Following the inspiration of flashlight tag, a journey into community
On one of our first nights at Innate, we gathered at dusk for a full moon ceremony and ecstatic dance session. It was such an amazing way to kick off the experience.
As I reflect, I am not quite sure where my fascination with the concept of “community” came from. Did it start with my eight-year old self who delighted, but also lamented, each time she played flashlight tag or pick-up basketball when visiting a friend? These outings served as a consistent reminder of how much I felt I missed out on growing up on a piece of property far from the maddening crowds. I vowed at that time that if I had kids, I would ensure we lived in a neighborhood with easy access to playdates and spontaneous social encounters, mud pie collaborations and ample pupils for imaginary classrooms.
Since then, my experiences of participating in a community have been wide ranging. A few weeks of camp in childhood rafting down rivers, fine tuning my baton twirling skills, and finding the perfect crush to fantasize about long after the campfire closing ceremony. The college years, being thrown into a co-ed dorm with quite a few other lost souls trying helplessly to navigate the transition from adolescence to adulthood, punctuated by 90s hip-hop infused bathroom dance parties, silly conversations over endless supplies of funfetti cake, and a few more crushes who seemed just out of reach. The Christian years, throwing my heart and soul into youth group pranks, giving up those 90s hip hop CDs for worship music, and feeling a deep and strange sense of loneliness in the midst of both small groups and Sunday services. Healing and personal growth communities, like Al-Anon, where I finally learned to show up in a raw and honest way, and allow myself to receive the wisdom and strength found in each of our own difficult, but powerful, personal stories. Professional communities, where a sense of camaraderie emerged from a shared sense of purpose, whether it was about promoting equity, empowering women, pioneering ideas, or honoring your pull towards creative expression. And somewhere in there were the adventure-seeking communal experience, with 5am wake up “showers” in the brisk waters off the coast of Maine as part of an Outward Bound sailing expedition, or the guest ranches I escaped to in Colorado after college to satisfy my spirits longing for wide open spaces. It was there that I discovered others who were following their own arrow, from whom I drew courage and inspiration to take leaps of faith into the great unknown at different points of my life.
From these various encounters, I have come to see both a strong push AND pull within me as I even say the word “community.” My little parts still want to find a place to “belong,” my teenage parts still want to distinguish ourselves from the “crowd” and be seen for what makes us unique, and my adult self knows community is the place where we feel drawn to “contribute.”
It is with these various precious parts that I decided to go on a journey to explore what community means to me as I step into the second half of life. Through watching documentaries like Wild Wild Country, reading books like Tribe, living in a country with a more communal way of life, visiting intentional communities like The Farm, and participating in a month of co-living and co-working through Innate, I am letting these inputs shape and inform my reflections and visions of what it is that I am seeking, but also maybe more importantly, what it is that I am avoiding.
If you care to share, what does community mean to you, and what was a community you were a part of that has most resonated in your own life path?
