Deep Archetypal Masculine Identity, Being and Action includes diverse, distinct and distinguished energy forms: King, Lover, Fool, Magician, Father, Warrior, Witness... Light and Shadow elements in our culture, growing and becoming aspects of personalities we "fall into"... petty tyrants, bullies, dumb-schmuck, trickster, angst ridden, rageaholic; unrealized/frustrated masculine... partner of the divine feminine. One who learns to yield and surrender. Poet. Mystic. Provider. Son. Brother. Uncle. Master. and Servant... the masks we wear.
Inquiry: what other essential roles and perspectives hath the masculine? and what current constructs, identities and energies of the feminine are at play in your own imaginarium?? Divine Child, Goddess, Queen, Princess, Sweetheart, Dominatrix, Friend, Huntress, Ex, Boss, Mother, Teacher, Muse...
Further Inquiry: What are your particular gender gifts? How does the deep masculine and feminine manifest in your own unfolding? Are you giving your gifts over, surrendering into your self and your generativity? Are your families, friends, colleagues and lovers hearing you and you them? Are you exchanging brilliant thought forms with each other and if not, why are you holding on to ancient secrets, denying or holding back on your own genius and subsequently not fully realizing the collective/ collaborative projects that potentially may manifest between us?!
One such creative collaboration I am wondering about is Ritual Theatre: what does it look, sound and feel like when we consciously and intentionally enact/embody archetypal image/energies in relation to the issues of our time: ecological uncertainty, political unrest/upheaval, threats of conflict, illness, financial breakdowns, divorce and social isolation??
We need fresh vision and intentional, strategically informed actions. We need to source/access primal energies that inspire, inform, enlighten ourselves and each other with epiphanies and meta-transformative insights. We are capable of shifting our perspectives and our identities, of expanding and evolving our essential nature and more substantially fulfilling our purpose for being. We are each singularly creative, each with our own genius and qualitative contributional capacities.
Where can you join ? What inspires your deep internal process? How do you tap into the deep masculine and feminine potentialities within your own self?
Please feel free to comment on this, to share your own vision.
This has been inspired by some family interactions around my dad's recent illness and some epihnaies I experienced tonight; as well and importantly, by my whyze guyz mens circle; and by R Moore and D Gillette's book: King Warrior Lover and Magician
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
Is there an inherent meaning to life, an over-riding, capital P, Purpose?? If not, then our sense of meaning and purpose is constructed, fabricated, invented, chosen, cultivated, devoted to, selected and committed to… from a great pool of possibilities. Purpose may come to us as a revelation, may be revealed to us in glimpses, may become apparent in a flash of a moment or in an intuition.
Some discover a deep sense of purpose that is deeply resonant with their essential natures. That is my Purpose, to resonate with a deep sense of intention in my life, to be aligned with vision and committed to action that matters! Many form goals that are secondary tier, not ultimate, and that is good enough – they don’t expect to find ultimate purpose – and good lives are humbly lived in accordance to basic goals and values and ethical principles. Perhaps purpose is inherently small p, non-definitive, and distinct to each of us.
Here is my attempt to define Purpose:
To live fully, to experience, explore, discover and express my true nature and evolve a cohesive narrative, to live and explore life’s unfolding, to experience, receive and respond to the miracle that informs and surrounds us, to inquire and investigate, to enjoy and partake, to serve and be served to value and love and embrace and cry and dance and sing and laugh,… To cultivate character traits and embody principles and qualities such as courage and wisdom and kindness and strength,… with discipline and awakened attention. Purpose is Intention is Focus is Direction that guides actions in accordance with our leading-edge truths. Focusing with single-minded attention on multiple possibilities, gathering vision like flowers in the meadow, directing our dynamic life-force, realizing and living fully our soulpath, thru the contours, convexes and concaves of this world-crucible with clear intention, cultivating our intention, our sense of direction, with exquisite care. Our paths, filled with possibilities and potentials, push and pull us, portending inevitability. Our destination is the sum total of all of our experiences and choices.
As Rainer Marie Rilke says: “what we chose to fight is so tiny, what fights with us is so great!” Shaping and being shaped, honing and being honed, that is the dance. We intend and activate possibilities as life needs, kneads and feeds us. Quality matters. Heart matters. Presence matters. Bringing ourselves to each moment, each situation, each relationship – fully, wholly and completely – is what matters. Discernment matters.
Purpose is priority and order, the ability to recognize what matters in the moment and to act. Purpose is why we are here. Its constructed, derived, evolved; its contextual, versatile and variable. Its quest and path, ease and struggle, simple and infinitely complex. When we arrive, purpose is fulfilled, answered, completed; then, we can surrender intent and focus, draw water from the well, drink and be quenched, perhaps sated and nourished. In time, purpose will resurrect, be born again and take us on our path once again. Thus we renew. So I say, savor moments of arrival as well as moments of departure. Leave and come back, go and return and trust in return, in redemption, in resilience. In your life, teach others to intend and fulfill, to strive and surrender, to let go and trust in home-coming. Purpose is making meaning of our suffering and our lives and making meaning is fulfilling and redemptive.
What do you feel is your sense of purpose?
What motivates and drives you??
Pleas contribute your vision to this blog!!
Michael g
Some discover a deep sense of purpose that is deeply resonant with their essential natures. That is my Purpose, to resonate with a deep sense of intention in my life, to be aligned with vision and committed to action that matters! Many form goals that are secondary tier, not ultimate, and that is good enough – they don’t expect to find ultimate purpose – and good lives are humbly lived in accordance to basic goals and values and ethical principles. Perhaps purpose is inherently small p, non-definitive, and distinct to each of us.
Here is my attempt to define Purpose:
To live fully, to experience, explore, discover and express my true nature and evolve a cohesive narrative, to live and explore life’s unfolding, to experience, receive and respond to the miracle that informs and surrounds us, to inquire and investigate, to enjoy and partake, to serve and be served to value and love and embrace and cry and dance and sing and laugh,… To cultivate character traits and embody principles and qualities such as courage and wisdom and kindness and strength,… with discipline and awakened attention. Purpose is Intention is Focus is Direction that guides actions in accordance with our leading-edge truths. Focusing with single-minded attention on multiple possibilities, gathering vision like flowers in the meadow, directing our dynamic life-force, realizing and living fully our soulpath, thru the contours, convexes and concaves of this world-crucible with clear intention, cultivating our intention, our sense of direction, with exquisite care. Our paths, filled with possibilities and potentials, push and pull us, portending inevitability. Our destination is the sum total of all of our experiences and choices.
As Rainer Marie Rilke says: “what we chose to fight is so tiny, what fights with us is so great!” Shaping and being shaped, honing and being honed, that is the dance. We intend and activate possibilities as life needs, kneads and feeds us. Quality matters. Heart matters. Presence matters. Bringing ourselves to each moment, each situation, each relationship – fully, wholly and completely – is what matters. Discernment matters.
Purpose is priority and order, the ability to recognize what matters in the moment and to act. Purpose is why we are here. Its constructed, derived, evolved; its contextual, versatile and variable. Its quest and path, ease and struggle, simple and infinitely complex. When we arrive, purpose is fulfilled, answered, completed; then, we can surrender intent and focus, draw water from the well, drink and be quenched, perhaps sated and nourished. In time, purpose will resurrect, be born again and take us on our path once again. Thus we renew. So I say, savor moments of arrival as well as moments of departure. Leave and come back, go and return and trust in return, in redemption, in resilience. In your life, teach others to intend and fulfill, to strive and surrender, to let go and trust in home-coming. Purpose is making meaning of our suffering and our lives and making meaning is fulfilling and redemptive.
What do you feel is your sense of purpose?
What motivates and drives you??
Pleas contribute your vision to this blog!!
Michael g
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Vision
Gathering seeds and planting them, seeding the cycles of growth, sensing into what’s hidden beneath the obvious, seeing the big picture in the details, embracing vision in totality… With a soft focus, we relax and allow the images to form, receptive to guidance and intuition. With a hard focus, our intensity burns through barriers seeking clarity, truth and direction with principle and purpose. Beautiful colors and patterns appear as food for the soul, through the windows of our eyes, outer and inner. The eagle and the mouse both exist within us as capacity, as potential and as resource. In our minds eyes we can see where we are, where we’d like to be and where we are going, as our being gathers direction and our inner GPS guides us. All inner resources can be turned towards that which our vision reveals. Vision can be myopic, kaleidoscopic, tunneled, grand and vast, compassionate, limited, shamanic; astounding is the breadth and scope of all that we can barely glimpse: angels and demons, beauty and suffering, life and death are all included in whole of our existence, which we may comprehend. Standing on top of the mountain panoramic vision opens to immensity, while appreciating also the lines on a leaf, the intricacy of microscopic detail. Behold! Light, illumination, beauty and terror, sparkle and scratch on the surface of our vision, entering our consciousness in moments we are gifted and blessed to glimpse! Seeing what is behind, around, before and along-side us, the currents of our vision are as great as the oceans we swim in. Vision is a candle dancing in the dark night. Vision is the sun rising and setting, the clouds gathering, images birthing and dissolving, a chaotic/busy desk and a clear mind. Vision gathers and leads our hearts along paths of unfolding experience.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Free-Form Expressive Dance as Path
This is our Temple, Dance is our path, our meditation, our holy offering, our devotional practice, our mirror, our path to ecstatic union w the sacred embodied, our own unique and shared, collective expression of the divine creative urge… You find yourself in a roomful of moving, pulsating, vibrant, consciously kinetic beings,… you explore the space, ground your being on the floor and play with the openings, the personal, the interpersonal and the meta-spacious,… its like a dream, music bodies moving whichever way bodies prefer to move,…
We dance to ground our sense of Belonging on this earth, to deepen our sense of being at home here and now, in body, soul and community…
We dance to release our thoughts, to liberate ourselves from mental slavery, from the minds’ labyrinths and amazing mazes, to emancipate ourselves from the tyranny of the verbal.
Our language becomes an alphabet of movement.
Innate, proprio-ceptive, kinesthetic, spatial intelligence thrives with us on the dance floor, living and breathing in our blood and bones, muscles and glands, awakened and ignited, celebrated and inspired.
We meditate on and in patterns and rhythms and breath and sole to the floor walkabout,… there we are: body, mind, heart, soul and presence. Our companions may or may not be previous acquaintances; a sensual dance evolves w someone whose name you do not know; this is part of the altered space you are in, names are not needed in necessary in this social space, you can dance beneath, around, under and over names. We can watch, listen, launch, glisten, laugh, cry, sing, try, relax, serve, connect, be shy,… for this is an elegant mirror of the soul.
Improvisational, Free-form Dance is a mirror, reflecting us in and thru various lenses and filters:
Breath: grounding in your breath, you feel tired or energetic, nervous or aroused, and notice your state of presence.
Impulse: how does your body want to warm up? What is your soul yearning for, aloneness, contact, slow movement or fast, stillness or raucous contact? You can follow your impulses and see where they lead! You can find another soul to dance w and see what the synergy of that combination feels like. Where do these impulses come from – head, heart, belly, feet,… your dance partner?
Beauty: the beauty around us is a reflection of our own light.
Dance is an intra-psychic exploration. We observe what arises in our consciousness and we move in accordance, or as counter-point. In avoidance or in absorption. In identification or in projection. In defense or in pure openness and ecstatic bliss. In mental pre-occupation or in release of thought and in blessed awareness, in clear pools or in kinetic breezes. Any and all states of consciousness may show up: our maps inform our movement, and we dance to explore new terrain, new territory, and to refresh and shift our perspectives, with each movement and turn! We tune in to the moving center and watch what shapes it acquires and takes on, and then, what happens next. We enjoy surprises or stay w the familiar to ground and source our true being, beneath the intellect and thought and plan… we allow our moves to emerge from the grooves, from the beats and rhythms that our maestro DJ spins… and from the fountain of potential within and around us… we dance in the fountain of frothing bubbles, , the cauldron of passionate energy, élan vital’, creative source… and the more we immerse, the greater the swim! The more we tune in to the currents, the greater our lift into the breeze and passageways! Our spirits our nourished and our souls more deeply grounded in presence and expression.
Free-form, Improvisational Dance is a co-creative interplay, a synergy, a meeting space of artists, muses, warriors, sisters, brothers, lovers… each sovereign and each a mirror. We sense our bodies, our souls,… and others in the interpersonal space, in a grand synergy of possibility in motion. Eyes may meet, glance, gaze or avert, windows into our souls, into exchange, into curiosity and the unknown, into the familiar and into meeting… We sense the resonances and the harmonies, the rhythm and the beat, and feel ourselves drawn or deflective, joined or repelled, sensitive or disinterested, hunting, gathering, warrior-like, or fools dancing on the edges of time, all archetypes collected and combined, to what depths? To what expanse? who leads, who is follows, how consciously connected is the attunement,… these personal elements may dance in the mix. When we follow the contact and not control where it leads, there can be some exciting turns and unexpected moments, graceful, awkward, elegant, clumsy,… surrendered to the moments journey
Dance is a relational mirror: single or coupled, how does your relational status play out on the dance floor? What are your parameters: as a couple, these need to be clearly negotiated or your relationship can find trouble! For there is enticement and attraction, sensual play and shakti flirtation, meetings of the soul and myriad possibilities “on the floor” that suggest “off-the-floor” possibilities… some come for that, for the dynamic interplay. Others more committed to the intra-psychic explorations and not drawn to the dyadic except in special conditions. How is that for you?
Relational elements in the mix: Entering, being chosen, trios, entrapment, choosing, hunting/ stalking/ pursuit, discovery, delight! Clumsiness and grace, laughter and prayer, sacredness and irreverence… we share a devotional path…
Spirals and circles, lines and angles, repetition and chaos, wildness and stillness, stretching and reaching, flowing and flying,… the bubbling cauldron of our collective soul.
We sense the space, the meta zone, the emptiness within and between and around all of us, where we are free of our words, free to move however we like, we dance on the margins of the page, in the sphere of potential...
and we sense our tribe, our community of co-liberators and free spirits, our collective-kinetic, pulsating, vibrating soul-bodies moving in transcend-dance, beyond ego and self and thought and singularity, like a pod of dolphins, moving as one, in stellar moments of tribal consciousness, connected beyond separate boundaries, attuned in the dance, surrendered to the flow and the beat
We give thanks for music and the muse, this moving art-form and our co-conspiralators,… our feet and our ears and our hearts and our release, for the dance of our souls and our lives and our inter-beings, our center and our Source.
We dance to ground our sense of Belonging on this earth, to deepen our sense of being at home here and now, in body, soul and community…
We dance to release our thoughts, to liberate ourselves from mental slavery, from the minds’ labyrinths and amazing mazes, to emancipate ourselves from the tyranny of the verbal.
Our language becomes an alphabet of movement.
Innate, proprio-ceptive, kinesthetic, spatial intelligence thrives with us on the dance floor, living and breathing in our blood and bones, muscles and glands, awakened and ignited, celebrated and inspired.
We meditate on and in patterns and rhythms and breath and sole to the floor walkabout,… there we are: body, mind, heart, soul and presence. Our companions may or may not be previous acquaintances; a sensual dance evolves w someone whose name you do not know; this is part of the altered space you are in, names are not needed in necessary in this social space, you can dance beneath, around, under and over names. We can watch, listen, launch, glisten, laugh, cry, sing, try, relax, serve, connect, be shy,… for this is an elegant mirror of the soul.
Improvisational, Free-form Dance is a mirror, reflecting us in and thru various lenses and filters:
Breath: grounding in your breath, you feel tired or energetic, nervous or aroused, and notice your state of presence.
Impulse: how does your body want to warm up? What is your soul yearning for, aloneness, contact, slow movement or fast, stillness or raucous contact? You can follow your impulses and see where they lead! You can find another soul to dance w and see what the synergy of that combination feels like. Where do these impulses come from – head, heart, belly, feet,… your dance partner?
Beauty: the beauty around us is a reflection of our own light.
Dance is an intra-psychic exploration. We observe what arises in our consciousness and we move in accordance, or as counter-point. In avoidance or in absorption. In identification or in projection. In defense or in pure openness and ecstatic bliss. In mental pre-occupation or in release of thought and in blessed awareness, in clear pools or in kinetic breezes. Any and all states of consciousness may show up: our maps inform our movement, and we dance to explore new terrain, new territory, and to refresh and shift our perspectives, with each movement and turn! We tune in to the moving center and watch what shapes it acquires and takes on, and then, what happens next. We enjoy surprises or stay w the familiar to ground and source our true being, beneath the intellect and thought and plan… we allow our moves to emerge from the grooves, from the beats and rhythms that our maestro DJ spins… and from the fountain of potential within and around us… we dance in the fountain of frothing bubbles, , the cauldron of passionate energy, élan vital’, creative source… and the more we immerse, the greater the swim! The more we tune in to the currents, the greater our lift into the breeze and passageways! Our spirits our nourished and our souls more deeply grounded in presence and expression.
Free-form, Improvisational Dance is a co-creative interplay, a synergy, a meeting space of artists, muses, warriors, sisters, brothers, lovers… each sovereign and each a mirror. We sense our bodies, our souls,… and others in the interpersonal space, in a grand synergy of possibility in motion. Eyes may meet, glance, gaze or avert, windows into our souls, into exchange, into curiosity and the unknown, into the familiar and into meeting… We sense the resonances and the harmonies, the rhythm and the beat, and feel ourselves drawn or deflective, joined or repelled, sensitive or disinterested, hunting, gathering, warrior-like, or fools dancing on the edges of time, all archetypes collected and combined, to what depths? To what expanse? who leads, who is follows, how consciously connected is the attunement,… these personal elements may dance in the mix. When we follow the contact and not control where it leads, there can be some exciting turns and unexpected moments, graceful, awkward, elegant, clumsy,… surrendered to the moments journey
Dance is a relational mirror: single or coupled, how does your relational status play out on the dance floor? What are your parameters: as a couple, these need to be clearly negotiated or your relationship can find trouble! For there is enticement and attraction, sensual play and shakti flirtation, meetings of the soul and myriad possibilities “on the floor” that suggest “off-the-floor” possibilities… some come for that, for the dynamic interplay. Others more committed to the intra-psychic explorations and not drawn to the dyadic except in special conditions. How is that for you?
Relational elements in the mix: Entering, being chosen, trios, entrapment, choosing, hunting/ stalking/ pursuit, discovery, delight! Clumsiness and grace, laughter and prayer, sacredness and irreverence… we share a devotional path…
Spirals and circles, lines and angles, repetition and chaos, wildness and stillness, stretching and reaching, flowing and flying,… the bubbling cauldron of our collective soul.
We sense the space, the meta zone, the emptiness within and between and around all of us, where we are free of our words, free to move however we like, we dance on the margins of the page, in the sphere of potential...
and we sense our tribe, our community of co-liberators and free spirits, our collective-kinetic, pulsating, vibrating soul-bodies moving in transcend-dance, beyond ego and self and thought and singularity, like a pod of dolphins, moving as one, in stellar moments of tribal consciousness, connected beyond separate boundaries, attuned in the dance, surrendered to the flow and the beat
We give thanks for music and the muse, this moving art-form and our co-conspiralators,… our feet and our ears and our hearts and our release, for the dance of our souls and our lives and our inter-beings, our center and our Source.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Gratitude
Gifts come to us in many forms. We are blessed in so many ways!
Awakening in the morning, breathing, stretching, thoughts appearing and dissolving,... sunlight and rain,... music and silence,... challenges, dreams, opportunities, relationships and action-possibilities abound!
Awakening in the morning, breathing, stretching, thoughts appearing and dissolving,... sunlight and rain,... music and silence,... challenges, dreams, opportunities, relationships and action-possibilities abound!
We may or may not not like the forms of experience that show up: a difficulty may appear as "a bear on the path", as bad news, a rejection, something difficult to metabolize. Yet those are gift too. The difficult is what we grow from: as Rilke says in "The Man Watching", "this is how we grow: by being defeated by something greater than us". Success and victory feel good, comforts, nourishes and builds ego-strength. We all like that! But it's how we accept and deal with losses, with defeats, with conflict and incompatibility in our relationships, from failures in our communications,... its what we learn and how we respond,... that grows our characters.
The Great Persian Poet Rumi says:
"God's presence is there in front of me, a fire on the left,
a lovely stream on the right. One group walks towards the fire, into the fire, another towards the sweet flowing water.
No one knows which are blessed and which are not.
Whoever walks into the fire appears suddenly in the stream.
A head goes under on the water surface, that head pokes out of the fire. Most people guard against going into the fire,
and so end up in it. Those who love the water of pleasure and make it their devotion are cheated by this reversal.
The trickery goes further. The voice of the fire tells the truth saying I am not fire. I am fountainhead.
Come into me and don't mind the sparks.
If you are a friend of God, fire is your water.
you should wish to have a hundred thousand moth-wings, so you could burn them away, one set a night...."
So appearances can be deceptive... when an experience appears that is unpleasant, and you want to turn away, consider Rumi's words... that it may be more enlightening to turn towards the heavy, the difficult, and see though its appearances, rather than turning away and failing to fathom the lessons inherent.
that is my offering this thanksgiving day!
may we accept with grace the bountiful blessings that come to us in many shapes, sizes and forms!
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
mgeljourneys
Given the last several months of GG Bar Mitzvah, travels to Europe and Israel and most recently a fantastic weekend in Quincy at the High Sierra Music Fest, you might find some of the insights in these pages well-seasoned and inspirational: that is my intent. To raise consciousness, help us find and transform our metaphors into a unified meta-field that we can resonate with and discover our common happiness. I have found that these days, with the perspective of climbing a mountain of challenge, that perspective grows with experience.
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