Tuesday, September 28, 2010

A Spell to Re-Genius Yourself - Rob Brezsny








Although we are all born geniuses, the grind of day-to-day living tends to de-genius us. That's the bad news. The good news is that you have the power to re-genius yourself.

I'm going to give you a ritual you can use to jump-start the process.



The Greek philosopher Plato long ago recognized that in addition to eating, drinking, sleeping, breathing, and loving, every creature has an instinctual need to periodically leap up into the air for no other reason than because it feels so good.

      Please face south, leap up in the air, and say these words: "From the south, I purify, electrify, beautify, and fructify this sacred space."

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When I was a kid I used to love to go out in the middle of a meadow and whirl around in spirals until I got so dizzy I fell down. As I lay on the ground, the earth and sky and sun kept reeling madly, and I was no longer just a pinpoint of awareness lodged inside my body, but rather I was an ecstatically undulating swirl in the kaleidoscopic web of life. I invite you to feel that way right now.

      Spin yourself around until you topple over. And while lying on the ground, face west and say these words: "From the west, I sanctify, unify, clarify, and intensify this sacred space."

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The people I trust the most are those who are always tenderly wrestling and negotiating with their own shadows, making preemptive strikes on their personal share of the world's evil, fighting the good fight to keep from spewing their darkness on those around them. I aspire to be like that, which is why I regularly kick my own ass. Will you try that right now wherever you are?

      Jump off the ground and snap your heels up against your butt. Then face north and say these words: "From the north, I immunize, psychoanalyze, satirize, and exorcise this sacred space."

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In one sense each of us is an intriguing, intricately unique individual, justifiably proud of and in love with our own personal story. In another sense, we are all one body, descended from the same primordial mother and made of identical stuff -- the calcium in all of our bones and the iron in all of our blood originally forged in a red giant star that died billions of years ago.

      Rotating slowly in a clockwise direction, look down at your belly as you imagine that at this moment, everyone in the world is breathing along with you. Then face east and say this: "From the east, I lubricate, pollinate, consecrate, and emancipate this sacred space."

Now it's time to confess the truth about who you really are.

      Gaze upward and stretch your arms out high. Say the following: "I am a genius."

      And say this: "I am a lucky, plucky genius."

      And say this: "I am a lucky, plucky, good-sucking genius."

Thank you for finally confessing the truth. It's about time you admitted that you are a miraculous work of art.

You came into this world as a radiant bundle of exuberant riddles. You slipped into this dimension as a shimmering burst of spiral hallelujahs. You blasted into this realm as a lush explosion of ecstatic gratitude. And it is your birthright to fulfill those promises.

I'm not pandering to your egotism by telling you these things. When I say, "Be yourself," I don't mean you should be the self that wants to win every game and use up every resource and stand alone at the end of time on top of a Mt. Everest-sized pile of pretty garbage.

When I say, "Be yourself," I mean the self that says "Thank you!" to the wild irises and the windy rain and the people who grow your food.

When I say, "Be yourself," I mean the rebel creator who's longing to make the whole universe your home and sanctuary.

When I say, "Be yourself," I mean the dissident bodhisattva who's joyfully struggling to germinate the seeds of divine love that are packed inside every moment.

When I say, "Be yourself," I mean the spiritual freedom fighter who's scrambling and finagling and conspiring to relieve your fellow messiahs from their suffering and shower them with rowdy blessings.

Now let's move on to the next stage of your confession.

      Squat. While patting and massaging the ground or floor in front of you, say this: "I am insane."

      And say this: "I am an insane hurricane."

      And say this: "I am a highly trained, entertainingly insane hurricane."

Thank you for finally confessing the truth, which is that you are constitutionally incapable of adapting nicely to the sour and crippled mass hallucination that is mistakenly called "reality." You are too amazingly, blazingly insane for that.

You are too crazy smart to lust after the stupidest secrets of the game of life. You're too seriously delirious to wander sobbing through the sterile, perfumed labyrinth looking in vain for the most ultra-perfect mirror. Thank the Goddess that you are a fiercely tender throb of sublimely berserk abracadabra.

You will never get crammed in a neat little niche in the middle of the road at the end of a nightmare.

You refuse to allow your soul's bones to get ground down into dust and used to fertilize the killing fields that proudly dot the ice cream empire of monumentally demeaning luxuries.

You're too brilliantly cracked for that.

You're too ingeniously whacked.

You're too ineffably godsmacked.

      Now stand up and make a series of small jumps, rotating a quarter turn in a clockwise direction with each jump. And as you do, say this: "I am a lucky, plucky, good-sucking genius and a highly trained, entertainingly insane hurricane."

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Monday, September 20, 2010

Driver's Ed - An Exercise



From On Becoming an Alchemist: A Guide for the Modern Magician
by Catherine MacCoun, p. 135



"I've recently discovered a quick way back to the driver's seat when I fall into passenger mentality.  Maybe it will work for you, too.

A year ago I found myself embarking on an enterprise that scared me.  I wasn't at all sure whether I really ought to be doing this thing, and my desires were equally murky.  "Destiny," though, was acting very sure of itself, maneuvering me through an uncanny series of coincidences into what "they" had planned for me.  (Who "they" might be was undefined, as it so often is in passenger thinking.)

While describing my predicament in a letter to a friend, I found myself listing the events leading up to it in chronological order.  The narrative was in passive voice, i.e., sentences that describe what is being done without naming the doer.  Since good writers frown on passive voice, and I like to think of myself as a good writer, I thought I'd better correct this.  Then I got the bright idea of recasting each of the sentences with myself as the doer.  I described the entire sequence of events as if I were the mastermind behind each and every step.  'First I arranged to be out of work.  Then I arranged to own more taxes than I had funds to pay. Then I prompted so-and-so to phone me with a job offer...' Ten steps later, the sequence concluded with, 'And that's how I tricked myself into doing exactly what I want to do.'

I suspect it's no coincidence that, immediately after I had edited my way into driver mentality, circumstances changed for the better.  The doubtful enterprise took off, and I felt a lot more confident about my decision.  You might want to try this technique the next time you're feeling jerked around by fate, destiny, karma, or whatever else you happen to call your passenger vehicle."

Sunday, September 19, 2010

From Rob Brezsny's Free Will Astrology

In his book "The Medusa and the Snail," science writer Lewis Thomas said that the word "error" developed from a root meaning "to wander about, looking for something." That's why he liked Darwin's idea that error is a driving force in evolution. "The capacity to blunder slightly is the real marvel of DNA," said Thomas. ..."Without this special attribute, we would still be anaerobic bacteria and there would be no music."

What Makes Us Human?

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Meaning and Choice

The meaning of life is not a fact to be discovered, but a choice that you make about the way you live.

– Hilda Bernstein, anti-apartheid activist, quoted in The Washington Post.

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Book Recommendation: The Soul of Money - Lynne Twist


I am reading an amazing book called The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist.  This morning it is this quote that resonates with me the most:

We each have the choice in any setting to step back and let go of the mind-set of scarcity.  Once we let go of scarcity, we discover the surprising truth of sufficiency.  By sufficiency, I don't mean a quantity of anything.  Sufficiency isn't two steps up from poverty or one step short of abundance.  It isn't a measure of barely enough or more than enough.  Sufficiency isn't an amount at all.  It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough."

I think of what I wrote last week...the part about one of my limiting beliefs about myself that I'm paying attention to: Who I am is not enough. I love that just a few days later, I found this book.  Sufficiency, indeed! ;-)