My
First Vision Quest ~ June 2010 (posted July 4, 2010)
A
week ago tonight I was watching the very same sun I am watching
now, sinking into the sea, setting instead into the mountains
300 miles east of here, in the magnificent Las Plumas National
Forest just west of Reno, Nevada. That night, one week ago,
was my first solo night of my first vision quest.
The
vision quest itself had actually started the day before, when
I arrived in Quincy, California. Or perhaps it had started
years before, when the idea of vision quest first came to
my attention as something that interested me. As the idea
grew inside of me, it made its way onto one of my intention
tools, a flipchart that hangs on my office wall, a gathering
place of possibilities that have made their presence prominently
enough known in my mind to actually consider them as real
possibilities, wrap words around them, and commit those words
to paper.
It
started getting very real when two dear friends of mine decided
some months ago to create a special-focus ministry specifically
to facilitate vision-quests for New Thought clergy. When I
saw that announcement, I knew that the idea had shifted, become
more than just an idea, and that it was time to put up or
shut up.
These
two women are very special to me. Hannah will always have
a special place on my heart, for she is the one, through the
magic and mystery of cosmic conspiracy, who first introduced
me formally to New Thought. She took me to my first service
at a Center for Spiritual Living, way back in a former life
when things did not look, for me, as they do today. She saw
something in me that I was not capable at that time of seeing
in myself, loved me when I thought myself quite incapable
of being a place where love could exist in any form or fashion
ever again. Yes, Hannah and I go way back, but this isn’t
the time or place for that whole story, which is a story in
and of itself.
Michele
I met some years later, when I was assisting in a class at
a Center for Spiritual Living in Santa Rosa. Once in a while
you come across someone and there is a recognition, a resonance
that makes no sense linearly, but there it is none the less.
It’s kind of like a tuning fork in a music store. A few instruments
will vibrate to a similar frequency. Michele and I were like
that. So when these two came up with this new ministry, New
Thought Nature, the tuning fork began to vibrate again, and
I knew I had just slipped a lot closer to this idea becoming
reality.
Four
dates were offered this year, and despite the craziness of
my schedule, one of the dates was open. It was then, in truth,
that this vision quest began.
There
is something that happens when we step into a mystery like
this, something that we know, or more accurately that we sense,
is sacred, and significant. Having had no first-hand experience
with vision quest, I really didn’t know what I was getting
myself into. But I have been on this path long enough to be
aware when I am drawn towards something in a significant enough
way that eventually it will come to pass. This was one of
those things. The draw was old and clear, the facilitators
were old and dear friends who I would literally trust with
my life. The date was available, and I had no good reason
not to say yes.
So
I contacted Hannah and Michele, and said yes. They were pleased
and I was pleased in a reserved sort of way, still having
no real idea what to expect, what I was getting myself into,
yet sensing that it was a good time, coming up on my first
year anniversary as a minister, to carve out the time and
space to jump the tracks, take a breath, look around me from
a different perspective, and see what I could see.
From
that point on, that initial yes, things began to stir in my
consciousness. The Universe began almost immediately to flow
into this intention that I had said yes to and, every so slowly
and almost unconsciously at first, shift began. Or perhaps
more accurately I became aware of movement within my own consciousness
in a different way.
It
can be hard to wrap 26 letters around this kind of experience,
to convey it accurately when there are really no words in
our vocabulary that speak well to this kind of thing, so I
will just have to trust that the reader – whoever you are
– can get a little non-linear with me and feel what is beneath
and between the letters and words.
As
the date drew closer, a few themes began to emerge, things
that were on my mind and in my heart that were the things
that I was to take into this vision quest time. I made a pretty
conscious choice to hold all of this very lightly, not to
attach any well-defined expectations or parameters onto any
of this. In my experience burning bush experiences are few
and far between. The Consciousness of the Cosmos, the Mind
of God – call it what you will – seems to be a little more
subtle than that in Its communication with me. Not that subtle
communication is any less prevalent, or omnipresent, or persistent
than, say, a plague of locusts, but it does require me to
be more aware, more sensitive, to pay closer attention. That’s
my part. If I am doing that, Spirit will get Its message across
to me just fine. I just have to pay attention.
So
I didn’t want to go into this with any hard and fast, well,
anything. I was going to see what I could see, feel what there
was to be felt in this parenthesis in time and space that
had been present in my awareness for many years. My part was
to show up, be open, be as mindful as I could be. I figured
God could handle the rest.
The
week before my quest, I realized that it was summer solstice
that week – the longest days of the year. It was also full
moon, almost equally, the two nights that I was going to be
on the land alone. It almost felt like the Universe was bringing
together a lot of different components around this time. I
didn’t know why, but I was noticing.
I
began to gather my gear, to prepare as best I could for this
time. What does one take on a vision quest? What does one
really need? Michele had provided me with a list, and I had
most of what she had suggested that I bring, so it looked
like I was in pretty good shape, gear-wise.
My
plan was to drive up to Quincy on Thursday afternoon, after
seeing clients in the morning. It’s about a 4.5 hour drive,
depending on traffic and the other normal variables, and I
wanted to arrive before dark. We were set to head out onto
the land, to a place that Hannah and Michele had pre-scouted,
first thing Friday morning, and we did just that.
From
Quincy we headed east, then north, into the heart of the Las
Plumas National Forest. This is definitely four-wheel drive
country, WAY off the beaten track. The old logging and forestry
service roads provide the only access to these areas. The
road we finally took was, in fact, a dead end. I know. From
where we parked to set up base-camp, I walked to the end.
For 10 or 15 miles this rutted, ascending track led us into
the forest until you could go no further in a vehicle. Base
camp was to be set up at roughly six thousand feet elevation,
in a beautiful valley, with not another human being for miles
around.
They
picked a perfect place.
While
Hannah and Michele set up base camp, my instructions were
to take a day-pack and go find my solo-location, my quest
place, my “power-spot”. So where does one go, standing in
the middle of tens of thousands of acres of forest? It’s actually
a viable question, and I was encouraged to sense my way, to
trust my intuition, to find my place by feel more than by
thought. After finding my spot, I was to return and tell them
of my location, participate in whatever ceremony they had
in mind, and then head off for my extended solo time.
After
a little consideration, I headed uphill. I could see a ridgeline
further up the track, above and north of base-camp, and I
set off, into the mystery. After just a few steps, already
in a rather heightened state of awareness, paying attention
to everything around me as well as everything within me, something
caught my eye on the leaf of a small plant on the ground in
front of me. Bending down, I saw it was the empty shell of
an insect that had crawled, after spending seven years underground
as a subterranean dweller, up this plant stem and onto a leaf
where it had changed its form, split the back of the hard
shell that had been its identity for all of its life, and
emerged with wings to fly, to eat, to mate, to briefly experience
life in a very different way than it had ever known, and to
end its life cycle.
In
it’s not so subtle way, the Universe welcomed me loud and
clear in my first few moments on the land, beginning my vision-quest,
staring at the empty shell of, you guessed it, a locust.
I
continued up the hill, all eyes and ears, all of my senses
amplified. How does one go about finding their power spot
after all? I was acting almost purely on intuition at that
point, looking right and left, up and down the valley, putting
one foot in front of the other. There was, out towards the
center of the valley, a flatish spot, a little plateau that
felt like it had been cleared at some point, populated now
only by huge boulders. It felt a little like a mini-Stonehenge.
But while it caught my attention, it was in the open, devoid
of trees, and Hannah had told me to make sure that I chose
a spot with trees, for shade from the midday sun. So on I
went.
Further
up, in a narrow cut of the canyon, was a lovely grove of aspen,
green and lush in this early spring. It too caught my eye,
but I saw no flat or open spaces that might make for a decent
campsite, so continued on my way. This turned out to be a
divinely-guided decision, for it was here, in this aspen grove,
that Hannah saw not one but four bears the next day. One was
a large male, golden in hue, and later there was a momma black
bear with two very small cubs. We knew that this was bear
country (and mountain lion country too, for that matter),
but if one or more of those bears called that aspen grove
home, I was happy to defer to their claim on that slice of
forest.
The
hill was getting pretty steep, and I had to be getting close
to seven thousand feet of elevation. As much as my brain still
likes to think I am somewhere around 23 years of age, in fact
I am 51, and not exactly what you would call a gym-rat. My
heart was pounding in my chest, but the ridge was in sight,
and I had it in my head that the ridge was the goal, that
if I could make it to that, that somehow I might have passed
my first vision quest challenge. One foot in front of the
other, encumbered only by a small day-pack that suddenly felt
ridiculously heavy, I finally crested the ridge, found a sitting
rock, and stopped to catch my breath.
The
view was spectacular. I could see west to snow-capped peaks
that looked to be no higher than where I stood, which I attributed
to the curvature of the earth. It wouldn’t snow here would
it? THIS weekend it wouldn’t snow here, would it? Perish the
thought.
It
had rained that morning, which was only slightly ominous.
(Please God don’t let it rain while I am out solo. I would
be a wet, cold, miserably doomed vision-quester. God? Are
you hearing this?) The rain was supposed to be short-lived,
and did serve to lay down the dust in what would surely have
been an otherwise much dustier environment. The rain also
served to supply the essential ingredient for life to be absolutely
flourishing in that valley and on the ridge. An amazing diversity
of plant (and bug) life was all around me. Te place literally
buzzed with life, both audibly and energetically.
To
the east I could see into lower Reno Valley, and the track
continued over the ridge and into an even lusher, more thickly
forested area. I had gone as high as I wanted to go, but since
that onward direction was downhill (anything downhill looked
attractive at that point), I pressed on a little further,
still searching for my spot.
I
wandered into thickly shaded forest, protected from the wind
by the ridge, and very quicky realized that this was the home
of the bug. I hit a wall of mosquitoes and flies and various
and assorted flying, buzzing and blood-sucking residents.
I looked down and noticed that my legs were, much to my horror,
already densely populated by bugs that I could only assume
had every intention of invading my body by every means possible
and establishing a thriving community that would quickly result
in me becoming some two-legged condominium incapable of sustaining
life, a hollowed-out shell with a great view of, well, the
next pile of dirt or fallen log or something. Already clearly
well-occupied, this was definitely not my power-spot. I turned-tail
and ran back to the ridge to reassess.
The
ridge itself was a plateau of sorts, so I struck out south
along the ridgeline to see what I could see. A few hundred
yards down the ridgeline I came upon a grandmother tree, a
very old juniper, growing right out of the rocks on the western
lip of the ridge, and she and I recognized each other right
away. She spoke to me, not in words, but in another, much
more subtle language. There was a sense of propriety in her
– this was her ridge, her space – but also a sense of recognition
that felt almost maternal. She would shelter and watch over
me, she said, if I would agree to honor her space.
Just
this side of her, among the rocky field that was the ridge-top,
was a flat, rock free (or so I thought, until I tried to sleep
on it… more on that later) little clearing perhaps twenty
by thirty feet wide, just out of the wind behind the ridge
and in the lee of the grandmother tree.
I
had found my spot.
In
hindsight, and even as I considered it then, going uphill
and as far as I went to find this spot was not the smartest
of moves, logistically. I knew I could make it back downhill
to report my location to Hannah and Michele, no problem. Downhill
travel was not what concerned me. The thought of lugging a
full pack, and water, back up to from the valley to the ridge,
however, did.
As
I made my way back to base-camp, I started thinking of ways
that I might convince Hannah and Michele to actually drive
me back up the ridge. Was that allowed in vision-questing?
Failing that, maybe an airlift of some kind? Ropes and pulleys?
A Sherpa? Did they have sherpas for rent anywhere close by?
I
surveyed the track a little more closely on the way back down
to base camp and realized that even a four-wheel drive wasn’t
going to make it where I had gone. So I had two options. One
was to head out in a completely different direction, find
another spot, closer to base-camp, preferably downhill or
at least at a slighter grade with easier access, or, I could
stick with where I had been led. To concede anything at this
point though seemed like, well, conceding, not quite right
somehow. Dismissing the thought of another, easier location,
I knew that I was doomed to do it the hard way.
Base-camp
came into sight, and I dragged my slightly-bedraggled self
– bitten, scratched, sweaty but triumphant after my ascent,
into camp where I plopped myself into the nearest camp chair.
Hiking what must have been at least 10 miles had taken a lot
out of me. Actually it was probably closer to three or four
miles, but it’s my story, and if I say it was ten, it was
ten. At least. Maybe fifteen. But I felt like I was on the
right track, had found my spot, and was ready to proceed.
Other
than a cup of coffee before we left the house that morning,
I hadn’t eaten anything that day. Did I mention that fasting
was part of the deal? I wasn’t quite sure why, how fasting
fit into the picture, but Michele and I had talked about it
the week before, and I agreed that I surely wouldn’t starve
from not eating for a couple of days, so yes, if fasting was
part of the gig, I was game.
Upon
my return to base camp and seeing my condition, Hannah however
experienced maternal pangs, and suggested that perhaps my
eating a small fish patty prior to heading back out might
be an acceptable addition to my fasting program. I knew then
that I could do this thing, including the fasting part. Especially
if it included food. Two bites later, I had seen the last
food that I would see for a couple of days.
They
had brought a large packpack for me to use, and I was pointed
in that direction, and told to pack it up and get ready to
head out.
Michele
had included, in preparation for this adventure, a rather
comprehensive list if items that one might want to consider
taking on this kind of trip. Tent, sleeping bag, sleeping
pad, tarp, various and assorted clothes, shoes, lotions and
potions and accessories. My stuff was piled around the backpack,
and I proceeded to start strapping and stuffing and arranging
and rearranging, piling stuff on top of stuff, all the while
acutely aware that it was I who was to haul all of this gear
up Dante’s peak to Heaven’s Gate and my power-spot. Michele
suggested the possibility of two trips, but I knew darned
good and well that if I made it up there one more time it
was going to be a miracle in and of itself. No way I was going
to do it two more times. Not without a pack mule or airlift.
I was going to make one trip, with whatever I could carry,
and make do.
But
once I was strapped and bound and stuffed and stuff and more
stuff was clipped and tied on top of other stuff, this pack
– which was under there somewhere – more closely resembled
something you would strap to the back of a horse. A big horse.
I could barely get it off of the ground, let alone onto my
back. And no way all of that stuff was going up that hill.
At least not via me as transport.
“Hannah,
could you come take a look for me?” I asked.
After
surveying my wheel-free moving van, tentatively lifting it
herself, she said, “Yep, that’s heavy.”
Thanks
Hannah.
“Ok,
so what do I really, really need?”
“A
tarp, in case it rains, a sleeping bag, because it’s going
to be cold, and water. Oh and bug spray.”
It
was no doubt a humorous sight watching me unpack, unstrap,
unclip and unhook until I got this pack under about three
hundred pounds. It was still heavy – I didn’t really realize
until then that my sleeping bag was not one of those light-weight
synthetic jobbies, meant for hiking, but rather a slightly
huge, cotton filled model meant to be trucked in to ones campsite,
and who knew that a tarp was something to be so significantly
considered? A tarp is a tarp, right? Wrong. And isn’t there
a lighter beverage than water?
Finally
I was ready, again, and Hannah, bless her heart, said, “I
will follow you with two gallons of water, and leave them
halfway up the hill.” I could have kissed her. Maybe I did.
They
had prepared some ceremony the preface my quest, styled after
the native-American tradition, and we proceeded through that
process of purification and blessing. I don’t remember every
detail – indeed there are a thousand aspects of this trip
that I won’t cover in detail in this narrative, partly due
to time and space on the page, and partly due to some of it
being quite sacred, and inherently private. I was already
in a much different state of consciousness than normal by
this point, and since as I mentioned I trust these women with
my life, I followed their lead through the ceremony that they
had prepared.
They
told me that at the conclusion of the ceremony, I would be
invisible to them, having crossed a threshold, and that our
only contact would be non-direct, a check-system that had
been prepared, that they would check on daily, to make sure
that I was still alive.
Ceremony
complete, I walked back to the track, hoisted my backpack,
and headed back up the hill. Hannah followed at a distance
with additional water – God bless her – but we were not to
communicate. She was a shadow. An angel shadow.
It
took me a long time to climb back up to that ridge. I don’t
know how long, for sure. The stops were frequent, in order
to try to keep my heart from exploding clean out of my body,
the pack getting heavier by the step, my legs starting to
feel like the bones were somehow not as rigid as they had
been earlier in the day. We reached the halfway point – in
truth it was more than halfway, and Hannah must have known
that, but she followed anyway – and I indicated that she could
leave the water trail-side. This is where our check-in sign
would be, a rock pile to be rearranged by me in the mornings,
checked by her midday. Though we didn’t speak then, we did
perhaps bend the rules with a look, she looking deep into
me with only love, and me looking through my sweat and grime
covered eyes at my angel shadow. Lots of love in that moment.
And then I set off again, truly alone.
I
don’t have any idea what time it was when I reached the ridge
again. It didn’t really matter. I dumped the pack, and sat
on my rock again. Though not quite at my spot yet, I was close
enough. I had, for all intents and purposes, arrived. After
a rest, I made my way along the ridge and was greeted by the
grandmother tree. I unpacked my tarp and laid it out, unstrapped
my sleeping bag, took inventory of a few other small items
that had miraculously accompanied me up the hill – hat, sunglasses,
bug spray, knife, multi-tool, flashlight and a set of cold-weather
clothes – and settled in for the duration. I had to go back
to get the extra water, and by the time I was done with that,
exploring further was not at the top of my list of things
to do. I had exercised more already that day than I usually
do in a month. Indeed, there was, by then, little to do but
to sit, ponder, meditate, talk to God and the mother tree,
and watch as the sun made its way across the sky towards the
mountains in the west.
The
human mind is a funny thing, especially when there is nothing
to do, and nowhere to go. Despite the rigors of the day, I
found myself casting about looking for what to do next. First
things first, I decided that a bug-check was in order, One
of those ticks I had evicted from it’s exploration of my calf
earlier on the other side of the ridge was about the size
of a badger, and I didn’t want any of those sneaky buggers
to set up housekeeping in any unseen and unknown places on
my body. I found something lodged in my right calf – could
have been anything, a dirty scrape, a splinter from one of
the million or so bushes I had navigated, but it also could
have been a tick, and I couldn’t have that.
I
had to laugh at myself. I wasn’t at all concerned with the
big critters. I figured that if a bear or a mountain lion
and I were supposed to have a face-to-face, we would, and
somehow they and I would experience whatever it was that we
needed to experience, and then walk away. I wasn’t afraid
of the coming darkness, nor of being alone. I’ve had a peek
into the dark places in my own mind before, and knew that
I could survive whatever I was to experience there.
The
tick thing however kind of freaked me out. Feeling rather
manly, I unsheathed a rarely used buck-knife and began the
extraction of whatever it was in my calf. Pain is funny too.
With the proper motivation, pain recedes, and even blood becomes
a good sign. I think I figured that if it was leaking out
of my leg a little, that was better than it being ingested
and turned into little baby blood-sucking creatures. As I
write, my little excavation is healing nicely, with no sign
of infection or of foreign residence, thank you very much.
Thus
cleansed of foreign invaders, I re-settled and got quiet again.
As I mentioned earlier, I had no real expectation of a burning-bush
experience. My sense was that whatever was going on was going
to be much more subtle, and that is indeed how things proceeded.
I
realized that afternoon that this whole thing - from the weeks
of pre-consideration, scheduling and preparation, to completely
jumping the tracks geographically, the ceremony and isolation
and fasting – was all designed to facilitate an altered state
of consciousness, a parenthesis in space and time within which
one could allow the normal, day-to-day structures and perspectives
and positions and points of reference to be set aside, allowing
things to be considered and experienced in a very different
way.
As
I sat and considered this, I was aware of that kind of softening
around the edges, the opening of my consciousness beyond the
norm, and just leaned into it, just a bit, not over-working
it or over-efforting something that was way too big and way
too vague for me to delude myself into thinking that I could
manage anyway, but rather allowing, saying yes to whatever
was there for me, whatever this time and space had to reveal
to me.
By
now the sun had arced just over the top of the grandmother
tree to my west, creating the beginnings of shade where I
had placed my tarp and bag, and I lay down on my tarp, just
letting myself be, intentionally opening my consciousness
even further, taking it all in, sensing it, aligning with
it, even beginning, in consciousness, to merge with it. The
lines began to blur.
I
remembered that life knows how to do life, that the rhythms
and cycles of nature and even of life and death are already
well in place, and I began to sense that part of the reason
that I was there was to remember that, to remember that that
is me, in and as me, the same as it is in and as all things.
Nature doesn’t struggle with itself. There are things that
happen that can appear, at first glance, to be disharmonious,
but ultimately these things are just readjustments, realignments.
Things may find a new level of being – a tree may ‘die’, become
home to other critters, be absorbed back into the earth, or
a stream may burst its banks and find a new course – but is
any of this good or bad, right or wrong? I don’t know that
it is. I think that those are values that we – humans – assign,
but ultimately they are what they are, all having a natural
and normal place within the Whole.
The
sun sank, the bugs buzzed, and my plateau hummed with the
irrepressible energy of life.
As
dusk approached, I conceded my aversion to the idea of putting
bug spray – a relatively toxic concoction, one would think,
despite it being artfully positioned by some advertising executive
somewhere as ‘safe and effective family fun’ – wherever was
needed to allow me to be present with the All That Is, instead
of constantly distracted only by the All That Wants to Suck
My Blood, one drop at a time. One has to re-prioritize at
times, and I figured after years of ingesting all kinds of
interesting of potentially hazardous substances in my youth
and coming out the other side of that relatively intact, I
wasn’t going to split-hairs on moral grounds of purity. Though
more conscious and aware than ever of my stewardship duties
to my body and to my environment, being overly-immaculate
is not my forte’, and I did hope that sleep might be part
of this experience at some point, so I slathered up and settled
in for the night.
It
had been a long time – maybe forever – since I had slept out
under the stars and moon without a tent, a fire, a sleeping
pad to cushion the little rocks and the big hips and shoulders
that seemed to seek out those rocks and bumps in the earth
like a heat-seeking missile. It was a target-rich environment.
But
I lay and fidgeted and watched as a spectacular full moon
rose over the hills to the south-east, lighting the landscape
around me in its eerie bright light. Owls hooted and night-birds
called to each other across the hills, mosquitoes continued
to try to penetrate my toxic halo and small critters rustled
in the bushes and trees around me.
I
watched with a little concern as a few huge thunderheads drifted
across the sky from the north, heading in my direction. They
were driven by a cold wind, and I thought, if it rains, I
will pull this tarp over me and my bag and be one cold, wet,
miserable vision-quester. I imagined myself sliding down the
hill into base camp on my backside, muddy and not happy, but
knew that that too was a concession that I would be unwilling
to make. One way or the other, I had to stick this thing out.
But the clouds continued across the sky, blocking the moon
and then moving on, time and time again, keeping whatever
moisture they contained to themselves. God is good. And all
the while the grandmother tree stood sentinel, watching over
me, and after a while I was lulled, by sound and wind and
cold and dark, into sleep.
I
was awakened at some point during the night by something –
something very much alive - running across my sleeping bag,
and as a direct result, since I was in said sleeping bag,
across my body, but by the time I came awake enough, whatever
it was had long disappeared into the night. It was kind of
cool, for while it had startled me awake, I knew that it was
just a curious and harmless visit by one of the locals. A
raccoon maybe, or a bat (it felt like it might have been flapping
or beating its way over me), or a spirit even. Too big to
be a tick, so I knew I was ok, and rolled over and went back
to sleep.
It
was one of those light sleeps, the kind where you open your
eyes every once in a while, just a little, to get your bearings,
or make sure there is something to see, or that you’re still
on the planet, or something. The next thing I knew I was opening
my eyes to a lightening sky, pre-dawn. I knew it was going
to be a long day, and it was still really cold out, so I switched
hips – again – stayed warm and snug in my bag, and floated
in that half-sleep place for a couple of hours more.
When
the sun began to warm the air and land, it was time to emerge,
so I crept out into the clean, amazing air, drank some water,
brushed my teeth (I had to have a toothbrush!), pee’d as only
one unobserved and in the forest can, and considered my position.
And
quickly realized that there wasn’t really much to consider.
I was on vision-quest, alone on top of a mountain, what seemed
like a thousand miles from anyone or anything, tarp, sleeping
bag, water, the earth and sky, God and grandmother tree. And
me. Here we were.
My
primary thought upon waking was letting Hannah and Michele
know that I was ok, so at some point in the morning I wandered
down and rearranged the rock pile, our signal. I left a smiley
face of stones there in the middle of the track for them to
find when they checked later in the day.
It
was a day mostly of very quiet being. My mental / spiritual
state was rather altered by then, and I knew it. One of the
longest days of the year, I watched the sun as it found its
way across the sky, and when it got too hot I crawled deep
under the branches of the grandmother tree and lay there in
her shade, hour after hour, just being. I listened, I felt,
I noticed movement around me and sensed it within me. I thought
amazingly little. I worried less. I was, I was there, and
that was enough. I let the space be, and the day did what
it knows how to do.
There
was some ritual that I had been invited to consider that day,
and I did so, aware on a different level of any internal dissonance,
or anything that might need tending. Like clouds across a
sky, I watched my mind and heart and maybe even my soul simmer
as if on a very low flame, not doing a lot, just simmering.
Some things showed up, as they do when we create the space
for them to do so, but I knew it was not the time to over-mentalize
or over-effort them, but rather just to notice, and to let
them be. I just held the space. That is how I passed my day.
I
thought that it might be different than it was. I thought
that there might be anger, or fear, or sadness within me that,
given this space, might erupt like a volcano from deep within
me. I know that those things are in there, somewhere, but
they seemed instead to simply find their place and just be,
too. Some plopped to the surface with all of the enthusiasm
of an air bubble making its way to the surface of a tar-pit,
but nothing explosive. Perhaps all of the work I have done
on myself over the years has let off enough internal pressure,
or healed enough wounds, that what I sense are simply scars,
or echos of things that are no longer mine, or that no longer
serve me. Sure, there are some current things as well, but
they are fresh, and have not become toxic to the point of
needing to be lanced. I noticed them too, and they are still,
even as I write, finding their place within me.
It
began to cool again, and I remembered that this, my second
and last solo might, was to be significant. I was to leave
something of my old life behind at sunset, and embrace something
of a new life at sunrise. I had been invited to stay awake
all night, to witness this dying and rebirth, so began to
prepare myself to do so. When I was ready, I did the sunset
ceremony, and settled in again to be with the darkness, and
whatever was there for me.
The
moon rose as it had the night before, turning night into a
different kind of day, and I lay there, watching it traverse
the sky, letting myself be.
I
don’t know if I slept, but I don’t know that I exactly stayed
awake all night either. I had wandered into a moonlit landscape
both externally and internally, conscious and unconscious
interweaving, linear and transcendent almost indistinguishable,
one from the other. I was, and it was what it was. Night things
sang and flew, and called to each other, and I did not, and
still do not know if they were real things of the forest night
or real things of the soul night. I honestly can’t tell you.
Nor do I need to really. They, too, just were. No good or
bad, no fear or desire even really. Just being. All things,
just being. And so the night passed, and the planet turned,
and night slowly reached and passed her zenith, until she
relinquished her grasp on my world, and night became day.
I
knew that I was nearing the end of this part of my journey
now, and was reluctant for it to end. There had been no lightening
strikes, to profound realizations, no stone-tablets delivered.
Yet I sensed the subtle, and knew that somehow I was different,
that movement had happened, that what needed to be revealed
would do so in its own time and in its own way. Life knows
how to do life, and the sea does not part daily. It does,
however, rise and fall, and if we pay attention, we can know
when it is time to move, and when it is time to wait.
So
with some sense of sadness, I stepped out of the sacred circle
that I had made the night before, and knew that I was leaving
something, and re-entering something, crossing yet another
threshold. I gave thanks to the land, to the plateau on the
ridge that had welcomed and made space for me. As I repacked
my minimal gear, preparing to return to base camp and the
world that I had oh-so-briefly left behind, I gave thanks
to the sun for warming me, to the earth for allowing me to
stand upon her, to the birds for their song and their good
company, to the bugs for their place in things, pollinating
and feeding and all that they do, to the plants that populated
this amazing forest in spectacular fashion and diversity and
with stunning vitality. I gave thanks to God for the experience
of life, within me and all around me.
And
lastly, I poured the last of my water upon the ground that
held my friend the grandmother tree, thanking her for her
welcome, her patience with my silliness, her protection, her
willingness to speak to me, shelter me and protect me. I thanked
her for her presence on the planet, for her willingness to
say yes to life despite the rocky soil and windswept outcrop
upon which she stood. I said goodbye to my new, old friend,
aware that she had witnessed something that perhaps I could
not yet see, and that she had witnessed a thousand or ten
thousand or a hundred thousand such things, in different ways,
in her time on that ridge. She, the silent but wise witness
of Life.
I
said thank you, and good-by, for now, and I headed towards
the track, and down the hill.
Postscript:
It
is now just five days after returning from my first vision
quest. To say that it has been an odd week is a huge understatement.
The
way I have described this week, after my return home, is that
I don’t quite seem to fit into my body in the same way that
I did before I went. Things have shifted, moved, and continue
to do so. I continue to watch, to be mindful, to consider
what presents itself, both internally and externally. I have
no doubt that as a result of this time, this experience, this
intention, more will be revealed, in it’s own time, and in
its own way.
And
in the meantime, all is well.
Blessed
Be.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The
Village and The Mountaintop ~ May 22, 2010
Once
upon a time there was a village. That village was home. It
was sanctuary, it supported most all of our needs, and from
it we learned most of what we needed to learn to navigate
our life path. In the village were our parents, aunts and
uncles and cousins and children and wise elders. There was
love and commonality and understanding. There was security,
and safety, and there was comfort.
From
infants to elders, the village contained and sustained all.
There was a lovely symmetry in this, an interaction and interdependence
that was mutually beneficial. The young learning from the
old, the old taking joy in the young, there was much sharing,
organically, effortlessly, a giving and receiving not just
of resources but of life itself.
A
short distance from the village one could find isolation,
time and space to commune with nature, to reflect, to meditate,
or to pray. And when that need was met, one could return to
the village, renewed and refilled, balance restored, and carry
on.
Sure,
some would leave the village. Young people are called to explore,
to go beyond what they have known. That, too, was and is the
nature of things. But the village was the hub, the point of
reference, and even those who left it took something of the
village with them.
This
has been the way of things, in one form or another, since
we first stood upright. That is, until modern times.
The
industrial age made us mobile, and we were on the move. Villages
spread and diversified, and got larger and busier. Families
spread out, the young going further afield, often leaving
the old behind. The fragmentation of the village had begun
in earnest.
Historically,
this is a very recent occurrence. In the blink of an eye,
a mere blip on the human timeline, our whole social structure
has dramatically changed. Yet our needs – the inherent, hard-wired
nature of human as social animal – have not changed. There
simply hasn’t been time for us to adapt well.
So
we find ourselves living in what is essentially a model that
is foreign to all of our historical frames of reference, one
of suburbs and cities where we don’t even know the names of
the people living next door, let alone being in any real way
mutually supportive. Families are no longer nuclear, and the
only real commonality of villages is geography.
Now,
another shift has begun within our culture. Because we still
have within us all of the needs that the village provided
to us, we are developing coping mechanisms to address them.
And, like the development of any new tool, we are still going
about it rather clumsily.
What
we are begging to see now in our culture is a drawing of people
towards aspects of what the village used to provide. This
is showing up as polarity, and while there are extremes, there
is, mostly, all of the degrees of balance in between. Since
we are all unique and individual, our needs and desires are
not present in each person to the exact same degree. Even
within the balance of the villages of old, some have always
leaned more towards community, while others have always leaned
towards a more solitary experience.
The
extreme swing of the pendulum, the starting place, or brackets
of you will, for this emerging model, is that there are village
people, and there are mountaintop people.
Village
people think mountaintop people are odd. Reclusive, quiet,
inclined towards rural introversion, mountaintop people tend
to sit back and watch, and consider things, sometimes overly
so. They are happy listening to the wind in the trees, water
flowing in a stream, or the silence of night.
This
inclination is how we are trying to address security and safety,
renewal restoration, and balance.
Mountaintop
people think village people are nuts. Generally more extroverted,
village people are more urban oriented, do well in towns and
cities. They thrive on the hustle and bustle, are more impulsive,
better in crowds. They are happy going, doing, on the move.
This
inclination is how we are trying to address the family aspects
of the village, the busy-ness, the interaction and interdependence.
I
haven’t come across too many people who are all one way or
the other, because whether we are aware of it or not, we all
still have the same needs and desires somewhere within us.
No, most of the rest of us fall somewhere in between. All
of us have aspects of both in us, and the sooner we become
aware of our inclination, where the scales currently stand
in our hearts and souls, the more comfortably we can navigate
our daily life.
And
the fact is that we live within a society where both present
themselves for us to choose, in what degree we participate
in them, and how we navigate that participation.
And
therein lies the challenge.
Part
of us craves the solitude, the peace, the symmetry and beauty
and organic nature of nature itself, of the mountaintop. But
the fact is that the grocery store, the gas station, the experience
of interpersonal relations - loving each other – in essence,
the community that we also want, need and desire to be a part
of are all to be found in the village.
And
our wants and needs are not fixed in position. The scales
of need and want within us may currently stand in one position,
and next week, next year, 10 years from now that may change.
It’s not a stable thing, our inclination. Mine has changed
over the years. The opportunity here is to keep a finger on
our own pulse, so to speak, to feel the subtle – or perhaps
not so subtle – leanings that our heart and soul are communicating
to us, in order that their needs be heard, honored, and met.
I
was born and raised in Los Angeles, and thought that city
life was normal, just the way things were. I did fine there
when I was young. I had no other points of reference, so while
somewhere in my heart and soul I knew at some level, even
then, that my natural leaning was not towards being a city
boy, I had nothing to compare my current environment to. I
didn’t know what I was missing.
Then
somewhere along the way Mom sent us kids to spend a summer
with my grandparents on their farm in Indiana. In the course
of one day I went from Los Angeles to a teeny tiny little
town named Andrews, whose population, according to my research,
was somewhere between 72 and 107 souls, most of whom were
scattered far and wide on farms spread over the countryside.
I quickly learned the meaning of the word culture-shock
.
Indiana
is the flattest place on Earth (I’m sure some atlas or another
has statistical proof of this), or so it appeared to me, and
is actually dark at night. And quiet. Not silent, but quiet.
There are sounds and smells there that are not man-made. There
is space where there are no buildings, no asphalt, nothing
but dirt and grass. There are woods, and lanes, farm-ponds,
and the muddy but mighty Wabash River. There are barnyards
and chicken coops and fireflies.
Indiana
is magical.
After
I recovered my senses, and got past literally being physically
sick from being so disoriented, I began to explore. Though
not exactly a mountaintop, Indiana was the closest thing to
it that I had experienced in any real way.
Oh
I had been to real mountaintops before. Big Bear and Lake
Arrowhead are Los Angeles’s version of the mountaintop. Since
it’s so close to L.A., and since L.A. people must have all
of the comforts of home strapped to their roof-racks, that
area of the San Bernardino mountains is, well, a suburban
mountaintop. Traffic and track-homes and smog do not, in my
mind, a mountaintop make. It sure isn’t Indiana.
Interesting,
the synchronicity of things. I stopped writing to take a call,
and an acquaintance was asking about this very village / mountaintop
thing.
“Where
are my people?” she asked. “Where are the people that I can
be myself with, where I can be comfortable and authentic without
fear, where I can hang out and have real conversations?”
“Funny,
I was just thinking about that.” I replied.
“Well,”
she said, “I’m not sure where I am going to end up this summer.
I may keep working here in Marin County, but I may hole-up
in a cabin somewhere.”
Check.
I get it.
This
is exactly what is making the mountaintop more and more attractive
for so many people. We can’t find our people. And for those
who are inclined, even slightly, towards the quiet side, city
life can be a pressure cooker quite capable of driving one
completely mad. I’ve seen it. Ok, I’ve felt it too.
Unfortunately,
since mountaintops are at a premium, we’re creating them elsewhere;
in our own homes and apartments, in our own minds and hearts.
We’re isolating, because the village has become, for many,
unsafe. So we withdraw, mentally, energetically, emotionally,
even spiritually from what villages do exist.
But
this then creates conflict within us, for we are, at our essence,
social creatures. Interaction is vital to our well-being.
Sanctuary is likewise critical to our well-being. So how do
we find our way, how do we navigate this ever changing, ever
moving line between a desire to be in sanctuary, to have a
place where we can be safe and real and peaceful, and our
need to interact, to be stimulated and to give and receive
love?
First,
as with most things, we must become aware that this dynamic
exists in our culture, and in our hearts and souls, because
without awareness, it’s too easy to just assume that we’re
nuts, that there is something inherently wrong with us, which
just feeds into the very sense of separation that we are seeking
to heal in the first place.
There
is nothing wrong with you. Let’s get that out on the table
right now. There is nothing wrong with you.
Everybody
is wired a little differently, has different needs, and navigates
this balance between village and mountaintop a little differently.
That is as it should be, as it always has been. We are each
unique individuals, yet we have also latched on to this rather
odd belief that we are supposed to be like everyone else.
We’re not. Get used to it. Then go beyond just getting used
to it. Get comfortable with it.
The
big invitation here is for you to get to know yourself, to
become aware of, familiar with, and then comfortable with
your needs, and your inclinations, and
then learn to navigate accordingly.
When
I don’t get enough nature time, when it’s too busy in the
house for too long, when there to too much noise or too much
running around, I get cranky, and I know exactly why. I need
some mountaintop time.
I
have a good friend who lives out in the country, not too far,
just far enough for her liking. It suits her. Before she retired
she used to drive in to town – which is really a fair sized
city here in northern California - most days to work, go to
church, do whatever she needed to do, and then drive the 20
or so miles back out to her place in the country, her sanctuary,
her mountaintop. It took her some time, and some work, but
she figured out and now knows her village / mountaintop balance
point pretty well. When she gets her fill of the village,
she has no compunction about saying, “Had, enough, gotta go!”
We
don’t all have that luxury of a place in the country. Some
people wouldn’t want it if they could.
I
have another friend who is all city oriented. She cracks me
up actually. I asked her recently is she might be interested
in joining a group of us to go white-water rafting.
“I
don’t do dirt.” She told me. “I need clean sheets, cable,
a taxi when I need it, and Starbucks. If they have that, I’ll
think about it.” She’s so City.
Where
to you fall on the village / mountaintop scale? And, more
importantly, are you meeting your own needs?
I
see a lot of people for one-on-one counseling, and the majority
are out of balance in this area. If anything we, as a culture,
are over stimulated, and have forgotten what sanctuary looks
and feels like. We live in a wound up state, from the moment
we wake until we collapse into bed at the end of the day.
Run, run, run, faster, more, these are the unspoken agreements
that we have made, culturally. And it is taking it’s toll,
on our bodies, our minds, our hearts and our souls. It’s taking
it’s toll on our relationships, on our self-image, on our
worldview. It is, as a whole, way, way out of balance.
I
can’t count the number of times that I have assigned, as homework
to a client, a half day at the beach, or at the river, or
a daytrip to an amazing grove of redwoods that we have nearby.
They come back transformed. I had one person actually ask
me, about the redwoods, “How long has that place been there?”
Oh,
about three thousand years, give or take.
It
also helps to seek out and find – if not create – villages
where you can find some degree of comfort and commonality.
I
see more and more of that happening in our society. Since
the dissolution of the old village, we are creating new ones,
villages that are safe, where there is commonality, comfort,
giving and receiving, and the opportunity to give and receive
love in all of it shapes and sizes and ways that shows up.
I’m
not speaking of actual villages where one lives full time.
There are those, but what I am speaking of is the places that
we can go, that will meet some of our needs. They may not
be like the villages of old, where most or all of our needs
could be met in one place. We may need to participate in multiple
villages in order to experience the balance that we seek.
It may not be perfect, but it’s a start.
I
see art and collective farming ‘villages’ here in my area,
there is a renewed interest and movement towards spiritual
villages. Ecologically oriented villages, and now even virtual
villages like Facebook and MySpace are meeting some of these
needs.
I
have a friend and colleague who facilitates vision quests.
She takes people out into the desert and they go off on their
own and spend time with nature, with the silence, with themselves.
Can you ever remember the last time you did anything like
that?
The
bottom line is that we all have our needs, in varying degrees.
Figure out what yours are, then decide, consciously and intentionally,
to address them. When you do that, some degree of balance
will begin to restore itself within your being.
Find
a mountaintop, whatever your mountaintop may be, and go and
sit there for a while. Notice what you feel. If you can, sit
there long enough for your mind and heart and soul to get
quite. It just might change everything.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
God
in the Midst of Challenge
~ May 14, 2010
I
am realizing more and more as time goes by that awe and wonder
- noticing the presence of God in things, big and small -
and life challenges are not mutually exclusive. Instead, it's
one of those paradoxes that we, as conscious people, get to
dance with on a daily basis. There are going to be challenges.
Things will go 'wrong' (if there is such a thing, which may
be another line of thinking altogether), we will experience
'problems' (another one of those words that I use rarely anymore,
much preferring 'challenges'). Life is not an immaculate experience.
But
what I am finding is that the challenges that used to occupy
days or even week or months of my life, almost exclusively,
have given way to an increasing awareness that, while they
happen, the actual experience of them is relatively small
int he scheme of things. In truth, they occupy mere moments
of my day.
It
is when I choose to hold on to them, to relive them in my
own head, to focus my attention and energies on them long
past the actually event, that I get into trouble.
The
key to this new kind of life navigation may well be simply
practicing the presence. In other words, when I am present,
I am not reliving some challenge that happened an hour ago,
or yesterday, or last week. Nor am I borrowing trouble from
the future that does not yet exist. Instead, I am present,
experiencing whet is before me to experience. And what I am
finding is that what is before me to experience is most often
the magnificence of God.
Much
of my writing is done sitting at my desk in my home office,
and I look out the widow before me to the park across the
street, to the people that take their children to school and
often walk through that park to get to school. I delight in
those kids, watching them, and in those moments there is nothing
else in my world, just delight. No matter how busy I am, what
is on my plate, what scares me or frustrates me, what I might
be judging or 'working on' in other areas of my life, I can
experience delight.
The
same thing happens when I am working with clients, or giving
a talk, or teaching a class, or digging in the dirt or out
on nature somewhere. I am completely present, experiencing
God, no matter what else is going on.
Because
the things is, in those moments, nothing else is going on.
It's all in my head. I can stop thinking about everything
in the world, and the planet continues to spin, the sun continues
to rise, my garden continues to grow, all without my efforting,
all without me choosing to distract myself from what is right
in front of my eyes.
The
challenges that we face are so relatively small compared to
the beauty and majesty that is all around us. And the more
I practice this, the more I am coming to see the presence
even in those challenges.
What
I am finding is that there is no need, nor do I want to miss single
moment of this awareness of the presence of God in all things,
all circumstances, in every moment, no matter what. It all
falls into God... if I let it...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The
Exquisite Gift of Life ~ May
2, 2010
I
should know better than to blog after a day like today.
It
was a spectacular spring day. Sun and wind, spring urging
forth irrepressible life.
And,
I said goodby to a friend today. She too was spectacular.
Another friend I met with yesterday, and we spent some hours
sitting, talking, looking at the end of her days, at least
in this incarnation, wondering...
They
are my age, more or less - funny how we all become more or
less the same age at this point of the journey. And each of
them is spectacular, in their own way, like the flowers of
spring, the stars in the sky, the streams, finding their way...
Yet they - we - regardless of how spectacular, are gifted
with just so much time to live this life... Yes I know of
the eternality of things, that life just changes, evolves,
ascends. I know.
I
really do know, firsthand, that there is a human soul, distinct
from the physical body and not subject to the linear experience
of time. I know.
And
yet I watch, and walk with these people - me, you - as we
navigate time. I have begun to notice the things I used to
miss - the exquisite thing that this human experience is -
thinking that I had all of the time in the world... Now, I
am realizing that I do not. I am 51 years old. I have a few
decades, a few thousand short days, if I am truly blessed,
to live - at least to live as Jeff, as this experience of
life. And there is so much life to be lived, so much love
and beauty and awe and wonder to be experienced, shared, expressed...
The
Spirit of Life is immortal. I take great comfort in that.
And
I wonder, tonight, under this amazing, windy, starry spring
sky, how to most fully live this mortal life, to appreciate
the gift for what it is, to not squander it with petty concerns,
worrying, wasting, making mountains out of molehills...
I
am becoming more and more aware of just how amazing and valuable
and precious this lifetime is... and in this moment, I am
most exquisitely grateful for that gift...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
God
in my Garden... April 24, 2010
There is something amazing about dirt. Plain old, regular
dirt. Well, maybe it's not so plain... not when it's in my
garden...
Today I took advantage of the spectacular weather, and prepped
my little garden area, started more seeds, and stuck a few
things in the ground under a glorious spring sun. It never
ceases to amaze me what the creative intelligence of the cosmos
can do with a wrinkled up looking little thing no bigger than
the head of a pin which, when placed in that plain old dirt,
becomes something vital and alive and amazing. It's become
something of a ritual for me, each year, to plant. I see the
symbolism clearly, and enjoy it immensely, for it reminds
me that there is so much possibility, so much beauty, so much
life just waiting for the right season to spring forth into
color and scent and bloom.
It also reminds me of what my part is, and what God's part
is. I keep the soil clear and ready, receptive, well tended,
but i could not and cannot grow what It grows. That is way
above my payscale. But I know that if i do my part, God seems
to always do It's part, and something amazing and beautiful
happens...
It's a good teacher, my garden...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beyond
the Bucket ~ Thanksgiving Day, 2009
There
is a storm out there somewhere. I can feel it. All of my senses
are almost assaulted by it. Not in a bad way. I don’t define
the storm as bad. Quite the contrary, in fact. Rather, my
sense is of something of immense power. And it is something
that is not separate from me. How can it be separate, when
my experience of it is so visceral? There is no separation.
I have no defense, nor do I require any. I feel it in every
cell of my body, in every aspect of my being. And I revel
in it.
It
was the vibration, rather than the sound of the waves crashing
on the shore that woke me this morning. And in that lovely
time of sensing, between sleeping and waking, when definition
is deliciously blurred and ego requires no answer, I again
remembered that I am It, and It is me.
It
was and continues to be this visceral experience of Oneness
that pervades my senses. It is from that place that I write.
It is in the air all around me, a palpable thing. I cannot
separate myself from it. Nor do I desire to. It rises through
the soles of my feet as my eyes witness the ripples that are
huge waves, travelling from a powerful center that is beyond
the horizon. No, I cannot see the storm. It is beyond my sight.
But that does not diminish my experience of it. I know that
it is there, as surely as I know that I am here. As surely
as I know anything.
The
air vibrates with it. Life Itself vibrates with it, for it
is Life Itself, the very Power of The One, a demonstration,
a reminder to me that I am One with the waves, one with the
storm, one with the air and the vibration and with Life Itself.
In
Religious Science we often use the metaphor of the ocean as
the Allness of God, that each person is like a bucket of that
ocean, an aspect of The One, the elements and qualities and
attributes within each bucket the same as The Whole.
Yet
my experience this morning was a clear realization that, while
the bucket that I am does indeed contain within it the elements
and qualities and attributes of The Whole, I cannot separate
that bucket from the whole and take it away from the shore
without radically altering the power inherent within it. I
cannot take my bucket, and make it separate and distinct,
and present it to you and say, ‘See? Here is the ocean. Here
are the waves crashing on the shore, Here is the storm and
the immense power of the storm, beyond the horizon, beyond
that which you can see. Trust me, it’s in there.” I cannot
convey to you that power, that visceral experience. That is
something you must experience for yourself.
What
I am this morning, and what I desire to convey to you above
all else, is the experience of no bucket at all. It is in
that place, more than in any other, that I know Oneness. Not
a mental knowing, not an intellectual understanding, but something
that cuts through mentality like a hot knife through butter.
It is a transcendent knowing that requires no thought, indeed,
requires that our seemingly insatiable mentalizing be at least
temporarily suspended, the linear way cleared to make room
for the whole knowing of the non-linear.
I
cannot help but laugh at myself at this point. I watch as
the numinosity of the experience begins to fade, as transcendent
experiences do. Distraction creeps in. My teeth need to be
brushed, again, and people in the house begin to stir, and
contribute their own energy to the mix. And my experience
of Unity recedes. My bucket reappears.
I
want so desperately to retain it, to live constantly in that
unified awareness. So I grasp at it even as I know that it
is not something to be grasped, managed, or chased. I go back
outside, attempting to recreate something that need not be
recreated. It need not be held. The storm has not gone anywhere.
The power of the ocean is not in any way diminished, simply
because I am distracted. The storm continues to unleash it’s
power into The Whole of the ocean. The waves continue to crash
outside of my door. The vibration that awakened me today continues
to pulse through every aspect of my being. It is my attention
that has shifted, that is all.
I
mourn the recession of the experience, for I know that it
was never designed to be recreated exactly. That is not the
nature of It. I will never pass this way again for it is constantly
recreating Itself, no two waves ever identical, no season
the same as the last. Yet all are of the same origins. It
is from the same Cosmic Storm, somewhere over the horizon,
originating some place that I cannot see but can and do experience,
that all of my life experiences come. And that Source, that
great Storm that is the Mind and the Heart of The Cosmos is
infinitely churning, just over my human horizon, sending out
ceaseless pulses that are the amazing waves, crashing upon
the shores of my consciousness.
This
is Thanksgiving Day, in the year that we have rather arbitrarily
designated as 2009. It was the vibration, rather than the
sound of the waves crashing on the shore that woke me this
morning. As I take up my bucket, say good morning to Mom,
and go to brush my teeth, that vibration continues to resonates
within me. I give thanks for quiet moments, for thin veils,
for moms and for families and for toothbrushes, and for this
lovely visit, beyond the bucket.
Rev.
Jeff Anderson
Thanksgiving
Day, 2009
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Misfit
Mystic
If
there’s one thing that going through hell will give you, it’s
perspective. Hell is funny that way. Once you’ve been there,
nothing ever looks quite the same again. Not that I would
recommend that particular route as a path to spiritual consciousness,
but if you do find yourself on that path, and if you survive
it, it certainly does get your attention.
If
you’re on a spiritual path, and in hell at the same time,
it can really get confusing. A person can’t help but wonder,
“What IS the MATTER with me? If I’m such a spiritual being,
how did things end up like THIS?” It can make one feel rather
like a misfit among the enlightened, or at least among the
wise.
Experiencing
hell - or the Dark Night of the Soul, call it what you will
- however, and hand in hand with that experiencing the feeling
of being radically unqualified to embody even a basic level
of cosmic wisdom can, apparently, be a significant part of
remembering our Truth. Think about it. Most of the powerful
avatars in history have been through their own version of
hell. Why is that? Because without it, they would not have
the perspective that allows for an expanded vision of the
bigger picture.
Some
of us have, I believe, an especially strong soul purpose.
I don’t know why, and won’t pretend to know what goes on in
the cosmos prior to being born. It seems clear however that
many people come into this life with something big to work
out, or remember. And one way we get to what it is that we
are supposed to remember is via hell.
In
his book Seat of the Soul author Gary Zukov postulates, “To
the degree that our soul desires its wholeness, will we experience
it’s opposite.” When I first read that statement in 1998 I
thought, “Wow! My soul must have a REALLY strong desire to
know it’s wholeness!” I was at Extended Stay Hell at the time.
I don’t know if what he says is true or not, but I have remembered
his statement and refer to it often.
Having
been forged in the fires makes for quite a story. But, it’s
just a story. Everybody has one. Stories can serve a purpose.
They can give people hope who are walking through their own
Dark Night. The problem is that often we get so stuck in our
story that we cant get beyond it. We become so identified
to ourselves as misfits, we never escape that self-imposed
label to discover Truth. We must learn to carry our story
lightly.
I
know too that there is life on the other side of hell. It
is survivable. It’s also very local. I’m not one of those
who believes in the hell of my youth, the fire and brimstone
version, hosted by a fire-breathing guy with horns and a red
suit. In my experience you don’t have to go nearly that far
to find hell. It can be as close as your next step. Or your
next thought.
I’m
not particularly fond of hell stories anymore. Honestly I
don’t know that my story is particularly important. Or yours
for that matter. It’s not that I’m not interested, I am, really.
But lets face it, we all have a story. And most, if not all
of us have wandered, briefly or for an extended stay, into
our own version of hell. The story is just the route we took,
and there are as many of those as there are people who experience
it. The story is just the details.
The
main reason I’m not too fond of hell stories is this; We give
them way too much power. We forget that they are not who we
are, but rather are simply a path that we have walked.
For
a long time I did just that, gave my story way too much power.
I let it define me. I let it confine me. I let my story hold
me hostage long after I had actually emerged from hell. It
wasn’t comfortable, but it was familiar. Or as a friend of
mine says it may stink, but it’s warm.
My
story was never really my Truth, but it was certainly high
drama and a great excuse for me to give away my power and
stay small. To be a victim. In fact I became worse than a
victim. I became a volunteer. On some level I agreed to embrace
my story, for in truth, for a long time my story was all that
I had. And that is a sorry state of affairs.
I
have learned that there is a significant difference between
my story, and my Truth. The story constricts my experience
of life. The more attached I am to my story, the more confined
by that very story my life will be.
Truth
on the other hand liberates me. The Truth transcends my story.
It doesn’t matter who you are, or what version of hell you’ve
experienced. It’s just a story. And it is, without question,
not your Truth.
The
two, our story and our Truth, have quite an interesting relationship.
We
must walk our story. It’s a part of every human life experience.
I had to walk mine, and you have to walk yours. It’s how we
relate to each other, how we find commonality. Along the way
however we accumulate more and more beliefs, perspectives,
fears and definitions. So as time goes by it can constrict
us more and more. Yet our story, our path, is also the only
thing that can lead us to our Truth. And ironically, the Truth
is the only thing that can liberate us from our story.
Another
problem with our story, if we give it enough power, is that
it can actually stand between us, our Real Self, and our Truth.
I’ll show you how.
Your
Truth is this:
>You
are a conscious and intentional intersection in time and space
that Divinity has created out of Itself.
>You
are exactly where you are supposed to be at exactly the right
time, every moment.
>You
are a vehicle through which The Divine expresses Itself in
this world.
>All
that you feel, and think, and say, all that you dream, is
The Creative Consciousness expressing Itself.
>You
are a place where Divinity experiences Itself, as you and
as the world around you.
>You
are the eyes, and ears, the hands and feet, the mind and heart
of God.
>You
are immersed in a sea of infinite possibility.
>You
are a co-creator of your own life experience.
>You
are completely at choice, every moment, as to how you walk
through your life.
>You
are free to be any kind of person that you choose.
>There
has never been anyone more Divine than you.
Now
let me ask you this; As you read through that list, how did
you feel? Were you in complete alignment and agreement with
it? Was there a resonance and a recognition of the Truth of
each point?
Or
did you find yourself resisting any of it, questioning. Was
there a hesitation anywhere in your mind, a clench in your
jaw, a clutch in your gut, a hesitation in your mind. Did
you find yourself thinking, “That may be true for someone
else, but not for me.” ?
If
you find yourself in this category, the good news is, there
is only one thing standing between you, and that Truth; your
story.
When
I used to hear words like the ones you just read, that list,
and someone would even dare to imply that a list like that
was the Truth of who and what I am, I couldn’t even relate.
My story, my accumulated beliefs, doubts, fears, insecurities,
even early religious training would not let me identify with
that Truth. I thought that somehow I was different, less worthy,
less Divine, less powerful, somehow less of a place where
God shows up in this world than someone, anyone – everyone
- else. I had come to think of myself as a misfit, some kind
of cosmic mistake - here, breathing, existing in the world,
but defective, less than. My own story had convinced me that
this was so.
But
what I have discovered since then is that my story is not
my Truth. What I once believed about myself was not my Truth.
Much of what I was taught, and learned along the way was not
my Truth. I have discovered that I have much to unlearn.
Some
of it may have been true to some degree at some time in my
life. It sure seemed that way. But Truth can be funny that
way. If I say to myself, “I am inconsiderate.” The chances
are, I will be inconsiderate. Fill in your own blank, “I am…
whatever”, lazy, fat, poor, unhappy, powerless. Pick your
poison. If you believe that to be your Truth, it probably
is. Why? Because that’s your story, and you’re sticking to
it!
We
LOVE our stories! And it’s pretty easy to see why. They define
us, give us something to hang on to. They give us a point
of reference. And soon they become a point of comparison.
We start comparing our story to other stories, and, our ego’s
being what they are, we start ranking ourselves, and others.
We begin to judge.
Consider
this; What would you be if you let go of your story? What
if you stepped out of any accumulated beliefs about who and
what you are, and are not, about how the world works? What
if you were to let go of your fears, all of the reasons why
you can’t, or shouldn’t? For most of us, to even consider
such a thing scares us to death.
But
think about how powerful our story can be.
Parts
of my early story were; I am a sinner, I am a good boy, I
am a bad boy, my body is something to be ashamed of. I was
the only male child, the only one with dark hair. Soon I was
a problem child, a challenge, a handful. I was hyperactive,
emotional, angry, sensitive, stubborn. My dad lived somewhere
else, had another wife, another family.
When
I was little there was an animated Christmas show about an
island where all of the misfit toys went, and there was a
little misfit elf that ran away and went there too. I understood
why, and related to that little misfit elf. Early on, that’s
what I became, that’s how I saw myself; a misfit.
My
story is not unique, and not in and of itself really important,
but I share parts of it because in so doing I hope to break
us out of this illusion that we have created for ourselves
that we are somehow different. The fact is, we’re not different
at all. In fact in the years since I have become involved
with 12-step recovery, and more recently since I have gone
into professional counseling as a career, I am realizing that
quite the opposite is true. Much, if not most of what we have
come to believe about ourselves is simply not true. For the
Truth is there is nothing wrong with us. There is nothing
wrong with you.
Everybody
has a story. Everybody
has quirks, and thinks goofy things about themselves. But
regardless of my story I am no less viable, no less worthy,
no less Divine than the next rock on the block. Regardless
of your story, neither are you. Because your story is just
that, a story. It’s not the Truth of who and what you are.
But see, no one tells us! Nobody told me that I was not my
story! So I wandered on, believing my story, and it became,
as stories will do, a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Somewhere
along the way someone told me I was just like my father. I
believed them. Someone told me I would never amount to anything.
I believed them. Someone told me I was born into sin. I believed
them. Someone told me that I was a criminal. I believed them.
Someone told me I was clinically depressed, I believed them.
Someone told me my back was broken, that life would be a struggle,
and I would never be the same. I believed them.
So
I ask you; what’s your story? What have you come to believe
about yourself? And are those beliefs even yours, or did you
just borrow them from someone else along the way and forget
to give them back? Are you thinking, conscious, present in
the moment? Or are you just thinking from some default position
– most often an unconscious default position – that leads
you to keep repeating the same patterns over and over again?
More
good news: if we can learn it, we can unlearn it. I’m not
saying unlearning is easy, it takes practice, and patience,
and commitment. But it can be done. We have a lot to unlearn,
and as a wise friend once told me, “It took you a long time
to walk into the forest. It may take a little while to walk
out.”
Once
you become mindful of this differentiation though- conscious
vs. unconscious, mindful vs. default, story vs. Truth - you
will begin to notice, to ask yourself as you feel, or think,
or speak, or react; it is mine? Is it really how I feel, or
want to feel, or think, or act? Am I consciously, proactive
choosing this, or am I just doing it because I’ve always done
it this way?
Just
because you have picked up some erroneous beliefs along the
way doesn’t make you a misfit! Everyone has them! So you had
a dysfunctional childhood, some accident or diagnosis, some
situations or circumstances in your life that have been especially
challenging. At some point in your life you will reach a crossroads
and be clearly offered a choice. You can hang on to your story,
or you can choose something else. If you are to be truly free
to live in Infinite Possibility, to slip the limitations you
have accumulated and live life as big as you are here to live
it, you’re going to have to get over yourself!
As
used to the idea as you may have become – and I hate to burst
your bubble here, but it’s true - you’re really not that different!
You are unique. You are individual. There has never before
been nor will there ever again be anyone like you. But just
because you’re different, doesn’t make you any less, any less
worthy, any less viable, any less anything! Your uniqueness
does not have to be terminal!
Is
one snowflake any less of a snowflake because it looks different
from all the rest? Or because the wind blew it off course,
or it hit a tree on the way down? Or ended up looking like
something totally different than it thought it might, an icicle
maybe? Or a raindrop? Do you think it’s having a nervous breakdown
and has to go to therapy for years because of it? Of course
not! Because there’s nothing wrong with it! It’s exactly what
it’s supposed to be.
Just
like you, and me.
You
see, you’re no misfit, any more than I was, or am. A little
odd maybe, but so what, who isn’t? We’re not cookie-cutter
people, all alike, same size and shape and flavor. We’re not.
Nor are we meant to be. We may well have picked up some beliefs
along the way that no longer serve us. So what? Who hasn’t?
But here’s the thing; we have choice. Always, always, we have
choice.
We
can choose to look at and see ourselves however we want. We
can choose to believe about ourselves whatever we want. We
can choose to unlearn and let go of what no longer serves
us. We can choose to step out of the confines of our story,
and into our Truth. All it takes is willingness, and mindfulness.
We have to be willing to step up to the plate, to be aware
of our thoughts and feelings, and what we are basing those
thoughts and feeling on. We have to be willing to get more
honest with ourselves than perhaps we have ever been.
Quite
honestly I don’t know that most people are up to it. The status
quo has it’s appeal. It may stink, but it’s warm. It’s much
easier not to question, to go through our days relying on
default thinking, mucking along, doing basically the same
thing day after day. It takes work to get different. But if
you’re willing to take a good hard look, the rewards, the
liberation, and the Infinite Possibility that will unfold
before you may be the richest thing you have every experienced.
Regardless
of your story, you are only a misfit if you continue to believe
it to be so. You’re here to do big work, to be a place where
Divinity shows up in this world. A little daunting, perhaps,
but, you’re up to it, if you so choose. Step out
of the story, and into the Truth, and you will find that,
sure enough, the truth will set you free.
Rev.
Jeff Anderson
Center
for Spiritual Living, Santa Rosa
2008
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Co-Independence
(This
article is excerpted from a talk that I gave April 13, 2008,
at CSLSR)
I
was recently asked; What is the difference between compassion,
and co-dependence?
Co-dependent
has become a buzzword, used rather liberally, yet there is
confusion as to what it means, and how, or if, it affects
our lives. When does something that can feel and look like
compassion, even have compassionate motivation, cross a line
into being something unhealthy?
I
think we can agree that compassion, as we generally define
it, is a desirable quality. It speaks to kindness, acceptance
and understanding, tolerance, and grace. In Religious Science
we might go so far as to refer to qualities like this as qualities
of God.
When,
then, does something as good and as noble as compassion cross
a line into being unhealthy? When do we begin to dis-empower
someone by over-protecting, or rescuing, or fixing?
That
may well be the point of demarcation to be aware of, the question
to ask ourselves; Am I empowering someone, or dis-empowering
them?
To
empower is “to promote the self-actualization of”. This is
ultimately what the mid to long-term goal of compassion is,
or should be.
There
is a pathology that has arisen in our culture in the last
couple of decades, and that pathology is; I have drama, therefore
I am. The news if full of it, soap operas and other television
and media provide a steady diet of it, tabloids make a fortune
at it. It has almost become desirable to be in drama of one
kind or another. It can even feel like a drama competition;
my drama is bigger than your drama.
As
that pathology has emerged and matured, there has been another,
sympathetic pathology that has followed it up the scale of
awareness, and that one is; I rescue people in drama, therefore
I am.
We
seem to have forgotten, somewhere along the way, that we learn
and conquer our fears by experience. Emerson reminds us, “Do
not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life
is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
What if they are a little coarse, and you may get your coat
soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled
in the dirt once or twice. Up again, you shall never be so
afraid of a tumble.”
One
thing that happens with this emerging pathology is that we
overlay our squeamishness onto someone else, cleverly disguised
as compassion. Based on how we see the world, or a situation,
or a challenge, we impose those perceptions onto someone else’s
life. The inner dialogue is, “I think this is a bad thing
that is happening to you, it is causing me pain to watch you
walk through it, therefore I am going to step in and short
circuit your process.”
We
have become afraid, somewhere along the way, to fail and get
fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice, and we deal with
that fear by rescuing someone else.
How
then do we practice compassion and still maintain a healthy
relationship? We do so by walking through another person’s
version of hell with them, and not judging their situation
as good or bad, or right or wrong. We refrain from overlaying
our own fears onto another.
We
trust that the Universal Consciousness knows what It is doing,
that it may be doing just fine without our corrections.
None
of us likes to see those we care about in distress. And, when
is their distress really our own distress? When do we see
something as distress when its actually someone learning life
lessons, valuable life lessons, without which they may be
less well equipped to flourish in the world? When do we begin
to disempower someone by over-protecting, or rescuing, or
fixing?
When
are we saving someone from something that they don’t need
to be saved from?
We
all have to live our own lives. I cannot do it for you in
the name of compassion, for to do so would be to cheat you
of the satisfaction of coming to know just how powerful you
really are.
You’ve
heard the saying, “give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day,
teach him to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime.“ That, I believe,
is an accurate metaphor for what we are really trying to accomplish
with compassion. Naturally, if you are starving, I will give
you a fish. As soon as you are healthy enough, I will teach
you to fish. If I continue to give you fish after you are
healthy enough to begin to learn to fish for yourself, that
is not compassion, and does not empower you. Rather, it dis-empowers.
This is co-dependence.
Religious
Science teaches us that our thoughts have tremendous power.
With that kind of power comes responsibility, responsibility
for ourselves, responsibility for our choices. This can be
one of the most empowering and satisfying things we ever discover
in life. This is the whole basis for the Science of Mind philosophy.
So
what if, no matter what you thought or chose, someone came
along and short-circuited that process by absorbing the consequences
of your actions and choices? It does have a certain appeal,
since it absolves us of responsibility. And, in the long run,
we would never learn how truly powerful we are. We would never
know that satisfaction.
Many
years ago I was encouraged to take an inventory of my life
to that point, to look at my relationships, my actions and
my choices and see what I could learn from them.
It
was hard, because I knew that I would see that I had made
a colossal mess of my life. Yet for perhaps the first time
in my life I was encouraged to take responsibility for my
own choices, for my own power, to step out of the victim role,
to take responsibility for my part of the mess. As a result
of that process, I had one of the biggest realization of my
life; if I could make that big of a mess of things, WHAT IF
I were to apply that same power, the power of thought and
of choice, and try to make something good of it? I began to
do just that, and life has gotten very different. But here’s
the caveat: I had to embrace what appeared to be failure,
in order to realize my own power.
I
want to propose to you a new word: CO-INDEPENDENCE. And here’s
the working definition: I love you, and I will walk with you
through hell. But I will not disempower you. I practice compassion
by loving you so much that I will let you discover how truly
powerful you are. I will not short-circuit that. I will not
abandon you, but I will not rescue you if you choose to make
the same choices over and over again. I will not overlay my
fear onto you, but will trust that the path that you are walking
is the right and perfect path for you to learn what it is
you need to learn. I will let you learn your way, not my way.
I trust completely in the Infinite Wisdom within you, knowing
that you will find your own perfect alignment in the perfect
time, in the perfect way. The power of the Universe lives
within you, and I trust that above all else.
Rev.
Jeffrey R. Anderson
SpiritPathCounseling.com
SpiritAsJeff.com
April
14, 2008
*****************************************************************************************
Are
You a Prisoner to Your Story?
We
all have a story. This story may or may not accurately reflect
our life path, but it is our story none the less. It is how
we have come to think of ourselves, and how we choose to present
ourselves to the world around us.
Our
stories are our beliefs about our lives, about life in general.
They are compilations of what we have learned along the way,
the experiences that have shaped our minds, how we think,
act and present ourselves to the world.
Many
people firmly believe that they are their stories. We can
become so attached to it that it defines us, and limits our
experience of life. We forget that it is our past, not our
present. This does not necessarily have to be so. We need
not be bound by our past, or defined by our story. We are
what we believe ourselves to be. And we are free to be anything
we choose.
I
invite you to think about liberation from the story, the possibility
that many of the beliefs that we have accumulate along the
way are not in fact The Truth. Not our Truth and not God‘s
Truth. I believe this to be so, and I have spent more time
unlearning than I have in accumulating new information. I
have stepped out of my story, and into my present.
We
each have the power to change our story at any time we choose.
We have the choice to release our story completely, to free
ourselves from our accumulated ideas of who and what we are,
and what we can and cannot do with our lives. The fact is
that the present moment represents our Truth much more accurately
than our stories ever did, ever could, or ever will.
We
are as free as we give ourselves permission to be.
I
invite you to look at your story. I ask you to be more honest
with yourself than you have ever been in your life. I ask
you if your story is your Truth. I invite you to consider
letting go of what you were, in order to step into what you
are.
What
if you were to release old thoughts and beliefs, old patterns
and anxieties and fears that have limited your experience
of life, indeed that continue to limit your experience of
life today? What would it feel like to wake each day with
a blank canvas before us, upon which we could create anything
we choose? Can you even imagine the possibility?
Our
ego likes things just the way they are. Even if we are miserable,
there is a certain comfort in the familiar. We know how to
be when we are how we have always been.
I
invite you to step out of the familiar, to trust yourself
and your God, so that you might come to know the real you
as you are today, in the present moment, to see yourself apart
from your story. This may bring up feelings of fear and resistance.
Ego may even now be standing firm in your mind saying, "Of
course I know who I am." I invite you to have the courage
to look again.
You
are, quite probably, different than you have come to believe.
Perhaps it is your time to come to know who and what you truly
are today. Perhaps it is your time to become liberated, free
to be authentic, to embody your Truth, regardless of your
story.
We
all have a story. There may, however, be a significant difference
between our story and our Truth. If you can get past the fear,
past the sureness, if you can just for a few minutes ask yourselves
if your story, and the old beliefs that go along with it is
in any way limiting your experience of life today, the answers
you find may surprise you.
We
are what we believe ourselves to be. And we are free to be
anything we choose.
Rev.
Jeffrey R. Anderson
SpiritPathCounseling.com
SpiritAsJeff.com
March,
2006
*****************************************************************************************
Transcending
the Status Quo
Einstein
said, “ We
cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking
we used when we created them.”
Why
is it then that we wake up day after and think the same thoughts
and feel the same feelings and do the same things that we
did the day before, yet somehow expect the results to be different?
It
has become very clear that the models that we have been working
with, as individuals and as a society – hell, as a planet
– are not working particularly well. But we seem to be so
busy blaming each other – the oil companies, Dubya, our parents,
whoever – that we expend all of our energies pointing out
what’s wrong, rather than opening to new models, new levels
of addressing our problems.
It’s
not like we don’t know what we’re doing. Sure, there is a
significant percentage of the population that, due to lack
of education and opportunity, or just plain old fear, remains
stranded in the mire of the status quo, but we cannot fall
back on that default position any longer. It’s an excuse,
plain and simple, and nothing more.
Too
many people on this planet are now conscious to claim ignorance
any longer.
We
are in a period of cultural awareness unparalleled in modern
times. Even science, via theoretical quantum physics, is now
telling us that what we choose, how we think and what we look
for determines what we experience in life.
We
cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking
we used when we created them.
The
challenge to this point has been lack of models for implementing
a different level of thinking. Religion has tried, and some
have actually presented viable tools with which to begin.
But religion has accumulated so much baggage along the way
– or more accurately, our perception of religion has accumulated
the baggage – that many have closed to the door to that area
of exploration. Worshiping instead The God of Materialism,
we have opted to confine our experience of life to what we
can see and touch and accumulate. We have become a nation
of Stuff Worshipers. But hey, that’s the model we had to work
with, the American Dream; the house, the cars, 2.2 kids, the
dog and the picket fence.
Let
me ask you this; How well is that working for you?
Here’s
what happened; the American dream picked up it’s own baggage
along the way, and has now become so cumbersome as to be archaic.
The model doesn’t work anymore.
Madison
Avenue has convinced us that we must have stuff to be happy.
It doesn’t even matter what kind of stuff any more. Almost
any stuff will do. But in the process we have become so focused
on materialism that we have seriously depleted the resources
of the planet. Indeed, in our own shortsightedness we have
sickened our own environment to the point where there are
ecosystems on this planet that cannot even sustain life.
We
have confused success with acquisition, joy with how much
we spend in the pursuit of it, awe with dominance and oppression,
even love we have confused with over-dependence, power, control,
ownership. We have become isolated from each other. We have
picked up quite a load of our own baggage along the way.
So
how then do we begin to change it? I mean really change it,
how do we jump the tracks and re-define our models, how do
we let go of what is no longer working and begin to nourish
and nurture better models to create a world that works for
everyone?
Perhaps
an even better question is not how, but rather, do we have
the courage to do it. Are we really, honestly willing to begin
to step out of our own self-serving little worlds into a place
of bigger awareness?
Honestly
I’m not convinced we’re ready to do that yet. Even those of
us who profess to be conscious and progressive and open at
the top still hang on to our separation from the whole of
humanity. Why? Because it still serves us. Why, really?
Erica
Jong hit the nail the head some years ago when she said, “Take
your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible
thing: no one to blame.”
The
problem is, we still need someone to blame. That is the root
of the problem here, individually, societally, and globally.
We need someone to blame, because if we let go of that, we
would have to truly step into a place of responsibility for
our own actions, our own thoughts, our own experience of life,
our own planet. And for all of our talk and bluster, I don’t
know that we have yet reached a point of maturity where we
are truly ready and willing to take responsibility for ourselves.
We
could though, if we really, really wanted to. We have “new”
models emerging, and ancient ones re-emerging that we could
apply right now, today, that would radically change our world
in a very short period of time. And there is something within
us, individually and collectively, that is starting to re-awaken
to this truth.
Movies
like What the Bleep Do We Know and The Secret are bringing
into the mainstream a new level of thinking with which we
can transcend our problems. Every single one of them.
Science
is now reinforcing what may of us have known since our species
first stood upright; that consciousness, not matter, is the
ground of all being. This means, simply put, that what we
think and feel and believe, what we focus our attention on,
what we expect, all factors in to what our world looks like,
and our experience of it.
It
means that we can change our minds, and in so doing, change
our life, and our planet.
There
are countless places to look, where a new level of thinking
is taking hold, where change is starting to happen. 12-step
recovery has a wonderfully simple model with which a personal
inventory can be taken. Do you even know what you think, really?
Maybe it’s time to find out. Take an inventory. Look at how
you think about every single thing in your world. You may
be surprised. You may even be shocked at what you find. But
before we can begin to operate on a new level of thinking
we must be familiar, intimately familiar, with the old level.
We cannot set out on a journey to a new place if we have no
idea where we are to begin with.
Psychologists
tell us that every one of us thinks an average of between
65,000 and 70,000 thoughts a day and 90 to 95% of those thoughts
are repetitive. We have become numb to our own thought, yet
we wonder why the same thing keeps happening. I’ll tell you
why; it’s because we don’t know what we’re thinking. Literally.
There
are the teachers of our day that are spreading the word of
modern day transcendence. People like Deepak Chopra, M.D.,
and Marianne Williamson, Eckhart Tolle and Mary Manin Morrissey,
Dr. Wayne Dyer and Iyanla Vanzant, Amit Goswami, Ph.D., and
Dr. Albert Einstein and Dr. Ernest Holmes and the Reverend
Dr. Michael Beckwith are putting together the pieces and presenting
them again for our consideration. They are articulating a
different level of thinking that they will be the first to
admit is nothing new, but rather has been known since the
earliest of times.
The
Buddah is quoted as saying, "All that we are is the result
of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think,
we become."
These
are smart people, yet they recognize that we share something
essential; we share our humanity, and all that that entails.
We
are beginning to experience a resonance again that we recognize
is perhaps even the sound of creation itself. It is something
we have in common. It is, perhaps, life, perhaps that drive
for survival that is calling us together as never before.
There
is a place within each person that transcends the status quo
and our current models and judgments and labels and fear and
beliefs, that cuts through baggage and dogma and greed and
fear. It is the place that is recognizing and admitting that
the way we have been doing things for the past few hundred
years isn’t working so well anymore. Something has to change.
And we cannot
solve our problems with the same level of thinking we used
when we created them.
Rev.
Jeff Anderson is a Religious Science minister and licensed
spiritual practitioner/counselor in private practice in Northern
California. Visit his website at www.SpiritPathCounseling.com.
This article copywrite
2007, SpiritPathCounseling.com. Article may be reprinted with
this notice included. *****************************************************************************************
Gender
Shame
My
earliest vivid memory of childhood is what I refer to as ‘The
Last Fight’, the one where Mom finally left my father.
My
father was an alcoholic, and a rage-a-holic, which made for
an interesting early childhood. The time period I am referring
to being the early 60’s, things were not as they are now.
A hard working man was not discouraged from being a hard drinking
man. It was almost expected. Domestic violence too was a well
kept secret, a ‘family issue’ if it was looked at as an issue
at all.
I
vividly remember that night, 4 or 5 years old, watching and
listening as my father, drunk, abused my mother. This night
was different though. Mom fought back. I can still hear the
yelling, ‘Sit down and shut up!’ my father bellowed, pushing
my mom into a kitchen chair. I didn’t understand at the time
really what was going on, but I remember pots and pans flying,
the phone ripped out of the wall, blood, lots it seemed like,
on both of them, neighbors outside, police. And as mom finally
got us kids into the car, neighbors looking on, the man in
the house bellowing like a wounded bull, I now know what it
is I felt; shame.
I
was the only male child, with two sisters, and always felt
different. Perhaps it was just gender, perhaps shame, perhaps
the fact that I inherited the alcoholic gene from dear old
dad, but it was always the women, and me.
From
the house that night we drove a block over to my grandparent’s
house, where my grandfather, the story goes, told my mother
to ‘get back home to her husband where she belonged’. I loved
my grandfather, but again I felt shame that The Man of the
family, the patriarch, could be so cold and insensitive and
locked into the male role that he would tell his own daughter
to go back to a situation that was obviously unsafe, for all
of us, simply because she should ‘stand by her man’.
That
experience set the tone for a good portion of my life, until
just a handful of years ago.
As
I matured (such as it was) I found most of the men that I
experienced to be users, bullies, insecure, so overcompensating
with a macho façade that it hindered them from being human.
We were not supposed to feel or display emotion, and most
of the men that I saw followed these societal dictates well.
They hid their emotion, except for anger, which was accepted.
They were men after all.
And
now I begin to understand the underlying reason for so much
of that anger, realizing at long last that when emotion is
suppressed, it will, like anything else in this universe that
has a natural, normal flow that is blocked, find an outlet,
somewhere.
I
was ‘sensitive’, more so than I was ‘supposed’ to be, which
is probably why I participated so fully in my disease of alcoholism
for so many years. I was led to believe by family example
and by our society that I was not supposed to be experiencing
what I felt, so I deadened it for a long time.
But
even in my numbed state I watched as men raped and pillaged,
‘led’ our government into turmoil and chaos, war, death, mismanaged
families and seemingly every affair that they were assigned
or chose to lead. I watched them spit, fight and intimidate,
seemingly emotionless. Role models that reflected The Truth
of what a man really is and should be were, and still are,
few and far between.
I
have discovered that early on I took upon my shoulders the
sins of my gender, and have been slowly bending under the
accumulating weight for many years.
I
have tried to compensate for the wrongs that I saw and continue
to see, extending kindness and gentleness and safety to the
best of my ability and limited experience wherever I saw men
lacking to do so, which is everywhere. It has led to dysfunction,
through overcompensation on my part, in my life.
A
friend told me recently that I can not change the world. I
responded that maybe I can. While I certainly cannot balance
the scales myself, perhaps by stepping out with articles such
as this I can affect the awareness of men, and the perception
of men. Perhaps I, and people like my classmates Brad and
Bill and others that I have been blessed to meet lately, who
have begun to shift my perception of ‘all men as insensitive
pigs’, can indeed begin to shift the bigger consciousness.
In doing so perhaps we can give men permission to be human,
feel emotion, drop the macho veneer and experience the natural
normal flow of feelings that come as a part of the human design.
And maybe, just maybe, though certainly far from perfect and
with many lessons yet to learn, we can begin to regain the
respect of women and others, just by being who and what we
truly are.
Rev.
Jeffrey R. Anderson
SpiritPathCounseling.com
SpiritAsJeff.com
May,
2001
********************************************************************************
NON-BALLERINA
It has not always been
with the utmost of grace and coordination
that I have performed on this stage we call life.
The critics have often been harsh,
the reviews unfavorable,
I, naturally, my own worst critic.
But I am committed to the dance,
for I have realized
that ultimately it is not the final performance that we live
but the unending hours, days, years, lifetimes of practice
that make us what we are.
So all I ask is that you not judge too harshly
as I practice my dance of life.
I will stumble, I will fall, I have, and will again.
I ask you to look beyond the practice, to the commitment,
to the intention, to the man, the soul beneath the performer,
for that is where my truth lies.
The dance has taught me many many lessons,
and I continue to learn,
because my heart is open, I am willing to try,
I am willing to fail.
I have come to know the truth,
I have come to believe in myself,
and if I never receive a standing ovation,
if I never receive the acceptance and approval
of those I seek to please with my dance,
those things will be reward enough,
for I am a seeker, dancing on an uneven stage...
a nonballerina...
Rev.
Jeffrey R. Anderson
SpiritPathCounseling.com
SpiritAsJeff.com
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