Faith

Faith is a funny thing. Faith is something that has added inestimable value to my life - faith has provided me with the strength to keep moving forward when there was no evidence outside of me that life was going to get easier anytime soon.

That's what faith is... it's something that exists within us that does not seem to be supported, upheld, or verified outside of us.

The miraculous thing about faith, I believe, is that it tends to prove itself. Keep moving forward, keep trying, keep on believing in whatever it is you believe in, and eventually you will find you have transformed yourself into someone who is capable of birthing into the world a communicable expression of the faith which began it's life within you.

We feel the threads of love,
and they pull us,
and sometimes we become so entangled
as to lose the feel of what we're weaving
alltogether.

But there is promise in their tension,
promise in the sensation of resistance we feel
between life as-it-is
and the murmured hummings
our love-threads tremble into our skin
as they wrap around our body.

That tension is potentiality,
transmuted into kinetic becoming
everytime we take a step
in love's direction.

As we dance with our threads -
as their hum is ignored and invited,
their insistence rejected or responded to -
let us become conscious of our choosings
and trust,
if we have chosen love,
in the time it takes
for tension to play itself out.

Perhaps we don't move at all
but simply grow into master-weavers,
incorporating love's every suggestion
into a new component of our cardigan,
turtleneck, leg warmer or nana blanket...
for the movements of the heart,
as grand as we may try to make them sound,
are everyday ordinary
and require no dramatic upheaval of self.

Unless they do.

As always it's 'yes-and,'
and it's about what's happening right now.

Right now,
faith is happening.
Right now I choose to believe that through dawning self-acceptance
and patient application of truth,
what lives within me will find expression
in our shared reality.

Right now
there is a stillness of perception
which has invited the otherwise fleeting moments
of this work-seeking Wednesday
to fully arrive and meet me here
and the majesty of simple, inconsequential things
quite takes my breath away.

Right now,
it cannot be otherwise
and any moment,
allowed deeply enough,
must also throb with the same selfless love of this moment -
which brings tears to my eyes,
and silence to my pen.

Excerpt from a letter to a friend, pt. 2

...How deeply do the circumstances of our childhood condition us, I wonder? And, as we've been reflecting on, how much of our chosen pursuits are initially motivated by a negative: 

"I'm doing this because I'm afraid that if I don't, I'll end up like that."

That fear has been with me for so much of my life, and to outgrow that fear feels, to me, like the first step towards living a life unburdened by rules that make no sense. These 'rules' only effect us to the extent that they are present within us, and I believe that if we are willing to do the difficult work of excavating our own inner landscape than we can re-establish a foundation of identity which is founded upon a positive affirmation of self-worth and creative possibility. No one besides us has access to our interiority, so no one else can do this work for us... and yet we can't do it alone, either. We need each other to do this, we need the support and companionship of friends along the way. 

It seems to me that some of us are born into lives that demand such inner excavation - some people do seem more innately inclined towards it than others, but nevertheless people who are born into challenging circumstances (of any variety) either have to dig deep and find a source of strength within themselves, or do their best to go numb to the pain.

Something I've been sitting with lately is the possibility that once you embark on a path of 

a) simultaneously doing your best to stay present to life (as painful as it may be) 

and b) working to overcome your situation and break whatever cycle of suffering you find yourself in

...once you set foot on that path, you've committed yourself to a lifelong journey. I don't know that it ever gets 'easier,' but it seems that we get stronger, more skillful, and more aware - more discerning about what is truly worth going into and what isn't, more able to maintain a balanced perspective even in the midst of very emotionally intense circumstances. 

For myself, I've recently had to learn how to parent myself... in other words, how to love myself. There is a facet of my own personal psychological profile which I have only recently become consciously aware of - a facet which may be the point of origin for a belief system which has prevented me from stepping into an empowered role in my own life for as long as I can remember. This facet is a little boy, maybe 5 or 6 years old, feeling scared, vulnerable, and very much in need of love. A little 'Ryan' who needs someone to protect him, someone to care for him, someone to comfort him, because he is unable to do those things for himself. 

It seems likely that this unhelpful aspect of my psychology is the result of the psycho-sexual abuse I experienced at the hands of my grandfather, although there could be other contributing factors. Whatever the case, as long as this scared little boy remained unaddressed and didn't receive the love he so desperately needed, he was looking outside of himself for care and protection. Translation: as long as I was not aware of and was not actively caring for this part of myself, I was unconsciously looking to other people in my life to take care of me. This little boy didn't believe he could protect himself or give himself what he needed, and so on some level I never believed I could achieve my goals or provide for myself. As an added twist, when this little boy didn't receive the love that he needed he came to the erroneous conclusion that he was unworthy of love, and so began seeking out (and actively creating) evidence to support that theory. Every minor transgression or deviation from the path of what I knew I 'should' do became an opportunity for negative self-talk. For so long this little boy, his need of love, his belief system, and his negative self-talk lived in my unconscious - only recently has light begun to shine into that dark internal space of mine.

Sometimes what we need doesn't make any sense: I've been talking to myself a lot lately, because I'm consciously creating a new facet of my (potentially schizophrenic) psychological profile: an inner parent, who steps in with an abundance of reassurance and comfort whenever little Ryan needs love. Yesterday morning I was sobbing with fear and pain and simultaneously speaking to myself out loud, saying: 

"It's ok, I'm going to take care of you... every day is a fresh start, and every day we're going to wake up and do our best. We're going to say nice things about ourself, not mean things... and if we forget, that's ok." 

...etc. Point being: you got this, because there's only one outcome for anyone who has gone as far as you have on the path of self-awareness and commitment to remaining open to the current of your heart's true desire. That outcome is wholeness, and that outcome is a quality of strength which means that no matter what you do, you will bring the full presence of yourself to your chosen activity and light up that space.

I think that many people who shine in that way, many people who the rest of us experience as profoundly inspirational... I think such people probably experience all the same feelings of self-doubt, anxiety, distrust (and all the rest) that we do. It seems to me that difference lies in not turning away from those feelings, but rather embracing and allowing them, and knowing that those feelings, as well as their opposites, (feelings of superiority, self-worship, etc) are just stories: stories which are founded upon a dualistic winner/loser, better/worse paradigm. That paradigm simply is not true, and when we begin to outgrow it we can then begin to receive all those little voices with love, allowing them to be but not identifying with them. More importantly, we can step into the performance of our chosen work in a story-less way, unburdened by any ideas of either sucking at it or being awesome at it... which means that we are then free to be more present to the work itself as well as to everyone else involved, with the result that we are in fact much more effective.

:-)

I like to move it move it

Just a few minutes ago, in finishing up a conversation with a friend of mine, I said:

"Life is meant to move through us. I think that's fundamentally why so much of our society doesn't make sense to me - turning people into little Lego-men and Lego-women saying: 

"How are you?" 
"I'm good." 
"OK, see you tomorrow." 

Life is meant move into and out of us - roared out, shouted out, danced out, whispered out, oozed out."

I think this idea is worth looking into.

To begin, let's examine the idea that the experience of life is meant to move through us. It seems to me that 100% of any health issues I have, any physical or mental discomfort, can be traced back to an experienced that has not been authentically, appropriately expressed and received.

If something happens and I get angry, and in that moment I allow myself to experience the fullness of that state and then allow 100% of that energy to move through me and out of me, doing nothing more than maintaining an awareness of this process and lightly directing that energy into an expression that is not feeding back into the cycle of anger but that instead is consciously directed towards resolution, then the anger has moved through me and I am no longer experiencing it. On the deepest level of my being, I have allowed it to be - I have accepted it, embraced it, and invited it into my awareness, and then moved it through me - from it's  mysterious point of origin - up into my physical body and my physiology - up into my conscious mind and my awareness - further up and finally out in the form of movement, gesture, facial expression, vocalization, etc.

One of the most important things I have learned in maintaining this understanding is that the key word here is "appropriate." We feel such a wide variety of things, many of them quite strongly. If on some level we believe that any of these feelings indicates a need for a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g other than expression, we are most likely going to make someone or something else the object of our desire in order to satisfy the "need" we think needs to be satisfied. Unfortunately, that's the epitome of inappropriate expression. Appropriate expression involves maintaining an understanding of oneself as complete unto oneself, needing nothing, yet experiencing so so much.

All of our experiences are energy, energy which wants to move. To allow it to be, to strive to open those energetic pathways that facilitate appropriate expression and to strive to starve those energetic pathways that reinforce inappropriate expression is to surrender to the voice of creation itself and allow it's song to be sung through you. To think you ARE the song is ego-maniacal: to think you ARE the anger you feel is absurd. You are not. Nor are you the love, nor the grief, nor the ecstasy. You are not any of it. You are nothing, all of it put together, pan-fried, eaten, digested, expelled and composted beyond recognition into the yearning seedling. Don't even bother trying to understand that, I don't.

The point is, you're not the anger. Nor the love. You are the backdrop upon which these things are projected, you are the channel through which those particular energies of life may pass.

Everyone will, of course, be the channel for different energies. Depending on the choices we've made, what energetic pathways we've opened and what experiences we've sought out, the nature of the energy that will want to come and move through us, to express itself through us, will be different. None of it is any better than any other, although it's easy to label the different kinds of energy 'higher' and 'lower' energy. While there is a massive difference between the eager greediness of a sugar-addict and the carefully cultivated desire of a meditation-addict, one isn't better than the other. They have different qualities, and so they have different effects when experienced and expressed. I would argue that a desire for meditation is preferable to a desire for sugar, because of the effect on the physical body. In this case, an 'appropriate' expression to the experience of a strong desire for sugar (assuming that one's intention is overall health and wellbeing) would be feel the neediness, invite it in, and express it in some way that doesn't involve a chocolate bar. If the desire is simply the natural feeling of hunger being misunderstood, then eating a healthy food option is an appropriate expression. If the desire does not involve hunger at all but is simply the addiction talking, then I find that talking to oneself and doing a bit of dramatic self narration can be a helpful appropriate expression.

"Oh man do I want chocolate... Damn. It's right there, I could totally eat it, oh how good would that taste. Am I going to? Nope. Why not? Because this feeling will pass and the more consistent desire to be healthy will come back eventually but DAMNIT I WANNA EAT THAT CANDY."

:-)

It's fun, it's silly, and eventually all of the energy of that desire has been expressed and I'm no longer experiencing that desire.

In the case of a desire to sit still and meditate, most of the time it's probably appropriate to do just that. However, meditation can also be used to avoid dealing with problems in relationships, or to reinforce the idea that one is spiritually superior to others. If, for example, the desire to go and sit still by yourself shows up when you're in the middle of a difficult conversation with a loved one, it can be tricky to determine the underlying motivation. Is the desire to meditate, in that context, emerging from a clear feeling of love and respect for the other person, a feeling which motivates one to find clarity within oneself so that the conflict can be resolved? If so, meditate away! But what if the desire to step away from the conversation is emerging from a feeling of being afraid of really looking at whatever issues that conversation is bringing up? In that case, meditation is being used as an escape, and one should stay with the conversation and go into those places one is afraid to look at.

In my personal experience, I feel an absurd amount of things in any given day, many of them quite strongly. If I don't express them, I feel the energy get stuck in my body and in my mind, and I keep feeling it over and over until I express it, or until it forces itself into expression in the form of a physical problem or psychological neuroses. (Of which I have many.)

Also in my personal experience, I do not feel supported in finding appropriate expressions for these feelings by many of the public spaces and organizations of our society. Much of mainstream society has pathologized feeling itself, reducing the spectrum of human experience to a narrow spectrum of individual economic and social ambition, exclusive and conditional friend/family affection, possessive romantic love, and vicarious catharsis. This is the most utterly bogus load of crap ever.

We need shouting-spaces. We need crying-parks. We need running-lanes on the sidewalk and screaming-comes in the middle of public plazas. Throw away the prozac and put a bunch of punching bags in the middle of times square. NUMB IS NOT THE ANSWER. To numb oneself merely renders one unaware of the energy of life, it doesn't 'fix' anything. And lying on the couch while somebody asks you questions about your childhood may not be the appropriate expression for you. It may be, who knows? But that's just one option. The other option is to stick you head underwater and scream, or turn on music and dance, or stand utterly still with your arms upraised and tears streaming down your face.

Why are these things not ok? Why can't we do them in public? I feel these kinds of thing in public, and then someone asks me how I am and I feel like I have to say: "Fine." FUCK THAT. I'm not fine. I may be heartbroken, tickled pink, exuberant, contemplative or inquisitive, but chances are pretty good I am not fucking fine. I'm only "fine" like, 1% of the time.

If you feel the same way, please share this post. Or write your own, about how YOU feel. Let's allow ourselves to feel what it to be alive, and share that with each other. I don't enjoy walking around enacting a performance of neutrality because that's been deemed appropriate while in other places men are beating women because that's deemed appropriate and people are killing each other because that's deemed appropriate. We are not our feelings, but we do need to express them.

Life is meant to move through us. Don't hold onto it, it's not you and it's not yours. Let yourself feel it, whatever it is, fully and completely. Then let it steam, fizzle, slink or yodel it's way out of you in whatever way is appropriate for the health and well-being and you and everyone around you. And if it makes some people uncomfortable, well... I think that's ok. The definition of "health and well-being" is dynamic and ever-changing, and it's not always synonymous with 'comfort.'

Excerpt from a letter to a friend

From my current perspective, it feels like I'm only now beginning to see what this journey is all about. When it began, I very much thought it was about 'Becoming.' Although it wasn't clear exactly what I was going to become, I felt very strongly that by launching myself abroad and taking such a massive leap of faith I was embarking on a journey that would result in radical self-transformation. In retrospect, there was a flavor of desperation in the way I set out on this path - perhaps similar to our stereotypical idea of a man's mid-life crisis: he leaves his wife and kids, buys a motorcycle, and tries to forge a new identity because (for whatever reason) he can't accept the one he has. 

At this point, I think I'm beginning to see that this whole thing I'm doing is more about 'Acceptance.' I've gotten myself into some fairly unsustainable situations along the way, in many ways because I've been heavily invested in my own personal myth of 'Becoming...' 

...the idea that both my individual life and the world at large were fundamentally flawed and not ok as they were, and my self (as it was) was incapable of fixing either one of them. But by taking such a big risk I was enacting a demonstration of trust that the universe would respond to by transforming me into my new self, a self who would then be able to fix all the broken parts of both my individual life and the world at large.

In other words - I felt, deep down, and really, really strongly, that I wasn't good enough as I was. I felt I had to change, I felt I had to become something before I could be ok. Because my feelings about the world are just projections of my feelings about myself, I also felt that the world had to change, and that the world was not ok as it was. I wrapped all these feelings up into a ball and drop-kicked it over to Australia and, in my subconscious, I allowed this journey and this training program to represent the solution: by doing this, I was finally going to be able to fix myself. 

This whole time I've been expecting that big transformation. I kept looking for it out of the corner of my eye, never exactly sure what I was looking for but knowing I'd recognize it when it came. It never came, obviously, and it's not going to come... I'm still me, and always will be. There's no solution, because there's no problem - life isn't broken.

I still feel like it's broken sometimes, and I still feel like I'm broken sometimes - it's a habit I've indulged for a long time. But not I know that there's no 'answer,' there's no ultimate goal or achievement to search for, because the search itself is motivated by and built upon a flawed perception of reality. I'm just trying to remember that now, and do my best to be present to what is, as it is, and let go of the idea that life can fundamentally be fixed or improved. I mean, it can still be superficially fixed or improved: like getting a better job, or recovering after an injury, or making amends with someone you love. But what initially motivated me to begin this journey was a deep-rooted feeling that life (i.e. me) was somehow fundamentally flawed - that I was broken and no amount of superficial changes would fix me, I had to become an entirely new me before anything could be fixed. So it's a shift of perception on a foundational level, not a superficial one... which means I'll still be shouting "Hooray!" if I win the lottery.   :-)

So, that's where I'm at at the moment. I tried to give you the Reader's Digest version, but it's still quite a mouthful. You're so right about the poetry - I've got poetry-debt to quite a few people.I'll do what I can to repay yours now, with interest.

Shall we dance,

and caress 

with exquisite tenderness

whichever rhythm

we care to express -

or sit still,

and move less,

and know 

it's our presence

that says it best?

Should we move,

filled with truth of 

"Good God we're alive

and there's so much to do!"

or just be,

and be soothed

by the pulse in our veins

and heartbeat's simple truth?

Above all,

must we insist

on the choice

between either the two?

When we've stillness in movement

and strong motion in calm,

when we position ourselves

as a bridge of awareness

between moments

which used to be either

 'TO,' 

or 'FROM...'

When the fact

that there's nothing to do

erases the script

of what we thought we once knew, 

only then can life 

surprise audience

and players alike

in this supremely light-hearted

performance of:

"YOU."

Stay With It

Without hesitation,

I rush in with words outstretched,

heart held in my hand.

Devoid of sense-making

and too-full of feeling,

descriptions pour from

all my wounded places,

coloring the ever-changing scenery.

Bitterness emerges immediately,

self-doubt clawing at me

like some dirty, snarling

maggot of addiction,

smearing wide swaths of my blood

across the page.

I write on, persistent.

I'm not always pretty,

to myself especially,

but also to others.

I'm not always ugly, either.

I'm not always anything,

neither love and light

nor fear and dark.

I'm everything,

nameless as the patient union

of life and death themselves.

I expire

and am remade

a thousand times a day,

imagining a continuous trajectory of being

only because my cells,

just like the earth in the body of god,

are spinning too fast

for me to make sense of their motion.

I relinquish my hold on my self

and allow a resting of potential,

sick to death

of new age dogma

and old age karma

all at once.

"FUCK YOU BOTH"

screams one of the smallest voices inside,

petulant and angry

that he was born into a world

where some men offer ceaseless prayers

to their own greedy pocket-idols

while they feed bullets of deception

into sleek, shiny misinformation-machines...

"Fuck you both"

says that smallest voice,

scared and sad to be born into a world

where so many seem to prefer

to turn themselves into cringing lapdogs

or anonymous bigots en masse

rather than take responsibility

and shoulder the difficult burden

of their own hearts...

"fuck you both"

whispers that smallest voice,

desperately needing

all the blissfull bullshit to be true,

desiring nothing so much as escape.

Done apologizing for being,

done demanding

the heart of the world be healed.

Perhaps it's better off as it is,

for who am I to deem it broken?

Who am I to claim

to have deciphered

our global cardiactic cartography,

much less my own?

'This too shall pass'

is a truism always applicable,

although uttering those words

will not always

ease the sting of the moment.

I FEEL,

and I feel hard...

for I am a poet

and by definition

that's part of the job.

I also feel soft.

I also feel everything in between,

and other sensations

you could not even begin to imagine.

Perhaps I am nothing more

than a funnel for the emotions

of the universe,

allowing for a sort of

concentrated expression of existence.

If so,

then I am performing admirably.

The snarling maggot inside

settles back into slumber,

and fades away to nothing

as he drifts off to sleep,

no more true

than the opium-induced ecstasy

of an addict,

and fulfilling exactly the same function:

"I gotta get my fix, man."

I'm not interested

in rebounding from

one overwhelm to the next,

ping-ponging across

the spectrum of dualism,

nor am I interested in taking refuge

in spiritual materialism

or some escapist, narcotic religion.

Acknowledging that my judgement

of both is born of the transient understandings

of my small self,

nevertheless I do not

see either one as a solution -

- for there is nothing to be solved.

While there are muscles to be flexed and stretched,

meals to be eaten and dishes to be washed,

boards to be sawed,

holed to be drilled,

money to be made

poems to be written

wounds to be patched

and flawed systems to be re-imagined...

...simultaneously

we may find a grace

in the doing of all of this

which belies the need

to do it in the first place.

Yet we will, for we are here,

and were it not for the dirty dishes in the sink

and the dirty laundry

of our current shared global situation,

we would have no chance

to enact the performance of this grace,

no opportunity

to demonstrate

that despite all those snarling maggots

that seem all too-real,

despite everything done

in the name of 'God' or 'Freedom'

that in fact makes a mockery of both...

despite these illusions of

the myriad of inadequacies, imperfections,

and injustices of life

there is a dignity, a rightness,

and an essential integrity,

which somehow encompasses

the whole of it.

Incomprehensibly,

the resounding "YES!"

of creation

is never a "NO,"

no matter who's being addressed.

Inconceivably,

all of the bullshit and the pain

is enfolded alongside the joy,

and we've no need to choose

between the two,

or insist on one

at the expense of the other.

Let us become big enough

for all of it to be,

for only then

can we make our way forward

without replaying

the same tired scenes

we've all seen a thousand times.

Let us allow all of ourselves to be,

and rest in the steady breath of

"I don't know...

yet here I am."

Well-pierced

This simple, exquisite piercing

which rends me - 

which comes from no place

other than myself

and is a mystery to me.

This blade of love 

which cuts me,

which sheathes itself 

in my chest,

leaving me gaping

and vulnerable.

I try to place my hands 

on the hilt of the blade,

even as I reach

not knowing whether I seek

to pull this piercing out of me

or to drive it fully home.

All I know 

is this piercing is my joy.

Through this piercing

my being is opened 

to a broad expanse of possibility:

a feelingplace I did not know existed

before soul's blood was drawn.

All I know 

is that I am fulfilled 

through the truth of this communion:

that here,

with god,

all the fleeting falseness

of myself is laid low

and I am exposed - 

exposed and opened

to receive the light

that is left in it's place.

It is this piercing

which at times pulls me away 

from the shared space of community,

away from the simplicity 

and complexity of daily life,

away from any sense of identity

other than that of a divine splinter

lodged somewhere deep 

within the flesh of my own heart.

And it is this piercing

which pushes me,

demanding that I return everyday

to that space of commercials

and crowded sidewalks,

that space of hurried meals

eaten in between items on an agenda:

that space of handshakes and hugs,

that space where you and I meet

and where we seek to come together

to create something.

That space wherein 

I find it so very hard 

to remember this piercing,

to be conscious of it's integrity.

That space wherein 

my resistance itself

becomes the only thing 

keeping me from love.

that's the way

The scattershot approach may work for some,

and if heart's delight 

be to move

up down left right

simultaneously,

by all means:

we're perfectly free.

For those (like me)

who's chest-pumps

would seem

to be filled

with a straight-on

desire to dream,

know this:

wish, trust, be.

Desire arises,

seeks to be met.

Too often projected:

we go grab a net

and run mad through the streets

pursuing our dream -

too well do we know 

the old

'get-rich-quick' scheme.

Give it up!

(In the sense of surrender.)

You'll never be a contender

for the heavyweight championship

of anything but you,

so forget all that shit...

THERE'S NOTHING TO DO.

No 'way' tried and true,

no one recipe:

the only way to find what you need

is relax and just be.

"But be what?"

demands ego, so used to control:

"There must be some something,

some ultimate goal!"

Nope! Decrees love,

the only true thing:

you get NOTHING from life,

except what YOU bring.

Whatever you carry 

from the well of your soul,

and share with the world...

right there, THAT'S your gold.

There's your riches, 

your wealth,

your fame 

and your health.

There's the only thing left

when the body seeks death,

the only true test of:

"Did I give it my best?"

Everything else, all the rest?

Drivel. Don't mess with that mess.

The well of your soul 

is your only real goal,

don't you let ANYTHING

else play that role.

I suggest walking, and sitting, 

and play.

I suggest stillness AND movement, 

each day.

I suggest friendship, and romance, and food - 

I suggest hunger, and lonesome solitude.

Try everything, see what works,

and know it will change.

Carve years of your life

just finding a way

to that wellspring inside,

celebrate! Shout "Hooray!"

Then fill up your buckets, turn back, walk away:

go deliver the goods to your family,

and pray:

say thank you to YOU,

for guiding you in -

say "Game on!"

'cuz it probably 

feels like a win.

Then patiently watch

subtle movements of self,

enlarge all your buckets,

care for your health.

Prepare for trek 2,

and know it will come,

guaranteed that indeed

there's much much more fun

to be had in the wilds

of bushland inside,

to be found along bumpy

self-inquiry ride.

Don't seek the same way,

the route will have changed.

Don't attempt to make sense,

that's a whole different game.

What you're playing here now

is some quite new, 

so the next time you're asked

what it is that you do,

you may tell them, in truth:

"I BE what I love,

I've no need to 'do.'

I am what I am,

the end.

...How 'bout you?"