Isomorphic Vows

Subtle signals of finding the others...

I’ve been noticing something very interesting lately.

A sort of shuffling do-si-do of collaborative endeavors happening between small and intimate pods of people, a dance of reconfiguring constellations between friends, weaving and re-weaving through increasingly overlapping permutations—often across great geographic distances.

“Oh, the three of us are here working on this, but I had no idea that the two of you are also working on that with them over there, which is funny because you both didn’t know that they are working with me on this over here.”

At times it feels as if we’re suddenly catching glimpses of something many of us are doing without conscious recognition… like we’re weaving some weird wicker basket together, with no central planner.

It is far from clear if, when, or how these particular collaborative constellations will ever fit together precisely—yet I can’t shake the feeling that there is something more behind these patterns, a deeper creative intelligence at work.

Another crucial feature of these creative endeavors is that very few of them, if any at all, are incentivized by market reward. As far as I can tell, this intercollaborative meshwork is being spontaneously lured into motion through the pull of intrinsic Eros.

We are all immersed in the political economy of our era, and each of us is navigating the necessity of monetary flow in our own ways, given our particular circumstances. Yet, the co-creative flows I’m talking about here are moving to the tune of quite different sources of value.

When we gather, we tune into the subtle resonance coursing through our bodies, listening deeply to ourselves and to each other. Doing so, we are repeatedly graced with an undeniable uprush of creative affinity. It feels like something wants to happen. A sense of latent potential springs forth, harboring distinct qualities.

This upwelling of mutual Eros feels artistic in the sense that it draws forth our motivation to create something for its own sake because it strikes us as beautiful.

Yet it also feels like play, in that it awakens delight and liveliness and we give our assent to the lure because doing so truly feels fun.

In perhaps the deepest sense, though, this free energy feels prayerful, in that it gives rise to a feeling of coming into alignment with matters of ultimate concern.¹

It is like coming into communion with others and discovering that, in the mutual depth of our souls, we harbor similarly shaped vows—shared commitments luring us into a process of co-creative synergy at once beautiful, fun, and sacred. As these isomorphic vows are revealed, seemingly expressive of while also in service to life itself, the bonds of intimacy deepen.

I must give a nod here to my friend Sabra Saperstein, whose intuition of a triadic relationship between practice, play, and prayer played a major role inspiring this writing.

May we find our others.

May we know the shared lure of deep value, continually refining our sense for the feeling of its signals.

May the emergent synergy springing forth from our mutually aligned vows ever serve the flourishing of the greater whole.

Weave on…

1. “Religion, in the largest and most basic sense of the word, is ultimate concern. And ultimate concern is manifest in all creative functions of the human spirit.”
(Paul Tillich, Theology of Culture, pgs. 6-7).