Anchorholding: Mobile and Digital Applications, Part Four

All working space can be an anchorhold and all activities can be interpreted through the anchorholding model. It matters not whether you are making cheese in your kitchen or making business deals in a high tower of commerce. Though, to be truthful, the former will be easier than the later, though not impossible.

What is required is a shift in thinking that moves away from a computational model that is transactional to a gratitude that is relational. Note that this does not mean that money is not exchanged in the way of payment for services or salary. It simply means that financial transactions are secondary to transactions that are relational. The end does not justify the means. The means, the process, the endeavor, the adventure, they are what is of import. Results take care of themselves, embedded as they are in the larger sphere to which we are not always privy. Yes, that’s right. A little letting go is involved. Well, perhaps a lot.

And why, you may wish to be reminded, would you want to make this realignment? Well, each person’s reasons will be different. But at the heart of the matter, you may have come to see that it is good to have a purpose in life that goes beyond acquisition. You may be searching for a feeling that you are part of something larger, something of greater interest than your solitary existence. You may be actively looking for some way to contribute to The Great Turning or The Great Remembering. Or it may just be a vague nagging that you need to ‘do something.’ It matters not. Always start where you are and work from there.

So, let’s look at space. My anchorhold is a physical room in my home, though I would also say, it includes the rest of my house and the open space of garden and grounds that surround it. My third window and my anchorhold space often overlap.

 But this is my particularity. What would this realignment look like in another situation?

Let’s take, for an example, the gentleman who picks up the recycling once a week. In the rural area where I live, he drives about the countryside in a large green truck. He has a route that does not vary. He stops at the end of each driveway, opens the garbage/recycling box at the end of the driveway, and takes away what has been left for him. After he has collected all the recycling from his route for that day, he takes his load to the recycling centre and empties it.

Where is his anchorhold? How is he an anchorite or anchoress? By the way, in the ancient way an anchoress was a woman, and an anchorite was a man. But we can just choose whatever word draws us to it. Some things about our current context are lovely.

But back to our man in the green truck. He could of course establish an anchorhold in his home and see his trips out to collect recycling as his third window. His collecting of the recycling then takes on a larger work, a more nuanced work, a place where contemplation in action is the norm. But he may see that the cab of his truck as his anchorhold, and from here he does his deep thinking, his spiritual realignment, his imaginative thinking around the whole business of recycling. His cab, his truck then, reflects his understanding of how he fits into the wholeness of things. What does he listen to while he is driving about? What logos/pictures/words decorate his cab? How might he re arrange his route, his routine, the way he empties the large blue boxes? How does he begin to make this change within himself, his cab, his truck, his route, his customers? A simple job takes on a fascinating calling.

What then of the teacher in an elementary school? Can her classroom become her anchorhold? Can she herself be an anchoress or anchorite? How will she hold herself differently? How will she interact with the children, who, in her thinking, have come to her anchorhold for instruction, comfort, solace, spiritual uplifting. What routines will change? How will her space realign for this new purpose, this larger viewing of a vocation? Perhaps it may all begin with modeling for her pupils the gentle silence that begins each day, each task, each learning.

A takeout window in a drive through, a nurse practitioner’s waiting room, a field of oats or a patch of pumpkins, a gas station, an artist’s garret – these may all be anchorholds if those who work from them clothe themselves in the aura of anchoress.

And as for digital imaginings, that is an endless foray into The Wonderful. When we enter the digital universe what wonders we may offer – all from wherever and how ever we create our anchorholds. Do you sell belts? Do you write poetry? Are you a journalist, perhaps? How can you open your third window into the digital world of commerce or publishing or idea gathering from a place of grounded devotion to the natural reciprocity that holds the cosmos in unity. It can be done; you know it can.

All shifts in human consciousness take place within the individual minds and spirits of those who choose to step into the fray. Come on. It will be fun.