Monthly Archives: October 2011

Oct31

powerless

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48 hours after the storm and no power.  I am sitting in the Rhinebeck, NY library, the first of three places I have visited looking for wifi where I can actually power up.  Connecticut Light & Power is saying maybe seven days.  Maybe more.

It is interesting to be powerless.  Years ago when I got sober, they told us we had to admit to being powerless over booze, drugs, sex.  I did that on my knees.  I knew I could not control any of that.  And I can’t control any of this.  Which is OK.  There is something interesting about being pushed out of the box to find power.  To connect.  I sat in two cafes today and met interesting powerless people before discovering that in fact I was still wifi powerless.

To my friends in the powerless Northwest corner, I hope you get this soon.  To the rest of you:  Greetings and Happy (white) Halloween.

How do you experience being powerless?

 

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Oct28

the herd and us

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Pam White “Missouri Mud Run”

Yesterday when I was riding the Arabian that lives in a field down the road all by itself got loose. He came tearing down the road to visit the horses at our farm. Brandi told me that everyone out in the fields was galloping from excitement, and I should probably stay in the indoor arena.  Capprichio, the horse I was riding, didn’t need to see the horses to feel all that energy. He arched his neck and strutted.  The loose Arab ran up and down the road, tail flagging.  Everyone else galloped in their fields with their tails up.  “This is fun.” they seemed to be saying.  “Let’s play!!”  Finally the lonely, running horse was caught, and things settled down.

We are herd animals too.  But I am not sure we have as much fun as the horses.  Sometimes I think that we just want to get back to our computers instead of partying down when one of us gets loose and running.

Flash mobs want to be herd-like, but they are planned, choreographed. Other kinds of herds are more scary, mob-like.  Things that get large numbers of us running are also scary.  9/11, tsunamis, earthquakes.  This is the problem with being predators.  It takes natural disasters to get us going.  One loose human doesn’t do it, unless of course, they are armed.

Herds are curious things. With horses, signals get passed almost invisibly with movement.  A twitch of an ear, a look, a sudden start, or a mosey travel like ripples through the herd.  They all mean something.  “Look out!”  “Better grass here.”  “Get away from my mare!”

We are much less savvy movement-wise.  From the horse’s perspective, we are bumblers, clomping along meaninglessly, much noise signifying not much.

That is why I recommend horse dancing.  It is about waking up to the ripples we make and the ripples we feel.  Learning to be better herd-speakers, learning to feel the currents among us.

How do you feel your herd?

 

 

Oct27

churning of the sea of milk

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The churning of the Sea of Milk or the Milky Way is an interesting Hindu creation myth.  It involves a serpent and a mountain.

In the story, the gods held the tail of the snake, while the demons held its head, and they pulled on it alternately causing the mountain to rotate, which in turn churned the ocean. The mountain began to sink and so the god Vishnu in the form of a turtle came to the rescue and supported the mountain on his back.

I got to thinking about this story as I was reading The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.  He says that the demon is resistance – the thing that gets in the way of our fulfilling our goals.

As I read, I kept thinking, “Resistance to the resistance is still resistance.”  This troubled me.  Later in the book, Pressfield speaks of angels, muses, allies.  They are, he tells us, forces counter-poised against the resistance.

“More resistance,” I thought.

So my question is:  Is all this churning (effort, battle, resisting resistance, etc.) necessary to create a sparkling Milky Way?  To create at all?  Is war really how to make art?

Then I thought about riding, and how all the resistance in the world is useless.  How it is by aligning, opening – finding the onward, flowing, shaping, guiding quality in the riding – I become part of that glorious movement.  The “join-up” as Monty Roberts says.

Abraham teaches that resistance is just tethers us to what we don’t want. That when I say “no” to something, I bring it to me – special delivery.  Because no is just the other end of the stick from “yes,” the tails side of the coin.

What are you resisting?  And what is the opposite of resistance?