You have done the inner work. You journal. You have shared your deepest fears in a workshop, with someone skilled holding the space. You know the language of vulnerability.
So you expect community to come easily. And when it does not, it can start to look like the problem is everyone else.
I have lived in Damanhur, a spiritual community in northern Italy, for over 15 years. Here is what I have seen: deeply spiritual people—people who can name every one of their patterns—struggle to show their tender parts to the people they live with.
They want to. They do not know how.
Sharing a fear in a facilitated course is one skill. Showing a need at the dinner table on an ordinary Tuesday is another.
I include myself.
Last Friday, two Damanhurian friends got married. Many of their guests were not from Damanhur, and since I have security experience, they asked me to keep watch over the celebration. I was happy to do it.
Near the end of the night, I ran over to tell a friend something, stepped wrong, and hurt my right calf. It was not quite a sprain, but I could not put my full weight on it.
I hid it. I was the one watching over everyone.
You have a version of this. A need so small it feels silly to mention. A food you cannot eat. A step that is hard for you today. A fear you think looks irrational to everyone else. Something easy for other people that is hard for you. So you push through, and you say nothing.
A close friend was with me. I told him I had done something to my calf, and then I shrugged it off. For the rest of the night, I acted like I was fine. Later, out with him and other friends, I mentioned it again as something minor and did my best to hide the limp.
The next day, I could not walk. I stayed home with ice and my leg up, walking in tiny steps to keep weight off it.
Over the next few days, I limped in a way that was hard to notice. And then I felt hurt that no one offered to help me up and down the stairs. No one asked how I was doing.
Maybe you know this circle, too. You hide the need because asking feels weak. You hope someone will notice anyway. When no one does, part of you decides they do not care. It is an impossible circle.
Only one friend has asked me how I am. She is the one person I told the whole truth to. She checks on me daily and helped me find ways to heal.
The people who could help you cannot answer a need they cannot see.
Here is what makes this almost funny. I pay close attention to what the plants I live with need. I look at kin closely every day, and some of them reach me in ways that are harder to explain. This week, I dreamed of Rubber Plant in my bedroom, pruned down to a tiny size, in a much smaller pot, with soil everywhere. I woke up, looked over at ki, and it hit me: you do not fit where you are.
I give kin that kind of attention. And I was hoping the humans around me would give the same attention to a limp I was working hard to hide.
Plants show what they need. When caterpillars feed on young Corn, ki releases large amounts of scent into the air, and parasitic wasps follow that scent to the caterpillars. The damage becomes something others can perceive, and the beings who can help find their way to ki.
I believe we already know how to do this, as beings of Nature. Human conditioning taught us to hide what hurts. Working closely with plants, we remember what kin show all around us: a need that others can see is a need that can be met.
“It is also why I need more than one community. Some of my communities are beings of Nature: Noel, my closest plant partner, all the plants in my home, the meadow and river in front of my house, and the forest I walk through. Some are human: Damanhur, my art circles, the metalheads I go to concerts with, and the Naturally Conscious Community®. I need all of them to understand myself and to be more of who I am.
I am still learning how to turn what I study into how I live. My calf is healing. The habit of hiding it is taking longer.
What small need are you hiding right now, and who would help you if they could see it?
I would love to know. Just hit reply.
Vegetal Entanglements,
P.S. If you want someone to hold up a mirror while you look at your own circle, that is what a Root & Rise call is for. Book your discovery call →
