In 2010, I received Word/intuition that it was time to journey inward for awhile. In October, I drew the boundary and started the journey in earnest. It has been amazing, slow, fast, mind-blowing, mind-numbing, and routine at various times, and sometimes many of the above at the same time. I also received Word/intuition that although the journey itself doesn’t end, the time of “hermitage”, so to say, can be let go in Spring of 2012.

Whatever will I do with myself? I find I don’t want to answer that question. Perhaps not wanting to answer is a good thing, a healthier response than past reactions of planning things to the nth degree, which was mostly an attempt to control everything out of fear of the unknown.

The journey continues through this dry Texas heat, this season of wildfires. I try not to let myself get too spun up by worry for the health of the land and its beings. The pain & suffering is real, but also these cycles of dryness and conflagration have happened time and time again. In the meantime I conserve water tightly. I take good care of the plants and the domestic & wild animals around me. I cherish those souls who are sticking around despite my dearth of social outreach lately. And I continue listening, and developing what I intuit/Receive.

One day Mara, the Evil One, was travelling through the villages of India with his attendants. He espied a man doing walking meditation, whose face was lit up in wonder. The man had just discovered something on the ground in front of him. Mara’s attendant asked what that was and Mara replied, “A piece of truth.”

“Doesn’t this bother you when someone finds a piece of truth, O Evil One?” his attendant asked. “No,” Mara replied. “Right after this, they usually make a belief out of it.”  – from The Ten Very Best Zen Stories

I love this story. And since a recent, intense health scare, it’s a story I keep very close to heart as a reminder that all the fascinating inner truths and realizations since the hospitalization must be experienced as they come, and most importantly, let go. To change any of those truths into beliefs is to set that truth in stone. An ossified truth is no longer a truth, it is a grave marker, no longer a living, breathing, true thing.

Truth is being, and being changes.

Let me know if I can be any more cryptic or confusing. It’s just an amazing time I’m going through at the moment, and I’m doing my level best not to hold on tightly to any one precious thing.

Let me dig into the concept of practicing compassion: at least, how it works for me. Oh, I’ve read many different articles and books on the practice of compassion, and yes, they explain how. But the reality? It’s much more than a simple sentence of “try to find the good in everyone”. It’s more like a gut-wrenching, dig-down-deep, fuck-I-hate-what-this-person-is-saying/doing, dig-down-deeper to get a feel of where they might be coming from. And by gosh-golly, guess what – if I look just a little harder, I can see where I do/have done that same annoying thing, too. I can see the pain/fear where these annoying things stem from. This practice, it can feel as physically taxing as picking up a shovel and digging a 3-foot deep hole in the ground. It’s WORK, people!  It’s not the “think nice thoughts” kind of thing, no. That’s only surface, and perhaps if you’re new to the practice, it’s as good a place as any to start. But soon you’ll find that the “think nice thoughts” is being done behind clenched teeth, that you’re not really feeling any compassion, just giving yourself some self-righteous mind-fuckery. That’s when the Practice, the Work begins.

And compassion? It doesn’t mean finding the means to let people walk all over you. At this point in my practice, it’s about finding the common humanity so I can react from a place of recognition and ease instead of knee-jerk reaction: “I know what you’re doing. We all do it. I do it too. But that does not mean I’m willing to be abused for that recognition. ‘Here’ is the boundary. ‘That’ is the expected behavior to work through this with me. Be at peace.” No clenched teeth. No seething. I am at peace, too.

Compassion: it’s a practice, and a fucking pain in the ego/ass. And it’s part of the Work.

As it set in the night, sinking down to the horizon, its light flowed through my bedroom window. How is it that last night, when I was feeling so low, the Moon brought such comfort? Perhaps because it simply IS. There is no judgment, no praise, just ever-presence.

The Moon’s light felt as though it had weight, blanketing my exposed skin and face. I let it hold me. I relaxed into the moment, and let myself finally drift to sleep.

The current cycle of work finished on the Fall Equinox. One last person was escorted to the Gates of the Tradition I practice, where he crossed the threshold and became an initiate. Thus begins his new journey of tapping directly into the life force within the energetic pathways of this Tradition, and thus begins mine down a different road.

What I sometimes call “the Gods”, other times “brain chemicals”, has let it be known that the next few years is where my own work will have the opportunity to change. One area that feels imperative to change is the amount of media I currently consume. Not so much television or radio – I much prefer silence in the house – but email lists, blogs, and news feeds. Social media. “Good” or “bad”, it doesn’t matter. It’s time to distill down to the bare minimum.

In some ways, I don’t want to let go of all those lists and feeds. What if I miss something important? Social media is also a way to help me feel less isolated here in the country, a way in which I remember how to talk to human adults. Letting go of some, however, doesn’t mean I have to let go of all. But it’s hard to remember that at times. I think I fear the void that will appear once all those distractions are gone. I’ll have to be more with myself (good thing I enjoy my own company), and more available to currents of this new work, of shifting & healing self, others, planetary beings/elements and the planet itself. It’s big work, and fucking scary to view in its entirety.

So. Time to step into the fear, and time to purge.

Days have seemed more luminous lately. It’s not just the change in season. People seem to have a soft glow about them as well. I sense the fragility and goodness at the heart of each, in spite of how pain can curl a person’s outer interactions into rudeness or callousness. Even today, which was a difficult day, there was luminosity and goodness all around, no matter how cranky or negative my thoughts wanted to become.

I wonder when I have days like this, experiencing this goodness and beauty. Have the brain chemicals been altered somehow? Did I eat or do something different to change my vision? Has the years of spiritual “work” led to this? Or is this being “touched by grace”, a gift from a Higher Being? I supposed it doesn’t do much good to think too hard about it. Perhaps it is enough to simply enjoy and feel the gratitude that comes from this experience.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from all the bally-hoo’d recent astrological drama – mind you, “the stars impel, they don’t compel” as someone once said – it’s that there’s no more room for senseless anger. “Senseless” in the meaning of, say, that free-floating rage I can get on the freeway, as if every driver out there is looking to piss me off personally. Or of unconsciously picking up media messages saying that I’m “less than” if I don’t use their product. Or incorporating the Calvinist notion that if I’m not busy-busy-busy, I must be slacking, and slacking of any sort means I’m lazy, and lazy equates to bad or evil. Or how about this: getting caught up in “us” versus “them”, and how can “those” thoughts/beliefs/people be so ignorant, willfully rude, or lack such common sense?

Can’t you feel your shoulders starting to tighten just thinking about these things?

I’ve known intellectually, for quite awhile,  that this sort of anger is senseless, it doesn’t serve me, it’s a waste of energy. Still, it wasn’t until recently that I really started to “get it”. It IS a waste of time. Really. There’s been two recent comments (on the non-stop cocktail party that is Facebook) by Pema Chödrön which have summed up these recent lessons:

“And I quote this so much, this Poem of Rick Fields, where he said:

Behind the hardness there is fear
And if you touch the heart of the fear
You find sadness (it sort of gets more and more tender)
And if you touch the sadness
You find the vast blue sky”

and

“The path of liberation depends on not taking everything so personally.”

Truly. One would think I’d have been smacked around by the Magic Mirror of seeing myself doing the same damn things that others do/say/think – which were annoying of course – enough times that the message should have sunk in many years ago. I once whined to Deity “Why must these lessons be so hard?” “The lessons are so hard because you have such a thick skull!” was the reply. So there you go.

What others say, think or do usually has very little to do with me, personally. Many are running away from their own hurts and dramas, and projecting them outward. And all that anger? Usually hiding my own grief or fear. Of course, a realization does not a sea change make, and I’ll be working with these knee-jerk reactions for awhile yet. Not being so hooked into that anger, however, will be priceless.

[photo © Michael Jastremski for openphoto.net CC:Attribution-ShareAlike]

The beginning of any new journey starts right where you are. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when I got the message: “tend your own garden”. My garden? It’s a royal mess. I’d tell myself that the overgrown weeds help shade and cool the vegetables, fruit trees and flowers. The weeds do have a place, mind you, but not crowding out the growth of the food and medicine that helps sustain our house. I’d also been lax in keeping up with the pruning, pest management, and consistent watering.

It’s message of self-discipline and centering. It’s also a message of practicality. Be aware of your surroundings. Take care of yourself and what sustains you. Make your space – internal or external – a place where you don’t flinch or turn away from what you see. From there, you have a stable foundation in which to do your work in the world.

One good spray of organically-approved spinosad, a few weeds pulled here and there, and the formerly scraggly tomato plants are now growing like, well, weeds. They’re soaking up the hot Texas sun, and putting out amazing fruit. So little effort, so much reward.

Local Juvenile Green Herons

I recently received a “suggestion” from the Powers That Be (and/or brain chemical transmission) that I begin a major spiritual undertaking. It’s been intimated that I’ll be one of many doing this work, and may or may not see any fruits from this effort in this lifetime. The work will be of assisting those who want to do earth-healing work, and helping people develop a healthier relationship with this planet. And a bit of healing for us humans as well.

Sounds high-falutin’, I know. Truly, regardless of what we do or don’t do, the earth will far outlast us, even if we poison it beyond human sustainability. It would simply mean the end of us humans – the rest of life either perishing or adapting, but life would go on. With that said, there’s an assumption in this “suggested” work that we humans might have something to offer this planet. Some may find that assumption debatable. That’s okay, as I often question that there’s even a Powers That Be, and if so, that these Powers would have the faintest interest in us individual humans. Regardless, these Powers/brain chemicals have been nudging me here and there all my life. These nudgings/communications have never suggested or brought about situations that would be harmful to myself or others, so what the hell. I’m game. Let’s go for it.

“[Deity], for those willing to receive / grant us the vision, the courage, the will and the means / to heal ourselves / help heal each other / heal all that abides on this planet / and heal the planet itself.”

This is a prayer I’ve been saying – with slight variations over time – for probably around a year now. I suppose I’m seeing some of the fruits of this prayer in the aforementioned “suggestion” from the Powers That Be. Anyhow, I’ll be posting more about this journey as the days and weeks (years?) unfold. Feel free to join in, if you feel so moved.

Lost all my previous blog pages. Hope I made a backup somewhere.