Community July ‘10

 

I once heard in a recovery meeting that “if you can put words to it, it is not Spirit”  Oral traditions have been used for teaching for millenniums   Once I attempt to define the indefinable, I create the barrier to the spirit of wh

at I say.  The mind wants to grasp, analyze, calculate, plot, categorize and understand, which is the nature of the mind.  In the ancient wheel, which is based on living in nature, the seasons are constantly changing as is each day, each moment.  Change is the only thing that is constant.  In the ancient “Mystery Schools” the traditions were oral.  What was written would bring you to a certain point, and after that, the teachings were oral.

I learned from the teachings of the wheel that air is north, fire is east, earth is south and What proceeds understanding is Acceptance.  In my early denial, I read a lot of books on alcoholism seeking to understand, and indeed I understood a lot about alcoholism, but – until I accepted that I, left to my own devices,  was an addict/alcoholic, I had no chance of recovery.

In the classes I teach in my home on indigenous wisdoms, the water, the fall, the evening time proceeds the winter, the dream time, the element air, which is understanding.  What that came to mean for me was the importance of acceptance – until I accepted that I was an addict/alcoholic, I had no chance of recovery.  Acceptance is taking in, going within and reflecting on my life as other than a victim of outside circumstances.  In the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, there is a phrase which states acceptance is the key to all of my problems.  There is one more key ingredient for recovery, and that is willingness.  I have to be willing to go to any length to have my disease lifted and later used those two keys in following my destiny.  Spirit leads the willing and drags the reluctant.

 

Story was so important in my childhood.  My Grandfather used to tell us stories on his porch, as he whittled on a stick.  He would make up these stories, and they were always changing.  My father did the same.  When I was in college, he was such a great story teller that my classmates would flock to our home just to hear my fathers stories.  Every time the story was told, it was different.  That made it fresh and new each time.  My own little Jasmine loves my stories, which I make up with and for her as a teaching.  The upcoming class is much about story, a wonderful way to teach as our ancestors did.  Let me know if you have any interest in attending the class.

 

Blessings, Patrick