Rethreading the Needle: Colors of Leadership
By: Annette Diamantopoulos
"The relationship between mentor and disciple can be likened to that between needle and thread. The mentor is the needle and the disciple is the thread. When sewing, the needle leads the way through the cloth, but in the end it is unnecessary, and it is the thread that remains and holds everything together." -Daisaku Ikeda
What is this magic?
This spell awakens a deeper me - a deeper 'I' that feels free: Unstuck and patient. Beautiful and truthful -- all these stories, all these beliefs (things that need to be expressed, seen, understood, let go, held) asking for return - to reform, to retell, to restore.
Time and time again, we are called to lead ourselves and without awareness, we remain students rethreaded back into the eye of the needle.
Knotted, piercing the fabric of this reality, adding buttons,
ready to be connected to other pieces of fabric - with eyelets wide-shut until sliced with acuity, or forced open by the leverage of thumb against button.
And when we engorge ourselves too much on this delight, the singular thread is confronted; buttons are threatened - pulled, the fabric is challenged - and the fit becomes tighter until the force of the expansion is so much that the seams burst, revealing that the singular thread that was used (and the quality of the fabric woven) could not uphold the pressure called "Truth' that was 'trying' so desperately to free itself from these bindings ...
... this idea called 'Teacher'
that is not solitary.
To teach is to behold the student within us. And to demonstrate the skills that bring about environments of deep learning and discovery:
To come in willingly and to fail gracefully -
to be open, humble - to see them and to learn from their stories.
And to open their hearts in ways that help student/teacher transcend all obstacles, suffering ... these untrue parts that come together and are in need of leadership - to grow.
Who then is called to lead the many dimensions and realms and altitudes and attitudes of Self?
Those that are rooted in Eros - in our connection to this life, this birth and this death - this moment of radical awakening and charge and desire - energy seeking connection - to be confirmed, baptized, to be reformed - to be expressed - to nurture and to navigate?
Or perhaps the source of creativity, in the sense of ludos and playfulness,
asking to soften the rules and allow change to 'happen'. Discovery. Male and female dancing in agreement,
safely connected and tethered.
Or perhaps leadership will rise in the third realm of philia - friendship. Of confidence -
learning through the trust of friendship - learning through our own Self-betrayal, through those thoughts and parts of ourselves that cause us to believe that we are 'less than'.
Or perhaps on the radical plane of self-acceptance - compassion,
allowing
the way the horizon claims no one identity.
... in the upper realms of the metaphysical - in the multi-sensory realm -
where pragma and clarity burn away doubt.
What can be learned and seen and understood in this sense of clarity?
How is safety
conferred with calm?
Or maybe it will be in the realm of universal love. Agape,
the earth loving sky and the sky loving earth and giving birth to the sea - to Aphrodite, to the realm of emotions that help us navigate deeper dimensions of reality; to have some' place' from which to push off 'from', to do squats 'upon' -- the way gravity and grace confer in this confluence of love. And birth. And death.
How do I describe all this? How do I explain this? How do I share this information in ways that allow all?
Only one way: courage.
to trust -- to open these hands and to allow it to be free in the world. Without
need for return; without judgment; without looking back to see 'how many' -- this 'Me', that wants to know for sure, because it has lost touch with the body of knowledge called home, oikumene ... the whole inhabited world.
This me, this you, this US.