Why We War

In our quest for freedom, we attempt dangerous stunts, invent technologies that we believe will give us the experience of freedom: we go to war. We tell ourselves that freedom must be protected and "fought" for. That it can only be experienced at another's expense. This is the antithesis of real freedom.
We're looking in the wrong places. We have forgotten that existentially, we are wild and free, and everything we do in our lives is an attempt to experience the authenticity of our being, no natter how ill conceived.

"Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing". --Helen Keller

Our Loss Of The Wild 

I've come across a story , one I believe symbolizes our quest to unleash our innate wildness. It's about "Iron John".  He is the"wild man" (or self) in each of us.
The story takes place in a kingdom with a mysterious forest. Legend has it that whenever someone enters this forest, they never come out. One day a hunter enters the kingdom and goes to the king to inquire about work. The king tells him of the forest and asks him to find out what's happening. The hunter enters the forest with only his dog. His entering the forest alone is symbolic of our entering the dark mysterious unknown within us, where this "wild self" exists. We can receive support and guidance from others, but ultimately, we explore this "realm" alone.
The hunter comes to a pond. Immediately, a large hairy hand reaches our form the pond and pulls in the hunter's dog. The hunter hastily goes back to the kingdom and gets many men with buckets to help him at the pond. There they empty the pond bucket by bucket.
The pond represents our subconscious mind and the way we uncover (or "recover") our authentic self is by emptying this "pond" step by step. Like the men emptying the pond bucket by bucket, we must delve beyond our deepest held beliefs about who we think we are, to the truth of our existence. When the pond is emptied, they find a wild man covered with hair; Iron John.
This wild "self" is a part of each of us that we don't see alive in our culture, because it's not accepted. In fact, it's feared. Our wild self is thought of as unsophisticated, anti-social, and violent. In our desire to experience our innate wildness, we engage in sports, war: anything containing an element of danger. We create a context that is socially acceptable and for a brief moment we have a glimpse of our natural wildness. We then repress this wildness because we're afraid of it and what it (we) might do.

 Finding Our Wild Selves

The hunter and his men take Iron John to the king's courtyard and cage him, akin to how we deal with our "wild/ free selves". We allow our wildness to be expressed only rarely and under very structured circumstances. Not honoring our wildness by giving it full and unleashed freedom of expression, it comes out "sideways", through passive aggression, violence, and dangerous hobbies.
One day, the king's son is playing near Iron John's cage. He loses a golden ball, which rolls into John's cage. The golden ball is significant in that it represents purity and wholeness, something that we experience as children and then lose as we "mature".
John now has the ball. The boy decides that his ball is important enough to him to get up the courage to ask John for it. Iron John agrees to give it to him if the boy let's him our of the cage. "I would if I could, but I don't know where the key is", he replies. "It's under your mother's pillow", John says. This is significant as it symbolizes our having given up our wildness in exchange for looking to others for approval. To reach this primal self we must free ourselves from our fear of rejection. Like the boy who must "steal" the key from under his mother's pillow, we cannot ask for the key, just as we cannot ask permission to express our wildness. We must "steal" it back. We must take back the authority to express ourselves freely. The boys mother is representative of our society. Who, like our society, does not want to give the "key" to the boy for fear that she will lose her "nice boy".
The young prince waits for his parents to leave, gets the key and lets the wild man out. Like the boy, we have a choice. We can either let the wild man go back to the "woods" (where wildness exists) while we stay with our parents (suppress our wild self,  out of our fear of our losing the approval of others), or we can go with the wild man by letting go of the "nice boy".
This process of exploring and releasing  the unhealthy programming/beliefs we learned as children, while opening to our whole self is a rite of passage we all take. It's just a question of when.

                                                             Honoring Our Wild Selves

I wish to share with you a contemporary example of a people who honor the wild and authentic self.
I teach a rhythmic pattern called Morybayassa. The West African tribe from which it originates has a very powerful way of celebrating this rhythm. All members of the tribe are allowed to play this rhythm, while only the women are allowed to dance the Morybayassa. Each woman in the tribe dances the Morybayassa only once in her lifetime, making this a very sacred and rare ritual. The woman chooses when she will dance the Morybayassa. It's usually after a period of great pain, grief, or loss. The tribe gathers at her appointed time and plays the rhythm; Boom tata Boom ta, Boom tata Boom ta goes the rhythm. The woman dances her unique dance, which may last hours, even days! She may be dirty, wet, even bloody! The tribe witnesses and supports her throughout this catharsis. During the dance she is allowed to break all tribal taboos if she chooses. Only she knows when she has completed her dance. When done, she goes to the woods by herself, removes the clothes in which she danced and buries them under the Morybayassa tree.
Imagine the power of this ceremony. Imagine your community gathering around a woman
who has chosen her "dance time".
Supporting and witnessing her.
The possibilities!

The Invitation
By Oriah Mountian Dreamer

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'
It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

 

Three reasons why people have relationship difficulties and how to solve them.

We often think of sex and money as being the two primary areas of conflict in relationship. Conflict is an expression of underlying unmet needs. So, what are the motivating factors that lead to conflict?

Assumptions

The dictionary definition of the word assumption is "taking for granted; arrogant". When I take someone for granted or I am arrogant, I recognize this as an expression of  "self importance".  What to do?  Deny our self? Love our self?  To understand which path to take, we need to understand what we mean by "self".

 What is this self that we think of as us?  When we speak of "self", aren't we just referring to a collection of stories; of memories, fantasies, and beliefs? Think of this as a book. We're each a "book" of stories.  From our early life, we identify with this collection of stories and develop strategies to keep this "book" safe and "alive". We move through our lives comparing our "book-selves" to other peoples "book selves".

Yet, like the wind, these "books" have no solid ground, no permanence. And until we question the truth of our existence, we enforce this "story" illusion each time we rely on a story to determine the basis of  reality.
In Vedanta, one practice is "neti neti" or "not this, not this". This is the practice of recognizing what of our existence is temporary. When all that is temporary is identified and transcended, whatever remains is of a permanent nature; the truth of our existence.

Beyond the "book" that makes up our "self", there is an awareness that has existed throughout our entire lives. As a child, that awareness observed our every thought, word, and action. It is the same awareness that watches our thoughts today. Everything else in our lives has changed, except this awareness. From the cells of our bodies which are completely renewed every seven years to our deepest beliefs, everything changes.

This "awareness" is our eternal and only real Self. It is pure awareness, free from story and any sense of duality. Everything else is a critique of life based on the stories.

When I'm "story-less", I have no thoughts about me; what I can get, how I can hide, how I can be "seen". When I am "story-less" I have no  inclination to  make other's wrong, or overpower them. In these moments, I "get" whomever I'm with. I understand them intellectually, I "walk in their shoes" empathetically. If they are living from their "book", I recognize the  need they are trying to get met. Along with this awareness is the appropriate means to be with them in a way that reaches beyond their "book" to them; the uniquely beautiful and alive being they intrinsically are. This is often understood as "being present."

A teacher of mine once said "I'm monogamous with everyone".  I understand him to mean that he is fully present with each person he's with. His attention and his love are given to them unconditionally.

"I am not my thoughts, emotions, sense perceptions, and experiences. I am not the
content of my life. I am Life. I am the space in which all things happen. I am
consciousness. I am Now. I Am."
                                                                                 Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

Expectations. 

This one always leads to disappointment. The extent to which I have invested in my expectation is the extent to which I will be be disappointed. 'Tis a bummer. When I recognize that I'm expecting a certain response from someone, I look to see what need of mine I'm trying to get them to meet. It may be that I want appreciation. It's always about wanting acceptance.

So, what better way to meet this need than by giving it? "In giving is receiving." Simple and easy.
"The greatest gift you can give is the purity of your attention." ~ Owm'r Faruuk
  
Keeping secrets. 

I don't mean day to day details. I mean the stuff of life. When we're honest with ourselves, we know which "stuff" is pertinent to share. By not sharing, we create a deception, no matter how small.

Whenever we withhold something from another, mental, emotional, and physical energy is stifled. Our natural state of being is one of flow. Consider that e-motions are "energy in motion". In our natural state, emotions are experienced and expressed. It's that simple. Otherwise they (along with their accompanying stories) remain within us and manifest as "stuck energy" or "cellular memory".

Stress as defined in the dictionary is "pressure or tension exerted". Stuck energy is stress. Each secret/withhold we accumulate adds to the amount of stress we carry and experience. Eventually, "withholds" require so much energy that we give more vital energy to them than we do those things that we hold precious! We're investing more of our life force into hiding than we are into what and who we love.
That's gotta hurt!

Oriah Mountain Dreamer put it this way in The Invitation :

         It doesn’t interest me
         if the story you are telling me is true.
         I want to know if you can
         disappoint another
         to be true to yourself.
         If you can bear
         the accusation of betrayal
         and not betray your own soul.

Do you feel stuck in your life; have concerns in a relationship; .feel weighted down by addiction?
Do you want to experience the wealth of strength and joy within you? It is my profound honor to assist you through whatever passage you are traversing, to a deeper awareness of your innate worth, and the recognition and expression of your unique gifts.

Visit my web page; www.SaharPinkham.com.

I wish you Peace.