[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” text_font_size=”16″ use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” custom_padding=”|15%||15%”]<\/p>\n
When I became a mother, six years ago, there was one thing that really surprised me.\u00a0 More than anything else.\u00a0 I was surprised by\u00a0how lonely I felt.<\/p>\n
There were so many other feelings, of course. \u00a0Joy, wonder, exhaustion, gratitude.\u00a0\u00a0These feelings, I had expected. \u00a0I hadn\u2019t been able to imagine the depth of them, of course. \u00a0But I had expected them.<\/p>\n
The loneliness was a surprise.<\/p>\n
I remember it like yesterday – those first months home with my baby. \u00a0We lived in Brooklyn, then, where I had left my job teaching music at the Brooklyn Waldorf school to be home with my baby.<\/p>\n
I remember so clearly, walking through the park with him in the carrier, during those chilly mid autumn days, feeling like I might be only mother in the world who was home with my child<\/p>\n
I wasn\u2019t, of course\u2026\u00a0 There were, in fact, so many of us.<\/p>\n
But this was before I started using social media. \u00a0I had posted a couple of times on a list serve, looking for mama friends.\u00a0 And there were, in fact, some incredible friends I would find and reconnect with later.\u00a0 But in those early days,\u00a0I had yet to put the pieces in place that would help me find my tribe.<\/p>\n
I remember this cry that seemed to well up from the depths of my soul. \u00a0A question and a feeling that, throughout my thirty some years of life, I had never felt before. \u00a0Or at least not to this extent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere is my village?!\u201d<\/p>\n
I felt it so strongly.<\/p>\n
And I also felt a little guilty about it.<\/p>\n
After all,\u00a0I had wanted the experience of motherhood so badly.\u00a0 Through years of struggling with infertility, I had ached for it.<\/p>\n
I remember looking down at my little son in his plastic box in the NICU, feeling so intensely the tenuousness of life, swearing to myself that I would never take a single day of motherhood for granted.<\/p>\n
So how could I now feel the way I did?<\/p>\n
Well, over time, I began to sort it out.<\/p>\n
Why I was so lonely.<\/p>\n
I was lonely because I am a modern parent, and this is how it is for nearly every single one of us, living within the paradigm of the nuclear family.<\/p>\n
Why? \u00a0Simply put, we were never meant to parent in this way.<\/p>\n
Wanting to understand, I started reading about\u00a0physical\u00a0anthropology, and learning more about\u00a0parenting approaches from around the world.<\/p>\n
Here is what I learned: the degree of isolation we experience in modern parenting is not normal for us as a species.\u00a0 By that, when you look at the story of our species as a continuum, stretching back to the earliest days of our evolution, the degree of isolation that we now experience is a relatively new phenomenon. \u00a0Even as recently as a few thousand years ago, our ancestors lived with a greater degree of interdependence in the doings of their daily lives. \u00a0And while human \u201cprogress\u201d may move at the speed of light when it comes to technology, evolutionarily,\u00a0our basic adaptations evolved in response to the environmental challenges of hunter gatherer times.<\/p>\n
The yearning for our village is an ancestral calling. \u00a0We crave our village because no matter how modern we may be in many ways,\u00a0motherhood realigns us with the fundamentals.\u00a0\u00a0With what our ancestors knew, lived and needed.<\/p>\n
Connection. \u00a0Mutual, loving dependence. \u00a0Giving and receiving.<\/p>\n
We have come so far from where our ancient ancestors started.<\/p>\n
And yet, a part of us is still there.<\/p>\n
I think about it so much. \u00a0I think about HER.<\/p>\n
Cave woman.<\/p>\n
I see her in dreams.<\/p>\n
I feel her in my intuition, my instincts. \u00a0I feel her in my primal urge to protect my little ones from danger. \u00a0To rock, to soothe, to love.<\/p>\n
To put my feet and my children\u2019s feet in the eddies of waterfall.<\/p>\n
I remember her in nature. \u00a0When I feel rain on my face, or sit watching the cherry blossoms fall.<\/p>\n
So\u2026 \u00a0The village. \u00a0Connection. \u00a0Reweaving what, in our culture has been broken.<\/p>\n
How do we do this?<\/p>\n
There are so many answers to this question, and I return to it again and again.<\/p>\n
But I want to focus on just one piece of it today – something I\u2019ve never really talked about before.<\/p>\n
We strengthen our village when we take the time to\u00a0notice each other.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a practice that I started in those early days of mothering. \u00a0I started to make eye contact with strangers.\u00a0\u00a0As time passed, and I my desire to connect began to push me past the boundaries of my self-consciousness,\u00a0I started to greet them. \u00a0Talk to them. \u00a0Ask them questions. \u00a0And sometimes,\u00a0I learned their stories, and shared mine.<\/p>\n
So much has changed since then.<\/p>\n
These days, thanks mostly to my work as a teacher and musical facilitator,\u00a0I am not often lonely.<\/p>\n
These days, I have found my tribe, and I thank Spirit every day for them.<\/p>\n
But the noticing\u2026 \u00a0This is a practice I continue.<\/p>\n
I continue it because in noticing a person I don\u2019t know yet, I feel another truth – that the village extends beyond the people I already know and love. \u00a0It extends also to everyone I interact with in my day.<\/p>\n
The man at the post office. \u00a0The homeless man who sleeps on the street outside our house. \ud83d\ude41\u00a0 And while these connections are not always simple or without conflict, they are real. \u00a0These are the people we move amongst. \u00a0Living, loving learning.<\/p>\n
What will we make of these connections?<\/p>\n
Some glimpses from these six years of noticing.<\/p>\n
I remember a mother on the playground sharing from her heart about her struggles getting her child to eat. \u00a0The anguish she felt that her child was not gaining weight, and struggling to implement the doctor\u2019s advice. I remember talking and listening together, and the feeling of my heart opening to hear her struggle.<\/p>\n
In this village, let no one be a stranger.<\/p>\n
I remember the man from Ghana who heard me singing Sansa Kroma in Brooklyn and said, \u201cthat song is from my country. \u00a0This is the first time I have heard it since I left,\u201d and we shared a moment, connecting about the power of music.<\/p>\n
Let this village reach beyond the borders of nations.<\/p>\n
I think of the sample people at Costco, the ones who hand you a sample as you cart your weary littles through aisle after packed aisle. \u00a0We\u2019ve been going there long enough to befriend many of them.\u00a0 There’s one we’ve become especially close to – a grandmotherly woman with\u00a0a radiant smile.<\/p>\n
So, one day, while Ember and Peregrine sat in the cart, this wonderful woman and I got to talking about the state of the world.\u00a0 (She does not shy away from the deep things in life, even while handing you salmon salad on a cracker.)\u00a0 She was talking about hope, and about light.\u00a0 About how the world needs our light right now, more than ever.<\/p>\n
She told me she loved me. \u00a0I said the same, and we stood there for a moment, hugging in the tuna fish aisle.\u00a0 And we said a prayer together, for our world.<\/p>\n
Sometimes we find connection in surprising places.<\/p>\n
Let this village transcend all boundaries of race, class and role.<\/p>\n
And, you know where this is going\u2026. \u00a0Because this is where everything goes with me. \u00a0This feeling of kinship I am talking about\u2026 \u00a0It\u2019s one thing to think about it.<\/p>\n
It’s another, more beautiful thing entirely when we take the step past noticing each other to share in actual practices and spaces where we can be together.\u00a0 And where, together, we can be authentic, embodied, and alive.<\/p>\n
This is why I love\u00a0community singing\u00a0so much.<\/p>\n
This past year, at a gathering of song leaders, I met a woman named Liz Rog. \u00a0Liz Rog has two grown daughters, and when they were little, she started singing with them, and then singing with others in her community. \u00a0She is not trained in music. \u00a0She is a person with a warm heart, a love of singing, a deep humility, and a genius for building community.<\/p>\n
So, she started leading singing circles.\u00a0\u00a0It started with a song here and there, at a protest, or at en event.\u00a0 Over the years, it grew.<\/p>\n
Today, twenty some years later, she and her community have\u00a0shifted the culture of their small Iowa town\u00a0so that singing has come back into daily life again.<\/p>\n
As she explained it, whenever someone plans a gathering for virtually any purpose, there\u2019s always a question to go along with it – \u201cAnd Liz, what songs should we sing? \u00a0Do you have a song for that?\u201d<\/p>\n
But guess what. \u00a0It goes beyond that.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s more than the fact that singing is now a part of daily life. \u00a0It\u2019s that\u00a0singing has changed the way people interact in her town. \u00a0Singing has helped to midwife an actual cultural shift.<\/p>\n
Now,\u00a0people make eye contact on the street and say good morning.<\/p>\n
People bring each other meals in a time of need.<\/p>\n
Community rituals have evolved\u00a0to honor the major life passages. \u00a0Birth. \u00a0Death. \u00a0A girl\u2019s initiation into menarch.<\/p>\n
I hear a story like this, and it reminds me of what is possible, when we come together with intention.<\/p>\n
A movement towards reweaving what, in our culture has been torn.<\/p>\n
It is the Great Turning, and it is underway.\u00a0 And we are all a part of it. \u00a0All of us, who choose to build it together. \u00a0E.M. Forster said it so well – a simple motto for life, and perhaps it is mine, though I\u2019ve never thought of it until now!<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly connect.\u201d<\/p>\n
So thank you so much for reading. \u00a0And if you have a chance, please share with me. \u00a0I\u2019d love to hear from you.<\/p>\n
Where and how do you find community? \u00a0And how is it feeling to you?<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” text_font_size=”16″ use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” custom_padding=”|15%||15%”] When I became a mother, six years ago, there was one thing that really surprised me.\u00a0 More than anything else.\u00a0 I was surprised by\u00a0how lonely I felt. There were so many other feelings, of course. \u00a0Joy, wonder, exhaustion, gratitude.\u00a0\u00a0These feelings, I had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"
When I became a mother, six years ago, there was one thing that really surprised me.\u00a0 More than anything else.\u00a0 I was surprised by\u00a0how lonely I felt.<\/p>
There were so many other feelings, of course. \u00a0Joy, wonder, exhaustion, gratitude.\u00a0\u00a0These feelings, I had expected. \u00a0I hadn\u2019t been able to imagine the depth of them, of course. \u00a0But I had expected them.<\/p>
The loneliness was a surprise.<\/p>
I remember it like yesterday - those first months home with my baby. \u00a0We lived in Brooklyn, then, where I had left my job teaching music at the Brooklyn Waldorf school to be home with my baby.<\/p>
I remember so clearly, walking through the park with him in the carrier, during those chilly mid autumn days, feeling like I might be only mother in the world who was home with my child<\/p>
I wasn\u2019t, of course\u2026\u00a0 There were, in fact, so many of us.<\/p>
But this was before I started using social media. \u00a0I had posted a couple of times on a list serve, looking for mama friends.\u00a0 And there were, in fact, some incredible friends I would find and reconnect with later.\u00a0 But in those early days,\u00a0I had yet to put the pieces in place that would help me find my tribe.<\/p>
I remember this cry that seemed to well up from the depths of my soul. \u00a0A question and a feeling that, throughout my thirty some years of life, I had never felt before. \u00a0Or at least not to this extent.<\/p>
\u201cWhere is my village?!\u201d<\/p>
I felt it so strongly.<\/p>
And I also felt a little guilty about it.<\/p>
After all,\u00a0I had wanted the experience of motherhood so badly.\u00a0 Through years of struggling with infertility, I had ached for it.<\/p>
I remember looking down at my little son in his plastic box in the NICU, feeling so intensely the tenuousness of life, swearing to myself that I would never take a single day of motherhood for granted.<\/p>
So how could I now feel the way I did?<\/p>
Well, over time, I began to sort it out.<\/p>
Why I was so lonely.<\/p>
I was lonely because I am a modern parent, and this is how it is for nearly every single one of us, living within the paradigm of the nuclear family.<\/p>
Why? \u00a0Simply put, we were never meant to parent in this way.<\/p>
Wanting to understand, I started reading about\u00a0physical\u00a0anthropology, and learning more about\u00a0parenting approaches from around the world.<\/p>
Here is what I learned: the degree of isolation we experience in modern parenting is not normal for us as a species.\u00a0 By that, when you look at the story of our species as a continuum, stretching back to the earliest days of our evolution, the degree of isolation that we now experience is a relatively new phenomenon. \u00a0Even as recently as a few thousand years ago, our ancestors lived with a greater degree of interdependence in the doings of their daily lives. \u00a0And while human \u201cprogress\u201d may move at the speed of light when it comes to technology, evolutionarily,\u00a0our basic adaptations evolved in response to the environmental challenges of hunter gatherer times.<\/p>
The yearning for our village is an ancestral calling. \u00a0We crave our village because no matter how modern we may be in many ways,\u00a0motherhood realigns us with the fundamentals.\u00a0\u00a0With what our ancestors knew, lived and needed.<\/p>
Connection. \u00a0Mutual, loving dependence. \u00a0Giving and receiving.<\/p>
We have come so far from where our ancient ancestors started.<\/p>
And yet, a part of us is still there.<\/p>
I think about it so much. \u00a0I think about HER.<\/p>
Cave woman.<\/p>
I see her in dreams.<\/p>
I feel her in my intuition, my instincts. \u00a0I feel her in my primal urge to protect my little ones from danger. \u00a0To rock, to soothe, to love.<\/p>
To put my feet and my children\u2019s feet in the eddies of waterfall.<\/p>
I remember her in nature. \u00a0When I feel rain on my face, or sit watching the cherry blossoms fall.<\/p>
So\u2026 \u00a0The village. \u00a0Connection. \u00a0Reweaving what, in our culture has been broken.<\/p>
How do we do this?<\/p>
There are so many answers to this question, and I return to it again and again.<\/p>
But I want to focus on just one piece of it today - something I\u2019ve never really talked about before.<\/p>
We strengthen our village when we take the time to\u00a0notice each other.<\/p>
There\u2019s a practice that I started in those early days of mothering. \u00a0I started to make eye contact with strangers.\u00a0\u00a0As time passed, and I my desire to connect began to push me past the boundaries of my self-consciousness,\u00a0I started to greet them. \u00a0Talk to them. \u00a0Ask them questions. \u00a0And sometimes,\u00a0I learned their stories, and shared mine.<\/p>
So much has changed since then.<\/p>
These days, thanks mostly to my work as a teacher and musical facilitator,\u00a0I am no longer lonely.<\/p>
These days, I have found my tribe, and I thank Spirit every day for them.<\/p>
But the noticing\u2026 \u00a0This is a practice I continue.<\/p>
I continue it because in noticing a person I don\u2019t know yet, I feel another truth - that the village extends beyond the people I already know and love. \u00a0It extends also to everyone I interact with in my day.<\/p>
The man at the post office. \u00a0The homeless man who sleeps on the street outside our house. :(\u00a0 And while these connections are not always simple or without conflict, they are real. \u00a0These are the people we move amongst. \u00a0Living, loving learning.<\/p>
What will we make of these connections?<\/p>
Some glimpses from these six years of noticing.<\/p>
I remember a mother on the playground sharing from her heart about her struggles getting her child to eat. \u00a0The anguish she felt that her child was not gaining weight, and struggling to implement the doctor\u2019s advice. I remember talking and listening together, and the feeling of my heart opening to hear her struggle.<\/p>
In this village, let no one be a stranger.<\/p>
I remember the man from Ghana who heard me singing Sansa Kroma in Brooklyn and said, \u201cthat song is from my country. \u00a0This is the first time I have heard it since I left,\u201d and we shared a moment, connecting about the power of music.<\/p>
Let this village reach beyond the borders of nations.<\/p>
I think of the sample people at Costco, the ones who hand you a sample as you cart your weary littles through aisle after packed aisle. \u00a0We\u2019ve been going there long enough to befriend many of them.\u00a0 There's one we've become especially close to - a grandmotherly woman with\u00a0a radiant smile.<\/p>
So, one day, while Ember and Peregrine sat in the cart, this wonderful woman and I got to talking about the state of the world.\u00a0 (She does not shy away from the deep things in life, even while handing you salmon salad on a cracker.)\u00a0 She was talking about hope, and about light.\u00a0 About how the world needs our light right now, more than ever.<\/p>
She told me she loved me. \u00a0I said the same, and we stood there for a moment, hugging in the tuna fish aisle.\u00a0 And we said a prayer together, for our world.<\/p>
Sometimes we find connection in surprising places.<\/p>
Let this village transcend all boundaries of race, class and role.<\/p>
And, you know where this is going\u2026. \u00a0Because this is where everything goes with me. \u00a0This feeling of kinship I am talking about\u2026 \u00a0It\u2019s one thing to think about it.<\/p>
It's another, more beautiful thing entirely when we take the step past noticing each other to share in actual practices and spaces where we can be together.\u00a0 And where, together, we can be authentic, embodied, and alive.<\/p>
This is why I love\u00a0community singing\u00a0so much.<\/p>
This past year, at a gathering of song leaders, I met a woman named Liz Rog. \u00a0Liz Rog has two grown daughters, and when they were little, she started singing with them, and then singing with others in her community. \u00a0She is not trained in music. \u00a0She is a person with a warm heart, a love of singing, a deep humility, and a genius for building community.<\/p>
So, she started leading singing circles.\u00a0\u00a0It started with a song here and there, at a protest, or at en event.\u00a0 Over the years, it grew.<\/p>
Today, twenty some years later, she and her community have\u00a0shifted the culture of their small Iowa town\u00a0so that singing has come back into daily life again.<\/p>
As she explained it, whenever someone plans a gathering for virtually any purpose, there\u2019s always a question to go along with it - \u201cAnd Liz, what songs should we sing? \u00a0Do you have a song for that?\u201d<\/p>
But guess what. \u00a0It goes beyond that.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s more than the fact that singing is now a part of daily life. \u00a0It\u2019s that\u00a0singing has changed the way people interact in her town. \u00a0Singing has helped to midwife an actual cultural shift.<\/p>
Now,\u00a0people make eye contact on the street and say good morning.<\/p>
People bring each other meals in a time of need.<\/p>
Community rituals have evolved\u00a0to honor the major life passages. \u00a0Birth. \u00a0Death. \u00a0A girl\u2019s initiation into menarch.<\/p>
I hear a story like this, and it reminds me of what is possible, when we come together with intention.<\/p>
A movement towards reweaving what, in our culture has been torn.<\/p>
It is the Great Turning, and it is underway.\u00a0 And we are all a part of it. \u00a0All of us, who choose to build it together. \u00a0E.M. Forster said it so well - a simple motto for life, and perhaps it is mine, though I\u2019ve never thought of it until now!<\/p>
\u201cOnly connect.\u201d<\/p>
So thank you so much for reading. \u00a0And if you have a chance, please share with me. \u00a0I\u2019d love to hear from you.<\/p>
Where and how do you find community? \u00a0And how is it feeling to you?<\/p>","_et_gb_content_width":"","_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.noevenable.com\/singingcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24791"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.noevenable.com\/singingcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.noevenable.com\/singingcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.noevenable.com\/singingcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.noevenable.com\/singingcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.noevenable.com\/singingcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.noevenable.com\/singingcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.noevenable.com\/singingcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.noevenable.com\/singingcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.noevenable.com\/singingcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}