Pain and Fear/Feeding Loves Desire

Pain and fear, fear of pain. Several years ago I took a bad fall off of my mare Sheeba. It was early in my horseback riding experience with my daughter Serena.

Ages ago when I was a young man I lived for a short time in New Mexico. While there I learned to ride horses for the first time. I rode like the wind and did things on horses that are duplicated possibly no place else in the universe. Being on a good horse and zooming through time and space as only a horse and rider can. In those days I experienced a oneness with the horse. I had absolutely no sense of fear when I was in the saddle.

But I took Sheeba out one day when my wife Cathy and Serena had gone on some errand. I thought to myself ‘I’m going to take her out and see what we can do.’ When I saddled Sheeba up I didn’t pay sufficient attention to re tightening the girth that holds the saddle onto the horse. So out in the desert far from home as I was galloping into a  turn I put pressure on my right sturrup; if the cinch had been set correctly everything would have been perfect. I would have completed that turn with Sheeba and ridden away into a completely different kind of horse and rider experience than the one that started right there. As my body shifted weight into the stirrup the stirrup gave way as the saddle began to slide sideways off the horses back. In a matter of a second or a second and a half I had to make the decision as to how I was going to hit the ground. I landed on my right side - most heavily on my right hip and when I did I messed my hip up good. Then I had the wonderful experience of being out in the middle of nowhere watching a horse galloping away as fast as she can run. By this time the saddle is completely underneath her and she’s scared because that's not where a saddle is supposed to be and she’s heading for home which her internal compass tells her is somewhere far away.

So I’m there picking myself up and testing my hip and thinking I’m in the desert and I’ve got a seriously injured, perhaps broken hip, and no cell phone so I’m going to have to walk or crawl my way out of there. What would you believe could happen under a circumstance like that? Well I’ll tell you. I limped over to a road and started towards home when a car drove right up and stopped. Inside the car were two very nice ladies who were looking for a piece of property which happened to be right across the street from my little house. They were happy to take directions having been lost previously in a maze of dirt roads and they gave me a ride over to my house.

The upstart of all this was that I could never get on a horse again without a sense of foreboding and fear. This was something I had never experienced before. I healed up and rode with my daughter for another several years but never again was I able to get in that space where I was on a galloping horses back and that horse was running as fast as it could over everything and anything and I was one with the horse. Instead I was able to experience something that I had not anticipated - that something was an intimate relationship with fear. It also gave me the opportunity to spend three years in my yoga practice working my hip back into a condition where it feels normal to be walking without being worried about the hip going out or my hitting a spot where the pain just throws a lightning bolt through my whole body.

Experiencing and learning about fear, I feel, was more important at this juncture in my life than the more adolescent experience of playing with a horse. It also worked well in another way because my daughter Serena was not the type who was going to let a horse run its heart out while she was in the saddle - it's not an experience that is for everyone.

I learned, as we all do, from this experience that I encounter on the road of life. Some experiences are quite pleasurable. Others at a certain stage in the journey - the early, rocky ascent out of drowsiness into awareness - are often difficult. After this stage it seems that the experiential territory levels out and you have beneath your metaphorical feet a firm sense of the truth: of the justice, love, abundance, fecundity. A clear sense of the god-self that we are a part of. And an intimate relationship develops between us and our experiences. A relationship that is closer than that between mother and son, closer than that between father and daughter and husband and wife. There, in that space, we rock in the cradle, secure once again in the arms of the divine mother that brings to birth worlds, suns, souls. A sun soul, a shining soul, a bright and loving and warm soul. Searing in intensity at times - such is the nature of brightness. Love always there, always ready to give life under any circumstance. The experience of mind is just one of those lovely petals on the flower of life. The experience of mind, to take that soul light and embody it in a human form on a planet under a sun. To watch it grow and see material life through the eyes of an inhabitant, through the eyes of a traveler. A traveler reflecting back all that is seen and experienced and done. Feeding loves desire.

Harmony in Life

Love expresses itself as harmony. Harmony in relationships, in physical form and in sound. When many voices or instruments blend together to create a beautiful sound this sound communicates joy and fulfillment to all who perceive it. When something happens that distorts this harmony then this event darkens and corrupts everything around it - harmony turns to cacophony. We witness in the world around us many such cacophonous phenomena taking place. They result primarily from the thoughts and actions of human beings. We see around us social phenomena that bring pain, distress and alienation into the lives of every man woman and child on this planet.

That part of our collective reality, which we call the economy, has been distorted to the breaking point. And with it everything it affects: health care, education, transportation, trade, government. We must not react to this as a bad thing. It presence is an indication of an evolutionary process at work. It is an indication that we are in a transitional stage. We are witnessing the disintegration and break up of an antiquated order of society. It is a stage that is necessary in order to progress to the next higher stage in social evolution. The disintegration is an expression of harmony re asserting itself. It is a process of historical realignment as the universe reestablishes a harmonious relationship between people and between people and the natural world of which we are all a part.


We are moving towards a working, co creative relationship wherein all participants share equally. Sharing because we know that we truly give to ourselves in giving to others. Sharing as we do when we play music together. In our collective lust after material forms we forgot this most important principle - love one another. When we love one another we create harmony. Instead of seeking fulfillment and peace in concert with all beings, we threw ourselves at the feet of a false god of our own creation. A god that is referred to in the Bible as mammon.

Instead of thinking and acting for the mutual benefit of ourselves and the world that is our home we took everything we could extract from the world and from others for our own individual satisfaction. In doing this we were attempting to fill our inner emptiness with material objects and selfish experiences of pleasure. In lusting after the power and wealth of material reality we have created a disruptive, cacophonous situation.  There is extravagant wealth for only a few individuals at the expense of the rest of the whole.


The wealth of the world, when shared equitably, can provide abundance for all. We whose eyes and ears are being opened stand witness to the degrading inequalities in society and in the environment around us. We witness that this disintegration is taking place at an accelerated pace. We can see this as a phenomena that will eventually bring all of creation back into a harmonious relationship with all of its parts.


But being here on earth at this time presents many challenges. We need to cultivate great strength and flexibility to face the challenges of the time and place. What does not adapt and contribute to the solution will perish. What does not strive forward will fall behind.




The sun has moved another few degrees South since I was here Wednesday morning.  The full moon descends towards the horizon in its ever-progressing journey across the skyline of my life. Storms come and go, and the rainbow of peace follows the storm. I may not live to see that rainbow in its full glory, but it is a constant presence in my inner vision. It calls you and me to action. We have a contribution to make to this process of realignment. We are not here as simple observers and we cannot afford the luxury of freezing up with fear and dismay in the face of what may seem to be overwhelming obstacles. The fear of failure and loss is a distortion in our own hearts and minds.

The human body itself is just a temporary affair that spiritual warriors are ready to lay down at any time knowing that life does not end when the physical body begins its journey back into stardust from which it came. We are a focus of conscious energy. We have been sent out by that great power of which we are all a part to become servants in these material fields of our lord. We cannot allow ourselves to be crippled by fear because it would hamper our ability to serve.


For most of us - for myself - relinquishing fear is part of a process that takes time. Fear does not lend itself to being wished away. The ego related programs that foster fear are rooted deep in the fundamental patterns that we picked up as a consequence of our entry into form.


The sun rises as the moon slides inexorably toward the horizon. The snow on the mountaintop catches the first rays and reflects the orange tinged hue of the rising early morning sun. Shadows begin to define themselves across the land. The first warm rays of radiant energy melt into the skin of my face. The cold, freezing air surrounding me causes my fingers to experience that physical sensation we call pain. Cold hurts. That's the word we use to describe that tingling alarm signal. My body is being chilled below the comfort level. The signal says I am in the danger zone. Nothing to fear there - I’m prepared.

Winter in the Desert

Winter in the desert. The most startling change is that I don’t hear birds singing. Many species have migrated south. The ones who stay are focused on finding food and staying alive. In winter they don’t feel those rising urges to claim a space and proclaim a territory; a piece of the whole out of which they can derive sustenance for themselves and the family they expect to see.

In springtime the competition will begin for the best places - a combat of songs and occasional skirmishes that end in a sort of a truce between rivals. Territoriality, one of the primary laws of nature - the territorial imperative. But now it is winter in the desert. Winter when the plants draw energy back into their roots and into the core of their being. The roots that reach deep into the earth. The roots that search out the eternal bounty of the earth itself. From the earth, sun and air the plant takes all that it needs to grow and thrive and support the next higher level of life. The plants that support those creatures that romp across the ground and fly up over the land. Living, mobile creatures seeking out new sources of information and new experiences to manifest and explore. Creatures eternally moving outward. Out into the farthest reaches of the known edge of the physical dimension and beyond. Creatures inexorably seeking to push the boundary of life just a little bit further. Seeking to encourage and incorporate into itself more and more beauty, light, understanding, and love in the ever-ongoing search for perfection.

Perfection, the unachievable goal, the never attained resting place. The place that would mean the end of this outward expansive breath of creation. Completion, the end of that expulsion out and the beginning of the drawing back in again of all things and all experiences into the One. Who can fathom the depth? Who can fathom the depth?

Time to play my flute.