Reverb - Community

Today's Reverb10 Prompt: Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?  (Author: Cali Harris)

Community has been in my thoughts for a few days (well, months, actually).  This is going to sound odd, but for most of my life I have had a love/hate relationship with 'community.'  I go through phases where I really dig in and love my community of friends or community at large, participate, encourage it, etc, and I am completely happy.  There is something deeply comforting, nurturing, and wholesome about all the communities I have been a part of, and I thrive on bringing everyone together as one big happy family.

And then, suddenly, I don't.

Something shifts, the community just fades away, or I have an experience that throws my life into a tailspin and I have to hide for a while.  Without a doubt I absolutely love my quiet life, spending time with mostly just ME and select few of family and friends.  My cave of self is lovely and easy.  A community is not always easy.  I like easy. 

But I have come to see that I really do need both.  And I love both. 

Starting in 2009 and throughout 2010 I really had to step back from my community for many reasons, and my community extended to many area's and groups of people.  It wasn't that anything "happened", I just had to find myself again.  That's my "catch" sometimes in community, I lose my Self.  I was also seeing my community at large with new eyes and not necessarily liking what I was seeing.  My judgments about what was happening just got too harsh and I hated being judgmental.  The judgments, of course, were a reflection of what was going on within myself.  Time to look deep within myself has been a huge blessing in 2010 and has deeply shifted my life and being.

But now ... NOW I would like to balance my need for a larger community around me with my own Self time.  There is such a need for my local holistic & spiritual community to come together.  For WHAT, I am not exactly sure, but maybe that doesn't matter.  There are all these little groups of people and practitioners, but we don't necessarily interact with each other.  We can learn from and support each other.  As more people awaken into spirituality and more to life, we need to be the beacons to show the way.  This might be a lofty ideal, but I am hopeful. 

As far as my "personal" community, I think I want to grow my tribe.  I am amazingly blessed to have a small number of friends who keep me sane and laughing.  They are my soulpeeps.  But my heart is still learning to Trust.  Heaven forbid I jump in and end up getting scarred for the umpteenth time.  But I am learning.  Slooooowly learning.  My heart longs for the day when I can just truly really deeply be MYSELF and jump in to express myself fully.  My community deserves that from me.

And I will get there.  I know I will.  I TRUST I will.