07/11/2022
Love and War
Sitting on the beach in Costa Rice after spending the last 11 years since I left the military collecting healing practices that worked for me was an incredible experience to say the least. Not to mention I did this drive with my love in a 14 year old Honda minivan we turned into a camper van and loaded up ourselves and all our remaining stuff and drove from south Florida to Costa Rica. I had several visions in a seemingly short amount of time and I have never been so sure that I am doing exactly what I need to do, and I am exactly where I need to be. I have always had everything I needed and I always will. The end of my guidance was a new level of understanding, and non judgement for me around Love and War. There is only love and war. Love is what we are and everything else is war. War against the earth that birthed us and sustains us. War against ourselves because something and or someone tricked us into carrying around fear in our heart’s. Fear is the root of everything in war, and war cannot exist without fear. Fear can trick us into believing a lie even when the truth is all around us. Fear is the fuel of all wars. Wars against ourselves like when I left the military to go have a life and instead I woke up and went to sleep for a long time wishing I was dead, that I just never came home because home was now my new war. I was at war with myself and in so much pain it was very easy to believe the story that I was being punished, that I was bad or wrong. First was medicine, mother cannabis helped me not loose my s**t all over the place for years and helped me do my yoga practice. The combination of plant medicine and yoga showed me I had to stop drinking and I did. I stopped drinking because the space that yoga gave me was all I needed to see that drinking was killing me and I no longer hated myself enough to do something that only hurt me. I added meditation and started spending hours at a time lost in my meditation so deep that I came out once thinking I was late for school, a couple other times I had no concept of what time it was or even the day. I was starting to really feel the effects of my practices. I knew what I needed to do, keep healing always, share what I can with my brother’s and only show them love. I gradually added more plant medicine, Mother Aya, Grandfather Mushroom, wow I have Shaman friends now, and I’m not crazy this is healing and it is the most incredibly wonderful and difficult thing I have experienced. I have an entirely new view of religion, spirituality, and god. Ceremony after ceremony whenever it felt right and I am farther in my spiritual growth than I ever imagined was possible. The medicine taught me what love is on many levels and in many ways and I started to see that all the ways in which I was at war with the universe. All my pain aside from the physical which I understand deeper and deeper as well, to the mental was rooted in fear. I was scared what would happen to my home and everyone I cared about if I didn’t join the military and go kill as many of the bad guys as possible. I thought that was the best thing I could do for the world at that point. And it was exactly what I needed to do to begin to really understand love. War brought incredible new forms of pain and discomfort which lasted the whole way through and got worse almost as soon as I left. I felt like my body was falling apart and it crushed me. It took years to accept that I was never going to be a shooter again, nor did I need to. I learned my lessons from war and I was moving on to a whole new life that required me to get rid of everything that didn’t fit in our van. Clothes, tools, paddle board, all sorts of “stuff” that I had collected and boxes and boxes of gear and stuff from the military. Did I mention that in ceremony was how I saw what I wanted what I needed to do and what was in my way? Thank you Ganesh!!!! The medicine showed me everything I wanted was available to me and all I had to do to be ready was get rid of my guns, all of them. Sell them and leave the rest with my brother and Mom. Let go of my attachments to them, everything my shadow said would happen without them. And I listened, I started listening like never before. And trusting myself. Trusting my guidance since I can feel when the thought is from love, and when it’s from anywhere else. Always yoga and meditation, nothing compliments ceremony work like yoga, meditation and less and less processed food. More fruits and vegetables, always. All this ceremony work would be a waste if I stopped doing my practices that opened up this next level of healing for me. Oh wow I think all this stuff goes together. I feel that as strong as I feel anything. And it’s worth mentioning that every healing modality out there can be taken farther than we need and contribute to our and others suffering. And sometimes we need to know what too much is, too fast, too hot,too cold. It’s all part of the process. If war sent me to physical war against other people and myself than love must be the opposite of all that. It is for me. War also taught me many things that love couldn’t so for me they were both necessary. They are a type of cosmic balance that I cannot describe in words, it is a feeling, a knowing. Like when someone we love passes away and we feel it in our hearts over everything else. Grief is all consuming when we actually let ourselves grieve. Loosing Dad in Jan 2020 was crushing. Loosing my best friend Mo a year later made me a version of myself I had never seen. Completely open, raw, ugly crying all over the place and making new noises every time. Grief shows us an opportunity to enjoy every moment we have with the ones we love. Grief shows us what is possible in love if we just let everything else go. Grief is where I heard my song in my head so much I had to start singing it. Grief was where I knew I needed to get a flute and start playing it. Give my brain an opportunity to teach me what I already know. I wake up and say thank you regardless of physical pain and discomfort. I sit back in my seat, I put my sword away, and remind myself that I can always come from kindness first. If I need my sword again my Kali, I know where she is. Love first always, and when violence presents itself meet it with a smile, and your sword because you have both to go through this journey called life to remember who we are. Love.
Aho, Namaste, Hoka Hey
Thank you I love you
