WELCOME. Begin Here.

Complex times usher us beyond the pursuit of comfort to the depths of human becoming.

Dear Fellow Human Becoming,

Welcome.

I’m glad you’re here.

Let us suppose you and I come to this page at a moment altogether auspicious,

. . . that, in the grandeur of life’s unfolding, moments come, rare and fleeting, when conditions are ripe for a great leap,¹

. . . that such a moment is upon us,²

. . . that you and I answer the call.

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There's a particular quality of consciousness that only humans can provide. Nature needs that consciousness; cries out for it. And the process of deciphering Nature's need, then discovering how to respond to it, is what's called learning to become human. 
~ Peter Kingsley, Book of Life, 94

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Permit me first to share with you how this call came to pass in my own life.

In November 2022, I set out on pilgrimage.

I would wander wild reaches of North America.

From time to time, I would return to the land of city lights, to the buzz and hum of day to day, to good friends, old and new, who would welcome me “home” for a day, a week, or two.

But those times became fewer as the wild call pulled.

I took to the road in a Sprinter, a roadhorse made vanhome by a man who grew up on sailboats.

Inside, the walls and ceiling are wood so that when I am not outside, it is as if I am. A library, hand-crafted by my son, lends a six-foot stretch of books. The bed, I layered in linen, down, and wool for when the nights grow ice on the windows inside.

I have never been more at home.

When I began –

I did not know where I would go.

I could not say how long I would be gone.

I would walk and write and gather images.

I did not know why.

I would plunge

into an abyss of no thing to cling to,

a pebble descending

a hollow

sea

to soul, to cease

being what being had known.

I began in high desert in winter.

I journeyed across boreal forests,

glacial fields,

the tundra of the North Country in summer.

The journey took my hand and took the lead

and carried me miles

and miles

and more miles still

across plowed dirt

heaves (once frost)

to the end of this land

to the slate stone waters of the Beaufort Sea

at the mouth of the Arctic Ocean

to be kissed

and then return. . .

riding Earth’s breaths

home

to the Blue Ridge Mountains

of the Southern Appalachian Range, December 2023.

I came home changed, not like Danté.

I came home neither lost nor found.

That was the beginning of what this letter would come to be.

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The Great Work now . . . is to carry out the transition from a period of human devastation of the Earth to a period when humans would be present to the planet in a mutually beneficial manner.”
~ Thomas Berry, The Great Work, 3

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We become a complete human being because we know it's needed. 
Cynthia Bourgeault, Mepkin Abbey, 2022

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Let us imagine this letter as an invocation of the Great Work of our time—to respond to the call to become more fully human, to transition together as a “mutually enhancing” mode of being on Earth.³

For this work, let us say this letter serves as an invitation into a willing not-knowing, this not-knowing, a stillness inside a knowing willingly shown.

Let us suppose this letter is a question absent all answer.

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We might observe that the Great Work of a people is the work of all people. 

No one is exempt. 

[Each] person in and through their personal work assists in the Great Work. Personal work needs to be aligned with the Great Work.
~Thomas Berry, The Great Work, 10

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Let us say this letter may usher us to an edge of discomfort. And let us say, this is good; for every discomfort is an always inner impulse to become more intimate with what we believe we cannot bear: the fullness of life itself.

Let us hope this letter stirs the soul, quiets the mind, quickens aliveness inside.

And let us trust that if this letter leaves us hushed that the silence that comes is a portal through which. . .

[we] were chosen 
by some power beyond ourselves 
for this historical task

knowing, too, that. . .⁴

. . . those powers that assign our role must in that same act bestow upon us the ability to fulfill this role 

and if this is so, then

[we] must believe that we are cared for 
and guided by 
these same powers 
that bring us into being. 
~Thomas Berry, The Great Work, 7

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Kind Words from Kind Readers

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Toni Monsey

In these urgent times, Renée's words draw me "beyond the pursuit of comfort to the depths of human becoming," just as she promises. 

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Jacob Bush

of

On & On : Writing Through the Journey

Stunning unfolding of the world's mysteries. . . . 

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Tara Penry

of

Quiet Reading with Tara Penry

“Dr. Renée Eli traveled across North America with books of spirituality and philosophy for companionship. Beyond the Comfort Zone gives back her reflections with generosity, irresistible honesty, gorgeous photographs, and drops of grace."

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Kaitlyn Rightmyer

of

The Heart Song

"Renee shares such a depth of wisdom and experience that always seems to bring me deeper within my own self. Her writing sparks beautiful reflections of my own."

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References + Notes

1. Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution, trans. Arthur Mitchell (Henry Holt, 1913); Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, trans. Bernard Wall (Harper & Row, 1959; originally published as Le Phénomene Humain, Editions du Seuil, 1955). Jean Gebser, Ever-Present Origin, trans. Noel Barstad and Algis McKunas (Ohio University Press, 1953).

2. Thomas Berry, Dream of the Earth “Here we might observe that the basic mood of the future might well be one of confidence in the continuing revelation that takes place in and through the earth. If the dynamics of the universe from the beginning shaped the course of the heavens, lighted the sun, and formed the earth, if this same dynamism brought forth the continents and seas and atmosphere, if it awakened life in the primordial cell and then brought into being the unnumbered variety of living beings, and finally brought us into being and guided us safely through the turbulent centuries, there is reason to believe that this same guiding process is precisely what has awakened in us our present understanding of ourselves and our relation to this stupendous process. Sensitized to such guidance from the very structure and functioning of the universe, we can have confidence in the future that awaits the human venture” (p. 137).

Thomas Berry, The Great Work (Bell Tower, 1999). “Perhaps a new revelatory experience is taking place, an experience wherein human consciousness awakens to the grandeur and sacred quality of the Earth process. Humanity has seldom participated in such a vision since shamanic times, but in such a renewal lies our hope for the future for ourselves and for the entire planet on which we live” (p. 106).

Jean Gebser, Ever-Present Origin. “. . . if we do not overcome the crisis it will overcome us; and only someone who has overcome himself is truly able to overcome. Either we will be disintegrated and dispersed, or we must resolve and effect integrity. In other words, either time is fulfilled in us—and that would mean the end or death for our present earth and (its) mankind—or we succeed in fulfilling time: and this means integrality and the present, the realization of the reality of origin and presence. And it means, consequently, a transformed continuity where mankind and not man, the spiritual and not the spirit, origin and not the beginning, the present and not time, the whole and not the part become awareness and reality. It is the whole that is present in origin and originative in the present” (xxvii-xxviii).”

3. Ibid., p. 11.

4. Formatting does not permit fn here. Both passages, above and below, are Berry, Great Work, p. 7.