More about Ezekiel and his Deep Belonging journey
For my entire adult life, I have been guided by a curious longing to be of service. This longing was born, at least in part, from the recognition that when I was a child, my life was saved by the generosity and love of my family and the healing presence of the more-than-human world, primarily the North Fork of the Holston River. My early years were painful and traumatic, and yet, I was provided with enough of a sense of belonging to find my way into adulthood, where I could get to work healing and wholing myself. To honor this early lifesaving gift, I have attempted to pay it forward.
This has taken many forms, evolving from an immature desire to save the world—which was actually just a need to save myself—to a rooted, authentic expression of my unique gifts. On this journey, I have been fortunate to have the guidance of many teachers and mentors who have gently but firmly pointed me away from the shallow cultural stories of success and toward the truth at the core of my being, even though I was often unable to see it myself.
In addition to my human guides, a core teacher for me has been the land (mostly my home bioregion of the southern Appalachian Mountains, but also the shores and forests of the Big Island of Hawaii, the redwood forests of northern California, and the lush jungle of Guatemala). These various communities have held me in my darkest moments, softened my hard edges, and enabled me to trust my deeper truths. They have shown me that to belong in the community of Life is to partake in the ongoing gift of relationality; it is to receive, with humility and gratitude, the gifts of others, and it is to offer, with discernment and purpose, my gifts in support of the flourishing of the whole.
Similarly, the entire living universe has been a core teacher on my journey. Developing an evolutionary understanding of the universe through the study of philosophy and cosmology has enabled me to locate myself as an integral member of the entire cosmic process. It has allowed me to identify as that part of the process that is capable of both reflecting on itself in conscious self-awareness and contributing to the ongoing development of the process in a way that is needed and that I alone am capable of.
This is how I understand deep belonging. As a guide, my role is not to tell people what they should do with their life or what they should believe. Rather, it is to walk with them on the journey of re-membering home.
