 Very Young Corn Maidens... © 2014 Rev. David Seacord 20" x 28" Acrylic on Paper
Everyman's WEEKLY Journal #63
©2014 Rev. David Seacord
February 23, 2014
The Great Work….
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I just must share with you about the beauty I am experiencing in living with my son Ambrose these past two months ---for what is happening between us actually supersedes all other events in my life these days (including my legal dramas, etc). In essence, he and I are having an ongoing conversation about life, about what is true, about how to live. This conversation continuously permeates whatever activity we are sharing. Please understand not as any kind of proselytizing, but as an authentic dialogue of exploration. And, as nothing is being held back, like 'in order to look good' to each other or something---but instead ---each of us is being more completely honest and authentic than we may ever be able to be with any other being--- we are both recipients and beneficiaries. In a very real way, it is a two way complete transfer of the very best that we have to give to an other. And being that it is between me as father and he as son, it is an experience of seeing into an other beyond any that I have previously ever known.
I feel so immensely blessed by this gift that I am unable to fully language it. I think about what it is to be a father and face an unfathomable mystery. I have always known that Ambrose would be the primary heir of my physical possessions and my artistic creations, but I had not dared hope that he would willingly receive my best thinking, my best being… the insights and awarenesses and soul-beingness that I have laid down my life as payment for… that he would come to me as a sponge to receive these too. But that is what is happening… he is here with me studying both himself and me with a great honest intensity. He is reading my library voraciously and then coming to me with all the most challenging questions that are occurring to him from his studies. And I am finding that these questions, being that they are being asked so without any protection… that they elicit from me the best responses I have ever had. As I said, it is an ongoing complete pouring out of the best that we have.
As with all things in this world, his visit will end… perhaps in a month, perhaps a bit longer. But in this winter of 2014 I have found fulfillment as a father. It is beyond words.
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In the midst of shooting a white water rapids one does not release hold of the oars in order to boot a computer and write a story about the rapids one is in the midst of traversing. Thus last week no journal was created. Now in smoother waters, I will continue with my reporting.
As I am sure is true in your life, I can see there is a synchronistic imperative present within all events in my life. To read the messages of the Universe what is necessary is for me to pay attention to both what is happening and to the feelings that personally accompany the events.
For instance, I last reported to you that I 'felt like I had won the case' after I sent off a motion to re-open my case (after my nonappearance for good cause). It was a great feeling, and for a while I lived in a confidence that I would be heard and my views would be respected and my case would be dismissed. Now I report to you that that did not happen. My motions were once again denied, and I was given a brief notice that I had the right to appeal, or, or course, pay. Emotionally I then traversed a black hole, and when in that darkness, I came to the conclusion to fold, and to buy my way out of the game. My vision of my holy purpose contracted…to that it was only about a $150 fine, correct? In my let-down state, I just didn't desire to keep going. I even wrote a Journal entry announcing that I was folding…but I listened to something inside me that suggested I not send it out to you. Yet, it was good that I wrote it, as there is a wakeup mechanism inherent in that process… as it takes 'thought about reality' out of the abstract when one places it upon paper in words. We all know about this because of the way we all give more weight to something if it has 'been in print, or in the papers, etc'.
Anyway, after living with my sense of loss for a couple of days, I discovered that it began to pass. I also began to sense that I would not be happy with myself in the future if I folded now. True, I was in the experience that the legal system did not work, that it did not produce the result that I know would be 'justice'. But I also saw that I had not yet EXHAUSTED the process…and that if I did not now Appeal I would never know whether or not justice may have at some point been granted. I reread the information on the Appeals process, which before in my letdown state had seemed impossible. This time I saw the possibility and the opportunity! And this time I felt the renewed call of my mission to do this… to be a stand for integrity and true justice inside a system that (in ancient times) was originally birthed in brightness, but which has devolved to typically producing its opposite…darkness.
Why am I now inspired? Because we are 'on point' finally… in that the appeal is not about whether I am 'guilty' or not. In fact, that is in many ways irrelevant to the appeal. What the appeal is about is "Did I receive a fair trial?", i.e., "Did the law work?", as in "Was the law correctly applied in arriving at the verdict?" So, in essence, instead of arguing that the CHP should or shouldn't have done etc, I will now be arguing what the Judge should or shouldn't have done under the law. There is much more, but that is the essence. I have realized I have MUCH to say about this subject! Therefore, I am now happily and excitedly appealing.
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Yoga, like walking on water, is always a faith walk amidst illusions. This week under a waxing full moon those waters have been creatively delivering practice opportunities in differentiating between the two. I found the following little exercise in Radiant Joy Brilliant Love enlightening…
The exercise instruction is to hold both arms straight out to the sides, fully extended from the body, parallel to the ground and with the hands upward and outward facing… for twenty minutes…and while doing so, to listen to the body's voice and to the spirit's voice. The idea was to expect them to be different, as the body's voice would soon begin begging for relief, while the spirit's voice would be the voice of our ability to be committed to the accomplishment despite the body's pain.
Last June while attending the 3HO Summer Solstice in New Mexico the White Tantra practices were of this exact nature. There, paired into day-long partnerships, we were instructed in similarly painful exercises for time periods of either 31 or 62 minutes. At the time, I had found them impossible to survive without repeated cheating…i.e., taking brief breaks from the pain by relaxing the positions. I remember my mind justified those breaks on the basis that I was in the midst of 2000 people who were, for the most part, doing the same. There was no rod-wielding Zen master there to whack us, and there was no shaming either. The exercise was clean… it was a self-test of a particular type of mastery… of mind over matter.
I have to admit that last summer I did not get the complete depth of what was being aimed at. This weeks reintroduction of the suggestion gave me a new deeper view (but I don't mean to say 'I get it fully' yet). I didn't make the twenty minutes, by the way. But I did go well beyond my comfort level, and I did clearly hear the two different voices. The instructions in Radiant Joy Brilliant Love suggest doing this 'more than once', as the awakeness deepens with the practice. I have never been a strictly disciplined practitioner of such self-control, yet in the face of the illusions of the world, I am upgrading. This week I began holding my yoga poses for slightly longer time periods, and noticing my body's conversations about comfort, and noticing my spirit's commitment to holding the pose.
My honest self-knowing knows that in the past when taking on new inspirations of this nature, I have not maintained them for all that long without support. Yet such 'support' can be two-edged and can reactivate its own resistance if too rigid. I remember a sign I saw once: "Self-control is the best kind." I am seeing, in my yoga practice, the opportunity to take that idea to the next level--- and then, after that, the next level, etc. I sense 'mastery' is a process of never ceasing to be a learner… of continually cultivating a beginner's mind. Yes?
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Another arena of stretching, of going beyond past limits, was given this week by the practical choices of auto-repair. I've reported to you that my beloved little Geo has been polluting badly. With local coaching, I evaluated the options and took the step of removing the engine head in order to measure the wear of the piston cylinders. I discovered, using borrowed micrometers, that they were uneven and also 'out of round', and thus the entire block needed to be re-bored and fit with oversize pistons. I had hoped it wouldn't come to that and that "I'd get lucky" and only have to do a ring job. But not so… in fact, at every juncture of choice, I've had the opportunity to ramp up the game and choose to 'do it right' (each time meaning 'more work and more money invested'). There is a seeing that I have been trained in that "the difference between a child and an adult is that the adult has the ability to delay it's gratifications…". That means to me that I get to see if I can hold the vision of a perfectly running engine rebuilt by myself and giving me years of future faithful service… AND, can I hold that vision while acting consistent with every single step that is going to be required to manifest that vision. This week, after several days of being on the fence and exploring the options of having someone else do it, I felt my choice arise. I will do it myself, and I will learn what I need to know to do it right. I will create a new mastery area. I will know my car's engine intimately.
Life is the curriculum, and all mastery is transferrable. The Way is a journey where, one by one, we transform our lives by expanding our masteries. My first mastery was in the arena of piano repair. My second has been as an artist/painter. Both were supported by motivated desire from within. Knowing engine mechanics is relevant to well-rounded survival skills (can you image a self-sufficient farmer not knowing how to do basic repairs to his equipment?)… who am I to argue with the universe about this. Back I must go then, to my Landmark mantra: "This is it, and I'm satisfied."
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Couchsurfing.org entered my life a few weeks ago. It's a website for finding or offering places for travelers to stay as guests in private homes. If I'd found it last year, I might not have been ticketed for sleeping in my car, hummmm…. Anyway, sort of from the pressure of that legal situation, I have been delighted to discover the website and it's services--- for the alternative it creates. So I wrote my profile and posted it and now new-to-me people are contacting me and asking if I could host them. This week I chose to say yes for the first time, and as a result, Ambrose and I have had three days of added socializing opportunities to embrace (and later to discuss and share our experience of). Using fake names, "Jack" and "Jill" arrived on an older Honda Goldwing towing a motorcycle trailer that popped open into a sleeping camper. Given that they brought their sleeping quarters with them and only needed to use the shower a couple of times, it was a lightweight visitation, and they were both well-trained in being helpful. All in all, it was an enjoyable break from the normal patterns of our lives.
I find myself remembering my early adult years of spending summers on remote fire-watch lookout towers, and the excitement I would feel whenever a rare deep wilderness hiker would visit my mountaintop home. In my solitary aloneness in those wildlands, it was automatic that anyone who appeared was my honored guest, and I would roll out the red carpet for them, offering at a minimum to share a meal and have conversation. This is the same energy that was offered the wandering bard in times of old, for the wanderer was the bringer of news of the rest of the world to the local inhabitants.
Nowadays, I observe we habitually pass by perhaps thousands of other people daily without any connection, even though statistically a large percentage of those people might make ideal friends, should we have the courage to interrupt the pretenses of social decorum and introduce ourselves. Doing this with no agenda… just being willing to connect as chance humans in the same location… can be quite refreshing to the spirit, especially when feeling socially isolated. I am particularly practiced in this way of being, especially in the commercial establishments that I use locally, with the result that I am no longer a stranger to the employees, that I am welcomed whenever I visit, and I often find myself entering into enthusiastic conversations. To me, this is one of the ways that the brightness uses me… to be the truth that we are all one another.
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May your reading of these adventures be of benefit to you. Please remember that the great work is to be love, despite anything appearing in the phenomenal world attempting to justify not-love.
Namaste,
David
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Rev. David Seacord
Fine Art Painter / Sufi Cherag
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