THE WAY THINGS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE

THE WAY THINGS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE There was a time I had a very definite grip on my identity. Life was well orchestrated and defined. Living was a point-by-point, goal-by-goal, walk through the world. Some things went the “way they were supposed to” and some things didn’t. I had successes and failures, curses and blessings, the back and forth, up and down’s of life. Normal, typical, day-to-day was the chosen way. I had no big questions of what else might exist beyond how I saw life and the world. I was not particularly religious or spiritual nor was I very interested in such things. Not against it, not for it, I really didn’t care. The world was interesting enough to keep me busy and engaged. As the years rolled on the world got smaller, relative of course, and my attention got less interested in the status quo. I was doing what I wanted, living my choices but not actually aware that what I was living was a choice; not really, life just was what it was by no particular responsibility of mine. Then one day my not so aware little bubble began to crack. There is no specific event that I can pick out of my story but I began to feel restless, unsure, frustrated with the “way things are supposed to” be. This made for some more compelling conversations with friends around what we were doing with our lives, could there be more that we are missing out on? Deep inside me an empty space was developing, a longing feeling that I didn’t understand and that feeling pushed on the restless and anxious feelings that kept coming around in my mind. Some friends turned to religion, some to sports, some to making more money, some to sex, some including me to getting high and rebellious toward our “way it’s supposed to be “ lives. I was stuck. Trapped in a personal world of my own making that had become a cage. Not literally of course but energetically and consciously. That business should be the point in life philosophy turned to mud, as there was more masks on the people than a New Orleans carnival and the dynamics became more like predator and prey than working together to do something worthwhile in life. As my personal reality cracked the scene got weirder and weirder and I had no clue what was happening to me as I was now living from reactions rather than choices and judgments and anger were my constant companion. What I used to keep me entertained in my not so supposed to be world became an addiction to drugs, a drug anyway. I was lost in a matrix of my own making with no idea how to get out. Of course when you’re lost in an addiction there is another “supposed to be” way to address that so I chose, an actual real choice, to go to Rehab. At least Rehab felt new as I was made aware for the first time in my life, in a very real way, just how twisted life in this world really is behind the supposed to be’s and masks. I had never known how terrible people could be to each other, how sick and mean and deep the wounds of humanity ran. I heard and witnessed so much of the truth of what was going on behind the masks of our culture and the propped up identities of our beliefs and religions. This really blew the supposed to be world up and opened me up to wonder what the hell are we doing, what is life really about anyway. The official story was far more lies than truth and the way out for me was clearly not the supposed to be recovery story. I was not interested in falling back into someone else’s version of what I might do to now be good enough as a “recovering “ person. No more matrix, no more life by identity and judgment I was determined to question everything and find something that was not a punishment and reward Pavlov’s dog reality. I began reading books, all kinds of books that offered different views on life and living. From Buddhist to Christian, Hindu, Shamanic, Celtic, A Course In Miracles, Life after Death, E.T.’s, whatever looked interesting. This was a great process as I was in a place of not believing anything official and my new passion was for something that actually felt REAL to me. A piece of this and a bit of that I gathered points of view and ideas on Life and Creation that I could hold up to my lens of experience to see if it fit or not. What had started as a train wreck in my life had become a door way to waking up to so much more than “supposed to be” ever had to offer. I was inspired and hungry for life. It was funny to me that the people who had taken the official recovery road had no use for someone who would not tow the party line so my journey was destined to be authentic as I was not welcome to take refuge in that respite. Life was answering my new found prayers for a bigger life with more to live for than being good enough. This was not an easy way to go. I had my share of lonely and scared and I also began to trust my own feelings and Heart, as they were my only constant companions. As life would have it I was introduced to the idea that our lives are an awake dream, a reality held in each individuals mind unique to that person and having the qualities ascribed to by that person. Being a dream we hold the power to bring the energy and life force we choose to our reality, our dream, and we are 100% responsible for what we choose, how we react and how we live in relation to our worlds dream. Dreaming my life became my practice, my dharma. Life responded. There are as many views on life as there are people living life. We all have our shot at it. The bottom line for me is there is no “supposed to be” anything. Life has given each of us a chance to make what we will from what we inherit being born into this world and that’s all any of us have, a chance. How we respond is our individual business, it’s also our individual responsibility. Hell and Heaven are both ours for the creating and we are working towards one or the other most of the time, know it or not. Life is on our side even when we aren’t. Many blessings await those who have the guts to go for it. May your Dreams come true, not like they are supposed too, but as you are willing to dream them.

A CONVERSATION WITH LUCIFER

Dreams come in all kinds of forms and states of mind. Over the years I have participated in various forms of “dreaming”, from sleeping dreams to meditation dreams, to guided imagery dreams. As a part of my personal practices I learned to move into what’s called lucid dreaming. Literally this is realizing, during a sleeping dream that you are dreaming and bringing your focus to the dreaming state where you can move through the landscape with intention just as in an awake state. On one such occasion I was conscious in my sleeping dream when I asked a question of the dream world, Why does Humanity suffer so, why are we so lost in our wars, killing, fear, Why? Instantly I was transported to an open desert landscape, a great endless expanse where the sky was a glowing amber light and the world was like an old painting of Egypt. Some 20 feet in front of me with his back turned stood a huge being, a Human like being maybe 10 feet tall with reddish skin and the form of wings on his back like an angel. He was looking away from me toward the horizon and as I looked past him I saw the Pyramids of Egypt appear in the distance. The being was beat down, he looked haggard and worn out like he had lived lifetimes of burdens and suffering. His skin was ruddy almost sunburned looking. He never turned to look at me but I knew he knew I was there. I asked him, “ this is Egypt isn’t it?” he nodded his head yes. As I spoke the scene moved closer to us. “ It is very old isn’t it?” again he nodded yes. “It’s much older than what we have been told by science isn’t it?” again he nodded yes. “How old is it?” he didn’t reply, “Is it five thousand years old?” he shook his head no, “ No, I knew that, it’s more like 10,000 years old isn’t it?” he nodded yes. Then I knew who he was, maybe I knew all along. “You’re Lucifer aren’t you, the one they call the Devil” he paused turned his head sideways and nodded yes. “ You look terrible”, I said, “Why do you do this why do you carry all this pain and suffering I don’t understand?” he paused and the Pyramids disappeared in the background, I felt a bit of fear but actually I felt more deep awareness that I was there for a reason larger than my understanding and I was not in any danger but to be a witness to something. “Why do you do the things you do? You were the most beautiful of all the angels why do you not stop?” Lucifer turned to face me and he said not just in spoken words but in a powerful energetic telepathic feeling, “ I am bound by God to serve the Humans until they take responsibility for themselves, I carry the weight of your legacy of suffering and fear, I am bound until you take responsibility for yourselves!” In that instant I realized that I /we held the power and responsibility for all the choices and decisions in our lives. That we are the ones who are perpetrating the suffering and pain in our Human reality, that only we can stop it and wake up to our truth and power as Human Beings. That experience was imprinted on my heart and soul. I had no pity for him and yet I had a great compassion for how broken hearted and disempowered we Humans have become by our own lack of awareness and faith in what we are really. This was not “just a dream” it was a revealing of reality and truth. It changed my understanding and knowing of how powerful I am in the choices of my life and in how important it is that we all wake up to what we are doing to ourselves and to each other out of ignorance and fear of the truth of our power and beau

MAYBE ONE DAY- The Story of the clothes.

MAYBE ONE DAY The story of the clothes I have been watching you and you appear to be uncomfortable? Yes, I am uncomfortable, it’s my clothes, I have worn many styles of clothes and these are more comfortable than the others or maybe I should say these are the least uncomfortable. Sometimes these clothes are fine but mostly they are to tight. If your clothes are so uncomfortable then why do you wear them at all? What kind of question is that, everyone must wear clothes, it’s the law, it’s the rule of Life and of our World! But you were not born wearing such clothes, you were born simply as you are underneath the clothes, you were born simply as you, no clothes needed. Yes but we all must grow up, we must take our place in society, we must become members of the society, we must find value in our life and wear the clothes that represent our value! Did you not have value when you were born? A Son of God, a Child of the Light, A Pure and beautiful Human Being? That does not matter, I live in this society I must do what society offers as the right way, the responsible way, the accepted way. That’s all there is too it. But your clothes are not comfortable? So what! Whose clothes are comfortable? No Ones or maybe everyone’s clothes are comfortable except mine I don’t know, it doesn’t matter. Not wearing the clothes of society is not an option. This is where I live , this is my people’s way. Have you ever tried taking all those clothes off and just sitting with yourself as you were at the first, before Society taught you you must be as Society demands in order to be good enough, in order to have value to society? I have thought about doing that once or twice but there is no time for such things. Tell me why do you drink the wine and smoke the herb , why do you eat those pills everyday and live with such anxiety and angst toward the future? That is the way I have learned to live with these clothes I wear, they cut into my flesh, they are too tight, the wine and the herb, the pills of the doctor they are all gifts from Society, gifts that make our clothes feel better, why we are so fortunate to have these things to help us with the discomfort of our clothes! But you could simply take off the clothes and go swim in the river, take a walk through the mountains, dance in the rain, you do not need Wine or pills or herb to do those things they are Creators gifts and they do not require clothes that cut and bind? Creator wants us to be fruitful as members of society, society is why we were created, we are the children of society not the Children of the Light, that is silly we would be nothing with out our beliefs and faith in Society, society gives us our value, our value is in our clothes. What if you had been born in another society, with other clothes, with different languages and beliefs, what would have happened then? That is not possible! But you were not born of the Society, you were born of the Light, of the Body of the Mother, of the Earth! When you were born you knew nothing of society and you were beautiful and happy, sweet and innocent and you had Great Value to Creator! You were not created by society you were created by the Great Creator, the Great Mystery. You have worn the clothes of society for so long you can not remember yourself with out them and you are not the clothes of Society you are the Light wearing the clothes, believing you are what the clothes represent, believing that you are the stories of society that you are not the Light. All you need do is lay these clothes aside and walk into the woods, swim in the river, lay in the sunlight and ask Creator to help you awaken, then you no longer need the clothes or the Wine or the pills or the herb or the roles that you have come to believe you are. None of those things are as great as your light. Your light is the light of Creator. It is time to awaken to find your Hearts beat and your smiles reflection in the wind again. Maybe, maybe one day but right now I must get back to work, I must not lose my place in the great scheme of things, but maybe one day…….

Dreaming Heaven: An Interview with Lee McCormick by Edie Weinstein

Lee McCormick is the co-author of Dreaming Heaven: The Beginning is Near (Hay House), the powerful Journey Book, DVD and meditation that enables you to walk in the footsteps of Lee and his fellow guides as they take you on a journey to your authentic self by following the pathways of the great mystery school at Teotihuacan, Mexico, first created by the Toltec masters thousands of year ago. Lee is the founder of The Integrative Life Center in Nashville, The Ranch Recovery Center in Tennessee, and The Canyon Treatment Center in Malibu, California, and has been a creative force in the Mental Health and Recovery scene for more than 15 years. He is also the executive producer and has a leading role in the documentary Dreaming Heaven. Lee has led many journeys to Teotihuacan, that astonishing place of power, and he has developed a far-reaching relationship with the mystery of the shamanic world that is present there. For more information, go to www. dreamingheaven.net or www.spirit recovery.com. Wisdom: Lee, please tell us a bit about your background so that we can get a sense of the man behind the movie. - Lee: My introduction to what Dreaming Heaven is about really began in a large part when I was 40 years old and checked myself into a treatment center. That was the beginning of my realization that who we are as human beings and the larger reality of what’s going on in our cultures, communities and families is so much more than what we typically give any attention to. In that early recovery process, I began to question everything. The ‘official story’ is not really true. It may be what the people are wanting to believe, but what we believe and the truth don’t necessarily have anything in common with each other. This was 17 years ago and I just consumed all kinds of self-help or spiritual books. Two years after I got out of treatment I had the inspiration to start a recovery program that was a broader perspective on healing and recovering our authenticity as opposed to the disease of addiction based philosophy. What we suffer from as unique individual people is a lack of authenticity in our lives and a lack of faith in ourselves. ‘Give it to a religion, give it to a faith, give it to a practice, give it to a program’, but it’s all externalized and so it causes an underlying anxiety. We’re always searching for more and are trying to get the next or the best or the better. The unsaid aspect of our culture is that we’re not good enough just as we are. On my personal journey, during my early recovery, I read The Four Agreements and Miguel Ruiz’s book lit up and I thought "His point of view reflects what I feel inside," and so I made some connections with friends and found out that they led journeys to Teotihuacan. I booked a trip and went on a journey to Teo, not unlike what is reflected in Dreaming Heaven, with a couple of teachers named Ted and Peggy Raess. The first time I went to Teo, I literally got out of a van in a parking lot of a little hotel and turned around and looked down this long avenue at the pyramids and the whole place just lit up. I knew what it was and that I had been there before. I started laughing and crying, thinking "I know this place." I felt like I was home. I had that profound sense of "I belong here." Wisdom: I have long considered addictions as a way of filling a proverbial hole in the soul. What’s your take on that? - Lee:: Addiction to me is just an energetic. I am not a big proponent of the disease model. I understand the origins of it and the orientation of addiction. I believe it evolved as a way to protect people from judgment. If what I have is a disease, then maybe it’s not a weakness of character or a personal failing. We have created a pattern of behavior that we have reinforced over and over; whatever the behavior or drug of choice is. It could be behavior, it could be food, it could be sex, drugs or alcohol. From a shamanic point of view, the energy that addiction holds is our energy. My addiction was as strong as it was because I fed it. I was giving it my attention. It was the most important relationship in my life. If I’m going to reclaim my energy from it, then I am going to stop feeding it, to break the pattern. I have to learn to shift my attention away from engaging in it in an endless loop. I have to shift my attention from thinking about getting high, thinking about indulging in whatever my behavior is and open my attention to what else is present now. As you begin to shift all of that and open all of that up, you can truly start reclaiming energy. You feel more present, you are more aware because all of a sudden you are seeing all of the other stuff going on in the world. You’re not shrouded in the attachment and the distortions that exist when you live out of balance when in an addictive pattern. I do not believe that in any way, shape or form that our diagnosis defines who we are….period. I was never ok with "My name’s Lee and I’m an addict." That never felt right to me and I challenged it from the beginning. I got all kinds of grief from all kinds of people who’ve been sober for 20 years. I said "Look, dude, I did not get into recovery to have a co-dependent relationship with all the people who have been in the rooms longer than me. I got into recovery to be free from living that way…period." My response to a lot of people is that this is about me, because it is about my life. It’s not about me needing to fit into what someone else may have come to believe about addiction based on their experience. It’s about what I choose to believe and how I’m going to live based on my own experience. There’s a fundamental piece to this. We have to be willing to own our reality 100%. It’s not my father’s fault, it’s not my abuser’s fault. It’s not even a fault at all. It’s literally that I am where I am based on the choices I have made and the way the cards have been dealt; it’s just a matter of fact. Until I own it 100%, I can’t possibly unravel it and release it and move beyond it 100%. Wisdom:- How did the film come to be?- Lee: It was one of those funny events. Gini Gentry who is one the teachers in the film, had a friend named Dana Waldman. Gini called me and said "This friend of mine, Dana is a musician and music producer. You guys would get along great. You ought to meet him." I called him and he came up to our house and we had this 2 ½ hour great conversation about stuff we had been doing. We were getting ready to create a journey to Teo and Dana said, "It would be fun to film one of these journeys and see what it looks like and see what happens." I was intrigued because the energy of what goes on there is so profound. In the mythology it says that energy and consciousness exists originally in this world because of light. Could the light that you capture when you’re filming convey the energy of the place? Dana and I put a little crew together, including all the people you see in the movie. We just wanted to film the journey and make a high-tech home movie. We filmed it, we really had fun and it was great. We came back and had about 100 hours of footage. Dana and a couple people watched it and it sat for a couple of years. Life goes on and I by chance met a man named Straw Weisman who was the post-production supervisor for What the Bleep Do We Know? He said "Let me see this footage you guys shot." He watched it and said "This is really good and you really have a movie here. This is like what Bleep brought up about the nature of reality. Basically Dreaming Heaven is "what the bleep do we do with it?" So I turned it over to Straw and he started editing and started making a film out of it. Dana got involved and over five years we ended up with what you see now. After we finished the film, we screened it in several places and the response was so consistently "Wow, I feel like I was on this journey with you. I would like to have a way to interact with this; you guys ought to write a book to go with it," and so we did. Meanwhile Dana and I wrote music and the soundtrack was created and I said, "Let’s do a series of meditations to tie the whole deal together." I’ve never seen a package like this where you buy a journey book that has a film in the back, that has downloaded meditations and an original sound track created around it. Wisdom: How can we create heaven on earth? - Lee: If you read the Gnostic Gospels, if you read the Christian mystical books, it you read what the Buddha talked about, if you read the Sufi wisdom, if you read the Bhagavad Gita, if you can sit with all the mystical traditions and what they are offering and have the ability to get beyond literal translation. None of the above were written from a literal point of view. The Bible has been translated and re-translated and what we are reading today is not reflective of what was written in Aramaic 2000 years ago, because the nature of language was completely different. The concept of heaven is in truth, what we are. "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you and all around you. Men have lost the eyes to see it." It’s not unlike an addiction. When we stop doing the things that are creating our suffering, all of a sudden, from within us, we begin to have a whole new experience of life and of ourselves. The idea of heaven as a presence of life on Earth becomes an experience when we stop engaging in a way of life that’s based on fear and suffering. It’s something that comes about as a result of our letting go of the way that we have been taught life must be lived and we allow the integrity of what we really are to come through us. Wisdom: How can we face death cleanly and clearly and be prepared for it on any given day? - Lee: I’ve had my own experience with death. It’s deeply personal. On the level of Dreaming Heaven, the concept of death is fairly simple. The truth is we don’t own anything in this world. We don’t own our house. We don’t own our body. We don’t own our labels, degrees and profession. We have the opportunity to have a relationship with all that stuff. We have the experience of being in a physical body, of being a therapist or writer or cowboy or teacher. The Angel of Death owns this world. The limited awareness of what we are born into is all based in the physicality and desperation to find security by owning the world around us so that we can feel safe on a mind level. We continue to feel rattled because the presence of death is always there. In the Toltec process, death is coming to the realization that in order to be free, I have to be willing to release myself from the dark side attachments like addictions and attachments to ego and glory and fame. If I am going to be free to be what I really am underneath all my identities, I have to be willing to die to all those identities. The dying process in that context is not unlike the dying process that a client who is going through an addiction issue is going to go through in order to truly release all of the attachments that fed into "My name’s Lee and I’m an addict." You’re releasing the energetic of all the stories, including the story of being a recovering person. As long as I’m clinging to how many days I’ve been clean, I’m still clinging to how many days I used. You can’t have one without the other. The Angel of Death comes along and says "When you’re tired of carrying all this stuff around, you can give it to me because I’m going to take it anyway. If you are willing to consciously and intentionally hand it over to me, you’re going to free yourself from carrying the energetic weight and the baggage and you will be able to live the experience of what you really are underneath all of that. Wisdom: How can we bring what we perceive as ‘other worldly’ into our daily lives…making the metaphysical more mainstream? - Lee: It kind of already is. Life is mysterious and it is magical. Do we have the eyes to see it? Are we open to the nuance of everything going on around us in the moment? Most of the time, until we have entered into this unraveling process, this dying process, we’re so wrapped up in being who we think we are, and worrying about the traffic or getting there on time or our next appointment. The whole time, all around us is all this magic and creativity and mystery and beauty. When you walk down the street, do not look at the sidewalk. Look up and all around you. I led a three day workshop in Manhattan. I had all these New Yorkers walking down the street, looking out at everything and seeing how much they could take in. It literally freaked them out. We need to be willing to drop all our filters and take off our shade. Put your sunglasses back in the case and let all the light in. There’s a great saying in Way of The Peaceful Warrior. Nick Nolte puts his hand on the kid that’s playing Dan. He jabs him energetically and the kid starts seeing everything that’s going on around him and Nolte says "There’s never nothing going on here." That’s the truth. There’s just one of me and one great life that I’m living here and it’s all interconnected. You come back into balance. We have to bring all of us into the room at the same time. Let the walls come down and let the separation come down. The integrity of spirituality is in the little things we do day to day. The real grace is in our day to day life. That’s where the real difference will be made. Edie Weinstein (Bliss Mistress) is an opti-mystic who sees life through the eyes of possibility, a multifaceted multitasker, colorfully creative journalist, dynamic motivational speaker, interfaith minister, social worker, therapist, BLISS coach and PR Goddess She is the author of The Bliss Mistress Guide To Transforming the Ordinary Into the Extraordinary. www.liveinjoy.org

Holiday Season Emotional Train Wrecks: 6 Tips On How Not To Get Derailed

By Lee McCormick We call this the Holiday Season. Family, Food, Fun and train wrecks, all rolled into one span of days, Thanksgiving through New Years. There are memories rolling like thunder through our minds and emotions, traditions that seem to come back around again and again — some so sweet and some reoccurring nightmares. Why we always go there is one of life’s great mysteries. I am from a Big Ol’ Southern family and our home scene at holiday times was Cat-on-A-Hot- Tin-Roof-on-steroids. I can look back now and it was so funny, crazy, tragic, and real all at once. But today, I no longer have an emotional charge around any of that stuff. I have cleaned and cleared my life for many years and I am at peace with it all. Life goes on and so do we, peacefully if we have done the work to let go and live for today’s real-time moments. I’m fortunate to be where I am today and GRATEFUL–very, very grateful–to be living life with my Eyes, Heart, Mind and Spirit wide open to the here and now. That’s my gift to myself – and a reminder that the holidays have not always been the peace and freedom I know today. Over the years I have picked up a few valuable tips on keeping the Holiday Cheer clean, clear and HAPPY! Tip #1. Be mindful around the food and drink of the season. The truth is this applies to life everyday, but is even more relevant when we are all in the eat-like-we’re-still-kids-stuffing-our-faces mode for the holidays. Sugar is toxic, poison to our cells. It feeds all the auto-immune diseases, is a disaster for blood sugar levels, contributes to mood swings and takes us from high-and-happy to crashing-and-burning rapidly. So being very mindful of the sugar land temptations is very smart. Easy does it. This reduces your sensitivity to be triggered. We also need to be mindful of carbs, as they are immediately transformed into sugars during digestion and head straight into the blood stream. Eating fresh foods, veggies, salads, whole grains and reasonable portions of meat keeps the body and blood sugar in balance. And with all the other potential challenges of the season that are not necessarily within our control, what we eat is one we can control. Moderation also prevents that terrible emotional guilt over overeating that can also contribute to depression or hyper-sensitivity. Tip #2. – Break the cycles of the holiday history. Rather than following your personal history of holiday behavior, change it up. If you tend to sit and watch football games, get up and out of the house, take some long walks, see the world on foot. If you like to sleep late, make yourself get up early, catch a sunrise and say some personal prayers for those who are no longer with you and to life itself for that beautiful morning. Changing patterns allows us to live in the moment, rather than living in a rut of old stories—the ones with which you fool yourself, such as “It’s going to be better this time around.” When you catch yourself getting triggered, stop! It is that simple. STOP. No need to explain. Just say, “I’m not going there,” change the subject or let there even be some stillness. You don’t need to engage. Break your pattern. Tip #3. – Make an alter to your life, to the Now of your life—not the past. The holidays are a time when you are filled with the enjoyment of decorating the house, so include in your decorating a special alter to your faith—whatever that form takes– to your family and friends, and to your personal journey through life. This could be placed on a side table or on your dresser in your room. It commemorates your corner to connect, to breathe and acknowledge how far you have come through the years. This marks WHO AND WHERE YOU ARE NOW in your life! Consider lighting a seven-day candle to keep the flame of gratitude burning and to honor your living journey. Tip #4. – If you are musical or love music, make a song mix for the season, something that’s relevant to the past, present and future of the sound track of your life. This is an easy and creative effort that can get a lot of play. Plug in the songs of the year that mark the good times, the transitions and accomplishments. Music is a big part of life, so why not create your own personal Holiday Mix! End it with something joyous, something that stirs your positive uplifting emotions. Tip #5. – Have a go-to friend– or better yet, two–people with whom you can pledge to have each other’s back for the holidays. If any one of you gets into a bad spot or in too deep with an emotional crisis, you have a bond to be there for each other. This is very important. It brings us close to the ones with whom we are in it for the long haul, and insures ahead of time that we won’t get stuck in a bad situation with no one to call. Consider getting together on a regular basis for coffee or a meal where you can each unbend about the challenges of the day—and the blessings that are unfolding. Keep it here-and-now, and keep it honest-and-sincere, Heart to Heart. The past has a way of haunting us over the holidays and that is a choice. It’s one we can change, to our benefit. By staying with the present, with life today, we experience the beauty and grace of the opportunities to be connected together, moving forward as a band of friends –and even family. In the now, we own this minute only and save ourselves from getting lost in that old-time-feeling minefield. Tip #6. – Most important. Do not isolate! Being alone with yourself by choice is good, but isolating out of sadness, anger or fear–any of those old emotions and feelings that often erupt over the holidays–is exactly the opposite. Don’t let those emotions or feelings OWN YOU! Our feelings are solely our responsibility. So take action to keep the energy moving and your attention on today, the present, where you can change what needs to be changed and choose where to put your attention. We create our lives based on where we place our attention. It serves us well when we take 100% responsibility for where and what we do with that attention. Follow these tips and you’ll never again derail in one of those emotional holiday family train wrecks. You’ll preserve your peace, calm, sobriety and enjoyment regardless of what is happening around you.

Working with the Stones

Over the years of living with healers, teachers, Shaman, Curanderas, There have been a few consistent threads that give life and power to the practices of healing and transformation. For many years now I have spent time in Mexico and Peru serving as a bridge between the worlds of the people who journey with me and the light, wisdom and energies of the sacred places we visit. In our film Dreaming Heaven you can see a few of the ceremonies and practices we use to support awakening to the power each of us hold deep inside. Our deep seated power is our connection to the light of Creation, the Spirit of life it self. We are that light, we are the energy and consciousness of Creator embodied in Human Form, God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God. Years ago while on a journey in Mexico with my teachers I encountered a stone statue of a Ancient Toltec God. This statue was not more the 30 inches tall, simple carved stone of a Being sitting full body, head, face, arms on the thighs in a meditation like pose. But it wasn’t the image that was so powerful it was the presence emanating from the stone figure. This statue was alive energetically, you could feel it, in fact you could feel a presence the moment you walked into the room where it was displayed. I was amazed, intrigued, humbled by the feeling of consciousness that was there communicating to us. As I asked about this crazy encounter I was taught that consciousness is energy, emotion is energy, our beliefs are simply energy, our bodies, stories, roles all are varying applications of energy and light. From this experience we developed a practice to support our letting go of energies, emotions, stories of suffering that we know no longer serve us in our life. It is very simple this offering of the Stones. First you get very clear on what you wish to release, connect to the full body of energy, emotion, memory of the situation or belief you wish to release. Next you find a stone to serve as the vessel of your practice, the object that you will transfer this energetic into literally. Hold this stone in your hand and give it all your gratitude and love for being there to help you. Take some deep breaths and blow your life force/breath into this stone. Next breath into that place inside yourself where the energy you will be releasing rests. As you breath to the bottom of the energy you exhale through your breath all the energy of release giving it to the stone not with judgment but with gratitude for this opportunity to release what no longer serves you. Repeat this til you feel clear and when you ready hold the stone up to the sky, to the sun and with all your clear intent say out loud “I release you now and forever more”. Then you place this stone back on the ground or into a river, the sea, whatever feels most freeing to you cutting all ties, judgments attachments to the energies you’ve transferred into the stone. Turn and walk away looking up and out with Love and gratitude for life, simple, free, with faith in yourself and your ability to heal and free you. May Peace be with you and May the freedom you seek come with ease and grace.

The Light of Change

5:40 am In the Heart of summer. Looking at pictures of my friend Arthur Robert Cushman walking the grounds of our Dreaming House in Teotihuacan and shots of my Mee cooking here at home at Pinewood Farms. Thinking about where my energy is going and what is real these days and what is nothing more than shadows of an old paradigm that is no longer worth the attention to keep it propped up, like so much of our existing ways in the USA.Our Human matrix is no longer sustainable, period, we are being offered choices to CHANGE what we believe and how we live in every moment but just like all the addicted and lost I have worked with for years now I see that for 90% of the people in the USA getting off the merry go round is not going to happen till it collapses and that's tragic.The consequences of refusing to look at our reality will become more and more dire, more shootings , more killing, much more disease and sickness, more poverty and loss of so called security, hunger, all Lifes ways of trying to get the attention of those who are not willing to see what's right in front of them. Meanwhile living on a farm is as alive as ever now that we have quit with consumption agriculture and we are working WITH nature again instead of what the Universities are teaching. Simple will one day be respected again but that is a ways off and a lot of suffering from now and that is the choice of Humanity. Meanwhile we can all buy local for almost everything, sure you pay more in dollars but you will be recreating a broken economic system that will in the long run sustain you again. We can eat clean, simple NON processed food and demand that things like FRACKING for natural gas be stopped before there is no more clean water in America. We can believe and live for BEING RECOVERED from addictions and diseases and let the identities of less than go with the paradigms of fear that we have all come to identify with. We can Pray to the great Mystery and Dream of possibilities then TAKE Action for those possibilities to become reality.We can stop hating, killing and judging each other over our twisted, insane ideas of God. We can walk more and drive less, sing more and bitch less, share more with strangers and hoard our wealth less. Enjoy being alive and well, it is a privilege, an act of grace ,not a right any longer as we will see very shortly. Sometimes it takes courage to be honest about the house being on fire while most either won't acknowledge the smoke and flames and others say fire is negative so don't look at it and the only survivors are the ones who say FIRE OUT LOUD and leave the building. I have children and grandchildren and I care about the world they will live in and I am afraid for what they are going to inherit from us at this point and I will do my best to give them a place to live and an awareness of life as a living creation not what they are taught in school.

We will see huge changes in this Human world over the next 10 years, huge changes and the way we are going those changes will be very hard on many many people and we can not say we didn't do it to ourselves cuse we are and we did and it is all unnecessary except that we have demanded this for ourselves and WE are all 100% responsible. It's going to be another hot one in Tennessee and I have horses to feed so see you around, May the light of Change be with you!

Summer Heat

Tennessee is in a very hot , dry summer, most call it a drought. We got home to the Pinewood Farm Sunday night before the 4th of July. Today a late afternoon thunder storm brought a couple inches and rain and dropped the 100 degree day to 78 in less than an hour. I heard the thunder this morning and went out to talk to Tlaloc and the Thunder Beings, the spirits that travel with the rains. Most people don’t know that this creation we live in is alive, we are surrounded by consciousness in the light. There are beings that live all through the infinite number of dimensions that are the tapestry of Creation. I have several relationships from Teotihuacan that I have there with me all the time now no matter where I am. It’s interesting to be in the reality of Tennessee and shift to a connection that is Teotihuacan like flipping a switch. That’s what has happened in my life and I am very grateful for coming to know something I believed but didn’t really understand and know it as a relationship. They come to us, frequency to frequency, they find us through the web of creation and come to us through us. I know what I am trying to say but saying it is not quite correct, words are limited.

Humanity , our culture lost reality when we lost a living relationship to the Natural Real world. We don’t talk to the wind or this Mother Earth or the Rivers or fire. We don’t know how to listen to the Trees or the Mountain Spirits. That is a huge issue as we have lost perspective of the wholeness of Creation. Result of that disconnection we eat dead food, search for peace in the world, project our fears and judgments every where all the time. Our lack of awareness creates more issues by distorting the integrity of the fabric of Life itself. For that we will be accountable as we are not greater than the whole of creation. I will be staying connected to my spirit people and seeing how deep this living with the Light beings can go.

Rain started Falling......

Rain started falling just before we boarded. The clouds had been moving around all morning as we spent most the day walking the streets of Mexico City. It was a nice feeling day, not too hot, not cold, just right. This was the last day of a week in the Heart of a culture and people that I fell completely in love with 10 years ago on my first visit to the real Mexico. I had been two years in recovery, trying to find a thread to living life different from the way I had lived for the last 20 years, and after reading a book by a Mexican Toltec Shaman something clicked in his words that felt like I had known what living by those words might feel like. It was an odd feeling, like you know something you don’t know, or you have it in you but can’t remember from where. The point was it hooked me and as Life works soon after I found where that same writer had teachers leading journeys to the Pyramids of Teotihuacan and that hooked me too so I got it together and booked that trip. My Heart exploded on that trip, it exploded into a million stars and fell back to Earth again where I knew if I followed the feelings my heart would come back together again whole and full of that starlight. Since that first journey I have really lived in continuous relationship with the great mystery and magic of those Pyramids and the Spirit people that live all through it’s many dimensions. Over these years my way of living and seeing life has shifted and transformed in ways I never knew existed. My life was saved by Grace, I once was lost but have been found, was blind but now I see. I never had any idea what the word Grace represented. As words represent the something they are referring to that is actually beyond the words translation. Our words are just for communicating; it’s up to us to live the experience they represent. Like the word Mexico could bring up visions and ideas, scenes from Movies and beliefs I had about what Mexico was or what Mexico must be like and none of that had anything at all to do with the real Mexico.It is a real shame we are so willing to accept our imaginary versions of life rather than having the courage to go find out for real. That is a very tragic sign of our times. These days we are so tempted to believe we know something about places and people, foreign lands and distant cultures, just because we see scenes on TV or we read books. Of course it’s great to read and watch TV but that is not real, its imaginary, virtual, a matrix. Now here I am 11 years after my first real experience in Mexico and I am as in Love and smitten with her magic and sweetness, struggle, sorrows and heart as I ever was. Like loving an amazing woman loving a Country like Mexico is very very much the same. Her heart is the heart of the Mother, Mother Mary, Tonantzin Aztec Virgin, her heart is expressed through the simple warmth of fresh tortillas and a the eyes of the children, the lines in the faces of the old ones and in the intention of Her Pyramids with their silent knowledge. My relationship with Mexico is a mirror for my relationship with all of life. As I have learned to live with her I have learned to live with myself. This life is a mystery. I am a mystery. Creation is a mystery. Maybe if we would treat life as a mystery we would find our humility and respect again. God knows we need to. The rain is falling harder now and this 737 is ready to take off into the clouds as hard as it can go. In three hours I’ll land in Los Angeles and the other love of my life, my wife Mee will pick me up and we’ll go have supper together. I love her name, so simple and true cuse it is all about Mee or me. I might leave Mexico but Mexico never leaves me just as I might leave my Mee but she never leaves me. I’ll bet before this 737 levels out we break through the clouds and find that Sun waiting on the other side. Yes it is all a mystery, in my heart this is all a mystery and these days I love this great mystery, I love the rains and the traffic, the openings and the endings. I don’t much love the meanness of humanity or the arrogance we have come to be so proud of but that too will bring it’s own response from this great mystery of life and at some point maybe we the people will wake up and stop living like fools. Who knows, deal is though, if I live long enough I do believe I’ll find out cuse the road we are on does not go on forever. Blessings to all of you out there under the evening Sun, may the Spirit that dwells in you call you out to see the mystery, it is a far greater calling than the ones we Humans have made up with all our words and knowledge. See you round…..

Sitting in Aguas Calientes

Sitting in Machu Picchu, or to be exact in the Pueblo of Aguas Calientes. It is raining, really raining, water holds a great presence here. Across the Calle or street the Urubamba River, my river of light, is roaring through this little Pueblo on it’s way to the Amazon. This is my 5th or 6th time to visit the great Cosmic reality of Machu Picchu and each time my connection to the Light and the Life of this Sacred place has grown in dimensions, beyond simple depth, dimensions open us to greater awareness and openings to aspects of our being. This was a fast trip, two nights, of course this is a place before time, a place where time you must bring with you as the Consciousness of Machu Pichu is of the Light. I always love to see the faces of the people that come with us on our Journeys to Mach Picchu. You see we have a practice of leading the group to the top of the ridge above the main City and with their eyes closed we have them hold hands and walk connected to a vantage point where when they open their eyes the beauty and mystery all come together in one light filled moment. There are always tears of gratitude and feelings of Heart and Spirit opening to a greater reality as the mist and clouds shift and move between the Mountains from Machu Picchu to Putu Cusi and across the river gorge to Huayna Pichu the Cat, looking down on the Dove Rock out cropping of the North border of the City. Some call this Machu Picchu an ancient Ruin, they don’t get it, this is a place of Consciousness and Light, a place that connects worlds and dimensions all of which seem to have aspects that open within us as Human Beings, all connected, remembered, awakened by the Mystery of Life that lingers in the mist. Sitting here in a street side café waiting for a pizza, smelling the wood smoke of the Pizza Ovens and the rain falling in big drops I watch the members of our journey step down from the bus with big smiles and laughter. I never had any aspirations of being a tour guide, still don’t, but somehow it just happened that I wanted to share these places where I have found so much inspiration for Life and so I keep coming back with small groups of pilgrims. I love it, most of the time, like right now, Urubamba River roaring through the Pueblo, wood smoke, Rain, Clouds and mist, smiles and hugs this is the beauty of our world and the legacy I want to share with my daughters. The beauty and magic of life is all around us, we just have to look from the inside out. Whether in the hills of Tennessee or the coast of Malibu, the Temples of Teotihuacan or the Majesty of the Andes we really are surrounded by beauty and light, created of beauty and light. This afternoon we’ll catch the train back to Cusco and in a few days I’ll be on a flight back home to Malibu and the woman I share my dreams with. Seems everywhere I turn I am filled with gratitude. Gracias Mama Pacha, Gracias Apus Machu Pichu and Huayna Picchu, Putu Cusi and Ausungati, Gracias Mee for Loving me just the way I am and Gracias to all those who Journey with me for bringing your light to this world of Ours, May Peace be With You

COMING HOME TO MEE

I never sleep well on the nights that I have early flights to somewhere. I’ll lie in bed sleeping and waking up, thinking and dreaming. I always want to reach over and hold onto my wife, my best friend, the one I am closer to than I can understand. I’ve had lots of girlfriends and was married once before but at that time in my life I was so busy trying to be me, trying to be good enough or cool enough or some other idea of mine that was more important at the time than being close to someone else, there was no real sense of leaving when I travelled. Maybe the truth is it’s not a sense of leaving I feel now but a deep feeling of belonging, a feeling that’s with me whether we are together or apart. You see my wife, my Mee, that’s her name Mee and it sure fits her and us, she is more independent even than I am, at least in our connection she is. That’s a twist of fate in my life, for me to be the one that likes to hang onto a hug a little longer, the one that feels a twinge of sad whenever I know I am about to fly off into the world again. It’s a sweet, sad feeling to miss her before I leave, to miss the feeling of being home with her and our little girls while I’m getting up and trying to be quiet as I get ready to ease out the door on another journey. Being connected to each other has changed a lot about how I value my life and my relationship to this world we live in. I feel safe close to her, I feel like together we are a whole Universe and all is well as long as we have us. I’ve never felt like that before, never had that deep a light shining, calling me home again. I still come and go, like I have my whole life, of course I came by my travelling ways naturally being born into a family that lived on the Northeast coast of Florida and had a Ranch in Southern Wyoming where I spent all my summers. Seems like I’ve always been going somewhere else and I’ve always loved the going and the coming back home again. These days though I’m too aware that what we have in this world is all a passing thing, it comes and goes no matter how much we Love or Hate where we are, it’s all like a wisp of wood smoke, strong enough to burn your eyes and make you cough but just as quick it’s gone forever like it was never there in the first place. You can hold onto the memory but memories aren’t real, our breath and touch is real and it’s the knowing that the breath and touch are all passing with time too that leaves me wanting to hold on. I guess I am afraid I might leave one day and never make it back to feel that feeling again, to hug that extra second or stop to take that last breath in and watch our little ones getting ready for school not aware that I’m standing there in the door. Life on Earth sure has it’s messes and problems I see all that today as a result of how we have made so many things more important than how it really feels to be close to each other and share life from the Heart. Realizing what really matters on the inside is a great gift, maybe it’s a gift of the years that you have to live long enough and worship enough phony ideas that you come full circle to your own true Heart again. What I know is my life has a home today and my Heart has a connection to Loving and sharing that I wouldn’t trade all the deals of bright lights and big money for, not ever. I’m really grateful that I’ve lived long enough to make it to this point and God willing I’ll live this way of being for a long time coming. Another Journey another Dream, another place in time, another ceremony, there will always be a Light in my Heart that brings me home and coming home is always the greatest gift of the Journey.

A DREAMING HEAVEN BEGINNING

I met Dana Walden one Sunday afternoon at our house up on Little Sycamore Canyon Road above Malibu. Our mutual friend, Gini Gentry, had called me a while ago and said she thought that Dana and I should meet to talk about music and film. Gini is a good witch and is known for setting up interesting opportunities, so I thought, “Why not?” I was living in L.A. and figured it would be cool to get connected to a creative scene. Dana and I sat in our living room looking out past the Santa Monica Mountains to the Pacific Ocean horizon. I offered him a listen to a song I had just written and when I pulled my guitar out of its case he said, “Wow, you have a D 18 S? You don’t see many of those. I have one at home too.” Bingo—one of those Universe connections. So we talked for a while and the conversation eventually got around to the Journeys I had been leading to Teotihuacan, Mexico. I told him about the magic and mystery of the Ancient City with it’s portals and pyramids, the doorways between dimensions and the powerful energetics that give this “City of the Gods” it’s unique presence. We talked about life, teachers, gurus, personal experiences, the music business, Los Angeles and then we got onto the idea of films and documentaries about real life journeys. As I shared the process of the Teotihuacan Journeys, Dana said, “It sounds like a cool set up for a documentary, to capture the experience and what the people go through on the journey.” As soon as Dana said that I got a hit—one of those instinctual, intuitive hits. YES! Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could capture the energy of Teotihuacan on film? It would be so great if the energetics could be translated through the light of the film into the light of the theater screen. Before Dana left that day we decided to put a journey together to see what might happen. I had no experience in film or film making but Dana had enough to get this deal put together so I called Gini and told her about it. She said, “Yes, that is the call—the call of the Mystery. It’s the way it works when you’re listening to Spirit and are willing to go for it.” A few months later Gini Gentry, Frank Hayhurst, myself, a crew of journeyers, a couple of cameramen and sound people, a designated producer or two, all loaded up and flew off to Teotihuacan to create “DREAMING HEAVEN” the movie. The Journey took on a life of it’s own as did the film making process. We put five years into the film and this spring of 2012 we will launch the platform—Film, Music and a Book all built from a conversation on a mountaintop one Sunday afternoon in Malibu. Life rolls on and Gini, Frank, Dana and I have all had a lot of life pass through us since we embarked on the Journey of “Dreaming Heaven” the movie. We are all a bit older and a bit wiser from this experience. Our greatest intent now is that this project will take on a life of it’s own out there in the Human Dream and we will have the opportunity to share our Dream of Heaven on Earth with you all.

Doing my Best, Living my life, listening to Those spirit people and taking my Time

It was an odd idea at first, doing your best being good enough and in fact your best being all you can do, your best, whatever that is. I lived with the words and idea for some time and at some point it sunk in. I am living doing my best and enjoying the doing it more than ever. Time flys when your living over 40 and man time has been flying lately. Soon my wife and two little girls and myself will pack it up move most of the things in our Nashville home out to the Ranch house and take the rest back to Malibu where we are setting up a home again. This time our setting up a home came so easy that I had to say yes to those Spirit People that for me lead my way into and out of the choices I make with life. I deal with other people in my living and creating a life and those people are there as a part of the Spirit peoples direction not just cuse I may like them. Some time back I had a conversation of sorts with the Head of the Spirit People clan and said I was open to whatever I could do to make the most out of being me, here, these days and would do my best to go for where they would point me. I totally love the being the Human in the mix, kind of comes with a get out of jail free card of sorts. Humans are so odd, we are so scattered and freaked out, funny and passionate. It's all in our Human dreaming, this world we have made up for ourselves here on Earth, not exactly as it is in Heaven. So I have to pack up again, books, clothes, surfboards-funny I have had 5 surfboards in my garage in Nashville for two and a half years now I'm taking them back to Malibu and man I am so ready to get them all wet again. I have a company, I say company because these objects all have connections to other places in time and other energies and spirits, of Sacred objects,a company of sacred objects sacred to me. Old pieces from Teotihuacan and Peru, from the Dine people and my brother Albert Sombrero in Tucson. I have things from the Ranch that hold ties to places deep inside me that I like having connections to that I can hold in my hand. Power objects, Old statues of Saints and Jesus, Buddha and San Martin, Mt. Shasta and Cusco. They are all Spirit people places and aspects of the true reality beyond time and space. This time I have a compelling drive to create something that the Mother told me would come when I was standing in front of the Tilma in Mexico City talking or ,rather listening, to her a few months ago. Every time I feel her voice inside me my heart explodes and I am so filled with Love and gratitude for all this life, for her being in the center of our family ,for the grace that lives from inside of us out into this world . It is really a huge feeling and one I have to get some action going for, the feeling drives me. I have to do what she instils in me, there is no choice. To say no would be like saying no to the one great Love of your life, the Heart of all you've ever loved and held special all moving through you at once and in the midst of that experience you would say no...I don't think so..it's not even a real option...you want to melt into the light yes yes yes, lets do it. That's my thing,,lets do it,,come on, now!

So we are moving back to the Point Dume, I love that Point. The West coast whale shrine of Southern California and we get to live there. That is so cool, I can walk out to the top of Point Dume with my little girls and my Mee and we can sing to the Whales, watching them travel the coast as they have done for all time.

We will build a great open connected community in Malibu and L.A. and all across this land because that connection of community is what we Humans are looking for in this disconnected world of ours. There has never been any disconnection in the spirit world. The spirit world is holding the light for us to remember who and what we are so we might step back into awareness and community as Human Beings together again. This is a big step and the only one that will save us from Our self indulgent ways and it's happening. It is happening on all kinds of levels, in all kinds of ways, and more and more opportunities keep coming to us all the time. All,l, we need do is do our best, take time to listen to those spirit people that talk in all languages and need no words. Living life is the answer and being honest and courageous is the medicine and we have that already deep within each of us. So lets do it,,,and we will see you somewhere along the way.....

LEAVING MEXICO AGAIN

Leaving Mexico again. Listening to Elton John’s “Ballad of a Well known Gun”. Next stop L.A. and the Topanga Film Festival where we will screen Dreaming Heaven the movie. Five years ago we filmed the journey of 18 people for 5 days of living in the body of a timeless light machine. This last ten days back in Mexico has brought me back to the place within myself that realizes Life is happening on so many levels all at once and by default we seem to succumb to whatever our dominate life frequency is and as we become more enmeshed in that frequency we lose relationship with other parallel frequencies. Time and attention following the last calling till we are living a very small way of being, Mexico has a way of blowing that open for me.

I was told some things on this journey, told by the voices that speak inside me, that we live in a Kingdom of light in this world, a kingdom that has by our creation of form and attachment come to cast great shadows across the landscape of Light. Our creation has become the main focus of our attention and the main focus of our faith and beliefs. We have fallen into indulgence with the world of form losing our awareness of being beings of this kingdom of Light. Like a singer who loses them self to the presence of their own voice. Indulgence comes at a big price when you have the ability and opportunity to live open to as many frequencies of Light as you might integrate into your awareness. There is no “guilt” to this situation only cause and effect, it is what it is and clearly it’s time we realize we are living such a small reality that we will collapse as a species if we don’t expand into a greater relationship with our kingdom of light. How that happens I can’t say all I can say is the symptoms of our situation are dire and there’s no way anyone can realistically play dumb here anymore. Of course that doesn’t stop most people from trying and for real I just don’t get it. Could be the humans greatest addiction is suffering in general, even when we transform a life from sickness to wellness many still cling to identities of suffering keeping their life small so as to believe in the lies of safety is a small reality, that is a lie.

Living in a Kingdom of light has a great compelling call to step deeper and deeper into that light. As this way of living opens before us the attachments to the world as an identity or place of refuge and legacy becomes less and less interesting. There is nothing left to prove, no more desire to be good enough for the world. What happens is the passion to live the way of your light into this world of form. Living your ideas and dreams, being a witness to life on Earth all the while your creating the forms of your passion and talents.

I still like the smell of fresh cut hay and street taco stands with a crew of Patriots feeding on the art of the Taco and sipping a cold Pacifico. A good Horse is still as close to God as any religious idol I’ve ever known and swimming in a cool river with your kids on a smoking hot day is Heaven on Earth. A kingdom of Light is a place of mystery and magic when you allow what’s been offered the chance to reveal itself to you. There will be more coming with my Kingdom of Light, a lot more as I sit here right now and that is worth showing up for, one day at a time, heart and mind, body and Spirit open and loving the next turn of the wheel. “You tell me there’s an Angel in your tree, did he say he’d come to call on me”, Elton’s singing “Burn Down the Mission” now. I’ll be looking for the smoke signals.

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