LIVING AUTHENTICALLY

At the New Culture Camp for building Community, which took place in Maui this past October, Kelly Bryson and Tory Blue brought to our community new paradims for living, authentically and transparently. We had an amazing week of revealing ourselves and learning how to be truly ourselves, in relationship with others and ourselves, and were offered many tools and processes for functioning in and as a healthy forming Community, based on the models of NVC, (Non Violent Communication), time-tested spiritual principles, and successful communities internationally.

On Sunday morning, there was a powerful segment on ism's - sexism, agism, classism, racism, and the ways we separate ourselves, judge, and play the superiority/inferiority game to make ourselves feel better.

I was powerfully touched by the realization of how much of my life has been a struggle as a female in this society. Issues of being judged by my appearance, and being favored or disfavored for being a female bubbled up and I just 'popped'.Ê I shared this with the group, and was encouraged to speak deeper about what I was feeling, which led to a beautiful catharsis, both of deep anger and deep sadness. Then, Tory walked me around the circle, asking each person to look at me, and see me.Ê The me that I really am, beyond gender, beyond appearance, beyond beauty...and just look at me as the soul that I am.Ê I opened wide, and really recieved the gaze of each person, allowing myself to be seen, and accepted, just for myself, as I am.Ê What a freeing feeling to be able to drop the facades, the strategies, the protections, and just be, recognized as simply the soul that I am. I realize that even beyond being accepted by others, irrespective of gender, race, and appearance, I must do that for myself, not buy into the search for approval, at the cost of being who and what I truly am.

If you are interested, you can learn more about this community that is forming here in Maui, at the website: www.newculturecenter.com

We are creating a field, a Sacred Matrix, where when one person succeeds in personal transformation on one of their issues, all people in the connected group will be able to benefit by each other's personal growth work. It is a field where we are connected with each other in respect, trust, and love. Within this field, each of us is a peace worker. In order to achieve peace on earth, we must first manifest peace within ourselves, then we can have peace within our relationships, and then then peace within our community. Our goal is that each one of us recognizes our role as a peace worker, working towards the goal of peace on earth. Dieter Duhm says peace between the sexes must happen first before peace on earth can be a reality.