Greetings from Inside the Chrysalis

The really remarkable thing about my brother's photography (See my previous post on "You Thought It Was Easy?") is the process he used called "Focus Stacking" which provides an image so rich in detail that it can be blown up a hundred fold and still not pixelate. As the caterpillar turned to just worm-guts and then hardened its outer surface in the creation of the chrysalis, it was clear that there was no element of butterfly inside that package. And yet over the next few day's pictures, as the outer layer of that jade cocoon thinned you could see something happening. New lines and dark shapes could ever-so-faintly be seen through the surface. Change - real transformative change - was happening.

This creature just did what it was programmed in its DNA to do. But we humans, and this one in particular, far too often are wed to the past understanding of who we think we are.  Our memories of past successes and failures are blended and baked into a story that becomes our map for moving forward.  Constructivism (a field of psychology) says that we can only perceive new events within the context and framework for which we have a vocabulary and a basis of antecedent experiences with which to make sense of them. Actual "new: learning or behaviors are difficult to produce because we simply do not have the tools to produce them and we are too attached to the story already and always running in our mind. But what if that story (and that is what it is, the story we made up about what some event meant - not at all the actual event itself) is fictional? Mark Twain once quipped, "the older I get, the more vividly I can remember things that never happened!"

But inside the chrysalis, nothing of caterpillar, except for some of the worm guts, remain. Caterpillar is lost - not just forgotten - but totally gone forever. And that is what is called for in transformation: I must lose the story. All of it. I must lose the one about how I can do it by myself. Lose the story of how I am alone in this quest. Lose the story of "if you want something done right, do it yourself (thanks dad and Abe Lincoln for that one)." Lose the story that I am somehow better or stronger or more creative on my own than with any others as a pair, trio or group (Yes I know how arrogant that sounds - and inside here, that arrogance must die as well).

I am baffled as I peer through the enlarged picture of the cocoon and see what look like lines of a patterned wing are beginning to form. How is that possible? How can a black, yellow and white striped multi-legged worm lose all its defining characteristics and, as we will see in a few days, emerge as a skinny, six-legged insect with vibrantly colored orange and black wings. Transformation makes no logical sense.

You Thought It Was Easy?

For some years now I have been claiming that I am committed to helping others with their transformation all the while seemingly ignoring the implication that it also meant that I must be involved in my own transformation. So finally the lie has been exposed and I am called to account for my duplicity. I am, I must admit, now deeply involved in a transformative passage. And the truth is, I have no clue what I am doing! I guess no one in the throes of transformation does, but that wasn't obvious to me before.

My brother - an incredibly gifted amateur photographer - caught the chrysalis formation process of a monarch caterpillar on film earlier this summer. But what he showed was, as he said, nothing like was described in high school biology class. It was in actuality an incredibly violent and seemingly difficult process (thought neither of us asked the butterfly). As the caterpillar shed its last skin and started forming the cocoon, it convulsed and shook as if in severe pain.

Yeah, that would be what transformation is.  Not the cute caterpillar spinning an outer shell to hide and quietly morph into the beautiful monarch, but an earth-shattering, paradigm-shifting revolution that rips one inside out and causes one to convulse and writhe in sheer pain - if not fear - from what is coming and yet unknown. A full change in form - trans (from one to another) formation (creation).

Okay, I get it - conceptually - now can someone stop the merry-go-round, 'cause I want to get off! The only problem with transformation is it's a one-way ticket and the ride does not stop until it is done. I somehow think women learn this lesson in childbirth - that there are certain transformative processes in which we humans are not in control. But we masculine types never get that lesson. And just personally speaking, it sucks, thank you very much!

So the next few entries most likely will be from within the chrysalis. Wish me luck.

Only Moment by Moment

I am reminded each day that I am called to take this day, this set of 24 hours, this next hour and in fact  this next breath, moment by moment. While I sit here trying to set my intention for the day, my focus must be in the moment. How am I feeling this moment? Am I feeling alive and awake or sad and despairing?

This moment is the origin of the whole day and is, truthfully what sets my sails for the day and the journey ahead. By choosing to be joyfully awake and aware in this moment I am able to chart a course of productivity and usefulness.  By choosing to succumb to the sadness (thoughts and feelings that are driven mostly by wishing that I were somewhere else or that my current circumstances were not as they are) I am rendered a victim of those thoughts - most importantly because I am not present in this moment. If and when I am not present in this moment I am not capable of operating in this moment, which thus deprive me of any opportunity of acting.

Mindfulness is an awareness practice that puts us on the path by placing our feet squarely on the beginning of the path. Our (excuse me, my) human tendency is to want to look down the path and somehow be "down there" without having had to step onto the path at the beginning - where I am NOW.

Sometime next week my nephew will climb to the top of Mt. Kathadin, completing the end to end hike of the full Appalachian Trail having. He said, when we met up with him at the VT/NH border, that when he went in to a town to resupply, he always made sure to go back to the place he stepped off the trail - even if he knew there was an access point on the other side of that town.  He wanted to be mindful of completing every step of the actual trail.

There are no short-cuts in mindfulness.

On "Losing it All"

The graduation address at ANTS this year was drawn from the book "The Things They Carried" that (among other themes) described the characters of the story by the objects they had with them in combat - from canteens to pictures and bibles. We tend so often to define ourselves and our lives through the things we have, the things we own or, perhaps more accurately the things that begin to own us. At least I do - that is until a few weeks ago when became apparent that all of those things were about to become dust, ashes, memories, and lost.

I just lost a very big gamble - a company for which we had borrowed a lot of money to launch. In failing, all of that investment was lost, flushed right down the proverbial toilet, and lost. Well not entirely lost inasmuch as I still remain accountable to repay the vast amount of money borrowed in the first place.  But what went down with that company was a set of dreams, hopes, vacations, and a whole lifestyle we had hoped on in our retirement. Gone. Poof! In a matter of just a few weeks all of that was no longer something that I had - and now is something that has me.

In my meditations I am looking for the release - looking for the sense of nothingness and freedom that having nothing and owing a lot carries with it. And I find that I am still carrying pictures of that lost dream tucked into the band of my helmet. I am still carrying stories of what I would do if... in my duffel bag. I am still carrying all those things with me into battle. I want desperately to let go and to step into the humility of this new naked life that has been thrust on me pretty much against my will. And to tell the truth, I am not there yet.

Yesterday I laid on the floor in a crucifix position, praying for God to take my ego away.  "Go ahead - rip it out of my chest," I shouted out to the air that might be listening. And the only response I heard was a whisper that seemed to say, "When you are ready, you'll let go of it. It is the only thing standing between you and me."  Damn it, God, why do you have to be so right! Why don't you just let me wrestle you like your boy Israel instead of messing with my mind? Beat me fair and square instead of making it my job to surrender!

Then again, maybe that is what this losing it all is about. Being beaten at my own game.

Wrestling the Angel

For the past two years I have been researching and writing about the dark night of the soul, that place which on the outside looks like some spiritual desert, but inwardly is where the ego is stripped of its death hold on what it thinks it knows of the spiritual realm. On this journey I have met real life mystics and everyday people having mystical experiences.  I have had the blessing of friendships that are transforming and I have lost a few very dear ones as well. In many of these instances, had I not been studying the dark night, these special moments may have zipped right past me or thrown me into an unexpected downward spiral. But somehow I was graced by each of those occurrences and have come out just a tad more aware as a result.

Over the next few months or so, I will post bits and pieces from my thesis as I rework sections for publication.  I hope that which I have captured in this research can provide guidance or sustenance to fellow travelers who wrestle with their own angels or demons (do we ever know which it is that has grabbed us from behind?)

I think Rev. Renita Weems captured it best in the opening of her book, Listening For God: "No one is ever prepared to endure the long silence that follows intimacy. No one is prepared to face it when it comes after lovemaking. No one is prepared to face it when it comes after a season of intimacy with God. It is the hardest thing to talk about, and it is the hardest thing in the spiritual journey to prepare for. The long silence between intimacies, the interminable pause between words, the immeasurable seconds between pulses, the quiet between epiphanies, the hush after ecstasy, the listening for God – this is the spiritual journey, learning how to live in the meantime, between the last time you heard from God and the next you hear from God.

I would be honored if you'd let me know what you think.

Mystical Moments

When we talk about true mystical experience, it seems as though the general thought is that anyone who has a genuine connection with the divine floats about in some kind of mystical state 24/7. However none of the mystics ever seem to report it that way. What is more the case is that they (and we) have scattered mystical moments; small glimpses of what that connection looks and feels like. It is here one moment and slips away as soon as we try to latch on to it and hold it as our own.

Actually the term mysticism and mystical were not even part of our language until the 15th century, so the early "mystics" did not even refer to themselves or their experiences as mystical. But as the church tried more and more to make god and spirituality more other-worldly, they pushed the experience of the divine into the realm of the non-human - and we have been trying to get it back ever since.

Truth is: mystical moments happen all the time but because we tend to be looking for the big kahuna "aha" experience, we don't recognize them. You know what they are: a baby's smile, catching another person eye-to-eye, sunsets and sunrises, a rose blooming or a crocus poking its way through the last snow, and so many more. In fact every instant there is another moment that is mystical and transcendent. and when you start to see them, life itself becomes more beautiful and precious.

The trick in the whole mystical experience is to be awake and aware enough to notice each time when we forget that life is filled with mystical moments and slide back into our routines. Dan Millman wrote a book once called No Ordinary Moments which really captures this understanding.  But we don't need near death experiences to wake us up - we need only to wake up. Then you'll see why the so called "mystics" lived quite ordinary lives - but were filled by the abundance of mystical moments they allowed themselves to experience.

Transformative Love

Recently I have been writing a lot about the transformative affects of pain and suffering in our lives (see posts like "When Convergence Hits the Fan," "It's Just Perfect," "Spiritual Discipline," and "Undoing the Self"). Maybe it is because I hear so much from people about their suffering and their pains and see (from my outside perspective) the work that it is doing. In any case, it may appear that I have forgotten all about love. Love in fact is the only thing other than our suffering that has the power to transform us.

By transformation what I mean here is that the actual form of our being, and the actual form of our experience is mutated from one manifested form to another, completely different form - literally transformation rewrites out historical context and meaning making. This transition from one form to another often happens so quickly that we cannot notice it from the inside. With pain and suffering, that transition feels like being squished through a seive! But with love, it seems that the previous state or condition just melts away or falls "like scales from our eyes."

In fact I recently told a friend who was having a difficult time that love was the most powerful of all the emotions - that it was far more poweerful than hate. What's more, hate takes energy and stiffening tension, a hardening of every fibre of one's being. But love only requires opening up. I witnessed this once as a mentor of mine stood in front of a man seething with hatred. My friend simply

said, "I can love you stronger than you can hate me!"

Despite that great paragraph in the epilogue of The Scarlet Letter, I do not think that Love and Hate are so much alike. Hate comes from our lack and our distance from the other, resulting in seeing the other as just that: "other." But love is not ours. It flows through us, cleansing and changing us from the inside out. In love, we have a sense that something way bigger than us is working through us. And we are born in love - as a result of live. We are born to love, not to hate - hate has to be taught.