HICKORY WIND

Life’s mostly been either a matter of principal to me or a free for all. There’s never been a lot of room in between. Seems I have a propensity for passion and going against the stream. Living inspires me. After trying as hard as I could to live according to how I was raised, and I’m not saying I was ever very good at that one, I decided to take the outside edge of the main stream. That outside edge where there is no guardrail.
At 14 my mom bought me a guitar and sent me to lessons. The guitar was a hit. I loved it. I’d sit in my room and hold it like a sweet, blue eyed, girl friend, trying to find the chords to make the music play. The lessons didn’t get far. As soon as I had a few chords down I was off on my own. That’s a pattern I’ve lived my whole life. All I need is just enough guidance to feel my way along and I’ll take it from there. That won’t make a disciplined artist but it sure sets you up to live it your own way and learn from falling rather than wearing out the training wheels. Somewhere early on I was turned on to Gram Parsons and a song called Hickory Wind. Being a real live Southern boy Grams lonesome soul matched my way of looking at the world and I was determined to sing my way into the sunset. I fell in love with the passions of the heart and that longing to be free and lonely. Life was the great mystery and I was out to find my share of the shadows and the clouds.

As the years have passed that longing to be lonely gave way to loving life. Attachments came and went with the years. After falling off a few of those no guard rail edges I realized having a soft place to fall was a good thing so I worked my way into the Ranch life, cattle, horses, open sky and still waters. Seemed the seasons of the heart had more bearing on my way of life than the seasons from spring to fall. Somehow by a most amazing grace I made a full circle and the scene of the crime became my saving grace. A Ranch was transformed to a healing place where the Spirit of the land held the key to the awakening that was so desperately needed by all of us that made our way there. Even with that I was out on the edge but I’d had enough experience to slow down a bit on the curves.

Then one day a friend gave me a CD of some old Gram Parsons songs and Hickory Wind brought me back to a time when the whole world looked to be the greatest adventure waiting to be told. As I listened I felt a river of feelings and memories that old hook of Spanish moss and Hickory Trees was still alive deep inside. My soul is still southern born, in fact, the southern extended all the way to central Mexico.

As I travel between the worlds of my dreams I now can say a prayer in Spanish and Dream with the Pyramids of the old Sorcerers. As far as I may go, a few chords of Hickory Wind will bring me right back home again.
I still love life and passion still drives the wheels on my truck. Realizing that being me was what I was really missing during the crazy years, I don’t waste time trying to be anything else, and that’s freedom and that’s all I ever asked for really. So here’s to you Gram…”In South Carolina, there’s many tall Pines…. I remember the Oak trees, we used to climb and it makes me feel better, each time it begins, calling me home…Hickory Wind”.

Director of Reality

In my life I have always lived a dual relationship with the world around me. While it would seem our point in being human is to be Human, in a body, with emotions, passion, desires, accomplishments, I have always been more comfortable with imagination and the mysterious world of nature, space, spirit and the felt but unseen.

When I found my-self to great a mess to keep on living the way I had come to live as a man in the world I was almost immediately offered reminders that there is a much greater reality interwoven into and beyond the forms of the world. I had to get outside of my reality to find a connection to what would inspire me to keep moving forward on my path of transformation and recovery.I had to wake up.
That crossroads in my life was a big one, one of those no turning back kind of decisions. Jump in the river and you get wet. Let go of your hold on the throat of life and you may just realize how great it feels to breathe. There is no one-way of living life that is “it”. “Life” is it and however you choose to live, it is the living that is the point. The nature of our experiences is cause and effect, action reaction, legacy in motion.

There is a very interesting dance between the experience of what we have chosen and what comes our way as the world turns around us. To become a master of the choosing is a great accomplishment and a sure way to become a Director of Reality, as you know it. That has been my mission for some time, to become The Director of Reality as Lee lives it. The learning curve is a long one and the rewards so far are absolutely worth the investment. What better use is there of time than to develop life as an Art, as the Toltec’s referred to our Life on Earth. I have learned some practices that seem to be valid on the journey so far.

1. Find a way to enjoy what you are doing until you can be doing what you enjoy. Living with passion for the day to day-in life is one of the best gifts you can give yourself and the world.

2. Develop real staying power. Have guts enough to keep showing up even when you are bored, tired, uninspired. Until a person learns staying power they will never get far with their life’s art.

3. Life is extremely multi-dimensional, pay attention to all the subtleties. If you are only working for one aspect of your experience i.e. a paycheck, or winning the game, then know you are totally dumbing down what is a huge expansive offering from life. As Socrates said in “Way of The Peaceful Warrior”, there is never nothing going on.

4. Listen with your heart. Use your reasoning mind as a second opinion not the primary voice in your life.

5. Do what is necessary to learn the distinction between the Physical body, the emotional body and the Spiritual body, which are not separate at all but we have been taught to see them as such and there is great power in learning the unique traits of each and then integrating them together again. We are taught nothing of the Art of Being Human and that leads to insanity.

6. Be very mindful of what you put into your physical body as food, drink, drugs, etc..The physical body has a frequency to it. Like a tuning fork if you fill it with garbage it will not stay in tune. To grow energetically we must care for the instrument we experience this world through or we will bleed energy that is necessary to fulfill our dreams.

7. Walk a lot. Park far from where you are going and walk through the world with your eyes up and open to the life around you. Breathe deep and feel the weather, the ground under your feet, say hello to people. Be Alive.

8. You have no real idea of who or what you are and that is actually not important at all. Be alive and follow your heart. Pay attention to the reality you are dwelling in, you have created it through your choices, karma, and exchanges of energy with Life. You are completely responsible for your life, no one else is, so use that power to choose and live and do not get stuck in your own limiting stories and narrow interpretations of reality. We will never figure reality out as Humans so enjoy it and lighten up. There are no definitions that can contain what you really are, watch it with definitions and knowledge, knowledge is way over rated on the happy life scale.

So many aspects of my life today are directly the result of what I have dreamed of, asked for and intended to be, that when I take it all in I am humbled and in great gratitude to Life and creation for allowing me to be me and to my self for having courage enough to not settle for what I’ve been offered as good enough. I appreciate and see the flow of it with eyes wide open.
What have you learned from your living life that you can identify as your principals? Not what you have been told to live as principals but what have you experienced as real, in action principals? There is no substitute for being authentic, that is what you are if you would be true to yourself and to the one that created you. How authentic are you? Really? This is an amazing life. See you around….

Vaya Con Dios, Lee