"Wansaka - A New Sacred Community" is a series of articles written as an inquiry about creating sacred community. I asked myself what we would need in place to fulfill a dream of living in profound relatedness and personal fulfillment. Who would we need to be? How can we grow into our greater selves? What can we bring to our world that will inspire and uplift and yet be grounded and whole?

As you read these articles, I encourage you to explore the possibilities. Imagine and engage with a dream of new ways of being and relating. Perhaps, through this exploration, we can create the opportunity for Sacred Community to awaken within each of us.

Community is a collective agreement to be in a harmonious relationship to foster common goals and ways of life. It is a natural state of living.

Wansaka means Sacred Sanctuary in Alawashka, the Original Language of Creation .
For more information about Alawashka

Wansaka Sacred Community is the collective agreement to be in a harmonious relationship to the Divine and each other through Honor, Truth and Love as a common goal and way of life. It is a co-created way of living.

Communities As They Are
Everyone of us lives in a community of concentric circles of relatedness. We live in family communities, neighborhood communities and regional communities. Most communities are existent. The frameworks for them are already present and we move into those communities throughout life. Families already exist, when we are born into them. A neighborhood exists, when you move into the house. The city, state and country are already formulated. Their structures are set in place. As we move from one location to another, we move into different communities, but generally the structure is very similar. Cultures may differ on aspects of collective behavior or levels of participation, but community as we know it, functions is very similar ways.

Each community has common goals which become its focus and gifts. The goals, focus and gifts require certain behaviors and varying levels of participation. For this, the community provides us with tools, relatedness and aspects of life that we could not achieve on our own. A neighborhood community asks that we contribute by following its guidelines, and through this we are given a life support system of homes with electricity and plumbing, roads, schools, shopping and a method of participating with others. When a new neighborhood is created, it follows the general guidelines of the precedents already in place. They build roads. They provide utilities. These are all outward signs of an ancient structure. Most communities perform like they have since recorded history. Naturally, there are exceptions, but those communities were created to be exceptions, based on the already existing patterns.

What if we want to create a new way of being in community? What if we want to create an inclusionary community based on principles to which we aspire? How do we go about it? What do we choose? What do we teach? How do we need to be in order to create the landscape of harmony, generosity and fulfillment?

Sacred Community as a Goal
Many of us share dreams of a new paradigm, a new way of being that brings forth the gifts of our true humanity. We imagine a life and a world wherein each person is recognized and appreciated for their gifts and their contribution. We dream of joyful participation. We dream of co-creating a life and a world that is filled with abundance, fulfillment, joy and well-being for all.

Sacred Community holds the knowing and being of spiritual relatedness as its core radiance. It brings interrelatedness into a new arena. By its very nature, Sacred Community holds each person within the embrace of the All and the One, as important, appreciated and irreplaceable members of a collective. The goals and focus of Sacred Community are not religious. It is not defined by adherence to a specific religion or religious sect. The co-creation of a community based in celebration of the spiritual awakens and holds the path of each person and each person's experience in a larger and more encompassing embrace than one religion can or may provide.

Sacred Community as a Context
Sacred Community is a sanctification of life. It holds frequency through its vibrations. Creating, connecting and experiencing a true Sacred Community requires a context of living. The context is the principles and actions through which its pure resonance can be experienced and expressed. There is a reason to create community inside a new paradigm. Part of the reason is a shared vision, a knowing of a greater experience of our humanity and connectedness to each other and to Spirit. Another part of the reason is that we know the good points of community and we see its failings. We want to embrace and enhance its benefits and eliminate its failings.

The context for Sacred Community has to be larger than a functional structure, so we can accommodate this expression of the Divine in the individual and the collective. It has to hold and activate specific qualities. Those qualities are the context through which all is created and co-created. The context, created from those qualities, will provide the avenues of expression and experience. This creates the resonance of the community. It creates the community as a spiritual essence.

Context is more than a vision statement or a goal. It becomes the vibrational resonance through which community is created. Since the community holds the vibrational resonance into which individuality is expressed, the qualities which generate the context have to be large. They have to provide access to spiritual relatedness and sacred living. Those qualities become a theme of existence. Certain qualities generate harmony. Other qualities generate discord. Sacred Community is a harmonious event. The qualities we choose as a context for living and being in community need to support and enhance each individual and the community wholeness.

The Symphony of A New Paradigm
The qualities selected as the context to anchor Sacred Community will also provide the means and the actions needed to continue to create, grow and fine-tune. The qualities that create the framework of existence for the Sacred Community, become guidelines for participation in and with community. Individuals who are aligned with those qualities will be attracted to the collective and will want to take part in the community. The community is inclusive of people who are aligned with and connected to the context, the qualities, of the Sacred Community. They choose to play in those energies. They choose those qualities as a context for their life. By choosing to live in that context, they agree to act from that state of awarenss and relatedness.

Sacred Community is the symphony of the New Paradigm. If the community is the symphony, then the context is the musical composition. It is the musical score. The qualities chosen for the Sacred Community provide the composition of the symphony. It is what will be played. The music is played and heard, through the musicians, guided by the conductor. Everyone brings their own gifts and talents to play within the voice of the symphony. Each gift and talent is valued, necessary and appreciated. The musicians, have their talent and the symphony helps bring their talent into the world. Musicians express their talent is through their instrument. There are violinists, flutists and trumpeters. There are many different drummers. Musicians choose the instrument best suited to their talent. With dedication, practice and commitment their talent has a beautiful voice that contributes to the symphony. If there is no music, what will the musicians play? If there are no musicians, how can the music be heard? If there is no conductor, how can the musicians find their perfect place within the symphony? All are valued. All are present. All have their unique gifts to contribute to a harmonious symphonic experience. All choose to play the symphony.

Choosing To Live A New Paradigm
Living the new paradigm is a choice. It is a choice that one continually makes. People who can resonate to and act in harmony with the qualities of Sacred Community may choose to become welcome and contributing members of the collective. If a person admires the energies, aspires to hold and act from those qualities, then they are enhancing and contributing to their own personal growth and that of the collective. They may choose to participate with the collective.

It is the individual's choice to move into harmony and act with honor within the community. Doing so, they honor and assist the wholeness and the individuality of the collective. Their participation, actions and words reflect and express the qualities that raise and support each person in the collective, as well as the collective as a whole. Participation and contribution to a community is ongoing. Every action a person takes, every conversation a person has, is a choice to be in harmony with the qualities that form the community. There is great power in this.

If a person is unable or unwilling to resonate to and act in harmony with those qualities that are vital to the creation, manifestation and continuation of the collective, they made a choice to be separate from the community. Sacred Community holds the trust, gifts and dreams of each participant. It is not a right. It is a privilege. No one is entitled to be in a Sacred Community. If a person is unable or unwilling to act from those qualities, then their actions are inappropriate to the energies, dreams and ways of being in the new paradigm. They made a choice.

This is a conscious choice. Whatever we do and whatever we say, we chose to do it or say it, beforehand. If a person chooses to disturb the harmony and joy of the collective, whether by their speech or actions or ways of being, then they have chosen to separate from the Sacred Community. That is their a choice. They made a decision to present themselves as inappropriate to or in conflict with the Sacred Community. They made a decision to reject the qualities and the context of the Sacred (by their actions, speech, etc.) before they took those actions. Therefore, they chose to separate themselves from the community. It is not a judgment put upon them. Each person chooses a course of action that reflects who they are and where they stand. That is how life is. The results of those actions can support the context of the community or disrupt it. If someone's actions or words create a separation, then they chose to do so. If someone's actions or words create a unity, a relatedness, a connection, they also chose to do so. One of the powers of the new paradigm is conscious choice and responsibility for those choices and their results.

The Sacred Community is inclusive and in harmony. The qualities we choose to create as the context for living can bring us to new states of awarenss and new ways of living together. Our ongoing capacity and willingness to act from a greater context begins the process of creating a new paradigm for living in Sacred Community.

Which qualities are large enough to create a context inside of which you could live and thrive? What qualities do you think can be the foundational context for community? Which qualities can generate opportunity for growth, joy of being and relatedness? What qualities do you have that are gifts to uplift and inspire? What qualities do you have that create relatedness? Do you have a context of living?

As you explore these questions and themes of Sacred Community and the New Paradigm, observe the emotions and thoughts that rise and fall. Notice what shows up for you and play in the shifts that may unfold. There may be qualities you would like to embrace. There may be qualities you would like to let go.

May your life be filled with blessing