Before we move on to our discussion of Part II & Ch. 5 of KISSING THE LIMITLESS I’d like to go back to Ch. 2 for a moment. There Thorn writes

“Things may need to stay in the darkness for some time. There is power in darkness: the power of gestation, deep dreaming, and the sweetness of night.”

In Ch. 5 Thorn asks us to access that power through divination, dream journaling, fantasy, & “Naming the Nameless” (taboo, & thoughts/emotions that hide along the edges of our awareness). She also urges us to connect with our mythic & historical forebearers,

“Be they ancestors of blood or spirit, they can both gift us and ‘curse’ us with their legacy.”

On this murky March day (a haunted month if ever there was one) let’s take Thorn’s advice & listen to the ghosts of our own past. If, as Thorn suggests, you were to write a letter to your ancestors & ask for help in understanding your own journey, who would you write to & what would it say? @WeiserBooks

It’s a little after midnight. My typing is a bit off because my one thumb is a touch sore, so my space bar usage is a bit awkward. I got a lot done today (yesterday) and feel really accomplished at the moment. As is my habit I prepared the first part of this entry a little while after @WeiserBooks posted it. I’ve thought about the question off and on since I read it earlier today (yesterday).  I’ve pondered how best to respond. What is it that I would write in a letter to my ancestors? Would I tell them how grateful I am for their legacy? Would I need to assuage their concerns about my lifestyle? Would I tell them that I honor and love them, even when my life is difficult and I don’t remember to say it?

In my practice ancestor means a lot of things. It means my actual physical ancestors. My parents and grandparents going back to the dawn of time. It also means my predecessors. The gay men and women of yesteryear, who were at stonewall, who have died because they were different. In a larger sense, all the outcasts of history. Everyone who carried with them the stigma of being other. It also means my teachers and their teachers in the craft, the traditional teachings that have been handed down to me for good or ill. And my past lives, my spiritual ancestry. The bonds and connections that I carry with me from spin to spin.

When Thorn talks about ancestors, I think of all these things. And a part of me reaches immediately for the pen and paper to begin writing countless letters to my ancestors. There is so much to say to them, all of them. But another part of me stops. I breathe. I reach inside and find stillness. I contemplate.

How can I best communicate with my disparate ancestry today? Right now? The simple answer is in rememberance. The greatest honor I can give those who came before me is to remember their journey. This means remembering that my grandmother grew up during the great depression, and her survival and strength can lend me wisdom and guidance in dealing with the economic troubles we face today.

It means remembering that my native american ancestors walked the lands of Chicago (place of stinky onions) long before my European ancestors did. They have blood in the soil here, and their spirit is still part of the land I know live on and honor.

It means remembering the struggles of my own past in this life and others. Recognizing patterns that have followed me, and relationships that don’t seem to improve from one incarnation to the next. Choosing to be, or not to be, the person that I remember having been.

It means remembering the lessons of all the outcasts and pariahs before me. Remembering that the path is more important than the pain it causes. Remembering that real honor is in being true to yourself no matter what.

There are a great many things I would say if I were writing a letter to my ancestors. I can’t begin to list them all here. But I know it would start and end with rememberance.

In Chap. 4 of KISSING THE LIMITLESS, Thorn continues to examine how our connections to & in the physical affect our spiritual quest. She urges us to examine how we relate to home, work, money, & the natural world. It is the latter that brings up one of my favorite quotes “We are part animal, part human, and part divine, & the moment we forget the possibility of any one of those, we are lost.” The final reflection ask us “Listen now to your animal soul, the part most closely connected to your body & your instincts. If you could be wild for one hour or one day, what would that feel like; what would that look like?” That is the thought I leave you to ponder this wild Spring day! “What does your animal soul call for?” @WeiserBooks

I like this question. A lot. As others (like @TeoBishop) have mentioned, Reading Kissing the Limitless and talking about it in a book club format is really poignant to a lot of my life at the moment. I have some thoughts on that specifically, but later.

What does your animal soul call for? This is a great question, particularly at the moment, because I’ve been feeling a bit overburdened for a few days. Overburdened is probably the wrong word. I’m an introvert by nature. I tend to enjoy spending time at home, relaxing and enjoying the company of my family and being able to recline or retire. A result of this is that being out and active in the world for prolonged periods of time can be very draining to me, particularly when i’m dealing with scheduled tasks or events, or with large numbers of people.

So when I run into a tightly scheduled set of days or weeks, I have a little trouble finding the time to reconnect to my home, to my roots. I’m in the middle of a viciously scheduled period right now. I’ve got:

• Karate twice a week
• rehearsals for a ritual
• preparation for an initiation
• plans to make for moving
• an apartment to find
• 9 people staying with us next week
• a very full load at work

And that’s just the next couple weeks, and it’s skipping a few things I can’t talk about, and the fact that I already haven’t had an evening free in 5 days. This is an almost untenable schedule for me.

So I was just thinking today about what my animal self needs. I often consider myself to be a deer. Most often a doe, placid, observant, caring, tender. Sometimes though, I am a hart or a stag. Proud, needing to prove myself, aggressive, wild, and sometimes possessive. When things get too bound up in order the wild part of me needs the wildness of nature. It doesn’t have to be real wilderness. I don’t even really have to spend time outside. What I need is chaos and order in a struggle with each other. I need to become the stag and dive into activity of any kind so long as it’s about me. I need to take time and throw myself aggressively at a project that belongs to me and only me. I need to argue and fight, butting head/antlers with anything that comes before me.

Just laying here to write helps more than I have the language to express.

Thorn talks about the different parts of the soul, and keeping them all in sight. I understand what she means, and it is something that I strive to do at all times. Remembering our wildness, our animal truth, while also connecting with the divine and remaining living here on this plane can seem like a daunting task. For certain, it is not one that comes easily or naturally to most of us. But I think it can be easier than we want to believe. This is a lesson that is difficult because we make it difficult.

I believe that each of us has something we do that reminds us of all these parts of ourselves, and helps bring them together, even if only for a few moments. For me, it’s writing. Just sitting down with a pen and paper, or a keyboard, and writing brings me to a place of peace and balance.

On the one hand I am accessing the wild force of deer, sometimes doe and others hart. When I’m writing, the vast majority of the time I don’t have any great control over my words. They come out of me in a rush of thought and feeling and I have to catch them in my fingers and shape them before they have run away, hooves pounding the ground in the distance.

But I am also accessing the divine. When I write there is a truth that I often feel moves through me, perhaps riding the wild nature of deer, more likely flying above him, the wind of the wings sending sparks of inspiration and light into the raw power that is crashing through me. Sulfur and Salt. Wild chaotic force and the tempering stillness of the light.

And the human, me, caught in the middle. Never forgotten, both the crucible in which the alchemy is wrought, and the mercurial element which communicates the force and form of creation, stabilizing it into words and images, and ultimately also transmits it to the perceptions of the world around me.

So making time to scribble even a few lines of a poem or a story, or even write something completely practical and how-to-ish brings me into that connected point, and from there I can find the peace I need to move out into the world.

I postulate that each of us has something we do that helps us be touched and reminds us of all our parts. I’m sure most of us have several things, that take us there. (There are other things that make me feel similar to writing, it’s just my most familiar and easily accessed modality.)

As I mentioned previously, I find it interesting that so many people are having synchronistic experiences as we read this book together. We’re experiencing very different events in our lives, but we find that the wisdom in Kissing the Limitless is poignant and effective to each of us regardless of circumstance.

To me, this is not really surprising. Interesting yes, but not surprising. It’s the result of a well written work, of real wisdom that speaks to us on a deep level. I think that the work Thorn has laid before us is the caliber of work and thought that can be worked at many times in our life, from many places, attitudes, and beliefs. It is the caliber of work, of thought, that can aid us no matter where on the path we are, and that speaks volumes for the quality and strength of Thorns own work, and her voice in this volume.

In Chap. 3 Thorn refers to the “Promethean spark” that kindles “a life force that fills every inch of us: soul, mind, body, emotion.” To access this “life force” we must turn away from the clamor of contemporary media culture, a culture that “wishes to rock [lock?] us into complacency & keep us from full awareness,” and bring stillness & focus back into our lives, beginning w/the most elemental of physical needs – breath.

“All life, all magic, & all spiritual work begins with the breath.”

How do connections w/your body, its needs & the present, physical world inform your spirituality? If “the fodder for our work is the stuff of life itself,” how do we engage fully in that life w/out falling into it’s cultural traps? @WeiserBooks

I’m reminded of the novel Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse. This is one of the seminal books of my life, and it has a permanent home on my desk at work, and another copy at home. One of the primary challenges posed in the novel is the clash between asceticism and indulgence. Siddhartha, seeking enlightenment, leaves the comfort of his home, where he was lauded and would be rewarded with a beautiful life. We too, in our great work must eventually leave the comfort of what we have known, what we have excelled in, and what we find comfort in. This is the great risk of the work, and perhaps the first sacrifice. We must leave behind the stagnation in which we are comfortable.

The rest of Siddharthas journey is an exploration of “the stuff of life itself.” He studies to be an ascetic, denying himself the pleasures of the world. He speaks with the Buddha in the forest, and communes with his own spirit on the shore of a river. He says to himself

“The Buddha has robbed me. He has robbed me, yet he has given me something of greater value. He has robbed me of my friend, who believed in me and who now believes in him; he was my shadow and is now Gotama’s shadow. But he has given to me Siddhartha, myself.” (Siddhartha p. 36)

This is a second sacrifice in his journey. He must sacrifice not his friend, as we may assume, but his faith in the wisdom of others. We learn from his friend Govindas actions, that truth and wisdom, when found at the foot of a great teacher, have a mutable quality. He followed Siddhartha, and now he follows the Buddha. I can not say that Govinda will never become “self-posessed,” but he will never be his the master of his own spiritual path. Siddhartha realizes the wisdom of the Buddha, and that there is no better path or way of life. But he realizes that he must take his own path to enlightenment, become his own master.

His journey then takes him to fulfill his life. He knows the love of a courtesan and bears a son. He learns to listen to the world, to the river of life and time. It is through his experience of every aspect of life that he comes to find the simplicity of stillness that Thorn speaks about.

It was the journey of a life-time for Siddhartha, and he lived a life full of joy, pain, and the entire spectrum of human experience. And in the end, he found a truth that answers our question from above.

How do we engage fully in that life w/out falling into it’s cultural traps?

There are many answers to this. But there is one that speaks strongly to me now. The question is flawed. The idea that we risk falling into the traps of culture by choosing to engage fully in our life is a trap in itself. That living in the base, thriving in the myriad and sometimes chaotic flow of the world is an illusion. Rarification, stillness, happens in a place that is seperate from the world we live in. Our soul may be uplifted even while engaging in the most trite or superficial activities.

As Thorn emphasizes, the goal is not to always be centered, but to return to center quickly and with confidence. The goal is not to always be still. Eternal stillness is death. The goal is to find stillness before moving. The conflict between dwelling in, relishing, and experiencing all of the universe, but maintaining the connection to the limitless is an illusion. As Siddhartha puts it:

… I will not deny that my words about love are in apparent contradiction to the teachings of Gotama. That is just why I distrust words so much, for I know that this contradiction is an illusion. I know that I am at one with Gotama. How, indeed could he not know love, he who has recognized all humanity’s vanity and transitoriness, yet loves humanity so much that he has devoted a long life solely to help and teach people? (Siddhartha p. 148)

As one of my teachers has been fond of saying, “We are not a monastic tradition, we must be able to access the divine while experiencing the fullness of life.” For each of us, the balance between asceticism and indulgence must be unique. We must each find our own way to stillness, and our own way to experience. The vital breath that needs to move is the realization that there is no contradiction between stillness and action. The contradiction is Maya, illusion. It is contradiction only because words are slippery deceptive things, that often do more to obscure and muddle than clarify.

In Chapter 2 of KISSING THE LIMITLESS, Thorn writes

“Each spiritual seeker & magic worker sooner or later has to face the oracle that tells us to know ourselves. Without that component our work is lost. We ask a lot of questions & think many things about our conditions, but do we really look at our lives inside & out? Do we see? Do we know?” 

The adage “know thyself” is ages old, but how do we approach such a monumental (& frightening) task? How, with lives saddled by responsibility, dulled by routine & fraught with worry, do we connect with that true inner self? One exercise that Thorn suggests is a 1-month journal as a way to observe the details of our daily lives. What other ways do you find to connect with the world and that shadowed inner self? How can we better “see” and “know?” @WeiserBooks

One of the important things that I think needs to be mentioned is a look at what Thorn means by “Do we see? Do we know?” Our experience of the external, explicit world is illusory. Everything we see and know about it are the results of our perceptions of it. This poses something of a challenge to the idea of a knowable absolute reality.

But what about our internal world? Is it too subject to the illusory evidence of our senses? I don’t think so. We don’t perceive that we are feeling emotional pain. We don’t perceive loneliness, we feel it. We don’t perceive that we are angry, we feel anger. There are many ways to move these emotions into an idea of perception, to look at them and let them pass. But the truth of them is that they are ultimately knowable, and simultaneously incommunicable. Our language is not sufficient to transmit the reality of what we feel internally. If we look at ourselves as Thorn advises, and feel all of our parts and pieces, then we recognize that our emotions are one of those pieces. We address them in wholism.

So when we are asked “Do we see? Do we know?” we are really talking about an internal state of being that is divorced from the illusory filter of perception. The struggle becomes less about trying to ‘See’ the truth, or ‘Know’ what is real and what is not. Instead the struggle becomes about the choice to be aware of and dwell in the sight and knowledge of ourselves.

Something that has been important for me year after year is to treat the macrocosm as a reflection of the microcosm. Thorn touched on this somewhat, but I think it needs a bit more emphasis. When I look at my bedroom and I see clothing all over the floor, and an empty glass on the shelf next to my bed I can look at that as a reflection of my inner state.

This is helpful not because my room being a mess indicates that my mind is in disarray. It is helpful because perception is illusory. The things I perceive are dependent upon the state of my inner reality. For some reason I notice the clothing on the floor and that talks to me about the different personas, masks, and guises that I take on in my life. It makes me vie for simplicity and unity of those facets of my being. It makes me wonder if I’m taking proper care of those faces, and if there is something I can do to make them healthier.

It’s important to me to say that the clothing being on the floor does not indicate anything. It is my choice to perceive it that gives it meaning. Just as when we experience the guidance of the divine in the world. An odd man staring at you, a bird landing on your porch. These things do not have meaning. The meaning is in our notice of them.

Another practice that I think is one that helps keep me focused on the work of “self-posession” is one of gratitude. I know several people who choose one thing to be grateful each day. They feel that expressing that gratitude reminds them of a higher light working in their life. While I’m newer to the disciplined practice of gratitude I find that I feel comforted and relaxed when I accept responsibility for my part, but offer gratitude for the light that comes through me. It reaffirms my belief that my life is a partnership between myself and the spirits.

I’ve found that practicing gratitude in any form also helps me release my worries and act directly and precisely when the time is right, which is something that Thorn stresses, perhaps too much, in Chapter 2 of Kissing the Limitless.