In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.
- John 1:1

And so began our descent into the world of separation.

Before mankind, there was only one reality. How could there have been another? Whose reality would it have been? Life was created as an interactive, self-reliant chain of being. This “inter-being” of nature took care of itself pretty well, manifesting plants, animals, fish, and birds. This one reality generated everything from the smallest of insects to the greatest of mammals.

And then we showed up.

With our advanced consciousness and keen intellect, mankind was compelled to put a name to every substance on the planet. Only then did plants really become plants, or birds actually become birds. Language was the way of directing attention to a particular item; symbols pointing to objects in our ever-evolving world.

Soon we were placing names on ourselves. I am a man. I am a woman. I am young. I am old. The one reality had been cut up into many bits. And when perspective was born, so were the stories surrounding our names. I am Jane, wife of Tarzan, mother to Boy, successful jungle entrepreneur, sex symbol to male adolescents of the 1950’s. But the pieces aren’t real; they’re just words pointing to thoughts pointing to more thoughts. The oneness of the true reality had been shattered forever.

The wave had forgotten the ocean. And each of us was left feeling extraordinarily lonely.

The day you teach the child the name of the bird, the child will never see that bird again.
- Krishnamurti

Between my 6th and 7th years in school, I moved from one suburb to another. I was amazed how easily I left my old neighborhood behind. I was an odd, reserved, socially inept little kid. I received plenty of mental and physical abuse, even in my new home. I recall one cold day at the bus stop when the other kids bombarded me with giant snow-ice blocks. I ran home crying but refused to let anyone be punished. It wasn’t their fault. It was mine.

Friends finally reached out to me - just in time for high school. I experienced my freshmen year at the same time that my big brother left for college. I lost my best friend and I felt alone. A teacher suggested I join the girl’s basketball team as a manager. So there I was sitting several rows back on the school bleachers, watching a group of which I could never really be a part. Again I felt that profound sense of separation, far too powerful for any adolescent to overcome.

We try to resolve this separation through merging, through a desperate effort called “romantic love”. We feel better for awhile. But our sense of self is too strong. We believe our labels and unconditionally live out our stories.

Yet another word for separateness is division. And a great way to express division is through conflict. So here we go in the opposite direction, producing drama, trauma, and manufactured problems. We bond through pain. Isn’t that ironic? The human race attempts to heal separation through sharing its divisions.

And the struggle continues; the vain effort to achieve true wholeness. Yet it never arrives. And so we assume it never will arrive.

Then ask yourself, is it true?

Perhaps we cannot heal the separation because we aren’t separate.

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"An Open Invitation" is a multi-part journey from the known into the unknown.

So, this is who you think you are?
Bam!!!
Oh look, who you thought you were is now shattered into a million tiny pieces.
Now what?