Oneness

4 Sep 2016

“Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.”
~Rumi

I was forty when I met her.
I had just met myself three years prior.
Before that, I was a lie that loved a lie.
I didn’t love what was in front of me.
I loved what I thought they could become.
They loved me equally.
When I met her,
I saw with crystal clarity,
She needed nothing,
Which is exactly what I was.
We chose each other.
Her name, Fatima,
My name, Tim,
Fa-Tim-A
Art imitating life,
We have always been together.
Life imitating art.

4 Sep 2016

Our pain is so duly placed in structures that we know are hurting us and those we love.
We’re so sure our pain can be cured, if just this changed, or that.
We encounter a person working towards the same goal as us and we don’t see it. Instead, we demonize them because of their different solutions. We separate ourselves from them. Believing them to be other than what we are.
The pain is so exquisite and we have no idea why nothing fills the void we feel.
We want for clarity, sureness, and stability.
Our answers are so clear, if only people saw what we saw or knew what we knew.
We claim to be strong, to understand, to know, but down deep we still question…
The void pulls at us and we don’t dare look, for fear of what we might see.
The quiet is so painful that it’s deafening screech is desperately drowned out with anything.
Anything that will distract us.
Our books and dogs, our phones and our gods.
This is how we flee.
Emptiness abated.

28 Aug 2016

When you write, sometimes things turn on you.

That’s the power of the pen.

I wrote a piece last week that I didn’t end up posting. I tried to defend a notion of personal responsibility that I had, but it didn’t hold up the way I expected.

I tried to start with a relatively benign aspect of personal responsibility before I dove into the more contentious.

If it looks like it’s going to rain, do you bring an umbrella…?
If you’re going into the mountains or onto the ocean, do you take time to prepare?
If you’re going to ride a motorcycle or travel, do you take special precautions?
I questioned the relationship of personal responsibility and drinking alcohol.
I looked at personal responsibility with regard to ethnic minorities, homosexuality, bigotry, and prejudice.
I suggested personal responsibility could play a role in limiting the difficulties, trauma, and negativity people encounter.
I’ve had enough conversations with people to know I was on shaky ground.
This was a touchy subject. However, I really thought I had something.
After setting up this idea, I tried to defend it by asking if human violence is natural.
All evidence suggests it is part of our natural world.
I thought, if it is, why is it that we feel so strongly about avoiding the topic of personal responsibility when someone is victimized by another person? I found it odd that most people aren’t averse to discussing personal responsibility when someone is hurt by something like an avalanche or a motorcycle accident. But, personal responsibility seems to be a taboo subject when a human enacts violence on another human.
I understand, there is no excuse for violent crime!
It’s bewildering when a human hurts another human. We desperately want to make sense of the assailant’s behavior.
They broke the most basic and fundamental laws we set for humanity.
A tight dress doesn’t mean “touch me.”
Diamonds and jewelry don’t say “rob me.”
Yet, violent crime happens.
On the Serengeti, it is the weak and infirm that are the most vulnerable.
We as humans are not immune to this biological truth.
That’s the way of the jungle.
So I had to ask is there any room for discussing personal responsibility in “the jungle”?
Predators are looking for weakness, vulnerability, and opportunity.
Our body language, the way we dress, the people we are spend our time with, all communicate something to the outside world.
The outfits we wear present an identity.
A priest collar or a motorcycle gang patch…
A business suit or Carhartt’s…
A burka or Birkenstocks…
A tube top or a fur coat…
They all say very different things about the person you project into the world.
Recognize what you are transmitting into your surroundings.
Listen, learn, adapt.
I suggested to teach your children that the world isn’t fair.
Teach them that they cannot control their environment, but they can control the way they respond to it.
Teach them that there is pride and strength in personal responsibility.
Teach them that personal responsibility, integrity, and self awareness are of the highest value.

I felt like I had defended this idea of personal responsibility in relation to violence in a novel way.
But, it wasn’t the answer I thought it was.
It’s not that simple
There is another side to this argument.
Something that can’t be resolved.
Really bad things happen to people who seem to do everything right.
This idea negated the argument I was trying to formulate.
Personal responsibility will not protect you.
Life is a bit more like a slot machine.
Sometimes we wear our lucky hat when we pull the lever…
Personal responsibility is like a lucky hat.
You can do everything right, but in the end,
No one is immune from violence.
Bad things can happen to anyone, at any time.
I got caught up in some self righteous ideas.
I was wrong.
Evil is a subjective reality.
Life is akin to the ouroboros.
The snake that’s consuming its own tail.
Blind to the source of its nourishment… It’s very own decomposition.
It’s the nature of things.
A biological truth, a biological imperative.
This thing we judge as evil and good, happy or sad, that’s a misunderstanding.
Good and evil are subjective realities. Stories that conscious beings who developed the ability to communicate, share with each other. Subjective reality is egoic.
There is no ego in objective reality. Interestingly, it can also be seen as a metaphor for compost. The source of beauty and harmony disguised as entropy. A compost of rot and decay that sprouts fruits and flowers. The fruit and the filth are of the same source. We don’t want it to be, but it is. The beauty you see, is death and decay transformed. Just as the rot that makes you retch is the source of everything you love.
I lost sight of that with this piece.
I forgot that no amount of control will remove you from the snake’s mouth.
Good and evil are an illusion.
What you think you are, is an illusion.
You’re the monster you demonize.
You’re the saint you canonize.
You can’t escape evil, because you are the evil you see.
You can’t find love, because you are love.
Subjective realities are not objective realities.
You can’t dodge the reaper. You are the reaper.
You are the care taker and the saint.
You’re the murderer and the thief.
This is all to say, nothing can protect you.
Do you get it?
You are nothing.
No-Thing…
Don’t understand?
It’s the ego, the story you’ve told yourself, the thing you so desperately want to believe. It isn’t true.
You’re no-thing.
Ooof, that hurts, but that’s the objective truth.
I guess, if you’d like to, you could look at it in a different way.
You’re everything.
Everything known and unknown.
A thing that turns over and into itself. A cauldron of rich compost that births hydrogen and humans and galaxies and glaciers.
You are the source, and of the source.
You are everything know and unknown.
This oneness, this everythingness, is the quiet we bump into. It is the quiet we fear. It is the deafening silence that swallows us whole.
It’s the primal void.
It’s pure darkness and pure light.
It’s everything and nothing.
Every little bubbling urp that percolates up from the primordial compost is consciousness.
Humans, an aspect of primordial consciousness.
An aspect of consciousness that has the ability to recognize itself.
A self that it can see as separate,
With a separate path.
Paths clouded in self-righteousness.
Forgetting that your role is not only of a purposeful life but also of a purposeful death.
Birth, life, and death, a cosmic fusion.
You are simultaneously that one thing.
You are the compost that life sprouts from.
From you, galaxies will be born.
From you, the universe was, and will be.
The source of the trees and symphonies.
The you,
And the me.

Although, that’s not to say personal responsibility is an entirely bad idea.

Wink, wink…

Addendum: The reason I chose personal responsibility as a topic is because it played a pivotal role in resolving personal issues that I carried with me for years. It was such a powerful tool for me I thought it would translate into the topic of empowering people and deterring victimization. It didn’t hold up the way I thought it would. Such is the power of the pen.

14 Aug 2016

Condensing from a gas to a liquid.
Solidifying into a solid.
Crushing rocks and cutting canyons,
Rising and falling.
Do you recognize it?
It nourishes life.
Yet, like a malevolent god, it will take life.
Its capacity to burn contradicts its ability to freeze.
What’s so clear to me, may not be for you.
Crystal clear and blue.
Boiling, brown, and frothy.
Formless and colorless.
Pillowy soft and hard as stone.
Left to sit, it will rise to the heavens.
Can you pin it down?
Its rhythm will relax you.
Unrestrained, it can crush you.
You can see yourself in it, and it fills the self you see.
Its path and our path, a perfect metaphor.
To fight against it, is to not understand its nature.
To fight against your nature is to fight against your path.
Try and grasp it, and it will slip through your fingers.
The essence of an orchid and a tiger,
Like you.
Like you, it’s not to be contained.
Restrained, it loses its vitality.
Containment, obfuscating connection.
Dogmatism, restricting growth.
Our desire to know limits our knowledge.
Convention, restricting world view.
There exists unknown potentials in ourselves and everything we see.
Those unknown potentials are the path to new vistas.
Vistas with broader perspectives;
Perspectives that alter knowledge.
A knowledge, some call wisdom.
Open your eyes.
You are not what you think you are.
What you see as evil, is you.
What you see as controversial, is your own insecurity.
You fear, because you don’t understand.
Your disappointment, was born from your desire to control.
Your hate, is derived from notions of love.
What you see, is God seeing.
The mystery of the universe, lies within you.
You are divinity in action.
Let go of belief.
Love is the path,
The current.
Like a leaf adrift,
Surrender.

31 Jul 2016

I’m a man.
This was my world…
Unattainable needs and desires.
Pushed and persuaded by twisted ideologies.
Simplistic sexual relationships.
Liquor, the elixir.
Greed, paramount.
Complacency, a goal.
Apathetic about my apathy.
Shiny cars adorned with large breasted women.
Boats with blonds stretched out across their bows.
Friends whispering syrupy gossip about each other.
Relationships with God were similar to relationships with Santa Clause
Rudolph’s gleaming red nose, stretching longer and longer.
I grew up in a world where we applauded the skillful, lying politician.
The paramount concern was profit over people.
I grew up in a world where men with feelings were sissies.
I grew up in a world where shrinks were only for quacks.
I grew up in a world where I was told everyone had the same opportunities.
The only obstacle was your willingness to pull yourself up by the boot straps.
I too became a lier, with the proficiency of a politician.
I lied about who I was and where I was going. I lied to those who I loved because I loved a lie.
All the teachers I knew lived this lie.
The syrupy sweet lie.
An entire culture dependent on ignoring the… in the living room.
I am a man.
I’m on a path of recovery.
Will you recover with me?
Male complacency is becoming common place.
Men, we can be so much fuller than we are.
Woman changed their world, so can we.
They are taking on roles of leaders, care takers, and policy makers.
But there’s still so much oppression! I see that.
I’d argue the oppression will not cease by continuing to solely make women stronger. Males need to evolve too. Males and females are one. One does not exist without the other. We can’t expect to achieve the peace and equality we all desire, and disregard one of the sexes.
Many now regard females as the superior sex. They’re evolving at a rate that’s leaving men befuddled and scratching their heads.
What’s key to understand is that women’s liberation is connected to male liberation. Until men are understood to be equally worthy and capable by women, and men themselves, the imbalance and inequality we fight against will continue.
The hit television show, The Simpsons, expresses the imbalance that I’m referring to.
Homer Simpson’s boss, Mr. Burns, the megalomaniacal oppressor, represents the archetype of the industrious insidious male. The archetype that women’s rights and feminism was born from and revolted against.
This isn’t the archetype we want to model. I think most of us are in agreement on that.
Even the show depicts Mr. Burns as old and out of fashion.
Which is good, right?
Yes, but…
The problem is what the men have evolved into.
Homer Simpson represents the lovable, yet low level, knuckle dragging buffoon, who hasn’t surrendered to his biological inferiority and is still fighting the un-winnable fight.
Bart Simpson is the apathetic, lazy, and cynical deviant. The product of a culture that’s so mired in apathy, there’s no expectation for him to be anything but his deviant self.
These are the male archetypes we as society have resigned ourselves to: the incompetent, naughty male with little to no emotional intelligence, or the old fashion dictatorial male oppressor. This is so thoroughly pervasive in contemporary society that “male bashing” slips past the lips like bigotry in the era of Rosa Parks and M.L.K.
I hear these archetypes thoughtlessly reinforced every day. Mothers proudly referencing their successful daughters saying gleefully, “Well, she is a girl!” or expressing the same sentiment, tainted with sullen apathy, with regard to their sons, “Well, you know boys.”
I see grown men, mired in their own shame, propagating these cultural archetypes. Laughing off their stereotypical low level development looking for a sympathetic, there, there. You can see they’re ashamed of their essence.
It reminds me of a tendency I used to have. I’d hold the door twice as long for a black person. Trying to subtly say, I’m sorry.
I was so confused.
In the face of black, I was ashamed of white.
Primarily because I was so disconnected from the culture I was trying to empathize with. It took me years to see black culture and history for what it was, vital and beautiful. While simultaneously maintaining my own sense of personal vitality and beauty.
This is what men need to do with regard to women. Raise them up. See them, honor them, embrace their power, and honor their history and plight. Teach your sons. Teach them to treat women like they are powerful and elegant queens.
Women, recognize your part too. Don’t play the role of victim. Encouraging this negative perception of men will only hold you down. Embrace your men. Honor their strength. Empathize with their fear of emotions and the legacy that’s demanded that of them. Teach your daughters that the strong alpha males are the boys who brave their emotions. Teach your daughters to build up their men, not tear them down. Teach them to treat their men as wise, noble kings.
I heard a story on NPR years ago that’s worth acknowledging. The piece was focusing on the negative relationship of boys and virtual reality. The first part of the story discussed gaming. The findings suggested boys were more motivated by their virtual environments than by physical and social connections. The motivation and accolades from sport and academics paled in comparison to the motivation and achievements made in the hierarchical structure of their virtual gaming world, a world with very few girls. Which ties directly to the second aspect of this story, boys didn’t seem interested in real girls. They had their needs met by the perfectly polished girls who were at their beck and call in the virtual world. No social expectations, no hair out of place, every dream and physical variety indulged on demand. The boys talked about being grossed out by real girls.
The doctor doing this study found the girls’ response alarming. Less than fifty percent of girls saw themselves wanting to get married. When asked why, the girls exclaimed, “Would you want to marry them?!”
These dark aspects of society have been exemplified in the movies, Kids and Super Bad.
Both disturbing depictions of male development in the modern era.
So what’s the point of this?
Half of humanity is dying on the vine.
We are all familiar with the Yin Yang symbol, which is referred to as Taijitu in Taoism. A symbol of harmonic symbiotic balance, the Yin, the female; the Yang, the male.
A symbol of the cosmic interplay of balance.
We are out of balance, males and females.
The symbolism of the Taijitu, with its profound wisdom, can guide us, males and females, into balance and higher states of consciousness.
The Taijitu is representative of all manifest reality and the interplay of balance that is forever occurring.
To understand the Taijitu you need to understand what it represents.
Nothing has meaning without its opposite
There is no light without dark.
There is no life without death.
Short is meaningless without long.
The only way to recognize peace is by knowing war.
Manifestation is held in balance and recognized by its opposition.
Yin Yang…
That’s relatively easy to see.
What’s less clear is the space surrounding the Taijitu. It is the source of creation and potentials, un-manifested and un-realized.
The Taijitu is nothing without the space surrounding it.
Just as humanity is nothing without everything surrounding it.
That space represents the vastness of creation, the source of Taijitu.
Waking up to your connection with this source is the path to your liberation.
In this “waking up”, everything becomes clear.
A rebirth.
An entirely new state of consciousness.
Men aren’t threatened by powerful women and powerful men don’t threaten.
Your bliss is my bliss.
Your power is my power.
Your equality is my equality.
Clarity in oneness.
Raise your boys and girls from this state of consciousness.

24 Jul 2016

We are becoming more aware and full as our consciousness continues to expand.
That’s a difficult thing to do.
Growing is always hard.
I grew up in a Methodist family. It seemed like Lutherans were essentially the same as us. The Christians that spoke in tongues and baptized adults in local lakes and river seemed odd. Catholics, weren’t good. No one actually said that to me, but that’s what was implied.
Although I’d heard of them, I didn’t know any Jews or anything about the them aside from this strange notion that they were the chosen people, whatever that meant.
Muslims? I didn’t know that was a thing.
There were a hand full of black people in my school. Actually, most were biracial. One, that I know of, was adopted. As far as I knew, they were raised just like me, why wouldn’t they be? My grandpa called certain Christmas nuts, nigger toes. My first job, we were told, you can have Martin Luther King Day off, if you’re black. No one was. Black jokes were just as common as blonde jokes.
We knew a handful of Mexicans, they were cool. We had tacos once a week, but I didn’t like the hot sauce.
Russians were scary. They wanted to hurt us. We practiced hiding under our desks in case they tried.
I didn’t even know gay was a thing…
That pretty much sums it up.
Oh, we’d get Chinese food sometimes; Chicken Chow Mein and Egg Foo Young. I didn’t like it very much, but the fortune cookies were fun.
Maybe I represent an extreme, I’m not sure. I’m sure many people had more diverse upbringings than I did. But, I bet most of us wouldn’t have to go back many generations to find the cultural norm that I was raised with. I’m sure this continues to be the norm for many today.
I remember being jealous of friends who had gay friends. I wanted to be diverse. I also remember being called gay when I did have gay friends. It didn’t take long before I was overtly exclaiming that I liked girls to people I’d meet.
While a senior in high school, I remember referring to a person as mulatto and being harshly corrected. I didn’t know it was derogatory. It took me years to find out why.
Aside from Canada, I was 23 the first time I left the United States. I went to Cabo San Lucas. It was fun, but the ocean was cold. The Mexicans seemed nice. Honestly, I didn’t think about it much. I went to Europe for three months, a year later. Language and food were the biggest obstacles. This taught me to let go of very basic expectations and embrace the unknown. It was Central and South American countries that really opened my eyes. It took years to integrate everything I’d learned into any sort of cohesive understanding.
That growth process was difficult and challenging.
It took me years to see gays as no different than me.
I was forty when I met my wife. She was the first black girl I’d ever dated.
Actually, she’s biracial.
It was after our first date that I found out she’s Muslim.
It scared me.
That was hard for me to process. I didn’t have any overtly negative feelings regarding Muslims. Yet, the fear was real.
I’ll never forget, within minutes of the twin towers falling, I wondered what had we done to make someone so angry with us? That’s the way I see the world.
I typically tend to be empathetic. Possibly too much, I’m not sure.
Incidentally, this was another growth opportunity. This was the first time I realized my republican friends were saying, “How dare they do that to us!” Something entirely different than what my democrat friends were saying. Albeit, the right wing reply was a reasonable response, but a distinctly different way of viewing the world. It was then that I realized, we both needed each other.
Growth…
It was 9/11 that inspired me to explore the darker side of the political arena. This is how I began to understand how convoluted and nefarious global politics can be.
Painful realizations, though I felt fuller because of it.
My consciousness expanded.
When Fatima prayed in front of me for the first time, it frightened me at a primal root level.
I hated this.
It was, and is, difficult to acknowledge.
It honestly took me years to detach the falling twin towers from her style of prayer, a practice of selfless gratitude.
Such is the power of media and the unconscious mind.
I’ve fasted with her for Ramadan four times. Before I met her, I’m not entirely sure I’d even heard of Ramadan. Ramadan forced me to surrender my wants and needs like nothing else. This wasn’t a community or social event for me. This was my hunger and thirst. I was the one who was tired and had to slow down, letting go of my wants and needs for an entire lunar cycle. I needed to learn to pace myself and let go of my desires. I did it to support Fatima, but this was no passive exercise. It’s not that simple. I can’t tell you how many times I would empathize with the Muslim stranger on the street knowing they were likely fasting as well.
These were difficult realizations that I had to fight hard for.
Again, I was richer and fuller, but it didn’t come easy.
Fatima brought me to Eid celebrations. Again, as dumb as I feel saying this, I was surprised that they were remarkably similar to the cultural celebrations I was raised with, aside from the different costumes and food.
People laughed and made meals, in which they took great pride.
Their homes were beautifully decorated.
Everyone wore clothes they were proud of.
Still growing…
Just this year, I was explaining Fatima’s heritage to my son and I told him she was African and Italian. My intent was to embrace her African heritage. My thought was, there is no sense muddying up her African-ness with any suffix. After all, I wasn’t German American.
Fatima corrected me, “Actually, black people in the United States don’t have the privilege of knowing our heritage because our ancestors were slaves. This is why we are African American not African.”
Still growing.
Still painful.
Still hard.
Think of how far we have come as a culture.
We are all infinitely richer and fuller than our ancestors.
Think about it.
Maybe you were a raised in an entirely different culture than me, but the bigotry and prejudice was likely there, at some point, somewhere. We are all the same.
We distrust the outsider.
We are fearful of what we don’t know or understand.
This amalgamation of multiculturalism and the struggle around it, is a global phenomena.
What we are experiencing is growing pains.
Letting go of the old.
Merging with the new.
Expanding our consciousness.
It’s hard.
It takes time.
Have patience.
Be compassionate.

10 Jul 2016

I’d immersed myself in the exploration of darkness years ago and seen it for what it was, a reflection of myself. A painful realization that I was, at one time, blind to. Seeing what I needed to see, I’d moved on and closed that chapter in my life. I was done. Paradoxically, over ten years later, I stumbled upon Sibel Edmonds, an FBI whistleblower, with a radical integrity that deeply inspired me. I had to laugh as I questioned why I was so compelled to devour her book, Classified Woman. It has been years since I’ve touched anything of this nature. Her ability to stand up and speak the truth within the intelligence community, in which exists a cultural paradigm of intimidation and fear, was revolutionary and deeply inspiring. She exhibited an utter disregard for her personal security. The emotions I felt as I read her book were quite intimidating and revealing to me. Revealing in a way that forced me to see that most likely, I’d not have the courage to do what she did. Not something I’m proud to admit.

This left me pondering a few things. First, the idea of breaking free from your cultural paradigm is an extraordinary thing to do. Second, what does this idea say about breaking free from our egoic identity? Are there parallels?

I ended up digging through my bookshelves in search of a connecting thread. As usual, I was surprised by what I found. Scott Peck’s book, People of the Lie, jumped out at me. I’d read it in 2007. It’s near the end of the book that he explores an idea he calls “group evil”. An idea that may shed light on what Sibel experienced and why so many people participated in repressing her with their silence.

I was amazed at how directly and thoroughly this FBI whistleblower, Sibel Edmonds, was repressed by all branches of our government. It is beyond the scope of possibility that everyone in the FBI, judicial system, executive branch, and intelligence community are intertwined in a nefarious cabal. I was forced to recognize an alternative. Seemingly natural tribal assimilations repress deep individual value systems that allow, what Peck refers to, as group evil. This is a thread that seems to run deep within humanity and remains a formidable road block in personal truth, critical thinking, and integrity.

A source of group evil, according to Peck, is the compartmentalization and specializations in our culture. This allows us to avoid larger and more comprehensive responsibilities that seem to lie outside of our immediate control. The average large corporate structure offers a basic example of how this works. Low level managment is asked to perform an unethical task. They’re able to admonish themselves of responsibility by surrendering their responsibility to mid level management. This behavior continues all the way to the top of the hierarchical structure. Mid levels defer to the VPs. The VPs use the executives, or CEO, as scapegoats and the CEO uses the board of directors. The board of directors then claims they are beholden to the demands of the investors. Nowhere is personal responsibility required. The entire chain of command somehow enjoys freedom of responsibility from the unethical practices of a soulless and seemingly benign entity. This is even more exaggerated in hierarchical government and military structures. Lower level individuals choosing to set aside their personal integrity with the goal of moving up the hierarchical structure, avoiding peer based reprisal, or blindly accepting that the people in charge know better than you. This is quite often a story we tell ourselves to bury our moral and intellectual laziness. Regardless of the reasoning, the group evil is maintained. Manicured into something the ego or micro culture can even be proud of. Which, quite simply, means large groups of people are much more able and likely to conspire or ignore unethical and/or immoral behavior through dismissing personal responsibility to an abstract “other”.

Our culture tosses around ideas like “conspiracy theory” with little thought. It’s an easy and dismissive term because the implications of a large cabal of evil-doers is beyond our scope of reason. Many people argue that if the “conspiracy” were actually true, there would be no way that a group of people this large could maintain a paramount level of secrecy/complacency. But the reality of human nature is absolutely the opposite. Not only will most people say nothing, but they will lash out at those who do to protect themselves and the organization that provides them security. Look at our pop culture whistleblowers and the way they are marginalized in society if you question this idea. It comes as no surprise that as a greater number of people maintain their silence, others are encouraged to maintain future silence. The cultural rogue is less and less likely to emerge.

The staggering amount of people that are privy to this information is shocking. Their ability to maintain the status quo, silence, and secrecy knowing the great harm that will fall on others really best describes the concept known as group evil.

This is also prevalent in less established cultural structures such as personal politics, religious persuasions and/or institutions, and racial and sexual identities. Hypocrisy is rampant. The ability to judge others of opposing persuasions and identities is easy for us to point out. What’s harder to see and acknowledge is our willingness to sweep under the rug inconsistencies and hypocrisies that undermine our ideological/egoic perspectives. All for fear of losing a component of our identity that we have so carefully crafted.

This whole topic may seem off compared to what I usually spend my time writing about. At a subtle level, this idea of group evil ties directly into the concept of waking up/self awareness. This is directly related to the mechanism that maintains our collective delusion.

Those that strive for internal peace/enlightenment often misunderstand the path that is necessary. We know that ego is an obstacle but how we surmount it is often misunderstood. The idea of having to let go of ego/identity is beyond the scope of most. Absolving ourselves of all identity is unimaginable. We fool ourselves into believing we just need to rid ourselves of the aspects of our identity/egoic self that we see as negative. This isn’t the truth.

Ultimately, it’s our need to oblige and intertwine ourselves into mass culture which supports group evil. It’s the cultural expectation of an egoic ideation that maintain our adherence to our egoic ideation. A circular ideology that feeds itself. The cultural expectations are the ruling force. In fact, from an early age, identity is what we are taught to strive for. Ribbons and pieces of paper that separate us from others declaring us to be something special. Those that gain the most cultural recognition are positioned as though they fly above us all. Their identities become almost super human and god-like as we shine brighter and brighter lights on them. The accolades showered upon these cultural icons maintain a seemingly unsurmountable barrier suggesting and maintaining our perceived inferiority. Even our spiritual leaders, like the Pope or the Dalai Lama, are projected to have something we don’t. This isn’t something they’ve declared; it’s a cultural identity that has been overly inflated. This truly causes more repression than anything. The subtle suggestion that you aren’t that. It is our self imposed egoic ideations that clouds our essence, an essence that’s within all of us. It’s when we commit to removing the false self that we can be reintroduced with our greater self. To step away from identity is not something that is overtly practiced, expected, or encouraged in our culture. We have very few known spiritual leaders and because of the nature of awakening, those who have awakened are often silent. Self awareness/awakening is the rebirth that humanity desires but doesn’t fully comprehend. It is the unbroken thread that connects us all. To see this and live this universal truth is the next evolutionary step. A state of consciousness where group evil has no room to breath and integrity has no barriers.

19 Jun 2016

Things are going to be alright

There seems to be an idea that things aren’t going well.
A fundamental question that is vital to examine is, is the world evolving or devolving?
It seems so much of what I see in pop culture are stories of devolving suggesting de-evolution. Stories that center on an idea that order is being lost.
Regardless of your political, religious, or ideological persuasion it seems there’s a pining for a past time.
A simpler time when order was understood.
A time of plenty and bounty when there was enough for everyone.
A time that hard work was the rule not the exception.
A time of respect and dignity in community
A time of compassion
A time when intellectualism was valued and aspired to.
I question the idea that we are falling apart.
I see a state of flourishing abundance every day. I have faith in evolution. Not the limited darwinian view but a view that includes the growth and expansion of consciousness and the merger of spirit.
Do you want to see the true nature of humanity? Look at New York during 9/11. Five hundred thousand people evacuated by boat in nine hours. All of the bridges and trains on Manhattan Island were closed. Strangers came together and took care of each other. Our infrastructure failed and human compassion flourished. Over six thousand five hundred travelers were housed and fed by people like you and me. Everyday normal folks, when their planes were forced to land the morning of 9/11 in Newfoundland. An entire community came together to embrace these foreign travelers. Does community even cover this? Think of these numbers! Everyone had food and shelter! That’s amazing! What a stunning outpouring of love and compassion. This is a repeating story. Snow storms in Minnesota bring out the best; people shoveling and pushing out strangers. A tornado that tore through central Minneapolis brought out people with gloves, rakes, and chainsaws eager to help their neighbors. While riding my motorcycle to the Sturgis rally I broke down. Dozens of people helped me, in ways that still shock me. The skinny kid who wasn’t on a Harley and I was fully embraced. Traveling all over the world I’ve been helped by total strangers over and over again.
The love and compassion I’ve consistently been shown has fundamentally changed me.
It’s the belief that we’re on our own that bolsters these ideas of isolation, greed, and selfishness. This is not our natural state. Our natural state is that of community.
We are fundamentally one.
We thrive together.
Last year, I told my son about a big thing that had just happened in our country. I said, “Gay marriage was legalized.” He looked at me with utter confusion, “Haven’t they always been able to be married?”
There it is, out of the mouths of babes.
Love is love
An uncorrupted simplistic truth
His natural instinct, unencumbered by any dogmatic fear based belief.
An evolution at the core of a revolution
He sees no color and is perplexed when I bring it up.
An example of a metamorphosis that my generation was a part of.
He doesn’t judge creed. He’s respectful of his Hindu and Muslim friends.
During Christmas he doesn’t boast to his friends about the things he’s received.
He wasn’t told to do this. He’s just naturally respectful of others.
Understanding that not everyone has had the same experience he’s had.
Children, the great barometer of society
An undeniable metric of evolution
While out for dinner with a friend, he hinted that the world was falling apart; unable to sustain its complexities.
I asked him, as an artist, what’s the source of inspiration for your best work?
His answer was, “It’s weird, I can’t quite explain it. It comes from a place outside of me, almost like I’m downloading something.”
This inspired me to ask the same question of other artists.
All the artists I spoke with, spoke of a similar experience.
Remarkable, isn’t it?
That speaks to a positive evolution, an unseen interconnection.
It speaks to a oneness
It speaks to the notion that we’re a piece of a single organism that we call the universe, which is in a state of perpetual flourishing expansion.
Isn’t flourishing the natural state of things?
Moss, mushrooms, and beatles on a rotten log
Soil rich with varied decompositions.
A revitalized life after a bout with cancer
Flourishing doesn’t always come in the form of rainbows.
When you look out into the stars, what is it that you see? Order or chaos?
Two galaxies colliding. A star in supernova.
I see creation and evolution.
The stars, our ancestors
Our core essence forever the same.
A cosmic dance in perfect balance.
You’re a piece of that.
The artists state that their inspiration and executions are guided by something they feel outside of themselves. This points to a central intelligence, an intelligence that thrives on a symbiotic balance perpetually opening up and evolving into richer and richer levels of beauty.
Physical states that are interwoven and interdependent on other neighboring physical states.
I’m not sure the intelligence and consciousness we experience as ours lie solely within our minds and bodies.
Intelligence seems to surround us, we seem to be awash in flourishing intelligent consciousness.
Artists are the easiest way to point this out.
We all have access to this.
The trick is to feel it, listen to it, and act on it.
We’re all awash in this. The road block is getting over yourself.
Getting over your wants and needs.
The idea seems best represented by the Hindu god with all the arms reaching out. Each arm, an alternate and symbiotic aspect of reality stemming from a single source.
A source in a perpetual state of bloom.

19 Jun 2016

United we stand, divided we fall

There is an answer to the mass shootings
There is an answer to the pain and misunderstanding we all feel
It’s actually quite simple
It won’t cost you a thing
It’s something you can do today without anyone’s permission or help.
Find that person who is alone and sit with them
Listen to them
Empathize with them
Love them
Bring them into your world
We all encounter or know people who sit on the outskirts
See them
Honor them
People that are respected and loved, who feel they are a part of community, do not act out against those communities that embrace and value them.
You have the power to change the world every day
Ignore the person who is struggling and in pain and we will continue to struggle with pain.
Embrace the person who is struggling and in pain and you will abate your struggling and pain.
Help them move through their pain by valuing their essence.
Allow them an opportunity to see their self worth through your eyes.
Envision a world without a dogmatic adherence to religion, creed, color, culture, sexuality, or nationality.
Surrender your righteousness.
United we stand, divided we fall

11 Jun 2016

Enjoy this blessed day…
I feel so full.
Yet the imagery, of a ten year old boy sitting on the beach dying from ebola sits with me. Panting; hardly able to breath, he’s sitting alone. People too afraid to touch him.
I’m with that.
It’s become a piece of me.
A part of this moment.
In this same moment my orchid is blooming for the first time in two years. Vibrant purples and pretty pinks unfolding into incomprehensibly delicate intricacies.
That little boy… long since dead.
The suffering that is happening at this very moment is happening and real.
On the shores of the Caribbean, the blue frothy waves roll in with their enchanting rhythm. Soothing the ears of those that stand near.
There are children suffering at the hands of malevolent men. Horrors too great to comprehend.
Is this too much? Hold on, it’s much more complex…
Confounding contradiction.
Pulsing polarities.
Apathies and empathies.
The sun is setting over the Arabian Sea at this very moment. The richest reds penetrating the souls of young lovers immersed in their moment. Dreaming of glorious futures filled with their beloved traditions and loved ones.
There are people mourning the premature loss of a loved one. At the same moment, as a result of the very same event, others are reawakened by the news of a matched organ allowing a future they were losing sight of.
I’ve just finished a latte. The rich creamy shot pulled to perfection. The locally sourced ice cold milk stretched to a silky, shiny, creamy texture. The simple syrup flecked plentifully with dark vanilla bean. All of this is poured together with the delicacy and perfection of a seasoned french chef.
I lost my sisters years ago.
Two, two ton masses mercilessly crashing together over a thin sheet of black ice. Michelle killed instantly, Renee dead a day later. A friend I meet years later, the first person on the scene. Without realizing the connection, he describes to me, in grizzly detail, the images that stain his psyche.
The raw face of death.
Death of hope, death of a dream, death of perceived potentials.
This friend and I made a ritual of living life to its fullest potential, riding in the rain. A declaration never declared. He understood, he’d met the grim reaper years before and slipped from his grasp.
Nothing needed to be said.
He’d lost the use of his arm.
His nerves permanently damaged, forced to set down his guitar and sell his motorcycle.
He knew how to live, he knows how to live.
Reinvented, one of the fastest master skiers in the state.
A passion for riding a bicycle in the woods whenever he could.
Fate being what fate is, his legs would meet the same fate his arm met twenty years earlier. The result of a human flying through the air with no wings. Crashing onto the icy earth with the force of an enormous falling tree. His light indomitable, refusing to be extinguished. Another loss, his bike and skis put away, vestiges of the past.
Today with the use of fantastic technology and an unprecedented raw grit and determination he walks, slides down snowy slopes, and rolls over the rolling landscape with pedals under his feet.
Again, reinvented.
You will not beat him, he is unbeatable.
I used to be at war with life, taunting and teasing the reaper. Unsettled, looking for something outside of myself to satisfy my hunger. Discovering myself, a self not defined by flesh, opened me to the stunning perfection of the place I stood that moment.
What was it like to be that little boy sitting on the beach alone? What did he understand?
This is what I know…
I’m that little boy.
I’m his pain and his fear,
I’m his confusion,
I’m filled with his essence.
An indomitable force that propels me to fantastic levels of joy.
You will not beat us, we are unbeatable!
Enjoy this blessed day.