Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Do We Create Our Own Experiences?

The following story sparked an interesting email conversation between myself and Brother Bruce...

Father confesses to abuse in Austrian incest case:

by Philippe Schwab

Mon Apr 28, 12:51 PM ET An elderly Austrian confessed Monday to imprisoning his daughter in a windowless cellar for 24 years and fathering her seven children, prosecutors said.

Josef Fritzl, 73, "admitted building the dungeon and to holding his daughter and three children there," prosecution spokesman Gerhard Sedlacek told AFP.

Fritzl admitted incest "but insisted there was no force involved," said Sedlacek.
One of the children died shortly after birth. "He disposed of it in the furnace of his building," chief investigator Franz Polzer told a press conference in the eastern town of Amstetten, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Vienna, where the family lived.

Fritzl was to be brought before an investigating magistrate on Monday and faces several more days of questioning over the case which has shocked Austria.

His daughter Elisabeth, now 42, has alleged she was drugged by her father in August 1984 and had been his prisoner ever since, giving birth to seven children in the "dungeon".

The six surviving children are three boys and three girls aged between five and 19.

The case came to light after the eldest of the six children, Kerstin, was admitted to hospital on April 19 with serious health problems. Doctors looking for background information stepped up efforts to find the mother and the whole horrific story came to light when Fritzl allowed them to establish contact with his daughter.

Elisabeth Fritzl and three of her children, who had until now never seen sunlight, were kept in three cramped underground rooms in the family house.

Photographs of the rooms, measuring "50-60 square metres in all," with a ceiling just 1.70 metres (5.5 feet) high, according to Sedlacek, were released by police. They showed a well-furnished living area, with sink, shower, a small kitchen area and two small bedrooms.

The cellar was hidden behind a reinforced concrete door which could only be opened with a numbered code. There were no windows and the prisoners' only contact with the outside world were a radio, television and VCR.

This ironically helped Elisabeth Fritzl escape, after she saw the hospital's appeal on television for more background information on Kerstin and persuaded her father to let her out, Polzer said.

Kerstin was "critical but stable," doctors at the hospital where she was being treated, said, without giving more details.

Franz Pucher from the Lower Austrian police told journalists: "This case is unique in this country's criminal history."
Polzer said however there was "a wide range of questions that still need answering" such as how Fritzl supplied the woman and children with food, how the babies were born and cared for in such cramped conditions, and how he could have incarcerated his victims for so long without his wife knowing.

Fritzl legally adopted three of the children -- two boys and one girl -- when they were still babies. He is said to have told his his wife Rosemarie, 69, -- with whom he had seven children -- and local authorities that his daughter had left the babies on the doorstep.

Each delivery was accompanied by a letter purportedly signed by her saying she could not support the child because she already had others to care for.

Elisabeth Fritzl also told investigators her mother knew nothing about the sexual abuse she had endured since the age of 11, some seven years before she was locked away.

The trio went to school as normal, seemingly unaware that their mother and three other siblings were trapped underground.

Neither neighbours nor social services appear to have had any inkling, either.

It is the latest in a series of horror abuse cases to have stunned Austrians, with the Oesterreich tabloid calling it "the worst crime of all time," and the Kronen-Zeitung portraying Fritzl as a "monster, a brutal tyrant."

DNA tests are being carried out to confirm if he is the father of the six surviving children.

Austria's most notable sequestration case was that of Natascha Kampusch, who was kidnapped on her way to school in 1998, and held captive for over eight years in the basement of a house near Vienna before escaping two years ago.

Three young girls near Linz, in northern Austria, were also locked up for seven years by their mentally ill mother.

Brother Bruce Writes:

I was wondering who was dreaming the experience in the following story? Do believe that the daughter created her life to be used and abused? I am curious as to what your take is...

Thanks in advance

Love and Light

Brother Bruce

I responded:

Ok We humans are dreaming, living out our imaginings as projections based on distorted, insane beliefs, fears, and simple insanity and from this place within our minds we act out all the stuff that we call "real" in this world. You know that place within you that is the presence and peace of God and we also all have that place within us that we have the free will to "dream " our reality from. Being born into this world is being born into a legacy which you inherit like it or not . That legacy is what we pass on from generation to generation with or without awareness. To wake up to how and what we are creating [dreaming} with our life is the first step in taking responcibility for our personal creation and evolving our "personal" legacy from what we inherit to what we are in truth as the children of God. Free will is a huge factor here. Why we come into this world in our particular situations is beyond me t o know. What I believe is that we all have the ability to bring more love, truth and light into our personal lives when we have the opportunity to awaken to the power within us and that is the evolution of humanity ,slow but sure. The toltecs percieved the reality of the asleep humans as hell and this story is evidence that hell is right here now not some place we are sent. We.humanity, created this mess and we will create our way beyond this mess when and if we should decide to do so. Free will......Thanks for staying connected...Love, Lee

Bruce responds with:

Yes... I agree with most everything you have written. Based on what you said, Now I must ask you, do you believe Why we come into this world in our particular situations being beyond your level of awareness would lead me to believe that you would agree that there is a greater level of consciousness that is superior to that which most of us are aware of that directs and orchestrates the circumstances within what some call Creation. Orchestrating to me does not mean controlling but simple responding to what we call for. As you said, free-will is not only essential but the most sacred gift we have been given. If you are interested in discussing deeper levels of understanding, such as the difference between linear time and that which exists beyond the boundaries of time and space I would be happy to hear your thoughts and explore where most never go. P.S. Sharing understanding is what I have come into this world to do. There is nothing that I feel is more important.

Love and Light

BB

I write back yet again:

This is great. I live with this amazing feeling that becomes my experience when I'm responding to questions like this. "I don't know", is the truth most of the time when we get outside what's familiar and that answer works because the truth is not in the words but rather in the experience of putting our attention on the question and then feeling with the answer, not reducing the answer to words. We are here to bring the experience of Love into as many forms as we might imagine... we seem to be stuck on imagining other shit tho..........that leaves a lot of room for doing cool things...where were you in 69'.......

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Whose Reality is this?


Today is Thursday,the 24th of April, 2008. In the last week I've moved from the Palm trees and surf of Sayulita to the magic and Power of Teotihuacan and on to Los Angeles where I was a guest on an upcoming talk show, The Steve Spitz Show, which airs in May on the ION Channel and back again to Sayulita.

There is only one of me and that one of me has grown and shifted and morphed from son to father, from fool to teacher, in and out and up and down. I have lived with fear and doubt as my guide and I have lived with knowing nothing as my saviour. 

There was a time when I said that my life's journey really began when I was introduced to Recovery as a new way of life. Looking back today that's not true. My introduction to the world of recovery was a powerful point of transition and my life had been unfolding for 40 years prior to that time. Those 40 years were my living the legacy of all that I inherited being born into this world of humanity and all that comes with it.That inheritance was what it was and that's all there is to it.

My mind has been quick to claim with great importance that we, me and my mind or me and the voices in my head that claim to be me but are really only the voices in my head, that we had found "it", the truth, reality and so we could now sit back and celebrate our great accomplishment. Of course the world around me whether it was recovery or religion or spiritual teachers all offered to know what reality was and if only I would come along with them I too could find "the truth" of reality. 

In this last week I've moved through several "realities" and at the same time I've not gone anywhere outside of myself. Outside of myself is all that the world has created and then somewhere along the way that creation was deemed reality by those who believed that reality could be found in the world, outside of their self. To give credit to the world as "reality" opens the door for that reality to be where we invest our faith and where we look for measure of how we are doing compared to others that share our new found worldly reality. 

The whole time this was going on in my life I was never really comfortable with the reality of the world as it would be used by me and others to define me. The shoe never quite fit. So whose reality is this anyway? What am I really living here, being Mr.Lee McCormick? 

I am just me and I am in here. I experience my feelings and I'm not them. I experience my thoughts and I'm not them. I experience this physical body and I'm not my body. I create realities as quick as I see and feel and hear and react to all that's going on in and around me and those realities change with each new experience or belief. 

How could I not end up feeling crazy when my reality is flying by like a F-16 on acid? Reality is supposed to be steady and reliable not always changing at least that's what I believed. That's how I used to see things. That's what was the truth of Lee's adventure in the world. To not see that life is changing with each day, each thought, each breath, is to live asleep to life. Once I came to realize that the only constant in life is change I eventually let go of demanding against the experience of life and set myself free to change with life. 

At this moment reality is the feeling that's always with me, in here, down deep. That feeling is a presence that when I place my attention with it is love, really, and that presence is gratitude and that presence is constant no matter how long I might keep my attention away from that presence it is still always there. 

So that's what I call reality today and that's my reality, it's in me not out there in the world and it is beyond measure or definition and that reality allows me to be whatever I might choose and never has an opinion or judgment of my choices. These days I take my reality on tour of the world and most of the time we are very entertained by what we see. It is what it is and that's that. 

Peace be with You, Lee

Friday, April 11, 2008

Fresh Tortillas


I hear the waves breaking first, then the water rolling toward the beach, pause, and the silence before the next wave breaks. My thoughts come into focus, I listen to the voices in my mind, not interested and my attention turns back to the sound of the waves.

It's 6:20am and just light enough to see the lines of white water moving toward the beach.My wife is still asleep. I listen for Lola. She and her sister, Bella, are sleeping in their room next to ours. Bella loves to sleep in the morning and Lola loves to yell "Daddy, I want Daddy". Another set breaks on the sand bar in front of our house and there she is "Daddy…"

Lola is 18 months here on Earth and already she knows clearly what she wants and when she wants it. When I open the door to their room Lola gives me that little pixie grin "Hi Daddy". I love the way babies smell, the way holding them is like holding all the love in the universe rolled into one little ball of light.

Lola and I walk into the kitchen, in the background I hear a big set crashing onto the sand. Coffee pot and tortillas. Oh man, we're out of tortillas. Holding Lola I fill the coffee pot with water from the Talavera water dispenser. I love the hand painted blue and white Talavera. Each piece is unique and each piece fits into the set while still having it's own individual character. Each piece is a work of art. We humans are a lot like Talavera and then we start thinking too much.

Lola says "Want some" and points at the tortilla holder. After a quick changing of the Pamper, (all the people here in our Village seem to call all diapers "Una pamper", from a brand to an identity all its own, amazing to me), we head out the door to the tortillarilla. That's the tienda or market that makes and sells the fresh daily bread of Mexico. Lola and I love the sweet maize tortillas. She has eaten them all her 18 months on Earth, the way my Dad fed me grits. Corn, the kernels of the sun come to nourish life. Mexico's indigenous peoples have such beautiful mythologies created from our living relationship with the world around us and corn is a center piece of that myth and magic.



Lola wants "down, down", that means I walk in the street with the soft dusty dirt that floats up and around my feet with each step. Her mom freaks at the sight of Lola playing in the street dirt but she's at home in bed so what the heck. Together we finish our walk to the tortillaria,happy feet in the dusty street. I buy a kilo of Maize tortillas for 10 pesos, a kilo is a 2.2lbs. of sweet, warm, soft, goodness. On the walk back home we cut over to the beach so I can check out the waves. Warm breeze, soft sand and head high swells breaking across the point.

When we get home I grab the butter, real butter, from cows, and I fix Lola's favorite morning food, butter tortillas and one of those little wild bananas that grow around here. While she's eating I woof a few myself and take a cup of fresh locally grown coffee to my esposa who just woke up and wants to know how Lola got so dusty...oh she fell down, no big deal.

I tell my wife I have a meeting as I change into my baggies, that's a surfers bathing suit, and grab a towel from the hook in the bathroom. On the way out the door I flash on being 16 years old and flying out the front door of my Dad's beach house in Florida, grabbing my surfboard and sneaking around the house to meet my buddies conspiring on what we'd tell the school about not making it to classes that day.

At 52 I still feel like I'm escaping from some reality that I never really wanted and feel so grateful for this reality that my wife and I have dreamed up together where my meetings can be with a wave or a seabird as easily as on Skype or at the other end of a three hour flight. The joy in my life is in the details of the moment. The color of the Talavera, the smell of the tortillas, the sound of waves breaking in the first light of the morning. We're all surrounded by the sweetness and the subtlety of life and for so many not very good reasons we choose to not slow down and take it in. I don't do that to myself much anymore. It's just not worth it. Peace be with you..Love , Lee

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

It's Not Them

When our life gets to the point that nothing makes much sense anymore you can bet there is a great opportunity close at hand. We live in a world where our self worth is often measured by how much other people seem to need us or how much cool or money or influence we have. Who we believe we are we see reflected in the eyes of the world around us. Life is perceived as very linear, material and defined.

Being human has many aspects. We have not only a physical body we’ve an emotional, intellectual and spiritual body. Of course these aspects do not exist independent of each other and they all come together to form our human being having our human experience. Many of us are taught to see ourselves as these aspects.

From a greater point of view we are actually the Being experiencing the aspects of our being human. When we have feelings/emotions we might be drawn into the feeling believing that we are that feeling. Our awareness is completely absorbed into the vibration and experience of that particular feeling. Automatically the mind will have something to say in reaction to our feeling, the mind is the aspect of our being that tells us we are the feeling and also what we should do about the feeling. This is an automatic action/reaction program.If the feeling appeared to be the result of something someone said to us then that person “made” me feel this or that.

How can that be? What if you had not been listening and the other person’s words had gone right by you? If those words were responsible for your reaction then you should have had the reaction whether you were listening or not. The power would have been in the words that were directed at you, like a bomb, all you’d have to do is deliver the words close to the target and there would be an effect. So, what gave those words their power?

Emotions happen as a result of literal experience moving through our being human, those same aspects of emotion, physical, spiritual, and intellectual. For words to hold power over us we must give those words our power of belief. If I don’t believe you then your words will have no power over me. If I do believe you or I doubt or question myself as a result of your words then bingo I will give power to your words and my mind will make you responsible for my reaction. Of course the other person is not responsible for my reaction, I am or rather my mind and me believing my mind are responsible for my reaction. The other person is completely responsible for their words and the energy and intention they delivered into their words and they are not responsible for my end of the deal.

There is great integrity in realizing when and how we hurt ourselves using the actions of others as an excuse. This example may make perfect sense to you or no sense at all. Can you consider my point of view without any reaction one-way or the other?

The opportunity I refer to in the beginning of this writing exists in the being aware enough to step out of our investment in our beliefs and reactions and see our part in our beliefs, actions, reactions and what life is offering us as a witness to our self in motion. We are so quick to give our power away. When we make someone or something outside of our self-responsible for our reactions we are giving our power away. I did it for forty something years and can do it today if I forget to remember that it is me doing it to me and not you or her or them doing it to me.

The truth is, I don’t believe nearly as many things as I used to and I am soooo much happier than I was when I knew so much more than I know now. When life gets to the point that nothing makes much sense anymore, well, maybe that’s the truth. If that is the truth then who has the power to change things if in fact you really want things to change? Clue..It’s not them. Peace be with You...Love,Lee


http://www.spiritrecovery.com
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Monday, April 7, 2008

Recovering Freedom

Monday morning,April 7,2008…

The world around me is my mirror. I am continuously making choices whether I'm conscious in my choices or not, I am choosing. The life I'm surrounded with is the result of how and what I've chosen. I am responsible for my creation and for how I respond and react to what happens, moment by moment, day by day.

This world around me is an amazing orchestrated reality that truly has a life of its own. To sit back and watch, to be aware enough to sit back and watch, is a great gift. From the endless stories being fed to the world through television and newspapers to the personal networks of cell phones and e-mails we are constantly engaged in an action/reaction dance of mind, body and emotion. In the midst of all the sounds, feelings, opinions and judgments it is a wonder we know peace at all.

So what would happen if I stopped feeding this perpetual motion way of life? What might happen if I chose to not listen to the television or read the newspapers? Can I have conversations with others and not get hooked by my internal voices of opinion and judgment? Why do I care so much what I think of other peoples opinions and judgments? Why do I care what they think of my opinions and judgments?

Somewhere along the way in life I got hooked into making almost anything more important than my peace of mind in the moment. That is really crazy and that was a choice. I had no awareness of my choice at the time and it was a choice. My attention directs my power of creation and I allow my attention to be hooked by everything from my feelings and emotions to the insanity of the news channels and the constant lies of the political agendas and on and on. Thinking and seeking validation for that thinking is a full time distraction from enjoying the loving life awareness of simply being human.

This being human is a grand experience. We are amazing beings. We've all heard that nobody is perfect. Well how would you know? What if we are perfection living the experience of being human and all this stuff we do is as simple as our living what we have chosen to live whether aware or not?

Life on Earth as human beings is happening the way it is because we say so. There is nobody out there doing "it" to us, we are doing "it" to ourselves first and then each other. To spew hate and fear into the world you must first have hate and fear within you. To give love and compassion to the world you must first have love and compassion within you. We can not share what we are not willing to foster within ourself first. There are lots of people faking it and the results of their actions are no more lasting than their phony intentions.

Spirit Recovery is not really a recovery at all, we never lose what we really are and we do succumb to all the stuff we are told we must be if we would be good enough. Spirit Recovery is all about waking up to how we have turned away from the integrity of the truth within us for the sake of being loyal and faithful to the demands and offerings of all those other lost humans who need our attention and validation to help them keep believing the stories that they've abandoned their inherent integrity for.

This is the inheritance of a legacy. Look around the planet and you'll see how insanity has been deemed legitimate in the name of politics, religion, patriotism, even recovery. By abandoning our integrity we open ourselves up to all the temptations and lies that fear would offer disguised as tradition or culture or you as a definition. We can not define being human and we are.

To awaken to the great mystery within each of us is to be free from the need for definition. To have faith in life frees us from the need to have faith in our definitions of ourselves. We are life, we are human we are creators and witnesses and participants and we are the light of the world. Be careful what you decide you believe.

The truth is, our greatest obstacle to living our direct relationship to creation is the power we invest in our beliefs out of fear of the unknown. We have been taught and we bought into it that if we know then we're o.k. Well that obviously is bullshit. This world is full of knowing and it's almost always the greatest “knowers” who perpetrate the greatest lies.

The truth does not need our belief in it to be the truth. The truth was here when we arrived on the planet and the truth will be here when we leave and the rest is what we will decide as individuals to make of this amazing experience of being human. For myself, today, Monday April 7th, I'll keep reminding myself that I have the ultimate choice in my life and I am absolutely responsible for how I invest myself in my choices. Peace be with you....Love, Lee
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