Edgewalkers

Serving Those Who Walk Between the Worlds

Edgewalkers

Calling All Visionaries

As I write this, our election day in the U.S. looms, with all of the potential fear, anger and chaos that might occur, no matter who wins.  The Covid-19 pandemic in the U.S. is well into its third wave, with no let-up in sight. Russian crime groups have hacked into the computers of U.S. hospitals, making treatment impossible for some patients, and life even worse for exhausted healthcare workers. The latest GDP report shows signs of economic recovery, but unemployment numbers are double what they were when the pandemic began. The wildfires in California have doubled in size in the last few days and approximately 70,000 residents have been ordered to evacuate in Orange County alone. Hurricanes continue to batter a storm-weary Gulf Coast.

Every one of these situations is the result of a worldview issue that no longer fits reality, and perhaps never did. Examples include White supremacy, climate denial, and buying into the political privileges of wealth.  If you are watching TV or reading the news, you might assume that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. You may think that there is nothing you can do and that there is nothing that can stop these trends.

You must not give into despair and hopelessness, no matter how bad things look at times. An unknown Persian Sufi poet taught, “This too shall pass.” Abraham Lincoln recounted in a speech in 1859; “It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: ‘And this too, shall pass away.’ How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!”

Hope is the antidote to despair, and what gives me hope is that there are many things going on below the media radar that do not make news. These efforts are the results of visionaries. I have been particularly interested in groups that are committed to shifting our collective consciousness in ways that care for all living things and the planet. There are many approaches and they each contribute to collaborative transformation. The Global Coherence Initiative, co-sponsored by HeartMath and the Institute of Noetic Sciences meets online regularly with thousands of people in shared meditative practices with a focus on compassionate care, cooperation and peace. Pivot Projects is a group of over 200 people from around the world with expertise in artificial intelligence economics, job creation, climate science, spirituality and public health who meet in teams to develop projects on the local and regional level to create a healthy prosperity recovery for people and the planet. The Global Consciousness Institute approaches supporting the shift view with a commitment to applied research and the aim of educating leaders in a holistic way. All of these efforts are others like them are places where Edgewalkers feel right at home.

Edgewalkers are visionary and literally have visions. And we need visionaries more than ever right now. What enhances your ability to be a visionary?  To begin with, you have to care about the future. It helps to have a regular contemplative practice that connects you to whatever is Transcendent for you. Time in silence and time in nature have been an essential part of visionary practices for millennia. If a vision or spiritual guidance comes, it is essential to write it down in order to ground it in the material world. Share your vision with trusted others and know that if you are given a vision, you will also be given the means to manifest it.  If you aren’t sure how to get started, we recommend Martin Rutte’s Project Heaven on Earth (www.projectheavenonearth.com). 

We’d love to hear your perspective on visions and being visionary.  Please feel free to share your vision of the future as we emerge from these challenging times and build a more loving world that works for all.

Photo credit: Darius Bashar from Unsplash

Edgewalker New Year Message 2019

This time of year is a favorite for Edgewalkers. It is liminal space. One year is ending (at least in most Western traditions), and a new one full of possibility ahead of us. It has not been the easiest of years, but it has energized the visionaries who want to use their gifts to solve the world’s problems, whether those problems are environmental, social justice, equality, educational, or spiritual. Edgewalkers are joining together in local, national and global communities to bring forth the next evolution of collective humanity.

These communities and these efforts are typically below the radar because this kind of news doesn’t sell. So many of us find ourselves glued to the television or the internet to learn about the latest crisis or the latest shocking breach of our expectations for how a healthy society should operate. These emerging movements don’t make headlines, but they make headway. It is our nature as collective humanity to evolve, and even the steps backwards serve a purpose in helping us realize more deeply what doesn’t work.

These are my wishes for you and for myself in the coming year:

1. Take care of yourself – body, mind and spirit. We have a big vision and we need to be at our fullest capacity to play the role we came here to play. I will continue going to the gym and will add a yoga or tai chi class.

2. Continue to find like-minded people and build connections and community. This past year I began to build a community of people who wrote chapters for my Handbook of Personal and Organizational Transformation, and I plan to find more ways to integrate this transformation network and the Edgewalker community.

3. At the same time, continue to reach out to others who may not share your worldview and be curious. What is important to them? What do they value? In what ways are they suffering? Practice compassion, not defensiveness. I will be getting more involved in the Omni Center for Peace, Justice and Ecology here in Fayetteville because they are a model for building these kinds of bridges.

4. Make time for people and things that bring you joy. The more committed we become to living out of our vision and being on our leading edge, the more there is a possibility of becoming sacrificial lambs to something we believe in. We need to be intentional about the Edgewalker quality of playfulness. One of the ways I invoke this quality in myself is through music. I am taking bass lessons and while learning new things is awkward, I also feel great joy when I master something that used to be difficult. I also get great joy in playing music with others. Something transcendent happens.

May we all realize that we are a part of something much bigger than ourselves and may we have increased clarity and energy for doing what is ours to do.

Blessings for a light-filled, love-centered, adventurous and healthy New Year!

Leaping Into the New Year – My Edgewalker Journey #12 – Patricia Campanile

“Leap & the net will appear!”

Developing the courage and trust “muscles” to follow the signs and listen to your instincts is necessary, yet not always easy, as you leap into the unknown. I often hesitated and questioned with doubt and fear whether my choices were crazy, or Divinely guided as my Edgewalker journey magically unfolded. What if I made a mistake? Could I ever go back? What was on the other side of my decision? Would I be OK?

I recalled a scene from one of the Indiana Jones movies where actor Harrison Ford is running on a path through the jungle being chased by angry and frightening natives. As he reaches the ledge on the end of the cliff he looks down and sees a deep, dark chasm. He has a choice to either turn back and be ravaged by the natives who are determined to kill him, or take a leap of faith into the unknown, trusting that the he will be miraculously saved by some unseen force. Being the brave warrior that he is, Indiana Jones chooses the scary unknown, takes a step, and magically a path appears under his feet. He walks safely over the abyss to the other side, to his future. The path then disappears so the angry “natives” cannot chase him. He is saved!

I am so inspired by the symbolism of this scene (thank you Steven Spielberg!) My take away is that BECAUSE he took a leap of faith and chose the path unknown, life, the Universe responded and provided a new path, guiding him to safety, his future, himself. If we choose we can co-create with the Divine, our Higher Selves & deep intuitive wisdom. We can leave behind whatever is scary and sometimes familiar. My Edgewalker Journey to my authentic Self, to my future and new life, often involved blindly stepping into places, relationships and situations where my rational, resistant and intellectual mind thought I was crazy.

However, since I was and continue to be committed to cultivating and practicing with patience and awareness the Edgewalker qualities, my courage and trust “muscles” have strengthened over time. Most of us have the seeds of these ‘qualities’ in us, but some people more naturally have been able to develop and integrate them.

As we approach the New Year 2018 I invite you to commit to your personal evolution, take a leap of faith and step into your new year and the new you, waiting to be birthed and expressed. Because YOU matter, the “net” will appear to support you. You are worth it!

Here are the Edgewalker Qualities to support your magical journey in 2018 and beyond!

1. Self Awareness

Awareness of your thoughts, values, and behavior, and a commitment to spend time in self-reflection with the goal of becoming a better person.

2. Passion

An intense focus on your purpose or the use of your gifts in a way that adds value to your life and the world.

3. Integrity

A commitment to live in alignment with your core values, to align your words and your behavior, and to keep your word.

4. Vision

The gift of being able to see what others cannot – possibilities, trends, the future, guidance from the spiritual world.

5. Playfulness

A joyful sense of fun and creativity, and an ability to keep everything in perspective.

My Edgewalker Journey #10 – Walking Between Worlds – Patricia Campanile

Living in Hawi on the northern most point of the Big Island of Hawaii was beautiful and isolated. House sitting for friends on their 12 acre sanctuary was heaven on earth. I was deeply grateful to be surrounded by tropical fruit orchards and abundant flowering plants and trees, coy ponds with crystals and lotus flowers, egrets flying, cows and horses in the fields, and breathtaking views of Maui and the Pacific Ocean in the distance. My favorite thing was gazing at the infinite stars in the dark night sky. I felt at one and connected to the Universe as if I were walking between the worlds. At times I also experienced isolation, aloneness and felt small. My so called problems and life seemed insignificant in the grand scheme of things, like I was an ant invisible in an ant hill. It was a valuable yet often uncomfortable perspective that threatens the ego and invites the spirit at the same time.

The Hawaiian Islands are the most isolated place on Earth. The closest land is about 2500 miles in any direction. It can feel like heaven or hell on earth, depending on your perspective. I loved the peace and quiet, beautiful nature, expansive, nurturing energy of the land and fresh air, and being away from my life on the mainland. However, the longer I was there the more I was BEING in the quiet and not DOING and staying busy. I was reminded of how much I was driven to distraction my entire life. My New York, type A personality and east coast upbringing was still running me even though I was thousands of miles away in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The expression, “You can take the girl out of NY but you cannot take the NY out of the girl” applied here. You can be in the most beautiful, peaceful and remote place in the world, yet the peace and quiet becomes deafening and uncomfortable when the voices of self-judgement, doubt, old stories and the ego mind start to chatter. The “monkey mind” as they call it in Buddhism, become very loud. All the issues, fears, limitations and insecurities I was running away from caught up with me on that beautiful sanctuary on the Big Island. I was faced with myself, the self I did not like to BE with, feel, acknowledge.

I sought heaven, yet was still living on Earth. As an Edgewalker I understand that life has many dimensions and WALKING BETWEEN WORLDS integrates body, mind and spirit. My sense of belonging and interconnectedness with nature, the stars and greater Universe felt easy. However I also was living in a physical body with it’s challenges, human experiences and emotions, fears and concerns. Looking back the support I had from friends and neighbors including Jim Channon, and so much time alone provided me the much needed perspective to stop, get grounded, listen, feel and heal. It was as if I was having an identity crises, letting go of my old world and paradigm, yet not yet knowing where my new life and Source of Self would come from. Little did I know that my authentic self was within me waiting to be revealed. I had been searching all my life for the very thing that had been within me from birth and beyond, my Divinity, my spiritual heart, my soul. I began peeling away the layers as the journey of transformation continued.

**Lessons:

*No matter where you go there you are. You cannot run from yourself.

*Give space and time to the parts of you that want to be seen, heard, expressed. You are worthy and deserving of your love, compassion, patience and nurturing. Watch, observe, breathe and allow. As you reclaim your wholeness you reclaim your life.

*Paradise is an inside job. We can create heaven on earth when we find peace and acceptance within ourselves first.