What was the plan?

I started writing this journal without really knowing what for.  Why was a publicizing my personal path and struggles. I never figured that out, so I stopped writing.  It has been a couple months, but many things have progressed during that time.  A big event seems to have come, and I wanted to write about it briefly.
I have found the help of the drum really brought me to a calm space in my life, which has been outstanding.  I attended a drum making workshop and created my own shaman style drum. It has a presence about it that helps me focus energy in a different way than the Djembe that I find so calming.
After making the drum and setting it to dry, the second day of the workshop had us making the beater stick for it.  I carved a long stick of Willow for my beater, and the act of working with the wood awoke something.  I found myself carving a piece of Yew into a wand over the next couple of days and sanding it down for a couple weeks.  It was so enjoyable I decided I wanted to start making things. Working with wood became the focus of that, so I decided to look at tools for turning wood.
My parents helped me by gifting me a lathe and some essential tools for wood turning. I have added a few extra tools and picked up several pieces of wood to turn and so far I have made wonderful strides in my skill.

It feels good to bring things I have created into the world.

The first three creations.

A Pretty General Update

Much has happened over the past few weeks.  That has allowed me to balance between the ups and downs fairly well.  I have only dipped below an operable line once that I can recall and have only occasionally been so distracted by the upswings that it became difficult to concentrate on specific tasks.

I finally built an altar.  Not only did I build an altar, but I converted my spare room into a bit of a meditation room.  It now provides me a consistent space to relax and center.  I also feel comfortable enough to draw and drum there.  Truth be told, the drum is a often used meditation tool for me now; and this makes me very happy.  I turned my old computer desk into my altar and moved the unused computer into storage space.  I use an abalone shell and salt to create a safe place to burn incense and sage.  It is a peaceful place.  I need to acquire a few more items for the altar, such as a smudging feather or fan, and I am trying to decide on a wall hanging for above it.  This will be a continuous project I'm sure.

I also attended a Sweat-lodge for the first time.  On the Autumnal Equinox, I joined eight others in the use of this old medicine.  Unfortunately, I was so trapped in how uncomfortable I was, both in the hunched over form and with the heat, that I think I missed out on some of the medicine the event normally can offer.  I will try again, perhaps with a different person pouring, before I decide if it is a tool for me to continue using.  I did have a few insights from the day that continue to give me positive lines of thought, so for those I am grateful.

Unfortunately the one downswing was over this past weekend, and I confined myself to my apartment the whole weekend.  And did nothing.  So I, sadly, missed the Seidr Ceremony for September, among other less important things that I had wanted to do over the weekend.

Today I attend to my "Life Activation".  I still wonder how open I am to the process, but am hopeful none-the-less.  I spent last night trying to open up my system a bit, spending most of the evening either meditating or bathing in vanilla and shea butter sea salt infused bath water (I smell tasty).

All in all I think things are going well and if I can just get into a habit to work both my heart and my body regularly, I think I'll start feeling even better...

Mirror Image

When the facade cracks, can you still look in the mirror?
When it falls away, can you stand what is unmasked?
Look at your bared soul and trust that you are good, enough, and worth every pain, every struggle and every disappointment.

I wish it was as easy to do, as it is to write...

If you seem to be standing in a shadow, turn around and face the light.

Drumming: An external heartbeat

At the transition between July and August I had a significant event rip at a chunk of my soul. An old evil rose up and I allowed myself to lose control. I intend to right more specifically about this event, because it was the catalyst for me starting this blog, as well as pushing me toward finding significant healing for myself, and hoping to become a much better me, so that events like that cannot be revisited.

One of those steps was buying a drum. In a dream I found myself under my tree beating an African hand drum. I have found some serious magic to be gleaned from following images in my dreams, so the next day I started looking for the type of drum I saw in my dream. I was certain it was a djembe after looking at many different types of hand drums.
I found one for a reasonable price on Craigslist, and at the end of the week I purchased it.

Since then I have found it to be very soothing in moments when I start ripping myself up and helping allow me to calm down and cease my mental self-flagellation. I took it with me on my most recent camping trip, and found a few moments to enjoy playing in nature, something I hope to do again soon. Until then, I'll take the nearly daily doses of calm in my living room...

Find your heartbeat, and find peace for your soul.

Too big, sometimes

I had the tv on today to distract me. But once I turned it off and retreated to the silence of the bathtub, I realized that I was avoiding me.
As I climbed in the hot water I realized I felt dejected, marginalized and over fed. Things began to reinforce that. I'm a large guy. I don't fit in bathtubs well. And that easily turn into me being old, fat and not fitting into anything.
It doesn't always make sense for these things come from. How I can go suddenly from being a reasonable mood to feeling dejected and marginalized.
I did come to realize that sometimes I just want to be held and sometimes I think I'm too big big for that.

Education vs. Skepticism & Cynicism

This journey I am on has no clear roads. It is much more like walking a rocky river bed, upriver. Some times the water is calm in deep eddies, sometimes it is a strong ripping force with only slippery stones to brace against the current. So I am hoping I am not slipping into gullibility as I look in different places for methods that will help me find my way.

I am a skeptic. More than that I tend to be a bit of a cynic, thinking more often that people who sell "enlightenment" are con artists and roadside swindlers. The difficult part of this is that I am looking for information that it seems to be lacking in most common people. I want to believe, but the church of men has failed me. So I turn to a friend, and find her finding solace and wisdom through the Modern Mystery School. When I hear their pitch, I am half intrigued, and half dismissive. Their sales pitch has sold me in some areas, but then I consider more and I am left with questions that fail to support their selling points.

Now, this skepticism, and these questions could have two different sources. The first is the obvious distrust of snake oil salesmen. The second is knowledge that I am stubborn, and I hold to my beliefs of how the world works tightly. Is the skepticism founded in distrust, or is it realized in the mind's protective ways, holding fast to its illusions and delusions?

These questions come to mind after last night I attended an informative sales pitch from the Modern Mystery School.  The event was called Education for the Soul: Mastery in the New Paradigm. Ultimately, it claims to teach from oral traditions, passed down from the time of King Solomon, using healing and spiritual models extracted and combined from a multitude of different cultures. This, in their eyes, is what the value and treasure of King Solomon's Temple, and is his legacy and gift to us in the world.

In the opening to the presentation, a short visual exercise was initiated to suggest that a goal of being a better and more successful healing soul was suddenly achieved. In this world, after this miracle had occurred, what was the first thing I noticed had changed.

I saw nothing.

I heard nothing.

In fact what I noticed was Silence. When I wrote it down in my notes, it was under the auspice that I had somehow failed to fully visualize and join in the experience as suggested. By the end I had come to connect the silence to the silencing of the doubts and those occasions of low self esteem within my own head... That silence would be welcome indeed.

Mastery in the new paradigm is about mastering the self; as Leonardo da Vinci said, "Know thyself". We cannot cause a great effect in the world save for the effect we can cause in our own hearts. This also was addressed in the idea that we all wear masks. How we present ourselves to the world is one thing, but to do so in the mirror, and attempt to deceive ourselves is a danger, not just to our own souls, but to world around us. The instructors did not suggest to not wear masks, but to be aware what masks we wear, and why we wear them.

The one thing that was mentioned in the event that may have sold me more than any other was the idea that Life Activation can have an effect on not just myself, but on my genetic lineage, in both directions. And the idea that it might help me find healing and forgiveness in my relationship with my children. That possibility alone makes it easier to look beyond my skepticism, but I do come back to the hesitation, and hope that I am not being sold on a weakness in my heart by a roadside swindler. 

Feeling Alone ≠ Being Alone

I had a great Labor Day weekend up on the middle fork of the Snoqualmie River. A wonderfully secluded campsite, that was on the far side of the river kept us in relative seclusion. Me and one good friend went out there Friday and only saw three teens for a few moments on Saturday, and then no one else until leaving on Monday afternoon.
Our campsite was on an old dried up island in the middle of the river, it obviously used to be part of the river bed, but the growth on the island belied how long it had been above the water level. There was a lot of wonderful views steps from our tent. A small tributary of the river worked as a cold storage for our food. With the gravel road, nearly invisible on the opposite side of the river It was one of the best primitive campsites I have been to in a long time that didn't require a day's hike or more. I have no doubt I will want to return to this site again in the future.
Each morning I had a good amount of time to walk away from camp and give myself time to ponder and stew over various parts of life. Alone and in nature, listening to the river run and the occasional bird was at times peaceful, and at times haunting. Of course the difference between...

...just me.

I struggle with the fact that I can so easily let my mind wander back and forth to places I shouldn't. Places I want to leave behind, Places I wish I couldn't go, or places I wish I could. Its difficult at best, but its something I can't ignore. Other times of the weekend were packed with fun and adventure. Learning how to cross a fast moving river with slippery rocky bottoms too shallow to swim. Finding a beautiful deep swimming hole with soft clay edging the river, and a giant rock to jump from. Playing in a glassy, clear water alcove in the golden light of sunset. Playing my drum out in nature. There were definitely more pluses that minuses even with my head-space flirting back and forth in occasional disarray.

Where I struggle now, though, merely two days after returning home, is how alone I feel without the one person nearby. I am pretty happy with most of my life, (most of the time) but in this one thing, I still feel the pressure of what everything in our society insists is where I have failed as a man. Letting go of my pre-conceptions and what I think should be, and what my world should look like, especially when it comes to my interactions with other people is harder than I want it to be.

I am okay alone. I am enough.
These are true, I know this.
So why do I feel alone?