Community (noun): a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common. Also: a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.

At face value both of those definitions of community kinda make sense, don’t they? As I apply them to my own life, however, they don’t quite fit and I suspect I’m not alone in this. The issue is that I feel like I never really belonged to any one group, and I don’t honestly think that my current core attitudes, interests, goals, and values have been overly influenced by any particular fellowship. I spent most of my life feeling like the proverbial lone wolf that didn’t exactly “belong” anywhere, and I’ve moved around so much that until recently it’s been hard to associate very deeply with any one group or place. Smartphones and social media have a major impact on the way I connect with my family, friends and social groups, but I am often left with a feeling that I am even less connected using these platforms. Isn't it interesting how these tools that can connect us instantly with others can leave us feeling even more disconnected at our core, which craves for a more meaningful and tangible community? Many of us have gotten caught up in the always-on, over-subscribed, information-overloaded, continually-interrupted, "do-do-do" lifestyle that leaves us feeling stretched thin and stressed out. We seem to desire connection but feel the need to unplug in equal measure. Any of this sound familiar to you?  

Along with a sense of belonging to community, another important thing that’s been largely lost in today’s world is the art of using rites of passage ceremonies as a way to connect us as individuals to those greater communities and prepare us for the big life changes that life surely brings. As highlighted in Maureen McMahon’s article exploring rites of passagein the May 2018 issue of the Crazy Wisdom Community Journal there are indeed some groups using rites of passage effectively, but my own research and experiences shared by friends and colleagues show that the majority of us aren’t getting the benefit of conscious, meaningful, and personalized ceremony to ground us during times of personal transitions. Coming of age, which is a specific kind of rite of passage that gives kids a sense of belonging and clear, shared personal attitudes and values, is largely missing for many kids today and that leaves a void that can be filled by unhealthy friends and social groups. My dear friend Mara Evenstar and I formed Conscious Ritesas an inclusive and intentional community organization several years ago because we believe wholeheartedly in the power of community. Through it, we create and deliver unique coming of age programs as well as conscious, meaningful, personalized rites of passage ceremonies to support people of all ages as they navigate life changes like birthing/naming, coming of age, weddings/unions, becoming new parents, life celebrations/funerals, and others. Our heartfelt goal is to bring the lost art of intentional rites of passage ceremonies back to mainstream society and help heal the wounds of disconnectedness that many feel today.

What exactly IS community in today’s culture, and how does it apply to your life? Personally, since moving to the Ann Arbor area in 2009, my “lone wolf” persona has peeled away as I’ve discovered and embraced community organizations like SUN SHEN, New Myth Works, Crazy Wisdom, the Otter Creek Lodge, the MADD Poet Society, the Serenity House of Flint, the Cancer Support Community, the Stewardship Network, the Rising Phoenix Awards, and many others. I was inspired to start the nonprofit company The Intentional Living Collective as a way to connect these awesome organizations together to better serve communities across Southeast Michigan and Northwest Ohio. I find Ann Arbor to be a unique community that attracts energetic, creative, conscious people from all over the country. My “community” is a delightfully complex set of connections to a diverse set of groups and individuals that collectively make me feel like I’ve found my home, and I find that each of those connections teaches me something new. As a result, I am learning, growing, and changing in ways I’d never have imagined. So, I ask, what is community for you?  And what do you want it to be? Consider this an open call for collaboration. Whether you’re an individual craving deeper connection with others or a representative of an organization that would like to expand and/or deepen its offerings, Mara and I would love to chat with you and see what we can create together.  Contact us using info@consciousrites.org.

Since 2010 Intentional Legacies has offered programs and services to help people navigate the big life transitions and live more authentic, heart-centered lives.  Although we're a legit social enterprise, several of our programs supported social causes in a special way and are about something much bigger than making profits.  I'm very excited to announce that we've finally launched a new, nonprofit sister company called The Intentional Living Collective!  

It's about deeper connections in the Community. It's about making a  greater impact.

The Intentional Living Collective is a network of community organizations that collaborates for deeper connections and a greater impact, and offers programs for learning, growth, inspiration, and hope for the Community.  As a nonprofit organization we intend to gather resources from sponsors, public sources, and member organizations and use them to make a really big impact on the lives of our Community members.  We've transferred several existing programs to the new organization and we've also added some cool new ones - you can get the latest on The Rising Phoenix Awards, Conscious Rites, the Life Transition Zone and the brand new Single Moms Intentional Living Endowment (SMILE) program at the Intentional Living Collective website (www.the-ilc.org).  Speaking of the Rising Phoenix Awards program, we're thrilled to announce the 2016 finalists - check them out here.  

As the chaotic energy of 2016 gives way to the rebuilding and renewing energy of 2017 we look forward to forging deeper connections and making a greater impact in the Community through Intentional Legacies and The Intentional Living Collective.  Namaste!

Have you ever told your story?  
I don't mean a casual conversation about the things you've seen and done, I mean your real, authentic story.  The version in which you look deep and hard at your life experiences and consider how you've been changed through them, and how you affected the people around you in the process.  Whether you tell your whole life story or just focus in on a specific chapter of it, there's absolute magic involved if you put the time and energy into doing it well!  By magic I mean the potential for serious transformation - both within yourself and in other people!

When something happens to you, you can only experience and process that event using the lenses through which you see the world at that time.  Your frame of reference largely determines how you're affected by the experience on the intellectual, emotional, psychic, and even spiritual levels.  More often than not, we deal with that particular experience or situation as best as we can and then we move on with life - and if it's a "negative" experience many of us don't spend much time thinking about it any more.  Over time as we live, learn and grow and we gain new intellectual and emotional tools that change and strengthen our frame of reference.  If we take the time to look back at major past life experiences and re-examine them using our newer, better frame of reference we can gain new insights and understandings that allow us to take something significantly different away from it.  For example, in my own journey I experienced a deep heartbreak at the age of 13 and it shook me to the core - and I subconsciously carried the trauma and the painful lessons learned with me all the way into adulthood.  Nearly 30 years later I did some challenging personal work in which I looked closely at what happened to me all those years ago, and with my stronger and more mature frame of reference I was able to see that the story I had been telling myself for all those years was the one created by the 13 year old - and it was seriously flawed.  The wounded, scared boy had created a false story to protect himself, and by looking at it later through a better frame of reference I was able to heal the trauma and forgive the other person involved.  The personal transformation was magic and it profoundly affected my ability to love others moving forward - and this kind of internal magic is available to everyone willing to do the work to find it!

Telling your real, authentic story can also unleash an external magic, in which you can change the world for the better by inspiring others that experience something similar to yours.  Often when we're going through really hard times it feels like we're isolated and have to figure things out on our own, but in truth much of what we encounter is a shared human experience that many others have dealt with before us.  In dark times it can be amazingly uplifting and inspiring to learn that we aren't alone, that others have felt what we feel, and that there's a light at the end of the tunnel.  I've seen this external magic in action numerous times over the past couple years as Rising Phoenix Award (www.risingphoenixawards.org) nominees shared their stories publicly and then others in the community shared that they were inspired by them!  Every major life experience has the potential to unleash internal and external magic, and sharing your story can have a ripple effect that can change the world in ways you can't imagine.  

At Intentional Legacies we offer the annual Rising Phoenix Awards to offer "Inspiration Through Story" and the Village Wisdom Portal as a community resource to collect and share your stories as "Pebbles of Wisdom" that others can be inspired through.  However and wherever you choose to do it, there's magic and inspiration in telling your story, and whether you're 25 years old or 100 I strongly encourage you to take the time to review, reframe, and then tell some or all of your story.  

Namaste!

I’m excited to announce that today marks the beginning of the 3rd Annual Rising Phoenix Awards! Intentional Legacies began this program in 2013 and it has been an awesome experience that’s grown in size and impact each year. The annual Rising Phoenix Awards gather, share, and celebrate the stories of extraordinary Southeast Michigan residents who have risen from the ashes of major life transition(s) stronger than before, and then chose to do awesome things to help others. These awards celebrate our humanity, personal transformation, and the positive impact we can have on each other. From now until November 22, 2015, you can nominate someone in Southeast Michigan for a Rising Phoenix Award at www.risingphoenixawards.org.  Five awe-inspiring Michigan residents have already been nominated! We have also been blessed with four outstanding and reputable local judges so far this year: Cheyenne Luzynski - Leadership curriculum developer and instructor at Eastern Michigan University; Leo Rodriguez Moran - Leader in local Mankind Project organization; Neil Simon - Founder and CEO of The Leadership Forward Group; and Tahirih Ziegler - Executive Director of the Detroit Local Initiatives Support Corp.

If you are interested in our cause but don’t know a qualified nominee, there are lots of other ways you can become part of the Rising Phoenix community. From volunteering to help, to telling others about what we’re doing, attending the annual awards ceremony dinner, or supporting us with a sponsorship or donation – we’d love to hear from you. We are also seeking more judges. Overall, the Rising Phoenix Awards have brought together interesting and inspiring people from all over Southeast Michigan to create a fledging community of change agents that have done great things for their communities - and are inspiring others to do the same. Wanna learn more?  Check out our website at www.RisingPhoenixAwards.org, follow us on twitter at @risingphoenixmi, stop by for blog updates, or join us on facebook at facebook.com/intentional.legacies. Also, don’t forget to save the January 24th, 2016 date for our Annual Awards Dinner where we announce the winners! We all hit tough times from time to time, and we can all be Rising Phoenixes in those times. Blessings to you, and thanks so much for your interest in the Rising Phoenix Awards program. Let the nominations roll on in!

Change is the one thing we can always count on, everything changes with time.  We happen to be living in a time of massive transition - at the personal, familial, cultural, regional, and even global levels.  Can you feel it?

On a personal level, we were built for times like this.  We have the inner strength and courage to handle anything that gets thrown our way, whether we realize it or not.  Even in the most extreme cases, as long as we have breath and hope, we can rise from the ashes of the worst situations to become better and stronger than before.  Intentional Legacies was also built for times like this, to be a "port in the storm" so to speak to give you a safe and dependable place to turn during times of transition and uncertainty.  We're going through changes as well and I'm writing today about a few of those changes.

First, I'm very excited about Conscious Rites - our new joint collaboration with New Myth Works to bring rites of passage services to our community.  These services are really important in times of life transition and I personally think it's about time we bring them back on a cultural level.  Check out what we're doing at www.consciousrites.org, and if you'd like to work with us on something in your life please let us know how we can help.

Second, our Rising Phoenix Awards team has grown considerably moving into 2015 and we're actively working on the program for release in the next couple months.  The 2014 awards were awesome - congratulations to everyone that was nominated and especially the award winners.  Please stay tuned at http://risingphoenixawards.org for information on the 2015 awards program and start thinking about who in your life has been positively inspirational through difficult life transitions that you'd like to nominate this year.

Finally, it's with mixed feelings that we're going to shift our focus away from proactively offering life transition workshops on a regular basis.  The workshops are really good and I'm proud of how we've affected those that shared the time and energy with us, but we're going to only offer them "on request" moving forward to allow us to focus on growth in other areas.  For a list of available workshops check out http://peacefulcrossings.com/upcoming-life-transition-zone-events.html, and if you on a personal or organizational level would like to schedule a workshop please drop us a note at info@intentional-legacies.com and we'll set something up together.

Are you feeling the shift?  Are you working through multiple transitions, all at the same time, like a lot of us?  If you'd like to share a brief transitional story please feel free to reply to this blog.

We were built for times like these, and we're all in this together!

Namaste,

Cal