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What Do Our Shadows Hold?

What will we find when we explore the catacombs of our soul?

I wrote this poem in response to my introspection in 2003…

Awaken from Dark Fancy

In angst I shine my light to cast the demons from my soul.
Come forth thou darkened theater, depart your recessed hole,
Whose rot and fester haunt the hoard of my subconscious hold,
Do permeate my sight, my touch, my being’s every fold.
Forgotten, not forgiven, wretched tragedies, take flight!
Away! Begone, dark demons—oust the shadows by the light.
They are but vapors of dark fancy—creatures wrought in fear.
So see them as they are—awake! And know that love is here,
Rise up in waking presence full, awaken to love’s giving,
Awaken to love’s essence pure. Awake to join the living.

If we don’t look into our own shadows, we will never see the untruths that we have believed about ourselves that have, by default, formed the foundation of our lives.

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My Life Story Reframed

I gave it all away. All of it. My power. My choice of how to live my life. My determination of how to express, what to eat, how to sleep, who to live my life with, where to go, what to do in any given moment, how to think, what to allow myself to feel. I chose the collective in which to be assimilated. The assimilation then followed according to those to whom I gave the offering of my complete essence. It was assimilation like that of the Borg society in Star Trek, the popular TV and movie franchise. The goal for me and my co-assimilants was to merge as cogs in the wheel of the greater collective. Our minds and our social construct became that of the hive mentality in which all of us were the worker bees—every ounce of energy and every thought in our day was in devotion to the hive and its matriarch.

This was the essence of how I lived my life for eighteen years in the secretive, esoteric, cloistered group that would eventually come to public light as the Heaven’s Gate cult.

I stayed until I couldn’t. I reached my breaking point at a deep unconscious level that surfaced in my conscious awareness as a simple over-riding thought, “I cannot be here anymore.” At the time I didn’t know why. But I was sure. It was the surest thing I had ever known. It was my touchstone in the face of the ensuing assault of cult party-line thinking and vernacular holding me to task to reconsider because: “You know how rotten the world is out there”, and “You’re throwing away the keys to the Kingdom of God if you do this”, and the thought always in the back of our minds, “You’ll be spaded under in the coming recycling of civilization, after which who knows when your soul will have another opportunity like this.”
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Driving with the Brakes On

Those of you who have met me, in person or on the phone, know that I’ve struggled with speaking fluidly, freely, and easily, often with a strained or stuttering voice.

Today it became clear how the Universe has been sending me messages (or reflections)—on three occasions (that I’m aware of)—over the past few months. I might have finally heard them.

I took my car into the shop today because what had started a week ago as a squeak had turned into a rumbling vibration when I drove with normal speed. My fuel usage had increased markedly. A few months ago I’d had a similar squeak, and a few months before that as well. In the first two instances, and again today, the diagnosis was, “Your brake caliper is seized and has destroyed the pads and rotor as well.” The past two times, it affected a single wheel. Today was not one, but two.

I asked the service advisor, “Why does this keep happening?” Tonight, it dawned on me, “Wait a minute… there’s a parallel here… am I driving my life with my brakes on?”
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20th Anniversary of My Heaven’s Gate Departure

August 31, 2013, was the 20th anniversary of my departure from the Heaven’s Gate cult. That anniversary was about eleven months ago. Below is the journal entry that I shared with my brothers on that day.

I realize there may be contextual factors of life in the Heaven’s Gate cult that aren’t clear from this account since it’s a snapshot of my time there. If so, I apologize. If you do have questions, I’m sure some of them will be answered in subsequent blog posts. Or you might have to wait for my book to come out. Please feel free to leave your comments and questions below.

 
Today was the 20th anniversary of my departure from the Heaven’s Gate group (cult, classroom, commune). It was 20 years ago today—on August 31, 1993—that I was driven to the airport in San Diego and I boarded a plane for Calgary (with a plane change at LAX). I remember two fellow group members, Srrody (pronounced “Sirr-ody”—Terry Stephen McCarter) and Swyody (pronounced “Soy-ody”—he now goes by Sawyer), sitting with me at the San Diego airport in the departure lounge. (It was pre-2001 of course—remember when you could see your friends and family off in the departure lounge?)

They sat reading their personal notes, I suppose from a recent meeting with Do (Dō, the remaining leader of the cult), while I sat anticipating the transition I was about to undertake. Srrody seemed almost smug as if he knew without a doubt that he was going to “Heaven” while I was going to “Hell”. But that didn’t dampen my resolve to leave. I was glad for him that he was so sure of what he needed to do. I felt just as sure of what I needed to do. I was sure of my decision to leave the group, or put another way, I was sure it was no longer right for me to stay in the group, although I recall having mixed emotions about what was next for me.

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An Instrument of Vision

Recently, I visited my uncle, Cabot Lyford, near Portland, Maine. Cabot is well-known in New England as an artist and sculptor of stone, wood, and bronze. He’s in his late-80s and has retired from sculpturing due to health. Also fairly recently, a film was released about him as part of an ongoing series of film portraits of distinguished Maine artists, Dale Schierholt’s “Cabot Lyford: Portrait of a Man as Artist”. On my visit, I had a chance to share my appreciation for him and my thoughts on the advent of the film. The letter below is my follow-up to him in response to that visit.

July 6, 2014

My Dear Uncle,

It’s been two weeks since seeing you last in Damariscotta. On our brief visit, I attempted to express my appreciation for you and for the honor being given you in the form of Dale Schierholt’s new film, “Cabot Lyford: Portrait of a Man as Artist”. This letter is the result of collecting and refining my thoughts since then which I’d like to share with you now.

Wise people have said we communicate the things we most need to learn. Something increasingly important to me lately is the acknowledgment of value—the core value of oneself and of others—a past and present focus for me.

Two weeks ago I felt I didn’t adequately express two things to you. First is how wonderful and appropriate this film is in tribute to your work. Second is my sense of the significance to you, and to all of us who have experienced your work, of the aspiration you realized early in your career to achieve something beautiful, meaningful, and lasting.

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