UUCB Member, Win Williams has a doctorate in physics from UC Berkeley. As well as participating in choirs over the years, he has been a student of Michael Meade. Win will draw on what he has learned from Michael Meade to discuss what we experience when we face Life’s challenges, and how we as a community reintegrate members who have been through these challenges with healing and honoring what those members have experienced i.e. the ‘missing third step.’
Below is Dr. Williams description of his presentation:
“The pandemic as a rite of initiation, and our missing third step.”
My premise is that there’s a structure to the archetype of initiation, namely: separation, ordeal, and return to community. We’re missing that third step in a variety of initiatory experiences that occur in our culture. Whenever someone deals with a loss or medical challenge, an addiction or other significant life-interrupting challenges, there is a separation and an ordeal. Rarely though do we understand how to welcome people back into community in a way that is healing and “wholing” and honors what they have been through, the humility and wisdom they have gained, and granting them new authority with new responsibility which they are now capable of handling in a way which supports our highest outcome for all concerned. I can include a little about how I’ve grown in the challenges faced with Cindi which accelerated (both growth and challenges) in the months before and during the pandemic, and which shaped the landscape of my pandemic ordeal, even as all of us were in the pandemic together but grappling with our own individual challenges.
LINK TO SLIDES FROM PRESENTATION
