PROLOGUE
November 22, 2001
U.S. Thanksgiving – Houston, Texas
Having decided to fast instead of gorge, and looking back in gratitude and awe at the last year, I have decided to prepare for you a small meal of impressions
Dorsey, ever a source of inspiration and joy, is tapping out changes to a new manual in the next room. Feel good to know that her gifts are for others as well as myself.
Probably go to Galveston Beach tomorrow, where she walked on September tenth.
Profoundly, and as it turns out, prophetically touched by a feeling of the end of summer and an end of innocence
I was in Canada at the time and remained T.V. free; A week helping my brother re-floor his cabin at Candle Lake in Saskatchewan, and then joining some wonderful old friends and new for Canadian Thanksgiving at an Alberta Rocky Mountain retreat.
Can’t help but think that we are indeed in ‘speed up’ and on the teetering edge of something profound here. I still remember a Tibetan, Rimpoche, at Esalen teaching us about having compassion for all beings in the universe. The problem, he said, was that we had no idea how to do that, or where to start. He suggested that we should sit in silence and think of one person whose pain would be as our own. A child, parent, lover, or whoever. To really feel that pain, and to then add people one at a time as long as we could maintain that feeling. When we were unable to do this we should stop, and try again later. We have up to now been unable to get our heads and hearts around the thousands of deaths from war and natural disasters around the world. September the 11th cracked that open to a point where 6,000 people got into our hearts at one time. There is evidence that this is spreading to our concern for the citizens of Afghanistan and other parts of the world. I pray that it is true.
Part of the ‘speed up’ is in the learning curve. In the last year we have been in five Canadian Provinces, and sixteen U.S. States (seven of them new to me), as well as Holland, Greece and France. Learning lots, and passing some of it along at workshops and readings.
Want to express deep gratitude to two of our principal teachers, Drs. Hal and Sidra Stone, originators of the Psychology of the Selves , or Voice Dialogue work. The timeliness of their vision of how each of us as persons, as well as all nations contain a multitude of selves, covering the whole spectrum from saint to terrorist; some owned, and some disowned, and how different our choices and actions can be when we embrace all of them, hold the tension of the opposites and act from a place of awareness.
On the following page is a story off of the internet that I would like to share
Would also like to say that I remain excited and hopeful that maybe the world is indeed unfolding as it should, and that in any case I do not really have enough information to be a pessimist.
Love and happy thanksgiving to all,
Neil