We have become so accustomed to social fragmentation,
so accustomed to individualisation -
we just don´t miss The Feeling of Tribe.
We don´t long for it.
We don´t long for each other.
We don´t long to be close to each other -
to travel as-a-community through life.
We agree, intellectually, on the need
for decentralised, nature-based, conscious, caring community -
but we don´t feel it!
Our guts aren´t churning with longing.
We are not desperate for it.
And radical social evolution isn´t driven by the intellect,
it´s driven by guts that churn!
We visualise disenfranchised, indigenous peoples,
addicted to alcohol, meths and glue -
uprooted from the deep soulfulness of their ancestral traditions -
rotting on reservations.
We don´t understand that we are those indigenous peoples -
that we ourselves have been separated from the land,
and each other -
from our own ancestral stories and songs and seasonal celebrations -
from our own ways of giving birth and honouring tbe dead -
separated from our dignity.
It is somehow unclear to us that we have been domesticated,
and set to work on tasks without meaning -
that we have been individualised -
that we have been addicted to superficial escapism -
and that the cities are our reservations.
We don´t miss the birdsong at dawn,
because we haven´t heard it for generations.
We don´t miss the unbreakable bonds of siblinghood,
because they´ve been shattered for generations.
We don´t feel the need to make a passionate stand for all that says "yes!" to life,
because we´ve been comfortably numb for generations.
II
And yet, and yet -
here I am writing about it!
Despite it all -
echoes of The Feeling of Tribe reach us nonetheless.
Odd, long-forgotten, familiar smells reach us,
reminding us of something we can´t quite place...
Sometimes it´s on the dance floor...
Sometimes we feel the music moving us all -
and for a while, we know -
we are one.
Sometimes we attend a self-development workshop.
People are so open, transparent, vulnerable...
We see ourselves in each other -
and we are a tribe,
for a weekend.
You will, of course, have your own memories -
times when you too, for a while, felt and knew
The Feeling of Tribe...
Yet whether because of the exhaustion of the everyday,
or the impersonality of city life,
or the pressure to attend to other priorities -
we don´t yearn for Our Tribe.
We don´t miss that depth of existential intimacy.
We´ve become accustomed
to shallow and separate lives.
We have forgotten the beauty of deep belonging.
We have forgotten the gloriousness -
the freedom.
We have forgotten the togetherness, the love.
We have forgotten the joy of shared meaning and purpose...
So how do we remember?
By forming a Tribe!
How else to awaken The Feeling of Tribe -
other than by becoming one?
*
This post is taken from the third edition of "Love & Revolution",
due out this October.
For now you can download the first seven chapters for free here:
Then in October you´ll be able to download the whole book for free,
or buy it as a paperback (at cost of print and post).
We´re also working on a Audiobook of “Love & Revolution”
which will be available for free, as soon as possible.
Stay in touch by signing up for the blog here:
Mark Josephs,
"Mark the Mystic Activist"
Aragon, Spain
Autumn/Fall, 2024
Image by Phunke Pixie
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