Monthly Archives: July 2021

As Within, So Without

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Years ago, when I was first studying shamanism, we were working with the concept of “as within, so without.” A basic tenet of not only shamanism, but many, many religious and philosophical schools of thought. In a nutshell, it is known as a fundamental law of existence, where whatever is within you, can be found playing out in the world around you.

This was an enormous shift for me to begin to explore how what I harbored within me in terms of fears, resentment, anger, and imbalance was being expressed in my outer world. That it wasn’t being done to me. This challenged the victim in me. The one who got to both bemoan the atrocities of the world and stand separate from them somehow; believing that it all was someone else’s doing. Believing someone else was at fault. Believing that if the world of people would just get their shit together, everything would be better.

During the same time period I was exploring “as within, so without,” I heard a story about a village that was in desperate straits; suffering through season after season of drought. Finally, they called in a shaman to help bring the rains to their failing crops. He took a hut at the outskirts of town to stay in, and holed up inside for week after week. The people began to get agitated and restless for they could not see any change in their circumstances. To them, it appeared he was doing nothing.

Finally, when the villagers could take it no more, they sent one of their own to check up on him. To call him to task for the reason he had been called in. That being, to bring the rain. When the villager confronted the shaman with the lack of progress, the shaman took a long pause looking deeply into the man’s eyes, and said, “Before the outer world can bring the rain again to you, your village must come to balance within itself. I am bringing back the healing and the balance within all of you and among you that you have turned away from. That is why you have no rain.”  

This is where we stand now with the Earth. She will go on with or without us. And whether or not we go on is up to us, but perhaps not in the ways we believe. For what if everything that you can see outside of you that you find unbearable, horrible, and excruciating is yours to do? From the inside out.

This is not the same as going on a crusade about what you want to fix in the world. This is the opposite of that. It is instead, going within yourself to find what you cannot bear, or are afraid of in the world, and locate it within yourself. And then, work to bring that into balance. For the Truth is, what we do to ourselves, we do to the Earth. However we violate our own precious Nature is exactly how we violate the precious Nature of the planet.

The real problem here is: We do not value Life. Not ours. Not others. Not the Planet’s. For if we did, there is much we would never, ever do. It is a deep and ancient knowing and practice to take on that level of accountability within yourself; doing what is yours and only yours to do.

If this resonates with you, watch your thoughts around what is happening to the Earth; your fears, your anger, your apathy, your blame. And then, look to find it in yourself as a direct path to bringing balance, peace, stability and harmony back into our world.

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Red, White & Blue

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How we frame anything matters. How we talk about the issues that face us, and the questions we pose that result from that framing, matters. A lot. Why? Because it sets us in a particular direction; telling us what is important and valid, and what is not. It directs us as to what to pay attention to; what to ignore and what to include. What to make important, and what it is that doesn’t matter at all. In essence, how we frame anything, along with the particular words we use, sets the stage for how we will understand and interact with, what is before us.

In a world of unknowns, where there is much that a human mind cannot comprehend, know or control, we turn towards our particular frameworks to explain the world to us. But how well, or not, we frame anything determines how close, or not, we will land to the Truth. Why does this matter? Because the closer we get to the full and complete reality of what stands before us, the more accurate and true our solutions become; taking us to greater levels of understanding and meaning.

Because I only keep a tiny portion of my attention on mainstream media, and because I identify with neither the Democratic nor Republican party, I can miss some driving forces in how it is that our culture is framing certain issues. With that said, it has taken me months to catch up to a deeply concerning way that we are framing a virus that has changed our world.

Unfortunately, and erroneously, our culture has been framing how to address a virus as a political issue. In the process, we have set ourselves against one another at a time when we most need to be coming together. Compounding that, we have exacerbated, by omission, a longstanding epidemic decline in health and vitality in our country by ignoring the complications and death rates brought on by a preponderance of underlying chronic conditions that have left so many of us susceptible to a virus.

Because we have been framing this as a political issue, we have lost track that what is before us is neither a red state nor a blue state issue. It always has been, and always will be, a health issue. This is not about who is right or wrong, better or worse, harmful or helpful. This is not about “this side” cares, and “that side” does not. That framing of the issue is a sad and destructive distraction that has taken us away from creating an accurate and healthy frame. Dare I say, that frame being: What is health? What undermines it? What supports it? Specifically, what is it that will boost the immunity of a population that transcends agendas, special interests and conflicts of interest?

I know this may seem overly simplified. Or too contrary to the current narrative. But think about it. When it comes to having a healthy immune system to fight off a virus, what else could the frame be if not precisely that? Something simple and body based. But to see this would require dropping the political agendas and weaponry. It would take asking some difficult questions around how health care is framed and delivered in a world that values and is controlled by what makes the most money and who has the strongest political lobby. Most of all, it would require opening up the existing framework to healthy debate; with input from many, many different disciplines brought in to help reshape the framework.

If this makes any sense to you, you must start with yourself. So instead of aligning with a system outside of you to tell you what it means to be healthy-what if you started learning how to recognize and honor the truest needs of your body as the one and only foundational framework of health? A frame based in Biological Truth that transcends politics, censoring, mandates, and “hero likes” on social media.

Start now. Get in the habit of pausing at least once a day. Take a breath, and then, ask yourself “What am I feeling right now, and what is this feeling telling me I need?” From this one simple practice you begin to build a framework based on real human health. And from there, everything is possible. For all of us.

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First Things First

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Many years ago, I heard the expression “spiritual bypass.” If you’re not familiar with this phrase, it can be defined as “…a tendency to use spiritual explanations to avoid complex psychological issues.” In other words, instead of meeting head on and working through difficult and unresolved issues, we leap over what is too hard, while trying to land in a place we would rather be. Somewhere that feels better to us than here.

Wherever that here is, and whatever it takes to get us there. Delusion and denial included.

While this phrase has always been used in relation to how we see ourselves spiritually, the same underlying avoidance is being played out all around us, and on every, single level of our humanity. We want more ease in our minds, but because it feels too difficult, we bypass to “serenity” through drugs, alcohol, shopping, and scrolling. We want to feel at home in our bodies, but because we do not know how, we bypass to “safety and security” by abdicating our bodily autonomy, authority and sovereignty over to a doctor, the marketers and corporations selling us things, and now, our very own government. We want more closeness in our relationships, but because we have grown accustomed to screen-mediated interactions, we bypass to “intimacy” by believing that social media is the pinnacle of satisfying modern day connections.

Whether you look to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the yogic chakra system, childhood development, or building a house, every system worth its salt includes the same principle: First Things First.

Meaning, that before we can experience peace of mind, we must do a study of what it is that disturbs the mind, and what it is that calms it. Before we can feel at home in our bodies, we must learn how to take responsibility for what it means to care for them. And before we can have meaningful relationships, we must put the time in, in real time, day after day, that they deserve and require.

Somehow though, we don’t want to know this. We don’t want to know that things take time and our effort. For ours is a culture of bypass, leaving us more at home with the illusion that things can be got without cost, consequences or hard work, than with us doing what actually needs doing. We believe we are just supposed to be able to have it. Or easily get it. That someone else should do it for us, or at least tell us how to do it.

These are the thoughts of a child. But if you are ready to see things not as you wish them or expect them to be, but as they actually are, and are willing to use that reality check as a starting point, you are now in a position to leave bypass behind in the service of the life you most want.

What might that look like?

Find something in your life that is not working. Make a list of all the related things you think you are supposed to have or be in this department. For instance, if you are not well, that would include everything around the end game of feeling better that you currently do not have. Keep stripping it all away (this takes time and effort) until you can let yourself be where you are, feeling what you are feeling, and experiencing what you are experiencing.

Then, ask yourself, what is the very first thing I must do now? The thing that must come before all else? The thing upon which everything else relies?

And then, stay with that very first thing until it feels totally sated. This will be longer than you want or can imagine. But just like building a house, if you can put the care and the patience of creating a solid foundation into the service of what you most want, everything, everything, that comes after that will be true.

P.S. Often the first thing that most needs doing is exactly the thing we most want to avoid. So, if you can find out what that is, you will be well on your way.

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Everything We Need

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I wake this morning to the call of the crows, and even though I am rising later than they would normally be around, there they are. Three of them. Arranged in a little triangle. Three is a number of balance and completion. It signifies past, present, and future. The triangle is the strongest shape in construction.

My day is off to a great start. Why? Because I am listening. Listening to more than my fears and conditioning. Listening to something other than the self-imposed limitations that plague me. Listening to the Truth of the Universe as spoken by The Natural World.

The animals always serve as a harbinger, or a reminder, or a confirmation of something for me. This morning I am thinking about expressing more of myself through the work I do as I first lay eyes on the crows. I take their presence as confirmation and reminder. I am on the right path, and I no longer need live with outdated versions about what people are going to do with me if I challenge their world view.

And then, it gets better. Out on a run, I encounter a doe and her fawn on the road right at the moment I am thinking about the progression each one of us is on in our own lives. That we are all in different stages of development, and that all stages are to be respected and honored.

And then, it get even better. As I am running back towards my house, there is a cyclist broken down on the side of the road. For those of you who know my road, you know he is miles in either direction of help. I ask him if he needs anything, to which he responds, “I have everything I need. It’s just that right now, it’s catastrophic.” To which I respond, “Just like being in the world we are living in.”

And there it is, we have everything we need to be healthy. We have everything we need to solve things with other people and nations. We have everything we need to live in harmony with the Earth. And we have everything we need for everyone’s needs to be met and for their greatest potential to be expressed. The question is, will we do it? Will we each and every one of us make the shifts we need to make? Or will we continue to create catastrophes to wake us up out of our own self-imposed fogs?

This is not easy to do, and it takes time. But if we are committed, little by little, and in great leaps and bounds, we can find ourselves there. If you are willing, try my new 10% practice for anything you are ready to shift in your life. It looks like this: When you are full, leave that last bite on the plate. When you are moving your body, go a little stronger, a little more, or a little more unusual to challenge yourself. When you get a sense inside that you can’t prove, but you know to be legitimate, see if you can act on it, or at least keep it in mind. If you are always talking, be more quiet, and if you are always holding back in conversation, step forward. Go to bed a little earlier, turn your phone off at the dinner table, do whatever needs changing in your life in increments of 10%, and watch what happens.

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The Great Divide

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Years ago, I was deeply struggling around how to live a life that made sense to me when it came to taking care of my health, and the health of my family. It was often very challenging to be making different choices around the food we were eating, and the medicine we were using, and not using, in a world that values the cheap, the quick, and the maintenance of the medical and pharmaceutical status quo. I was trying to find my footing around how to see what I was seeing and know what I was knowing, in order to stand for what felt like health to me, in the face of dissenting, and sometimes very vocal, critical opinions.

Without fighting. Without judging. Without acquiescing to what felt harmful and lacking in foresight to me.

So I went to Source. In meditation, I asked for help. The immediate, clear, and resounding message that came through was, “Nothing that separates.” It broke me. And it broke the internal ping-pong match of a struggle that I often found myself in when it came to standing for what I believed while being in the presence of another’s derision, frustration, and even anger. For you see, I never had any doubt about the choices I was making. It was only coming in contact with others who were unfamiliar or suspicious of what I was doing that rattled me.

Which is why the message, “nothing that separates” landed so thoroughly with me. And why it is that I continue to try and live up to its Truth. For there is nothing more that I want between us than to be able to live the Truth of who I am while respecting the choices that each of us feels called to make. Nothing that I want more than to be able to tap into the undercurrent of Connection that exists between all of us, and that far outweighs the individual choices we make.

Which brings me to us. I know we all see and feel the polarization of our world around how to be healthy in the time of co-vid. Whatever your feelings are on how to proceed, I would like to propose that there is an essential element missing in most conversations. That being, the shaming and coercive energy behind where you place someone on the scale of humanity based on whether or not they choose to receive a shot. And that being, the way that this issue is nefariously and dangerously dividing parent against parent, child against parent, teachers against students, friends against friends, family members against family members, and co-workers and members of a community, against each other.

We have forgotten that Real Medicine does not harm, and it does not separate. It never pits people against one another. It does not divide families. Nor does it legislate its use. Or create caste systems. That is not medicine. Real Medicine is that which heals and makes whole. It transcends agendas and attitudes of the times. And always, and in all ways, it connects, and considers all of us.

Nothing that separates. Such a tall, tall order for a human being. We all have our preferences, our beliefs, and the hills we would die on. But now, in a time of Great Divide, any and all of these personally cherished attitudes must be held, somehow, with Great Unity. Lest we perish. Lest we get our way, but lose each other. Lest we forget that there are many, many ways to live a life that brings health, care, and contribution to the Greater Whole.

If you want to know who the real enemy in the time of co-vid is, it is separation.

Can you stand for what you stand for, without standing apart? Without forcing or coercing or shaming and blaming the other side? And could we all be so visionary as to recognize that to “get our own way” in this may be the very thing that divides us all in the end? Ask yourself what you most want in the world at this time. And then, watch yourself very, very closely, being particularly attuned to when getting what you want creates a divide.

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