you move. you move. you move.
YOU CAN MOVE
I. FREEDOM or LIBERATION?
today, as I sit in the space where my heart resides, I listen and watch my family eat. Stone-ground waffles are buttered, lathered with peanuts, loaded with yogurt, berries, and home-made apple sauce, and topped with steaming Vermont maple syrup.
the result is a decadent dish of crunch and melt, a melody of flavors & textures that evaporates in the mouth and sinks like stone, plunging to the bowels with alacrity.
it is, to me, perfection — all the more so for the free-flowing conversation, the laughter and inquiry, the warm steady grace, the chanting that plays behind us, the oval table with its yellow cloth that centers us, and the bright clear light of spring that fills the room.
this is my inheritance —
true family, relaxation, spaciousness, warmth, depth, gratitude, safety, joy, love, abundance, and bliss.
this inheritance has lead me to identify as alçentian. yet that word is not clear to those outside myself, so I seek to answer the question:
what does it mean to be alçentian american today, in this world?
here is my best guess, in the form of a conversation:
II. WHAT SOUNDS ARE YOU HEARING?
the alçentian is a listener.
more precisely, the alçentian listens deeply. they listen for truth, for love, for harmony. they listen with openness, wonder, humility, and appreciation. in all things, they listen as if they were listening to a symphony.
this last line comes from a guided meditation by rich bartlett that recently struck me:
We will walk quietly and then sit in silence at the beach. We’re going to practice listening with a particular state of attention: any sound that arrives in your awareness, you’re going to welcome it as if you were listening to a symphony. Any sound gets the same quality of attention: the cry of the eagle, the quiet slap of waves on the pebble shore, a sneeze, or a lawnmower engine, whatever sounds you notice, welcome them all with the same anticipatory pleasure and curiosity.”
you can apply this way or form of listening to all experiences — including your inner state of being. as rich asked about his own experience of depression:
can I observe the experience as if I were listening to a symphony orchestrated by an intelligent Composer? How might the experience change if I treat it all as intentional, as if everything in its proper place?
this reframe illustrates a common move I see in the world I want to inhabit: a move from condemnation and coercion towards acceptance and compassion, curiosity and authenticity.
so, the alçentian is a listener.
they listen for the song of our composition, from the internal notes that ring within to the dynamic interplay of each relationship and the large, fractal scales of cities and countries — to the entire composition, our human totality.
III. HARMONY OR CACAPHONY?
what are you hearing?
when I listen today, I hear friends and family around me. they make me glow with life and fill me with gratitude and faith that the Universe is kind, that we are on the path, and that all will be Sublime.
and so it is!
when I listen today, I hear the screams of suffering and misery from the people of Gaza, Yemen, Congo, and countless more places around the world. I hear famine, war-profiteering, natural disasters, and genocide. I hear crippling poverty, state-sponsored violence, and legal policies that reduce millions of people below the basic threshold of human dignity.
and I hear division — such vitriolic division in my own country. I hear a deep wound of distrust, anger, suffering, fear, and repression, expressing itself in a fervor of arrant self-interest and conquering hate.
it scares me.
so much of what I hear scares me.
it is terrifying to know that much of one’s own country is locked into a stark, dualistic paradigm of confrontation and domination that keeps raising the stakes, ignoring the basic necessities and dignities we share.
and yet it begs the question: what is the most basic reality?
IV. LOVE OR HATE?
is it this storm of division, discord, distrust, hate, and fear?
or is it what I hear & observe from nature itself (peace, balance, beauty, change, harmony) — of which we are but one part?
I believe nature is the basic reality, and that our nature is love & good. I believe harmony is evolutionary. and I believe that each and every person carries immense significance, because we make up the composition of everyone we touch.
we are the inheritors of civilization, and we are passing the torch. the way we are and the forms we take dictate the future that all people and generations receive.
so, to return to the question that brought us here: what does it mean to be alçentian today, in this world?
the alçentian takes full responsibility for their song — for the power and privilege afforded to their existence, and their role in the mutual composition of life itself.
in other words, the alçentian owns their part in the Conversation That Lies Beneath — the conversation that is the total unfolding of our existence.
practically speaking, this means many different things to countless people and I can see several essays if I follow the thread of that question: How does one take full responsibility for their existence? what does it look like to own your part in the conversation of life? (i’ll return to these later).
basically, I believe these are values questions - questions that ask you to understand your deeper reason for being, the deeper WHY of life — what makes it all worth it to you?
I believe the Inheritance question is a good place to start, if you’d like to make this inquiry into your Self. “What is your inheritance?” is powerful because it places you in the context of the multigenerational chain of humanity, and it recognizes just how much you have received in concrete terms.
consciously looking at your inheritance illustrates how much privilege you have been afforded (or not afforded) relative to the rest of the world. this can create clarity of purpose and generate a groundswell of gratitude to guide you into a deeper embrace of life, with you co-creating the composition of your dreams alongside all those who you meet.
so, one more time: what does it mean to be alçentian today, in this world?
the alçentian is an eco-soulcentric identity that recognizes all life as One, and knows the individual Self to be fulcrum of existence and an instrument of beauty.
in other words, the alçentian says, “this body and my lifespan is a gift of divinity. there is a reason I am here, and I dedicate this life to living as the fullest expression of myself. i am made of love, and we are here to be together”.
- river