THE HERRINGBONE PROJECT: Laboratory for Reality Creation

Seventh Gathering
November 20, 1994

Thoughts of who we are are in the air. Not to box us but to identify ourselves...now "only" power circle for the good. What are we doing? What's the nature of the good?

WHAT ARE WE DOING? We're all mirroring eternity...When I get here is feels like we can advance together to wherever...When I come I'm connecting to aliveness. We are creating community in some manner, and I'm prepared to have it be a void and see what comes out in terms of being of service. That's what I want to do. I want to be of service to my community...All our maps show we are headed for something big. Everybody feels it. We need to talk about what we need to do now. This year is the year of circles -- we go out and have our individual experiences and come back and everybody's greatly enriched. Part of the challenge is to be in ambiguity and languaging what's happening in a way that has some power. That's why I'm here. I'm grappling with who are we and what are we and what are we to become. What can we glean from the past and weave into a tapestry and go forward? How can we make sense of it and pass it on to other people? It feels so germinal right now, and yet so amorphous...Instead of jumping into anything, which I know won't work, we have to sit back and let it be -- like jello, at some point it's going to just congeal. Until then it's this blend of energy, our ability to pray and meditate together; just to be able to sit with one another and listen to one another without judging one another is an extraordinary experience...Something is being created here. It's already happening. We still have to step into the unknown. I'd like us to go where there's no form to bring back but something we create as a group. Coming from an intellectual business world and making the transition to a spiritual holistic world so we can do something of service, I dedicate my life to that...The only reason I come is to serve. What's going to happen is of such an incredible voltage it's only going to be registered by groups. What humanity needs to be about is creating group consciousness. I'm here to work with you all so we can create a group that can get into that other place and tap something that's not in form and bring it down. What's going to replace capitalism? What's going to replace socialism? Those ideas are so new and so big it's going to take groups to register them. The first step in that process is to create groups of people whose motivation is service toward humanity and who work from the heart with the mind, and then we'll be able to touch some stuff and bring it in and formulate it...I don't think this group is an amorphous thing and we're waiting to see what emerges. My view of it is something very specific. Most people are already serving and so why would they come together to be part of one more group? It's not for personal development -- the people here have done enough of that to know it's now time to get to work. What I see attempting to unfold here is a seed for synthesis, which is not just parallel play. What you have in the world is a lot of groups doing parallel play, but there has not been a true interaction and synthesis of these many systems. In this group you have a variety of people who've come up through various disciplines that have established a point of service and radiation outward, making waves in the environment. And we're coming together with different backgrounds, different vocabularies, different systems, not just to hang out and parallel play and say, "Oh yeah, you're doing good," but to see if while each continues to be responsible for their own karmic burden, there can be this merging first on the level of consciousness, where something new is created via the group. Not because members come in and need the group, but because they've developed their own individuality, their own service, and bring to the group that strength and that capability they've developed, and out of this is a possibility for synthesis. I don't know if this can be done now, but it's an attempt. If a seed can be planted in terms of a process, it sets a pattern within the etheric network so it becomes possible on a bigger scale. I think the group is doing something very specific. I don't think it has detail yet. But the process is creating this seed which is a possibility for synthesis...We are building a service community.

A real agent of change is someone who understands the whole process and doesn't get caught in the manifestation of any idea. A conscious individual works with seeing the whole process and is always working with what ideas need to be nurtured right now to help them be brought into society.

Invoking is the most powerful part of group work. "Here we are universe, god," whatever you want to call it. "We are available; use us." And ask for the highest good, for that good be made manifest. When you do that the results can be astonishing. The group becomes like a generator. Like a power station where people plug in and get juiced from the energy that's coming through the group. They get stimulated with new ideas, new visions, new senses of optimism, of enthusiasm. Their whole life gets charged up. Then they go back to the different fields where they are working. This becomes a place where you plug in, invoke, get charged, and go back out. I think that's an extraordinarily valuable function for a group to serve.

It's more a matter of discovering the synthesis that is -- not putting it together. It's a matter of being in that truth. It happens through open dialogue and discussing and allowing all these ideas to circulate through our mental body and recognizing we all are a part of one mental body, one mental reality.

The different forms being able to truly interact with one another and not just tolerate one another is the edge we are approaching. How can we practically do that? Having a clarity of purpose gives life and stimulation.

The purpose on the dollar bill: e pluribus unum; out of the many, one. As we work with unity and diversity consciously, we help our nation hold its higher purpose.

In circles such as this, most people are teachers or group leaders and are used to being in that leadership teaching position. How to interact with peers is a new relationship. It's wonderful they are here. Now how do you come together as peers and formulate this point of invocation?

"Only a dead fish goes with the flow." "Comfort is the cemetery of the spirit." When a storm is coming, don't you turn a battleship to the wind?

Corporations: team building acceptable now. Taking the challenge of what you can do in a corporate training in a short time to make people feel as one. The excitement of the discomfort of choosing to create change, versus the debilitation of having it happen to you.

John Konstanturos was a founder of COTO: Committee on Transformation of Organizations [seventies, I think...]. Went from 3 business executives to 180 at each meeting. Network was a buzzword -- feminine form transcending hierarchy. (Trouble we're in today cause imbalanced masculine and feminine -- emotional and spiritual squelched in favor of rational mind and physical universe.) A pure network never gets organized -- there was someone in charge of making sure COTO didn't get organized. Interesting model. They decided they didn't have to be the leaders of our organizations. "We could transform our organizations from within by starting something to expand the purpose of the organization, where it's not only serving the organization itself, but serving the community as a whole." COTO only had purpose statement: to support and inspire each other in expanding the purpose of our organizations to serving the community as a whole. Met weekly: no mailing list, no minutes, no finite goals or objectives -- pure networking. Each person got 3 minutes to tell what they were doing within their organization to serve the COTO purpose. Then adjourned to a deli where people clustered in tables with what had interested them. Abundant results: business started, marriages, etc.

No place for gang members to put warrior energy to constructive use. Return of the hero important in addition to networking. There are spiritual lions as well as spiritual lambs, and they need a place to be lions.

John also started short-lived project (he left the Police Department shortly after he started the project) -- The Central Cities Committee on Transformation of Street Gangs. The purpose was to transform negative destructive energy into energy which supports and rebuilds community. The whole idea of peace warriors is what eventually will happen with the military.

A long exchange keying off "living in the moment," and the varying perspectives and degrees re the present being informed by the past and the future. Important continuation of idea of the shadow and whether you ferret it out by looking for it or by letting it show up as you are moving ahead in doing service. Does understanding necessarily allow you to do something different? Are those who don't remember the past doomed to repeat it? Is effectiveness the measure of truth? [For the answers to these and other fascinating questions we need more serious transcribing, not to mention better recording so as not to miss anything that's worth transcribing. Some valuable new thoughtforms are not being grounded because of this documentation deficiency. We need funding to take the process another step.] Ignoring the past versus focusing on it -- you can't plow a straight furrow while looking over your shoulder. Whether we see just from this lifetime or as part of a whole series of lifetimes, which radically changes the way you experience life. It puts it in a whole new context. You understand a lot more what's motivating you in the present and what your dharma is and why it is what it is.

Re range of awareness: One of the tenets of martial arts is to see 360 degrees -- you're able to sense what's going on all the way around you, so you're not blindsided by anything coming from any direction. You're at the center of the circle. From there you can act, rather than react.

The magic of ritual (not ceremony, which it tends to devolve to). Ritual is not linear. It's non-thought. It's not left brain. The ritual and the invocation lead to an understanding that you get kinesthetically -- a deep sense of something happening. A transformation that doesn't deal with the thought process -- it's not about the mind comprehending something, which is the way we've been taught.

The Greeks had two words for time: Chronos is linear time and kairos is natural time or spirit time. A flower unfolds in kairos time, not chronological time. The slowing down of time (entering kairos time) in emergency situations...

[Ditto re valuable exchange re time: should be transcribed...]

A few thoughts from Gordon and Corinne's Spiritual Politics evening meeting:

When we transform the field, we can do anything. Maybe we can do it through the Internet. A Spiritual Politics forum on the Internet?

Getting the word out in the media is what needs to happen next.

We need to establish an ethic of public service.

People serious about political stuff here should get together again, to see what can be done post-election re participatory democracy. [We make a date: Sunday, 12/11, 7:30, here.] Gordon and Corinne thinking about a national newsletter to look at politics from their perspective. Looking for other organizing forms so network can develop.

Who? This is it!! We're IT!! Relationships are it.

Empowering the spiritual community with a consolidated intent to be a bridge between overshadowing ideals and outward manifestation of them.

We decide to do a noon meditation -- like the moment of silence in Britain during World War Two. Something we could promote.

Gordon and Corinne can be a force for cohering energy. They can plant something and collect everyone wherever they go.

Everyone should get on-line. We need to figure out one network to be on that has affinity groups within it. [Tom Carney is already looking into this.]