Animate

A powerful song about Masculine Feminine dynamics... 


Lyrics by Neil Peart

Polarize me
Sensitize me
Criticize me
Civilize me
Compensate me
Animate me
Complicate me
Elevate me

Goddess in my garden
Sister in my soul
Angel in my armor
Actress in my role

Daughter of a demon lover
Empress of the hidden face
Priestess of the pagan mother
Ancient queen of inner space

Spirit in my psyche
Double in my role
Alter in my image
Struggle for control

Mistress of the dark unconscious
Mermaid of the lunar sea
Daughter of the great enchantress
Sister to the boy inside of me

My counterpart, my foolish heart
A man must learn to rule his tender part
A warming trend, a gentle friend
A man must build a fortress to defend
A secret face, a touch of grace
A man must learn to give a little space
A peaceful state, a submissive trait
A man must learn to gently dominate

Polarize me
Sensitize me
Criticize me
Civilize me
Compensate me
Animate me
Complicate me
Elevate me

Seriously...

My wife once said to me: Seriously... stop taking yourself so seriously.  

The way I see it though... you need to take some things seriously...

Ah... that's the rub, yes?

SOME THINGS

What do we take seriously and what do we not?  

I'm surrounded by energies right how of people taking themselves too seriously. People afraid to offend. People afraid to laugh and relax. People too tight in the bud... They stink of fear. Everything is all structure, like we entered a military academy.

I take life very seriously... except when I don't. Here is a quote I love from Tom Robbins:

“I believe in everything; nothing is sacred. I believe in nothing; everything is sacred. 

I want to grow up... I want to shed my layers of falseness and love fully... I take that seriously. Hence, I don't take MYSELF seriously.  My SELF is the least thing to EVER take seriously. What I take seriously is opening, loving, laughing, serving, doing.

Is this useful information to you? I discovered this in my life, just by living it. Taking things seriously is important... but taking the fear based little grubby ego too seriously is disgusting.

And it's useful to me because when I'm in that state... I can't see that I'm being too serious. I think I'm being serious in the right way, the way that gets things done. Oorah!

This navigation point between serious and too serious is not easy to find. There are no quick ways to achieve this balance. You have to get to a point of depth, openness, reflection, with proper feedback from your environment.  

There is a skill here... part science... part art.... 

The one thing I can offer you right now, in this moment, is that this balanced energy comes from the lower gut, that's where you will feel it in your body... (not the solar plexus, below that) and there will be a wry grin on your lips, barely there, when you feel it. 

As always, I would love to hear from people who are on the path to seriously... not taking themselves too seriously....

 

 

Institutionalized

A friend of mine sent me this video link today.  It's a perfect example of the Primal energies in the world right now, particularly for Men. It shows the effects of the grind of culture and how we typically deal with it (even if the song's demonstrations are extreme, each of us can relate in some way to the man's various frustrations).  It's called Institutionalized, by  the band Body Count.

 WARNING: It has extreme profanity with hard rock music. 

Eye Gazing

The core of all suffering is living a false life.

The basic teaching is always the same.  Surrender. Relaxing open as the universe.

The basic practice is always the same. Surrender. Relaxing open as the universe.

What can you do to begin opening?  First thing: Look deeply into someone's eyes.

"Looking deep into a person's eyes... requires a certain relaxation from the usual armor we wear."

-Adi Da (Heart-Master Da Love-Ananda (Da Free John) in his book: The Knee of Listening.


Myth of Freedom

There is a book by ChogyamTrugnpa called The Myth of Freedom.  You don’t need to read it.  The title says it all.

Raising three kids I’ve seen this odd need for ‘freedom’ inside each of them. A path from dependence to independence. I used to think this was something inborn, an evolutionary trait that helped a tribal member survive by going out into the world alone.

But I’ve begun to suspect it is more ‘cultural’ than anything. More and more my discoveries have revealed that one of the greatest effects on human development is the panpsychic sphere of their CULTURE. More than genes, more than parents. Witness some cultures where teenagers do NOT go through the normal ‘rebellious’ stage of development.

So what is this need for freedom? Certain models suggests that the masculine force (Alpha) is defined almost entirely by its seeking for freedom, and it defines this freedom as a sense of nothingness.

As we came from nothing perhaps we have an inborn seeking to return to nothing…

Another thought occurs to me. Perhaps the concept of control, and freedom, the desire to be ‘free’ is an inborn spiritual device. Perhaps deep down all of us have been ‘programmed’ with a series of codes that define a series of authentic doings. We can call this purpose, mission, context, whatever.

This might again, just be a cultural meme… Wouldn’t that be a kick in the pants? What if our core definitions of feminine, masculine, purpose, love, mission, opening, were nothing more than cultural memes…?

But what if they aren’t? 

What if when you burn everything else away, you are left with a small piece of something you should do? A script. A role for your actor to play. An authentic co-creative role.

And if this is true it suggests there is certainly more going on here on this little spheroid ball in the void than just random evolution. There may be no meaning to life… but there might be a plan.

And if there IS a plan… then FREEDOM is… what?

Freedom is living your authentic life.

You might not be free to choose what that is…. You might have to just discover it and surrender to it… but perhaps the entire struggle for freedom is the true search for your authentic doing.

And perhaps this explains why so many of our current teenagers struggle so horrifically with a sense of control and a desire for freedom. Their culture is imposing a series of choices and directions for their life that are often 100% at odds with their authentic path.

Or maybe it’s all just a cultural meme…


Turbulence

Until you learn to enjoy the experience of turbulence, you will never achieve the authentic depth you are fully capable of.

If you are serious about growth, healing, progress… you have to lean into your edge, and become comfortable with being uncomfortable.  Whoever told you growth was love and light and peace and joy, lied to you. Any teaching that is not disruptive to your sense of self, that doesn’t make you highly uncomfortable at times, is not doing you a lick of good.

Nothing against enjoying life.

But if you want grow, be ready to undo yourself, and enjoy it.

First and Last Training

The Buddhists have a training called Morality – The First and Last training.  This corresponds to what I call therapy.  Whenever you are trying to work with the pieces (shards) of yourself, making them better, healing them, growing them, you are doing what is called therapy.  This effort to grow is endless.  You can always get better in some area of your life. 

So what is Art? Sexual Yoga?

Stay tuned to find out… 

Finding your Inner Strength

There is a short scene in the new movie Avengers: Age of Ultron, where two characters simultaneously find their inner strength through the tussle of the Masculine and Feminine.  Black Widow (played by Scarlett Johansson) needs Bruce Banner (played by Mark Ruffalo) to turn into the Hulk in order to save the world. But Bruce is afraid of his inner strength. The feminine force (Black Widow) steps up, and pushes Bruch off a ledge. He will either die… or turn into the Hulk as he falls. Will he rise up and become the monster he fears, in order to fulfill his purpose and save the world?

What are you willing to do to find your inner strength and live your deepest truth?

Back in the day...

Men were Men… and Women were….

No better example of the fixed roles of men and women in our past evolution can be found than in the TV Show Mad Men: Don and Betty Draper.

Don is all evolutionary man… 

Or maybe this image would be a bit more appropriate:

Don epitomizes masculine energy: Purpose, focus, drive.  He walks into a room and people notice.

But behind this wall of basic masculine energy is a hurt little boy. He’s constantly at war with the feminine, always trying to feed off it, control it, or run from it. 

Not only is he afraid of the feminine in all it’s forms, he is afraid of the true depth of his own masculine.

Betty is all evolutionary woman… 

Or maybe this image would be better:

Keeping the home, nurturing the children, filling the home with light and love…

But behind her wall of basic feminine energy is a hurt little girl.  She constantly maneuvers to keep her man, to feel safe, to control her environment.

But in this she denies her own masculine strengths, desires for career and purpose of her own, but worse she operates on only the most superficial of feminine levels. Her true feminine rage and power and love scares her more than anything else.  Unleashed past her desire for more financial independence and love, into the authentic whirlwind tornado of the feminine goddess, what would really happen?

Here we see the arch-types of human evolution, the old style of loving born out of need and control and fear.  Men lived the stereotype of masculine warrior hiding the hurt little boy underneath desperate for mommy’s love.  Women lived the stereotype of the passive female hiding the ferocious feminine storm underneath. 

One hundred thousand… two hundred thousand years of evolution led to Don and Betty Draper… who reside in all of us.

And yet we yearn for more… more from our living, loving, and intimacy.

Luckily, something happened to change everything:

NEXT BLOG: The Next Evolutionary Step in Intimacy: The 60s.

For a MUCH DEEPER exploration of the idea of Primal Growth Click HERE.