“Tonight, A Memory Arrived…”

It came back to me, just in the last 5 minutes. A memory. This isn’t “remembering,” but a memory – there is a difference, at least in my world.

To me, remembering is a past-tense thing. Remembering is when you stroll through the spongy halls of the lump of synapses between your ears, find the right file cabinet, and pull out the index card of the moment in question. It’s dead, lifeless…just some information that was inscribed and put away. Not so with a memory.

No, in my world, memories are alive…electrical currents that still have their full charge, lurking in corners that they don’t belong and stirring up trouble. In the world of post-traumatic stress disorder, that’s the difference between remembering and a memory. So what is this memory? Are you excited to know? Even a little intrigued? I will reveal it to you, knowing full well that it will likely mean little to you – because you have no awareness of the context. Nevertheless, the subject it addresses is important to each of us. The memory was about sleep.

I was in a combat environment, working for the U.S. Navy, (in a place that shall remain nameless), and had been in this environment for several days. The stress was extreme, and I had not slept…for days; not even a 5-minute catnap. I can recall, tonight, a comment that I made some 25 years ago to one of my buddies with me at the time. I said, and I meant it in the greatest seriousness, “I would let someone cut off my left arm right now if they would let me sleep.” As God is my witness, I would have made that deal at that moment. In the event, I didn’t get that sleep until more time had elapsed, and I am still in possession of my left arm. Today, restful sleep is as foreign to me as speaking Swahili – fatigue and pain has been my constant companion since then.

Most people will, thankfully, never know that combination of stress, the possibility of immanent death, and extreme sleep deprivation. But you don’t have to be in that spot to suffer the very real, adverse effects from not getting enough sleep.

If your body doesn’t get enough rest – enough full, recuperative sleep – it will begin to decay at an alarming rate. Decision-making is compromised, attitude suffers, and the muscles of your body don’t get their window of time to re-build. When this happens, over time, you get pain – all over body pain that doesn’t go away. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. The longer the lack of recuperative sleep goes on, the more damage the physical body and mind will incur. This problem is invariably married to PTSD, but you can suffer from sleep deprivation whether that condition exists or not.

Bottom line, get your sleep. Make it a priority. Proper and restful sleep will do wonders for your outlook on life.

Many Blessings To All…

Gawain of the Coire

“It Was Better In Black-and-White…”

I miss those days. I wasn’t even born during that time, but I still miss those days.

We all used to be black-and-white, you know; you can still see the pictures today. Man, those were the days. From coal miners, to the movers and shakers of high finance – like Andrew Carnegie , and the DuPonts, Rockefeller and the Vanderbilts – everybody was black-and-white.

God, just look at the pictures. The photos said it all. It appeared as though we all had such ambition, such values, such an incredible work ethic, such potential. New York, Chicago, St. Louis…even the photos of starving, depression-era children took on an air of stoic dignity. Even tenement housing, overfilled with extended families, had a compelling, perverse sort of glamor; somehow, you were going to make it if you were in black-and-white. The innocence, and the decadence, and the despair, and the aura of a wide-open field of opportunities were all there in black-and-white.

And the black-and-white movies…such grand affairs they were. War was glorious, and hope was the order of the day. Dancing and singing, comical, unpretentious adventures, and the elevation of culture were the domain of black-and-white. People flocked to Broadway to see the latest musicals. It was all class, man.

Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr., Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, Andy Griffith, The Three Stooges, The Keystone Cops – and Marlon Brando, On The Waterfront. And let’s not forget Jimmy Stewart’s turns in It’s a Wonderful Life, and Twelve Angry Men. Looking back now, that was the hope and promise of America – all of those people in black-and-white, with a grand plan and an irrepressible spirit. But then came color.

Everything was fine for the first couple of years of color photos and films…but then something seems to have gone awry. The line became blurred between the good guys and the bad guys. And death suddenly had blood…red blood…and that took the glamor away from war and mobsters. Color somehow carried a different reality, and that reality wasn’t nearly as hopeful, or lighthearted, or forgiving as black-and-white had been.

Yes, black-and-white was the “good old days,” when you dressed for dinner, or to take a flight. Pure magic it was – but it really wasn’t.

No, folks drank and smoked themselves to death, abused their children and spouses and employees, and pulled every kind of scam that you can imagine to make a buck. Snake oil and “tonics,” cure-alls, rampant racism, endless political corruption. It was all there, behind the romance of the black-and-white stills.

There is only one place that you will find the “good-old-days,” and that’s TODAY. YOUR today. Don’t waste it looking back to a time that wasn’t what it seemed. This moment is your life…revel in it.

Many Blessings To All…

Gawain of the Coire

“More Than A King…”

“He who reigns within himself and rules his passions, desires and fears is more than a king.” – John Milton

John Milton is probably best known for his poem Paradise Lost, and that ties-in perfectly with this quote, because paradise is precisely what you stand to lose if you fail to reign over your mental and physical self. The key to living like a true king, in the peace, joy and abundance of “paradise,” is a powerful, spiritual life. And to live as a powerful, spiritual being requires discipline in the physical, mental, and emotional as aspects of your existence. You must cultivate the ability to reign in wisdom over your body and mind, or you will end up with dragons “piloting” your life [check out my earlier blog: "Dragons Are Pilots," at http://risinghawk.wordpress.com/2011/06/17/dragons-are-pilots/  to learn more about that].

Unrestrained passions, selfish desires and fears are most definitely “dragons.” They are born of falsehoods and unreasonable ego positions that cloud your ability to live as the king or queen that you are – an unlimited, eternal Spirit that has been given the Kingdom. How do we control this Kingdom? Let’s look at fear first.

The crushing paralysis that fear can cause is well-known to most of us. The only way to overcome fear is to stop being afraid, which is impossible…unless you come to the place where you fully embrace the truth that you are an Infinite Spirit, without beginning or end, in the care of, and on the course set by, the Infinite God of All. If you truly know this, and place your faith upon that truth, fear melts like an ice-cream cone in the summer sun of the Mississippi delta. Next up is unrestrained passions.

An unrestrained passion, (unless it is a passion to better realize the unstoppable power of your Spirit), will totally consume your mind, effectively preventing you from hearing any guidance from the Divine. An unrestrained passion is a mesmerizing and very entertaining dragon. If you allow it, your brain will sit and watch him dance and do tricks for hours upon end. When that happens, you are a slave…not a king…giggling like a child playing peek-a-boo with this dragon as you watch him grow ever larger and larger on the attention he receives. If that goes on long enough, he will eventually block the sun itself. You must work to maintain a balance when it comes to your passions.

The last of the three, selfish desires, seems like an obvious one. Sure, coveting a BMW because – well, just because – may be a selfish and distracting desire, but there are other, subtle, selfish desires that can be a lot more damaging. There are a lot of them, but I’ll just touch on two. The first is mood and attitude.

In a normally functioning brain, both of these are usually totally within your control. If they are negative, then you are selfishly clinging to the ego’s desire to hold on to a perceived “hurt, or fear, or a desire to have others pay attention to you. The bottom line? You’re allowing a dragon to be your pilot again, and it will, invariably, smiling all the while, fly you into misery – you and everyone around you. No, none of us wants to believe that we would act like that, but it’s the truth, and our egos are the culprits. Bad attitudes are the products of selfish desire, and they will absolutely train wreck any effort to live your life as “more than a king.” The second subtle desire that I will address involves your time.

One of the most important activities that anyone can do on the road to enjoying a king’s peace, joy, and abundance is daily devotion – in meditation or prayer within your chosen spiritual path.

It isn’t easy to set-aside time early in the morning or before bed at night to connect with the Divine. It’s not comfortable. It requires discipline, and the body would rather watch TV or stay in bed. To appease the physical over the Spirit in this way is to indulge in a selfish desire – perhaps one of the most harmful ones there is. Without prayer and meditation, how will you ever intimately know the truth of your Divinity? And, without knowing this truth, how will you ever escape the ravages of the dragon of fear?

The choices are yours to make. If you wish to live as more than a king or queen, in every aspect of your life, you must begin your reign today. Rule your passions, desires, and fears, and allow your Spirit to lead you into a life of beauty!

“You Spot ‘Em, You Got Em’…”

That was the motto of the “company.”

It was the late 1980′s, early 1990. I had not been out of the service of the U.S. Navy for very long. I needed a job, and no-one cared about my time in the service…the sacrifice…the combat…the insane hours or what I “gave” for the American people. The recruiters never mentioned that reality. According to them, your experience and training would place you at the head of the line when it came to jobs [soldiers coming home today will find the same thing - you will get credit for your sacrifice for a week or two when you return, but all of what you gave will likely not translate into a job - IF you can even hold a job, fighting the mental issues that come home with so many].

Anyway, I lived in southwest Virginia at the time, and the local paper had an ad for a “career opportunity,” with the potential for a 6 figure income, and the company would train you. I was game..as far as I was concerned, there was nothing that I couldn’t do, and I did not consider failure as an even remote possibility. I was Superman, combat hardened, and had been all over the world. I made the call to a 800 number, and the “interview” was to be in a hotel in Knoxville, TN. The interviewer on the phone had few questions to ask..it was all about just showing up.

I was suspicious that no one really cared about my abilities or background, but still naive enough at that point in my life to give the whole thing a whirl. It was a “business opportunity,” and no one got much more specific than that [Just for the record, if you see an ad that says "no experience necessary," with an 800 number, suggesting big money and to ask for Mr. or Ms. so-and-so, don't bother. In fact, if you keep looking through the classifieds, you will probably see the same phone number again, attached to a slightly different ad, advising you to ask for another fake name. Steer clear - they will likely ask YOU to pay THEM to work for them - to buy the "starter"materials].  Anyway, these are things that you can learn from my experience; or you can figure me a dumb-ass, and find out on your own.

So, I drove to Knoxville, TN, expecting a one-on-one interview about an amazing business opportunity. Well, the one-on-one interview turned out to be a seminar/sales pitch in a big room, to hundreds of people who were as big a fool as me, designed to talk us in to paying this company an initial fee to get the necessary materials, and the set out as an “independent contractor” for them. No benefits, no salary, just an amazing chance to make scads of money and live like a king.

Admittedly, I was a fool for driving to Knoxville for this load of crap, but I could see through it with the greatest of ease once I got there. The “amazing” business opportunity was cleaning cars, and manipulating people’s egos.

You see, the premise was that you showed up at a business, and you sold someone on the idea of demonstrating your amazing product on just a small spot on the hood of their car; and it was a freebie, no charge to have it done. When you were done, the customer had a beautiful, shiny spot on their hood. Pretty awesome. Problem was, the rest of the car now looked kind of like shit in comparison. This is where you got them – “you spot ‘em, you got ‘em.” Their car looked stupid with one immaculate spot on the hood, so they would pony up the cash to have the whole car done. And, (so the presenter said), when the rest of the folks at the business saw how wonderful this person’s car looked, they would be lining up to have their car done, too. Whatever…

Well, it all stank of shit to me. It was lying. It was manipulative, AND they wanted me to pay THEM for the materials to be a lying, manipulative prick. I walked. I drove back to Virginia, angry and disgusted…and jobless.

In the end , what bothered me the most was the fact that my service to the country, my vast experience, my life on the line more than once, amounted to bullshit. Today’s returning soldiers, more often than not, will find their experience to be the same.

PLEASE, give them the respect that they have earned while you sat at home. Create REAL opportunities for them to make it when they come home. Talk to your congressman…INSIST on a plan to rebuild their lives. They earned it, while you slept peacefully in your bed. I haven’t had a peaceful, restful night’s sleep in 25 years. Don’t let that happen to the soldiers coming home today. FIGHT for them, because they fought for you.

Many Blessings To All…

Gawain of the Coire

Life Is A Funny Thing…”

It was a .38 revolver, and it was pointed right in my face.

It was loaded, and cocked, and there was a finger on the trigger – the barrel so close that it nearly touched my nose. I will leave out the context of this encounter, or when it happened. But I can tell you this…it happened.

I stared down the barrel of this pistol, and called the holder of it every name in the book, and goaded him to pull the trigger. I told him that he didn’t have the guts to do it, and that I would shove it up his a** [it seems that I tend to be the most fearless when I should just shut up. It’s my Scottish Highlander genes, I guess).

Well, I was right…he didn’t have the guts; killing someone is a lot easier to imagine than it is to do. And just for the record, if you ever find yourself in this spot, I would suggest being a little more cooperative; cocky can get you killed. I did not mention the time or place of this event and, likewise, I will not discuss the end result of the encounter. There are some things are that are best left unsaid, unaddressed and thrown in the wastebasket of times gone by.

In any event, I’m still here. Apparently, I had a greater purpose to be fulfilled. Life is a funny thing.

Many Blessings To All…

Gawain of the Coire

“I Have Stupid Fingers…”

B.B. King (Photo credit: sjrowe53)

In retrospect, I suppose that is impossible.

But, it certainly seems to be that way whenever I am attempting to play the guitar, or the mandolin, or the ukulele. Evidently, the pinky finger of my left (fretting) hand is blessed with some odd configuration of the joints. Sometimes, for whatever reason, it will simply “lock” in the extended position. When this occurs, I have to make a conscious effort to pop it back into place. It doesn’t hurt but, as you might imagine, if you are attempting to play notes in a fluid fashion, it stops everything.

For the longest time, this has bugged the crap out of me. I am not what anyone would consider a good player on any of those instruments, (primarily because I become impatient with the repetition of practice, and when I do get on a roll, the finger thing frustrates me). But there is a certain beauty in this “problem” with the finger that, if I acknowledge and accept it, could lead to wonderful things. You see, when it comes to music, a unique style comes from working around what you cannot do more than what you can do.

I think of the story of the legendary guitarist B.B. King, who has one of the most-revered and recognizable playing styles in the world – and he has it because he couldn’t do what he wanted to do on the guitar. It was he who once said that he had “stupid fingers.” And why did he say that? Maybe you know the story, but I’ll share it just in case you haven’t.

As a young man, he used to hear his cousin, Bukka White, play blues guitar using a slide. He was mesmerized by the sound of the vibrato sound that Bukka produced using the slide, and set about learning to play slide guitar the same way…but he just couldn’t make it work. Try as he might, he couldn’t play like Bukka because, as he put it, “I must have had stupid fingers or something.” As frustrating as this was, he still wanted that sound, so he started trying other ways to get it. The result? He developed an incredible finger vibrato, (using primarily his wrist), that guitar players all over the world still can’t seem to duplicate. Only B.B. King sounds like B.B. King, and the irony of it all is that it is a sound that he considered a poor substitute for what he really wanted, and now thousands of players are trying to learn how to play his “mistake.”

The legendary “gypsy jazz” guitarist Django Reinhardt, a pioneer in the world of guitar playing, became so after severe burns rendered the third and forth fingers of his fretting hand partially paralyzed. Essentially, he re-learned the guitar, crafting a way to play all of his amazing solos using only 2 fingers on his left hand.

The incredibly influential jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery lived in an apartment where he constantly received complaints about how loud he was practicing, so he ditched his pick and practiced with his fingers. In the process, he became the root of what is often termed “smooth jazz” today.

And, as a last example, Tony Iommi, guitarist for the seminal heavy metal band  Black Sabbath, and ranked as one of the ten greatest guitar players of all time, managed to do so after an industrial accident at age 17 removed the tips of the middle and ring fingers of his right hand [He was a lefty, so this was his fretting hand]. What did he do? He created thimbles to extend those two fingers.

Here’s the truth of it all. It is within what you think are your “limitations” that you will discover your unique, God-given style…whatever field of endeavor you may be in. Always remember that. The way that you overcome what you cannot do will be the legacy of your life.

Many Blessings To All…

Gawain of the Coire

“It’s Bigger Than What You Thought…”

I was not going to write this. And if I did write it, I thought that maybe I wouldn’t publish it. But, if you’re reading it now, it’s clear that I decided to let it fly free.

I have spent my adult life making a point not to say or write anything that would cause anyone to question their chosen faith. I respect and revere any path that a true spiritual seeker wishes to trod. What disturbs me is a simple thing…followers.

Whatever path you follow; be it Christianity, Islam, Wicca or some other form of Pagan worship, Native American, Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism…well, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you heard it from someone else, or you read about it in a book, and decided, with your brain, to give it a shot…to believe it. It requires a brain to believe and to, ostensibly at least, decide whether something is true or not.

And then there is the path of meditation, and awareness, and being the observer – being the unmanifest witness. Achievement of this is often referred to as enlightenment, or illumination, or self-actualization. This is a truly grand experience. BUT, it took your advanced brain to evaluate the experience, and grant it whatever significance that it will hold in your life. Without your brain, you couldn’t meditate, or believe, or be “awareness,” or understand, at even the most basic level, ANY concept of a “higher” reality.

I recently watched a video of someone speaking of “non-doing,” (a key concept of Advaita Vedanta). The words were nothing more than a re-iteration of old Hindu and Buddhist scriptures. This person had read the words of the old scriptures, had an old teacher who was also well-versed in these scriptures, and chosen to believe them, with their brain.

The fact is that it requires the advanced human brain to even conceive of the idea that there is a God, or a Supreme Consciousness. So what is my point? This is my point – you will never escape your brain, even when you believe that you have transcended it. It is only by the power of the brain that you can even comprehend the idea of “transcendence.”

What is left? Atheism? No. An atheist, (by the power of the brain), has determined that science is the ultimate answer. The brain cannot be escaped. No matter what you may experience in a spiritual realm, or in a physical sphere, it is the brain, and ONLY the brain, that gives you a context within which to evaluate. Without the brain, you would have no position about anything. You are not enlightened, your brain simply holds a position on the subject. You are not spiritual, your brain simply holds a position on the subject. Is there no “God” then? Is it all the brain? Perhaps. But let us consider the brain.

Perhaps the brain is the true gift of God. The brain is the instrument by which you can establish your connection with that which is all; that is its magic. Each individual, each mind, has its own imprinted destiny – its own path – hard-wired, by a power that is beyond the brain, yet requires the brain to comprehend.

My question is this: what do you know of God that you did not receive from another person, (through writings or verbal teachings)? What do you know of God that you have gleaned in total independence from any influence set by a previous precedent? Here is the true idea, the concept, that has pressed me to write this blog tonight.

If you erase all of your influences, if you discount all of the scriptures and teachings to which you have been exposed, and THEN seek God, what will you find? Do you have the courage to detach from your conditioned beliefs, totally without bias or expectation of any kind, and see what God may say? Do I have the courage?

The power of the universe may well show you a truth that no man has ever heard or dreamed. You may well be the first to be given a new truth, an aspect of God that no one has ever imagined. Every religion, (and there are many), had a “first” person to receive. Can you let go of all that you think you know of the Supreme power of all, and see what happens?

Food for thought is what this is. Perhaps it is time to stop clinging to experiences that aren’t yours, and to seek out that which the universe has prepared specifically for you. The world is full of parrots, regurgitating the words of those who came before. Is God so limited? Is there nothing more? I don’t think so – we’ve barely scratched the surface. Open yourself to other possibilities.

Many Blessings To All…

(You can follow Gawain of the Coire on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gawain-of-the-Coire/205425236152070

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“When It Comes…”

“In adversity, remember to keep an even mind.” – Horace

Adversity tends to be heavy, and each of us has to face our portion from time-to-time. This is by design, as adversity is the real training ground for achieving spiritual growth and wisdom; we don’t get much of either when everything is sailing along smoothly. When it comes, though, it can really rock your boat if you don’t take the words of Horace to heart.

If you can imagine it, picture your brain as a big apothecary scale that determines the “emotional weight” of your experiences and thoughts. You’re cruising along with your scale, (brain), for the most part on an even keel – balanced. Then comes adversity, which is a lot like lead, in that its weight seems to far exceed what one would expect in relation to its size. PLOP! There it goes, splashing down on your balanced scale and flinging all of the positive things on the other side all over the place. You become fixated on this dark lump of “bad,” and it gets even heavier. Forget about balance, now there’s an elephant in the room!

It is the “weight” that we assign to adversity that gives it its strength in our life, and the only way to get through it is to provide a counter balance – to get back to “even.” No easy task in the midst of a shit-storm. Where are you going to find enough of what you deem “good” to balance the scale when there is so much weight to offset? You probably won’t, which leaves you with no choice but to wait around for time to wear it away. But, there is a better approach, and it involves changing the way that you “weight” experiences before you have them.

Begin the practice, ahead of time, of accepting that there is no adversity so heavy that it will flip your scale. Come to the understanding that adversity is one of the Divine’s primary tools in its conspiracy to move you along to higher and higher planes of existence.

Once you have reached that place through prayer, faith, and meditation, adversity automatically gets “weighted” differently when it arrives. Instead of an earth-shattering PLOP on your scale, you get a mildly distracting “tinkle,” and that is much easier to counter-balance and overcome.

Many Blessings To All…

(You can follow Gawain of the Coire on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gawain-of-the-Coire/205425236152070

Gawain of the Coire

“A Bell Sounds…”

But it isn’t really a bell, but tingshas, small cymbals hammered and forged from seven metals, and engraved with ancient characters that cannot be deciphered. Deep in the forest they ring, their sound carrying to the East, and to the South, and to the West, and to the North.

Some would deem it a call to prayer, or the signaling of a time for devotions. Perhaps. The only certainty is that it is a sacred call. Do you have the ears to hear? Will you respond to the sonorous invitation? Or are you dead to the sound of Creation, wrapped in greed, deaf to the sound that is ALL.

You need not travel far to reach this forest. The beautiful paths lined with glorious flowers all lead to the bell’s invocation, and this forest is within you – a mere two finger widths below your heart. It is not part of your physical body; it is in the spiritual body; but they are connected.

The bell rings; a crystalline, clarion call, that lingers on the breath, and fills the cosmos with its pristine vibration. If you desire pace, you must go to it. If you desire the greatest wisdom, you must seek it out. If you would manifest all the best that you could be, follow this powerful sound – to its Source.

There is none but you in the forest, because ONE is all there is.

It sounds again.

Do not resist the call…it is your life, the Truth, waiting for you to find it.

Many Blessings To All…

(You can follow Gawain of the Coire on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gawain-of-the-Coire/205425236152070

Gawain of the Coire

“Dragons Are Pilots…”

I guess that seems like an obvious deduction – at least to the extent that they can fly in all of the imagery that we have of them. But flying is one thing, piloting another matter all together.

Mental dragons are quite accomplished at steering your thoughts, at sitting at the controls of your immensely powerful rocket ship – your brain. And not just your brain, either, but most everyone else’s, too. So why are you angry with people when they cut you off on the highway? Why are you angry with the person that talks about you behind your back? Why are you angry with yourself when you don’t behave in the way that you have decided is “correct.”

Adjust your perspective, and realize that there is a dragon piloting the brain when this happens. This dragon may have any number of names; fear, grief, ignorance, loneliness, anger, sadness, pain, indecision, some physical ailment, distraction, etc. You have no idea how much another person may be suffering  – no idea what environmental forces formed the bones, blood, and sinews of the personal dragons that drive their behavior. And although it may be that you cannot do anything about the dragon that is steering someone else, at the very least you can decide not to judge the person; that would be a good start at compassion.

And in your own case, you can learn to recognize when a dragon is flying your ship instead of the truth of the Supreme Consciousness. Recognize it, and take back the pilot’s chair. No matter how imposing the dragon may appear, it’s not the power – it only succeeds when you have given it permission by standing back, fixated, watching it fly you right into a tree.

It’s your rocket ship; make sure that you are the one flying it.

Many Blessings To All…

(You can follow Gawain of the Coire on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gawain-of-the-Coire/205425236152070

Gawain of the Coire