In my late teens I became very interested in spiritual enlightenment – and simultaneously realized that I was fundamentally unhappy. A powerful idea in my family of origin was this notion of the perfectibility of the human – that through conscious labor and intentional suffering we could find in ourselves a release from the prison of our conditioning and access a deep connection to something much greater. This idea fascinated me and also showed me how helpless I was – because I realized that it was not something I could really do by myself. And just then I made a connection with people and ideas that would lead to great self-discovery – much greater than I ever could have imagined – and set my life on a course of ever-deepening self-knowledge.
In a powerful rite of passage at age 20, I realized in my being that I am interconnected with life in a profound and essential way – that I am not separate. I remember at the end of that day feeling as though I had been lied to my whole childhood – nothing I had received from my family or encountered thus far in my life gave me any real indication of this profound, pre-existing and all-encompassing connection. Yet this connection, this sense of Self, is actually our birthright as human beings.
I’ve done many things in my life – co-founded a holistic elementary school centered around Natural Learning Relationships, taught classes in child and human development, facilitated outdoor experiences and rites of passage for adults/families/children. And I continue to parent two wonderful children.
I’ve also worked hard to recover from my childhood – along with the intense internal demands of self-reflection and self-enquiry, I struggled mightily with being really in relationship with others – my family conditioning and poor education were huge obstacles to making intimate and meaningful connections with the people I really cared about. But I’m feeling much better now! 🙂 Much of this had to do with healing my childhood wounds – but not all of it. The other part is connecting more deeply with a higher self, a non-dependent love that arises from the infinite and timeless ground of all being, and is not separate from it. This is what I call Consciousness.
And I’ve loved and lost. Witnessing the dying and death of my wife was a profound and difficult experience – I can’t describe it here other than to say because of my inner work I was as prepared as I could be for the inevitability of it – while staying open to that inevitability and the tumultuous and often terrifying actuality that one could never prepare for. And from it I accessed a new and much freer relationship to death. But that is a story for another time.
So, in this moment I find myself deeply interested in human development, the nature of consciousness and its exploration, transformation and transcendence, spiritual philosophy, and finding inner freedom and wholeness. Because this wholeness is also our birthright – every part of it sacred and an expression of Consciousness. We are here to engage and participate in it as fully as we can.
Most important to me are deep conversations around self-knowledge and the mutual growth that can develop from that interest, and relationships that sustain this mutual investigation. And for these relationships I am incredibly grateful! And I hope, dear reader, that this is also the spirit in which you come to be here.
With Love,
Albee Kara