Village Dialogs

Village Dialogs

Several months ago I implemented Village Dialogs on behalf of our family as a forum to broach hard topics as well as a place for all in our family to be heard. I had a vision while talking with Edy one morning of a tribe of humans gathered around a campfire and passing on both oral histories and explaining hand paintings to the younger members. As the village elder it fell on me to begin the initial dialog but it did not take long for the village to take their own seats and speak.

Pointing at certain places on the walls I would explain to my grandsons and daughters the revelry that occurred at each of their births and subsequent happenings since then. Certainly some of them would be remembered and in no time they would get what was going on and fall into the linear progression of life and their very solid place in it and in our family and family history.

Like all families or tribes we have enjoyed seasons of plenty and seasons of drought. We’ve enjoyed seasons of togetherness and seasons apart. All seasons come with blessings and tears and this too is an important life lesson. Hardships can bring as much or more joy than seasons of abundance and successes have their own weight.  We leave seats at our fire for those who cannot be with us physically because they are always with us in our hearts, always.

The talking stick is available for anyone who wishes to talk at anytime. Our only request is that the original intention of the dialogs is recognized and that we can paint whatever is said on the wall for posterity.  We speak from our hearts to the best of our abilities on topics both shallow and quite deep. It’s a reverential process that bespeaks the lineage of our ancestors long forgotten.

We are an intense group; we would not have it any other way. We are passionate, loud and opinionated. We resist yielding but do and most importantly we are learning to leave space for the mysteries of the individuals and the collective to evolve, as witnesses.

What has been created is quite beautiful and contains threads of ritual and ceremonies long past.  In its essence we needed to deconstruct our busy lives to go way back to base forms or communication using current technology because the majority of these dialogs occur via Email in a “cloud” .  Back to the Future, for Real!