Seen in an ambitious light, the Interspiritual movement is a hugely inclusive thing -- spanning the realms of religion and interfaith and politics and community. It's complex, nuanced, multifaceted, and bottomlessly detailed. What is the meaning of Spirit and how should it influence the world we live in together? We will be talking about it forever.

MY ALLIANCE

All over the world, we are seeing organizations and individuals responding to some call from the Zeitgeist, taking on responsibility for one or many of these interconnected facets. We know it's a true "movement" -- there are thousands of organizations or web sites expressing some aspect of interspirituality, in its full range of implications from spirituality to wisdom to activism. Some might see this emerging movement as something like a huge jig-saw puzzle, seeking for some perfect or resonant way all these contingencies can influence one another as parts of a single wholeness.

INTEGRAL BACKBONE

Are we concerned with personal transformation and private spiritual growth? Everything ever taught or understood on this ancient theme is present today in our interspiritual conversations. Are we concerned about "the relationships among the religions"? The interspiritual conversation contains everything known about interfaith. Are we involved with pressing large-scale political issues, like climate change or economy, where informed voices are warning us that we must find new and enlightened solutions? Can national or global society continue to operate under such huge disparity of income and resources? What does Spirit say about that?

All over the world -- and here through Interspirit Alliance -- a vision of new-world transformative community is forming. Instinctively, people are reaching for enlightened new concepts of community. "We need each other -- this is too big for any one of us. We simply have to work together." But how can we span innumerable divides of culture and language and religion and values? It's a hugely transformative challenge -- yet we know we must bridge these divides -- and the Interspiritual movement is teaching us how.

Here through the Interspirit Alliance, we are starting to look at some new and profoundly primal ideas for intercultural activism. Just as the internet itself has a "backbone" -- shown in this picture on the left -- maybe religion and spirituality and interspirituality also have a backbone -- a common fundamental element at an ontological level that transcends cultural particulars and concepts, and welds together 10,000 alternative ways to conceptualize the truth of our world.

In an inexorable kind of way -- these forces seems to be coming into focus -- maybe because they must, maybe because they have always been part of our potential -- part of our cultural inheritance -- indeed, part of our collective "Anima Mundi" -- the Soul of the World.

This last three months, we've pushed our way through a powerful co-creative/collective process, leading us to an emerging new vision of what is possible, and how it can be organized. We're looking at this idea of Axis Mundi -- the Tree of the World -- perhaps the defining and integrating backbone for the Soul of the World.

WORLD TREE

The logic is elegant -- maybe even "perfect". It seems beyond seductive. It just -- well -- "feels right". So -- if the growth force remains steady behind us and the wind stays in our sails, we can continue to follow this intriguing organic design principle -- and see whether it makes sense to people everywhere to bring the power of this vast international collective movement into clear simple brilliant focus.

As Father Thomas Keating says -- "We relax into who we really are".

Thanks for being here. If we can help you in any way, let us know.