The theme of exploring "what's valid" in my life continues…. with twists and turns included. This week I entered a new land… the land of teaching yoga. The subtle desire to do this has been a quiet voice I have heard for many years but never acted on. But this week, the correct timing arrived…. as, exiting my shower stall in preparation of attending a new morning yoga class, I received a text from my close friend the instructor informing me that todays class was cancelled (due to her daughter's sudden fever). I had been a bit rushed earlier when arising and had skipped meditating… so since I now wasn't going to class, I chose to sit and meditate a bit. What arose after a few minutes was the inspiration to contact my teacher-friend and offer to teach her other class later that day. My offer was enthusiastically accepted…and I was suddenly stoked…lit up…yes! yes! yes! my heart-song danced... And thus it happened that a couple of hours later, with a few words of coaching and a lot of my teachers trust in my heart, there I was, meeting my first yoga class.
I must say in retrospect it was like a dress rehearsal… I had not fully embodied being a yoga instructor yet, and I had some learning moments. But they were just moments… the class as a whole was successful. And, next day (as the child's fever had continued) I also taught my second class (to a different group of students). As I had used what I had learned in the first experience and had done some preparatory work before class this time (instead of 'winging it'), I felt the yoga instructor in me emerge much much more powerfully. I've been in the impact of that experience since…
Just like when I discovered I was a painter, I can see responding to this meditatively given impulse to offer to teach yoga has created a seminal event in my life. It's almost like 'how did I not see this before?'…. this activity being a so perfectly positive way of both strengthening my own on-again/off-again personal practice AND, at the same time, contributing directly to the lives of other people too… in the very subject area that I am recognizing I am quite well designed to contribute in… consciousness awareness training via teaching the physical and mental and emotional principles of yoga. Teaching yoga was like discovering a level of knowing inside me that I had not known…. because… as soon as I knew I'd chosen what the next posture was going to be, the words of how to teach it just came into me without hesitation…. and beyond that, additional commentary also often arose, sharings about why and how and in what ways doing that asana would assist the life of the practitioner. It wasn't just physical yoga I was sharing… it was a synthesis, the best synthesis I could be the channel of in that moment… of philosophy, breathwork, posture, attitude, intentionality… all done through me in a way that I can see was intended to create a specific kind of space in the room--- where--- if people were attentive-- jewels of wisdom that could transform a life were available to be acquired. That's what just came out to be spoken…jewels… like, that the first principle of yoga (union) was/is Paying Attention. Meaning, first of course, to the body and the muscles and the breath, but also to the mind, and to the movement of the emotions. How'd I know to say that? I discovered that even though the 'I' of my mind often doesn't know the 'how', THAT which uses me as yoga teacher, it most certainly does.
It's also like that when writing… same/same… how do I know what to write? I often don't. I just let THAT write. Or, when I paint, I just let THAT paint. same/same. When writing, I become THAT's pen… when painting, I become THAT's brush… when doing yoga, I become THAT's non-doer… the Self…the knowing of the Yoga. And the quality that is present is that because it is shared with others, it becomes a communion. For everyone there (meaning 'Being Here') and willing to enter. That's what is so great about classes… that the joining into a group communion is sooooo much easier than communing alone. Because to really get the taste of union/communion only requires two (or more) releasing their separate-mindedness and joining into 'the one spirit' mindedness. So… so funny… in this sense of it, leading yoga is actually (without ever saying anything 'religious') exactly like… leading worship.
Switching to another subject… 'Working with Anger'…. an insight recently was given. I was surfing Facebook, and found my self reading a story about a woman being horribly treated by police in a way that was so inexcusable and highly offensive to my sense of justice that I was flooded with anger and hate towards such abusive authorities (and of course truth be told, not for the first time either). I felt myself to be on the edge of enragement, and because of that, I recognized I seriously needed to 'get under' the reactions being triggered. So I intentionally followed my breathing a while, and worked to release the grip of the anger. Suddenly, I remembered a phrase… 'You feel my pain!', and a new view opened up. This view was liberating and deeply compassionate… both being states that are natural antidotes to intense anger. And I was suddenly deeply grateful for my mid-1990's Body Electronics classes, and my then teacher, who had installed this view in me so many years ago….
Allow me to explain a bit. From Freud onward, psychologists have created more and more refined human 'emotional tone scales'. These track and model the movement of human emotions, both evolving and devolving. One of the states is 'Anger'. It is placed above 'Apathy' and 'Grief' in terms of expression energy, but well below 'Enthusiasm' and 'Joy'. And the operative intentionality of anger is defined as: 'to communicate pain'… as, when angry, what we are doing is trying to get someone else to feel the pain we are then in… hence: "YOU! Feel MY Pain!" And the way it usually (doesn't) work(s) is that if the other is unwilling to do that, to get that, 'we' just get angrier. Why? Because when IN anger, we are blinded by the active pain body to any healthy way to heal ourselves.
Now, take the situation that I was reading about. I could tell by the headlines that it 'wasn't happy-making fluff', and I could have chosen to not read it. But I have seen that (for me) such avoidance or denial of interest of things that actually DO interest me is also a signal that I'm choosing to not rock my own boat….that right then, being blind and staying unhealed is somehow preferable to facing my growth path. Meaning, if I recognize the passionate voice in me that is triggered by social injustices as a signal that my own similar wounds are not yet healed, somehow I need to be responsible for that woundedness in myself or my fate will be to UNCONSCIOUSLY perpetuate it. This is the human dilemma… that we, in our unhealedness, perpetuate our unhealedness, especially by traumatizing others as we have been traumatized. This is 'The Golden Rule, reversed. My view is that the only way out of this is through the heart… via compassion on ourselves and others. To do either, we/I need to SEE the truth of the matter, and that is not done by not looking. So, I chose to not avoid…I read the article, I felt the pain it brought up, and I worked with it. From a 'staying in the comfort zone' analogy, this is akin to walking across the hot coals, yes?
Internally, the 'working with it' was/is like allowing a battle within myself while remembering at the same time to remain whole. I say 'allowing', as that is what I see God does (as we exist within the Godness Wholeness, which (or who) obviously allows everything that we wish to call negative to be, as well as allowing everything we call positive to also be). So this allowing, to me, is key to being authentic, as to just 'focus on the positive' misses 'including EVERYTHING' by just about 50%. Which is like acknowledging only half of the Yin/Yang symbol to be real. Doing that leaves us/me, like a 'halfling', a 'half-master'…at best. To me, that's why Positivity teachings are somewhat suspect… because most teach to 'deny the negative' and it will disappear from your life. (By the way, THIS is me voicing 'the battle'.) I would love that to be the Truth Universal, but I do not experience it… especially when the view is expanded beyond the personal. What I mean by that is that, while yes, we can personally attract and create an individual world full of beauty and abundance via positive thinking (and my world is full of many such blessing because I have a predominating positivity of being)…. what I know by direct realization is that I am the whole thing here, and here on this planet no matter how positive I am personally, I still see great suffering being perpetuated by unconsciousness. As I am at least potentially 'one with all', and all includes that there is still suffering here, what I currently can see is that 1. ending suffering starts with me ceasing to suffer, and 2. teaching others how to end their own suffering. I'm pretty sure this does not mean ending up in a positivity-based denial of my pain… I sense it means that when I suffer, that I not resist it…. thus do I understand the Buddhist principle of 'suffering that is not suffering'. Onward.
Now, as an affirmation, I will say: fully conscious beings don't hate. Why would they…. they know everything is themselves. And being that I have chosen to be fully conscious, that means I have also given up 'the right' to hate (anyone, including myself). Even though I sometimes forget this in the moment, that is the fire of the internal battle… that hate is not an option, yet hate is present in us/me (at least occasionally) if we/I are not fully healed. This is the zone the early 2oth century Sufi teacher and mystic Harzat Inayat Khan spoke of when he said: "Shatter your ideals on the rock of Truth". Meaning, get real, and deal with it. Which further means to me: LOOK at it…SEE through it. And regarding this reading-triggered incident, all that I am reporting to you is that when Ilooked at it asking for help to SEE through it, the gift I was given liberated me from the hate I was feeling in me. Because by remembering the thought "You feel my pain!" (in the context of the emotional tone scale teachings)---what I was seeing immediately shifted from being 'brutalizing cops' to simply seeing 'people being cops because they had been themselves brutalized, and who were then brutalizing others as the only way they had found to express their pain… by unconsciously doing to others as had been done to them…. by placing others in similar pain". That shift allowed for compassion, just like similar shifts by the Dalai Lama allow him to be compassionate towards the Chinese… just like similar shifts allowed Martin Luther King to not be reduced to hating those who hated him… Compassion for others and self are the foundations of our own healing process, for it allows for us to experience forgiveness. When freed by that forgiveness, I see that that is the first time we can then take non-angry action, if that is what we are led to see is necessary to do. I believe that sometimes, as lightworkers, that may be necessary. If we have forgiven, and have Love, such action could be done without creating negative karma. To me, that is the goal. For a healed world is a world without the karma of suffering being perpetuated into perpetuity.
This was a nice win for me… to see through the hate and to get the 'compassion pop' pretty quickly. It's what I see the true work is really like… everywhere/everywhen… to see into the situations arising always more deeply… evermore quickly remembering the truth while doing so… immediately recognizing the lies that will appear within us… lies that are waiting to set their hooks into our peace. As we walk this walk, we naturally deepen as beings, and become more and more foundational, more trustable---both within ourselves and to ourselves, and also without, to others. This, in my view, is the Way of the Godness…. for nothing more impacts the world toward transformation than a transformed man or woman living fully self-expressed in their freedom . In time, through practice, we all know… this is our own personal destiny.
One of the questions I have been subliminally aware I've been chewing on lately is "What is valid?". I mean for me, personally. For instance, recently I was in a guitar store playing a few of the instruments there. And as I played them, a part of me noticed that there was no conflict within me at that moment… there was just the playing of the guitar, and the feeling of the joy of music as it flowed out. So I got from that sense of wholeness that it was 'valid' for me to be being that Being right then.
Later in the afternoon, I sat in my painting studio looking into my cactus & vegetable garden area, listening to the sounds of the birds and feeling the wind, and again, I felt a similar validness. I felt surrounded by a lovely blessed moment of inward peace. And I felt a deep gratitude for the moment, like it was a gift….
There have been other moments, plenty of them, that have been more like 'learning moments'… and I have sometimes learned easily, and sometimes not so easily…. (and fyi & btw, the reason I share them in writing is that there is also a clear sense that it is 'valid' to do so… because by so contributing…. perhaps from my sharing my miss-takes somewhere somehow an 'another myself reader' may avoid creating the same (or similar) experiences for themselves…)
************************************
This week I was involved with servicing several pianos here locally in Yuma in preparation for a touring spiritual pianist's performances. Tuning pianos is not an everyday thing for me anymore, not since painting took center stage years ago, but it is a skill I appreciate having practiced professionally as an earlier career for many years, and so I still do it when requested. These tunings were in churches and a retirement home.
The retirement home visit was triggering…therefore, a bit of a difficult experience. To do it true justice I would need to dedicate the entirety of this weeks journal…so, I will necessarily incapsulate it. Contextual learning scenario: The piano was a very poor quality grand somewhat abused and mightily neglected with many problems. Thus, I quickly come to see I am supposed to be a miracle worker and somehow transform the instrument into something that is concert ready, but only be paid for 'tuning it'. Given the excitement being expressed by the management about the upcoming concert, I choose to go ahead, understanding this is 'service/Seva' and resolving to do what I can as peacefully as I am able. As I worked, I realized I had not spent much time in a retirement home for a couple of years…not since my father died, in fact. It was interesting to observe the homes residents, and to interact with a few of them. As I had experienced before, some were 'quite sharp', others weren't. Then, my big lesson arrived as I was nearing completion, which was also quite close to the evening meal time (and the piano was in the large hall where that happened). I was even warned by another resident… 'Don't pay any attention to her… she is a chronic complainer…'. And boy, was she. 'She' was upset by my simple existence, which was to her an affront to the way things were supposed to be. And she let me and everyone know that I have better be done really quick or she was going to raise hell. Other people tried to tell her that I was just trying to get the piano ready for a concert the next night etc, but she was unrelenting. AND, of all things, her assigned table was right next to the piano. Thus tested, the 'little boy that was wrong' in me that wants to please Everyone started sweating, and as I worked feverishly to finish, she sat there glaring at me and saying nasty things about me to whoever would listen. When I necessarily tested the piano by playing it a bit (thinking this might make her happier) she plugged her ears with her fingers and mouthed silent screaming, writhing-in-pain faces at me. Most people seem to love my piano playing, so that hooked me more. I found myself wanting to (at a minimum) tell her that she was just about the rudest woman I had ever met, she had so gotten to me. I didn't, thank God. I just got out of there, after receiving the profuse apologies of the management. And as I sat and breathed a bit in my car afterwards, I remembered 'everything is either an expression of Love, OR, a call for help…' (ACIM). The only real difference I could see between us at the moment was that I knew I was calling for help…. 1. to learn to have more compassion on a being who had arrived at the ending of her life having apparently learned so little about being gracious, and 2. to help me unravel the stuff of my trigger mechanism that was right then exposed--most probably something put in place early in life by some shaming incident involving my little boy and a female authority figure.
************************************
Another learning came as I attended one of that pianist's concerts on Thursday night. I had met the him when tuning on Tuesday, and had discovered that he was an extraordinarily talented musician. I liked him, and thus inspired, I had even sent out an email to local friends encouraging them to come hear him. But sitting there in that Seventh Day Adventist church attending his concert, I found myself grateful that only one person had accepted my invitation… as instead of the kind of program I'd expected, what WAS was more like a fundamentalist revival, with the pastor praying several fervent but dualistically-based prays, and stand up hymn singing and Bible verse lookups and readings between each musical number. I was personally OK with all that… it's just that that was not what I had invited my friends to come to, and frankly, if I had realized that was what was up, I wouldn't have gone either. Because, in living in freedom, I am (and must peacefully be) willing to accept that what is valid for other people is not necessarily always valid for me….
It's not that the Bible is INVALID or anything. It's just that in my view it is invalidly understood by most people…I think because most 'believers' live inside a box of many unexamined beliefs and assumptions about Christianity… a box of perpetuated sacred cow blind spots that are 'religiously' (which means to me 'irrationally') protected from direct examination. That seems to be one of my soul karma's … to contribute to creating and sharing a win/win 'right understanding' of the Bible as a spiritual teaching (being that I was raised in a preachers family, with the clear expectation that I 'follow in my father's shoes')(which I am doing, only in the way that is 'valid' to me…being Rev. WYSIWYG). Inside that karma, a few days ago I was in a grocery store (and when in stores, I have trained myself to notice what people put in their baskets, as I see that as a consciousness clue indicator). When I noticed a probably multi-racial man with nothing but produce in his basket, I commented, "Hey, you know what's good for you, don't you?" To which he answered, "You bet, I watch it close these days…". And with that beginning, we struck up an interesting conversation that after a while led to my asking what he did, to which he answered, "Since I can't work, what I do is study the Bible". Normally, I do a sidestep at a point like that…. but the guy was pretty open, and a sweet affinity had built up, and so what I heard come up and what I spoke back was…"Hey, that's great… maybe you could teach me some about it?" To which he lit up and answered "That's my greatest joy". Once that deal was struck, I went onward by revealing my motives… letting him know I was a Sufi Cherag, and that I studied all religions etc…. So that I was not wishing to 'be converted'… I was just interested in learning the deeper wisdoms of the Bible. He was great about this, letting me know he respected every persons right to make up their own mind. So…. that moment felt 'valid' to me… like maybe I had just been led to my next perfect door-opener (in regards to the Bible). So, to be continued, right?…..
**************************************
As I mentioned at the beginning, there has been a questing inside me this last week or so about what is now valid for me. It's been kind of like, ok, what is the next part of my life going to be used for? How do I respond to the things I am seeing in the world…. And in the process of my being with myself as a mind/body/emotional matrix feeling all sorts of positive and negative emotions, I have found myself gratefully simplifying. Last week I said (basically) that I had come to see that the planet was in serious trouble. As a 'teacher of God' and a 'miracle worker', I was and am immensely stretched by this, as, though I am intelligent, the complexity and immensity of the planet's issues were weighing very heavily on my heart and I was being very saddened by what I was learning and seeing. Personally, it was like I had bitten off more than was really mine in a way, because it was quite difficult to feel my natural happiness. I saw I needed to let some of it go… to find a way of being that would allow my heart's joy to lead me into my personal destiny.
Thank God I began to get some sanity creating messages. I can't recount them… they just appeared in dreams and ah-ha moments, and then departed. The summation of them? That what I can do for life, for earth, for humanity WITH LOVE AND JOY, that is my valid path of service. Like creating music… it gives me joy, it give other's joy too (errr… usually). But the message from my Godness voice…. it was & is exactly the same as Richard Bach wrote in Illusions, the Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah… that it is in the path of our own happiness that we will find the lessons that we came here to learn. One learning which is above all, to always remember that this life and everything in it (excepting Love) is… an illusion. This is why the Sufi repeat the zikar…. to remember that only God is real.
I pray to stay so simple. I pray too, that we will together heal each other and our earth as we are inspired and guided. I pray that in that, that Love will always be our guide.
My favorite message this week, which arrived via facebook: Worry is like praying for what you don't want. I got I had been doing exactly that. I have now once again stopped.
And today as a result, I lived a beautiful day again. This beauty of simply being…of seeing God by not worrying…by letting God guide…. that is what I would share with you.
Although there are many things my heart wishes to cover, lets start this week with my 'About Sex' journal entry of several weeks ago, because it came up this week again for me, twice. Once, as feedback from one brother within our circle of receivers (who said he'd had difficulty with it--that it felt shaming--), and once more, because at the moment that I went back to reread it to see it from his point of view, I got busted by it myself---recognizing I was right then doing exactly one of the things that I had been saying don't do.
Dealing with the first thing first, as I re-read it I did get it-- what my brother had said-- although I had not intended it as he'd taken it. No excuses to offer, except being insensitive to how strongly I was speaking. I still stand by what I was attempting to communicate, but I do know that being inside the listening of the reader is an important piece of communication talent. I was and am happy to get the feedback, especially from a man, as all the female comments up to then had been 'right-on brother' etc. So I am now a tiny little more hip to that brothers and sisters do 'listen differently', and that that awareness must be part of the equation, particularly in the area of communicating. Summed up, it raised big questions…How do we genuinely and skillfully talk to each other? How do we enter each others view? To me this is amazingly important, as (as I said in that Journal) it is the source of a immense amount of the pain in this world. (New subscriber?... to see back issues use the archive link at the bottom.)
Having said that, now seems an easy segway moment… to the subject of relationships. One of the themes of my personal life is the ongoing question of whether or not I (as a single man currently practicing [at least overtly sexual] celibacy for nearly a couple years) am ever to be in 'a relationship' again. Being highly personal, it's not easy to write openly about, but also because that would involve being sensitive to inadvertently identifying or otherwise 'outing' other people involved too… yet… at the same time, it's a growth area that is active, and therefore appropriate to share about.
This week this area has been quite active, simply because there has been a lot of socializing. But then, that is key to the insights, the breakthroughs… So, without 'outing' anybody…. (sorry, this means NO juicy, gossipy details….)
Relationship Breakthrough One is that this week I was able to see in a new way and to a new depth of clarity the level of the personal unhealed emotional woundedness that I have been carrying…that my personality is designed to try to hide from you (and me) and to be a compensation for. There was a mirroring person involved… I saw it in somebody else first, and then in a bit of a shock, I got OMG, what I saw about them was true of me too. Out of that moment, I saw my wounds are both desiring to be healed AND are at the same time, deeply afraid of being healed (fearing the pain of re-opening and re-feeling the original woundings [which is what was in fact right then somewhat painfully happening]). But... it was worth it :-)… because I saw that while I present (or hope I present) as a wonderfully open deeply loving man---and I am, especially in the cosmic abstractions---personally, a lot of barriers exist inside me to letting other people deeply in---not so much into my heart--but into my actual personal life. Some of this is just 'practical', like distance logistics… but clearly I experience some issues around being 'controlled' too (hummmm…by anyone but 'God'…and of course, who/what God is to me is under my control…so my ego thinks, at least). My standard ego-safe-game is to 'be friends'… and yet when I am successful enough in being attractive to create a sincere response (and I see that 'look of new love' in someone's eyes being given me, I (or, let's say, my wounds) generally get very nervous and start distancing…i.e., I become not so available. I say 'generally' because sometimes the other person will seem to 'fit my idealized fantasy', and then I do engage in the dance (pretty intensely, I'm told) for a while (until the approach of reality, usually). One interesting thing that I noted out of seeing this is that as a result, my fantasies usually mirror me-- they often are wounded and aren't available either. (I know of course, that the way out of all this is to go real slow and allow a friendship to develop before even thinking about 'the future'. This IS my practice, when I remember it....)
Anyway, seeing all this led to Relationship Breakthrough Two…. Seeing newly the degree to which I have (in the past--YES!) habitually created and used emotional fantasies to escape reality in general. (I seriously doubt any of you have any experience of this…correct?)These are mostly just 'in-my-head' imaginings…as distinct from actual physical entanglements. After all, I am still living in military/agricultural Yuma (both to help my mother stay independent, and, it turns out, hopefully to work out/unravel my whole early childhood female model dynamic, which obviously started with my relationship to her). Even so, it's sort of like 'pick open a wound, bleed some, deflate some, feel some depression, then have some more fantasy sugar to feel better'. That's what I saw when I busted myself while re-reading that 'about Sex' edition… that I was right then already using a NEW relationship interest to distract myself from the realities of my wounds still bleeding from my last crashed fantasy. Of course, that's exactly what I recommended NOT doing back in the 'About Sex' EWJ #4 edition. But there I was…creating another online surrogate distraction …which immediately bit me (Ouch, Ouch, …Oh, Thank You God)… which was a good quick wake up call to get sober. I did a quick and total release of all that, and started doing something more emotionally healthy….digging in my winter garden for a couple of days. It's like I once heard Pir Vilayat say… working with the earth is tremendously healing of the heart, and mind. It also heals the earth, a subject which is coming up….
I know this doesn't look so good, coming from an enlightened cat like me, right? (Somebody called me that recently… it surprised me at first, then… well, he's got my respect.) But there is no way around it… the only way Up is through self-honesty…certainly not through self-deception. And the only way to be 'in the company of the truth' (satsang) is to share my truth with you, my community… exactly as I am discovering it IS. (Done appropriately, owning it as mine, no dumping, no complaining…). Naturally, I don't like telling the truth when my ego thinks it makes me look bad… I don't know any ego who does. But thank God this Journal is about walking the Path, not about manipulating life to fit our ego.
So, what IS? One recognition strongly arising in me is that our personal self-interests are definitely not the point any more. They may continue to be of some interest some of the time, but what IS is a call to transcend those self-infatuations, respond to the calling to get over ourselves, and instead, to be in service-response to the higher view. Which is amuch more impersonalview. That's not to say our personal work on ourselves doesn't continue… it does. But from now on, I am seeing we must work on ourselves inside of our work together. And that is that work for? Simply put, what I am coming out of denial of is: that Reality is that the physical conditions on our planet are placing Humanities very survival at risk---and that we (that's you, that's me) are the hands that Life has to heal the very significant wounds our planet is bearing. Just as Love has me care for the plants in my garden, I see now that Love is requesting our/my conscious cooperation, our/my conscious assistance: to bring the Light of Love to All Life. Because (based on the scientific reading I have been doing) nothing--- short of a massive awakening into selflessness, coupled with an equally massive and widespread fearlessness that is willing to stand for this Earth (by, among other things, personally consciously choosing to live a near zero, minimumly environmentally impacting life)--- can alter the planet-wide annual temperature increases which are already here, and which will very soon be causing increasingly harsh survival struggles for all beings, humans being only one of them. If this seems farfetched (and I admit that not so long ago it would have seemed that way to me too), here is a lecture link on the subject by a very knowledgeable scientist named Guy McPherson… http://guymcpherson.com/2012/12/the-twin-sides-of-the-fossil-fuel-coin-presenting-in-massachusetts/ Also, just going to http://guymcpherson.com/(Nature Bats Last) is a radically informing mind-blow.
So you see, as I have been contemplating all this new-to-me material, I have been forced to my knees so to speak, asking for guidance as to how to live in Love's Joy AND at the same time, be a responsible citizen/steward of this Earth. And what I am getting and what I am now saying is that the new post-2012 dispensation is that who we are now to be is a cosmically-connected planetary team…. working together FOR THE SURVIVAL OF THE EXPERIMENT CALLED LIFE, and from now on, that has to be the given, the operating state… more and more consciously. Really, why else be here if you are awake/awakening? In this view, our personal issues are only relevant to the degree that they impact the team, and the work we are doing together to heal the life of this planet. If there is a problem between us, it's our job to resolve it quickly, or that work is negatively impacted. If there is a personal issue that is effecting our ability to do our work together, that is not just our personal thing anymore… it is everyones. The answer to the question 'Am I my brothers keeper?' is now Yes… because we cannot afford the luxury of egoic disfunction any longer.
This seeing is one of the big gifts to me of the Peace Dance work last weekend. What most eyes could see was probably just 20 or so maybe a bit strange-looking people playing music and doing folk-like circle dances together in a big tent out in the desert. But what my eyes were seeing was a portal of energetic blessing from Source being grounded into the physical by those actions. What I was seeing was each of us being used as spiritual Light tools, called together from significant distances… to meet up and share in a vibration that was personally felt but is in reality really impersonal. I've participated in these dances for many years…the difference this past weekend was I kept getting 'this is for real'. It wasn't about me anymore, it wasn't 'practice', it was 'the work'… and I could feel the part of me that is Whole, that part of me was doing the doing.
Of late, I am feeling clearly called to a path of increased wholeness service… it's one that appears to require the setting aside of as much personal goal focused activity as possible (while still maintaining functional economic viability at minimum karmic cost)… so that my energy is available to respond to the vision I AM Seeing, to the needs of LIFE. Since becoming aware of the climate change models, I have been more and more engaged with the question of how to seriously contribute to it's resolutions. Obviously one of the distractions from such service is any relationship incompleteness… because when that comes up for any of us , it leaves you/me feeling unwhole. Therefore, while the status of my question of whether or not I will ever enter any personal "beyond friendship" relationship again is 'to be discovered', what I have recognized is it is my responsibility to Life on Earth to deepen my self-inquiry practice and see it internally resolved-- that it not be an energetic limitation in our greater Work. And.... if I have difficulty in doing that, to humbly request or accept help from you, my 'team', my loving healers. After all, I know you know that 'all needs met for all beings' starts with 'there is only one of us here'…
One final important thing to share… I received a request this week concerning the past 2010 daily ACIM (A Course in Miracles) Commentaries. That request has prompted me to promise to activate a review and rewriting (if necessary) of them, and as that occurs, I am happy to share them with you. However, to keep things straight, that will not be via thislist, which will continue to only be for Everyman's WEEKLY Journal. If you think you'd like to receive the ACIM materials too, please use this link code to sign up for them separately:
Hopefully this will just flow, like many of the 2010 ACIM Commentaries just flowed out. I do like this weekly schedule a lot though (as there are many things to manage in a full life)… and I like to have time for several re-edits and pre-publishing polishes… besides having the sense that when done the points are 'well said', there is just the fact that as soon as I start writing for the next weeks journal, my whole life is, from that point on, INSIDE the writing. That being inside the writing, which is really being inside a conversation with God about life… that is my personal payoff/reward for writing, yes?
This week though, my life has been inside of external preparation realities, and as a result, to keep my word about delivering a 'worth reading' journal each Sunday morning, I am at this Thursday evening moment in a fast food taco/burrito chain somewhere out in the middle of the Mojave Desert creating my offering. Because I JUST found out that this little town is the LAST internet/cell connection… before I head up a tiny paved road leading me out into the desert several score miles to a remote hot springs 'resort/campground', where I will be spending the weekend in a 'Dances of Universal Peace' communion that is being held there.
I first committed to this event a month ago, after hesitating for a couple before that. But the call remained, and I expect I will have a report next week about the actual event and what I gained from going. But so far, just like any goal, to do this has required a lot of accomplishments. Like getting transportation together. I haven't started mining all the life that I have been living through since my regular writing fizzled… haven't needed to… a lot has been on our collective plates to be with of late, yes? So there was lots to write about.
But it will make much more sense to you if I do mention that I and my friend Christopher did an adventure last summer in my big diesel truck art-show mobile studio… and to have local wheels, I towed my beloved Sidekick 4x4. That is, until I had a momentary attention lapse, and failed to instruct Chris about how it must be put back into neutral before towing. Yeah, it was painful to realize that lapse had just destroyed my Sidekick's engine andtransmission…painful enough to be a lesson I doubt I will need to repeat. So the Sidekick went to wrecked car heaven. Anyway, since then (July) the issue of moving my body from place to place has been 'creative'. Bicycle? Yep. Put a little motor on the bicycle? Yep. Realize soon enough that now I need to be a small engine mechanic? Yep. Errrr… start borrowing my Mom's car…? Sure tried not to, but yep… (Funny thing about that though…. that opened up a sweet new space between me and Mom… like she felt like she had sometime to give me, offer me, and I started to also experience a new appreciation of her generosity).
As the weather started cooling down, I finally realized that my visions of going totally green with bike power were not going to fit my life, and that I needed to manifest wheels. After researching the list of most economical fuel misers still available, I found I was most interested in finding an older Geo Metro (which are supposed to get about 50 mpg). I searched Craigs list locally, then Palm Springs, then Phoenix, and finally found one reasonable priced in Tucson. I liked the way the guy selling it and I related, especially when after he was clear I could do most of my own mechanics, he dropped the price even more… to $600. I figured from what he said was wrong I'd be investing at least that much more into it, which he agree with. Put another add in the local craigslist ride wanted listing, and received an offer to take me over to Tucson from an old vet with an appointment at the VA hospital there…thank you God (and the ride was 'sating' too). Bought the car, fell in love with it, and then blew the head gasket on the drive home. Ahhhhh…. chop wood, carry water. So my eventual upgrade plans became immediate upgrade realities. More miracles kept rolling in though. Turns out that the Geo Metro is kind of a cult car… like the old VW beetle. And online there are all these amazing do-it-yourselfer people sharing info about their cars and how to take care of them. So I entered that world for several weeks, rolling up my sleeves and getting greasy, but recognizing this was just another art form. Long story short… this trip to this Peace Dances is my first trip on the new rebuilding work I did. And I still just love the car…. which I have (like I did on the Sidekick) removed the passenger seat and the back seat so that I could build in a bed/cargo platform. Tonight might be my first sleep in her. We'll see, might do a tent at the campground.
Anyway, the point is, love is everywhere, and in all forms. Like all the gurus have said, there is nowhere that God/Good is not. As ACIM reiterates, when miracles don't happen, something has gone wrong. Well, that's how I'm here writing btw, another miracle. There was a faint little line on the map that looked like a much more direct shot to Tacopa then the round about way by bigger roads… so I cell phoned to ask the guy there at the resort "Hey, is that road a decent shortcut?", and he said, "Yeah, it all paved." So off across the desert I confidently shot…. till the pavement ended in about 10 miles at a fork that everything in me said 'OH OH, no no'. Didn't expect cell service, but grace provided it. :-). THEN, we find out that he hadn't really been able to hear me so good back when I'd first called, and he answered a question I hadn't even asked, and I'd taken his answer as gospel. (Read whatever you want into that one…). So then I remember finally to ask… you DO have internet, yes? OH NO, not here! That's how lucky you people are… you want this enough to cause the universe to make sure it gets done even if I have to sit in a taco joint trying to block out rock n' roll to get it written. Yea! How great is that?!!!!
And, as it just made it through an editorial read… please accept this as my humble offering to you 'other myselves' for this week, ok? And please forgive the no painting. More next week, I promise.
Love you all,
Namaste,
David
FYI: If you would like to share this Journal as a webpage, at the very top of the email where it says:
"Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser." etc.
…. well, the word 'browser' is a clickable hyperlink that will open this email as a webpage…
which you can then copy and paste anywhere (like to share it on Facebook, or elsewhere).
ALSO: If you would like to share the link to the SUBSCRIBE page, here is the clickable or paste-able code:
