If you dedicate yourself to a true vision, to something that wants to be done on this earth, it will find a way to allow your service. -Charles Eisenstein
If you’re like me and are prone to imagining a world in which we all live more gently on the earth, you may have found your way to the work of Charles Eisenstein. Author of A More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible, he is in demand as a speaker all over the world for his ideas on “a new and ancient story,” alternative cultural narratives, ecology, and the gift economy.
What does all that mean? Basically, he is sharing a story of interconnectedness and addressing the illusion of a world based on competition and control. Eisenstein brings to life inklings many of us have about the unsustainability of our economy and proposes another view and way of living that fosters community, creativity, and living in tune with nature. In a recent conversation with psychiatrist Kelly Brogan at the Alchemist’s Kitchen in New York City he talks about the process of stepping out of “the matrix” into a different way of being. The matrix, as referred to in the movie of the same name, is the idea of a reality created by man that is socially constructed, that is about exploiting certain others for gain.
“What happens when we step out of the matrix, which is where all the money is,” repeated Eisenstein. “How do we make a living? Seriously: “How do we make a living when we want to step out of the world destroying machine and contribute to the healing of the world but there’s not as much money in that?”
His first response was to disclose that he sometimes falls into doubt while wrestling with the contrast between how we are and how we might be and to note that friends call encourage him and call him back to his work. He’s learned, he said, that mental models fail us when we try to think about another way to approach a problem. Wemust rely on another compass, he says, one within our hearts and spirits. His own compass, notes Eisenstein, has been cultivated by elders, friends, and supporters. “I’m like a tuning fork or an antenna,” he said, “that is only as effective as the generalized consciousness and desire.”
In learning to find that compass within, we encounter our pain, and we find that the path unfolds moment by moment. We do not know how to get to this other way of being, it seems impossible, says Eisenstein, it is just that the path is invisible from where we currently find ourselves. “If it is a true vision, it is not unrealistic,” he says: We will make it through tests and past obstacles and find our way to erve.
We are immersed in an old story of how change happens, but in embracing the darkness, the not knowing, we open ourselves to an adventure, a discovery, and the creation of something new. “If you dedicate yourself to a true vision, to something that wants to be done on this earth, it will find a way to allow your service,” says Eisenstein.
I have found myself dedicated to several visions, though I can see a common thread running throughout my endeavors. Moving to Colorado to live close to mountains and not knowing what my work would look like, I became a yoga teacher and freelance writer. I was then able to carry the yoga into positions working in a county drug court and then in a center for people people with disabilities. Discovering a great deal about myself and my human way of feeling flawed and inadequate, I found that in following my heart and being open to my experiences each day, I slowly grew more compassionate towards myself and others. I became a midwife of sorts, able as I was to listen to people’s stories as an writer and as a program manager/teacher. None of these endeavors suggested themselves in my youth in the Northern Virginia suburbs, in college, in my first jobs in DC. Yet they were niches that were just right for me.
I could not foresee how I could meet a carpenter living in the foothills and fall in love or how I might become an activist working to protect my adopted town. Yet I see now that the vision of gleaning wisdom of the mountains and from yoga led me to the work of helping people transform their relationships with their bodies and to trust themselves and their hearts. Whether it was being with youth deciding to value themselves and follow their vocations, or people with chronic illness who took ownership of their health and treatment, I was blessed to witness people attuning to that internal compass.
Nowadays I hear stories everyday of people who exist outside of the matrix: People who lose their eyesight or ability to walk and change careers, stories of bodyworkers and artists who learn to live frugally and in community, activists and writers who find their voice and stand up for what they love. Whether well-known like Ta-Nehisi Coates speaking about the black experience, or less known like Eisenstein, or hidden from view like my healer friends, they are pushing into new territory while carrying their own stories and heart desire close. They have chosen to follow inner inklings and to observe the response of the universe, asking questions of life, following their own visions, and finding joy in the midst of creation.
Many in our world have conceived of the world on their own terms, reckoned with their grief, and engaged in their passions. They are the “proof” that we can embrace lifestyles true to ourselves and our hearts and experience the mysterious support of the universe. They show us “the more beautiful world” we imagine is real. It lives within us, and we can birth it in our own lives and our own communities each day.
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