Questions and Answers regarding “Guyland”

A friend of mine studying to become a counselor passed along Michael Kimmel’s fascinating book Guyland to me recently, and I’ve found it riveting. I’m not even halfway through it and my mind is spinning.

In Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men—Understanding the Critical Years between 16 and 26, Kimmel lays out the hazardous terrain faced by males today as they navigate their lives.

Who are Guys in Guyland?

Faced with the fallout from a shifting world where there are endless unfulfilling options, and little motivation to commit to anything, many guys today are not shown that they’re worth anything. The marketplace values them as consumers, but the economy doesn’t have room for them to do much but work McJobs, despite the fact that they are, on the whole, a highly educated and intelligent bunch.

According to Kimmel:

It’s easy to observe “guys” virtually everywhere in America—in every high school and college campus in America, with their baseball caps on frontward or backward, their easy smiles or anxious darting eyes, huddled around tiny electronic gadgets or laptops, or relaxing in front of massive wide-screen hi-def TVs, in basements, dorms, and frat houses. 

…Guys often feel they’re entirely on their own as they navigate the murky shallows and the dangerous eddies that run in Guyland’s swift current. They often stop talking to their parents, who “just don’t get it.” Other adults seem equally clueless. And they can’t confide in one another lest they risk being exposed for the confused creatures they are. So they’re left alone, confused, trying to come to terms with a world they themselves barely understand. They couch their insecurity in bravado and bluster, a fearless strut barely concealing a tremulous anxiety. They test themselves in fantasy worlds and in drinking contests, enduring humiliation and pain at the hands of others.

A few years back I wrote an article for Alternatives magazine called “The Male Road Map.” I recently reread that article and although I still agree with it, I now consider it an idealized version of reality for the “guys” Kimmel has studied at length. My heart goes out any man who is confused and having a hard time finding his own place in the world, for that has been a defining theme of my own story.

So faced with the dilemma of Guyland, I find myself asking, what can be done to ease the suffering and provide for the needs of these guys?

Folks suffering poverty need food, shelter, and medicine before they need doctrine and churches. Ask them and that’s what they’ll tell you. I would assert that if you ask a guy in Guyland what he needs most, he would probably tell you: a job, some intimate connection, good times, some idea where he’s going.

I imagine the language of personal transformation would probably result in a blank stare, rolling eyes, or laughter.

So going up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, doesn’t it make sense that if we help these guys obtain their basic needs in a conscious and fulfilling way, we would be giving them the leg up they need to exit Guyland and find a way toward a full and meaningful life?

I’ve been involved in the “Men’s Movement” for 20 years in one way or another. I’ve been through the ManKind Project, I have participated in or formed men’s groups. I love being a man among men and I love to support my fellow men so that we can be our best. Yet the movement is losing steam. I believe this is because it has left “guys” out of it.

How do we older men (and women) help guys in Guyland in a way that is effective and respectful and honoring of who they are and what they need?

This is the question. I am cogitating on a few answers, but I want to hear from you. And this blog entry is getting pretty long. And my wife is due to deliver our first child any day or hour now. And I have to make dinner.

What say you?

The Bishops vs. the Girl Scouts

I read today on Yahoo! News that the U.S Conference of Catholic Bishops is launching an inquiry into the Girl Scouts. Yes, you read that correctly—the Girl Scouts. According to the AP article:

"The new inquiry will be conducted by the bishops' Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth. It will look into the Scouts' "possible problematic relationships with other organizations" and various "problematic" program materials, according to a letter sent by the committee chairman, Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne, Ind., to his fellow bishops."

It is terribly tempting and rather justifiable to make a laughingstock of this group of guys for being out of touch, fearful, patriarchal. But what would be an appropriate spiritual response?

I'd assert that this move by the bishops demonstrates a fear-based reaction to changing times and expanding minds that sounds like, "We need you to believe as we believe, or else bad things will happen." Whether they fear for themselves, the church, or the girls, can only be guessed at unless you're friends with a bishop.

The late Jesuit mystic Anthony tells a great parable about belief, in which the Devil and his friend followed a man and watched him stop and find some truth. When his friend expressed concern at the Devil's lack of response, the Devil told him "I don't have to do anything. I'm going to let him make a belief of it."

What do we make of it when our friends, children, or family members respond to something we disagree with and run with it? A child who becomes a religious zealot, a parent who joins the Tea Party, or a friend who "finds herself" using drugs: Do we react, attacking the new-found belief of our loved one? Do we judge them and entrench ourselves in our own position? Or do we roll with it, understanding that the human perspective on truth is that we are always discovering what makes sense to us, and that as we mature different things make sense to us that didn't carry much weight earlier?

Today's invitation: What is the latest thing you thought was true that you are now reconsidering? Or has it been too long since your beliefs got stirred up?

Is it such a bad thing? The rise of Atheism in America

I just saw this interesting article on Yahoo! News, explaining the rise of Atheism in America.

Per the article:

Only between 1.5 and 4 percent of Americans admit to so-called "hard atheism," the conviction that no higher power exists. But a much larger share of the American public (19 percent) spurns organized religion in favor of a nondefined skepticism about faith. This group, sometimes collectively labeled the "Nones," is growing faster than any religious faith in the U.S. About two thirds of Nones say they are former believers; 24 percent are lapsed Catholics and 29 percent once identified with other Christian denominations. David Silverman, president of American Atheists, claims these Nones as members of his tribe. "If you don't have a belief in God, you're an atheist," he said. "It doesn't matter what you call yourself."

A corollary or companion to this article might be called, "The Retreat and Decline of Theology in America." Because modern American churches—as well as the Roman Catholic Church under the leadership of its current pope—have abdicated theology as a field of expanding study, religious thought has not kept pace with the changes and growth our human species is currently experiencing. Theology, I was taught at one point during my Catholic education, is "Faith seeking understanding." On a more literal level, theology is the study of God.

Our collective human experience, especially as influenced by the free flow of information and the rise of technology, as well as existential threats to the world's population including terrorism, war, environmental degradation, resource depletion, and climate change all lead the human mind to question how "God" fits into all this, if indeed the mind in question has a current belief in God.

So how does our contemporary experience fit into our understanding of God? That's the traditional question, but it's not the best question to ask for these times. And the "atheists" have stopped asking, wisely.

Here's why: Fitting our experience into our understanding forces us to change our narrative about our experience if it contradicts what we are taught about God. If one is taught, for instance, that God disapproves of homosexuality, and that person is inclined to enjoy his or her homosexuality, then in order to gain God's approval such a person must then become disinclined to enjoy his or her own sexuality. In such a way, one's narrative about one's own experience must be altered to fit the belief.

However, spirituality (if not religion) works better when we have an experience that contradicts what we're taught, and then we examine what we're taught to see how it may in fact intersect with our own experience without contradicting it. Doing so, however, requires one's understanding of God to grow with one's understanding of the world and of one's own self. That is theology, and the study has been replaced with censorship (in Catholicism) and fundamentalism (in most of the rest of American Christianity).

So here's a call to today's churches: If you want to reduce the defection of your young, fresh, promising young people, be ready to question the understanding of your faith along with them. Your faith will deepen as a result, although your cherished beliefs may change.

Humble beauty

For about two weeks out of the whole year, this modest weeping cherry bonsai is my favorite tree of my collection.

I love cherries. I love eating them, I love looking at their blossoms. I love the lenticels (small horizontal lines) that mark the shiny bark on their trunks. I love their fall color. Now, weeping cherries are probably my least favorite cherries, because their blossoms point down instead of out. There's something a little bit sad about a weeping cherry. Kind of like someone who has a beautiful smile, but always seems to look at the ground instead of straight at you.

I was photographing this tree today and decided to get underneath the tree to have a look at the blossoms straight up. The blossoms really struck me as beautiful in a way they hadn't before. Sometimes it takes getting on your knees and looking up to see the beauty in things.

In a similar theme, I also took a photo of a wild pansy of some sort that I found growing in the middle of my lawn (there are advantages to being lax about mowing). It's not a real flashy pansy like you find on the racks in front of nurseries, hardware stores, and discount centers. This one would never sell alongside those pretty ones, but interestingly, this is a durable little plant.

Fearing that the frost and snow of winter would kill off this little seedling, I dug it up and put it in a liner pot and gave it some shelter, and it survived just fine over the winter. And then I put it in a little Japanese pot a few weeks ago, even bare-rooting it and giving it completely new soil. It's already giving me flowers.

I love this little plant as much as many of my trees. I love that it was little more than a weed growing in the middle of my lawn and given a decent pot, can shine as a metaphor of grace, toughness, and beauty. I imagine this little pansy will live for years in this little pot if this winter and a bare-rooting didn't kill it.

The notions of humility, modesty, and looking for beauty are not new spiritual concepts. But living with plants and tending my bonsai garden continues to strengthen and heighten my attention beauty. The outpouring of goodness found in the beauty of nature is inexhaustible: It's there whether we're looking or not, whether we notice or not, whether we care or not.

Walk in beauty, as the blessing goes. Look for it, get down on your knees and look every which way, and see things deeply and newly. Let the plants be your teachers.

Spiritual lesson from a bonsai in training

I started this blog out as a vehicle for my spiritual reflections, but oddly, after awhile, it turned out that most of the blogs I am interested in are centered on bonsai. (Bonsai is the art of using living plant material to make potted sculptural representations of larger trees.) Since I do lots of bonsai and it's my passion these days, I've felt more like having a bonsai blog lately than a spiritual growth type of blog.

This entry will be a little bit of both.

As I was spending some the last hours of daylight pondering my trees today, my eyes settled on a vine maple my friend Chris and I dug up off a mountain on the east side of Mt. Hood, which I recently repotted down to a shallow box, preparing the tree for its eventual home in a bonsai pot.

When I first laid eyes on this marvelous maple—some 50 years old, I reckon—with its curvy trunk, I was transfixed. We had been looking for maples all day with no luck and suddenly this one appeared and I saw its potential design immediately. Key to the design was a large branch that came off a curve in the upper third of the tree, with perfect diameter, and at a perfect angle.

During the months after I took that maple home with me, I watched that branch wither away and die even as the tree put out all kinds of healthy new growth. Turns out that branch had gotten cracked at the base sometime during the process of digging it up. Eventually I cut it off, and an ugly scar developed there, reminding me of a disappointment, of potential unrealized, of what would never be there again (unless I did some tricky grafting). I hoped a bud would sprout right next to the scar. Didn't happen. But they sprouted everywhere else!

The tree began to lose its charm for me and I almost decided to auction it off. But there has always been magic in that tree, something I hoped I could unlock.

Last weekend, two springs after that maple left its home on a mountain of lava, I took it out of the big wooden box I originally made for it, and cut off much of the root mass. There were ample fine feeder roots close to the base of the trunk, such that I could remove a large portion of the lower roots that had been with the tree for most of its life. I could now fit it in a large bonsai pot or a smaller, shallower box. I chose the latter. We slanted the tree downward about 10 degrees to make the design more dynamic.

Pondering the maple on my bench, I cut off a branch at the base of the tree that had always bothered me. Then I looked at that scar. Michael Hagedorn, my teacher, told me he doesn't really like branches coming right out of the outside of curves, which is contrary to much of the design principles you see in many of the bonsai books. In fact, another branch had sprouted just above and to the side of the scar, that would make an excellent alternative later on.

I decided to remove the scar, so I cut deeply into the wood to make a concave area that would eventually heal flush to the line of the tree without an ugly bump. No branch would ever grow there. Ever.


I applied the cut paste to help the wound heal, and pondered the tree. Suddenly the magic was back, as the line of the trunk was restored. Now I love that tree more than ever.

What does this have to do with spiritual growth?

I think sometimes we hold on to dreams from our past that didn't work out. We might hold on to certain possessions or relationships that could eventually re-sprout and work out the way we always wanted them to. But time turns those disappointments into "ugly knots" that detract from the beauty, simplicity, and magic of our lives. And perhaps to restore that magic we have to excise the scar, dig deeply into our soul, remove the infected tissue, and have "less" there than there was before.

Painful for a bit, but a good deal when you get the magic back.

As a technical note, other than the one unsightly branch at the base of the tree, I did no styling or pruning to this tree upon its re-potting. I will likely wait until May or June to work on this tree. It's usually best to leave lots of top growth on a tree upon removing lots of roots, because all those leaves will generate the sugar needed to grow lots of new roots.

Clarity vs. Trust

I've been pondering the notion of clarity lately. In truth, I've found myself envying those who have it. Times are uncertain for me right now.

Whenever I hear the word "clarity," I think of a story I heard once about a struggling priest who went on sabbatical and as part of his travels, went to Calcutta to meet Mother Theresa. When he finally met her, he requested that she pray that he have clarity in his life. Mother Theresa responded, "I will not pray for you to have clarity. I will pray for you to trust."

In meditation this morning, I considered that clarity comes from the ego and ultimately is a delusion or fixation. It's nice to have, yes, but with clarity comes a sense of tunnel vision or exclusion of possibility. What if the Divine's will for you, or the deepest expression of who you are, is distinct from what you are so clear about? Clarity in this case would keep you from noticing, from being open to new possibility. Trust, on the other hand, necessitates a certain kind of openness.

Put another way, clarity is attachment that's convincing. Trust reflects commitment to the divine, the context that one cannot ever be certain of what is best and next.

This reflection brings to mind chapter 20 of the Tao Te Ching, which asks, "Is there a difference between yes and no?" Lao Tsu confesses, "But I alone am drifting, not knowing where I am. Like a newborn babe before it learns to smile, I am alone, without a place to go."

This greatest of sages even goes so far as to say "I am a fool. Oh yes! I am confused. Other men are clear and bright, but I alone am dim and weak."

He closes the poem by saying "Everyone else is busy, but I alone am aimless and depressed. I am different. I am nourished by the great mother."

"Aimless and depressed" does not sell self-help books and will not be associated with "The Secret." I understand, however, that Mother Theresa herself was party to immense spiritual doubt. But often "aimless and depressed" is the dark that comes before the dawn of something new and beautiful. Clarity will be of no help here.

Don't blame the 60s; blame high school seminaries.

A five-year study by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice recently concluded that the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse crisis was in large part caused by the sexual revolution and changing social mores of the 1960s. It should come as no shock that the church oversaw this study and partially paid for the study.

The principal investigator, Karen Terry, concludes:

• Homosexuality was not to blame.
• Celibacy was not to blame.
• It wasn't a pedophilia problem, since most of the kids involved were older than 10, which the study used as the cutoff for pedophilia. (Most kids abused were older than 10.)
  
• Boys were abused more often because troubled priests had more access to them than girls
• Priests were affected by the broad-sweeping changes of the 60s.
  
  

Most articles I’ve seen commenting on this study cut right to the church criticism, which I believe is warranted. I think there are some valid points to this study that the church should take to heart. Most notably that homosexuality was not to blame. Pope Benedict has had a witch-hunt mentality toward gay priests, so I’m glad that this information has come to light.

I begrudgingly accept that celibacy isn’t to blame either. Although I think that celibacy is to blame for many other ills facing the church and threatening its viability as a force for good in the current millennium. And if we had married priests, Catholics could have their pick of many fine candidates for the ministry that they would otherwise never have. (They would also have more Catholics.)

The study also posits that celibacy has been church policy for more than 1,000 years, so that cannot explain why the 1960s saw a spike in abuse nor why there were fewer reports beginning in the 1980s.

According to Terry, psychological exams, intelligence tests, and developmental history information would predict which priests would become abusers.

I have several thoughts about this study and its conclusions, but I’ll stick to one for now. The widespread influence (until fairly recently) of high school seminaries, and generally shame-based attitudes about human sexuality, formed a deadly duo that caused the crisis.

High school boys’ brains are still forming, as are their sexual identities. It’s a time when healthy sexual development depends on flirting, courting, dating, and getting to know what females (or males, if you're gay) of the species look, smell, and feel like, up close. If this development is stunted, combined certain teachings equating masturbation with sin, sexual desire with the sin of lust, unhealthy introjection will follow. Carry an unlived youthful sex life through to adulthood and add contact with young boys and girls, combine with loneliness, and you have the perfect storm. (There could also be an authority complex that some of the priests were suffering too.)

Regrettably, there are still high school seminaries; the church is tragically behind in its own understanding and embracing of human sexuality, not to mention its advocacy for school-aged boys and girls. Specifically, the church needs to embrace that a heart-centered, adventurous sexual life is healthy for one’s psychological development. I know, I know. Not. Gonna. Happen.

It doesn’t mean telling kids to have sex. It means encouraging them to have fun, make out, not be ashamed of their bodies, and learn healthy boundaries such that they can understand the vulnerabilities and circumstances that come with sexuality. Kids are wired to carry out this exploration on their own. Can adults—can the church—consciously bless and prepare them for the perilous and delightful journey that lay ahead?

Gratitude for Charlie Sheen

I prefer Martin Sheen to Charlie Sheen.

In fact, I prefer his brother Emilio Estevez as well. The wayward son of the dignified actor and Catholic social justice activist has of late demonstrated what appears to be mental illness, and the press is hitting him with a fervor it hasn’t enjoyed since the OJ days.

Granted, Sheen has a penchant for drama and hyperbole. He loves to hear himself speak. And on the annoyance meter, he has surpassed Tom Cruise, and has perhaps matched Mel Gibson. But before we jump on the haters bandwagon, perhaps we can take some time to see a little of ourselves in Charlie Sheen’s raging ego. Let’s look at some recent quotes of his.

“I am special, and I will never be one of you.”

Most adults would never say this. But there are times, when we are feeling defensive, when this thought pops up like an unwelcome Netflix ad on our computer screen. To say, “I will never be one of you” is to also say, “You will never be one with me.” Separateness and alienation from each other is one of humanity’s most grave illnesses. How does it feel?

“The only thing I’m addicted to is winning.”

If one has an underdeveloped sense of self, winning at something can provide a needed shot of dignity. However, in the rat race, winning comes at a cost. For one thing, there is usually a loser if there is a winner. As well, losing or not attempting to win helps establish humility, one of the highest virtues a person can attain.

We should also note Sheen’s use of the word, “addicted.” Addictive behavior is destructive behavior that is indulged in to distract one from unpleasant but important feelings. If one never deals with such feelings—grief, remorse, hunger, loneliness, shame—one will never develop a robust human character; one will not have the capacity for empathy.

"I have one speed... I have one gear—Go!"

True, most of us don't go on epic benders, "banging seven-gram rocks and finishing them," but how often do we get so caught up in what we're doing—our "one gear—Go!"—that we don't stop until our body literally shuts us down? Is there that big a difference between high-stakes partying and workaholism?

"I think the honesty not only shines through in my work, but also my personal life. And I get in trouble for being honest. I'm extremely old-fashioned. I'm a nobleman. I'm chivalrous."

And you are so luminous that you don’t cast a shadow.

Whenever one says “I am” and follows it with a positive attribute, such as “awesome,” “honest,” “generous,” “talented,” etc., it needs to be said with humility and the knowledge that one is “not-that” at the same time. I am honest and I am a liar. I am talented here but inept there. I am awesome but I am an idiot. I’m chivalrous but I wish to manipulate you by having you feel guilty or obligated to me.

In the same way, if one is given to self-hatred and would disparage himself or herself, the positive attributes are in the shadow realm. I am stupid and I am also brilliant. I am unfaithful but I am also loyal. I am lazy but I am also disciplined.

Owning your shadow is tough work, but it’s absolutely essential if one is to be a highly functioning human being.

"They'll wake up one day and realize how cool dad is. And, you know, signs all the checks on the front, not the back. And you know, we need him and we need his wisdom and his bitchin'-ness."

There’s a shadow side to love: that if I do something for good you, then you must love me back, or that you will do what I want you to do, behave how I want you to behave, or be who I want you to be. A wise man I once worked with shared with me how he was raising his young son to be self-sufficient and powerful, not so that he could take care of his father but so that he could take care of his own children.

Love never comes from a person; rather, it flows through each person and is either received or it isn’t. Like water, it continually moves and is either absorbed or keeps flowing.

So, a little compassion for Charlie Sheen might be in order. And maybe even a little gratitude for the mirror he presents us with, if only we are willing to look into it.

Intimacy-building skills as a block to intimacy

Organizing the Portland Tantric Meetup, which I've been doing since summer of 2008, has been quite an interesting journey. Holding myself accountable for the growth and direction of this group has of course required that I pay close attention to my own growth and direction.

Most of us are attracted to the tantric path because we want to bring greater consciousness to our sexuality; because we want to bring sexuality to our spirituality; because we seek healing from shame, emotional or spiritual wounds; and because we deeply wish to connect with others whom we hope to meet along this path. Certainly, all of these longings may play a part together.

Whereas I primarily came to tantra to find a spiritual path where I wouldn't be at war with my body, I also wanted to connect with others who shared my values—women, primarily! And as I became more and more grounded in the practices and expanded awareness that tantra provides, I found that indeed, it was much easier for me to connect and form beautiful connections with women I would meet at pujas, workshops, and other events.

But as I have more recently committed to someone in a monogamous relationship, I see that I used my own "tantric skills" and ability to connect as a tool to actually prevent myself from connecting the way I really wanted to—to hold true intimacy at bay. I could attain a beautiful, heart-centered space with anyone (my ego loved that), but love has required me to go deeper, where I am called to delve deeply into my own fear and vulnerability. I also found that the best "tantric skill" I've developed was the willingness to breathe and step courageously into the fire I knew would burn me and strip away parts my ego that keep me from intimacy.

To know how to relate to one's own ego is at the HEART of any true tantric practice—indeed any true spiritual practice. That's why I am presenting "Dancing with the Ego" a week from now (Monday, March 7, at Motion Massage in Portland). It doesn't matter whether you know much about tantra or not: knowing where you are in your dance with your ego will help benefit you right here, right now. We're all in this together!

A quick plug for my spiritual mentoring and healing sessions: I'm available. I'd love to work with you. More here.

The Ten Suggestions, part 7

7) Be a participant, not a spectator.

This may affect the amount of TV you watch or the hours you spend at your gaming console. Some happy people watch TV, some don't. Pretty much every unhappy person I know watches a lot of TV. Life is made for relating with people, not machinery broadcasting images that someone else has chosen for you. I don't believe that what's on TV makes people unhappy, so much as they get too comfortable with the habit and don't live lives of passion and spirit. Can't think of anything? Join a dragon boat team.

The enemy is inertia. The televisory life is seductive in its ease and comfort. Most of us, myself included, have a hard time getting up from a comfy couch. So then, how do you break the inertia of your patterns of comfort?

Here's a simple reflection to keep in mind. Try it on next time you're stuck in spectator mode:

"Is the payoff I get from spectating greater than the payoff I get from participating? What is the payoff I get from spectating, anyway?"

What are some ways to begin participating in life beyond your four doors? What interests you? Many people I've met struggle even to answer that simple question. If you're willing to take some simple chances, here are some ideas:

• Buy the book, The Artist's Way, and follow the program it outlines.
• Go to a craft store like Michael's, and buy a bunch of random stuff there, and make something out of it.
• Have some friends over for dinner, and try cooking something. Stuck as to what to cook? Pancakes and bacon would be an interesting place to start, and they're easy to make. What is that I hear you say? Pancakes are a breakfast food? Oh come on. Wouldn't you rather have pancakes?
• Join Meetup.com and find some cool meetups that interest you. Start with "Anyone Can Join" if you're here in Portland, and then why not sign up for my "Spiritual Growth and Adventure" meetup?
• Got a camera? Walk around town when the light is good (dawn and just before dusk) and take pictures of stuff.

Or you could just watch TV.

The Ten Suggestions, part 6

6. Develop a daily practice.

For me, it's meditation and prayer. For others, it's art. For many, it's exercise, or taking a walk to enjoy nature. The key is same time, same place, every day. This is healing and nourishment time for your soul, and you get to determine what it looks like. Consistency within the practice (doing the same thing) should be balanced with making small changes and experimenting with new things. It should change over time or it will become stale—just as you change over time, or you will become stale.

What if you have no daily practice?

Start by setting aside a special place that you use for this activity. It could be a corner of your room, a part of your garden, your balcony. Creating an altar of some sort, and putting a few sacred objects on it, perhaps a plant or flowers, helps to set a ritual environment. If you're unsure where to begin, try a two-part yoga/meditation practice. It's what I do, so maybe I'm biased. Learn a simple yoga asana or two (I do a sun salutation) and then sit and focus on inhaling through your nose and exhaling through your mouth. Draw long, slow breaths and exhale at the same deliberate speed. If your thoughts wander, explore the feeling behind the thought (fear? anxiety? concern?) and then locate where that feeling might live in your body. Unsure? Make it up. Then as you breathe, simply bring awareness to that part of you.

An extra hint that is very useful is to begin your meditation session with some sort of incense (such as Nag Champa, sage, palo santo, or copal—these are my favorites but any will do). It not only sets ritual space but also quickly imprints on a part of your brain that encourages meditation. Your memory of the smell will help your brain remember it's meditating, and will hasten your meditative state.

The Ten Suggestions, part 5

5. Learn that you are not your emotions.

You have emotions, but they do not define you, nor do they determine "how you are" at any given time. If they did, the human race would have perished long ago.

Although we seldom realize it in the moment, our emotions are a cocktail mixed from many spirits, including how we interpret what happened, our circumstances and how we react or respond, our biochemistry at the time—including how much sunshine and vitamin D we have going on, how much exercise and sleep we're getting, influence of caffeine and alcohol, and whether or not we're hungry or thirsty. Emotions are real, but they're not the full story. They can change on a dime in any direction.

The Ten Suggestions, part 4

3. Dispense with your God, if that God is causing you misery.

The God that most Americans are introduced to through church, media, and society, is antisocial, schizophrenic, and maybe bi-polar minus the meds. Most believers, including many who are actually happy themselves, will disagree with me vehemently.

Let me put it to you this way: Would you respect someone who claims to love everyone but would banish one of his own children to eternal misery for not returning the affection? I didn’t think so. Such a man would be petty at best and psychotic at worst. So why should I respect a God who does the same?

An otherworldly hell simply isn't compatible with the concept of love, although many believers do their level best to have this make sense somehow. A brilliant pontifical bible scholar I once knew commented that in the Bible, God never really succeeded in changing anyone when he threatened them with misfortune, but when he promised them life, they came in droves. Face it: Unless we learn otherwise, we project the wounded, unconscious masculine identity onto God. It’s all around us—it’s insidious, it’s pervasive, and it plays to the darkest impulses of our human nature. It’s that notion that we somehow more “right” than another group of people because we understand God and they don’t. How many lives lost and souls destroyed over this premise?

A wise rabbi, when confronted by atheists who told him, “Rabbi, I don't believe in God,” would always reply, “Which one?” If you wish to get to know the Divine on the Divine's terms, it would be a good idea to start with this: God is love. Explore love in all its forms, meanings, and nuances. Learn by doing. Make love your life’s study, and you will learn more about God than most people in the history of humanity.

A grown-up God for grown-up people
Do you ever find yourself praying for stuff for yourself or for changes in your circumstances? Perhaps most of us do sometimes. But God is not Santa Claus, rewarding you with favor for bribing him with good behavior, faith, or even “The Secret.” I heard another rabbi say that God put us in a physical universe and we are subject to its laws. So when hard times come, it is not for us to say, “Why?” but rather, “What now shall we do?” If you want God to answer your prayers powerfully, ask God to break your heart with compassion, or ask God to show you ways to serve those who need you. Both of those, incidentally, will lead to happiness, if not deep contentment. Yes, I think God has a sense of the ironic.

This “radical love God” takes more courage to follow and believe in than the other ones. Cynics, take note.

Certainly many people are happy if not content despite their religious beliefs, which are otherwise inconsistent with the way they instinctively know to love. (And I'm not speaking of those soul-dead parents who would disown their children because they're gay or for having an inter-racial relationship.) This is demonstrative of the fact that there are many ways to be happy, inconsistencies are allowed, and that this list does not equal the 10 Commandments, but rather 10 Suggestions.)

As always, pick the ones that work for you. Your mileage may vary. Six more to come.

Welcome and congratulations, Anne Rice!

Dear Anne,

I know it was a tough decision on your part to leave the Catholic Church—one filled with grief and controversy.

I made the same choice in 2000, and let me tell you, it has worked out well for me. It will work out well for you, too.

One thing I have found since leaving is that I've been free to explore truth on its own terms—truth as it lives in my heart, mind, and body, and not truth as it lives in the retelling of successions of celibate men cloistered in a city-state in the middle of Italy, who as a whole, know little of such greatness and power as can be found in women, in sexuality, in creativity, in self-expression, in risk-taking, and rule-breaking. Take these things away from a man's experience, and you don't have much of a man.

Like you, I was disconcerted about the role of the bishops in fighting Proposition 8, as well as the rising tide of neo-conservatism in the Roman Catholic Church. I don't know about you, but I knew the church was pretty much doomed for awhile when Josef Ratzinger ascended the throne of Rome and became Pope Benedict XVI. The furtive and lackluster response to the sexual abuse scandals seemed both the last nail and a seal of Crazy Glue around the lid of the coffin, in which lies the church's moral authority in the modern age.

I know you will miss liturgical and sacramental life, as you indicated on NPR the other day. But now that you are on the other side, you may find that Christ has walked down many roads blocked off by today's Christian Church, and made his home there. Christ was a rule-breaker, an iconoclast, a trouble-maker, and an unreasonably compassionate and passionate lover. His public love and respect for women was a scandal, and is such a scandal today that the church has presented an "impostor Christ" to worship, a watered-down version of the original, who somehow cares more what people do behind closed doors than what happens when they have closed hearts.

Now that you no longer have Benedict to answer to (as if you ever really did), I encourage you to explore some progressive theologians. My favorite is Albert Nolan, who wrote Jesus Before Christianity, a brilliant book that I hope you will read.

I have grown and seen so much, Anne, since I left. I love God and appreciate Christ more than I ever did as a Christian, and as a Catholic. You will too. You probably know this though.

Thank you for being luminous and courageous.

The Ten Suggestions, part 3

3. Explore your spirituality

For now, forget every definition of spirituality you've ever heard before, and try this one: Spirituality is the way that the Divine, or whatever eternal, formless or formful essence you may or may not believe in, woos your soul. What woos your soul? Truth? Beauty? Virtue? Love? Family? Adventure? NASCAR? If it penetrates your being and gets to the middle of you, consider that it's the Divine getting your attention in the way that only it can. Not sure what gets to your soul? Start with your imagination. What fascinates or interests you? Start there. If nothing interests you, I don't believe you. But if so, it might be a good idea to see a therapist, but run the other way if the first thing he or she does is suggest drugs.

This insight about the nature of spirituality came to me at Burning Man some years ago when I struck up a conversation with a woman. We were both gazing at works by artist Alex Grey, and I was sharing with her some of my spiritual adventures originating from my travels on the shamanic path. She sadly said to me, "I wish I had a spirituality like you, but I don't." I asked her what made her happy, and she told me with profound appreciation about the joy she gets from her family and friends. They meant everything to her. It came to me to say to her that her family and friends are her spirituality. Through them, she experiences God. She started crying with joy, and suddenly I knew that what I had said was even more true than I knew it to be.

So that's why I ask you: What woos your soul? Give your life to it. Marry it. If that seems like a bit much, at least take it out for coffee once or twice a week, for the love of all that is good and decent.

Don't just have a spirituality. Explore it. Revel in it, linger with it as you would your lover's body. Smell it, taste it, savor it. Wrestle with it. Go deep with it, go shallow with it. Laugh with it and laugh at it. The allow it to laugh at you. If you cannot find humor in it, then either it's not your spirituality or you're not looking at it openly and honestly.

I know that many people today don't even know what interests them beyond whatever pop culture feeds them and bores them with nightly. If this sounds like you, check in with yourself. Are you happy with that? Does it literally bring you joy and give you energy to reach for that remote? If so, awesome. If not, then you have some exploring to do. As I said before, start with your imagination. Travel magazines and National Geographic are good places to start.

The Ten Suggestions, part 2

Get related to your body.

Start with moving it. Although exercise doesn't cause happiness, it's a major contributing factor. I heard of a study in which the anti-depressant Zoloft was tested against an exercise regime in a group of clinically depressed subjects. After a certain time, the results were the same, but going forward, exercise surpassed Zoloft's effectiveness. Your mood improves when the energy within your body is moving. Dance, jogging, yoga, tai chi, martial arts, gym workouts, walking, hiking, biking, swimming, etc. are all good. I'm partial to ecstatic dance. Opportunities to learn ballroom dancing, salsa and tango abound here in Portland and probably in your city too. Learning to use your body, take the next steps, which are enjoying and loving your body.

Next, enjoy your body. Experience pleasure. Don't be a slave to it, but definitely serve it. Don't skimp out. The whole point of having a body is to enjoy it, and use it for good. What is good is something that you get to determine. Want to stay unhappy? Then believe what other people say about what pleasures you should and shouldn't experience. (Note: your pleasure should never come at the expense of someone's well-being, including your own.) If you find yourself stumped, experiment with dark chocolate, massage, and burying your face in a large rose for starters.

Then love your body. Appreciate it for what it provides for you: eyesight, transportation, pleasure, opposeable thumb use/grasping, hearing music, and myriad other things we take for granted. Don't compare your body to anyone else's. You will, but just forgive yourself and return to appreciating what you have and taking good care of it.

The relationship one has to one's body could be likened to that of a trainer to a racehorse. In the horse race, rider and horse become one. And the horse will win, or at least compete well, if it's fed well, rested, pampered, and allowed to run. Horses love to run.

What does your body love?

And don't forget: LISTEN to your body. And by this I don't mean simply the growling and gurgling sounds that come from your belly when you're hungry. Your gut has wisdom. Do you feel tension down there? Do you feel gusto down there? People who do not listen to what their guts are telling them about their lives wind up with gut problems—physical ones. Your gut has information about what to do for yourself and others, whom to love, whom to leave, what is your truth, and what is your lie. It may take some time to sit with and sort out when the mind and heart are also involved in the conversation. When in doubt, trust your gut.

The Ten Suggestions, part 1

In March of last year, I responded in this blog—to an article that reported Portland to be the unhappiest city in the country—by coming up with 10 suggestions for being happy. I naturally called them "The 10 Suggestions." An ex-post-bloggo Google search revealed that some others had also coined their own "10 Suggestions," but naturally I think mine are the best.

So let's revisit the 10 Suggestions, one blog entry at at time.

1) Adopt the idea that you are the only person responsible for your own happiness.

Nelson Mandela, who was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment for his anti-Apartheid activism, was consigned to hard labor for the duration of the 27 years he served before release. Despite the ill treatment a black political prisoner would have received in Apartheid South Africa, Mandela emerged from prison a leader—not angry, not set upon revenge—and ultimately happy. Clearly, he was the only person looking after his own happiness, and shortly after his release became the first black leader of a post-Apartheid South Africa.

Being responsible for your happiness means being at the cause of your life, and not the effect. Happy people, as the famous Serenity Prayer suggests, either change the things they can or accept the things they can't change, and they have wisdom to know the difference. Changing your world becomes a game worthy of playing hard, and part of the fun is finding your team. If you don't succeed, either try a different tactic or a different direction, and don't take it personally. Play games worth losing.

What if your situation frankly sucks and you cannot change your circumstances?

Indeed, sometimes happiness asks us to simply accept things the way they are. Easier said than done? Start by understanding that you are enough and that "how you are" does not equal "how you feel."

Doing this requires one to step back into what is known as "witness consciousness"—that state of awareness which we simply notice what's going on inside us. If it had a voice it might sound like, "I notice I'm despairing right now." That thought will be quickly followed by any number of other statements, usually not empowering. It's safe enough to say that any other thought you would have would be something besides witness consciousness, which is not emotionally charged one way or the other. Just be aware. Notice what you're experiencing, and then note that you're having an emotional/mental/physical reaction, and then use those thoughts to marshal on your behalf toward another thought pattern or behavior that is empowering. One of the best behaviors to adopt is sharing your state of mind with another person who cares. More people care than you realize, trust me on this.

Next week: Get related to your body.

"Why I too hate Tantra" and upcoming events

When I first began to explore Tantra in the mid-2000s, my friend Robert Allen, who at the time was one of Seattle’s main tantric emissaries, inspired me to deepen my role as a tantric guide. So when I saw the title of his recent blog entry, “Why I hate Tantra,” I had to read it to see what might have gotten into him. (Read it here.) None of my friends and colleagues has a deeper understanding of Tantra than he.

Robert, like many others, is fed up with much of what passes for Tantra these days, and in many ways I agree with him. The deeper my understanding of Tantric mysticism goes, the less content I am to call even what I teach Tantra. Yes, it is “neo-tantra”—that much is beyond debate—but what separates the real thing from what most Americans think of when they hear the word, “Tantra?”

Tantra is not smoking-hot sex bathed in curry and lit by a patchouli-scented candle with a Ravi Shankar CD playing in the background, the Kama Sutra book on the night stand opened to page 69. Tantra doesn’t need to be sexual at all. Tantra at times melds sexuality with the sacred, but sacred sexuality (which I’m a major proponent of and teach as well) does not equal Tantra.

Tantra can be the most confronting, and perhaps, most comforting, of all the spiritual paths known to humans. Tantra is making love to your fear. Tantra is making love to your work or leaving it. Tantra is finding the Divine wherever you look—especially in places they told you you wouldn’t find God. Your most profound encounters with the Divine will most likely come when you’re not looking, but the Divine tends to reveal itself most often to those who take the time and energy to look anywhere.

Most Tantric and, dare I say, spiritual teaching is all about ascent—with the goal being to elevate the spirit, raise the vibration, transcend the suffering, achieve purity or attain higher states of bliss and ecstasy, but the truth is there is the soul has other needs, like getting to the bottom of that mother complex you have been plagued by all your life. Spirit is good, and seeks to rise, but the soul is the part of us that is like water—it seeks descent and depth. Soul is of the soil and ashes and earth, which perhaps is why Tantric practitioners in India do their rituals in graveyards, with the ashes and bones of immolated people. Only when you are ready to get down and dirty, to smear yourself with the grief, tears, and blood of your own suffering, and maybe mine too, and let out a baleful wail, will you be ready for enlightenment. Today’s best-selling spiritual writers and religious teachers don’t tell you that to be enlightened, you must first be endarkened. But it’s the truth.

Of course, grief, tears, and blood are difficult to sell to a world desperately trying to put a band-aid on any kind of suffering it encounters.

Dear readers, are you ready to go deep into your body and get serious about healing those deep, wounded places? Are you ready to cross a living threshold, or are you content to buy a Kama Sutra candle at the Exotic Love Boutique, practice your orgasms, and call it good?

Maybe you’re thinking, "Where’s my Nag Champa incense? Where’s my day-long orgasm?” If you’re ready to cross a threshold, to live on the edge of your personal magic and power, you have a great opportunity on July 31 when Michael Mirdad guides the Portland Tantric Meetup in a day-long intensive. Michael is the real thing. After July 17, the $100 tuition increases to $125, so save some money and register ASAP. I look forward to sharing this journey with you.

As we ramp up for fall, plan for the return of our two-part series on the essence of Shiva and Shakti, Massage A Trois, and other opportunities to explore the longings you carry in your soul.

Speaking of which, check out my other meetup, the Spiritual Growth and Adventure Meetup.

Many blessings, and enjoy our spectacular weather,

Owl

A very tough mustard seed

This article feels like the final nail in the coffin of any illusion Pope Benedict should preside over Roman Catholicism.

It's the day before Easter, and as someone who practiced Catholicism intentionally for the first 30 or so years of his life before changing course, it's a reflective time: Even though I love and honor Christ (in my own way) as much as I did for all those years, I hesitate before calling myself a "Christian." Does that mean I believe in Christ? Does it mean I believe all the teachings *about* him? Does it mean I'm part of the community of believers who identify themselves as Christians? Yes (sort of), no, and no. None of these answers came easy to me and yet I still struggle with them sometimes. My truth is that I have experienced much more of God outside of my Catholic/Christian experience in recent years, which in no way diminishes what I did experience of God in those years past. But I love the church as I love my family: It's where I come from. And now this...

I never liked Cardinal Josef Ratzinger. He was the enemy of liberal thinking within the church. As head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, he was the theology police and he wielded quite a ideological truncheon. He censured liberal theologians who challenged the way the church thought about women, sexuality, and even social justice. He was sort of a Karl Rove figure in the church—an insider, a mover-shaker, and a tremendous influence even on John Paul II.

When he was elected pope, it was the absolute worst thing that could happen for the Catholic church, and I knew it immediately. Now it's showing up in ways I never imagined—shameful not just for the pedophilia and the cover-ups, but the way the Vatican is pushing back. However, these kinds of situations are like quicksand: The harder you try to swim out of it, the faster you sink. Watch while that happens. If Ratzinger doesn't leave office early (which would be a rather unprecedented move in the church), he will take the floundering church down with him.

Pedophilia is an obvious outcome when a church idealizes celibacy and prohibits its priests from marrying. (The dysfunctional/toxic masculine is now preying on itself and will destroy itself.) However, the church deflects this criticism by saying the vast majority of pedophiles are married people. What a distortion of statistics, proving the maxim, "There's lies, damn lies, and then there's statistics." A small portion of the married population has pedophilia issues. A significant portion (certainly not a majority, but a telling percentage) of the priesthood does, and many more have problems with alcohol and tobacco. And add to that the job/mission of a priest is to heal souls, not to damage them. And let's not forget healing one's own soul, which mandates a dynamic relationship with the Divine Feminine (sorry guys, there Is No Other Way).

When Jesus put Peter in charge of the community that would become the Roman Catholic church, did he intend any of this? NO. There's enough evidence in the canonical bible to suggest that Jesus valued the company and counsel of women far more than was "appropriate" for his time, and there's good reason to believe he was married to Mary Magdalene. Of course, these ideas will be suppressed as long as there's a celibate conservative theologian presiding over Rome.

I think that Christ's work is being faithfully carried out both inside the church, but especially outside of it, all over the world, by people who understand the message of the gospel whether they espouse any Christian theology or not. Christ wasn't about the process or the belief system; he was about results, or as the gospel puts it, the fruits of one's labor. Christians and non-Christians both understand the work that is to be done, but increasingly, this bureaucracy called the church is becoming irrelevant. What a pity, and how sad for Christ's legacy.

But one of the principles of true leadership, which I'm sure Christ understood, is that a truly successful leader starts something and lets it take root and grow until no one's quite sure where the original idea came from or what role that leader played in the process.

Thanks be to God—at least that mustard seed has grown and infiltrated the world, beyond the walls of the church.

On Easter, I can be thankful for that. May your Easter be blessed, may your life be renewed, and your mind and heart opened.

Today's work...

Yeah, I usually blog about compelling spiritual matters. Today's compelling spiritual matter is bonsai. It compels my spirit something fierce!

Yesterday my friend Chris and I went to Wabi Sabi bonsai nursery in Estacada and I found this nice little Japanese Black Pine var. Ondae. Ondae is a "cork-barked" variety of Black Pine, which grows thick bark with deep fissures very quickly, adding to the look of age. I potted it up today in an old pot I had another, far less worthy, plant growing in. Nice combo, don't you think? The pot is a Japanese pot from one of the really nice kilns over there, although I don't know what kind. It has a broken corner that I fixed with a little glue. Here's the pine and a detail of the lichen growing on its bark.