SENTIENT TIMES June/July 2002

Community Consciousness

By Eric Sirotkin

A hush fell over the northern Qua-Zulu/Natal auditorium during the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings as a man described the killing spree he had ordered at a bustop. Gazing in the front row at the woman bound forever to her wheelchair and painful memories, he wept, “I have known her my whole life. I didn’t know she would be there that day.”

“We were at war,” he described. “We were trying to make South Africa ungovernable in order to set us free. Yet, I know after what I have done I can never go home now, I can never go back to my community again.”

As he finished his testimony, a large group from the community in the audience rose and left the hall. The next morning they returned and asked to address the commission. “We have listened to our brother” a spokesperson said. “We met all evening and we want him to know that we forgive him and that he can come home.” The hall was filled with tears and a great weight was lifted to the heavens.

I spent several years as the volunteer co-coordinator of the International Monitoring Project of the South African Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) and the experience profoundly shaped my notions of justice, healing and community. The power of one caring act, one moment of compassion, can reshape a community or even a nation. People ask me if the TRC process was a success. I often tell them the story of that moment in Qua Zulu/Natal as an example of the small miracles that occurred within communities that faced their truth, no matter how painful, and chose reconciliation over retribution. I learned that communities, as with any living system, have great power to heal themselves and release old demons. Yet, one need not establish a Commission to build community. For a true communion begins within each one of us.

Community is first and foremost a state of consciousness—a knowing that we are part of a larger family. Diane Dreher, in the the inspirational Tao of Inner Peace, describes community as a place where “We exchange not only goods and services but good will, weaving strands of our individual lives into a fabric of mutual care and support.” This exchange of good will relates not simply to food banks, clothing drives, block parties and Thanksgiving baskets, but to how we carry ourselves in the world. Sharing a smile, positive words to a stranger, laughter, or simply hugging a child can all have an impact on the energetics and health of our community. Opening our hearts further, and reflecting it in the socially responsible manner in which we practice our professions, run our workplaces or walk the earth, can create a positive community consciousness that impacts the energetic fabric of the entire planet.

When Margaret Mead spoke about how it only takes a few committed people to change the world, it reminds us that we have the power within us to bring an expanded notion of community to our neighborhoods, workplaces, and every contact we make throughout the day. We never know if the action we take today may contribute to a shift in someone else’s life, leading them to accomplish great things. It’s like the boy by the sea who was asked, while throwing back a marooned sea creature, what difference could his actions make when there are so many being washed up to die on the beach. He replied, tossing one back to the sea, “It makes a difference to that one.”

Community consciousness arises when we start living our daily lives with an understanding of our interconnected natures. Albert Einstein wisely said “Our separation from each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.” The desire for community is a natural reflection of who we are and our desire to re-unite with the whole. A wholistic minded community is by definition one that is conscious of the interrelationship of its distinct parts.

Recognizing our interdependence opens us to the notion that we are never alone and that what one does to the part he or she does to the whole. The energetic health of a community is the sum total of the degree of consciousness practiced by its individual members. It is no surprise that one of the greatest visionaries of the 20th century, Martin Luther King Jr., called for “coalitions of conscience” that would help bring forth a new society. We are, after all, he declared “woven from a single garment of destiny.”

We talk endlessly about the roots of the disintegration of communities instead of focusing on the cure—awakening human consciousness to our interconnected essence and reflecting it back through our actions. In 1636 John Winthrop gave a sermon to his pilgrim shipmates to prepare them for the New World. “We must delight in each other,” he said. “We must labor together, suffer together, rejoice and mourn together, keeping always before our eyes our condition as members of one body.”

Winthrop knew that to survive, they had to maintain community consciousness. However, the new independent pioneer spirit and the resulting centuries of Native genocide demonstrated how his warning fell on deaf ears and a wave of unconsciousness became the founding norm for our nation. When we rise above our individualistic concerns and think in the terms of the broader human community we are set free from the cycles of violence and insecurity that have dominated relationships of the prior millennium.

An old rabbinical tale relates a question posed to students by the rabbi. He asks, “When do you know the night is over and the day has come?” When no one got the answer he smiled and said “You know the night is over and the day has come when you look into the eyes of any human being, and you see there your brother or your sister; for, if you do not see your brother or your sister, it is still night—the day hasn’t come.”

Choosing conscious interconnected living over separation can alter the energetic strength of your community and end this long and lonely night. We should never doubt that a simple gesture of connection or love can affect the whole. Vaclav Havel said, “For the sake of simplicity, it might be called spirit. Or feeling. Or conscience.” Whether today we call it a shift in frequency, resonance or energy, it amounts to the same thing—a reflection of the divine love within us all.

Choosing to live consciously, Havel says, “demands courage to breathe moral and spiritual motivation into everything, to seek the human dimension in all things.” While courage can propel us forward, practicing conscious community is utilizing something within our own control. Changing our communities through altering our approaches to daily encounters, beats holding our breath and waiting for our leaders to reflect these principles in their actions.

Since September 11th I have been assisting the peace movement as it seeks to raise consciousness surrounding our need for global unity and cooperation, and the link between what we are doing in the Middle East and Afghanistan and self-serving corporate interests. A conscious community knows no borders and a death in America shakes the human heart as much as one across the sea. I have attended teach-ins and demonstrations of consciousness, along with working to keep protesters out of jail by defending people being prosecuted for their freedom of expression. When President Bush showed up in New Mexico recently, where I still maintain a legal/mediation practice, we withstood the charging horses, riot squad and police assaults to speak up about global solidarity and justice. We numbered only a couple of hundred, but the energy underlying the commitment of those present radiated out in all directions.

Practicing community consciousness has helped me understand the importance of these calls for peace and global unity. I have had to accept that such actions are unlikely, on their own, to have a direct quantitative impact on American Foreign policy. Without an understanding of consciousness and our interconnected nature it would be easy to become frustrated, disappointed or burned-out as the blood continues to flow around the world. Social change movements often have focused on the result—winning the struggle, stopping the war, changing the whole world—and lost sight of the fact that every step taken with integrity and consciousness has an immeasurable energetic effect. The act itself has a great mysterious meaning and its impact may not be clear to the human eye. It’s the synergy, the mix of energy with other forces around the planet and our own clear positive intent that is powerful beyond measure. This understanding frees us up to do great things, no matter how simple, while relinquishing the result to the universe.

I’m drawn to the scientific notion that a butterfly moving its wings in Oregon can contribute to a hurricane on the other side of the planet. We can change the world through our actions and intentions, one step at a time, for each positive flutter of our proverbial butterfly wings, will take us closer to the world community we imagine in our hearts and dreams.

Where do we begin? First, let’s share this vision of community consciousness with those around us. We have to start talking more openly about energetic influences so people realize that every breath they take affects the whole. Talking about the energetic health of a community is not difficult, but we need to move out of the realm of auras and channeling, and into examples that relate to everyday experience. We all have simple experiences that reflect the power of our natural energetic inter-connection with each other, such as the feeling when you’re on the shore and a boat rides by and a stranger waves to you. Or that sense of connection and fun when you’re following behind a school bus and that group of giggling students is waving at you and you wave back. Most of us have flashed lights for a truck to pass and enjoyed them flashing back. Just walking in the woods, or sitting on the edge of the Grand Canyon is relaxing to our entire being. People understand that we feel more grounded, whole, connected and “ener-gized” after these brief connections to others or to nature. We can find ways to talk about love and connection in understandable terms.

Secondly, realize that words alone are cheap. Gandhi was right when he said “Be the Change you wish to see.” When I first heard Nelson Mandela speak in Cape Town, he told us that South Africa’s remarkable new laws and compassionate constitution were “illusory” if we couldn’t uplift people from the impoverished conditions of their daily existence. Too often we sit back and expect that a community based on love, compassion and unity comes from some-thing outside ourselves. However, Community cannot be legislated. Love too remains merely a concept if we don’t practice it consciously each day, or if we leave our heart and conscience at the door when we go into work. We can each practice our daily life, perform our work and play, as if we shared a heart connection with everyone we meet.

When a City decides to act as a conscious community it provides a new wholistic approach to urban planning where the interests of the quality of life for people and nature take precedence over those of the developers. While parks, commons and community centers provide a space for co-mingling and communication, they do not provide “consciousness” to a community. This only comes through each individual reaching out with a connected heart awareness toward their inseparable fellow travelers.

Ashland is providing an avenue for building consciousness when it holds its World Peace Day Town Hall meeting on June 21st where people from diverse parts of the region are being invited to speak their truth and be heard on a human level. I’m excited to join the rest of the Ashland community on this important occasion and look forward to connecting with you there.

Let’s keep our hope alive. We are the containers for love in the world and while things can appear hard-hearted and frustrating, change is increasingly possible, especially if we look to our own hearts. Community consciousness leads naturally to a movement for global cooperation and a world reflective of our true essence.

Eric Sirotkin, a resident of Ashland and Albuquerque, is a mediator, lawyer and co-creator of the Professional Wellness Institute’s Legal Wellness Program. He was the chair of the NLG/NCBL International Monitoring Project of the South African Truth & Reconciliation Commission.

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