The Fever Dream of Generational Wealth
A tragic legacy of American culture, living front and center in our lives today, lies firmly in the aspiration of generational wealth. A notion of ascension not seeded in equity or fairness but rather in achieving immortality through material wealth. A notion, a twisted obfuscation of the Soul’s promise of Healing & Growth, so detrimental to humanity’s well-being that it has begun to topple the intended foundation of a just and compassionate nation.
I am not speaking of a life well-lived passed down spiritually and materially to future generations. I instead speak of its fever dream, driven by fear. A fear, at its core, manifested through the empty superficial world of consumption, dependent on the consciousness of our choices as to its impact on our lives.
“Getting Mine” is the mantra of today’s voting majority with additional caveats. “After I get mine, I want yours as well. And once I have yours, I want enough that my great-grandchildren will be living in entitlement and privilege.”
This is the foundation of the contemporary pursuit of generational wealth. It is not in service to future generations but rather at their cost and peril. It is not, in fact, for the sake of the children’s children’s children. It is the belief that the value of my life lies not in being a conscious, kind and authentic human being. The legacy of the Soul. But rather in the false immortality of greed and power. It is the byproduct of living in the fear of not having enough and insisting, through this unexamined fear, there can never be enough. You may ask, why attribute this form of greed and power to generational wealth? The reasoning lies in how power and greed is expressing itself and the twisted self-serving belief that serving future generations lies in the cruelty of hoarding wealth with no sense of accompanying social responsibility. An all-in grasping for money and power hiding in plain sight under the tentpole of religion and technological advancement. Existing currently under the false flag of efficient government.
This form of expressed generational wealth has been placed on an American Throne and those who have it are worshipped. Alms are given in the hope that the giver will be provided the magic key to join its royal court. It is worshipped to the point where 77 million people believe they too can join its ranks. On whoever’s backs they can climb over. This is the delusion of the Trump worldview. Be cruel, greedy and self-exalting and you will live in the immortality of generational wealth. This is what passes for value judgement in national leadership. Though let's not fool ourselves. There is a neo-liberal version. It's simply candy coated and discussed in the Fever Dream of Generational Wealth Podcast.
The worship of Greed and Power has been around a long time. It has found myriad expressions across many nations spanning millennia. The difference this time is it is being hawked in a free society that has accumulated more wealth than ever before and the predominant response by the citizenry is: this is not enough. We’ve been cheated. We want more. They are, whoever they are, robbing us. Rather than distribute this wealth so all can prosper, the nation has embraced its own destruction. A sycophantic upward redistribution of wealth and power to the very few. This, at a time, when we need all hands on deck to address the consequences of an industrialized world: CLIMATE CHANGE.
Climate change is an existential threat to humanity and all living beings dwelling on earth, created by humanity and now, ironically, exacerbated by an Oligarchic class of Americans. Ironic because these Oligarchs no longer believe in a shared future. They subscribe, in no small measure, to a post-human world where AI runs the show. Sounds crazy til you actually pay attention to what they are doing. They are dismantling the government in a way that tells us that they don’t care about human needs. It is about the power to shift into a future age of existence. This isn’t science fiction. Trump, Musk and their cadre of Oligarchs are in bed with the only group who share their world view of no future. The Christian Nationalists. They all share the belief that we live in the end times. While they deny Climate Change what they are really doing is accelerating our pathway into the worst of ecological futures. A self-fulfilling prophecy. And to ensure this result, they are using fascism to consolidate through greed and power their intended result. For the oligarchs, a safe landing into a post utopian vision of existing mentally outside the body and for the Christian Nationalists, a biblical Rapture. In some odd way, disembodied versions of the same thing.
And in the end, having starved our national soul into a husk of bone and sinew through this aspiration of generational wealth, we will die as a nation at the very pinnacle of wealth and power. The wealthiest nation in human history done in by its own greed near the height of its power. The death certificate offering cause of death as exhaustion and malnourishment from our disconnection to our Soul in both its singular and collective expressions.
And with every end, no matter what happens or how it happens, there is a new beginning. This is where WE enter the moment. First and foremost, right now, it is essential we feed the souls of those in our lives. I speak not of religion but of deep and caring connection in ways that help all of us Heal & Grow. Outside dogma and doctrines, to be consciously aware of our biases. Even more so, to be actively engaged in addressing those biases. To be, as Ibram X Kendi shares, to be Anti-Bias. To do so is to be present to our conditioning, our habitual patterns, so that light may be shed upon our actions. To express authenticity not through our wants and desires but through the depths of our being. To express our unique genius in service to the moment and as a result, authentically for the sake of the children’s children’s children. Not just our own but all of the children. That being the children of all species. A future where diversity, equity and inclusion are celebrated as inherently necessary to live healthily for all living beings.
To bring such a practice into our lives, we need the sustenance of good quality food, a home …, access to capable health care and a well rested body, mind and spirit. As well a connection with nature that acknowledges our role as part of the natural world, not its overseer. To be stewards of a sustainable world.
To allow the wisdom of our Soul its rightful place through cultivation and a willingness to surrender the ego into a warm embrace with the Soul. To do so is to dedicate energy and focus into knowing oneself more deeply and in coming full circle, shed light on addressing the habitual patterns that hold us back from the possibility of being our best selves . A practice with no expectation of perfection. Simply to be and do better as we practice life.
In many ways, I am speaking of the story of redemption and resurrection that sits as the opportunity before us all. A redemption story available to all until the last breath of this life.
I don’t worry, I tell you, I’m a man who believed that I died twenty years ago and I live like a man who is dead already. I have no fear whatsoever of anybody or anything.
Malcolm X on living fearlessly.
To learn more on what a practice in cultivating a more vibrant life looks like, reach out. Lets enter into a conversation about your Healing & Growth. There is no other moment than now to do so.
the death of an american dream
In titling the piece, I speak not of lost economic opportunity but the loss of a common language. In many facets of life, communication can often be inefficient or even confusing. We will use words or phrases that have specific meanings to them, but which can be potentially misunderstood by others. Sometimes this leads to minor confusion. However, when complex or emotional subjects are being expressed, it can lead to significant breakdowns in communication or relationships. With communication being a primary organizing principle in our lives, this can be a real problem.
Leadership, practiced without integrity, has provided confusing and/or deceiving communication to the point where there is little hope for clarity and in many instances, a sense of belonging. Sadly, and to a large degree, this has been intentional. An intention to divide, to demonize, to remove the collective “we” from our language and replace it with us versus them. Simply said, there can be no shared dream without shared hope. Hope as an emotion and as well, a way of thinking involves imagining and working towards a better future. How do we create hope in a shared dream when the predominant call and response of national leadership is “I want what is mine and everything should be mine”, and the response of the citizenry is “I want some of that.”
For those of us who value our humanity, this loss of a common language of understanding has been profound. The loss has come on gradually, over decades, but arrived harshly November 5th, 2024. This perspective is not based on a left vs right paradigm. In fact, and somewhat ironically as a progressive, I welcome and value conservatism in the world today. It’s the discernment offered when we ask ourselves whether any form of change is a betterment of life. I simply can’t find such discernment in the existing leadership structure. It is instead a recognition that half the country is willing to disregard their humanity in exchange for what the oligarchs are willing to trickle down economically, socially and politically. And when we apply how oligarchs control the role of technology in our communications, I offer this quote from Noam Chomsky: “As far as technology itself and education is concerned, technology is basically neutral. It’s like a hammer. The hammer doesn’t care whether you use it to build a house or whether on torture, using it to crush somebody’s skull, the hammer can do either.” Increasingly, skulls are being crushed.
In Language of the Soul: A Path of Simplicity, beginning in Chapter 1, I outline the tragic nature of the Ascension Culture. A culture based on a desperate need to reach the top. No matter how we get there. A way of approaching our lives that places no emphasis on the integral nature of the path. Ambition expressed without genius nor a genuine sense of calling. Genius in this sense being the innate gifts each of us has within ourselves and a call to action being our expression of our innate genius. Instead, we see capitalism run amok, veiling itself as an authentically shared dream when in truth, it is cutthroat, unprincipled and merciless.
In April 2024, I shared via my blog and newsletter, an essay titled ‘What Happens When Our Hearts Feel Worn Out?”. In it I discuss the consequences of the heart’s unmet need to be connected with inner wisdom. The consequence being a form of exhaustion for both mind and body. When perpetuated and compounded by the loss of a common language, individually and collectively, the heart’s spirit becomes vexed by this conundrum. The collective heart spirit of our nation has been waylaid by a desperate need to grasp for what we feel is owed to us and feeling wholly disconnected from a willingness to grieve such a loss. It is currently inconceivable for Americans to grieve our loss so that we may find hope of a rekindled common language and its accompanying shared dream. It's as if we have been severed from how we might relearn what remains of our collective wisdom. Decades ago, I turned to the ancient wisdom of Daoism. Not a religion but a way of living that largely exists outside a dogma. My heart spirit was in desperate need of support. I found it in Five-Element Acupuncture, a Daoist healing practice that has now found its way in practice all around the world. Over time, I found within Daoism its growth component. I learned how Healing & Growth are innately linked and incomplete without the other. I found in an ancient tradition a path to claiming for ourselves truths that exist eternally within us all.
So how might we find our way back to a common language? As I considered this question, the answer arrived unorganized by thought. I simply asked what is missing in our collective lives. Intuitively what showed up was compassion, simplicity and humility - The Three Treasures of Daoism. Three ways of learning wisdom that are often understood as essential virtues to embody a balanced approach to learning and living. They are as well the foundation of rebuilding a common language forged through wisdom rather than the existent fear and desperation perpetuating today’s state of the nation.
Compassion offers us an opportunity for deep understanding and care for all living beings. A practice that encourages kindness and non-violence in our interactions with others and the natural world. An integral component for the creation of a common language and its accompanying dream.
Simplicity, also seen as frugality or moderation, offers us balance and an effective path to avoiding extremes, aligning in harmony with one's needs rather than dwelling in extravagance and waste. A path of ease can be accessed within simplicity.
Humility offers us an opportunity to foster a sense of interconnectedness with everything. To recognize the truth of all wisdom teachings - we are all connected and with a practice of good hearted intention, equitably so.
While many will question, in reading this essay, the pertinence of the interconnection I have made between the loss of our shared language and dream, and the practice of these virtues, we must begin somewhere and wherever you may stand in this moment, it begins now. I offer that these essential virtues can be effectively practiced in our lives and serve as the strongest of foundations for a nation worth living in. Treasures that, as life practices, address every issue that vexes our nation today and simultaneously opens us up to a human dream capable of healthily fulfilling the material needs as well as the spirit of every human being on the planet.
And so I challenge you to find even a single issue facing our nation that can’t be effectively understood and addressed through the Three Treasures. I welcome a conversation.
As with all journeys, it begins with practice. In the case of the Three Treasures, I offer it begins with the Four Forms of Rest. A practice that orients us and as well prepares us in our practice of The Three Treasures. To learn more, reach out to me. It is my calling to meet all willing to take such a journey. Be the change you seek in our world.
a tender place
I was drawn to a short video on social media that featured Les Filles de Illighadad. They are a female musical group of Tuareg musicians restoring a traditional style of music called Tende. I immediately sought out more of their music. In listening, in short order, I was transported into a liminal space. Liminal meaning to the threshold or edge of my being. A sense of being on the edge physically, emotionally or spiritually or all of the above. While this is not the first time music has moved me in this way, it is the first time I could see so clearly the universal nature of liminal space. Universal in the sense that I was able, within the liminality, to see the endless creative paths that welcome us to the edge of our being.
Later, I did a web search. A music review came up from 2019 from the New Yorker - The Heavy, Meditative, and Tender Music of Les Filles de Illighadad. In the article, the reviewer Amanda Petrusich described the music as “mesmeric, almost prayer-like, which can leave an audience agog.” Agog means, for curious readers like myself, full of intense interest or excitement. This was my experience. I felt an intensity but also a sense of spaciousness, a sense of peace. Another quote from the review shares that “If you listen long enough, and make yourself open enough, it is possible to reach a kind of holy place while experiencing Les Filles. The edges of your consciousness will blur a little. The road will stop seeming so straight.” It's like a textbook description, if such things existed in textbooks, of a liminal experience. It was affirming to know how this music, live or recorded, could bring human beings to a place, communally or alone, where an expanded notion of reality can be experienced. And to be able to do so with a clarity of mind.
For those of you who are reading my newsletters or blogs there is an experience I shared in April - Spirit in the Forest - I am called to recount again. In the essay I describe an experience of being in oneness in the forest at the treehouse and having hundreds of lights appear before me. A mystical experience within the liminality of place and intent. An inner space built upon a deep and intentional connection within the forest at Simplicity Farm.
In my work practicing and teaching Daoyin, the liminal plays a significant role. The difference being that I am teaching my students how to engage and practice within themselves in ways that Les Filles is bringing to life through their music. To blur the edges of consciousness as we navigate the road before us in order to see through a softer lens. To know ourselves and the road beyond the limitations of the intellect. While any form of meditation can bring us to our edges, in Daoyin the liminal or sacred element is an integral part of the practice. To step beyond a path fraught with dogma or doctrines. To know ourselves as the sacred element. And rather than sharing it musically, it is a practice shared interactively through the breath, a depth of verbal/energetic/emotional interaction and soul writing. Through a lens where Healing & Growth is the centerpiece. It is how we practice life. And in doing so, the what, where and when arrives through how we practice life.
A practice where being well-rested, steeped in presence and willing to let go into the inner quiet of wisdom. A sacred space, dare I say element within us, that exists within each moment whether we are aware or not. When we are not aware, we still experience the echo of our Soul’s voice. A reminder of what’s possible when we allow for the impossible or the irrational to exist in our lives.
To learn more about being your own sacred element, check out my book, podcast, and as well, a music video by Les Filles:
Spirit in the Forest
In early April of 2012, I sat on the deck of the unfinished treehouse. I did this many evenings after my work on the project. With my back against the great red oak, I’d gaze into the forest in stillness. I’d listen to the sounds emanating from all around me. The evening songs of the birds and spring peepers, the settling of the squirrels, the flow of water over the fossilized rock from the creek below. I’d bathe myself in the experience of being in the forest, allowing myself to slow down into the serenity of the trees all around. In seeking communitas in this way with nature, I was called to let go, to let life unfold. On this particular evening, I let go.
What unfolded I choose not to explain in advance. Instead, I will share my experience. As I sat, lights began to appear in the forest, floating in my direction. There were hundreds. They had a buoyancy, emanating a steady light gently wafting as if riding an unseen, unfelt wave. Different from lightning bugs in that they were slightly larger and didn’t flicker. I was initially jolted by their appearance. My heart began to race a bit. I focused on settling into my breath and stayed present to the experience. As I sat with this phenomena, outside of time, the lights subtly danced around me til the evening fell fully into night. Slowly, they drifted away, disappearing into the darkness.
What explanation might one offer for such an experience in our contemporary rational world? Given my intention to connect on a daily basis with the forest for months at that point, my offer is that the forest answered my call. My call, offered within the realm of stillness and lightness, was met in the way it was offered.
Since that time, my connection to the forest and the wild spaces in and around Simplicity Farm has grown exponentially. I am continuing to cultivate my role as a steward of this place and I am deeply grateful for this relationship. A connection I am able to experience in partnership with the spirit of the forest.
Here are some journaling prompts to consider in exploring the concept of connecting to a sacred relationship with nature and place. Choose somewhere in close proximity to you. If possible, let the location choose you. Let it arrive. Someplace you can visit with ease. Consider these questions as ways to let go of one’s rational and/or egoic self:
What are my judgments towards this place?
What are my fears towards this place?
What do I love about this place?
How do I soften in this place?
What are my senses telling me as I sit in stillness, breathing gently, in this place? What do I hear, see, smell, feel on my skin? How is my body… my joints, my muscles… responding to the experience?
Whenever possible within this stillness practice in this form of forest or nature bathing, give yourself permission to simply breathe and let go. Let the process have its way with you.
References:
On reconciling the rational and the nagual (ie the tao, magic): Pi and Healing
On Forest Bathing: from my book, Language of the Soul: A Path of Simplicity: Chapter 4 Breath, subsection Stillness in Nature, pages 42-44
On communitas: from my book, Language of the Soul: A Path of Simplicity: Chapter 18 Stories of the Sacred, pages 169-175
NO LONGER RIDING ON THE MERRY-GO-ROUND: Manifestation & The Inner Muse
Manifest is a word, like many, with multiple meanings. The meaning we will focus on “is to be made clear.” So, in context, for the sake of this offering, how do we make clear who we are as expressed through our actions. In other words, manifestation is less about the end-goal and more about how we get there. In this way we can explore the act of manifesting as a soul-driven process. An approach that requires a willingness to allow our soul’s wisdom to lead the journey in ways that are neither logical or rational, nor perceived as a direct route to the intended destination.
Why? Because within the soul-driven path, Healing & Growth is the guiding practice. In the simplest of terms, learning to let go and allow presence and wisdom to manifest our choices. To let go and be carried forward. Carry being an apt description as the process calls us to let go and be at ease. A state of being that allows the practitioner to take actions in alignment with the path while often not understanding what may lie ahead. Each step being its own seemingly independent separate leg along a journey that reveals its next steps only as they are needed. Said another way, to let go of anticipation, of overthinking. To trust yourself and allow the manifestation to unfold through clarity of intention .
We have set forth the intention of the goal, the aspiration, the result, our soul frames it as an opportunity to Heal & Grow. We let go optimally into the warm embrace of that opportunity. To set forth any goal with the intention to Heal & Grow calls us away from operating within a results oriented life. To embody a path well-lived. To let go of a results oriented life is not some airy-fairy approach to living. We actually learn to excel in this approach by letting go into the path itself. A path that positions integrity of action at its foundation. As Marcus Aurelius put it, “what stands in the way is the way”.
To that end, as I write this blog I am practicing describing this process through the soul’s lens. A lens that reveals the vibrancy within one’s endeavors. Said another way, a discernment between what nourishes rather than drains our resources. A cultivation of life where one’s recreation, play or leisure need not feel distinct from life’s work. While I speak in part to this notion in my blog on the ON/OFF Switch, what is being shared here pertains to any and/or all endeavors. Whether it be something big like buying a house, something vexing like seeking a new romantic partner or something seemingly mundane like the creative process of maintaining order in one’s life. Within my own learning in life, it has become a practice to see all endeavor as creative endeavor, and therefore an extraordinary pathway for manifestation.
There can be an edge that exists habitually in us within the backdrop of time. Our ambition to get THERE wants to argue with Healing & Growth. Why is it taking so long? Isn’t there a more direct path? Recognizing that how we practice with these feelings can in fact be the point of the journey. Not just learning to be patient but to learn to let go of arbitrary deadlines and allow Healing & Growth to be the focal point of all endeavor. To do so is to create a lifetime possibility of expansion as humans simply by Healing & Growing.
One example that immediately comes to mind is my transition from being an acupuncturist and functional herbal therapist who teaches consciousness classes to being a consciousness teacher who practices acupuncture and functional herbal therapy. It is, in part, about how I present myself to the world but also about how I choose to dedicate my time and energy. While I thoroughly enjoy the practice of acupuncture and herbs, the complete depth of my impact as a practitioner is more fully realized as a consciousness teacher. Something that is measured both by students, clients and significantly, by the sense of calling that I have experienced within myself. This manifestation I speak of is largely a set of actions that are a response to an inner calling. Actions expressed through the courses I teach, the book I’ve written and the sense of passion I experience with sharing the Language of the Soul.
Because I’ve chosen to allow my soul to drive how I manifest this transition to being a consciousness teacher, I am gifted with a focus on how to Heal & Grow in the midst of sharing a passion I am grateful to experience with others. And to manifest it in ways that have allowed me to experience leaps as gentle steps in my movements forward in life.
In the “I Am Not Alone” chapter within my book, “Language of the Soul”, I speak about the foundation of presence that comes with the practice of building, tearing down and then rebuilding. For the most part, this way of healing and growing is seen by modern humans as untenable. An approach centered on letting go to this degree is often seen as wasted effort instead of a necessary part of building a strong inner foundation. This solid foundation being a necessary way for the Soul to connect with depth so we can manifest the fullness of our purpose. This is more metaphoric in some lives and quite literal in others. The building of my creative healing center was both metaphoric and literal in its expression of building, letting go and rebuilding.
This opportunity facilitated a perspective I simply could not see as needed or even possible earlier in life and ultimately allowed a creative expression of self that was both redemptive and awakening. It came down to the distinction between preparing for something versus embodying it.
When I set forth the intention of creating Simplicity Farm as a Healing & Growth center, I sought initially to complete the project as quickly as possible. While immediacy is important when embarking upon a creative endeavor, the inner practice is central. I initially saw the building of the healing center as an obstacle to my teaching practice rather than recognizing that how I approached the building process was essential to my inner development. In my haste I skipped steps. The result was that only months into the process and nearing what I perceived as completion, I was forced to stop and begin again. I had skipped necessary building permits in my desire to get to my intended destination. This ultimately extended the building process for over a year. This extended building process gave me an extraordinary gift. During that year I stopped trying so hard to finish the project and allowed the process to unfold. I connected to play and creativity. I allowed them to guide me, rather than let my anxious desire to finish the job take over. Because of this, a freedom resulted that gave me access to a creative approach to Healing & Growth that profoundly changed my life. This approach left me with a sense of engagement in life. An ease of practice in relating to the unnecessary suffering inherent in anxiety, worry and frustration.
I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go
Watching the Wheels, Song & Lyrics by John Lennon
RED BELLIED WOODPECKER: HEALING THE HABITUAL PATTERN OF GENERATIONAL SUFFERING THROUGH THE ECHO OF WISDOM
Recently, I was helping a neighbor by doing some tree trimming. As we stood before the maple, a red bellied woodpecker landed a few feet away. While sometimes a woodpecker is simply a woodpecker, this felt different. I felt that sense in my being when my Soul is speaking to me. The beauty of my practice in life is to have the observer and creative sight in place to listen deeply. The manner in which the colors of the bird, its dramatic landing and the immediate turn of its head toward us screamed “pay attention to me and this moment!”
This experience occurred just prior to me beginning to watch the TV show Echo. I had heard an interesting NPR feature on the show and the excitement it offered Indigenous peoples in having a Marvel character that is Native American and female. In the show, the red bellied woodpecker is a recurrent catalytic symbol for change and growth for the Choctaw protagonist Maya. In Choctaw creation storytelling, Stone People, from within an earth mound called Nanih Waiya, are transformed into the first Choctaw with the arrival of the red bellied woodpecker. This first human is of a lineage of women to serve, at times of need, to lead the people through challenges and trauma.
At this point it's important to share that the notion of superheroes has always been a challenging one for me. In childhood I struggled in finding superheroes whose choices and actions felt resonant to me. Two vague notions came out of early childhood around what I wanted to emulate. One took form as martial-artist Kato from the short-lived TV show The Green Hornet. The second grew from books about Native American leaders like Geronimo, Red Cloud and others. Since neither Kato nor the Indigenous Chiefs were seen by the larger Western world as superheroes, the idea felt displaced inside of me. What I knew is I wanted to learn more and more about Indigenous Culture and whatever it was that made Kato feel special to me.
Flash forward twenty or so years and I am opening a bookstore in Ellicott City focused on Native Americans. We flow in life into the 1990s and I’m studying acupuncture. Clearly Kato and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee had played a role in my life. And yet, the truth is there was never a superhero whose depth and complexity matched up for me. This is not a complaint and I’m sure I am not alone in this perspective. The absolutes that exist for a superhero really don’t show up often if at all in the real world.
Which brings me back to the red bellied woodpecker and Echo. To the notion of a red bellied woodpecker pecking into the depths of self as a potent and heroic symbol for healing generational trauma. And here it is…the spoiler alert. In the climatic scene from Echo, where the hero Maya faces her nemesis, Wilson Fisk, she doesn’t fight him. Instead, through healing, she transports him and us back to a pivotal moment where young Wilson becomes his shadow self, Kingpin. Where he kills his father with a ball peen hammer to prevent his mother from being beaten. And Maya offers Wilson a choice; to not kill his father. To make another choice. And then we flash forward in time with Wilson, on his knees, shouting at Maya, “what did you do to me?” Having an Indigenous Female superhero offering Healing & Growth, rather than opposition and violence to resolve a conflict, models a form of authentic heroism. Something rarely seen in our ascension culture’s celebration of violence. A healing salve for the generational trauma that we face in our collective lives. Maya’s offering is a symbol of the divine feminine. A form of divine expression that is neither male nor female in gender but a deeply soulful response to the chaotic challenges we all face in our daily lives.
How will we choose to practice our lives? Through the Echo of Wisdom that rests within the stillness of our being…or through the habitual patterning that ensures the repetition of generational suffering…
LEARNING HOW TO LET GO OF THE ON/OFF SWITCH
It is generally understood in our culture that there is a vigilant state of doing that stands in contrast to a passive state that is resting. This way of doing is seen through the lens of our productivity. The various non-active states of rest are frequently seen as points to either collapse within and/or be non-productive. An exhausting paradigm created through a lens of living that dictates our goal as seeking to be as productive as possible. Often without conscious consideration of our health or well-being.
When we are ON, the notion of approaching the tasks of living, first and foremost, through a place of ease is largely seen as unfamiliar or strange. For example, when I encourage students to take pauses in their day they usually see this as a recharging point so they can continue to be “ON” until their next recharging. When I point out that yes, recharging within a pause is important, there is also another important function of the pause. It is reclaiming one’s observer as a way to bring ease and/or god forbid, relaxation, into one’s endeavors. The practice here is that approaching life through ease opens doors to creative life force, one’s creativity and in turn, one’s productivity in life. A productivity that is measured differently though. The measure being of how one is approaching one’s labors, rather than the sole measure being how much did one get done.
I assure you, for more than half my life, I knew the ON/OFF switch very well. Again and again, it was me pushing and prodding myself and others through activities that disconnected me from the joys of life and left me feeling undernourished and exhausted. This pattern is so endemic in our culture and so devoid of vibrancy that it has led to ever increasing degrees of procrastination. An odd yet significant linkage to the pattern that is many a time unseen. That procrastination is repeatedly born of the absence of ease and joy within life’s endeavors.
Gradually, over time (and by time, I mean years), I began to practice life with greater and greater states of ease. The sense of the ON/OFF paradigm began to soften. With less and less anxiety, worry, frustration and sadness inhabiting my being, the ON/OFF switch has slowly disappeared. In its place is a sense of sharpened focus on what truly matters in my life. This result has led me to the strangest of conclusions about bringing ease to one’s endeavors. I get a lot more done today doing so much less. To let that sink in and begin to apply it to one’s life is nothing short of a revelation. To be relaxed, focused, well-rested, joyful and productive has so much to do with how we practice our lives and in many ways, much less to do with what we are doing. I am not de-emphasizing a sense of connecting to life purpose or calling; I am describing an inner path of connection to that sense of purpose. A purpose that may be vocational but has more to do with bringing a vibrancy to living that mirrors a healthy inner life.
What is your version of the ON/OFF switch? How is it reflected in the above blog and how does it differ?
What emotions do you associate with the pattern of either being intensely on or apathetically off within yourself?
What does your inner voice, the quiet one, want to tell you about the ON/OFF pattern?
Connection and Leadership
Lately, I have felt a sense of curiosity about the nature of connection and the role of leadership in my life and how it's shared with others. While many study this kind of thing through informative data driven approaches, my perspective really speaks from an intuitive lens that allows me to more deeply understand how my inherent nature meets my sense of calling in the world.
While called to serve my community as a teacher and healing practitioner, I am also aware of being an introvert with a strong pull to explore creative building endeavors that include play with repurposed/recycled materials. Projects that feel deeply nourishing and satisfying. And often so immersive that I find myself, outside of my work as an acupuncturist, herbalist and consciousness teacher, deeply focused on these creative projects.
These creative immersions represent a sharp contrast to my earlier life where creativity with such enjoyment always felt out of reach. Today, I know and experience a sense of deep contentment with the balance of my day-to-day life. And yet, there is this curiosity… How is this way of being an expression of leadership? How do I find growth and acceptance within myself in balancing my calling as a healing presence, and simultaneously, to honor a very deep call to live a very introverted life?
Over the last few years, the imagery and totem of the wolf entered into this curiosity. Prior to that, outreach or connection with the larger world as I understood it carried a feeling of conflict. A push-pull within myself about how to be connected while also maintaining a sense of self-care and truthfulness in the process. I struggled until I began to recognize my nature as having many of the energetic characteristics of a wolf.
While I speak in-depth within my book about the concept of leading from behind as a form of nurturing leadership, what has emerged from my curiosity is an epiphany on the nature of how I connect with others. Within this epiphany, I have come to observe other healing practitioners who have enormous communities of friends, colleagues or even followers of their work. I have also observed the kind of energy required to maintain and care for such communities. While serving as many folks as possible in a community may seem ideal to growing one’s mission or calling, it's often not natural for many of us. In fact, it can be outright exhausting.
As I stepped beyond my curiosity and into the intuitive energy of the wolf, I recognized that in many ways I operate socially within intersecting circles of relatively small packs. Packs that have short periods of great connective intensity. This recognition has been a deeply freeing understanding and has allowed me to let go of the notion that I am somehow failing by not choosing to cultivate large circles of connection that sustain indefinitely. That being in some ways a lone wolf and in others, a pack leader, works for me. This has allowed for a letting go of the many social expectations that once vexed me.
Letting go has brought about a peace in being just as I am, while at the same time, continuing to Heal & Grow as a human being. A personal truth that provides a cultivated nurturance, shared with the people I serve within my community of friends, family, students and clients. Circles of connection that often intersect and serve as a foundation for the Healing & Growth I share.
Ironically, being true to my nature as an introvert, a veritable lone wolf, has informed me about how I connect with the world, and given me a more embodied sense of community and leadership I had not seen modeled effectively in my life. A model of living that dwells, within all of us, at the Soul’s open doorway.
The Nature of Planning
For many years, my clients and students have described how they will be doing something like driving, or taking a walk or watching a video and simultaneously doing what they call planning. Sadly, what they are doing is not planning at all. It is more akin to anxiety or anticipation and worry or overthinking.
Planning in truth is something wholly different. Planning, for example, is a focused activity with one or more individuals mapping out future steps.
To clarify, this is distinct from the wanderings of the mind that can often be associated with imagination. Those thoughts will largely come and go and are not tethered to plans and/or the formulation of a set path forward. The distinction is centered around whether the thoughts are an intended distraction from the activity at hand or simply are allowed to flow through your mind. In this way we also begin to let go of the belief that our thoughts define us. If we hold them loosely or not at all they increasingly reveal their nature as passing clouds of the mind.
How then do we let go of faux planning? We begin by gently catching ourselves each time we recognize our minds planning future moments. Asking ourselves…Am I planning or am I allowing the mind to wander? If it has specificity and we are guiding the thoughts, it's faux planning. Let it go. If our mind is wandering, let it do its thing without attaching to it. Gently let it fly by. This is how we effectively quiet our mind. By giving ourselves space to be restful by either consciously letting it go or by allowing a thought to fly by.
- Vignette from the book Language of the Soul: A Path of Simplicity by Martin Perkins
Creativity & Conflict: A Dance with Healing & Growth
While conflict in its many forms can catalyze our creative process it is also just as likely to lead to stasis when not engaged with creative life force. When exploring how creativity and conflict influence one another, I find it useful to consider the following question:
What is the nature of conflict?
From a conscious perspective one can reasonably state that war, the absolute conflict, is never righteous. To wage war upon another human, nation, species, or any living organism must be the last resort. A war is not truly won due to its destructive nature. Yet that is the intention. And so it is with any disagreement when the intention of the conflict is to win. At best, war may be a necessity to maintain alignment with right action. An acknowledgement that reconciliation is not seen as possible. That it’s not possible to achieve clarity and accountability between two or more parties. A clarity and accountability not available because the parties are unwilling to place in trust their true aspirations within the conflict. Their agendas are veiled. The veil exists because of the belief that they can win the conflict. This belief in our culture is perpetuated by romanticized notions of victory in conflict.
In contrast, when the goal within a given conflict is centered on creating clarity and mutual accountability the result looks radically different. New possibilities rooted in creative life force emerge where there was once sheer conflict. One of the key elements of navigating conflict is the willingness to be vulnerable. To be vulnerable in the midst of a conflict in any context is an act of great courage. It also facilitates creativity, leading to resolution. Another way of seeing such a resolution is recognizing within the vulnerability the component of grief. Within grief there is a letting go into the depths of our being. We are open to trust in that moment. To something profound within ourselves that can transform the nature of the conflict.
In the headline photo, taken by Nathan Howard for AP/Reuters, during the Portland BLM protests in the summer of 2020, we see the naked woman, known as Athena - a reference to the Greek goddess of war - arrive within the zone of conflict nearly surrounded by Federal officers. A short time after she took her position, the officers simply withdrew from the zone of conflict. Athena’s act offered a profound and transformative moment, born into the world by her willingness to be vulnerable, creative and courageous.
Creation is the only outcome of trouble or conflict that can truly satisfy the Soul ~ William Blake
I have heard it said that conflict is the byproduct of a breakdown in imagination and/or creativity. Within the practice of presence we can see imagination and creativity as discernibly different. Imagination is the byproduct of the untethered thinking mind and lacks a firm connection to presence, to the moment. Creativity, on the other hand, is born within presence and carries the gift of the infinite nature of the Soul. The Soul, within its mission to serve our Healing & Growth, gives creativity a potency largely missing within the untethered imagination. This perspective yields the opportunity to see conflict resolution as a creative process. One centered upon discerning between a life event, circumstance or reaction to life and the underlying creative opportunity that exists through a practice in emotional presence and surrender. A surrender into our deeper truth that serves to transform the moment. Such a practice allows us to see with clarity the need of the moment and within personal accountability, the will to honor our personal truth.
The nature of flow and creativity is a close correlation to how freely we allow ourselves to feel what is going on within us and around us. If we use the example of the suffering artist - “I need to suffer in order to create” - we can see the duality of the belief. The truth lies in the need to feel our emotions in order to create but it is not true that we must suffer to create or that suffering is inherently part of the creative process.
The story that creation is inherently suffering is in many ways an expression of what I call the ascension myth. It is built upon the belief that if success is ascension, that to let go into a creative opening is a failure. It wasn’t earned. The earning in this case is the suffering one must undergo in overcoming an obstacle in order to create something anew in the world. This sweat equity earned through suffering is so ingrained in the modern human psyche that most creative endeavors build this need to suffer into the process of creation. This belief has been built by a culture that has increasingly abandoned the need for feeling and replaced it with a cognitive approach. The tragic nature of the ascension myth is the belief that we can think our way up the ladder of success. Our ascension up the ladder is built upon mental suffering. This is not to negate thought. Thought though needs to be processed through our feelings rather than as a negation of emotion. In truth, we descend optimally in presence, into our feelings, to process the moment and grieve it. By letting go into our feelings we allow ourselves a fresh new moment to follow. This occurs in lieu of mentally carrying our pain forward in thought. This soulful wholistic approach to a creative life removes the need to ascend through unnecessary obstacles.
While it can be seen as a tired trope, the notion that we are creative beings living a corporeal life only appears tired because humanity is tired. Tired mentally, physically and emotionally. Our spirits however are intact. It may not feel that way because the connection to spirit can be so tenuous when not well-rested. We are in truth spiritually vibrant but the signal is faint because the patterns of non-presence, or habitual patterns of worry or chronic sadness, make more noise when we are fatigued. Contrary to the calls for actions from those sounding the alarm of things falling apart in the world, the great need of the moment is to rest and slow down. To step into a simpler way of being. To follow the Four Forms of Rest and observe the return to vibrancy in our life. From that creative place within us, anything is possible, both individually and collectively.
What Happens When Our Hearts Feel Worn Out?
Spring has arisen with great warmth this year. It brings with it a rising energy of growth and exploration. A sense of calling into action that can also carry with it the strains of our culture. The strain of caring for ourselves, our families, our communities and our world in a time of turmoil. It can be exhausting with all the divisive drama and trauma going on around us. Even if we are not directly involved, our interactions feed into the exhaustion. It can almost feel like caring about anything is exhausting. It takes deep practice in non-attachment to not fall into the patterns of fatigue rampant in our world. A fatigue often connected through our hearts that can be described as heart fatigue. A fatigue that largely arises when the heart feels disconnected from the guidance and wisdom it needs to meet a sense of calling. A myriad of hopes and desires spiraling within the heart that can be felt without a clear sense of how to meet them. Hopes and desires often born of anxiety, worry, frustration and unresolved sadness.
This type of fatigue is in many ways distinctly different from body or mind fatigue. While inter-related, it is the heart’s unmet need to be connected with inner wisdom that exhausts the mind and body. Not the other way round. It is why the Language of the Soul exists. To help us consciously experience that we are all wise within. To remember that the heart can surrender into the warm embrace of inner wisdom and find ease and joy. A whispering wise voice that emanates from the stillness of our being, allowing the rising energy of Spring to be engaged with both clarity and ease. These are the Rites of Spring, expressed within us when we both listen deeply and act upon the clarity of our own wisdom. A Rite in this way leaves its ceremonial expression in dogma and doctrine and enters into a deeper relationship within us as a moment-to-moment celebration of soulful purpose. An effective way to navigate the turmoil and division going on around us. To know our role in any given situation in part by learning to recognize and let go of those facets that are not ours to carry. While grieving such moments may not be easy it is far better to have the clarity and ease of knowing our role in these moments. To create new possibilities, from a beginners perspective, on what is actually ours to sort through. To recognize what sometimes is habitually projected back and forth between ourselves and those we care for. In short, I am speaking of the practice of non-attachment.
It is also in the recognition that a life well-lived explores these issues with deep care and discernment. William Faulkner, from the perspective of being a writer, said that “the only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself." As a journaler of my own experience I find this notion to carry great truth. Journaling not in the sense of keeping a daily record but rather as a practice in writing into the voices within. Voices that can, at times, exist in conflict. When we journal, we embrace these voices. Inevitably, in practice with the journaling, wisdom arises, allowing the whispering voice beneath the conflict to be heard with clarity and ease.
In the midst of heart fatigue we can become vulnerable to Heart Trauma. An emotional piercing of the heart that can be extremely debilitating when the heart is already overwhelmed and exhausted. A state of trauma that can affect us profoundly in its impact on our entire being, body, mind and spirit. With Heart Fatigue proliferating in our world, Heart Trauma has also radically increased in our lives. So much so that our mental health support system is now facing an epidemic of mental health challenges arising largely from exhaustion. An enigmatic exhaustion born of the inability in our culture to be restful, affecting everyone from school children through the elderly.
What helps with Heart Fatigue and Heart Trauma?
To relieve the heart of its fatigue… first and foremost… it needs rest and it needs expression. Begin by quieting the mind (meditation, a long quiet walk). so the heart can be acknowledged and heard. Then give yourself space to journal, to sing, to scream, to dance… to give the heart its needed inner stage for expression. There are many resources shared in both the book and course, Language of the Soul, that provide outlets with practices designed to support the heart weary/wounded human being. In doing so we reinvigorate in chinese medicine what we call the Heart Protector. The imagery being that of a set of gates protecting the heart from harm. The role of the gates is neither to be opened or closed but to be well-oiled so as to open or close as the need arises. These gates need us to be both well-rested and present in order to function well. Which brings us then to the potential role that Acupuncture and herbal support, in conjunction with inner practice, can provide potent support for individuals suffering with Heart Fatigue and Heart Trauma. In more acute cases, one should reach out to mental health resources available to you based on your comfort and calling. Due to the stigmas many feel around asking for mental health support, I encourage folks to reach out to health practitioners with whom they feel safe. That includes me. Call me and we can talk about what resources may serve you or a loved one. In truly emergent moments where hope feels lost, here are some resources:
Maryland Crisis Hotline - 1-800-422-0009
SAMHSA’s National Helpline - 1-800-HELP (4357)
National Suicide Hotline - 988
"The problem in most situations is not a lack of calling; but a fear of responding to the call.” Michael Meade
Meet The Voices Of The Audiobook
Nichelle Owens and Ben Umstead share their experiences narrating Language of the Soul: A Path of Simplicity and how it relates to their own Healing & Growth work with Martin
Guest Post written by Ben Umstead, featuring a conversation with Nichelle Owens
If you were to ask me what Healing & Growth is, I would tell you it is the cracking open of one’s heart, again and again. I would tell you it is an adventure. The adventure of life itself, unfolding on a spectrum of infinite wonder. Emanating from that pulse of wonder is creative wisdom. I experience creative wisdom as a gentle and knowing voice from deep within, beckoning my egoic mind to integrate with the rhythms of my soul. When I’m growing in this way, there is a lack of tension in my body that reflects the healing that is occurring within that ease of rhythm.
I have spent the last year and a half collaborating with my life-long friend Martin Perkins on bringing his book, Language of the Soul: A Path of Simplicity, to life. In taking this project from a loosely connected set of essays, poems and ideas on the ways in which we can integrate Healing & Growth into our lives, to a fully fleshed-out book of practices and teaching stories on our inner language, I have learned to better listen to that creative voice that resides deep within my soul.
Last month, I traveled from my home in Virginia to Martin’s healing center, Simplicity Farm, in Maryland, to begin a new chapter on my journey of Healing & Growth. Having published the book in trade paperback, it was now time to step into Martin’s DIY recording studio and become one of the voices who would narrate the audiobook. The other person lending their voice to the project was Nichelle Owens, Martin’s long-time acupuncture client and friend. This past week, Nichelle and I got on the phone to look back on our time recording Language of the Soul and how the experience informed our own Healing & Growth journeys. She tells me the moment she first heard about the audiobook and how her own creative wisdom lit a spark she could not ignore. “One day, after an acupuncture session, Martin told me his next step with his book was recording the audiobook. I said to him ‘Oh I’d like to narrate it!’ He looked at me and asked ‘You would?’ And then he really didn’t respond after that. The next day he reached out and asked, ‘were you really serious about that?’ And I said ‘Yeah!’ There was that little voice inside of me that said ‘hey take advantage of this creative opportunity.’ I think that little voice has wisdom.” Nichelle’s speaking voice emanates a warmth and curiosity that is infectious for anyone who is listening. Her cadence is gentle and tenacious at the same time. It is something that has served her well in her experience as an educator. “When I was in the classroom teaching, one of my favorite activities would be to read a story to my students. Even though they were primarily 3rd through 6th graders my preference was to really calm things down at the end of the day and engage in a read aloud. More recently in administrative meetings, colleagues have said ‘Nichelle, you just take my blood pressure down when I talk to you.’ I have another colleague who had said to me ‘when you retire from this place, you need to go record books.’”
Feeling the rhythm of one’s creative wisdom is a powerful aspect in the adventure that is Healing & Growth. Coming to embody that rhythm can take time. Or as Martin relays in both the book and the course that inspired it: ‘practicing in real-time. Practicing in presence.’ Nichelle has been receiving acupuncture from Martin for nearly ten years. “I began after a pretty serious illness,” she tells me. “The acupuncture experience has really helped me become more in tune with my body, with my thought process, and my overall well-being. I’ve been integrating my body, mind and heart, rather than just approaching things from what’s going on with my body and not connecting it to what’s going on in my thoughts and in my heart. It’s created a more embodied experience for me to know my overall wellness and the connections between all of my systems.”
When considering my own adventure in Healing & Growth, I am aware of how fear has affected sharing this journey with others. In practicing with stillness, I have learned how to exist from within a vulnerable place, finding the courage to share without reservation. If I were to tell you about my life as a globe-trotting, award-winning filmmaker, film critic, and film festival programmer, you may assume I have experienced success from a monetary standpoint. In truth, while I have always followed my heart, I have struggled financially. This chosen struggle stemmed from the constant worry and anxiety around the narrative that I was not worthy; that I wasn’t good enough to earn a proper income. It was a narrative I held onto simply out of familiarity, and the blind reach for something beyond myself: a title, a skill, a trait. Something I could sell. I was reaching beyond the beauty that already resided within me; a beauty that everyone in my life sees in me. The beauty of simply being myself, unfolding on a spectrum of infinite wonder.
When Martin asked me if I would work with him on the book, he emphasized he wasn’t asking because of some experience or role or title I had held in the past. He was asking because he wanted to work with me. By simply showing up to Martin’s project as the creative and playful being I inherently am, I cracked my heart. This important aspect of my Healing & Growth became more embodied when I joined Martin and a cohort of students in the Language of the Soul course a few months into the editing process of the book. Becoming a dedicated student of the stillness practices detailed in the book brought about a stunning synergy to our work. Our roles as teacher and student blended in a dance of friendship and collaboration that made my heart sing.
As Nichelle and I continue our conversation, she hones in on the nature of how vulnerability showed up in the recording process, and in turn, how that expanded her own Healing & Growth. “The leap into recording was a test of me being vulnerable in unfamiliar territory,” she tells me. “If someone asked me to write a grant proposal or work with a group of teachers I could do that hands down, but in this case, I really had to expand within myself. I had to be mindful. I had to make sure that I gave voice to what Martin was thinking while also being true to myself. I think for me this was really a matter of the personal growth and healing that is captured so well in the book.”
Nichelle’s experience takes me back to the many months of rewrites and how I first lent my own voice to the book. As Martin and I found our footing, we discovered it was very helpful to read and reread aloud the many chapters and vignettes taking shape. Soon enough, this became foundational in our work, and as Martin focused his energy on the writing itself, much of the reading fell to me. As I simply loved reading aloud, anytime, anywhere, for an audience, or by myself, it was an experience I luxuriated in. When it came time to plan for the audiobook, Martin turned to me and simply stated “You’re going to narrate.” While I had never directly considered narrating the book for listeners, it made complete sense to me. That flame had been glowing in me all along. And here was an opportunity to let it shine. Through the sustained process of reading aloud, first in drafting the book, and then in the recording, my practice in how I embodied my creative wisdom blossomed. I reveled in the playfulness of narration; the silences between words, the tonal shifts, emphasization; how I used my diaphragm, my muscles. Through the simple act of practicing, I discovered using my voice in this way felt totally and wonderfully innate. Something Nichelle echoes in our conversation. “Reading aloud feels really natural to me. And there’s just something very real in being able to practice reading and applying this voice that people say that I have.”
Due to the sensitivity of the recording equipment and Martin’s steadfast canine companion, Bear, making enough noise to interrupt the process, my time giving voice to the chapters and poems throughout the book was largely solitary. Nichelle’s task of reading the vignettes - short companion pieces interspersed throughout the text - saw her sitting down with Martin, while I kept Bear company on walks in the forest. “You know I’m a black woman sitting in a room with a white man, in a situation where I am totally comfortable engaging and reading this book because it’s so true. That is the grounding point and the connecting point.” Nichelle’s experience recording with Martin is a reflection of his wholistic approach to life, or, what he calls his mission in life: to Heal & Grow. A mission he believes we can all experience when we access what is the core tenant of the book: our own unique and soulful language. This approach to a wholistic and natural life is a practice where we don’t compartmentalize ourselves. For instance, no matter the setting or context you may meet Martin - whether as a consciousness teacher, father, acupuncturist, lover of nature or friend - there is a natural quality present. Healing & Growth in practice creates this soulful inner language that expresses the natural qualities of a human being. “Oftentimes in our society you don’t get to engage across gender and race with such deep conversations,” Nichelle affirms of her experience working with Martin before turning back to her own inner journey. “Again, recording the vignettes felt like I was growing in a way I hadn’t before. It was that opportunity to feel vulnerable. The opportunity to hear feedback. The opportunity to give voice to really good writing… It just felt like that’s where I needed to be at this stage in my life. Ten years ago it would have been a thought but not an action. At this point in time, I had the courage and the creative wisdom to say to Martin ‘Hey I’d like to do it!’. The biggest challenge was internal. It was me growing. It was me healing by doing something that just comes natural to me.”
And so it goes, the adventure of life itself, unfolding on a spectrum of infinite wonder.
The Distinction Between Prescriptive and Embodied Healing, Or How to Find a Really Great Acupuncturist 😉
When folks cold call me to inquire about acupuncture, generally speaking, I am asked two questions up front: How much do I charge? and Do I take their insurance? I fully understand why they are asking these questions and I promptly share my rates and the fact that I do not accept third party reimbursement. Then I ask them if they have time for a slightly longer and deeper conversation. Sometimes they do have the time and I then proceed to ask about why they are seeking treatment? Generally speaking, folks will then share their symptoms. I might ask more about how sleep, diet and exercise shows up in their lives. As the conversation continues, I may ask about the state of their emotions, their spirit and the relationship between how they are living and what they would like to see happen in their lives. I offer them that what we are sharing establishes a rapport that extends beyond a prescriptive approach to healing.
Prescriptive healing is a health approach that is based on fixing a symptom through a specific treatment protocol. While this approach is highly effective if one needs a surgeon, it comes up measurably short when applied to wholistic medicine. With a wholistic approach, the practitioner and their client enter a partnership where the client learns how to Heal & Grow through the treatment modalities of the practitioner. At least that’s the plan. What the client needs is for the practitioner to embody the Healing & Growth steps they are being encouraged to take. Whether it is how to more effectively rest, to cultivate a stillness practice, or a healthier relationship with food, I offer that the client needs the practitioner to be walking their talk. To that end, I encourage you to ask your wholistic practitioners (or prospective practitioners) about their self-care practices. Ask them about:
Meditation or Yoga practice
Practice in rest
Exercise regimen
Personal approach to diet
What their life mission looks like and how it is expressing itself
These questions speak directly to Embodied Healing. They can tell you directly to what degree your wholistic practitioner can guide you into your journey of Healing & Growth. Are they embodying their work or are they capable technicians? The question isn’t whether they have arrived at some false notion of perfect practice but focuses on how they are practicing with these opportunities in their life. My experience as both client and practitioner is this distinction is crucial to cultivating a vibrant healthy life.
The Four Forms of Rest
The first step in creating Healing & Growth in one’s life is rest. It is a lifelong practice. It is often one of the most difficult challenges for modern humans. Most of us have no idea how fatigued - physically, emotionally and spiritually - we have become.
This simple yet clear framework offers an opportunity to rest and regenerate in four forms:
Sleep til Rested
Initially set aside a minimum of 9 hours for sleeping. If you wake up mid-cycle or before you intended to awaken, continue to rest even if you are not sleeping. If it is challenging to get to sleep, focus on your pre-sleep practices. Extend the time you allocate for settling down to sleep. Consider a shower, yoga or stretching, meditation, reading, journaling, or gentle recorded sounds. Listen to a podcast that is not overly stimulating. It is more than OK to rest. To not do. It is needed in order to Heal & Grow. It is not time wasted. It is time invested in coming to life more fully. Some need less sleep, others, more. Either way, all of us need a lot of rest. Remember, you are likely regenerating your body, mind and spirit after many years of insufficient rest. You as well are learning how to do things in a restful way.
Practice Not Doing Each Day
Allow yourself a period or periods of time where you do nothing each day. Not doing may include entertainment such as reading or TV watching, it might be a gentle walk in the neighborhood or nearby your workplace, it may be sitting on the porch watching life unfold around you. Practice letting go of the anxious, worried and frustrated thoughts when not doing. They are draining you.
Take Many Short Breaks Each Day
Throughout your day, pause and step away from your activities/work. When I say step away, I mean it literally. Step away and move your body for 5-10 minutes. Give yourself an opportunity to do a reset. Do this no matter how pressed for time you may feel. If anything, you need this break more when you are feeling pressed for time. The same applies if you are feeling like you are in a flow. Still step away. It will pay off many-fold once you allow resets and the work process to be regular companions. You will find yourself over the space of most days more energized and more effective in your endeavors. For those whose work may not allow for short breaks throughout the day as I’m encouraging, step away to the restroom and do your reset there. Breathe, stretch, let go through your breath the tensions of the day.
Rest the Mind as a Multi-Daily Practice
Each morning begin your day with a breath focused meditation. Set aside 5-10 minutes to begin. Build your meditation time to a minimum of 15-20 minutes each morning. Don’t concern yourself with being good at it. It takes practice. It will take months in some ways and years in other ways before meditation becomes more fully embodied. Let this be OK. What matters is making it a practice every morning. After a few months of practice, introduce a mid-day practice of meditation. After a few more months of practicing two times per day, a clear sense of a stillness practice begins to develop. In cultivating a stillness practice the inner observer begins to reveal itself. This revelation of the observer serves to guide one's actions in presence and shifts one's relationship with unnecessary suffering. We learn to catch ourselves before we react and fall into unnecessary suffering.
Excerpt from Language of the Soul: A Path of Simplicity; Chapter Two: Healing & Growth
Self-Education, Creativity & Play: An Intro to Language of the Soul
Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is. The only function of a school is to make self-education easier - Isaac Asimov
Asimov puts it so succinctly. His words contrast starkly with a world where the perceived purpose of learning is to check off a box so we can make it to the next step in life. Knowledge of any kind being seen as a stepping stone rather than the end itself. The result often being that the certificate or diploma is the destination. Embodiment of knowledge becoming an afterthought. An expression of a culture that celebrates the individual who rushes through their learning. Often they are what we call the go-getters. People who live for the next thing. A state of anxiety celebrated in a culture of anxiety. A world where appearance is far more important than how we progress through life.
You may ask, why does this all matter? How did we go from Asimov’s quote on self-education to a dialogue on the traps of anxiety and ambition?
In simplest terms, we Heal & Grow as humans, individually and collectively, most effectively when we are open vessels on a path of discovery. A life lived where creativity and play serve as centerpieces of our experience. The process of self-education is one that allows us to explore our inner knowledge and express it in life through the growth and understanding gathered along the way. A playful creative approach. A sharp contrast to adhering to a strict syllabus intended to reach a pre-ordained destination. An approach that begs the question, where is the creativity and joy in such an approach? Where is the personal calling that self-learning asks of us?
Many studies over the last 20 years show that creative play within a learning process greatly enhances learning. Not just for children but for all of us. To be able to learn in play with empathy, compassion, trust, and intimacy. To realize this fact is to recognize that the false narrative of learning as dreary and repetitive is the byproduct of a system that sees creativity and play in learning as only marginally tolerated. Generally for very young learners and those seen as artistic.
How then do we bring creative play more actively into our lives?
A key first step is to learn how to quiet our minds so that we can learn our own soul language. A soul language that is an expression of creative life force itself. The Language of the Soul course does so by meeting every student where they are at the moment, calling the student to presence and the opportunities within to engage in creative play. An approach that also enables virtues such as authenticity and vulnerability to serve as healing possibilities in learning one’s soul language. Virtues embodied as practices of living through creative play. In allowing our life's journey to be framed, kindly and creatively, around how we get there rather than being defined by the intended destination. A destination that often transmutes within a process of self-education.
By being well-rested and present in our lives, we empower meaningful and active engagement to our choices.
Through the practice of Daoyin within the course, we activate an ability to learn and grow more quickly within consistent practice by bringing the depths of our wisdom into play.
To experience a real joy within ourselves by bringing a sense of earnest calling into our practice of life. A sense of joy that can be accessed even as we experience the less than happiest of times around us.
They Chose Me
My parents wanted a big family. It did not happen. By the time I came along when my mom was 40 years old I was welcomed warmly into the family as a miracle of sorts. Into a family that while very dysfunctional, I was wanted and supported in the ways they knew how to give. For good and for bad, they chose me. As the youngest of three children, I was oblivious as a child to what had come before me. With one sister 19 years older and another sister 9 years older, there was already a long history of family life.
When I got older I wondered why my sisters and I were so far apart in age. In asking my younger sister she explained that our mother had had at least 10 miscarriages, possibly more. A fact, along with the family pattern of being unwilling to process emotion, that had led to a great deal of sadness. Along with the sadness came a disharmony. At times home felt more like a war zone. I can give countless reasons why I wouldn't want anyone to experience my childhood and yet my overwhelming sense, from this point in life, is that I was fortunate. Some of that good fortune has been well-earned. I have spent much of adulthood consciously healing childhood wounds.
At this moment, in the midst of an ongoing national conversation on the autonomy of our bodies, the big gift I am receiving is the awareness that I was chosen by two parents who went through hell to have a child. I was that child. I am here because they chose me. Over and over again, they chose me.
In exploring both gratitude and forgiveness a truth arose that is often missed in both practices. The willingness to allow ourselves to feel the emotions that prevent us from being grateful or forgiving. In the case of my mother I had to allow myself to truly acknowledge what happened during my upbringing. To allow myself to feel the pain and anger I had bottled up inside for so long. To allow myself a grieving of the grievances to be felt. To be willing to visit and revisit my childhood traumas through conscious breathing and journaling. I was learning to feel into my experiences rather than masking what I felt. To allow an authentic expression of self rather than the superficial pursuit of being a good person. In sharing this story I am not advocating incivility. I am encouraging a practice of Healing & Growth unattached to worship and dogma. To any belief system that is more focused on what we are doing rather than how we are doing it. To be guided by wisdom rather than the ruling ethical standards of the day. Building blocks of living to be embodied rather than lived with or tolerated.
- Excerpt from the forthcoming book Language of the Soul: A Path of Simplicity
Pi and Healing
There are many ways to envision how the rational mind meets one’s spirit. We have explored this meeting as a deep embrace within the Soul. This deep embrace has many expressed corollaries. In our day-to-day lives it may be a gesture, a smile, a posture, a song or word(s), creation of any kind, a random act of kindness or an intense and needed challenge to our notion of self. Its expression is limitless and yet simultaneously precise. It is a manifestation of Pi.
Pi or ð is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter in Euclidean geometry, approximately 3.14159....... Pi is a mathematical constant and a transcendental, and therefore irrational, real number, with many uses in mathematics, physics, engineering and healing. It is also known as Archimedes' constant. By its very definition Pi is a mathematical and cosmic relationship between a finite distance (the diameter) and its infinite correspondent (the circle). The descriptive terms used in its definition help us to see its larger meaning. Terms like transcendental, irrational and real.
Seemingly random yet exactingly precise. Mathematicians have carried the expression of pi into the billions of digits with no known end. This precision expressed as a random and non-repeating sequence is a direct metaphor for conscious living by seeing there is only one optimal expression in each moment. If we as seemingly imperfect human beings do not recognize this optimal expression, yet another moment arises that carries the potential for yet another optimal expression. These moments as opportunities for authenticity repeat infinitely, the only condition for this optimization being our deep listening. A soulful form of listening that carries us into often inexplicable choices and new possibilities. Presence in this context illustrating in our choices the seemingly random yet exactingly precise nature of decision-making made through wisdom. The acknowledgement that like Pi, conscious choices will present as both random and new, mirroring the gift of the beginner's mind. In this way conscious living can be clearly seen through Pi’s wondrous transcendent and irrational nature.
- Excerpt from the forthcoming book Language of the Soul: A Path of Simplicity
A Conscious Approach to the Beatitudes
The Sermon on the Mount opens with the Beatitudes—eight statements beginning with the word blessed. This word affirms a state of blessing that already exists. It is already so. Our work is to allow it to unfold within us. To allow the blessing to be received and expressed through our conscious choices and actions in life.
The First Beatitude
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
The meaning of the word "poor" in Greek means one who has nothing and is completely empty. Yeshua is literally encouraging us to embrace letting go into a life beyond the trappings of the material. To trust the inner journey.
Metaphorically, to have nothing and to be completely empty speaks to the practice of stillness and grounding in deep quiet. A quiet that opens our arms to receive the gifts of the Soul. To lay a foundation of depth and knowledge of self so as to receive the kingdom of heaven. A heaven that is found in the emptiness within the depths of self. This blessing is a potent affirmation to living a life in which stillness, presence and a willingness to surrender into our most awakened self are key ingredients. In this way we receive the First Beatitude.
The Second Beatitude
Blessed are they who mourn,
for they shall be comforted.
Mourning is the willingness to grieve and let go of the weights of all life experience. Mourning allows us to forgive ourselves the patterns we have learned to cope with the suffering in our lives. To give up all hope for a better yesterday. This is how we let go of the small stories preventing us from living a more vibrant life.
A key practice, inferred within this blessing, is the practice of letting go into the Tears of the Soul. A noble and deeply personal practice intrinsic to the Healing & Growth journey. While largely misunderstood in our hyper-rational world, the Tears of the Soul is a deep and potent experience known to consciousness acolytes for its life-expanding opportunity. An opportunity to let go of old threads constraining our ability to Heal & Grow. In the midst of such phases of emotional release we don't have an explanation for what we grieve yet know its necessity. It is a willingness to grieve and let go of the ghosts we carry within that are expressions of past and future blocking us from the freedom of the present.
The Third Beatitude
Blessed are the meek,
for they shall possess the earth.
To be meek in this context is to be a quiet spirit. To be gentle. So what does it mean to be a gentle Soul? A gnostic translation of meek, in the context of this blessing, can be seen as those who serve the will of the Soul. Freewill exists in relation to a particular yet broad inquiry all humans experience when making any decision: will I honor or answer the call of the Soul or personal wisdom or will I allow fear to override my choice? Will I be gentle and quiet, listening deeply to the wisdom within or will I allow my fear to lead me? Fears that often speak reactively, loudly, drowning out the whispering voice of wisdom within. Yeshua is offering a blessing to those who practice serving the will of the Soul. So what is meant to possess the earth? The earth represents the depths of our being and our wisdom. It also represents the possibility within the blessing to receive what is seen as heavenly into our existence here on earth. In this way being a gentle spirit gives us access to and possession of the wisdom within our depths.
The Fourth Beatitude
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they shall be satisfied.
It has always been a challenging journey for the human being willing to express their truth or righteousness into the world. To live a life that veers from the accepted path as seen by expectation and into an integral journey. Integral, meaning to make whole, as an expression of the hunger and thirst for righteousness.
From childhood forward we are encouraged to share but often our thoughts and feelings are not accepted if they aren’t aligned with those around us. We are often discouraged by the reception we receive when we don’t fit in the box of expectation. So what happens when we have a deep hunger and willingness to meet the call for the truth dwelling deep within? To be willing to let go into truth that may not resonate with those around us. To practice allowing the opinion of others to be heard, to be received, to be a part of the truth. A part of the truth by allowing it to be brought into our depths. In doing so we acknowledge our loved ones, our community, and at the same time listen and act from what is authentic within us.
I offer there is a peace, a calm, that comes with practicing this depth of consideration within this seeking of our inner truth. We become satisfied or in a more contemporary sense, we experience being content. To see this as being contented we can let go of the notion of being satisfied as meeting one’s desires, needs or expectations. A contentedness that comes with surrendering into one’s deepest truth.
The Fifth Beatitude
Blessed are the merciful,
for they shall obtain mercy.
In the simplest of terms, Yeshua is saying we reap what we sow. Compassion and forgiveness beget compassion and forgiveness. Being soft, receptive and truthful in how we interact with the world leads to more of the same.
The Sixth Beatitude
Blessed are the pure of heart,
for they shall see God.
Pure of heart? What does this mean? How do we access it? First we acknowledge that the heart becomes pure by cracking open over and over again. To be willing to fail in practicing to be the best human we can be. Yeshua has told us, through the first five blessings, how to become pure of heart. To be willing to crack open one’s heart for the sake of others while being true to one’s own wisdom. To practice with our hearts vulnerability and kindness so that an authentic articulation of ourselves is expressed with a distinct vibration, potency and beauty. This is a practice, an opportunity of the moment. It is not an aspiration to practice but the choice to give expression to the truth of the heart with immediacy. In this way we know our infinite nature.
The Seventh Beatitude
Blessed are the peacemakers
for they are children of God.
The peacemaker is an expression that speaks to the embodiment of the path Yeshua led in life and in spirit. It has a multitude of expressions but is in fact rarely embodied, both within and in action, in human form. It is offered as a challenge as we may step into our role as peacemaker within the blessing. Are you willing to live fully and authentically by embodying the blessed virtues that are the building blocks of the peacemaker?
The Eight Beatitude
Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice sake,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
This blessing is an affirmation to the truth warriors. In All of Our Many Forms. While many forms of persecution fill our news sources and social media outlets, and are included within the blessing’s intent, a larger picture is worthy of inclusion. Yeshua speaks of persecution for justice sake and it is but a short leap for us to focus on actions that suffer persecution. We give little attention to those who are unjustly persecuted for simply being who they are. Their very existence serves as the reason to be harassed. People like the Roma, the poor, people of color, the neuro divergent… People who the establishment often treats similarly to those who we see as truth warriors such as protestors, spiritual leaders, etc..Often because they are seen as different and by being different they exist for the sake of justice, for shedding light on that we need changed. It is important to remember that in the aftermath of Yeshua’s resurrection, those who had any association with him were persecuted. This included the many who sought healing from him. No action on their part was needed for them to be persecuted. And in turn, they received a blessedness that often comes with being different in this world. For their willingness to be vulnerable and ask for help.
- Excerpt from the forthcoming book Language of the Soul: A Path of Simplicity
The Demarcation Point
I’ve come to see the process of Healing & Growth as a shift from seeking others to complete me to the experience of feeling whole regardless of the presence of others. This is not to say I don’t enjoy being with people. I simply don’t need them to feel whole.
I often describe this period and everything after as a demarcation point. A point so pronounced that everything before it looks like I was preparing for something that I didn't understand and everything afterward feels like an embodiment of that I sought. Life feels different, looks different and sounds different. However it's not just a sensate shift. It is a radical shift to living in purpose versus aspiring to live in purpose. I use the word purpose, however, it can be said in many ways. The phrasing, regardless of choice of words, simply does not express the experience of the before and after.
One can call it an awakening, though in my view, that sells the journey short. The notion of an awakening speaks of a moment in time and though I can articulate several moments as significant in the process, it is a process of intention first and foremost. A multicolored full spectrum kaleidoscope of consciousness, sometimes agonizing, most of the time very intense and most thankfully, fulfilling and inwardly true. Though I listed true last, it really carries the most significant meaning in the process as I have learned to actually settle into my own vivid understanding of what it means to be truthful with myself and the world around me. Though sometimes my truth is not well-received I have learned to stay grounded in practice around truth and allow it to be a practice versus a static state of meaning and attachment.
Along the path of this process of aligning myself with my Soul I have found a teacher whose unfolding mirrors my own. This teacher's name is Milarepa. Though he lived over a 1000 years ago I feel a sense of kinship in our life stories. He comes from a lineage whose roots serve us today in the form of Tantra. Unfortunately much of Tantra today is seen through techniques that limit the extraordinary opportunity that is this soulful practice. Fortunately Buddhism claimed him as one of their own, giving us a contemporary connection to a wondrous master of consciousness.
My initial connection with Milarepa lies in the nature of our habituated wounds. We were angry young men with too much knowledge and too little compassion and humility. We saw threads of connection yet chose to burn them for the sake of twisted and angry resentment. We saw people not through a loving and kind heart but through their shortcomings. We were taught these things by the examples of our mothers and chose in our respective lifetimes to Heal & Grow through these scorched inner wounds. To show that the process of Healing & Growth is possible for all. To show that redemption is a personal choice manifest in presence and not in the blessing from another no matter how blessed that individual.
For both Milarepa and myself, the process of Healing & Growth was built upon a foundation that requires building, tearing down and then rebuilding over and over again. For the most part, this way of healing and growing is seen by modern humans as untenable. An approach centered on letting go and rebuilding is seen as wasted effort instead of a necessary part of building a strong inner foundation. This solid foundation is necessary for the Soul to connect with depth so we can manifest the fullness of our purpose. This is more metaphoric in some lives and quite literal in others. The building of my creative healing center was both metaphoric and literal in its expression of building, letting go and rebuilding.
This opportunity facilitated a perspective I simply could not see and ultimately allowed a creative expression of self that was both redemptive and awakening. It comes back to preparing for something versus embodying it. I have been asked if I am proud of my creation of Simplicity Farm, and what arises is, “I let go and this is what happens.”
When I set forth the intention of creating Simplicity Farm as a Healing & Growth center, I operated initially to complete the project asap. While immediacy is important when embarking upon a creative endeavor, how one inwardly practices with the project is central. I initially saw the building of the center as an obstacle to my teaching practice rather than recognizing that how I approached the building process was essential to my development as a teacher. In my haste I skipped steps. The result was that only months into the process and nearing what I perceived as completion, I was forced to stop and begin again. To adhere to specific building regulations that were overlooked in my need to get to my intended destination or completion. This ultimately extended the building process for over a year. I was given an extraordinary gift. During that year I stopped trying so hard to finish a project and allowed the process to unfold. I connected to play and creativity, allowing them to guide me rather than my old habits of anxiety, worry and frustration. A freedom within resulted in allowing me access to a creativity that had often felt far away, beyond me.
- Excerpt from the forthcoming book Language of the Soul: A Path of Simplicity
The Unfolding
The energetic opportunity that occurs between the corporeal self and the infinite or Soul is one centered upon a letting go of control around the very fabric of reality. What appears to be occurring and what can be known around any given experience can be seen as unfolding within time. A concept of time within the Soul that is neither linear nor arranged in any rational order. One example that can help in grasping the notion of the unfolding occurs within an event that has already been experienced. As we Heal & Grow within a deep surrender into our Souls, this experience can continue to change within our perception. This can happen not just once with a given event but many times as the Soul has its way with our perception of reality. Practice in presence opens us for any event, past, present or future, to be an opportunity for Healing & Growth. In the absence of presence, the unfolding of the same event can become suspended, stagnant or depleted. This can be dependent on the individual and their accompanying patterns of habituation often expressed as dis-ease. In other words, unfolding is carried forth in time through the intention of presence. This is why consistent restfulness and stillness practice along with a conscious intention in presence are crucial elements of the Healing & Growth process. These practices allow us to experience healing in ways that exist beyond the rational mind’s understanding of what is possible.