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.

 

Life After Car Ownership

Four years ago, my truck was totaled in an accident. The insurance company said the accident was my fault.  I was convinced that I was "innocent."  I've spent much of my life trying to convince myself that I'm innocent.

With the "death" of my beloved truck came the intuition that I was not going to "re-up" on the car ownership thang. That Life had something else in store for me.  This was to be the first time in 26 years (1/2 my years on the planet!) that I would not own a car!  And I have'nt gone back. 

A  freeing experience. 

As I let go of my attachment to my truck, I was able to listen more to Life's calling. I relaxed into the work that called to me, waaay more than about 1/2 of the work I had been engaged in at that time. Not having the truck (a symbol of my previous work) actually freed me up to lean more into my counseling practice, my music, and the groups that I facilitate. My real joys.

I just had to let go of being in the "driver seat" to recognize it.

I see how identified we are with our cars. The thought of being without our car can be quite scary. It's like loosing a limb. It's a huge symbol for freedom. The thought that we can go anywhere anytime we like is a sweet one. The car is a symbol of safety. If we need to get away from someone, we've got our car. An emergency? We're good. Homeless, we've got a roof.

Yet like relying only on the contents of a book to tell us about the Great Mystery, when we rely on "our" car as our "vehicle" for freedom and safety we can easily miss the direction Life is inviting us into. Letting go of my car was one of the most freeing invitations from Life that I've ever stepped into.

Opening to the Mystery

Just the other day, a friend of mine, who was heading to Santa Rosa, gave me a lift to an appointment I had.

I felt excitement at the mystery of how Life would carry me home. After my appointment, I had a wonderful, brisk walk for a couple miles. While on a route I had taken hundreds of times, who do I find on the side of the path but a djembe drummer, jamming with great passion, while listening to a metronome. As a djembe drummer myself, I was enthralled, listening to his great groove.
Now, I had never crossed path's with a drummer on this route, but what followed was a very inspired conversation and a ride in his comfy car to Sebastopol. Magical. If I had fallen back into the "known" of car ownership, I would not have been open to the Magical Mystery Tour.

Before letting go of my truck, when  planning a trip, I never considered the journey ("flower-smelling" and the like). The car was in the driveway. That was the journey. Done. Now, when I have somewhere to go, just by the very nature of not having the car in the driveway, I get excited as to how Life will provide, which in turn, opens me to recognizing when and how Life is inviting me to it's "Tour".

It's always a Grande Adventure!!!

In this day when we are becoming ever more aware of how we isolate ourselves, I see just how much car ownership can be another way that we do this. We're in a box, most often by ourselves.
I'm not promoting the end of cars. I'm inviting you to look at how your attachment to your car actually limits the thing that you identify it with; FREEDOM.

There are multitudinous ways to get around. I love carpooling. We save money (big time!), pollute less (way less), share costs (give a few bucks to the driver), hang out with friends (old or new), & help with directions. Remarkable, how when there is nothing else but you, the road, and a friend, just what can be shared.

I live near a bike path.  I ride a recumbent bike; it's more comfortable, faster, and safer than upright bikes. Believe it! I occasionally take a bus. I walk a lot. I do much of my work out of my home. All of this contributes to a slower, more peaceful life.

If you want to talk about the being car-free, give me a shout. My window's open.  Let's go for a walk.