Live and Let Die

One of my favorite movie quotes is from the movie Evan Almighty. In one scene Morgan Freeman (playing God -- I just love the casting!) is talking to Evan's wife and tells her, "When you pray to God for courage, he doesn't give you courage. He gives you the opportunity to be courageous."




The past week has been particularly interesting, as well as rough. I won't go into all the details, at least until some things have come to fruition, but my life is again at a cross roads. You would think, following a shamanic path, that I would be use to shamanic deaths by now. I heard someone say that being a shaman means facing one death after another. I've lost count of how many times I've experienced it, especially in the past 10 months since my Vision Quest.





Just to clarify, Shamanic Death is not physical death. As far as I know, I'm in great, healthy physical shape. The death I am talking about is a deep transformation -- a death of the old self, old perspectives, and old ways of thinking and doing things.



I've been trying to figure out why it has to be death and not rebirth, but as I near the edge of this present experience I realize it is because Death has to precede Rebirth. I am on this side of it. I don't know what the other side looks like yet. There is a deep grieving process as I prepare to possibly lose everything, because nothing will be the same once I cross that line. Definitely Death. But you can not have one with out the other -- two sides of the same coin. Even according to hard science energy can not be destroyed, only transformed. My present self's ceiling is my future self's floor. I have to pass through one to get to the other. The portal to Rebirth is Death.



This happens all the time, unnoticed on a smaller scale, but the one I am approaching feels HUGE. It is scary and exhilarating at the same time. And what does this have to do with my original quote above? As scary and off balanced as I may presently feel, as haunted by doubts and personal demons as I may presently be, I have to own the fact that I asked for this. I set the intention to manifest as my true authentic self, a self I have not yet experienced on a permanent basis -- a Rebirth of self. In order to get to that point, everything that is inauthentic, in the way, or not serving that vision has to fall away -- a Death. I have asked for a self that is more loving and compassionate -- I am getting the opportunity to be more loving and compassionate. I have asked to be more confident and centered -- I am getting the opportunity to be so.



Reminds me of another quote I heard somewhere -- Something about how most people pray to God when their cages are being rattled not realizing God is the one doing the rattling.



In order to get to the True Self I am, and that I want to express, I have to let go of the illusions of who I think I am, and who I think the world thinks I am. I have to surrender to the truth of my being, because, to use another quote, this time from the Course In Miracles, "Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists." The Real me, the part of me beyond time and space, can not be touched or threatened. Anything more than that is superfluous, and any tie I have to it as my identity is an illusion.



So what might my life look like when I have gone through this process. Probably very much the same, on the outside at least, as it does now. Maybe nothing on the surface will change. It is the deeper transformation that counts, and the detachment from appearances, whether they change or not, that matters -- That makes all the difference in the world. One more quote for the road -- "Before enlightenment chop wood carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood carry water."