Trapped In A Broken World – About Commitment

By on August 27, 2010 in Books, Commitment, Sacred Link

Sacred Link: Joining Fortunes With The Unknown

We've talked much about commitment lately so I thought to share a story with you about the time Kay was studying with Domano and Chea in the early 70s.

When Kay began her studies with them, the only thing they required of her was that she not write about her studies with them nor speak with anyone about the studies.

Kay writes in more detail about that request in The Reluctant Shaman.

She didn't really fully understand the request, but she agreed to follow it.

A couple of years into her studies with her adopted Peruvian grandparents, who have also become very close friends by that time, she got into a bit of a bind with a writing assignment for her studies at UC Santa Cruz.

She ended up writing a story about her experiences while on a spirit journey with Domano and Chea as her assignment.

She was a bit concerned about breaking the commitment, but thought that only the teacher would read her story and that would be the end of it.

Well the story got passed around in class over and over and it got worse with each passing day.

By the time the whole ordeal was over many of her fellow students had read about her experience in the jungle and she felt so guilty and ashamed about breaking her commitment, she knew she needed to tell Domano and Chea and thought this would be the end of her studies with them.

The following is an excerpt from Kay's book, "Sacred Link", Chapter 2, "Trapped In Broken World", and describes her visit to Domano and Chea's home with the intention to confess and her deep concern and fear that this would be the last time she would be seeing them.

"When I arrived Chea opened the door and invited me in. She greeted me as usual and then turned away and went into the kitchen. She almost looked as if she were restraining herself from laughing. I wondered if I looked in particularly bad shape or maybe there was something unsightly on my face. I had been blowing my nose a lot on the walk over, perhaps I had missed with my hanky.

"I sat down on the bench and wiped my nose with my sleeves. They left me alone for a long time. I could hear them clanking around on the counter. I didn't know what I should say to them. Should I confess to them right away or wait? Should I tell them at all? What would happen if I never told them? How would they ever know about it if I didn't bring it to their attention? And if I did, it could mean the end of my training with them. They would probably disappear into the world somewhere and pick another student. I couldn't bear the thought of losing them and the experiences we had had together. But even harder was the feeling of not saying anything to them and trying to continue together as though nothing had happened. It would be the same as lying to them every time I saw them. I might as well be stabbing them in the back while taking all the richness they had so lovingly and carefully given to me.

"No. I had to say something. Right away. The sooner I got it out the sooner I could stop waiting for the floor to fall out from under me.

"Domano came into the room. I could smell the coffee being brewed. Chea opened the back door in the kitchen and a draft of cold air came past me. Domano hugged me and we said our usual hellos. He gave me a quizzical side glance. His eyes were playful and penetrating – they never left me.

"I took a deep breath to begin to talk, but he laughed in bursts as though he was trying to hold it back. 'Been doing some writing? Hmmmmm?' And he broke out in delighted laughter.

"I must have been going into shock. My body wouldn't move. I couldn't figure out how he knew. My limbs started to shake. I felt cold yet I was perspiring and my heart was beating erratically. He should have been furious. Why was he laughing?

"My body slumped back against the glass. Chea came into the room. I couldn't look at her. I was deathly afraid of what ever she would do. She said nothing and sat on the other bench.

"Domano faced me square on. 'You see the kind of webs our masks make? They have no ground. They twist and tear out of our control. They are formed from fibers of fear and they weave things like greed, dishonesty, self importance, two mindedness, guilt, dishonor. A person feels empty and separate, then binds the web up tighter and tighter trying to get control, trying to fill that hole in the web that has no bottom. And they can't.

"'Learn your Song. Learn your masks. Refuse to take part in these broken webs and they pass into death of their own weight. Hold to your center and dance on your Song instead. It is the only way you can stay alive.'

"I began to cry. For the first time I could see what it really was I had been so careless with. It wasn't just a promise whose definition I muddled and misused, it was a whole way of life, a way of actually living in beauty and health. It was my truest friend. It was my very future.

"Chea spoke from across the room, 'The spiral path is a very narrow one. In the beginning it is difficult to walk on day after day. It will be the hardest thing you have ever done. But in time it will be more natural for you. Except by then the path is even narrower. You go from direction to direction as the spiral gets smaller and closer to the center. It seems faster and faster. Sometimes it is harder and harder.'

"Domano added, 'Each direction has its own things to teach, its own way to see the world. Its own pitfalls.' He smiled at me with all his teeth showing.

"I didn't understand why he wasn't mad. He should have been yelling at me and kicking me out of his house. 'Why are you so nice to me? Have I ruined it for myself? Are the teachings over now?' Tears ran down my face. I felt as though I had stabbed my most precious friends in the back. 'Why are you smiling? I hurt you.'

"'You only hurt yourself, Kay,' he said softly. 'For your culture honesty and commitment are some of the hardest things to learn. It's like having big holes on the side of the path. You have to watch carefully with every action so you don't fall. The path is narrow. It's up to you to pick yourself up and continue the journey on the path or off. You learn from it or not. This is your choice. We are here to help you. It is not up to us to turn away from you.'

"Chea got up to get the coffeepot and turned at the kitchen door. 'Commitment means a different thing for you now. Yes?'

"'Yes.' I answered. In a way I was relieved but I felt so awkward and ugly. I didn't deserve this chance.

"She went into the kitchen. Domano stood up and looked out the window toward the Sun and said, 'I will tell you some stories about the directions. The pillars. This is a good time for this."

……

Follow this link to continue this post with Domano's story about the Four Directions.

Song to Song,

Helmut

Questions or comments? Use this link.

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What's Your Masterpiece Of Paradise Look Like?

By on August 20, 2010 in Attention, Commitment, Ka Ta See

"What would I think about today, if I knew those very thoughts would command leagues of the unseen?

What would I say today, if I knew each word I chose would send great waves into motion?

What would I do today, if I knew the Universe would glean from the slightest of my moves, whether or not I believed in life's magic, so that the Universe could prove me right?

Every thought, every deed, whether they serve me or not, changes everything."

I received the anonymously posted phrase above from a friend last week and thought it was a fitting beginning for this post.

So, what does your masterpiece of paradise look like?

Throughout the Bone Throwing series on the oil spill the Spirits have made it very clear that if we want to change things, WE need to change.

The Spirits have been pin-pointedly clear about that.

If we don't wake-up, we'll get more wake-up calls. Equally, if we do wake-up, we'll get less, or none.

This oil spill event is a wake-up call, more and more of us realize that. Most importantly, it wasn't the first one, and it likely ain't the last.

Did you know there was an oil well blowout in the gulf in the late 70s and they weren't able to stop it for almost 10 months?

Did you know that oil spills are a weekly occurrence in Nigeria?

But oil spills aren't our only problems, or our only wake-up calls.

I'm sure most of us could come up with a long list of events which would qualify as wake-up calls, global and personal.

The question is not how long we can make the list and which events are real and which are conspiracy fantasies so far out there they are floating in the asteroid belt.

The question is, what are we waking-up "from" – or "to" – or "for"?

We all have to answer those questions for ourselves.

While it may not look quite like it, we've come a long way.

When Kay was studying with the Hetakas in the 70s and 80s the images of what's to come at the time where much worse than what we are seeing today.

So we have made a shift.

However small that shift may have been, it was large enough to prevent, hopefully not just postpone, much worse disasters than what we are seeing today.

But, our work is just getting rolling.

In one of our discussions about the Bone Throw series on the oil spill Alan mentioned that the only way he knows how to make a difference is to quiet his mind, slow his thoughts and see what is really going on in his head by meditating.

Fabulous. That can be a great start.

Now the next step is finding out what we are doing the other 23 hours of our day.

Let me try to more clearly describe what I've been trying to share with my recent posts.

If we all were to put our thoughts and feelings into images, lets say paintings, what would the final masterpiece for each day of our lives look like?

Imagine we all have this giant canvas for each day and everything we think instantaneously appears on the canvas and by the end of the day we have this masterpiece of our creation all filled with a representation of all our feelings, all our emotions, all our thoughts.

How many of us would end up with a masterpiece representing quiet and calm, beauty, love and peace and happiness, creative inspiration, deep deep caring love and friendship, deep deep caring for ourselves, others, the world, indeed all life?

How many of us would end up with paintings, all of which we would want to have in our bedroom so they'd be the last thing we would see when going to sleep at night?

How many of us would do everything we could to have a bedroom so giant that we could hang all our paintings from each day we've lived so we could see them all just before we fall asleep at night?

Now, if we are honest with ourselves, how many of us would end up with large areas of the paintings for each day representing nothing less than nuclear war zones?

Well, hold on to your panties, we are creating those paintings.

These are all our psychic paintings and yes indeed we have created mansions full of them and yes indeed we do go to sleep by them every night.

Not only that, but we're forcing many others to go to sleep by them every night as well.

Is that what you want to keep doing?

So many of us talk about love and light, we use that quite loosely in our interactions these days.

But how many of us not only really truly mean it, but are also capable of meaning it throughout all our waking hours of the day, our lives even, microsecond to microsecond?

I personally know very few people who not only mean it when they say love and light, they truly live it.

Their light part is not a nuclear device going off on their painting, it truly is deep deep love and caring which generates that light.

I know these people would try to do anything they could to get a bedroom large enough to be able to have all their paintings from each day on the walls to fall asleep by in real life.

From what I can observe, many of us do want these same abilities and gifts to truly create those kind of paintings each day.

Few of us however have made the commitment (here is that word again) to do so.

So if we want to wake-up, if we really truly want to wake-up, we need to make that commitment, without a back door.

The desire to wake-up is the first step in making that commitment.

Once we have announced our desire, we need to take the steps, we need to commit to follow through, we need to commit to change all areas of our life which are not in line with waking-up.

Are you thinking maybe you're about ready to step out of the war zone paintings?

Are you ready, willing and able to make that kind of commitment?

How does one even go about making this kind of commitment?

We'll share more about that in future posts, or maybe we should do a Bone Throw video about it.

What do you think?

Love and Song,

Helmut

Questions or comments? Use this link to share your thoughts and questions, but also to let us know if you'd like to hear what the Spirits of the Bones have to say about commitment and waking-up.

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