An archaeologist of the inner landscape

Buried inside even our deepest neuroses are the raw materials of love. In the tantric and alchemical traditions, those less-than-awakened thoughts, emotions, and raw sensations are the prima materia for us to work with. They are the secret keys to the sacred world and the doorway into helping others.

The shit, the piss, the dirt, the failures, the heartbreak, disappointment, the inability to rise above the holiness of our vulnerability, the achiness when we cannot do this. These are the holy materials we have to work with as alchemists of our own lives. This blackness is the substance of life that shines brighter than a billion suns when transmuted in the crucible of the heart.

While we live in a world that has forgotten the mystery of dissolution, it is the nature of all form to arise and to pass away, so that it may shift shapes into new forms which evidence wholeness. When the forms are shifting, go into the earth, into slowness, into the body, and into the ground, and listen. Feel. Sense. Open as best you can. The temptation will always be to replace the form with something else – urgently seeking some new person, belief system, identity, or way of being to cut into the hot, rich, textured, pregnant, groundless void.

This ancient longing for relief need not be shamed, nor approached with abandonment and aggression, but seen for what it is, honored as valid, allowed to arise, and metabolized. But the deeper invitation is to rest in the deflation itself, to descend inside the core of the creative energies of the dissolution, and take refuge in the intelligence of the naked, the tender, and the raw.

To slow down, finally, and touch the emptiness with love. To become an archaeologist of the inner landscape, to see with cleansed perception the inseparability of inner and outer, and to know the union of matter and spirit. It is up to you to bring these truths into the collective, in a world that has grown a bit weary.

My new book – The Path Is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You – is now available 

The next event, The Magic of Being Fully Human, to be held in Ojai, CA on October 14-15. 

When a child appears

If a child were to appear at your door – cold, scared, and tired from a long journey…

If he or she were anxious, heartbroken, raging, and confused…

Would you refuse entry to the little one? Would you first demand that his fear dissolve, her anxiety be healed, his confusion clarify, or her heart be mended?

In your most authoritative spiritual voice, would you urge the little one to first "get over it,” to accept everything the way it is, to urgently forgive those who have harmed him, to fall into the bliss of the moment, or to drop into the state of no-self?

Or would you provide sanctuary and safe passage from a long journey? A warm home in which the stories, the emotions, and the sensations of the little one can unfold, be illuminated, and be metabolized into the tender space of wholeness?

As Rumi reminds us, “Look as long as you can at the friend you love, no matter whether that friend is moving away or coming toward you.” The friend is always appearing, in both obvious and disguised forms, as the others in your life as well as the unmet ‘inner other’ of your heart.

Honor each of the forms that love take, allowing your heart to break when these forms change, for it is their nature to do so. This is not evidence that something has gone wrong, but only in the relentlessness of love to do whatever it must to find you.

My new book – The Path Is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You – is now available 

The next event, The Magic of Being Fully Human, to be held in Ojai, CA on October 14-15. 

Re-encoding neural circuitry

Early relational experiences are encoded in the neural circuitry of a precious little infant in the first 18 months of life, outside the reach of conscious awareness, and form the templates through which we engage the relational world. As many of us have discovered, this material has a way of surging in our close relationships, longing to be known, held, and integrated in the vastness of what we are.

But it can feel like an avalanche, a volcano of partly processed feelings, a wildfire of unintegrated emotions. Within a split second, we are hooked, activated, and triggered, urgently spinning for relief from the raw somatic sensations that were once evidence that our very survival was at risk: a text isn’t returned on time, we aren’t seen as we are, the rejection, the abandonment, the loneliness, the raging unworthiness. Before we know it … it’s just not safe to open any longer.

Our expectations in relationship – the reliability of others, our worthiness to receive love, whether it’s okay to allow another to truly matter, whether it’s safe enough to lead with our vulnerability – are structured in a fragile little nervous system that is longing for safety and connection. The neural pathways are tender, open, and responsive, as we seek attuned, right brain-to-right brain resonance with those around us. We want to feel felt, to have our subjective experience held and mirrored, and for the space in which we can explore unstructured states of being.

While this encoding is deeply embedded, it can be rewired. While it may feel relentlessly entrenched, it is not as solid as it appears. Even if your early environment was one of consistent empathic failure, developmental trauma, and insecure attachment, it is never too late. The wild realities of neuroplasticity and the courage of the human heart is unstoppable and an erupting force of creativity and reorganization.

Through new relational experiences – with a therapist, a lover, a friend, a baby. With a being of light, a divine presence, or a deity of mercy or compassion. Or with a star, a deer, the moon, or with the earth itself, we can make the human journey together, in all is messy glory, and bear witness to the power of love to reorganize. We can watch in awe as it lights up mirror neurons and the cells in your heart in a fresh moment of warmth, presence, and kindness. Each time you meet and attune to another, receive their love, return it with your presence, as you simultaneously stay close with the inner “other” within you, a new world is born.

As long as there is breath moving in and out, you can update the narrative. You can make new meaning of your life, re-author and re-enchant the story, re-dream the dream, and re-imagine new life. You can make a new commitment to the miracle of the here and now, and practice flooding your immediate experience with presence, warmth, and acceptance. Slowly, over time, you can embed your neural circuitry with the new pathway of holding awareness.

No matter what is happening in your life, you can start right now. In this moment. There is only ever this moment. The opportunity for reorganization is always here and wired within you. Don’t give up. Love will never give up on you.

My new book – The Path Is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You – is now available 

The next event, The Magic of Being Fully Human, to be held in Ojai, CA on October 14-15.