embodied belonging




"And as Shakespeare says in Hamlet: To thine own self be true, then as surely as night follows day, thou canst to no man be false. The journey shows you that from this inner dedication you can reconstruct your own values and action. You develop from your own self-compassion a great compassion for others. You are no longer caught in the false game of judgment, comparison and assumption. More naked now than ever, you begin to feel truly alive. You begin to trust the music of your own soul; you have inherited treasure that no one will ever be able to take from you. At the deepest level, this adventure of growth is in fact a transfigurative conversation with your own death. And when the time comes for you to leave, the view from your death bed will show a life of growth that gladdens the heart and takes away all fear.”
-John O’Donohue-



How do we begin the life of belonging? Belonging to ourselves, our bodies, our earth, our communities, etc.? It is here that we must search, but this journey begins by using a level of experience that we have marginalized, that of the right brain. Its like our collective culture has been ignoring this side of our life for so long that it is not there any more.

"The main theme to emerge... is that there appear to be two modes of thinking, verbal and nonverbal, represented rather separately in left and right hemispheres respectively and that our education system, as well as science in general, tends to neglect the nonverbal form of intellect. What it comes down to is that modern society discriminates against the right hemisphere."

-Roger Sperry (1973) from:
http://www.viewzone.com/bicam.html

How do we begin a journey when we have been mistaking the map for the territory? Thoughts? Questions?
Thanks
Scot

more links:
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229


http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22556281-661,00.html


http://www.danpink.com/wnm.html

http://www.jodonohue.com/