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

Whirlwind

It is Friday morning, Febuary 13th, the day before Valentines day.I'm sitting in the basement of our newly leased home in Nashville. This is my space, the "man cave" as Mee, my esposa, tagged it. These last few weeks of moving , shifting, driving back and forth to the Ranch, have been a whirl wind of feeling, inspiration, sadness and creativity. I left Tennessee 7 years ago when Mee and I hooked up. I left for the west coast, Malibu and the waves of my childhood dreams. All through those seven years I felt a thread of connection that kept pulling my attention and heart to look back toward Tennessee but not enough of a pull to come back to stay.
My m.o. has been to create and move on, while looking for another or other home base. Tennessee will always be a home base but like leaving your parents house as a kid it's not where I want to settle down.Working in Malibu with three different recovery programs was a good experience and a frustrating one..frustrating cuse what I would see as vision seemed to be lost to the people I worked for or with. When it comes to creating doorways back to integrity I won't compromise for the sake of fear or maximizing profits. Staying with my vision has been a big part of The Ranch, here in Tennessee, evolving into a most spectacular offering to those willing to recreate their lives away from suffering toward what they are inspired to live as happy, joyous and free individuals.
Over time people have come to refer to what I do as "Spiritual" work or spiritual recovery. With my friend Gary Seidlers encouragement I started SPIRIT RECOVERY as a brand name to use for what would be created in addition to the treatment center work. Spirit recovery is an accurate label...that is what we are offered should we decide to really undo our attachments to how we were taught, as children, to see and live in this world.Our Spirit is our truth, our essence. Our spirit is born into this world and is not of this world. When our physical body dies our spirit is free to return to source should we die with the awareness that we are not "of this world".
Working in the treatment business leaves very little room for a practice of Spirit as the truth of who or what we are and who or what we might recover. When recovery is all about measuring up, then fitting in and following rules is more important than authenticity and connection to that Great Mystery that is the truth of life.We throw around the term Spirituality as a component of recovery as though it is a separate external part of us, something we aspire to that's out on the horizon with our higher power or God..somewhere "out there".
There is no out there. There is no separation between recovery, spirituality, clean days, peace, freedom or suffering. Those are all just words that all have a different exact meaning depending on who you might be talking to at the time. Even the word spirituality will morph and shift as we move through life, if we are paying attention to anything beyond what we believe.
My relationship with myself is my relationship with God or Spirit. I can't possibly treat God or spirit any better than I treat myself. I am an aspect of the one that created me so my closest relationship with God or spirit is me. If I would honor God then I must honor myself , if I would love God then I must love myself. When I've had this conversation with others, many times I'm told that I have a selfish point of view...I don't think so. Me being less than is a self important, excuse for not having the willingness to accept the truth within me as my guiding light. There is no program or Church or book of prophecy that can even begin to touch the living presence that animates this form of mine.Unless creation is an inconsistent factory of life then there is perfection within each creation and how that perfection is expressed is Creators business, not mine. My role is to love it all and have faith in that mystery that I'll never "understand" ,and, will always live in closest relationship with.That mystery is the truth, how we define and measure that mystery is our folly and choice. So what, big deal...
With all that said, my return to Tennessee is my honoring that calling from within that I just can't ignore today. I tried, even when I'd be surfing in my beloved Mexico I'd hear that voice within say.."it's time to go back to The Ranch for a while", "oh come on". I'd plead, "this is where I belong, we love it here, this is our mothers land and I'm being good"...no reply, just that feeling that, damn it, I gotta go back.You see I love that voice and the feeling that comes with it even when I don't like what it's saying. I honor that voice because I honor myself and that voice comes from the deepest aspect of myself.My personality won't be happy, not at first anyway, and my physical body still feels sad about leaving Mexico but I am not bound by the yearnings of my physical body.I take care of my physical body but my body does not own me.
I learn from life as I live my life and I pay attention as well as I can to all the aspects of my being human. I am Human and through that relationship I gain experience and wisdom and that's between me and life not me and the World. There are very few institutions in this world that I choose to give power to. As I have learned that peace can only be found within I have let go of needing the world to validate my insecurities. I have methodically taken my power back from all those places, people and things that I had given power to prior to my waking up.There is no judgement involved only an exercising of responsibility. I am completely responsible for what I empower in my life.
As my whirlwind of movement settles back down this heartland of America will be our home again....until the next mission or adventure or "spiritual" calling. Meanwhile , back at The Ranch.....it's time to go to work.

Way too Much Thinking

WHAT WERE YOU THINKING! Heard that before, right? I've said it to myself a million times, what were you thinking....

Thinking is the problem here, not the solution. I think because I've been taught, programmed, demanded of and supported in thinking being the way to live my life.As long as I'm thinking I'm pretty much out of range for any other source of inspiration or source of wisdom. In my working with people that are in "recovery", italicized because I don't care for that label being an identity as though people in recovery are separate from all the other people walking around on the planet.Once again, recovery people have been taught to "think" they are different, not normal, as though there is a normal, not.In my work I've asked many times "If you have a problem what do you do about coming up with a solution?" You think about it, right.

Thinking seems to mostly come from old experiences, thoughts, ideas, info, etc...from stuff we've ingested over the course of our lives.All that knowledge is fuel for our minds machinations about who we are, where we are, why we are, are we this, are we that, how do we fit in, how can we be better...Lets go one more step..the mind says, " Is that reasonable?" and we answer our mind, that's what we do, we answer our own mind as though our mind were in charge..is it? Is your mind in charge of your life? Have you ever asked your other self, not the mind self but the one that listens to the mind self, have you ever asked, " Am I my mind", Of course unless you have some awareness beyond the tyranny of your mind you won't get an answer that the mind doesn't craft to fit into it's familiar program. That process alone distorts any new sources of perspective from getting through unscathed.

Beyond all the chatter of mind voices there is a presence that speaks from a deeper, softer, place. Listening to the presence touches feeling and our body. We literally feel the words within. This presence is of the Heart, the sacred heart, eternal heart, the heart of the Mother, Creator, Dreamer. The voice of the heart will not compete with the voices of the mind. Truth has no sense of competition and no need to be right. Truth as brought forward through the voice of the heart is the Divine speaking as Human.

The challenge for all of us who live with "reasonable" as our guide is the challenge to take attention away from the relentless chatter of mind blabber and shift that attention to the feeling and presence of heart language. Living loyal to the mind is living with reaction as the great decider, no W jokes intended but it fits. Our world is the result of how we humans have reacted to our experiences in this world. There wasn't much choice involved, not really. The choices were all limited to the reasons list of options.While we create all this history the Heart goes along for the ride waiting , waiting, for our attention to return to that space within us that has never forgotten what the voice of truth sounds like.That space within us that has been the witness to all the insanity of how we've come to live life in this world.

In my recovery work I've seen over and over people trying to "get it" when getting it is just another aspect of the mind ruling it's domain, you, me, them. We already have "it" we just don't know how to listen and feel with "it"."It" is the presence, truth, Love of life speaking through us and too us. No amount of thinking can make that connection, no amount of figuring it out or being good enough or doing it right can make that connection. That connection has never gone anywhere. That connection is what we are.

Thinking is great as a tool to work through this matrix of life on Earth. Thinking is a great gift when used responsibly. Funny thing is the humans have become thinking junkies and the thinking has lost it's connection to the source that gave it a home in the first place.

My last year living in the Heart of Mexico has brought my attention back to that presence within me and now I see that presence as my guiding light and greatest companion. I'll still think too much but not for nearly as long a time. Ok..time to go...I love you life...Thanks for the little things...Lee

2009 Earth Log- Deep in the Milky Way

The morning came soft and quiet. Middle Tennessee, January, Sunrise.
It's cold outside, white frost blankets the pastures around our double wide. I gotta get up and turn on the heater, the electric heat is too much to sleep well ,so one of us turns it up to 70 degrees when we wake up.
The cows are in the pasture across the road, too far to hear them from inside the house, it's Silent except for the sounds of Bella Lola and Mee sleeping.
Memories flash, I still visit my Dad in the early morning memories that float around my consciousness, he loved Ranch life, cattle, early morning and cold clear air. The storm door on our trailer lets me open the main door and let the light in without freezing us out.
There is a fresh buzz in my body. A new vibe for what I've connected to in my dreaming what my returning to The Ranch will bring. I feel alive and excited and, flash, I'm back in our little beach house in Sayulita looking at the waves, sad creeps into my feelings, sad to be moving on and excited to be coming back to home , Tennessee.
Over the last year I've lived a fantasy and a reality. I've tried to soak up as much of my being in Mexico as I could and know completely that She, The Mother, the heart of Mexico and her people, now beats in my body, in my cells and will do so until I've moved on from being the me in this body. She is only as distant as my attention is turned away from her place within me.

2009 the day of the Lord, When the divinity returns to us....That's Miguel's "Circle of Fire Prayer", I send you my love and respect don Miguel, and thank you for showing up for the children of San Pauncho last October.Dreaming Heaven is our business and what a great business it is.This is the day that I make the commitment to The Mother, La Virgincita, Tonantzin,Maya..our Divine Mother embodied in this Earth and in our form, I make the commitment that for me this is her year and I will carry within me her presence and compassion stopping to remember that she is with me always.

One of my creations will be here at The Ranch where we have an old well that's waited for me to hear her voice..."remember me?", she asks, " I am the well of the Place of the Women in Teotihuacan, I am the heart of the world and I am here within you and around you. Bring me your love and your wounded and we will heal their sadness and fears. Build me a Capilla and decorate me with beauty and dreams and a great light will shine from this place." She called me back from my beach in Mexico to be her helper, of course I say yes,,,although I did ask more than once "are you sure, you know I love my spot in Sayulita and I'll be good"..That's what faith is for me, the willingness to do what needs doing before I let my personality limit me to what is known.

Deep in the Milky Way there is a beautiful green and blue planet that is inhabited by a species of amazing Dreamers who are coming closer to awakening to the truth of their Dreaming. 2009 is here, we are here, the truth is here..all of creation is supporting our coming to the light. That calling has been building for years and all we need do is let go and Dream from Faith.

In the background Mee is running the vacuum cleaner, Bella is decorating a New Years cake for the Laughing Winds Party later and Lola just dumped a whole bottle of chocolate chips on the floor. Thank you Creator for Loving me like this..I am so grateful for it all....Feliz Ano Nuevo...Listen! ....Our Mother is calling you too and she's so happy to have you listen.
Peace Be With You....Lee

Thanksgiving Journey

It's Wednesday Morning, the day before Thanksgiving in the U.S.A.. I'm sitting in my office in the back room of our little Mexican jungle home listening to the sound of Bella,6, and Lola,2, and their cartoons on T.V. Thank You life for those sounds..I love them now more than ever and I've been listening to my babies cartoons for 25 years, my oldest daughter is 25, almost 26.

Just behind the sound of the T.V. I hear the waves breaking on the beach in front of our home..Thank you MaMa Ocean...I have loved you all my life and you have Loved me back in so many ways.

From the kitchen I smell corn meal and Banana pancakes cooking on the grill, that's my Mee, Bella and Lola's Mama, cooking breakfast. Thank you life for setting us up to meet, of course we took it from there and what a trip we are sharing together.

My thanksgiving is all around me, everyday. It's not some far away sentiment for the past or hope for the future. I have no qualifications that must be fullfilled or pieces missing. My life is what it is and I have learned through trial and the art of paying attention that loving life happens right now just the way it is. Thank you life for offering me the opportunity to wake up to my life being my choice and your gift.

First thing this morning I opened my e-mails and had an e-mail from Miles Adcox, our C.E.O. at The Ranch. He was sharing some of what happens at The Ranch on a daily basis and it felt so close and so far away at the same time. Miles has brought 100% of himself to what my partner Julie Norton and I set in motion 10 years ago and he has connected how life works through all of us connected to The Ranch with the rest of the Recovery business with such style and integrity, thank you life for keeping our dream alive and prosperous and always moving forward with you.

As I'm writing this our beloved Nanny {Peggy} and Bubba,{Ted}, Raess have let go of 30+ years in their little magical kingdom on Holmby Ave. in Los Angeles and are moving north to a new magical kingdom in Sonoma County, Ca. Ted and Peggy are the vehicle life used to connect Me and Mee seven years ago. They were my first Toltec teachers and are Bella and Lola's Grand Parents because that's how life connected us. After all Grand Parents are one part blood and three parts love and they got the Love part down like a rug. Thank you life for finding so many cool ways to have our lives interconnected, all we had to do was let it happen.

In a while we'll load up our 98' Suburban Mexi Rig and drive to Guadalajara to spend Thanksgiving with our great friends Lalo and Gina Portillo. Sometimes, the greatest friendships just happen and we didn't have to do anything more than be good and honest with each other and life takes care of the rest. That's exactly what happened between our family and the Portillo family. Thank you life for life being so easy when we stop complicating it.

So to all of us living in this world and all the other worlds that touch ours, Happy Thanks giving.. Humm..by separating the words I just realized that Thanks Giving is like Love or Gratitude, we feel the energy of our offering moving through us into the world and Thanks Giving just feels good moving through. For sure the future will continue to be the result of how we choose, one person at a time, to live and be with and in Life. That's our free will in action and once again, thank you life for allowing us to co-create as we go and hopefully to learn from our creation. We humans have been a bit stuck for a lot of years now but with all the chaos we face today I'm sure we'll wake up to the amazing array of choices that life offers us in every moment and every day.

Finally, to my personal family, I love you all whether we're in this world or wherever we go from here, a big hug to you all. Vaya Con Dios, Lee

Day of the Living, Day of the Dead

It is November first, last night was Halloween. The time when all the scary creatures of the unknown come out to play. The unknown seems to be a terrible place for the minds of modern peoples to go.To appease those scary spirits we give them treats and turn away to the light bright comfort of home.It's really perfect that Halloween is a children's holiday cuse the truth is our children are of the unknown.No matter how we may try to direct them and mold them, support and demand of them they are who they are and will do what they will do.No matter how hard parents may try you can't "make" your children be what you want, we do not know how their life path will unfold. There it is , the unknown, living right there in your house with you.

In Mexico we have the ancient ceremony and celebration of Day of The Dead, dia de Los Muertos. That's a double unknown. First of all there's our world , the one we see, touch, taste etc..then there's the other world where all our deceased relatives have vanished to when they checked out of the "known" world of our everyday life.On Day of The Dead our relatives spirits are invited to come back for a visit and celebrate with the in a body members of the family. All the favorite foods, libations, smokes , pets, clothes , all of that is placed on a family alter to entice the spirits to come home for a visit.Such a cool ceremony to have in a body humans acknowledging that we don't know where we go from here but we do go somewhere that's largely unknown and it's possible that all of us can hang out together again.

I know those that have been close to me and passed on have never left my memory and in some ways are still alive in my stories and heart. They left the physical world but are still very much alive in the etheric world of my memory and emotion.I still talk to my Dad when I'm driving around the Ranch looking at the cattle and horses and often speak to my step Dad when I smoke a good cigar. Those were connections we shared and are still connections that live on with me. They are there, no doubt.

Today, November first is the Day for the children that have died. The families will gather at the Cemetery and lay out spreads of the little ones favorite things and remember them back to spend the time together. That Love doesn't die and so that love reconnects between the worlds to create one bridge through time.

November 2 is the day for the in body and out of body adults to share a day together. We have an alter on our front porch. Lupita, the 16 year old that helps baby sit Lola brought a beautiful picture of her Grand mother, her favorite Grand ma. Mee has her Mom's picture and I have some cigars for A.D. and will put a cold beer and some boiled shrimp out for my Dad.Our alter is lit up with candles and fresh flowers, pictures and pieces of the past that keep us connected through space and time. So for the next two days the living and the dead will be sharing hearts and memories separated only by the sense of touch.It's the love that makes the touch special anyway so love a little more and your really not missing anything at all.

The unknown is one of my closest companions these days. From the unknown I've made up my beliefs and stories of my known.In a lot of ways I am not comfortable when I'm surrounded by a world that's too familiar. The unknown is the realm of potential and possibility. The unknown is where creativity and God dwell, passing through us when we are open enough to allow the unknown a chance to move through us.Life is just too flat unless there's a pinch of fear to keep me on my toes and in the moment.I trust my choices today and not knowing is a life line to allowing that trust to live through me creating as we go. Not knowing makes the Day of the Dead a family reunion of magic and color.Maybe that old saying about the only thing to fear is fear itself fits better if you add the only thing to fear is living only for the known.....Saludos, Lee

Walking Together

We were out of bed at 6 a.m. This was our first Independencia in Mexico—Fourth of July, South of the Border. The morning was overcast so it wasn't too hot. Mee, Lola, Bella and I were headed to San Fransisco {San Pauncho} to walk in the Village Parade. We ate some killer tamales that Lupita's mom made (Lupita is the 16-year-old who takes care of Lola during the weekdays so Mee and I can work a bit), drank a shot of local coffee and off we went.

We were the first family from Bella's Escuela del Mundo to make it to the starting point.Our good friend Gina was also along to support her Mexico's Independence Celebration. By 9:30 the crowd had arrived and we were off to the plaza in the center of the pueblo.

Bella was so proud to be a part of this celebration. I think she must have absorbed some of my love for Mexico. Lola of course was not to be out done so she squeezed into Bella's school group, all two feet of her, and marched along beside Bella toward the sea.

As we walked, the sidewalks and empty lots were filled with the smiling faces of the people of San Pauncho. This was Independence Day with waving flags and food on the streets. The Mexican people are very connected to the dream of Independence. They are proud and still dress with that pride. Mexico has a living connection to the freedom that Independence Day stands for. “VIVA MEXICO, VIVA MEXICO.....”

At the end of the line we stood around the plaza while the kids from the other two schools in San Pauncho recited Patriotic messages and honored their cultural hero's. With the last “Viva Mexico” the group broke into a great street party eating Tacos and Cerviche, drinking Jamaica water and Horchata. While all this was going on the best dressed Queen was chosen from all the kids and she was great, a true Mexican Princessa.

There's a simplicity to life here that I seem to remember from when I was a kid, before I had so many expectations and opinions of what and how everything was "supposed " to be. Everything that happens is not a big production with all the official stuff so thick it overwhelms the fun and simple celebration.

Watching the news the last few days I wonder if the USA isn't headed back to a more simple, genuine life style than what we've aspired to in the last 30 years. It's easy to see where so much faith invested in money, greed and personal wealth as a God, has hit the wall. So the house comes down, like all the kings horses and all the kings men. Can the yahoos in D.C. put it all back together again? I hope not.

I lived a lie for a number of years. Of course at the time I had no idea that's what I was doing, and it was. After the humility and reality of dealing with my delusions and misdirected loyalties, I know today that it took a lot of misery to get me to step back and let go of trying to hold it all together.

I hear President Bush say the economy is still strong, What the fuck is the matter with him? Could he possibly be that stupid? Or is he just such a self absorbed liar that he is incapable of seeing the truth all around him. I say these things not as a finger pointer but as one who has been there myself. Thank God I wasn't President of The United States at that time.

So what do we do now America? Can we get simple and bring our attention back to family and community? Or are we so far gone that we won't let go of demanding that what we think we want we deserve, regardless of how not it's going to happen.

I've watched a lot of addicts not be able to just stop it and let go and most of them are dead now...I think a lot of them never realized that they had a choice, not really. They were just so wired to run on their automatic pilot that no amount of sirens and lights or pain and suffering could get their attention for long.

Where we're at with all this, time will tell, cuse the times they are a changin'.....Vaya con Dios...Lee

A Season of Reconnection

Woke up early this morning to no electricity in the Pueblo. We are easing into the shift from dry season, November to June, to the rainy season, June to November. With the light showers that fell last night the world outside took on a fresh presence this morning. I've always loved the transitions from dry to wet, summer to fall, winter to spring. 

During the 70's I lived in southwestern Colorado and worked for an outfitter part time taking people on horseback pack trips and fishing trips in the Rockies. When winter came with it's great white blanket, I was always amazed how my own back yard would transform into another world. The same area I knew so well all summer was something else beneath the blanket of snow and the stillness of the Mountain winter nights. What I thought I knew so well was actually something else with a simple change of seasons. 

Today, I'm 52 years on Earth. The "me" that inhabits this body has lived many seasons and over the last few years has come fully awake to the magic and mystery of life's continuous transformation. The first 40 years I lived trying to find a comfortable spot to settle in and live happily ever after. Then I got to be such a mess that I was told I needed Rehab to get me on the right track. It took a couple months' consideration and I chose to go check myself into treatment. I really was tired of the way I felt being me, it really was that simple. 

In treatment I was offered lots of information about what I was, and what I suffered from, and what I had to do to be ok. Over time, I kept doing another piece of the "what I was told" and that piece was, to take what fits and leave the rest. I left more than I took, needless to say. 

As my life began to slowly but surely, shift to a new season, I became aware of a voice inside me that was not a voice of fear or Resistance or know-it-all or any of those too familiar voices that had ruled my mind and most of my life. This voice was something else. As I began to listen and sometimes follow this voice, I realized the voice knew me better than I knew myself. When I'd go with the voice, my life moved into a sweeter place, not always immediately, but always as a result of my listening and going with the feeling and guidance of that voice. 

That voice told me to listen to the woman who became my second wife and still does by the way. That voice whispered that if I'd take the chance and go on a journey to Mexico in 2002, (a journey I was on the fence about) that I'd find something I'd been missing. So I went and found Teotihuacan and my doorway to our Divinity. As I've lived with this voice as my guide, the voice has morphed into a feeling as well as a voice. 

Over the years aspects of myself have awakened that, for the first 40 years I'd lost all connection to. I'd lived a whole lifetime disconnected from at least half of my gifts as a human. Why all that happened is not very important now, so I'll just say that disconnection was an inheritance that nobody realized was being passed from generation to generation. I had simply inherited my share. 

Living my reconnection is what is important now and that has brought me full circle from believing and living with the belief that I could only be good enough if and when I lived up to all the expectations of the world. This old belief system was a powerful aspect of a lot of the recovery world that I was participating in as well. I was only as successful as I was compliant with the rules. I hated that. It was so easy for me to feel like a piece of crap and I wanted so badly to feel like I was just ok. 

Sounds like that should have been easy but it wasn't. As I learned to listen to my voice of guidance and feel my way through decisions, I came to realize that the being, "me,"  underneath all the knowing and thinking and story telling, was connected to something much sweeter and more loving and more honest than any of the little "me's" I had played out in the world for so long. Behind all the everything I thought I knew, and everything that was this world to me, there was/is a presence that needs nothing to be at peace. That presence is in me and I know today that presence is the "me" that I disconnected from so long ago in my trying to be good enough. My greatest recovery has been recovering my awareness. Without that I'd still be living for trying to be good enough. 

As I work in the Recovery business I often find myself seeing this work as a doorway for people to wake up to their greatest gifts as humans rather than a desperate attempt to get "it" right. Getting "it" right is that trying to be good enough all over again. The truth is we were never not good enough so chasing "it" will never get us back to what we've disconnected ourselves from. 

I have absolute faith in our wholeness and in the unique gifts that life bestows on each of us and for me this work of Recovery is all about our individual and collective awakening to those gifts and the magical ways that the truth of who and what we really are will be revealed to us. There is no fear in reconnecting to the truth of what we really are, there is only freedom and the courage to live from that place of divinity. This is not a journey just for those who go to rehab or need a program to support their changes, this is the way of the awakening of the Humanity and this is the opportunity for that awakening to be a season of grace and beauty to this world of ours. Vaya con Dios, Peace Be With You, Lee

Between The Worlds

It's Saturday Morning...There's a storm brewing out over the ocean, gray sky, wind chop on the water. I hear the kids playing in the living room and I'm sitting here looking at the screen wondering what's next.

For the last 10 years I've lived in varying degrees of proximity to the recovery world and the whole business scene of recovery. I remember when I went to Twelve Step meetings a lot, the first 5 or 6 years, that there was a reference to recovery not being a religion or even like a religion. A lot of people seemed to get some relief from that idea.

Now after 10 years of being in and around the whole scene I gotta say there's way more similarity between recovery and religion than first meets the eye. They are both organized to be of support for people and both have become institutions that you'd better know the rules both spoken and especially unspoken or you'll be a fringe member at best. What I see is that we, people, have used both as a parking lot for our personal responsibilities. If I join your church then your version of God will be on my side or even my Saviour, but of course the deal is completely conditional on my agreeing with the official version of who and what you say God is etc...In the recovery biz there's the same conditional, meet the panel of judges, criteria if you want to be a full fledged member of the not church. In both cases I'm supposed to go along because that will keep me safe from...me, I guess.

Living afraid of me was a big part of my problem though. I am me and that's all I am so how might I learn to trust me, I am. So, the idea that we have to be all in or all out, that we are either for something or we have to be against it, is another aspect of the same way of thinking that feeds so many of our problems today, both personal and global.

There is a space between these worlds of demanding that I participate on their terms or I can't play at all, and making everything that I don't like wrong. There is a space between feeling and my reactions, between my thoughts and my opinions, between the light and the dark, good and bad, right and wrong, up and down........There is a space between.....everything.

If I give my faith to the church or recovery or anything else, that still does not make the church or recovery responsible for the life I live or the space I'm in with my life. If I'm not comfortable where I'm at, then I leave or at least turn to myself for the why am I not comfortable here. The not comfortable is in Me not in the place I'm at.

Recently living here in Mexico, my wife and I had as profound an experience of something that sets me totally off on attack mode as I can get. This involved kids at my daughter’s school that were acting out symptoms of being physically or even sexually abused. When we spoke out about the situation there was a reaction that, first ,we must be wrong because the topic is too creepy to deal with, then it was openly discussed with the teachers and some of the parents and there was, as I'd expect, an amazing range of responses, from the behavior of the children was normal, to there's something really not okay here, to, but this is "our" little ex-patriot community and we're all friends so we don't want anyone to get upset....What the fuck, these are 5 year old kids and the situation was not good. Well, my wife and I decided to take our daughter out of the school and cut loose from the group of people who were more invested in their Something Else's than in the children's well being.

Now the point is that we both found ourselves feeling creepy toward the whole scene in our little Pueblo. The creepy was a feeling we had in us about the situation, that feeling was not something the village was doing to us, in fact there were only 6 or 8 people involved in the mess at school. We could pack and leave and never see that we were living our own reaction or we can stay put and sort this out.

The truth was, that what was happening was the truth, and we were outside the set of agreements that the people involved at the school, parents and teachers, had been operating from, so our interjections created an issue that they didn't really want to deal with. As it turned out, several people admitted that they knew something was not okay but hadn't known how to address it. We became the bearers of bad news for the adults and good news for the children. Now it's our, my wife and me, our opportunity to allow that space between the worlds to show us how we can stay true to our integrity and not let our reactions make the next choice for us.

We both Love so much of our world here in Mexico and we are not from here, so when we get uncomfortable we are learning to really rely on our self and each other in a whole new way. All the while we are both clear that we are first responsible for our self then our children and then each other. We are living between the worlds of home U.S.A. and choice Sayulita, Mexico just as we live between the worlds of separate, individual and married, together, parents. There is a space between the two and in that space is who we really are, where we really are, living life, the best we have to offer, one day at a time.