Context That Animates the Content

Dear Volunteers,

It's so exciting that all of us are coming together to volunteer for this Pod. While we will invariably practice giving, this is also a great opportunity to practice receiving. :)  In particular, receive lived experience of how context informs the content.

We have hosted hundreds of challenges, and some with more than 10 thousand people even. And in general, twenty thousand people visit our websites every hour of every day. So 1900 folks (from 81 countries!) are energizing -- but that's the not actual story. The real magic here is the context. Broadly speaking, there's the context of values -- interfaith, compassion and its many siblings. :)  Then, there's the context of being on a three-week journey together. A lot can happen. Then, there's the context of 66 different countries -- and in this Pod, we even have the capacity to live-translate any post to all major languages! Then there's the context of 21 different faiths coming together. And couple dozen speakers. And many partnering organizations. Social media has taught us that medium really is the messsage, and we have the context of our in-house pod technology . No ads, commercialization, or price tags. For anything.  Not even a single wish to hope for that in the future. Instead, we hope to "deepcast" and release into a many-to-many murmuration. Add to that our collective experience in hosting such pods, and our shared intent of igniting a "mama-ing, mirroring and murmuring", it all makes for a rather unique field. 

And the most potent context-creator of all -- volunteers! As I joked once, we are "willing to put in a lot of labor, receive no salary, work invisibly, give away the credit to others, and operate with a momentary team that will soon dissolve itself." Why will we put in 2500 hours to support this challenge?  Perhaps more subtly, because we are motivated by intrinsic motivation (not extrinsic ones like money, power or fame), how will that affect the emergence of the entire field? At a casual glance, one might be tempted to gloss over this, but it turns out to be a really significant throughline from the inner to the outer. This is the lynchpin of the entire magic. Most of the time, we just enjoy eating an apple, but here we'll get to experience how the land, sky, water, and even the intention of the farmer, factor into what we're nourished by. :)

Throughout our three weeks together, we'll get to tune into these nuances and let them shape us in organic ways. From my experience in volunteering in such a context, I can unequivocally say that it's transformative. In the parlance of our pod, I might even call it Karma Yoga -- one of our four paths to the divine, in Hinduism.

All to say -- I'm excited to hold this field together. Thank you for saying yes to serve together. :)

Holding such a field also will be a LOT. In the typical world, we bring out our pruning algorithms to keep the inflow contained, but the invitation here is to actually move out of our heads; an individual starling simply cannot know what the murmuration is doing. That's entirely beside the point. Instead, we can lean into our hearts and be guided by our intuition. You'll start noticing that every single part of the Pod process counts on you to do this; the more you do it, the stronger it is for everyone else. It's a profoundly regenerative resource.

Here's a practice: we know the number of apps, but scroll through all the application comments.  Figure out your process of whether you'll read each one, or a few in sequential order, or randomly. But then, tune into the collective context of all these sacred intentions momentarily merging into a stream that we get to hold. Feel into the gratitude. With the pixie dust of that smile, flow into the next act with our heart's guidance.

With practice, who knows, maybe the context of our noble friendships allows for the content of our identity to experience transformation. :)

Everyone in the Pod is already practicing. This morning, we had to make a tricky decision; we have 22 great modules for 21 days. Which one to exclude?  Bonnie, who has been one of the key editors behind the modules (going back to last year) and building many new ones this year, replied: "My heart would say, meditate and ask to be guided to the most helpful-for-the-participants combo."  When she herself did that, she came back with removing the one module she had herself written:

Let’s take out New Thought module.  My one concern is that there may be an expectation from “my” folks that I should be representing CSL, an advocate for them and all.  I’ll just tell them I’m a Sikh wanna-be, not vying for stage time but feeding people behind the scenes at the Parliament of World Religions. 

So moving. And counter-culture. Heart over head. None of the podmates will know about Bonnie's gesture, and yet it shapes the arc of the entire field. In fact, I'm taking time to write this post today, to invisibly say thank-you to Bonnie for cultivating context.  

Over the next three weeks, we'll be doing a bit of that kind of context building. And that context will animate all the content in a very unique way.

I look forward to serving together -- and to seeing you on our orientation call!