Getting behind your Word

For years I have said things to myself that I have not done. I've tried to impose militaristic disciplines on myself but that does not work. After a while I realized that 'keeping my word' or 'my word as law' is an intellectual idea to me, not an actual way of being.

In general though, the seamy side of my word-breaking is not visible to others, or so I think. I often do complete things, with a gargantuan last minute effort, which causes me to go out of balance. Lately, I've had a few encounters of missed deadlines and things falling thru the cracks in my web development team. These were big blunders caused by well-meaning people that have caused big losses, to the tune of millions of dollars of lost opportunity and income.

Everything is a mirror, and often it is easier to see things in the mirror of the other than in oneself. But since there is no other, I can actually observe the behavior of those closest to me and I will begin to see all the ways in which I do break my word, or over inflate it, or over promise, or over-extend, or under-deliver, under stand, scrape by with the minimum of adherence required to what I myself have agreed to do-- often the covenant is with no one but myself. The key word is Over and Under. Two extremes, both excessive, a true symptom of the times. So what's a person of integrity to do?

Aha! Look closely at that word integrity. Is it a moral value? That's a slippery thing, of no substance. But what if Integrity is actually a field, an energetic field around you, and whenever you break your word, it causes a little fray, or a rip or a huge gaping tear in the fabric of that field, and therefore in the tensile strength of the force field around you.

Everytime you completely stand behind your word in your actions, the field gets stronger, the mesh finer. Everytime you slip by with an excuse, or say something you don't mean, or make an idle boast, the field gets weaker. The weakness causes you to lean, one way or the other. Lean into defensiveness, lean into rationalizations. Think of a parachute with rips or tears in it. There is not enough air for lift-off.

So don't give your word without thinking of whether you can keep it. This is one instance where the paradox works-- you can give and keep this at the same time.

Eve-ill

Eve is the agent of evolution. EVOLVE brings two loves, inverted and joined by the O of Oneness into cosmic union. EVOL and OLVE

OO bridged makes the vesica pisces, symbol of the fish, pi sees the water carrier. (age of aquarius)

It is through sexuality that our planet will evolve. Through bringing the sacred back into sex. The Chandela dynasty built temples filled with stone carvings of people making love in 500 AD, an indelible imprint for future consciousness to read, a clue from our ancestors, a seed for the future.

It is the feminine energy within mankind (not just within women, but in both sexes) that must rise to the occasion, by divesting itself of shame, blame and the game of critical male and victimized female, which is played out both within the psyche and without in the world of sexual relations.

The feminine within and without has long been subjugated, and what we know and take as the female element is a shadow of her real self.

The snake that offered Eve the apple from the tree of good and evil (or duality branching outwards), is really the fruit of evolution, coming from the Tree of Life.

The tree also resembles a neuron (new light) from the Nervous System, the source of Nirvana (Nerve-ana) or 'relief'. The snake is the life force/kundalini energy demonized. Also called Serpent Power. We are a race of Serpent Power stymied, stuck in the lower chakras in survival and domination issues.

The reason Eve is offered the apple, not Adam is because it takes femininity, or receptivity to a higher power to be able to eat the fruit wisely. An apple a day has always been a symbol of health as well as knowledge.


Thus we have blamed the woman, demonized the snake and mislabeled the tree and the fruit.

The complementary pair, man and woman are permanently placed in imbalance and opposition: accuser and accused, victim and oppressor. Shame and guilt are the foundation of our existence. Shame at being naked, so sex is also shameful. And since the western world view dominates, we have remained since that fateful story at 20% of our DNA potential, and strangers to our true evolutionary purpose as humans.

The beauty of the broken thing

In the Huichol tradition, the deer is a sacred animal, the ‘deer spirit’ an omen of power, gentleness and ransformation.. I was that baby shaman who at a very young age faced my primal fear and transmuted it. I created a mantle of 'total amnesia' around a childhood trauma. I pushed it down and locked it up, to save my mother’s life, and my own. I allowed it to surface only when I was spiritually mature and ‘awake again’ so that I could properly deal with it.

Primal fear turns to primal passion, and this underground sizzle has lent a certain intensity to my life, has been the fuel for me to rise above mediocrity, travel to strange lands, find ways to sweeten the alienation and separation that was the bitter fruit of the experience. It has made me a storyteller, finding meaning in darkness and suffering, finding them to be the necessary ground that fertilizes the growth and blossoming of enlightened consciousness.

Today I went for a sunset walk in the park with Elvis. I wasn’t planning to go, but he wanted to and he ran out expectantly, as if something very exciting lay await for us. Beautiful evening. Soft breeze, pale pink wash over the sky, trees in magnificent foliage.

At the park, I slipped off my sandals and walked barefoot over the damp cool grass, enjoying the contact with the earth, feeling her energy rise up me. We walked towards the far end of the park. Suddenly, Elvis dashed towards the fence, and I heard the clatter of hooves and the flash of two deer running against the fence. One of them disappeared in a great leap over the 7 ft. chain link fence. Elvis meanwhile was within sniffing distance of a very young fawn, only a few inches taller than him. Elvis, who has often been compared to a deer himself, was only chasing as a game. But the little fawn was terrified. She squealed in fear, and the sound pierced my heart like an arrow, as she tried vainly to jump over the fence. I called Elvis away from her, and he obeyed. She repeatedly kept trying to jump over the fence. I felt her panic and her fear like it was my own, and my heart bled for her. Now she was trying to ram the fence and go through it. She would run a few yards and then throw herself at another section of fence, and her panic grew with each failed attempt.

I thought I would follow her so that she might find the opening at the far end, but she was too distracted to run all the way there. I heard the mother pacing back and forth on the other side of the fence, waiting for her Bambi.

If only I could just grab the little fawn and help her over the fence and put an end to her fear. But I was the one she was scared of, and paradoxically, I was capable of rescuing her, if she would only let me. But of course that would never happen. Her fear although instinctual, was an illusion, because Elvis and I were no threat to her. Its all an illusion. I got close enough to touch her, and she squealed again and ran the other way. Finally, I realized that all I needed to do was leave, and the mother would find her way back into the park and get her child.

As I was walking out, at the edge of the park, I took one last look, and when I turned around I ran into a metal pole, I hit my upper lip, and chipped a tooth on it, bringing me back to reality with a jolt of pain. It had been a battle and I was wounded. My chipped tooth gives me ‘Shibui’ the beauty of the broken thing, as the Japanese say.

Remember, primal fear leads to primal passion. This is the gift.