Time line Peru

After arriving in Lima, a seven hour flight from Atlanta, Georgia, USA, I met up with Meg and Patricia, my co-leaders on this Journey into Peru. I use the word "into" intentionally..we were doing much more than being "in " Peru we were going "into" the heart of this beautiful place of light and dimensions of the mind and spirit.

Our first afternoon we all went down to the beach, La Playa, in Mira Flores. The Ocean in Lima is great, dark and mysterious. There were some 4-6 foot waves so of course I had to rent a surfboard and a wet suit and paddle out. What a great metaphor for my life these days.Paddling out into a new Ocean for the first time is moving into the unknown. Of course all Oceans are related but each has it's own unique feel and energy.There is always a touch of anticipation and anxiety entering a new break for the first time. As I made my way through the white water and out toward the break I was back home once again with the Mother, the Sea. I stayed out for a couple hours playing with the waves and taking in the stark beauty and contrasts of the Lima shore line. There are no beaches there, at least not sandy ones. The Beaches were all cobble stones with tall stone and dirt cliffs rising above the coastal hiway across from the beach. The water was like a warm summer afternoon in California..maybe 65 degrees.

While I was surfing my friend Iva Peele and her cousin were taking pictures of the local surfers with Iva's pin hole camera. You see Iva has this cool camera and a get up of Angel wings, real ones ,feathers and all and a stark white mask that she travels with taking a series of Angels on the edge all over the world.Surfers are always into the unique and creative so there was no shortage of volunteers to don the angel garb and pose on that rocky beach. When I came in from the waves there were great stories of the whole production and a cast of characters hanging out with the Angel women.

The next day was the opening of our Journey into the mystery of Peru, past , present and future. With no idea of what lie ahead I said lets go to the Cathedral in Old Lima. The Cathedral of San Fransisco is a beacon of light on top and hell below. There are 500 year old Catacombs beneath this beautiful Church that hold the bones of 25 to 50 thousand native Peruvians from the time of the Inquisitions.Before we ever saw the remains Iva stopped and asked me if I felt odd here, yes, I did and the feeling was not one of light and beauty. She immediately got a terrible head ache and wanted to leave but I was interested to find out what was beneath this Cathedral that felt so heavy and suffer able.The further we walked the more amazed and intrigued I was with the great adobe wells filled with thousands of bones all stacked and organized like a proud display of the old Catholic Church. It was sick, twisted, sad and insane all at the same time. This was a mirror of human darkness. To make it even stranger as we walked around we ran into a Cardinal with his entourage of Priests all taking in the history and glory of the Church. God from God , Light from Light , True God From True God. This was the underworld, for real, and we were walking through the history of the humanity with all our suffering, fear and insanity displayed out for all to see.

At one particularly beautiful display of skulls I stopped, took a braid of Sweet grass out of my medicine bag, lit it and gave all my love and light to these beings who became subjects to the legacy of Human meanness and power gone mad.That was enough, we had to get out of there and again on our way out we walked into the Cardinal and his crew as they prayed for the souls of their Church's victims.I needed Sunlight, air and the blue sky to cleanse me of the feelings of hopelessness and Hell that welled out from those Catacombs.

We stopped outside and I took out my sweet grass again with some Agua de Florida and we all said prayers into the light and cleansed our selves.

Walking away I knew this journey into Peru was going to be a great opportunity for me to let go of my personal Hell and my own connection to the Inquisitions that I have waged against myself and my life.There was nothing in those dark corridors that has not been present in my life by my own doing. I have judged with out compassion, I have feared from ignorance, and I have moved with those in power when I knew that their ways were not ok but went along anyway.I accept my inheritance of Human suffering and blindness and I will not be defined by it or settle for it. Through out the last 12 years I have unraveled my attachments and relationships to the world I was born into. Life has so much greater love and opportunity for us than our minds ability to understand or control.

That was just the beginning of my twelve day initiation of spirit with the Spirit Of the Lightning and Apus of the Inca world. The rest of the story will come later...for now I need to remember that accepting what is with out question is the way of a world gone mad, the truth is within us and it is from with in that the dream of Heaven will be reborn on Earth. Peace be with you all..Vaya con Dios, Lee

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.