Our convenient cultural fictions have ruptured.

We’re at a threshold. It might be different than you think.

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”

— Maya Angelou

Our trust in our convenient cultural fictions, as well as our institutions, has ruptured and is going, going, gone. Current events keep exposing that increasing rupture.

On Jan. 20^th Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney gave a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos. He said we’re in the middle of a rupture, then clearly spoke truth to power. I especially like these excerpts from his speech:

• “We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false.

• “This fiction was useful.

• “We participated in the rituals.

• “And largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality.

• “This bargain no longer works.”

In this collective rupturing, some of our cultural fictions are becoming exposed and (hopefully) less convenient. Here are a few I see:

• Humans are apart from nature, not a part of nature.

• Competition, not cooperation, is the primary and dominant way the world works.

• Some humans are “better” and have more rights than other humans or other beings, including nature.

What are some others you’re spotting?

We’re at a threshold on multiple levels. On the external level are the obvious ones: climate/earth, financial/economic, political, social, relationships, community. On a more fundamental level are ones like beliefs, identity, meaning, worldview, paradigm.

In The Gate Between Worlds Angell Deer writes:

“. . . the myths that once held us together are dissolving. And yet the new world has not fully arrived. . . the old structures still cast their shadow but no longer offer shelter, and the new (old) ways are still seedlings, fragile and tender. . . This is the danger of unmarked thresholds: without conscious crossing, we get stuck in perpetual limbo. . . . We adapt to the hallway, forgetting that we were meant to pass through it, not live there. . . The threshold . . . is a sacred and necessary place for a time . . . It is a place for listening, for gathering strength, for deciding what you will carry forward and what you will lay down . . . The threshold will keep you safe from the danger of the new, but it will also keep you safe from the life you were meant to live. . . maybe the real work of decolonization is building a life we don’t need a break from?”

Three questions I invite you to consider as we face this threshold. It's a good idea to think of each of them from both the individual and cultural/collective perspective:

1)     Who must I (we) become to live fully in the world I (we) say we want to step into?

2)     What must I (we) lay down so I (we) can step across with coherence and integration?

3)     What must I (we) embrace to allow and embody this transformation?

How are you doing with this rupture and threshold?