Who are you in the village?
Surely, surely there is already some sociological or anthropological or philosophical or religious or whatever thought experiment about what I’m about to posit. However, as is my way, I don’t go hunting for ideas to corroborate my own before I speak or write them. So at the risk of replicating what one or many others have already looked at,* here this comes.
It’s a less complicated time. Hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago. We live in a very small community.
What is your role in it?
Are you the builder? The repairer?
The medicine person? The healer?
Are you the parent, the nurturer?
The storyteller?
Are you the shaman, the sage?
Do you talk to the stars, interpret their messages?
Do you tend the land, grow things?
Harvest, cook the food? Do you feed people?
Do you dance, arrange celebrations?
Do you create beauty - mandalas, cave paintings?
Are you quiet, observing, recording what you see?
Are you the hunter?
Are you a weaver, maker of clothes and blankets?
A travel guide, a protector?
Which of these resonates most deeply with you? Not what matches what you do in the world now, what you’ve gotten good at, are known for, make money doing. No, which one calls to your soul? Which one would it be a joy for you to embody? Is it one of my invented ones, or is there another for you?
Try to resist the temptation to blend these roles, to come up with a hybrid of sorts so that you can have a foot in everything you like. I think that’s a habit we’ve developed of stretching ourselves across domains because we have to, because there aren’t communities like this anymore.
But what if there were, and you found yourself in one? What would you do in it? What would your days be like? What would it be like to step forward when needed, and hang back when not, enjoying the gifts of others, knowing that others in the village are tending to everything you might need?
No immediate application
I’m not necessarily “going anywhere” with this, trying to extrapolate it for our current day, because, well… that’s not our reality.
But it doesn’t feel metaphorical either. There’s something about this that feels clarifying for me.
How does it feel to simply name it? What does it wake up in you?
Our programming, of course, would have us immediately try to do something with this. Make plans. Take steps. Or—perhaps more likely—despair that we can’t.
I’m asking you to sit with it. Turn it over in your heart and your belly. Let yourself embody your joyful contribution to life, to the world, even if no part of your lived experience matches it yet.
Not a storyteller
Maybe this is coming up because of a funny realization I had recently. Being known as a writer - the identity I’ve developed because most of my work is in that sphere - ‘storyteller’ might seem the most obvious role for me, or recorder, historian. But trying those on makes my breathing shallow, makes some inner gas gauge nyeerrrrr its way down to empty. I don’t tell stories. I don’t. I write to communicate. I’ve gotten good at it. I’ve made my living doing it. It’s not the thing I’d do in the village.
The one I feel most at home in is tender of the land. Maybe because I’ve started literally doing that this year, and it brings more fulfillment to me than most other things I’ve done in this life. And my favorite aspect of what I do with others is to tend space, sow fertile ground for new life (creations) to grow. Harvest and gather it and offer them out. Optimize sunlight and water. Laugh with awe at the sight of things blooming.
Of course when I realized this I immediately started looking up landscaping courses and asking friends if they knew anyone who switched into something like that this late in life.
And then paused, realizing I was doing the thing where I had to immediately make something out of an idea that feels good.
Who knows, it may happen. But making those plans takes me right out of myself again, every antenna of curiosity routing its way back into my logical mind, which can only see narrow paths and road blocks and ways such things aren’t possible.
So I try to drop back down into my body, keep feeling into this role that lights me up. One where I tend the land, grow things. Maybe it’ll become more of a literal role later in this life. Maybe not.
But the experiment is such fun, and I can’t wait to know what you land on, and how. Is it what you thought it would be, what everyone else would assume about you? Is it something wildlly different from that, or slighly unexpected or…?
Please share!
You can either 8-minute essay it “In the village, I am…” or just, ya know, say.
*Sure enough, as I was discussing this with a friend I learned that Michael Meade weaves this idea through his work. There’s even a whole course on it. I’d love to hear your experience of it if you check it out.
