Breathing in: surrendering to Great Mystery
Breathing out: blowing the winds of change
Ecstasy in every cycle of conscious breath

Kick the habit of already-knowing
Descend to the bedrock of utter emptiness,
Sweet surrender to knowing nothing, being nobody -

Stay there till the next bang of your becoming
will toss you up with purpose and direction

Passionate fans of Freedom, Truth, Beauty
are emerging from the bedrock with a new élan,
time after time, day after day...

Looking into His eyes and reaching Her highest,
She knows Herself and the ever-deepening layers
of Her opening and opening and opening

Looking into Her eyes and reaching His deepest,
He discovers Himself and is re-charged
with courage and clarity




She and He are dancing in our every breath,
alone and together -

In a beautiful summary of a shamanic practice that we all have capacity to develop, Venita wrote in her blog:

Breathing awareness into and through one's own entire physical and subtle body/mind/emotion/energy field.  And through that openness, the “other” can be sensed or felt, especially if that “other” is also open.  Then there is a feeling of what it is like to be that person.  How it feels to be and walk in the world as that person.  Where the physical holding is in the musculature of the other, how that holding shifts the skeletal structure, how the holding stops the breath from circulating to expand, contract and take up space.  How all of this holding stops various emotions or freedom of expression and how these various blockages lead to a cluster of psychological processes (including chakra imbalances) and behavioral interactions that interfere with relationships and life effectiveness in general.

In being with someone like this (with their permission), it is then possible to begin reflecting awareness back to help this person see the contractions as well as the amazing qualities of who they are.

Empathic listening at its best is, indeed, a healing practice that is needed in the world, at a larger scale, more than ever.  There's a hold of obsolete structures on the social body, obsolete structures of thinking, relating, working and organizing. There's also the liberation from those structures, as we presence our highest potential, individual and collective.

Presencing is calling for more in us than even our deep empathy. When I wlk with the "other," any other, I can't prevent myself from sensing into the amazing flowers unfolding from the buds that he/she is. Holding them in their highest potential and visualizing it, as lovers picture the Beloved's face, we are creating the future, by laying grooves of new potential.

Otto Scharmer calls this "generative listening, or listening from the emerging field of the future. This level of listening requires us to access our open heart and open will—our capacity to connect to the highest future possibility that wants to emerge."

We can start practicing generative listening in any of our relationship but for those of us new to this pratice, it may be easier to start with a close friend or family.

If the other is  interested as much in your well-being as you are in hers, then you discover generative dialogue, and with it, what is that which wants to come into being through your relationship. Walk with the world as your lover and enjoy your being and becoming together.

Clearly, there's much more to see into, as we explore the question: what are the skillful means for presencing the future of "we," at increasing scale? Would you be interested in that inquiry? (If there was enough Zaadsters saying yes, we could form an action-learning set and maybe, invite Helen as our action-learning coach.) A good place to start would be reading and commenting on the Intro chapter of Scharmer's forthcoming book, Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges. The Social Technology of Presencing," which you can download from his website.