JULY RADICAL EXPRESSION

Since my earliest recollections I have lived in the felt-sense awareness that I am here on this earth plane for a very specific purpose. I have always felt an inner calling to expand beyond what the rest of the world was telling me was true. I have always felt like a mis-fit in a world that demanded conformity. I have never and will never be what most people would call normal. This inner quest to stay true to me was long my hell until I came to the realization that my mis-fitness was central to my Soulful purpose. The fact that I was clearly and admittedly different was not the source of my inner hell. It was the ensuing disconnection that caused my torment. Since grade school I have been ostracized and outcast for being the abnormality that I am and have always been. Against this tumultuous background I have also and always felt a profound need to be and to actively give my love. I really didn’t care so much that I didn’t fit into the mold of the status quo society. I just wanted everyone to be able to see beyond the person to the enormous amount of love that I was capable and longing to give. So reject me as a weird non-conformist. Just do not reject my love. Don’t cheat yourself of what I have to give to you. And don’t rob me of the opportunity to be all that I can be in this world that is so in need of love.

I now celebrate the enormous strides I have made in the realization that though others may engage the capacity to reject the loving embrace that I am here to indiscriminately offer, they cannot take away my choice to continue to give my love. It has always been the mis-fits and non-conformists that have moved consciousness forward. They have often been reviled, yet that didn’t squelch their radiance. While I have no need to actively try and not fit in for the sake of non-conformity, I also refuse to live by the limiting constructs of what most people today will label as truth. I will not invest my precious life force in joining in the drone of the current critical mass consciousness. I will not disempower myself by fighting to be accepted by those who choose to reject me or the way I choose to live. I will not energize with my attention the causes that seem contrary to my own chosen way of being. I will not join into what often feels for me profound misperception, yet I also will not choose to disconnect from those who hold what is a relative opposing view. I get to be the authentic self that I am called to be, and your opinion of that does not cause my heart to close. You get to be what you are being called to be, and I will not push you away if your chosen expression isn’t resonant with mine. Beyond our differences and individuality there is a Oneness of Being in which we are eternally and inextricably joined. This Oneness is transcendent of our variances. I am not complete without you, and like it or not, you are not complete without me.

I recognize that I am here for purposes much deeper than that of surface reality. I am here to walk this earth as the authentic and self-referred loving being that I incarnated at this time to be. I can be marginalized but not undone. My personal liberty gives me the choice to remain in Source love. Though others may choose closure, I am choosing to remain in openness. Though others may choose to reject me, I am choosing the inclusion of my all-embracing heart. Though others may choose to pull away, I am choosing the Presencing power of my authentic self which always chooses to stay.

This is for me the very crux of independence. This is for me true freedom. It is not about getting anyone or anything out there to change. It is not about getting the world out there to accept or affirm me. The love I am is unwavering and unconditional. Though the residue of still un-integrated wounding may cause me to periodically wince, I will not close my eyes. I will come back to the essential expression of Who and what I am. I celebrate that I am free today to truly be free. I am free today to continuously make the choice to stay open in love. I am free today to rejoice in the authentically expressing me. And that is the greatest independence and liberty there is.

SEE SITE CALENDAR FOR CURRENT LISTING OF EVENTS. E-BOOKS, SERVICES ALSO AVAILABLE

FATHER'S DAY RECOLLECTION

IN THIS EDITION OF RADICAL EXPRESSION, I FELT MOVED TO SHARE WITH MY CURRENT READERS AN ESSAY I COMPOSED BACK IN 2002. IT IS PART OF A COLLECTION THAT WILL BE PUBLISHED UNDER THE TITLE "CONSIDER THIS." WHILE I CAN FEEL GREAT EVOLUTION IN CONSCIOUSNESS SINCE THIS WAS WRITTEN, IT ALSO EXPRESSES A SENTIMENT THAT WILL FOEVER BE A PART OF THE FABRIC OF MY BEING. LET IT INTO YOUR HEART, MY FRIENDS. YOU WILL TASTE THE BEAUTY OF A FATHER I WILL FOREVER LOVE.

June 11, 2002
CONSIDER THIS.......
As I contemplated a particular life challenge within the pages of my journal I found myself writing the word “Trust”. As I gazed there at the word, not sure why I had written it, or how to proceed from it, I saw within my mind’s eye that word written upon a green screen. It really wasn't a screen, per se. It was a wall. An institutional green wall, if you know that color. I smelled beyond the incense that was burning upon my altar the antiseptic smell of a medical facility, and I was transported to the day room of a V.A. hospital in Chillicothe, Ohio. I am fifteen years of age, and I am feeding spice cake to a man in a “geri-chair”. He stares blankly ahead while I continue to patiently give him bites of the cake by hand. Utensils are beyond his use at this point in the progression of his disease. Perhaps you see, as you read, an elderly gentleman of shriveled stature. In actuality, he is a man of only forty. Early onset Alzheimer's has taken him to a place undetectable beyond the stare. It is his birthday, though he knows it not. I do. I am his son. He knows not of that either. He seems to like the cake I have baked, and so I feed him. I am not known, but I feed him because I need to know. To know that I have acknowledged, in some way, the birthday of this one who gave me life. To know that there is some small thing I can do in this hell over which I am powerless. I cannot bring him back. I cannot make him know me. But I can feed him cake. I can wipe his chin. I can, even while still a child, be the father of my father.

The depth of feeling that arises from this image jolts me back to this day thirty years later, and I am still looking at the word “Trust”. The pain I thought had long ago been healed echoes through my being, and for a second I fear I shall be sucked into a vortex of swirling darkness, of excruciating vacancy. Only the expansiveness of my awareness keeps me in place, an awareness that is too large by acceptance to be sucked down any black hole. Trust. The remembrance of Father’s Day enters my mind and the paternal nature of my God. I see again the man in the geri-chair, and I grapple with the trust. He was supposed to feed me. I needed him! I needed to be known by him, and yet he stared. How can I trust? Where were you, O Divine Father, when I was covered in spice cake and salty tears? Like the Psalmist and the crucified Rabbi who quoted him, my soul screams out: “Why, O Father God, hast thou forsaken me?” Where were you in my pain? How do I learn to trust in a world where boys feed their fathers and are fathered by mothers who themselves weren't fathered? Trust? Trust, you say?
And just as suddenly as memory carried me to the room in Chillicothe, I am within the awareness that the Father was present as I fed my father. And beyond that, I fed my father FOR my Father. The institutional green becomes the color of my temple and the antiseptic, my anointing oil. I move..…..I am led from pain to peace, and in that peace, I trust.

CONSIDER THIS.......In a moment, I will hit the button “send”, and with my words I'll send my heart. Our heart. His and mine. I do it for us both. I do it for us all. There is no “my” pain or “your” pain. There is “the” pain. The pain of trusting in a world where boys feed their fathers, and fathers forget their boys. But while in this world, I choose to trust. I trust in my Father and in my ability to father. After I send my heart into the cybersphere, I shall go to visit in a facility with similar institutional green walls, and I shall feed cake to those who know me not. I do not feed them to be known. I feed them to know……to know my Father and to Be my Father here on earth for those who have forgotten. I do so, grateful to that father long ago transitioned. I do so, grateful to that boy who fed that father. I do so, grateful to Be a man who still chooses to feed. I do so, grateful to my Father in Whom I trust. Pain to peace, my Father…….I Trust.

SEE CALENDAR ON SITE FOR CURRENT LISTING OF EVENTS.

JUNE RADICAL EXPRESSION

In the corporate, entertainment, and coaching career worlds that have comprised a goodly portion of my professional life I have long heard about the necessity of developing what is termed staying power. For simplicities sake the phrase means pretty much what it indicates; the ability, motivation, skills, perseverance, and savvy to sustain a long-term professional and consequently successful trajectory in an ever-changing work environment. This doesn’t necessarily apply to a person who simply chooses to stay in the same job for a long period of years or even decades. It is a term more appropriate for those who effectively ride the waves of professional dynamism and are committed to continual growth and challenge and the risks those often imply. It is not a state of status quo. Staying power is required of the individual that is consciously drawing on their inner resources, motivation, and inspiration in order to attain career goals and achievements that also provide a legacy beyond just the self satisfaction of the personality. The person with staying power is centered and anchored in the broader part of their inner being. They are confident and assured, focused and purposeful. Something greater is at work, and it is palpable.

Though I have never felt particularly motivated by this dynamic in my professional life, it has become a vital and directional part of my spiritual unfoldment. I would frame it in perhaps a different way, yet many of the same attributes apply in remaining awake to who I am while in this experience of time and space humanity. To see this you only have to re-read the preceding paragraph. Spiritual staying power is about developing the inner musculature to remain centered in the Soulful Self while undergoing an almost constant array of changes. The trajectory here is not one of professional or even personal success per se, unless success is redefined to apply to an alignment with what it is the Soul is here to unfold. Spiritual maturity is grounded in an ability to stay centered internally regardless of what is happening in the external surroundings. It is the spiritual empowerment to stay present to whatever is occurring in the energy system while not resorting to suppression, projection, reaction, or self-recrimination. Staying power is all about remaining Soulfully centered and observing at the felt level the mental antics, emotional eruptions, and habitual reactions that undergird the personality self. In this staying observation there is transcendence. The ability to simply stay with an uncomfortable emotion without needless story telling, justification, blame, or interpretation empowers us and allows release of the constricted energy that is causing the unease. The power to stay in just this way does not come from the personality self. This kind of power is available as a result of a non-negotiable alignment within Source. This power is the power of Source Presence. Presence isn’t of the mind and can’t be generated by the mind. Presence is a way of beholding life that occurs as we experience and see through the portal of the heart. This is true vision. The heart has the ability to stay without distraction or dissection. It remains totally focused and attuned with the something greater that is always moving through us as spiritual emergence. This is the ultimate Source of confidence and assuredness. This empowerment is purposeful beyond just worldly accomplishment. We choose to stay because we choose to live and love as we allow life to move easily through us. Nothing is rejected as we moment by moment make the decision to stay with what is, exactly as it is.

In a world so filled with distractions and media-technical stimulations, what is your current level of staying power? How present do you choose to be with your own inner environment? When discomfort or distress begin to stir in your emotional body, do you choose to bring staying Presence to the movement, or do you react with one of the deadening distractions so readily available? Are you living largely in reaction to what is external? Are you ready to commit to a more awakened interior in which staying replaces suppression?

Your own inner Presence is your Source of Power. Develop a continual awareness of this Presencing Power, and you will have the staying power needed to go any distance.

SEE CALENDAR ON SITE FOR CURRENT LISTING OF EVENTS