Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Loving Fear
In my humble experience the chronic underlying fear of death dissolves whenever I love.
When I stop running from, and avoiding my fear, but instead turn to face, accept and allow it, increasingly allow it to be a part of my experience, the fear dissolves, losing its force.
From the time I began serving at Fear-No-More Zoo I have progressively, if not "suddenly", gone through a clarifying process with regard to fear. Today, fifteen years later, I find I am choosing simply to love my fear. In any moment where I let myself feel it, deeply feel it, to the degree I do I am engulfed by a life impulse within which fear is embraced and exceeded.
I don't love fear because I like it or in order to encourage it. I've come to love it because it is present and active in everything I do, in every moment, and it's not going away through any effort or struggle or search. Finally, my only real choice has become loving it. This is not romantic or infatuous love but an essential impulse that overwhelms me. In part, too, I love the fear simply because it is afraid, and pitiful, and needs love in order to be free. Loving the fear is equal to loving myself, loving the entire event of the life within which I somehow exist.
In daily meditation, the WALKS I've been doing, in my service to the animals and at other times, feeling notices fear, dissolves it, and opens to un-thought-of life and mystery.
Animals' constant bodily sense and awareness of being part of the food chain, th
at death is potential in any moment, swells their contemplative residence within the Mystery of Life, and the Divine, anchoring them in the disposition of "fearing-no-more". They don't philosophize that death might happen to them. They know it will. And when the time arrives they know how to yield and release themselves into the process of mortal death with a grace few humans are practiced enough to equal.
The tacit knowledge of inescapable death inspires animals into fully embracing their situation without argument or complaint and, through their natural meditative depth, feeling is released to move life into the place, and disposition, of "fearing-no-more".
Described by Adi Da Samraj as "Fearing-No-More", this disposition abides not in the absence of fear and threat, but through the fully feeling acceptance of fear and threat, perpetually releasing through love-surrender to life and mystery.
Fear-No-More World WALKS invoke our human embrace and acceptance of mortal fear, loving life beyond all apparent deaths past, present and still to come...
Stuart
When I stop running from, and avoiding my fear, but instead turn to face, accept and allow it, increasingly allow it to be a part of my experience, the fear dissolves, losing its force.
From the time I began serving at Fear-No-More Zoo I have progressively, if not "suddenly", gone through a clarifying process with regard to fear. Today, fifteen years later, I find I am choosing simply to love my fear. In any moment where I let myself feel it, deeply feel it, to the degree I do I am engulfed by a life impulse within which fear is embraced and exceeded.I don't love fear because I like it or in order to encourage it. I've come to love it because it is present and active in everything I do, in every moment, and it's not going away through any effort or struggle or search. Finally, my only real choice has become loving it. This is not romantic or infatuous love but an essential impulse that overwhelms me. In part, too, I love the fear simply because it is afraid, and pitiful, and needs love in order to be free. Loving the fear is equal to loving myself, loving the entire event of the life within which I somehow exist.
In daily meditation, the WALKS I've been doing, in my service to the animals and at other times, feeling notices fear, dissolves it, and opens to un-thought-of life and mystery.
Animals' constant bodily sense and awareness of being part of the food chain, th
at death is potential in any moment, swells their contemplative residence within the Mystery of Life, and the Divine, anchoring them in the disposition of "fearing-no-more". They don't philosophize that death might happen to them. They know it will. And when the time arrives they know how to yield and release themselves into the process of mortal death with a grace few humans are practiced enough to equal.The tacit knowledge of inescapable death inspires animals into fully embracing their situation without argument or complaint and, through their natural meditative depth, feeling is released to move life into the place, and disposition, of "fearing-no-more".
Described by Adi Da Samraj as "Fearing-No-More", this disposition abides not in the absence of fear and threat, but through the fully feeling acceptance of fear and threat, perpetually releasing through love-surrender to life and mystery.
Fear-No-More World WALKS invoke our human embrace and acceptance of mortal fear, loving life beyond all apparent deaths past, present and still to come...
Stuart
Monday, July 7, 2008
A Few More Walks...
From Marcelene Alexander (Portland):
Dear Stuart, Suzanne Hryniw, Dennis Judd and myself put on our Fear-No-More World WALK body banners and did a Fear-No-More World WALK on Sunday at the Thomas McCall Waterfront Park in Portland. There were thousands of people there participating in a music festival over the entire Fourth weekend. One gentleman approached me and asked what it was about, saying he had had an idea a number of years ago to start a walk going half way around the world - but never followed through with it. I explained briefly and gave him a card with the web sites on it. This is our fourth month walking. The first walk we did at Reed College Canyon, the next walk was at Natural State Park right in Portland out on the Terwilliger Curves, the next walk was done by myself in Vancouver, BC and also in Portland where I walked about 27 blocks of my neighborhood, and then this walk at the McCall Park. So , humble as it is, we are walking for Fear-No-More World - hopefully we will get more organized and prepared as we go along.
From Margot S. Janeway (Lopez Island, Washington):
A couple of us on Lopez Island went on a four mile walk along a beach on the western side of the Island. For me it was a lovely walk of contemplation, and consideration of the state of the world and the great need of human beings to become aligned to a Divine process that we may live in harmony with all beings and the earth itself.
From Roslyn Esler (Queensland, Australia):
Hi Stuart, I am walking - and talking with dogs I meet along the way - walking with Monty.
I may not do it monthly - I try to do it daily or a few times a week and for only 30 minutes but it all helps.
From Loretta Sheehan (New Hampshire):
I walked a pine- needled path along a peaceful lake, then took a logging road into deep woods. More or less in that hour…. A dragonfly (the oldest living creature on the earth…they were here
300 million years ago!) landed on my hand and basked in the sun, fearlessly. A damselfly
and her mate let me watch as she laid eggs in a hole in a tree stump…my head was about 5 inches from them! I read that these beautiful insects are "very wary, have big eyes, and are hard to approach", but they, too, were fearless of me. In blessing mode, I saw a giant hornet, robins, chipmunks, butterflies, busy woodpeckers, ants, squirrels, Daddy-long-legs running into the woods, huge flock of starlings, and heard the exquisitely sweet call of the wood thrush. The parallel to your "dead, black cow" was an archery range I came across, where hunters were practicing with crossbows on targets and deer statues!! Ugh!! The pain & death intruded on my walk, too….and I was required to bless all hunters and hunted, praying that FearNoMore would soften the hunters' hearts, and change their desire to hunt for sport. Although mosquitoes tried to bite me all day, they were mostly brushed away, or repelled with spray…none were killed. The grand finale to the FNMZoo Walk, largely centered around small and tiny animals, came that night….as magical lightning bugs appeared in the darkened woods and bog… erratic living, moving lights…sending a message to hopeful mates….here I am! Then, one was on the outside of our blue tent in the dark, and could be seen from inside…..lighting up again and again!…a tiny hello in response to the Fear-No-More Blessing….no doubt.
Dear Stuart, Suzanne Hryniw, Dennis Judd and myself put on our Fear-No-More World WALK body banners and did a Fear-No-More World WALK on Sunday at the Thomas McCall Waterfront Park in Portland. There were thousands of people there participating in a music festival over the entire Fourth weekend. One gentleman approached me and asked what it was about, saying he had had an idea a number of years ago to start a walk going half way around the world - but never followed through with it. I explained briefly and gave him a card with the web sites on it. This is our fourth month walking. The first walk we did at Reed College Canyon, the next walk was at Natural State Park right in Portland out on the Terwilliger Curves, the next walk was done by myself in Vancouver, BC and also in Portland where I walked about 27 blocks of my neighborhood, and then this walk at the McCall Park. So , humble as it is, we are walking for Fear-No-More World - hopefully we will get more organized and prepared as we go along.
From Margot S. Janeway (Lopez Island, Washington):
A couple of us on Lopez Island went on a four mile walk along a beach on the western side of the Island. For me it was a lovely walk of contemplation, and consideration of the state of the world and the great need of human beings to become aligned to a Divine process that we may live in harmony with all beings and the earth itself.
From Roslyn Esler (Queensland, Australia):
Hi Stuart, I am walking - and talking with dogs I meet along the way - walking with Monty.
I may not do it monthly - I try to do it daily or a few times a week and for only 30 minutes but it all helps.
From Loretta Sheehan (New Hampshire):
I walked a pine- needled path along a peaceful lake, then took a logging road into deep woods. More or less in that hour…. A dragonfly (the oldest living creature on the earth…they were here
300 million years ago!) landed on my hand and basked in the sun, fearlessly. A damselfly
and her mate let me watch as she laid eggs in a hole in a tree stump…my head was about 5 inches from them! I read that these beautiful insects are "very wary, have big eyes, and are hard to approach", but they, too, were fearless of me. In blessing mode, I saw a giant hornet, robins, chipmunks, butterflies, busy woodpeckers, ants, squirrels, Daddy-long-legs running into the woods, huge flock of starlings, and heard the exquisitely sweet call of the wood thrush. The parallel to your "dead, black cow" was an archery range I came across, where hunters were practicing with crossbows on targets and deer statues!! Ugh!! The pain & death intruded on my walk, too….and I was required to bless all hunters and hunted, praying that FearNoMore would soften the hunters' hearts, and change their desire to hunt for sport. Although mosquitoes tried to bite me all day, they were mostly brushed away, or repelled with spray…none were killed. The grand finale to the FNMZoo Walk, largely centered around small and tiny animals, came that night….as magical lightning bugs appeared in the darkened woods and bog… erratic living, moving lights…sending a message to hopeful mates….here I am! Then, one was on the outside of our blue tent in the dark, and could be seen from inside…..lighting up again and again!…a tiny hello in response to the Fear-No-More Blessing….no doubt.
Walk in Oxford with the "Chief"
Hi Stuart, We walked yesterday, about an hour and a half across Port Meadow in Oxford. Salina and I walked over the Meadow and back to Oxford along the river Thames. I've attached a few photo's! The weather looked very threatening and it got really dark at one point and rained but brightened up later. Saw lots of birds and cows. -- Dan George
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Why In Hell Do I Do This...? :)
Discovering that a walk on Snow Mountain involves 10 hours of driving, there and back, I opted out of that plan. Instead I hit the road to Middletown again.... about 15 miles. Malcolm accompanied me and Coal for a few miles until about 7amI had a lot more resistance to doing this walk than any before today. But after about 90 minutes, down along the creek flats, I began breaking through the resistance as a new energy surfaced... I felt my resistance as the sense of chronic fear in my body, mind and life; fear of death. As I walked I was able to walk into that fear, and love it. Rather than resist it I found myself embracing it, loving it... not because I liked it and wanted to adore it, I simply had no choice but to accept it and release it... and as I walked I lived and consciously participated in each moment as a death, yet very alive. With each step the moment was shed, rather than held... each moment like water.
Later in the walk I
encountered the carcass of a massive black cow. The stink was thick and came down all around me, soaking the whole area for 100 yards around. I stood in the stench, flies swarming under a baking sun, by the carcass. The body was beautiful in a way, in its rotting stillness, life rushing to devour it. Another lesson begging understanding.Several hours into the walk I took a short break to sit and eat an orange. My friend, Coal, a big black lab gave me about three minutes before grinning, wriggling and jumping up and down like a Masai, eager to keep going. Later, with the sun high, and trees sparse, I had to slow my pace for the old boy as he padded out the last leg into town.
Why am I doing these walks each month? To be honest I have no idea. It feels necessary. The walking is about getting beyond any idea about it. The walks are an offering, a prayer and a breath for the flourishing of Adi Da's Fear-No-More Zoo, and for the advancement of His Vision of Fear-No-More out into the cells and patterns of every fear-living human on this planet, which is pretty much all of us. It's something I just feel compelled to do.
Whether others walk with me, here or in other places around the world, I'll walk anyway... every month now for the rest of my life.
Years ago Adi Da told me that whatever I ended up doing he wanted it to be done to la
st. So I intend that this Fear-No-More Zoo and Vision last beyond my lifetime, and that it go on and grow, deepening for generations to come... and I'll walk and do other things too, to effect whatever I can to ensure Fear-No-More exists and blossoms for a long time.I think this is the best thing I can do with my life and time... and I hope each of you will join me, each in your own way.
Another idea I got from the news today.... floating across California in a lawn chair suspended from a cluster of helium-filled party balloons...! That could be fun! I could drag a banner saying, "Fear-No-More Monkeys! "... Friends already banned me from wing-suiting!
Stuart
FNM
Gift
Thursday, July 3, 2008
About 15 Years Ago
About 15 years ago Severn Suzuki, Canada, was 12.
At the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio she made a timeless speech to the gathered delegates and to the world...
"We are a group of 12 and 13 year olds trying to make a difference..."
At the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio she made a timeless speech to the gathered delegates and to the world...
"We are a group of 12 and 13 year olds trying to make a difference..."
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