A Flock of Hands …

The village of Yellow Springs, Ohio was founded in 1825 by a man called Robert Owen, who wanted to create a utopian community similar to one he’d helped build in previous years in a town called New Harmony, Indiana.

This was fascinating to me. I spent ten years of my own life studying with a spiritual teacher who shared a vision of a world where everyone could achieve physical and emotional health through his meditation and energy healing practices. In his ideal world, everyone would live to be of service. Their spiritual focus would make them fulfilled and at peace with themselves and others.

Unfortunately, it didn’t stop his followers from gossiping, back-biting and generally being unkind to each other, even during his lifetime. When our teacher died, the ‘spiritual’ group split into angry factions. There were bitter arguments about who the rightful leader should be. Just like the town of New Harmony and the utopian community at Yellow Springs, things fell apart. From the outside, it looked like a total failure of our teacher’s vision; proof that in the end, people just don’t get along.

I’m old enough to know that we’ll never live in a perfect world, but I’m young enough to be hopeful. The spiritual values of service I learned from my teacher continue to influence my life today. The quiet whispers of Robert Owen’s utopian dream lingered on in Yellow Springs too. It became one of the last stops on the Underground Railway; a place known for its racial tolerance. It’s a little town with a big heart and a thriving artistic community. It’s a place where people go to find inspiration for their creative lives and a sense of belonging.

In the end, I believe that nothing we do towards the common good is wasted. It seeps into the communal memory and carries on, even if only in small ways, for future generations, like a flock of hands, holding up the sky.

Olga Ziemska’s sculpture, “Flock of Hands”
Yellow Springs, OH