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go to Caitriona Reed.com for recent posts

Woodrat Reminiscences. Are you determined?

When we stripped off the old roof of our meditation hall we disturbed a colony of woodrats. Woodrats are also known as pack rats and are notorious in the American west for their habit of collecting vast mounds of debris to make nests that often serve for generations of rodents. We also discovered that woodrats are fond of rearranging libraries, gnawing though computer cables, and keeping us awake at night with compulsive nocturnal activities in the roof.

When the family finally scurried out of the meditation hall roof some of them took up residence in the library for a while-hence our discovery of their penchant for rearranging books. When we finally got them all outside a couple of weeks later they made themselves known by moving hardware and tools about in the workshop and removing small logs from the woodpile.

I started to trap them. Every morning I would drive my captive rodent down our long dirt road and release him or her in the brush by the the banks of a dry river bed. A much more suitable habitat for a woodrat, I thought.

When I released the third rat I had caught (though I am now wondering if it wasn’t perhaps the same rat, caught a third time) instead of running into the nearby brush, he ran around me, darted across fifty yards of open ground and jumped up into the underside of my car. Damn!

I drove as fast as I could back along the dirt road, checking my rear view mirror. Hoping that the road was bumpy enough for my stow away to jump ship. But I didn’t see him.

So I parked the car at the far end of our parking lot, and re-set the trap right next to my car. The next morning I encountered a very angry rodent, caught in the grill of the trap, and squeaking at me in no uncertain terms. He couldn’t get free and I was not willing to risk getting bitten.

So I drove him back down the road and left him on a slope by a rock, imagining that he would either extricate himself or become lunch for a raven or a coyote.

Feeling bad for his plight, and a little guilty I returned in the evening.

I found that he was gone. Not only was he gone but the trap had been disassembled. Not only had the trap been disassembled, but the spring that closes the door was nowhere to be found. I mean nowhere! The door was lying a few feet away, but the spring, without which the whole thing was useless, had vanished. Apart from a few rocks, the ground was open for thirty yards all around. Not a sign of it. It had vanished along with my stubborn and irate little friend. Now I was re-evaluating my understanding of rodent intelligence, and reflecting on the value of furious determination.

Two Kinds of Change

Change happens in one of two ways. Either you make it happen, or it happens to you. Either you live a life of your own choosing, or others choose for you.

Perhaps you are one of those rare people who fully accept their power to effect positive change — in their own life, and for the benefit of others. They base their life on the choices they make. They don’t spend time complaining or blaming others for what happens, and they don’t take much time out to explain or justify their actions. They trust their own judgment as well as the judgment of their team - those who they rely on to hold them accountable. They have a good sense of their own and others’ intrinsic worth.

There’s a motto here: “No complaining, blaming, explaining, or shaming!”

They also trust their own integrity, and so they become trustworthy to others. They don’t cultivate friendships based on mutual disaffection. They are not looking for reasons why bad things happen. They are looking for solutions and results.

If this seems simplistic then look at the lives of people who have truly made a difference in the world. Look at the lessons of history, or look at present day examples. Examine the lives of people like Dr. Martin Luther King, Archbishop Romero, Albert Schweitzer, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa. These people were not without their faults. What sets them apart from others was their vision for change, and their determination to act on that vision. Think of your own examples. Think of the people who have brought about social change. Fame is not the issue. The issue is whether they effected positive change in the lives of others. Don’t look for perfection. When we idealize others, all we are doing is creating a false yardstick with which to measure our own flaws.

Or are you one of those people who thinks that change is something that just happens based on the belief that your actions can’t have any lasting positive effect? If so you are in the majority. And you also probably blame circumstances, events, or other people for many of the difficulties you encounter.

This is not to deny the reality of history. It does not mean that we dismiss the reality of the systemic exploitation of human beings and of the resources of the planet. It simply challenges each one of us to pose the question, “How can I change this pattern of exploitation in the most effective way by refusing to see myself as a victim?”

How can I live by the motto: “No complaining, blaming, explaining, or shaming!”

Walking into the Sun

A walk to the neighbor's to drop off an envelope that FedEx left here by mistake this morning. It's close to an hour round trip. Our neighbor is away. so we leave the envelope by his gate. Walking back through sage brush and old oaks across the now dry grassland that characterize the countryside here. A welcome relief after sitting at the computer for most of the day!

For most of June I was in Los Angeles, and now here, with the sun going down over Mount Palomar to the west.

Waves of gratitude and joy. On Sunday we begin our Sanctuary seminar program. A whole new curriculum, integrating Buddhist teaching, NLP, everything we know, vision quest.

Walking as the sun goes down, growing large and red, making way for the full moon rising in the east.

The Pressing Questions - Hey! This is a Launch!

"Imperfection acted on beats planned perfection," I keep hearing this, over and over in the past year or so, in different ways, from different people. Well, how about imperfection that's still barely out of the planning stages? It is getting done, right?

Actually some of it is already done. The imperfection in question which, if I say so myself, I am really pleased with, is the first several modules in an e-class series called THE PRESSING QUESTIONS.

You can see the first one at ChoosePersonalFreedom.com and sign up for the series there too.

I am learning that it really is possible to maintain integrity and stay congruent with my values; to keep doing what I do, even better than before; help a lot of people; and generate revenue on-line . . amazing imperfection!

The full series of e-classes is only $157. That's seven months of training. And for those who follow through and do the full class and follow through with the exercises etc. that I will be offering ... well, I thank you in advance. And ... you are going to learn some amazing things!

It kicks off with ...

... I was speaking with a colleague the other day, Elise Turen, who was saying how some people are afraid of 'going deep', afraid of questioning, of daring to challenge cherished assumptions.

She laughed and said, " . . we live there . . . " and laughed again. "We live deep!"

want to live deep? read more
ChoosePersonalFreedom.com

Video from Manzanita

The footage is from the two-week permaculture training we hosted last month. Thanks to Margo Adair, Bill Aal, Starhawk, Ken, Andi, and everyone who participated and helped. The footage was shot by Ken Yamaguchi-Clark and edited by Donna Golden (words and voice are by me). We have miles of footage - look out for more.



Permaculture video from Donna Golden on Vimeo.

more Video at Manzanita Videos

Three weeks in a dark room near the airport

Three weeks, and then some, crewing for Chris Howard seminars when I might have better served my time working on the new e-class I am putting together, writing and recording some of the CDs we have planned for this year, planning teleseminar, working on the curriculum for the Sanctuary retreat coming up in July … and a whole lot more.

So the question, “What do I have to learn here?”

• That, as Milton Erickson so famously said, “In the presence of rapport, anything is possible,” and in the absence of rapport things fall apart.
• That leadership isn't about being in charge of everything all the time.
• That when people are ready to really make personal change it is a magnificent and awesome sight.
• That I do know the NLP material really well, and that understanding, and my ability to use it, simply deepens with time
• That I have a lot more good friends than I realized
• That any group of 100+ people that spend intensive time together for three weeks begins to display some symptoms of group-think, and that this group, due to the amazing nature of the curriculum being taught, stayed about as far away from group-think as I can imagine.
• That what’s taught here in NLP Results, Master Results, and PPST (Performance and Platform Skills) is truly brilliant.
• That Johnnie Cass and Duane Alley are brilliant trainers.
• AND, I got to approach Mark Victor Hansen about a possible book project,
  and that I'm setting a goal that it should happen ..
  
  As the Rolling Stones sang, long ago and far away, "you don't always get what you want, you don't always get what you want, but you get what you need."
  
  Picture of Bonnie Bruderer, Mark Victor Hansen, Michele and myself.
  June 29, 2008
  

Taking Action

An activist is someone who takes action. The intention behind the action is to raise awareness, and to effect change.

Is it possible that a truly effective activist would be someone who takes action while at the same time challenging their own limiting habits, expectations, judgments, and fears? Could we not learn to free ourselves from rigid political views and expectations; so they we are not limited by notions of right and wrong? Rather, is it possible to be driven by a deeper (let’s say, innate) human integrity and capacity for compassionate action?

What I want to suggest is that our ongoing commitment to transform the world and our ongoing commitment to transform ourselves is, in reality, part of a single process. We can’t do either one effectively without the other. And there’s no more effective way of free ourselves than by letting go of rigidity, political correctness., competition. What are the alternatives? – clarity, openness, a systems-view and the corresponding ability to act both collaboratively and with individual authority.

A key word here is Leadership. Which is precisely the theme of our week-long Sanctuary Training for activists at Manzanita Village in July, facilitated by Michele Benzamin-Miki and myself Caitriona Reed.
You can learn more at Sanctuary Training

Photo of Arundhati Roy from The Hindu May 18

What We Do at Manzanita Village

Engaged Buddhism is an oxymoron. Buddhism is engaged by nature, and so is life. What, after all, is disengagement? It is machinery that no longer works, negotiations that have broken down, relationships that are over, mental illness . . . Disengagement, at it’s very best, can be no better than indifference or disassociation.

We use the term “Engaged’ to make a point. The point being, that we are made whole through the world rather than by imagining the world to be tainted or broken and withdrawing from it – whether through spiritual practice, hedonism, or even activism.

Understanding the interconnectedness of all things, and cultivating that understanding, inevitably leads to a particular world view. As we cultivate that view, it becomes stronger; not like a conviction we hold, rather as a predisposition to trace new connections, and to revise our old views and opinions. It expresses itself as a willingness to grow, and learn, and change.

Compassion is energized by the recognition that we are more effective when we neither to blame imagined oppressors, nor try to 'save' apparent victims, nor even to change the circumstances that we perceive to be causing suffering.

Something more. . .

That level of understanding is scary. We must let go of ‘them’ and ‘us’, and look for solutions rather than drama. We can no longer be nourished by unhealthy relationships. We stand on our own feet. We are no longer just looking for a way to get by.

In short, we are engaged. . .
like a warrior preparing for the unknown, or a poet alert for the next flickering turn of sensibility, meaning, and sound.

Watercolor by Michele Benzamin-Miki

Going Backwards

Imagine having to reverse a car down the highway, and calculate the turns in the road based on where you had just been, and with a tiny mirror catch occasional glimpses of the road ahead. Wouldn't that make driving very difficult?

People often understand meditation practice as a way of learning to live in the present moment. But living in the present moment does not mean that you cannot dream, imagine, or plan for the future.

Living in the present moment may not be a panacea for all your troubles!

Traditional psychotherapy has often been accused of dwelling too much on past causes. Meditation practice (specifically traditional buddhist practice) trains you to live in the present moment, and to create the inner flexibility needed to effect changes.

Our coaching model helps you brings past, present, and future together; to understand causes of the past, to be fully alive and present here and now AND to create and build a vision for your future, and USE the specific skills that can turn that vision it into reality.

To learn more go ahead and sign up for our "questions to effect change" series.
Click here.

Story: Brighton Bookshop

This past weekend my good friend Susan Moon led a Writing Retreat at Manzanita Village. It's amazing how exquisitely skilled she is at bringing out the writer in everyone. Everyone's work was astonishing. And we all went home with a dozen or more short pieces we had written. Sue will be doing her Writing Workshop here in April of next year. Check out manzanitavillage.org
for dates.

Here's one of my own short pieces from the weekend:

Brighton Bookshop
Caitriona Reed

It was after I had read Lenny Bruce’s story about borrowing two warehouse coats, and driving across to the city with his friend, and loading a refrigerator from one of the big electrical appliance stores onto his friend’s truck. His wife had been nagging him about a new one for weeks. No one noticed them hauling the heavy refrigerator out of the store.

I was seventeen. I liked books a lot. I liked having them almost as much as I like reading them. I was in Crawley one day with Don and Zoë. We went into W. H. Smiths and I walked straight to the back of the store where they kept the oversized books. I took down a copy of Larousse’s Encyclopedia of Mythology, put it casually under my arm, and walked out without batting an eye. I still have that book today.

That was back when people talked about liberating books, private property being an aberration and all that. The Anarchist Party of Great Britain was going strong, the Diggers were alive and well, and we used to hang out at Unicorn Bookshop in Brighton – where we didn’t steal books, because we were in awe of Bill Butler, the tall American poet, who ran it with his boyfriend Mike.

A few years later, Tony and I opened our own bookshop in Brighton, when Bill and Mike moved to Wales to start a publishing co-op. We bought their stock and fancied ourselves Brighton’s answer to Compendium Books in Camden. We started importing books from the States; Steven Gaskin, Alan Watts, Fritz Perls, Philip K. Dick. We sold Marx alongside astrological ephemeris, R. D. Laing, and Chogyam Trungpa. Of course, we refused to sell Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs or anything that remotely resembled a best seller.

We paid ourselves five pounds a week and kept lots of books for ourselves. Then we noticed that books were disappearing that we couldn’t account for from sales or from our own personal library-building activities. Someone was ripping us off. Several people probably, big-time!

Then one afternoon we discovered one of our regular customers, a history teacher form the Poly, someone we used to chat with whenever he came in, leaving the shop with a very large bag of books he hadn’t paid for.

“Right! We’re calling the fuzz.”

“Oh come on man. Don’t do that.”

“Well you can’t just walk out of here with a bag full of books. How do you expect us to survive? You’ve done this before too haven’t you?”

“Oh, come on man!”

We led him upstairs to wait for the police. As soon as we got to the top of the stairs he turned, pushed past me, and taking three steps at a time charged downstairs and straight through the plate glass door. He shattered it, tripped, and fell onto the pavement with blood streaming down his face and arms.

“Oh no, now we’re going to have to fix the door too. What’s wrong with you, man?”

When Tony moved to the States, Richard bought him out. A year later the shop closed. It turned out that Richard had a gambling problem. One week he lost three grand on the horses and wiped us out.

Sometimes I wonder if it wasn’t all some sort of retribution for that Larousse Encyclopedia.

Struggle means brighter colors and longer life

Have you heard this quotation for Anais Nin?
“And the day came when the risk it took to remain closed in a bud became more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

Probably you are familiar with the metaphor of the butterfly, emerging from the chrysalis ~ life emerging from what appears static and lifeless.

Some time ago some lepidopterists (that’s the name for those who study butterflies), were experimenting with the development of butterflies inside their cocoons. They even cut some out prematurely to see what would happen.

They learned that butterflies who had to struggle to free themselves from the cocoon had brighter colors, were healthier, and stronger, and lived longer than those who were cut free prematurely and did not have to experience that struggle.

Sometimes, when we feel stuck and frustrated, and life seem more difficult than it should be, we can remember that the process itself, whatever we’re going through, can strengthen us in ways we may never understand until much later.

Sanctuary. An Ongoing Training for Activists.

An activist is someone who takes action - in order to bring awareness to and to change situations of injustice.

An effective activist is someone who takes action while at the same time challenging their own limiting habits, expectations, judgments, and fears.

The ongoing commitment to transform the world and the ongoing commitment to transform ourselves is, in reality, the same thing. We can’t do either one effectively without the other.

We are called to be practical, adaptable, and open. A doctrinaire approach self limits. The time is over for rigid adherence to doctrines - Buddhism, Marxism etc. Such things are best used as filters, rather than articles of faith.

We are better off learning from multiple sources. To do so is not to dilute the truth of what we know. It is to go ever deeper into an understanding that works systemically. It is inclusive, and it is essentially creative. It includes those we may have thought we must oppose, it moves toward win-win solutions, it is rooted in basic human values of kindness and mutual co-operation. It is the essence of Anarchism in its original sense. Call it original anarchism. Eros out of Chaos . . .

Look for Kropotkin: Mutual Aid
and Alfred Wallace: The Malay Archipelago
Mix gently and simmer.
Season with Audre Lorde's essay on Uses of the Erotic.

Mmmmm delicious!

Shaking the Tree.

“What does not change is the will to change?” Who said that? Pindar perhaps.

The Buddha suggested that resistance to the natural process of change is a cause of unhappiness. Forcing change to happen can be equally problematic. Change is evolution. What I mean by change is a change in values and perspectives, rather than simply a change in outward circumstances.

Change means adaptation. It is the power to respond in new ways, to always re-evaluate. To be open - always. To listen, even when we are afraid.

As a teacher and a facilitator of change, if I am to help others change their lives, I must also know that some people will be impatient, while others will be left behind. Some will be disinterested, or even take the invitation to re-evaluate their assumptions and habits as a personal affront, others will embrace the challenge.

Leadership is very much about catalyzing appropriate change and then implementing it in an appropriate manner. You can’t make everyone happy all the time. To do so you would make you an enabler at best. It could make you complicit in preventing the best from emerging. The best emerges - in an individual, in a community, or in wherever context you work in - in its own time, catalyzed, in part, by what that person or community is willing to learn in the process.

I have noticed that the work towards personal change that I have facilitated for several years (Meditation and Mindfulness drawn from Buddhist traditions) has often been a way for people to feel better about things they have decided they can't change in themselves, rather than actually being a means of effecting genuine personal change.

I am aware that meditation practices that espouse change often do not really encourage people to change basic habits and perceptions. Is that sad or what? I have noticed that some practices actually anchor people into despair, dysfunction, and resistance to really questioning their ‘stuff’ and console them by encouraging them to believe that they are part of an elite community that understands things more deeply than other people.

It was that way with me too. There were times when I was stubbornly stuck. Am I a bad teacher and a bad student? Maybe. Though what I am describing is something I see in various chronic dysfunctional forms in Buddhist centers of different varieties (and in other 'spiritual' contexts too). It's a disease that infects religious thinking and institutions. Stasis. Denial. Dogmatism. Complacency. . .

But now I am excited about change. I am excited about person change that takes place outside of religious or political constructs (are they any different?) - dogmas, fixed systems, and rigid therapeutic modalities.

Therapy is ‘why’.

Buddhism is . . . . well, it's many things. Unfortunately it also can be,
'don't challenge authority'.
or 'practice more and harder and then you will understand'.
Although in essence it encourages us to 'keep asking questions, don’t take anything on faith.' In fact it's often 'don't question me'.

My own interest now is ‘how’ and ‘let’s do it!'

Now the combination of tools that I use to facilitate change, tools I have been given, over many years, adapted and honed, and which I continue to examine and refine and challenge are, if I say so myself, pretty exciting; and judging by the results I am getting from clients and students, pretty darn effective too!

Learn more at manzanitavillage.org and 5changescoaching.com

Sign up for our new list too and receive a free E-book of remarkable quotations 5changescoaching.com

From paper clip to $34,000 in less than an hour, or how I learned to ask for what I want.

Maui. Billionaire Boot Camp. The last of six seminars I attended with Christopher Howard and his folks. I am now officially a graduate of The Fast Track to Success. Over the past few months I have also drawn deeply from the teaching of several people I might not have been open to a very short time ago.

What I have learned is that we each choose our lives. I say ‘learn’ as though such a thing was not already obvious. I mean REALLY learned on some deeper-than-before level. . . . that we can be a 'cause' in our life, or we can be an 'effect.' In other words, we can remain stuck in existing conditions or we can ask, at ANY MOMENT, 'what can I learn here?' I say 'choose' because although some might say that things happen to us that we would never choose, we can always choose is how we respond. Some people are crushed by the same challenge that causes others to thrive and soar.

It’s as if the lessons that really matter can be learned over and over again, each time penetrating deeper, each time corresponding to our ability to challenge our own assumptions more and more. We CAN effect change in our lives, we CAN live with sustained awareness, we CAN be happy, we CAN feel essentially safe in the world. Joy is a natural state. Nothing new here! What is new is the idea that learning and living by these things does not have to be a struggle. Life is essentially fluid. “We live in constantly changing quantum sea of pure potentiality” is a phrase I've heard a lot recently.

Does that invalidate the hard realities of life in these times? Of course not. Does it dull us to contradiction and complexity? Quite the opposite! What it does do, for myself, is to help me recognize that I have a choice. I can feel oppressed (personally, emotionally) by what happens in my life, or I can simply ask, “What can I learn here?” Meaning, what can I learn here for my benefit and for the benefit of the work I do, which I believe to be valuable not only for myself but also for those who are my clients, students, colleagues, and friends.

THERE'S MORE. How can you turn a paperclip into $34,000 in less than an hour. I had heard of the man in Canada who traded up from a paperclip to house. The game we played was based on that.

I’ve won games before - relied on charm and cheek. This was different because it was real. Me, my team, and my phone. Amazing. I called a friend in San Francisco who offered me a couple of hours of his time as a financial consultant, worth $2200. Another friend traded these two hours of consulting for a lifetime membership of her network marketing consulting and leads site. She assumed I’d be around for the next seventy years and so the value worked out to around $34,000. Amazing, in less than an hour.

The next thing is to apply the same sort of attitudes and strategies on a daily basis. To just go for it!

Gatekeepers at World Pride and Power

Almost by accident I enter the World Pride and Power Conference in Los Angeles at the end of February, a world of queer identified folks, mostly of African descent. I came in my capacity both as a woman of transgendered experience as well as a teacher of Mindfulness and Personal Transformation. I shared a platform with Malidoma Some as well as numerous women and men of extraordinary personal and spiritual power. My friend and student Queen who first invited me to attend this conference really is a queen it turns out, a priestess trained in the ecstatic Yoruba tradition.

Malidoma describes himself as a gatekeeper, and invites those of us there who choose, to describe ourselves as gatekeepers too. As a straight man, he speaks of how queer/gay/twin-spirit same-sex loving people are and have been the gatekeepers between the spirit world, the world of the ancestors, the Earth, and the everyday world we know. He has suffered stigmatization and personal attacks both in the US and in his native Africa for doing so.

What is a gatekeeper? Someone who guides, guards, shows the way, keeps the way safe. Someone who knows the way, and who is comfortable moving into the unknown. A gatekeeper protects the integrity of the passage, defines it, explains it, hides it reveals it. Plays. Is a trickster, a healer. The gatekeeper is a map maker and a storyteller. Someone who knows that all maps are real for the one who travels by them, and that no map is fully accurate for one who seeks the truth.

Is the gatekeeper the counterpart of the modern coach, consultant, healer, therapist. Perhaps. That and something more, holding integrity with a higher level view, a higher perspective. a view that includes an awareness of deep time, the immanent presence of the ancestors and the future generations - in our bones, blood, though, and actions. I was surprised, honored, very much at home, to be included. Thanks goes also to another friend, Lawrence Ellis of Paths to Change, who did so much to organize and make the conference possible.

Teleseminar Secrets Again

I met Alex Mandossian in October of last year when I signed up for his Teleseminar course. I met him a couple of times after that and was struck by a quality that I have noticed with only a very few people.

I noticed it with the Dalai Lama on the several occasions I have spent time with him both in the US and in India at his home in Dharmsala. The word that comes to mind in ‘congruent’. But it is something more.

I understand congruence to mean that someone is living their values. They are doing what they love, they are making the best use of their time. There is generosity there, and joy too. Their values direct them towards growth rather than containment, exploration rather than conformity, questions rather than answers. They are doing what they love best and what they love best is to be of the greatest possible benefit to the greatest number of people.

Strange perhaps that two people of two such different backgrounds should have such a similar essence to them. I only count myself fortunate to have such mentors and teachers in my life.

Where do Social Activism, Entrepreneurship, and Buddhist Practice come together?

The answer is: at Manzanita Village.

If it seems strange to you that such things can coexist it may be because you hold certain limiting beliefs about what any of those three things really are.

After the retreat that finished today (we are calling it an 'Advance' rather than a Retreat) it seems clear that to effect change in the world we must collectively move beyond divisiveness, and learn all we can from each other.

What Doesn't Work
- activism that holds to a singular social analysis,
that fosters resentment,
or makes others ‘wrong’
- entrepreneurial values that are solely about gaining,
no matter the cost to others,
rather than building strategic alliances and helping others
- spiritual practice that sets up a dichotomy
by even calling itself ‘spiritual’

. . . all of these come from world-views and patterns of behavior we can no longer afford.

What Does Work

"Unless everyone wins, no one wins!"

The retreat at Manzanita Village that ended today has shown us that this unlikely combination of elements is not only possible, but that the various lessons these elements foster in each other are essential for us all to open to our full potential, individually and collectively.