A Thread in the Communion Tapestry

"To paint is easy, to write poetry is easy, but to create a communion with the energy of another, a dancing communion, is the greatest and most difficult art to learn."
~unknown author, Kara shared it with me.

Below are thoughts and reflections all relating to this topic of communion. I've woven them together along one pathway though I sense there is a greater whole that they speak to which has yet to reveal itself to me. If anything is sparked in you, please do share, I'd love to hear.

Life is happening all around
in every moment
here and now

Energy of Other
swirling about

Sparks of holiness
Available for connection

Lights of grace
dancing in relation

What is communion?

Meredith writes:

When we move in close, and not shy from intimacy, if we were to approach an elderly woman lying on the ground wailing at the gate in the airport, will we know what to do? We are always uncertain, facing the unknown with another. Sometimes it can feel too vivid, too real and not predictable or within our control or comfort zone. And yet, the sensitive amongst us will feel another’s pain, and weep inside with them. We want to connect, to overcome boundaries that may have us protect ourselves form pain and risk, our own or that of another. In our exchanges we can feel our own aliveness, our energy almost tangibly. This is communion.

Actively feeling our own aliveness… experiencing the aliveness of others… interacting with the aliveness of existence… tangibly relating with visible and invisible energy that inspires expanding spheres of life awake.

What is this powerfully flowing current of life? How does it function?

Teresa shares Tenneson’s words, a thread in this inquiry:

Quantum particles (hearts, people…) once in contact (love, embrace, learning…) retain a connection (energetic link, stream of light…) even when separated, so that the actions of one will always influence the other.

In dancing communion we recognize that we are always in connection. The visible threads of relation may vary, even disappear, but the sparks of holiness continue to thrive within one another, always influencing the other. What might unfold in ourselves, our communities, our world as we (who are we? are you an active part of this we?) continue to deepen our practice of conscious communion? What happens if we surrender to its truth and its mystery?

Christy ponders how this energy plays out in groups:

I wonder if, as the "magic of the middle" lives through groups bonded by love and intention, that the group as a whole somehow maintains a steady incubating attention even as individual members lose focus now and then?

And Chris reflects (I recommend reading his whole post, it inspires me greatly) on what he is experiencing and learning right now in Belgium about gathering in circle, often a form through which communion emerges, and how it can serve passion into action:

The gift of the circle is that it somehow invites a much bigger sense of ourselves which, if worked with skillfully, can result in an event later that has a deep and powerful harmonic, a bass note of possibility that is indeed the group’s highest and unspoken aspiration for it’s own work, that transcends what is even known to be possible.