Only One of Us Here

On 1/22/07, THEODORE ROBINSON <thelawteam@prodigy.net> and Center for Inner Healing wrote:

Hi Steve and Skywatcher,

This is just a followup on our call this morning. It was a pleasure speaking with you. I've looked carefully at your site and enjoyed it, especially the questions and answer section. As I said during our call, the information squares with everything I've been studying for years now, but its said in a unique and wonderful manner.

Since you mentioned doing massage and Reiki, I just wanted to mention to you that if you haven't already heard about it, Emotional Freedom Technique EFT, might be something you'd be interested in. It would work well with your massage because its somewhat physical and it brings about big changes of mind and attitude in a big hurry as well. I also think it is very consistent with your overall approach.

You mentioned that you have a unique way of helping people evolve (unless I misunderstood you) and I'm interested in discovering more about that. Do you have it posted anywhere on your site? Or is it in a particular part of the book that I haven't noticed yet?

As I said, part of my reason for asking about this is because I'm interested in putting together a symposium of awakened beings who could come together for a weekend or other period and share their thoughts and methods with a large group of attendees. I know two or three others who would be wonderful candidates for such a weekend and would like to at least investigate the possibilities. So, since I'm not all that aware of what your unique technique is yet, perhaps you could let me know. This is just the beginning stage of planning, but its important to know what everyone has to offer so that we can balance the programming and provide a dynamic agenda and presentations so that it will become a nationwide draw. Anyway, that's my vision of it. As I said, we live only thirty miles from NYC and it has an unlimited number of potential attendees.

Thanks for the book again. I'm enjoying it immensely.



Hello Theodore,

Your call this morning was such a joy to my heart! Thank you for seeing that I have a perspective to share that some will (and do) find useful. Since JoAnn SkyWatcher is my Beloved wife and life partner, yes, I am quite familiar with EFT. She often speaks of little else. While tapping is not my thing, I find that using my own version often helps relieve physical and emotional pain and stress. I certainly appreciate how various healing modalities serve a wide variety of perspectives, and have often witnessed significant shifts in people JoAnn has worked with.

My particular focus these days seems to be with the heart and soul. Drunk with Wonder is my take on the 'isness" of how we got to this point in our evolutionary journey, and a vision of where our species might go as we continue our dance into the light that is already/always right here and right now. I hesitate to call anything I do "unique" simply because of my profound knowing that there is really only one One of us here. That said, I seem to have a particular facility with sitting in a group (or individually) and answering questions. My higher self especially enjoys the give and take such opportunities afford, and others in the group often seem to get a valuable (useful) perspective as well. Some call this activity Satsang, though I have no particular interest in the Guru story. My focus is on being a cheerleader for people who are ready to surrender into their own magnificence. There is nothing I have learned, nothing I am, that is not available to all. I am also comfortable speaking in front of groups (love it, actually), though creating experiential opportunities to "play" is even more fun. When I'm all of who I can be, I clearly "see" the Divine in everyone, and love nothing more than to radiate that Divinity as a loving mirror.

The devil, as they say, is in the details, and I have learned from my own life experience how deeply invested many of us become in our pathology (I'm wounded, therefore I am). With willing people, I am often able to help break through their stories of fear and lack and see the truth that they (and all of us!) are nothing less than divine, infinitely precious sparks of God/Goddess.

Of course, I imagine you're quite familiar with all of this. Every teacher, every visionary, and every cheerleader knows and teaches a version of this story. I trust that the perspective I have (and love!) to share will continue to be useful for some people. Personally, I know of no higher gift, or praise, than to be useful. JoAnn and I would love to talk about coming back east and spending time with you in whatever forum or symposium you may create. Sounds delightfully stimulating!

Theodore, I hope this email answers some of your questions. I look forward to hearing back from you, and learning your reaction as you read through Drunk with Wonder. My goal with the book was to take people on a journey of discovery. I hope you continue to enjoy the ride.

--
Blessings,

Steve Ryals

Is too much Testosterone a Terminal Illness?

So here we are in the twenty-first century. Sounds like a long time, doesn’t it? So much has happened. Certainly times and experiences have waxed and waned. So many families, children, laughter, terrified screams, unutterable joy, unimaginable savagery.

And we now know of at least sixty centuries of people building towns of cities, trading and competing for resources, going to war. Our ancestors, distant almost beyond imaging, were using fire around a million years ago. First the reptilian brain, then mammalian brain, were up and running. Then they learned how to cook meat, which gave them enough protein and fat for their brains to expand. A million years ago, they still had no prefrontal cortex, no language as we know it today. Our ancient ancestors explored their world, made simple tools like stone axes, and continued with no discernible evolution for hundreds of thousands of years.

Eventually, all the branches of human evolution died out, leaving us. Our curiosity, our cunning, our capacity for guile and treachery is legendary. It’s easy to see that our species, like those before us, has come to the end of how it’s been. Either we continue to adapt, radically adapt, or our species will go the way of our ancestor species. Flying into a psychotic rage and slaughtering others will no longer save us. Actually, there is some evidence to support the notion that our species continues to evolve, including the evolution of consciousness itself.

You see, in many ways our ancestors from 100,000 years ago were not that different from us. If we were to dress and groom them, they could walk down a crowded city street with barely a glance. For tens of thousands of years, most of our evolution for has been inside, in the development of our brains. There are many of us now who long for peace, who envision a world where everyone feels safe, loved, and celebrated. But those of us who choose peace have been at the mercy of those who choose war. One of the hallmarks of those who choose war is that they have no mercy. Blood lust is as real as sexual lust.

Studies show that high levels of testosterone do make it more likely that those men suffering from it will father more children, and seem to have some additional benefits. Yet we are now hearing that these high levels of testosterone are toxic to the individual as well as to the society in which they live (see article here). As a society, I believe we most find ways to harness and channel this energy in honoring, respectful ways that do NOT include war. Many of us, and more all the time, do not suffer from a surfeit of testosterone. We’re not hyper-competitive, we don’t need to be the best, the richest, the flashiest or the loudest. Yet we have a right to be, a right to live in peace and thrive.

There is an old adage that might makes right. Yet, when we look at our human history over the 8,000 years or so we’ve been keeping track, empires always fall. The center (of power) never holds. And now, with our ability to annihilate each other, to fish the oceans bare, create global warming, and continue to dither as the ruthless prey on the defenseless (Darfur), our species, considered the most adaptable in our long lineage, must adapt and evolve again if we are to survive in a meaningful way. When will we, as a species, wake up and see excessive testosterone as a terminal disease?

Resistance to Blogging

I’ve read that blogging is supposed to be a way to get real and lay it all on the line. Today I’m noticing that I have great resistance to daily blogging. I just don’t have any wish or desire to share my mundane thoughts with the world. They’re not interesting to me … how could they be to the world? And it seems like so much work to keep coming up with something to say, especially something fresh and interesting, day after day. Oh well … so I don’t blog every day. I can’t imagine that anyone cares one way or the other. Be that as it may, here’s what I have to say today:

One theme that seems to be cropping up lately concerns the idea of hope. It has been suggested that hope leads to complacency; that it is only when we abandon hope that we take action in the now. From this perspective, hope is seen as being projected into the future, and that somehow this projection will keep us from acting in the present.

I maintain that to be hopeless, which means “without hope, despairing,” takes away any context for action. A suicide is a hopeless, despairing act of utter finality, a vote that things will not be getting better. If I were terminally ill, I’d want to check out with some dignity at a time of my choosing. Watching my father going through his incredibly long, tortuous journey to death is not something I would wish on anyone. (Well, maybe Bush or Cheney or Rumsfield – no, just kidding. Not even them.)

To have a child is one of the greatest votes of hope I know of. I don’t think having a child has anything to do with complacency. As far as I know, people lost in despair do not have children. We must become fully present in the moment is to see the beauty and perfection of the now. Yet, to open our hearts fully is to experience the anguish of knowing that the horrible reality of war, famine, disease and torture doesn’t have to be this way, that, at some deep level, all of our experiences are a choice. Without choice, we’re victims, puppets going through the motions, harnessed to our DNA like mules to a wagon. I choose to hold out hope for a brighter future for our world. That’s why I’m so passionate about creating a world where everyone feels safe, loved and celebrated. How about you?

Change is Inevitable

Change is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Bumper sticker shtik? Sure. Deep awareness grounded in experience? Certainly. My point is that reciting platitudes is one thing. Living from the truth they espouse is often quite another.

For example, I’ve been feeling kind of down lately. I’ve ascribed this feeling variously to the change in seasons, short days, traveling a lot, not being grounded and so forth. As I talk about at some length in Drunk with Wonder, there exists the “isness’ of a situation, let’s say the fact that the sun is setting a bit before 5 pm. There isn’t much I can do about that, expect perhaps to pack up and head south, way, way south, where the days are still getting longer rather than shorter and summer is coming on.

The other thing I can do is become present in the moment, particularly around my feelings; how I am with the “isness.” When I do that, I notice how much grief I’m feeling. Change is in the air, and with change comes loss. It turns out that loss is an inevitable part of change, that to grow into a more expansive perspective requires that we set aside our old stories of who we thought we were.

And so, in becoming present, at least hesitantly, to the moment, to my grief, my experience of depression immediately shifts. When I allow the “isness” to be, I become more relaxed.

My father has been dead for almost a year now. He loved the fall, the colors, the smell of burning leaves, carving a pumpkin. Or so I remember. On the tree farm we owned we loved to sit by the remains of a fire we had run as the color drained out of the sky. The leaves on the black oaks had turned yellow and dusky orange, carpeting the ground and festooning the forest with autumn splendor.

I so loved those times. A part of me knew then that it would not last, and that it was important to treasure those moments with my Dad. And I did. Until I become present, really present, I don’t realize how much I have withdrawn. I guess I thought this was just about autumn, but it’s more than that. It’s been eight years since we sold the farm and moved away, probably nine years since we ran a fire together. I miss those times with him so much!!! And grief comes pouring down like the first cleansing rains of autumn.

My family will be making a pilgrimage to this land we loved so much just after Christmas, so that we may spread his ashes by the stream. We have many wonderful memories of Christmas there on the farm. I treasure these memories deeply.

I had been resisting these feelings; now I’m embracing them. We’ll see where we go from here. There is more to explore. With the book finished, I’ve been feeling at loose ends. The marketing and such are not remotely as interesting or fulfilling. And with Challenge Day recently on Oprah, my place with that organization is sure to change. I have been letting go of that for some time, realizing that the wonderful, magic community I was privileged to be part of has already grown and transformed, as I knew it would have to do so that it’s promise and potential could be fulfilled.

I’m left wondering whether I will have another opportunity to experience something so magical again in this lifetime. I know I should feel grateful to have been given the opportunity to play with Challenge Day the way I have. And I do, of course. It’s just that, in the midst of all the excitement about Oprah, I’m also feeling a sense of loss for the way things were.

Yet I must feel this grief, let it wash over me like a tsunami and see on what distant shore I might wash up, a stranger in a strange land, becoming someone who I do not know. For now, the grief and sense of loss need to consume who I thought I was, leaving only the unity of “I am” to rest in peace.

More Christmas Memories

The excitement built from Thanksgiving on. Mom would not allow Christmas music before then. Dad’s birthday was November 23rd, (he passed away last January) and sometimes Thanksgiving came on that very day. When we lived in Seattle we spent Thanksgiving at Grandma and Grandpa’s (Dad’s father) and when we came home from Thanksgiving weekend the Christmas boxes came out and the Christmas music came on. We had a December calendar where each day had a little door, and Mom let us take turns opening these doors.

The days seemed to crawl by. After we got out of school for the holidays, the evening got even more intense. We boys spent hours huddled around the Sears Christmas catalog, endlessly discussing the merits of various toys and what we thought our chances were of Santa bringing any of them to us. We tended to be on our best behavior before Christmas, trying to curry favor from Mom and Dad, the source of many of our gifts.

When we were young, Mom read “Twas the Night before Christmas” and we all believed in Santa Claus. He was like this unconditionally loving grandfather who knew us better than we knew ourselves. We even put out cookies and milk for him, and they were always gone in the morning! Mom and Dad stayed up late on Christmas Eve, arranging our “big” gifts in front of the tree. These weren’t wrapped, and the story was that Santa brought those on his sleigh. Sometimes they stayed up very late, putting presents together, stuffing our handmade Christmas stockings, and making sure everything was just so. When we peeked around the corner at 7:00 on Christmas morning, the tree was still lit and all these presents were spread out. It was amazing, really. They showed us so much love!

Several times during that month big boxes would arrive on our doorstep, filled with wrapped presents from grandparents, aunts, and uncles. We’d carefully pull out each gift, read the tag to see who it was for and who it was from and then arrange them all under the tree. I would spend hours gazing raptly at the tree and all those presents, wrapped in Christmas smells, and Christmas music, savoring the anticipation of Christmas morning.