Living in the Round

Do something.  Right now, close your eyes…take a deep breath.  Now, open them and look around.  Look up at your ceiling.  Notice the walls of the room in which you’re sitting.   Glance down at the tiles on the floor under your feet (you ARE reading this in your bathroom, aren’t you?).  Now look back at the computer screen. 

Think for a moment… What do you see?

Unless you’re somehow receiving this information across the astral planes while wading in a mountain lake, you are surrounded by boxes.  You’re sitting in a room-box, staring into a box-shaped screen.  Boxes, boxes…everywhere.  Drive down the road and allow your eyes to take in the shapes of modern civilization.  With few exceptions, we have built a world full of boxes.

How did we come to live in a box when the natural world describes itself mostly in circles, arches and gentle curves?

What is a circle and why have we chosen to create our realities inside of right-angles?  The circle is deeply imprinted in human consciousness.  Our lives begin inside a rounded belly-nest, we enter the world through the round birth-canal portal, and our lips are immediately pressed to mother’s round breasts for our first warm meal. 

Shortly thereafter we are thrust into a series of boxes.  They wrap us in a blanket and tuck us in a tiny crib where we dream of floating in the dark, warm womb-water—only to awaken in terror at the new feeling of separation from our Mother Source.

Life goes on.  The boxes get larger.  A bedroom of our own, perhaps.  The fenced yard.  The schoolroom.   Then it’s time to venture into the world.  Nervous, we sit in the job interview room anticipating this next step into freedom and success.  Then, for decades of working years, it’s just one box after another—stockroom, cubicle, lab, office-with-a-door, and (maybe if you’re very “lucky”) the corner office with big windows through which you can watch wind tousle the hair of trees outside.

We don’t see the invisible boxes which fold neatly around and above us.  Unconsciously, we accept the roles, the beliefs…the prescribed path.  They form the construct of life-as-we-know-it.  We come to value these boxes—both visible and imaginary.  Our houses, our careers, our politics, our religion.  We cling to them.  We feel safe within their walls and accumulate stuff with which to fill their emptiness.

And why not?  Boxes aren’t bad things.  They are useful containers.  They are easy to stack into tidy rows.  They help us keep life organized.

So what’s this fixation on geometric shapes?  Why should we pay attention to circles?  How is any of this going to translate into a new pool in the backyard?

First, you don’t want your own pool.  You just really don’t.  Make friends with someone who already has one or sneak over the fence at Holiday Inn and swim for free.  But, I digress…

Human beings are unique on earth as “semantics-binding” creatures.  We use symbols (words, pictures, numbers, etc.) to create a map and overlay it on an immense flow of data.  This helps us make sense of what we call life.  Deep in our primal consciousness sleep powerful symbols laden with meanings we don’t understand on a rational level.  We can feel them, though.  They show up in odd ways and remind us in ancient whispers that we are much more powerful, complex and mysterious beings than we imagine.

The circle is one such primitive reminder.

Pretend with me for a moment that right there in front of us is a translucent spiral staircase leading upward to the sky.  Go ahead, you start the climb; I’m right behind you.  Higher and higher we ascend…above the treetops, above the mountains, through the thin air and tingling ice-crystal clouds.

Look down.  What do you see?

A round earth–one vast circle of blue and green and brown—lies beneath us.  From this vantage point we can’t even see the tiny Lego-cities clustered around seaports and rivers.  We can’t see the boxes mankind has imposed upon the surface of this great globe.  Look up.  See the smiling sun?  The demure moon?  The sparkling stars?  From here, the universe and everything in it is whole and round.  The flow of Life moves through it all in ceaseless circling tides.

The circle is a symbol of inclusive wholeness.  What could be more desirable to our isolated modern psyche than enjoying the bliss of health and joyful community?  What if we could push away from our solitary immersion in constant motion, walk outside our box and engage in life’s ecstatic dance with humankind again?  What if we could re-member the fractured, repressed and terrifyingly beautiful shards of ourselves—piece them together once again into a glorious mandala of Authentic Self?

I hear you thinking, “Wonderful.  That sounds great.  How do we do it, though?”

There’s not one easy answer…no silver bullet or magic pill.  Perhaps it all begins with imagination.  If I can imag-ine (see and feel a picture) of a different way of being, then I can allow myself to flow in that direction.  I need not force or push, but simply begin to draw the beauty of this new scene inside myself.  Let it burrow down into the fallow soil of my soul, germinate and blossom from within.  With each aware breath, feel the reality of a healed and radiant life and know that it is available right now.  We don’t have to wait to win the lottery, or for retirement, nor even for some distant heaven.

Bringing circle energy into our lives is part remembering how to be and part learning what to do.  Support your awareness with symbols and actions.  Build something round—a campfire, a delicious meal, a flower bed.  Gather other people and enjoy it with them.  Walk outside as often as possible and sit beneath the circle of shade from a big tree.  Press your back against its round trunk and feel the curving earth beneath you.  Breathe the good air, slow and long…then release it.  Imagine that with each cycle of breath you are helping weave the unfathomably miraculous web of life.

 

Later, when it’s time to return to one box or another, take your re-balanced consciousness with you like an inner flower.  Round out the edges of your conversation with fresh compassion.  Learn to graciously give and receive.

Also, start to notice your boxes.  There’s no need to fight them or destroy them.  Simply observe where they show up and how they hold you apart from other people—how they enclose your adventurous nature as it seeks to sally forth a’ questing into life.  Look for ways to step outside these boxes and experience yourself under the blue, blue sky and radiant sunshine of All That Is. 

You are, in truth, not an isolated part of some rusting machine but an integrally connected and necessary cell in the One Living Whole.

(P.S. I am inspired to write this in part by the work of Rachel Ross & Lars Chose who help people “live in the round” with their amazing Mandala Homes. Please take a look at these magnificent structures!)

click here to visit Mandala Homes website...

 Also, check out my friend Marjory Mejia’s article on “Dreams & Dwellings That Harness Our Potential” << click here.

Here’s an old song which tells the story…
“Little Boxes, Little Boxes”

And one of my favorite songs by Jewel…
“Simple Gifts”