Super Power Experts - A Modern Round Table

What is the true meaning of a modern round table? What benefits can we receive from deciding to build one? In this episode of Wisdom of Ages, host Ayn Cates Sullivan and guest Matt Idom talk about the true meaning of the round table and its correlation with unity, love, and radical acceptance. Moreover, Ayn and Matt revolve their conversation on recognizing ourselves in others and focusing on shared humanity for unity to flourish. Tune in and listen to Ayn and Matt as they discuss the importance of using the strength found in diversity to create a better world.

Ayn Cates Sullivan:

So welcome friends and mystical travelers. This is Ayn Cates Sullivan, host of Wisdom of the Ages, and today I have a treat. We don’t know how this is going to unfold, but what’s going to unfold our episode is on the round table.

Now round table we might think of King Arthur and Lancelot and Guinevere and Merlin. But you know, there’s an Arthur and a Guinevere and a Merlin for each age, and the man I’m talking to today, our guest today, is Matthew Idom, and Matthew seems to carry the Arthur archetype.

So I am going to hand you the sort of truth, and we’re going to have some fun with inquiry and see how this plays out. So, welcome, Matthew Idom.

Matthew Idom:

Thank you, Ayn. I really appreciate that, and I’m curious to see how this plays out as well.

Ayn Cates Sullivan:

It’s interesting. You know, when I first looked you up, I was sent to this website that told me something about the One Day Movement. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Matthew Idom:

Yeah. One Day kind of came out of a conversation a good friend of mine and I would have. He was working on a project for Landmark Forum and originally wanted to start a holiday. He wanted to launch a whole new holiday. The pandemic kind of shifted that. It’s changed quite a bit since then.

But the basic idea was we were driving through Atlanta one day and just was talking about everyone always says, “One day. One day the Israelis and the Palestinian children will be able to play in peace, one day the Indian and the Pakistani kids will… One day, one day, one day, one day, one day.” It’s always one day. It’s never today. Well, let’s just make it today. It’s not something that’s going to exist until we start living it, and that was how it was born.

So since then we have really kind of fleshed out the infrastructure of the nonprofit. We’ve been building the foundation really for the last year, year and a half or so. And we’re ready to start our first big fundraising project, which is going to be a series of short stories, an anthology series of just stories that exemplify or demonstrate finding wisdom on the other side of the trauma and-

Ayn Cates Sullivan:

Oh, well I have to be included in this.

Matthew Idom:

Yeah, absolutely.

Ayn Cates Sullivan:

Stories that have to do with Wisdom of the Ages, are you kidding? I’m right in there.

Matthew Idom:

Yes. You’re more than welcome.

Ayn Cates Sullivan:

Okay, this is exciting. We’ve been through this crazy pandemic time, but I always feel like after… I mean, historically it’s true. After the plague comes to the renaissance. So all these people have been sitting at home and doodling and painting and coming up with new songs and new stories, and I have a feeling we are going to see something like renaissance coming with all kinds of new ideas and stories and maybe some ancient ones retold again for the sage, too. What do you think?

Matthew Idom:

Yes, absolutely. I don’t feel like we can go backward. I don’t feel like there’s any going back to what things were, and I feel like a lot of people will get stuck holding on to that. Like they had this idealized romanticized version of some perfect moment in history, and they’re constantly trying to bring that back.

Now I don’t feel like that’s going to be the case, but I do feel like we have an opportunity today and every day going forward to create something new from what we have learned from history.

Ayn Cates Sullivan:

Of course, because we are creator beings. We are creative. We can create from the moment that we’re in and that’s… I mean, why would we want to repeat history? It’s already happened, right?

Matthew Idom:

Exactly.

Ayn Cates Sullivan:

We might want to look at it again, learn from it. But from this point that we find ourselves in now, how do we heal the wasteland now?

Matthew Idom:

Yeah. One of my best friends, his grandmother always said, “We don’t shoot ourselves.”

Ayn Cates Sullivan:

Well, that’s a good start then, no, we don’t want to do that.

Matthew Idom:

Exactly. It’s like-

Ayn Cates Sullivan:

Toss out the inner critic and we’ll toss out the judge because it doesn’t help. It only keeps us from solution so it’s just a waste of time.

Matthew Idom:

Exactly. Based off on this idea of the way things should be, no. But like you said, from this moment now, what we have now, what can we create going forward? Because this is already here, it already exists. You can’t fight it, you can’t change it. What you can do is you can take what is, and you can make the next moment the best moment it can possibly be based on what this is right now.

Ayn Cates Sullivan:

Absolutely.

Matthew Idom:

And then that next movement is the best moment. And then you take that moment and you make it the next one with the best moment it can possibly be based on the previous two moments and it snowballs very quickly.

Ayn Cates Sullivan:

So I get the One Day Movement then. So how would people find out about… What’s the website?

Matthew Idom:

The website is one day, spell it out, onedaymvmt.org.

Ayn Cates Sullivan:

Wonderful. Do you want to say it one more time?

Matthew Idom:

Yeah. So it’s onedaymvmt.org, and there you can read our mission statement, our vision. You can volunteer to come work with us if it’s something you feel like you’d like to support.

You can also sign up to be on our virtual stage. So this is something that we’ve had over the last year or so where we bring guests on to share those stories of trauma and finding wisdom and share their gift with the world. Something we hold very strongly is every single person has a gift.

Ayn Cates Sullivan:

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Matthew Idom:

And we-

Ayn Cates Sullivan:

Hold that thought about the virtual stage. I need to take a little outbreak, but hold that thought and we’ll be right back.

Matthew Idom:

All right.