I received this video from my wonderful Dances of Universal Peace mentor Darvesha last night. But, though inspiring, it also made me pause; indeed, made me positively uneasy!

From the point of view of unitary consciousness, and if consciousness (and not matter) is fundamental, then indeed it IS unitary, “we are all the same.”

However, I can imagine idealists (such as myself, formerly) who want to erase all political and geopolitical borders using this argument, and that’s what gives me pause.

What happens, I ask, when we mush everyone together and refuse to allow for individuality? Not just on a personal  basis, but inside the partnership,  family, neighborhood, town, region, nation state, etc?

Borders are important! They strengthen polarities, which run this 3D world. For me, the aim is to recognize, honor and integrate (face, embrace, erase) each and every polarity, contradiction, paradox. For me, the aim, always, is to learn to occupy the infinite space between any two poles.

We westerners who were raised to be capitalists are conditioned to not just prefer individuality, but to crush all attempts at community if they encroach upon our own self-interest.  “Do your thing,” as we hippies used to say. But even here there exists polarity, that between the mysterious inside of oneself and one’s outside “identity,” or “self-image. And inevitably, much of who we are inside remains in shadow, the deep, and ultimately unfathomable unconscious aspect of the mind, that seeks, through projection, to learn about itself. We are here to throw light on shadow, to learn more about ourselves by recognizing and taking back, projections. And we are here to inhabit the shadow’s nourishing womb that continues to feed us, in dreams and in imagination. BOTH. As usual.

In contrast, those raised to be socialists (communists), are conditioned to think: community. “All for one and one for all.” While this attitude is laudable in theory, encouraging selflessness and viewing all beings as of equal value, in practice it means that excellence is neither recognized or rewarded, so why push yourself to accomplish? Might as well just sit back and exist on “hand-outs.”

No wonder capitalism is so damn dynamic! It forces people to get off their hind ends and risk everything! How else can we discover the depth of our own capacities unless we dare to run headlong into the unknown?

And yet capitalism can be so mean, rapacious, viewing everything outside the self as food.

Socialism can be mean too, ruthlessly crushing individuality in the interests of — what? The state, the bureaucracy? Then, just who decides how we all shall live? A philosopher-king? The lowest common denominator? No thank you.

The point is, once again,  polarity: individuality and community, not one or the other. Somehow we have to learn to work with both, balancing and rebalancing, over and over. The situation is not static, but ever dynamic, dangerous, and full of promise — or it can be, for those who dare to occupy the infinite space between polarities.

Notice, even in the video with morphing faces — and I can imagine this enlarging to include ET faces as well as animal faces: even so, each time the shift morphs, dissolves, into . . .  another face! Another bright, intense, soulful focused channel for the awareness, the LOVE, that pervades, fills and fuels, the cosmos.

Nature is our Teacher. She works with polarities, borders, edges. Indeed, from a permaculture perspective, “the edge is where the action is,” i.e., more species intermingle at the borders, bringing more energy to the edge, whether it be the edge of a pond, a leaf, a cell, or a field where it meets the forest — stimulating increased aliveness, resilience. Without edges, borders, everything does mush together, and aliveness recedes.

Another polarity: this one between the life that concentrates at any edge and the relative absence of life as the edge dissolves.

Check this out. In the top photo, for example, see how the trees bend away from each other, leave room for each other?