There was a moment in Senegal that threatened to separate me from humanity. I fought it. Then I let go into it. But it had such power to suck me down.

A group of us were sitting around. Lydia and I were the only English speakers. She’s also fluent in Flemish and French. Nano is such a cool young Senegalese woman. She definitely could be on the stage at Yuk Yuks in Paris. She dances. She throws her body around, with her arms touching the sky.

And Nano is a storyteller. She launched her into her tale with aplomb, moving every whichway, screaming her words to the heights and then dropping them to a whisper. Eyes on all sides were locked on her. And then … faces exploded in laughter as Nano bent way over.

I sat calmly, with a tiny smile. But the roller coaster ride was far from over. Six or seven more times, the onlookers rocked and rolled in ecstasy, tears appearing on cheeks.

And my heart kept falling. An intense shared experience was not shared with me. There’s no fault here, just a celebration of a woman’s hilarious adventures … in French.

I was all over the map – fine with the exclusion, hating it, rationalizing the whole thing. There was a nakedness I often felt, and a despair.

***

Yesterday afternoon, a group of us in the Evolutionary Collective explored an idea at lunch. What if we intensified our access to this inclusive consciousness by spending more time together each week online? What if we consciously moved towards a commitment to living this communion 24/7? What’s possible?

One idea emerging was to create a “text thread” among the six of us. A matrix of support for each other in real time. What if I could have pulled out my cell phone in the midst of that Nano story and shared with my “tribe” what I was experiencing? Oh my. How astonishing. Perhaps someone else in the group would read my message right then, and respond. It’s not about zooming a solution over the Internet, or fixing people. It’s about being there, in deep contact with the one experiencing something profoundly, whether it’s “positive” or “negative”.

Now wouldn’t that be a different kettle of fish?