this beautiful animal into something that had deep and nourishing value to all of us. And in all those configurations, my younger son and I cried and laughed, sat silently, and also spoke aloud our fears and anger, the unknowns and the miracles. All was welcome. And there was a lot of work to do! We could have our experience and we were expected to participate in the process - we were essential to the group’s success. The wellness that occurred during that weekend allowed this morning to arrive with the same: attentive, present alertness. I am here. I am grateful. I am ready.
It has been said over and over, we are in an unimaginable unknown time. With so much opportunity and so much fear and uncertainty, it is hard for a nervous system or the body within which it is housed, to know how to be in any given moment. Yet the nature of this moment requires all of us. As in, it requires all of each of us. We are equipped to offer all of ourselves, in resilient, adaptive and evolving ways, when we are well enough.
So we invite you to come and have an experience of being well, deeply held in a curious and joyful, fierce and honest community of women. Starting in seven weeks, we embark on an exploration of our miraculous and brilliant triune autonomic nervous systems. We will learn smartly and creatively – with didactic information offered experientially, so it can be lived and integrated exactly as it most serves each participant. And in turn, in this environment, we will learn about ourselves and this ingenious endowment in ways that will serve us immediately as we feel the pressures to respond, adapt and evolve to present-moment situations within a pandemic and beyond.