A QUESTION OF SPIRITUALITY-Mystery and Recovery

My name is Lee and I'm a ...human being. My being human comes with a lot of information, coding, traits, definitions, stories and most of all Mystery. Working and creating within the paradigm of what is called the "recovery" world is a great format for witnessing how being human interacts with all the constructs that surround us as life and culture in this world.

"Recovery" as we refer to it was born of the experiences of Bill W. and the subsequent evolution of the 12 steps as, first, a fellowship, and then a format for conducting the business of recovery known as "treatment". In my personal experience I found a great deal of mystery in the BIG BOOK of A.A., mystery that seemed to be lost to the literal translations of those that I connected with during my time of attending meetings and seeking support as I "recovered" my life. When I read "and we do recover" I believed it and so I have.
You see what I have learned over the years is that our human mind seeks the validation to support what that mind has come to believe the truth to be. The mind believes itself. When we live our lives following the peculiarities of our mind we will seek to associate with people that support or agree with what we have accepted as "truth". Truth in this instance is merely what we have chosen to believe. Believing our self or anyone else does not truth make.Belief is belief, truth exists whether we believe in it or not.

Truth is the presence of Mystery that fills in all the spaces between what we think we know and all the rest of creation.Our mind demands to "know". Our mind has no real concept of that Mystery that surrounds all of us, all the time. We attempt to live as though we have life all figured out and all the answers are contained in our vast wealth of information and knowledge.I was not taught as a child to live a relationship with the Mystery as well as the world. My awareness has grown from my restless natural tendency to not accept what should be good enough as an answer. I became my own guinea pig in search of a true, authentic Spiritual connection.The rest is my experience and has led me to the freedom I was seeking all those years of living unhappy, scared and crazy.

In our culture we are taught that we are only as "good" or valuable as is our contribution to society. We must fit in and be a part of the system to have real value. From how much money we make to how "good" we look, to the number of initials we attach to the end of our name, Americans are taught that self worth is a measurable commodity and by following the rules set for us we can and should achieve happiness. If we don't choose to follow the rules, well, then your on your own.If you follow the rules and don't make it to happy and satisfied then either you are ungrateful or you just need to keep chasing the shadow of success. These same rules have been attached to spirituality as organized religion. Play by the rules of your chosen religion or? Even in "recovery" we are taught that we should follow the "program" or go it alone with some associated label like non-compliant or seeking an easier softer way. There is not much room for our unique Spiritual nature in these structures. Comply or be an outcast.

Addressing that Mystery as the greatest aspect of our true nature is not usually acknowledged in the process of healing and Recovery. Spirituality has become reduced down to a definition or lesser aspect of a process that gives greater importance to how we measure up in the eyes of our therapists, if your a client or our colleagues, if a professional, whichever fits.We have given such power to the medical aspects of Recovery, medications and diagnosis, that symptom management has taken the place of getting to the source of the dis-ease, our disconnect from the Mystery within.Certainly Medicine is an important aspect of Recovery and it is just an aspect. As long as we live with fear of the unknown, Mystery,we will never "know" the truth that can only be found within.Connecting to the Truth within opens us up to all that life holds as possibility and frees us from our addiction to need and judgment as a measure of happiness and success.

There is nothing new about my point of view. You can read it in Eckharts Tolle's work or A COURSE IN MIRACLES or the teachings of don Miguel Ruiz or the Kaballah or any one of the many mystery schools that have been sources of expansive consciousness for thousands of years.

Those mystery schools were the living of what we call spirituality and have survived by requiring their participants to live their own unique creative relationship with the cause and effect of the respective schools practices and teachings. The mystery school is not a literal, tells you what to think or do process.
A mystery school is alive, spontaneous, creative and demanding that to participate you must let go of what you think you know or your experience will be limited by your attachment to that knowing.

As one who lives a relationship with the mystery and also with the world of recovery I believe it is time we examined all these things that we say we believe or know and hold sacred as though to question them would somehow be disrespectful.What are we afraid of , really? We certainly have not achieved a level of success with what we offer our clients that would allow us the privilege of being beyond question. We're just not that good.

There can be no happy, joyous and free without the integration of Spirit and mystery, with knowledge, science, belief and faith.

This is an amazing time in the history of this world. There are no aspects of what we humans have accepted as truth or fact that are not going to be challenged. This is the time to let go and let that God within merge with our having lived for what the world would offer us as good enough. Maybe, as many of the ancient prophecies have proclaimed, Heaven is returning to Earth...maybe Hell...For me the less I hang onto the easier it is to rise to the surface.

How about you, what are you hanging onto that may be in need of questioning? How much of an awareness do you live with the Mystery? Have you recovered? Will we allow Heaven or demand hell? It's all a matter of courage and choice, just like we tell our clients...

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.

And The World goes Around.....

I'm sitting at my kitchen table in my Casa Azul, The Dreaming House, Teotihuacan , Mexico. On the stero is a mix cd I made last January before we moved out of our Seaboard Road home in Malibu and made the journey to our little beach house on the warm, wet, west coast of Mexico. The music from one frame of life bridging the scenes of two more recent frames...there's Krishna Das...ommmmm ahhh...he's not a human, he's Gods soundtrack appearing as man and his chants are vibrating through this little blue house in one of the worlds most amazing sacred places where somehow I found a door way to the heaven that lives in me.

My flight from Nashville to Mexico City left at 5:30 this morning so I've been up since 2:30 and the spacey perspective I'm in right now is perfect.In the distance there are giant fireworks going off all around the Pueblo, this is fiesta week for the Pueblo of San Sebastian Xolapa, Teotihuacan.When it's the Fiesta for your Patron Saint the whole Pueblo get's in the street , goes to mass , shoots off fireworks, drinks great quantities of tequila and gorges on killer fresh tamales. My timing is perfect.

Walking outside at 3:30 this morning was the beggining of a reality bending day in the life of reality spinning me.Everything was covered in frost. There was no moon or stars just a flat midnight blue sky hanging heavy with cold artic air. Artic air that had drifted all the way from, the arctic, to freeze the world of middle Tennessee in place.

Climbing in my pickup was a cold on the ass wake-up call. Quick, turn on that seat heater, I remember thinking it was a stupid accessory in a pick-up when I bought the truck but right then it was great.

At Nashville International Airport I went through the security line as usual til the Security lady said she needed to search my carry-on bag. No problemo, two pillows,some books,my day timer,and a Huichol shoulder bag that I use on Journeys to carry my tools.The security lady thought the Huichol bag was suspect so she reached in an pulled out a bag of tobacco I carry for ceremony, she smelled it and looked at me like..strange. Next she reached in and pulled out a Cheynne Peyote Rattle with my favorite old horses tail hair hanging from the handle. This time she shook her head in disbelief, again looking at me but not saying anything. Next, a beaded turkey bone whistle that comes in handy calling to the spirits and allies of the other dimensions. I was all ready to tell her just that when she just grunted and placed it on the table.One more reach into the bag and she found a brass tibetan bell that I picked up at a great shop on Bermuda and learned to use to tune up the space your in from my friend Frank "Rico" Hayhurst in Peru.Next was a small bag of sage from Malibu and a little Christmas ornament that Lola put in my bag the night before.
"So just what do you do with this stuff?", the officer asked with a disturbed glare. "Their just tools", I replied as I put everything back in the baq and sat down to put my shoes back on. "Hummm" she grunted and went back to task keeping America safe from people stranger than me.

Creedence Clearwater Revival is now running through "Suzie Q" like it was 1972, fireworks in the background and here I sit blogging on life as Lee.It's all so bizzare and interesting. This must be the work of the Gods to jump dimensions, soundtracks, realities and lingos with just a little love and attention.

Tomorrow a group of courageous characters will join me here at The Dreaming House for a journey through the Dreaming mind of Quetzelquatal, the avatar of Teotihuacan. While I'm leading their journey there will be empty waves breaking in front of our Sayulita beach house and below freezing temps at The Ranch in Tennessee.We'll all be one day closer to December 13, 2012 and maybe one more human somewhere out there will wake up to the power that they hold to live and love life without conditions.Oh yeah and our furniture will be on it's way from Malibu to the Ranch. Easy does it...keep your tools handy and be polite to the Homeland security officers,they are doing their best.
Sing it Elton, "And now I know Spanish Harlem are not just pretty words to say, and I thank the lord for the people I have found...while Mona Lisa's and Mad Hatters sons of bankers, sons of Lawyers turn around and say good morning to the light....VAYA CON DIOS

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

Letting Go

I haven't seen the sun for 6 days...Tennessee winter , rain, wind, cold, grey. Driving around Nashville looking at houses that are to big,too much, like fat double cheese burgers, and, too expensive so they sit in the neighborhoods empty with signs proclaiming "Reduced" or "New Price".
There's so much stuff everywhere in this Land of The Not Free at All, that it is depressing and empty feeling.All this stuff that has been given so much importance and value and everywhere I look people are afraid and complaining and alone in their cars and Christmas is depressing for everyone because they can't keep feeding the need for even more to keep how they really feel inside at a distance.
Now it's the day before yesterday , late in the afternoon and Bella, my 6 year old and I are driving through the pastures at The Ranch looking at the cows. The cows have hay and water and they are literally fat and happy...that's a relief, they are happy and some say dumb I don't agree but ok, so what, they aren't stupid like us humans. A cow can find happiness in a good meal and a place out of the cold wind to lay down and rest. We've become way to important to appreciate such simple gifts from life. We demand more and more and more....I miss Mexico.
As we idle through the fields I look across the river and there's a great Bald Eagle sitting on the branch of a huge old Sycamore tree watching us. I stop the pick up and point her out to Bella,"Wow, she's beautiful Daddy", Bella puts down her window and leans out making some call to the Eagle. I don't know where that came from and I smile.
Earlier that morning I was standing in the driveway out side our double wide at the Ranch talking with my friend and partner Julie Norton when I looked across the river, 5 miles from where Bella and I had seen the Eagle, and soaring over the pasture was a great white headed Bald Eagle with his tail feathers fanned out as he hovered over a beaver pond that I'd told my cow crew to leave be since I like to take my girls out to see how the beavers work their magic. The Eagle was looking for a meal and I was needing to see something to remind me that all this creation is here to support the coming of the light back into this world.
Two Bald Eagles in one day when seeing one is rare here and I have to look in my minds mirror and say "Enough with the drama White Boy, remember who you work for and lets keep moving , there's so much to do". I talk to the voices in my head. I don't usually believe them but there are some voices that seem to come from another place, beyond where what I "think" is King.
This Ranch recovery Center began with a vision I had in the desert in Tucson 11 years ago and today I'm realizing I'm returning to bring what has been so graciously shared with me over the last 6 years of living between Mexico and California back to the land where I began to re-dream my reality , from Hell to Heaven on Earth.
In a strange way it's perfect that this American Dream is melting down all around us while The Ranch is coming into it's 10th year of offering perspective to those who can't make the reality they've been living work for them any more.There will be more and more people offered life's great opportunity to question what they believe and let go of how they demand and judge and if the invitation is widely accepted this will be a great place to live a life. If life's invitation is pushed back on and the old ways are defended rather than let go of , well then, like all addicted people there will be new levels of fear and suffering ahead cuse the truth of life just won't go away, thank Buddha.
I hear the wind blowing outside and Mee's drinking all the coffee so I'd better get up and get me some and go seek the light in this gray Tennessee Morning....A Big Christmas Hug to You All, Love, Lee

Simply Aware

It's Wednesday afternoon. Yesterday evening I returned home from another Spirit Recovery Journey to Teotihuacan, Mexico. Entering into the body of Teo, as we call our home there, is always a walk into the truth of life and that truth is a great mystery.This was a special journey that brought together a group of people who all connected like the spokes on a wheel, all pointing to the center. This was the first Buddhist/Toltec Journey I'm aware of, ever , in the ancient history of Teotihuacan.My friend Kevin Griffin brought years of practice and perspective to our adventure leading us all in meditation and Buddhist teaching then shifting to a student on his first journey to Teo.

The blending of meditation with the Buddhist energies and the power of the Toltec mysticism opened a great spectrum of possibilities for all of us involved.

Ok, so I was just writing away when my daughter called me" Daddy, there are whales in the front of our house", Bella was jumping up and down on the front porch and pointing to the great white plumes of spray coming from the family of whales passing by, headed south.From Teotihuacan to the present in a flash, from writing my memory and story to seeing these great creatures of the sea, traveling the coast of Mexico.Life flashes and with it my attention shifts to the horizon and the whales.

Living these days is a mastery of shifting attention. I have a lot of choices , everyday, as we all do. After years of working, living and playing with my self and how I move through time and space as a human being , I have actually become grounded in the choices and the living as a projection and reaction to my choosing.
Standing on the porch with the energy of Teotihuacan buzzing through my veins I'm completely in tune with the Whales, the sound of the waves, my Bella's excitement..and that's it...I don't have so much to say now, so I won't...in fact I want to go for a body surf and get smashed on the sand bar....

Next Saturday we all fly back to Tennessee and The Ranch for Christmas. Like changing channels life keeps moving ..Onward...Here comes Santa Claus...Vaya Con Dios...Lee