The Cultivating Resilience and Joy Project
Class Starts September 22nd
Lotus Flower magic
The “Cultivating Resilience and Joy” project that I have been working on for the last few years got started in 2021 as an effort to help folks deal with the anxiety and chaos of our current world through the lens of Taoist 5 Element theory. This ancient wisdom teaches about the energies that give rise to form. The seasons are a great example of that. Spring energy gives rise to daffodils and tulips, fall energy gives rise to golden rod and asters.
I think we can all agree we are living in a broken world, both culturally and environmentally. It is probably a little radical to say but I think this is pointing to the reality that we are living at the end of an era, the end of an age. 100 years from now, it will be clear that this point in time was a turning point, one way or the other. The ways we have been living have been known to be unsustainable for decades, yet here we are. Hopefully, we can start the healing process from here.
If we look at the seasonal/life cycle of our culture through the 5 Element lens, this is like late Autumn/early winter when all the plants have exhausted themselves with the solar collecting work of summer. The garden is past its prime, and flowers have died back. Nothing we can do will put the vibrant colors back in the spent blooms or leaves back on the trees. That can be a human lifespan, the yearly garden cycle, or the lifespan of a culture. Life as we have known it is dying back and quickly heading for the compost pile. Old cultural structures have exhausted their useful lives and are withering. We can’t go on with the ways of thinking and doing things that brought us to the edge of collapse any more than we can glue the leaves back on the trees in the fall. Nature tells us that we must go through the winter in order for spring to arise. Hopefully, this dark, cold period in history is wintery enough so that humanity will emerge transformed to create a Thriving Life Future.
What we need is a new era to be born. What we need is for a Spring to come to humanity and to the Earth. Spring is the season of birth and renewal that we desperately need. The trouble is that it may take a couple hundred years for this spring birth to arrive. So how do we thrive in the interim, amidst the chaos of the collapse? How can we be of service to the Earth in Her transformation? How do we sustain the warmth of joy in our hearts when the world is such a cold dark place? The Cultivating Resilience and Joy class helps you find the answers.
The Sacred Writing of Knowledge
Taoist 5 Element theory offers us a way to understand the global transformation currently underway environmentally, culturally and individually. It was written down 2500 years ago, long before this current era of distortion began. Its principles are as true today as they were then. 5 Element framework uses ancient wisdom helping us understand how human nature is a part of Great Nature, not separate from it. It helps us understand humanity’s purpose and correct place in Creation.
Human nature in an individual is what we refer to as the soul. There is an old idea that your soul chooses to incarnate in a particular time and place because there is a learning opportunity there. If that is true, then those of us alive today chose to be here for the great unraveling because of the radical learning opportunities at the level of the soul and the possibility that we can be part of the new life that is waiting to be born. Our souls are here on a mission. It is always the struggles in life that make us dig deep and awaken us to new possibilities in ourselves that we didn’t know were there all along.
Here is where the resilience and joy come in. When you are living your fullest, most authentic life, when you get to develop the gifts and talents you came in with, when you live according to your true nature, when you get to carry out your soul’s mission, the natural outcome of that is resilience and joy. The Earth needs people to live in connection with their soul’s mission in order to be in proper relationship with Her, to support Her in carrying out Her soul’s mission.
In our rational minds, we have no way to figure all this out. Clearly our current mindset and problem-solving skills aren’t working because they are what brought us here. That is in part due to the reality that they are based in the rational mind and are completely devoid of a spiritual/soul basis. But our souls know the way forward.
So we are here on a mission, and we haven’t a clue how to go about it. We didn’t get the instruction manual. Except we did. We can’t access it through the rational mind because it is hidden in our Hearts, not our heads. The Brain is the wrong organ for this.
The Heart is accessed through emotions like love, passion, awe, imagination and joy. It guides us through emotion, intuition, dreams, gut feelings, and connection with dear ones and Nature.
5 element theory is your rosetta stone key to the chaos of our times
We just need to learn to access it more fully. This is where 5 Element theory can help us. It is like a Rosetta stone that unlocks the understanding of how the universe works on the macro level and how you work on the micro. With just a little bit of a working knowledge, we start to be able to see how much of what is going on around us is actually following predictable patterns as described by the old Taoists. This is a huge relief. It’s like suddenly recognizing a familiar tree when you have been lost in the woods. You can find your way home.
Cultivating Resilience and Joy Class 2024
The Cultivating Resilience and Joy class for women is a year-long process. It is a combination of learning to apply the 5 Elements, ritual, meditation, heart connection, and support.
We meet on the 3rd Sundays of the month from 4-6 at Camden Whole Health. We are starting this year on September 22nd.
If you would like to come for the first gathering to get a sense of what it all about before committing, just let me know so I can put out a chair for you.
I hope you’ll join us.
