Finding Our Tribe

Beating Hearts

“Awareness of other hearts beating to the same rhythm, other minds pondering the same questions, satisfies the soul. We are terrible and wonderful, destructive and imaginative, caustic and caring, endlessly pushing forward and pulling back. What an incredible gift is a human lifetime, shared.”

The gathering of Jung enthusiasts on Friday night gave me enough soul-food to last for months. For one thing, you don't subscribe to Jungian psychology unless you have an appetite for the inner landscape—it's called “depth psychology” for a reason. The talk quickly moves from “terrible weather, how's the family,” to what is the meaning of our current state of affairs. Then, people are able to dig deeply into the underlying causes of our divisions and relate them, not only to history, but to fairy tale and myth, both ancient and modern. Conversations include references to the dark mother, Hecate's journey to the underworld, kingfisher wounds, the antics of Loki, the trickster, as well as The Hunger Games, and World of Warcraft. This may not be your cup of tea, but for me, it gives a deeper understanding of the events in our lives, both individually and collectively, that seem otherwise inexplicable.

We humans love to find our tribe—the people with whom we fit like a proper piece of a jigsaw puzzle. When snapped snugly into place, we know the puzzle would be incomplete without us. We bond around all sorts of ideas and movements, some of which are not healthy. When we bond around beliefs such as white supremacy or national superiority, we are unlikely to live a peaceful and robust existence even though we have found our tribe. Being part of an angry mob, regardless of the cause behind that anger, most often leads to violence and that violence makes it far less likely that our cause will be respected. No one understood this better than Martin Luther King, Jr., which is why he placed such an emphasis on non-violent protest. Instead of throwing rocks and burning flags, his followers locked arms and sang, “We Shall Overcome.” And, they did. One of the reasons the Civil Rights movement succeeded was that those who opposed it used violence—they tried to bully and intimidate, and it backfired.

Finding those with whom we connect at the soul level is the very essence of being human. But, human connections should be entered into willingly and lovingly, with a sense of safe harbor, sanctuary found. When they are nourishing to the mind, body and spirit, there is nothing better on this earth.

                                                         In the Spirit,

                                                             Jane