First Essay- A Bargain with the Shaman
Years ago I struck a deal. I wanted a work of art crafted that I would give as a gift to a woman. I turned to a master of brushwork and asked for such a piece as he would chose to design, offering a haiku for possible inspiration. I do not remember the exact words, but I believe it was not far from this
Fleeing the mountain,
I caught a glimpse of the ghost,
A blur of red hair
The master named his price and I agreed. There were three things I needed to create in return: A certain amulet, a certain relationship with the red haired ghost, and a certain record of my teachings. His part of the deal was well satisfied, and mine sat unfinished for more than two years. The ghost flew by and we had our moment and she fled this mountain. The amulet was made, but stays safely in my pocket for now lest the shaman have power over me through it and my unfinished promise. Today I will begin to satisfy the third part of our bargain. I will begin the first of five pieces. If I live to complete them, I expect each to be as different in nature as the five elements, but I hope each in their way satisfies part of our arrangement.
One way of seeing the larger road
Everything is a cycle. Every step is both before and after every other step. The spiral begins at every moment and moves upwards. In accordance with what I was taught by others, I will chose the beginning of fear, and then follow it part of the way towards love
The first level we will call SECURITY.
The view is from fear. The view is of self.
The individual seeks to be an island, and to stay free from the predators of the outside world. These people do not come to the academy. They are still too deep in darkness, and they do not trust the world enough to share. Some of them stepping out of this darkness may come to listen but not speak. They begin to sense there is something more. Elevate their fear and they will retreat into security. Gift them with love and they will take their first nervous steps towards the light. How can they find safety in community?
The second level we will call RULES
The view is from fear. The view is of community.
Security can be found in the company of others when there are rules. Learn the code. Follow the church. Live within the law. There is Right and Wrong, Good and Evil, Justice and Injustice. Taking one step away from fear and towards love is a revelation. The fearful see God for the first time and have strength and faith beyond their grasping for security. Yes. They will die for the cause. They will sacrifice for the team. They will follow the flag. The Evil of the heretics will be struck down.
A Jedi code of ethics. A Jedi constitution. A Jedi order. These are things to follow. I will arm the former Jedi Knight Draconis with this saber. When his journey was still young, he took his first step from fear, and he resolved to help others across that threshold. He saw his first vision of the Light, and he struggled against his Fear from falling again towards his old ways. He looked instead up the spiral ladder to those who were on the next step. Eventually, he took that step himself. For if there are to be rules, someone needs to be making those rules.
The third level we will call POWER
Fear wanes. Love grows. The view is of self.
The holders of titles. The makers of rules. The home of the Masters. Master Ellen made the rules that her knights enforced. The understanding of RULES frees the individual from the anxiety of SECURITY, and there is an opportunity to grow as an individual and prove one's own excellence. It is not enough for just anybody to make the rules. They need to be acknowledged and ordained. From far down the ladder they will be distrusted as all things are distrusted by those who seek security, but they are the best friend or worst enemy of those who seek rules. For much of her time at the Academy, Student Knight Master Spark Vallen fell back through this step. Climbing the ranks over and over she fell beneath and rose above Master Ellen. This is the highest point of vision for many of the self-proclaimed Lords of the Sith. This is the earliest point of entry for Master Brandon. This is even perhaps the story of why Jedi Knight Adi Klem climbed to the top of the Council, and then left it for other things. The climb. The acknowledgement. The power.
But what was different for Master Ellen and Master Joni, Master Brandon and Widge, is that they eventually put at least one foot on the rung of the next step. No longer power for self, but power for community.
The fourth level we will call RELATIONSHIP
The view is from love. The view is of community.
Master Brandon took a step into the worldview that at the time was held by Master Irvine and myself. Rules were not something to be followed, but rules useful to the community may be. Leaders were not something to be followed, but just leadership might be as long as it remained just. It is a place of questioning. It is a place of deciding what is best for the community in a new way.
When you stand in RULES, everything above you looks like POWER. If Master Brandon was questioning the rules, than in Vandor's eyes he must be seeking power outside of the appropriate channels. Brandon and Spark Vallen were branded heretics rather than Masters when the questioned the symbols and trappings of the rule makers. Those living in the black and white world of rules feared a tumbling downward of their laws and everyone being thrown into chaos and insecure darkness.
Those in RELATIONSHIP saw no need for paths and titles, and did not understand the critical need for those things for those stepping out of the darkness.
There were internal wars. Accusations of arrogance and rebellion flew. The people who carried the sabers and followed the laws tried to protect the Order against the people who wore the robes and looked for inclusion rather than division.
RULES vs RULES is a comfortable fight for those on both sides. The writers of the RULES the holders of the POWER, draw nice clean lines. Master Ellen vs. Darth Moor.
Ellen will always fight Moor and in each cycle Ellen will win. POWER of the righteous will trump POWER of the greedy because righteous Power seeks to draw people up from fear, but the selfish Power of Moor scatters them downward into fear and insecurity.
Moor was never able to really compete with Master Irvine when it came to building real community. With his one foot in Power and his other in Relationship, Irvine was able to lay waste to the old structures and create a new battleground of RULES-POWER vs POWER-RELATIONSHIP. Ellen vs. Richard, and of course the Lightside fractured and Ellen's Power began to change.
I stepped into leadership at this point. I was the Light counter-point to Richard in a way tha built community for both the Lightside and the Dark path. Brandon could be recognized as well as Vandor. Those who sought Rules misread my work as a seeking of Power, but there was no need to correct that. I wanted them included in the discussions as well. Those who sought personal Power and acknowledgement were offered those things as well. Keeping everyone in the conversation was the highest good. Master Joni wanted to heal the damage left by the internal and external wars, and I worked with him to try to bring Vandor, Brandon, Ellen, Spark, Richard, Widge and everyone else to every table. I moved out of that role. Those who were working from the view of Rules saw it through that lens and saw it as another victory in the struggle of this thing over that thing. Those who stood looking at the world through Power saw it as another grab for that in another way. Those who stood at least partly in Relationship saw it perhaps in terms of what it meant for the health of the community. But there were others who didn't see it that way. Of course, they weren't looking at me at all
The fifth level we will call DISCOVERY
The view is from wisdom. The view is of the self.
Master Aldar was involved in his own adventures of Kabala and family. Master Irvine and Lady Satelle walked these roads. Sometimes the struggle of the community is not so important. Sometimes one can be selfish, but not act from fear. A person in Security does what they think will benefit the self. A person in Rules will give everything, even their own life, for the good of the group. A person in Power will give what they must to ensure their legacy. A person in Relationship will sacrifice self for the community. A person in Discovery will do things just to see what happens. They are engaged in living fully and telling their own story. It is easy from an earlier stage to confuse this space with many other things. A person in any other stage might think that they are here without really dwelling in this worldview, or they might mistake the self-centered exploration of someone here for the selfish fearfulness of someone in the earliest places. This can be a place of hermitage and retreat, but it is really an inward door to a much wider world.
The sixth level we will call the TRANSPERSONAL
All things are connected, and walking in Discovery some people touch that connection.
Master Oda on the mountain top. Master Nova and Master Joni bending through their yogic arts. Individuals stop really being individuals in this place, so those names and titles really describe the people who never get here. This is the web of the living Force. This is All Things being One Thing. This is the eye of nature, and this is the birthplace of shamanistic power. The talisman and the scroll reach from this place down into the personal. The interconnection here is the reason that the true energy of the Force can never be used selfishly, because to harness it for the self is to separate the self from all things. This is where the true teachings of the Jedi reside.
The seventh level we will call the SUPRAPERSONAL
As the Transpersonal was All Things being One Thing, this is the indivisible One that is All Things. This is the Tao. This is the Force. This is the true Divine. This is not the final level. The spiral continues.
Many whose names I mentioned are no longer at the levels they characterized. Even for people at a particular perspective, in times of wisdom they act from above their stages, and in times of stress they can move below. Organizations can be built around each triad. A business may be built around the idea of Rules, but a crisis may throw them into a mode of Security.
My America has often lived in the stable formation of SECURITY-RULES-POWER. The individuals at the margins can come together in agreement at the social place of the center. The paranoid and the powerful can meet in the courts of Rules and hammer out the disagreements.
Recently our government has worked from the triad of RULES-POWER-RELATIONSHIP. The individuals in the center do not understand true Relationship so they lean on the law when it serves them and on their cronies when it does not. Remarkably this week center of the individual has often been the operating principle of the Academy. When a group striving for Rules fights with a group that strives for Relationship, the decisions are made by those sitting in Power. More often than not the result is for Power to decide in favor of that which will gain it the most Power. By making new and tighter Rules, those fearful of insecurity applaud the imposed structures. Usually, those seeking Relationship walk away from the structures for a while. Brandon gets purged. Spark choses a new path. The pull of Relationship eventually brings them back again.
I believe that this essay is offered from POWER-RELATIONSHIP-DISCOVERY. Sitting in the divide between the good leaders who benefit from the acknowledgement of Power and the good wanderers who benefit from the experience of Discovery is a community space where there might be Light and Dark, but they are not sides or oppositions. They are ways to explain the internal conflicts that drive our learning and interactions. All of this is merely meant as another way of helping those in that community to hold a new context. It is a place of stepping into a social center so that those with Power can understand what is above their rules and an invitation for those in Discovery to stop in and see what the community has to offer them in their travels. It is my own stopping in and saying a brief hello, but it will serve most as a sort of mirror.
As with all things, it has only the meaning you are able to bring to it and only the wisdom you can create to carry away.
May the Force be with you.