LEAVING NO ONE BEHIND

• NOTE: We’re hosting a Zoom tonight (Tuesday, Sept 13) to answer questions about the Fall/Winter Vancouver Island Menswork Retreats 😊 Please submit questions today via [email protected] so we can make sure to answer your questions during the Zoom. Here’s the Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83506963733?pwd=SURhZkJZaU45czgwNTl4OTcwZE5XUT09 (Please join by 6:55pm Pacific time so we can start at 7pm.) Please share where appropriate.

• Today's suggested practice: Day 13 of this month's practice... (see below)

• My playlist while writing today's meditation: The sound of dinosaurs chewing up the streets… (you’ll have to listen to the video link above to figure this one out 😊 )

• My morning practice: 4:30am for 60 minutes of physical, yogic, and meditative practice, including the Creative Capacity for Life meditation

• My vulnerability practice: Falling out of balance, into emptiness, solitude… Meeting myself. Loving myself.

Hans Peter Meyer

VIDEOSolitude, Falling in & out of love, etc

TODAY'S MEDITATION

The practice of solitude. There is a way of being that is alone, but not loneliness, is individual, but not isolated. Is not really independence, another way of understanding this strange creature called “interdependence.”

As tango teachers, we talk a lot about “being in our balance.” I like to think that is is how I live: in my own balance. Standing, I don’t need anyone else. I am, perhaps, in that “neutral” (and “neutered”) place I described yesterday. Safe. De-polarized. To move, to grow, however, I must upset this moment of equilibrium. And this is the most interesting place, for me, in my tango and in my living: the art of falling out of balance, the art of feeling the other falling out of their balance, our art of creating balance, together.

This dance of imbalanced individuals never ends. My off-balance invites her off-balance. Our off-balance together creates art. Love. Beauty. Always we are in and out of balance. In and out of love. I am foolish to want anything but this endlessness.

…

It’s both normal and difficult to change, to grow into the man I am, rather than settling into remaining the man I was. Normal to know balance, for a moment, then to find myself falling out of balance. Normal to feel balance as limiting. Normal to find existing relationships limiting. As old in the worst sense. Tired. Done.

But wait a moment! This is just a moment in the endless dance of growing through the unfamiliar into the familiar, balance into the glory of topsy-turvy. There’s a lot of chatter about “letting go,” and “moving on,” and “growing beyond,” etc. But why do we want to “move on?” Yes, sometimes it seems the only sane thing to do. But —and this may only be my quirky neurosis— I have never found this admonition to “move on,” “let go” to be helpful.

I change. Some situations and relationships no longer feed me. I don’t know what to do. Yes, I have attachments. Is this a bad thing? What about loyalty? What about commitments?

I change. My relationships change. Sometimes I feel the pain of loss. Sometimes I feel lonely.

John Wineland points to the importance, in Precept 10, of solitude “and the company of conscious men.” But where to find this company? For many of us who are masculine-identified men, it’s a big question. Do I find my brothers and mentors in men’s groups? Perhaps. Do I find them in “dating” men, not for romance, but for conscious brotherly or mentorly engagement? That’s worked best for me. In the end, however, whatever company with men and women I’ve found, in men’s groups formal and informal, in marriage formal and informal, the dynamic persists: we grow and change at different rates and in different ways. Solitude is the only constant.

But no one is left behind.

Let me repeat: Even as I change, even as I no longer associate with men and women, and even if our past associations were what is now called “toxic,” they are not left behind.

Even in my periods of solitude, the men and women I’ve loved and trusted, those who I think have betrayed me, all of them are with me. Even when I try and push their memory away, they still stand with me, are here to nourish me, to remind me of how far I’ve travelled, or how far I haven’t travelled. I just need to get over my selfishness, my thinking it has to be my way, has to be reasonable, understandable. Every man or woman who has touched me still stands here when I fall out of balance, to lean into me, to help me know who I am and who I am not, in this moment of knowing my life.

I am not a warrior. I am repeatedly laying down the sword and shield of offence and self-defence that have limited me.

Today I am the husbandman, and even in my solitude my garden grows. Her many different flowers of love blossom, fade, go dormant, and are reborn. I learn to trust Her seasons, Her abiding always-changing, rather than any one form. She is the example of falling in and out of balance, in and out of season, in and out of love… She is a constant reminder that I must feel myself in solitude to know how much I need these others, always changing others, who help me create the art of this life.

TODAY’S INSPIRATIONS

🌀…whenever you grow rapidly (emotionally, mentally, and spiritually) and begin feeling like a fraud -- want to turn back and even hide -- have the courage to "keep up"... And keep moving forward with the knowledge that you're doing something outstanding. (Guru Singh & Guruperkarma Kaur)

🌀The Conscious Warrior is continuously refining his deepest purpose through dedicated time in solitude and in the company of other conscious men. (John Wineland, Precept 10)

🌀You’re not like that anymore. (My beloved, my Oracle)

TODAY'S SUGGESTED PRACTICE

Day 13 of this month's practice, take 8 minutes today to sit and listen to, or chant, the Ganesha Meditation... This meditation (Om Gam Ganapataye Namaha) brings our attention to our foundations, our roots, and invokes the Indian god Ganesha, a curious yet powerful character who removes all obstacles.

Please read through first, then ...

• Today, sit (or stand) in stillness with these questions…. What does it feel like to be in balance? To be out of balance? Am I able to let myself be held by others when I feel myself falling? Do I feel the need to push others away and do it all, on my own? (Remember to breathe, to feel the ground beneath you.)

• Setup: your "setup" for this month's daily practice is how you "hold onto yourself" and receive...

• Begin by closing your eyes and aligning your body into its truest, most elegant posture, tucking your chin to lift your heart, tilting your pelvis to straighten your spine. Become still, more still than you've ever been. Your alignment is the physical training for trustworthiness. Bring your hands to your heart, right (masculine) over left (feminine).

• Focus on feeling the vibration. That is all.

• Set your timer for eight minutes or listen to the “Ganesha” mantra by Deva Primal here:

• As the timer signals or the mantra ends allow your eyes to slowly open. Take three, relaxed breath cycles, no pressing, no effort, and feel yourself full, without thoughts, open. Safe to receive. Then, step into your day, letting the mantra echo as a nourishing vibration whenever you become still. You don't need to DO anything. Let the world come to you with its demands, its complaints, and yes, its endless tide of gifts and blessings.✨✨✨

✨

ps. FMI on the Fall/Winter Vancouver Island Men’s Retreats please see menswork.ca (and please share with men who give a sh*t. Thanks)