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SYNPHORIA
THE COMMUNITY OF CREATIVE LOVE,
HEALING, AND PASSION
founded by Preston and Emily Klik
• • • Emily and I (Preston) wanted to write something about our private event - called Synphoria - that gives insight into its spiritual underpinnings, and why we're inspired to create this event Synphoria (and its sister event "Eight:18 - Circus of the Spirit").
So I came up with the following in a letter to Emily, my wife, talking about Synphoria. Upon reflection - and with more input from Emily - we think this essay does a pretty good job of explaining Synphoria's spiritual nature (though this says little about it's manifest form), and sets the conscious tone for those attending: To get our spiritual mouths watering, to light the fuse to our self-expression in community, to have us questioning ourselves in a new way, offering us new possibilities to Be. So...
ABOUT SYNPHORIA
• • • (1) Some would say:
Contemplation is more spiritual than celebration.
We - Emily and I - happen to disagree.
We think it a typical mistake to consider celebration less lofty,
less spiritual, than contemplation.
Celebration is fundamental to our teaching,
to our creativity, to our performances,
to who We (Emily and I) are as our Possibility.
Contemplation is heart-think, body inaction,
listening to the still, small voice; stilling the mind.
Celebration is heart-think-body *in* action,
activating the mind, as expression of Spirit.
Both contemplation and celebration
can put one in touch with the Divine, no doubt.
And both, I'd argue, are necessary.
Re: the senses:
Contemplation is passive;
Celebration active.
We are proponents of the latter in our teaching work.
We're not anti-contemplation, not at all.
Contemplation has its place as a historically valuable spiritual tool.
Jesus did it every time he went into the desert, and the Buddha.
We each go through necessary periods of contemplation.
But to every time there is a season.
And Synphoria is the time to come out of the desert,
to come from the isolation,
to end that internal "hero's journey" and come "home" to community:
to gather the spiritual beings that surround us in hugs and kisses.
Time to share our new wisdom and ideas, our inspiration.
To be a part *of* others - not apart *from* others.
To live this precious life, with abundant passion.
Since (in our opinion) there's been an over-abundance
of contemplation around spirituality,
our motive (and teaching) is to balance it out a little,
and help people see that celebration creates
a powerful spiritual resonance, in community.
(What is Love if not shared?)
Celebration is the Joyous fruit of contemplation.
Synphoria is spirituality lived and breathed,
and - importantly - shared.
• • • (2) If Unity's Rev. Ed Townley's concept "Spirit expressing"
has changed our lives in any way - and it has -,
it's to be grateful for the Graceful opportunity to *express*;
grateful for this body and this too-short life,
grateful for this person-to-person sharing we are enabled
- and ennobled - to do.
Love is a verb, an action.
Sharing is Love.
Community is Love in action.
So we're grateful for our lives.
But not just grateful: We are literally *obligated*.
There's a *demand* inherent to taking on life.
We did not come here in/as skin-suits
merely to flip a U-ie (sp?) asap
and go back to un-formed cosmic Self.
How crazy is that?
"I wanna go on a road-trip!"
and all the time you're gone you only look back toward home?
(sigh)
We did not take this trip (manifestation)
only to whine about being here.
We did not leave home only to cry "Mommy / Daddy!"
We did not come here merely to obediently follow
the spiritual rules laid down by the elders before us
(dogma/religion) ...
We took on body-minds to be self (and Self)-creative,
to dance / sing / burst forth wildly with ideas
- ideas-made-manifest (not just ideas-stuck-in-head).
We took on body-minds to create and follow our own unique path,
our unique expression of the Light within (spirituality).
• • • (3) Life is celebration of Spirit made manifest,
of Spirit playing The Game.
It serves no-one (and no One) to don a skin-costume
and then sit on the sidelines.
It serves no-one (and no One) to moan about your height,
or the shape of your nose,
or the color hair you've got,
or the time you were born in,
or your parents,
your country,
your circumstances.
It serves no one, not even yourself.
Whether you are the scotty dog, or the car, or the tophat
(remember Monopoly?)...
Yours is to play the game with what you've got,
to be creative with what you've got - that's your life.
• • • (4) You are writing your autobiography, daily:
Are you hero or victim?
The choice is ever yours, in every moment.
Let me say that again:
YOU ARE THE AUTHOR,
WRITING YOUR AUTOBIOGRAPHY,
EVERY DAY.
ARE YOU HERO - OR VICTIM - IN YOUR OWN STORY?
We say your work is to touch as many "others" as deeply as you can,
and to allow yourself be touched deeply by others too:
to moan and squeal and love-love-love!
To leave a mark on others,
and to be marked by life, and by those living - and loving - it.
We are angels, surrounded by angels with dirty faces.
When our hearts are open,
when our eyes are clear ...
we clean each-other up a bit and, by looking deep within,
we hold a mirror to each-other's faces,
and see the face we had before we were born.
Our original face.
The one we forgot.
And we say:
You and I are inextricably Source, so let's SHINE, baby!
: )
• • • (5) Synphoria is the magic combo of synesthesia and euphoria.
Simply put, synesthesia-the-word means "blurring of the senses".
But we guide the meaning elsewhere.
Synphoria-the-gathering starts with living the premise
that we are spiritual beings having a human experience;
that we are manifestations of The Divine - incarnate -,
and as such we are *really* brothers and sisters to each-other.
I don't know that that's The Truth,
but it works for me, works for us, works for our lives.
Emily and I live our lives from that P.O.V. (point of view)
because it lights us up and gives us Joy.
Because it works.
Because it gives us a life worth living.
I assume this P.O.V.: I incarnated in a body
so I could explore the pleasures and lessons
only a body could grant.
btw: I can't imagine being bodyless ...
No body = nobody!
Gives new meaning to "I wanna be some body!"
: )
Seems like it'd be so frustrating being "mere" spirit.
Much more interesting and fun to play the game of lila,
even samsara:
much more satisfying to "leave" the One
and become seemingly "distinct" and "separate",
floating in this thing we call "time and space",
a mere subset of eternal.
Much more interesting for me to take on a male body
and find another Spirit-inhabited female body to "dance" this life with.
• • • 6) Emily and I love the opportunity This Precious Human Birth offers us.
I know why the angels are jealous of us mortals,
why they gather 'round, why they watch as we live,
waiting their turn at taking form, like us:
We have the opportunities of the flesh they are denied.
(We often take going to school, fixing dinner, kissing, running,
seeing / touching / smelling grass, sitting her together...
we often take these precious things for granted.)
Angels see the gorgeous pleasure we humans receive by sharing touch,
by smelling incense and tasting pears,
by seeing the smiling face of our beloved,
and by hearing the glorious, evocative universal language of music.
I imagine the angels standing in line, anxious, giggling, pointing...
waiting for the opportunity of a human birth, so they can inhabit.
In order to inhabit flesh, they must become dense, and must forget
- that's the catch.
But when they (US!) awaken and remember - if still in human form -
they can *celebrate* time / space / senses big time!
• • • (7) Synphoria is an acknowledgement of Spirit
as It expresses uniquely THROUGH each of us.
Synphoria is an acknowledgement of Spirit
as It expresses uniquely AS each of us.
Synphoria is an acknowledgement
that each of us came from the same Source,
that each of us is consciousness.
We came here to celebrate the Gift of senses
(taste, touch, smell, sight, hearing).
We came here to celebrate the Gift of the full range
of human emotions:
joy, sorrow, bliss, anger, hunger, Love-ananda.
We came here to celebrate the Gifts of Grace:
heart, mind, compassion, transcendence.
We came here to celebrate the Gift mind:
thought, contemplation, imagination, inspiration,
nobility, aspiration.
We breath in, and are inspired by the Gift of life itself.
• • • (8) Evolution is the growth of living complexity
becoming ever-more so,
from minerals to amoebas to humans,
and an ever-growing awareness of self (and Self)-consciousness.
Questions:
How would Spirit experience consciousness except through us?
Really, how?
How would Spirit know Itself except through us?
Spirit had to live through us - our very selves -
in order to experience consciousness.
How would we literally experience The Divine
except by having body-minds with which to do so?
This precious human birth is an opportunity
for God to know Itself through us, as us.
This precious human birth is an obligation for us,
to be who we truly are, to live it fully.
• • • (9) Synphoria encourages us to look each-other in the eye and say
"I am another You".
Together, as community for a few hours,
we consciously acknowledge and celebrate our diversity and our talents,
our spirit expressing in unique ways,
and our (capital S) Spirit expressing.
With "I am another You" we see the world in a light
that inspires Peace, Love, Understanding, and Respect.
(How/why would you harm that s/he which is yourself?)
Peace, Love, Understanding, and Respect is another way
of saying Yes!
Yes to the world, Yes to life, Yes to Spirit, Yes to each-other.
Yes Yes Yes!!!
• • • (10) And after Synphoria - if we really "got" it -
we see angels all around us in our daily lives.
Angels with a lot of baggage holding them down, perhaps.
But angels never-the-less.
After all, it's not just you and me who are spiritual beings
having a human experience - it's *every* human we meet ...
They are spiritual beings
- who may not remember who they truly are:
angels with dirty faces;
angels who hang on to their hurt;
angels who identify with their limitations;
angels who identify with their stories;
angels who embody - and thus create - their painful separateness,
from God, from family, from others ...
We start to awaken from our own limited dream.
We accept the obligation to create;
first creating our lives, but then creating the world we live in.
We are breathed into (inspired) and we begin to create the world
as we will it to be: Joyous, loving, free; inspired - and inspiring.
• • • (11) That's what Emily and I did.
We created Synphoria (and Eight:18) out of the questions:
"What kind of world do we want?"
And:
"If we don't do it, who will?"
Plus we took on Landmark's demand:
"Take on problems worthy of your life."
Synphoria is one answer, our answer.
(Synphoria, Eight:18, take a lot of organization,
time, money. muse; they are problems worthy of our life.)
Synphoria is community come together
as creative love, healing and passion.
(Creative Love is the Possibility I created for myself and my life;
Healing and Passion is Emily's;
we married each-other as such, in our vows,
and promised each-other a Technicolor life.
We come together as creative love, healing and passion.)
Synphoria's a true celebration of the sacred Gift of Life,
of brothers and sisters coming together
in basic and profound acknowledgment:
"I am another You."
An acknowledgement of the blurring of the senses
during the Synphoria event.
An acknowledgement of the blurring of the sense of separate self.
"I am another You."
An acknowledgement of Source, of our own access to Divinity.
• • • (12) If this idea of loving community in celebration touches you,
join us, please, in this blurring of the senses:
Synphoria (private), and Eight:18 (public).
Preston and Emily (Klik)
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