spirituality

With the release of my significantly revised, new edition of Think Like a Commoner: A Short Introduction to the Life of the Commons, I've had a chance to start some new conversations and engage with different communities of practice. Recently, the Garrison Institute, a retreat center for contemplation and social action in the Hudson Valley of New York State, invited me to write a short essay about the interconnectedness of all living beings and how commons can serve as vehicles for manifesting that idea. Below is my piece, "Crossing the Commons: From Inner Change to Systemic Change," which first appeared on the Garrison Institute website.

“Be the change you want to see in the world!” is the familiar counsel of great social movements. The advice echoes the lyric from the great African-American song, “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine!” 

But how, exactly, might our inner epiphanies and transformations catalyze systemic change? We may individually develop new insights and values from wisdom traditions and contemplative practice, but how might they radiate out into something larger, collective, and consequential?

At this particular moment in modern civilization, as societies grapple with climate change, savage inequalities, and authoritarian rule, the pathways for bringing about change seem terribly murky. Our political life seems stuck at philosophical and practical impasses and paralyzed by failures of the imagination. It’s not clear what organizations, movements or cultural voices may actually have the capacities to fulfill our yearnings for a better world.  What strategies and approaches might be effective?

I've always been fascinated by the striking affinities between commoners and Indigenous peoples, as well as their significant differences. Both are keenly aware of life as a deeply relational phenomenon -- one that Western capitalism, science, and market culture don't really understand. Both see commoning as a baseline for mindful living and presence, a process that can help transform the world in positive directions. 

And yet, while Western and Indigenous commoners share many values and practices, native cultures have subtle traditions and understandings that go back centuries, often millennia. They've grappled with some very different and dire challenges, including generations of horrific settler colonialism, genocide, and other traumas. Not surprisingly, Indigenous cultures are determined to reconstruct their cultures and, with the help of moderns willing to listen, heal the Earth. 

So while ancient and modern commoners may share a disdain for capitalism, ancient wisdom traditions bring much more gravitas and insight to the challenges we face than, say, politicians and political parties. That's certainly hopeful because personal transformation and cosmological narratives can be catalytic and lead to much-needed, broader transformation. There's a need for new bridges between Indigenous and Western ways of knowing. Humans will need to ground themselves in the Earth if they're going to learn how to arrest the planet's climate breakdown, and live more fully.

For all these reasons, I was excited to talk about these topics with Yuria Celidwen  on my latest episode of my Frontiers of Commoning podcast (Episode #57). Celidwen is an Indigenous scholar whom I met two years ago at the Garrison Institute, a center for contemplative practice in the Hudson Valley in New York State that also seeks to spur transformative social action.