 Welcome to Living Mosaic, a project of the Spark of Humanity Network. My name is Martha Holden and I am a member of the Spark of Humanity Network. Living Mosaic is conceived as a project to explore the concept that there is a solution to the causes of the current heartbreak in the world, which we are all experiencing if we're choosing to allow ourselves to, rather than being in panic, distress, or denial. The idea is that the solution may be conceived as a living mosaic, big, in which we each have a place, and that we're each a unique and essential part of the mosaic. In other words, we are each, including you, we're each an essential part of the solution. So the challenge is being willing to let go of everything that gets in the way of our being drawn into our niche in the mosaic, and to be acting and living and thinking in a way which supports others in being led, guided, moved, stumbling into their niche in the mosaic, not grabbing, not pushing away, just allowing the mosaic to form and allowing ourselves to be part of it. In that way we are part of the solution, and when we recognize ourselves as part of the solution, when we're willing to become part of the solution, give up our ideas of what the solution is and what we're supposed to be doing, then we have a sense of being part of something bigger than ourselves and something that's very good. And so there's a feeling of participation, there's a sense of purpose that helps us get beyond our despair out of our denial into a sense of joy, perhaps, or as some say, unconquerable gladness as we allow this process to take place and are willing to be there for others and encourage them and allowing it to take place in them because for everybody, of course, the process is unique and we are unique and we are essential. So that's the idea of this is to have a conversation around that or if nobody shows up, we have a monologue, which is me talking until somebody zooms in or phones in. So today we are talking about the interplay. Does that mean there's a phone call? Coleman? We don't have our hand signals down right. We're talking about the interplay between the living mosaic concept and the spark of humanity concept. The spark of humanity is an insight that has been around at least in my life since the late 1970s that there is a spark of humanity in every one of us. In each one of us there is a spark of humanity and it may be defended and often is and it may be distorted and it generally is and it may be baffled and it frequently is. In fact, we've come to think that the distortions arise from the bafflement. That when we come gliding or yanked or whatever out of the womb that there's bafflement. What do we do now? How do we survive? This is a whole new environment. There are very large pink beings around me. I don't know, maybe not pink, any color of beings around me. What do I do? And that can lead to the distortions. Well, if I do this, maybe they'll feed me or maybe they won't hit me or maybe they'll clean me up or maybe they'll rock me to sleep and sing to me. So the distortions arise from the bafflement. This is just the way we're understanding it. And then because the distortions are uncomfortable because they are not true to our spark, to who we really are, to who we're being grown into becoming, to who we're called to develop into. Then we have the inner line of defenses, mostly denial. I can't do anything about it. This is necessary for my survival so I'll just block it out. I'm not going to pay any attention to it. Block it out. But if you, on the outside, get too close into that mix in towards touching on my distortions, I do not respond well because I'm being threatened because it's painful because it's disorienting so I have my outer defenses. We have a little book. We have a little video. The defenses are like two boxes around our spark. And the outer one is like, stay away from me. It's protect ourselves from others, from you, from your ideas. The inner box is more like denial to protect ourselves from our own thoughts and our own experience. So what we've come to see is that if you, through your spark, getting in touch with your spark, which is not here and it may be anywhere, for some people it's solar plexus or hard or, you know, it could be anywhere, and for some people the spark moves around. Through your spark, we start our meditations. You can look at our website. We start our meditations, which basically every other Sunday they're aligned with the phases of the moon, the Sunday closest to the full moon, Sunday closest to the new moon. With getting in touch with our spark, letting our awareness and our spark hang out together so they become reacquainted. Then through our spark, down around here, around my solar plexus, we reach out to connect with and affirm the spark in another, which we can do regardless of their defenses or bafflement or distortions. And what we've discovered is that when our spark reaches out to connect and affirm with the spark in another, it strengthens their spark. And the strengthened spark seems to act to erode the defenses, clarify the bafflement, and release the distortions. It falls apart, not in the same order it comes together. Erode the defenses so that we become aware of our bafflement because we're aware that our spark cannot be damaged, it cannot be put out, it cannot be corrupted, it cannot be extinguished. Our spark is essential and it's okay, and we don't need to be protecting it. We need to be helping it grow, strengthening it so it can reach out and connect with and affirm the sparks and others so that their sparks become strengthened and their defenses become eroded and their bafflement becomes clarified. Oh, I don't need to be doing that anymore. And so their distortions are released. So through this work, we become agents of transformation, which is quite the thing. It's very subtle. And as much as I talk about this and as profoundly as I believe it and have seen it work, I don't practice it as much as I'd like to. I'm always glad to be reminded. Oh, Martha, how about you try using your spark here? Oh, yeah, right. Anyway, but it's a spiritual practice. So that's the basic idea. In the back of the spark booklets, we have three reassurances. One, in each one of us, there's a spark of humanity. As we claim our spark, and we can only claim our spark through connecting with and affirming the spark in someone else, we can't do it alone. We can do it physically alone, but we cannot do it. We have to be in relationship with someone. Whether they know we're in relationship with them or not doesn't make any difference, but we connect with and affirm their spark. That's how we claim our spark. In every one of us there's a spark of humanity. As we claim our spark, we become agents of transformation, which is very powerful, which is why we're here wanting to spread the concept because it's very powerful. And there's no downside to it. As agents of transformation, second reassurance, as agents of transformation, all the resources we need are available to us. Not as agents of militarism or consumerism or any otherism or anything else. I don't know about those, but as agents of transformation, all the resources we need are available to us. And we may need to stretch and grow, which is not a bad thing, to access them, but they are available. We can live in that conviction. And because this process of connecting with and affirming the spark in someone else, to strengthen their spark also strengthens our spark. So in this process, our defenses are being eroded. Our bafflement is being clarified. Our distortions are rising to awareness so that they might be released. So the third reassurance is it works best when we ourselves are willing to be transformed. So we had a section a few weeks ago about willingness. There it is. Are we willing to be transformed? So that's the basic spark concept. Now working on this, and we've been working on this since, oh my gracious, seven years with a group doing things, doing the meditations, calling on Orca media, bless them to support us in this. And then it's sort of like, okay, this is very good. This is very good. Everybody should do it. It's a lovely thing. But why? Besides it just being a lovely thing. And within the past couple of years, blogging, working on the Spark website, our blog is sparkbark.sparkoffumanity.net, the ideas come that, okay, there is a solution and it may be envisioned as a living mosaic. And we're each a unique and essential part of the mosaic. So claiming our sparks allows for or facilitates the erosion of our defenses and the clarification of our baffle month. And thus invites us to the release of our distortions. And that allows us, it makes us fit, it makes us more susceptible to be drawn into our niche in the mosaic. So the mosaic is the why of the spark of humanity work or discipline. The mosaic is the why because it allows us to become part of the solution. And being part of the solution feels as good, I think pretty much as it feels as good as anything can feel in this world at this time. And maybe at any time, but it just feels good to be part of something bigger and that I'm not in charge of and that I get to participate in this movement. I get to participate in this life that's bigger than mine and that I trust. And so that's a good deal. So that's why to do the spark discipline, the spark practice. Is because it allows me into the, come into the mosaic and then pondering the mosaic of, okay, here we go. We want to be part of the solution. We know that's, you know, that's what we really want to do because we're all people of good heart, of course, here. But how do we do that? And so the spark practice is the how of the living mosaic, of how we prepare ourselves, how we make ourselves willing to be transformed, how we become susceptible to the process. Early on in this series, I said that the mosaic is alive. It's alive and it's evolving. And because it's alive, it works, it lives toward its own wholeness. And we are a part of that wholeness. We are part of the design of the wholeness of the life of the mosaic. And so it wants us, maybe it even inhales, who knows, maybe it's like, is gently trying to inhale us into our right relationship, our unique position, our unique niche within the mosaic. So that's the interplay between the two, the mosaic, the living mosaic and the history behind the living mosaic and the spark of humanity project. And it's something that we are working to deepen and develop, to make more accessible to others, to practice it more deeply ourselves. Because it's sort of like, maybe, like a trampoline or some surface open. When we're doing it more deeply, it creates a gentle slope so that others are more likely to roll down the hill into the same understanding and the same participation in this work. I'll wait a second, see if there's any questions, anything comes up with me. Otherwise, there's, oh, there's somebody there. Is there someone there? Hi, Martha. Hi. Oh, my boy. Here, let me put my headphones on. It's so good to see you and so good to speak to you. Yeah, I don't know how many people will watch this or are watching it right now, but we're old friends. And on January 1st, I made a commitment that I was going to find Martha in touch base with her. And two days later, you sent me an email out of the blue, and it was like, okay, so this is cool. I just wanted to say that, like you said it just as I was thinking it a few minutes ago, that if we're going to engage in this, we need to prepare ourselves to be changed. It's very easy for us to come into it and think, oh, this is a way for me to control the world. I want the world to be the way I want it to be. So I'm going to do this work and people will change. And thank goodness. About time. Yeah. I've had, like you're mentioning, I'm very slow with some things. I get impatient and I skim a whole bunch of stuff. And I think I understand it. And that's why I appreciate this meeting, because I'm able to understand that there is laid out somewhere a meditation practice that I have yet to discover and practice. But I will do that. I want to say that when I first read and watched the first couple of videos about the spark of humanity and living mosaic, I had the experience over the next few days of being in sticky situations one after another, like suddenly somebody would come at me and try to start an argument over absolutely. In one case, I found a guy's wallet and I was returning it. And he starts yelling at me, like, what are you doing here? Like, who are you? It was just, and all I knew at that point was the name spark of humanity. And I thought to myself, look for their humanity. Like just, just, just take a breath. Just, just take a breath and feel that person's humanity. And in each of these, it was three different situations. It changed, like the whole dynamic changed. And in the third of them, it turned out to be someone that politically, I'm pretty political, and I would have to, I would have to find this person as my enemy in other times and earlier times in my life. Now I would say they hold a really different perspective. And I do to say the least. And he wasn't open to just discussing he had his perspective. But again, by saying to myself, look at this man's humanity, we walked away with this, like, you know, we ought to do both of us. We haven't done it yet. But it was each of us walked away saying, let's get together and have a cup of coffee and have an intelligent conversation. And let's not be prepared to change each other's perspectives, but just to listen. And that is in and of itself a huge accomplishment for me, because believe me, I have an Irish temper, and it is very easy to hear somebody saying a different perspective than mine, and to just, what an idiot or whatever, and get into a negative space. And so I really appreciate it. I wanted to share those with you. And I wanted you to know that now that I know there is a meditation practice I will undertake to follow that process, because it's already, this has already been valuable to me. And I really want to support you as much as I'm able to, and in what you're doing. And I want to be supported by it. I want to be changed. Part of the solution. Because you are part of the solution. And I appreciate hearing that, because most of this work so far is out sort of, I know it's good because I do not, I'm not blocked into just physical reality. I know that the vibes may be subtle. I may never know the results. I never, but that doesn't excuse me from doing what I'm called to do with all the integrity and gravitas that I can come up with. But to have you with positive feedback is really great. The meditations, we do them on alternate Sundays at one o'clock in the afternoon by telephone. It's, you can get on the spark of humanity emailing lists, and you'll get a little squib like you got. I just figured that out yesterday, and now I'm on the email list. Oh, good. Good, good, good. You don't need me at all. You're all set, right? That's good. Other people that may watch this now or later will get that information as well. Right. Yeah, that's good. It's good. Yeah, the meditations are, I don't know. On the former meds website, we had a whole bunch that had been recorded here at Orca, so you could sort of do the guided meditation at home and the sanctity, you know, without a telephone without, but, and there may be in the archives in the website, the attic, we call it, yeah. So anyway, good. For those people who can't make it on Sundays, because for you, that's 10 o'clock in the morning. And so that's sort of, whether I'm going to a temple or a church, it's that time of day, so it could, but yeah, I'll look for the recorded ones and one week I'll not go anywhere else and I'll stay home and enjoy it. You'll show up, right? Good. Great. Thank you. Any questions, anything you want? Because we've got, no, we've got 14 seconds. I've got a clock. Thank you for showing up, Danielle. And thank you for those of you who got the notice. Danielle did the prayer that went out with the announcement for this, and we're going to be talking about it later. Thank you very much. Thank you, Orca. Thank you, Danielle. Thank you all. Goodness. Bye.