the scent of the wierd

SO – here I am, in a whirlwind of endings and beginnings and I start smelling . . . cotton candy? It's maybe two weeks ago. Things are already on the verge of boiling over. I've had to postpone a workshop, we're juggling four separate baby showers, LumensGate is heading for the showers and the cat insists on pooping on my carpet. I'm getting into my car to head for the office and I smell. . . cotton candy. At least that's the closest I can come to identifying it. I get in to my car and drive to the office, the odor gradually fading. I let it go, thinking I must have picked up a whiff of something in the neighborhood. 

This smell comes up again, pretty much every day. Fleeting and elusive, it appears at the edges of my perception and then flits away. I begin to wonder if I have a tumor pressing on a sensitive part of my brain, causing olfactory hallucinations. 

Yesterday, I am searching for my good luck coin (a gift from my beloved wife) in my monk's bag. I begin to smell the cotton candy again, more strongly now. I wonder if it is somehow connected to spirits telling me where to look for the coin. I begin to dig things out of the bag, turn it upside-down and shake. A fountain of white powder pours out, followed by a fluttering packet. No – not heroin. It's a package of EmerganC®, and electrolyte mix that has come open in my bag. Is it connected to the coin? Well, yes, in a way. It was given to me by a woman who was at the conference where I last saw the coin. . . .

Ah well!

Catching up

It's been a busy month, and I've obviously not kept up with my blog. I'm hoping to get caught up a bit over the next few days. It looks like I'll have the weekend off as well, since the workshop I had planned on teaching is being cancelled due to low registration. Not a problem really. This will give at least two more people the chance to join us when we do make it happen. 

So – to catch up on a busy month: I'll begin with Pantheacon. Pantheacon is probably the largest Neo-Pagan gathering out on the West coast. It is held at a Hilton and has been going on for quite a few years. I first presented a workshop there a few years back, and had a pretty good experience. However, I decided to wait until I had my book published before I returned, so that I would be able to promote it there. 

I left at 7:00 am to drive up to Dayton, where I caught the flight out to San Francisco – via Detroit and Atlanta, I believe. I arrived at 7:30 pm and was met at the airport by my good friend Amy who was kind enough to let me crash at her house before heading down to San Jose the next morning. Even on the flight out I was wondering how I was going to manage to make it back to the airport for my 5:40 am flight on monday, especially after the workshop they had scheduled my to give at 11:00 pm on Sunday night. After a lot of consideration, I decided to take the BART back to the airport from Amy's the next morning, as she hurried off to work. There I picked up the car I had rented the night before via the internet. I got a great deal on it, considering that I wouldn't have really needed a car where it not for the inconvenient timing of workshop and flight. 

Let me interject here that I had – very responsibly – mailed a full case of my books out to my friend Keter's address the week before, in plenty of time so that Keter could bring them with her to the conference. I checked with her from the airport and they still had not arrived. So it looked like I was going to be going through all of this and I wouldn't even have any books to sell beyond the two copies I had crammed into my suitcase as an afterthought. 

So there I am in the airport, lugging my bags to the rent-a-car and then driving down highway 101 to San Jose. That part went quite smoothly. I had brought my Nuvi (GPS) just in case and it came in handy. But I had forgotten to bring along the car charger, so I had to keep turning it off to save it's batteries. I arrive at the hotel and go to register only to find that they have me in a room in a different hotel a few blocks away. This turned out to be a very nice room, all to myself. But it was cold and rainy the whole weekend, so the five minute walk was a bit uncomfortable at times.

By now you have a feel for how the weekend was going for me. It was friday. I was at the conference, with no books, with no workshops to teach until sunday night. My potential book signing on saturday came and went with no books. I was beginning to wonder if I hadn't inadvertently irritated one of my ancestor spirits who had chosen to return the favor many time over. 

Strangely, in spite of all the little mishaps and timing issues, I was having a good time. I was in a light and open mood. I remained engaged and open to the folks I knew there; got a chance to hang out with my best friend and long time mentor, Elisheva and to help out with one of the things she was offering – so I wasn't completely wasting my time. I began to wonder what was going on though. This was feeling kind of . . . spooky. 

Sometime saturday afternoon I found out that the books had arrived – in San Francisco – and that the place that was holding them would be closing by 6:00, so Keter and I jumped in my car and drove back to San Francisco, got lost, got found again, and managed to pick up the books minutes before they closed. I got the case into the back seat of the car and thought, "I could have sworn that box was a lot heavier." When we got back to the hotel, I opened the box to find that only half of them were there. Somewhere in transit the box had been opened and 23 books had gone missing. This was getting a bit ridiculous. 

That afternoon I was cruising around the hotel looking for a familiar face and came across Don Kraig sitting with a couple of women in the bar. I joined them for awhile, which was a nice break from wondering around on my own. We sat and chatted for awhile. I tried to order a drink but they were out of Jamesons. Finally settled on a G&T, then wandered off without paying my bill. The two women were both very interesting. One was a Gardnerian High Priestess, Lady Raw, who seemed quite down to earth. The other was apparently a coven mate of hers, a very charismatic woman who insisted that people were having a problem with her threatening to take her clothes off. 

Sunday was a bit of a blur. I managed to do a short book signing at noon, while most everyone was off eating lunch. I think I sold 2 or 3 books, but had a few nice chats. Then I started thinking about what I would do for my workshop. There had been other things on my mind up to then. Somewhere in there, the two ladies from the night before invited me to dinner and as I was heading out to join them I noticed my car was missing. I went to the desk and asked if a car had been towed away recently. Then I called the police, but refused to file a report right then, because I had to meet my new friends for dinner. I rushed back to the other hotel and up to Lady Rae and Paula's room. They suggested I go back and check in the lot again. Now, mind you, it was raining and dark. When they drove me into the lot, I saw my car right were I left it, sitting beneath the harsh yellow light that magically turns red cars into brown cars. One mystery solved to my ecstatic relief. 

The night rolled on – culminating in the workshop entitled "the Shaman's Dance with the Divine." I had planned on using some of the techniques from my workshops to offer an experiential introduction to animism. Now I wasn't sure that there was going to be anyone showing up for it, but there were. Ten people showed up and it was a good group. Rather intimate for such a large room, but great people. We did some shamanic trance work, evocation of spirits and such. A good time was had by all. 

Then it was back to the (other) hotel. Mad packing; a short nap; a 3:00 am alarm; quick shower and another drive back up the 101 to the San Francisco airport for my morning flight. I made that with no problem.

With all that, you would think I had already had enough – and you would be right. But, after flying from San Francisco to Cincinnati (where I couldn't get off because they had my luggage and my car was parked in Dayton) to Detroit and then taking off for Dayton, we turned back after we were over halfway there, because of a "maintenance issue." We were on the ground for another three hours in Detroit before flying out again at 8:40 pm, arriving in Dayton around 9:45 where I finally picked up my car from the economy parking lot and wearily drove home. 

More catching up to come.

The Invisibles – Things we Take For Granted

A few years ago I was visiting some friends in Germany and we were going for a walk along a nearby nature trail after lunch. There were five of us trooping along; my wife, our host, his two adult daughters and myself. On the whole, I don't think we looked too disreputable. You need to understand that walking after lunch – or dinner – is a very common activity in Germany, and there were various other people on the trail as well. I noticed a middle-aged couple walking towards us on the trail, with their pet Dachel (Dachshund) tagging along at their heels. I was looking forward to meeting the dog and getting a quick pet fix. I've been partial to these sleek little dogs since owning one as a youngster. However, as we came closer I realized that this was not going to happen. The couple kept their gaze stolidly a head and completely ignored us as we passed each other. To be fair, the members of our party kept up their own conversation with no indication that they noticed the other people on the path. Only the Dog seemed to give us a quick sideways glance before hurrying after his humans. 

Glancing at my wife, I wondered if she had found anything curious about the lack of polite exchange, and she returned my look with a shrug. As I waited for a break in the conversation to ask why no-one had responded to the other people, a younger couple came towards us on the path. They were in an animated conversation of their own, but they also offered no acknowledgement as we passed one another. Curiouser and curiouser. Just as I was going to break in on the discussion of what was and was not appropriate to decorate a Christmas tree with, yet another person came walking towards us. This was a middle-aged man, who immediately hailed Detlev – our host – and proceeded to introduce himself to us and exchange pleasantries with Suzanna and Lisa. "Ah!" I thought. "I see! It is only people they already know that they greet." 

Finally, when we arrived back at the house, and Detlev had told his wife about them running into Herr what-ever-his-name-was, I asked them why they didn't greet the other people we passed. Detlev's only response was an almost offended "But that would have been rude!" I didn't pursue it, but it did teach me a valuable lesson. It really hadn't occurred to me that something as simple and seemingly obvious as nodding "hello" to a stranger could be perceived in such different ways by different cultures – especially ones that seem, at least superficially – to have so much in common. 

This of course can be taken much further. There are so many things that are embedded deeply in our minds, so that we don't question them. For instance, we take for granted that "grass is green" and "sky is blue". It doesn't occur to us to questions something that is so "obvious"; something we learned so long ago that we no longer remember learning it, and yet there is grass that is not green and there are skies that are not blue.

We humans have a great capacity to screen out what would otherwise overwhelm us. Our limbic system takes in the huge amount of data from our senses and then passes onto our conscious awareness a small part of that data which we experience as information about our surroundings. If we had to deal consciously with the fullness of all our sensory input, we would probably not be able to function very well. It seems that we have a means of doing something similar with other data as well. 

I think that's about far enough on this train of thought for now. There's a big snow storm blowing in tonight, and I may have lots of time for deep thoughts tomorrow.

Intoxicated by Life

Driving my beloved wife to the airport last week, to fly down to Florida for a silent retreat, we were talking about her expectations for the retreat when she said something like "I don't like poetry because poets are just drunks expressing their intoxication." To which I replied, "well, at least some of us hold our liquor better than others." 

Apparently I've been keeping my intoxication to myself too well over the past few weeks. I will try to remedy that and provide more for the blog readers to scan.

A very Happy New Year to you all!

namaste,

Kenn

Post Holiday Catch-up

A lot has happened over the past few days (weeks?), some of which has excellent entertainment value. It was great having Lisa visit from Germany. It had been six years or so since we had last seen her, and eight since she had last visited here. So she got to meet our new house and many new friends. We had some of those friends over for dinner and I overheard one of them saying to Lisa, "Oh! You're Soli!" to which she replied, "no - I'm not. I'm Lisa." Her tone was quite deadpan, but I wasn't too surprised when I later heard her threatening to write her own version of our trip through Europe and come up with her own version of me as a character in her book. Now THAT could be entertaining! (See if you can pick out Lisa in the photo above.)

As I said though, it was great to have Lisa here and we were sorry to see her go. It's hard to really keep in touch over such distances, but you can tell the real friends by the way you can pick back up even after so many years and have such comfort with each other. I hope it won't be nearly as long before we have the opportunity to spend some more quality time together.

It is clear that I've had a bit of writer's block - again. This time

it took out the whole of the holidays - from solstice all the way through New Year's - pretty impressive. So now I will do my best to make up for lost time -and maybe even make it worth you're while to keep checking back in for updates. 

We really enjoyed Lisa's visit, but we are far from her only friends here in the states, so we had to share her with her good friend Marcie down in Tennessee, and then with Tyler and Gary in New York. She took a bus down to Tennessee about a week after getting here, so the jet lag had worn off by then. On the way back she was serenaded by a group of girls singing Christmas carols. Unfortunately they didn't know all the words and so the woman sitting next to her would chime in over her knitting with the final verses. 

I will throw in a quick announcement here too that Patricia and I are officially expecting a girl to join the family in late May. So far, her name is "Peanut" but that will probably change at some point . . . then again.

Honoring the Ones Who Come Before Us - As We Go Our Own Way

Lately I've been thinking about Systemic Constellation Work. My good friend Lisa, who introduced us to the work in Cornwall back in 2001, is visiting from Germany. This has brought to mind all the things I owe to this work. Perhaps most obviously, Patricia and I would not be expecting a child in late May, if not for the years of good healing work done with Heinz Stark during the two year training program and beyond. I have been able to see and accept my mother - certainly for the first time as an adult. This seems to have changed . . . everything!

However, while I have found the work to be of immense help in my own growth and healing, it is difficult to express this in a way that most people find meaningful, and so we find ourselves unable to fill even a single day workshop this last year. We have theories as to why this is: Poor economy; not so much appreciation of family in the USA; or, simply the fact that no one knows what we are talking about. 

In the process of re-evaluating how to go forward with our Soul Solutions practice, in the face of low turn-out, I find myself coming to some other belated realizations. This has been coming for awhile now. The keynote speaker at the last North American Systemic Constellation conference over a year ago was a very nice man whose son had been killed as part of a gang initiation. His response was to forgive the boy who killed his son. Ultimately the boy wound up coming around and helping build a foundation to support non-violence. This was all well and good, but it felt "wrong" for a constellation conference. For one thing, constellations show us that offering forgiveness attempts to place us in a higher moral ground - to make us bigger than those we forgive. We observe that it is not up to us to forgive those who harm our families. And so I was confused by how avidly people responded to the speaker and his perspective. Other than Patricia and Heinz, everyone seemed to be okay with that. Then there was the movement to use constellation work in order to decide where to hold the next conference. This felt "wrong" as well. It seemed inappropriate and disrespectful to use such a powerful and connected tool to avoid responsibility for making a choice. 

On top of these experiences of the last conference I have the attempt to bring Heinz Stark back to Ohio to offer his comprehensive professional training in Systemic Constellation Work. First I ran into a wall trying to get CEUs for the program, in spite of the fact that the very same training had been accredited by this same board only a few years before. Perhaps partially because of that, we were not able to find enough people to fill the training and had to cancel it. So not only did we miss out on having more of this quality of training offered here in the states, but on having more well trained facilitators of the work available to this marketplace. 

So - I'm not sure how to proceed. I know that this country NEEDS what Constellation Work has to offer. I know that there are few people who are well trained in the work and can offer it in an effective and meaningful way to meet these needs. But I don't feel that I am a part of the "community" of constellators in the USA. Perhaps I exclude myself, but I feel that the work is too important and too powerful to approach with less training than most people get before receiving their first driving license. On the other hand, I too rebel against the idea of putting Constellation Work under the oversight of yet another professional bureaucracy. As far as I can see, there IS no clear answer - and we will need to come up with a new approach if it is to be both effective and fair to all involved. 

All I have to offer at this point are these thoughts. 

Writing the flow. . .

Often, when I come out of Stillness from my morning sitting, I am left with a flow of creative energy and think "what a great time to go update my blog!" However, as soon as I sit down in front of the computer, I find that the creative flow has not yet resolved into a word-like substance. And so the updates keep getting put off until I actually drag myself into putting something onto the page. I use this self reflection to preface this entry, because I am still in that flow of creativity - and this is what is emerging. I am going to trust that it will take us all somewhere before I'm done. 

There are many ideas that occur to me during the day - and just as quickly disappear. I'm quite sure that at least some of them are brilliant - and just as sure that most are not. But whatever I may come up with while I'm NOT at liberty to write doesn't matter so much as what comes to me as I sit here now - or anytime I take keyboard in hand and grind something out. Now - just to be clear - I am not complaining. I actually rather enjoy the whole process. . . which leads me to this: While driving across town the other day, I watched a cloud of birds wheeling in the sky and felt a rush of joy rising with them inside me. I thought, "I'm so happy! My life is good. I am blessed with a wonderful partner, right livelihood, a safe and comfortable home. . .." And then I began thinking about how much of my happiness is based outside myself. Some much of it comes from my relationship with my wife, Patricia (aka "the Lovely and Talented") and I started questioning if there was something "wrong" with my happiness because it seems to be so based in externals. 

I took this question home and sat with it; put it on the back burner and let it simmer; and what I've come up with is this: Our happiness in the things around us is based on the choices we make, which in turn is based upon our inner dynamic. When my inner dynamic was clouded and wounded by past karma, I could not make the decisions in my life that led to happiness. Instead, I often chose things (relationships, jobs, experiences) that simply continued the state that I was in already. It took many years of concerted effort at self healing to be able to make healthier choices, less burdened by the experiences of my past. As I was able to make these choices from a more conscious place (due to many years of meditation, etc) I found that I was happier. Was that happiness based simply in the rewards of the choices I made? Or was the happiness the inner root of my outer experience? I suspect the later. 

When I am enjoying a beautiful vista and I feel my heart swell with appreciation, I realize that it is not just the beauty of the view that is involved, but also my capacity to appreciate it. The same is true with anything or anyone who I respond to with appreciation, love, gratitude or joy. When I make offerings to my ancestors in the morning and notice how much more strongly I feel them, it's not because they are any more present than before, but rather that I am now more open to them. 

Has it been mere fortune that allowed Patricia and I to find each other and to be so happy together? I suspect that it is much more than that. It seems to me that, as we grow and develop, we find those things in the world that most clearly reflect our own nature - and in doing so, we reflect the nature of those we find as well.

What I have discovered in this reflection is that the root of our happiness and appreciation of the external is still internal. It is our own inner Self that looks upon the world and sees itself reflected there. As we become more aware of the nature of that reflection, we grow in love and compassion, not only for ourselves, but for all others as well. Truly - to know yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.