Thought of the Day

"Patriarchy" is the consciousness of fear, and it is fueled by shadow. Men's lives are violent because their souls have been violated. It is past time for men to do their work.

Awakening the New Masculine: The Path of the Integral Warrior

Integral Warriors: The Importance of Living On Your Edge

"Freedom, power, fear, money, sex, enlightenment, death, wisdom, excellence, challenge, transcendence, purpose--living at your edge is the masculine form of spiritual practice. No man is truly happy unless he is living a life of facing his fears and transcending them in his quest to give the gift he was born to give." - David Deida

What does it take for a man to live a masculine life of integrity, authenticity, and depth? What does it mean to live at, or just beyond your edge?

Being at our edge is about embracing fear and uncertainty, about growing, and about getting out of our comfort zone because staying comfortable in one spot too long is really like dying. Yes, there are times when we should relax, times for reflection, and time to be alone to rediscover our mission or purpose, but then we have to climb back out of the safety of our cocoon and embrace life. A man is not fully satisfied unless he is on purpose in his life.

There are too many places that I live on my edge to talk about here, and it appears to be something I'm quite good at, but there's one place I'd like to share with you. It's about facilitating the men's group, "Integral Warriors." When I was putting the group together, and not sure it would happen, a co-worker asked, "what makes you qualified to lead a men's group?" I could have turned that into a self-limiting belief, but instead followed my heart, where I knew inside that this is part of my purpose. I wrote about it to Anyaa, my beloved, last night:

The Men's group was amazing last night! I spoke about my edge at the group, even speaking to the fact that group is my edge (who am I to lead such a group of amazing men?), but here I am stepping into it successfully, and each of them loves the group and shows up every 2 weeks to be in the space I've created......Then their gratitude came up around what I've done, and how even the men who belong to MKP and other groups consider this their favorite and most provocative group......what a blessing!!!!

It's all about living at your edge and the quickening of sacred awakening through doing so, being alive and on purpose.

Are are you living at, or slightly beyond, your edge? Why not? What's stopping you?

photo of Gary at the top of Mt. Si, in Washington

Enjoy Every Sandwich: An Account of a Personal Shamanic Journey Through Breathwork

This is the very personal and courageous story of one man's journey through a day long Shamanic Breathwork that recently took place here in Seattle with our Shamanic Breathwork Group, which meets approximately once a month. I offer it here with the author's permission with no comment, except for this powerful process, and the journeyer, who asked not to be identified, to speak for itself. - Gary

10-13-2007:

Today I attended a shamanic breathwork workshop at Gary Stamper’s house, facilitated by Jeff Burger. The first thing Jeff did as we were gathering for the workshop was to invite each of us to pick a tarot card from where he had them spread out in a circle. One card was directly in front of me, a corner pointing directly at me, so I picked it – The Knight of Wands. This was from the Crowley Tarot and the knight was on a horse rampant, facing left. His cloak spread out behind the horse to where it looked like flames under and behind the horse. In his left hand he was thrusting forward with a wand that was a burning firebrand.

Jeff had a way of explaining the Tarot that was so much more clear and intelligible than anything I’ve read and I wish I could remember everything he said about the Knight of Wands. What I do remember: The wands are creative, masculine, fire energy and the knight of wands is the manifestation of the mature masculine. He has come through the fire and is now able to take that creative fire energy out into the world and wield it for good – or something to that effect. This spoke to me of wisdom, skillful means and the ability to manifest my passion in the "real world" in a creative and meaningful way and I said, “Well that’s certainly where I’d like to be!”

The breathwork technique is pretty simply, deep, belly breathing at a slightly rapid rate that induces a bit of hyperventilation. I started out breathing deeply and felt my hands starting to tingle and sweat. At some point I was working at it and thought, “this is too much work, why is nothing happening?” At that thought I backed off and just went on breathing more normally. This did not produce any “results” so I started breathing deeply again thinking, “I’m not quitting, I’m not giving up on this.” I kept going but still nothing was happening and I began feeling a little disappointment. I remember thinking that if nothing happened I certainly would not be coming back for any more of these workshops. I backed off yet again and started breathing more normally, then gathered my resolve once more and began breathing the technique again.

As I kept up the breathing I started feeling really hungry, to the point of distraction, and had a vision of the pastrami on rye sandwich I’d brought for my lunch. I became completely preoccupied with this and found myself wishing this whole thing were done so that I could eat my sandwich. I felt frustration that I was preoccupied with eating lunch and then it struck me as really odd that I had come here for this experience and the only thing I wanted was to quit and go eat my pastrami on rye sandwich.

At that point my hands were getting numb and were cramping from the hyperventilation. This didn’t bother me as I knew what it was and I knew it would go away on its own. I had a sense that I was experiencing the torticollis in my hands rather than in my neck and I was able to kind of “play” with this feeling. I realized at that moment that my neck was not bothering me at all, it had transitioned to my hands, and I felt tickled by this, I chuckled just a bit. The sandwich was still in my mind however and I began to see a dark tunnel before my vision, the shamanic tunnel to the underworld, but there was this giant, luminous pastrami on rye sandwich hovering just inside the entrance to the tunnel. This again struck me as both odd, and frustrating. I knew without a doubt that I was on the very verge of slipping into the altered state of consciousness and launching into the shamanic journey I had come here fore, but I was still preoccupied with this damned pastrami on rye sandwich. And then something switched on in my mind and I realized I was “there.” I wasn’t distracted by the pastrami on rye, the pastrami on rye was the message – or more precisely, the symbol of the message, and I suddenly had this expansive sense of both the grand humor and comedic irony of life. I began to laugh. I laughed and laughed, a deep belly laugh. And that part of me in the back of my mind that stayed conscious realized that this was the trigger and I was now fully into the journey.

Then as I was laughing, still seeing this pastrami on rye sandwich hovering within the tunnel to the underworld, the words came to me; “Eat every sandwich,” and I instantly had this sense of both grief and admiration for Warren Zevon and all of those who, like him, had died a heroic death;* that, and by implication the loss of all loved ones, and shining stars; but also of the loss of life one experiences, and more precisely that I have experienced, when we go through life not “eating every sandwich,” not living life fully. And then I began to cry. I cried for a long time, cried deeply, and that kind of general, all inclusive grief turned to very specific grief for the loss of my Dad twenty years ago now, and I began crying even deeper. I remember feeling like I was reaching into the tunnel, which was still present, like I was trying to reach across the threshold and embrace my Dad. Pull him back. I kept half sobbing his name, but I was still self-conscious enough not to do so completely out loud (unfortunately)

There was a profound sense of the loss of my Dad and a feeling of, “I’m not ready for this.” I’m not ready for dad to be gone, I’m not ready for the responsibility, I’m not ready to be a man, I’m not ready to be a father, a husband, a (profession deleted), etc., etc. And there was a sense of having never fully lived up to all of these responsibilities because of my lack of ability to “Enjoy every sandwich” to be fully present and comfortable in my own skin at any given moment in time. And I cried for a long time, and even when the crying was done and I lay there relaxed and spent, I still dwelt in this space and kept these things in mind. This was a gift. I remembered what Mac Hall had told me in preparation for the Native American Church ceremony he had invited me too so many years ago, “At some point during the night the medicine [Peyote] will speak to you” – and he was right. Here I felt the same thing; The medicine had spoken to me, given me a gift. The gift was the message, certainly, but more profoundly, it was the experiencing of having, for the very first time in my life, reached down and touched that place of deep grief which I have known for long that I must open up, but have never known how to get there.

Hmmm, I wonder what would have transpired if I hadn’t stopped into the Safeway in the morning and bought that Pastrami on rye.

* I recalled the quote here as “Eat every sandwich”, but the actual quote was “Enjoy every sandwich.” This was Warren Zevon’s response when David Letterman asked him what advice he had for folks as he, Zevon, was facing immanent death from terminal cancer. “Enjoy every sandwich” was Zevon’s irreverent way of saying live life fully so that there will be no reason for regret at the end. Despite my “misquote” during the breathwork, it was the meaning of the quote that affected me regardless.

After not having visited a doctor in 20 years, Zevon was diagnosed with inoperable mesothelioma in 2002. Rather than wallow in self pity, Zevon boldly took responsibility for the hard “rock and roll” life he had lived; booze, drugs, smoking, etc., and accepted his impending death openly. Zevon chose to eschew treatment for the cancer so that he could record a final album with many of his friends; knowing all the while that the treatment may have extended his life, but would otherwise be incapacitating and would have negatively affected his ability to complete his final project. On September 7th, 2003, Warren Zevon died in his sleep shortly after laying down to take a nap. I had been a fan of Zevon’s work for many years and the manner in which he faced his death is a great inspiration to me and makes him, in my eyes, a giant among men – a true hero.

Spiritual Exploration for Men

Drinking beer, sports, and watching TV can be a lot of fun for men, but they're not exactly ways that we can push each others' edges. Being masculine at later stage consciousness, and living the life men most deeply desire, requires that we face our fears, open against the urges to close down, overcome what's getting in the way of our inertia, find our direction, and be authentic.

The Men's Challenge Deck, by Rob Biagini, and based on David Deida's book The Way of the Superior Man, is designed to help men connect with their deepest levels. It's purpose is "to create safe, structured situations where men challenge each other to overcome perceived limitations and and learn together from their experiences."

The deck is to be used in groups whose direct purpose is to enhance each member's personal and spiritual growth through the practice of encouraging each man to live at his edge. The men's group I facilitate, Integral Warriors: Embodying the New Masculine. is just such a group.

We are here to encourage, scold, love, challenge, consult with, listen to, learn, cry, and laugh with each other; to share what's going on with each other, in our lives and our missions. Most importantly, this group reflects the truth about myself to me.

We often see ourselves differently than the rest of the world sees us. It can be be both a great gift and shock to receive this kind of feedback. In the words of the Scottish poet Robert Burns:

Oh wad some power the giftie gie us,
tae see ouerselves as ithers see us.

A Challenge to Wake Up

So why am I writing about 9/11 conspiracy theories, not-so-secret plans for world domination by the military industrial complex, etc., etc.? All you have to do is look at history to thoroughly support "so what's new?" Things simply have not changed that much, and still the majority of us aren't conscious enough to know or care. We have our drugs of choice, happily supplied by those who would dominate us.

I left "religion" at twelve. I could not reconcile myth and science, and no one in my circle was talking about myth as allegory, only as fundamentalist truths with no room for questions, which I could not accept. I wandered for years as an atheist at first (my only option), and later as as agnostic. It wasn't until a few years ago that I became aware of something bigger than I. Call it "Spirit," the Universe, collective consciousness, or even God, as long as it isn't dualistic.

My own sense is that Spirit, The Universe (my preferred words of choice), is a collective consciousness that we're all connected to. Not just people, but a collective consciousness that encompasses the entire universe, which includes us. I believe (a belief that cannot be proven) that the entire Kosmos is conscious and that we're able to somehow tap into that with practice, attention, intention, and our own consciousness. If we're a part of the all, then that makes perfect sense.

We just have to learn to listen.

Believing that, I've been experimenting with Dialoging with Spirit: Conversations with God, if you will, different from petitionary prayer, and little irreverent. I think Spirit has a sense of humor. After all, could Spirit possibly embed a quality into creation that it didn't already posess? It's talking to Spirit, me, and everyone else at the same time. After all....how are we different?
I've had two recent experiences where I believe Spirit has directly spoken to me, something I would have laughed at years ago. One was when Anyaa and I were fretting about whether we'd get something we really wanted and it looked like it was going south on us. Through meditation and dialog, I asked the Universe (and me, and the collective unconscious) to give me a clue. That night I startled awake from a dream where I was told, "Gary, I only do the big things, not the little ones."

I immediately called and woke up Anyaa, 2700 miles away in North Carolina, to tell her of my dream. The message was clear to us both that if our desire did not pan out it was because there was a bigger picture yet to be revealed and that we should just relax into what was to be, and we did - and the worry was gone.

My second experience happened last Saturday, during a Shamanic Breathwork journey (see my earlier posts on this amazing process!), in the form of a vision. In that vision, my disembodied self flew into the Kosmos, hooked up with Spirit as light, and we danced across galaxies, solar systems, Magellan clouds, and universes....The Universe showed me an infinite number of worlds in an infinite universe, where conscious beings were struggling to survive. Some with consciousness just struggling out of the primordial mud, some far advanced from us, some at he same tipping point which determines our survival as a planet.

The Universe/Spirit explained to me that every planet that holds consciousness must go through exactly what we're going through, now. This time in every planet's development decides whether we are worthy of taking the next evolutionary step into a shared Universal Kosmic Consciousness, or whether we commit planetcide. It was further explained that many intelligences do not survive this time, and the planet is left to begin anew, because life, consciousness itself, always pushes on, always emerges, with, or without, us.

The choice is ours, and that's why I'm writing about this stuff. In good conscience (and good consciousness) I can stay silent no longer, I must speak out.

And I believe that if you're conscious, and not asleep, or drugged, that you must also speak out. We must create the disorienting dilemmas that cause people to question and wake up.

Hurry....there's not much time left.

image: www.es.com/.../digital_theater/shows/universe/

More on Integral Relationship

Bill Harryman, Integral Options Cafe, has five excellent articles on Integral Relationship, beginning here. They are well worth reading.