Most nights before bed I walk a well worn path into the woods where the animals gather and I deposit

mounds of food here and there.  I go to the edge, turn around, and begin my food distribution on my return to the house.  My flashlight may catch the glowing eyes of a deer before he thunders away into the darkness or a pair of shiny raccoon eyes looking my way.  Sometimes a fox.  Most unique of all is this:  there is a tiny but exceedingly bright light that sometimes catches the rays from my flashlight and sparkles brilliantly like a star that has fallen to earth.  Is that a diamond, or some precious jewel that someone lost long ago?  Much to my surprise, over and over again when I follow the reflected rays I come upon the same creature--a small grey spider, facing my direction.  She makes her appearance in mysterious ways and in many locations but always like a shining star on the ground, in the grasses, quiet and still, looking at me.  I marvel at how her eyes can create this brilliant burst of color that I can see from so very far away.  When I get close enough to see her, the brightness dissipates completely as her little grey body comes into view.  I could reach down and touch her but that is not to be done.  It is said that Grandmother Spider weaves the fabric of the universe that holds everything together.  My youngest sister died this week alone in her bed.  My brother found her in the morning.  I feel sad, and angry, but this death comes as no surprise.  As her son told me, he has been expecting this for most of his life.  She was 52 and my nephew is 21.  I could criticize and condemn her behaviors, her lifestyle, but couldn't I just as easily have followed a similar life of addiction, of living deep in shadow, afraid of my own light?  I think that's very possible, so when judgments form in my mind I try to stop myself and let the feelings come up.  Are we not all connected and reflections of one another?  I am no better, I am only lucky that somewhere, somehow some healing choices came my way and for whatever reasons, no matter, I grabbed a hold of them and took a different journey.   Still, I am not immune to disease, tragedy, or death.  She lived her life the way she chose and don't we all want the freedoms to live the way we want, not tethered to cultural norms and societal rules that make no sense to us?  The pain and consequences we inflict on others cannot, perhaps, be justified, but knowingly or unknowingly, we are tools, we are instruments of a vast and diverse universe that is composed of expressions that are unique and infinite.  All stars eventually burn out.  Hers was an especially bright one, oftentimes blinding.  May you rest in peace, Amy.  You will be missed by many.   

Blue Horses

Something about horses arises, almost daily.  Mary Oliver writes about stepping into Marc Franz's painting of four blue horses.  I marvel at his work--bright primary colors depicting horses, cows, foxes, cats.  German Expressionism.  I marvel at Mary Oliver and how she expresses her observations of the natural world through her poetry and essays.  I book a riding lesson at Silver Fox Farms with Colleen.  The drive is beautiful, the horse and I make circles in the arena, walking, trotting.  An English saddle and very different from what I know and I like it but long to be set free on an open trail.  The detailed instruction reminds me of Iyengar Yoga--use your core, press down through your heels, keep your shins in and against the body of the horse, don't cross your hands, elbows in, look straight ahead, not down, don't lean forward, keep your spine erect.  It's cold and drizzling, then later the snow comes dancing down in the dark as we rush to bring in selected plants.  The neighbor lady honks at her horses and I begin practicing the first four steps of nine in the Enneagram of Letting Go--see it, say it, sense it, stay with it.  Then, relax, respire, reconnect, reframe.  Presence.  Those pesky little hooks can grab me in an instant and I'm off and galloping into non-reality.  Of late I've been seeing a young therapist with thick hair cropped close to the skin on the sides and in the back of his head.  The most beautiful teeth I've ever seen.  There is a dance being taught and learned--how to engage and tango with Essence.  There is discipline in this.  We work with Meredith and follow her instructions on Chinese yoga, movement, breath, chi, yin and yang.  My muscles ache.  On Wednesdays I place my mat close to the heart chakra quartz crystal singing bowl and feel the vibrations resonating deep within.  Jan's east Texas voice soothes and the long sound of her esses is sweet.  Dixie tells me she has been spending time with Light On Yoga and I tell her that Anne has been teaching the road to malasana and other asanas on the syllabus.  The Christmas tree is up and the decorations are out, presents are wrapped, plans are in the works. I've had nightly visits from raccoons, a fox, a beautiful skunk, and the mysterious buck that somehow manages to come and go as he pleases despite the seven and a half foot fence that apparently is not an obstacle.  How glorious to gracefully leap over the many obstacles that block our path!

Go Out and Let Your Hearts Get Broken

 "Go out and get your hearts broken," Hunter advised.  "Reach out for those things that will awaken you, know that your deepest cravings are usually not for what you think you want, but for those things that your heart knows you need.  Your deepest fears and your darkest abysses are there to awaken you to a thousand moments of enlightenment.  Go there no matter how much you tremble and quiver."
*****
I had a dream that Hilary Clinton was dead, and her body lay on a gurney.  Hunched over her on the verge of dissecting her was Donald Trump.  The collective corpus of the majority of voters have felt defeat, this broad body of learned folks stunned into disbelief, reaching out to one another through comforting emails, published stories, reciting words of wisdom, gathering together to rally and march.  Will something good or even great come from all this?
*****
Within the complex mythology of the Aztecs, one can extract the story of Nanautzin, a god who eventually leaped into a giant fire and became the sun of the fifth kingdom.  This god was known for his humility, for his many wounds, his "sores".   Because he had lived such a privileged life and been given everything he ever wanted or needed (brings to mind the Buddha), he could not understand the deep feelings that surfaced for him when he was denied access to the envied fruit (gourd) of a grand tree.  This brought on suffering and pain which he had never before experienced, and he discovered that through these sorrows he gained a far greater understanding of the the world, he understood and felt compassion, and love, and the many rewards that can be reaped from the healing of wounds.  We are encouraged by this to open our hearts to the world, live fully and experience all that comes our way without erecting barriers.  Yes, our hearts will be broken over and over again, but the heart is designed to withstand all this pain and sorrow and move us forward into lives of  heartfelt living.  This story resonated with me on several levels.  We are often attracted to those things we don't have, or cannot have, and this tends to make our desires to own, possess, feel, touch these things even more pronounced.  Then, often, when we get "them" we only experience a temporary reprieve from our deepest longings..
****
I opened my heart as best as I could while at the ruins of Teotihuacan with no expectation as to what, if anything, might come my way.  The energy of the sacred place was palatable, the sky and the trees seemed to reach out to me and embrace me in profound ways.  There was indeed magic.  But on this particular retreat, the magic of the place was greatly enhanced by the magic of the many folks I encountered, from the celebratory mass at The Dreaming House followed by festive dancing to the warm embrace of a young man whose skin was softer than the skin of an infant.  He was a fellow retreatant who felt such fear and temerity that unbeknownst to me or anyone else he was on the verge of secretly hopping in a cab and making his way to the airport when I knocked on his door to say hello and let him know that I could see him struggling through the group sessions, I could see and feel his discomfort and was there anything I could do?  This is the moment when hearts opened wide and surrendered to connection.
****
Earlier this week, on my yearly drive to see my psychiatrist I noticed an unusually large buck standing on a hillock overlooking Ranch Road 12, and as I gazed in my rear view mirror I could see a doe standing on the edge of the pavement, probably getting ready to cross to the other side.  I began flashing my lights on and off to the cars heading in that direction and I could feel a sinking in my heart.  On my return trip as I approached this same spot, I noticed several vehicles pulled to the side of the road and I saw a man walking along the edge of the road with his cell phone in hand, and there, lying at the edge of the road where asphalt meets native grasses lay the majestic buck in a pool of blood with his proud horns reaching skyward, symbolizing his strength and prowess, his maturity, and his instinctive determination to follow the doe no matter the consequences.
****
The greatest threat to adults over the age of 65 is heart disease. Our hearts beat as much as 60,000 to 115,000 times a day, and pump 6 quarts of blood through about 12,000 miles of vessels, arteries, and capillaries every day.  In the womb, our hearts are the first organ to form.  We are made up of hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon, the most abundant materials in the universe.  We are the stuff of stars and galaxies.  We are made of more than 35 trillion cells.  Multiply that number by 10 and you get an estimate of the number of microbial cells in/on our bodies.
****
My house guest from several years ago spent much of his time looking for a house to buy in this area so that he could have some land for horses, a good studio space to paint, a permanent home in the country to go with his new job in Austin as a Physical Therapist, and hopefully find something deep inside that was missing from his life.   Things did not go well for him and after less than a year he put his house up for sale and returned from whence he came.  During my short-term, complex relationship with this man he confided in me things he said he had never told anyone before, ever.  The profound childhood abuse he suffered for many years at the hands of his father and older brother was almost as difficult for him to think about as it was to talk about.  Very deep, dark, unrevealed secrets that had only been revealed once?  to me?  from this man in his 50's?  I began seeing disturbances in his behavior that were the result of never processing such trauma, never allowing such deep anguish to come into the light of day.  I cried out loud for him.  I screamed, I wrote, I spoke, and I prodded him to seek healing, but this was not to be.  In hindsight, I was perhaps trying to intervene where I should not have.  Last Fall he had open heart surgery to replace his mitral valve.  Last week he took his own life rather than face the darkness that manifested itself physically in his broken heart.  Such sadness I feel.
****
And so I will always remember Hunter telling the group, "go out and get your hearts broken."  Reach out for those things that will awaken you, know that your deepest cravings are usually not for what you think you want, but for those things that your heart knows you need.  Your deepest fears and your darkest abysses are there to awaken you to a thousand moments of enlightenment.  

For me Easter was walking my dog along a quiet trail and suddenly hearing the extraordinarily vibrant singing of a mockingbird and being totally captivated by his music, the range of notes, the tonality, the pitch, the celebration, the pure sound of Nature.  I stood there and closed my eyes and felt the vibration, the joy, the magic flowing through me.  It was profound connection.  The simplicity of it all washed through me leaving me feeling blessed and cleansed.  I smiled, thanked her, and left her alone to sing her Song, our Song.  

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.

.

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.

******************
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.