The Puzzle Pieces Don't Fit. Or Do They?

Community as a messy, dynamic, beautiful, funky composting forest of love in action

Community is a forest: a dynamic spiritual ecology of unbounded wholeness where we are all constantly growing, decaying, and getting free together. ~ Lama Rod Owens

For my birthday I was surprised with dozens of large puzzle pieces sent via mail from near and far.

Some were painted, some glittered, some crayoned. Some were festooned with stickers. Some with words. Some with tiny paintings. One was an elaborate three-dimensional wire sculpture of a tree with turquoise-stone leaves and coiled roots.

Turtle, hearts, trees, spirals.

Snake, fire, butterfly, flowers.

The idea was that I would be able to bring all of these pieces of puzzle-shaped love and put them together into a whole.

Except the pieces did not fit together with ease.

Some would snap together if I turned them just the right way.

But many of them did not fit at all.

As we sat together in the community kitchen in New Mexico we had a moment of despair that the vision of creating a whole puzzle out of these carefully created pieces didn't “work.”

And then we laughed and decided it was going to be a much more creative coming together of all the different pieces.

A tapestry of wild edges and creative weavings.

Which is what I call: Life.

---

I'm currently in Los Angeles, traveling with the pieces in a little purple bag that says “Book of Spells”

This is my life spell: to be part of a gloriously diverse, creative, expressive community of humans and non-humans and rest into the ecology unbounded wholeness.

---

My degree is in International Community Relations, an independent major I crafted from merging courses in Community Development with International Relations (with a strong emphasis on Latin American studies and lots of Dance!) at the University of California - Davis. As a young woman I wanted to understand the big global picture; how countries and cultures communicated and interacted. I also wanted to dive into how to foster local community change. I was blessed to be part of a University that allowed me to take multiple puzzle pieces from different disciplines and create a unique program that fit my desire for both global and local learning.

At heart I’m a journalist, community organizer, activist, animist and witch; a lover of people and culture, nature and the wild.

I’ve seen so many communities that want all the puzzle pieces to fit together easily: for there to be a clean, sterile, perfect union of smiling, happy, productive people that are in harmony with each other and their God / Goddess / Leader / Guru / Priest / Priestess / Fill-in-the-Blank.

This kind of spiritual / community harmony is often epitomized as the pinnacle of success: “We love each other all the time! There is no friction, fear, or frustration. We fit together and we are whole!”

I do not call this wholeness. This is more a forcefully fitting in; at core fearful striving to belong. In these “communities” we contort our puzzle piece to fit in with those around us. We want clean edges, things snapping together effortlessly. We want it all to fit. To make sense. To not challenge or disturb us. We make others the enemy or not as advanced or not as spiritual or just plain evil. We judge, compare, and distance ourselves.

---

What if instead we loved the spaces between the puzzle pieces as much as the puzzle?

What if we let our rough edges rub against each other, with the intent of using friction and conflict not to divide or dominate, but to find common ground and compassion?

What if we viewed each piece of the puzzle as a kaleidoscope of creation, a living breathing transforming reflection rather than a static, unchanging expression?

What if we chose the picture we were working to create together, and settled in for the long, winding creative journey of how things fit together in surprising ways, with love as the spacious glue?

What if we included the trees and rocks, the ancestors and animals, the mycelium and the mountains, history and future possibilities as part of the whole?

What if we let go of the how it was all supposed to fit together, and got curious about the active work of creating our life, and our chosen community, as messy, composting, nourishing, expansive art?

---

What puzzle pieces in your own life have you been trying to force to fit? What space do you need to allow new things to fall together in surprising ways?

---

This writing made me think of a previous article I wrote which I just updated with a pretty version of

one of my favorite prayer / poems:

---