"If a seed has to grow with a rock on top of it, or in deep shade, or without enough water, it won't unfold into a healthy full-sized plant. It will try - hard - because the drive to become what you were meant to be is incredibly powerful. But at best it will become a sort of ghost of what it could be: pale, undersized, drooping...

"In the age of ecology, we ourselves are the only creature we would ever expect to flourish in an environment that does not give us what we need! We wouldn't order a spider to spin an exquisite web in empty space, or a seed to sprout on a bare desk top. And yet that is exactly what we have been demanding of ourselves."

Since my adolescence (I'm now 40) I've been on a hesitant but dogged quest, following a glimmering about my purpose in life. Part of the quest has been the struggle of articulating my ambitions plainly and vividly. Here's one summing up: I am called to develop a culture that functions as a greenhouse for human liberation. I've largely pursued this calling by living in Intentional Communities(aka "communes"). Such Communities have served me well as social laboratories: places to experiment with others in the adventure of creating a more just and beautiful society. Gradually over my years of exploration my understanding of the nature of this project has deepened. I've developed greater faith and clarity. With that clarity comes a need to more boldly sing out my vision. Like a Canadian goose feeling the irresistible urge to make its long migration, I hunger to"rally the troops" for the great journey. Wild geese are renowned for their impassioned honking. It's impossible to hear them trumpeting through the air without feeling stirred. Researchers have discovered that this honking serve several purposes: a goose honks to summon the flock for the journey. Geese also honk while in flight to encourage each other onward. Think of this paper as one goose's honking.

Two terms help me further articulate this vision of cultural evolution. The first is ensemble. In my lexicon, an "ensemble" is group of people who share a creative endeavor: a string quartet, a football team, a business endeavor, a construction crew...each of these can(but won't necessarily) be ensembles. An ensemble is characterized less by what it does than by how it functions. An ensemble synergizes: the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Each member more fully realizes their creative potential through their participation. Furthermore, the members of an ensemble share more than a project or an art form. In a healthy ensemble there is a common sensibility, an ethic that guides creative process and day to day functioning. (I like the term "ethic": it implies values that actually inform and govern our actions. "Ideals" and "beliefs", on the other hand, often have a more tenuous relationship with what we actually do.) I sense there are timeless qualities embodied in the ethics of all fruitful ensembles. I'm talking about fundamentals like:
-a commitment to maintaining rapport;
-clear agreements around quality standards and time commitments- showing up for practice sessions regularly and on time, etc.
-a commitment to creatively working with conflict
-clear standards of accountability.
In the early stages of an ensemble's existence such commitments may be very deliberately spelled out and discussed. If all goes well these commitments become habits, intrinsic parts of a group's ethic and culture. They may only rarely be talked about, but they are constantly embodied.

The second key term for me is sangha. Sangha is a Buddhist term for a community of people who share a practice, a way of life dedicated to awakening and healing. Belonging to a sangha is said to be a precious opportunity, for the likelihood of realizing enlightenment (or of "self actualizing", if you're leery of spiritual terminology) is much greater when people practice and journey together. (There's a saying that's common in the Korean Zen tradition: "Let's all become Buddhas together!") While I think the Buddhist path has much to offer, I use the term "sangha" in a generic sense. In my vocabulary, a sangha is any group that shares a practice dedicated towards the liberation and empowerment of each participant. There are many ways to freedom. Different people need different tools in different contexts. Thus I use "sangha" in a broader sense. One might find one's sangha in an affinity group, an Outward Bound training, a political action group, or a Rave. (I've heard of a drummers' group that calls itself the Conga Sangha!) Like an ensemble, a healthy sangha must share an inspired ethic if it is to sustain itself and evolve over time. Part of a sangha's ethic is a dedication to pass on to others the tools and insights that it has found beneficial. (If taken overboard this dedication can become obnoxious proselytizing. I find the Buddhist ethic exemplary in this respect. Buddhist "missionaries" have tended to only go where they're invited. There's never been a Buddhist holy war.)

One day, in a fit of inspiration, I realized these two terms could be swirled into one: Ensangha! The word is a natural marriage of "ensemble" and "sangha" in both sound and meaning. My passion is to help build groups that embody this marriage: communities dedicated to cultivating awakening and beauty together. In addition, an Ensangha embraces the larger labor of creating a culture that can be imparted to others, a culture that endures beyond a single lifetime. (Buddhism is inspiring in this respect as well. After 2500 years, the Buddha's insights into how to live a saner life are still being shared and renewed.)

In my journey towards Ensangha, this advice offered by poet David Whyte has been helpful: to discover your calling, notice what is most intensely missing in your life. For several decades now, I've steeped in patterns of alienation while relentlessly imagining a culture founded on noble commitments to spiritual transformation. I've been something of an armchair alchemist who's studied all the necessary procedures and principles of his art but is frozen by his fear of a test tube blowing up in his face. Thus, the experience of ensangha is what's most intensely missing in my life! My predicament: the ethic of ensangha building is incompatible with the ingrained ethic I developed in my childhood: the ethic of guardedness, scarcity and procrastination. Still, though I've yet to participate in a fully realized ensangha, I have had enough tastes of it to sustain my faith that its possibility...

As I said, over the years I've quested hither and yon in the Intentional Communities movement, looking for other aspiring ensangha-ists to join forces with in the joyous labor of sculpting a culture of awakening. I've learned lots, been frustrated lots, and have many times searched for greener pastures. I'm intimate with the pendulum swings of the spirit: One moment I'm a soaring visionary that overestimates what's possible and underestimates the limitations in a situation. Then comes meeting the brick wall of my fear and/or the indifference of others. With that, the pendulum swings to the equally unbalanced cynicism that overestimates the difficulties and underestimates the possibilities. Much of the art of living consists in navigating the tides of pessimism and optimism. By embracing the difficulty of the journey and cultivating persistence, I'm gradually discovering a passage through the wilderness. The ensangha I envision doesn't exist, at last not in the circles that I move in. I am called to begin building it myself, knowing that by myself I am utterly inadequate to the task. As the saying goes: "Nobody can do it for you and you can't do it by yourself."

So, in my years in the trenches of community I've tinkered along ever more boldly in the art of ensangha building. Over the past 7 years, as a member of Twin Oaks Community in Virginia (a Kibbutz-like secular community of about 100 folks), I've started a meditation group, conscious relationship groups, have led various community building initiatives and (most wonderfully of all) have been blessed to create a family with my wife Cleo and son Adrian. Still, I'm often quite frustrated and discouraged with the results I'm getting. A big part of my problem seems to be that I don't reliably embody some qualities needed to grow a vital ensangha: directness, forthrightness, faith, integrity, and willingness to be in conflict. I'm more adept at embodying indirectness, procrastination, despair and indecision. I must admit that I often don't function very well as a model of a good ensemble member. Thus I haven't been effective yet in inspiring others to practice the ethic needed for an ensangha to blossom. (On the other hand, there are some qualities I do embody well. I'm compassionate, a good listener, imaginative, humble, dogged, perceptive, open to criticism. But to truly be well employed, these qualities need to be joined with the qualities I lack.)

Yet my hunger for Ensangha has become even more acute since the birth of my son Adrian, who's now 2 years old. The innocence and openness he embodies are electrifying! (To see for yourself....click here. ) Realizing that all humans are born with such earnest passion is both inspiring and dismaying! Most of us make it to "adulthood" with our original ecstasy torn into tatters or perverted into addiction. How could the stunting of the human spirit be so universal? At times I find myself looking ahead to Adrian's growing up with trepidation and dismay. There's so much of the mainstream culture I don't want him to be shaped by: Junk food, narrow mindedness, macho attitudes, possessiveness.... These all strike me as cultural viruses waiting to hijack his impressionable consciousness. I want to protect him, create an environment that offers him a more wholesome cultural diet to grow up on. I want him to be grow up in a culture that draws out his inherent generosity, courage, reverence for life. Yet even in this "Utopian" context, pervasive patterns of mainstream culture are still common and infectious. While Twin Oaks is relatively free of the nastiest cultural strains of gluttony, domination, and alienation, weaker (and subtler) strains still are common here. The vision of a liberated society is often overshadowed by the ingrained cultural patterns we bring with us. So, here in what may appear to be Ecotopia, I worry about how to protect Adrian from unhealthy patterns and values.

I've realized that my desire to create a perfectly nurturing greenhouse of Utopia for Adrian is futile. Nowadays my aim is to "inoculate" him a benign, resilient cultural strain. Here's a metaphor: Human cultures are akin to yogurt or cheese cultures. Whereas yogurt cultures grow in milk, ripening it into a refreshing piquant custard, human cultures colonize consciousness, transforming our very awareness to their own ends. There are beneficial bacterial cultures that live in our intestines. They help us digest foods and displace any toxic microbes looking for a roost. Beneficial human cultures live in our consciousness. They help us digest experiences and remain free of unhealthy cultural parasites (patterns of greed, envy, apathy, etc.). A truly benign human culture needs to be contageous, spreading to those who come in contact with it.... (If cultural diseases are contageous but health is not, the world's prospects are not good.) Nourished by such a culture we can venture forth in the world with confidence in our health, with the assurance of an evangelist who has nothing to prove, who lets the truth sell itself. (I use the term "evangelist" in the sense of its root meaning: "a bearer of good news".) Sounds great, you may say, but how? Consider these words of Cheri Huber (from her book Turning Towards Happiness):

Let's imagine we are a group of people who decide they are going to "save the world" - not because we should, not because we believe there is anything wrong with the world, but simply because we want to. We might decide that what we want to accomplish is helping orphans in Ethiopia: we will feed and clothe them and provide them with medical care and education.

Now, in taking this on as our project, there are a couple rules we will adopt: one, we cannot blame anybody else, and two we cannot involve anybody else. In other words we have to take complete responsibility. Our first act then, is not to notify government authorities of their negligence and suggest how much money they should give us to solve the problem.

The motivation for us lies within our own spiritual practice. We suspect that doing this kind of thing is a lot more rewarding than going to a job that we don't like because it pays us a lot of money.

As we pursue this project we get very excited and enthusiastic about it. That attracts other people; they can see that what we are doing is more fun than what they are doing. Then they want to get involved with our project, so we teach them the two rules and let them play, too.

This is a great expression of the art of infectiousness. The phrase "a project to save the world" expresses a very "Western" sensibility. In Buddhist culture such a project might be named a "project to enlighten all Sentient Beings". In contemporary lingo we might call it a vehicle for facilitating the planet's evolutionary paradigm shift. In any case, the work/play is the same: to wholeheartedly engage in the world as it is, in the spirit of service. I sense it's the most rewarding way one can live.

As I said, I've been seeking to develop such a project for years, but have rarely felt very effective at it. Recently I've started using juggling as a tool in this project. "Juggling?", you ask. Let me explain by way of a story....

I learned to juggle when I was 24. I'd long been enchanted by jugglers' magical ability to keep objects aloft in a graceful pattern of timeless movement. I'd tried a few times to learn to juggle as a teenager, but after several anxious and abortive attempts in gym classes I decided juggling was just another of those activities that I wasn't cut out for. But in the aftermath of the unraveling and collapsing my first marriage, my identity under major revision, I was ripe for a fundamental overhaul of my self-definition. I was ready to shed the weight of all the things I "couldn't" do and felt a revolutionary possibility in the impulse to learn juggling. I'd been sparked by a "how to" book that spelled out a step by step approach for beginners. On a warm spring afternoon on a grassy lawn I earnestly undertook those steps. After a couple hours of intensive effort I broke through! I was able to keep three beanbags afloat in a gracious cascade. I was thrilled! I quickly went on to learn a variety of juggling "tricks". I was especially excited when I learned to "pass": joining with another juggler to create patterns in which six bags were kept afloat between us. I became a juggling evangelist, eager to help others throw aside the shackles of their self-limitation and realize that they too could experience juggling's ecstatic flow . I was determined to find the easiest, most engaging method for teaching and learning juggling. I had great success. I discovered how to teach a beginner to juggle in 15 to 30 minutes. More importantly, that half hour would be filled with laughter and interpersonal electricity. The secret was to start by teaching novices to juggle as partners (using a little known pattern in which two people weave 5 balls back and forth between their 4 hands) before they learned to juggle alone. Having a partner in the learning process makes the "learning curve" much more enjoyable, enhances focus and fosters a sense of community.

Somewhere along the way I lost interest in juggling. I didn't connect that well with the juggling culture I usually encountered. Most jugglers I met were more into athleticism and advanced stunts than conscious evolution thru ensangha building. My time in "mainstream" juggling groups led me to realize that juggling in itself wasn't what excited me. I was hungry for the evolution of consciousness that juggling can be a vehicle for. But I lacked the chutzpah to start my own juggling culture, a juggling ensangha. I turned my interest towards activities that seemed more explicitly "transformational": meditation, hospice work, Sufi dancing....

But recently I recalled an episode from my time with a small community I helped found in California. There was a stretch of time in which the 4 of us came together each evening to juggle beanbags for 15 or 30 minutes. We were learning to create passing patterns together. It was a major boost to our morale and group dynamics to regularly share the experience of laughing together, screwing up together, and being graceful and coordinated together. When circumstances changed and we became "too busy" to have regular time for juggling, group process became more strained. A social lubrication was missing. Eventually I parted with this group, feeling parched by our lack of rapport, thirsty for a context in which I might more readily develop impassioned partnerships (i. e., create ensangha). Am I suggesting that things would have turned out differently if we'd only kept juggling? Not quite. I'm saying that a group that aspires towards ensangha needs an ongoing practice that builds and sustains a foundation of trust, atunement, patience and good humor.

Recalling this episode has sparked me to experiment again with juggling as a "cultural laboratory" for developing an infectuously healthy consciousness. Cleo and I have been teaching classes (at Twin Oaks and beyond) in "Juggling and the Way of Flow". We use the art of juggling to demonstrate and transmit healthier approaches to learning and relationships. We're working to translate the lessons of juggling into diverse contexts: conflict resolution, union organizing, community building, citizen diplomacy (juggling transcends all language barriers). It's often said that how we do things is as important as what we do. In our classes we use juggling as a context for practicing a "how" that embodies qualities such as mindfulness, persistence, attunement, nonjudgment, playfulness, humility.

Let me elaborate on some of the precepts of an ensangha ethic we're developing through juggling. Cultivating these qualities (and noticing when we lack them) is the key to making juggling a potent tool for transformation.

• 1st, an intention to be mindful, to being sharply aware of the moment to moment experience of juggling: noticing any tensions developing in the body, noticing the flight paths of our tosses and the sound of the bean bags landing in our hands. Mindful awareness perceives the world directly, without judgment. I like to think of the attitude of mindfulness being embodied by a naturalist who goes into the forest to study ecology. To truly understand the forest, the naturalist lets go of preferring the mouse to the owl, or the fox to the rabbit. Instead he or she focuses on understanding the interplay between the two. Similarly a synergistic juggler does not gnash teeth at the dropping of bags or tense up in resolve to GET IT RIGHT. Rather she maintains a focused curiosity for the learning process.
• 2nd, an intention to attune with one's juggling partner, cultivating a shared "presence" and sense of alliance in this learning adventure. (To be fully present with another person is really one of the most terrifying and  fascinating things one can do.) This intention is strengthened by the practice of the Jugglers' "salute":at the beginning of a round of juggling two (or more) jugglers make eye contact and raise their forearms simultaneously (bending at the elbows), their hands (holding the juggling objects) almost touching the shoulders. This salute serves the practical function of insuring a synchronized start to the juggling. For us it has become the jugglers' version of the Zen bow.

• -3rd, an intention to practice "easygoing excellence", choosing and aspiring to create gorgeous arcs when we toss the bags to each other. Often our tosses will not be gracious, and that's fine. (Often it's even hilarious, equaling some of Charlie Chaplin's finest moments!) By patiently maintaining the aspiration to be gracious, we steadily move in the direction of greater beauty (and greater hilarity). Our motto is "You're only as gracious as you imagine and aspire to be" (There are scientific studies that have shown that a person who regularly and vividly imagines shooting perfect free throws on a basketball court will improve in their ability almost as much as someone who actually practices free throws for the same length of time! Imagination and aspiration have power!)
• 4th, an intention to co-coach each other, offering caring feedback and reminders to each other, being mirrors for each other.
• 5th, an intention to cultivate perseverance. Part of the richness of juggling is the frustration sometimes involved in the learning. "How many times will I have to pick up that bean bag?!!" Juggling with a group can be a wondrous way to practice the art of sustainable persistence. The American Zen Master Calvin Coolidge said, "Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not, nothing is more common than unsuccessful [people] with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent." This is true as far as it goes but it leaves out the fact that persistence is a hell of a lot easier when it's practiced in the context of an ensangha.

So to round it all out: We're working with juggling as a metaphor and a tool for ensangha-ing. Ensangha-ing in turn can be seen as a tool for "buddha-ing". The term "Buddha" literally means "one who is awake", so buddha-ing is a matter of awakening our innate but usually dormant potential, i.e., our innate generosity, nobility, courage and compassion.

My hunch is that if "buddha-ing" could be presented in as accessable a manner as I've learned to make juggling, there'd be a lot more buddha-ing going on. Instead buddha-ing seems at least as esoteric and elusive as juggling does to most people. Buddhas are revered like concert pianists. We all admire their mastery but few of us consider the possibility of realizing such ability ourselves. However, the instrument Buddhas play is awareness itself, in its moment to momentunfolding. That's an instrument we all play, one way or another. As M.C. Richards wrote: "All the arts we practice are apprenticeship. The big art is our life."

So, ensangha-ing makes buddha-ing more fun and accessible. Just as you'll learn juggling much faster if you practice with another juggler- even one who's no better than you (providing you both understand the sequence of stages that need to be followed, and are committed to practicing the ensangha ethic)- you'll grow in the art of awakening consciousness much more fluidly if you have co-practitioners.

But wait, there's more! Juggling is only a piece of the puzzle, a strand in the web that I'm seeking to weave. What I'm ultimately angling to create is:

The Carnival's statement of purpose might go something like this:

Our lives and times are calling: tugging, coaxing and provoking us all towards community, towards waking up together and applying our inborn gifts in service to life. We are invited to join with each other in harnessing our strongest passions towards the creation of a more just, sane and beautiful society. We are called, but the world does not currently provide many contexts for realizing that yearning that's been planted in us. The Healing Carnival exists to discover and propagate the principles and skills that help us to respond fully to this call.

A description of the Carnival:

Our center is a new sort of social organism, evolving in the mutifaceted manner evoked by Marshall Savage's description of what he calls "the Foundation" in his book The Millennial Project: "Understanding what the Foundation is, requires first understanding what it is not: It is certainly not a church or a religion, although it has its roots in our numinous relationship with the Cosmos; it is not a political party, although it embodies the kernel of an entirely new approach to self-governance; it is not a country, although the people of the Foundation will be forming nothing less than a new nation; it is not a company, although the activities of the Foundation create net revenues which are used to further our purposes; it is not a charity, although people outside the structure of the organization contribute to it, and many in need will benefit from it, it is not a commune, although people in its core live and work in close, if not to say organic cooperation; it is not anything which social scientists have heretofore captured, chloroformed, pinned, and classified. It is an entirely new species of social butterfly."

The Healing Carnival is dedicated to discovering and disseminating the art and science of human liberation for the benefit of all beings. We are a school for practicing the arts of becoming fully alive. We conduct our studies through such vehicles as:

*Work Ensanghas: In all aspects of the Institute's functioning, work teams cultivate a strong esprit de corps. Each team develops an ethic that reflects the central values of its members. Teams ongoingly envision and execute projects in their areas and in coordination with other teams that enhance the well being of the community. The cooking ensangha, for example, shares an ethic that expresses both how they cook and what sort of meals they cook: Process and Product. The cooking ensangha has:

-Set a goal to create meals that were nourishing to body, palate, and community.

-Agreed to give each other constructive feedback and coaching on our efforts to embody this mission and goals.

-Created a "kitchen culture" that ongoingly trains new cooks in the art of practicing this ethic.

*Musical ensanghas: working with musical forms such as Round singing and African Marimba music that allow people of a wide range of musical backgrounds to experience the profound connection that can be generated in making music together

*Mindfulness Meditation ensanghas practice daily sitting and walking meditation, organize regular days of mindfulness, and offer meditation instruction both within and outside of the institute.

*Juggling Ensanghas: .

There are also working labs that study specific approaches to ensangha building and paradigm shifting, such as:

-The Art of Flow: The concept of "Flow" was developed by Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi [pronounced CHICK sent me high ee], most powerfully in his book The Evolving Self. The notion of "flow" grew out of years of research on happiness and optimal experiences. Czikszentmihalyi found that all over the world, people describe their most rewarding experiences in the same ways. Whether one runs with a motorcycle gang or does astrophysics research, there are universal elements to our most savored experiences. Elements such as: having a clear goal in each moment, having ample opportunities to act on those goals, having a good balance between one's skill and the difficulty of the activity one is engaged in. When all of these qualities are present, one has a Flow experience. A sense of timelessness, a loss of self-consciousness, a strong sense of focus and total absorption in one's activity develops. The desire for Flow is as fundamental as the desire for food and water. As with food, we can fulfill that desire in healthy and unhealthy ways. There's junk food Flow and organically grown Flow. (When I was a teenager a major context of flow for me was playing pinball. I knew it wasn't a good use of time. But I lacked access to or knowledge of a better context in which I could experience that delicious sense of utterly focused absorption. So I became a pinball addict.) Most people tend to settle on a few hobbies or addictions through which they experience Flow. Czikszentmihalyi has shown that creating Flow experiences in diverse circumstances, even in times of pain and loss, is a learn-able skill. (He calls it the development of a "Flow personality".) The Art of Flow "Laboratory" systematically studies and cultivates the elements and skills needed to create flow experience in all aspects of our lives.

-The Ecology of Courage: Courage is not a matter of steel nerves or jut jawed resolve. It is a function of a person's sense of connection to life's web. It grows as we cultivate inspiration, commitment and camaraderie with kindred spirits. This lab is a hands on exploration of the dynamics that govern the openings and closings of our hearts and minds. In this laboratory participants share a commitment to midwifing each others' empassionment, to practicing heart to heart resuscitation for the benefit of all beings! We work with ropes courses, theatre games and co-coaching each other through the rapids of our lives.

"Students", "faculty", and "staff" at the Carnival exist as a continuum. There's no telling here where the students end and the faculty begin. A person might come to the institute for a 3-week taste of ensanghaing or a 4-year in depth program. A student could gradually evolve into a lifetime member.

On the physical level we are working to realize the vision of an Eco-village, practicing the arts of living in harmony with nature, with Gaia's ensangha.

Our vision and ethic are well evoked in the ideal of a learning organization. "What's a learning organization" you ask? Here's a colorful description adapted from the 5th Discipline Fieldbook by Peter Senge, et al.:

In a learning organization:

- People feel they're doing something that matters- to them personally and to the larger world.

-Every member is somehow stretching, growing, or enhancing their capacity to create.

-People are more intelligent together than they are apart. If you want to get something really creative done you ask a team to do it.

-The community continually becomes more aware of its underlying resource base- particularly the store of tacit, unarticulated knowledge and passion in the hearts and minds of its members.

-Vision of the community direction emerges from all quarters. The responsibility of planners is to manage a process whereby individuals' emerging visions become shared visions.

-Members are invited to learn what is going on in every aspect of the community, so they can understand how their actions influence others.

-People feel free to inquire about others' and their own assumptions and biases. There are few, if any, sacred cows or undiscussable subjects.

-People treat each other as comrades. There's a mutual respect and trust in the way that they talk to each other, and work together, no matter what their position may be.

-People feel free to try experiments, take risks, and openly assess results.

Enough already (for now)! Have I evoked enough of this vision to spark your enthusiasm or curiosity? Please let me know about your own experiences and aspirations in the adventure of ensangha building. Are there questions or collaborative possibilities that emerge in your mind? Drop us a line, give us a ring.

For more thinking about useful precepts in an ensangha's ethic, read my article Intentional Relationships.