Purpose Decoded

Discipline isn’t a virtue. It’s a neurosis.

It’s a way to exist peaceably in fear.It’s superstition rationalized, normalized, sanctioned.

We miss things, details, miracles, being hypnotized by routine. We’re blind to magic, we discard the moment and embrace our lists and ladders. We’re convinced that we don’t know ourselves, like there is something to know. We’re certain that we are sabotaging our lives when there is only the story of sabotage that we observe.

We struggle with our perceived failure to have accepted ourselves, our alleged incapacity for loving ourselves. But the self that we would love is a hologram, an illusion and its purpose is to amuse. It was not meant to last. It was not meant to be known or understood.

When we abide in wonder, we are witness to the whole point of this. When we can laugh at the ridiculousness of it all, we are actualized.

Return of the Elements

I worried about all the words I had lost.

I’ll never write again, I said.

And then, in the gaping space where

the lexicon had lived like a city,

weather came, forces of a subtler velocity

shaping the space, excavating then seeding.

And now the new land is being populated

by simple creatures.

Beautiful, wild, skittish cubs.

I love them.

I resist the urge to chase them.

We can all live here together.

127 Hours…and Counting

I finally  saw 127 hours, and it was as stirring as I had imagined. Only a few hours into his predicament, Aron Ralston (James Franco) had tried to free himself by scraping  away at the boulder which had pinned his arm against the rock wall.  It was an inferior tool engaged in a futile task, but it gave him hope in the moment that it might be the solution. He dropped the tool, and had some difficulty reaching it to resume his work. He now had to devise a way to retrieve the knife in order to continue to scrape away at the rock. With his foot, he lowered a branch, and after several attempts, finally hooked the knife. Franco conveyed a sense of accomplishment and joy that belied his character’s dire situation. His face lit up with excitement, like he had just won the lottery, he exclaims, “Sweet!”. His stay in the canyon would be marked by a number of minor triumphs, and dismal failures.

At the time, he couldn’t know how that knife would the instrument o f his liberation. But at the time, he had an idea about how he could extricate himself with the knife by chipping the stone. Then he had an idea about using a pulley. Then got an idea about how to stay hydrated without fresh water. All these things were tiny victories throughout his ordeal.

What am I pinning my hopes on? What is my salvation? Is there a tool within my reach that will eventually set me free, but in a way I cannot, or dare not imagine?

He realized at one point that his whole life had been pulling him toward this rock, and that this rock had emerged in all of creation, placed on a trajectory  moving towards this meeting as well. This was Ralston’s destiny. This was the boulder’s destiny. He understood that he had arrived at this place from choices he had made. He never blamed anyone. He got there by himself, and was determined to get out under his own steam.

In the end, he wasn’t freed from the rock. He had never been pinned by the rock. His arm was pinned. He wasn’t. He chose to leave that part of him behind. His arm wasn’t him, and wasn’t necessary in his moving forward.

Ralston’s story compels me to wonder what do I need to leave behind? Is there a part of me that is more detrimental to me as long as it’s attached, than it is useful?  Cutting this thing away is never easy or painless, but it is always an option. Ralston’s willingness to experience pain is what ultimately released him.

No matter how things appear, there is a way out.

Preparing for 2012

As a numerologist, I feel i have a responsibility to address the topic of 2012 and what it may mean for our planet and its inhabitants.

The widespread presumption is that life on earth, as we know it will end on December 21^st, 2012. This belief is based upon the fact that the Mayan calendar ends on that date. This of course, is a gross summary of the predictions made by the Mayans.

Aside from the hysteria accompanying folklore and predictions of end times made throughout the ages, there are geological data and theories that suggest the earth is due for major cataclysm, a natural and periodic occurrence.  So with the Winter Solstice deadline of 2012,  were bracing for the inevitable.

Numerologically, 2012 will be a 5 year. Add 2+0+1+2, and the sum is 5, which is the number concerned with expansion and movement. There is inherent instability with 5 because of its velocity and tendency to change direction. When 5 energy is moving through something, sudden and unexpected events occur.

Go ahead, let your imagination run wild for a minute. Now, 5 isn’t an energy necessarily governing endings, but with the amount of chaos about to ensue, some things will be left in the wake.  My feeling is that 2012 will be a period of unprecedented instability and chaos that will propel our planet and its inhabitants through a transformation that will, culminate closer to 2016, which will be a 9 universal year.

The number 9 isn’t an absolute  indicator of death or extinction, the end of the line per se. If this were the case, then everyone would be born in a 1 personal year, and would die in a 9 personal year. We know this doesn’t happen. In fact, death and birth happen within each of the energies represented by numbers 1 through 9.

But 9  is a vibration concerned with endings, release, and its trajectory is a vortex which moves its subject  toward oblivion. It is the number of self-negation. The words nine, nein, and none are related. So preparing for a major earth change in 2016 is prudent. And this could mean a couple of things Extinction  – the obliteration of our planet, or Ascension  – the spiritual awakening of humanity. Or both.

What is happening, I believe, is a ramping up toward a huge leap forward in the evolution of our species, and perhaps others as well. Transformation is believed to be a single event, but we know it’s a process that occurs over time. Ascension – the same thing. We are ascending right now, gradually. In 2012, we’ll notice acceleration in these processes, and it will be exciting and terrifying. So how do we prepare?

This coming year, 2011 is a 4 year, which means that the energy of stabilization and order prevails. This is the time to prepare, to organize, to ground, to see to every detail of our mission as stewards of this planet. We aren’t preparing for 2012, we’re preparing for the years after.

2011 wil be a year during which we bring our expectations and goals “down to earth” so to speak, paring down extravant habits in spending, eating, and living. Getting to the heart of things, taking care of our bodies, our planet, concerning ourselves with home and family, the building blocks of our civilzation. This is a year of moving away from isolating, ego-centric interests and reconnecting with our “tribe,” our family.

This is also a time of detoxifying our bodies, attending to our health, so that we have a fighting chance amidst the coming changes.

Stay tuned for more thoughts on 2012.

Griz

Sweat Lodge

I am transformed here, and stripped bare.

…now when I think of all the red inside me,

I understand that I don’t bleed; I burn.”

–Cindy St. Onge – “Poems From the Grotto”

I participated in my fourth Inipi cermony yesterday. The number 4 is important in Lakota ritual, and my life path number happens to be a 4.  I should have been prepared for something auspicious.

I hadn’t drunk enough water during the day. That probably partially accounted for how miserable I was into the second round. But as that round got underway, I thought to myself, “this is never as bad as people say it is. what is the big deal? I’m fine. I can handle this. It’s a piece of cake.”

I could hear the arrogance in my own thoughts. The Inyan Oyate , or Stone People in the center of the lodge glowed red hot, and I thought about their suffering, their sacrifice. I was humbled.

This isn’t about how tough I am,  I thought, or about how much pain I can endure for the sake of endurance. It’s about being vulnerable and open and flawed and ultimately purified. I thought that if creatures as sturdy as stones could suffer the sacrificial fire for the sake of my transformation, the least I could do was admit that I was uncomfortable.

And that was all it took. By the middle of the second round, I was nauseous, light-headed, and felt like I would pass out. How hot it was in the lodge wasn’t even an issue by this time. I was at my limit. I was on the verge of asking that the door be open so I could leave.  But this is the purpose of the Inipi ceremony, to inhabit these borders, to push beyond what the body can endure, and to challenge what your mind has always defined as possible and impossible.

When I closed my eyes to try to think of something besides how dizzy I felt, I wanted to go to sleep, but I was afraid I wouldn’t wake up. So I struggled against the heat, and wanting to throw up, and almost losing consciousness. This is where and  how the heat and the prayer transforms the pilgrim. The lodge was pitch black, but I kept looking in the direction of the door, a way out I couldn’t see, but knew was there.

The second round was mercifully divided into two mini-rounds because the heat was excruciating. After I had cooled down some, I realized that I had only experienced external discomfort in previous sweat lodges. This was the first time I had felt that misery on the inside, viscerally.

There were still two more rounds to go, each hotter than the last. At some point during the third round, which I’ve always called the  Skin Searing Round, ancestor spirits present in the lodge were sucking me into Lakota folklore as I envisioned the Great Mystery and Tunkasila playing tether ball with the planets.

This was the spiritual ass-kicking I had always believed the Inipi ceremony to be, but had never experienced until last night.

I am humbled and grateful.

Mitakue Oyasin