Letting Go

"When a relationship ends, use the pain and difficult feelings to deepen your practice... to see vividly the infinite depth of being in the intensity of your broken heart". -- Ken McLeod

True Love

This winter has been especially difficult for me. Maybe you can relate.

I feel in some ways that I have been dismantled by the difficulty of this season. In fact, I think I am probably writing from right inside the middle of the dismantling process, and not from on the other side of it just yet. 

Perhaps the dismantling is unrelated to winter, and more related to aging. Perhaps, as I commit myself to engaging more authentically in the reality of world I am living in, I am just more aware of the difficulty. Perhaps, prior to now, I was using the naivete of my own mostly satisfying young adult life to try to defend myself against the reality of unavoidable, un-fixable human heart-break. 

As a person devoted to learning how to be with people in their own experiences of heart-break, I look back now on my first few years practicing this art, and wonder if my clients ever felt abandoned or disappointed by my unconscious attitude that "things can and will get better with the right kind of hard work". Because lately, I have been learning the exact opposite lesson. The lesson that says, "even if you do everything right, tragedy can and may still find you". 

It can find you despite all your hyper-vigilance and preventive practices. It can come and find you while you're sound asleep inside the safety of your own spiritual or psychological resiliency. It can set up camp right in the center of your own human heart... making the safest, most authentic place for you to dwell, also the most excruciating place to try sit down and take stock.

So, for now, I feel like I am trying to locate myself again... trying to find my new perimeter, new center, and new dimensions. It's strange, and uncomfortable, and I keep hoping that it will still feel beautiful to be a part of the human family... instead of simply horrifying. 

Sometimes I am not sure, and that's probably one of the most honest things I've ever said in my whole life. 

And yet, still somehow, within me, there is this experience of Love. Even when I'm totally worn out, if I take a minute to land in my own heart space, I find it. Endlessly pulsing, seemingly tireless. Somehow, this remains. Over and over. Indestructible. Unbroken, seamless, cohesive. Unconvinced by my defensive numbing out strategies. Beyond my personal limitations, this is the force that remains. As if it's beyond, or outside of wounding altogether.

A miracle.

Consequently, my daily practice, if I am tender enough with myself to remember it, has become this: recognizing how any encounter with Love is a gift beyond all suffering. Or maybe a gift that can hold all suffering. Never erasing it, of course, but strong enough to be with it. 

For this, I am humbled, and I am thankful. 

Namaste,

Whitney

Inner Authority

"I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.”

-- Hermann Hesse

Soul Sanctuary.

.... One day when I don't live in this physical place anymore, I'll miss this spot in my living room the most. 

Because I have made this space sacred with my own intention, 
and then delighted myself by spending countless hours alone here. 

It's been right here that I've slowly learned how to listen to my whole Being most carefully. 

And from within that silent observation, I've discovered this new kind of intimacy:

Conversation with my own soul. 

Learning how to meet myself in this way feels like coming Home.

As if I could find a feeling of family reunion inside my own body.

Or rest inward towards my own exquisitely tender embrace.

I now wish everyone could find a way to get this close to themselves -- or hopefully, even closer.

Because I know there is even more than this too.

Namaste,
Whitney 

Divine Conversation

I am so close, I may look distant.
So completely mixed with you, I may look separate.
So out in the open, I appear hidden.
So silent, because I am constantly talking with you.

-- Rumi

Love

"Surrendering completely to love, be it human or divine, means giving up everything, including our own well-being or our ability to make decisions. The truth is that we don't want to be saved in the way God has chosen; we want to keep absolute control over our every step, to be fully conscious of our decisions, to be capable of choosing the object of our devotion.  But it isn't like that with love - it arrives, moves in, and starts directing everything.  Only very strong souls allow themselves to be swept along."

-- Paulo Coelho

Remembering what we already know.

I want to learn how to let Love move through me unobstructed.

Believing that particular Resource is Eternally and Infinitely available.

The Alpha, the Omega, the Beginning, and the End.

Dwelling right inside of me.

Perhaps then I could freely give That which I knew could never be exhausted.

Love.
Love.
Love.

Love.

My soul says, "It's True already, you know?"

And I can only respond, "I'm working on Remembering".


-- Whitney Logan

Creation According to Eve? (Humor me).

Somewhat paradoxically, my movement away an over-identification with church dogma began during a course on the Old Testament at a Baptist university in Texas. Like any good overview class should, we started with the creation narratives (there are two!) in the book for Genesis. To my utter amazement, the ordained Baptist minister that was teaching my class let us in on this little secret: one of the two creation stories suggests literarily (not literally, but literar(y)-ily) that Eve is the apex of creation! Essentially, the literary movement of the story tells us that God ordered "His" creations to be increasingly more complex throughout the course of those seven days; the cherry on top being woman (Eve).

That struck me as supremely confusing at the time, as I didn't know how to reconcile this with the rest of the things I'd been taught through my religious education so far. Consequently, it took years and years of letting that gem of knowledge marinate in my mind until it eventually collided with the teachings of other spiritual wisdom traditions for me to start making some new assumptions.

But, let's get back to the juicy tale here! If Eve is really the apex of creation, why then did God say all that nonsense about giving Adam a "helper" (insert mental image of woman in an apron without the right to vote) when he created her? Well, turns out: God called Eve a "helper" using the same language "He" also used to describe "Himself" in the role as "helper". The Hebrew phrase is "ezer kenegdo", and it is only used again throughout the rest of the whole Old Testament to describe the kind of help God offers to mankind.

Eve is starting to seem like less of a disappointment right now, huh? Well, it gets better. In light of this new information let's revisit that infamous "how Eve got tricked by the snake into ruining everything for the rest of us" Garden scene and examine a few of the other symbols we find there.  We can no longer necessarily assume that Eve is somehow dumber than Adam and consequently more likely to get "tricked" by such a wily snake like she's some sort of naive damsel in distress, right?

So, what's the deal with Eve and seemingly spineless exchange with the serpent then? Well, here's a fun fact: a serpent or snake in nearly every other ancient spiritual tradition is often considered a feminine symbol, as it (like a woman) has an intimate, embodied knowledge about the cycles of life, death, and re-birth through it's molting (skin-shedding) process. Menstruating women are also connected to this intimate knowledge of the cycles of life through the shedding of their uterine (endometrial) lining, which is how the two creatures got linked to one another. So curious!

Now if we decide to take a little risk and consider that neither the serpent nor Eve are all bad, what are we to make of this whole business of eating the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (despite being told not to quite emphatically!)? On a symbolic level, eating from that tree in particular sorta sounds to me like a kind of initiation into a new type of moral consciousness. The kind of consciousness that can separate or distinguish "good" from "bad". I imagine that developmental psychologists might suggest an interesting parallel between the timing of typical menstruation and the various stages of moral development.

But let's leave that aside for a moment, and notice that whatever exciting symbolism may be there, we still need to deal with this business of getting kicked out of the "Garden" after being initiated into "knowing what's up" re: good and evil. Is it just because they broke the rules? And what do we make of the snake's seductive little statement to Eve about how eating the fruit would make her "like God"?

First, let's maybe ask ourselves how it is that knowledge of "Good and Evil" makes a person like God? I have a friend that suggested to me that perhaps knowing about "Good and Evil" is the only way we can really examine our choices and know ourselves. Essentially, consciousness of ourselves is possible when we are able to understand the relationship between "Good and Evil", and then recognize our own power to make informed choices.

Second, let's reflect on why we understand this resulting banishment from the Garden as such a devastating fate for our spiritual ancestors. What is so compelling about the Garden that this makes us feel so convinced that this was an excruciating experience of loss? The symbol of the Garden itself suggests fertility, new life, the womb, the lap of the Mother, the place of fusion with Caregivers, and innocence about our own Responsibility in the world. I imagine that the last time we all felt that kind of unconscious union was probably right before we became conscious of our "separateness" from "mother".

Regardless of whether or not we are projecting our own sense of loss onto their exile, we seem to be able to deeply relate to this anguish and shame that Adam and Eve experience. We think we know that this is a very terrible moment when Adam and Eve begin to feel their "separateness" from God and each other, and try to hide themselves out of shame. They are able to recognize their nakedness (vulnerability) for the first time, seem to have a negative judgment about this, and are consequently alienated from the blissful privilege of unconsciousness that the Garden had allowed them to enjoy up until then.

Yet, this same story also says that God made man and woman in "His" own image, and that "He" saw that this was very good. If we're going to consider everything else literar-ily, we might start to wonder if this story is not just the perfect set up for the most epic Redemption tale of all time.  A real prelude of sorts for what was would happen next (i.e. Jesus Christ: the personification of this Life, Death, And Re-Birth phenomena that seems to make the world go round).

And why did we need Jesus to do this for us? Drumroll, please: I'm inclined to think that it was so that we could have the courage to Remember that the Garden is within us! Jesus' big message was all, "hey guys, you don't need religious folks in fancy robes to stand between you and the Divine in order to mediate that relationship anymore". Maybe some people took him seriously, but mostly, it seems to me that the religious culture in the West has literalized their way right back in the same legalistic "Oh no, we've been kicked out of the Garden and are so ashamed, so let's come up with a bunch of rules and rituals that will help alleviate our guilt and anxiety" system that Jesus made a point to criticize thousands of years ago. I don't like speaking for Jesus, and so I won't. But I personally like to assume that he would be pretty disappointed by the current state of things too.

Speaking of Jesus, rumor has it that he was trying to bring Good News to people! I believe - passionately - that his "Good News" was a message about we can know that place of union (Garden) with God inside of ourselves!  For real.

AND SO IN CONCLUSION(ish), and because I think it's worth considering, I'm boldly saying, "hey people, these stories might be telling us that the Gospel truth sounds like this: turns out, we can choose (in any moment) to leave or return or leave and return again to this place of union with the Divine". Connection, Separation, Re-connection. Life, Death, Re-birth. The trees do it. Our cells do it. Snakes do it. The seasons too. The human heart beat reminds us of this rhythm: contraction, expansion, contraction. Perhaps the sound of the Universe is echoing in our own chests for a reason.

And we get to be conscious of it! What a gift.

This gift of consciousness given from God to the snake, and then from the snake to Eve, and Eve to Adam - might be the kind of gift that empowers us with the exquisite creativity - and very real responsibility - that makes us "like God" in some important way. We too can choose how to use this gift of consciousness: creatively or destructively (for Good or for Evil, so to speak).

As a being that could offer Adam the kind of "help" that God offers to mankind, we might even want to conclude that Eve had good motives for sharing that fruit with him after she had tasted it herself. I think I love her for her conscious courage.

**And by the way, any good parent (Divine or otherwise) knows that if you want to be sure to get your kids to eat something strange and unfamiliar you should try telling them something like "eat anything you want.... except for this one special thing... that's only for grown-ups, which I've willingly placed here unlocked and unguarded".

Nice trick, God.
 
And thank you.... for trusting us enough to let us become conscious of the Mystery.

The initiation was brutal, but the reward is so sweet.

Non-harming includes ourselves.

Welcoming Rejection.

"The gift in rejection is that it can become the new face of liberation".

I've been silently repeating this to myself for several days now, hoping it will stick.  Turns out, I'm weeks away from being 30 years old, and the possibility of rejection is still a big, scary thing for me.

Perhaps too early in my life I suffered from an incomplete initiation into this particularly devastating kind of pain, and have subsequently been trying to avoid it by learning to be "likable enough" in most situations, most of the time.  Today, I'm hoping that these nearly 30 years of life experience have finally allowed me to decided that the price one pays for that comfortable "likable" status is way too high.  Every effort to avoid this experience on the outside, the searing pain of rejection becomes internalized instead.

All too recently - despite years of therapy and other healing interventions - I have discovered that this inner ridicule is still wreaking havoc on select parts of my psyche and bodily systems.  Fortunately, I also know -- largely as a result of all those same years of therapy (etc.) - that many of my initiations into the bitterness of rejection have also carried with them an elixir of healing far beyond any kind of suffering I had feared before.

So, to expand on my original mantra: I'm thinking that the gift in a conscious approach to any experience of rejection is that it may become a powerful teacher on the path of liberation.  Exactly what that teaching will be teaching 'you' is unknown until it's endured, I suppose.

May we have the courage when we need it.

Namaste.

Self-Blessing

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don’t flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing.

-- BY GALWAY KINNELL

Restor(y)ing the Religious Body

I like retelling Bible stories for a modern audience for two main reasons.  A) I feel that these are some of the most misunderstood and misinterpreted collective tales of our time, and B) most of the writings, teachings, and opinions about these stories seem to be a bit polarizing.  Often these stories have been hijacked by parties that aim to concretize the Mystery, and thus either understand these stories literally, or to discount them as such, and subsequently reject their relevance or interpret them only symbolically.

The assumption, of course, is that those two views are mutually exclusive and we need to pick a side in the debate.  It’s like our current political system:  Either, or.  Right, wrong.  Black, white.  If it’s this, it can’t be that.  Stalemate!  My argument is that perhaps both perspectives are only inadequate in their exclusion of the Other.  What wants to be whole is fragmented, and the original invitation becomes a message of profound alienation.

For example, consider the miracle of the Virgin Birth in the Christian tradition.  What if it doesn't matter if it happened exactly the way it was written down, but that it does matter that it happened to be written down exactly the way it was?  I know that I took that story literally for many decades, then rejected it completely for several years, and finally circled back around to it one day with renewed reverence.  I felt it had finally yielded it's essential teaching to me:  when the Holiness of Spirit is made manifest inside of a consciously receptive human being, Christ consciousness is born.  Or, in other words, willing Spirit + receptive body = a being that is both fully human and fully divine.

A paradox.  The Mystery.

So, what then does this Being who is fully human and fully divine do with their time on earth according to these same teachings?  Love and be loved, heal the sick, feed the hungry, be in community, and tell stories that help people remember the Mystery.  I believe that Jesus literally and symbolically did what we needed him to do in order to get our collective attention, shift the cultural-religious paradigm, and then invite us all to access our unique connection to Indwelling Divinity.  That was a radical message!  And it seems that Jesus would have to demonstrate his own divinity + humanity first.

The resurrection from death was a literal happening awesome enough that we would be able to hear its sounds reverberating for thousands of generations afterwards.  I believe that Jesus, the master storyteller, used his own life in order to create a kind of master Story that might reach us on a symbolic level no matter how many people and systems tried to translate and edit it according to their own agenda.

Perhaps "the gospel message" is both concealed and revealed by the gospel message itself.

Another paradox.  More of the same Mystery.

I imagine that this is often the hardest teaching for us to accept about ourselves: the reality of being fully human and fully divine simultaneously.  The dis-ease in the Hebrew culture at the time was a belief in separateness from God.  The dis-ease in our time might be a belief that there is no God.  I'm saying that both of those are a mistake, and that the literal-symbolic Virgin Birth, Crucifixion, Death, and Resurrection calls us into a radically different story.

What Are You Running Away From?

Suppose what you fear
could be trapped
and held in Paris.

Then you would have the courage
to go everywhere in the world.
All the directions of the compass
open to you,
except the degrees east or west
of true north
that lead to Paris.

Still, you wouldn’t dare
to put your toes smack dab
on the city limit line.

And you’re not really willing to stand on a mountainside
miles away
and watch the Paris lights
come up at night.
And just to be on the safe side, you decide to stay completely
out of France.

But then danger
seems too close
even to those boundaries,
and you feel the timid part of you
covering the whole globe again.

You need the kind of friend
who learns your secret and says,
“See Paris first.”

—M. Truman Cooper

The metaphorical Mary Magdalene (every woman)

"Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven devils had been cast out" —Luke 8:2.

The first was that I was very busy.

The second — I was different from you: whatever happened to you could
not happen to me, not like that.

The third — I worried.

The fourth — envy, disguised as compassion.

The fifth was that I refused to consider the quality of life of the aphid,

The aphid disgusted me. But I couldn't stop thinking about it.

The mosquito too — its face. And the ant — its bifurcated body.

Ok the first was that I was so busy.

The second that I might make the wrong choice,

because I had decided to take that plane that day,

that flight, before noon, so as to arrive early

and, I shouldn't have wanted that.

The third was that if I walked past the certain place on the street

the house would blow up.

The fourth was that I was made of guts and blood with a thin layer

of skin lightly thrown over the whole thing.

The fifth was that the dead seemed more alive to me than the living

The sixth — if I touched my right arm I had to touch my left arm, and if I

touched the left arm a little harder than I'd first touched the right then I

had

to retouch the left and then touch the right again so it would be even.

The seventh — I knew I was breathing the expelled breath of everything that

was alive and I couldn't stand it,

I wanted a sieve, a mask, a, I hate this word — cheesecloth —

to breath through that would trap it — whatever was inside everyone else that

entered me when I breathed in

No. That was the first one.

The second was that I was so busy. I had no time. How had this happened?

How had our lives gotten like this?

The third was that I couldn't eat food if I really saw it — distinct, separate

from me in a bowl or on a plate.

Ok. The first was that I could never get to the end of the list.

The second was that the laundry was never finally done.

The third was that no one knew me, although they thought they did.

And that if people thought of me as little as I thought of them then what was

love?

The fourth was I didn't belong to anyone. I wouldn't allow myself to belong

to anyone.

The fifth was that I knew none of us could ever know what we didn't know.

The sixth was that I projected onto others what I myself was feeling.

The seventh was the way my mother looked when she was dying—her mouth wrenched into an O so as to take in as much air…
The sound she made — the gurgling sound — so loud we had to speak louder 
to hear each other over it.

And that I couldn't stop hearing it—years later—

grocery shopping, crossing the street —

No, not the sound — it was her body's hunger

finally evident.
—what our mother had hidden all her life.

For months I dreamt of knucklebones and roots,

the slabs of sidewalk pushed up like crooked teeth by what grew underneath.

The underneath —that was the first devil.
It was always with me.

And that I didn't think you — if I told you — would understand any of this —

Copyright © 2008 by Marie Howe. 

All Relationships Are Sacred

"All relationships are sacred", I said to my friend the other day.  When he asked me what I meant by that, I was happy to A) realize that I did truly mean what I had said, and B) that I might actually be able to explain to him exactly why I felt this was true.

I imagine that most of us can accept this notion when our relationships feel inspiring, supportive, and loving.  We know that those types of relationships feel precious to us, and we are typically willing to work very hard to honor and protect them.  Yet, I was also acknowledging - at least in my own life - that even the encounters that have felt quite destructive may be equally valuable experiences, which deserve some strange kind of honoring too.  

Many of my own most destructive experiences in relationships appear  - often retrospectively - to have been calling me to do precisely that:  destroy something in myself that needed destroying.  (Perhaps something in the other needed to be destroyed too -- but I can't speak for them).

For me, however, it's sometimes been my naivete or idealism that needs destroying.  Sometimes it's my passivity.  Or my sense of powerlessness.  Or my arrogance.  Or bitterness.  Or dishonesty.  Or self-protective emotional numbing.  Sometimes I have needed to destroy unconscious patterns of relating to myself or others that I'd learned from equally unconscious role models (not blaming anyone in particular - just noticing that we all seem to sort of cross pollinate one another... for better or worse).  

And painful as it has been at times, I know that all of this has ultimately been for my absolute highest good.  In fact, it's this kind of 'clearing out' that has subsequently created an ever-deepening capacity to experience true satisfaction in my relationships with others too.  

So it seems to me that the opportunity in any relationship (beautiful or painful or both) is to discover whether we're capable of accepting the initiation it's offering us, and allow ourselves to be transformed by the mutual Mystery.

I suppose I would only only add this addendum to my original statement:  I believe that all relationships can be made sacred.   

Things I Learned From Trees

Things I learned from trees yesterday
Include nothing not already known

And yet everything transformed

Into a kind of radiance of the Old
New way of being with Mystery

The children of Mother and Father;
These trees

Reaching out in all directions -
Never fearing Love's dark reciprocities

And so Growing up from tenderness
To create this bridge Between

And suddenly I too could remember
Giving birth to those majestic beings.

-- Whitney Logan, 6.9.13

Stories.

The sage and her student were standing by a pool discussing longing and ambition.

"What do you want more than anything else?" the sage asked.

"To perfect my ability to love all of creation the way I love myself," the young man replied.

At that moment, the sage tackled the student and shoved his head beneath the water. Accustomed to letting his teacher shape the unpredictable contours of his education, he did not resist.

One minute went by. Then another. The student began to struggle and kick. His teacher was strong.

Finally she released her grip and the student surfaced, fighting for breath.

"What did you want more than anything else during these last few minutes?" the sage inquired.

"Nothing else was in my mind except the desire for air," gasped the student.

"Excellent," beamed the sage. "As soon as you are equally single-minded in your desire to perfect your ability to love all of creation the way you love yourself, you will achieve your goal."

Receptivity

Oh Lady of The Great Waiting!
In your stillness you receive All Things.

Revealing your secrets for Enduring

The moment where two types of Trembling -
Ecstasy and Terror - occur simultaneously.

And then show us that the only Thing
Capable of surviving One is the Other -

The hero bows before the throne.

Love has already conquered Eternity.

Self Reflection

One day you will decide to risk
Sharing your own deep truths about being and becoming

No matter how dark the substance you must sift
You will risk and risk and risk again

Believing now that you're able to survive
The exacting gaze of your own knowing

Because on that day you will have already had the mysterious and good fortune
Of catching a glimmer of Love -
Both strange and familiar to your tired human body

And everything after that glimpse will never be the same again
Now that you know that meeting the gleam in your own eyes
Doesn't require so much stalwart bravery as you once thought

Your gaze now only serves to return you into your own open arms
Where you can finally hear the sound of your own soothing voice
Saying simply this: "I will welcome you in".

Yes.
I will welcome you in, I will welcome you in, I will welcome you in.

How Love Looks

Each new day
I’m learning
How Love looks
Like the leaves
Stirring on an Elm
Tree touched by wind
Withstanding
Not splitting
Revealing itself
Within shifting
Patterns of light
Where only moments
Before
Nothing at all
Had been there.

-- Whitney Logan, 4.9.13