Change!?
One of the neat ways we make sense of our world in terms of the finite game is by defining beginnings and endings. And so another year is about to come to it's humanly created dated end, with a new calendar year about to start. Yet, nature's evidence points to cycles of change...I wonder what would become available to us if we were to allow ourselves to go with the flow?!
I wonder how many of us think about this creation of set times and dates anymore? Is it possible that this fabrication of time is at the root of the few thousands of things that keep us "blind" to our essential selves? Is the so called "reality" of physical beginning and end (what we refer to as our life)made itself so impenetrable that we cannot allow ourselves to see what else is happening, what else is there that we cannot speak of, because we don't have access to it????
I wonder what results we might get if we we're to walk around this earth as if we were eternal beings, spiritual beings having a human experience? What if, there is only one game, and it's infinite? What would happen to the way we "spend" our time...if it were even possible to do so?
Yet, in all of the talk of spirituality, energy, and new age wholism, it seems that we're still looking for the concrete cement of it all! We are intricatly tied to the physical, the environmental (i don't mean environment here...but what's around us in the physical world), to what I'll call, the lowest common denominator for "existance"; and then we take that aspect of it for granted as if once we've confirmed it with our "senses" we can let it be and move on to the next thing...and quickly too.
Yet, do we realize that the senses we are so used to "using" are the ones of habit...the ones we've been trained in, and ones we've trained ourselves into using, mostly because they were easy and available?!
What if, you would allow yourself to stop long enough to notice what's going on around you, when your hair suddenly stands on end? Or when you get a shiver when it's not winter? My experience of these things use to be about dismissing them, mostly because that was automatic but sometimes because there was no immediate answer to any questions I'd have about "what's going on?", and "what's that about?".
My experience is that change for me only became possible when I started to use "all" of my sensing powers (spiderman watch out!) instead of referring to those few ways I would use (like an automoton) to "keep going" in the safest way possible through my days. The difference for me between a human doing, and a human being, comes from our immense ability to access and use all of our "antenae" to notice who we are, and expand what is availalbe to us in each moment!
Change is inevitable - not in a terrible way - but in our natural flowing way. The only useful question to me is: "Do I like the results?" Change and choice are intricately related. In fact, I believe, they are inseperable. Like we are always changing (even though we may believe it is only at microscopic and cellular levels), we are always choosing, and therefore, the results we have can only be the result of our choosing...can you live with the results? if so, fine, keep choosing the things you are...if not, can you accept that it is up to you to choose differently, and create the results you actually want?
creating at the rhythm of my breath,
RAY

Relaxing into a new way of Being...( see Louise LeBrun www.wel-systems.com )
I carry these words with me throughout my days lately.
As a man, who is a seeker, engaged and willing to find out more about who it is possible for me to "discover" (not become)I already am?!
With all of my formal education and boyhood and male hood experiences propping me up to the present day Man I have become, I struggle with knowing that there is a different way of achieving what I hold to be truly important to me.
The dense walls of dogma, social rules and etiquette, and good boy beliefs, values, and attitudes that have shaped me to this day need to be "reviewed and revised" if I am to move through my world differently! If I am to move through my world in a way that will have me achieving the results I actually want for myself, my children, those I love...I know that paying attention to the signals that move through me, and stopping... long enough to "hear, feel, sense" them, will be much more effective and efficient...I do not want to wake up 10 years from now, sensing the same level of tension, urgency, and thinking that it is the same stuff I had felt so long ago...without having done something to allow it to resolve itself....
It is important to realize that we men are made up of pretty much all the same hardwiring that women are!
Hence, we have at least a similar capacity to "feel", think, process, see, taste, as all other human beings.
I believe that the quality of our lives on this earthly plane is directly tied to how much we pay attention to all of our "faculties" rather than overriding all others with the thinking mind!
In my many years in the fields of addiction and social services, as well as my own personal "fun" years of struggle and toil, I have come to beleive that our "thinking minds" are often not our best friends and advocates!
Yet, we are left not knowing what else is available to us, mostly because of childhood trauma and social expectations about the "rules about being male".
My brothers, it is possible. It is within our reach to sense things at the deepest possible level, and to allow ourselves the present moment, 'til there is a clear sense that "something" has changed, moved, happended, even without our needing to be clear about it! I have lived it, and continue to pay attention to that kind of focused awareness, all-the-while, doing what needs to get done!
I would venture to say that you already know about the deep level conversations you have with yourself about who you are, and that, like me, you have simply dismissed them as unacceptable, or too much to handle, or something else...but have you noticed yourself having them? We all do (have those conversations within us). Start or continue paying attention to them, and give them the credit they deserve, as guides from within, and open up to what they might have to say about who you might be in the moment you are having those "thoughts"...What would happen if you acknowledged those "signals" as simple information about where you are at in the moment? What would happen if you were to allow yourself to share your thoughts or struggle about your thoughts with someone you really trust? How would your life be different?
Thinking about information is one thing; but thinking about how you think is a whole other matter and one which I beleive demands our attention if we are to grow, and produce results that matter to us.
creating at the rhythm of my breath,
RAY

ON this night...I am in awe of the gift that flows in the words of a Human BEING, whom I call my friend, Louise LeBrun, and willingly share her e-mail to me,with you, so that we may all witness the genius that stems from clarity! The gift that comes from the clarity about our own confusion, about where we stand in each moment, and when we own what is ours to own, without the need to have others own it too! To invite, not to pull, or push, but be, so that others may seek the truth of their own experience, and find that greatest of gifts - the genius that is who we all are, when we find clarity.
May you find within you, the truth of your own experience...
Louise wrote:
I read your most recent entries today and am very mindful of that increasing sense of intensity...that urgency to engage differently...be different....create new experience.

Yesterday, I wrote in my blog about what I knew as a 'quiet truth' for myself. Last night and today I had the first suggestions that I am 'male bashing'....taking random pot-shots at all men because of gender. For the last hours, I've been wondering about that. And I've been reading your thoughts in your blog and felt the need to engage with you.

If I consider it all as a metaphor, I believe that your experience and mine are mirror images of each other. I'm not even sure I know what that means except that it somehow feels right inside my body. It is not about reflections, even, it is more that one of us lives inside the mirror into which the other gazes, with each of us reflecting back to the other what we've lost. I am increadibly mindful of the tension...the intensity..and the density of its manifestation in the world in which we both move.

You can say things...can generalize...about men in a way that I can't because I'm not one. I read your blog and I share every thought that you've written.

So what am I trying to say???? Firstly, I am deeply grateful to see your words and to know that your voice is being heard, ringing in the ears of men. My voice would only be heard as shrill and accusatory, droning on sufficiently to become yet more white noise to be ignored. Can other men ignore your voice?

In your words, I consider my sons. What harm has come to my sons (and it has) has come at the hands of other men. Physical assault. Ridicule. Humiliation. All of these because they were 'different' and without the desire to assault, ridicule and humiliate anyone else. As their mother, this is deeply painful to me. As I encouraged them to hold their ground and be true to themselves, I lived in fear that who they were would be sufficiently irritating to escalate the aggression against them by other boys/young men. (I notice as I write this that I am struggling, even to this day, to make sense of any of it! How mindless! And I wonder...what were those children taught???) Today, what comes to mind is the loss of innocence. When ours has been taken, we seek to destroy it in others.

I continue to struggle to find the point that I am trying to make.....

Gratitude! Deepest appreciation for your courage! Relief! At these thoughts being in YOUR words and in the sound of YOUR voice! Who would accuse you of male bashing???

In this single moment, I do not feel quite so alone because of you. In this moment, my voice finds within its spaces my own courage to continue to say what is true and meaningful for me. And in this moment, as I re-read what I wrote yesterday, I am clear on who I am, what I stand for - and that my voice is clear and rings true.

My saddest moments are those when I fear that my sons - my beautiful, loving, generous, kind, funny, compassionate sons - will become what they hate in order to protect themselves. Is this what awaits all young boys as they become men? In this moment, one son has chosen to become a police officer, and the other is moving toward a career in the military. It breaks my heart.....

My last thought in yesterday's entry krept up on me as I was writing. I had no idea that it would go there, and it simply did. And that thought was: what of those men who do not know what it is to be loved? What future will unfold for them?

Men hurt others.....women, children and other men. All men? No, absolutely not...but far too many to pretend that it is not so. Women will never stop men from spiraling down this path to destruction of self and other - only other men can do that.

In all the years that I have been working with people - men and women - I cannot begin to tell you how many times I bore witness to the histories of young boys who were assaulted, humiliated, ridiculed and brutalized at the hands of the men in their lives. And I don't doubt for a moment that as young children, they (the bringers of harm) too were scarred in the same way by yet someone else. I don't know if your willingness to be all of who you choose to be will make a difference, but I do know that it will not if you don't. I don't know if raising your voice to declare, as a man, that who men have become is not acceptable to you will make a difference - but I do know that if you don't , it won't.

My voice - the voice of a woman - will only be heard as whining, complaining, etc. My hope, from somewhere deep in my belly - likely where my children grew - is that your voice will matter. As much as mine may not, I am unwilling for it not to be heard.

Thank you, Ray....your blog gives me hope.

Louise

On Raising Warriors...
Tehran on Israel, Israel on Lebanon, oilmen in the presidency of the U.S. controlling financial interests throughout the world, african boys holding AK 47s instead of school books or their sisters' hand on the way to school, Canadian/european descendant governments over aboriginal peoples, etc....
A world based in "abundant scarcity", shaped by men of history, who raise boys through modeling behavior and in the prevailing attitudes, values, and beliefs that sustain a competition based economy that demands, as its result, that some lose and some win - a finite practice, blind to infinite possibility...where the protection of "things" (goods, possessions, etc...) becomes more important that the people who help produce them or use them...
In all of this, where is the capacity to love and to be loved? Are my brethren able, or even willing to consider the notion of a love based in true respect and compassion for self and of others???
I wonder what would become possible if "our world leaders" would negociate policies and have politics based in a long and properous future, rather than those based in a "traumatic and violent past" and lead to protectionism.
Who is it that we men have to become in order to change the fulcrum on which we "rationalize" or balance the so-called "good" with the "bad", and come up with a result that is unacceptable to us on a humanistic scale? What will it take for we men to notice that the account in which we are depositing our hard earned "pay" over time, will not allow us to cash out with nearly as much interest as investing in another "bank"! The Board of Warriors who preside over the bank of power, control, fear, hatred, hurt, oppression, repression, and competition will not ever allow us to cash out a bill of fulfillment, joy, peace, spiritual splendor, and ease...the "interest" grown in that bank will only create more of what has shaped it.
Every time I hear a news story of bombings, war, violence, regimes, etc...I wonder, now, what it is in the present day context and environment that allows for this to continue and yes, even worsen.
The growing intensity I feel around me, with the kinds of crime, and tense relations reported, even in local news and rumours, and workplaces has me wondering if our being at a loss to create the change we feel has to happen, is catching up with us in a way where what seemed to be unacceptable behaviour in public, becomes all that's left for us to try!?
Of course, I know differently. I know that for me, it is about creating choices, about expanding our line of sight to allow for what might feel weird, or seem too different, to become possible, reachable, undeniably available as one of a multitude of choices that are laid before us at every moment.
The increased tensions in the world, as in our lives, seem to have for effect, our tightening, our closing down, and clasping our own hands and arms rather than allowing for the possibility that comes from open and outstretched arms and fingers! How can we grab hold of something new, when our hands are full of what we already have?
My belief about it is that up to and until we men of the world learn to release those beliefs, values, and attitudes that "define" us as "men", to consider which of these allow us to claim our "humanness", we will be bound to the narrowest of standards for our existance, and who we can become while on this earth.
I, for one, am not satisfied with the results I see, about who I became, about who I was making my son out to be, and about all those "buddies" and other acquaintances in my life who acted out there parts so well!
To move to a place inside where different is not wrong, just different...where truth is undeniably present and where courage is seen as the expression of that truth no matter what...will create different results....I think when "running with the pack" becomes the safest way to be, in the minds of those who take part in it, and indeed the only way to be for many of my brethren, then the results can only be a watered down version of who it is possible for us to become.
I wonder what it will take for me to move beyond the historical version of my self as a "man/boy", and move into who it is I really want to become as a human being?
I think raising any one other than warriors in this world will only come about when men start to claim their inherent humanity, rather than protecting and promoting their male-ness.
creating at the rhythm of my breath,
RAY

Intensity!!!
There is an unavoidable growing intensity that I have felt for some time now...my body has sent me signals of urgency about saying things that matter (to me) and soon, or better still, consistently, if there is any chance of my feeling "complete" in my passing through here.
This intensity seems to be matched by the level of "chaos" (for lack of a better word...) I hear about and see in the addictions field...the world in which I work.
What seems clear for those for whom "life" has meant chaos or confusion is that they are using drugs that match that chaos and confusion...crack, and/or crystal meth!!! What a match for the world they "perceive" they live in...it makes perfect sense to me, to see young folks these days chosing these types of drugs in the context they live in. The "speed" (no pun intended) at which these drugs work for those taking them seems to match the speed at which the very structures around them are crumbling...including that most important of social systems, the "family"!
The "crash and burn" paradigm seems a perfect description of the immediate effect of these most popular of drugs these days...I am left to wonder what is it that is being reflected back to me when this younger generation is choosing these particular substances in which to "dabble"?
Maybe they too, are sensing the increased intensity with which the social fabric and worldly structures are verging on collapse?
The intensity rumbling through my body call me to act on my first impulses of pressing for change, of demanding a difference, of "moving" things...yet, I am also aware of something deeper that would have me be still, continue breathing, and create the change I need from within...first.
creating at the rhythm of my breath,
RAY

ON saturday I wrote this by hand because of a disconnect from my home based computer, yet think it is significant enough to me, to make public on this, my eternally evolving blog.
Saturday, December 9th, 2006 -
Today,i was filled with a pressure much like volcanic activitiy and with as much fire as one might assume coming from an active volcano...the rumblings had stopped to cummulate into a massive pressure in my chest...it has been coming for some time. I am able to follow its trail from the conversation about the "holidays", consumerism, and what I'll call the "great slumber"...this "trail" of information has been moving in me for a while and with the added conversations about which gifts, with whom, how much, and when, added to the fuel like so many lumps of coal, I chose to seclude myself to my bed, and intentionally breathe, and invite what might have been a 911s call worth of "anxiety attack" or heart attack...move 'til it had finished doing what it needed to do.
It became so clear to me that all I needed to do was breathe and to let it be for the time it needed to be, and trust the process and the intelligence of it all.
In about 5 minutes of peaked pressure, my chest softened, the tears flowed and I came away with some clarity about who I am, now.
I live with a sense of urgency about saying what I need to say...about having conversations that matter and in so doing, make a difference in my world. I am clear about the depth of sadness that I have about the preventable suffering that continues in that "great slumber" we continue to allow. That sense of urgency I feel is measured in the context of a world that has learned to assume change at a grindingly and frustratingly slow pace...so slow in fact that for the most part, I feel it started moving backward some time ago!
I know that part of my frustration is the weight I feel crushing me to silence, against what seems to be an immovable and gargantuan force...yet knowing that those limitations are ones I set upon myself.
I am clearer now that part of that silencing has to do with my being unwilling to "hurt" others, as my perceptions would have me believe would be the result of expressing myself on the issues at hand.
I wonder, how often has "being kind" to others, been in the way of my claiming what is true for me, and if the results I presume are as unavoidable as I make them out to be?
IN the end, it seems to me that being awake, and staying awake are not the "natural" state of the world around me...and that going to sleep is now impossible and not a viable option for me...
creating at the rhythm of my breath,
RAY Landry