ROSEMARY’S COMMENTARY: Are You Flipping Out Over Something?
As I mentioned yesterday when I posted Rosemary’s video here, I am today posting her commentary on that insightful post. And on Monday I’ll post my commentary specifically targeted to my readers here! Stay tuned…
And here’s Rosemary:
It seems today as if there is always something to ‘Flip Out’ over! What has you feeling this way today?
I sometimes hear clients longing for simpler lives or less stress or at least less drama in their lives, but they are really wishing for something to change about their circumstances without a thought to how they can change themselves.
Flipping Out happens when we don’t have enough resources in our tool box to deal with what is happening in our environment. If you can reach into your Resource Tool Box and pull out just what you need to do in this circumstance, then you just do that and there’s no need to get too excited. But how often are you perfectly prepared for exactly what is going on?
Let me say here that I am not talking about going into denial and pretending that nothing big is happening! Sticking your fingers in your ear and singing, ‘La, la, la, la!’ won’t manage the stress of the circumstances, although, I admit, sometimes that seems like an attractive behavior choice. Denial invites the Universe to keep bringing the lesson to us, over and over again, with perhaps more severity each time until we learn what we are to learn.
What tools have you been developing to prepare you for whatever might come your way? Are you on a path of constant personal growth, seeking new skills, finding new opportunities to explore ideas? Are you committed to your own personal, spiritual growth as a journey of exploration? How you answer these questions will determine how well you can handle what happens around you.
Just as an athlete doesn’t wake up one morning and decide to win a gold medal in discus throwing without training for that exact sport, so, too, must you train for the circumstances that haven’t yet come into your life.
When the doctor says, ‘There’s something of concern going on here,’ or you get the phone call that, ‘There’s been an accident,’ how will you respond?
I pray that you never hear those words but it could be something else that throws you for a loop and the resources must already be available to you or you will find it more difficult to cope.
So what are you doing today, this week, this year to expand the tools in your Resource Tool Box? Are you taking a class? Working with a coach/counselor? Reading self-help books? In a group with speakers who teach you tools? Attending seminars and conferences with content-rich programs for personal growth?
This is not an activity that can be postponed indefinitely! Now is the time to prevent Flip Out!
Learning meditation can be a great start. Breathe, hit the pause button, take a moment to collect yourself. Allow thoughts to arise but to keep flowing onward, without attaching to the thoughts. Give yourself permission to focus on your breath and to let go of thoughts and emotions that come up for you. Give yourself permission to simply BE.
Sign up for a class on a psychological or spiritual topic that intrigues you. Read a book that someone has recommended to you. Find a group of explorers that you can join to study new ideas. Work with a coach who can help you to develop the tools that are best for you.
Fill up the Resource Tool Box and you’ll be ready if and when something happens. Won’t it be nice to have the confidence of knowing that, even if you never need to use the tools, you won’t have to resort to ‘Flipping Out’?
ROSEMARY’S VIDEO: How to Avoid Flip-Out
OK, I’m coming back to this blog that I’ve been neglecting for too long. It’s time to get “regular” again. And with shifting season as we move into the dark times, the quiet times, the inner times, it’s a good time to not only reflect but to offer back what has been churning around inside.
I’ve been motivated in part by partner, Rosemary’s review and renewal of her work. She has shifted from a fairly standard weekly Ezine format, published for well over three years now, into a more active, video format. She publishes the weekly MuseLetter on Fridays (you can subscribe here). And last Friday she published a video and commentary that inspired me to get the word out to a wider audience! So, without further introduction here is Rosemary with an important message. I’ll be back tomorrow and on Monday with commentary.
A Review of “The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic” by Martín Prechtel
I recently finished reading Martín Prechtel’s latest book having preordered it and received it on its publication date. My long anticipation of the work and excitement to devour it in wholly massive gulps was only tempered by its importance and my savoring each bite as I moved through the elegant prose poem word by precious word treating each one as a seed for growth and understanding. This is a giant of a book unlike anything else out there. This work is itself an instruction manual for humanity to find an “unlikely peace” in this post-modern, post-everything chaotic world we are waking up to.
In the interest of full disclosure I first met Martín in 2002 at the Minnesota Men’s Conference. I had at that point read his first book, Secrets of the Talking Jaguar, published in 1998. I have since read everything he has written multiple times and will continue to read his books for the rest of my life. Each is built of many layers of information, knowledge and wisdom. And I am currently a participant in his school, Bolad’s Kitchen, in his third group known as the New Sprouts.
That said, The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic is Martín’s most important work yet. It offers me many additional readings as I absorb each layer of the stories and the wisdom much like an archeologist peeling back the compost heap levels of ancient communities to reveal the underlying meaning and cultures that instruct us in ways to build a new community and a new culture in order to keep the seeds alive! These seeds are our seeds if we can find them. In fact these seeds are us. And they are vital to the very survival of humanity.
At first blush the part of the subtitle: The Parallel Lives of People as Plants, sounded a bit strange to me, and intriguing. Martín explains his meaning here very clearly, again in the extraordinarily multivalent way he has of bringing together complex thoughts and concepts into juxtaposition to deepen the understanding of his meaning. Read the book to discover for yourself how true this exploration of people as plants is!
As I read this book I found myself chuckling at the humor in the stories and anecdotes from his time in Guatemala. More often the tears would come as I went through both grief and inspiration as the words sank slowly into my psyche, almost at once plunging me into the depths of despair and rising to the heights of confidence and optimism as I with Martín consider the human condition and our future.
If you have had the privilege of meeting Martín you will hear him, see him and sense his very presence as you read his words. It is so good to have him close, just here on my shelf! And if you have not yet met him this is a wonderful opportunity to begin your journey toward an “unlikely peace” with yourself and your fellow humans! You will meet Martín on this journey.
The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic ended much too soon for me. The work is totally satisfying and certainly complete meeting all the promises of the delicious title and the enticing Part and Chapter titles. I just wasn’t ready to let Martín go; I wanted to keep his voice in my head. So, I went back to his earlier book: The Toe Bone and the Tooth (now published as Stealing Benefacio’s Roses) to again savor that sumptuous feast and retain his voice echoing through my whole body down to the very core, that seed within!
If you have any sense that the indigenous cultures of humanity have something to teach us, if you are interested at all in how we can resuscitate a culture from the mess we are now in, if you have ever prayed for peace, if you love stories, if you are intrigued by the title, if you find yourself wondering where the human family is going, then read this book. It is important. It is powerful. It will make you cry – and laugh. And you will love yourself just a little bit more for having read it!
Balance – Part 2
We have come half a cycle since my last post on “Balance.” The Sun is once again approaching the half-way point in His journey through the heavens, moving back toward the North. He will reach the mid-point of this journey on Tuesday, March 20 at 1:14 am Eastern Daylight Time. And it is at this point that He enters the Astrological House of Aries.
Have you felt the heat? Here in the Northern Hemisphere we are moving rapidly into Spring. Do you feel the energy of the climbing Sun as He moves higher and higher in the sky each day? As I write it is only a few hours now until He approaches His balance point with Mother Earth as They lock up in the dance of this balance creating the equal parts of night and day for our world, for our bodies.
It’s a good time to check in with our physical bodies and to check their balance. Are we a little wobbly, still recovering from the storms of Winter? Are we a little low on energy still restocking an impoverished larder here at Winter’s end? Are we still standing in the shadow of Winter’s weak Sunlight? It is time to move toward balance, replenishment and the Light as we track with the Farther who revitalizes the Mother and all of us, Her children.
Personally I have begun a new practice of Qigong this Spring, learning the Wuji informal style from a creative and capable teacher. She is going well beyond teaching the forms, explaining why Qigong is so powerful, how it works, offering anecdotes of healing and bringing this ancient Chinese form into a modern context. I like this balance of the Old and the New, the physical movement with the exercise of the brain and spirit. And I feel like I’m doing a Spring cleaning of all of me, pushing out the old stagnant chi and filling me with freshness!
Stand tall and firmly planted seeking the grounding and centeredness of the Mother who supports you so generously. Build your strength and energy through a new practice you bring in with the coming energy of Spring. Seek the Light of the bright burning Father who shines for us all feeding us and the Mother with all of His power and Love. This is the balance we all seek. And we can feel it strongly at this time of year as we face the Sun, away from our shadow, and soak up the healing rejuvenative Light and Love He offers us.
The brand-new leaves of the trees
Form a lovely soft green halo of Light
Bathing the still visible dark branches
Of these stately trees in a wash of
Liquid Sunlight misting all around.
Celebrate the New Season. Celebrate you!
Life
A few days ago the dear rescue cat, Buddha, beloved of our daughter’s family, died quietly in the night. Mindy found him the next morning curled up in his favorite kitchen chair as if asleep! He had been having some health issues, expensive ones, but the vet thought none of these to be life threatening. But Buddha never wanted to be a burden. I sensed he left his body to do his work from the other side.
We are so frequently reminded of mortality, of the temporary nature of everything. I have been through my own set of losses over this past year, so Buddha’s untimely death brings all of this to the foreground. A young friend with a brain tumor, a brother-in-law with open heart surgery just behind him, another dear friend struggling (and winning) against cancer!…life is indeed so fragile.
But it is this very fragility that reminds me of the cycles in life: the seed-to-sprout-to-flower-to-seed and dead, dried plant, repeated infinitely in response to the universal impulse toward this energy we call life! What an awesome power this is, a power toward good, light, love. We are all light beings. We all have this core as strong as a steel rod and as soft as the down of a baby bird, as hard as diamonds and as gentle as the shy hummingbird, this life urge that never dies, that cannot be killed by any force in existence no matter how many attempts are made. The shadow can be fiercely dark and still not overpower the light. The life force of love is the strongest thing in existence.
And this is the foundation for hope. Standing on this foundation death can never have dominion. Forces of darkness will shatter on the solid foundation of love – life force – every time.
The song of the day may be a funeral dirge, but there is still life in song. There may be longing and melancholy in the notes, but there is also love and that is the power behind life. This has never been clearer to me than now, facing all this loss and grief. No matter what happens life goes on.
I just finished reading the latest book by one of my teachers, Martín Prechtel: The Unlikely Peace of Cuchamaquic, The Parallel Lives of People as Plants: Keeping the Seeds Alive. (Watch for a review post here shortly.) I have a sense that this notion of life and love is exactly what drives Martín. This is what empowers him to “keep the seeds alive” – the mandate from his teacher. At the base of that steel rod that supports life is a seed. And the pent up potential at the heart of that seed is love. That heart contains the sprout, shoot, stalk, bud, blossom, stamen, pistil, pollen, ovum and next generation seed, and every future generation seed as a time capsule nestled in the cozy confines, protected and alive, waiting for a turn beyond our own in the great cycle. The echo of every generation is there forward and backward, no end, no beginning.
Buddha’s death is just another reminder of this great wheel of time that rolls out and back. His life may have been fragile at the end. But that was not an end. The story, even his story, goes on. Life goes on all around. Life powered by love goes on.
Forgiveness
This is a powerful word, overloaded with layers of context from religious backgrounds, moral code, all the “shoulds” in our lives. But what does it really mean to forgive?
Here again understanding begins with inner work, the inner examination of what this word means and how it applies to us, to me. Is this something that comes to us from others who have wronged us in some way? How do we recognize it? Is it an apology? And how do we react to it? Do we shrug it off as if it didn’t happen; go on as if it didn’t?
And how do we react when we are in the wrong? What form do we want forgiveness to take when we’ve hurt someone but hope they will forgive us?
I think the only way to understand forgiveness is to see how it applies to ourselves.
A couple of days ago I dropped my favorite fountain pen. I reacted with shock, dismay and anger that this pen was ruined. This was, of course, an accident: I fumbled with papers and a notebook trying to take notes during a coaching call. I was clumsy and inattentive. The pen fell, point down of course, on the tile floor. How do I forgive myself for this negligence? I go inside to examine the feelings: heartbreak, yes, but over an object? It is repairable. Let the object go. Anger, yes, both self and outer-directed. Is it the floor’s fault? Do I blame gravity? My lack of an appropriate work-area? My clumsiness? Why do I need to find fault at all? Accidents happen. As I look back at the event today it is an opportunity to examine and apply forgiveness – self-forgiveness.
I can learn about forgiveness here by going inward, self-ward. Forgiveness here is not to dismiss the event. It happened, I am still upset by it and there are consequences to deal with. But to hold on to blame or anger seems unproductive. Holding on to the lesson seems the better approach. I can also respond with action to help prevent accidents of this type in the future: I can improve my work environment and place more attention on protecting my valuable pens. Action and awareness help assuage the hurt from the loss. But ultimately I have to return to the illusive notion of forgiveness. This thing happened; it can’t be undone and should not be forgotten. But I take the lesson and come back to the mantra: “I am always doing my best and I am continually learning and improving.” This is the rock-bottom message here. This is self-forgiveness.
We can then take this into the outer world, the world populated by others! We are all doing our best; even those who might hurt us in some way are doing their best! We may wish they were doing better! But they are where they are. We don’t have to forget the injury or pretend it didn’t happen. We do have to take some action, to let them know of the hurt caused and to learn for ourselves what there is to take from the incident so it doesn’t happen again. And, this action may be to avoid this person or situation in the future. We remember the lesson and move on, doing our best and giving them space to do their best.
Forgiveness. Somehow there is a seed of Peace here, buried in this too often misunderstood approach to relationships. Maybe we need to practice forgiveness in order to wage Peace.
Love
A couple of days ago I wrote about Peace and my charge to be a “Warrior of Peace.” I wrote that there is only one place to begin the quest for that peace, which must be known so intimately well that it is like our own skin if we are to be true defenders of Peace, and that’s inside – the first step of the quest is inward!
And what do we find when we go inward? I am reminded not only that today is Valentine’s Day but also that Rosemary’s daily video message today (you can get it here: TheScientificMystic.com) is about Love; and not just any kind of love, romantic love for example, but Self-Love! When you go inside do you find there that sense of love, especially self-love?
If we have no sense of how to love ourselves then how can we love others? If our mantra is “Everyone is doing their best” then doesn’t that apply to ourselves first? Love, forgiveness, peace—they all begin with oneself!
We are each a unique expression of humanity with a unique soul, purpose, mission, destiny. We have to be here and be us to make everything work in some incredibly complicated, interdependent way. The Universe created us to be here now. That is a lot to love about ourselves! Without us the world would be incomplete, imperfect.
There is both grand praise and deep grief in this self-loving. The grief comes from the immense responsibility we fall so short from standing up to. But if we are doing our best at all times then forgiveness finds a home in our consciousness if we let it in.
I am reminded here of a deep thought given to me by Martín Prechtel, one of my most honored and revered teachers (his most recent book published this January, expands on this concept much more eloquently than I could ever attempt. See it at: The Unlikely Peace of Cuchumaquic). We are all mutually and forever indebted for our life. Think for a moment of all you have that you are indebted for. And I’m not talking about “stuff” or bank-debt here. I’m talking about the deeper elements of life without which we could not live. How can we ever pay back the plants for the nourishment they provide and the air they produce for us to breathe? But we do our best and we offer all we have to pay the debt knowing all along that we can never make it; we can never pay it all back. The toll it takes from everything, everyone, especially Mother Earth to allow a human to grow, survive, thrive is just too great.
Knowing we can never repay is a source of both grief and praise at the same time (these feelings are really two sides of one emotion!). We grieve our indebtedness and still celebrate our lives as worth something, worth living, worth fulfilling our purpose. If we can’t celebrate life then there can be no meaning to any of it! We need to celebrate the perfection of our lives as token repayment, an honoring of the Mother for giving us this life in the first place! As Martín might put it: we feed (honor) the Holy (God/Goddess in all things) by celebrating our lives; and in turn the Holy feed us!
And out of this grief and praise comes Love! The Mother loves us into existence at great sacrifice. We are all born of love. And this is our first debt. We need to repay this love in kind. And this is where self-love really is important. It is not only the source of knowing how to love, it is partial payment for our very existence—the love that created us!
Peace, joy, fulfillment all spring from Love of Self! Celebrate this!
Peace
What does this word mean? It is too easy to define it as its negative: “the absence of war.” But if we don’t use what we think of as this word’s opposite, how do we define it, describe the essence or the quality that is associated with this word?
I recently had the privilege of participating with my wife, Rosemary, as she channeled “The Divine Feminine” for several of us. When it came to be my turn she offered a message from an Archangel she saw standing with me. And here, paraphrased, is the heart of the message from that Archangel:
The Archangel showed her a sword and said through her to me:
“There is a battle raging; you must pick up this sword and fight for peace. You must find your warrior strength and fight. You must find your inner warrior, your power, your strength to stand in truth for peace. There is no peace possible from firing a gun.
“Peace is not a weak, airy, gentle thing. It is strong, with a quality of balance, surety, confidence. Your message is about the warrior who can stand for peace. There is a vibration of peace that you can sense. This comes from inner peace, a knowing that this is true.
“You are the Messenger of the Warrior of Peace. Be peace in the world. Hold this energy for others, especially men. Men seem only to know fighting. Fighting, killing, destruction is not a path to peace. Don’t confuse warrior with war. Peace is not the absence of killing but a vibration, the Vibration of Peace.
“Write about this in poetry, an article; write about the strength of the Warrior of Peace. This is your mantle, your charge. Explore and expose the Warrior of Peace, what that means. Invite others to explore their inner Warrior of Peace.”
This is the essence of the message. After she channeled it for me, Rosemary asked if I had any questions! I could barely catch my breath to say: “How, after that, could I ask for more?”
And so I begin to fulfill my “charge” to explore and expose this archetype, The Warrior of Peace. I could go in so many directions with this but the only direction to begin is inward.
The inner exploration is vital to anything we attempt in the outer world! One of my practices for inner work is to write “morning pages” – three hand-written pages much in the way recommended by Julia Cameron in her book “The Artist’s Way”. While thinking, questioning and writing about my message from Rosemary this came to me during my inner quest:
“Peace. It starts within. We all need to find an inner peace and this begins with practice. Practice Inner Peace. This is not unlike my primary value: Practice–>Love! Inner peace begins with self-love. If we all loved ourselves would there be war in the world? If we were all complete and trusted in the abundance and reflected love in the Universe would there be war? If we simply accepted ourselves and our purpose in the world would there be a need for war? Would there even be any motivation for war? If we all accepted of ourselves and everyone else that we are all doing our best and pledge to do better would there be any war?
“Awareness–>Acceptance–>Action to learn and improve–>Integration. These are seeds of Peace.”
I have not defined Peace here. I have even fallen to the “no-war” level as a first attempt! But I have found a place to begin this quest! Every quest begins with a step.
HAPPY NEW YEAR, 2013!
From RosemarySpace and my family we wish you all a very Happy and Prosperous 2013! May you live Your Richest Life!
Happiness is Family All Around!
Balance
Glenn M. Smith and I are launching a new site just at the Autumnal Equinox here in the Northern Hemisphere. In fact the Equinox comes to Colorado at 3:05 am Mountain Daylight Time, Friday, September 23, 2011, in case you are up then and want to celebrate with a little ceremony or ritual.
What comes to my mind at the equinoxes is “balance.” These two times a year the days and nights are of equal (more or less) length; the light is balanced by the dark. For us Northerners the days are shrinking in length until Friday when day balances night. And from then we plunge toward the darkness and death of winter as the wheel turns and we turn inward and toward quite times. (Well, that’s if you are living a Natural Life in tune with nature, cycles and the harmonics of the dynamic Universe in which we find ourselves!)
But for now we are in balance at least for a few days around this equinox. This is a time to recognize the balances of many aspects of life. And this is why I think our launch of powerfulsensitivemen.com is timed perfectly with this equinox. Powerful and Sensitive: there is a balance in the feeling of these words, particularly as they apply to men. Powerful does not exclude sensitive. And Sensitive does not exclude powerful. These characteristics can be in dynamic balance in everyone – in fact this is exactly the goal! It is the goal of every conscious evolving human. It is certainly my goal, not only for me but for everyone who is willing to join us in seeking this balance.
Equal days and nights; equal light and dark; I conjure up the Taichi symbol of the Toaists.
They have many corollaries for light and dark: male and female, hard and soft, giving and receiving, fire and water, yang and yin! The symbol is perfectly balanced with equal parts light and dark. Yet there is a dynamic to the dance of the ‘fish’ as they swirl around one-another. And note there is a spot of dark in the light; a spot of light in the dark – all is in harmony.
The dynamic of power and sensitivity are not unlike the Taichi symbol. Every powerful man has a ‘spot’ of sensitivity within; every sensitive man has a ‘spot’ of power within. The key is to bring these into balance. Every male has an inner feminine energy at play. In many this energy is suppressed, ignored, even denied. These may be powerful men but they are living “half-lives” – they are not living to their full potential as humans. In others the inner feminine has taken control. These are the “soft males” who have become overly sensitive and in the process have lost their ability to effect the changes their very sensitivity is demanding of them!
Balance: equal parts masculine and feminine, power and sensitivity, light and dark. This is what we seek. This is what we hope to explore in great depth, together, in this forum for men seeking to be powerfully sensitive!
As we go into this equinox time let’s remember to seek balance in everything we do. On every inhale breathe in the power and energy of life! On every exhale breathe out the gift of love and acceptance of All that Is!
Richard
Men and The Goddess 