The Rules for the One Gate in Front of Us!

One Frontal Gate

Yes, there are rules for having only one gate in front of us!

Alignment, Harmony, Balance and Clear Intention! Trust and Love!

The more we keep our focus on what it is we are in quest of the fewer choices there are in front of us.

When we are clear. I mean, Really Clear! On what it is we desire then All falls into place.

And, we must request and secure the Guidance of the Angels. We can not do it on our own.

So, what Angels?  

The Archangels?

Who  knows. I certainly am not sure. I am sure that my Ancestors have a hand in where I am headed, especially when I request that they be there for me.

      "Ancestors, guide me, lead me by my hand.

        Ancestors, heal me, help me to become whole.

        Ancestors, speak to me, let me know what you desire.

                You have given me so much, may you give me more."

The alignment of Gates in front of us!

Picture this. At one point the Gates are numerous and spread out all over the terrain! 

And, at another instant, with our clarity they come into alignment and . . . it is as if there is only ONE GATE IN FRONT OF US!

     If we are not clear in our intention the Gates are not aligned. So, we go from this to that and the other to thither!

    If we are clear then all of the archetypal mysteries work with us. Think, Tarot! Think, Grimes Fairy Tales, Think cartoons. Think Religions, Philosophies, Belief Systems of one kind or another.

The choices are deep and wide and when we are clear they come into alignment!

 If we are uncertain then the boogies and monsters show themselves and throw us off of our mark.

Trust and Love! 

Happiness and Gratitude!

Letting go and Letting God!

These and a few others are our guideposts.

Look for Omens and Confirmations (Thank  you Carlos Castanada!).

     "Ask, and you shall receive." 

Back to opening up our third eyes!

    Yes, maintaining presence is so important. When we do, we are aware of our intentions and on the look out for guidance from the All. 

It is this guidance that gets us to where we are destined to arrive: Cosmic Consciousness!

We are destined to become enlightened, in this life time or another. So, we might as well cultivate the arts and skills that promote this . . . and, resign ourselves to the task!

THE GATE

THE GATE

There is not one door in front of us each instant!

There is only one door from which we have entered into this instant!

There are an infinite number of doors and Universes in front of us!

Confronted with what lies before us we can either abdicate our personal choices, preference, decisions, obligations, etc. or we can intentionally be selective in our decision process with respect to which door we will open.

We can follow the dictates of our personal histories or we can craft, as the Lords of Old, exactly what it is we want, need and desire.

Will be be tethered to all of the mythologies, personal histories, cultural, racial, village, familial, and PTSD delayed grieving mandates?

Or, will be open to the guidance of the Angels, the wisdom of All that we know and the mandates of those paradigms of enlightenment, manifestations, healing and self-realization that we have been gifted with over the, very significantly, the past small number of decades?

This is the challenge.

Ancestors, help me to heal the Wounds of the Past that I may consciously and intentionally open those doors and enter through that lead to healing, health, happiness and wholeness. May I become Whole, Wholesome and Holy!

Blessings on All!

Let me be Bold!

To cut to the chase, as one of my favorite best friends says, the essence of what I am expounding is this:

We can not heal, anything. Not our own wounds, not the pollution, not the corruption, not the hate and not the wars and not the deaths and not the spiraling down into Hades unless we embrace 

THE GRIEVING PROCESS AND SEE IT THROUGH!

ALL ELSE IF FUTILE.

All of our politics our fan clubs, our meditations, our governmental mandates, our withdrawing and withholding. Nothing works but embracing and grieving the profound losses!

THERE. YOU HAVE IT!

Until we do so we are locked into the repetition compulsion and must continue to create more loss and destruction.

The idea is:

REMEMBER! 

EMBRACE AND PROCESS!

AND, BY DOING SO . . . HEAL!!!!!

The Mindfulness Game of Grief

Game?

Yes! And here are some of the rules:

1. Repeatedly come back to "presence"!

2. In presence notice the phase of grief!

3. Time bind the awareness of grieving!

4. Engage in diversions thoughtfully, with the idea of preparing to return into the presence of grieving.

And, for good measure; 

5. Let it go! 

So, let me expand these 5 gambits with more stories of Dante and I.

And, let it also be know that we All go through the process by chance as well as intentionality. Chance may take many lifetimes. Intentionality cuts "to the chase" and allows for rapid enlightenment, for that is the winning of The Game. As I am want to say, "We can't not become enlightened, it is our destiny path. So, we might as well embrace the process."

First: meditation, mindfulness, yoga, Tai Chi or Qi Gong, focused activity, self-awareness, cultivating 3rd eye (5th Chakra) awareness are all part of learning to come into presence. A competent griever must know how to come back, at will, to being fully in one's body.

Dante, as a dog, is my role model for this. When he misses his pack he simply sleeps and engages in other body function behaviors like eating, relieving himself, getting me to take him for walks, playing by himself with his toys and, when I am attentive, getting me to play with him.

He reminds me to meditate, stretch, eat well, pay attention to what is all around me and check in with my friends to play. When I get in a rut and start to perseverate on my "hard luck" it doesn't take me long to come back into my body. I have learned, as he models, that it is wasted effort to want something I can't have. 

So, I learn to be aware. To notice just where I am in my grieving process. As a skilled listener the hardest job is to listen to myself, my own thought processes and bodily functions. As a practitioner of yoga and meditation the ability to move from one phase to another is facilitated.

That brings me to the second gambit: Notice what phase of grief I am in.

Dante again reminds me to come back to presence. It is from there I can know what to work/play about. (Thanks to all of my friends and family who when the decisions were made to cast me adrift admonished me to "get a dog". "You can't do this on your own." "You will need to take care of something; you will need to have a friend with you." And, so forth.)

If in the denial phase, as I have so much indulged in I can pull back and laugh at how long I have been avoiding the deep sorrow. So, my whole flight to Kalamazoo and back, getting my rig set up and fixing (spending hours and far too much money). All indulgences in denial, if also planning for an unknown future.

The anger came upon me, at times, unexpectedly and I would notice by telling my story punitively or making decisions to hurt myself (more than one way to get my attention) by too much drink, too much investments in a "fools errand", not seizing an opportunity when offered, etc. As I engage in "having more fun than not fun" it seems I don't stay long in this phase. Anger and hate are one of the fastest ways to get sick, age and die. Personally I am in for the long haul!

Anger would show itself in my unkind thoughts, words or behaviors with respect to mostly, Joanne. Sometimes it would show itself by my becoming passively aggressive. An old gambit of mine for dealing with lots of relationship issues. Again, thanks to my many friends and the path I have chosen for experiencing so many smokey mirrors to remind me. The reminders are all around us, aren't they?

Bargaining is that process of figuring out what my opportunities are, and negotiation between self and other. In my process I might bounce my thoughts and actions again and again in one direction to have others reflect "no" or "NO" before I get it and move on in the process. Dante is so much easier at settling into himself when given a strong boundary. 

This makes me reflect on the wisdom of Lao Tzu when sharing about longevity: "Sleep like a dog, sit like a turtle and walk like a duck."

For myself the bargaining has been going on for years, mostly around sexuality. "If I do this for you can I expect you to give yourself to me?" It does get old, doesn't it?

And, the bigger picture, if I create and perform and earn will I be loved unconditionally? Heh, how about forgiving self and loving self unconditionally? Dante doesn't evidence such convoluted thought processes and or behaviors. Many of which for humans are very unconscious.

As with anger the ability to return to presence allows for awareness of the convoluted nature, the squirrel cage circuitry, to be revealed and changed. To move out of "bargaining" and into "sorrow" or "depression". 

Ah, now this moves me to talk about number three, time binding.

To set time limits on staying in the grieving process is of ultimate usefulness! Say that to yourself three times to get it. Set boundaries on your own grieving process. 

My experience with this is ample. Much of my work as a therapist has been to teach clients how to time bind! And, once I, or they, learn to allow themselves to grieve, regardless of the phase, and pull themselves out of with intention (even an alarm clock) then suddenly many of the dysfunctional activities and behaviors are dealt with more expediently! 

What I have learned from this and written about in my other blog (http://shamanicvisionpsychotherapy.blogspot.com/2010/06/back-to-time-outs-learning-to-respond_959.html) is that just as we can't not grieve our losses, or become enlightened, as long as we are engaged in the process of grieving the soul lost parts will have patience with us. They will not continually set us up for more loss. (the repetition-compulsion).

So, I increasingly let myself feel the loss, the sorrow and the emptiness . . . but only for a short while. What I crave and have experienced as I write about in my last entry for this blog is the comfort and support for deeper grieving experiences that a "village" or "grieving ritual" allows for. In such a place many layers of grief are released. Are "let go" and for days and weeks afterwards I am able to experience the Grace that I so desire.

Taking some time each day to reflect on losses and on the gratitude that the losses remind us to embrace is essential. Yes, gratitude is the elixir and to fully embrace it is great to bring the intensity of the emotion of grieving into the gratefulness we have and experience. 

This, again, facilitates the process of grieving.

Thoughtful diversions: Okay? What is this about? I see my diversion of having Dante around as a thoughtful one. It takes me out of my self-pity and self-loathing (both sad states to invest in).
My diversion of my rig, the 1965 Avion on a 1990 Ford, f-250 (4x4, 7.3 turbo diesel) has some practicality and thoughtfulness about it. Why that rig? Well, it is designed to endure, much more than newer, nicer rigs. And, part of my grieving is for the loss and probable loss of our comforts. Modern cars are dependent on electronics, which are very faulty and prone to electro-magnetic fluctuations and failures. One big solar flare-up can put our whole grid out of commission. Not so the 1990 f-250 diesel. 

The decisions were also based on my not having a permanent home. That is hard to bite into. But, the flexibility is a relief. I can go most anywhere fairly comfortably and securely with my rig.
And, when my Jefferson (tiny-house-on-wheels) is ready and settled (that is a big job right now, figuring out where to park it) then the rig many not be so important . . . as a diversion.

The whole process allows for me to engage in the grieving process.

Mindfulness diversions win out over mindlessness ones. Examples of mindlessness would be engaging in wanton abandonment into drugs and or alcohol, becoming addicted to one cause or another, hiding out, etc. 

Letting it go!

In the soul retrieval healing process (Sandra Ingerman: Soul Retrieval) the return of the soul part lost through neglect or trauma will only happen when we, as caring, responsible adults, find the wounded self and apologize for neglecting, invite soul part to return, negotiate terms of return ("I will become a safe container for you in your grieving process so that more trauma does not occur."), and, "stay present" during that being as a safe container. It is easy to slip back into the wounded soul part if we do not engage in mindful presence!

When the soul part returns and finds safety in the body we, as the guardians of our soul, find greater health and happiness. It is easier to engage in further healing. We experience more Grace.

And, we can then let go of our attachments to the losses, to the escaping into addictive behavior, gnashing of teeth, endless bargaining, avoidances, etc. We can just acknowledge the loss, incorporate the gains and move on!

So much more could and will be written.

What is your desire?

Putting off the inevitable: Grief Wins

GRIEF WINS

In so many words I am ever so thankful for the people in my life, those close and those distant, who reflect back to me what most often my own eyes do not see.

Like the depth and breadth of my feelings of loss. Particularly in the past 1/2 year or so when I dibble and dabble with confronting the loss of my lovely life in Humboldt County, in Eureka. Yes, and, the profound loss of my love of 20 years or so. And, that loss has re-opened the losses of the previous marriage to Kathie and to my broken relationship with my son, Gabriel. Subsequently, Gabe and I have been repairing our relationship. My intention is to also repair with his mother, to "normalize" the friendship, at least, such that Kathie and I can serve as mature and loving models for our grand-sons, Finn and Owen.

Also lost:

Two wonderful homes, that I thought would be life-long, lost. Along with the women who would share them with me.

Friends and neighborhoods, lost.

Patterns and habits, lost.

Not to mention the bigger and much more significant losses that have run parallel to my own losses. The extinction of species.

The environmental losses.

The income losses.

The losses of peace.

No wonder I run and hide (all the while, seeking) from the grief. What phase (shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, integration) of grieving in I am now with which of the above? 

Holds for All. Each and every one of us. 

How do we manage all of this?

We bury it under consumerism, addictions, medical diagnosis, trauma drama, absorbedness in one form of media or another. Escapism of one form or another.

We Run and Hide from The Grief! It is as if it is a monstrous calamity chasing us into the Abyss.

We Hide! 

Until it catches up with us in one further loss or another. Maybe someone leaves or dies and we grieve for a while. Some of us get caught up in one loss and sacrifice a golden opportunity to piggy back on that loss and to go deeper into collective grief! Others grab ahold of the coat tail of one loss and let go their grief for a string of losses.

Some of us, especially we tough men, hold onto our grief. Na'er a tear or wail to release.

With all of the above in mind I look back on several of my "grieving ritual" experiences with great relish.

The first took place 20 some years ago at Mendocino Headlands for the week long Mendocino Men's Leadership Conference. I attended twice and both time Maledome Some, with great priming of the pump by Michael Meade, James Hillman, Robert Bly and Robert Moore, among the most sterling, led us into full rituals where we were prompted and goaded into sounding, wording, singing, crying and wailing about the losses.

Later, during a year long Ritual Village Training with Maledome we conducted more in depth training and understanding and executing of similar rituals.

Maledome had orchestrated us into three groups, Grievers, Villagers and Stewards. A Shrine had been constructed with compelling and not at all necessarily pretty or attractive components. Along with photos there were bones, dried flowers, burnt logs, broken art, etc. 

In front of the Shrine a line of ashes from one end of the shrine to the other. 

As the "Village" (those participating in the ritual) gathered the Sacred Circle was formed and elements and ancestors invited to join us, to help us in this work. A Shrine was empowered and we were instructed to not allow any part of our body to pass over the line of ashes. The Shrine had been empowered to "take" into the abyss the grief we expressed to the other side.

We were then divided into the three groups. A few were designated to be Stewards and to not allow any one or any part of us to go over the line. Malidome had warned us that sometimes grief takes over and we "cast" ourselves into the abyss, as well. Any part of us over the ashes would experience "soul loss" in that part and end up with issues.

The Villagers were to drum, dance, sing and otherwise build energy up. They were stationed behind those who were ready to address the Shrine. 

It was that group that would approach in dance and retreat, wail and sing, cry out, curse the gods and bewail their losses. The dying Forests were grieved for, the Ocean and other Waters, the loss of Ancestors, Peace, Stability, Balance, Harmony, etc.

Such a powerful ceremony and ritual that I took it upon myself to orchestrate a number during my time as facilitator of "practice" or "intentional" villages. These events were well received and appreciated.

I then got busy with the life and love I have just loss.

Maybe it is time to "Reclaim Village and Grieving Ritual".

What do you think?

Anyway, time for me to go Deeper and Wider!

Thirst for Graceful Revolution: Good Grief

Sandburg writing in Travels with Charley experienced people in awe of his journey and expressing desires to do the same.
Least Heat-Moon in his book, Blue Highways experienced the same when talking with a young man. This young man went on to describe his father: 
" . . . You're doing what he'd give a nut to do. He goes on all the time about selling the house and quitting his job and traveling around the country. Or going back to school. . . ."

Many people, mostly men have caught my attention and asked about my rig, The Avion, and when I describe my journey their eyes kind of glaze over and a wistful expression comes upon them. Some acknowledge and say, in so many words, "Boy, I sure would like to do that."

What is this thirst for adventure and simplicity? 

I believe that more and more of us are waking to the reality that our lifestyles are highly arbitrary and not in the best interest of the All. They feel the pinch and the routinization which to more and more comes to be experienced as a kind of slavery!

And, this is true even for ideal type lifestyles. Many can afford to take prolonged and frequent vacations that meet some of the needs. Some acknowledge but also accept that they are pretty addicted to their comforts, home, gardens, food, restaurants . . .

The Good Life!

Well, I certainly have led and do lead The Good Life. 

Born in 1939, in the middle time of WWII and coming into awareness near the end (food stamps, sirens, rationing, oleo-margarin) the years following were ones of great prosperity and opening of opportunities for all of my family, parents, siblings, aunts, and uncles, cousins, neighbors, etc. 

Soon a small TV and big transistor radios came into our homes. Each of us kids received one (now it would be cell phones or games). That gift still stands out in sharp memory.

Great education, in and out of school. All of us became productive, talented, and wealthy with experiences and opportunities.

And, now, after 70 years of such comfort and "Good Life" qualities mine continues as I am compelled and enabled . . . able to hit the road, to become the gypsy-vagabond-adventurer whom so many idolize and want to experience becoming.

Once again, maybe just my good fortune.

Or, again, the Law of Attraction. How many times I have fantasized about letting go. Practicing by going into the woods with simple food and provisions. A VW Westphalia Van to travel through Mexico in 1968 with my soon to be wife, Kathie. A small trailer, The Casita that Joanne and wandered around in. What great adventures, All.

It is doable. So has been the "Good Life" of homesteading, gardening, communal living, promoting and developing Simple Living Workshops, experimental and practice Ritual Villages.

Now, looking back on so much "goodness" I can see that it was all nickel and dime awareness that all of that was a thirst to get back to letting go of stuff and embracing awareness of life.

What seems to keep us from jumping off and embracing letting go is that we tend to jump, or be pushed off the cliff, into pathos. The Void is filled with un-resolved grieving. 

PTSD: Unresolved Grieving is our World Wide Psychiatric and Community Diagnostic Disorder. Thus sayest I!

And, when we don't jump or get pushed off we tend to re-live the wounded-ness, in what is seen as the "Repetition Compulsion".

So, in effect, staying connected to our "Good Life" continuums are ways of protecting us from going (or letting go) into grief. GRIEF.

Capitalized because it is so powerful and present in all of us. I see it, as a trained observer, everywhere and we are All so good at managing and re-directing and re-framing that it is seldom brought to the surface.

Maybe we would do better to use the term: 

LIVING THE GOOD GRIEF!