Oneness

A blind woman walking on the highway

A blind women walking on the highway.
Her white cane stretched out.
Looking,
Stretching to see.

Cars swerving left,
Veering right.
Heads turning.
Yet, no one,
Stopped.
No one is stopping.

A blind woman walking on the highway.
Process that…

It was rush hour.
I personally saw at least a dozen cars,
Dodge and weave.
And continue their drive.

I’m sure there were dozens before.

When I saw her,
I was talking on the phone with my wife.
Startled, I blurted,
“There is a blind woman walking on the highway!”
“What!?”
I swerved from the left lane into the right.
Slamming on my brakes,
Throwing my phone to the floor,
Leaping from my car,
I was sprinting before I could process what was happening.

I vaguely remember looking over my shoulder,
Recognizing this mass of humanity,
In their automobiles,
Bearing down upon us.

I see.
Bright eyes seeing,
Surprise,
Surprise, is what I see!

She was startled
As I took her soft arm and silky blouse in my hands.
“Sweetie, you’re in the middle of the highway.”
“Oh, that isn’t good!”
Her body shaking,
Electric.
Or was it my body, that was electric and shaking?

At that moment, it was just the two of us.
Just the two of us,
Walking.

Rush hour…
Where were the others?
Why were we alone?
Amongst this sea of humanity.
They could see…
Cars swerving left,
Veering right.
Heads turning.
Yet, no one,
Stopped.
No one is stopping.

“Where do you want to be?”
“The bus stop,
I just had a job interview.”

How did she get to where she was?
Through a wide grassy median?
Across a frontage road?
A blind woman walking with her white cane.
If you saw her,
You had to know.
She wasn’t where she wanted to be.

A blind women on the highway…

A space of a car was all that was between us and my car.
Our only defense.
My car, which I left peculiarly parked in the right lane,
On the highway.

Her porcelain white skin and long red hair,
This young woman.
She is so brave.
Imagine…
Can you?

I didn’t know where the bus stop was.
Looking left and then right.
Searching,
Trying to maintain my composure.

“I’m looking for the 17.”
Then I saw a small sign beneath a stop sign.
A block or so away.
It was no more than twenty inches square.
Five, maybe six feet off the ground.
No bench.
No place to stand.
No wonder, I thought.

We walk off the highway.
Through the thick grassy median.
Holding her a bit more tightly as we walk through the long grass and weeds.

It seemed quiet in that moment.

We cross the frontage road and walk to the bus stop.
Likely overcompensating, I take her hand and put it on the sign post.
“This is the bus stop.”
“Is it headed to Minneapolis?”
From what I can gather, “Yes, yes it is. Are you ok?”
“Yes… thanks.”

When I head back to my car,
I see it in the right lane.
Parked at this odd angle.
Bewildered,
I walk to my car.

The looks of confusion.
The looks of frustration.
The looks you’d expect to receive if you left your car parked
The way I did.
On the highway,
During rush hour.

With my dad’s recent death,
I’ve been listening to his music.
This week, it’s Gordon Lightfoot.
The Wreck Of The Edmond Fitzgerald.
I have it on repeat.
There is a line that catches me…
“Does anyone know where the love of God goes,
When the waves turn minutes to hours?”

Isn’t that the question?
When faced with the unthinkable,
The unimaginable,
We ask,
Where has the love of God gone?
In the song, it’s the searchers,
See?

Sometimes with so much blood on the ground.
I feel,
I feel…

Like… I’d like to
Lift up the world,
And hold it tightly.
I want to hold you,
Tightly.

Where has the love of God gone?

It’s you…
You’re it.

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” To this day, especially in times of “disaster,” I remember my mother’s words and I’m always comforted by realizing that there are so many helpers ~ so many caring people in this world.”
~Fred Rogers

Ashes

We put my dad’s ashes in the river today.
I’ve known that’s what he wanted for years.
But the execution…
The act.
To see the ash move into the water.
A cloud.
An etherial representation.
Such sacred symbolism.

The ash, powdery soft with a touch of grit.
So…to set him free.
Release him…

He is gone.
We know that. I know that.
But it was us who held him.
Who hold him.

The spreading,
The ritual, was rich with metaphor and meaning.
An emulsion.
An evolution.
From one thing to another.
It happened before our eyes, my eyes.
The ash, a cloud that dissipated, as it drifted down river.

Do you see?
This is what we all are.
Adrift along the river.

It can be so easy.
And sometimes, so hard.
But the river will take you… home.
It will take you home.

My father, this mighty, mighty entity.
Was… one with the river.
Is… one with the river.
Is the river.

Process that for a moment with me…

I lived on the river,
We lived on the river.
We never woke up to the same river.
Ever.
It is ever changing, ever evolving.
This thing, that my dad is now one with, is gone.
It’s hard to say it was ever there in the first place.

This is life.
We attach to ideas
And identities.
We see ourselves as omnipotent.
Looking towards legacies.

Yet,
We are the river.
A song, so to speak.
An essence not to be contained.
Only appreciated,
Pondered,
And, reveled.

The Butcher

The butcher.

There was so much that I didn’t understand, until I did.
What does grace look like?
Does it look like good ground beef?
Does to me.
What a silly thing, but it’s all right there.

My cousin Mike and I were trying to dissect it a few years ago.
What made it so good?

Integrity, that’s it.
That’s what made it so good.
That’s what made him so good.

How many times did he say,
“Timmer,
I just follow the golden rule…”

It was so simple for him.
If you knew him, you know.

We all had a home with him.
If you were in need, you were needed.

The ground beef?
Just the right amount of chuck.
A bit of beef fat.
Then, the secret ingredient.
This was then mixed and ground,
And wrapped,
By hand.

How many people did he help?
How many second chances did he give?
How many people did he choose to love that didn’t show him love?
How many people did he teach?

That is the thing.
This is what he did.

Have you heard of a bodhisattva?
It’s a folklorish figure.
A person who is able to reach nirvana,
But delays doing so,
Out of compassion,
In order to save suffering beings.

They’re hard to see sometimes.
They disguise themselves.

Not knowingly…

They wouldn’t tell you that’s what they are,
Because they wouldn’t see themselves as that.

They are the humanitarian who never uses the word.
They are the leader on their hands and knees,
With dirt under their fingernails,
And calluses on their hands.
Their pockets inside out.

What he touched, he made better.
If he touched you, you’re better because of it.

I wish I could tell you a story.
He did something for someone,
Just weeks before he died.

They will never know.
Nor would they ever suspect.
An act of remarkable compassion.

His final lesson to me.

His path to peace was to build you up.
His path to reconciliation was to pick you up.
His path to resolution was resolve.

The world

A friend sent me this question.
A question that appeared in his social media feed.
If you could rid the world of one thing, what would it be?
He was intrigued by the commentary the question inspired.

It’s about what you’d expect.
Liberals, conservatives, Trump, Obama…
And it devolved from there.

Here’s the thing,
To rid the world of anything, is to rid the world of everything.
Do you see?

Without a yin, there is no yang.
Without black, there is no white.
Without good, there is no evil.

That thing you hate is you.
That thing you abhor, you actually adore.
Wait, what?

Your thing is nothing without its opposite.
Your declared truth is nothing without an antithetical adversary.
To say “I love this” is to say “I hate that”.
Your devout declaration requires that abomination.
It’s all the same thing.

Heads and tails?
Take one away,
And the coin is gone.
See?

The tension is the tool.
It’s what we use to declare and define.
You can’t say this, without that.
It’s the that-ness, that defines the this-ness.
The tension.

If you don’t want evil,
Don’t declare something as good.
Declaring goodness requires evil.
Just as the declaration of evil manifests goodness.

So, if that is true…
Do you perpetuate evil to manifest more goodness?
Of course not.
But people would have you believe the opposite.
See the slight of hand?

If you don’t like something, stop being its opposite.
Stop the declarations.
Anything less only manifests more of what you abhor.

Goodness doesn’t rid the world of evil.
Goodness is evil’s twin.
They live together.
Duality is divisive.
Let the urge to declare pass.
Accept something simpler.
Purer.

Namely,
You are that…

You are and you are not.

You are and you are not…

If I have two apples and I buy two more, I now have four apples. This is a quantifiable fact with a measurable and repeatable result…

…As long as we agree to look through a specific lens.
And there’s the catch.

At a subatomic level, the apple’s essence ceases to be. You can’t even be sure what you’re observing will be what and where you think it is. The very essence of an apple can’t be pointed to with any sort of predictability or accuracy.

Now, is it necessary to look at all things at a subatomic level? No, but it’s equally silly to ignore that the very essence of everything is not quantifiable.

“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.”
~Albert Einstein

There’s a tale told in Zen:

Before enlightenment, mountain is the mountain and water is the water; in enlightenment, mountain is not the mountain and water is not the water; after enlightenment, a mountain is really the mountain and water is really the water.

This is the complexity of a reality, where we encounter dualism and singularity simultaneously. This is what I’d refer to as oneness. A notion which simultaneously engages the complexity of dualism and the simplicity of singularity.

So what’s the point of this rambling?

In my last blog, I attempted to introduce the true self.
It’s an important realization.
But there is a further complexity.
That of your subjective material self.
Which is also true.
Your externalized projections are true.
Your ego is a thing.
The way I perceive you is true.
And the way you perceive me is true.

All the while, our egoic perception remains not true and no-thing.

Our understanding of our no-thing-ness may seem relatively useless in our day to day lives. You don’t need to operate from the standpoint that nothing around you exists. This isn’t the point. The point is understanding that there is no separation between you and what you desire or despise. This is a fundamental shift. This leaves you understanding that you are whole and complete.
It leaves you understanding that there is no, “out there.”
It leaves you understanding that there is no “other” to blame or become.

I’d argue that this is the single most important realization a human being can make.
So, that’s it.
But that’s a big thing, isn’t it?
It changes everything.

So, relish in your duality perception.
Because duality does exist.
But so does singularity.
So does oneness.
That also exists…
Simultaneously.

You are and you are not.

How often do you ask yourself who you are?

How often do you ask yourself who you are?
Do you believe the tales you tell?

Let’s do a thought experiment.
Make a list of five things that define you,
Big things.

Now, throw them away.
Get rid of them!
Would you dare?

Would you still be you, without the things you used to define yourself?

Now, make a list of five more.
Get rid of those too.
Are you still you?

Still with me?
Let’s push this further.
Suppose you now had no arms nor legs?
Are you still you?

Now, you lose your ability to see and hear.
I know, this is getting ridiculous!

And then your ability to smell and taste vanish,
And your ability to feel touch.
Are you still you?
Are you there?

Now, there is no way to know if anyone or anything is there,
Is there?

It’s likely getting harder and harder to define yourself.
But something is still there, isn’t it?

Are you disoriented?
Existing in some nondescript point in time and space.
With nothing to orient you.
With nothing to define you.
But,
Something is there,
The you, that is you, still remains.
Doesn’t it?
What is that?

This is your true self.

Nothing else.
Nothing more.

Indivisible,
Inextinguishable,
Undefinable.

Say hello.

Can a hug and a sandwich change the world?

“I’m going to tell you something.
I’ve made it a point to stop; to let people in traffic merge.
You have to try to do good things.
You have to try to make things work.”

Let’s talk about change.
That friend I told you about who was dismissed from jury duty…
His name is Curtis Strother.
The advice about being courteous while driving, that was his.
A remarkably simple sentiment from a remarkable man.
A man orphaned at four, who raised himself.
Parentless and homeless…

He told me there were two things that changed his life.
You already know about one of them.
The lady who gave him the sandwich.
The other was a hug.

While talking with him he told me, “There was no adult. My older brother, who was there, wasn’t capable. He never went to school. He just drinked. He didn’t have the capacity to do anything.
No adults reached out, ever.
There were no relatives.
No one checked on us.
We was just left alone.
We kept finding these abandoned places (to sleep).
One time, we found a place that was six dollars a month.
We didn’t stay, because we couldn’t find the money to pay the rent.”

I asked him, “Did people know you lived under that house?”
“Yeah, people knew we were under there.
We never bothered anybody.
We was good kids.
I was the only one who would stay (under the house all the time).
My brother wouldn’t stay because he was afraid of the dark.
We had a kerosene lamp. We would buy some coloil.”
“What’s coloil?” I asked.
“It’s c-o-a-l o-i-l .
We didn’t know how to say nothin, so we’d say, ‘Give me 15 cent of coloil.’
I lived like that for fifteen years.”

“How did you get food?” I asked.
“Do you know what a Piggly Wiggly is… a grocery store in Mississippi? We would go to the Piggly Wiggly after it closed and we would dig through the stuff they threw out.
We’d wash it off, there was good stuff in there.”
“Did you get sick?”
“I got sick from eating some bad meat.
One time I got some spoiled ham. I’ve never eaten meat again.
People think it’s something else, but that’s the reason I’m a vegetarian.
We used to pick blackberries by the buckets.
White people would buy them from us.
Pecans grew everywhere. We’d climb up the trees and we’d shake them.
Then we’d race to see who could pick them up the fastest.
We’d put them in old croger sacks.”
“What’s a croger sack?” I asked.
“It was a brown fine mesh sack they used for cotton and flour. It came up to our hip.”
“How much would you sell a bag for?”
“Fifteen cents. Sometimes I’d only get a nickel. It was all about making some money to get something to eat.”

“What did you do if you got sick?” I asked.
“We had remedies for everything.
I remember one time I got a deep cut above my left eye. My mom stuffed spider webs deep into the cut.
Caster oil and turpentine cured everything.”
“What do you mean? You’d drink turpentine?!”
Laughing, he said, “Yeah, it cured everything.”

At this point, I feel like I’m in the ring with Ali himself.
These bewildering blows to my consciousness keep coming.

I asked with trepidation, “What was it like under the house?”
“When it rained, the mud would run through the back of the house (we slept under).
It was rough.
The rats would eat up our food.
We would find linoleum (for flooring).
I would clean.
I did the best I could.
I would find furniture.
I found a head board with wooden drawers and I’d store food in there. The  rats would chew threw the wooden drawers while I was sleeping, though.
Yeah, it was bad.
We was poor, real poor.”

“Because I could sing, people loved to be around us. We had so much talent.
I could play guitar.
People were attracted to us.
People would come to our place to hear me sing.
I would draw a crowd of people under the house.
People would fall asleep listenin’ to me sing.
When mornin’ came, I’d crawl over all those people.
I was the only person that would get up and go to school.
Something in me always told me not to give up.”

“That is where the lady with the sandwich came in.

Mississippi was sweltering with racism. That’s where you would get hung and no one would know nothin’ about it.
It was bad!
There wasn’t a day that I wasn’t chased!
I’d get off the bus and I had to run for my life from a truck load of white folk screamin’ ‘nigger nigger!’ Mississippi was a bad place.
People ask, ‘Don’t you hate white people? Don’t you hate the fact that they took your land and your house? They lynched your daddy! They stole everything from you!’
Every time I think of that time, I think of that lady with the sandwich.
Even in Mississippi, with all that hate, that woman refused to be mean.
I’m sure no one knew she gave me the sandwich.
It would have been dangerous for her too.
They would hang ya just for lookin’ at a white woman.”
He told me about a sandwich wrapped carefully in clean paper that she cut into four triangles. Each piece had a tooth pick topped with tinsel.
He said, “I’d never seen a sandwich cut like that.
I felt rich.
There was people that were put in my life at the right time.
You can’t tell me there isn’t a god. He was always their for me.”

“What was school like?” I asked.
“I’d sit in the back and try not to be noticed. I wouldn’t speak up.
I always knew the answer.
One time I got a literature assignment. The teacher said, ‘You all read this story and tell me what you read.’”
Like it was the most obvious thing, he said, “We didn’t have lights under the house so I stopped on the side of the road (so he could read in the light of the day). There was a outline of a lady in the book that looked like my mom.
That’s why I read it.
I was compelled to read it!

Those fast ass girls…”
“What’s a fast ass girl?” I asked.
“In other words, they was fast. They came from well to do families. They was rich and cute and they would put their hand on their hip, ya know. They was fast. They knew things and tried to upstage you every chance they get. I was innocent still. The girls would say, ‘When you get down there, don’t get too confused. Ya know you want some of this, but you’re to poor to get it.’ They got all the answers to all the question and they couldn’t wait to show how much they know.

That day no one raised their hand.
I was really taken that nobody answered that question.
That was really significant.
That was God giving me an opportunity.
I was… I was a super insecure kid. So I just barely raised my hand. ‘Curtis, did you read it? Come up here.’ the teacher said.
Tim, I think I recited the book word for word.
The teacher said, ‘I always knew you had it in you.’
Then she hugged me.
Tim, that was the first hug I’d had since my mother had died.”

The first hug he’d had in eight years.
Eight years!
He was twelve. His mother (and father) died when he was four.
He said, “Somethin’ you need to understand. I didn’t look good. I didn’t have no clean clothes. I had no shoes. I was probably a bit smelly.
She saw through that…
Never underestimate the value of a kid. They understand more than you’d ever think.
From that day forward, I got straight A’s.
That moment changed my life.”

Now Curtis is changing my life.
Is he changing yours?

Change happens in the most unlikely and subtle ways.
Every hug and smile.
Every kind gesture.
They all change the world.

The power of one…

There are moments that change you.

There are moments that change you.
The texture and taste infects you.
The moment, frozen in time, forever.
An exquisite stroke of the artist’s brush.

When you recognize beauty for the first time, it reshapes you.
This year, when I set up our Christmas tree, Enzo, my 1 1/2 year old son, was transfixed.
The bliss of beauty is universal.
His eyes enamored in this vortex of glimmering white lights.
In his magical state of thinking, every time he blinked, the magic was gone.
It’s when he opens his eyes again,
His body rejoices, as though he was seeing the lights for the first time.
He desperately didn’t want to go to bed.
His total being, revolted… screaming:
Lights!
Lights!
Lights!
I know that feeling. When you see something that captures you, why would you want to leave. It’s like a flying dream. Bounding effortlessly, unrestrained; fearlessly flying in, up, and around the world you’re dreaming into existence. The heartbreak of waking up from that space is surreal. As the strings of the ethereal are plucked from your grasp, you wake up to your terrestrial consciousness.
Beauty is so infectious.
The auditory vacuum of a thick snow storm. Immersed in a plethora of puffy flakes. That muffled space, which cradles me so tenderly in its soft bosom.
A bliss that captures every sentient cell in my body.
Watching Enzo, reeling from the pain…
Having to leave the lights.
It was heart breaking.
He is so young.
There is no way to ensure him
That the lights will be there in the morning.
Isn’t that the thing?
The fear that the lights won’t be there in the morning?

“We are all the same. Listen to the reeds as they sway apart; hear them speak of lost friends. At birth, you were cut from your bed, crying and grasping in separation. Everyone listens, knowing your song. You yearn for others who know your name, And the words to your lament. We are all the same, all the same, Longing to find our way back; Back to the one, back to the only one.”
~Rumi

I see you…

I discovered something vital. If you look for darkness and lies, you’ll find it. Darkness is everywhere, in every institution and organization.
The quest for darkness isn’t all bad. There is value in its exploration. Awareness is good.
But there is a catch.
Darkness is the lowest wrung on the ladder. It’s cheap and easy.
What do they say? You are what you eat?

If you look for light and love in everything,
You’ll also find it.
Light and love is in every institution and organization.
Sometimes this isn’t as simple.
Finding light and love requires a bit more work. You’ve got to get a few more rungs up the ladder to find it.
But there is still a catch.
The quest to only see light and love requires the denial of darkness.
This is cognitive dissonance, otherwise known as denial.

What’s of higher value yet is the realization that light and darkness are one.
Now this is getting into some difficult territory.
To take your reality to a place where you are valuing and validating both the light and the dark requires a clear understanding of oneness.

Without heads, there is no tails
Without happy, there is no sad.
Without light, there is no dark.

What’s the point?
This is holism,
Pieces which represent a whole.
Ideas that are meaningless without their counterpart.

The final step is seeing the light in the dark.
Seeing the harmony in the horror.
Oneness…

It’s within this space ~

I take into my being those that are suffering.
I take into my being the children who suffer the toils of wicked wars.
I take into my being the animals who suffer so greatly for our food and pleasure.
I take into my being those that suffer at the hands of malevolent men.

I take you all into my being.
I hold you in my broken and heavy heart.

“The wound is the place where the light enters you.”
~Rumi

Will we willingly wreck our world?

I’m listening to music that brings tears to my eyes.
I’ve fallen into a trance.
Maggie Rogers’ melodic melodies.
My son smells of a perfume that’s intoxicating to my senses.
I just listened to a Native American elder speak to the power of peaceful prayer and protest.
Earlier, I saw a young African American woman perform, “Hello”.
Her performance was filled with poise, and her genius clear.
The tears are ever present this morning.
Beauty abounds.

Lake Calhoun is covered in a thick mist,
Vapors of transition.
The final foray into the frigid and frozen.

Yet I’m torn,
The push for capitalistic greed…
The hate,
The vitriol,
The push to remove any and all restraint on the fossil fuel industry.
Pouring toxicity into our air, and oil into our water.
And we argue over wether it is god or man altering our environment?
The power of the lie has become pervasive!
Destructive.
Belief, tearing at the fabric of our sustainability,
Superseding rationality,
Superseding compassion.

We live in a world where we still fight for rights.
Rights?
As a white male, I’ve never needed to be aware of rights or repression.
Is that the problem?
Maybe the people who run our country don’t know oppression?
Is it because we’re the oppressor?

“We hold these truths to be self evident that all (caucasian, heterosexual, affluent, christian) men are created equal and that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.”

Yet we fight,
For the right to love
And peacefully assemble.
We fight for fresh water and clean air.
We fight for a healthy and sustainable environment.

Free speech zones?!
Don’t you dare!
Do you see our smog filled cites?
And we argue wether it’s God or man?
Really?!
The rivers and oceans filled with trash and oil?
And we argue wether it’s God or man?
Honestly?!
Where would you dip your cup if the tap stopped flowing?

Beliefs are the root of cognitive dissonance!
Insecurity and warped morality.

Drowning in filth
And yet there are those that maintain this is a force of nature.
So they pollute proudly!
Polluting my beautiful babies’ water,
My beautiful babies’ air.
In disbelief, I gasp at the irreverence…

How is it that we don’t see?
We are our air.
We are our water.
We are our soil.
We all emerge from the same essence.

We are children
Placated by our egoic performance.
Disconnected from the disgust.
Disconnected by hate and fear.

Unsubscribe from your fairy tales.
God is not going to save you,
Santa clause isn’t coming.
It’s only you.
Either you demand that the filth stop,
Or you wallow in it.

Like spoiled children,
Flailing our garbage about.
Boasting of our fairy tails.

Compassion

We are born into this world simple.
We lack compassion.
Compassion is learned.

If my love is of my community and nation.
If my love is of my people and my religion.
My love is just a pure as yours.

If my love is of all mankind.
If my love is of the lord regardless of the language.
My love is just as pure as yours.

If my love is of all sentient beings.
If my love only sees oneness.
My love is just as pure as yours.

I see quite differently if I no longer see division.
Even if we see differently,
Our love
Is still
The same.

We all love
We are all expanding.

The breadth of our compassion,
That’s the difference.
Our point of division.

The breadth of compassion,
That’s the only difference.
The love is the same.

Lost Ring

Eleven years ago, my mom gave me my grandfather’s wedding ring for Christmas. It’s a simple white gold band about 3 millimeters in width. There’s small perpendicular tooling etched across the ring’s surface that’s nearly worn away.
My grandpa died when he was 74, I was 12.
He was my favorite.
I wore his ring on my right ring finger.
When my ex wife and I separated, I moved into my mom’s extra room for a few months until my ex and I could divide our finances.
I’m not sure why I took the ring off, but I did.
I remembered putting it on a small steel tray on the dresser in the my parent’s spare room.
I’m not entirely sure about the timing, but I remember realizing the ring wasn’t there. For whatever reason, I didn’t look for it right away.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes, when I sense dread, my inclination is to bury my head.
Anyway, I did look the next day.
When I didn’t find it immediately, a slight sense of panic washed over me.
I froze as my brain went into overdrive.
Did I put it in the tray?
Could it have fallen off of the dresser, maybe into the trashcan?
The whole thing had me spinning!
A day later, I dug through everything.
Nothing…
I remember the sense of despair.
It was at that point, the search turned into a mini obsession.
I had to be sly because the thought of anyone finding out that I had lost this ring was beyond anything I could admit.
This thing was a family heirloom.
Truly precious and irreplaceable…
When I moved out of my parent’s house a few months later, I was sure I would find it.
I didn’t.
When I moved into my new house and unpacked my boxes, I was sure it would turn up.
It didn’t.
I looked through everything.
Nothing…
Over the years, I’d get re-inspired and dig through everything again.
Sifting through my memento boxes piece be piece.
Each concert ticket,
Every picture, as though it may be stuck to some surface.
I dug through boxes that didn’t make any sense to dig through.
Flipping through every book and their pages.
Every memento, I’d give a little shake,
Hoping it would magically fall to the floor.
I unfolded every t-shirt slowly and carefully.
Every sock…
My mementos never saw so much attention.
I’m not sure what I thought would change?
Over and over, over the years,
More slowly and more methodically.
It was alway the same.
The same brochure,
The same button,
The same stuff…
Over the years, I got more used to the idea that it was gone,
But the guilt was ever present.
I don’t remember the first time that I lied about it.
My mom would ask, “Do you still have grandpa’s ring?”
“Yeah, yeah… of course. It’s at home.”
I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that truth.
The ring he wore for all those years.
Worn by time and toil.
And I had lost it.
The last time my mom asked was Christmas.
It broke my heart, but again, I assured her the ring was safe and sound.
A lie that never got easier to tell.
Earlier that year, my wife and I put our house on the market. We had signed purchase agreements on both our house and a new house. Both were scheduled to close on the same day in one month. A week later, we hired a housing inspector. They found significant water damage and black mold in the house we planned to buy.
Heartbroken, we walked away.
This put us in a real predicament.
We would be homeless in three weeks.
My parents, who leave for the winter, generously offered us their home.
So there I was again, living in their basement.
The same room with the same dresser,
A dresser that only has three drawers.
And we had three people: my wife, my son, and myself.
Tight was an understatement.
It was a remarkable exercise in economy.
So, when she asked about the ring that Christmas, I was living in her home.
Sigh…

We spent every spare moment searching for a house.
Due to the time of year, the housing market was rather bleak.
There were very few new listings, but we did our due diligence and looked at all of them. One had such horrible pictures that my wife didn’t even want to waste our time, but we were desperate.
Begrudgingly, we arranged to see it the first day it was listed.
It was the day after New Years, dark, and twelve degrees below zero.
I’ve bought enough houses to realize what happened when we walked in.
You know when you know.
It was the house.
It was a one in a million. I won’t go into the details but between the architecture, location, and price, we knew we had stumbled on to something incredibly unique. The house was bank owned and their purchasing stipulations were highly unusual and complicated.
They wouldn’t even accept an offer for the first seven days, and offers needed to be presented with a fully underwritten loan.

My parents had left for the winter.
We were getting into the swing of things.
We had made their home into our own.
The fridge was filled with our favorites and the laundry room, our linens.
Life was good.
Not ideal, but good.

The anxiety of having to wait to make an offer was killing us.
The last thing we wanted was a bidding war.
Regardless, we had our work cut out for us pulling together this highly unusual loan request. The strings we pulled and hoops we jumped through were laughable, but ultimately, we were able to put this stupidly complicated offer together.
We did the best we could.
The rest was up to fate.
Either they’d accept our offer or not.
To make matters more complex, my wife was asked to interview for her dream job. It was a life changing opportunity. Her interview would be six hours long. The process demanded seven separate meetings and an on camera audition. I’d never heard of anything like it.
Our heads were spinning, especially hers.
Oh, and, she was six months pregnant!
The next day, we would know if our life was destined to go down this path.
I had to be up at 5:00am that morning.
I woke up with my heart rate already racing.
My head full of chatter.
My wife had worked late the night before so I was trying not to wake her as I got dressed. I put on my underwear, t-shirt, and pulled on my jeans.
Quietly, I went back to the dresser, gently pulled open my drawer, and took the first pair of clean socks from the top of the pile.
I gasped in disbelief.
Like an apparition…
I couldn’t believe it!
There it sat, perfectly placed on the pile of freshly cleaned socks,
Looking at me, almost smiling.
The ring!
I just stood there frozen, shocked!
It was beyond comprehension!
Reaching down to touch it, I searched for the worn tooling.
Although I instinctively knew it was the ring, I still couldn’t believe it.
I had to see the marks.
It was dark,
But as I turned the ring, I could make out the soft and subtle shadows showing the unmistakable markings.
It was my grandpa’s wedding ring!
I could feel myself get flushed.
Seven years had passed!
What are the chances that I’d be where I was at that moment?
What are the chances that this ring would be in that random drawer, the drawer I had randomly chosen, on my pile of socks, and placed so perfectly?
The dresser that had been filled and emptied time and time again. The room that had been cleaned to perfection over and over by my mother who would put Martha Stuart to shame. The room my sister and her family stay in four to five times a year. That dresser has been filled and emptied each and every one of those times.
What are the chances? The probability was stunningly close to zero!
2,555 days!
How many times has she vacuumed?
How many times has that dresser been knocked and bumped?

When I lost the ring, my life was in shambles.
The wheels had come clean off the bus.
The past seven years were really a time of rejuvenation.
My life was now bustling with positivity and opportunity.

Finding this ring was as though my grandfather was reaching out to say,
“I’m proud of you.”
Shaking with disbelief and awe, I woke up my sleeping wife.
Groggily, she looked at me curiously.
With glistening eyes, I told her,
“It’s my grandpa’s ring, I found it.”
With absolute confidence,
I whispered,
“Today is going to be a great day…”

Dream

Last night, I had the naked dream.
You know the one…
There was a funny twist.
I was speaking at some random theater. Unbeknownst to me, some scandalous photos on my phone somehow projected onto the enormous screen behind me. You can imagine the panic when I realized these pictures were being projected for everyone to see. Instead of trying to hide myself, like the standard naked dream, I was in a futile struggle with my phone. This super sized techno-abomination was at war with me. I was unable to do the simplest of tasks as though I’d never before seen an iPhone, and I lost full control of my seemingly disembodied thumbs.
You know how these dreams go,
Your subconscious wants you exposed.
Curious, right?
Feel free to psychoanalyze if you’d like, but my immediate take away is that the dream stems from some level of insecurity.
Insecurity is a zinger.
I wonder if there is an equivalent to a Kinsian type scale for insecurity?
A scale that identifies your insecurity somewhere between the range of relatively harmless and devastatingly destructive?
I think all of us struggle with insecurity at some level.
What I’m interested in is how insecurity manifests into destructive pathologies and how to effectively reveal and heal these deeply damaging aspects of our psyche.
My own insecurities were deeply, maybe even pathologically, connected to worrying about what others were thinking of me.
The root of this insecurity was attached to a lack of concrete personal identity. It was through exhaustive self analysis that I was able to break through this identity crisis and see my destructive shadows.
My insecurity lead me on a manic quest to create an image of myself that projected pride via the persona of an endurance athlete.
This was all relatively simplistic, but yet, effectively intoxicating.
Peddling images of grandeur.
Excessive cycling and xc skiing also became an opiate of sorts for me. I could crush my pain, whether it be anger or anxiety, with physical pain. Pain that was almost euphoric in comparison to the complexities I was processing.
Many of those moments, dipping into the well of sadistic euphoria, were also remarkably positive; supplying me with hours and hours of meditative contemplation. This level of extreme exercise opened me up to experiences that I would never have had. Insights that exposed me to non-physical realities. Realities that taunted me into exploring the non-physical realms some refer to as spiritual.
I’d argue all of this made me a smarter and better person. In ways, my mental health was stabilized by these activities. A mental health that wasn’t all that healthy.
But my dirty little secret always lurked right around the corner.
My pride was out of check, and I was becoming all too aware of it.
Every accomplishment was tainted by the deep desire to exploit it.

Social stations, fixed by maintaining future fixes.

This realization, I discovered, was intertwined into every facet of my being.
Revealing a plethora of Pandoras and her boxes.
These revelations toppled towers built on fragile foundations.

So, here is the thing.
This is what we all do.
We tell stories to ourselves and others layered with profusions of projections.
We are owned by ego.
An unhealthy relationship with ego is the root of our dis-ease.
It’s the root of lust, gluttony, and greed.
It’s the root of wrath, envy, and pride.
It’s the sloth we succumb to.

Insecurity is something we all could do with a little less of, don’t you think?
It’s certainly something I’d like a little less of.
I hope to dismantle the divisiveness that divides us.

Recognizing the root of insecurity is the best place to start.
Ego postures itself as security.
Ego and insecurity go hand in hand.
Insecurity and ego are the dis-ease.
If you can fathom this, our stories and our truths are our greatest enemy.
Even though we believe them to be our fiercest friend.

Insecurity stems from a nagging notion,
Down really, really, deep,
We all know,
That none of us really know.
All the while, we masquerade as though we do.

There are those who will go to great lengths to prove their platform. People will cite great scholars and their beloved histories. They will cite their gods and glorious scriptures proclaiming theirs to be the sole and rightful truth. Accredited scientific doctrines will be cited as absolute truths and be presented as proof of their position. Some will even wittingly employ half truths and junk science to support their claims.

If your triggers are being touched,
If you’re feeling anger,
Or if see yourself pointing fingers,
That’s ego.
The more driven we are by belief, the more likely we are to encounter destructive pathologies and oppositional characters.
Insecurity discourages openness to alternative possibilities.
Insecurity bolsters errant beliefs and self-righteousness.
Insecurity refuses to entertain or accept change and growth.

This can be remedied,
If we dare
Release our grasp
Of our beloved
Beliefs.

Understand ego…

Love Your Neighbor

Racism!
It’s the trump word of the lamenting left.
The visceral judgment that dominated my psyche was, “How could they!”
“How could such racism still be so prevalent?”
The rage and judgment was so thorough, and… and, final!
It’s upon further reflection that I’ve begun to see, more clearly,
Aspects of my own personal judgments.

I saw myself as open and understanding.
I could speak fluent republican.
If the situation demanded, I was relatively certain I could convey a republican ideology.
I understood the platforms.
I could empathize with the arguments.
I could stand in their shoes and see their world.
Well, sort of.
There was a flaw in my game.
My affluent friends’ conservative perspective, was what I understood.
I missed an entire demographic of republicans.
The ones I never understood.
The “middle American republican”,
The blue collar, disenfranchised, 2nd amendment, God fearing, republican.
The “alt right” republican…
This person was off my radar.
In fact, it gets worse than that. I had no respect for them.
I just wouldn’t have engaged.
I don’t even know if I could have spoken with them.
I’m not so sure what that even means?
Maybe, that I felt there was no room for compromise with “those” people?
I metaphorically disowned them without understanding the ramifications.
I completely missed my own personal prejudice.
What I’ve come to recognize is, I’d lost my sight of the ability to empathetically engage with the people I so easily disregarded.
It was vitally important for me to remember the circumstances that are required to be able to engage in higher stages of consciousness.
It’s a basic tenet of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs that basic needs must be met in order to engage in higher levels of consciousness.
This is key.
If I want the alt right to embody concern for all of humanity, I have to recognize and have concern for them also.
In order to do that, I need to engage them, to understand them.
I have to understand what their needs are.
I need to empathetically embody their perspective.
It’s imperative to remember that engaging in empathy doesn’t require you to surrender your beliefs. All it requires is understanding someone else’s. Even if you vehemently disagree with them.
Deep empathy isn’t easy.
Somehow it’s easier to empathize with pain.
I think a lot of us do this quite well.
Empathizing with hate and anger is much more difficult. But, if you are to understand the root of the problem, then this is the path. We need to remember there is rationality behind these ideologies and if you do not understand their rationalities, you’ll never understand the origins of their wounds.
Wounds that need to heal.
We need to broaden our compassion and concern.
The world is in pain.
The alt right is in pain,
And we all know what people do who are in pain.

I recognized I had a rather dogmatic belief. If you are a racist, xenophobe, and/or misogynist, I thought you were a bad person and therefore, unworthy of consideration and ultimately, compassion.
This is a gross error and over simplification.
I believe human beings start off as intrinsically good.
Actually, intrinsically pure.
It’s the culmination of negative life experiences that results in hatred.
Hatred isn’t innate.

If my desire is to eradicate racism, I will not succeed by employing repression; pushing them down and dehumanizing them. I will not succeed if I do not stop treating them as an other.
This is the very embodiment of the prejudice that I judge.
Carl Jung referred to this as shadow.
Although the wounds are fresh, I need to understand this.
I need to embrace radical forgiveness.
I need to open my heart and home.
Kindness and love is the path.
People change when they feel purpose.
People feel purpose when they feel respected.
People feel respected when they feel included.
People do not hate those that they know.

“If you imagine someone who is brave enough to withdraw all his projections, then you get an individual who is conscious of a pretty thick shadow. Such a man has saddled himself with new problems and conflicts. He has become a serious problem to himself, as he is now unable to say that they do this or that, they are wrong, and they must be fought against… Such a man knows that whatever is wrong in the world is in himself, and if he only learns to deal with his own shadow he has done something real for the world. He has succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the gigantic, unsolved social problems of our day.”

~Carl Jung

Can We Agree?

Ok, let’s start with the obvious.
This whole Trump thing really rocked my world.
I feel moments of heartbroken anger.
My wife is an African American, Muslim and my son is Latino.
If you cannot understand the sadness and sorrow I feel,
Well, then there is very little else I can say.
I feel let down by my friends, family, and countrymen.
I’m literally stunned.
I want to fix this, but…
Today, I do not have the ability to see a solution.
I need time to heal; to see through this clearly.
I’m hurt.

I had a lot more to say on this topic but I’m going to resist for now.

So, I’m going to take a stab at getting all of us to agree on something.
All of us, as in the whole kit and caboodle.

Well, here we go…

Our environment is in dire straights and I think I have an idea on how to bring us all together in this polarizing and convoluted topic.

The idea of global warming became contentious years ago.
So the slogan changed to climate change.
Again, contentious.
I don’t want to get into an argument over the validity of climate change.
No one will agree, and that’s ok.
So I have to ask, is there anything we can agree upon?

How about this?

Don’t pooh where you stew.
Don’t defecate where you consummate.
Don’t shit where you sit.

I think everyone can agree on these crass epithets.
Sorry for the language, but if there is one thing I’ve learned in the last week, people love simple slogans.

We have been shitting where we have been sitting for far too long.
Then we bicker over whether or not the shit is affecting other shit.
There is a point we seem to be all missing while we are all bickering.
It’s a simple fact,
Shitting where you are sitting is silly.
It’s infantile.
Even my 1 1/2 year old gets it.
He’ll point to his diaper and says, “Poopy, poopy, poopy”
Why? Because even he knows it’s disgusting.
Disregarding it is juvenile.

Funny story:

I was helping my son clean his closet.
And…
I found four zip-lock bags full of liquified toxicity buried in the corner.
Remnants of lunches I packed months ago.
He was trying to hide the fact that he wasn’t eating his vegetables.
Nasty, right?
It was only a matter of time before we had a toxic spillage on our hands.
Fortunately, the Environmental Parental Agency came in and put the kibosh on those antics.

That’s exactly what we do as humans.
We stash our shameful shit in the corner of the closet and think no will notice.

That’s what environmentalism is.
It’s your mom.
She says, “Clean your room!”

Come on, you know that shit is nasty!

Let’s drop all this convoluted bickering regarding the semantics of what is happening to our environment and agree that throwing and spewing shit all over the place is just plain stupid and adolescent. Plus, we are running out of places to sit and that’s a shame.

I propose we drop the contentious ideologies.
Let’s remember that we do agree on something.
Let’s keep it stupidly simple.

DON’T SHIT
WHERE YOU SIT!
Or, if you’re a patron of the PC,
Give a Hoot, Don’t Pollute!

“The environment, after all, is where we all meet, where we all have a mutual interest.  It is one thing that all of us share.  It is not only a mirror of ourselves, but a focusing lens on what we can become.”

~ Lady Bird Johnson, First Lady of the United States (1963-69)

 

Transcendence

Transcendence is a phenomenon that’s rare, beautiful and mysterious. I had the pleasure of personally witnessing a client of mine come to a place of deep peace. Witnessing this transformation gave me the opportunity to see it from an outsider’s perspective for the first time.
She was willing to give it all up for him, to sacrifice everything for the chance to be with him, to love him, and to live her life with him. He was her ultimate; tall, dark, and handsome. He was powerful and knew how to treat her like an elegant and sensuous woman.
She felt full and free with him.
Their path was not entirely traditional. Some may even say it was hurtful and destructive, but their love was absolutely true. She was a mother of five, married to a catholic man with very traditional catholic views. She found herself repressed and controlled by structures and forces that were not her own.
Their love affair was somewhat cliché of that era. He was a successful businessman, and she was the beautiful secretary. However it happened, the affair turned into a deep and passionate love that burns within her to this day.
He retired a few years after they were married.
The children from their previous lives were all grown.
They lived eight charmed years before the diagnosis.
It was something that didn’t fit into their plans.
It was almost an insult.
Cancer?!
He was powerful and vivacious.
They knew this was going to be beaten.
They vacillated between disbelief and utter dismay.
They tried to continue to live their charmed life of dinners and travels, but his treatments started to get in the way.
They both knew this would be short lived and he would soon be on the path to recovery.
It didn’t happen.
He continued to be beaten down.
The cancer was consuming him.
He was losing.
She was succumbing to the stress.
The dread was an ever-present weight she was having a harder and harder time shouldering.
He was everything to her.
All of her eggs were in that one basket.
I watched this whole thing play out. Every six weeks she was in to see me and would sit in my chair for two hours. The conversation was about food. It was the last thing she felt she had control over. Their diet was clean, organic, and meticulously planned. The conversation ultimately turned toward the spiritual. She was trying to understand what it was that she believed.
I guess that was my role; to listen, to reflect, to witness. I guess, more than anything, to provide support and a sanctuary for her to feel safe and feel beautiful.
Anything other than that, penetrating dread.
He ultimately succumbed to his demise before his death.
He tried to prepare her for what lay ahead.
There was plenty of money.
He loved her so much that it was his sincere hope that she would find love again. He wanted to give her permission, to set her free.
His affairs were completely in order. There was nothing left for her to do.
In losing him, she lost everything.
It’s really that simple.
Her sun rose and set with him.
Her world was his.
He was the air that filled her lungs.
And then he was gone.
I don’t know for sure when the transcendence occurred for her. It was right around the time of his death. The first time I saw her after his death, it was clear that she had let go and I don’t mean this in a bad way. She’d surrendered; her entire essence was pure peace. It’s hard to explain what changed from a physical perspective, but she literally glowed. Her eyes were crystal clear, her skin shone, her hair gleamed, her spirit was unencumbered.
She was it.
She was that thing… that mystical thing that we all talk about, worship, and most misunderstand.
I knew within seconds of seeing her what had happened. It took a little while for her to feel free enough to tell me, but when she did, my emotions overwhelmed me.
The heat and the tears were immediate.
The profound bliss consumed my entire being.

Injustice

Did you hear that Amy Goodman was charged with trespassing and then when those charges didn’t look like they would stick, they changed the charge to inciting a riot?
Ya know, for reporting on something that wasn’t being reported on?!
Yea, reporting!
What’s further alarming is the lack of coverage by fellow journalists that a fellow journalist was being criminally charged for being a journalist. Oh wait, I mean rioting.
I’ve become accustomed to the extreme bias and distortion in reporting, but this seems to be counter intuitive for reporters to not report on a reporter who is being repressed.
I’ve seen arguments that suggest she had no right to be trespassing. I find that curious since those charges were dropped before they were even filled. Maybe she wasn’t as “trespassy” as the trespassing charges suggested?
Maybe they were a bit trumped up?
It’s hard to argue they weren’t. Especially when she wasn’t accused of inciting a riot until the trespassing charges didn’t look like they would stick. It seems like they were looking for anything to stick her with, don’t you think? It’s hard to argue they weren’t bogus accusations when the judge stopped the charge levied against her by refusing to sign the charging document.
Is it illegal to levy false charges?
Or is it ok to just make up charges willy-nilly?
Can you charge someone for charging someone with charges that have no merit?  Can you charge someone for using public resources to threaten someone who is challenging private interests?
Of course not silly, this is America, you can’t do that to corporations. They have rights, ya know!
I heard arguments that Amy wasn’t being an objective reporter? Because she was “siding with the protestors.”
Does that mean she was standing on the wrong side?
Would she have appeared more objective if she were standing on the other side?
Behind their dogs?
To that point, would the pipeline company and their private security have welcomed “objective reporting”?
Would they have welcomed Amy objectively reporting the Native American point of view?
Would that have been a problem?
Or is that the wrong sort of objectivity?
Should she have been as objective as the super objective reporters from the mega media?
The reporting that’s known to be rife with such objective objectivity.
The irony is rich, even cliche.
Their lack of objectivity, that is.
I’d argue the objective of the folks building the pipeline is objectively blocking all objections. Unfortunately, that gets really hard to do when the largest gathering of Native Americans in years has gathered to get all “objecty” to the pipe line they object to.
I’m sure they thought it wouldn’t be that hard to quell the decent.
The Indians know their place, right?
We beat them down years ago.
We haven’t played cowboys and Indians in decades.
We’re on to new bad guys who wear robes and pray on carpets.
Who even talks about Indians anymore, anyway?
Indians are so pre-coldwar.
No one cares about them anymore, aside from their casinos…Jackpot!
I’m sure they thought they could quell the images of decent.
Well, until, that pesky Amy Goodman got all reportery.
So what did they do to this reportery reporter?
Try and throw her in jail?
That’s right, they tried to throw her in jail!
How dare she report on things corporations don’t want reported, right?
You know the age old question, if a tree fall in the woods and no one is there to hear it, did it make a noise?
Would the same be true if a private security company used attack dogs to quell decent and no one is there to witness it? Would it have still happened without that reportery reporter?
I wouldn’t have known, would you?
We know that’s the case with police brutality.
But that didn’t exist unit Obama became president and did all that race baiting, right?
Or was it those pesky cell phones that are to blame?
Taking all those unauthorized videos and showing them to people.
Or is it, as they have always said, the police have been brutalizing African Americans for years and now, for the first time, there is proof?
Sorry, off topic.
Back to these uppity Indians. I mean really, who do they think they are?
Being all demanding and telling us how to use our land. Right?
What rights, I mean right do they have?
The Indians have their reservations.
Those deals were made fair and square!
They have their land, and we have ours, and we can do what we want.
This is our America now!
Ours, as in the corporations who finance the lobbyists to write the laws that support the corporations who use the laws to justify the corporate policies and profit.
Ours!?
It’s all by the book though, right?
Where was I?
Oh, Amy Goodman.
I signed the petition, Don’t imprison Amy Goodman.
I think the charges were dropped about the same time I signed.
You should know the judge’s name.
He did the right thing.
I don’t fully understand the politics behind these charges but that North Dakota state prosecutor was, from my point of view, working for monied interest, not human interest.
As we know, all too well, money and power usually win.
So when someone stands against the tide, in the name of liberty and justice for all, that should be recognized!
That judge’s name is District Judge, John Grinsteiner!
His name should be spoken with pride, District Judge, John Grinsteiner!
He declined to sign the charging document.
That’s special, he’s special.
We can all stand and do the right thing.
My mom made me so proud and stood up for a Muslim woman that encountered hatred. She stood up in front of her peers; disregarding judgment and condemnation. When one of her church peers refused to let the Muslim woman into the church on a cold day because they weren’t open yet, my mom stood up! She took this woman in out of the cold and gave her a chair and a blanket.
Disregarding her peers!
Think about that…
That’s radical!
Understand, when the tide of peer pressure is weighing on you to not do the right thing, and you do it anyway, that should be recognized!
That’s powerful…
Period!
That makes me glow with pride.
The woman who filmed the black man being harassed in Edina saw an injustice, stopped her car, and was a voice of reason and justice.
Her name is Janet Rowles, a revolutionary, standing up for justice and freedom. Think about it, stopping your car to be a voice of reason, and a witness to injustice?
She willingly put herself in harm’s way for a stranger!
There is no way she could know the consequences of her actions.
For as many accolades as she has undoubtably received, I’m sure she has received an equal amount of condemnation.
For a stranger!
Janet changed the world that day.
Judge John Grinsteiner changed the world, My mom changed the world, and Janet Rowles changed the world.
We all can change the world.
Evolve…

“In the beginning, there was only a small amount of injustice abroad in the world, but everyone who came afterwards added their portion, always thinking it was very small and unimportant, and look where we have ended up today.”
~Paulo Coelho

Fishing

“Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it’s not fish they are after.”

~Henry David Thoreau

I’ve heard many people over the years talking about yoga as a way they center themselves. Some tell me that as they are going deeper into their practice, they are experiencing altered states of consciousness. I know people on the fringes of society are using psychoactive chemicals and plants and isolation tanks to access a variety of altered states. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the author of Flow, suggests that these states are not only for those that explore the more esoteric realms. He suggests that everyone can experience them in a multitude of ways. He speaks of a factory worker who consistently worked at a heightened state of consciousness, which he refers to as flow. I have a coworker that works within that flow space; he is nothing short of remarkable. My wife falls into this state somewhat regularly; it’s magical. People in this state are on another plane. Like a highly trained ballerina, they float through the air defying physics. They exude grace, precision, and ease; flow. I think most will agree, these altered states of consciousness are remarkable to those that witness them and arguably more so for those that experience them.

I’ve experienced deeply altered states of consciousness that radically reshaped my world while doing long distance bicycle races. Ironically, the first experience left me feeling isolated and mildly embarrassed. The distance and time on the bike were so unusual, people asked how I was able to do it and what it was like. Because of my lack of context and experience with this sort of thing, my immediate response was, “I saw God!” I honestly really felt like I did. It was that profound. But I had also just gotten off my bike and was still consumed in a fog of euphoria. It was clear by the responses I received that my comments were misunderstood. Likely, because I didn’t fully understand what I was saying myself. My community of cyclists didn’t discuss altered state of consciousness; at least that I was aware of. Needless to say, I didn’t receive any help or guidance with this before or after this event. I was on my own. The simple reality is, when it happened, I was a changed person from that point forward. I had experienced something that was so far off the charts and so profound that I was left simply in awe. It literally took me years to understand and articulate these experiences with any fluency.

Now, I assume the following:

  1. That others have had equally profound experiences.
  2. That others have found the ability to replicate these experiences with some relative predictability providing semi-regular access to these states.
  3. That these states resonate at a frequency and level that is very personal and special to the practitioner.
  4. That there is a certain dogmatism with your relationship to these states of consciousness.

I understand, these states and realizations do not come easily. They come from a diligent and likely, very personal practice. They provide access to what some would refer to as a spiritual realm. It’s not a mistake that nearly every religion has some sort of practice or tradition that brings about these states. These states provide a physical experience that can be used to support the validity of the desired ideology.

I would like to suggest something to think about.

If you’re like me, the desire to re-attain these states are, or were, a consistent thought and allure. But I had made a mistake. I thought enlightenment was a permanent, altered state of consciousness. I later learned that enlightenment is rather an evolving stage of consciousness. Ken Wilber, a contemporary philosopher that specializes in integral philosophy, articulates the distinction between states and stages of consciousness. A state of consciousness is non-abiding and temporary. A stage of consciousness is abiding and permanent. An example of a stage of development would be when a woman becomes a mother. The broadness of her concern has permanently expanded beyond herself to the child, from egocentric to ethnocentric. A state of consciousness would be the euphoria of finishing your first running race, the buzz from a glass of wine, or an emotional response to a movie. All of these are non-abiding, and not permanent. I understand that there are exceptions to these examples I gave, but I’m just trying to get across a general idea.

Getting back to these heightened states of consciousness. Many people have heard the eastern traditions (Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism) concept of enlightenment or awakening. The western traditions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) allude to this idea, but it’s not widely recognized or acknowledged. Our world is filled with tales regaling those cultural icons who have attained these heightened stages of development and set the precedent for man kind. Joseph Campbell wrote a book called A Hero with a Thousand Faces to illustrate this point. Every culture and ideology has that special iconic figure. They are central characters in the ideology’s spiritual and enlightenment saga. All of these people are perceived to be special for a reason. They have developed an elevated stage of consciousness that is remarkable within the culture they live. What’s worth realizing is that these stages of development are attainable for you too. You have everything within you. The hero’s journey is for you to undertake. Joseph Campbell is talking about finding the hero within yourself. He is alluding to a stage shift in consciousness that transcends the egoic perception.

The state experience gives you that valuable glimpse of the nonphysical, or spiritual. This takes these concepts out of the abstract realm and places them into the tangible. It’s stage development that will bring forth and reveal an abiding awakening or enlightenment.

Evolve…

“Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had sought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence, and where we had thought to be alone, we will be with all the world.”

~Joseph Campbell

Sandwich

My thinking tends towards non-dualist structure. I continually and dogmatically strive for the lowest common denominator or the most basic and simple fundamental truth. This is not a complete representation of my reality, however.

That being said, the rich, complex, and diverse landscape of the dualistic world is the sandbox in which I find myself most often.

Within that construct, I’m quite certain that I’m a bewildered being living a deluded singular existence within a singular universe. Simultaneously believing I’m an expression of an infinitesimally complex universal construct that knows no limits, whether it be the often over looked realm of no-thing-ness or the little understood realm of everything-ness.

I want a sandwich…

Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness

“Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness.”
~Alejandro Jodorowsky

I was talking with a friend.
She was telling me about her spiritual quest.
She told me she had searched and searched and ultimately, she had come to the edge of an abyss. A darkness that shocked her and repelled her.
“It was just black emptiness, nothing was there!”
It was too much for her.
I could see the horror in her eyes, the sadness.
She saw it but couldn’t bear it.
She couldn’t accept that it could possibly be the truth.
Nothingness is human heresy.
How could emptiness be the answer?
To say yes to the abyss and step into it.
We somehow know it will swallow us whole.
Few step forward.
At some level, you have to be willing to die.
To let go of what you believe; to be everything.
The contradiction is confusing.
Desperate, we feel confined, but don’t know why.
Yet, to let go…
At least we know our cage; it’s comfortable.
Let me extend you a hand.
That darkness is freedom.
When you let go and step into the darkness, your essence pixilates.
Your notion of self bursts into everything-ness
Just as everything-ness amalgamates into you.
That darkness is limitless, timeless, and pure light.
You just need to step in to see it.

Load More

© Tim Trudeau 2024
Copyright

Newsletter