Feb

6

Wisdom Journeys

February 6, 2012 | Leave a Comment

Wisdom Journeys

Sometimes you just need to get away from it all. Your life has thrown you too many curves, you’re too stressed out to cope well with anything else, and you’re so exhausted that you can’t think straight. Sounds like you’re ready at last to embark on a wisdom journey.

A wisdom journey is a turning point in your life, a very big one in which you decide that the way you’ve been living just doesn’t work anymore. It’s not just the trappings of your life, or even the important people in it, some of whom you may be in conflict with now, but it’s you. Only you. Your way of looking at your life and the world around you does not serve your best interests, and you need to take a good, unobstructed look at yourself before you can change. The only way to do this is to step out of your comfort zone, as oppressive as it may be, and open up to accountability and transformation. No one else is to blame for your unhappiness, and no one else can fix you. There is no easy way around the work you must do.

A wisdom journey is most effectively taken alone. Your quest may lead you to a volcanic mountaintop in Hawaii or a deserted, littered lot in a rundown section of your hometown. A shaman may guide you, or a story may fill and turn your heart. All that you need to transform is inside you, but it can be a slippery transaction. As you begin, you may take many missteps that feel so right, and you will want to project onto others the character flaws you hope to outgrow in yourself. Again, the work is all about you. As you travel, be careful about what you think you want to burn and destroy. Be humble, and be certain before you take each step. Even your footprint won’t last on the ever-changing earth.

February 6, 2012 | Leave a Comment

Jun

22

SOLSTICE

June 22, 2011 | Leave a Comment

Solstice

By Robert McDowell

Solstice. The great balancing act of the seasons. The middle. The longest day.

A door closes, a door opens. Long ago in Egypt Isis shed tears for her dead husband, Osiris, and so began the annual nourishing flooding of the Nile. Ancient Greeks suspended slavery and honored Cronos, god of agriculture, while the Chinese celebrated Yin, the feminine power of the earth. Romans paid tribute to Vesta, the hearth goddess. Viking summer solstice celebrations continue in Iceland to this day. Celts built huge bonfires, Native Americans performed a sun dance around a tree, and though we do not really know how the Aztecs and Mayans celebrated, we do know that their buildings were precisely aligned astronomically with the summer and winter solstices.

Sacred wells all over the world open, connecting us to the world next to this one. On the longest day, through the marathon hours, we open our hearts to magic, calling down and soaking in the chemistry-jumpstarting, life-giving, life-sustaining power of the sun.

And as we sleep at last, our prayers and dances done, we dream of bountiful harvest and perfect reaping to come. Today we participate in the equanimity of earth and sky. Long-legged, long-looking, we glance back to our building and we gaze ahead to our rest in the longer nights to come.

Solstice. Summer. May your celebration be reverent and merry. May your dreams be sweet. Easeful. Golden.

June 22, 2011 | Leave a Comment

Mar

29

Finance & Relationships

March 29, 2011 | Leave a Comment

On Sunday, March 27th, I was invited by my friends, the painter Allen Hicks (www.allenrosshicks.com) and the photographer Mark Arinsberg (www.arinsberg.com) to attend a gathering in Ashland, Oregon.

What Do Men and Women Want? Is There Romance Without Finance? provided a forum in which women and men in our community could meet to share insights into romantic relationships.

All who attended were impressive in their honesty and earnestness. And yet, it was apparent just what a hot button the topic really is, whether it be in a long-term relationship or on a first date. I sensed and heard an adversarial current just under the surface of everyone’s journey. It surfaced occasionally in language (throw down–used to describe putting money on the table at a date, but of course it’s a physical fight term), body language, and attitude.

I kept asking myself if and when money hadn’t been an issue in a relationship. I kept thinking, when we’re younger. My sixteen-year marriage (plus two years together before that), was a pretty swell partnership in terms of finance. We were in it together, made and spent money together. Finance didn’t become an issue until we were divorcing. Even then, though we both took it on the chin financially, the recriminations were minimal.

Since then, I have only known (my own, others) relationships in which finance is a huge issue. It’s often a deal breaker.

I heard the expression of a lot of defended, fear-based positions that night. When we come from there–my heart was broken and that’s not happening again…..I was in an abusive relationship, never again….I didn’t make out so well financially in my last relationship…….Fear becomes a powerful gatekeeper that makes it very hard to break through, to step onto a clean and clear playing field. Isn’t it true that we tote around a lot of baggage, and we expect (often unrealistically) potential mates to surmount obstacles and clear the field for us? The moment I say “I don’t want to be obligated so I’ll pay this check,” or “my last sexual relationship was painful so I’m leery here,” or “I had real trouble communicating with my last partner,” I’m piling on in a sense. I suppose this is why we often get the very thing we run from. Honestly? If I feel or say these things, then I know I’m not ready to be in a relationship. I’ve got other work to do. When that bleeds in to a relationship, there’s more trouble (being your partner’s shrink–a mistake).

As we navigate the currents of late middle age, are we willing to attempt risk/reward? By this I mean surrender to an Other. Are we willing or able to leave the battered Samsonites stuffed with bleeding albatrosses for the sunrise of something different, something new? It takes trust, and that’s remote when Fear is my Gatekeeper.

The paradigm is shifting, yes. After two thousand years of brutal repression, the Feminine is surely reclaiming the earth. A lot of men have also signed on for the ride. In the process, both women and men are spiritually adrift and searching. We’re living in an experimental spiritual age (less sexual, more spiritual–appropriate for our age, perhaps?). Often I think we’ve reached a stage where we know what’s right, but the magic in our medicine bags is inadequate. But it’s not the magic that’s inadequate, we are. We’ve forgotten how to make use of so much of it.

A harmonious relationship that integrates matters financial and sexual requires a kind of alchemical transformation that frees the poetry of our souls. The only conditions that make love happy and enduring are joy, trust, and deep spiritual/physical connection. There’s great humility and sweetness in this. It looks a lot like the soft eyes and hands of a centered rider.

March 29, 2011 | Leave a Comment

Oct

19

Elections, Intention, and Humor

October 19, 2010 | Leave a Comment

We’re coming up on a mid-term election day that promises to be as polarizing as the endless campaigns.

Will the Republicans take control of the House? The Senate? Can the Democrats stage a stirring, eleventh hour rally? Will results be an indictment of President Obama or an encouragement to soldier on? Will hysterical anger on the right and deep disillusionment on the left consume us? Will they eventually meet somewhere on a middle ground where a hybrid, revolutionary movement is born?

Historically, citizens will only take so much. With ninety-five percent of the wealth in five percent of the populace’s pocket, we’re reaching a boiling point, a transformative moment that will redefine us whether we like it or not. I’m up for the transformative moment, but I fear its birth coming from a massive failure to woman-and-man up to the painful responsibilities we’re somehow shirking.

What do I mean? Well, how about giving in to a let history take its course attitude? How about giving in to cynicism, then just giving up?

My friend, Gary, said to me today that in spite of the way things look (and he thinks they look pretty bad), he’s trying to apply a lesson he’d learned from a Holocaust survivor he met. I asked what he meant, and he explained that survivors had something in common—their ability to be positive no matter the terrible circumstances they faced, and their sense of humor. Ah, the healing power of good intention and laughter.

Yes, I need a lot of this medicine. How about you?

October 19, 2010 | Leave a Comment


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