The Metamodern God lab

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This is Kyriaki Nikandrou from the Portals Team writing today from Athens, Greece, to feature two new conversations we published on the Portals site: Journeying to Source with Jeff Vander Clute and Grace Boda, and Normalizing the Extraordinary: In the Metamodern God Lab with Layman Pascal and Brendan Graham Dempsey.

Living in Athens, I often walk up to the Acropolis and the Parthenon and then stroll down the narrow alleys and stoas of the ancient Agora, tracing the footsteps of great peripatetic philosophers of times long past — contemplating, almost eavesdropping, on the echoes of their inquiries and conversations, indelibly etched in the ambiance of these pathways and of the white marble.

It’s part of my own fascination with people who aspired to connect to source and be in touch with the evolving frontier of humanity in the ancient world. For me, that is the summoning and propelling impulse of the Portals project: to generate, host and catalyze conversations where this very inspiration and quest for truth now emerges with people from all over the world.

Times have changed, but the big questions of life are ever burning in our hearts and minds, stronger than ever before.

What does it mean to go all the way to the source? What does connection to source look like in our life? How is God doing with us humans? Why is it important to be seen and received as you really are? How does it feel to live as an integral part of a Universal happening, in service to the greater whole? In leadership especially, how do we lead in ways that are deeply grounded in truth and reality, and in love and compassion?

In these two conversations, we focus on two different communal experiments at the edge of discovery, not shying away from diving deep into an embodied exploration, that seek to update our relationship with the sacred.

Aviv Shahar spoke with Grace Boda and Jeff Vander Clute just after they came back from a spontaneous devotional pilgrimage to the source of the River Ganges, up in the Himalayas, and with Layman Pascal and Brendan Graham Dempsey after a riveting seasonal “Metamodern God Lab” retreat in a rural homestead in Vermont. They were all still inside the metamorphic glow of these experiences. What have they discovered?

Toward the end of the “Normalizing the Extraordinary” conversation, Aviv asks Layman and Brendan, “What would a metamodern God have us be and do?” What transpires is uplifting and revealing as it opens the lid to an emerging potent metamodern operating system.

In the “Journeying to Source” conversation, the transformational impact is narrated through the connected moments of Jeff’s and Grace’s journey, causing energetic and psycho-activating symptoms, all showing the great healing power and transferability of these pioneering endeavors.

In both conversations we can begin to discern the outline of an updated sense and sensibility of religion, one that is inclusive and integrative, and both feminine and masculine, and communal. It is emerging through leading edge laboratories of discovery, where people are coming together open and willing to co-create portals for the future in how we are evolving anew.

Layman reflects that: “There’s this sense that we have to collectively generate some kind of field of meaning that brings apotheosis to the human being…and we can’t do that alone individually. You can have as much of that experience and transformation as you like, but in terms of relating to the world, in terms of changing history, in terms of the greater fulfillment, the sacred is something we have to co-generate, co-presence and co-enact together.”

Jeff, from his vantage point in a different setting, offers a bridging comment: “This time the upwelling impulse of enlightenment is a collective enlightenment. We are invited to be with the possibility that the upgrade of the world traditions is not one God man — and it’s good to have God women, too — what about an enlightened community? What about an enlightened society? What about enlightened institutions? Not the individual lights in a sea of darkness…Now religion has an opportunity to up its game and be more inclusive and more integrative.”

Journeying to Source

Join us as we follow the fascinating “Journeying to Source,” a devotional pilgrimage up the Himalayas to the source of the sacred River Ganges,13,000-feet high. Long-time Portals friends and spiritual teachers Jeff Vander Clute and Grace Boda share with Aviv Shahar their transformational experiences from a spontaneously-choreographed journey with an international group of eight seekers.

Jeff explains how they came in total devotion, total openness, to receive whatever Ganga wished to impart. “In offering our service, that’s when things really lit up, because we’re not just taking, we’re giving; we’re bringing our gifts from the West, and together the Ganges and the pilgrims can co-create something new.”

As the narration of this adventure unfolds, we are led into deeper layers of knowing and revelations: about self; the essence of creational love; an emergent co-leadership; a new way of being and living as part of the Universal happening that is arising and dissolving; and about a new integrative religion that is inclusive of all faiths and traditions.

Normalizing the Extraordinary

In the conversation, Layman Pascal and Brendan Graham Dempsey describe their rich transformative experiences in the gathering of the “Metamodern Spirituality Lab” at Vermont’s Sky Meadow Retreat, a 115-acre homestead gathering place in a beautiful and idyllic pastoral scenery.

Every spring and fall they gather to explore and deepen in the emerging metamodern space and its liminal edge. The gatherings include creative poetic rituals, moments of dance and play, shared improvisational physical practices, and meditations. There are times where people can exchange their visions, practices, and literature with peers. The contemplative theme this time was the question of God.

Layman explains that a lot of what happens in these gatherings is emergent and spontaneous. There are all types of deeply meaningful participatory coincidences that give the feeling that something else is taking a hand in the proceedings.

Brendan co-hosts the gatherings and offers that there’s something in us that deeply wants to be seen, and we are better when we are seen because it helps us to see others: “Being seen, being fully appreciated for who you are, is a crucial part of the developmental process that frees you to then be one who can also see others, and when we’re able to do that, we’re flourishing more.”

Layman offered: “The problems of the meaning crisis and of the fractured nature of the late modern world require a different kind of human being, a deeper more-fully-human kind of character, and a kind of community of characters that are capable of living in this new environment.”

What is it we can learn from these deep dives into the unknown, from the idea of making pilgrimage and trekking where extraordinary teachers and mystics in generations past walked, meditated and prayed?

Maybe the answers await somewhere in between the words that Grace imparts when she says: “With the lightest tap or touch, just move with what’s happening in a way that doesn’t require a lot of effort.”

Grace also shared a story of a conversation with a minister on the difference between the meaning of the word “ministry” with the concept of “chaplaincy.” The minister said, "Ministry is when you have an official role representing a particular dogma and you advance that message. Chaplaincy is a way of being where you walk around in the world, you never take off that jacket; you are just a field of being that facilitates awakening, awareness, transcendence, everywhere you go."

In deep appreciation for every small or big effort, wherever it comes from, that may lead to a luminous future,

Kyriaki
on behalf of the Portals Team

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