This week I've been working with the new-to-me concept of Entelechy. Aristotle said the Entelechy of the acorn is the majestic and ancient oak tree, one that has shaded generations. We each also have an Entelechy that draws us forward in time into our fullest flowering. To try this on, spend a half hour with your eyes closed, envisioning this self as vividly as possible. And then begin to ask them questions - what do I need to know now, begin to practice, in order to become my fullest flowering?
I'm beginning to recognize there is also a reverse-time-stream version of Entelechy, which is myself now to my past self of say, three decades ago. And how we can heal inter-generational trauma now, in a way that reached back in time and forward in time. Perhaps a topic to explore later.
What does all this Entelechy business have to do with what you have written? What draws me about Solnit, and Kimmerer, and others writings that you have referenced over time is that they are pointing to a kind of Societal or Communal Entelechy. The fullest flowering of our aggregate selves, if each of us individually could simply be open to becoming our fullest selves. And how naturally we default to that mode of tend and befriend when the curtain of daily illusions is torn back by disaster or disruption. We are living in such a time, and may we use it as an opportunity to manifest what is best in ourselves, with each other, and with the world.
As well, your above regarding the forest being one enormous and multivariate superorganism - as usual science when it goes deep enough emerges through the other side with mystic truths. Buckminster Fuller would be right at home here. We are, as a planet, a superorganism, radically interdependent whether we like it or not. And ideally that recognition should lead to our becoming radically reciprocal. Our rabid denial or terror of that reality of interdependence is the original wound. So now we are back to the themes from last issue, of how best to support and practice re-connection, with ourselves and each other. Inner and outer, as Dan Siegel would say.
This week I've been working with the new-to-me concept of Entelechy. Aristotle said the Entelechy of the acorn is the majestic and ancient oak tree, one that has shaded generations. We each also have an Entelechy that draws us forward in time into our fullest flowering. To try this on, spend a half hour with your eyes closed, envisioning this self as vividly as possible. And then begin to ask them questions - what do I need to know now, begin to practice, in order to become my fullest flowering?
I'm beginning to recognize there is also a reverse-time-stream version of Entelechy, which is myself now to my past self of say, three decades ago. And how we can heal inter-generational trauma now, in a way that reached back in time and forward in time. Perhaps a topic to explore later.
What does all this Entelechy business have to do with what you have written? What draws me about Solnit, and Kimmerer, and others writings that you have referenced over time is that they are pointing to a kind of Societal or Communal Entelechy. The fullest flowering of our aggregate selves, if each of us individually could simply be open to becoming our fullest selves. And how naturally we default to that mode of tend and befriend when the curtain of daily illusions is torn back by disaster or disruption. We are living in such a time, and may we use it as an opportunity to manifest what is best in ourselves, with each other, and with the world.
As well, your above regarding the forest being one enormous and multivariate superorganism - as usual science when it goes deep enough emerges through the other side with mystic truths. Buckminster Fuller would be right at home here. We are, as a planet, a superorganism, radically interdependent whether we like it or not. And ideally that recognition should lead to our becoming radically reciprocal. Our rabid denial or terror of that reality of interdependence is the original wound. So now we are back to the themes from last issue, of how best to support and practice re-connection, with ourselves and each other. Inner and outer, as Dan Siegel would say.
Hi Adam, this is a wonderful chapter, your best yet, full of love and community and interdependence, Fred Rogers had it all figured out ♥️