Reading Bly's Iron John and How it applies to my own life.

Reading Robert Bly - Iron John - a strong medicine for me. I already did go through a men's initiation - with The Mankind Project - and am quite grateful for the mentorship and direction, ability to access wounds, attain better emotional literacy, get support from other men, and practice "inner work" techniques like psychodrama and the type of supportive group healing work they practice.

But the Bly writing brings up more.

Like my "wound" -- Immediately, I recognize that the immature or infantile attitude that the boy - myself - got wounded for had to do with him working "whenever he wanted to" or whenever he felt like it. And that deep unhealthy resonance still carries itself into my day - th idea that *I* can decide when and how and exactly how I am going to do the work that I have agreed to do in the world -- as though there's not just shit sometimes that has to get done and I'm the one agreed or in the role to do it!! -- I see it with the landscaping and

another place I "dip my wound into the water" has to do with abandonment - needing constant reassurance from other women, from girls, coddling, reassurance, touch, that I am accepted and not abandoned.

Just some places that I tend to "dip my wound in the water" from time to time.

'Cause I know exactly where and when my Father "hit me with the axe" as Bly says and it is exactly that wound around Work...

Judgement and criticism, yes, that also - another "broken leg" of my childhood -

but it's that *Work* piece - that "stepping up to responsibility - that I really feel I could let go of.

Day's Assessment - New Performance, Tobacco Prayer

I started working on the next performance today. I signed up for a class on archetypal mythological work and cleaned the shit out of my room a couple days ago. I am tired at the moment and exhausted -- and yet have more to do! Clan the living room... vaccuum.

Had a great, grounded realism night with my sweetie last evening too - feel like I'm shedding ego in so many ways: humbled by relationship, humbled by the illness that passed through me - and may still linger so much - in my being. Got clear on my financial needs, wants, and goals - and how I could accomplish that with my work in life.

So much has suddenly fallen into place.

I need to clear with Alina around our performance possibility for this coming summertime show. What I want to do -- what wants to happen as I am channelling my spirit of performance writing and show to the world. To give my gifts in the best way I can.

Just had a tobacco prayer - two of those today - the first reminding me to call my Mom - which was so beneficial in so many ways with the life track I'm on - and the latest reminding me to sit and story, which is why I am sitting here now.

May the path be blessed and may all things thrive in an unfolding that is wilder and more stunning and full than anything I can possibly imagine.

-Michael

"The Story of Us" – Partnership Storying.

There are so many ways to weave story. One is writing - writing the story "Call Me Not Lost but Home". Another is weaving the "bee theatre" piece of faerie troupe and showing that at events throughout the year. Another Story is the one I create about my own life - story I share with my Life Partner for that is a piece of the puzzle that I like to include in the Story.

The Story of Us.

We share living space together but are not Alone. Others live in our Community - sunshine housemates, musicians, perhaps even some temporary folks who are there for six months or so -- doing their own thing, yes, but also regularly checking in around the garden and their duties and relationships to the community.

We share some duties around - raising children, touching base around the children in the community that you help with. And I help with— growing, spending time together with as a steward and leader of adventures! And as a teacher. Same thing, right?

You and I have our own projects, and life pathways we are unfolding, but we also have some shared joys - exploration, travel, singing, dance, lovemaking, listening, friendship. We are making music together - an album, slowly over time. You are a friend to my friends and family and they to you. We love each other and support our lifeways.

Your beauty and charm suprise me sometimes. Unexpectedly, the ways that you hold yourself, look, act -- show up in your honesty and fierceness and insecurity and sorrow and laughter bring me joy and desire. I learn to accept these and flow with them as the show up.

We check in sometimes as friends. No romantic expectations - just a real, true sharing of our hearts and such. Letting go of story and *hearing* the other person.

We show each other love and support. We are a primary go-to in times of need. We support each other in our life missions - even if it is different from the other's perspectives - and honor growth and personal feelings of fulfillment. The other person needs to feel fulfilled and purposeful - confident and accepted - by the outside world, and *their* world, in addition to and separate from each other.

We each have other friendships that we tend -- and remember to tend. We will encourage each other to do things separate from ourselves from time to time - and monitor that we are getting this done. (This is a habit I want to form *within relationship* -- since I want to do this more than in past partnerships.)

We have a sense of humor and lightness and realism.

We share movies from time to time— or shows — beautiful events and stories and entertainments.

We have fun in our lovemaking.

We are gentle and deep and tender and accepting and loving with our sensuality and dreams.

We tend one anothers' families and make allowances for both. We may even move back and forth - spend time at one place for a while, and then another.

We have our own, special retreat center we hold together – a cabin, small house perhaps or our "lovemaking shack" -- where we both retreat together to raise children, be in touch, and get away from the rest of the hubub from time to time. Otherwise we have a special lovemaking blanket we take with us into the wilderness or woods that we lay on and share and make love and talk-story with each other. This is a special place where we share with each other and ...

We each have a "place of our own" -- where we inhabit our own wildness as individuals and are free to become our spirit animals and dance the dance of solo communion.

We also have a space of close community - a kitchen or hosting-sharing space that holds up to 12 - and sometimes half that number or less - where we share meals with community members, family, visiting kin and friends from other places. This is our place for chosen honoring and merriment.

We are allowed to fawn over the other person and groom and tend them from time to time. We are in love.

Who I Am in My Garden – A Vision of my Future

The Garden I tend is a public garden. It is also a garden on land that I feel ownership with. It is an intro garden for a center where people come to explore and be introduced to a new way of living and being – a center of love and light and life and healing and possibility. I am not the supervisor for the whole – but I do tend the Garden and sculpt it  and have a part in the medicinal herbs section as well as in the pollinator plantings in the background – a more “behind the scenes’ personhood that is deeply supportive to the Bees presence and system in the Center.

Off to the side is my own section – organization, office, and headquarters to the goings-on of the section fo the Center that I am part of.

I facilitate and produce performances and productions that come through this Center. I call out the goings-on of the performance center and conect its relevance to and with the relevance of the World – I am the two-way mirror between what is unfolding at the Center – that I am guiding – and the goings-on of the world.

I wonder out into the world to listen, to observe, to sense the state of the World in silence, observe, taste, Know. to Know where the World is and who she tastes and smells like. Then I can silently Guide the archetypal satings of the Chosen Ones. I am a Filter between a Wolrd Mind and the People I Tend. I can be the game-place-keeper, the one who Places the People in the Narrative.

I make a living at this. I write about the Placement of People in the Narrative of the World.

We First Need a Myth-Thread – and that is Created from the Sacred Marriage of Vision and of Service. Service through Listening, Knowing, silently ... Vision through Madness, Dream, Intensity, Manic Inward Creativity... Where the Two Meet is the Crux, the Golden Key.

Director of the Center for Archetypal Presence, Archetypal Production

***

What is the Myth-Thread for the Earthaven Experience?

Letter to S—, Clarifying What I'm Good at and Where I Want to Be Going

S—,

I’ve been giving it some thought, and determined that what I’m truly good at is networking, communications, listening, aesthetic digital design, research, understanding systems, personal and interpersonal guidance and imparting knowledge, copy (or writing), language, lyricism and verse, melody and song, spiritual presence, enthusiasm and connection, group leadership, initiative and startup energy, management, blogging-observation-and-reflection, brainstorming, activism and political causes,  clerical organization, group presentations, public speaking, contemplation and reflection, storytelling, imparting a sense of wonder and reflection, movement, dance, athleticism, theatrical interpretation, improvisation, negotiation, diplomacy, presence, empathy, intuition, and rapport.

I am a great lover of nature, mythology, and the psyche, and of cultural and ecological literacy towards liberation and clarity, resilient futures, and the alleviation of suffering.

When I do physical work – which I like to do – I am best in modest increments and need to be well-fed. Two three-hour blocks of time are the comfortable limits of my body and being, three days a week being by preferred limit at that amount of labor.  Of course that needs support from organization, uniform (clothing for hard dirty work), hygene, nutritious meals preparation and grocery shopping, administration and invoicing, design (minimal but still needed), planning, client interface and communications, purchasing of materials and maintenance of tools, truck, and of self-care such as yoga, massage and medicine.

When properly fueled and rolling, I can accomplish a lot of physical work in a small amount of time, but I tend to become exhausted if I work fast, but bored if I work slowly.

My challenges are memorization (I have to make lists and organize them), steady, ongoing, heavy physical labor (I get bored, exhausted, and my body is not particularly stocky, plus my joints hurt), logistics (e.g. best-guessing multiple possible spatial-temporal events ahead of time). I also have several personal projects that I want to devote time to, and believe in, but that do not earn much money as of yet and that is always a challenge in terms of what to give my time and energy to.

If I had my d’ruthers I would be doing performance production, along with land-and-soil-based permaculture manifestation on personal property, along with a supplemental income doing counseling, workshops, or teaching. On top of that I am manic to somehow continue to produce songs and work with musical production, as well as be politically active towards positive bioregional futures. When I don’t feel like I have the resources to do all that, I get short of breath, and that possibility leaves me feeling despondent and exhausted. But I will somehow roll them all in, and if I succeed I believe I will have a sense of living my purpose on Earth that will be so deeply satisfying that I will die a happy man. May it come to pass and let it be true.   

Hustle

I'm starting to hustle. I know that so many times my life purpose is been to "teach ecology" – and I really hesitate to jump on board to "public teaching" bandwagon. But the world of performance art, and venues, and some sort of moneymaking through maybe appearing as guest artists at schools… It's all so muddled and feels like a really challenging source of income or livelihood for me at the moment. Landscaping is very possible and I generally enjoy the work… But there's some sort of piece of pure creative self-expression that I don't really have satisfied with that – and I don't enjoy the design work pretty hard for me I really have to push. Maybe if I just got that done one day and then have the rest of the time to play putting plants and that would be really sweet.

I'm so passionate about story, and I came up with this "aesthetic interpersonal creative leadership and embodiment" sort of task mission for myself recently. Other task missions include "teach ecology", "make the ecologies sacred", "initiate people into the idea of the ecologically sacred", and "ecology, psychology, story, and art".

At the moment, I really need to make money, and I'm looking hard in the face of another season with the Faerie Troupe.  My tendency is to really want everything – and I mean everything – to fall together in some sort of cohesive, short and long term, highest directional way – it incorporates all my future goals, all my interests and passions, and all my skills and somehow magically formulate perfect direction. I really wish for that. 

And then, there's always other things in my Mind. Website design, computer fix-it ups, again, more random landscaping, it's like little floaty bit disorganized. It's really really important for me to organize – both with near-term future low hanging fruit and with any sort of long-term picture. I know it's all creation, but in my imagination it could all work together. Taxes, this 26 hour per week job that's open, fixing up my truck. Those are pretty important right now. I'm really really appreciative of Tad Hargraves blog – "marketing for hippies" – it's really helping me focus. And I also see that I go between like, a day of flow and real feeling of achievement, and then a day of muddled mess where I just want to get high and crave caffeine in ganja all these things… I'm not sure if that's just the way it is but I look for a deeper inner peace around these changes – and the awareness to see patterns if there are any. And the support of people to see what I cannot. I really want that. And of course my ongoing fascination with intuition – my magical relationships with gaia, the plant beings and trees, dreams, oracles, these intuitions I put a lot of stock in partly because they just tickle my fancy. That's really good reason to go into a counseling or into this profession.… And of course I could just incorporate that into anything. So many possibilities – I'm really grateful for life and all of these Beautiful things. I'm so excited about this and I feel lifted my heart – perhaps partly because of the butter black tea with salt and milk that I'm drinking at the moment, but it's a true feeling. :)

Reflections from a Walk - Feb 2015

I thought of E— a lot. Life partnership- it’s fair to say the she is serving as a reflection tool for my life desires and as somewhat of the ideal woman.

It’s also fair to say that I feel a great potential with her to create something unique, powerful, and fulfilling in terms of our artistic expressions, learning pathways, life pathways, and friendship, all of which we seem to be traversing in parallel in many ways.

It’s also true to say that our attempts to merge our lifeways into a partner relationship with a sexual and romantic component have proven turbulent and awkward.

Also on the walk I thought about workshops – grateful for the opportunity to be doing “workshops” with Alina at the primitive skills gatheringupcoming, on performance.

I thought of creating performance rituals...  And started imagining some new “ritual theatre” pieces – where everyone was encouraged to place their hopes and dreams in a container – “Write down your highest wish and your most difficult fear” – and create a container for *during* the performance, release of those traumas and tribulations. A centerpiece calling those audience events into the fray and the fixture. Almost like ministerial work...

I thought of doing my taxes soon. START THE PROCESS

I thought of completing the task I started this morning – assessing natural talents.  

And get my “natural gifts” in line with “income earning potential” in line with my “highest values” and “aspirations” for global cultural directions seems very fitting...

I thought quite a lot about my “natural propensity” and perhaps talents around digital creative craft. Including: sound and audio, connections, cables, and the like. Multitracking audio and sound recording. Including: digital image manipulation with Layers; Including: Web Site Creation using layers and graphic design; Including: Movie editing. All of these “digital creative engineering” pieces –

And of course “Production” – especially the idea of figuring out how to farm around my musical projects and market and show them to the tune of much money. TALK TO JASON ON THIS.

I thought of offering a workshop at Leaf.

I realized that any sort of “group psychology” would benefit from doing it in a large-group setting.  REFLECT ON “what I would have to offer as a workshop”  AFTER: ASSESSING NATURAL TALENTS triad

Even “schooling” – like Joy’s “Swan International” – the more signups the more income on a particular hour of work.

I could do this for Halloween ritual creation... Group creative ritual with storytelling elements... Robert Bly style becomes poetry art... FINISH LIFE TALENTS then CALL WHITE SQUIRREL GUY (tomorrow...)

Also thought of sitting down to work on E—'s website for her musical fruition. 1 HOUR

There is of course also the “work piece” to do on applying for that NCState job that seems so appealing. SATURDAY

And there was the thought of switching up my “income” career here to see – what fits my “natural propensities” more... and so I go back to the need to work with 1. ASSESSING MY NATURAL TALENTS / 2. INCOME EARNING POTENTIALS (e.g. fulfilling life desires) / 3. HIGHEST CALLINGS IN THE WORLD. 

Reflections from a Walk - Feb 2015

I thought of E— a lot. Life partnership- it’s fair to say the she is serving as a reflection tool for my life desires and as somewhat of the ideal woman.

It’s also fair to say that I feel a great potential with her to create something unique, powerful, and fulfilling in terms of our shared artistic expressions, learning pathways, life pathways, and friendship, all of which we seem to be traversing in parallel in many ways.

It’s also true to say that our attempts to merge our lifeways into a partner relationship with a sexual and romantic component have proven turbulent and awkward.

Also on the walk I thought about workshops – grateful for the opportunity to be doing “workshops” with Alina at the primitive skills gathering upcoming, on performance.

I thought of creating performance rituals.

I thought of doing my taxes soon.

I thought of completing the task I started this morning – assessing natural talents.

I thought quite a lot about my “natural propensity” and perhaps talents around digital creative craft. Including: sound and audio, connections, cables, and the like. Multitracking audio and sound recording. Including: digital image manipulation with Layers; Including: Web Site Creation using layers and graphic design; Including: Movie editing. All of these “digital creative engineering” pieces –

And of course “Production” – especially the idea of figuring out how to farm around my musical projects and market and show them to the tune of much money. TALK TO JASON ON THIS. (NOTE:Done!)

I thought of offering a workshop at LEAF.

I realized that any sort of “group psychology” would benefit from doing it in a large-group setting.

Even “schooling” – like Joy’s “Swan International” – the more signups the more income on a particular hour of work.

And to get my “natural gifts” in line with “income earning potential” in line with my “highest values” and “aspirations” for global cultural directions seems very fitting.

And I started imagining some new “ritual theatre” pieces – where everyone was encouraged to place their hopes and dreams in a container – “Write down your highest wish and your most difficult fear” – and create a container for *during* the performance, release of those traumas and tribulations. A centerpiece calling those audience events into the fray and the fixture. Almost like ministerial work...

I could do this for Halloween...

Also thought of sitting down to work on E—'s website for her musical fruition.