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The Connection Project coming soon!
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The Connection Project: Seeing each other through the eyes of the heart
For many of us, the world feels like an unsafe and lonely place. More than half of Americans have reported they feel lonely. The need for human connection is hard wired into us. It is part of our biology evolved over hundreds of thousands of years, and yet so many of us are moving through life disconnected from ourselves and others. And it is killing us, literally. Loneliness has been identified as a root cause and contributing factor to many of the mental and physical illnesses and epidemics around the world. But it doesn't have to be this way. We can find our way back to our own wholeness and to each other. We have everything we need to do just that.
In many Native American cultures, it is believed that the Medicine we need is right outside our door. The Medicine for our wellbeing is all around us. We find it in the loving embrace of another, gazing at the expansiveness of the ocean, or even the stranger sitting right next to us. They could be the person who will introduce us to our love or our next business partner or the one that has the answer to the question with which we have been struggling.
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We are each others Medicine if only we felt safe enough, had the courage to connect. The dominant oppressive culture and systems function to distract and separate us, activating fear and making the world feel even more unsafe for us trust each other. Authentic human connection can feel very risky under these conditions, despite our natural impulses and deep desires. Discerning who is open to even having a conversation with us becomes a challenge.
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The image of a heart with an eye inside of it appeared to me as the answer to this challenge. I saw this symbol as a universally recognized symbol of love that people could wear that would communicate to others that they are open to have authentic human interactions and are committed to seeing others through the eyes of the heart, knowing we are all connected and need each other.
The symbols of hate are all around us, but what if we had more powerful symbols of love -- the kind of love that extends to all of humanity and the sacredness of all of life? The Connection Projects is about the eyes of the heart as a powerful symbol of love and so much more. We seek to re-story (restore) love as a powerful orienting field that inspires us to turn within and toward each other with an open heart in order to free us from the forces of scarcity, fear, and dominance that function to overwhelm us with productivity and progress, distract and separate us from our own humanity and our biological need for authentic human connection.
Pilot projects: Share your story
Throughout the planning phase of this project, we will be hosting several pilots where participants will be given an opportunity to practice seeing others through the eyes of the heart. If you have participated in one of these pilots, we would love to hear about your experience! Your experiences, reflections, and ideas are an important part of the unfolding of this project.