Category Archives: Lost in Translation

An ongoing challenge I seem to face. How do you communicate with someone with whom you do not share a common language?

Empowering Self, Lost in Translation, Relationships, Shadows

True Damage

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Now bear with me on this. It is a bit meandering, but I made a connection the other day that I don’t know how to explain in any other way, and it is important.

According to Dungeons and Dragons (I believe the originator of the concept) and most video game usage: True Damage is a description of a type of damage that cannot be hindered by armor, magical protection, or any passive defense. To get into the weeds a bit in case any of you are not gamers: If you have a character that has 60 points of health, and you get hit by a sword that will deal 45 points of damage, this is often offset by. things like: Your armor protects you for up to 25 points of damage, and your magic resistance will defer 40% of slicing damage. In this scenario, the 45 points of slicing damage from that sword instantly gets 25 points removed due to the armor, which brings it down to 20. Then the magic resistance you have will defer 8 points of damage. So you actually receive 12 points of damage which is essentially a really uncomfortable scratch. If the weapon deals true damage, it will ignore your armor, it will ignore your magic, and it will deal 45 points of damage which would bring you critically low on health. So you can see how devastating it can be.

From something I realized the other day when talking to a friend, I don’t think True Damage is actually given enough weight in these games.

Let’s talk about my martial art. As you probably know, I train in a samurai art called Nami Ryu Aiki Heiho. This roughly translates to Wave Style Magic Strategy. Translating Aiki is not inaccurate to say Magic, but it is not the clear either. We would say Aiki is anything you cannot do to a chair. You cannot trick a chair, you cannot make a chair think you are striking from the left so you can strike with the right. Deception is a VERY important part of warfare that you cannot perform on a chair. But Deception is also not a good word for it. It is like the rectangle/square scenario, Deception is Aiki, but Aiki is not deception. Think of a bully on the play ground drawing a line in the sand, and saying they will give you a dollar if you can just cross the line. But once you get there, they have backed up and drawn a new line. They are being very honest with you (while also not being honest with you. ~ but you know there will never be a win.). But why did all of us try 3 times before we got frustrated and quit? We weren’t really being deceived, but we were doing what they wanted. This is like Aiki.

Fact: Did you know that when the average person punches, they will keep reaching until they feel like they have hit you?

This means that if I am being punched at, I have a couple of options to trick them, as long as they don’t see me move. I can put my hand in front of their fist. Slapping their fist tells their brain that they have connected and they should pull back. Or I can move directly backwards just before they connect, causing them to reach further. These both give me great options, but let’s discuss the latter because I think it is easier to see. If the attacker will continue reaching, there is a point in me moving backwards that they will be very off balance. And once they are, I can strike.

This might still be hard to see how this impact is more than if I had simply hit in the first place. Imagine you are walking in your attic, you see a half wall protecting you from falling down the stairs. If you see it, you will slow down before you hit it. Even if you were out of control and hit it, you probably wouldn’t get hurt. Now think about that one time, you either stood up under an angled ceiling that you didn’t realize was going to be so close. Do you remember how hitting your head on that ceiling shook your world? That ceiling, and the half-wall, are made of the same material. They both intended you no harm. But one you were prepared for and slowed down, the other you just kept trying to stand up without thinking about slowing down. The fact that you KEPT MOVING caused 100x the amount of pain for you. This is what Aiki can do. If I can convince you to keep reaching at me, so you could hit your head on that ceiling, I will have hit you so much harder with that ceiling than had I just thrown a punch at you.

I am good at punching. But even so, the average person would not be afraid of me striking them. If you are prepared, I cannot hurt you too badly, or maybe at all. But every time you think back to that ceiling, you think about the pain and repel the idea of doing it again. This is why I say True Damage isn’t given its true weight in these games. True Damage not only bypasses your defenses, it causes a change in your brain and physiology to remember the experience and be afraid of it happening again.

True Damage is the heart of Trauma. And this brings me back to the connection I made when my friend was talking. They were describing how a sibling would lash out at them with very specific words and how it would literally break them down for days about what an awful person they knew themself to be. Logically, my friend knows that they are an incredible, kind, and competent person. But those words hurt so badly… I think back to other stories I have heard from this friend. Interactions with their parents, previous interactions with their sibling, and I can so clearly see the kind of emotional abuse they survived. And when you survive abuse, you develop coping mechanisms to let you continue surviving. Now, siblings, parents that are aware of the damage they inflict, and manipulative people in general have the ability to see that. If my friends coping mechanism was to always be vigilant to peoples moods, and try to adapt themself to minimize conflict before it happens (I call this being a spiritual chameleon), you could leverage that information to hurt them. By saying the precise words you know will trigger them, make them feel like they are not adapting fast enough, make them feel like they are not good enough at what they do: You have the ability to leverage their previous trauma, to not only give True Damage, but to also trigger the sense of life threatening danger they experienced to cause such a dramatic coping mechanism to exist in them. And to top it off, if you see that they are a chameleon as a means to minimize pain, you can intentionally swing your mood so boldly from kind to angry to love to venom. This means the attacker can also take away the power of protection that their coping mechanisms have offered them.

True Damage is so much more damaging than bypassing your armor. It is not just getting past your armor and magic. It is getting past those things, and then targeting a very specific scar from a previous life-threatening wound that you are still recovering from, and somehow having time to add salt to your blade before bringing it in.

Trauma gives us so many tools to get by in the moments we need them. I know that in my own experience, after I have left that space, and started to do some healing, those coping mechanisms no longer serve me and I need to find a way to unlearn them. While we may never see the downside to keeping those tools, I can tell you clearly, that the tools you used to calm that life threatening situation, are now tools that someone else can use to cause you the deepest of True Damage.

Empowering Self, Lost in Translation, Relationships, Shadows

Relationships: Sacred Reciprocity

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Some of the most hurtful things that most of us experience come from relationships ending, being abandoned, kept away, or exploding. I have heard and been asked so many questions either directly about relationships, or are at the heart of those same questions. I often say that my religion is relationships. It is important to say that all of the times I have said this, I have not really been joking.

Relationships, as in a connection you hold either another individual or individuals, are something I find so incredibly fascinating. I spend a lot of time contemplating aspects of relationships and how they can grow or be grown to help people be a healthier version of themselves (by their reporting, not my judgement.). This means that I am still not perfect. I struggle. I still have certain people with whom we seem to have slightly different languages or our various individually held traumas present in ways that we cannot quite solidify the relationship I want – even when I might be able to see the holes in that relationship. The pieces I understand though, seem to hold truth in each relationship, even when the connection goes sour and people cannot reclaim it.

I see 5 rules for each person in a relationship to follow for success.

  1. You must care for yourself
  2. You must consent to picking up and holding onto a connection
  3. You must maintain your own boundaries
  4. You must be willing to give to this connection without expectation of return
  5. You must be willing to grow

You must care for yourself enough that you can invest energy into a connection that will not bring your energy reserve to or below empty. I remember my youngest coming home from kindergarten and sharing with me that he has to fill his cup before he has anything that he could use to fill someone else’s cup. (Thank you Mrs. Larrea.) It never ceases to amaze me how our children see and say things that simply cut through all the complications and simply nail the important sentiment.

In order to be in relationship with another person, you must commit to fulfilling your needs. This is NOT selfish. This is not a situation where you should: “get rid of some of your needs.” As George Carlin put it. If you have ever built anything, let’s say a house out of building blocks, you cannot build an epic skyscraper if you have no foundation. If your garage is technically standing up but you know how poorly it is constructed, you cannot build a fancy mother-in-law suite over it. And each of us have our own set of needs, and those cannot be questioned or compared to another’s needs. Yes, we all have physical needs like food, water, and sleep. But there are essential mental/emotional needs too. Some people need alone time, some people need the opposite. Some people cannot feel awake or connected without a cup of coffee, a morning routine, or even a walk in the woods.  If you can take a few moments to think about the things you do that allow you to feel better, more connected, and stronger in the day, what happens if you make sure those exist in your everyday life?  You find that you have the resources to be the person you want to be in the world. You find yourself capable of being part of a caring relationship.

You must maintain your own boundaries. Many of us don’t know what boundaries are in this context. Or feel like they need to be given permission to have and hold them.

My favorite description of a boundary is: the distance in which I can love you, and still love myself.  A boundary is a rule that people must agree to follow to be in your life. For instance, you must be 4’ 11” to ride this roller coaster. This is a boundary. You must pay $10 to gain access to the fair. This is a boundary. What is your price of admission? How tall does someone need to be to ride this ride? Please delightfully take that as dirty as you need. The idea is actually quite simple though. 

What are realistically some boundaries you might set? To be in my life… 

  1. a person will not intentionally cause me physical, mental, or emotional pain.
  2. a person will not actively support someone who will cause me physical, mental or emotional pain.
  3. a person will listen when I identify that something they are doing is harming me.

And maybe you have some more specific boundaries (a higher bar) above and beyond the previous for people who are closer to you. A partner or inner circle. To be in my inner circle…

  1. a person must hold trust with me.
  2. a person must be willing to do the work to come back into integrity if something is broken.
  3. a person must consider my welfare in scenarios that affect me (within reason)

All of these seem very basic and simple to me. And while I do not want to over simplify a complex situation or blame a blameless victim, how many people would never tolerate a person on the street to hit them, but don’t speak up or hold the boundary for someone who is supposed to love them?

Take time to think about and define your boundaries. Be honest with yourself and the person with whom you are in relationship if a boundary of yours is being pushed or breached. Defend your boundaries: do not allow ANYONE to push you past where you are comfortable.  This seems like a battle cry when I read it to myself.  It is not. It is actually very basic self care.  I am saying that if you are writing a paper, and are using your last pen, don’t let someone take your pen from you. Also, one thing that comes up every time when discussing boundaries is that people are hesitant to contest with a friend over something that you could just let go.  This is always an option. But know that there are consequences to this route. If you let someone cross your boundaries, you are actually being unfair to them, and building a scenario to destroy your relationship.  If you try to defend it later they are curious why it is “all of the sudden” bothering you. If you never defend it, you build resentment until you snap and explode the relationship. If you cannot be honest about your boundaries with your friends, and have support, you and that person are not honoring the rules of relationship. If they are not harming you on purpose, a simple “Can you please not do this thing, it hurts me.” should never be a conflict.

You must consent to picking up and holding onto a connection. I look at relationships as being a third-party entity between 2 people. For instance, I consider my marriage as being an individual that is a third party to the relationship between my partner and I. I invest in her, I invest in our marriage, and she does the same. This helps me to remember that there are tasks and energy that has to be given to something for our relationship that is not a task I am picking up for her.  I am picking it up because I consent to, and want to continue this relationship.  Everyday we have a choice.  And I want her to choose me again when she wakes up in the morning. This is made easier if she doesn’t have to do all the work to maintain our marriage while also doing stuff for me.

What is consent? By definition, it is “permission for something to happen or agreement to do something.” I think that is clear enough.  But so many people do not understand consent.  Or perhaps, they understand consent, but not how frequently you are going along with something and not giving consent, or how frequently you need to verify that someone is offering consent.

Everyday, every hour, every minute: someone can take away consent. If someone lent you their car yesterday, that does not give you permission to take their car today. Consent is always temporary. 

So what does it mean to consent to pick up and hold onto a connection? It means that you are consenting to try.  You are consenting to re-evaluate at a later date to decide if you still consent to this relationship.  (Which, of course,  means reviewing this whole post again each time.) 

You must be willing to give to this connection without expectation of return. When I refer to “giving” please know that I am not only talking about items.  I am talking about gifts, money, time, energy, or care. You are always responsible for making sure you are only giving what you are able and willing to give. But when you give something that you can give, you do so without expectation that they will return something to you, or that they owe you something. How often do you hear someone make a comment about how someone feels like their friend or family member owes them for all they have done.  This is not reciprocity.  This is a transaction. And it is a transaction that is not communicated, nor is it consented to. This is the same as going to a coffee house and saying, you owe me a coffee because I tipped you extra last time. Basically, in this scenario, if you cannot give something freely, do not give it. If you can give it, and are willing to give it, but will be upset if they decide to promptly give it away, do not give it.  Once you give a gift, you are showing your care and offer by bringing it to them.  Once they own it, your opinion no longer matters. Your care was shown. They received the energy from your gift. If you cannot accept this, please deeply consider this in regards to the gifts you give.

You must be willing to grow. You must be willing to “do the work” to heal or grow this relationship or even yourself when your own trauma or triggers negatively impact the relationship. Once again, you are responsible for honoring your boundaries, and someone asking you to change, might always cross them. But when you see a relationship struggling that you want to succeed… Sometimes the answer to your introspection needs to be that your own issues, challenges, or trauma are not allowing you to receive what this person is offering. And you cannot expect someone to receive what you offer them, if you cannot do the same.

This is a big and deep piece. First of all, what is a shadow? In summary, it is a part of yourself that you judge poorly so don’t want to admit to. So often, a relationship struggles due to communication.  Problems in communication can come from you saying one thing, and it being interpreted as something else.  Sometimes this is just miscommunication.  Sometimes, this is because you are triggered by an innocent word your friend used. 

They are talking about an experience they had at their doctor’s visit, and you are triggered due to your negative experiences with doctors and you can only hear that she is gloating over you for her good experience. While this is a fictional example, it is actually an accurate representation of this problem. 

Looking at it from the outside you are like, why on earth is this a big deal? And I am sure you have felt this before.  From both sides.  This complex internal situation is often coming up because you have some real, deep, and probably harmful experience with whatever that trigger word was. Example above might have been “doctor”. Doing the work here might be looking into your memory and trying to find the situation that brings this to mind and has you experienced that emotion.  It might be a single experience, it might be a series of experiences. It is also, most-likely, an echo of something that happened prior to this issue. This can be time you spend thinking about your past.  This could be some real deep emotional processing.  Please do not hesitate to request help here. If you have a good shaman or counselor or therapist. It is important to have support because sometimes, you are not ready for what you find.  When you block out memories from the past, it is because you didn’t have the tools to process them safely.  When you re-open that door, you still need to process that stuff. If you do not yet have the tools, it can be incredibly traumatic.

And to be a friend worth keeping, you must be willing to participate on the reciprocating end.

You must be willing to offer your friends you wish to keep:
1. the space to care for themselves,
2. the opportunity to give and take back consent,
3. the space for them to hold their boundaries,
4. the ability to receive with grace,
5. Stand up and ask for the work you need of them.

Lost in Translation, Reader Questions

Reader Question #8: Can I be a shaman and a Christian?

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I once had a client that spoke openly to his wife about our sessions. She asked if he could still even be christian if he was working with a shaman. His answer still sticks with me today as something I have pride in. He said, “Working with my shaman has helped me to be a better christian.”

This is at once very simple, and complicated. The clear and simple answer is “Yes, Absolutely.”

Being a shaman is a job, it is not a faith. So, in this way, it is like asking if you can be a Grocery Store Clerk and a Christian. I am a shaman (I would like to remind people that I use the word Shaman because people know it, and it is so similar to the truth “Paq’o”.) and I consider my religion to be relationships, but was raised catholic.

The complicated longer part of the story, requires me to dive into touchy topics around the current state of the christian church. If you look at the large number of types of christianity you can follow, they are all different for some small reason. But the church itself (in a perfect world) follows the teachings of christ, and builds a culture around it that makes their church unique. The teachings of christ are to love, feed, teach, by kind to, and help people. He cared about people above of all other things, including his own safety. For me, this is what it is to be christian, and I think that any church that doesn’t have a culture that seems to confuse the core message would agree with me.

What I do in my job of being a shaman, I do my best, within my boundaries, to help everyone who asks me. I try to help those around me to work towards my personal mission of helping our greater community grow to be healthier and more connected.

There are also challenges around things that appear in the Bible that appear to go against some of the core aspects of my shamanism. For instance, I work with different spirits to help me process my thoughts and efforts. And from the readings I have done of the different bibles, I see many things that could be interpreted as working with spirits could be considered bad, or not christian. The reason I don’t see this as a conflict is that working with Jesus is working with a spirit to grow forward. And there is a book of the Bible that says you should put no gods above that of the Christian god. And I don’t put any god above any other. I think there is also something to be said here about the different books of the Bible being written by men who followed God. I would really says that much of these messages can shape what your church look like, but should never take away or change the message of Christ, which is: to love, feed, teach, by kind to, and help people.

So, to sum it up, if you want to be a shaman, or thrown under the bus to pick up the work, you get to choose how you move forward with it. And if you follow christ in your actions, you are still a christian.

And then I met God, again, Lost in Translation

Growing is really hard

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Most of the work I do comes down to me growing, or helping someone else to grow.  Both of which help the community to grow. And growth comes from change. And change is often scary.

Considering how growth is hard, and change is scary, why do I keep striving for it?  The ideas around “it changes the community” really don’t go that far when I am looking down the barrel of the metaphorical shotgun called change, so why do I keep striving?

This is probably the most important information I could pass on, and it is somewhat like trying to describe the most beautiful place you have ever been, with a person who has never experienced sight. It is so tangible to me, but you might not have the same basis for comparison.  So I would like to try to share the difference between where I was last year on a vacation, and where I am now on vacation, And that change really comes from change I have been willing to make, and the growth I have experienced from it.

I would like to point out that my vacation last year was really good.  While I will describe the challenges to you, it is important that you know that it was good. But there is so much that goes on in our heads, that affects our every interaction in our everyday, that we don’t share in a way that is helpful.

I can recall clearly, that even though we budgeted to prepare enough cash to purchase what we needed on the trip, every dollar we spent, made me nervous about overspending, and wrought with anxiety.  I was afraid of spending too much, despite my pre-planning.

I can recall clearly, that I was nervous about timeliness every morning when we were planning to do something.  My family any I tend to run late. This is something I am learning to accept, but I still experience a large amount of anxiety and stress around getting ourselves ready and out the door.  And I anticipate and fear the kids battling me to get out, and how hard and stressful it will be, despite there not really being stakes to our timeline.

I can recall clearly, that when the kids hate the food they get, and want something more.  And the dread and frustration I experience when they won’t just eat the damn food they ordered.

But here are the pieces that I didn’t see until just recently.  Actually, until my son was brave enough to call me out on it.

My anxiety in those areas, drastically affect the experience of my family in those situations.  It makes them not only anxious in the moment, but it also makes them fear my reactions in those moments, and makes them experience shame around not achieving the unnamed goal I am clearly upset by. (That is actually painful for me to type) And they then change their behavior to something that hides from my reactions in those moments, but reinforces their shame and feelings of failure…

So I am telling you, that I experience valid emotions around validly frustrating experiences, and it negatively affects the experiences of those around me. In fact, my family, who are the most important to me.

By stopping in the moment, and listening to the experience of my family, and being honest about what I am experiencing…  Acknowledging that we planned for the expenses, we don’t have to stress about it every time. Acknowledging that we do NOT have to be anywhere in this moment, and there are no consequences to being late to a venue like, the park. And realizing that when I go out to eat, it can be crushing to spend $12 on a plate of food and find it detestable, allows me to finally acknowledge that my kids feel that way too. They want so badly to try something new and enjoy it, and on top of not enjoying it, they feel shame around ‘wasting my money’.

This vacation, when I experience the stress about money, I spoke up about it to my wife.  We talked about our plans, and came up with ideas for me to honor that concern/fear, while also not adding that stress to the family. When we are coming up close to a time where we need to be somewhere, I speak about plan or concern, and the family steps up to assure that we won’t be behind, but also about when I don’t there is no requirement around the time set. When the kids eat something that they don’t like, and just get quiet about it, I look at them and say, “it is ok.  We will pick them up something from a fast food restaurant on the way back to the hotel, because they were brave enough to try something new, and it didn’t work out.” I actually saw this in my daughter today, and I saw that my negative reactions in the past only made things worse, and today I could start showing her that I understand.

I was completely unaware how those anxieties and fears were affecting me in my everyday. It took my son, and my daughter to trust me enough, to tell me I needed to do better, that allowed me to earn that trust that they offered.  It is a cycle that can go either way. If you act as your worst self, you perpetuate the world around you making you your worst self.

And what I am experiencing now, is that I can perpetuate being my best self, by acting my best self. If it is simply calming my response in a noisy car, if it is slowing down and explaining something again, if it is ordering a second meal, or even if it is taking 5 minutes in a stressful time to massage my wife’s back…  The extra work has only proven that we can have an enjoyable vacation together. There was laughter in the back seat, on a long and painful drive. My daughter got to feel her feelings about the food she didn’t like, and still got to eat something. We spent time at the pool together. I feel like we can be really successful in our trip, and after and cumulative 12 hours in the car with my family, I am looking forward to the next 5 days of vacation, not feeling overwhelmed and frustrated.

I think the hardest thing about change, is really that to change, you have to accept responsibility for your actions.  But the the value in the work, is priceless.

And then I met God, again, Lost in Translation

Tower of Babel

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For those of you who have not heard this story, I will give you the briefest possible explanation.

Towards the beginning of mankind, mankind got overly proud of their own prowess and decided to build a tower to the heavens to meet God. After they reached a point that was higher than God was comfortable with, he stopped them, destroyed the building, and created hundreds of different languages for the people to speak, so they wouldn’t be able communicate with one another to rebuild it.

I have often heard this story and frequently could only hear the scientific improbabilities. And this exact thing points to the issues I created, in trying to not hear what people said about God. Looking back, I see that my goal in doing so was to NOT hear them. It was not to point out science. It actually gives a poor name to both science and faith.

If I were to alter my goal in that argument to line up with my interests, hear them, and speak truths I see in their faith, so that we can all work together, the story looks a bit different.

Let us start with the idea that this whole interaction is true. I find that no matter what faith you are in, while you don’t have to believe in the other person’s faith, it is important to know that their faith is true for them. With that, I see the story above as being very different.

It seems to me that in order for us to make sense of things, we personify everything. So, while we might have been made in God’s image, I doubt Ze* has our pettiness, frivolousness, or ignorance. What if Ze destroyed the tower and created the different languages, not to STOP people from meeting Hir* face to face, but so that we CAN meet Hir face to face.

The reality, is that God is all around us. No matter how you label Hir. God is in the air, the plants, the trees, and all the beings. What if this tower was prevented because people were under the misconception that you needed to build some remarkable tower to meet Hir. And by destroying that tower, and preventing the communication to recreate it, maybe God was reigning us back in from a humongous Red Herring? What if Ze was both, redirecting us to a helpful place, but also making ‘God’ accessible to everyone, including those who could NOT build a tower.

Food for thought.

*Ze and Hir are gender neutral ways to identify She/He and Him/Her

Lost in Translation, Reader Questions

How do you feel so comfortable calling yourself a ‘Shaman’?

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This is a question that was asked of me by someone from within my Ayllu. This has posed an interesting question for me. Why do I feel so comfortable using the term shaman, when describing myself?

Actually, the fact is, I am not comfortable using the term shaman for myself. When I label myself as a shaman, I am doing so as much to convince myself as anyone else. But the question, “Am I a shaman?” This is something I ask myself frequently. And it keeps coming to the same. Yes, I am a shaman.  Most of the time, I feel no need, at all, to explain myself to anyone.  But in this instance, I will do so, but I think that we need to talk a bit about the dynamics of an Allyu.  It is kind of like a wolf pack.  Within this pack, you honor each other, and recognize that there is no malicious intent. This question was honestly asked, and she wanted to know. After all, I have not even completed the shamanic training for the four directions…

The long and the short of it: before I met my mentor, over 2 years ago, I had been told that I am a shaman.

The ways that I know to gauge a shaman are as follows:

Someone labels you a shaman
You actively assist your community
You actively assist individuals within your community
You interact with the local deities
You have training by spirit or by a mentor

Well, here is the crux of it.  All of the above are true.  As mentioned before, even before I found my mentor, I was named a Shaman. For almost 2 years, I have been doing work to assist my local congregation grow forward under very difficult circumstances, and almost all of this work was done while maintaining good relationships with individuals within the congregation.  Individual healings, individual work, group work, group healings, and much work on behalf of the building and land around the building to ensure prosperity. I have done a fair amount work and learning from the local spirits/deities, and I have been working with my mentor and spirit, very seriously to learn all that I can about this path, my skill set, and the tools I have available to me.

But after all of that explanation, I don’t actually care if anyone agrees with me, or feels that it is a title I should have. I actually do not want the job of a Shaman.  But I have been chosen for this path, so I will make the best of it. There is a lot of work to do within this community, as well as the greater community that I can access from my computer. And while I see this work, and feel like I can do something about it, I will.  I would also note that the questions I have been asked, and asked of myself in regards to labels, and egos, all come to the same thing.  The term Shaman is not a badge that you earn, and wear for the rest of your life.  Shamanism is a job, and you are only a shaman, while you continue to do that job. No matter whether or not I am labeled a shaman properly in everyone’s eyes or no, I will continue working with spirit, and with my mentor, and I will continue to grow as far as I can within this lifetime.

This brings up a bigger question though. Why do I feel so confident in self-labeling, when there are two females within my Ayllu, with the same level of training, and different (yet equally as strong) gifts, do not? The member of my Allyu who asked, I could see in her eyes that she didn’t understand how I could call myself a shaman, with the circumstances from her own eyes.  Identifying the privilege I hold for being male. When you are a woman, that is to be heard, you rightfully feel as if your words would be questioned without all the documentation proving you are 100% valid.  (And often despite the documentation)  I, as a male, can walk with my head high, and go with the phrase of “fake it ‘til you make it.”  My confidence is all the documentation I need to illustrate my skills.  I bring this up because I feel that this talks to an extreme problem in our society.  We are still segregating in both bold and subtle ways.  It hurts my soul to watch such a gifted and intelligent woman, afraid to help the world with her gifts, due to a deep seeded acknowledgement that she will be challenged and possibly abused for offering to help.  That a strong woman is so threatening, that she cannot help the people around her without fear of reprisal.

Earlier, I mentioned that I don’t often explain myself, and I realized something.  Taking the time, to listen to the question that was truly asked, I realized that refusing to explain myself, would talk only to the disparity in the privilege I have here.  By opening my mouth and my mind, I can talk through the reasons that she too should be feeling confident in herself. And why she too, should be calling herself a shaman.

Am I a shaman?  It doesn’t actually matter, but I am going to keep doing the work.

Lost in Translation

Love

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One of the more difficult things I have come across in my journey to become a shaman is something I call, “Translation.”  Translation is the challenge that comes up when two people come from different languages, and they are trying to communicate complicated scenarios with limited words in a shared language.  This also happens within a single language, like English, We have only a single word to describe one of the most complicated experiences in our existence.  “Love”

I thought I would try to express some of he different ways love could be described through the process of translation.

When I was speaking with my Spirit Partner, Natalia, she was trying to describe me to myself.  And she knows a word so very specific about me, she states that it is one of my true names.  But, when she tried to tell me, I couldn’t hear it.  It was too foreign and specific., my brain couldn’t understand it. So, she tried to create a word using English that would cover the same idea.  When she said it, I thought, “What did you just say? Did you claim that was English?”  Then I stopped, and thought about the complex jumble of sounds she had just made.  I thought about it, slowed it down, and realized that she said multiple words in English stacked on top of one another.  She simultaneously said:

Friend + Lover + Companion + Jerk + Smart Ass + Intelligent + Thoughtful + Capable + Caring + Connection + Magic + Teacher + Student

And I realized as I went through each word, and build a single idea from the complicated set of words, Natalia’s effort proved to be a remarkably accurate, and personal, description of me from her perspective.

I would like to use this method of translation to describe some specific ideas on how  we can feel such complicated feelings of Love, that we do not have the language for.

Love for my wife: The woman I met 18 years ago, married 10 years ago, and everyday, I chose her anew.

Trust + Friend + Stability + Intellect + Artist + Scientist + Laughter + Serious + Locator of Patterns + Research + Reader + Lover + Witty + Smile + Tears + Hardship + Challenge + Perpetual Growth + Caring + Selfless + Companionship + Choice + Teacher + Student + Stress + Passion  + Pride + Longing + Sadness + Hope + Creativity

Love for my children: The most amazing little people I have ever met, one is now 7 and other is now 4.

Pride + Growth + Strength + Creativity + Intellect + Surprise + Amazement + Responsibility + Fear + Hardship + Terror + Awe + Student + Fresh Perspective + Teacher + Self Doubt  + Excitement + Challenge + Boundaries + Health + Hope + Sadness + Giggling + Inspiration

And a Characteristic of both of the kinds of love listed above are cyclical forces.  They self perpetuate, and grow.

Love for my home:

Grand + Beautiful + Strong  + Trust + Teacher + Comfort + Struggle + Frustration + Complexity + Money + Hard Work + Rewarding + Male Gendered despite the fact everyone calls him a Queen + Safety

Love for my friends:

Companionship + Sharing + Laughing + Tear soup + Coffee Date + Running Partner + Helping Hand + Connection + Indebted + Training + Child Assist + Celebration + Frustration + Confusion + Miscommunication + Judgment + injustice

Start with the first word, and understand what it means, then think of each of the following words as a new flavor to help describe your understanding of the first word.  Let it form and shape your understanding.

The biggest downfall to this method, is that it is a Great way to describe these things from my perspective.  It is hardly a name, or a word you build, as it wouldn’t be true for someone else in a similar relationship.  Each word is unique.  As each person, and each relationship are.

I wish you all… Love.  In all forms.  Love as you can, and be loved as you can…

Happy Valentine’s Day!

And then I met God, again, Lost in Translation

Balance

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I have recently been so over… ummm, burdened? no.  Over… filled? no.  I have been so inundated  with new energy ever since we did the South work, in the progression of becoming a Shaman of the Peruvian lineage.  Now, it is not that that ceremony gave me more energy, it allowed me to see it more clearly. I can see more clearly, and definitely feel energy in new ways.

For quite some time, I have been considering the idea of how to proceed with this new energy. And while, there are ideas about how to harness it to help in “making the crops grow”, as it were, the biggest challenge I have had is controlling it.

In my everyday, I work hard to control my actions and my words to get exactly and only the results I anticipate.  (This is a rough practice where everyday I hope to fail a little bit less than the day before ~ But I am slowly getting comfortable in my skin)

For instance, if you are using a sword, if you focus on moving the back end of the handle only a quarter of an inch, you have to anticipate that with a 45″ blade, you will be moving the tip of that sword closer to 6″ in the opposite direction.  A small action can have a large consequence if you don’t plan ahead.  Now, what if you are handed a larger sword, a length you have never used, and you have to practice this 1/4 inch movement in a crowd of people.

This is the dilemma I am talking about.  I knew how to control my old energy.  Now that I perceive so much more energy, how do I limit my actions from changing things I don’t intend?  If I have my new sword that is somewhere between 80″ and 105″, how am I supposed to keep people safe from the tip, when I have to practice my movement, but cannot predict the range of the tip?

I took some time to think about this, and I realized that I needed to speak to someone about it.  How do I deal with this new energy, in a way that allows me to learn, while not harming people.

So much work has gone into cultivating the relationships with Rabbi Jesus, where I envy and would like to show the types of compassion he can, as well as Hecate.  She is somewhat cold and to the point.  Her energy is concise, and definitive, and she will lash out from time to time. There is so much in her energy that I feel makes me a better person.

How can I take these two energies, harness them to become who I most need to be, while being aware of this new perception of the immense energy I now keep with me. To be honest, this idea is really unsettling for me.  So I asked for help.

I met with our Rabbi, and she is truly as spiritual as anyone I have met.  Without a word from me, she informed me that she sees that I am concerned with how to wield my newly received energy. (Damn, she is good)  And we were able to speak about it. She informed me that in the Jewish faith, and forgive me for butchering this as I paraphrase, you will carry a good energy on your right, and a harder energy on your left.  The work is to realize that harder is not bad, or evil, just harder.  And if you could remove all of the hardship from your life, you would do nothing. Challenge is the proponent to growth.  And she compared Rabbi Jesus and Hecate as my good and challenging.  With that comparison, I need to respect both, utilize both, but find the balance for the life I wish to present.   ~What wisdom…

So, I am set forth with the challenge of finding where my compassion leads and where my boundaries need to become more apparent.  Still rough.  Last night, I spoke with my wife (another remarkably wise soul) and she pointed out the flaw in my thinking.  (And I think the Rabbi was saying it, and I wasn’t hearing it) it is not about, working with 1, until it is time to switch with another, it is about always holding compassion, even when you must hold a strong boundary.  It is about always living both.

Both of these energies were elated.  She had explained it to me in words I could here.  I need to hold my compassion, and my boundaries simultaneously, neither giving in, nor pushing away. I am a silo that interacts when I need to, and where I need to. The boundaries allow me to hold my own strength. Allow me to show infinite compassion while never being taken advantage of.  Balancing this dichotomy is the road to true strength over this energetic dilemma.

Lost in Translation

Nothing is Epic…

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Well, not in the way you expect. We live in a world where we have all read Harry Potter, watched the Lord of the Rings, heard an musician play their instruments in a way that simply makes our hearts weep.

We live in a world where the next film coming to the big screen wasn’t worth the money unless it somehow out-epics the last. We have moved our values so strongly to the giant, that the small are so undervalued as to be unnoticed.

Are you, by chance, aware that this allows us to be victims to that success? If we undervalue the subtle, we cover up the infinite world of subtlety that we have access to. And this is the network from within which we really hold power.

I have been in the martial arts since I was 7. And the best part of every action film is when the hero defies the odds and defeats an army alone to save his/her people. We all wish we could be that. But in reality, that epic moment, doesn’t exist. In fact, believing it exists, makes you not understand the subtle and accessible things you can do to prevent such an occurence.

You could train to wait for your big moment, or, you could spend time every day considering the possibilities, and putting small plans into motion here or there, to ensure such an epic fight never has to happen. It is subtle, and is with less ego, but the outcome can be even better. Instead of beating an army in an epic battle, you have shaped the world around you so there is little to no possibility of this epic battle never needing to happen. Although no one will ever see the effort you have put into it, the work of planning ahead and preventing the need for such a battle, IS EPIC.

A while ago, I posted about how the most complex magic is often the simplest. This is exactly what I mean.

Let’s say you are in charge of a building, instead of training for that epic battle, build a relationship with the local police force. Create security policies that ensure the best safety you can afford, teach your people how to handle a situation, and teach them to trust each other so they might work together. Still train for that epic battle, but hope it is a fall back. All of the effort and planning that goes into the logistical side of safety, also weaves a security blanket of will, intention, and you guessed it, magic.

Define what you want, and think of the subtle ways to achieve it, don’t spend your life waiting for something Epic.