Hm…a month since I wrote intending to write more often…well, let’s see how frequently I do so now.
I find myself at a compelling moment in my life. On December 3rd I’ll celebrate the 15th anniversary of my “Second Birth” awakening, and in fact I’m already into the anniversary time of the amazing sequence of shifts that led up to it. Really that whole time of extraordinary, so-unexpectable openings continued on through mid-January 1993 when, at some point, I had the stunning dream in which a giant (15-foot long) Siberian Tiger claimed me as its “totem human.”
Around that same time, January 14th 2008, is the 10th anniversary of our publication of my first truly-intended-for-the-public book, “Waking Down: Beyond Hypermasculine Dharmas–A Breakthrough Way of Self-Realization in the Sanctuary of Mutuality.” Linda and I and our close friends/colleagues at the time assumed the spiritual world was just ready and waiting for us, and that all it would take is a good book to get everyone properly notified. I didn’t even try to make it easily introductory; I assumed the grizzled and well-informed enlightenment-seeking crowd was just waiting for the word that it’s ok to BE Here! Silly us…we printed 5500 copies. Recently, when Linda and I moved to Sonoma, I counted boxes; we still have maybe just under a thousand. Back in the day I thought that thing would sell out in no time, 2-3 years tops. Of course we never have done much “marketing.” But even so…
Well, in these blog entries during this time I guess I’ll try to take stock, more or less publicly (I don’t know who reads this stuff, we’ll announce that there are entries in upcoming e-mailings) of the meaning and impact for me of these anniversaries. And where I feel I am in my life and work, and where I feel I’m heading, Linda and me both. And the work itself, our own and the whole Waking Down in Mutuality community and network.
The book anniversary is a poignant reflection, or makes for one; it’s not all that significant in itself. In contrast, my 15th birthday of Awakening seems to me a fairly big deal. I hope people who are grateful for my presence in the world and in their lives will want to make something of it, not just let it slide by. One of the disappointments, to me, of what is in so many ways a marvelous, vigorous new democracy of awakening and awakened men and women, is that people don’t yet seem to appreciate the nature, meaning, and power of Heart-transmission. They’re very good at grabbing hold of their own awakened lives and finding out how they can grow and where they’re moved to go, due so much to what this kind of transmission has made possible for them. But they’re not so good, by my standards and reckoning, at turning around and making sure to keep priming the pump. That seems to go against the grain of everyone’s own empowerment. I feel a more mature recognition won’t see it that way.
Let me go on record to say that December 3, 2007, is going to be a good day to keep me feeling extremely appreciated, honored, and thanked, and to prime the pump of my White-Hot Heart-Transmission to your own heart’s content. If this whole discussion goes right past you, or leaves you anxious that I’m getting grandiose or blah-blah-blah, that’s a good sign that you’re probably not one of the people I’m actively addressing. And that’s ok. But I do need to address those people and welcome them, you perhaps, to make much of what has been possible for the last nearly 15 years that, to the view of many of us, the events in my life of fall 1992 and the early weeks of 1993 ushered in as never occurred before in human history.
October 7th, 2007 at 10:37 am
i celebrate you, saniel. i celebrate what it was fused in you about fifteen years ago. it’s a celebration of a space of time that remembers the collection of your everyday living as a seeker before white heating. i celebrate the teachings that melted together then. it’s a teaching that teaches the student to hear the teaching fused as the student’s flesh. simple teaching that starts and ends at the student’s perimeter. i’m taught by you to recognize complete ownership of your teachings as my teachings. what i hear from you is recognized by my skin, and there is no distance that can guide me to where the teachings came from. when i celebrate you, i celebrate me; it’s a feeling of companionship that dwells no where but in my absolute solitude. there is no way that i can celebrate your fifteen years of shouting wakes of life without celebrating the trajectory of my mind recognizing you. thank you for giving me those moments of recognition. i’m as alone and crowded as the water of creek surrounded by rocks and soil. i can’t be anything but me but i need others to hear and see me, as much as the creek water needs the soil underneath. in your 15th anniversary i wish you soil and nature size abundance of recognition and celebration. with love, alejandro
October 9th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Dear Saniel, I have been introducing myself to your work and ideas via your website and read this entry on your blog. It is the first time for me to visit your site and, in fact I was only told of your work yesterday by a friend of mine who is currently involved in Waking Down in Mutuality. Any way, I read your blog regarding your 15th anniversary of awakening, and I have to admit it made me smile. It did not feel to me that you were being grandiose. We are human and no matter how far we are on our “path” we need to know we are appreciated. So I wanted to take the time to say, in advance, thank you for your work. With all good wishes, Emma.