Narratives That Bring About Unity
World-Embracing Principles for Bringing About World Unity - Part 8
Narratives grounded in unitive consciousness form the basis for a wholistic, unitive worldview. They also represent a tradition in storytelling we need to reclaim. Before conflict and warfare kept tribal communities apart, the First Peoples lived by narratives that brought about and maintained their unity. Their guiding stories embodied the values and principles of the harmony, unity, and wholeness of Creation they observed all around them.
Over time, as communities grew, expanded, spread out, and became more focused on differences, divisive narratives emerged that supported separation. After many millennia of conflict and chaos, as we approach a consciousness of global integration, we are again in dire need of narratives that bring about unity.
As the storytelling species, we think in story form, speak in story form, and find meaning and purpose through our stories. Telling our stories in a recognizable narrative form, structure, and pattern is central to who we are, to our core identity. When meaning, purpose, and direction are missing from our stories, personally and collectively we are lost, without a rudder to guide us. We need to expand, deepen, and reframe our identity based on the demands of our time.
A unitive narrative inspires, reflects, validates, supports, and guides the reality of the inherent unity-in-diversity of the human family and all life as we experience and come to know this in everyday life. In describing the parallel functions of a living mythology, Joseph Campbell noted, “If they are successful, you get the sense of everything – yourself, your society, the universe, and the mystery beyond – as one great unit.”
Narratives that bring about unity invite us into the mystery of what seems unknowable, renders the impossible possible, catalyzes potentialities within us, places individual and collective consciousness at the center of the processes of the Universe, and expands the expression of love and goodwill among all peoples, as in the story of the Good Samaritan.
A unitive narrative for our time, meant to guide and inspire us all, will be alive, in harmony with the evolutionary impulse, upholding the latest scientific discoveries and spiritual revelations, bridging interpersonal and social divides, contributing to unity-in-diversity, and integrating all things in the Universe; it will return us to wholeness.
Expressing and representing the unified nature of reality, unitive narratives facilitate the process of transformation. Beyond the basic story pattern of beginning, middle, and end, unitive narratives take us to a hidden deeper level where the formula for transformation plays out on both the individual and collective level, through the pattern of beginning, muddle, and resolution. The muddles, or challenges, we face represent the core of the pattern that brings the process of transformation to its completion, or resolution, and to an understanding of the inherent unity of all things.
A unitive narrative keeps us on the track of truth-telling. We need narratives that will guide us through these times of change and transition, illustrating the power of the human spirit to overcome injustice and myriad crises, while maintaining an enduring sense of hope for the future.
We need narratives that express the reality of our inherent oneness as a human family, each of us in relationship with each other and all life, narratives that recognize each other’s contributions to the whole. These narratives of social coherence and harmony need to be reflected in our media, boardrooms, social institutions, and every branch of government at all levels.
We live for – and can’t live without – narratives that get to the essence of who we are, how we got here, and how we’re going to get to where we want to go. And we need open, receptive, respectful audiences who welcome these narratives.
For our narratives to reach this deeply, to become unitive, for us to become truly harmonized, we need to recognize that we are all sharing a common planetary homeland, that societies exist for the well-being of everyone. This is the only way we will all flourish and thrive.
Unitive narratives create pathways for building strong, resilient communities. The sharing of our common, universal human experiences brings us all closer together, making unity a reality that we feel and want to act upon, which can lead to new social networks and infrastructure that further advances social coherence and capacity.
A unitive narrative invites us to embrace the wisdom of the complementarity and wholeness of seemingly opposing forces, such as feminine and masculine attributes.
Unitive narratives are needed now more than ever to lead us through a process of shifting the focus from individual well-being to collective well-being.
In our time, the part can no longer take precedence over the whole. Both are completely interdependent. Exclusive emphasis on any one part endangers the whole. An ever-advancing civilization depends upon narratives that give us a deeper commitment to ensuring Earth’s well-being as a living organism.
Only through collaborative relationships and dynamic co-evolutionary partnerships on a planetary scale - and narratives that support these - will humanity thrive.