River Walking: Flow is My Answer to Our Problems
posted by DragonSnap | June 23, 2010
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IcerocketIn these troubling times, sometimes its hard to know how to function in the world and stay open and present. With the oil and methane continuing to gush into the Gulf, where it is mixed with toxic dispersants, and cover-up efforts being as extensive as clean-up efforts, it’s becoming clear how much power corporations really have in our country. This is as if Citizens United hadn’t already make this power distribution plenty clear already.
It’s easy to want to shut off and tune out. I have heard from many friends that they are in so much pain from the Gulf situation that they have turned off entirely. I can understand this perspective, even as I think it’s detrimental. People in the Gulf are surrounded by a lot of silence, some silence from those who are indifferent and some silence from people are in pain. When we show solidarity with the Gulf, we show people there that we care and that we understand we are all connected. What happens to a whale in the Gulf, or a fisherman, effects me. We are all connected, and if we can come into this awareness, we have a chance to work together to make this world the world we want.
On June 21st, Obama made a speech about the proposed climate bill. One thing from the speech really caught my attention: “Real change is only possible when ordinary Americans are willing to organize from the bottom up.” This is true. Although it sometimes seems like our government is owned by corporate interests, we can influence the government by speaking out. Obama has said this before, as have past presidents. If we want our government to represent our interests, we need to be very vocal about what we want. It’s a start anyway.
So, how do we stay open and aware to the difficult situations in the Gulf (and other places) without becoming so cynical we close down and give up? That’s where I think spirituality comes in. Not spirituality as in religion, or dogma, that tells us what to believe, but spirituality in the sense of connecting with Spirit, the life force, our own internal divinity or wisdom. When we come into a sense of greater connection with everything, painful events can’t overpower us. When we can live with the flow of life, we can live with peace in our hearts at the same time that we are able to respond to the pain of others and speak out about abuses of power.
Here’s a metaphor I’d like to share with you about how to live open in this way:
When I was in college, I loved to go spend time at the Kinnikinnick River. I did a lot of hiking, but sometimes I also did what I called River Walking. Here’s a sample of that experience (written in present tense for immediacy):
Breathing in the fresh woodsy wet air, I push through foliage for a nice flat place to put my shoes. My breathing slows down and I feel peaceful as I listen to the river rushing, talking to me, soothing me. I set my shoes next to a distinctive tree (so that I remember where I left them), and I ease my feet into the icy cold water. The sun beats down on my head and my breath quickens as my feet get accustomed to the cold. I shift my weight onto my bare feet, listening to my feet. With my tender soles, I feel where the rocks are shifting or holding steady, I feel the rush of water and the cold creeps up my legs.
Carefully, listening to information from the skin of my feet, I creep towards the center of the river. My mind quiets as I discern whether rocks are steady enough to bear weight or not. Occasionally, a rock slips, and because I feel it as it happens, my weight shifts to the other foot and I continue to search for steady rocks. As I get closer to the center of the river, the water rises higher and higher until it is well above my knees. The water pushes against my legs, threatening to throw me off-balance, and I counter by slowing my breath even further and listen more deeply with my feet.
I exist in a state of balance as the water rushes against and past me. The top of my body is hot from the sun as my legs are getting numb from the cold. I can hear nothing but water rushing over rocks, and my thoughts dissipate to near silence. A cool, steady calm washes over my brain, washes over the anxiety I brought with me. Soon, I am aware of only the cold wet, the sound of water rushing, my tender feet on the rough rocks, the fresh air cleaning through my steady lungs, and the conscious choice to shift weight, test a rock, steady, shift weight, test a rock, steady… My life is this… this motion through the water, this union with the river, this motion, steady, testing, motion, steady…
After a little while, insights start pouring into my mind… answers to my life’s problems, clues to my internal puzzles, ideas about new directions to go. I can’t help but get excited as these new insights start pouring in, but when I try to hold onto anything, I lose my balance a bit. A rock doesn’t hold as steadily as I thought it would, and I scramble a bit on the slippery rocks to regain my balance.
The struggle floods me with adrenaline and clears my mind for a moment as I focus my energies on not being carried away by the rushing waters. Soon, I am centered and balanced again. I decide to let the insights come… and go. As insights flow into my brain, I let them arrive, and then let them go just as the flow of water flows past me.
Whenever I try to hold onto an idea, the experience repeats itself. It’s just as if I am trying to catch the water flowing past me instead of letting it flow by… the resistance created by holding on creates drag and I lose my balance. Eventually, I stay in a state of complete openness, letting information flow into me and back out again. I stay in a state of peace and balance as I walk my way upstream. I make an agreement with my subconscious that these ideas will come back to me later at a time I can use them. My conscious and subconscious mind work like this, together, with ease.
Eventually, I turn around and head back downstream to where my shoes are. By the time I climb onshore, I feel cleansed through and through, as my spirit and mind feel clear and light. In walking with the river, I became one with the river and the insights that flowed through my mind enriched me even when I didn’t hold onto anything.
This is a way to move through life, not just rushing water. I chose to try to stay open, let life flow through me without resistance. In this way, I can stay open to the problems, solutions, joy and pain of life without getting carried away. Flow is my answer.
Comments
"...“Real change is only
— Jun 29, 2010
"...“Real change is only possible when ordinary Americans are willing to organize from the bottom up.” This is true. Although it sometimes seems like our government is owned by corporate interests, we can influence the government by speaking out. Obama has said this before, as have past presidents. If we want our government to represent our interests, we need to be very vocal about what we want. It’s a start anyway."
Can we influence the government by speaking out? Does being vocal equate into organizing from the bottom up?
If this bottom up theory is correct, then why do we just wait around for big government to act? Is all we can do is vocalize about the problems we perceive? Which is really our uncomfortableness with our present condition... Which to me is part of the "problem". I never talk about the "problem". I talk about our conditioning which to me is more at the root of the thing. If you alter your perceptions, you identify your conditioning. If you familiarize yourself with your conditioning, you can begin to change your behavior. If you change your behavior, you can improve your circumstance and there are no problems because you always come from solutions. (see: heuristics)
If something appears to be something else, perhaps it's not what you thought it was at all? Let's try another question, how about? "Why is the government controlled by corporate interests?" Actually, to even ask this question is to have to ask, "What is government?" -And, "Is this government present or valid?" Because if it's not it would explain a lot.
The word government literally means control-mind and according to some founding documents states,
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." --Declaration of Independence as originally written by Thomas Jefferson, 1776. ME 1:29, Papers 1:315
So there ya go, "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed". In other words, whatever they're doing to us, we not only consent to it, but we authorize it as well. This does raise another question. What are just powers? Some may deem that atrocities or violations of International Public Order were created by certain men in there exercise of the right of self-determination. Some may already know that certain men claiming sovereignty and just stewardship have created certain doctrines, like the Doctrine of Discovery and the Doctrine of Heathenism, to justify usurpations and the like. However, this is not unique to any culture, religion, or group of men.
The evidence is extant throughout history that All cultures and determinations have done such at one time or another. But, this is not us. We are committed to never repeat the mistakes of the past, and therefore, it is incumbent upon us to know that the past is relevant to the consideration and/or reconsideration of who is fit, competent, and honorable to rule and/or self-govern and/or exercise just stewardship among the powers of the earth. The numbers of those that lack the honor, lack the competency, lack the humility to learn and grow, lack the skill, lack the diplomacy, and lack the administrative (among many other things that could be listed) is enormous. However, they must indeed be perfect for their condition, or they would not be in said condition and the condition would not exist.
On June 5, 1933, Congress passed House Joint Resolution (HJR 192). HJR 192 was passed to suspend the gold standard and abrogate the gold clause in the national constitution. Since then no one in America has been able to lawfully pay a debt. This resolution declared:
"To assure uniform value to the coins and currencies of the Unites States,
Whereas the holding of or dealing in gold affect public interest, and are therefore subject to proper regulation and restriction; and
Whereas the existing emergency has disclosed that provisions of obligations which purport to give the obligee a right to require payment in gold or a particular kind of coin or currency of the United States, or in an amount in money of the United States measured thereby, obstruct the power of the Congress to regulate the value of the money of the United States, and are inconsistent with the declared policy of the Congress to maintain at all times the equal power of every dollar, coined or issued by the United States, in the markets and in the payment of debts,
Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representative of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that-
(a) every provision contained in or made with respect to any obligation which purports to give the obligee a right to require payments in gold or a particular kind of coin or currency, or in an amount in money of the United States measured thereby, is declared to be against public policy; and no such provision shall be contained in or made with respect to any obligation hereafter incurred. Every obligation, heretofore or hereafter incurred, whether or not any such provision is contained therein or made with respect thereto, shall be discharged upon payment, dollar for dollar, in any coin or currency which at time of payment is legal tender for public and private debts. Any such provision contained in any law authorizing obligations to be issued by or under authority of the United States, is hereby repealed, but the repeal of any such provision shall not invalidate any other provision or authority contained in such law.
(b) As used in this resolution, the term 'obligation' means any obligation (including every obligation of and to the United States, excepting currency) payable in money of the United States; and the term 'coin or currency' means coin or currency of the United States, including Federal Reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal Reserve banks and national banking associations.
Sec. 2 The last sentence of paragraph (1) of subsection (b) of section 43 of the Act entitled 'An Act to relieve the existing national economic emergency by increasing agricultural purchasing power, to raise revenue for extraordinary expenses incurred by reason of such emergency, to provide emergency relief with respect to agricultural indebtedness, to provide for the orderly liquidation of joint-stock land banks, and of other purposes;, approved May 12, 1933, is amended to read as follows:
"All coins and currencies of the United Stated (including Federal Reserve notes and circulating notes of the Federal Reserve banks and national banking associations) heretofore or hereafter coined or issued, shall be legal tender for all debts, public and private, public charges, taxes, duties, and dues, except that gold coins, when below the standard weight and limit of tolerance provided by law for the single piece, shall be legal tender only at valuation in proportion to their actual weight.'
Approved, June 5, 1933, 4:40 p.m. 31 U.S.C.A. 462, 463
House Joint Resolution 192, 73d Congress, Sess. I, Ch. 48, June 5, 1933 (Public Law No. 10 )
Note: "payment of debt" is now against Congressional and "public policy" and henceforth, "Every obligation . . . Shall be discharged."
As a result of HJR 192, and from that day forward (June 5, 1933), no one in this nation has been able to lawfully pay a debt or lawfully own anything. The only thing one can do, is tender in transfer of debts, with the debt being perpetual. The suspension of the gold standard, and prohibition against paying debts, removed the substance for our common law to operate on, and created a void as far as the law is concerned. This substance was replaced with a "PUBLIC NATIONAL CREDIT SYSTEM" where debt is "LEGAL TENDER" money.
HJR 192 was implemented immediately. The day after President Roosevelt signed the resolution, the treasury offered the public new government securities, minus the traditional "payable in gold" clause.
192 states that one cannot demand a certain form of currency that they want to receive if it is dollar for dollar. If you review the Modern Money Mechanics article you will discover that all currency is your credit! The Federal Reserve calls it "monetized debt."
So I read what he says a little differently. To me Obama is saying bottom up as in self-governing since there is no legitimate government to be had. Wondering why we're under corporate rule? There it is and bankrupt governments are really just other corporate bodies but with flags and guns.
At the shoreline are the banks which always directs the curren(-t)(-cy). But what is a bank which doesn't deal in real currency, just monetized debt? If you can't pay a debt with a debt, what happened to your credit?
"Seek not abroad, turn back into thyself, for in the inner man dwells the truth..."
