My Inner Temple

"In my soul there is a temple,
A shrine, a mosque, a church

That dissolves, that
Dissolves into God.”
Sufi saint Rabia


"Create a place where you can truly come forward, where you can go to in your inner world for an energetic connection, for shifting of your energy. You allow yourself a place where your energy can be higher, where you can allow who you truly are to come forward, after all that is the actual intent of this life, that we call the earth life system."
--The Oracle

For years I have carried this place in my heart, a place I can go to when all around me seems to be dissolving, when I don't know what the next step is, or what the next moment will bring. Usually, I would go for a long run into the mountains, far from all the people I know, and look down onto the city where I live. From that vantage point, I could see that my life was simply a dream. And I was the dreamer. And the dreamed.

And in that space I would turn to the setting sun, and I would speak from the depth of my heart to God. I would always be heard. I would always feel connected. In that place, I knew I would always be o.k.

But the thing is, no one else was there. I kept this place to myself. I held on to it like it belonged only to me. Over the past few weeks, I've been reflecting on that. There have been a few things that have brought this to my awareness.

First, on Thanksgiving, it was getting late, I was sitting around with some of my closest friends, and I, for some reason, asked them how they envisioned their death. I told them that I would go for a walk into the woods, to me, this meant coming back to my inner temple, the place that belonged only to me. One of my friends said that he wanted to die with his loved ones around him, looking into their eyes, and just connecting with all the love that he had brought into this world.

And that struck me.

Being a bit of a morbid guy, I often reflect on my own death (happy fellow I am). In all my reflections, I am always alone. And I think for years, to some degree, I'd been pursuing this place of aloneness, a sense that I can only really be me when I am alone, when no one is around.

The second thing happened last week in the Oracle's Monday night class. At the beginning of the class, the Oracle instructed us to come to our gathering place, and I immediately went to my own inner temple, where I am alone. But the Oracle went on to say, bring other people here, bring all the people you are closest too into this gathering to this place.

And I was absolutely dumb struck for one moment, it never occurred to me to bring others to my inner temple, to actually be as real, as open, as honest, as authentic as I am in those moments when I connect with Spirit, with other people. At first I balked at this, I didn't want it. But as I opened up, and allowed others to enter my space, as I let the walls down, even if it was only in my imagination, I could sense all this connection.

For years my soul has longed for connection, but my ego has blocked that. It has kept my self hidden, holding back, never quite being as real, as honest as I could be. Isn't it ironic that the thing that our souls may want the most is the very thing that our ego wants to avoid. Is it any wonder that Christ said, "the stone that builder refused has become the head corner stone."

So for the past few days I have reflected on this, and I have worked on opening and allowing others to see me, to know me, as I am. A good friend once said to me that I keep all that is most real and powerful within me hidden. At some point, you have to drop the pretenses, you have to stop hiding, you have to bring your light forth into the world. And that is just what I intend to do.

The Journey to Boston

Boston has always been a mythical city for me. As a child, it was about thirty minutes away. My dad worked there. So we'd often visit. I remember the buildings, and how I saw them as a child, how it looked so big, and full of life. There was this magic to the place. We'd go to Fenway Park and the Boston Garden, and to me these were more sacred than any church. We'd go whale watching off the shore of the aquarium and I remember thinking how amazing the world was, full of creatures, beyond imagination, just beneath the surface. The moments I spent there will always live large in my heart.

As I grew older, and my family moved, I would visit less and less frequently. But still it held its appeal. I felt connected to the place. After college, I lived there for about six months. These were perhaps the darkest six months of my life. It wasn't due to the city or anything like that, it was my life that was dark. I had no idea where I was going, what I was doing, my life had no purpose, and I had no power. It was just terrible. There were periods of time where I just didn't even feel able to talk to other people. I had used far too many drugs. And I had drank far too much. I was in a bad state. I was literally in hell. And that is exactly how I felt. I felt like I had been condemned to hell.

While I was living there, I remembered something one of my professors had told me. We were reading Dante's "Inferno". I asked him, "why did God condemn all these people to hell?" (this took a lot of courage for me to ask, because at the time I was extremely shy and had a hard time speaking in class.) He said, "Ahh...now you will see the genius of Dante. God did not condemn these Souls to hell. They choose to be in Hell. They could be free at any moment, if only they chose that. You see, to those in Hell, the light and love of God is the most painful thing, more painful than any torture."

I remembered that, and I thought to myself, "I choose to get out of hell. I will not live like this any longer." And so I set my intent to getting out of hell, to doing whatever it took to create a life that was worth living, a life that had meaning to it.

At the time, I was working in this bookstore. I remember sitting there and reading Carlos Castaneda's "Journey to Ixtlan", and I thought to myself, "this is my Ixtlan...this is it...Boston is my Ixtlan...I have to leave and I may never come back, but I can not live this way any longer. I just can't." I decided I wanted to find a teacher like Don Juan, someone who could show me the path of being a true warrior on this earth, of having real purpose and meaning.

I had wanted to move to New Mexico. Santa Fe to be exact because I felt that this is where I would find a teacher or a guru. I went through this big battle with my parents. They wanted me to go to Japan. I wanted to go to New Mexico. My mother said to me, "Joe (as that was my name then), if you go to New Mexico, you will go much further from your family then you ever would if you went to Japan." They won. I went to Japan.

And so the years past. And I grew in my power. I eventually went to Santa Fe, first on a couple of vision quests, and later, to be with my spiritual family, my ohana.

And so, this weekend. I returned again to Boston. Really, for the first time since I left eight years ago. And once more I found myself sitting in the exact spot where I worked so long ago. Once more I found myself on the edge of the freedom trail, looking at the old South meeting house, right by State Street and Fanuiel Hall. And as I sat there, I looked at my life, at the journey that is my life, and I will tell you, I was amazed. I had walked out of hell. One step at a time. I had emerged from the darkness that was my life. I had found what I was looking for. I watched my Soul grow before my eyes, and did not notice. I watched my life appear before my eyes and did not see.

I tell you this story as if it were not true, as if it were just a story, but really, it happened to me.

And so, I returned to my Ixtlan, ever so briefly, and while I was there, I thanked that earth, that piece of land, for what it had given me. I used to believe, as it was said in Castaneda, that once we leave our Ixtlan, we never return. We never make it home. But while I was there, in my Ixtlan, I saw that we carry our home with us, it is part of us, it is never far from us. The light and love of God is always shining. The sun never sets. What we deeply desire will manifest. It always does. So long as we choose to live in that love and light.

While I was sitting there, I decided to set my intent for the next cycle of my life. There is still more that I want, still more to grow. Still more love I want to bring into my life, still more light, still more Soul. I have grown down into my darkness, now I desire to grow deep into the light, and bring that light out into this earth. I desire to fully manifest my highest Self on this earth.

And I tell you, I know that this will happen. And now you can see how I know. Because it already has.

Love and Light

Going Home

"To this mountain you shall go in a certain night, when it comes most long and most dark, and see that you prepare yourself by prayer. Insist upon the way that leads to the mountain, but ask not of any man where the way lies: only follow your Guide, who shall offer himself to you, and will meet you in the way. This Guide will bring you to the mountain at midnight, when all things are silent and dark. It is necessary that you arm yourself with a resolute heroic courage, lest you fear those things that will happen and so fall back."
--Eugenius Philathes, Lumen de Lumine

"As the hart panteth after the water books, so panteth my heart after thee, O God.
My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?
My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, "Where is thy God?""
--Psalm 42: 1-3

"And everything comes to one,
As we dance on, and dance on, and dance on."
--Theodore Roethke

At the Ocean of Our Selves

We meet outside to do a process on the rocky coastline. We stand in line. I look at Kris. I can see the love that is emanating from him. I look into his eyes. I can see how much he wants all of us to come into their true Self, to move beyond their reactions, their fragments. I've never seen such love before.

They ask me to be a gatekeeper. I'm partially excited. Partially relieved. There's been this struggle going on, feeling like no one liked me, like I was a failure, like everyone else was better than me. It's strange, as I get to this place where I am willing to make movement for Self, then I no longer care about what happens around me. It is all for Self. So I take my place, and I ask each individual, "Are you willing to leave behind the remnants of your past?" And I look in their eyes, and they say "yes". Some have more intent. Some are totally willing. I can see that in them. I can see their willingness to do whatever it takes. Others are holding back. I can see that too.

We walk through this bric a brac...full of junk...I had been out there a couple days before when Kalyn asked Howard and I to hold the intent. I made a purpose circle out there. I sat out there and prayed to live my highest Self to come from Self. As we walk through the bric a brac, we see it as all of the things that have held us back from our own divinity, all the junk, all the false beliefs, all the fragmented personalities. And as we pass through the bric a brac we make it out to the shore...to the unlimited possibility that is the ocean.

I walk out there. I have left my old life behind. I have left my old personality behind. I have left all my fragments, my false beliefs...and I look out...and what is left but my Self. I have nothing left to hold on to (though some part of me wants to hold on). And I feel as if everything in this world is an extension of myself. and I am an extension of that. I look at people and feel as if I am meeting myself again for the first time. I feel so much love, so much connection. Kris comes up to me. He hands me a piece of coral, about the size of my palm. And he says let this shell be a reminder of the where your unlimited Self comes into form. Just as this ocean comes into form in the piece of this coral. I thank him.

Kalyn comes over and says, "Wouldn't it be great if we could be here all the time?" I say "Yes." She says, "Joe, why do you think everyone says you look so young? What are they seeing?" I know what she is talking about. It is my emotional body, but I don't want to say that, but I know that it is true. I know that I need to mature and grow my emotional body. I need to become more of an adult. Self responsible. And I am willing to do that. So I come out to the ocean of self, and I meet my unlimited potential, and my limited Self, working through its difficulties, its barriers and its pain.

God

This is an old poem, I wrote some time ago...

God

It's like awakening
from the dream
of your deepest fear
and your true name

And falling back asleep
to the lone black bird's
morning song
to false dawn

The Night

The night

I am driving down the highway.
It is night. There are few lights on the road.
The darkness swells. It envelops me.
Ancient, primordial night surrounds me. Timeless.

And here I am seeing it. My thought’s silence.
I become perception, before thought.
Promethean perception. Before words.
Just the dark sea of awareness surrounding me.
Just the dark sea of awareness that is me.

And I forget my name, and my position, and my rank.

Up ahead I see the lights of town.
I drive towards them.

Away from the deep darkness towards the lights.
And there is humanity surrounding me.
Placing its net upon reality,
Creating a dream upon this planet,
A dream that will last only briefly.

As I enter town, I become at once a little child, and a man.
I am my father driving me home through the city,
and I am myself, as a child, being driven.

The lights reflect through the car.
There is a strange comfort that I find in the sound of the car as it goes over the concrete bridges.
There is a strange comfort that I find in the headlights reflected upon my father’s eyes.

There is still a world.
Though the darkness has enveloped us, there is still a world.
And in this dark sea, there are so many happenings,
and if I were lost,
I could wash up on the shore of any of these small little dreams happening around me.

"My Soul Has Grown Deep"

"My Soul has grown deep, like rivers"
--Langston Hughes

I have an uncle who sends me poems from time to time. Recently he sent me the poem, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" by Langston Hughes. There was a particular line in that poem that just jumped out to me, it was almost as if I could feel the words in my body, "my soul has grown deep, like rivers." To me, that is life, to live, to experience, to grow deep into soulfulness, into the world, while we go upwards to spirit. We grown down, and we grow up.

To grow down is to grow into the world, into the sorrows of the world, to all that is passing, and to live anyway. As Joseph Campbell says, "to participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world."

I learned just yesterday, that a friend, who up until the last year or so had been diligently walking his path, committed suicide. He was a good human being. He had worked so hard on his path. He had committed to his Self, but he ran up against a place in himself, in his ego, that just was relentless, and despite our best efforts no one that I knew could reach him. He just disappeared.

Evidently, the police found his cell phone and called around looking for next of kin. That's how I found out.

It's hard to know what to say.

You see some one open to their Self, open to life, open to their heart. And then you see them shut down, close out their self, their life, their heart. Just like that. You remember those moments when they were alive, when they were themselves, and you remember those moments that were hints of what was to come, things they said, things they did, the way they acted.

What can you say? His work will continue on a plane other than this one. My prayer for him is that eventually he'll let go of his anger and his self hatred and he'll come back to his Self, to his Soul, to who he truly is, to who he has always been.

And so we live, and our experiences shape us, define us, and we grow deep, etched in stone, like rivers carving out canyons in our souls, places that take us deeper into life, into this world, and ourselves, into the living mystery.

Meeting Ram Dass

When I was in college, to me, Ram Dass was the link to the guru. I always wanted to meet the guru. I remember reading "Be Here Now" and feeling the presence of God through the book. I always wanted to connect with that, to serve that. At the time, I felt as if I were being drawn into the presence of the Guru, into the presence of God. Unfortunately for me, my path was a winding one.

As I was nearing the end of my college career, I decided that there were two places I wanted to live. The first being India, the second being New Mexico. I couldn't tell you why I was drawn to New Mexico, but I remember there being something important about the place, some reason that I needed to go there. It didn't work for me to move to either place. I ended up going to Japan, and feeling somehow disconnected with myself. My parents wanted me to go to Japan. I wanted to go to New Mexico. We had a holy war. They won out. What can I say...I was broke. Sometimes God takes a backseat to money. Especially when you got no power.

Well, when I was living in Japan I did some research on the internet one day, just trolling around, and I found out the Neem Karoli Baba, the guru of Ram Dass, had only one temple outside of India...in Taos, New Mexico.

When I got back to the states, I continued my spiritual adventure, but the desire to meet the guru faded to some degree. I started to find the guru within. I started to find Self within, and I didn't need so much to find the guru without. However, there has always been this part of me that has wondered what would've happened had I made the adventure to Taos, New Mexico when I had just left college. Probably my head would've exploded when I found out that Neem Karoli Baba had a temple there.

Not too long ago, I was again, trolling around on the internet, and I found that I could have a personal chat with Ram Dass, a heart to heart, over a network meeting site. Amazing, I thought. I finally get a chance to meet the guru...in the most unlikely of places.

So I signed up. Just to see what it would be like.

And when the day came, I realized I had no idea what we were going to talk about. I mentioned this to one of my spiritual friends, and he said that I should tell him about my path. That seemed like a good starting point, so that was what I was going to do.

I had been watching the Celtics-Lakers NBA finals game. I usually get pretty wrapped up in those games. When I was a kid I even had a shirt that said "I Hate L.A." I wore it proudly. The Celtics were getting destroyed in this game.

About halfway through the game, I got a call from Ram Dass' helper. And I logged into the site. There was Ram Dass. He picked up the phone. And said hello...I just started laughing. I mean seriously. Back in the day, I would wake up at dawn and go pray to the morning sun that I would get a chance to meet the guru, that I would find purpose and direction in my life, and here I was, somehow talking to the guru through the phone. How weird.

I started off by telling him thank you. I said that he had a real deep impact on my life. Of course he had no idea. And then I started telling him about my spiritual path. And he just listened. He asked me what I do for a living. I said "I work at Merrill Lynch". He said, "That's one hell of an ashram you got there." I thought that was pretty funny. So I started talking about how I compartmentalize, how I am one person with one group, and someone else with another, how I lose myself in the world.

He talked to me about focusing on my Soul, tuning into my Soul, and remembering that whoever we meet...they are just Soul's. Everywhere. Just Soul's. So I asked him how he goes about remember that. He said, "Well, you have to know who you are. Do you know who you are?" I used to ask myself that question a lot, a la Ramana Maharshi. "I don't know...I don't know." He said, "I am loving awareness...who are you?" And then he kept repeating it, "I am loving awareness. I am loving awareness. I am loving awareness." Sometimes slowly, sometimes softly, sometimes strongly, but always the same...I am loving awareness. And I felt as if I were in the presence of loving awareness, that he was just loving awareness.

And he said to me, "Simon, who are you?" And I said, "I am loving awareness." And he said, "And there it is. We are two souls. What is a Soul. Loving awareness. Loving awareness meeting loving awareness. Through all the identifications, through all the games, through it all, we are one and the same." And as he talked I could feel the power, this love, this light, just streaming through me. I felt at peace and at home. We talked for a while more, but at some point, we just ran out of things to say. I just felt at home. At home.

And so he bowed and said "Namaste" and then he said, "I am loving awareness." And I smiled, and felt as if I were looking at loving awareness, at the very nature of God, at the very nature of God. And he hung up the phone.

And I hung up the phone. And I went back out to watch the end of the Celtics game. The Celtics were completing one of the greatest comebacks in NBA final's history. But in my head, all I could think was, "I am loving awareness", and as I watched the game, it was different. All souls. They were all souls. The Celtics. The fans. Even the Lakers. All Souls. All Souls.

The Definitive Journey

I went running up in the East Mountains in Albuquerque today. When I run up there, I feel as if I am stepping into a painting. It's difficult to describe but the sagebrush, the cactus, the few desert flowers, and then the view down over all of Albuquerque, stretching out into the distant dormant volcanoes on the westside, and into the vast barren stretches to the south, all of it transports me, it takes me out of my normal everday self.

Today as I was running, my mind grew silent. I could just hear the sound of the wind, my footsteps, the sound of my breath. As I entered deeper into the silence I felt as if I was forgetting who I thought I was. I was forgetting my life story, all my beliefs, all my reference points, all my hopes, my dreams, my fears...all of it just vanishing into the vast desert sky. All the things that I felt so concerned about seemed like nothing more than illusions.

And there I am running. And it's like I don't even know what day it is, what year it is...it is just Now. Here and Now. And the vast infinite sky. Here and Now and the Vast Infinite Sky.

Just then a passage from a Castaneda book comes to mind: "And I will leave. But the birds will stay, singing; and my garden will stay, with its green tree, with its water well. Many afternoons the skies will be blue and placid, and the bells in belfry will chime, as they are chiming this afternoon. The people who have loved me will pass away, and the town will burst anew every year. But my spirit will always wander nostalgic in the same recondite corner of my flowery garden."

And so I run through the silence, with no name, with no face, just a being, barely existing in this world. The words come slowly, they drift into my body, they resound off the empty caverns of my mind, like the breeze breathing on these cliffs. Who is there to hear them? It is such a strange pleasure to be alive.

This is a true story--part 3 and part 4

Part 3:

“Wani wachiyelo Ate omakiyayo (Father help me I want to live)
Oshiya chichiyelo (Humbly have pity on me)
Wani wachiyelo Atay omakiyayo (Father help me I want to live)
Wani wachiyelo Atay (Father I want to live)”
--“Peyote Healing” By Robbie Robertson


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5195679123198671506&q=Robbie+Robertson+Peyote+Healing+lyrics&total=1&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

Everything goes quiet. Silent. I am awake, and aware, but I feel as if I am not the same as before. There is this stillness. My body no longer twitches. There is no fear, no anger, no judgement. I want to laugh. I want to smile. I feel like I have just been reborn. I want to give myself a new name. I feel like I can remember who I am again. Who am I again?

I open my eyes. The world looks different. Sharper, crisper, more real. I see the people around me. I want to make a few jokes. Tell everybody I’m all right. But the truth is, I feel like this strange wonderful truck has just run over me. “What the hell was that all about?” I mean really, what the hell.

I sit up. I feel a bit self conscious. Just a bit. Everybody laughs. “You’ve just had you’re your first psychic surgery.” I’m all bandaged up. Xel-ha, K2’s daughter, has just put first aid tape on my shoulder and on my head. They take pictures of me. Everybody is laughing. I laugh too.

I have heard it said that on this plane of existence, it is a miracle if our heart is truly open for even the briefest period at all. I felt like a new born. Like I had my life back again. I looked at the faces around me and they were so warm so welcoming. I felt like I belonged, like I was part of a community, part of a group, and that I was wanted around.

These seem like small things. Shouldn’t we all have that? Shouldn’t we all live our lives like that? But how many of us do? How many of us can let others see us, just as we are, with no filters, no walls, and feel truly accepted. It is rarer than rare, my friends. And to be honest, to my ego, it was a bit terrifying. But as I sat there, it felt o.k. I felt o.k. I spoke and the voice really seemed like my own. I felt as if there was something to live for in life, that there was a purpose. The lightness in my heart had returned. The fear had, for the moment, vanished. The walls, for the moment, had been breached. What peace. What freedom.

And so I watched as my heart opened. I watched as I was able to let the love that surrounds me in. I watched as these people who cared about me took the time to love me. And then I watched as I started closing down around this openness. How long can one stay open in this world? It can be so painful.

And so, as the night was about over, I began to pick back up the remnants of my life. I began the process of putting back together the coating that surrounds me. Don Miguel Ruiz once told the story of Prometheus, the primordial thief of fire, in an interesting way. He said that Prometheus, while chained to the rock for stealing fire from the immortals, was not being punished as the eagle dismemberbed him day after day. Rather, the eagle was trying to free him from the bondage of his self, his ego, which kept him from being one with the immortal Gods. Every day the eagle would dismember him. Every night Prometheus would put himself back together again. He would begin the process of separation again. And so Prometheus lived. And so we live. To have a self image is to be in pain.

I imagine that our greatest hope lies in a refusal to completely surrender to our own hard heartedness, our own walls.

And so, that night, after I left K2’s, with a friend driving my home. I began the process of reassembling my ego.

This is no tragedy, in my opinion, it just is what it is. I believe that what we can do is when we begin to close down, work to open up just a little bit more, close down a little bit less. When we are seeing that we are closing, that our doors to the world are closing, we can reach out to another, extend into the world. Go past our walls.

Part 4:

The next day I return to K2’s. It is another achingly beautiful day in New Mexico. The morning sun is echoing off the grass. What was dark and invisible is now flooded in the clear light of day.

The other apprentices are there. I’m a bit sheepish around them. I feel lighter, but the walls have closed me off somewhat. I tell a few jokes. Do the little tap dance routine that is pretending to be someone.

We have class.

Afterwards, K2 call my aside. “What got you into this situation?” they ask. “Why were you easy prey for an entity?” They always ask good question. Being the good student I am, I look for the right answer. This one is pretty easy. I had lost my will to live. It wasn’t complete. It wasn’t total. But lately I had been feeling like “what is the point, where am I going? Why am I here?” That’s rarely a good place to be.

I have heard it said that we do not have suicidal thoughts out of a desire to die, rather it is a desire to live, a deep strong will towards a life that seemingly does not exist now. There I was with this aching desire to live a fuller deeper life. Unfortunately, at every turn I was blocked. At every turn the walls of ego would close in.

I dance, in my imagination. I sing, in my imagination. I am free, in my imagination. But in my life, I am quiet, silent, sometimes barely existing. And no matter how hard I have tried to free myself from my patterns and walls, they still are there. Don Juan says that “We do not break through our walls, we leap over them.” Kris says that it is just a simple choice. You choose Self, you choose your life, or you choose your pattern. In all of us there is a longing for life so deep, so profound, a longing to awake, to be free, to live our lives as our Selves. And yet, how many of us can and do live from that place?

So there I am, in the meditation room of my spiritual guides, with this longing to awaken, but feeling blocked at every turn. I am feeling self conscious and exposed as if they can see right through me.

Kalyn says, “So, you lost the will to live, eh, Joe. Where is your joy? Where is the search for meaning in your life? What happened to that?” I shake my head and feel pitiable. I don’t know where I lost it, or how I lost it. It just happened. There was no great tragedy in my life. By all accounts, my life was going well. But for me there was this vast emptiness that I could not fill. It was a sense of frustration with myself that I could not be more, that I could not do more. And my life felt hollow. I felt so separate from everybody and everything. Like I was just a ghost floating through the world.

Kris and Kalyn watch with me, as I look within to find the core of my sorrow. “Why do you hold yourself back?” Kalyn says. “What is within you that is so dark and horrible? Are you out there molesting children.” “No,” I say. “Are you out there butt raping men” This almost makes me laugh. “No.” “So what is so horrible within you? What is so dark?“ “I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know.” “Well, bring it all forth, bring it here now.”

I fragmented at an early age. There was so much anger and resentment in my household. My parents constantly fought throughout the first years of my life. When I was 3 years old my mother lost a set of twins. They were still born. The were choked by each others umbilical chords. In a sense, they strangled each other. At least that’s how my parents saw it. My parents decided that they were to blame, that it was the atmosphere of the house, the tension, like teeth gritting, grinding, breaking you down, that caused these two children to die.

My two younger sisters were named and buried. My mom went into a profound, pronounced depression. She would cry for hours and days at a time. My Dad developed an intense fear of closed spaces and of heights. He was simply terrified that God would come down and judge him. That God would send him to hell.

When Kalyn asks me to bring forth all that is dark and horrible within me, I am three years old. And my mother is crying. She has just lost the twins and the sorrow in the house in unfathomable. I go to comfort her, and she yells at me, she tells me to go away, and I am so hurt and so ashamed, and so angry, and so confused. It’s too much for me. I feel like my heart will explode. And as I see this I start crying. I hate crying in front of people. I hate showing my emotions, but at a certain point there they are, and until you can accept them as they are, you will never be able to accept yourself. So there I am crying on the floor of K2’s living room about something that happened to me more than 25 years ago. And I look at it, and that is my first memory. That is the foundation for my understanding of the world. And it is a shadow memory, not clear, not complete, but the feeling and the intensity of it live within me.

“Joe, it’s o.k. to let people see you.” Kalyn says. “Open your heart and comfort that child that you are. Give that child what it needs, what was missing in that moment.”

My Death Chant

My Death Chant:

I have a death chant.
You have a death chant.
We all have a death chant.

It is the song we sing, when death comes to us.

It is sweet, sad, like looking across the depth of your life,
all the faces, the eyes, the hearts, and knowing that
there is a final goodbye.

It is terrible and beautiful, like Golgotha, the place of the skull.

It is the joy and sorrow of the world.

It is the deep silence, the stillness, as each word, each sound, each moment of our lives
sink into the marrow of our souls.

But I have a death chant.
You have a death chant,
We all have a death chant.

Listen for yours. It is the music
that can carry you into your grave
across the dark skies,
to the other side.

The words, the songs, are pathways.

Use your death chant.

When you are broken. When you have no hope. When you feel like this is your last stand,
your last day, your last dream.

When you are shredded by life,
use your death chant, let it be your strength, your power, to take
one step more.

It is the summation of all that you find beautiful in this world.

All that your heart, your eyes, your ears, your soul has feasted on.

My death chant is my gift to the universe.

It is my Soul.

It is my Self.

And I will bring this gift to Spirit, when I pass on,

but before I go, before I leave this world...

I give my death chant to you.

Vision Quest

I paid for my vision quest. It was important to me. I wanted it to come from Self. But my parents did chip in to help by some of the gear. I remember I prepared for it at the last minute. It was a total rush job. My brother worked at L.L.Bean and the night before I left, I went up and bought a whole bunch of gear. My dad was willing to foot the bill, but he looked at me like I was a bit of an ass or something. I knew he wasn’t quite happy with what I was doing, but he figured he couldn’t stop me. He saw it as a waste of money, and a waste of time.

Before I left though, they did give me a copy of “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel. It was to become an important book in my life, though I did not know it at the time. The morning I left was dreary, kind of rainy. My dad drove me to the airport. I thought of the whole thing in mythological terms. As far as I was concerned, this was a ritual death, I wanted to die to my old life, I wanted something new. I felt like this was my last hope. Either this or suicide. I didn’t have any other options. I was going to the “last chance” mountains.

It’s hard to remember being this depressed or this lost, but it was true. I had no power. I felt like a loser. I felt empty. So I went to the mountains. I was absolutely terrified. And deeply alone. I still had a girlfriend in Japan, but I could feel that there was little chance of it working out in the long term. I was going to school, but only because my parents wanted me there. I had little real direction.

The plane flight was uneventful. Except that I started writing about what I was seeking. My intent. I longed for some kind of center. I wanted to be an adult. This would be my first trip to New Mexico, to Santa Fe, and it held a kind of mythological importance. For some reason, New Mexico became synonymous with my soul. It was the place where I would go to be connected with my soul.

My first reaction to arriving in Albuquerque was that it was so different then anything that I’d ever imagined. It wasn’t at all like I imagined. I thought I was going to the desert. But it turned out to be the high desert, which is nothing like what I thought. There were trees. There was water. It was beautiful, but in a way I didn’t expect.

The first three or four days were spent up at this camp in the mountains. Evidently one of the descendents of Robert Oppenheimer owned it, was a friend of the guide, and lent it to him from time to time. So, we were high up in the mountains. First time I had gone camping. First time I’d done anything like this at all. Obviously given that it was a pseudo American Indian ritual, there were a lot of Indian overtones. But it was really a bunch of white people looking for ways to make their lives work. There were six or seven fellow questers. All of us were broken in some way or another. You got to be pretty desperate to go the mountains and fast and pray for four days. Really desperate. There has got to be a longing that can not be satisfied any where else. It’s definitely not for everyone.

One guy had recently lost his long time girlfriend. He came to sprinkle her ashes, to let go of her, and try to move on with his life. Another, like me, lost, was looking for some kind of direction. A third was searching for his “burning bush”, some kind of compass or direction in his life. Another, looking to open up, to break out of the rigid hard shell that she had built around herself and really connect with others.

It’s funny, these people appeared in my life for the briefest of moments. I knew them for about a week. But they are ingrained in my heart and soul in a way that some of my co-workers, people I knew for years, are not. There is something deeply bonding about an experience like this. It’s an experience, your walls come down, your illusions break down, and you are left raw, naked, exposed before God and the rest of humanity, just as you are. And from there, you can begin making your first steps towards an authentic life.

We went to the mountain. It was a mesa. The evening before we left for our solo time, there was a great storm out of the east. It rained. It thundered. When the lightning hit the ground, I could feel it vibrate in the earth. We were only allowed to bring a rudimentary shelter—a tarp—that we had to put up with our own two hands.

I sat under my tarp passing the time, wondering what in God’s name had brought me to this. But the storm passed. And I emerged from my little shelter, like the itsy bitsy spider, to find the two brightest biggest rainbows I had ever seen. As we were on a mesa, the rainbows extended high above our heads, and deep into the revine below us. I took it as a sign from God that somehow, “everything would be all right”.

The next morning, the day we were to go off on our solo time, I felt as if I were walking towards my own death. The guide woke us with the song “morning has broken”. I felt broken. He held a little ceremony, where we were smudged with sage, and in silence we would walk off to find “our spot” the place that would be like a womb, watching over our death, and our birth. He said a prayer for each of us. One at a time.

And I walked off. Tears in my smoke stained eyes. I felt as if I were saying goodbye to all that I knew. All that I was. It was one of the most painful feelings of my entire life.

Alone, at the edge of the universe:

I set up my meager camp with the tools that my parents had given me. I never felt so alone before. I can’t quite explain it. On the outside, it was like I was just going camping by my self for a few days, but on the inside it felt like I was saying goodbye to my family. I felt like I was saying goodbye to everything, I felt like I was dying. And it wrenched my heart in two.

I did this ritual, called a death lodge. Basically, the point was pretty simple, it was as if you’d come to the end of your life, so before you go the great beyond, everybody you know comes for a visit, to reminisce about the old times, and to say goodbye.

I can not describe the pain.

One after another, I called up the people in my life. I called forth family and friends, relatives and enemies. And I would say goodbye. With some, I could sense how the ties that bound us together, for whatever reason, were beginning to dissolve. I said goodbye to my grandfather, not knowing he would have only a few months left in reality, anyway. I said goodbye to my brothers and sisters. I said goodbye to their childhoods, just as I said goodbye to my own. I said goodbye to my parents, and their youth, as they entered late middle to old age. Everything came back to me in the most vivid and poignant detail. I have heard it said that when a person dies, they go through a life review, (my whole life flashed before my eyes). For those few hours…my whole life passed before my eyes, in all its mystery, its sorrow, its grandeur, its laughter. The tears came thick and heavy.

I had the hardest time saying goodbye to my childhood. I wanted to somehow stay, to linger.

I remember as a child dreaming what heaven would be like—I imagined that it was just as things were—I was with my family, in our house, with our friends, except their were no worries, there was no pain. We were happy, content, and loving each other. It was as things were supposed to be. And it would make me smile.

Now as I sat on top of this Mesa, my only companions the trees and a few lone sparrows, I wept for the loss of my dream, of my heaven. I had no idea of what new world may come forth. I only saw the world that was fading before my eyes. I only saw all that I was leaving behind. My grandfather, his old irish songs. He used to take me for long walks and sing “It’s a long way to Tipperary…it’s a long way to go…it’s a long long way to Tipperary, my sweetheart, I know.” His terrible jokes. His warm smile. My dad singing “the tide is high and I’m rolling on” as we drove to the beach…my mom singing “I’m a leaving on a jet plane, I don’t know when I’ll be back again” as we drove away from her parents home one Thanksgiving…Friday evening pizza…baseball games…fireworks…backyard basketball…home run derby…the smell of wrapping paper on Christmas morning…my little sisters…games I used to play with my brother…chlorine from swimming pools…all the races I had run…or swum…chicken nuggets and French fries at my grandparents house…the cold Maine waters…Italian ice…bubble gum ice cream. All of it. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

I knew that I would die, that my parents would die, that my brother would die, that my sisters would die, that my youngest sister, who I had seen from her first days, who still carried her innocence, she too would die. And there would be nothing that could be done, for that is life.

I’m sure, I’m sure, you too can imagine the pain, as you have been there too.

My uncle once wrote about “the well of sorrow”, “I have been to the well of sorrow,” he said, “I have tasted the salt of its tears.” The guide on the vision quest told me that there is a bottom to this well. I believe him. Yet, to this day, I have not discovered it. I know, that I can drink deeply of this well at any moment, that in my own heart, there lies a sadness that can never be quenched, or satiated. It is the summation of all my goodbyes, of all my leavings, of all my never returnings.

And still we live on.

Basic Goodness:

The great gift I discovered on the mountain came from a seemingly mundane and inconsequential event. One morning, I arose early, the clouds and rain had cleared. I went to the top of the Mesa. I was surrounded in a ring by mountain peaks. 360 degree panoramic awareness. The world was clothed in the gold of the early morning sun. If heaven existed on earth…it was here…it was now. I sat in that sun with nothing to do, nowhere to go. My sorrow felt as distant as the sky, and yet as close as my breath. The mesa top was a vast field of flowers. And the bees were busy, all over the mesa top, doing their work. In all directions…flowers…bees.

One bee came by me. He landed on my hand. He landed on my water bottle. I thought to my self, “Bee, you are in the wrong place, I am no flower. I am a man, not part of your world. You are wasting your time here. You should get back to work, in your world, with the flowers, with nature.” And then as I sat there, I realized that I wasn’t really separate from that world…that as far as the bee was concerned, I, and my water bottle, were not different from those flowers. We were part the world, just as the flowers were, not separate from it. Even the plastic from my bottle was natural. And I felt like belonged here. Like I wasn’t an interloper, or some kind of poison, that I was o.k. I felt as if I were good, that there was something in me that could be trusted, that there was goodness at my core…not horror, not emptiness…just simple basic goodness.

In Dzogchen meditation, as I have been taught, there is a view of the nature of the mind, or reality itself that is like that of a child, laying in the tall grass, lazily gazing at the sky, watching as clouds pass by, knowing that all is naturally perfect, just as it is. It was kind of like that. Everything was perfect, I was perfect, just as I was…and from that small little spark, I felt as if I could find a direction, a will to carry on. It was a little flickering lamp, not strong, but still I knew it was there. I had something to trust. I had someone to trust. My Self, my deep heart’s core.


When we returned from our time alone fasting, I didn’t feel as if I had been changed completely, but there was some kind of shift. There was some kind of power growing within. I felt like I could connect with people, like I could open up, and there would be something valuable there, not just a wretched display of horribleness.

My favorite Rumi poem

 One night a man was crying,
  Allah! Allah!
  His lips grew sweet with the praising,
  until a cynic said,
  "So! I have heard you
  calling out, but have you ever
  gotten any response?"

  The man had no answer to that.
  He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep.

  He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,
  in a thick, green foliage.
  "Why did you stop praising?"
  "Because I've never heard anything back."
  "This longing
  you express is the return message."

  The grief you cry out from
  draws you toward union.

  Your pure sadness
  that wants help
  is the secret cup.

  Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.
  That whining is the connection.

  There are love dogs
  no one knows the names of.

  Give your life
  to be one of them.

Jalal Al-Din Rumi Translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne

From The Essential Rumi, by Jalal Al-Din Rumi (HarperSanFrancisco, 1995), used by permission of Coleman Barks.

This is a true story--part 2

This is a true story—part 2

I lie down on the ground. Everyone gathers around me. Kris instructs them to put their hands on me and just connect with me as a being, as a part of themselves. He lets them know that my energy is low and that they can help me to reconnect to Self.

They’ve done this for me before, and I’ve been there for others in the group, so it doesn’t seem all that extraordinary.

However, if you will, take just a moment to ponder how amazing this is. We are at a birthday party. It’s not my birthday. It has nothing to do with me. Yet, when my spiritual family sees me suffering, sees me low, they took the time to gather around me and help me heal. That is absolutely extraordinary.

It reminds me of a story I once heard of a time long ago, when humanity was new on the earth. Back then, the story goes, there was no need of language, all beings knew they were connected, that they were one with each other. When they saw one of their own, in reality themselves, suffering, they dropped what they were doing and went to heal that being.

That is a story of an age long past, a golden age…but to see even a glimpse of that reality here on this earth, in this time. Again, that is extraordinary.

So, I am lying there on the ground of K2’s living room. Kris tells me to open to the love that is present there. I am having a hard time doing that. Part of me feels closed off. I notice that my body is twitching. I’m watching it happen, and I say to myself, “hmmm…that’s kind of weird.” (wouldn’t you think it strange?). I want to be in control. I don’t want the others to notice that I’m twitching, but there’s really nothing I can do. It just is what it is. I start to feel like I’m not the one in control here. I’m not the one in the driver’s seat.

The twitching starts to get more severe. I start to feel as if I’m entering some kind of trance. It reminded me of those healing ceremonies you see on t.v. from time to time. The being on the ground starts writhing on the ground, in a trance, as the healers work on him. I used to read stories about this kind of event, and even wished, at one point, to be involved. But never did I wish that I would be the one needing to be healed. Never did I wish that I would be the one in the position of weakness. When I read such stories, always I imagined that I would be the healer, the strong one, not the one in need of healing, the weak one.

Furthermore, I’m a pretty level headed guy. I see myself as a bit skeptical. I can’t say I’m the sharpest knife in the box, but I’m not the world’s biggest fool either. All I can tell you is my experience, what I felt as I lay there on that ground. And I’m telling you I saw my body start to twitch and I felt as if I were entering a trance. A strange place to be, let me tell you.

I start praying to God. I start asking for a healing. But my prayers are so fervent, so deep, so real. It’s beyond what I expected. It’s like I’m really sick. I’m really in danger. And I can feel it. And I’m calling out to God like a desperate man, looking for healing.

And I notice that around me, the energy has shifted. Kris and Kalyn start asking for Copal Smoke and Holy Water. There is something more going on here then simply looking for some kind of energetic boost. There is a real honest to God healing happening here.

I can hear them talking amongst themselves. They are saying that there is something in my side. They can see it. Some kind of entity. They take off my shirt.

Usually I’d be embarrassed in some way to be there shirtless in front of all these people, but I actually felt ill. You know that feeling that all bets were off. I felt like I was just a being in the face of the vast infinite universe, just a small speck, praying to be well again. So what did I care. I was just a body. A being. Somebody who would eventually die. And I was hoping that death would not come to me tonight.

The sprinkle holy water on me. For some reason it burns a bit. It hurts. I start coughing. All these dark memories from my life come before my awareness. I want to cry out, but I want to control my emotions, but I want to cry out. I just want to be healed. I just want to be well. I can feel Kris press in to my side. I start shaking. I start shaking.

“God, have mercy on me. God, have mercy on me. For whatever I have done wrong, for whomever I have hurt, have mercy on me. May all beings be healed. May all beings be free. God, have mercy on me.”

And it goes on. And it goes deeper. And I see the deepest, darkest, recesses of my Soul.

“God, have mercy on me.”

This is a true story--Part 1

This is a true story. It is one night in the journey of my Soul, that long long journey, the twelve inches from my head to my heart.

It begins with me heading up to see my spiritual guides, and my spiritual family. I am driving up I-25 from Albuquerque to Santa Fe. I notice that I am feeling more anxious than I usually do. I go up to Santa Fe to see my guides and my brothers and sisters on this path at least once a week. Usually I am nervous to some degree, but not like this. I feel like I don’t quite fit in my skin. Like there is something wrong with me.

It is a beautiful drive from Albuquerque to Santa Fe. Late winter. The sun is beginning to set behind me as I drive over this hills and mesas. I stop at a gas station halfway. I look up towards the mountains in the distance. The wind blows over the brush and grass. I think back to my two vision quests in those mountains. I am reminded of my intent, my deeper intent for pursuing a spiritual path. There was a time when I was willing to do anything to find God, to know my authentic Self.

I laugh at myself a little, but in a piteous way. I seem to have lost that intent.

How did it get to be like this? I have always done my best on my path, haven’t I? Everyday I wake up and try to find my deeper intent, don’t I? But I just can’t see it these days. Dark days, I think to myself, dark days.

I have noticed that all my thoughts, all my feelings have been amplified. Especially the darker ones. The night previous I had a dream that took me right back to all the anger, hurt and resentment I felt as a child. I woke up remembering all those times that I acted out of anger, out of resentment, and I hurt those around me.

There was this strange degree of despair in my heart. Like I was a failure, hopeless, and there was simply no way around it.

I ponder my situation a bit as I pump the gas, and head back into the car for the last half of the drive. I noticed that I haven’t been so truthful of late. At work I lie to people. At home I lie. When people ask me how I’m doing, I don’t tell them the truth, even when it is those who are closest to me, who would actually like to know. Instead I just pretend like I am doing fine.

Kris says that the ego is the body of pretension. Man, I’ve been pretending a lot of late. Pretending that I’m o.k. That I’m not hurt. That I’m not afraid. Pretending that I know where I’m going and what I’m doing.

As I get closer to Kris and Kalyn’s home I find myself feeling even more anxious, even more afraid. The sun sets behind me. This brilliant shade of pink reflects over the mountains, and glints off the thin layer of snow that dots the countryside.

I arrive at K2’s and I see the whole group inside. They look happy. They look like they are having fun. But I feel so far removed from them. There’s been this part of me that has projected my past family on to my spiritual family. And so I am hesitant to go in. There is some part of me that believes that my whole spiritual family, and Kris specifically, do not want me around. That my spiritual family would rather I just disappear. They don’t like me, they think that I’m a schmuck, a loser, worthless.

At some level I can see all this as just an inner child that’s hurt and never got what he wanted, so he’s trying to get it from those around him, and not being able to, becomes resentful. But sometimes awareness itself isn’t always curative. And I don’t know what the cure is.

I walk in the door, and try not to be seen. I sit down quietly. There are ten people gathered around, celebrating two birthdays, and the visit of two members of our family from parts away. No one seems to notice me, which is fine by me. I can just disappear.

Kalyn and Anita turn to me and ask me, “how are you, Joe?” “Oh, I’m not bad”, I say, “Hanging in there, you know.” They smile a bit, “Really…?” “Well, it’s about par for the course for me” I say. Whew, dodged that bullet. Don’t want them to really know that I feel like crap, that I feel separate, that I feel isolated, that I feel alone. Who the hell would want to share that? Who the hell would ever want to feel that vulnerable? Not me. Not me.

There’s a bit of wine being passed around, and since I like the wine, I take a few drinks. Not bad. I loosen up a bit, and start talking to those around me. Just passing the time, surface stuff, ask them about themselves, keep the conversation off me, keep awareness of me, don’t let them see me, don’t let them know I’m even here.

The night goes on. It is pleasant. There is something about being around these people that opens up my heart. It’s like life seems easier, less painful, somehow, even in my isolation, I can open, I can let the light out, or in, or both.

They say that the sun of the heart is always shining, but we block it, with our wall of pretension.

At one point Kalyn calls me over and tells me to go give Amber a kiss. She is after all the birthday girl. I have a hard time being put on the spot like this. I have a hard time connecting emotionally or physically when I’m around others. I get embarrassed. I feel ashamed. But I go do it. Just a quick peck. And I feel stupid and ashamed. I wonder what the hell is wrong with me, why can’t I just be like everyone else, why do I have to be so goddamned self conscious. Why can’t I just be free?

Kalyn calls Kris over to show me how its done. He goes up and gives Kalyn a passionate, soulful kiss. And I’m just like, man, I can’t do anything right. I feel just so ashamed.

I got sit down, and try to pretend like it doesn’t bother me, like I don’t feel, like it doesn’t matter, but it does. I just go back to my family of origin. To the feelings I had there growing up, feelings of isolation, of not being able to express myself, the fear, the humiliation. You never wanted to be in the spotlight there. The spotlight was awful.

But still, this was not my family of origin. And no matter how much I tried to block out these people, there was this feeling of connectedness in the air. It’s almost indescribable. It’s this healing energy, that you can’t help but be effected by. It’s like you can settle in and feel at home.

Troy takes out a guitar and sings a couple of songs for everyone. He’s got a great voice, excellent on the guitar, you can tell there’s real soul in his music. He expresses his heart through the songs.

I believe in your life there are moments that you remember, that you take with you, that are just part of your story, and part of your Soul. Sitting there, in K2’s living room, surrounded by those people, in the dark New Mexican night, feeling at home and at peace listening to that music, meant something to me. I can take that with me.

After Troy finishes, Kris and Kalyn turn to me. They say, “Joe lie down on the floor.” So I do, thinking nothing of it, really…