Co-existence with the Ego

The Ego is not the enemy.

Yes, I did just say that. I know there are many Buddhists, Kabbalists, teachers, friends and others who will vigorously disagree with me. I'm OK with that.

What I understand, (and I can only speak for myself), is that there is no real enemy. The enemy is illusion. Projection. And if this is the way in which the religious and spiritual define ego, then I can agree only with that aspect.

I believe in love, in the totality of being, existing in the heartspace, being present in this moment. And in this moment, my ego is co-existing with my heart, and with the transcendent Self that I know to be one with all things.

This is a more comfortable, fluid relationship for me now, though it wasn't always so. My experience through most of my life was struggle, constant struggle. With knowledge, conflicting teachings, my feelings, my judgments. Always, when I reached a new level of consciousness, there was ego rearing it's ugly head.

Let me explain my understanding of ego as it stands at this moment; from my inner knowledge, my own experience, and from a position of equanimity.

Ego is the part of the human being that believes it runs the show. It does much of the time, in some with less conscious understanding and acceptance of it. Within my own being, it is often the part of me (small, personal 'me') I most wish not to accept. It is also the part that teaches me about my instincts, my judgments, and whether or not I am truly following a path of love and service. It shows me when I am and am not congruent if I will only listen to the monotonous hammering home of its "rightness"; to be willing to hear my entire truth, discerning it from amidst the lies and old, familiar patterns woven into it's clever soliloquy.

My wise teacher Victoria Pendragon once referred to the ego (paraphrased here) as 'the Idiot Self merged with your point of view, and what you perceive to be the story of your life so far.' She taught me that the Idiot self is useful, as it is connected to the body directly, and would instinctively move me out of the way of an oncoming bus or train, for that matter. It is a mode of behavior predicated by the survival instincts of the body reflected back to us linguistically through the Idiot Self in combination with everything that we know about ourselves and from the life we have experienced. She also helped me to understand the need to know the stories and patterns the ego holds in order to be able to shift them. And that while the ego cannot be destroyed, it can be housebroken.

For me then, it is part of the whole being, not a separate entity that can be, or should be, severed at will. It serves a purpose tied in with the survival of the physical body, and of the self-identity. I speak of the individual self that is a part of our humanity from the time of our birth to the time of our death. If we were only meant to be part of the collective, enlightened consciousness, why would we need to be born into a human body at all? This is not congruent with the idea of transcendence...to transcend the self, one must have a self to begin with.

Having a self, for me requires total passion and commitment; the full embrace of life itself. The ability to choose to live fully, in whatever way I choose. It is the ability to create choice by desire, and to follow one's own free will. The very act of being born into this life requires an opening of desire on a level that brings the heart achingly awake with the fullness of all the pain and pleasure contained within our universe.

I'm just beginning to understand the full integrity required of the self; the ability to accept and allow all parts of that self to emerge, free of judgment. The ego, in small part, allows for a fully defined and contained self. The clearer the perception of the boundaries of the small self, the more natural and spontaneous the flow between the self and the Self. To fully embrace the I AM, to be present in both the process of 'being' and transcending at the same time, I must allow all the parts of who I am to coexist.

Just as my energetic field and matrix is interwoven and connected to both the physical body, the 'heartspace' and the Earth itself, so is the ego process woven into the becoming self. Is it really transcendence to allow the mind and spirit to flow free of the body without ever integrating or embracing the human, emotional self? Or is that only escape?

My inner process moves much more easily if I can acknowledge all that the ego is; it's wants, needs, prejudices, passions, etc, while still exercising my own considered and loving choices. I find the time when the pull of the ego is strongest, is when it is the most denigrated. The ego, for me, only grew stronger in opposition. I awoke one night with a clear thought in the middle of egoic turmoil..."and which part of you is engaging in this battle with ego, if not the ego itself, in a cleverly duplicitous way, maintaining it's hold on the psyche?" So the destruction of ego no longer makes sense to me. It sets up a lack of trust in my integrated wholeness, an internal and unnecessary battleground which obscures the inner clarion call of my soul.

To declare anything the enemy, by the very definition of the word, it becomes an adversary or opponent. And in the words of sci-fi fantasy writer Ursula Le Guin "To oppose something is to maintain it." (Thanks to my anonymous poster for reminding me of that.)

If I am lucky enough to live a long life, I will gratefully explore the nature of being a distinct and separate individual, while also an integrated part of everything that is. With no separation by belief or by being. The ability to navigate between the seen and unseen worlds requires an effortless flow between the inner landscape and the outer world. A completely integrated and actualized self, with the ability of all humans to transcend to a state of grace, and return again to the pleasures of the denser, more physical energies.

And I'm really happy to 'be' here.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is just another BushCo Crony

Well, looks like the fallout is about to start.

Back in January and February while the polar bear was waiting for protection under the endangered species act, the government was illegally stalling and selling thousands of oil and gas leases in the very same habitat areas. But this is not news.

Fortunately, places like the Center for Biological Diversity, NRDC, and others banded together to sue the government to make it's formal declaration, which was legally enforced by a judge's decision sometime in May. Yes, MAY.

Then, another insult. The interior's decision was a status downgrade from the promised 'endangered' to 'threatened' in order not to have to deal legally with the issue of climate change as the cause for their continued slide into extinction. Nice.

Now we are onto the next phase, when the companies who bought the illegally sold drilling rights want to be getting about their business. Can't say I blame them. But in what progressive country, what reality do companies expect to be able to drill in environments where protected species live? In Bush Country, that's where.

There has been so much subterfuge, outright illegal acts, continuing flaunting of the law in order to get around controls put in place so that individual usage does not trump the greater good of the planet that it leaves one dizzy and breathless.

I've decided to post the story below from The Center for Biological Diversity, along with the link to the MSNBC story.

Like I said, this isn't really news, it's just another wake up call to those of us who think that the people we elect to uphold the laws of the land should do that, rather than treat them as if they were an inconvenience to industry development. There is usually an area of compromise between industry and conservation, and what usually results are environmental protection laws. To continually allow our leaders to disregard and abuse those laws will be to our great detriment in the decades that follow.

I, for one, am hoping for a bit more enlightened self-interest from our next elected governmental body. Someone who considers us as stewards of the Earth, not owners and exploiters. Our next president will appoint someone new to the post of Secretary of the Interior, and it can't come soon enough for me.

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Feds Give Oil Execs Blank Check, Center to Stop Payment

The Chukchi Sea -- home to most of the world's Pacific walruses and one of America's two polar bear populations -- is the least industrially developed portion of the U.S. Arctic. In February, however, while the Department of the Interior illegally delayed protecting the polar bear as a threatened species, it offered oil and gas leases on 30 million acres of the Chukchi Sea.
When Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne finally got around to protecting the polar bear last month, he sought to shield oil and gas drilling by illegally exempting polar bears from the Endangered Species Act's prohibition against killing and harassing imperiled species. He justified the decision by saying the bears would instead be protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act. On Tuesday, however, he exempted polar bears (and walruses) in the Chukchi Sea from protection under the Marine Mammal Protection Act as well.

In addition to directly affecting polar bears, offshore oil operations will emit millions of tons of carbon dioxide, methane, and black carbon. And once the oil and gas are burned, they'll emit billions of tons of additional greenhouse gases.

The Center for Biological Diversity and Pacific Environment have formally notified the Department of the Interior that they'll sue to overturn the decisions and protect all polar bears in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas.
Read more about it at MSNBC.

What I AM, and what I am not

What I am is a reader of patterns. A seer of patterns.

I recognize them not through sight, for I am not visual, but through site. I intuit them. I feel them. I locate them. I speak them. I move with them. I become one with them. I love them, forgive them, release them.

Simple, really. Beautiful and perfect in absolute simplicity.

It is what I do, but not who I am.

What I am not is a healer, though many people will tell you that I am. Many things have been healed in my presence; blood clots, TMJ, traumatic injury on many levels, kidney stones, ancestral disease (DNA linked illness), diseases of the spleen, gallbladder and liver, and many other things. I did not heal them, though I was present through the process. As a witness to healing through the divine love within all of us.

Many people wish to see me as a mystic. And maybe that is true for them. Some are surprised that I can see the patterns they hold so close to themselves, the things that they use to shape themselves and to cover up who they really are. Then they assign to me some sort of unwarranted and unnecessary status.

I find that most people prefer to give credit for their miracles to a source other than themselves; a God that exists somewhere outside of who they are. They can easily recognize divinity outside themselves, but not within. So they recognize their healing, but not that it came from within them. Most people do not long for or understand that sort of power, so they never discover it tucked away inside themselves. So they make me their healer. Their mystic. Their seer. Their God.

But that is not what I am, though I feel divinity in every fiber of my being. What I am is their mirror. Someone to hold love for them in a created, sacred space of caring until they can see the truth for themselves. Until they can come to love what they are, and who they are. A flawed and perfectly beautiful part of humanity.

So who I am changes based on how each individual person sees me. How I see myself, label myself changes constantly as well. But not what I am.

It is a never-ending quest to find oneself. As soon as I find who I am, it shifts. When I think I know who I am, it becomes something other. Who I think I am limits me, and who I am at any moment may do so as well. Who I am constricts me and my completely divine and limitless potential. And I become more aware of this as I recognize my own patterns.

Tonight, I released my fear. After years of looking for and chasing after the elusiveness of who I am, I have come to understand not who, but what I am.

What I AM is love. We are all love, and exist through love. That is the pattern at the root of everything that is, whatever you want to call it, or label it. It is universal and vast...ever changing and yet constant. It surrounds us and envelops us all of the time. It is omnipresent. It simply is.

And your very existence is the testament of that love. You are loved simply because you exist, and can be nothing but love.

Because of who I am, I now know what I am.

And today, in this moment, I am free.

Where I Long To Be...

Cool and green, with soft mists that caress my face, the smell of damp, mossy earth.

The deep stillness within and without; the spirits of the trees dancing before me.

I seriously need a vacation. {sigh}