I am here. In the middle of the forest. I step out onto the terrace of a small wooden cabin after dusk. I see lights in other cabins scattered across the clearing. I decide to walk into the darkness, arm in arm with my fear. As I step beyond the reach of the village lights, a shiver of uncertainty runs through me. I can barely see. I am alone in the middle of the formless unknown. I stand there, gazing into the void. But then I retreat. I return to the familiar. I close the cabin door and lie down to sleep, my heart still pounding.
The next day, an impulse comes to me. I don’t have to go alone. There is a whole team of people here in the clearing who want to explore the edge of understanding. Night falls. We go together. Although we don’t have any source of light, it doesn’t matter now. When we are connected, the darkness does not touch us. We talk. We can go very far. We are explorers, carried by feeling and intuition.
And then during the day, we sit in a spacious yurt and look into each other’s eyes. In the light of ordinariness, we observe each other in our safe forms. I see how each being present here tries to break free and show their authenticity. Finally, after so many years of searching, there is a place where we don’t have to hide — we can be seen by others in the nakedness of our truth. Yet something holds back.
Why, despite wanting to be with others, do I still take a step back? Every time I hit this glass wall, it hurts, yet I learn more about my own prison. I am in an inner koan — I so much want to live without expectations of myself and others that I unknowingly create an expectation about it. I expect the lack of expectations. What an exquisite trap!
Fortunately, it begins to fall apart when I see it. When I stop thinking about what might happen, how things should be in the new, and fully surrender to the quality of the space I am in — transformation happens.
To open the door of my heart to being in community, I need my feelings available here and now. I need anger to know what I want in the moment and its power to create it. I need my fear to step into what is still unknown to me and discover who I am. I need sadness to create connections and see value in them, and joy to celebrate the qualities I and others have.
And now I can navigate being with others — the darkness of the forest does not hide me; my being shines. Now, the entire village embarks on an expedition beyond the well-known circle of contemporary culture’s light, and suddenly this brave act of stepping into the unknown turns out to be the path to closeness among us. There are adventures we do not experience alone.
I am now on one of them at Polana Bridge House. The big-small village of the Next Culture. In the middle of the darkness, we are standing here together. What a joy!
