People sometimes feel some kind of shame about their incapacity, imperfection, weakness or limitation but really there is no need for this. This shame may be something that as a culture we need to leave behind. Its because of our incapacity, our weakness, our limitation that community is possible.

Posted on by earthbaseddreaming

People sometimes feel some kind of shame about their incapacity, imperfection, weakness or limitation but really there is no need for this. This shame may be something that as a culture we need to leave behind. Its because of our incapacity, our weakness, our limitation that community is possible. Community is possible because we can’t do it all by ourselves, exist by ourselves; we can’t exist as only separate atomized individuals, we evolved to be community orientated beings mutually supporting each other. We may need to be vulnerable enough to reach out and ask to be supported by others, or to reach out and support others.

The ‘gap’ of our grief, our limitation or incapacity or weakness is the also the space which opens us up to mutual aid and community and also to love and compassion. You can’t ever get rid of this gap of vulnerability. Following in the wake of an attempt to get rid of this gap of vulnerability are all the horrors of history: wars, ecocide and empire. All of these horrors and dysfunctions are a ultimately futile attempt to cover up our incapacity, grief and weakness and the ecological connection field of love that it creates.

Cultures which measure of worth by our perfection, capacity and effectiveness alone are those which are determined to wall themselves off from nature, from decay and from life. These are also cultures, or parts of cultures, which are doomed to decay and fail, as the horror of separation and atomisation they engender drives them to self destruction. Cultures, or parts of cultures which embrace incapacity, imperfection, ineffectiveness, inefficiency, decay, death, wyrdness, strangeness and otherness are those that will flourish into a density of connection, abundance and beauty.

A perfectly invulnerable person would be incapable of creating community and incapable of love. Our love comes when we see someone else’s weakness and grief and we reach out to help them. Community appears when we are compelled to reach out in need by our own incapacity, ineffectiveness or weakness. Reaching out in need and in brokenness is not something to be ashamed of or to cast aside. Reaching out to support others in their vulnerability is what creates community. It may restore our whole culture and our whole ecological being if we practice it. It may carry us across the abyss and bring about the forest garden abundant ecovillage networks of the ancient future