Last night, the Evolutionary Collective hosted an evening in which people could join us and experience what’s it’s like to be inside this shared consciousness together. I was talking to a couple about our work. I searched for a short statement that would sum up the EC’s impact on me. And it came: Now my natural tendency is to move towards people rather than away from them. My fear of differentness has faded away, replaced by an intense curiosity about what others’ lives are like, what their passions are, their visions. I find that when I speak about my journey, things often loosen between us, and the other person goes towards their experiences and discoveries.

My favourite moments are conversations with one other person, followed by three of us, and then being alone. That preference is so bright now. It doesn’t matter the personalities, ages, cultures, situations. Just let me linger in your eyes.

And yet more folks coming together can be magical too. In our session yesterday daytime, we did a practice that deeply hit home. We were in a group of eight – two standing in the middle back-to-back, and the rest of us circled in chairs. Our teacher Patricia Albere asked us to experience the threading – the weaving – of consciousness among us, flowing through both the standing ones and the seated ones. The pair would rotate together to meet the eyes of each of us. If Persons A and B started in the middle, A would sit down after a complete turn, replaced by C. B and C went around together, then C and D, D and E … We became an organism of eight cells, blending, weaving, caressing. It was lovely. It was human beings together rather than separate, each one so vividly particular and yet also breathing in the whole.

I received a compliment last night. I sat with a couple new to this work. She said that I exuded a sweet energy. She had first noticed it when I was greeting the newcomers at the street entrance of the building. My intention was to have each one feel welcomed from the first moment they set foot in the David Brower Center. She got it then … so did he.

I did my usual squirm in response to her words but happily it faded within seconds. All that was left was a beaming “Thank you” and a peaceful space emanating from something far larger than this Bruceness. We weave together … magic emerges … it’s a mystery that need not be corralled.