RAIN AND WIND

This has been a wet spring. The rains keep coming. There have been great powerful tornadoes all over the South and now floods are rising up around the Country. A spring of contrasts and power. For years now we humans have been living further and further away from the real power in this world , the power of Nature, of Life. We live as though all creation is supposed to be at our command. We have gone insane.
In my life I live between different paradigms. One is the beauty, and reality, of the natural world.Being a Cattleman for over 30 years and having grown up on Ranches in Florida and Wyoming I have always known the weather to be as it is and of no fault or blame. Weather rolls it's own way. I respect that after so many years and so many challenges. Droughts and floods, blizzards and fires, I have lived with all of them they come and they go and life goes on.Living with weather as your partner you either realize we are all just a part of the great creation and life flow or you will find yourself demanding that life and weather be something other than what it is, bigger, older and wiser than we humans are.
In the great scheme of things Human profits are irrelevant. Profits have caused so much destruction and death in this world of modern man. We demand profits over life it self, over health over family and friends. That is sick.
In one of my other worlds , the treatment center/recovery world the weather is seen as something to be delt with, either a non issue or a problem, not really seen or respected as the Life force that it is. In the mental health world we humans have tried to find a way to deal with all the issues and challenges that have arisen as a result of our Human disconnection from reality. We live outside of the awareness of the WHOLE of Life.We live outside the awareness of ourselves as WHOLE human beings connected to the WHOLE of Creation. We see ourselves as stories and definitions, compartmentalized and believe our stories and definitions to be true and real.We have to tell our stories over and over and find others that will support and agree with our stories to keep them alive because they have no life, no real life, of their own. We pass on from generation to generation a wounded nature all wrapped up in those stories and energies that we have attached our selves to through fear and judgement, and we take it all personally. It is interesting to see how through our judgements and projections we have unknowingly created a legacy of suffering and further disconnection.We then teach that legacy to our children so they must then carry the weight of suffering that we have born to them.
Living our self imposed exile from the natural world has come at a huge and painful price.The wind and the rain don't care. The natural world is not a place of personal importance or personal attacks. Tornadoes are not after anyone and droughts don't care if you have to sell cattle or eat less. Life is bigger than our human story of life and Life will continue with us or without us, simple as that. We could learn from this if we would just be willing to see how we perpetuate our own suffering by demanding life be something other than what it is.You can't respect what you choose to ignore.
I live much better with the wind and the rain than I do with the demands of beliefs of the Human world. Looking back I can see why I was so in love with the swamps and woods of Florida that I grew up in. Those woods were real and honest and didn't get angry or petty with their ways . Beliefs were not more important that Life itself. Living on a Ranch when it rains you don't fight it you find something else to do that day.
These are very interesting times but if you don't at least try to look at whats going on from a bigger point of view you'll never see more than your own opinions and attachments of how it "should" be reflected back at you. The natural world has the answers we say we are looking for but they may not be the answers we are demanding. So what do you do? Try taking a long walk in the rain and wind and listen to what the wisdom of creation might have for you, it sure works for me.

Thinking Out Loud

Looking at the world and especially the world as portrayed by the USA way, it seems as individuals when we are sick, twisted and lost, addicted or whatever we always make our problems about something or someone else, always focusing outside our self. To change our reality we must bring our energy, attention and focus back to our self and all the aspects that make up our self and our reality. If not, the crazy just keeps getting weirder and more destructive. When you begin your healing journey you must let go of old patterns to have enough energy to even begin to change your life, your patterns. Something has to go, shift, break open.
As a Culture/Country the USA is and has been trying to break open, shift,wake up, while the existing systems keep demanding everything is going to be fine, just like always, except always has not been fine for a long time. We are not in anyway a sustainable Culture or species for that matter. Not at the current rate of reality.So we watch ignorant crap on TV, take 80% of all the drugs on the planet, eat garbage for food,succumb to all kinds of insane fundamentalist agendas, get fatter everyday and hold the belief that We the People are something special in this world. If we are it is only by our Human potential not by our actions or the proof of our choices from day to day.The USA is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in this world over the last 50 years and we are still doing that in the name of a story about Democracy or freedom that does not exist and has no redeeming value anywhere. Not when it has to be perpetrated by Wars.
Back home we have choices, should we continue to destroy the environment as we demand cheap gas and 5$ a gallon gas is cheap. Trade off, you get cancers from all the toxicity of the perpetuation of current petro exploration and drilling, that is happening already all over the USA. Your drinking water is poison, so you must buy water from the same corporations that poisoned it for you so you could have 4$ gas. On and On and on..Short sighted dosen't even begin to cover our lack of seeing!!
We don't have any answers cuse we won't even really acknowledge we are up the creek and can't even remember having had a paddle. First thing I learned from being out of control is I had to stop...be still and find a way to begin to realize the depth of my problems, that would be a great starting point for We The People..stop and take an inventory of our Sick reality.

Learning Opens Doors

Learning and the sparks that learning ignite have brought me to a beautiful place.

Every time I get bored or stuck, dis-interested in whats happening around me,or lazy in my life I can always bet I have not been in a place of learning from Life. I'm not talking about so much left brain information type learning. I am talking about learning in experience with others who have a greater relationship with the focus of the teaching than I do.
This last weekend I sat ,for the first time in a long time , in a grazing/Cattlemens seminar with 40 other Cattle people and listened to three men who held a much greater perspective on their masteries than I did. The whole time I was inspired, re- awakened to the passion and Love I used to live for the land, cattle, nature and life of being a Ranch person. That passion had faded into the sunset over the years as I got involved in other interests and stopped learning about the natural world of grasses, wild life and Ranching.Attention shifts as life moves forward and we simply re-direct our attention to something else, that's life. Cool thing is once I truly love something that love may fade but is never really lost it's just there in the background should I ever bring my attention back and re-connect with a new awareness or passion, learning something new, opening awareness and interest for that Love again.

That flame comes back to life and I'm excited and inspired again.
This weekend brought me back to the beauty, the alive ,present , now, beauty of these Tennessee hills and pastures. I saw them through new eyes. It took a brilliant Gentleman from South Africa and a group of other participants to bring my attention back to what has been there all along that I just lost the eyes to see but man did it ever work.
People will sometimes say"Well you don't appreciate what you have!", but that's not the actual truth. What is true is that we Humans lose the living energetic connection to that object of focus or subject. Everything in Human Life is a relationship if it is alive. Every aspect of my life is an aspect of relationship. All of my relationships are my choosing whether alive in the moment or fading into the distance my life is a matrix of relationships that I either choose to feed or not. In this world today it's easy to jump from place to place, relationship to relationship losing awareness of whats most important and losing that awareness that for a relationship to be vibrant and exciting we must feed it with attention and new experiences.
Learning together in relationship creates a great merging of energy and passion. My Love for the land and Cattle merged with the reality of the land and Cattle I have here in Tennessee and that relationship came back to life like it was new.It's the same thing in relationship with a person, we have to feed those relationships or they get tired and dull. Time and attention are the ingridients that make great relationships and unless we practice applying time and attention to the relationships we choose in our lives then those relationships won't have much life to them and that will be 100% our responsibility, not that other person or interest.
It's been a great weekend and a very good lesson for me...pay attention to what you do with your interests and if they are getting dull then put those relationships in a space to learn something new together, bring life back to forefront of your choices, feed what you Love and Live well.

WORDS

The first thing I learned when I realized I was insane is I HAVE TO STOP PERPETUATING MY INSANITY..the USA is moving from frenzy to frenzy..believing that something is being accomplished. Until we can collectively stop, stop believing ourselves and our minds rants, our stories and all our greatest versions of how progress will look,,until we stop the frenzy we will only go round in circles, spiraling down deeper into the chaos of our minds,,The Nature of this reality is going to stop us humans if we do not find the inate internal integrity we all have with in us to do this great act of Life for our selves..it has to begin one person at a time,,and spread one person at a time,,grounding the light back into our realities and world..all our external communication is feeding the insanity ,,God I wish we had guts enough to turn it all off and go sit still.
What we are missing is already here in each of us,,and we do not know ourselves. We believe what we see and hear,,we believe our own distorted versions of life and experience. None of that aspect of our self is real or alive. All that lives is in each moment and passes with each moment,,,living for the past has been an experience of life on Earth and as of this Shift in frequency will no longer be a way of LIFE in this world but rather a path to death, the Death of the old Dream. We are Eternal..if we can re-connect to our centers then we might live as though we had the faith of the eternal , with Respect and compassion and awareness..all moving, living , breathing from the light of our center.
We are addicted to talking about nothing, believing that our beliefs are true and real,,Beliefs are not true, have never been and will never be,,real is un touchable,,and is what we are, real is completely knowable and unexpressable all at the same time,,Eternal is real...Light is real..this moment is real..none of the stories of the world are real..stop giving your faith to stories.
Tragedy is going to become the way of the world ..and all we have to know about that is that it is us doing to ourselves..How much pain and redundant insanity will it take before we let all of our demands of reality go?
Be Still and Know that I am God...We have been told!!!

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

Feeling my Way Back

I have to stop to write. Seems like since my last post I haven't stopped til last weekend at CIRCLES OF LIGHT. This is Sunday Morning and Waylon is singing in the kitchen downstairs, i-pod style, man I first met Waylon Jennings in 1978 in Nashville. I had just moved to Nashville to be a singer, to follow my dreams. There weren't any i-pods in 1978 but by God there were some real heavyhearted soulful singers around Nashville. I miss how authentic the music was back then.
Like the rest of the culture of the USA authenticity is dying like the Bee's.

My Princes Know it All cooked eggs and miso soup for breakfast, a healing your soul kind of mix that is our life today. When Mee and I met we lived on different planets. Her's was Los Angeles, the City of the Angels and mine was Piney River Cattle Co. , Tennessee, land of the family legacy and my waking up place. From the outside you'd have never given us a snowballs chance in Bermuda of becoming a family. Just goes to show you how off our perception is when it comes to really seeing who we are underneath the trappings of surviving in this culture. We stuck, together, and grew in all directions like light spreading from a star. These days she listens to Marty Robbins and Loretta Lynn as much as Lady Gaga or Juanes. We fell in love with life together. California, Mexico, Tennessee, dreaming our dreams, together and now with Isabella Lee and Lola LillyAna Pauline, we meet in bed at night and talk about how we are and what we want together.We miss Mexico, the Heart of that beautiful Country and her people. I miss the ocean, where I was born, by the great waters of this Earth.

Then there is Tennessee, Tennessee has become a portal all it's own. From the floods came a deep lasting journey into the Underworld. I was there a long time. Reconnecting with why I was here in the first place and why was it that I was working so hard to keep this relationship alive and growing. The Ranch with all it's beauty, healing magic and soul almost fell into that great void of the underworld and was lost. Just in time a new relationship came to bring a new aspect of integrity to The Ranch and our families relationship to Tennessee, the Ranch, Life and creation. You see Mee and I live to be creative, that's a big part of what connects us. Creativity is life and life is light and that light has to flow for us. So we fit together bringing our visions to life.

The Ranch brought a group of guys from the West coast, California, another love of our families, to the rescue. As one Ranch relationship was dying hard another was born of that light.
Today we have torn down the old commissary building at The Ranch. It was built in 1836 and it was time. I saved most all the materials and they will be resurrected in their own time. We also took down the medical house to make way for a new structure, new life, new dreams. That's how it is for us. Dreaming means not knowing exactly and trusting with Faith to go for it anyway. Feel your way into the next day, the next choice the next opportunity.
My teacher don Miguel Ruiz just had a new Heart transplanted in his chest. A miracle of modern medicine. As I give gratitude for Miguels life I give gratitude for all life, for so many opportunities and so much love and laughter.Miguel will now bring a new light to his gifts to this world as will The Ranch as will each of us that awakens to the greatest gift of all, the moment and all that fills that moment with life and wonder. Somethings coming and we are it..May Peace be with you all..Ometeotl