http://www.indeerpark.net/newsite/blog/index.php Copyright 2008, Dave Gerdes Dave Gerdes en-US SPHPBLOG 0.4.8 http://www.indeerpark.net/newsite/blog/index.php?entry=entry071229-174431
There’s so much terrible stuff out in the world today (and with it I find some terrible stuff in my inner world too). Today I’m overwhelmed with sadness for what we (and me) have collectively wrought as a species on this planet. There’s so much pain and misery about. Legions of good people are writing and speaking about this stuff. More than I could possibly read or hear. However, I believe Margaret Wheatley, the author of Leadership and the New Science nails the issues and possible solutions in this article:

http://www.margaretwheatley.com/article ... tworks.pdf

It should be a ‘must-read’ by all.

The end of December 2007 is almost here and I find I’m feeling the effects of more paranoia, more fear and more hostility that ever I’ve felt before. Every time I look or listen some new disaster or atrocity has happened. The world seems totally crazy and on the verge of disaster. Or is it? Maybe this is not the ‘reality’ of the world at all (read were-eld, as in age of man). Maybe this is only how I’ve come to ‘see’ it as part of a complex manipulated view set forth like bait for me to swallow. I’m not going to play the blame-game here for I know that at some level I’m complicit in this manipulation. I know that larger forces are at work in the maintenance of my worldview. But once I willingly swallow the bait I can see how easily I’m then fed a continued feast of more and more fear, paranoia and hostility.

There are truly huge and horrific problems in our collective world today. I wouldn’t deny or make little of them at all. But how I behave and comport myself with the full weight of this knowledge is up to me.

I’ve decided with help from family and friends (old and new alike) to NOT take the bait this year and in fact to regurgitate as much of the foul stuff from 2007 as I can before the New Year turns.

In ancient times some of our ancestors recognized the impacts of a years worth of swallowed bait and when the Winter Solstice season began there were traditions designed to deal with the bait. Our ancestors did this by intentionally turning status quo daily behaviors and rules upside down and inside out. It was a celebration of reversal and revivification. They did ceremonies to embrace life and to dispel the accumulated darkness of the previous year.

Gazing with this lens of awareness it’s important for me to launch into the New Year with some realizations about how I can best resist the coming flood of bait. I want to be reminded that there is the possibility of a different set of directions forward. Directions that embrace life in positive life affirming ways, that recognize that we all have X chromosomes (male and female alike) and that to honor the feminine and masculine principles we must see they are mutually supportive of self-nurturance and co-nurturance. I want to be reminded that there is this gorgeous moment of infinite space between the Old Year and the New Year where we have the choice to move our collective humanity forward carrying that which is best in all of us and discarding that which no longer serves us well. I need to be reminded that this relationship of mutuality is what nature has to teach.

So I hereby rekindle a bit of irreverence from the ancestors who at this darkest time of year proclaimed a period of Misrule.

The Knell of Inbetweenness hath been struck,
The Bell of MISRULE soundeth;
Reverberating the Thirteen Angles,
Echoing through the Nine Spheres,
Rousing the Deep Ones from the starry Abyss of
UR-KHAOS.
Exalted be the Gaurdians of the Dolmen,
En-chanted be the Word Unspeakable,
The Signacula of MISRULE at the Gap betwixt the
~Times
Amid grey mist and gloaming I rown,
Through the hoary Stile of Stone,
Through the whispering World-Hedge.


O King of Misrule, who art the World’s Upturner,
O Goat of Saturnus, whose Law is Perpetual
Revolt,
O Divine Fool, Overthrower of the Profane
Kingdom,
Destroying and Creating All in the Rite of the
Great Reversal!
Thine are the Uprais’d Horns,
Thine is the Wisdom of Lust,
Thine are the Red-Ochred Bones,
Thine is the Graveyard Dust.

Masks of Misrule, Nigel Jackson

The custom(s) of Misrule are diverse from cultures around the world. However, they all seem to remember that what we co-create as our daily culture and society is mostly a veil of ‘between-ness’, from what we wish to see, to what actually is and to what we could be with true clarity and humanity.

Michael Bronski puts it this way in his book, The Pleasure Principle, “When Misrule remains contained, it operates as a safety valve releasing the tensions that accumulate when people–either voluntarily following the rules of civilization, or forcibly kept in line by the power structures of the their society–cannot experience the freedoms and pleasures they seek. But the threat of contained Misrule is that the limited freedom it offers may alert individuals and groups to what they are missing and encourage them to seek it in their everyday lives. Controlled Misrule may grant a temporary relief of frustration, but it also challenges the status quo and provides people with the possibility of new visions and new freedoms. As such, it has the potential to radically change and restructure society.”

And Genia Pauli Haddon says something resonant in her book, Uniting Sex, Self & Spirit, “The stories we tell ourselves about the nature of life and the world (whether fairy tales, religious myths, personal life scripts, scientific principles and paradigms, or psychological theories) not only reflect our current views, but also shape our evolving consciousness. To envision that the Great Feminine principle, like the womb, has both gestative and exertive attributes helps women and men to recognize and value womanly assertiveness as a ‘feminine’ virtue and become able to distinguish between an animus-possessed woman who is “wearing the pants” and a fully feminine woman who knows how to “push from her womb” as well as how to nurture. To literally “re-member” that the Great Masculine principle has testicular as well as phallic attributes helps men and women appreciate ‘as masculine’ the supportive, patient, faithful attributes of the masculine principle, instead of labeling them feminine or effeminate. These realizations promote deeper self-understanding and call into question established cultural values, preparing the way for new cultural patterns and even images of God.”

Let me make a wish that the New Year comes forth with these ideas circulating ever more widely and with more humanity for all of us.

]]> http://www.indeerpark.net/newsite/blog/index.php?entry=entry071229-174431 Dave Gerdes Sat, 29 Dec 2007 23:44:31 GMT http://www.indeerpark.net/newsite/blog/index.php?entry=entry071016-084410
This year’s Autumnal season seems to have arrived abruptly and my feelings quickly shifted from endless summer thoughts to being focused on exploring for my own life what sustainability and nourishment looks like. I’ve found myself dwelling on how our human ancestors developed traditions around harvests and stores for the coming months of fallowness. Their metaphors are powerful in reminding me of my need for personal practice. Autumn, known as a season of maturity verging on decline, is ripe with the metaphor of the dance of life and death, feminine and masculine. The ancients had plentiful stories of the deaths and resurrections of their metaphorical mother and her consort (the way cycling seasons affect food and shelter). The stories mirrored their relationship with the earth and with their constant pursuit of sustainability and nourishment. This season I find myself returning to the words of author M.F.K. Fisher as a guide with a lesson plan for personal practice:

“I cannot count the good people I know who, to my mind, would be even better if they bent their spirits to the study of their own hungers. There are too many of us, otherwise in proper focus, who feel an impatience for the demands of our bodies, and who try throughout our whole lives, none too successfully, to deafen ourselves to the voices of our various hungers. Some stuff the wax of religious solace in our ears. Others practice a Spartan if somewhat pretentious disinterest in the pleasures of the flesh, or pretend that if we do not admit our sensual delight in a ripe nectarine we are not guilty ... of even that tiny lust! I believe that one of the most dignified ways we are capable of, to assert and then reassert our dignity in the face of poverty and war’s fears and pains, is to nourish ourselves with all possible skill, delicacy, and ever-increasing enjoyment. And with our gastronomical growth will come, inevitably, knowledge and perception of a hundred other things, but mainly of ourselves. Then Fate, even tangled as it is with cold wars as well as hot, cannot harm us.”

She wrote this as an addendum to her seminal work, How to Cook a Wolf. This was written in a time of major turbulence in our collective culture and society (1942). I’ve come to keep these words as a lesson for my personal practice; to truly re-member and cherish those moments of genuine humanity where I can emphatically know myself to be intentionally, mindfully indulging in the dignity and mutuality of nourishment. Her words remind me that we are all creatures of the flesh that need nourishments; not only those gastronomical nourishments but also nourishments of the eyes, the ears and the heart. In our current turbulent times to bend our collective spirits towards the study of our various hungers is probably more important than ever before. And this Autumn (Fall) represents a return to the season of sustainable nourishment in preparation for the coming winter season of scarcity. I’m grateful and thoughtful of what it means to practice nourishment in a dignified way.

I wonder what can I do to locate this semblance of sustainability and nourishment? Shall I look with curiosity, acceptance and compassion fully into my desires? Desire is elemental to our species around the globe. I believe to truly understand sustainability and nourishment we as a species need to find ways to embody these notions. Exploring embodiment is exploring desire and, as M. F. K. Fisher suggested, is to get to know our hungers. This nourishment of our hungers is in my mind the best hope for our collective survival.

I’m also indebted to the teacher and author Paula Gunn Allen who I believe has described perfectly what is at the core of practice in the realms of embodiment, sustainability and nourishment. She describes the universality of the Great Mother metaphor in a way that is at once pragmatic and sublime. And when I read her words as a gender identified male of our species I’m reminded that I have an X chromosome too … that the nourishment of my body and our collective species is in dire need of more feminine balance in all our sustainability practices.

“What can we do, rejoicing and honoring, to show our respect? We can heal. We can cherish our bodies and honor them, sing Heya-hey to our flesh. We can cherish our being – our petulances and rages, our anguishes and griefs, our disabilities and strengths, our desires and passions, our pleasures and delights. We can, willingly and recognizing the fullness of her abundance, which includes scarcity and muchness, enter inside ourselves to seek and find her, who is our own dear body, our own dear flesh. For the body is not the dwelling place of the spirit – it is the spirit. It is not a tomb, it is life itself. And even as it withers and dies, it is born; even as it is renewed and reborn, it dies.

Think: How many times each day do you habitually deny and deprive her in your flesh, in your physicality? How often do you willfully prevent her from moving or resting, from eating or drinking what she requests, from eliminating wastes or taking breath? How many times do you order your body to produce enzymes and hormones to further your social image, your “identity,” your emotional comfort, regardless of your actual situation and hers? How many of her gifts do you spurn; how much of her abundance do you deny? How often do you interpret disease as wrong, suffering as abnormal, physical imperatives as troublesome, cravings as failures, deprivation and denial of appetite as the right thing to do? In how many ways do you refuse to experience your vulnerability, your frailty, your mortality? How often do you refuse these expressions of the life force of the Mother in your lovers, your friends, your society? How often do you find yourself interpreting sickness, weakness, aging, fatness, physical differences as pitiful, contemptible, avoidable, a violation of social norm and spiritual accomplishment? How much of your life is devoted to avoiding any and/or all of these? How much of her life is devoted to avoiding any and all of these?

The mortal body is a tree; it is holy in whatever condition; it is truth and myth because it has so many potential conditions; because of its possibilities, it is sacred and profane; most of all, it is your most precious talisman, your own connection to her. Healing the self means honoring and recognizing the body, accepting rather than denying all the turmoil its existence brings, welcoming the woes and anguish flesh is subject to, cherishing its multitudinous forms and seasons, its unfailing ability to know and be, to grow and wither, to live and die, to mutate, to change. Healing the self means committing ourselves to a wholehearted willingness to be what and how we are – beings frail and fragile, strong and passionate, neurotic and balanced, diseased and whole, partial and complete, stingy and generous, safe and dangerous, twisted and straight, storm-tossed and quiescent, bound and free.”

from, The Woman I Love Is a Planet; the Planet I Love Is a Tree,
Paula Gunn Allen
Reweaving the World: the Emergence of Ecofeminism. ed., Irene Diamond and Gloria Feman Orenstein. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1990: 52-58



]]> http://www.indeerpark.net/newsite/blog/index.php?entry=entry071016-084410 Dave Gerdes Tue, 16 Oct 2007 13:44:10 GMT http://www.indeerpark.net/newsite/blog/index.php?entry=entry070822-001940
This is the introductory entry of my new website feature … a web log. Web-logs (or blogs) have become an important way for people to reach out and share their personal beliefs, information, ideas and communications. I’m delighted to be able to offer this extended point of view beyond what you can read at my website in general. I feel this is an opportunity for me to dialogue with those who resonate with my work and give a broader picture of my beliefs and purpose. With this site I wish to share what’s currently engaging my consciousness. You the reader will have a deeper perspective of my mission and vision through this medium.

Almost anyone can tell from reading the information on my website the core, primary beliefs that motivate my work. The foundation of my work: the union and dynamic balance of feminine and masculine (both/and … metaphorically and practically speaking), the primacy of the body (the experience of embodiment) and the significant relationship of Eros and Spirit. These are the principles that inform my personal development as well as my work in Life Coaching, Somatic Bodywork and Yoga. My most sincere wish is to encourage the natural, authentic relationship of feminine and masculine, Spirit and Eros through consciousness and embodiment.

For my first entry I’d like to describe a journey that I’ve been on for the last several years culminating recently (yet infinitely ongoing). This journey revolves around a workshop I attended this spring at the Esalen Institute.

Several years ago while at Esalen I was fortunate enough to attend a Tantric conference led by the Tantric Master, Daniel Odier. Through guided meditation practice, Tandava and Kashmiri massage Daniel led us into experiences of penetrating clarity and deep subjectivity. It was a sublime and awakening event for me. It fed me and nurtured my desire to continue on the path of embodiment. During the conference I realized I wished to deepen my understanding of Yoga … particularly Yoga at its best in the West. One of my comrade attendees (who is a world renowned yogini in her own right) recommended that I get to know the teacher, Mark Whitwell. In the Esalen bookshop I found and read Mark’s book, Yoga of Heart: The Healing Power of Intimate Connection.

As with Daniel Odier’s message, Mark’s message was crystal clear and completely in resonance with my own explorations and work. Both Odier and Whitwell see the necessity of bringing a unified field of feminine/masculine energies back into our shared world. This is of primary importance to my work.

Here is a sample of Mark’s Hridayayogasutra (The Heart Yogasutra).

“Human contentment, wellness, wisdom and realization are in the power of mutuality between the polar opposites, man and woman. It is in the acknowledgment, participation and surrender to the fact that one pole does not exist without the other. This is the realization of the heart or whole. In the pain that is felt around sexual relationship, this is a hard pill to swallow amidst the predominant social influence that suggests wisdom is in the transcendence of sex. However, it is a challenge within our possibility. Negative personal and social traits are replaced in time by positive patterns, the natural responses to intimacy. The freedom of polarized union with our tangible realities (left to right, above to below, front to back, female to male, outer to inner) is natural, already established and within the human grasp, whereas the religious proposal of transcendence is not”
14. Hridayayogasutra (The Heart Yogasutra).

“The ultimate locus of yogic awareness while alive is the heart, not the head. The heart is revealed only through participation in life’s inherent polarities, especially base to crown and inner to outer. The openness of the whole body reveals the open heart.”
16. Hridayayogasutra (The Heart Yogasutra).

“ Enlightenment does not look like anything or conform to any cultural model of perfect behavior or beatitude. It is simply an understanding and enjoyment of the obvious perfection, which is Life. What appears to be social limitation may continue. How can you have a perfect relationship when you have 2,500 years’ denial of sex and woman on your hands? Knowing that the male/female polarity serves the union of spirit and form, the unseen and the seen, heaven and Earth, will help clear it up for yourself and society.”
17. Hridayayogasutra (The Heart Yogasutra).

In these sutras Mark has eloquently stated what I believe to be the fundamental needed direction in today’s world. It is critical that we as the human species begin to reawaken to the union of feminine/masculine balance. For too long we have suffered with an extreme imbalance towards masculine-only cultural dominance and we need to swing the pendulum back towards the feminine for sustainable balance.

It was a great pleasure to finally meet Mark this spring and to hear and experience his teachings. What a wonderfully humble yet inspired teacher he is. My journey continues onward supported by true teachers, my continuing education and self-development.

Another circle in the spiral of my life’s journey. From a chance meeting at Daniel Odier’s Tantric conference I was put in touch with Mark Whitwell’s book. Through Mark’s website I found a wonderful and grounded Yoga teacher, Dawn Summers, who has supported, and continues to support my growth as a yoga instructor. And this spring finally meeting Mark in the flesh.

My journey continues as I feel the embodied resonance with other paths that I travel simultaneously. My ongoing Breema practice with the nine principles of unifying harmony is in total alignment.

As the Yoga Spandakarika proclaims in verse 30,

“Iti va yasya samvittih kridavenakhilam jagat/
Sa pasyan satatam yukto jivanmukto na samsayah//”

From The Stanzas on Vibration, Mark S.G. Dyczkowski

“Always present to the reality that he perceives as the play of his own nature, the tantrika is liberated at the heart of life.”

From the Yoga Spandakarika: The Sacred Texts at the Orgins of Tantra, Daniel Odier




]]> http://www.indeerpark.net/newsite/blog/index.php?entry=entry070822-001940 Dave Gerdes Wed, 22 Aug 2007 05:19:40 GMT