The Dance of Authenticity
On Noticing and the Devotion to What Is
As how this publication started, unplanned, simply an emergence, is how it continues to present itself. It's been a dance of noticing what feels most authentic to express. It has taken a variety of forms—educational essays, personal reflections, poetry—this ongoing noticing, week over week, of what feels most authentic to share.
Something I've spoken about in previous essays and with many folks in my life is the push and expectation from social platforms to post a certain amount, in a certain way, at a certain time. This evokes within us a searching, a seeking to optimize to get noticed, to get seen. Depending on the intent—whether using social as a marketing tool or as a form of expression—the approach differs. What many don't realize is that their creativity is being played—their creativity is being ostracized into the formations of a puppet. So, as a practice of expression, it has felt ever important while keeping the weekly cadence to honor the authentic nature, the practice, the muscle that is itching to be developed.
This essay isn't going to make logical sense. It will feel scattered, and it's true that that's what wants to be expressed. What has become clear is a calling, a need for clarity in a new way that I have yet to experience before. In my own relationship with realization—clarity—truth, I've noticed that getting down to the essence of what something is truly expressing takes time, a lot of time. There are veils of fear, of doubt, of dissonance, rupturing the vitality of knowing. In a society obsessed with next-day shipping, with immediate returns, there's an honoring of the longer horizon of devotion and what emerges from that depth of well.
And in this dance with knowing—simply, philosophically—there's been more noticing of cultivating capacity and what that means. A book that has resonated for many years and has made its way to the forefront of my experience is Jack Kornfield's After The Ecstasy, The Laundry. Upon first relation, what felt true was that after peak experiences, the only way to truly integrate, the only way to truly grow, is by weaving in the mundane. It's the retreat of depth, the daily practice of breadth. It's deepening the grooves and ensuring the grooves keep their form, their structure.
This tension between depth and structure appears elsewhere. I love to travel. There's a part of me that loves exploring new places, getting lost in unfamiliar territories, immersing myself in new cultures, learning new ways of thinking—doing—being. While so often, and yes still, travel has allowed for innate, incredible layers of expansion. Yet, what has surfaced through reflection with others and now in my own experience is the mastery and nuance of being with the mundane—that only consistency and structure can provide. It's like how a butterfly nestles in its cocoon, a baby in its mother's womb... cultivating the depth of sensitivity, of feeling, of rhythm. To more accurately attune to the truth, the authenticity that is alive.
This attunement—this capacity—is a noticing. It's expanding the aperture of reality to see the shadow of the part that isn't yet in the light. It's noticing what comes back again and again and again. Will you—won't you—learn the lesson… yet? Likely, tbh, no. You’ll miss it—in plain sight. The awareness has yet to be cultivated. The deep sabotorial grooves that cloud the truth presenting itself repeatedly.
Perhaps this is because we live in a realm of story. Yet, many—most don't know, aren't aware of the story that drives their behavior. It's why the media so strategically shares certain stories at certain moments. It's crafting the narrative that weaves together beliefs, beliefs into action—or inaction.
When dissecting these narratives, there are assumptions and influences. When deconstructing the narratives that weave our lives, we can reauthor them. Cultivating alternative stories empowers us to redefine our identity and confront challenges… with grace, with confidence.
The purest narrative might be found in our beginnings. Humans can't help but smile when they are in the presence of a baby. There is an utter sense of awe, of glee. A baby has yet to take on all of the expectations of how they should be in the world, their surroundings, their context. They haven't morphed into the layers of patterning, contorting themselves, wishing, hoping, desiring to be loved. Out of the womb, babies, like the butterfly, are pure love. Pure love. There is a radiance of play, of curiosity, of light, of wonder.
A sense that, overtime, is dimmed for one too many.
Yet here we are—living in one of the most unique times in human history. A crumbling, a rebirthing.
Resonance, listening.
On being, on becoming.
The idea of doing and being doesn't logically click for most. Rather, simply put, it's cultivating the depth of awareness to see reality unfolding in front of you. So, all you need to do is be, witness, listen, attune. The one that strives, the one that seeks, can settle.
In this ocean of trust. In this ocean of love.
And so this dance continues—this emergence, this noticing of the isness. The mundane that reveals the extraordinary. The form that allows the flow. The puppet strings we cut, one by one, to find our way back to that pure love, that radiance we once knew. As scattered as imperfect as the truth may be, they orbit around a single essence: authenticity emerges from our devotion to be with what is.
With gratitude,
Rachel
Emergence with Rachel Weissman comprises weekly essays on human potential for regenerative progress — interlacing art & design, ecology, futurism, human potential, mystical wisdom, and technology.
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