June 7, 1998
Samuel: Hello dears.
Greetings, Samuel.
S: Everybody take off one shoe. All right, that’s a joke. You really don’t have to take off a shoe. However for those of you who did just recently remove that one shoe, what was that about? Anybody want to explain what I’m talking about, and tell what that was a part of? Aye.
It was the opening exercise at the retreat last week, and you took off a shoe.
S: I didn’t.
No. We took off a shoe, put it in a pile, then went up and chose a shoe randomly.
S: Except for Bonnie.
And then Samuel gave us an impossible task of pairing up. But once you’d paired up with the person who had your shoe, they had to pair up with the person who had their shoe, and their shoe. And it was sort of chaotic, and a whole lot of self-realization, and what kind of leaders we were, or are. And it was a wonderful exercise, actually.
S: Very good. Anyone else want to add to that? Aye.
Well, when you kind of got in these groups, you gave one … your quest was to come up with two reasons why you had done this. Of course, people made assumptions about what you said that you didn’t say. And it was a real test of boundaries. How do you function when you’re not given much direction? And you come up with what you thought were directions, and how you function in a group, you know, whether you might have created another small group to be a part of, whether you went along with these people over here. It was a little chaotic, but it really told a person—us—a lot about how we dealt with boundaries, if we didn’t have [them], and how we made them.
S: Aye. Well, my focus very much was on can you step back and watch you? Can you step back and watch you and know how you work? Do you know what your strengths are, and what your weaknesses are? And are you able to get out of your own way? And my means of doing it was, first, to create chaos, to provide almost no safe boundaries. Boundaries are your friend; you just don’t realize it until you’re without them. You’ve grown so accustomed to having them set up there for you, and yet they feel so good. Without those boundaries, you start having to do something to create them, and you’re going to create them based on what makes you feel secure. That alone is trouble enough.
Then to give hazy instructions as to what is expected, step back and watch what happens. To see individuals immediately speak up, become the leaders, directing others into place: “Here is what is needed.” Stepping back. Watching. Waiting. Following directions, even if they’re not what you think you had been instructed to do. How many people looked at me, and looked at the person who was the loudest in their group? And then those who just stood in little corners and chatted with one another and did not really take part at all, but made sure that not everyone else could either. They were all methods of survival. And that’s what I talked about then. And that’s what I’m talking about now. Surviving.
Everything that you do is a survival mechanism. Aye, the bottom line, the bottom line of everything that you do, the reason that you do it, is for survival. And what survival is defined as for you is the expression of your courage and of your fears, is an expression of your relationship with other people, of your relationship with Source. Everything you do you do to survive. And that’s the direction I’m going this night.
Now, why would I be going in that direction this night? Because obviously this is the month of June, and the summer solstice is all about survival, isn’t it? All right, maybe not. How about because [of] Father’s Day? That’s also this month, correct? It is. All right. It is. And, of course, fathers are all about survival. Right?
Wrong.
S: Aye, well, about more than solstice maybe.
We’ve got a full moon that comes up on Tuesday.
S: And that’s about survival as well, isn’t it? Surviving through another month. Or not. It’s because everything that you do in your life is done more easily when your security issues are not coming up. Your security issues kick in, that survival instinct, and that need to survive makes for chaos greater than throwing your shoe into a pile ever can. Security. The need for it. And survival with and without it. And I’m talking about that right now because you are about to move into the second half of your year, aren’t you? And if you want to divide your year up into sections of preparing and acting, and acting and preparing, then it’s time for the action that the beginning of this year has been giving you. For the farmers amongst you, the ground that you’ve been preparing, and the seeds that you’ve been planting are about to come up, and it’s so much better, don’t you think, when you have an idea of what it is you’ve planted? It’s so much easier if you know they’re going to be what? Tomatoes or peaches. That one might not be so hard. Cabbage or lettuce? Would that work? Still not so hard. All right, any other ideas? All right. And you said over here?
Lettuce and spinach.
S: That’s a good one. Lettuce and spinach.
Lima beans or pole beans.
S: Oh, good, you see the farmers are starting into it now.
What are you afraid of? Why is that fear there? How does it direct your life? How do you change it?
“Samiel, I’m not afraid of anything. I have no security issues.” Good. The world has been waiting for you for two thousand years. It’s about time. And if indeed it is that you’re uncertain as to what your security issues might be, here is a way to know. Ask yourself this question: If I could do anything, go anywhere, with anyone, what would I do? Now, another version of that question is, What makes you happy? Not what makes you smile; what makes you happy? Deep joy.
Now, if you’ve answered that question to yourself, here is the part that will let you know what your fears are, because it’s where I say, “Good, then go out tomorrow and just do it.” And anything that comes to your mind that is the reason why, right now, at this instant, you cannot do it, there’s going to be an issue of insecurity there.
Well, Samiel, until I have this advanced degree, nobody’s going to pay attention to a thing I say. Well, if I actually just stop what I’m doing and go and do that, then I will let down all of these people who are relying on me, and they might not like me anymore. Or on and on it can go. It can be a means of seeing such things as putting yourself back into an extremely imaginative, tribal sort of memory. It can put you back to the fear of being left alone, away from the safety of the tribe, too close to the woods where the bears are. And therefore you’re still learning to juggle for the approval of others. Learning to perform to get what you need.
You’re good at survival, and there are a lot of ways that shows up. Can you think of just a couple, hypothetically of course, that will put a bit of a real-world slant onto what I’m saying here? Survival mechanisms. Things people tend to fear that express what I’m talking about here. Any ideas? Aye.
Sure. Let me think just a second. One of the things that I do in my business is market other people’s businesses. For me to market my business brings up a lot for me because I’m so close to it. And so that’s probably the last thing that I really like to do. I like to do my work with other people, but to market myself brings up fears for me to go out and do that.
S: Because you are afraid of [what]?
Probably rejection in some sort of [way], or I’m not doing it the way that they …
S: Rejection. Failure. Good. Yes. Sure.
… that’s the best that could possibly be an expression of my doubts.
S: And does that, by any chance, ever create a situation—forgive me; it was not my intention to be quite this direct, but does it ever bring up a situation in which you might not do something that perhaps later you may even have regretted because you were afraid of rejection? Have you ever had that happen? Or, fearing failure, you do not do something, and it turns out it would have worked out just fine? Have you ever had that happen? Aye. Remember, you’re not always right. Your fears are not always justified. The things that you are convinced establish the limits of what you can do are not always right. Sure, sometimes they are, but sometimes they’re not. And how do you know when it’s going to be one of those situations that you’re going to be wrong, and therefore you can let up and not be afraid? How do you know?
You don’t.
S: Bingo. You don’t. And because you don’t know, you fear. Or you seek psychics. Or you become controlling, creating every situation in your world to fit a pattern you’re familiar with and you’re comfortable with, because it’s easy enough for you to not fail that way. Not so easy for anyone else to be around you, but easy enough for you to not fail if you can set up your life into a little pattern.
What’s another version of security issues? Aye.
I’ve found that sometimes it’s easier to be angry and blame other people for a situation than it is to actually do something about it, and it’s that anger and blame that keeps you from having to move on and see your own power. Not that I was there, but …
S: That’s right. This is just hypothetical, isn’t it? That so many times it’s so much easier to establish blame, to be angry, than it is to look at what is going on, because blame and anger, the children of guilt, guilt, the child of separation. Separation, the function of form on earth. You were born with a desire to connect with Source, and an inability to do so to the satisfaction of what is inside you, to the frustration of what is outside of you. That immediate separation from spirit and form establishes a pattern that is forever resisted throughout your life, that is forever resisted by the very typical human response to resistance.
What is that typical response, by the way? It’s twofold. Here is the hint. This is pop quiz time. I told you there’d be one eventually. Humans tend to react in two ways to situations in front of them that they have resistance to. They either absolutely, totally go to the other end of the spectrum and fully do the opposite, or they leap so close to it, bring it to their bosom and hold it closely in order to explore it. And both of those are absolutely outrageous versions of the balance that needs to be experienced in that center. So, in resisting the separation, the tendency is to make that separation even wider, and unneeded. You will always seek to justify your actions, and some of you are so good at it. You will always seek to justify your actions, because that is a survival technique. You must justify what you do lest you be …
Wrong.
S: Wrong. Exactly. Because if you are wrong, then you are a failure. If you are failure, well, you might get left next to the forest, and the tribe will go on without you, and you’ll be too close to the bears again. You might be rejected. And you might lose your life. Survival is always a life- or-death issue. And ultimately everything is a life-or-death issue, even though it might not be the life or death of your form. It could simply be the life, the joy, the reason for living, that sense of feeling alive. The death of the joyous, carefree, innocent self. It’s all a life-or-death issue.
So the separation—which is a microcosmic understanding of the macrocosmic greater separation, a view of it—that separation immediately creates a sense of insecurity. And [of] all of the mechanisms that kick in to become secure, one of the best is, “Well, it was supposed to be that way. I don’t want to be a part of that anyway.” Blame, and refrain. Refrain. That’s right. Get away. Blame. No good. Back off. Get away. Because if it challenges, offers something new to what you’ve always done, and what you’ve always done is what you know is going to work for you, but somebody comes along with a different version that could be workable, well, you’ve got to separate yourself from it. You’ve got to make it bad to justify your reason for not taking part. That’s a very human response to guard their own.
Well, in the very same way that the opposite of devotion is fanaticism, so is that overt devotion to something that you don’t fully know also a human response. Mindlessness is just as much a security activity as rejection altogether.
The gift that you have is your mind; you can think. The balance to your mind is your heart; you can feel. The trick to your security is not only thinking and not feeling, or only feeling and not thinking. It’s learning to put them both together in a way that works.
I’ve got a story for you. And this story is based very much on the labyrinth activity from last night. What do you know about labyrinths? Makes you think of …
Pattern.
S: All right. Pattern. Very good.
[…] geometry.
S: Tends to function on a very specific pattern, so to speak. It’s built with what by many eyes is recognized as a magical formula. And I’d agree with that. Any more?
Purpose and intent move you through it.
S: Purpose and intent move you through.
Makes me think of Chartres Cathedral.
S: Sure it does.
Because that’s the first time I saw one.
S: Aye, although they are all over the world, and they are much older than that cathedral.
Well, a labyrinth differs from a maze …
S: Good.
… in that in a maze often you’re faced with choices, and you have to make a decision to make a certain turn, and it may or may not work out, where a labyrinth is a path where you really don’t have to make a choice in which direction you go, but it may take you all over the place, and you may feel at times like you’re lost, that you’re never going to get to the middle, because you were close, and all of sudden now you’re way out on the outer edge, but you …
S: Good.
It makes me think of trust and balance.
S: Good. Very good. It’s a pathway that forces you into a certain number of twists and turns in order that you might reach the center and go out again. A labyrinth, if you know the secret of it, is extremely simple. For, as Stuart said, it’s not a maze. There are no dead ends. You just follow the path. You just follow the path. It leads you all number of ways, and if you let your mind float off you can get distracted, and you might forget if you’re coming or going.
It sounds frightening.
S: Doesn’t it, though. And that’s this story, because labyrinths are vehicles for initiation and have been for more years than any piece of your form has a connection to remember with. They are a function for spiritual passage.
Once upon a time, in a land far away from here, in a society quite different, and [in] a time that was indeed long, long ago, there was a group of people who had very interesting beliefs. They were a very large tribe of people who did not quite have the same belief structure that you do today in this society in this world. Theirs was a goddess understanding, more so than a god understanding, but it was a time of transition and change, and so this particular group of people recognized that every being had a purpose, that as a reflection of goddess or god, there was a greater reflection than even they were able to recognize in that which embodied both goddess and god.
Sounds outrageous, doesn’t it? Can you imagine believing anything like that? That it’s possible there is a creator above all through which the whole construct of god or goddess, or god and goddess, is a part. My goodness, what outrageous theology those primitive peoples did have!
Children were the treasure of that vast tribe, as is so often the case in a society through which the needs to continue and the safety of the group itself depended upon having strong warriors—male or female. And healthy individuals: healthy women able to bear many children, and healthy men to be a part of creating them—even then they were a part of the creating of them.
Within this society there was a ritual of coming into womanhood or coming into manhood. Depending upon the individual’s choice, the age was different, but for a woman it was usually the onset of her blood, menses you call that, yes? And for a man the equivalent. Would you say that? Well, there are children in here. As is often the case in a society in which so much of what is done is arranged for safety, children grow up very fast, and the rights for manhood and womanhood were often experienced around eleven or twelve years of age. For a boy to become a man, one had to go into the labyrinth and back out, bringing a gift from the center of the labyrinth.
Of course, every child knew that it was extremely dangerous to go into the labyrinth.
Women were taken into the house of the priestesses, and they underwent some very specific rites. The girl children and the boy children performed the rites at given times of the year, and they did them at the same time, although separated. The young, newly made women of the tribe would meet each of the boy children that had become the newly made men of the tribe one by one, if they made it out. And, of course, there were all sorts of stories about those who never did.
Well, this particular story is about a young boy and a young girl who fell in love with one another, but in order to make a permanent union they had to undergo the rites of womanhood and manhood. And they were very afraid, because taking on such a choice gave responsibility so far beyond anything they ever knew. They knew that it was a dangerous task. The woman child went into the house of the priestesses and began her program of learning, coming out once every moon to be with her family—and in this particular case to find a way to sneak and be with her love. And the young boy child was working to make himself strong and able to make it through the labyrinth, to be able to be worthy of calling himself a man, and becoming a part of the tribe in a greater way.
The time finally came—I’m going to shorten this story tremendously for you; I’m sure you can allow your imagination to roam somewhat and fill in all of these details—but the time finally arrived. It was going to be the week, the number of days is how it was recognized, the days of the festival through which the girls would come out and be women, and then the boys would go through the labyrinth and come out men. And they would be allowed into the tribe as new people.
On the night before it was time for this young boy to go into the labyrinth, he was so afraid. He was afraid because he did not know what was going to happen. That’s the only thing that ever gives you fear. Ever. It’s the only thing that pushes your security buttons and causes you to misbehave when you don’t know what’s going to happen so that you can take care of it, and make it work—your way, of course. He did know that no one in his immediate small tribe had ever not made it through, but he did know that they all came out different somehow. And as he was sitting looking over a beautiful plain from a high rise above his tribe’s village area, he heard somebody approach, and he turned around and there was his love. He knew that she had passed whatever rituals she was required to do, because the night before they had started the celebration process as the young girls, now women, were coming out of the priestess’s house. And he had not realized that she might be coming out, and he said to her, “It’s so good to see you. This could be our last night together.” [Laughter]
I haven’t heard that in a long time.
S: If it works. And she said, “I must tell you this: Do not fear the labyrinth. Put your hand to the left wall and do not let anything distract you, and you’ll be safe.” And he thought, What does she know? But he had better things to do than argue with her, so he said, “Thank you very much,” and he embraced her.
And the next day came much too quickly, and it was time for him to go into the labyrinth. And he was very brave, and he walked forward, and it was light for about twenty or thirty paces, and then that light got progressively less and less until pretty soon he was in total darkness. He could see nothing. And in that total darkness, he felt disoriented. And a little voice inside of his head said, “Put your hand to the left, and do not be distracted.” But he was confused, because he did not know if the left was still the same left or if he’d gotten himself all turned around, because it had been so dark. So he gave it a try.
Now, have you ever been in a place that’s so absolutely dark that pretty soon you can see things you know aren’t there. Total darkness will do that for you. In the silence, your own heartbeat sounds like your enemies drumbeat off in the distance there. Boom, boom. Boom, boom. Boom, boom. And you cannot see where they’re coming at you or not. And you know that this is a dangerous spot that you’re in, and you don’t know what it is you’re going to do, and so the only thing he knew to do was to put his hand out and move until he found that wall. And, with only trust, he moved forward. And walked, and walked, and walked, and walked, and walked, and walked, and twisted and turned and walked until he realized that he was beginning to see some light, and it was getting progressively lighter. And finally he could see that he’d apparently reached the center of that labyrinth. And there was oil burning in a socket carved into the wall. And there was some sort of beast lying in wait. And as he approached, he could see that that huge, hairy lump was moving, and casting grotesque shadows, and he was so afraid, because he’d never seen anything like it, and he could only imagine the horrible death that he was going to experience as a result of this horrible beast, because he knew that there was no way that he was going to be able to outrun it.
And, believe me, I am shortening this story. I’ll do it yet again.
He finally took up another one of those good deep breaths and said, all right, here we go, and went in. And immediately up jumped this horrifying beast, making slobbery awful sounds, sort of like a cat taking a bath. Do you think? Well, Frank was doing a good imitation of it earlier, aye. Do it Frank.
[Laughing] I can’t.
S: And something about the way that creature moved looked sort of familiar. And he realized, just a moment here, and took a better look. And as he was taking a better look, that creature started absolutely transforming, because as he was looking he realized that’s really a person inside some sort of costume. It’s not a beast at all. I think it’s just a mask there that it’s wearing. Well, of course, that made him feel a lot better, and he moved forward and grabbed a hold of the head, and pulled off the mask and exposed his own father. And, of course, the child said, “What are you doing here?” And the father said, “In order to make your rite into manhood, you must fight the beast you’ve made out of me, and learn to move beyond to continue your own journey. And as proof that you have done so, take this gift,” and he handed him a necklace, “to show that you have fought that beast and won. Now, these are the instructions for moving on out of here: Put your hand to the left wall, and do not be distracted. Keep moving.”
And of course the boy sort of smirked, because that’s what got him safely that far. And very quickly he was out of the labyrinth and greeted by the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, whom he recognized as his love now in the clothes of a woman preparing for marriage. She took him by the hand and led him to the council elders, and they asked him what he learned. And he thought, and he thought, and so they turned to her and said, “You have become a woman of this tribe. What have you learned?” And she thought and she thought and she thought. And they said, “All right, the two of you confer about your experience, and then let us know what has come of it, because you will not be allowed to call yourself a man and you will not be allowed to call yourself a woman until you have passed this final test of understanding.”
And they came back, and they said this: “We have recognized that a very small part of the trial that we went through was to release what was. The woman had to release the life of her child self, moving away from the home of her mother to understand the greater mysteries that were to come to her, and the magics that were available. But there was more, and we’ll get to that in a moment.” And the man said that he recognized that he, too, had to leave the home of his childhood and release what he understood his father to be, that which has been keeping him from being a man.
But that that wasn’t all there was, there was more. And the elders said, “All right, what is it? What is it?” And they said, “We had to make the choice to trust.” The woman, in going to her lover the night before, told him a part of the secret of the labyrinth, but it was a part of work that the goddesses, the sisters, the priestesses, had put her to do, because her work was to share the secret, but not fully give it away. She had to learn to give without overprotecting, and keeping the other from growing strong. And indeed, that is the work of goddess energy: to give and to be what is needed the instant of creation without taking over.
And the boy to become the man, his, too, was one of trust: to learn to move forward, not always able to fully map out and know the next step, but to go forward knowing that you have enough for now. And so it is with god energy. Whereas the goddess instigates and creates the vessel through which the work will be done, that work is not done because the whole way is painted clear, and the picture is easy to understand; it is done by one brave step after one brave step, and that’s how you become, not a man, not a woman, but a hoo-man. To learn to put those two together, because the one alone is not enough. It’s never enough. But when put together, it creates a picture greater than either single one. They were admitted into the tribe.
So what’s my point, finally? Where are you in that picture? Are you sitting on the cliff top, looking out over the plain where all of your past is sitting? Your whole upbringing is there before you, because that’s the village you grew up in, and everything that you do is based on what they did. Are you making a life of sitting up there, looking out over the campfires and wishing things were different? That’s one way to live. Not happily.
Maybe you are at the mouth of the cave, looking at the labyrinth, and you’re saying, I can do this. This is simple. And you’re taking twenty paces in, and saying, Oops, it’s getting dark; let me start over again. I can do this. I think it’s simple. And twenty paces in it’s starts getting dark, and you walk out again, because you don’t feel you have what you need to make it through.
Maybe you’re halfway in and the sound of your own heartbeat’s scaring you. For some of you it should. The darkness is too much.
Maybe you have spent all of this great time in the house of the priestesses learning to become holy and good to do what this world is expecting of you, and you are perfectly willing to give up everything that has meaning to you to fulfill your holy task and live forever in the house of the priestesses where things are quiet and not scary, and you just have to be careful of your knees, because those stone floors are sort of hard on them with all the praying you’ve got to be doing all day.
Maybe you’re standing looking into the light at the center of the labyrinth, and what you fear is showing up all around you in the shadows of your imagination. Or maybe you’ve finally pulled the costume off the old man. And you found that the actual doing of your task is not quite so hard as all of that fear getting to it.
Maybe you have reached that point where you are willing to listen to the voice within that says, Don’t be distracted. Stay focused and keep your hand on that left wall, will you?
What’s your left wall? What is it that you can reach out and touch and know that it will help keep you on the path? Do you have a left wall? That’s the hero of this whole story, you know, that left wall.
Maybe you’ve learned to make use of the instructions you’ve heard, and to take it step by step by step. Maybe you’ve learned to recognize that the things you thought you were afraid of are not so fearful when you’re actually in there with them, that in fact they’re sort of familiar. And maybe you have found that by putting together what you know and who you are with the task at hand, you can do what you’re here to do. [Noise from a member of the audience] I’ll take that as confirmation.
Your world needs you whole, and you know it. It is the time to move into action, and you are needed whole, healed. Not the victim of your childhood fears nor the excuses of your adult security system. “Well it’s all right for me not to go through the labyrinth today, because it’s Tuesday.” Your planet has been waiting for closer to three thousand years than two thousand for those who have come here to be guardians of the planet, of the people, of the life, of the light, of the love to come out of the labyrinth and be a working part of the tribe. To wake up. To join up. To be whole. It’s frightening. Childhood is so nice, isn’t it? It has its advantages, anyway.
Aye. Oh, well, he’s a part of a whole different sort of generation, though, as beings of light that choose beings of light for parents. Wouldn’t you have liked to have that advantage. So sure, childhood is fun for him.
It can be so secure to not change, to just do it like everyone else, even though you know it’s not enough. To settle, because it’s what everyone else does. It can be so comforting to be average, can’t it? And yet, you know, every time you take another step that’s average, you hear that little voice in you that says, Don’t get distracted, stay on the path, put your hand to the left wall and keep going. All right, maybe it doesn’t say those words to you. Maybe the words you hear are, You can do better; you can do more. Put love here. Be kind. This is something that needs gentleness. Maybe a bit of laughter would be good here. And you’re not fighting it by saying, “Oh, no, it’s too dark.” You’re fighting it by saying, “Nobody else is. Why should I? Well, what if they don’t understand back at the office? Well this isn’t something everybody knows about.” And you can live your life that way and never come out of the labyrinth. Don’t trip over the bones of the many others who’ve chosen that same path. Come out into the light.
The god and the goddess within you are aspects of that great Source of all of those. Listen. The goddess says, “Love.” The god says, “Put feet on it,” because you will only be an adult when you have learned to live love, out in the open, where everyone can see, and that’s only because that’s what you have come here to do. And you know it. And you know it.
At this coming workshop, I’m talking about suffering. You can’t stop the suffering out there until you can stop the suffering in here. It’s time to stop being a child, because that’s what creates your suffering. There it is. Bottom line. Now you don’t need to come. The treasurer hates it when I do that.
Your next six months are going to be learning to fly. I promise, one way or the other, you’re going to be learning to fly. Focus on the path. Don’t be distracted. Keep your hand to the left wall. And we will work on teaching you how not to fall. [The] planet is ready for flight, but somebody’s got to do it first. And you have forgotten, but you signed up to be the ones. So there it is.
July is going to be questions and answers. It’s time. We’ll have fun.
Glochanumora, little birds. Happy trails.
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