New Wine
Welcome to Tom’s blog.
I imagine many of you know me and have been waiting with baited breath for this site to get up and running so you could read my blog, and many of you don’t know me but have found your way here via various channels.
My intention with this blog is to be a voice for awakening on the planet in 2010. I.E. Now. I want it to be a vehicle for the various streams of this soul to find expression, and I’m hoping to generate conversation and support the calling forth in you, my readers, of the deep places inside of you, That soul place, that wants to discover itself through sharing it’s Truth with others.
I’ve been in Portland for six months now, and I’m starting to get some clue as to what this move is about for me. I’ve been a student and practitioner of Buddhadharma for 29 years (when I went on my first 10 day meditation retreat) and of western psychology for almost as long. What I knew when I moved here from Willits, Ca. was that I was ready to come off the mountain, yet again, and join with others who are visioning and working to bring in a New World. We have been dreaming and talking and working towards this for decades, but I’d say in a more heated fashion the last 4-5 years. For me, the proximity of 2012 seems to be a demarcation point in time and as the time/space between here and there gets smaller, the pressure builds. This lends a sense of urgency to the work, and to my desire to meet with other like-minded individuals who have the desire and the capacity to participate in the work of transformation-both of ourselves and the families and institutions we are a part of.
The last six months, since my family and I arrived in Portland, have been some of the hardest of my life. I had a period in my 20’s that was harder, but I didn’t have the capacity to be present for it that I do now. It’s happening to many of us. The metaphor I used in the men’s group I’m running is that we’re being cooked in a crucible-a cauldron. When the clarity came in a month ago that I was in the midst of an initiation, I stopped fighting it so much, and it got much easier. I brought some ritual awareness to the process that allows me to participate in it in a fuller way. I met someone who took me to a sweat lodge. My prayers intensified and became more consistent.
I want this initiation. I’ve been praying for it for years. I’ve been aspiring towards enlightenment almost daily for I don’t know how many years. My main teacher, Adyashanti has done a lot to clarify what this journey of Awakening looks like beyond the initial A-ha! or two. One phrase that stuck with me is “First the Emptiness, then the emptying out”. First the recognition of Oneness, of Unity, then the clearing out of all the patterns that don’t support that recognition on a daily basis. These patterns exist in our minds, our hearts and our bodies. They’re our old belief systems and ways of operating that are calcified into rigid patterns that don’t serve the expression of the Great Spirit and what it wants to do with and through us today. The last six months, a number of those patterns have been getting broken down in me: dissolved, if you will. Not pretty, but necessary. Because, as one of my first teachers said, “You can’t put new wine into old wineskins”. That’s what we’re talking about here. The New wine of the new revelation is wanting to come into this old world and renew it, but it’s at a vibratory rate that destroys the old forms that were built in simpler times. That’s the work I’ve been about the last six months, and I think it’s the work many of us are about. I’m looking forward to tasting that New Wine! I will be partaking again on April 1st. Anyone care to join me?
