Reflections On My Left Hand

I have far greater appreciation now for the lesser-used appendage: my left hand.

Last Wednesday morning bright and early I took a “woops” dive off the back stoop—two steps high. As I plummeted to the ground I turned mid-flight to brace myself before I hit the ground, and naturally put my right hand out to catch myself.  Really dumb move.

I remember seeing my right hand reach out to stop the fall’s force and at the same time thinking, “NO-O-o-o-o-“.  But my brain didn’t relay the message fast enough because my hand, wrist, and arm tried to protect my body from the worst of the jolt that I would soon face.

And I literally saw my wrist buckle in the attempt. Evidently my shock was so great that the pain was muted when I tried to raise my right arm and saw that the wrist was now “Z” shaped.  Oh so NOT good!  Definitely broke.

This happened around 7am and we left the hospital after out-patient surgery at 7pm that night with a titanium plate and screws now holding the two large bones connecting arm and wrist together.

Swell.

So since that day, I’ve been only using my left hand/arm for everything.  (They actually made me illegibly sign hospital forms left-handed throughout that day.)

Nothing gives you greater appreciation faster for a secondarily-used appendage than being forced to solely rely on it for your every need.  I think I’m becoming ambidextrous.

But this past week has also given me greater awareness of how adaptive we become to adversity—we do what we need to do to survive. We find a way. Since I’ve always been a pretty independent, self-sufficient person, asking someone to help me do something just doesn’t sit well so I refrain from asking if I can figure out a way to do it for myself.

What amazes me the most about this whole learning experience is how flexible the left-hand has become during this past week. It’s like it is saying, “Hey, I was always here—you just didn’t use me.” And now it’s ALL that I use.

So I just wanted to mention a couple things here, that when you think your life can’t change from one second to the next, it definitely can; and the second thing is that whenever you feel like you can’t take one more bad thing to go wrong in your life, you can take it. You can do whatever you need to do, whenever you need to do it, because that’s what we do—we adapt, we find a way, and we keep moving forward because that’s the key to survival.

That’s how we’ve all made it this long doing whatever it is that we do.  We squeeze that lemon into lemonade, and just take an acid-reflux pill before we drink it.

Traumatic Emotional Impacts Become Looping Negative Memories

Saw a short video by Dr. Pat Ogden, the creator of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, on helping a young anxiety client to counter her own reactive responses to the world around her.

Ogden is one of the few well-known psychotherapists who treat clients more holistically recognizing that the kinetic movements or posturing of the physical body often provides clues to what is happening in the client’s mind.

She was telling the story of a too-quiet, young Latino girl of 13-years old who had been bullied and ridiculed from age 8 onwards.  The girl was very shy and had retracted into herself with a natural posture of cocking her head strongly to the side and hunching her shoulders. Had she been a turtle, she would have retracted completely into the shell.

After prompting the young client to explore what was going on in that cramped-up neck and shoulder area—encouraging her to just say out loud whatever images or memories came into her mind when she explored the physical body parts of neck and shoulder, the girl began to unravel an entire memory sequence of how badly others had treated her at age 8—particularly her peers; how terribly it had hurt and traumatized her when she had been bullied, scorned, and ridiculed by her fellow classmates—to the point that she began to view herself in the same negative way that the others had once treated her.

The current anxiety felt by the now 13-year-old girl was primarily due to the emotional impacts of previous cruelty by others; and those traumatic impacts at such a vulnerable period of her young life had created constantly reinforced memories looping in her current mind continually reminding her of her diminished self-worth.  So the memories from 5 years prior were still creating a barrage of negative programming constantly bombarding her throughout her present life.  

Dr. Ogden treated the physical body evidence first—encouraging her to slowly straighten her neck and hold her head level on her shoulders. When the young girl started lifting her head higher, it instantly created anxiety in her stomach area.  So Ogden then told her to put her hand over her stomach to protect her while she raised her head and straightened her neck.

As the body slowly straightened, the offending memories quickly surfaced from her earlier traumas as an 8-year old. Dr. Ogden told her to use the present knowledge and courage of her 13-year-old self to now sooth and help calm that younger 8-year-old version of herself.  Ogden encouraged her to help that younger version of herself regain her lost confidence and to reestablish her proper elegant stature.  (Sounds a lot like what’s called Inner Child work.)

By keeping her one hand on her stomach area to protect her energy field, the girl was slowly able to successfully straighten her neck and hold her head high and straight.  When she had accomplished that feat, she took a deeper breath and began to smile. That simple act of retraining and straightening the body to face the world ahead allowed the girl to shift her perspective on herself and the world around her; and it helped her to begin to redefine and eventually to rebuild her sense of self-worth.

All that diagnosis and treatment came from first addressing hunched shoulders and a head held cocked to the side.

I’ve listened to Dr. Pat Ogden before on treating trauma patients, and I like her straight forward, down-to-earth style to helping her clients. It’s practical and effective, and a little bit familiar.

Two things that rang very true here with me is that I’d previously mentioned that my REIKI clients tended to hold deep emotional traumas in various parts of the body and that I as an energy-worker helped them to release those trapped energies existing in those body parts, and by also utilizing ‘release statements’ in the process, which means the client must actively engage with the memory and intend to release those energies still trapped in their body through the breath.

And the familiar second thing was the “holding your hand over your stomach area” is a classic energy-worker suggestion for dealing with negative people to avoid their noxious projected energies, OR to prevent them from stealing YOUR energy by pulling it from your solar plexus region which is the easiest energy region for them to access.  

These are actual techniques that I teach to my REIKI classes—as energy-work, NOT psychotherapy.

One of these days hopefully modern medicine will recognize the holistic nature of the human experience and realize that we are much more than physical masses lumbering through our lives. Emotions are far more energy-based than they are physical-location-in-your-brain specific.

And even though memories might well be located in the brain region as stored electrical-impulse packages, they are also the basis for programming our current daily perspectives on our environment, and as such they can powerfully skew how we view the world around us and how we consider our rightful place in it.

I will repeat this statement over and over:  We are NOT victims of the world around us—we are co-creators of this world!

So let’s start focusing on creating something better here than what we must currently endure.

Walking the ‘Tunnel of Grace’

I was listening to Kaypache on YouTube and saw a Caroline Myss video from May 2020 talking about “The World Is Going to Start Over Again”.  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWAc1bRwSHg )

 I’ve been a Caroline Myss fan for decades and hadn’t heard this one, so listened.  She talked about her experiences at that time with the Covid-19 pandemic that spurred her remembrances of walking the Camino de Santiago a few years back.  

Her reflections at the time in May were on the feeling that no matter how terrible our personal situations are, that something beyond ourselves is governing our lives—guiding us to greater self-revelation and toward self-transcendence.  

She talked about how when she was walking the Camino that everyone traveling the same path, both coming and going, felt this tremendous sense of love and compassion toward each other—that all were walking in DIVINE GRACE—that no matter how great their life burdens, all were bearing them with determination to release their sadness and their grief to regain the lightness of Divine Love for ALL—and they were sharing their own abundance and their joy with each other—because they were all ‘walking the path’ TOGETHER.

Her thought at the time of this remembrance and revelation was that the world will start over again after the current devastation, and we can make it a more humane place—a more honorable place where PEOPLE come first, not personal greed.  We must simply discover how truly empowered we are to change our own situations and our world for the better—utilizing our self-empowerment for creating a better world for all of us.

How do we do this?

Be still. Listen to your inner guidance. BE who you truly are at your core—a Divine Being.

And in doing so you will transform your own life and revitalize our world to be the best it can be. You must simply enter that ‘Divine Tunnel of Grace’ awaiting you and all your fellow travelers walking their own paths beyond the Camino de Santiago.

Be still. Be centered. Bring that Divine Grace with you wherever you are, and the world around you will transform in your very presence. How can it not?

In our hearts, we are Divine.  

REBIRTH

“True initiation is a response to an inner calling; it requires that you face personal challenges heroically, and to experience a genuine rebirth into a new way of being.”  Alberto Villoldo, PhD

Ask any screaming newborn just forcefully squeezed out of its mother’s womb like toothpaste from a crumpled tube, how pleasant birthing can be.

It is not a fun process; suddenly gasping for air through unused lungs while cold hands now control your every movement. It’s quite a shock in environment from your previous floating void where you squirmed about in liquid warmth lulled by the muffled thumping of your mother’s heart.

So to now expect your current life REBIRTH presently underway to be any less personally affecting to you would be unrealistic at the least.

Here is Alberto Villoldo’s take below on our current rebirthing as a collective consciousness; and for certain you can’t go wrong reading Joseph Campbell’s research on myths and religions if that spurs your further interest.

“TRUE INITIATION ( https://thefourwinds.com/blog/shamanism/true-initiation/ )

“Sometimes we wonder what Initiation really means and if we are responding to an inner calling or just making it through each day… 

The monomyth of the hero/ine’s journey detailed by Joseph Campbell is the classic tale of a hero that goes on a quest, survives a crisis, and returns home transformed. An example of a hero’s tale is that of Parcifal, and a heroine’s tale is that of Psyche. The three stages are the Great Departure, the Initiation, and the Return.

You probably remember vividly the excitement of your Great Departure. You were Called by Spirit to be a Shaman perhaps before you knew what it involved… After that you may have spent some time in the Belly of the Whale, where you experienced setbacks, underwent a metamorphosis, and were separated from your known world and self.

Next, you found yourself in the Initiation stage. A place of surviving what seem to be an endless series of tests and trials followed by moments of illumination. … Surviving temptation, you found yourself in the depths of Atonement …, where you confronted a life or death reality you conquered to move forward. Succeeding, you found a place of wisdom and understanding, Apotheosis.

Finally, after being purified by the previous steps, you achieved the Ultimate (Blessing), the goal of your quest, something transcendent like connecting with Spirit in a deeper and more meaningful way. 

Finally, you are in the place of the Return (home, to where you started). However, having experienced the extraordinary world of Spirit, you wanted to Refuse the Return to your ordinary life. … Upon your Return you are the master of both worlds, the spiritual and the physical, allowing you to live in the moment without regretting the past or fearing the future. You are home to share your Ultimate Boon (blessing) with others.

This is quite a journey. Maybe it seems to be a familiar one that you have taken over and over again. Looking back, you remember other Great Departures, other Initiations, and other Returns, and wonder when the journeys will end. Like the medicine wheel, the hero/ine’s journey is a spiral, each journey spiraling you higher. With each rebirth you reach another level of transcendence. …”

“Another level of transcendence”—sounds like casually riding an elevator upwards to a higher floor of a skyscraper pointed to the heavens.

Transcendence is actually a personal metamorphosis of spiritual awakening.  The crawling caterpillar, once enclosed in the cocoon, actually liquefies its previous self to become the winged, multicolor aerialist capable of flitting from flower to flower.

You must transcend who you once thought that you were to become who you have the greater potential to be.

Perhaps that transcendence process is mystical and enlightening; other times it can take you to a clarity level beyond emotion and comprehension. Sometimes it can show you parts of yourself that you’ve hidden for so long that they seem like someone else entirely—both good and bad. A lot of personal shadow must often be exposed and released for true transcendence to occur. And that’s rarely pleasant.

Whatever it might be for you, once you actually REBIRTH your life, you may become quite different from the person that you once believed yourself to be.  Is that good or bad? I guess you’ll have to decide that for yourself over time.

But one thing I think you will discover is that after transcendence you won’t see your life in quite the same way that you once did prior. You will have new eyes, a new perspective, and a hard-won empathy for the struggles of others that will make you a more complete human package than you could have previously imagined.

In my experience, initiations are often painful but educational, just as your rebirth marks the beginning of your NEW life ahead. And only YOU can define that NEW life direction based on your own intentions for a better world for yourself and for the rest of us.

Winds of Change

There have been so many unusual energy influences lately that it’s often hard to distinguish WHAT IS WHAT among them.

There are changes happening to our overall culture, our group consciousness, and our social awareness in general, just as there is resistance to ALL of those contrasting changes culminating in broad-scale conflicts throughout the globe.

Some of us are ‘a part of’ those demands for social change, while others of us are ‘a part from’ those attempts to sway social intentions from their original stagnant paths.

For me I try very hard NOT to get caught up in the emotion and the rhetoric of the chaos and furor over any apparent injustice and inequality that we may see in our world, even if in principle I may support the overall counter-reaction to it; however at the same time NO ONE should condone lawlessness or criminal intentions that use rabid crowd fervor for opportunities to promote criminal intentions for the looting of businesses or for city-wide riots simply for the sake of acting out their frustrations and anger.

That’s just not smart, and it is a criminal activity that will be rightly handled by a policing force to stop it.

At times it may seem hard to separate one from the other, but when you look behind the scenes at the underlying intentions for sowing major social chaos, it isn’t hard to see some obvious beneficiaries to the aftereffects of it. That’s what you have to determine for yourselves—WHO benefits most from trying to manipulate public scrutiny over what is actually happening in our chaotic world at present? Is it the ‘movement itself’ driving the intended change or is it a broader manipulation of public perception toward inciting a carefully scripted reaction to the chaos with ‘fear of otherness?’

‘Peaceful public protest’ is a lawful activity guaranteed by the US constitution, but sowing public chaos and rioting/looting/arson are all criminal activities. There is a very large difference there.

And anyone who has pure intentions for social reform and justice should be commended for their dedication to the cause, but those who are merely using you/us for their own personal gains, they should be exposed for their true intentions and placed under a media microscope for closer examination, including those in the highest positions of power in the land.

I’m just saying that ‘the winds of change’ are definitely blowing right now, but you have to be acutely aware of WHY they are in your face at present—what aspects of intended social change are justified and what aspects aren’t; and from WHERE those gale-force winds that are creating such mass chaos have originated.

If you want to hear one man’s take on the energies of our time and how they are affecting all of us, I suggest this video. It’s worth a listen.

Lee Harris’s September Energy Update, https://www.facebook.com/leeharrisenergy888/videos/2595363977458437

Diversity

Spangled Cotinga

Our Earth

“The spangled cotinga is a species of bird in the family Cotingidae, the cotingas. It is found in the canopy of the Amazon Rainforest in South America. Because of their bright, beautiful colours, cotingas have been hunted by native peoples for their feathers, as well as for food. (wiki)”

A few years back I began to really take notice of broad-scale color distinctions in various flowers and birds species. The more frequently I noted the range of amazingly colorful floral and avian expressions per species, the more I began to question the intention for them to be SO overtly diverse.

‘Evolution for survival’ being the main scientific reason given for any species diversity per region, I’ve seen examples similar to the image above but even more vibrant and colorful (like that Costa Rican hummingbird a few posts ago), and I question how evolution decides the uniqueness or specialty of a species representative—what are the specific reasons or advantages for that particular throat color or wing hue in that bird’s locale?

With flowers I’ve noticed not just the species color variant, but also the geometric pattern of petal allocation. Each plant seems to have an underlying design intention as a means of personal expression behind its blooming in this manner; so in my noggin I began to house the notion that if we could only decode the messages of intention that those individual flowering plant species were offering us (as exhibited in the languages of geometry and mathematics through their DNA-defined growth patterns), we might have a better idea of what is REALLY going on behind the scenes of this very strange world that we call REALITY.

Evidently I haven’t figured out the riddle yet—I don’t speak the geometry/mathematics languages well enough to decode the messages, if they actually DO exist; but I feel somewhat encouraged to have even considered that such an underlying “hidden intention” behind LIFE on earth could even be deduced through examining the blatant expressions of nature’s most alluring beauty which are clearly meant to catch our attention—especially through such vast diversity that we see per individual genus.

So to me as a member of the current human species that grows more homogeneous by the day, I think the key to our continued existence lies more so in appreciating our diversity—our unique differences—our colorful individual expressions of a species enduring constant evolutional stress; knowing full well that for most of us, we will always more resemble squabbling sparrows battling over limited perches on the bird feeder in the yard than we will ever resemble a Spangled Cotinga gracing a swaying branch in an Amazon Rainforest.  

Penning Your Destiny

Earthschool Harmony

“You must have control of the authorship of your own destiny. The pen that writes your life story must be held in your own hand.”  ~ Irene C Kassorla

For those who have no idea what that brassy-looking thing is in the picture, it’s an old-style fountain pen once used to ink all manner of documents prior to ballpoints, felt-tip markers, and way prior to computer keyboards (look it up online).  

Depending on the width of the nib end point, you can still use them for fancy handwriting or for artful calligraphy, but in today’s world, it’s an old-timey reference, as is the quote mentioned above.

But that’s good.

Old-timey references still do apply to our current lives. In fact, sometimes we need an old-timey reference to make better sense of our present situation because not only do we often TELL our own stories to anyone who will listen, we often write or compose them before we can TELL them—we create the setting in which we live, we define the characters of our life, and we determine the drama that ensues because of those self-defined interactions.

In fact for each of us, every one of our lives is a major production in the making; or let’s say that they CAN BE major productions, depending on how you view and treat your life. Are you personally in charge of this “MY LIFE” multimedia extravaganza, or did you sub-contract that effort out to others long ago?

Sometimes we are the direct authors of our own destinies, but other times, whether intentionally or inadvertently, we allow others to write our life story for us. When that happens in effect we have willingly turned the power to control our own lives over to them.

So as the Kassorla quote accurately proclaims “You must have control of the authorship of your own destiny. The pen that writes your life story must be held in your own hand.” 

Don’t give up to others the power to direct your own life in whatever direction that you choose. Use that old-timey fountain pen above to write your personal story in bold, broad strokes—mastering your own calligraphy—your own style of execution—clearly defining the personal message that you alone offer to the world.

Just make sure that YOU are the one holding the calligraphy pen that writes the story of your life. Then you will have no reason to credit or blame others for your future successes or failures.  

The Invisible WEB OF LIFE

A couple posts ago I mentioned that we tended to see what we wanted to see, and that how we perceive the world around us depends on that perspective.

I also mentioned that I had neighbors who despite our political differences, I knew would have my back if I needed them to be there; and last week it actually happened: I needed their help and they needed mine, and we were both there for each other, just like we always are.

Last Monday many of us in east central and northern Iowa experienced what was called a “land hurricane”—or a “derecho”—with winds 110 mph blowing steadily for nearly an hour in the worst locations.

It snapped trees and power lines all across the state—demolishing buildings like an F3 tornado. And there was little warning prior because frankly, most folks had never seen anything like it on land here before.

Of all the people in our small rural town, we were probably the best able to weather extended periods of power outage because we’d had a large propane generator-system installed a decade ago after a winter ice-storm power outage had kept us constantly babysitting our portable gasoline generator for three frigid days until power was restored.  

Our old portable gasoline generator-on-wheels (it’s a heavy beast) was pretty basic and limited in capability, but with a lot of personal effort to babysit it and every few hours to alternate power cords inside to different appliances within the house, it got us through the situation as it had in previous, less-lengthy ones. During the first 10 years of its existence here, we had been forced to use it many times, so it was a good investment at the time because over the decades, due to our rural location, we had relied on it because we had lost power on many occasions.

But after that grueling, mid-winter 3-day experience, we decided there had to be a better, more reliable solution to any future power outage here because we were getting too old for that labor-intensive BS; so the next summer we decided to have a large ‘whole-house propane generator’ installed for likewise ‘big bucks’.  (And after 6 solid days and nights of it running non-stop, we think it’s worth its weight in GOLD now. Best money spent EVER!)

So last week not only did our large propane generator operate dependably during the wind storm’s ferocity and for 6 days and nights after the storm’s remaining devastation (even though the generator’s electrical control box outer and inner metal covers had been ripped off by the wind, exposing the raw wiring to the rain before we could get it protected again after the storm blew through), we also still had the old portable gasoline generator as a backup system if necessary.

And we are very fortunate—our neighbors are great. We always look out for them and likewise they look out for us. On our acreage we had some storm damage to trees etc, but thankfully nothing to the house and out-buildings. After the second day of our cutting branches and gathering limbs for the burn pile, the neighbor guy saw us out there sweating away and  brought his chainsaw and his two teenage kids over to clear out the larger downed limbs for us—even hauled it away to the dump area for us.

And we in turn gave them our old sturdy, portable gasoline generator-on-wheels to give them greater power flexibility than the tiny generator that they were using—and told them to keep it—it is theirs now.  We also then helped them clear out their limbs and storm debris which they had stopped clearing away to help us.

That’s what neighbors do.  You help each other. You may not always agree on every aspect of neighbor concerns, but you do what you can for each other because someday, you might need it yourself.

It’s a ‘WEB OF LIFE’ thing. You might feel like you’re out there all by yourself in this big world, but if you looked closely, you’d see that gossamer strand exists between you and the ones closest to you. You are just one tiny droplet on that larger web, but you still are connected to every other droplet existing there in some invisible way.

In the big picture of existence, biased opinions and political inclinations mean very little to LIFE when your actual humanity and survival are at stake.

Look out for each other—BE THERE when others need you. And they will BE THERE for you! 

Because that’s what we do:  We care, share, and stick together!

Siwar Q’enti – The Royal Hummingbird

The image above may be of a Violet Sabrewing or a Costa Rican Hummingbird rather than a Peruvian Royal Hummer, but when I saw it staring back at me, I remembered that in Peruvian Shamanism the hummingbird (Siwar Q’enti) represented the North direction and embarking on the epic migratory journey while connecting into the Higher Realm for ancestral wisdom along the way—summoning both the confidence and the tiny bird’s stamina to face future unknowns with courage and grace.

Due to the unique figure-eight rotational manner of their wing flapping, hummers can hover in place for long periods of time, which is certainly what it feels like we are doing now.  They can also change direction in an eye-blink; flying instantly up, down, backward, forward, or ‘outta here’ without second thought.

And as enticing as ‘outta here’ sounds to many, it isn’t the true choice to make.

I then had the thought that according to the Quechua legend, if my ancestors, including my entire ancestral lineage throughout human history, could advise me now in our current global-pandemic situation, what might they possibly say? 

It could be, “Lineage-bearer, look to hummingbird for your future success:  Just keep moving those wings and you can take any direction that you need to take when the proper time arises.”

Selective Viewing

Well, …maybe sometimes it IS what you look at, because that’s also a choice that we make daily.

And if you don’t want to completely lose what’s left of your sanity, you might not constantly watch the NEWS shows.

But depending on which NEWS channels that you DO watch, is likely how you tend to mentally frame the world around you.  So sometimes even within the world that we ALL inhabit, we individually may perceive different versions of reality by how a particular news channel’s news-worthy events are presented to the viewing public.

And even within my regional locale, I can witness “skewed versions of our shared reality,” and I find that fact absolutely mind blowing.  How can this be?

I ask myself: “How can you NOT see what I am seeing?” And, “Why can’t I see what YOU are seeing?”  Some of this makes NO sense to me—that huge amount of variance in perspective and opinion with people who live blocks apart.

I have neighbors and local friends of whom I love and trust—people that I know I can count on if I needed help or assistance—people I’ve known for years—that I know NOT to make ANY comments about the state of the nation or the world, or even comment on the governor’s current handling of the pandemic, because we are NOT of the same political inclination. So if you don’t want to lose the good relationships you’ve established over the years, then you just DON’T talk politics or even randomly comment on some administrative action, or you’ve just blown the good vibes that you once shared with them.

And that is VERY sad—especially with people you’ve known for a decade or longer.

But the bigger question really is: How can people—friends even—who live within a mile of each other have such different views of what is happening around them and who or what is responsible for it?

It’s true that we are all self-interested and that we tend to lean towards the view that best fits our own beliefs and our own economic benefits, but sometimes it’s a deeper issue of how we consider the world around us as basically “a good place” or basically “not-a-good place.”  It’s a lot like that overused “feed-the-wolf-you-want-to-see-and-be” analogy.

If you want to believe that the world is basically a good place, then you feed the ‘good-wolf’ belief and you’ll see only well-intentioned but misguided efforts to bring about a better world for ALL people; and if you want to believe the world is a cut-throat, bad place where you must constantly fight for your survival, then feed the ‘bad-wolf’ belief and that’s what you will see in your world—where everyone’s mission around you is to take you down.  

I know that sounds a bit paranoid, but honestly, some folks do believe this ‘bad-wolf’ scenario—even folks that I personally know.

And I keep wondering: “How can you believe this? What are you seeing that I’m not seeing?”

The really erroneous thing about the good-wolf/bad-wolf analogy is that wolves are pack hunters—they exist in groups. So the ‘lone wolf’ image is more a misnomer than accurate in real life. Wolves in a pack need each other to survive, so what affects one, affects ALL.

The pack works together, hunting for the survival of ALL members of the pack; meaning that if you find yourself as the “lone wolf” in this real-life wolf-scenario, then you’ve been ostracized from the pack for a pretty good reason.  Sometimes the reason may be a difference of ruling opinion or an ego-battle for supremacy and leadership of the group, but overall ‘lone-wolves’ don’t usually survive for long on their own in the natural world, which is why it is in everyone’s best interest in the pack to find a way to get along with each other—because you NEED each other.

I will admit that over the last few months I have stopped ‘following’ some of my Facebook friends because frankly I don’t want to know their political leanings, even if they are similar to my own.  What they often post are selective views that substantiate their own opinions and devalue the opinions of others—it’s simply “US vs. THEM” stuff.   Basically I think that “Which side are you on?” stance is deleterious to our shared vision and our unified efforts to create a better world for ALL of us.

Most of the offending statements I’ve encountered are FEAR-driven, even if they are merely automatically reacting to a FEAR-driven action or comment by someone in power.  FEAR is FEAR.  If you let that sense of “fear of the OTHER who is NOT US” rule your life, then all you do is feed that bad-wolf inside you, and you keep driving yourself further and further from the possibility of rejoining the pack.

It’s a strange time in our world right now—a time when we really need to work together to survive it.

So my suggestion is to maintain that ‘good-wolf’ viewpoint and work together for the best interest of ALL and for the survival of the total pack.

Please keep in mind that the world is what you make it, NOT what someone else tells you that it is.  And so is your neighborhood.  

Care, share, and stick together! And if you want good neighbors, then BE ONE.  

The Pains of Initiation

So far I’m not sure how to frame this year 2020—to attempt to put it into some comprehensible context for proper assessment. I mean what perspective can you use to wrap your arms around something this immensely prickly and caustic?

Assessing 2020 is like hugging a 30-foot tall saguaro cactus and hoping that you don’t get skewered with barbed spines.

Every morning when I awaken, I wonder “What will this day bring?” Which of course means multiple questions of: “What challenges, what blessings will this day provide?”; as well as “What inner resourcefulness will this day require of me?”

And then I, like everyone else in the world, get up and go about whatever I need to do to face all of those possibilities because that’s what we do—we just keep on keepin’ on—doing whatever we need to do to keep moving forward day by day, no matter what we may actually face.

That’s what you do in an “initiation”—shamanic or otherwise—you just endure the situation as best you can and keep moving forward until you reach the end of the test. If LIFE smacks you down, you get back up; and you keep getting back up no matter how many times it knocks you down because that is your only option to survive the ordeal.

If you give up the fight, you become last week’s road kill.  Period.  That’s how bad true shamanic initiations can be.

So this morning I see Alberto addressed the issue per his own perspective, which is as a collective shamanic initiation, and in many ways I do agree with him.

Here is his take on 2020.

“This is a familiar theme in the legends of shamanic initiation, where you face death, overcome loss, and respond to your calling in a new and greater way, until it becomes truth.”  Alberto Villoldo, PhD, in A Shaman’s Miraculous Tools for Healing

“2020 Jul 14 — A Higher Calling    by Dr. Alberto Villoldo

— A Higher Calling

The effects of racism, oppression, illness, climate disaster and possible extinction seem to swirl around us as we travel together on this blue-green orb hurling through deep space.  We have awakened to a world both familiar and unfamiliar in the intensity of all that has happened in 2020, and find that we are in a great collective grieving process. We are challenged to find how to be ever more resilient in responding to our calling for creating a new world, one that has the potential to break free of the nightmare of the past.  …

…As shamans we experience and feel the pain and sorrow, the joys and fears, the highs and lows and yet remain the resilient ones, the wisdom keepers, the luminous warriors. As shamans we know that the health and wellness of each one of us depends upon the health of the entire planet. This includes all people of all races and ethnic backgrounds, all plants and animals and all of life.  How can we continue to be resilient even as it seems that events are reaching critical mass, that everyone around us seems to be filled with disillusionment, depression, discouragement, and anger?  

These are the times we go back to our roots, to remembering we belong to the earth and the earth is beseeching us to raise our consciousness so that we can create a better world for us and for our children. We also belong to the universe, so we visit the realms of our ancestors and our children’s children and dream big dreams of peace and harmony, freedom and independence for all beings, and invite those around us who are lost in despair to join us in sacred dreams. 

Standing in the middle of the darkness we stay focused and in the moment so that we can be the calm center of the storm, so that we stay connected to spirit and vision. We share the light we have cultivated with our spiritual practices. We honor natural wonders such as rivers, lakes, mountains and in so doing reinvigorate the energy of the land.  We renew the energy of our communities by creating ceremonies to remind us that life will go on. …

…We are the ones we have been waiting for: the ones who can replace anger with healing and despair with hope.  The ones who sit in the light and ask – what can I do today to create community? How can I reach out to someone outside my own circle? How can I connect with joy? And say YES as we respond to our calling in a new and greater way.”

***

The Moon

“Tao & Zen

The moon does not fight.

It attacks no one.

It does not worry.

It does not try to crush others.

It keeps to its course,

but by its very nature, it gently influences.

What other body could pull

an entire ocean from shore to shore?

The moon is faithful to its nature,

and its power is never diminished.

~ Deng Ming-Dao ~”

Something about a full moon really mesmerizes me. Always has.

So when I saw the image above and read the sentiment in the poem, I physically felt the deeper significance behind the metaphor expressed—I took a deep breath and felt at peace with myself. 

Then I realized that much of our lives we automatically shift comprehension focus between the literal and the symbolic—from the left brain to the right—and assume that everyone around us perceives and understands the significance of every aspect of this LIFE in the same way that we do; but of course, that is NOT true—we don’t ALL understand every aspect of LIFE in the same way because we don’t all share the same perspective on much of anything.

Before my early explorations began into the world around me, I was full of questions and assumed that there were actual ANSWERS available to those personal puzzlements; it was simply a matter of time before I found them.

Now of course I know that there are always acceptable answers available to us for whatever time period that we traverse, but those answers may not be anything other than relative to our own perspectives and our longevity in this plane of existence.  Answers are always relative.

In fact, finding answers isn’t really the most important part of our personal explorations—the questions themselves that arise within us are.

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