"Under My Breath, Life Breathes Me" (Majo,12/96)

Under my breath, life breathes me
My breath falters, gets tight
All but goes away
The breath of life rocks me gently
I float on a tiny raft
On an immense, wild ocean
Struggling to stay afloat
To somehow chart a course
In the void, the vastness
Life is the ocean
It holds me and my raft
Were I to lose the raft
This tiny defense that I call home
Plunge naked into life
Drop under the surface
Lose my grip
Over my head in life
With no bearings

Surrender all hope of ever again

Knowing which end is up

Say goodbye to surface life

That has seemed my only realm

Slide down, down, down into life

What then?

"This Story I Tell" (Majo, 11/22/05)

I’ll tell you my story
If you tell me yours
We each have so many
Which to share in this here and now?

We’ll tell them piece by piece, bit by bit
And see if we recognize
Each other in them

Some of mine may sound different than yours
But still may lay open
Some part of the human cloth
We both do wear

Some will stir memories, echoes
Of places we have been
Lives we have led -
Others will leave questions more
What was that like?
How would it be
To have been there?

How do we make it safe to tell?
We look, we smile
Or I frown when you do frown
We sit alert or sigh
And settle more in this
Soft or hard real-life chair

Each time I tell
Each story will come out different
Because each moment I will change
The river of my life will wash me in a different wave

If my story does honor my past, does make it real
Then it also shows why this moment, too, is true
“So this is how I came to this here and now
This is the only way it could have been”

If my story shares my now with dignity
Even in the humiliations of this human life
Then it also claims my past
As nothing but human, too
If it got me here
It is valid as it is
To change it might make me you
Or some other soul I would not know

I can wrestle with these demons of mine
Better than could you or them
If I took on yours or theirs
They would take me down
In no time flat
I never grew those muscles
That keep you or them alive

Each tale implies a future
How could all this life-flow end?
Only our minds
Separate past, present and what’s to come
They are all alive here and now
We shine a light on them
One by one

If my story is to reach your heart
I must break it open to the truly human core
That place which is most vulnerable, cracked
And so alive
That part I would most protect
Hide, camouflage, prettify

If you have not gone where I describe
You still have felt what I have felt
You will recognize the urge to hide
And the release in finally not
If this part of my story is not you
The telling of it is

I tell myself stories about my life
That hurt me more than what went on
I make myself villain, goat, victim
Of the play.
I must tell them
Again and again
This way and that
Until I find the thread that is most true

In that thread I am nothing but Life
No longer separate
My unique story takes me home
Where I am you as you are me
Where we are more than we can see

Life tells its infinite story through us
As each wave, for a moment
Describes the sea

"Who Am I?" (Majo John Madden, 1997)

Intro: About ten years ago, I participated in a weekend workshop called the Enlightenment Intensive. The primary activity in this three-day workshop is round after round after round of sitting opposite from another participant, who for five minutes asks you again and again, “Who are you?’ – and you give whatever comes to mind. Then you return the question to them for five minutes. Then you move on to another partner and repeat the same process. For three days. Two days after the workshop, I wrote this poem.

The title of the poem is,


"Who Am I?"

Who am I?
What the hell kind of question is that?
Do I not know who I am
After all these years of fumbling around?
I might as well give up the ghost….….

No, I don’t have an answer
I don’t know who I am.
Am I this bewildering array of thoughts, perceptions and sensations
Warring within my brain – pulling me this way and that?
Each grabs me and wants to own me – I hope I am more than them.

You look at me so sincerely and ask me who I am….
Am I the reflection of me I see in your eyes?
I think I might like it better than my own view.
Am I the current I feel flowing between us
As we sit and look at each other?
I feel so connected to you – am I you?
And yet I feel separate somehow….

There are so many things and people that I want
Am I them?
Am I the wanter?
Am I it that is observing the wanter?
Am I whatever is noticing the observer?
Or is that the same observer, observing itself?
How deep does this go, anyway?

Am I the calm silence that
Has floated up in me since those questions exhausted themselves?
Or am I the “me” in which it has floated, the field in which it lies?
Or am I the thoughts and questions
Nibbling at the edges of this sweet silence?
Or the gentle mother voice shushing those thoughts
“Later, he’s resting now.”

Am I the sorrow I feel at being so many unharmonized voices
The sadness and shame at being a house so divided
A mind so mindless
A self so out of touch with itself…?

Yet there is still something else
I can’t see it or hear it, but I feel it…
A watcher of the watchers
Yet softer than watching
Not a voice, but a presence
Not words, but a warm radiance.
And now that I notice it, I realize
That it was present in every other level
Obscured by the noise, the action – but there.

I feel joy in its presence
And want only to sit here with it
To soak in the peace, the at-homeness I feel.
For truly, in the presence of this benign, tender something
Which I can only inadequately name “love”
I feel no distance,
No judging of it by me or me by it
No finger-pointing or name-calling – no identifying at all
No need to protect myself
Or to stay separate in any way.
And the question “Who am I?”
Slips easily into dust.
From here I can see nothing that I am not.
I am, I simply am
And will be, even when I forget.

And from here the only thing I want
Is not to forget.

"Something New" (Majo John Madden. 12/07)

I am old
This life is old
These bones are old
These thoughts are old
These fears are old
These hopes are old
These dreams are old

From where might come something new?
I have searched the horizon
For a glimpse of hope, from anywhere
My ship to come
A rescue plane to pick me up
From this desert isle
“This is Radio Majo – Come in, come in – is there anybody out there?”

I am giving up
There is nothing out there
But the ghosts of my life past
The phantasms of my wandering
In this landscape of broken dreams
Giving up…
Giving up…


But what is this?
When I give up
Something rises…
When I give up
Something rises…
When I give up
Something rises…

I have become so empty
Empty of hope
Empty of the will to try
Empty of sails on that so-empty sea
Empty of a dream of what might come
Empty of what I thought was me

I have become so hollow
So transparent
So lacking in mass
That my empty has turned to light
My empty has turned to light

This gentle breeze
Stirring beneath my hollow limbs
Lifts me – oh so slightly
Up
The golden sun, which shines on
Nothing that I want
Begins to shine
Through me

I have become
So empty
So hollow
So transparent
That the breeze lifts me up
And the light fills me up
My being in this world
So exhausted
So used up
So empty
That I am become
A being of light

Like no one I remember
But one I recognize
Was hidden, covered
So encased in doing
‘Til I could do no more


I will continue to give up
Life will teach me how
It’s one more thing I will not do
In this empty, used up
Hollow, radiant now

"Call Me Crazy" (Majo John Madden, 8/04)

Call me “intense”
Call me “inconsistent”
Call me “unpredictable”
Call me “unstable”
Call me “eccentric”
Call me “hard to keep up with”
Call me “over the top”
Call me “too much”
Call me “crazy”

Call me “a seeker”
Call me “courageous”
Call me “letting go”
Call me “a risk taker”
Call me “a truth teller”
Call me “an adventurer”
Call me “open to Spirit”

Hey, since it’s worth having one handle, anyway
And since “Majo” works for me
Call me Majo

But what if none of this other stuff applies?
What if it’s all shit we’re making up?
What if all these words are
Part of the burden
Part of the past
Part of the weight
Part of the pain
Part of the junk pile I wish to burn
What if none of them actually are me –
Or you?

What if the greatest gift you can give me
Is to be confused
Is to be not knowing
Is to let it all go –
All the labels, all the ideas
All the past
All the images of who I am
And who you are -
And see what happens.

"Space" meditation

· Plant your feet on the floor, hands on your lap

· Eyes closed or gently unfocused, maybe looking at the floor

· Observe your breathing

· Observe your inhalation into your lungs – and do this between each of the following exhales

· Exhale into your brain

- What does it feel like?
- Observe the activity of your mind
- What is the quality of that activity?
- Fast/slow?
- Comfortable/uncomfortable?
- Love/fear?
- Who is the observer?
- Don’t try to figure it out – just notice that there is an observer
- Who is noticing the observer?
- Don’t try to figure it out – just notice that something is noticing.

· Now exhale into your whole head
- See if there is some space in there, beyond the thinking brain

· Now exhale into your whole body
- Is your whole body thinking?
- Is there space in your body that is not thinking?

· Now exhale into the whole room around you
- See if there is a sense of space around you
- Expand into that space
- Notice that there is a center of consciousness in you, observing all this

· Now exhale into the whole building around you

· Now exhale into the city of Asheville

· Now exhale into the whole United States

· Now exhale into the whole planet

· Now exhale into the solar system

· Now exhale into the universe

· See if you have a sense of spaciousness, room to breathe

· Progressively bring your awareness back into your body, but see if you can keep an awareness of there being space around you

- What does it feel like to have this space around you?

· Open your eyes, but see if you can keep an awareness of there being space around you

· Experiment with this shifting of awareness between inside yourself and the space around you as often as you wish – shuttling between this focus and whatever else you happen to be doing

"Uncontested", a poem (Majo, 10/1/02)

Is this moment OK?
A voice in me says perhaps I should be in another
Should be somewhere else, doing something else
With someone else, as someone else.
Perhaps I should be further ahead than I am.
Perhaps I started at the wrong place
And will never have a chance.
Perhaps I have not done enough or well enough
Perhaps I took a wrong turn
Somewhere back along the road.

More than ever I remember
I am hearing and observing this “perhaps” voice.
It is a funny voice, I think
Where does it get its information?
Its accusations have become monotonous to me
I see that it truly does not come from me
In fact, it truly is not alive at all
It is a tape recording, a mindless machine voice.
It is caught in an endless litany of “not enough”.
There is no life in it and no life in listening.
It is a relic, an echo
A memory that has not caught up – and never can
With here and now.
It is a here-and-now would-be destroyer
Except that here-and-now is
So much bigger, so much stronger.
This moment is nothing but alive
It vibrates, pulsates, sings, reverberates.
The present moment does not see or hear
The “perhaps” voice at all.
There is no contest.
When I step from “perhaps” to this moment, I am uncontested.

Dualism gone good

One of my recent fav quotes came from a dear friend who emailed me, "I don't really understand this "dualism" thing you talk about, but I get it that it's a bad thing."

Ain't necessarily so. If all truly is one, then a little dualism here and there ain't all bad - even if we see a unity underlying it.

I see a spectrum of dualistic responses, here through the lens of "It feels like something is going wrong."

1. A mis-perceived dualism - it looks like something is going wrong, when this really misses the point.
   
   e.g. when Don, the administrator at Jubilee, called me yesterday morning to say that there was a conflict around rooms for my weekly Wednesday Life Lived More Deeply ongoing group (http://www.llmdongoing.blogspot.com/), and that I would have to be out of our room by 6:45 p.m. - when we are scheduled to end at 7 - that initially felt to me like a threat, an encroachment on our turf. It didn't take me long, though, to make the connection that almost every week somebody in our group needs to leave early. What if it might actually be better timing if we started a little earlier and ended a little earlier? This was a connection I never had made - and might not have, for a while at least, without this "conflict". That night I polled the group and all but one person said they would prefer this earlier end time, and no one had a problem with starting earlier. I had had an emotional reaction that this was a "bad thing" - that something was going wrong. But I was wrong.
   
2. An accurate dualism - something actually is going wrong.
   
   e.g. When you're crossing the street and suddenly a car is coming at you, there's a realistic basis for feeling like something is going wrong. This is not a time, unless you are some extraordinarily developed ninja, for blending your energy with that car - it's a time for keeping that car the hell separate.
   
   e.g. the other morning, as I was driving into town from my place in the country, I became aware of having judgments about the way the guy in front of me was driving. Now, I am prone to judgmental thoughts about the way people drive, and I thought, "There you go again - you and your judgmental mind." Well, my assessment that something was going wrong in my thought process turned out to be wrong - because something was actually going wrong in the way this guy was driving. The further I followed him, he was totally all over the road - frequently weaving into the oncoming lane. And he had no license plate. I came to the conclusion that his driving was in some way impaired - and called the highway patrol.
   
3. A dualism ignored or denied - something is going wrong, but we aren't seeing it.
   
   E.g. a friend asked me the other evening, "Hey, what finally came of those medical tests you had a ways back?" It was only at that moment that I realized that I had not told one person about the repeat biopsy I was having the next day - I had not even considered it. I really didn't have a tremendous amount of anxiety about it. I was pretty sure the results would be fine (which they did turn out to be) - but I did have some anxiety, some concern that something might be going wrong. But I was ignoring it, denying it - oh, let's just say it, suppressing it. My friend made the great suggestion that I send out an email to my handful of closest friends, alerting them of this procedure - so I could have a chance to get some support around it. I had had a little, unacknowledged concern that something might be going wrong, which had some basis in reality - and it was valuable for me to finally acknowledge this, but I had erred on the side of not paying attention to it.
   
   e.g. This pattern of not ever realizing that this is a situation in which I might want to ask for support is a very strong one in me. Something is kinda going wrong there, in this stuck pattern, but I tend not to notice it, which makes it harder to change it.
   

The thing that can most powerfully help us weave our way through this maze of false duality/accurate duality/ignored duality is present-moment awareness - a primary tool for which is to get grounded in our bodies.

This spectrum of dualities also applies to the related question, "Should we try to be positive all the time?" For me, this kind of "trying", this attempt to rigidly control the contents of our consciousness, just complicates our lives - as well as making it hard for us to perceive the genuine threats or problems around us and inside us.

So, does all this indicate, then, that "dualism is the truth - just the way things are"? Not to me - I still believe and more-and-more experience an underlying unity in all of life, including some of these things that are apparently "going wrong". I may not always see the connections - but I do know, for instance, that the way my friend punctured my excessive self-reliance around that medical procedure has put the whole issue of self-care (and asking for help) very much on the front burner for me. And I'm really grateful for that.

Non-resistance - Marita's victory

The other night at my weekly Life Lived More Deeply open group (http://www.llmdongoing.blogspot.com/) we were having a great time, as we almost always do.

When there was about 20 minutes left in our time together, a young woman in the group named Marita (she has read this and has told me that she doesn't mind me using her real name) said, "You know, that last bunch of stuff you just said really doesn't fit for me - it's not how I see my life at all."

I instinctively knew that what she was saying was really important, that - although on the surface she was challenging me and what I was teaching - truly what she was up to was not to challenge me, but simply to speak her truth. I felt not one bit defensive - not even for a moment. Rather, I got excited - excited for her, excited for the possibility of us opening up that meeting, that ongoing group even more.

I asked her to say more about how she saw things differently than what I had just said. And she did - in vivid, specific ways and with lots of enthusiasm. It was clear that speaking her truth was exciting to her - and that she knew that this was OK with me.

At one point she said, "That stuff you just said felt cloudy to me, like just a tangle of words." I simply repeated what she had just said, "'Cloudy, like just a tangle of words.' That's so vivid, so real - you really, truly know how this part of your truth is different from this part of my truth, this aspect of what I am teaching."

She looked triumphant - excited, alive, powerful. She had not triumphed over me - we were completely partners in this bit of exploration. She had triumphed over all the forces in her life that have, in the past, kept her from ferociously defending her own perceptions, her own understanding - her own truth.

She and I were both very happy in that moment. I said to the group, "If I had interrupted this heroic person, if I had challenged her or tried to convince her to see things my way, we could easily have gotten into some kind of verbal tennis match, each of us trying to put the ball past the other one. But we didn't need to do that. She was doing exactly what she came here for - and really exactly what this group is for. We come together to provide space for everyone in the room to find your own truth, right now, in this moment. When you align yourself with your specific, individual truth-in-the-moment - and even more so when you let yourself express this truth - in that moment you are living your life more deeply. You are discovering and being who you really are. We were all lucky to be present when this was happening for Marita - it gives us a little glimpse of how we can become more that exact person who we uniquely are."

I saw Marita four days after our meeting - and we have emailed each other several times in the last few days. She is really on a roll - she is hot! In one email she said, "If you look to the west, you can probably see me shining." And it felt like I could.

It is very exciting to be around someone who is having such a direct and powerful experience of Life Lived More Deeply. I am really grateful to Suzie for demonstrating so clearly the power of truly, courageously being your own self. She is radiating fabulous positive energy - I feel lucky to be around it.

What’s in a Name? Changing Your Handle in Asheville (Majo John Madden, 11/04)

“Everybody in Asheville takes a new name”, Spuds Anderthal said the other day. “It’s an Asheville thing, like the kayaks on top of the SUV’s and the belly-button rings. For example, you”, he said, leaning in towards the lovely young woman who had recently moved into our boarding house, “were not born being called ‘Princess Kamanawanalaia’, right?”

“Yes, I was”, she said, sweetly. “My parents named me after the Polynesian goddess of fertility. I think it’s really me, and when I decide to settle down, I’ll have fabulous babies and give them all Polynesian names.”

“OK, so she’s an exception”, he said, dismissing her, clearly disgusted. Spuds hates to be wrong. “Hippie parents - I’m almost glad my parents were so straight. But you, Mr. Majo”, he then said with a little more edge, looking straight at me. “You still go half the time by ‘John Madden’ – what’s up with that? What did you do, change your name on the bus to Asheville?”

Well, no, actually, I was given this name by a spiritual teacher. I didn’t even bother to say all this to Spuds, who was in no mood to appreciate spiritual subtleties. A few weeks before moving to Asheville, when I did, in fact, feel a tremendous need for a new identity, my computer crashed and I no longer needed a regular dial-up Internet service provider. So, preparing for a reduced income in Asheville, I went to Yahoo for one of these free e-mail accounts that you can access at the library and stuff. The spiritual adept Yahoo did not like any of my submissions for an e-mail handle, including jmmadden@yahoo.com, which used to be my Yahoo address years ago. Finally it came back with its own recommendation, the first two letters of my last and then first name – “Majo”. I liked it, and it has stuck.

Kind of. When I’m feeling “up”, creative, enthusiastic, and/or like a working class hero, it’s easy to say, “People call me Majo”. Even when I first got here and it was mostly a lie, I would think of the couple friends in Chicago who loved the Caribbean sound of it and had actually started to use it with me.

Remember Shane’s first words in the book and movie? “Call me Shane.” We read that book in high school, and Shane was such a cool, mysterious cowboy dude. I just knew, as I was leaving Chicago, that in Asheville - where I wanted to start over and stay kind of mysterious – I would just kind of give people a little tip of my head and say, “Call me Majo.” Cool.

When I’m feeling down, though, not like such a hero at all – more like a washed-up, fat bald guy from the Midwest – “Majo” has a hard time getting over my teeth. In fact, I can’t even picture using it. “Who are you?” I think to myself. “You’re not some cool Afro-Caribbean dude, you’re this corny, neurotic loser from Chicago, who doesn’t even belong here with all these cool, beautiful, fit young mountain-bikers.” So then I almost always introduce myself as John, even though I mostly feel defeated as I do so.

Sometimes it feels kind of energizing and empowering (God, I remember when I didn’t hate that word) to rant, inside myself, out loud, or even out loud with other people around to hear it, “Why should I go through life being called some name that my parents gave me when they didn’t even know me yet, when they had no idea who I was going to turn out to be? I never met my paternal grandfather John – hell, no one in my dad’s family has ever even said anything about him. I wonder if they really didn’t like him, but sacrificed me to his memory to appease their guilt. I have to share this name with zillions of other Johns, hundreds of John Maddens – one of them way more famous than I will ever be – and millions of bathrooms and legions of porta-potties in all parts of the country and maybe world. My old name is stupid and boring and humiliating and I don’t need to keep it!”

And I don’t, except when I just can’t seem to let go of it. Or when it really kind of works for me, like when I’m applying for straight jobs in straight companies. When I was interviewing to be a server at Cracker Barrel (because Spuds and Harry from the rooming house work there), that restaurant manager did not hear nothin’ about no Majo. I did not have my Majo workin’ that day.

When I’m in my cool poet self, I kind of dig it that I am voluntarily relinquishing some of my white male privilege by using a black-sounding name – not as conspicuously black-sounding as Ice-T or anything, but still not normal white. In fact, it’s interesting that the people who seem to have the most trouble with my new name are pretty consistently white men, my own age (58) or older.

It’s almost like I’m breaking the rules of the club, like they are thinking and actually wanting to say, “What are you doing, John? You have a perfectly fine Anglo name with lots of history behind it. You’re not black. You’re a normal white man like we all are – or like we are and like everybody should aspire to be. We are the benchmark. Don’t go cheapening the rich history of appropriate and necessary white male dominance by calling yourself some asinine name that does not come out of your heritage.”

In truth, even when I’m too low energy to initiate as a Majo, I still get a real kick out of someone else calling me this name. I do feel like something new is happening, like I am speaking to and being spoken to as some different part of me – a part that always has popped out from time to time, but which I now want to give more breathing room.

So, call me Majo. Except when you call me John, which most of the time – for now, anyway - is fine, too.

Under My Breath, Life Breathes Me (Majo,12/96)

Under my breath, life breathes me
My breath falters, gets tight
All but goes away
The breath of life rocks me gently
I float on a tiny raft
On an immense, wild ocean
Struggling to stay afloat
To somehow chart a course
In the void, the vastness
Life is the ocean
It holds me and my raft
Were I to lose the raft
This tiny defense that I call home
Plunge naked into life
Drop under the surface
Lose my grip
Over my head in life
With no bearings
Surrender all hope of ever again
Knowing which end is up
Say goodbye to surface life
That has seemed my only realm
Slide down, down, down into life
What then?

An exercise around dualism

Dualism does not need to be combatted or expunged. It ain't going away and even has some useful functions. But we can become more aware and mindful of how it operates on and in and through us - and perhaps even soften it up a little, negotiate it into the background instead of always populating the foreground of our attention.

Below is a little exercise you can do, if it interests you, to maybe boost some of this awareness - and perhaps even encourage a little softening of the vicelike grip of the ego and the dualities it uses to stay in charge. Some of the content below, but particularly the format of this exercise (little cards with wake-up words on them) are taken from A Course in Miracles.

One element (and for me and many others the primary element) of that Course approach is to take the theme for the day and carry it around with you, written on a little card or scrap of paper. There are 365 "lessons" in the Workbook (separate from the Text, which is heavy-duty metaphysical stuff that I could never cop to). These 365, lessons can theoretically be "worked through" in one year.

I tended to stick with the current lesson until i felt that i had sucked not most, but enough-for-then juice out of that little mantra - so i typically carried the same little scrap of paper around with me for 2-5 days. I spent not one year but three working my way through the 365 lessons. Then, because this approach was still feeling so helpful to me and because i knew that there was lots more to glean from these lessons, i turned around and spent another four years working my way through the 365 lessons again.

I did other personal and spiritual growth stuff during those years, but ACIM was kind of my spiritual home base. It definitely changed me. It has in many ways worked its way into my cells, and influences - when i am lucky - most everything i do, say, teach, etc.

I still have tremendously high regard for A Course in Miracles, even while its core principle of love vs. fear feels to me, these days, too dualistic. (I would prefer to experience fear - like all other experiences - as fully as it wants to come, to not try to expunge or even decrease it, but to let that decreasing happen automatically from not resisting it. Fear is not the enemy. When we don't resist it or even try to change it, this non-resistance can directly drop us into the flow of life in the now - and just naturally move us more into a state of love.)

So, with all that interminable intro, here's the exercise (which you can do if that feels right, or blow off if that feels more right to you - this kind of "blowing off" of what just doesn't fit for you can actually be pretty liberating and empowering):

1. Write the five sentences below - or as many of them as you are drawn to, and/or any alternatives that you create - on a 3x5 index card or some other little piece of paper.
   
2. Use one a day, for as long as you feel to stay with this particular thought.
   
3. Ponder the words on the paper - don't try to analyze them (this will really get in the way), but just let them wash over you.
   
4. Carry this little card or scrap of paper with you through the day in a pocket, purse, etc. and refer to it as often as you wish. (ACIM starts with just once at the beginning of the day, then builds, over the 365 lessons, to every five minutes or so!).
   
5. When you do re-read the sentence throughout the day, don't try to directly re-interpret that present moment through this lens, but again just let that thought wash over you - shifting your exerience, thoughts and/or emotions if and how it spontaneously tends to do...or sometimes having no impact that you can consciously notice. Not consciously seeing any particular shift does not mean that this little mantra is not, under the hood, doing some serious mojo on your consciousness.
   
6. Periodically, over the time period when you are playing with this approach, review your current life and notice if all this is having any impact on your perceptions or experiences. Again, do your best to not judge whether this little exercise is "working", whether you are "doing it right", etc. Just notice.
   
7. Lather, rinse, repeat. Play with all this as long as you wish.
   
8. You may feel moved to create new cards based on the experiences or preoccupations that are now present for you in your life.

Here are the five sentences i created for the 1/9/08 meeting of the ongoing Life Lived More Deeply group:

• “I feel like something is going wrong.”
  
• “I don’t understand the meaning of anything I see.” (This is a direct quote from one of the ACIM early lessons.)
  
• “This is interesting.” (An alternative lens from good/bad, danger/not-danger, wrong/right, etc.)
  
• “This is surprising.” (again, a useful alternative way to think about and/or perceive the events and moments of our lives)
  
• “I will start from where I’m at.”
  
• whatever additional or alternative sentences you may create.

Have fun, let go of when that feels right, do not use in front of an open flame, etc. If you are moved to do so, I'd love to hear (as always) anything you wish to share about your experiences with (not so much your opinions of) this little exercise. You can call (828-582-9822) or email me (heymajo@earthlink.net) - or post a comment right here on the blog.

Dualism - part 2 (Majo John Madden, 1/10/08)

Perhaps the core principle of the Life Lived More Deeply approach is non-dualism - learning to notice the pervasive pull of our minds, emotions, even our bodies towards breaking the world up into separate and competing pieces. As we start to progressively realize and experience that all actually is one, and that we are totally connected with all of life, lots starts to change for us.

Dualism has its place. Recognizing the difference between ourselves and others - where does my body end and theirs begin, or where does my energy field (mostly) end - all this is crucial to our well-being and pure survival on the planet. It just doesn't work for us mere mortals to let that oncoming car merge with our energy fields, to embrace our connection with it.

The problem, though, is that our minds still in many ways function as they did in cave man times. Back then it truly was important to keep that danger/non-danger dualistic filter turned on most of the time. But today we truly have more options than that. Our physical survival -or even our emotional survival - are not actually threatened most of the time.

One definition (among many) of the ego is that it is the part of our minds that tends to drive the boat, largely by putting everything into categories or buckets - especially ones like good or bad, right or wrong, pleasure or pain. But the grand-daddy, the form of dualism that most preoccupies our minds, emotions and bodies after all these centuries of evolution is danger/not danger.

Since this particular dualistic filter or focus or preoccupation is not as moment-to-moment crucial or even relevant these days, we could actually turn it off some of the time - or at least move it to the back burner. But we mostly don't know how to do this - and the ego doesn't want to go. It wants to keep running the show - and feels that it needs to, that danger truly is lurking around all the time and that survival still is a crucial every-moment focus.

It's no use to do battle with the ego. It isn't going away - it will be with us as long as we are in a human body. And it would not be in our interest to have it go away. There will always be those speeding cars out there - or people who are physically and/or emotionally dangerous for us.

The trick is to find ways to first observe the ego and the dualistic bucket-dropping that it does so pervasively. Then, as we become more able to notice when the ego is trying to drive the boat, to increase our capacity to negotiate it back to that back burner.

It's not just this particular post which addresses this issue. This dance with dualism is the central focus of this whole blog and accompanying web site, and really of all the teaching, facilitating and coaching that I do.

If you find this whole exploration to be tedious, incomprehensible, too much of a pain in the butt - or just off track froem where you want and/or maybe need to focus your attention - this could be a good time to bail, to maybe wish all of us Life Lived More Deeply explorers well and to get back to business. If this exploration continues to feel useful to you, read on (or not).

There's lots more to come.

"Wrong" - a poem

WRONG (Majo, 7/02)

How do you know when something is going wrong?
How do you know anything?
One can only “know” things that are real.
“Going wrong” is made up.

Quote - the search

"I've gone to find myself.
If I get back before I return,
keep me here."

(seen in Juke Box Junction Soda Shop, Cruso, NC)

A Wonderful New Year in 2008!

Each of you is – under, around and through all the other stuff - a beautiful being of light. My wish is that you become ever more aware of this fabulous truth in 2008.

My other main wish for my new year is simply to let myself be more and more surprised by life, as it progressively takes me exactly where I need to go.

A few years ago, after a particularly tough year, a dear friend told me that he felt that the upcoming year would be a "better year" for me. I know that one the primary forms in which he expresses his genuine, deep kindness is to wish that things get better for you, so I tried to be really gentle as I told him that I didn't want the next year to be "better". Life is always, every year, giving us exactly the experiences we are meant to have. It was a beautiful gift that my friend had such deep compassion for how tough my previous year had been. And if life chose to teach me during the next year in ways that were perhaps a bit more gentle, I knew that I would be very grateful for this. But I knew better than to want to mess with life - it knows a lot better than I what experiences I am meant to have in each successive here-and-now.

(That next year turned out to be pretty much as difficult and challenging as the previous, though in somewhat different ways. But, looking back from here, I can see clearly - at least for much of it - all the true gifts that were contained in all that tough stuff. I also feel compassion for the suffering that surrounded those gifts, but now would not change any of them.)

Please understand if I refrain from wishing you a "happy new year". "Happiness" will come and go for most of us, but the underlying good news of our lives is untouched. A teacher of mine once wished for me that I experience moments of deep peace. I definitely do wish that for each of you.

"Optimism" and "pessimism" seem, more and more to me, just different ways of messing with the truth of the here-and-now - different spins on what is true. We may feel a variety of good things stirring under the surface of our present moment - more great writing, deeply satisfying teaching and facilitating, gorgeous contacts with my luscious new and longstanding friends, etc. But to wish for a "good year" seems like just one more attempt to control my life. I would not be surprised if my next year contains some experiences that do not look or feel "good" in the moment. Rather than wishing for a "good year", I'd rather wish for myself to have progressively more frequent release from the pain created by judging my experiences, my year, my life as good or bad.

I love you all, wish for you ever more release from the pain of judging your life - and look forward with hope and gratitude for all the ways we may connect in 2008. I dream that we may all have more moments of feeling the pulse of life quickening within us, of knowing that we are loved and cared for (regardless of any pain we may currently be feeling) - and to know more all the time that "all shall be well"!