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Trust in Being -- Video Panel Discussions
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In response to a student's question "What do you mean by 'trust in being?' Margit Bantowsky, a Trillium Awakening Interning Teacher from Olympia, Washington, began an inquiry into the subject that blossomed into two video-recorded panel discussions with seven Trillium Awakening teachers.
The first panel called "Awakening in Trust"
focuses on how trust emerges in the realization process, the interplay between consciousness and embodiment in the development of trust, and some of the markers that indicate an integration of this orientation into life. This panel consists of Cielle Backstrom, Rod Taylor, Gena Netten and Subhaga Crystal Bacon.
The second panel discussion "Living in Trust
" explores how we navigate life, make decisions, and develop the capacity to engage the world from this fundamental state of being. Panelists include Sandra Glickman, Elijah Peterson and Laura Wittke. Both panels are moderated by Margit.
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Fax: Why explore Trust in Being?
Margit: Because to me trust in Being allows us to cooperate with and respond to life as it emerges in each moment in a unique and co-creative dance. It allows us to surrender the arrogance of believing we know what should or must happen, and instead allows us to sense for the impulse of Being as it moves through us and around us. It allows for a fundamentally different way of being in the world that I sense is healing and an expression of true human maturity.
Fax: Being is the ground state of our identity and the identity of everything and everyone. It's one thing to trust one own Being, but given that it's the same Being, do we trust everyone else's being as well?
Margit: That's an interesting question: trusting Being as the totality that includes the other. In the discussion Gena (Netten) said she trusts what happens between two people -trust in the whole unfolding of the Totality and trust of what's unfolding between me and the other person. Trust in my own unfolding and trust in the unfolding of the other person, though I may not trust them to take my needs into account as they go about their business. Trust that what is happening to me is happening for me.
Fax: So, in a sense, what you are trusting is the amalgam of the interaction rather than one side or the other.
Margit: I like the word "amalgam." That's a good way to put it.
Fax: That makes sense. It's not that you are giving over your trust to another person's Being nor even just your own Being, but the amalgam of both.
Along the same lines, people talk about intuition--trusting their intuition or finest feeling. Do you see a relation to that and what you're talking about as trust in Being?
Margit: What came up in the second video panel is sensing the impulse of one's Being and relaxing enough to sense the movement within oneself. That could include intuition. It can be as simple as the body saying yes, I want to make a left turn, and no, I don't want to make a right turn.
As Elijah (Peterson) said in the second panel, it's almost like we're developing a new sense organ and sensing what direction the organism wants to take-what to do, where to go.
Fax: Just playing with the idea--we've all trusted our intuition and it doesn't always work out. The divorce rate is 50% in our country and I'm sure a lot of those decisions were based mostly on intuition.
Margit: What I'm trusting is that I can handle whatever arises so that even though I might have a strong sense of something in the moment, if it doesn't go as predicted, I'll be fine. So rather than trusting the intuition, it's trusting that whatever unfolds, it's what needs to happen.
Fax: In Holacracy [the "operating system" used by the Trillium Awakening Teachers Circle for decision-making] there is the principle of "dynamic steering." There's a sense to go in a certain direction, and then feedback might send you in a different direction as when riding a bicycle in traffic-adjusting the direction and tuning to which way to go next. What you are saying sounds a little like that.
Margit: Yes, that's it.
Fax: Is there some example, either from the panel videos or from your own experience, which might help clarify how you experience trust in Being?
Margit: Yes, there are examples from people's lives on the second video. For me, a good example would be how this project came into being, how the 'trust in Being' question nagged at me after I didn't have a very cohesive answer to a student's question. Sensing the impulses that arose, I noticed an upwelling of excitement when I thought of Cielle's consciousness panel and followed that thread, changing course as I went along--so dynamic steering came in--sensing that I needed to adjust my plan for the second panel. Also, in doing the panels, I didn't know what people were going to say, or for that matter what people five years from now are going to need. So there's the trust to let it go and serve how it will.
Fax: Part of the dharma of this work is to take responsibility for our own awakening, whereas in the past we may have referred to books and teachers more. It's indicative of the second life that we trust our sense as we go, what we need to move forward, and which way to go, taking responsibility for the ways we get involved with the work, rather than relying on external prompts to get from A to B.
Margit: Yes, we take responsibility for what's arising within us, and practice authenticity in expression. Also, I love what you say about reciprocity. When I see how life responds, how others and the world outside me respond, I adjust my direction. There is a co-evolutionary dynamic. I participate! Trust in being allows me to jump in fully, knowing I can respect my limitations as well as express my talents and gifts.
Fax: Thank you Margit, and thank you for initiating these panels on this seminal topic.
Watch the videos online at:
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Rod Taylor's
New Principles of Awakened Relationship: Mutuality as a
Dynamic Component of Our Awakening Nature
is in its
second edition.
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May's Feast of Events
May was a banner month of Trillium Events, all well attended and enriching!
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Canadian Rockies Spring Retreat
Calgary
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5th Annual Retreat
Boulder |
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Feast of Sittings
Fairfield |
Anchoring Divinity
in Your Humanity
Somerset
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Virtual Sitting Opportunities
All Hearts on Deck! - Awakened Activism virtual sittings. Every 2nd Saturday at 10:00 am PDT. Next sitting: July 14
Contact Margit Bantowsky or Laura Wittke
Fax and Sharon Gilbert have an opening for another participant in their
Sunday
mutuality group.
The group meets every third
Sunday
. Contact Fax Gilbert
Looking for an on-line Mutuality Group?
Both teacher and peer led groups now forming.
Contact
Victor Antillon
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London, UK
06/24
Why Awaken? A One-Day Intensive
Teachers: John Bottone & Sanji Hills
more info |
Olympia, WA
08/29 - 09/5
Transfiguration Retreat
Teachers: Sandra Glickman, Rod Taylor, Fax Gilbert, John Bottone, Joanne Lee, Margit Bantowsky
more info
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Trillium Awakening is a unique offering to the world, with 40 teachers, 18 mentors, workshops/retreats and sittings, community and online mutuality groups, and a shared manifesto and mission for catalyzing awakening for individuals, society, and the world.
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