Dear friends
Each January I choose a word or phrase that will serve as a touchstone, a North Star to navigate by in the coming year. Here’s my Touchstone Word for 2024:
ATTUNION: a melding of attention, attuning, and communion
You won’t find attunion in a dictionary (yet). I coined it myself. I hope to use it to spark vital conversations about growing a more perfect union/attunion in our fragmented culture. As Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote: “A new word is like a fresh seed sown on the ground of the discussion.”
Here’s a full definition:
Attunion- {at-tu-nion}
1) A communion born of shared attuning. (“In our singing retreats we enjoy a lively attunion.”)
2) A communal practice/sacrament for enhancing/deepening group attunement/attention. People cultivate attunion in many ways: in churches, laboratories, meditation halls, and gaming rooms. (“Join us at the chapel tonight for a musical attunion.”)
3) An integration of feeling, thought and action, either within an individual or in interpersonal relating. (“We’re raising our attunion by gathering daily at 9 for a 15-minute silent meditation. We follow that with a short meeting to clarify and coordinate our team’s goals and needs for the day.”)
I conceived of “attunion” after encountering this assertion:
“There will be no community without first communing.”
-Nora Bateson.
I resonate with this, and have a corollary observation:
Communing is the fruit of attuning.
Thus, there’ll be no communing without first attuning.
Since community is born of communion, and communion is born of attuning, practicing attunion is key to the cultivation of community.
Related terms:
Attunication (At-tu-ni-ca-tion ): communication that leads to greater attunement in relationships. “We’ve all agreed to enhance our attunication by joining in a 15-minute silent meditation from 9 to 9:15, followed by a check-in to clarify and coordinate our cohort’s goals and needs for the coming day.”
Attunity: A well-attuned community
Here’s to widening circles of co-enlightening attunion in 2024!
Singcerely,
Craig