MOBIUS STRIP

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MOBIUS STRIP

• Thoughts on the Mobius Strip
• by Parker Palmer in the book,
• A Hidden Wholeness

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Take a strip of paper with which we will make a
Mobius Strip.

• One side of the strip represents your outer,
• onstage life.
• What is my image
• influence
• impact?

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• The other side represents your inner,
• backstage life
• Ideas, values, faith, heart, spirit, soul, etc.

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Stage 1

• Children come into this world with no separation
  between the inner and outer life.

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Stage 2

• Hold up the strip of paper so that it makes a
  wall, separating outer and inner worlds.
• We erect walls to serve as barriers between inner
  truth and the outer world.
• Examples

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If you live behind a wall long enough, not
letting the world see who you are

• You might forget there is a real you hidden
  there.

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3 Consequences of living behind a wall

• 1) My inner light cannot illuminate my work
• in the world
• 2) The light in the world cannot illuminate my
• inner darkness
• 3) People see us as not being real in our
• relationships and close themselves off
• from us.

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Pain will crack open our closed worldif we are
willing to feel it

• It could be loneliness, depression, anger,
  alienation, failed relationships, etc. that
• force us to admit something needs to
• change in our lives.

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Stage 3

• Form the strip of paper into a circle.
• I decide I want my inner truth to be the measure
  for the decisions I make.
• Who am I? What am I about? a good step
• But theres another side to this stage.

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Shadow side of Stage 3

• When we live inside this new identity, we form a
  secret garden to which we invite only people
  with whom we feel at ease.
• We use our inner truth to exclude those we find
  challenging.
• This circle is really only a wall in
  disguise.

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Stage 4

• Make a Mobius Strip with the paper.
• Whatever is inside us continually flows outward
  to form or deform the world.
• Whatever is outside us continually flows inward
  to help form, or deform our lives.
• There is really only ONE REALITY.

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• We learn that stages 2 and 3 are illusions,
  although they were necessary at the time.
• (2) We think we are hiding our truth behind a
  wall.
• (3) We think we can use our truth to screen out
  what is alien to us.
• But we all live on a Mobius Stripwe are
  constantly engaged in an exchange of what is out
  there and what is in here.

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OUR CHOICE

• We can walk the Mobius Strip wide awake to its
  continual interchanges, learning to co-create in
  ways that are life-giving to ourselves and
  others.
• Or we can sleep-walk on the Mobius Strip,
  unconsciously co-creating in ways that are
  dangerous and often deadly for relationships,
  good work, or hope.

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All spiritual traditions ask us to wake up to the
reality in which we live

• What are we sending from within ourselves to the
  world and what impact does it have?
• What is the world sending back to us and what
  impact does it have in us?
• We have the POWER TO CHOOSE MOMENT TO MOMENT
  between THAT WHICH GIVES LIFE and THAT WHICH
  GIVES DEATH.

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In Stage 4 we come full circle to the place where
we beganthe adult version of the wholeness into
which we were born.

• T.S. Eliot wrote
• We shall not cease from exploration
• And the end of all our exploring
• Will be to arrive where we started
• And know the place for the first time.