@Diacre

Awakening My Sacred Masculine – The Hunter Gatherer

Gathering Herbs, Seeking Cures

In many ways this is an extension of the quest for scientific understanding – but it is also something more. Many discussions with my wife lately have been about her health and how western medicine isn’t working for her. Sure, it has been helpful in many ways but in some it just misses the mark. Seeking cures is more than treating symptoms. In fact it is something entirely different. Western medicine attempts to break diseases down into small parts and affect it that way. This works on certain things, but misses the mark on others. Alternative medicine, often eastern medicine approaches healing differently.  Looking at the body as a whole instead of just a sum of parts. That is why it is called holistic medicine. The cures we seek, though are not down one path or the other. We must look down both paths and possibly more to find the cures we seek. We must strive to understand the body even more to understand how to heal it. Our bodies are amazing machines, it’s best not to underestimate them.

Putting Bread on the Table: Hunting for Work

I feel this one. Ever since my wife quit her paying job to start homeschooling our kids I have felt it. My wife is great with managing our money, which also has me feel it because I’m under no illusions that we have any more than we actually do. This is the modern form of hunter gatherer energy in its purest form. In tribal cultures you choices were given by how to provide for your family. However it touched on more in this section. In ancient tribal cultures ( and some modern tribal cultures ) a family you provided for wasn’t nuclear it was extended. How do my daily efforts provide for my community? And why do I spend so much time away from my family/community working to provide for them? These questions may not have exact answers but they can be part of a journey towards fulfilling work. I remember when Ralph Nader was running for president in 2008 and he was looking for people to work on his campaign ( both paid and volunteers ) he talked about being able to take your conscience with you to work. I think that’s important, lest we drain our spiritual energy.

Going deeper though, if we create societies where people have to take jobs that drain their spiritual energy, just to survive, we do them and our communities a disservice. People have a desire to be useful, they want to contribute. First and foremost they want to survive. That is why, if we are privileged to have opportunities others don’t, making a difference for the types of jobs people have access to is a very worthy cause. In dire economic times, like the ones we are in now, this is even more important. It is easy to be seduced by corporations that pollute indiscriminately, have unfair labor practices, steal from the tax payers and more when they are promising so many paying jobs. Just remember, entrepreneurs with a stake in the community and a positive approach to running a business can create better, more fulfilling jobs at less spiritual, environmental and economic cost to the community. It’s a tough road to walk in times like these, but we’d do much better with a strong foundation than with jobs built on despair.

Hunting, and Listening for, the Muse

I’ve been a performing artist, perhaps not a great one, for most of my life. The times when I have been most prolific, most successful I have been tapping into my hunter gatherer energies. As a musician, as a wrestler, as a performer in general and most recently as a magician you have to keep looking for inspiration. It is the times when I’ve stopped looking for inspiration that I have often quit or at the very least hit a lull. Some times you need to fake it ’til you make it. Inspiration isn’t coming to you, it is out in the wild to be found.

About 4 years ago I retired from wrestling and shelved my creative performing talents for a while. About a year ago, I decided to get into the world of magic as my new performance outlet. It has been a bumpy ride. Magic isn’t easy! Then again, neither is music or wrestling but I did those. I’ve contemplated shelving this idea but at the same time I forced myself to stay in the world of magic. I am now my magic club’s sergeant at arms and I took over for someone who didn’t show up to many meetings – this kept me working. Recently I realized my problem, I wasn’t performing. I wasn’t performing because I’m so used to performing on stage ( or in a ring ) and my magic isn’t ready for that. Thanks to some videos and articles that I have been reading lately I realized that a magical performance can be as small as one trick performed for one person. I’ve been performing more and my excitement is growing. I’m hot on the trail of my muse.

Tags: Gender Studies, Masculinity, Ontology, sociology