“I don’t acknowledge the existence of the prison. It doesn’t exist for me.”
Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, professional boxer wrongfully accused of homicide who spent 20 years in prison. 

No matter what is happening to your body, your mind and spirit can remain philosophical and spiritual. Your mind is untouchable… and thus, so are you. 

(See y’all tomorrow… for Virtue & Kindness)

​A dear friend of mine posted the above photo, and well… I just disagree. One THOUSAND percent - disagree. Attitudes like this empower identity sickness, and ME-ist behaviors. Political prisoners throughout time, across the world will all say how it IS their attitude that kept them sane, that kept them as whole as possible, and how they CHOSE to live even in hellacious circumstances meant that while their bodies were imprisoned, their hearts and minds could NEVER be. 

​​I’m CHOOSING to use my wild card, my ace-in-the-hole, my trump card to rise above and not allow things beyond my control to turn me from a strong, flexible person into someone who is a passenger of life, and a servant to things beyond control. 

I choose when to play my wild card, and HOW it gets played...

​... and so must you. 

(See y’all tomorrow)

It’s easy to be kind when we don’t have anything. We understand what it means to hunger and go without, and through our actions we try to get others to mirror kindness and understanding for us. 

Don’t believe me? OK... step away from your computer/screen, go down to where your local homeless congregate, and before you donate generously to them (see what I did there), watch them interact with one another. Watch them share what they’ve got with one another. Watch them break things in half with filthy, loving hands, and keep half for themselves, and share the rest with someone next to them. 

Their lack of traditional “prosperity”somehow makes them more generous. 

Now, what about those with the most? Do they give as freely as those with nothing? Do they horde their wealth? Do they, who have the most, share with those who have the least… or do their actions reveal a different kind of character? 

Let’s look at this differently:

The rune-stave Fehu is the sigil for wealth and prosperity, traditionally a good sign. Now, the name and image originally carried the meaning of “cattle” because at the time the staves and their meanings came to be, wealth and prosperity was defined by cows. 

It was in these ancient, pastoral cultures where the deeper understandings of wealth and prosperity arose. Fehu - prosperity, you see, just like cattle, have to be kept moving to stay healthy and remain viable… and the more you have, the more of an obligation you have to share.

Fehu teaches us what to do when we’re blessed with prosperity. 

What do your traditions reveal about your relationship with prosperity? 

(See y’all tomorrow) 

​Sabbatical - a regularly scheduled, longer-than-usual break that certain professionals receive (teachers, clergy, etc.). 

Right now, I’m two weeks into mine. About fifty to go. 

What’s going to come out the other side of this “time off” is meant to refill my stores of ministry, stock up the shelves of Virtue. It’s not about lounging about the house eating bonbons (is that even a thing anymore?). 

​We work hard so we can get to a place where we can…. what? Sit around all day? 

Someone else is welcome to do that on their sabbatical. 

I’ll be studying and replenishing. 

(See y’all tomorrow) 

​Addiction. 

I’m an addict. My parents were addicts, as were their parents. 

I’ve had unhealthy relationships with tobacco and food for a lifetime…

… and you’d be foolish if you don’t think I was weak (vulnerable) when it came to those things, or that those things could have been used against me. 

Dependence creates vulnerability. 

Ask yourself what’s keeping you vulnerable. Not everyone is addicted to drugs, tobacco, or food. Anything can become an addiction. What’s yours? 

Is it your smartphone? Your computer? Your car? Your lifestyle? Your books? Your comfort? 

Maybe, to be human is to be an addict. 

Maybe… 

(See y’all tomorrow)

Premeditatio Malorum. 

This is a state of mind wherein we consider every sort of terrible situation in which we could find ourselves. 

When it comes time to give charity, however, we seldom think of the times where we would be in a position to need charity. 

Anything is possible, and Fortune will challenge any bit of success or wealth we can manage to amass. 

Anything could happen to us. 

Anything could happen to you…

… or me. 

(See y’all tomorrow… maybe) 

​

​Well, thank you, wise and venerable Marcus. You make it sound so simple. Liberate our minds from passions. Just like that, hmm? 

I think we can only reside in that secure fortress if we have the diligence to build it. 

Practice taking control over ourselves, in each moment. 

Again, and again. 

Before we know it, we’ll have that fortress. 

(See y’all tomorrow)  

Whew. This one is so real for me. One of my daily, personal practices is my mindfulness around my composure (anger specifically), and my responses to it’s status. In other words, I have “big feels” when it comes to feeling. Naropa alumni would call me an “intense personality”. I don’t believe, however, that my nature is to be so intense… my inherent nature, I mean. I believe I was socially-trained, through modeling, to respond “intensely”, which means, gods be praised, I can train myself to do something else and have different responses. 

Allow me to elucidate.

First, some history: I was raised just outside of New Orleans, Louisiana by a WWII generation grandmother (of blessed memory), because of personal, family-related reasons, but that’s not what we’re here to unpack. So, in addition to being two generations apart with all those accompanying challenges, she was also, how should I put this… mean. Just mean. It’s not that she couldn’t ACT nice, but beneath the facade, she knew she was only appearing nice because it kept the social peace. Others knew it too, and usually gave her space. Some, however, wouldn’t take her shit. 

ANYWAY… what became socially “right” for me in dealing with my own frustration was: off-gassing. That’s right. Off-gassing: a term stolen from physical science manipulatively applied to social and psychological sciences that is used to justify and make excuses for acting like a social asshole, usually directed at those closest to the off-gasser. 

In short, I blew my composure… in order to regain… control? WTF was I doing? 

Gods be praised, I got better. How? 

Drumming… from days long past.  

No bullshit. Drumming. 

Perhaps it’s elucidation time again? 

Some time ago, while sitting in meditation during one of my “composure management” sessions, I involuntarily (unconsciously?) replayed a memory, and sort of experienced it again from a first-person perspective, but not in real time… more like a flash of “groking” this moment for what it was then, but I couldn’t see that truth until nearly 30 years later.  Anyway, here’s what I experienced: 

The drum head beneath my stinging hands, and the sweat running down my chest and back. Rhythm carried me, while I, somehow, supported it at the same time… paradoxical truth. I could see, all around me, other drummers… two or three dozen others, all completely present, and yet... I knew we were all “somewhere else”, too. Directly in the center, priestesses dance and circle one another… special dances known to gods not my own. With ground meal, special sigils and marks were drawn on the ground, welcoming spirits… thinning the veils… 

Riding too long on that moment of egoic bliss, my hand took too long to return to the drum… and I lost the beat. Oh shit, I’m gonna fuck this whole thing up, I thought to myself. I’m gonna be known in the New Orleans voodoo community as that druid white-boy that can’t even work a drum properly. Wait… that’s more ego bullshit, too. Damnit, I need to get back to the “now” before this gets out of control... breathe William… open up and take a breath.

In… and out… 

With a breath… just one mindful inhale and exhale, a moment of letting my body and breath return to their natural buoyancy in the present, percussion river all around me… and suddenly I was there floating and uplifting again. Back to the mindful control it takes to be a welcome guest of another culture’s deep blood n’ bones magic. 

Hang on… Let’s look at that again: I didn’t lose my shit (aloud, at least), and I didn’t fall into responding with “intensity”, or even off-gassing with a frustrated “FUCK!” or some such utterance. 

It seemed so clear seeing it a second time, living it a second time! Just return to the beat. See, Billy-Badass, the Druid had assumed he could both keep the beat AND bliss out. Well, even though I was full of confidence and some skill, shit didn’t work out like that… AND my response to it was flexible and gentle. 

Discovering dead batteries, finding forgotten windows left open after the storm has passed, technology failures, etc. etc. etc… on and on… we assume things are going to be right and good and that they’ll chug right along as they’ve always chugged, thank you very much. Sometimes those assumptions are incorrect. What do we do when that happens? How do we behave? 

When assumptions of outcome become trusted in as if they were real, and they don’t pan out the way we’d assumed, we can lose our cool really quick… 

… and if we’ve allowed ourselves to become unmanaged “intense personalities”, we’ll discover how few people have the tolerance to put up with our level of “intensity”. 

(See y’all tomorrow)