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A Saturday poem, a reprise from July 2016: “A Time to Grieve”
I came across a printout of this post from July 8, 2016, as I was clearing out some papers from my office. I read the poem again and thought: wow, here we are in the midst of yet another crisis; maybe the worst one yet! And there will be grief, lots of grief. A new killer is on the loose, not with an automatic weapon designed for war but a tiny COVID-19 virus mutation out to kill as many as it can.
In the nearly four years since I wrote and published this poem the first time, we’ve experienced a lot of loss! I don’t think I need to go through a list; you all know what I’m referring to. But there is still hope; there is still light; there is still love! As we go through the changes brought on by the virus and the mixed responses to it, there will be more loss. There will be more love! We need a lot more love!
So here is what I wrote about the time then, and here is the poem about grief:
From July 8, 2016:
You know there are no coincidences. Everything is in flow, in divine order. The other day I wrote briefly about reading “The Smell of Rain on Dust”, the latest book by my most esteemed teacher, Martín Prechtel. This lovely little book is all about “Grief and Praise” – its subtitle. As I said the other day I’ll write a complete review of it when I have finished savoring every word. But in the meantime I am struck that I have chosen the perfect time to be reading it. It is time to remember how to grieve!
It is with humility and the deepest respect that I offer this riff on Martín’s work. These are his thoughts that I heard from his lips as I sat learning at his feet and I read in his marvelous book. And I offer it to you as a way to cope with a world that seems off the rails. It is only love that can right the wreckage.
A Time to Grieve
We seem to drift, as a nation,
Ever more deeply into violence and divide;
More killings; cops killing “innocents” –
“Innocents” killing cops.
There is an emerging frenzy to this senseless,
Escalating violence. It is so much, so intense.
It is maddening.
And it is not clear where it will end; or when or how.
Martín knows how.
He has spoken and written about it over and over.
We as a nation – as a so called culture –
Have lost the ability to grieve.
In fact this ability has been taught out of us!
Go shopping instead!
This is always the remedy. Consume more.
Eat up the world to mask the grief.
Hide our losses and sorrow
And desperate need of relief through grief
In our purchases.
Salve the wounds over with stuff.
Feel better with that latest broach –
Pin it on over your heart as a shield to hide behind.
Pin together the tatters in your broken heart.
Pretend it is whole; mend the tears
And choke back the tears.
For Heaven’s sake don’t embarrass yourself
With any display that would reveal your vulnerable soul.
That will not do!
There is no comfort there; only in more stuff.
How else do we keep the wheels on this economy
That promises protection, plenty, prosperity for all
And that pursuit, so elusive, of a happy life?
Grief is equally elusive as happiness!
We are not allowed to grieve.
Three days off for our dearest family members.
Take your own time for friends. Then back to work;
Produce so you can consume more.
No, we are not eating the world! There is always more.
Oh, and there will always be poor. Jesus said so;
And he was right about everything.
And they killed him too!
Never mind the poor; they are not worth dying for.
They are not worthy of our life style.
It will end in one of two ways:
We may kill one another as the violence escalates
To a new world war – a Global War on Terror
Brought to you by terror. Fight terror with terror –
It is the American Way. Our violence begets more violence.
It matters not how it began – it only has a violent end.
Or, we may remember how to grieve.
We can go to the sea and cry a river to fill it.
Weep for the deaths.
Weep for the brutality.
Weep for a society gone so wrong.
Weep for the wars.
Weep for the enemies “following orders.”
Weep for the loved ones whose bones we stand upon.
Weep for us, victims and perpetrators alike.
We are all in this together;
And we will never get out alive!
And when we have wept that river
Flowing to the sea, it might then be time to
Remember something else:
Remember the love that brought us into existence.
Remember the beauty of the world.
Remember the generosity of the Universe
Offering enough and more!
Remember to offer in return our praise and gratitude.
There is a cycle to the loss and gain,
The constant flow of less and more.
Know wherever we are in this cycle
It will continue.
There must always be time for grieving
Because there will always be loss.
Life is loss.
There must always be time for praising
Because there is always gain.
Life is love.
Live life to the fullest in grief and praise!
©2016 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
A Time to Grieve
You know there are no coincidences. Everything is in flow, in divine order. The other day I wrote briefly about reading “The Smell of Rain on Dust”, the latest book by my most esteemed teacher, Martín Prechtel. This lovely little book is all about “Grief and Praise” – its subtitle. As I said the other day I’ll write a complete review of it when I have finished savoring every word. But in the meantime I am struck that I have chosen the perfect time to be reading it. It is time to remember how to grieve!
It is with humility and the deepest respect that I offer this riff on Martín’s work. These are his thoughts that I heard from his lips as I sat learning at his feet and I read in his marvelous book. And I offer it to you as a way to cope with a world that seems off the rails. It is only love that can right the wreckage.
A Time to Grieve
We seem to drift, as a nation,
Ever more deeply into violence and divide;
More killings; cops killing “innocents” –
“Innocents” killing cops.
There is an emerging frenzy to this senseless,
Escalating violence. It is so much, so intense.
It is maddening.
And it is not clear where it will end; or when or how.
Martín knows how.
He has spoken and written about it over and over.
We as a nation – as a so called culture –
Have lost the ability to grieve.
In fact this ability has been taught out of us!
Go shopping instead!
This is always the remedy. Consume more.
Eat up the world to mask the grief.
Hide our losses and sorrow
And desperate need of relief through grief
In our purchases.
Salve the wounds over with stuff.
Feel better with that latest broach –
Pin it on over your heart as a shield to hide behind.
Pin together the tatters in your broken heart.
Pretend it is whole; mend the tears
And choke back the tears.
For Heaven’s sake don’t embarrass yourself
With any display that would reveal your vulnerable soul.
That will not do!
There is no comfort there; only in more stuff.
How else do we keep the wheels on this economy
That promises protection, plenty, prosperity for all
And that pursuit, so elusive, of a happy life?
Grief is equally elusive as happiness!
We are not allowed to grieve.
Three days off for our dearest family members.
Take your own time for friends. Then back to work;
Produce so you can consume more.
No, we are not eating the world! There is always more.
Oh, and there will always be poor. Jesus said so;
And he was right about everything.
And they killed him too!
Never mind the poor; they are not worth dying for.
They are not worthy of our life style.
It will end in one of two ways:
We may kill one another as the violence escalates
To a new world war – a Global War on Terror
Brought to you by terror. Fight terror with terror –
It is the American Way. Our violence begets more violence.
It matters not how it began – it only has a violent end.
Or, we may remember how to grieve.
We can go to the sea and cry a river to fill it.
Weep for the deaths.
Weep for the brutality.
Weep for a society gone so wrong.
Weep for the wars.
Weep for the enemies “following orders.”
Weep for the loved ones whose bones we stand upon.
Weep for us, victims and perpetrators alike.
We are all in this together;
And we will never get out alive!
And when we have wept that river
Flowing to the sea, it might then be time to
Remember something else:
Remember the love that brought us into existence.
Remember the beauty of the world.
Remember the generosity of the Universe
Offering enough and more!
Remember to offer in return our praise and gratitude.
There is a cycle to the loss and gain,
The constant flow of less and more.
Know wherever we are in this cycle
It will continue.
There must always be time for grieving
Because there will always be loss.
Life is loss.
There must always be time for praising
Because there is always gain.
Life is love.
Live life to the fullest in grief and praise!
©2016 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
FRIDAY’S POEM FROM “RHYTHMS AND CYCLES” – The Chamber of Time
One of my favorite teachers, Martín Prechtel, is a master of languages, among many things. He teaches that the Tzutujil Mayan language has no verb form of “to be.” This makes it very interesting to speak of the past or future; in fact the Mayan peoples don’t seem to mind this “missing” grammatical component and are quite happy living in the present! Would Western civilization be a bit more content if we stopped using “to be.”
Imagine the possibilities!
With this in mind I riffed off one of Martín’s teachings about living in the middle of time for today’s poem:
The Chamber of Time
What if reality is nothing more
than a huge echo chamber?
Time in this reality is nothing more
than an echo returning.
The Holy, Goddesses, Gods
are nothing more than our
reflection in this chamber.
And we, nothing more than theirs.
To be sure the rhythms, ebb
and flow, dynamic play of
Light and Shadow in this
Hologram are a multidimensional mix.
The chaotic complexity settles
into karmic patterns, polyphonic,
kaleidoscopic interplay of
a multivalence array, to be sure.
And the echoes, like the breath of the
Holy, like our own rhythms,
beats, breaths, reverberate
Through this panoply of reality in time.
©2014 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
The Language of Being the Natural YOU – Richard’s Commentary
In Rosemary’s article this week she channels The Divine Feminine who quote a favorite line of the followers of The Law of Attraction and their key premise: “Energy flows where attention goes.” Then Rosemary explains that attention is thought and thought is governed by language. Therefore to be who we came here to be, we need to use the language we came here to use to think natural thoughts, to express ourselves using natural language, to adhere to natural beliefs in order to manifest our natural selves.
I like this word natural very much. There are many associations I have with this word, like nature, native, indigenous. One of my teachers, Martín Prechtel, claims that one of our main goals is to become a natural human being: one who belongs where they were, fits their environment, lives a natural life. He also teaches that a good way to begin to understand how to live a natural life is to learn an indigenous language, especially one that does not use the verb form “to be.”
And this brings me full circle to my posts last week about the concept of time and how natural people typically have a very different relationship with time than “western people” with their heavy reliance on the Indo-European language use of the to-be verb form.
So, what is this natural language Rosemary urges us to adopt in order to get in touch with the inner light that we are? Do we all have to learn an indigenous language that does not rely on “to be”? Or is there an easier way?
When I ask myself questions like this I find myself almost naturally going inside to seek answers. And when I go there long enough answers usually come bubbling up.
Of course when I do this I am following Rosemary’s advice explicitly! She says: “The Natural You is the being at your core, that center of Light that can brighten the world for others. Put your attention here. Focus on your BEING, not what you are DOING.”
But notice she is using the to-be verb forms here in this very suggestion! An interesting irony. Nevertheless her point is clear. And what I conclude is this naturallanguage is the language of being. We speak this language when we meditate, when we go inside. We use this language not so much to express thoughts as to let thoughts go. We use this language when we touch our true nature, that light-being at our core. We use this language when we speak to God, or whatever expression for the Eternal appeals. We use this language when we speak from the heart. Poets use this language when they are at their best.
This natural language is easy enough to learn. But it is very difficult to perfect. It takes a lifetime of practice to get it right. We can all speak it as natives. But few become fluent. The world would be an awesome place; it would be “Heaven on Earth” if we all strove to perfect our use of our natural language!
And, yes, this is a belief I hold. I express this belief in an Indo-European language using the to-be form here: “would be.” My natural language is not a written language. It is difficult to find written examples except in rare instances of near perfect poems and certain stories of the heart. I have heard some of those stories, translations of stories from natural people, like stories Martín Prechtel tells.
Do you speak a natural language? How do you get in touch with your inner light? How do you express your beliefs that guide you through this world? This is your natural language.
The 5-Elements of the Tao
I love the way the Universe works. When I can take a breath, step back and observe, I am in awe that everything works! From the micro to the macro, from above to below, there is such beauty and bliss. And I am particularly inspired by the synchronicity of it all!
I just finished my Svaroopa Yoga class with a good and long-time friend, Dharma. As always it was gentle, he is so calm and peaceful, the asanas were relatively “easy”, and I came away stretched and balanced. And I believe it felt good and easy because I’ve been practicing Qigong pretty seriously all week. Overall I feel stronger and my balance has improved! Tomorrow I am back in my long-term Qigong class where we learn about “spontaneous healing” and practice 5-Element Qigong. And to top off the week I am on my way to Baltimore on Saturday for more Level 1 Qigong Form training with Jeff Primack, founder of the Qi Revolution!
And the beauty, the synchronicity continues! I have been developing a workshop after some excellent coaching with another friend, Ken Ellis. I have been questioning for years what to present to a group of men to help us all through development of “emotional maturity”. I have been motivated by many of my teachers from Robert Bly to Martín Prechtel to Robert Moore, to name a few. An idea began to form through my 5-Element Qigong practice. Ken urged me on and drew out of me a fascinating outline for a workshop. And there my concept languished since last summer.
Very recently the true beauty of the Universe unfolded another lotus petal and synchronicity struck again. This blog, Men and The Goddess, attracted the attention of a fellow blogger, Ellis Nelson. Of course, I checked out her blog: EllisNelson.com, and there it was, her review of a book that fits my scheme beautifully: Power of the Five Elements by Charles A. Moss, MD. I read a few additional reviews, ordered it immediately and have been pouring through it since it arrived. It is a perfect fit, a companion piece to exactly what I have in mind for my workshop.
I will write my own review of Dr. Moss’ book when I’ve finished reading it thoroughly. In short this work is not only confirming my own thinking about the 5 elements, it is expanding on the material I have already gathered. Beyond helping with my workshop development, it is helping me, directly impacting on how I perceive the world and how the world perceives me! Not only has this book confirmed my element, it has pegged me in every way; it has identified my strengths and weakness, my blessings and my faults, my motivations, outlook and fears. It has had quite an impact on me.
For me this confirms the ancient wisdom embodied in the Tao. As I work with material like Dr. Moss presents, practice 5-element qigong, work with the I Ching, continue my reading of Taoist literature it all comes together to form a beautiful whole. This is becoming a true Way for me. The signs are unmistakable!
And the Way flows on and the Universe unfolds a petal at a time. My qigong practice intensifies as I begin training for certification to become a qigong teacher. All of the 5 Elements are coming together to show me the Way of all the individuals in my life. And the workshop I am developing for presentation this summer is flowering into reality.
We have entered the month of March. Here in the Northern Hemisphere signs of spring are popping up everywhere. It’s a beautiful Universe and we are all alive at an amazing time!
Blessings!
“Shift or Stay Behind” – Richard’s Commentary
The Great Shift
Are you with us? It takes a community. We can’t do this alone; no one can. It may be trite now but I am still fond of that catchy phrase: “it takes a village.” I’ve known what this means for most of my life. I grew up in a small rural village in Wisconsin. At that time I felt throttled, held back; but I was also protected, very safely held in that community.
I reached well beyond that community when I went off to Ethiopia to be a Peace Corps volunteer. And I found myself in a small community in the southern province of Gamu Gofa. Again I was isolated, held within narrow limits of both behavior and opportunity; and I was protected, held in a community that took good care of me when I was injured in an accident.
One of my favorite village experiences has been in Gavilan, Northern New Mexico, in Martín Prechtel’s “Bolad’s Kitchen.” It is a small village with ample opportunity. We are held there and hold each other in great love and respect. We learn, share, trade, offer and are given all that we need.
And now the Great Transformation is beginning to unfold. The world may not have ended on the Winter Solstice 2012, but the change began. We are changing. Life around us is changing. Can you feel it? Rosemary has been writing and channeling about this time for years now. Many others have as well. And people are waking up in this changing time. It is very exciting!
So, what do we do? We pay attention. The signs are all around us. We listen. The voices, especially that inner voice, speak the words of truth that we test in our hearts. And we ask, what is mine to do in this time of change? What is my purpose? How do I live into my Soul Purpose that I have been called to now?
If you don’t know your purpose or if you are troubled when someone asks you this question, it may be time to explore this deep issue. Another way to ask this is “what is your big WHY?” In the greater scheme we are all asked to wake up! We are asked to join in community with everyone in our soul groups, to form the villages that it will take to make the shift. And we each have a role or roles to play within those villages. Identify your role; hone the skills you need to perform that role. We need you to be at your best!
There are many paths inward to discover your “Big WHY.” There are gradual ways and fast tracks. For example Rosemary offers Scientific Hand Analysis, a body of proven techniques to reveal much about whom you came here to be through the examination of your finger prints and the lines in your hands. In one session she can reveal your Life School, Life Lesson and Life Purpose. Another way is to become aware of your intentions: when you first awaken set your intentions for the day; and when you are going to sleep examine your day through a “nightly review” to see how well your intentions were met, not in a judgmental way but through an analytical approach to help discern areas for improvement.
Awareness and intention are the basic tools of an awakened mind. An awakened mind is an essential component of the New Community. We are on a trajectory for major change in the way we are living on Planet Earth. This is The Great Shift.
Are you with us?
PS: You can learn more about Scientific Hand Analysis on Rosemary’s site!
“Your Empowered Future Self” – Richard’s Commentary
You may have noticed the last few posts here have been about “time” – especially about the future! Last Friday I posted my recording from Rosemary’s Conversation with The Other Side this month during which three Floating Heads appeared to her with a message for me from the future. And in a second message an elegant Native American woman from the past came to me with advice on the nature of body and spirit. (If you missed this recording you can get it here.)
You can bet I’ve been thinking and writing a lot about the nature of time during these last days of 2012! And here, for your entertainment and consideration are some of those thoughts:
1) This from the Floating Heads – yes, I am now listening to them and writing what they have to tell me as they directed in their message to me. Wrapping my head around all of this has been both fun and provoking. After listening again to the recording, I wrote: “I need to listen to the recording again because it is deep. The part about creating form for the future, which is formless, out of the present, bringing the vision for that future into the present is no simple exercise in understanding. I think it is a parallel to indigenous understanding of past/present/future, especially in cultures with no ‘to be’ verbs. So I know that the present is an echo of both the past and the future. The future comes into the present to shape both from nothingness. We, right now in this moment, are a reflection of some future that is coming “back” to us. We are the mirror image of that future. And I think this is part of what the Floating Heads are “here” to tell me. This certainly seems to align well with what Martín Prechtel is teaching.
“So, the future and present are in one sense, one thing, one time. They are two ends of a vibration. And so is the past. Or maybe past and future are the two ends and the wave crest is the present. If I draw it, it might look like a wave:
“But that wave is also a particle of time, a pinpoint with all nodes joined in an extra-dimensional way. My Floating Heads are asking me to bring their messages out into the world so there is form that can materialize for them 500 years hence.
“One thing I am curious about is the dependency. If they are from a distant system how are we connected and what significance does our existence, survival, have for them?
“As I recall the message I am to bring their messages from the future into our present so their future can take form; their very existence in their present seems to depend on this!”
2) Later I wrote: “I wish I could get the true sense that time is a particle and encapsulating past, present, future all right here in each moment. Perhaps then I would be less time-conscious and content to live in each moment letting the particle dance as it will across the field.
“Time is like an echo-chamber with the present right in the center and the past and future each equally reverberating back from the walls. And each present event ripples through the currents affecting both the past and future. There is a resonance set up where the interacting waves of time both interfere with and amplify other ripples. My actions, thoughts, energy ripple out from now to reach back and have a causal effect on what happened yesterday. And the ripple reaches forward to have a causal effect on what happens tomorrow.
“This is why lessons and forgiveness are so important. This is the impact of changing curses to blessings (as Martín would have us do). It is never too late to take action because we can affect the past. And it is never too early to take action now because we modify the future with each of those actions.”
Enough for now. It is essential to get this concept of time, to think like the indigenous peoples who live natural lives within a much greater context of what life, time, the present really mean.
Does any of this make sense? I did tell you things were going to take a different turn in this blog once I posted the recording!
Reach out to your future self who you visualize as an extraordinary and empowered human being; bring back that power and embed it firmly in your solar plexus. And then consider the nature of time and the nature of duality and union.
Monday Poem: “Shadow Echoes”
If you listened to the message I posted on Friday you know that it takes on the subject of time in a very deep way. When I studied with Martín Prechtel he spoke often about the Mayan view of time, especially within the context of their language which does not have the verb form of “to be.” So they have a very different way of speaking and thinking about the past and future as they relate to the present. He told stories which never had a beginning nor ending; they “always begin in the middle.” We are in the middle and both the past and future are like echoes reverberating off the walls of time.
With Martín’s teaching and the message from Rosemary we have a lot to discuss about time. It will be fun week to create this blog. Stay tuned!
And to begin the week, this Winter Solstice week, 2012, I offer you a Monday Poem:
Shadow Echoes
We can’t know what they might
Look like
So far out there;
Too far to travel in this life.
We can’t guess what they might
Tell us
Across the gulf;
Too far to hear their story.
We can only sense them,
Feel them
In deep moments,
As shadow echoes in the heart.
©2012 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
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!
Please enjoy!
