“No man is an island…” These words popped into my mind with today’s guiding thoughts. So I had to find out where they came from. My research says that these are the beginning lines of a poem by John Donne, 16th century metaphysical poet (just up my alley, although I will forgive him for gender pronoun exclusivity, as he was a man of his times), reminding me that we humans do not live in isolation.

I felt like a rock and an island during my adolescent years, even wallowing in a song of Simon and Garfunkel whose line ran: I am a rock; I am an island; and island never cries, and the rock feels no pain. Thankfully I had (and still have) a sister to whom I could write about these feelings of isolation. Her love was able to see my Beauty and offer encouragement and support, a little taste of community.

I have decided, however, that with today’s guiding thoughts, to go big and bold, where the collective is concerned. I am going to hang out with the prophets. They offer an invitation to the community with their urging nature, a call for all of us to be more Beautiful. They are wild, fierce and, impatient. I am enough of a rebel and provocateur myself and so I identify with their urging nature and call for all of us to become ever more of who we truly are.

Ken Wilber, the contemporary philosopher, speaks of a tension between individuals and institutions. In the realm of consciousness, he says that institutions are generally one step behind or below that of the individual, since part of their internal contract is self-preservation. It is that lone voice, that we hope is loud enough or of the right timbre to catch our attention. Wake up! Wake up!

Prophets are often labeled as lunatics, since their eyes are on fire and their faces have a frenzied look to them; the perceived threat is the potential collapse of the social order, too much chaos. And here is where the soft eyes and heart come in, the entry point to see what Beauty they have seen and the bigger Truth they offer.

I am a bundle of questions, more now than when I started writing. What am I hanging on to? What are you hanging on to? Are my eyes and heart soft enough? Are yours? And since we are individuals in the collective, what is our responsibility to the collective to keep us all on the track of staying big and bold? And what are we waiting for?