Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Edge-Dwelling: A Social Ecology for Our Time

Part 5: Shamans, Midwives, and Hospice Workers

Beyond the edge where what we know and don't know meets lies the Unknown (with a capital U). It's a wild place that stretches the capacity of our human consciousness. This edge space is inhabited by a very particular kind of Edge-Dweller -- those willing to hold the hugeness of even our ability to know, the horizon of human consciousness.

This is the place inhabited by Shamans, Midwives, Hospice Workers (and perhaps others). Midwives hold the edge place between birth and whatever exists or does not exist before. They hold the process of bringing a human into being, welcoming them to their place on this magnificent planet. Hospice Workers hold the edge place between human life and whatever exists or does not exist after our time as humans on Earth is done. Shamans hold and navigate that huge edge space between the human world and that world that exists just beyond the edge of our consciousness -- that some may call the Divine or Holy, Spirit, Mystery or simply our Cosmos. 

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