I have been wrestling with this concept for some time. Two horses, seemingly pulling me in opposite directions. One, a dark stallion, wild and untamed like the thickest jungle, represents all that is natural, indigenous, co-operative and interrelated. He is my inner wild man, the rebel, the angry activist and the poet in love with this World and the indigenous soul. The other, a bright, beautifully polished, english speaking creative genius, and represents all that is inventive, technological, market savvy and excited to grow in success and money. He is my inner entrepreneur, the creative teacher, and the growing business man concentrated in building a business and sharing my message. For some time they have been felt at complete odds with each other, and I, in the middle, being ripped open. Slowly, they seem to be coming together. They are coming together through me, through the point of contact, to the desire to be in connection with both places and letting them both have their shine and brilliance. I am creative, I am an artist, I am an entrepreneur, I am wild and I am totally in love with the world and the indigenous. In this, I am finding my way. || Painting by Henri Regnault "Automedon with the Horses of Achilles" #entrepreneur#wild#rewilding#activist#business#success#earth#reconciliation#money
Today I head out for a journey that has been 5 years, if not a lifetime, in the making. This morning I cracked. A little more, a little deeper, I am seeing the shell I have been carrying on my chest for most of my life. Many of you know that I have swam with issues of poverty. This has made Receiving very difficult, because in receiving I feel a double punch of guilt and shame for not feeling worthy of someone's love, and for feeling bad about myself because I wish I could have provided for myself better.
So this morning I cracked, and saw through the glass, for a brief moment.
I saw and Felt the armor on my chest.
I saw how, for me, having money and being able to pay for a hotel room instead of being a guest in friends' houses, can be a way OUT of relationship.
I saw how money can help me be less in relation-ship, and more in transaction.
It's more efficient and fast, and also a LOT less scary.
Today I felt how hard it the armor around actually RECEIVING a gift, a gift of food, a gift of company, a gift of being hosted. The chest shell felt hard, rigid-jaw, defending against the scariness of a tough world. Under it, I felt scared and small, not truly trusting of other people. I felt how scary it feels for me to survive in a world where I have to go-go-go, because it's not safe, because I forgot the gift that Life gives me constantly, feeding me, clothing me, breathing me. Giving me her children to eat so I may live. And instead of being blasted with tear-filling Gratitude, I am wearing a chest armor of fake "thank yous" to my friends.
This morning I let the Grief of Gratitude touch me for a few minutes, watched by the loving eyes of my brother Pieter Van Winkle who stayed with me, holding me here, helping me feel into the grief-and-praise I feel for the gift he has given me, financially and emotionally, edging me.
To allow myself to truly Receive. To set the shield down and Feel.
Actually Feel. Feel the Grief that comes with a gift, the grief of my own inadequacies stories transforming into an "I am worthy, I am loved". The Grief of receiving gifts (from people, from Her The Earth) that I can never truly re-pay, and That keeps me in relationship, in-debted, connected and interdependent.
And when it is time to re-pay back, to gift back, to give some money, to do the dishes, to take out the trash, to let that come, like Marshall Rosenberg says, from a joyful place, from a place of vulnerability from a place of acknowledgment of the deep Gift I received.
As a young kid, I would lose hours flipping old dusty pages of words could not yet read, fascinated by images of the ancient mytholgies of Greece, Northern Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa.
I would envision Hermes, Zeus, Odin, Thor, I would play with them, I would converse with the elements imagining I was in conversation with the Old Gods.
And then there were the New Stories. The ones about webhead Spider Man, who taught that with great power comes great responsibility. I was so fascinated by the hero that I engaged in daily conversation with house spiders, asking them to bite me and bestow upon me their powers.
The moon and trees also held great mystique in my eyes.
Beings I would converse with, open my heart to, express my longing, visions and desires.
One story that stays with me, specially after reading the book (which I strongly suggest reading, as it is much deeper and widly captivating than the movie) was the NeverEndgin Story.
It’s an 80’s movie about a young child, Bastian, who, after hiding in the school attic from the local bullies, begins reading a book, the NeverEnding Story, a book that tells a story strangely familiar to the Story of our Time. I won’t retell the whole story here, but I will highlight a moment in the movie.
This moment, in one of my absolute favorite novels and movies, has become iconic in my life and in my work. I also thinks it speaks to our generation and to what we are going through as a planet.
Despair gnawing at your feet, feet that sink into the muddy waters of stagnation and dark grief. It's hard to come out, all seems lost. All feels so dark, there is no direction other than the swamps around us.
We must keep believing. We must not give in.
As Joanna Macy says, "Active Hope is not something you have, it is something you DO". Hard, swampy confusing times ahead and all around.
But the tribes are gathering.
The passageway is narrow and the hero/heroine's journey takes us to the underworld of who we are. There is Hope. There is way.
(Also don't fight the sadness, Artax. Grieve instead, let it transform you. The soil needs your waters.)
G'mork serves The Nothing. The moving, relentless, stories eating Nothing. As people forget the old stories, as human people forget to tell stories, to dream stories, to share the New Stories, the Nothing advances. Fantastia dies.
Like the best stories, the living stories, the ones that are alive as we speak, this scene tells of the Great Turning. Pay attention, Shambhala Warriors, pay attention. We are dancing in this together.
Joanna Macy tells of the prophecy of the Shambhala Warriors, the ones that will rise up in a time of great darkness, the ones that will rise up when all hope seems lost.
As the Old world crumbles, the New Story emerges. The New Story takes form, the OldNew Tale is told again, the world keeps on living.
I have been noticing, watching, naming, dancing with, dreaming with, laughing and crying with a new tribe of younger and elder warriors for a few years and this fills my heart with joy.
We are here, Tribe.
Please watch this short clip of the Shambhala Warrior Prophecy as told my Joanna Macy: (Begins at 2:40 min.)
UPDATE: Blogpost from my dear friend Meagan Chandler:
Meagan Chandler Okay, dear Fabio, I finally got to re-watch The Never Ending Story this week - wanted to see it again before I read your post, and was itching to see it again anyways. I literally have not scene it since I was a child, and it was a completely new experience as an adult! So fantastic. There were critical pieces that I had forgotten, like how the boy's mother has died and his father is ignoring the grief, shutting down the imaginative world and calling the child too quickly to grow up and leave behind the feminine, the death principle, the imagination, the world of soul, his inner hero, his dreams. The boy, we see, lives in fear and always runs when he faces danger. What an incredible painting of egocentric culture. Then, seduced into the quest of Atreu with whom he identifies his own hero self, to save the dying Empress (the feminine principle, soul, life-death-life, heart of imagination). A nd what must he do? Give her a new name - the name of his mother who passed away, a gift from his young grieving heart. I just happened to read a portion of Women Who Run With the Wolves (HIGHLY recommended, if you have not yet read it, and want to explore the feminine principle, power, gift and mythology, and how it interacts with the masculine) right before seeing this movie again. And I am reminded how our egocentric culture is absolutely terrified by death, which is exactly half of everything. We are limping around with only half of ourselves! This story so beautifully paints a picture of how life and death form a cycle that is never-ending. Fantastia is destroyed, and then with proper courage, grieving, owning, and re-embracing of the imagination, it is rebuilt, on and on, out and out, from Bastion to those watching Bastion on the movie and so on. So yes, I love what you've written in your blog. I just wanted to add the piece I felt so strongly about the Life-Death-Life feminine principle that was so present for me in the re-watching. Such a treat - thanks for the inspiration to revisit that world, and so perfect coming up on Day of the Dead. This year, I shall honor the Death half of the cycle with immense respect, gratitude, tears, adventure, and celebration! New Orleans, I'll see you soon.
I can feel their rhythm thumping through thundering earth beat the sound of indigenous resistance the indigenous spirit of Life Always thriving always beating never resting maybe hiding at that like a sly fox hiding in the dark and forgotten place hiding from the conquerors reach till the time is right passing on the stories, passing on the songs passing on the myths of Who We Are and How It All Began Songlines of Remembering Telling us again and again how to be Human How to be Free.
Maybe this is all one big dance. Maybe the deaths, the acidity in the sea, the holes in the earth, the cracks in the heart, the generational trauma, maybe it is all one big fat sweaty dance.
Maybe the music is thumping, beating so loud and hard, Maybe we are all dancing so fast and furious, our feet red from hitting the floor with passion our voices rising with ecstatic fury as the music goes up and up
and maybe I am so tired to hold onto my own sense of separateness that I put my sweaty arm on your sweaty shoulder and just maybe you do the same because you don't care about my sweat anymore
maybe we all start jumping together arm in arm in a big room, in a big circle in big rhythm, thum thum thum thum feet all beating together that a smile cracks my heart
Women mysteries fascinate me. For years I felt this pull, this longing to go closer to the Feminine, to her wild, dark, enchanting, witchy, moon bubbling cauldron of mystery.
I have hidden it, to myself and to the world as well, my mind a product of years of patriarchal influences- don't go close to artsy things, stuff with flowers on it, or with those weird "Goddess" drawings.
The pull was so strong, though, that the journey back to Her had already begun before my resistances could catch me. I would feel a strange jealousy for the women renaissance. I would wander into Rebecca's Herbal Apothecary and look for hours-seeming moments through the shelves of books, herbs, oils, and creams.
Three years ago I considered becoming a male doula (I would have been only the 2nd person to do it, in the U.S.). I have been lucky to find my way many times as a guest of a revolutionary year-long Midwifery school in Asheville thanks to my sisters Dakota and Camille.
As a male-bodied person, I will never to actually experience the pain and gift of birthing another human (What?! Women make HUMANS. Let's breath on that for a second) and there are mystery that, as millenia-old traditions hold, I should never be allowed to enter into. Yet the pull towards the mysteries of the womb, the vagina of creation, the witch arts, the moon mysteries is undeniable in me.
With this New Moon in Cancer, I celebrate the Goddess, Her who I am feeling strongly in the Waters of the MEditerranean sea, She who birthed me and can take my life in a wave of a heartbeat, She who gives gives gives. Here is to the Goddess. Here is to you Women, Females in all shapes and forms (human and other-than-human). Thank you for your constant teaching me. As I did as a child completely mesmerized by the Moon, staring at her for hours and then howling with both lungs, I will keep my howl song to you.
