Halves

This first half of 2015 has been both difficult and richly rewarding.  Most pain and suffering of any degree is often followed by a period of understanding and learning.  In all of this one finds love, forgiveness through understanding and compassion, connection and new levels of self-awareness.  I have learned and more fully experienced how everyone that comes into my life is a gift, an opportunity, a blessing, even though I may not see that for a while or immediately welcome this difficulty as Rumi asks us to do in his poem The Guesthouse.  One of my recently discovered treasures is Tara Brach's book Radical Acceptance which has taught me so much.  I have been working with an Internal Family Systems therapist and we have done some deep inner work.  I have come to learn that our deepest core issues will continue to revisit us and require that we pay close attention and homage to their often unwelcome offerings which we may not recognize as such initially.  "We take refuge in the Buddha (Real self), the dharma (our path), and the sangha (our connections)." The parallels in Buddhism, Shamanism, Internal Family Systems, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the teachings of BKS Iyengar and of course many more are striking, like bolts of lightening that illuminate our many pathways and demand our onward march with a powerful force that cannot be brushed aside.  If we ignore our painful emotions we bypass richly rewarding opportunities.  If we dig and explore, doors open and treasures are found.

"Teotihuacan can be translated, 'The Place Where Human Beings Discover God Within.'  Every stone of this sacred ceremonial site has been infused with powerful transformational energies that begin to reawaken our capacity for greater life and happiness in our very cells, from the moment we arrive.  Many people experience this transformation even before they arrive:  old issues, unhealed wounds, and unnamed feelings begin to arise in our lives in the weeks leading up to the journey, so that we can bring our loving-kindness and healing attention to them.  Some people even experience a physical detoxification.  I encourage you to allow and trust this process without struggling too hard to analyze it, simply take loving care of yourself, and give yourself a little quiet time to journal, reflect, or enjoy supportive time with friends.  Teotihuacan is a place of rebirth; like the mythical serpent Quetzalcoatl, we have the opportunity to shed the skin of our old stories about limitations and wounds, and grow new wings of self-love and vision.  Set an intention for your own transformation and rebirth as you near the journey, and that intention will be the most valuable thing you can bring with you."  Hunter Flournoy, owner Spirit Journeys, Shaman, psychotherapist, healer, leader and workshop/retreat facilitator and more...

I had a dream that I was pregnant.  (Giving birth to a new aspect of myself, a beginning, a discovery or nurturing of Self, inner growth)....

In the yard I found a heart-shaped stone with a white line through the middle of it that has since mysteriously disappeared.  Sometimes our hearts have to be ripped open or become inflamed with excruciating pain before we can allow ourselves to really feel our inner wounds and allow healing to begin and this process repeats itself over and over again as we journey ahead.  In his book Mastery of Love, Don Miguel Ruiz discusses relationships and how each relationship we have in this world is unique and different from any other and the important lesson that we cannot change others, only ourselves.  Love is nonobligatory, fear closes doors.  Each relationship has two parts, yours and theirs.  When we truly love ourselves, we do not allow others to take advantage of us.  It is so easy to get ensnared, as Brach discusses, in the "trance of unworthiness" and get hypnotized by our own wounds and fears.

I swear the hummingbirds seek me out when the feeder has gone dry.  I laughed until I had tears when I told Brendan that I saw a bee that had found his way into the sugar water and was drowning with no escape and how I not only rescued him, but also washed him off with filtered water so he wouldn't dry and be coated with a stickiness.  Symbolically, I didn't want him stuck, just as I want to rescue myself when I am stuck and on the brink.  An important lesson I learn over and over again is to Pause, Reflect, Focus on the body while very quiet, breathe with intention and discipline, feel where in the body there might be some manifestation.  Listen, acknowledge, accept.

It is all the stuff of Dreams and we are all dreaming.

In one of our webinars Hunter has mentioned that some people want to be able to see auras and spirits which is not something I wish for, although I think I understand the longing.  Why would one want to see a spirit when you can look out onto the landscape and see real clouds, trees, grasses, people, birds that you can hear, see, touch and feel.  Why want to see someone's aura when you can explore your relationship with that person and learn if there is a extraordinary connection that transcends language?  Of course I understand that seeing spirits and auras is a gift, and like grace, if it comes, welcome it; if you want it, ask for it, but then pause and wait and have no expectation.  You never know what may arise, or as Hunter says, when you are carefully watching for something to come to you through the front door, it may very well have come in the back door and has been with you all the while.

The second half of 2015 begins with a journey to the ancient pyramids of Teotihuacan near Mexico City with Spirit Journeys, a trip I will be making without Dale, mid-July.  In November, with Overseas Adventure Travel, Dale and I will be staying in small inns (paradores and pousadas) throughout the countryside of Spain and Portugal for several weeks.

The beautiful heart shaped stone with a line dividing it into halves speaks to me and I just found it.

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Imprints

In earlier posts I mentioned being somewhat controlled in recent months by an anger that I simply could not shake off.  This anger was triggered by another person's behavior, and I did not like this behavior and desperately wanted the behavior to change.  Quite often, on the surface, that is what anger is about--control, policing, wanting things to be other than what they are.  I have believed and espoused the philosophy of acceptance, of profound, unconditional acceptance of things as they are, things that we are powerless to change, for a long time. This includes everything from terrorism and war to domestic violence to things that are closer to home, such as someone we love and care about behaving in an inappropriate manner towards us, or in our presence, oftentimes quite unintentionally or unknowingly.  Sometimes this "misbehavior" can trigger deep feelings of anger, sadness, anxiety, or not. Sometimes we can simply say to ourselves that we know deep down we have no control and we accept this and let go.  However, there are, for me, those very rare times when the anger persists, I just can't seem to overcome it, I cannot seem to detach from it.  So I have work to do.  I can analyze this situation as much as I want, I can understand the situation as much as possible, I can communicate all this to others, breathe into it, meditate upon it, but if the feeling doesn't dissipate then something is certainly going on at a much deeper level that needs further exploration.  It can be empowering to appropriately express our anger, and this is good; however, it doesn't guarantee the anger will go away.  Reaching out to others is nearly always helpful so long as we reach out to someone we intuitively trust and believe in.  So one theory is that the physical manifestation of this anger has shown up in my body as costochondritis, which is an inflammation of the connective tissue of the ribs to the sternum.  Right there where the heart resides.  And it hurts and radiates pain. Always there is something to learn from pain, whether it be physical or mental .  Having exhausted the offerings of western medicine, which has definitely offered a great deal of relief through the taking of anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS), applying some of the ayurvedic techniques I am aware of (arnica both topically and orally, neem, ginseng, ashwagandha, chyawanprash, trikatu, tumeric...), I decided to turn elsewhere.  I have had some intensely powerful experiences in the past when I've connected to people who are either studying or practicing Shamanism.  There are many different kinds of practices out there just as  there are many different practices dealing with spirituality, yoga, and so on.   At the Bodhi Zen Center several years ago I worked with Hunter Flournoy, Wolf Martinez and David Moreno in a week long workshop that was one of the most powerful and wonderful experiences of my life.  I scheduled a session through the Austin Shamanic Center yesterday and indeed had a very powerful and cathartic experience in my private session.  I won't go into all the details, and the verdict is out on whether healing has been expedited, but at any rate I want to write some of my experience about that in this blog.  After discussing this anger issue and some of the things that have been going on in my life in recent weeks and months, the healer asked me how any of this might relate to the area around my heart?  Did something happen either recently or at any time in your life having to do with your sternum, your heart area?  This is when chills simultaneously shot through her body and my body because we were approaching something deep.  Tears welled up and my voice broke as I recalled the time when I was a young boy and there was an incident I have not thought about or talked about in a long, long time.  One morning we, meaning my family, were gathered in our living room.  The master bedroom was an adjacent room.  All was calm on the surface when suddenly a gun was fired in the bedroom where my father was sleeping.  It was a horrifying sound and there was no doubt it was the silver colored .22 pistol with the flesh colored handle  that was always kept loaded in the upper drawer of a bureau that had been discharged. The sound alone, with its many connotations and repercussions, rang terror deep within my being.  I was probably 7 or 8 years of age.  We ran into the room and my father was standing there with his hands covering his heart, then he collapsed face down on the bed, dying from a self-inflicted gunshot wound right into his heart.  It was a total nightmare, at least for as long as we believed it.  We were all sobbing and screaming and holding on to him.  It is hard to relive such memories.  As it turns out, he had not shot himself, it was all a game, a pretense, a form of manipulation, and probably a cry for help on his part.  Although greatly relieved that he had discharged the pistol through the wall above the bureau and not through his heart, no doubt the subsequent anger and hate I felt for him grew even more intense with no way whatsoever of knowing what to do about it.  I was of course at that age totally powerless.  It is possible that this "imprint" is still with me.  It is possible that when I recently observed/experienced someone I care about frequently doing something that I believed wholly inappropriate that these deep feelings of anger kept trying to come to the surface, but instead they got stuck in the heart center, the heart chakra, the seat of the soul (and other chakras as well).  The Shaman decided on a course of action and proceeded with a ritualistic cleansing, an unblocking of the chakras, a calling upon my deepest self to release this anger, to release the caged boy pounding on the walls of a glass box, summoning the spiritual elements to come to my aid and release me from this imprint upon my heart region.  It was powerful and intense and at a climatic/pivotal moment deep into the ceremony her Akita Inu came running into the room, jumped up on the massage table and licked away my tears, literally.  Quite empathetic.  Quite mysterious.

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Postscript:  On May 4, 2015, I sent the following email to Christina at Austin Shamanic Center:

Hi Christina,

It has not been a week since our session, but my chest pain/sensation has nearly completely
disappeared.  It didn't happen overnight, but I particularly noticed a change on Saturday with a slight
itch.  Then on Sunday, yesterday, my heart region (on the outside) began to itch more, and the slight
itchy, tingling sensation went downward towards my lower abdomen, but completely on the surface
of the skin (seemingly).  The itch was pretty intense last night, right over the sternum, but today it is
almost completely gone.  I am so happy about this.  Thank you for your incredible work.

best, ron

Bees in Trees, Monks in Monasteries

Along with the cleansing rains come loud claps of thunder and bright bolts of lightening.  Mikio barks at the thunder then retreats to his security blanket that allows him to hide his head under the bed.  The cats are not bothered at all as they sit atop chairs in front of windows gazing out.  It is lush and green outside and smells ever so organically earthy.  I'm sitting here wondering when the hell this costa (rib) inflammation will heal.  This is my first experience with costochondritis and while it's quite common and not serious, it does hurt and restricts my activity.  I have no problem going through an hour or two of a relatively vigorous asana practice, but a few hours later and for perhaps the following 24 hours or so the pain in my chest is pretty intense and radiates outward.  It is difficult to sleep, a problem I've not experienced in many years.  At times it can be hard to breathe.  From everything I've read, this condition is quite often classified as "cause unknown."  Rest, NSAIDS, and that's about it.  Appropriate stretching whatever that is, I'm not sure.  Ice, heat, arnica.  Wait. Prognosis: very good.  So I just finished reading the story of Sarita Kenedy East whom I've heard of for many years, and her close association with the Trappist monk Brother Leo. Absolutely fascinating reading about South Texas politics, corruption, abuse of power, manipulation, greed, history, lawyers and more lawyers and one of the largest ranches in South Texas that sits atop an ocean of oil and gas. I have actually met some of the characters in the book in real life, which adds to the interest.  "If You Love Me You Will Do My Will" written by Stephen G. Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth.  I found the book so engrossing that I started on Broleo - The Wayward Monk by Marshall Boykin with an introduction by Frances Tarlton Farenthold.  This is the biography of the the Trappist Monk Brother Leo who played a significant role in Sarita Kenedy East's life, the formation of her foundation and the many years of litigation that followed her death.  When I was growing up, especially in the summer months, I would spend a lot of time at the local library which was built by the Dougherty Family.  For me, it was a place of refuge, of solitude, of withdrawal inward away from the hot Texas summer heat and boredom.  Years later, Stephen Dougherty mentioned Brother Leo to me on several occasions as well as his recommended visits to a Trappist Monastery in Argentina and/or Chile.  I didn't realize the extent of Stephen or his dad's relationship to Brother Leo until I began reading the book.  Stephen is an extraordinary person, kind, generous, humble and yet eccentric, and he gave me a fair amount of his time during my conversion to Catholicism after my many stays at the Benedictine Monastery of Christ in the Desert near Abiquiu, New Mexico.  He is now a Father of the Church (Priest).

I am sitting under a stand of trees next to a bird bath.  There seem to be bees everywhere, but we cannot figure out where they are coming from.   We continue to investigate.  The tree is old and the bees have colonized inside the tree.  As I continue looking I see an opening in the tree and inside the tree is an elaborately carved statue.  It is hard to tell if the statue within the tree is a natural formation in the tree or if it was carved from the tree itself or if it was placed inside the tree.  Is this the god the bees are worshiping?  There is a strong element of nature in all this, an element of mystery.    I am reminded that I am reading all about monastic life which certainly has parallels to the bees in the trees with the statue symbolism.  Hard work, coming together communally, building a life based on rules and rituals, a place of sanctuary and worship, a place to perhaps find oneself, a path or journey towards one's own authenticity.  There is a parallel between the contemplative life (colony) within the monastery (tree), the worship of the Trinity (statuary) and the life that goes on outside the place of sanctuary and solitude among the "lay" people. The Desert Fathers that follow the rule of St. Benedict are not a lot different from the bees in the trees.  As one sits underneath trees, is this not a common metaphor for bliss, for transformation, for contemplation?  I think so, for example Buddha and the Bodhi Tree.  And so, I wonder, why this inflammation of my connective tissue of the ribs to the sternum?  It has slowed me down.  Behind this inflammation, this fire within, resides the seat of being, the heart.   I'm staying as open as I can.   Somewhere there is a deep blessing.

Segregated Thought Patterns and Emotions Whose Interplay Disallow Awareness

I see a wall of darkness, black space, and nothing else except the following:  contained within or upon this dark wall in the upper half, perhaps not centered but positioned to the left of center, is a small box, a rectangle. It is not black, but it is abstract and very much in contrast to the blackness. What it is becomes abundantly clear--it is anger.  My anger.  I get the message loud and clear--go there and explore this anger.

So...I have been dealing with a lot of anger lately and although the ride has been rough and rocky, I know I have to face this difficult emotion head on and process it, learn from it, examine it, feel it.  I know that if I don't do these things, the anger will linger, it will fluctuate, it will sneak up on me and push me around and control me in ways I do not like.  So why this anger?  Where is it coming from? What is triggering it?  Always begin at the beginning.  When you grow up in a home where there is both physical and psychological abuse, alcoholism, and an abundance of crazy anger and, at times, utter chaos, it is not a lot different from suffering from PTSD.  Your psyche ends up being bruised and beaten, and if you continue acting out the cycle you end up living the life you inherited from your parents (or one that maintains many of the same dysfunctional characteristics).  You have to break out of all these patterns that you have observed since birth.  You have to spend years unlearning behaviors that played a significant role in your formation as a personality.  No matter how much success you have achieved in doing this, how liberated you have become from the chains of your past, no matter how deep you have delved into it all, there is always some scar tissue left that can get peeled back leaving you feeling raw and vulnerable and flooded with emotions, anger certainly being one of them.

I am always surprised when people tell me that they perceive of me as a sweet, soft spoken person with a gentle nature, a big heart.  If this perception of me is true of most people, then clearly I am putting out a vibe of vulnerability.  This can be good because I find people wanting to confide in me, and trusting me, and for some inexplicable reason aggressive bully types tend to keep away.  Every once in a while someone will come along who senses all this and will latch on to me and before I thoroughly realize it, I am being subtly manipulated, acted out upon (including sexual misconduct and inappropriate promiscuity), being used like a sponge to absorb a multitude of negative outlooks, dissatisfactions, criticisms of others, persistent pessimism, countless complaints and unwavering whining.  I find myself somewhat unwillingly (mea culpa) playing the role of arbitrator, playing the role of caretaker, playing the role of therapist, of the one who listens but doesn't get listened to.  In other words, relationships in which there is no reciprocity.  In actuality, this can be a good thing for both of us if I am interacting with someone who has a strong sense of who they are, they have self-awareness and have gained, through work, a certain self-mastery over their issues.  But every once in a while, less and less often as I mature, someone will come along who has been so long in the habit of disguising themselves not only from others, but disguising themselves from themselves, that their actions begin to slowly unravel before me and I see an inner chaos, an inner being that is in many lost in knowing how to be in the world, how to behave in an appropriate, loving, caring manner, in a respectful and responsible manner.  Often these people have really big, sweet, gentle natures, but all too often it is a masquerade.  They crave intimate attention and intimate connection but when it comes down to it, they are like lost lambs.  Sweet lambs get eaten by their own inner wolf, with whom they have not confronted, and show up again as a wolf in sheepskin rather than a lamb who has tamed the wolf.  Perhaps that is a strange metaphor.    In essence, they have not done much work.  This may not be from not trying, this is not always clear to me.  Perhaps the damage is so severe that all they can do is try.  Perhaps doors haven't opened or perhaps they have been afraid to open doors.  These are not bad people, they are people that are doing what they learned from childhood.  But, as I have written before, they can wreak a lot of chaos in their relationships with others.  Intentional or unintentional, you learn over time that they haven't really ever listened to you, they haven't actually heard much of anything you said, they don't really know you at all because all the while they have been held hostage to their own segregated thought patterns and emotions whose self interplay disallows the ability to truly connect with others and with self.  It can be quite shocking when you learn they haven't been listening to you for months, for years.  They throw out bits and pieces that leave you dumbfounded.  You suddenly begin to see with clarity this false self that has been in control of them most of the time.  You witness their inappropriate behavior that repeats itself like a broken record and yet they are clearly incapable of doing anything about it.  There is a great sadness to be a witness to this, but this is life and one must learn that there is much that is beyond us to change in others.  We can accept this, we can vainly try to change it, we can walk away from it after giving our all.

A stranger with a big smile on his face wearing rather ragged clothes walked up to me in the parking lot as I was leading my dog to the car.  We stopped and as Mikio began smelling this man's leg, he reached into his pocket.  Don't worry, he said to Mikio, I will not harm your master.  (No, he was not reaching for a gun).  He pulled out a card that he handed to me.  It was the identification of a six pound Chihuahua!  Really.  He is my guide dog, he informed me.  I suffer from PTSD, and when I begin having a flashback, he goes into action and pulls me out of it and into the moment.  He told me that while in the grocery store, for example, if he heard someone arguing he had to leave the situation immediately because of the flood of overwhelming emotions that arise, that get triggered. The same thing used to happen to me I told him.  I understand the fear.   I truly understand.  I leave with a sense of sadness and at the same time a sense of triumph.  We can overcome through understanding, forgiveness of others and self, and through the development of a strong sense of awareness.  

The Aggressive Badger and the Transparency of Our Foibles

For the most part I find my interactions with others in my world of relationships to be better than it has ever been my whole life! Maybe this comes from decades of study, of falling down over and over again and getting back up, of digging deep into the darkness hiding the soul and learning to say hello, come here into the light and be known, fully and completely.  Decades of exploration with the help of others in this endless process of self-examination and self-study does have rewards.  Keen observation not only of oneself but of others, and of relationships with others, can bring us to a place of much deeper understanding.  When we see our mistakes, our errors, and work hard to improve ourselves, we will grow, even if by baby steps.  Most of these relationships in recent years are through my practice of yoga, and I find people to be fun, engaging, inspiring, loving, gentle, caring, respectful.  Community is so very important, in fact, critically important.  In so many ways it is how we find our way in the world, it is how we transition from one phase to another, it is how we grow and learn, it is how we move into those exquisite facets of transformation that sparkle ever so brightly and lead us closer to the light of life and self.  Much of this process can be difficult and painful, and while we are in it we may have no idea what lessons we are learning, but learning we are.  If we can remain open, we find ourselves surrounded by teachers in the form of people, nature, animals, dreams, books, events, coincidences, and so on.  But what I want to write about now are those rare interactions that are pretty much the opposite of all the things I have above described.  I'm not talking about people that are inherently bad or evil, absolutely not.  What I am referring to are those people who live their lives and interact with others completely unaware of their negativity, unaware that their own darkness, which they seem to never or rarely have explored, can impact others.  You can observe that it is inevitable that you will encounter people that are carrying a load of manure that they themselves are unaware of.  When this happens, you have choices.  You can allow the psychic smell to overwhelm you or you can wisely step far enough away so that you are able to observe all that is going on from a healthy distance, have some understanding and compassion, but know that the maintenance of a certain boundary and detachment is by far your best decision.  We are not acting in our self interests, or in the interests of others if we allow ourselves to fully engage in their stuff or get pulled in too close to their vortex of disorganization and chaos.  Sometimes I think these encounters, as difficult and as challenging as they may be, are the ones that are presented to us for the very purpose of letting us know that we need to always be diligent in our work, we cannot become lazy, we must continuously ask ourselves if we are up to task, if we are prepared to deal with those inevitable situations in life that are going to test us, to challenge us, to force us to repeatedly awaken to the many dimensions of reality, to the many aspects of what it is like to be human living in the here and now.  Sometimes it may be best to dive deep into the dark waters, feel the panic, feel what it is like to be unable to breath, but to hold on long enough to discover that we can emerge cleansed, spiritually refreshed, newly awakened, newly transformed. 

I dreamt that the dirt surrounding the perimeter of the foundation of my house (my deeper self, my core) was being dug up by a badger (someone has truly been badgering me).  The foundation remained fully intact, but there was a single rock that had been disturbed and there was a small hole the badger had made.  The disturbance was totally superficial but it nevertheless called upon me to put the rock back in place so the badger could no longer enter.  My neighbors appeared and didn't want to talk about this seemingly insignificant event, but rather they wanted to tell me that the person across the street had been parading around outside totally naked.  I looked up to see a friend of mine walking down the street, naked, and we waved at one another.  I was not concerned with this at all.  Then I was told that a colleague of mine was in the hospital, in intensive care, after having been involved in an accident.  This caused me to be concerned, and I realized that was where my focus needed to be directed.  I understand the dream fully, I believe, and it parallels exactly what has currently been happening in my life.  Seeing a person naked and being unconcerned about it can mean that you see right through a person and what they are doing, how they are behaving.  There is a transparency that you can see even though they may be blind to themselves and their actions.  Badgers can represent those people that run interference in your life, cause some little disturbances, but you know exactly what to do to resolve the problem.  Your foundation is solid, and all you do is put your solid rock back in place and the issue disappears.  But, to have a person that you care about deeply, a teacher that you both respect and admire, suddenly be in hospital, well, what does that mean?   I think that the neighbors in my dreams were aspects of myself telling me to turn my focus back to those sources that provide me with health, with care, with nurturing, and from this one can stay the course towards healing which is never ending.

There will always be challenges, disturbances, annoyances, things that seem to want to rock our very foundation, but often these things are in fact pretty minor, and if we can see through them and see exactly who and what they are, have a clearness and clarity of sight, we can return to being "un-badgered" and turn back to the aspects or people in our lives that bring us good health and healing, that teach us good things, that help us examine who we are and how are we treating ourselves, how are we treating others. 

Yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured and endure what cannot be cured.
     B.K.S. Iyengar


"Had I not seen these things in myself, would I ever have seen them in others?"
      Anonymous


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