THE GOD OF THE GAPS is a term for when somebody treats gaps in our current scientific understanding as proof of the presence of God.  Many of us do this instinctively.  We use the complex limit on human sensemaking as a trigger for entering states of wonderous contemplation.  Good.  But it is easy to get carried away with this sort of self-serving rationalization and ignore that new forms of natural science are always closing the gaps. 

At Sky Meadow in Vermont this past week, we didn't talk about a God of Gaps.  Instead, we started talking about a Goddess of the Anomalous. 

Last Spring, we held a collective metamodern inquiry into the meaning (and applicability) of the God-concept within an emerging metamodern spirituality.  During that unique event, it became obvious that, although the Divine need not be gendered, there were nevertheless some issues not being adequately emphasized.

Feminine-coded issues.  Yin issues.  Fertility.  Ecology.  Cycles.  Emotion.  Right-brain sensemaking.  Intimacy.  Relationship.  Reproduction.  Bodies.  Imagination.  Earth.  Sensuality.  Entities.  Goddess stuff.

These qualities, loosely grouped under the (bracketed) imaginal agency of “the Goddess," allowed our recent event to foreground the experience and prominence of women in our communities -- while also performing experiential and theoretical deep dives into territory that tends to be undervalued on our cognitive maps. 

Or perhaps even actively eludes our mapmaking?

The Metamodern Spirituality Labs that I lead (hosted by Brendan Graham Dempsey at the Sky Meadow Institute) are twice-yearly gatherings in which convivial teams of high-sensitivity, high-capacity, multifariously metamodern, liminal, integral, Game B, etc. folks undertake experimental spiritual practice & explore different conceptual features of spirituality and religion through a metamodern lens. 

It has become one of the primary incubators of the liminal zeitgeist with a profound and accumulating role in stabilizing the vibe, building the models, forging the relationships & deepening the practices.   

Without doxxing the names of attendees, I can report that we had a very rich mixture of witchy spiritual teachers, proponents of DAO-based neo-religious institutions, complexity scientists, developmental metatheorists, musicians, trainee shamans, intentional community consultants, vision-logic authors, Limicon fans, serious meditators, and moms.

Moms?

Exactly. 

The panel on Metamodern Motherhood was one of the emotional highlights for a lot of attendees.  Just having the men sensitively, intelligently, and eagerly receive the unfolding “both/and" stories of how the women in the field relate to being mothers was extraordinary.  The fact that simply addressing motherhood was perceived as a rare event tells us something important.  And it was followed by Interrogating the Masculine (a possibly offputting name for a very congenial exchange) in which only the women were allowed to ask questions to elicit the Divine Feminine from representatives of the male contingent. 

These sorts of live inter-gender processing, framed by the concept of the Goddess, were informative and moving.  Also delightfully successful compared to similar attempts in the Postmodern, Modern, or Traditional spaces. 

We also had deeply intellectual and abstract moments trying to grapple with the role of cyclic & meta-modal patterns in the construction of stack-like or level-based models of unfolding complexity.  We inquired into the appropriate function of feminine metaphors in helping us work with right-brained sensemaking and biospheric intelligences.  There was a presentation on a new archetype system in which the Dark Feminine is deeply integrated.  Energetic and physical practices.  Mandala building.  Service to the land (the conversations that took place during group potato harvesting were some of the most brilliant).  Regular sitting meditation.  Swimming in the pods.  Trekking in the woods.  Creative ritual production.  Truly delicious locally-sourced feasts. 

You get the idea.

For me personally, the top three things are always (a) the deep interpersonal appreciation ordeal which is an emergent, and surprisingly impactful, circle process for the people who came to the pre-retreat week, (b) the opening ritual itself which, this time, had powerful new elements of circularity, emotion and symbolic sexual differentiation quite distinct from the typical hill-top procession we have used before, and (c) the decentralized conversations.

On a quick walk back to your cabin, you pass two people discussing the need to shift from verbal to pictorial models of developmental complexity.  Down by the pond, there is a quiet discussion about opening the muladhara chakra with different forms of stance.  Three people are examining the practicality of formalizing legal religions while chickens and sheep roam past them.  Out on the lawn, a little cluster of folks is laughing about how they simultaneously believe and do not believe in “subtle energy transmission."  On the hilltop, two people are connecting about how to optimize their roles in the emerging culture.  It's truly delightful.

And for the first-time folks (who are often the only metatheorists or new-vibe folks in their town, family or corporation), there can be a radical shift when they discover the potential for community emerging around this new flavor of depth-oriented meta-civilization. 

So I hope that gives you a sense of what we just did.  We are moving into a harvesting mode now.  The practices and collective inquiries allow us, each time, to select some salient elements that return as regular aspects of the emerging “religious life" of this form of the field.  And we are looking forward to being marvelously surprised by the right people in next year's Spring Metamodern Spirituality Lab -- where our projected inquiry will be (whatever we all tend to mean when we say) the Subtle.    
Consider joining us.  

As long as you don't mind pooping in a bucket.