Calling Our Spirits Home: Gateways to Full Consciousness
Chapter Four
The Masks We Wear
Newick Park Country Estate is set outside a little dab called Newick Village nestled in the rich countryside of southeastern England. I suspect that Newick Village sprung up around this stately manor house as dwellings for those who once worked to keep the estate running smoothly. Today, Newick Park houses paying guests instead of family and visiting friends.
Its common areas and guest rooms have been meticulously restored. A fireplace in every room staves off the chill of the English winter air, sometimes helped along by a butane bottle sitting just outside the fire grate with a hose slyly snaking in to feed it. The antiques that dot the rooms indeed appear to be authentic and valuable, each room having its own unique color scheme. My favorite is what I call the Red Room. Not a gaudy red, but a comforting, warm and soft red room whose overstuffed club chairs issue the invitation to pull a book from the library shelves and sink your body into their enveloping depths. The room further invites you to prop your feet upon the accompanying footstool and face the warmth of the fire. The effect is heightened by the rosy glow of the walls and reflected in matching colors in the thick Persian carpet. Everything is fastidiously arranged in its proper place.
I have a habit of looking to the books in a house to intimate something about its inhabitants. I look to see if there are many books or just a few, the subject matter, and if the pages are well-thumbed or if the bookbindings are crackling new and unlined from repeated openings. I wonder now about the books in the floor-to-ceiling shelves of the Red Room. I finally decide that these books were bought for the effect. Yes, they were bought by the lot. That would account for multiples of the same title in a non-lending library. My musings wander to other objects in other environments and the intention of their placement by their owners and how these intentions pertain to how we live our lives in general. Do we place objects in our environments for practical usage, aesthetic purposes or as reminders of sentimental times? How much do they have to do with how we want others to experience us? How much do they have to do with how we want to experience ourselves?
It is nearing the end of nearly a week of rather long discussions and intense learnings. We have been ensconced in Newick Park rarely seeing the light of day, particularly since the English winter day begins slipping into dusk in mid-afternoon. As is often the case upon re-entry into everyday life after a time in retreat, one person asks the question as to how we take our learnings home and talk to others about them. With a twinkle in his eye, one of the leaders, who happens to be a thoughtful Scot with a delightful brogue, stands up and commands, “Everyone outside!” Once outside, he orders us, “Walk as fast as you can around the house and notice at least five things you can describe later.”
We all set off briskly around our lodging. My mind is so intent on moving quickly that I wonder if I will be able to remember five things to discuss. Many things fly by in a blur, but I store away in my memory the wind in my hair, the mud puddles I avoid, a dying flower garden, a muddy jeep and one daisy still blooming by the entrance to the manor house. As we finish circumnavigating the course we were given, we congregate out of the wind in a gazebo. All of us manage to report at least five things we noticed, albeit in a rather perfunctory manner, much resembling the briskness of our walk. Our leader makes no comment except to give us further instructions. “Now,” he says, “take as much time as you want. Take the same course and meet back here to describe what you experience.”
This time, what a relief it is to leisurely breathe in the crisp air and empty my mind of the week’s activities. To be in the moment is a true gift to my senses. I allow my eyes to linger on small things close to me. I feel, without touching, the coolness of the small stone lion that, although lying prone, guards the entryway to the house. I sense the gentle sucking of the ivy roots twisting around its body and twining into the flowerbed. A variety of perennials are struggling to bloom well beyond their season. My eyes sweep the facade of the manor to take in the greyish white pebbly stucco and the tower room in front with its conical roof. I notice the details of the wisteria vine climbing the side of the house, wrapping their way around the winding wrought-iron stairway descending from the top story. There is a small sign at the base of the vine noting its genus. I delight in the intricacies of my surroundings and then turn to have a wider experience and note the ancient stone walls covered with soft moss separating the front from the back of the domain. To the side, quail and pheasant alerted to our presence scurry under the fir trees, or is it the distant sound of gunshots that startle them? Then, I raise my eyes and take in the sweeping beauty of the countryside. The expanse of green gives way to hills beyond hills, until they soften to violet grey at the horizon. The horizon extends upward to fast-moving voluminous white clouds, traces of blue sky and the solitary bit of sunshine. I have the distinct feeling of an artist dividing the canvas into foreground and background and then blending the euphoric effect. Notwithstanding the periodic gunshots cracking the air and the corresponding sinking feeling in my gut, the environment is otherwise serene.
Walking slowly through the opening in the stone wall to the back of the homestead, I enter a different world. Behind the facade is the world of those that keep the place running. If the manor face is aesthetically meticulous, behind-the-scenes areas are chaotically ramshackle. A muddy path splits the rundown outbuilding from the back rooms of the house. It puzzles me that no apparent attempt has been made at paving this well-traveled walk. One end of the outbuilding looks as though it needs a sign signaling warning to those who might enter, so precariously settled and twisted are its roof and walls. I am fascinated by the moss on the tile roof. The other end shows a door swung inward to what may be the anteroom to a root cellar, with various fruits and root vegetables strewn upon grubby tables. My gaze turns in the opposite direction and travels through the kitchen window to witness the chef whisking something in a bowl, his whole body involved in the blending. I am certain he sees me out of the corner of his eye and chooses not to acknowledge my presence. Kitchen paraphernalia clutters the worktable, but conveniently within an arm’s length to service his needs. He has flour on his nose. Interestingly enough, our French server is hunched on a corner stool smoking a cigarette. I say interesting because of the contrast to the precision of his posture and attention to the service ritual when he performs his mealtime duties. Feeling I have intruded enough, I withdraw my eyes from that domestic scene to study the peeling window frames and worn, occasional loose bricks of the back wall of the manor. I pass a window that has eggs sitting on the inner sill. One egg is cracked. Another window has empty wine bottles piled high against the inside glass. And so it goes, until I come to the side of the great house and stand where I can experience both the facade and the back, the light and the dark, the outer shell and the inner workings. I find this duality curious. I can hear the yapping of a little dog and turn to see a small streak of yellow making a beeline for my ankles. I hightail it back to rejoin the group and relate my experience in the value of allowing awareness to be present.
Our Personal Truth and the Collective Whole
As with Newick Park Country Estate, in our world we find a collective whole stitching one person to another, one activity to another, one situation to another in an ever-widening arc to ensure the overlap of existence. Again just as with the manor house, we may ask ourselves how much of what we see and act upon is illusion? How much is real? What is the thickness of the outer shell? Can it be broken to give way to the deeper inner workings? How much are we in collusion with each other or parts of ourselves in order to perpetuate illusion? There are probably infinite levels and considerations to these questions.
In relation to the opening story, we could ask yet other questions. Where is Truth really represented in the manor house⏤in the calm aesthetic front or the jumbled and care-worn back? Where is Beauty assimilated⏤in the break-neck speed of race walking or the leisurely stroll of reverence? How does where we choose to focus and move build the paths we will travel?
Amrit was at a crossroads in his life. He was young and had just graduated from college. Nearly a year ago, he traveled to India from America. He said, “I came looking for something. I don’t know what, but I hope to find it here.” He went to southern India to see a father that he had not seen in fifteen years, perhaps searching for his identity. He also met a brother he had not known. From there, he wandered through the south, a sadhu sheltering him with company for a time.[1]
Amrit experienced great frustration with the cultural differences initially. He first strived to learn and to compensate for differences. He became extremely ill, so ill that he rolled in pain and could hardly lift his head. Finally, against the striving he just threw up his hands. He said, “I’m just here now. I’m not looking for anything.” India then seemed to merge with him. In the letting go, he attained a certain peace. When our paths crossed he had already been in the country for eight months. I told him that he looked like a native. He smiled and thanked me. In a land that knows the tamboura, he took great solace in playing the Spanish guitar.
Amrit was at that crucial point we all face when we are right on the edge of being an adult. Now that he had graduated from college he was feeling great pressure to launch into some traditional career. The burden he was suffering could have come from various sources: family or societal expectations that somehow became ingrained, or self-induced and reinforced by those outside himself. But that is a chicken and egg question. He allowed that many of his friends were falling in line like little soldiers. When he talked about various career choices, he also dreaded the emptiness of waking up years later wondering how he had gotten covered over. Amrit did go to India for something. He went to throw off the usual trappings with which we surround ourselves. He went to relieve himself of his cultural armoring. In India, a different sort of bootcamp, he was stripped bare. In his nakedness, he found a realness in himself. When I left him to continue my own journey, he had not yet found all he was seeking, but had found a way to stay another few months in India. Whatever the choices he makes, I hope for him that he is true to his heart.
Being or Not Being
These dilemmas we think we face, along with the ‘shoulds,’ ‘can’ts’ and ‘have tos’ reach back most often to early times in our lives. My companion and I were sitting outside in back of Anton’s Bistro in the small English cathedral village of Wells. The local people and tourists were enjoying the seventh straight day of sunshine, so far rare in that unusually cold and rainy summer. Nearly every pub had put a few plastic tables and chairs outside to draw customers. Our table had an umbrella shading us that read, “Tetley’s⏤Smooth brewed since 1822.” We were just sitting and taking in our surroundings of well-worn cobblestone streets, young lovers walking with arms around each other, and scattered pigeons preening and strutting.
To one side of us was a couple with a boy about the age of three and one set of grandparents. We knew that his name was Samuel because we heard it continually as his parents discouraged him loudly against doing this and that. He had an unusual hard plastic bib around his neck with a ledge around the lower part that reached to his chest. We could see why Samuel was wearing this contraption after his father grabbed him and started force-feeding the boy. The food promptly slipped back out his mouth assisted by his tongue, down his chin and collected in a runny mess in the ledge of the bib. All adults at the table, in unison, disparaged the child. Samuel frowned. As a matter of fact, Samuel seemed to wear a habitual scowl for one so young.
To our other side was another couple. With them was a little girl in a brightly colored dress with long brown hair and big eyes. She looked to be not quite four years old. The couple was laughing at something the little girl had said and she was beaming back at them. Her eye caught a few pigeons a short distance from their table and she slid out of her chair to go after them. She had not gotten but a few feet when she garnered Samuel’s attention. Immediately Samuel’s face shifted from a glower to delighted interest. His eyes widened. His mouth curled upward in a smile and his face fairly glowed. Unabashedly, he toddled over to the little girl until he was within a few inches of her. “Hello, hello, hello!” he squealed. She, in turn, smiled a welcome at him and then, resumed her progress toward the pigeons with Samuel in tow. They went round in circles worrying the pigeons and doing no harm, playing happily. As the pigeons waddled toward a deserted alleyway and the children followed, Samuel’s mother shrieked, “Don’t go there! Don’t go there! You’ll get hurt!” While Samuel ignored his mother, the girl whipped around and ran back to her parents’ table, giving Samuel’s mother a frightened look and a wide berth.
The unabashed curiosity and need for connection that Samuel displayed toward his playmate and her unconditional acceptance of him was precious. It is something that we rarely see except in young children, thus making it even more dear. It was honesty in relationship at its best. Only animals are as true in their expression. This freedom and fearlessness comes from a true Being state. Probably not knowing it, his parents have already started the armoring process of Samuel and his state of Not Being. In a not-so-subtle way they have begun the molding that will ultimately block Samuel from attaining his full identity. Essentially, to the degree that as children we are admonished in harsh tones or told in a variety of ways that something is not possible for us, the protective layering of conforming to others’ wishes commences. To the degree that we are allowed to explore and are encouraged, while still lovingly protected, we will wear fewer of the masks that keep us from our Selves and each other.
We are born with our own natural wisdom⏤our Salk’a energy.° When we are still lying in our cribs, the window is left open. Society sneaks in and begins to siphon off our Salk’a. At first, the Salk’a trickles out of us and then, it is sucked away in a steady stream. Finally, by the time we are adults only a fleeting memory of something else remains, some other possibility long gone within the recesses of our minds. We do make a stab at individuation in our teenage years, at least from our parents if not from our peers, but most of us sidled back to the groove we had been directed toward all along. By the time we have reached Amrit’s years, the majority of us have become thoroughly domesticated, much like the horses that used to roam the plains of North America in great numbers. So, of course, we do fall in line to comply with years of society’s programming. There are still a few wild mustangs out there. Bless them. We have a few in the human species, too. For most of us, we wake up to a mid-life crisis wondering in what shrouds we have been swathing ourselves all along.
The Masking of Purity
There appears to be something innate in we humans that at some time during our lives, usually in what was once considered middle age, we begin to question the ground we have personally walked in our previous years. To look ahead and think of traveling the same old ground different only in name fills many with dread. Some of us look back longingly on what we missed, although we are not completely sure what that something was. We may feel a low-grade ache that we cannot quite identify. We just know that something is not there, or something is there that should not be. The questioning, the low-grade ache and the dread are all indications of incongruence⏤signals of the veils we have worn that keep our true Selves hidden. These are also the signals that Salk’a is stirring. Then, as we advance in years, in varying degrees our Salk’a becomes more present as we throw off one layer after another.
For the majority of people the passage of life is a member⏤dis-member⏤re-member process. Purity puts on the mask and takes it off. This is our process in order to know who we are and who we are not. As we advance to our December years, we are more likely to speak our minds and do exactly as we please regardless of others’ desires. While those who are younger may call us eccentric, they may secretly envy us for being true to ourselves, something they feel they cannot risk.
In Of Water and Spirit, Malidoma Somé relates how in the Dagara tribe, the grandparent and grandchild have a very special relationship, almost to the exclusion of the parent.
What the grandfather and grandson share together ⏤that the father cannot⏤is their close proximity to the Cosmos. The grandfather will soon return to where the grandson came from, so therefore the grandson is bearer of news the grandfather wants. The grandfather will do anything to make the grandson communicate news of the ancestors before the child forgets, as inevitably happens. It is not only to benefit the grandfather that this relationship with his grandson must exist. The grandfather must also transmit the “news” to the grandson using the protocol secret to grandfathers and grandsons. He must communicate to this new member of the community the hard tasks ahead on the bumpy road of existence.[i]
Perhaps this explains the bond that often forms between grandparents and grandchildren. Both are in the most blessed of spaces, both at beginnings. In those spaces, they are perhaps the most ‘real’ and recognize it in each other.
Life Marriage
As we move through childhood, how we end up choosing to live is actually somewhat like the rite of marriage. For centuries and still in some cultures today, marriages were arranged. It was left to the parents to find a mate for their child. The criteria that they often used was related to social strata and increasing or matching family wealth and connection. Sometimes the criteria included compatibility. Sometimes it was just finding somewhere to dump the child. Whatever the criteria, it was arranged between the parents with society’s nod of approval. Rarely did the partners being married have much of a choice in the matter.
It has only been in the last one hundred years or so that we have been heading toward what I will call a functional marriage model. In the best of all possible worlds, the couple is aligned in their beliefs and values to the highest levels. They also find that they have compatibility in lifestyle. A functional marriage is arranged only by the partners choosing to become married. In other words, they are well suited for each other through their own discoveries, not society’s dictates.
The functional marriage model is still in its fledgling stages, not having much of a role model to build upon. Consequently, in the transition, the institution of marriage has suffered many casualties as well as some that have held the light. As we are cracking the door by throwing off the variety of oppressions that have held us shackle, are we perhaps reaching the final frontier? Indeed, it is Space. As the door begins to swing open until it is thrown wide, we face the Space to be who we are⏤who we have been but had forgotten. What a glorious Space that is! Or, is it? This is the threshold where so many of us hover. Some, seeing Space, beat a fast retreat.
There is the story of a man searching for a Master whom he had been told would bring him to enlightenment. After an arduous journey, the man finally found the Master in a Himalayan cave. “At last! At last, I have found you, Master!” The Master gazed at him with penetrating eyes for some time. Then, he said to the man, “You will have to leave. I don’t work with crowds.” “But, Master, I am alone here,” protested the man. The Master faced him squarely and said calmly, “No. You have your wife here with you. Your mother, father, sister and brother are here with you, too.”
Our Teachers Are Everywhere
The list could continue to old girlfriends, buddies, fifth grade teacher and so on. Perhaps this is why so many marriages have ended or been less than happy. The marriage bed is too crowded! In order to build a functional marriage model, each individual bears the responsibility to come clean. The clean nature is in what yogis call Purusha, the changeless divine Self who has let go of all chittam, or ego. Of these clean-natured Beings, we have had plenty of examples over the ages. Jesus of Nazareth, the Buddha, Mother Meera and other spiritual figures like them are obvious illustrations. Look also within your own community and you will find examples of role models to follow. There are teachers sprinkled among us if only we give our attention to awareness. Everything and everyone will teach us if we allow them.
The Raji are a nearly extinct nomadic people that move through southern Nepal in family troops. Called beriko manche, these are the “bee people” who follow the blossoming of flowers and climb giant trees in areas once resplendent with elephants and tigers. They search for the sweet elixir, honey. The hunters scale massive trunks and venture high onto branches to steal honey from the bees whose nests may number into the hundreds in one large tree. Far below on the ground, the other members of the troop seek to distract the bees by burning brush that allows smoke to rise and drive them from their homes. As the bees are drawn away, the hunters secure their treasure and lower it by ropes to the awaiting group. The Raji are protectively wrapped from head to foot against the enraged bees. Some get stung anyway. For generations, the Raji have roamed over southern Nepal’s forests harvesting their bounty and later selling it to those who would buy, but no more. Just as their numbers are shrinking, their lifestyle is hampered by the clearing and selling of the forests.[ii]
Metaphorically, are we most like the bees or the Raji? The Raji reach toward the heavens for a sweet treasure they covet. They blow smoke and send out distractions. They layer themselves against hurt. They are forced into leaving their dwellings by the bulldozers of change. They reach outside themselves for something they believe is lacking within them. The quest for home is not found in their forest dwelling. Home is that core sweetness within them that is sanctuary. Unfulfilled yearning and the bulldozers of change force them into leaving that dwelling place, forever seeking.
Or, is it more appropriate that the Raji be compared to a higher consciousness that seeks to reach into our homes and bring our bee treasures out to share with the world? Sometimes we have to be tricked or lulled into relaxation in order for us to feel secure in allowing our nectar to flow where others may notice. “Is it safe?” we ask. Our fear is that it is not! We were probably taught long ago that the world is an unfriendly place. If we believe in that myth, then we swarm to protect the hive seeking to close off intruders. Or, we become angry and the hapless trespasser feels our sting. As the forests are denuded, we fear we have nowhere to hang our homes. Meanwhile, the Raji sadly throw up their hands finding the landscape now barren as we hold to our distractions.
Essentially, all of these metaphors may be parts of us to different degrees. There may a part of us that believes that someone or something else other than ourselves has it. This is the part that believes we aren’t ‘good enough.’ This is the part that strives to achieve ‘yet another certificate’ indicating some level of learning beyond what is really needed; that reads the hundredth book to find the answer; or acquires myriad material goods that become a symbol toward having ‘arrived.’ All of this is struggling to somehow obtain what we think is needed so that we can Be.
There is an ancient story about the musk deer. Unbeknownst to the deer, it has a spot above its forehead that emits a musk scent. The deer is forever on the trail to the source of this wonderful scent that seems always elusively ahead, never realizing that the source comes from within itself.[iii]
The Mask as Filter
There may be that part present in us that is so protective that it becomes boiling mad when someone tries to lift our mask to see who we really are, or offers what it might be like if we look out of different eye-holes. The masks we choose to wear become the filters of our lives and are the measurements between perfunctory and deep experience. It is something like walking on top of a barbed wire fence. Walkers must be very careful as to where they place their feet. Their attention is drawn tightly so as to stay safe, not to fall off either way and to skirt around the barbs. A larger world cannot walk here. If walkers look up, an ensuing barb cuts into present reality. Or, there may well be a fall into a completely different reality. We mistakenly believe that our masks are who we are. They go toward preserving what Alan Watts called our ‘skin encapsulated egos’ and our egos live to be preserved⏤unless we choose to release them.
Once at a workshop, the leader asked us to pair up and do an exercise that involved looking deeply into the other person’s eyes while not speaking. I turned to the woman sitting next to me and took her hands. As I looked into her eyes, they began to flit to different places on my face and finally away from my face entirely and back to my eyes for microseconds at a time. In no time at all, big tears began to slip down her face until they just rained down. The eyes are the window to the soul. They provided me with an entry point and I saw her. What this elegant Audrey Hepburn-esque woman relayed to me later about her origins was that during her entire life, she felt no one had ever really seen her. She grew up feeling unwanted and needing to stay hidden both literally and figuratively.
The Part Who Knows
This brave woman displayed another part of ourselves. This is the part who knows Truth and Beauty. This is the part who, even though it may not feel safe, is willing to reach inside and display the light of the soul so that it may shine first fully inward to nourish us, and then outward to feed the world. For all of this, it shines in spite of those parts of us that cling in fear to what we were told we had to Not Be. Leonard Cohen wrote:
Ring the bells that can still ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.[iv]
That’s also how the light gets out.
The Balinese have an interesting tradition. Early in life, children become involved in the art of mask making. While playing and developing their art form, the children are introduced to those things that are unknown to them through the forming of the mask. Then, donning the mask becomes a way of exploring and also self-expression, finding what is of themselves and what is not. Following that custom, there is a ritual in Balinese dance whereby men and women have an opportunity to dance their opposite side, inner male or female.
Perhaps we could incorporate a variation of this theme into our culture. It seems that a place to start would be in becoming intimately aware of the breath since it sincerely reflects our states. When are the times that the breath flows smoothly bringing in the life energy that nourishes the vital force? Indeed in these times, we do feel as though we are operating ‘in the flow.’ Our bodies may feel light. Our minds resemble an open range. Our Spirits soar. Thinking is not involved so much as that we allow what we say and do to come through us. What we see may be brighter and clearer to us somehow. All is right.
If we were to give expression in an art form to this breath, what would the dance movement be? What would be the music that perfectly accompanies the dance? What would the costume be made of to express this essence? What materials and colors would go into the making of this mask? The final phase of this experiment would be to create and discover such expressive nuances to this breath that all melts into us to become integral to our Selves.
Another side to notice about ourselves is when have we stopped breathing. This is very different from being in a deeply meditative state when breath may naturally only come a few times a minute. Noticing when we are holding our breath or finding that our breath is choked off somehow is the state of Not Being. This is the time to notice in what actions we are involved at that moment. What is the internal dialogue we are having with ourselves? Who is speaking and what is the message? What internal imagery is present? Be aware of how the body responds in a ‘felt’ sense. If we were to give image expression to this non-breath, what would go into the making of the mask? After completion, we could don the mask and feel it as an appendage⏤ something hanging on and not a part of us. Then, holding the mask in front of us and gazing upon it, we could separate it from us and objectify it. This way we are no longer bound to what the mask represents. From this perspective, see it for what it is and consider its role in our learning. The final phase of this ritual would be the release of the mask and what it represents, by giving it to a purifying fire. We always have who we are within us and can go freely without cover.
What Is Our Preferred Poison?
The basis of all human suffering is clinging and aversion. It is in the mask of seeking fulfillment outside our eternal Selves that clinging exists. If all hopes and dreams are heaped upon what is external to us, the layers of our disguise become so thick that life becomes complex. We bind up our energy just trying to hold the layers together to ensure that no chunks fall away. We step as though on eggshells. Having invested so much energy in keeping the illusion alive, it becomes the illusion through which we look, eschewing that which does not collude with keeping our layers tidy and unpierced. Here we experience aversion. At the basis of clinging and aversion is fear. This is fear of the unknown. If the mask has been very firmly affixed for many years, we will mistake the mask for our identity. It is not. Then comes the question, if we are not our masks then who are we? We must be these people who do these things and have these possessions. No. All possessions are impermanent. If we possess nothing, we are still here. If we do nothing, we are still present.
The truth is that ‘I’ is ever-present no matter what. Depending upon where Seekers are on their path, they will get increasing hints of this truth until they know it fully. These hints, though, serve to place cracks in the mask. Often, even in the dawning of understanding, fear seeps in heavily to weigh us down and hold us back. In a session with his students Sri H.W.L. Poonja said:
This fear is due to the first shock of wisdom, of light. It is as if this room is closed for the last twenty years, and you enter this dark room with a torch in hand to locate the light switch. This darkness has been established for twenty years. Instantly the light is there. The darkness is confused. Fear of disappearance is there.[v]
Bear Witness
A solution, then, is to allow both the known and the unknown to become even better understood. We can learn to be our own Witness. When a fear arises, acknowledge its presence. Yes, it is there. Now we can become aware how these tendrils of fear are connected to a certain mask and expressed as attachment or repulsion. Just through awareness, fear often loses its power when we see that it was about nothing after all.
A friend related a story that came from childhood and ended in adulthood. As a child, he had been on an outing with his family in the mountains. As sometimes happens in family gatherings, tensions arose between his parents and extended to the rest of the family. Being a young child, this frightened him and he wandered off to get away from the whole thing. The sky darkened and a storm came up quickly. His child’s mind saw evil things out to get him in the dark shapes surrounding him, helped along by the thunder and lightening. Petrified, he finally found his legs and screamed all the way back to the family fold. This incident was so significant to him that over thirty years later he returned to the original site. Interestingly enough, there was a storm brewing, but he took time to look around. He noticed first of all how small the area looked in comparison to his remembrance and noted how very ordinary it all was⏤nothing any longer threatened him.
The world is a projection of what we choose to see. If we choose, we can see a different world with the snap of our fingers. We merely need to shift our attention and bring in additional information. One day while walking, I listened to a new audio recording. With the earphones on and the lecture playing, I noticed how my attention narrowed so that my focus was in my mind, and perhaps idly watching one foot being put in front of the other. Then, turning off the tape and removing the earphones, my world became much larger as I heard the birds, saw the wide sky above me and noted other surroundings. Throughout all, I was still there. While we may narrow and widen our focus, the Witness endures and awaits the call to assist us in our awarenesses.
Choice First and Foremost
The key to authenticity so often lies just with the choice to become unencumbered. Identify with this choice wholeheartedly. In this choice, the Witness can step in to nurture the process. The Witness is that part of us that is present to advise us and encourage our wisdom. The Witness can act to take the lead in moving beyond the habits of our lives. We are not our emotions. We are not the roles we play. We are not the things we do. They are all merely expressions. If we allow those things to become our identity, we are in trouble. The Witness is useful in this process because she is detached. She is objective. She is well able to see beyond what presents itself on the surface to the deep meaning and origins of the expression. Just as the Witness is ever-present, so is the breath. We can allow our breath to serve us here, just as it naturally has throughout our lives. Allow the breath to be a cue to gauge authenticity. Stop. Interrupt the pattern. Detach. Then, give the breath permission to carry you to the Witness that stands apart and tells Truth. For it is in Truth that we live congruently forever. These things that we do are blown away on the winds of time. We must make sure that all is a true reflection of the mirror of our Selves that finds real expression in this life’s time.
Some years after the Sioux had had their lands stolen from them by the United States Government, forcing them to live contained on reservations, Black Elk told of his people’s spiritual depression.
The Washichus· have put us in these square boxes. Our power is gone and we are dying, for the power is not in us any more. You can look at our boys and see how it is with us. When we were living by the power of the circle in the way we should, boys were men at twelve or thirteen. But now it takes them very much longer to mature. Well, it is as it is. We are prisoners of war while we are waiting here. But there is another world.[vi]
Some time ago, what I thought was the title of a future book popped into my mind, Life in the Midst of Waiting. I have not known the subject matter or story attached with this thought fragment until now. Black Elk was elegantly accurate in his assertion. There is another world and it is right inside ourselves. It is there that our core Being waits patiently to re-member.
[i] Somé, 19.
[ii] Eric Valli. “Golden Harvest of the Raji,” National Geographic, June 1998. 89–104.
[iii] Sri Swami Satchidananda. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Yogaville, Virginia: Integral YogaÒ Publications, 1978. 91.
[iv] Leonard Cohen. Anthem, Hollywood, CA: Stranger Music, Inc., 1992.
[v] Edited by Eli Jaxon-Bear. Wake Up and Roar: Satsang With H.W.L. Poonja. Boulder, CO: Satsang Foundation & Press, 1992. 25.
[vi] Compiled by T.C. McLuhan. Touch the Earth: A Self-Portrait of Indian Existence. New York: Promontory Press, 1971. 152.
All events described in this book are true. Some of the names have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved.
Bio
Carla Woody is a spiritual mentor, writer and visual artist. She is the founder of Kenosis, an organization based in Prescott, Arizona, supporting human potential since 1999 through life enhancement coaching, retreats and spiritual travel programs working with Indigenous leaders and healers in the US, Mexico, Central and South America. In 2007 she founded Kenosis Spirit Keepers, a volunteer-run 501(c)3 nonprofit organization to help preserve Indigenous traditions threatened with decimation.
Table of Contents
Part I. THE NATURE OF THE JOURNEY
Chapter Two: Awakening to Consciousness
Part II. INVOLUTION
Chapter Three: Cultivating Mindfulness
Chapter Four: The Masks We Wear
Chapter Five: Things Buried Deep and Tended Well
Chapter Six: Bootcamp for the Soul
Part III. EVOLUTION
Chapter Seven: The Seasons of Our Times
Chapter Eight: Staying in the Field
Chapter Nine: The Un-Namable Sacred
Chapter Ten: The Pilgrimage Home
Permissions: The author has given great effort to locate copyright holders of any material other than her own that have been quoted in this book, and regrets if any have been inadvertently overlooked.
Calling Our Spirits Home: Gateways to Full Consciousness
Copyright 1999 by Carla Woody. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publisher. Inquiries may be directed to: Kenosis Press, P.O. Box 10441, Prescott, AZ 86304, info@kenosis.net.
Also by Carla Woody:
Standing Stark: The Willingness to Engage. Read in Illumination Book Chapters.
Portals to the Vision Serpent. Coming soon to Illumination Book Chapters.
