Walking the Warrior’s Way

- A Journey to the Heart

Today I took a big step forwards into the rest of my life: I set up a facebook event page!

Yes, I know that is a commonplace, and I have done so several times before, but this time it feels a little different; it is the first step on my Warrior’s Way.

What do I mean by Warrior’s Way? I hardly know myself …yet. A friend asked me earlier to say more and this was my reply then:

Warrior energy? It’s something about the masculine energy that we all have within us; it’s the dance between the heart and the solar plexus, and it’s all about relationship. It’s the rhythm of drumbeats and it’s high energy and focussed…

Why do I want to walk the Warrior’s Way? Because I want to receive love, because I want to live my passion in the world in order to serve a purpose greater than myself and because I believe Compassion is the answer.

How do we walk the Warriors’ Way? I have no idea… but I believe all Quests begin with a question, asked of the emptiness within us, so that the response can come and fill us there and we can give that reply out into the world around us — from the inside out, and for me, the closest I can get to talking to that which can come and inhabit the emptiness is by walking.

In 2010 I walked 2000 miles around England, on a story collecting mission, to hear of the things that the Heroes of Our Times are doing. You can read the tales of that walk in “Tales of Our Times”.

I walked every day with the hedgerow as my companion, and sometimes human and animal company too. I learned as I walked, of the gift I have for listening and storytelling and I understood that this is what I bring to the world.

Now, some 4 years on, I am ready for the next stage of my journey; how do I become a Warrior for the New Story that I see unfolding in the hearts and minds of so many I see around me, young and old?

Becoming a warrior involves first a little exploration into what a warrior truly is… and what it is not.

Films and books all too often show us a very limited and stereotypical picture of warriorhood involving physical acts, often violent, and a certain absence of heart in many cases.

My exploration into what a warrior is started out in a discussion that took place in the Totnes Hub, which I hosted, of the New Story Summit organised by Findhorn at the end of September this year. We got to talking about Justice and I learnt that for me this word carries some less attractive connotations such as the concept of ‘Me Right You Wrong’ thinking. This led us to consider the psychological triad of Rescuer-Victim-Perpetrator and a realisation that Justice as we currently perceive it is focussed on Rescuing energy.

As someone who has played Rescuer and sometimes mild victim roles over the years I certainly know that this type of repsonse to a challenge is not in the end very fruitful. It is centred around blame and punishment.

Eventually our discussion took us to the work of Joanna Macy and the ancient Tale of the Shambhala Warriors. For a warrior such as this there is only one truth — the interconnectedness of all things, and only one weapon of choice; Compassion.

Here was the thread I have been looking for my whole life. Compassion. Not feeling sorry for, sympathy, empathy, being a crutch, taking out the villain, but the pure impersonal Compassion.

So what is Compassion?

I believe it is a force of nature that, if we allow it to, can act through us, so long as our ego gets out of the way with its ‘limited by experiences’ thinking, and when wielded in this fashion it is the only thing that can move an unhappy story on to a healthier, more positive outcome.

Compassion is not soft ‘I feel sorry for you’ energy. Compassion can be gentle and loving — it can hear your story. Compassion can also be fierce — cutting through inappropriate behaviour with a sword of steel born of integrity. However it acts, it is for the greater good, if we can get out of the way with our limited notions of what is good and what is evil, it always cuts through to the essence of a matter; what is really at the root of a perceived problem and what needs to happen in order for the direction the unhappy story is headed in to change.

I have considered how I can be a warrior for change in the world and found my passion was not there with me. I have at times felt deflated, made small, by this apparent absence, and yet, and yet, I knew there was something more. What if my concept of warriorhood was incomplete? What if the stereotype limits rather than encourages? What if there are other ways to walk the path?

My particular strength is positivity. This is a sword I can sometimes wield well. It hasn’t in the end been enough though, so far.

Somehow or other my journey has led me to examine the Rescuer in me and find it measures up palely besides its true healthy manifestation; allowing pure Compassion to shine through all that I do.

Here the sword I need to learn to brandish, but how?

In the end it all comes back to the same old thing; what happens on the outside must first be made to ring true on the inside …like the peal of a bell as my friend and fellow author Elen Sentier puts it.

The enemy within is always the one to be faced and transformed. Who is that enemy, the one who we see mirrored in the faces of all those we most hate? The poor hurt injured one, the one who didn’t get their needs met fully as a little one, the one who was misunderstood, not seen, the one who felt smothered, or was abandoned, or abused in some way, the one we’d really rather not meet for to do so brings us face to face with our pain, and that of our parents, grandparents and 7 generations of ancestors.

Walking the Warriors’ Way? Not for the faint hearted, but essential for any who would change our world.

I have decided to walk my Warrior’s Way on pilgrimage; a pilgrimage to meet and embrace myself fully. I have decided that as a Warrior of the New Story my task is to share that journey to myself with others.

Next June I shall be walking from Caerleon in Wales, up the river Wye to it source and onwards to the Llyn Pennisula to retreat on Bardsea island, resting place of all the Merlins who ever were.

As I walk I shall ask my questions, face my demons, and transform them into allies. I invite all who feel a response in them to this to come and join me and do the same. Together we can create a living Warriors’ Way, a physical pathway to teach our young about, a place where future generations can walk in our footsteps and remember the work we did to clear the way for the healthy vibrant times ahead, and to walk into their own warrior’s way. The blogs I shall write en route so that all who wish it may accompany my journey will eventually form the missing third thread of my latest book “Tales of Two Times”, a tale told back from the Utopia of 2050.

Today I took the first step; I created a facebook event page. It’s called ‘ A Journey to the Heart’ and I invite you to join me.’

Originally published at www.goodreads.com.