We were brought into being by evolution for evolution! So you could say we are made to evolve, it comes naturally to us. It’s therefore natural to come together to facilitate our own and each others’ evolution. In spiritual language, we can say that the process of evolving in a way of participating in the Great Divine Becoming.
Now evolution is natural to us but it is not the only force at work in the universe. There is entropy, which is a kind of running down of order into disorder, There is also a inertia – a tendency for systems to stay as they are. without that stability there would be an exhausting constant change. So when we come together to facilitate our evolving we will want to accentuate the processes that facilitate evolution and mitigate entropy and inertia. For without evolution we often get the feeling of being stick in life, of being in a rut. A sense of continual evolution also counters and balances the sense of loss we get as our bodies age.
We will want an evolutionary catalyst. This is where archetypes come in. Archetypes are organising patterns – they are energetic and great drivers of individual and communal evolution. In our group work, then, we seek to bring an archetype present in order for the individual to set up a pattern which once formed will continue their evolutionary progress. In order to do this we work in pairs with one acting as a catalyst and another the recipient; we then swap. Here is the three-movement format, explained using the archetype of the trickster as an example.
- Explore. We talk around the archetype, exploring its nature and the various ways it manifests.
- Enact. One person acts as a catalyst to bring the archetype present for the other.
- Honour. We honour the archetype by sharing what we have experienced
Evolutionary Spirituality 