Undazed ... for sure ...

23 December 2004

Howdy all and happy holidays,

I know that for some of you it’s better put … Happy Holi-daze … because this time of year really sets some people up for being dazed and confused for sure. The mere act of coming into proximity with so many others can be reason enough for some people to become unsettled in themselves.

Yet what’s more interesting can be the lack of awareness some people have with their “unsettledness� … how unaware they are of themselves in essence. The crux of where I’ve put my attention for the last fifteen years almost exclusively … and for the fifteen prior to that as I remembered to do so … has been on the awareness of my own ontological condition … or who I am being and becoming.

I became interested in this idea by accident … and then it became compelling for me. A singular idea that has compelled me along a trajectory leading endlessly back to myself … so that I could enter the world from the center of myself … a loop opening endlessly from myself into myself … referring my back again to the world. This journey holds me mesmerized … fascinated by the possibilities it contains and suggests. This form of consideration has led be to the consideration of the teleological form as well. The pull of the future that hasn’t happened yet as being more compelling than any push of the past could possibly be in organizing us to become ourselves.

What’s maybe becoming most interesting to me as I continue this journey myself has been the awareness of what shows up being the greatest reference of all to what is most true of me. If I extend this thinking beyond myself I find that those who show up in reference to me are the most telling of all of who I’ve become and who I’m becoming. I see this most evidentially in the relationships I see people having … the desire to pursue pleasure to satisfy the angst of their deep ontological longing … the lack of knowing themselves to be who they are referring them outwards to seek someone who will provide what they find most missing in themselves.

This is a dichotomy of the greatest proportions. To think that one can satisfy what is missing from oneself by finding something contained by other may be the greatest delusion we foist upon ourselves. Then of course we can find the form of who as a recurring pattern in the observation of ourselves and of other. For instance someone who chooses to pursue and to engage with someone who would let them overrule and control them tells much about the person who is controlling. A pattern of abuse designed to lead to self-satisfaction and pleasure that instead leaves only a greater urgency for satisfaction than was present before any such encounter. Then there would be the inverse of that, the person who opens themselves to being controlled, being overruled and what they receive for allowing this abuse of themselves. A sense of self-satisfaction that they are the victim, satisfying others while in fact being the more controlling, more manipulative of the pair. These observations pan out every time, without exception, without fail … don’t you think?

When you see this kind of interaction you know without exception that there must be something profound missing in the individual who allows themselves to become engaged in such an affair. A lack of self-esteem of significant proportions … significant enough to create an urgency of satisfying the impulse to be known by others as significant without the willingness or acceptance required to become who they are becoming before announcing themselves as being such. This will self-satisfying urgency only feeds the system to become every more dependent on this feedback loop of intermittent release … intermittent satisfaction … with the underlying pattern growing stronger in every revolution of the wheel. This pattern reminds me of the pattern of the wheel of karma … those who cannot or will not pay the dues now … of letting life unfold in reference to that which is greater than self … who demand an urgent satisfaction of their immediate desires … regardless of the cost to them or others … build an ever deepening karmic debt.

Yet there must be a way beyond this cycle of self-indulgence, the way of the warrior, as some paths refer to it. The warrior represents the individual who has taken up the challenge to arm themselves with awareness … without regard to the world’s opinion … or the seduction of the challenge of acceptance. Yet within this tradition the warrior also holds the position of lover as well. The warrior represents the greatest sacrifice of all … the sacrifice of self to that which is greater than self … to becoming transparent to all desire … especially the desire to reward oneself with the immediate pleasure at the price of the future quenching of all desire.

This season seems a time most appropriate to remind myself of the way of the warrior … the way of light … illuminating the path before myself with awareness … and a releasing of all obligation to the world … and most especially of the world to me. This season beckons to me to release my sense of demand … my sense of desire … my sense of being pleasured … to a greater sense of opening myself completely to the transparency of being present in all things. In this way as I continue letting go into this transparency … I find myself being swallowed whole by the deepest satisfaction imaginable of needing … or even wanting … nothing at all … nothing beyond this moment ... and then “like this� … finding myself ready to share this moment in fullness with other.

I will spend the next few days engaging with family and friends … some of who will be dazed by the suggestions and seductions of the season … from this position of transparency … and I will point again and again for them to themselves … referring to the center that contains the world.

My gift this year will be the undazing of these days at the end of this year for some of those who have already glazed over I'm sure.

I wish you all the very best during this holiday season … and in the upcoming New Year … may there be nothing you want … nor anything you can find lacking.

Joseph
2 Days Before Christmas … in NJ

Dancin' in the Rain

Hello again fellow blogers … and blogees,

It’s a rainy day in Jersey (New Jersey that is …) … a perfect day for contemplation … for those people who do that sort of thing I guess … but not too many of them live in New Jersey. You see if you live in New Jersey … and have since you’ve been a child, and now you’re an adult you’ve demonstrated beyond any shadow of a doubt that you are among the hardiest of the human species. The state in addition to being ‘the’ most densely populated state in the United States is also the state with the greatest risk of environmentally related disease … maybe on the planet. Our “forefathers� have been working at destroying the environment of NJ for over two hundred years in the name of capitalism, free market and the pursuit of money. A few years ago a governor of the state decided to begin doing something about our local environment and she set aside some significant portions of the state, which had escaped the capitalist destruction of the environment in the pursuit of money. Now don’t get me wrong New Jersey has always had absolutely unspoiled, beautiful parcels of wilderness … we just don’t’ show these to the tourists and visitors … we try to keep you folks on the Turnpike … of as some here like to refer to it “the Industrial Highway to a Plethora of Interesting and Unique Fragrance Experiences� … we really don’t want anyone to come to know why we continue to choose to live here and add to our already burgeoning population. But the foreigners keep coming anyway … especially the Portuguese, Japanese, Koreans, and those damned Hispanics … all of who have added to the flavor, diversity and success of the state immeasurably … don’t you all just hate when those foreigners show up … become a stabilizing aspect in an otherwise downtrodden community … show that immigrant zeal … find steady jobs or worst start new businesses … and within one generation prove the myth of American abundance by going from being “working poor� to “working rich� … and then to add insult to injury send their kids to Ivy League schools! Then they become citizens and vote … usually for others who support the continuance of the American Dream that brought them here in the first place … a dream of freedom and the opportunity to pursue success for oneself and one’s family … and there goes the population again!!!

OH! Sorry for getting lost there and off track … NJ residents and making it to adulthood. So while the environment is getting better, we’re still probably the world capital of carcinogens. If you’ve lived here and made it to adulthood you are among the “cockroach� sub-species of human. Anyone making it to adulthood in NJ without having a congenital or major degenerative or immune response disease is definitely a human equivalent of the cockroach … we could survive a direct nuclear strike … the heat doesn’t get to us … remember NJ has 105 degree Fahrenheit and 80 percent humidity days in the summer as normal … and -10 degree Fahrenheit and 0 percent humidity days in the winter … and everything in between as well … we get hit with hurricanes, tornadoes and on occasion we’ve even had earthquakes … floods are ‘normal’ in some parts of the state … and if you count the “Great Swamp� and the “Pine Barrens� you’ve got parcels of land where you can’t even walk for fear of getting sucking into some bottomless morass … and that’s not even bringing up the “Jersey Devil!� So contemplation … who got the time for that!!!

When you live with so much possibility for life coming up around you, in so many different ways you get on with your life … you develop an attitude about ‘getting’ to it� and ‘makin’ it happen� … a little rain notwithstanding … F—K ALL! we go out in t-shirts in hurricanes for kicks! So here I am on this rainy NJ morning with far too little time left to spend in contemplation … one of my favorite aphorisms for life is, “Better to ask forgiveness than permission.� This sums up one aspect of the “Jersey Attitude� It also provokes a response to action … as opposed to passivity. When you’re making something happen there’s always data for the system. As long as you just keep it being data you can continue to choose your responses. You step outside of pattern … and you have a sense of being able to hold the frame, regardless of the result. This is the ultimate position of “no failure … only feedback� … literally.

One of the first things we teach in the MythoSelf Process is to hold information in and from the environment as data … i.e.: don’t personalize what’s not about you … even when it’s aimed at you. That is, even when someone is pointing their output at you, remember it’s first and foremost more about them then about you. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t continue to track ‘logical chains� of events (historically these are ‘cause and effect’ relationships … teleologically these are ‘acausal/non-linear’ relationships, a function on holding INTENT). When you act in the world you set up a pattern of response … noticing what response you get … and how it matches up with what you’ve set up as your teleological project … your linkage of ‘desire’ and ‘expectation’, where you’ve collapsed them into a singularity … and then adjust in relation to that you’ve begun to build the recursive loop of resource learning … E.g.: knowledge-skill-action-experience-knowledge-skill-action-experience …

Where most people get lost is in first making personal what isn’t … and then neither tracking nor learning from their experience. While I’d be the first to agree that “experience is the best teacher� I also add that she is the most harsh and unforgiving as well. It’s a “one time learning model� of development when you call upon experience to be your guide and teacher. She’s great at it … giving … clever … direct … unambiguous … and sometimes deadly … accurate … but does not suffer fools gladly. I recommend her for the job without hesitation or restraint.

This is the pattern of oscillation in linking up the ‘structural’ and ‘functional’ forms. Creating an overlap of the loops of ‘structural wellformedness’ and functional wellformedness’ in action … the pattern of INTENT … and within the overlap and oscillation the pattern reinforces itself … no downtime in the system … just a building to the next level of critical mass necessary for the system to evolve beyond its present boundary conditions. This critical mass … the ability to hold the creative tension in the system at higher and higher levels … levels of intensity … energy … unknowing … discomfort … readiness … will … willingness … well you get the point. The system not only has to be primed, but also capable of hold the form of the next level … which isn’t possible at the level you’re currently holding. In order to get to the next level you’d have to complete this level to the point of letting it go completely … then the pattern of the form that isn’t present yet would have prepared the container to receive it when it is and you are.

We’ll just some random, running thoughts on a rainy Jersey morning … now it’s time to go out and do something.

That’s all until next time …

Joseph
1 December 2004
Rainy, Ridgewood, NJ, USA

Giving Thanks ...

Well it been ... well forever since I last blogged and I'm Jonesing for a good blognation about now ... so here it is for anyone who's still out there.

For those of you who aren't up to date on our quaint American customs today is Thanksgiving Day 2004 ... and I'm in Vermont spending it with my wife's brother and his family ... as well as my wife and daughter of course. Jason (my son) isn't up here with us even though he's in school up here for the rest of the year as he's back in New Jersey celebrating with his mom ... and from there he'll do a visit with my family completing the circle all around. This is kinda' what Thanksgiving is all about ... giving thanks for what's most important ... but especially for those relationships that are most important to us. It started out a few hundred years ago when the Pilgrams decided to thank the Indians for getting them through their first year in the New World by throwing a hellacious party!

They would have likely all died if left to their own devices (the Pilgrams that is ...) but the locals ... the Native American Indians stepped in and showed them how to survive and prosper. We know they prospered because the next year they threw this great party with turkey, corn, veggies ... and such ... although I don't know if they'd discoved Pumpkin Pie just yet ... as a way of both giving thanks for their blessings ... including being alive ... and their new found friends (this was before the Europeans figured out that the Native Americans were "savages" that held all the rights to the best resources over here ... and killed them for it all ... but that's another not so heartwarming story ...). So you see it was primarily about the relationships ... and at least for the Riggios remains that way today as well.

For me this is the crux anyway ... how we make the connections that define who we are and where we stand. This is both including and beyond our "personal" relationships ... those we have with others. It also goes to the fundamental relationship we have with the Universe ... or maybe better put within the Universe. The way we stand in relation to the Cosmos. Joseph Campbell might have called this our "personal cosmology." It is the form with which we hold reality to be what it is we conceive it to be ... and from which we operate and respond to it.

The MythoSelf model goes directly to this form. It operates on a tri-level basis organized as such:

There is the fundamental ground of one's being ... their personal ontology. Their personal ontology is held as a somatic form which represents the ground of their being. The most basis question in relation to this ontological position is the the question of whether they've organized their personal ontology in relation to a "benevolent" or a "malevolent" Universe. In other words is the Universe their 'friend' and an abundant, prosperous place, or is it an 'enemy" and out to get them? Their answer to this question forms the ground of their being and can be observed in the way they position themselves and move through the world ... especially in relation to others. This form is first and foremost held as a somatic process, which leads to the next phase of their awareness.

Arising from the "ontological ground of being" their is a description of the world that is constructed and which forms the basis of awareness - both pre-conscious and conscious. This description forms the basis of the way the events of one's life will be experienced ... the filtering and sorting patterns that the events are perceived through. Then the events of one's life are fit into pre-existing frames of experience that wrap around and define what these events are for the individual experiencing them. The events then becomes part of the description and further define the world according to the individual holding this description. At this level the 'description' can be perceived in both the somatic and structural form manifest by the individual. The structural form is contained in the representational form the individual constructs at a symbolic, iconic level for themselves. This will either be in relation to a blueprint in suppport of them becoming themselves or in opposition to them becoming themselves.

The structural form will in turn give rise to the functional description that the individual uses to respond to the world and from which their behaviors arise. This form is the expressed description of the world held semantically. The somatic and symbolic form takes on a semantic frame which generates a description in language. This language based description is the one most familiar to the individual. It becomes like a mantra that defines the world as they know it. Then in relation to this mantra they make all their conscious interpretations of the events of their lives ... and what to do about them. This is what others most experience of them ... their manifest behaviors.

So there's the overview of the model we use in the MythoSelf Process. Starting from the ontological ground of somatic form and experience a structural form is built on symbolic, iconic representations that generate the functional description that in turn generates the manifest responses and behaviors that are associated with 'who' and individual is known to be.

What the MythoSelf Process allows us to do is access ourselves at the levels below the responses and behaviors that we call ourselves ... and recognize ourselves for who we are responding and behaving in these ways. So instead of identifying with our responses and behaviors, or the descriptions that generate these responses and behaviors, we identify with the direct experience of being who we are ... as embodied spirits having a physical manifestation in this world ... and most especially in relation to others.

For this we give thanks ...

Joseph Riggio
25 November 2004
Stowe, Vermont

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

Coming Out in New Jersey

Coming out seems the thing to be doing in New Jersey it seems these days. Our grand governor has done just that in the past week ... and of course we can expect all the dirty laundry to follow. While I'm not fan of McGreevy's I can and have said that no one's personal history can withstand glaring scrutiny. Put most simply ... I believe everyone has a skeleton or two ... (maybe even three) ... in the closet that they'd prefer didn't make the rounds about town. In New Jersey these skeletons may also be found buried in the basement or backyard ... but we'll save that for another story ... or you can wait until the new seaon starts at the Bada-Bing Club.


The updating that has been more and more clearly making itself present in my mind and in my writing recently points most obviously to my consideration of the MythoSelf work as a spiritual path. Now comes the hard part ... if that can be taken as true ... that the MythoSelf work in reality can be called a spiritual path ... then it must mean that if I teach this work I am a spiritual teacher ... Aaaaagh! (a direct quote from Charlie Brown in Peanuts by Schultz ... I always want to be true to the source). You see I never wanted to be, nor do I want to be now, a "spiritual teacher" ... in part because of my own unique prejudices and in part because of all the baggage I think this designation carries with it. The baggage I think it carries with it includes the idea that if one proclaims themselves a "spiritual teacher" it must mean that they are saying they're saintly ... and therefore without sin. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!!! I can assure you when a spiritual teacher shits ... it stinks just the same ... only it stinks all the way to high heaven.


The point for me in regard to this has to do with the realization I hold of this work being a path to a realization that can be called "transcendent" although as I've stated in an earlier blog ... I prefer the idea of transparence to transcendence. And along the way I haven't not sinned, nor do I claim my sins forgotten or even necessarily forgiven ... just that I am aware that I have and do sin as well as anyone. One of my particular sins has been that of procrastination and with that avoidance ... not the virtues of warriors as normally they are considered. A manifestation of this for me includes my tendency to overcommit .... then fail to follow through ... all with the best of intentions ... yet failing just the same to make good my word. Now I know the "easy" solution would be to commit less ... or in the true tradition of spiritual teachers not to commit at all or do so so vaguely as to suggest no commitment at all ... if I could do this with a suggestion of profundity so much the better. Yet the reality of it remains that on the other side I don't always deliver what I say I will ... regardless of intention.


So what kind of spiritual teacher does that make me? Not I very spiritual one by some accounts I guess. Yet what I do consistently and continue to do consistently has been to hold the line for myself ... to stay awake and aware ... even while I sin ... and to keep updating the system. I'd like to apologize for my failings and shortcomings ... however I know better than this ... an apology often becomes an excuse masked and hiding in disguse. The apology doesn't change the manifest result of the failing and/or the shortcoming ... so there it remains ... exposed ... the skeleton pointing it's bony finger of accusation just the same.


Now, so we're clear about it, there can be no apology for what hasn't and won't likely change ... and in this case that remains the case ... I'm unlikely to change in this regard. So what you could expect of me would be a pattern of intention running just short of realization ... in some regards ... and yet a burst of clarity and complete manifestation in the extant reality I experience and generate in others. I think this makes me "human" ... there I've said it. "I AM HUMAN" ... and this I think may be the most successful quality a spiritual teacher can possibly offer ... and all I have in any case.


That's all for now ... until next time,


Joseph

Blogging On ...

The most thing evident this afternoon in New Jersey seems to me to be how utterly self-absorbed I am most of the time. I mean I almost never get out of thinking about the world the way I think about it. Now while this may seem utterly obvious to most of you ... it nonetheless holds great relevance to me ... not an epiphany exactly ... but more like an "Uh-huh ..." as opposed to an "Ah-ha!" No exclamation, just a nice realization ...


A certain quiet can be found at the center of this realization ... like I don't have to do anything about it ... and I'm glad I know it anyway. I'm glad that I am more and more becoming ... aware ... of how utterly self-absorbed I am. Here at the center of my Universe ... looking out into the world that surrounds and contains me ... I only perceive what I already know/believe to be there already. And the most magnificent aspect of this realization ... the aspect that comes closest to an "Ah-ha!" experience by far ... the aspect that allows me to realize that you are as self-absorbed as I am! That you perceive your world as uniquely as I perceive my own. There you are sitting at the center of your universe ... staring at me sitting at the center of mine ... staring at you. Cool, eh?


I know this probably doesn't amount to a new revelation for most of you ... having already contemplated as you have the nature of 'Being' and the subjective experience of 'Self' ... contained in the ungoing unfolding of your lives. However, the immediacy of it never fails catch me totally by surprise ... and yet by no surprise at all.


Be back soon …


That’s all … until next time,


Joseph Riggio

Return to the World

I hear from my colleagues and clients in the U.K. the "new" season of the Sopranos has begun for them over there. This season is actually last year's season to us, but nonetheless is their new season of the show. So even though I know what's going to happen I'll keep my mouth shut ... it just seems so appropriate for that show anyway. You know they film much of that show not far from where I live ... it has to be a New Jersey thing. Once you've gotten the basic attitude you can find it anywhere, however you first have to find it to build it in.

Well I am back in the "real" world ... New Jersey, of course ... having just returned from the other side of the world in Hong Kong. Going to the Far East always means a "big" trip to another world for me, especially Southeast Asia ... which most typically means either Hong Kong or Singapore to me ... although it's also been know to include Bangkok and Shen Zhen as well.

What makes these trips so significant ... beyond the eighteen or so hours of altered consciousness that being in an airplane for an international flight always prompts in me ... has to do with the shift required upon landing. First off the twelve hour time difference ... flipping the day upside down so to speak ... requires a letting go ... or at least that has been how I've always dealt with it myself ... letting go of where I've been and being where I am. I make this adjustment when I board the plane. I set my watch to the local time where I am going and begin operating in that time zone for the whole flight to the extent that I can. This means eating, working and sleeping on the schedule of the local time where I'm going to land. I do this regardless of the direction I am traveling. Although I know it primarily requires a shifting in my mind - it makes the shift required by my body much easier for me as well. I've always found that the mind follows wherever the body goes ... in other words, wherever I am that has been where I find myself.

Anyway while I was in Hong Kong I had a chance to do two presentations to groups arranged by Daisy Yeung Wenoe and her husband Henrik Wenoe of Acuity World with their group in Hong Kong called "Success Eternity." It was a "trip" within my trip. I arrived at the venue for the first of the presentations expecting between forty and sixty folks to show up ... there were a little over sixty that did ... and upon my arrival I was barraged with "paparazzi" swarming the building or so it seemed. About fifteen or twenty people asked me to take a photo with them ... one at a time ... two or three together ... and in various combinations of people ... like I was a freakin' celebrity or something ... like Tony Soprano for G-d's sake. This pretty much continued up until the program began ... and then again afterwards ... while it was interesting in a way ... I can better understand Sean Penn now.

Then the program began I went on a typical rant for about an hour or so ... beginning with how I began learning this NLP stuff ... back to the dog days ... and then forward to how most people live with dogs that are happy then they are most of the time. Then I did a little demonstration illustrating the ease and elegance that can be used to access a little of this kind of simple, primal happiness for one's self. The access wound up being highly somatic and really beautiful ... a little swirling of the hand scooping up bits of ... love, peace and joy ... and resulting in a profound calm and peacefulness ... enjoyed it seemed by one and all ... at least they were kind enough to applaud. We may be making some or all of this presentation available on VCD, DVD or even on the Internet on one or more of our websites.

One of the things that made this evening so interesting to me was the sequential translation into Cantonese. The translator, Michael did a superb job - I got lots of feedback from folks there who spoke both English and Cantonese that he'd done a great job with the translation, and he also did a great job with the nonverbals. We had a good time about it and it was a pleasure to have someone to play off of to create a bit of entertainment within the presentation. What doesn't surprise me was how well this stuff translated across the cultural boundary. These folks instantly "got" it.

Then I took a group of fourteen people on Friday evening for a ride a bit further in ... deeper than the group I'd presented to on Tuesday evening ... first of all as most of the fourteen had been there on Tuesday ... second because I had a smaller more intimate group to work with ... thirdly, because I had more time to work with them and finally, because I wanted to take them somewhere else completely. This was an interesting evening, which we taped as well ... I've seen the Tuesday night tape and I think it was quite good ... I haven't yet seen the Friday night tape, but I am looking forward to it. I really decided to open up with them ... to take them deep into the model ... and to role it around from beginning from where we were ... there in Hong Kong ... paying homage to the Taoists, remembering Confucius, including the Buddhists, and then leaping off to include the Sufis, the Catholic Mystics ... and all the way up to and through the Gnostics and Pagans as well. I think I left out a significant portion of the Greek, Roman and Indian gods however. And, I know I didn't hardly touch on the American Indian traditions or go anywhere near the African rituals ... so by no means I have exhausted the material. Yet all in all I'd say we went on quite a journey.

The result of all this preaching in Asia seemed to me to be a remarkable interest in the same things that peak the interest of my audiences here in the States and in Europe as well. These are the eternal truths ... the unfolding of the Experience. I had a Catholic Priest in the audience both Tuesday and Friday evenings ... I found out he holds the role of the Godfather of NLP in Hong Kong. His response on Tuesday was polite and mildly interested, while on Friday evening his interest peaked. I also found out from him that his Catholicism has evolved into something much closer to a "Creation Spirituality" ala Matthew Fox ... which so fit with his interest in what I was presenting.

The essence of these evenings was as always the access to a profound state of INTENT ... and oscillation of the G.D.S. and the G.T.S. ... swirling together a highly charged positive state ... and the sense of being swaddled in relationship to that which is much greater than self. What captured the attention of my audience on Tuesday was significantly different from what captured them on Friday. On Tuesday the emphasis was on how the movement towards the excitatory state of the G.D.S. ... marries itself to the simultaneous moving away from the inhibitory state where the problems reside. On Friday however I took them well beyond the frame and reference where the problem could even be considered. This was the domain of the Muse ... the house of Mystery. I related all of this to relationship, Joseph Campbell's "Hero's Journey" and of course the way the work resides within the MythoSelf model ... and they were either panting or off to sleep from the exertion and exhilaration of it all just after.

Anyway ... good to be back home for a few days before departing for California and the first ever MythoSelf Advanced Program ... looking forward to seeing some of you there ... and if not this time ... surely the next ...

That’s all for now ... until the next time,

Joseph Riggio
For Blognostra
(AppliedNLP )

Deeper Into Mystery

Well, if you’re still with me after that last one then we can talk ...

The essence of what fascinates me as I said last - the “Work.� Its essence ... the mystery. Somehow, most likely a product of my generation, I was awoken to something, let’s call it an idea in the very early 1970’s - ‘71/’72 – and began thinking about something beyond the edge of my experience, my very world, up until then. It was a catching of the vibration of the times ... the search for a “New Age� ... that was pursued by many as a letting go of many of the markers of the previous age ... the post-war, Baby Boomer, 1950’s, Dwight Eisenhower, Doris Day, Donna Reed America they knew. Men weren’t rushing out to become “Organization Men� so quickly, and women weren’t rushing to charm school so they could find the Perfect Man either. The roles were a’changing ... men were being carted off to Southeast Asia to fight in a war that few understood and began making less and less sense to many, women were burning bras and just about everyone else was looking for their place in the American landscape and trying to understand how the country had forgotten them ... or just plain left them out of its plans ... so they burned down the cities in ‘67 and then had a “summer of love� in ‘69. This was the milieu of my youth ... there in a nice two-storey white house with a garden at the edge of Newark, NJ. When I was jumping from rooftop to rooftop playing Hide-and-Seek or Ring-a-lere-o with friends, I was visiting Grandma and Grandpa at the farm (in central NJ) or goin’ to the Shore.

Then it was right around 1971 that I found a book on “Alternative Healing Practices� in the library at school that turned my young life around. I read it, I tried out what it said – things like Meditation, Yoga and Breathing Techniques – right there on the floor of the living room of that two-storey house of mine ... and it blew my mind ... I mean I had my first true, full blown mental orgasm ... which maybe someday I’ll give you all some more details about ... but for now just let’s say when I got back into my body I knew there was more to the world than I’d been privy to up until then. That’s pretty much when my search for Her began.

I plowed through the book stacks at the library ... and turning those pages became among my favorite pass-times. Before I was out of Elementary School I’d read just about every book that library had and every one they could order for me that in any way, shape or form seemed to touch on my search. Then in my Sophomore year in High School (that’s Secondary School for some of you out there) I found a book “The Judoka� by W.D. Norwood “a martial arts classic� ... and his main character was living the life I was dreaming about ... someone who was living with a commitment to penetrating the mystery. This book opened up a possibility in my mind that had until them only been fermenting with the weakest of currents ... the possibility of a life built around finding and committing myself to Her. Now I was underway again ...

The search began again in earnest ... the practice renewed with vigor ... among the places I worshipped ... the gym and the playing fields ... and I found success and reward ... I found that much of what I’d learned sitting and kneeling ... stretching and humming quietly on the floor of my home ... still following in the old recipes found in that book I’d read so long ago, could be replicated there in the gym and on those playing fields ... I didn’t know it then, but I think I do now that I’d found one of Her favorite positions ... Flow ... the position of engagement in this moment ... and the commitment to act in accordance with it ... only present to the NOW ... and only aware of the HERE ... letting go ... letting go ... letting go ... surrender ... and submission ... letting go ...

Then in 1978 I found another searcher who had found a most terrible way to court Her ... a fellow student of the Way ... Carlos Castaneda ... and read his tales of teaching ... of the hours spent in the desert inviting her into himself ... I was again fascinated ... and repelled ... I understood how “this� could be a way ... and knew without question it was not my way ... that my way of finding Her would be much gentler ... and yet no less demanding ... less convulsive ... and yet just as enraptured ... just as seized by Her coupling ... and then as always the release into Her. My way seemed much less direct ... much longer ... more circuitous ... and in many ways much less rewarding ... and then there was Roye.

Carlos had found his Mexican warrior in the desert of Sonora ... I found my own teacher ... fresh from the desert of Sinai ... a warrior as well ... and knew he could teach me Her ways ... and yet did not know if he would. I applied in the only way I knew how then to the role of apprentice ... and I was rewarded with the teaching. At each of our lessons I would sit and listen ... watch and observe ... and he would show me the spells and incantations to call Her forth ... to invite Her in ... and he called her by a new name ... mostly whispered in reverence ... “Hypnosis� ... and told us She was the Mistress ... and that while She herself was a most jealous lover ... she had many lovers of Her own. He taught me how to become a lover myself.

Now the way of the lover remains my path ... and I follow it with diligence as I know She allows no straying ... but the rewards are many although Her attention She shares. I’ve found that although She uses the name “Hypnosis� when She chooses ... there are other names She goes by as well ... Dionysian to the core and a daughter of Diana ... She .. “Mystery� ... remains as ever ... alluring.

While the men of Science seek to unlock Her secrets ... and think they’ll find her lair by trial and error ... mistake by mistake ... little do they seem to notice that those who do are just as often ensnared and engulfed by her ... as are offered a token of reward for finding Her. Like Calypso on her island, She takes no prisoners ... only lovers ... as Ulysses found out for himself ... while the bleaching bones of unbelievers lay as scattered evidence of the futile quest. These men of Science who dare probe Her windings in the minds of man think to capture Her essence in a bottle ... to patent Her secrets ... or even to talk Her into submission ... and yet she remains feral ... wild ... and free. She is not there when they look ... of even where they look ... but most how they look ... defeats them before they begin. Rather than beginning with the required supplications to learn Her prayers and hymns ... they want to set a trap ... and catch Her unawares ... not knowing another of Her names ... “Awareness� and another beyond that one as well ... “Attention.�

The “Work� ... by any name ... Yoga ... Zen ... the “Generative Imprint™� as Roye called his own ... or the “MythoSelf™ Process,� derived at his knee, as I call mine ... can be distinguished ... by the essential characteristic of inviting Her in ... on Her own terms ... by Her own designs ... and by the utter lack of hubris in attempting to unveil Her. This singular aspect of the Work defines it ... as apart from psychotherapy ... or in fact therapy of any kind ... in refusing to relinquish or refute the mystery ... and instead court the relationship with Her ever more ardently ... deepening the draw and pull ... the resonant form ... and desire to commune with Her ... on Mystery's own vital terms. The desire for the deepening defines this sacred Work ... and justifies the “...spiritual� part of the reference I make in calling it a “psycho-spiritual� way. The willingness to do this while remaining in the world proper ... living, working, loving ... mark this way as unique ... or what has been called a 4th way path - a path of neither the hermit ... nor the monk ... nor the yogi ... but rather the path of the ordinary human living the extraordinary life.

This way is Mystery's way ... the opening unto Her ... the unrobing of one’s self ... standing naked and vulnerable ... waiting ... breathlessly waiting ... the willingness to become transparent to Her gaze ... the unfolding of the essence ... all these mark Her followers and the many ways that lead to Her. The demands are unrelenting ... the rewards compelling ... and the path as narrow as they come ... to visit Her in the depths of Her lair ... to inhale the perfume of Her breath ... to ingest the ambrosia from Her lips ... to know the ecstasy of Her touch ... if even only to have Her gaze upon you in passing ... fanning within you the flames of desire ... quenching the thirst and ache to know Her ... if only for a moment ... an acknowledgement to the lover in us all.

That’s it for now ... until next time ... Joseph Riggio

Blog On ... Original Indulgence

This "Work" I've been and remain engaged in that I call the Mythogenic Self Process or MythoSelf(tm) for short ... continues to hold my fascination. More and more as I engage in and enter the depths of this work I come to expand the realization of what I've been initiated to and undertaken for myself.

One interesting point of my personal search ... the process of "finding myself" as I originally heard it spoken of from my older "hippie" cousins in the late 1960's and early 1970's when I was just a wee lad myself ... has been the ever deepening of the "Mystery." I've come to recognize a few things since 1975 or thereabouts when I began in earnest my own journey of finding myself - what I now know of as who I want to "be becoming" ... a reference to the endlessness of the journey itself. One such thing that's dawned on me ... that while this journey of mine continues unceasingly I always remain at the center of the destination ... as long as I remember myself being here. This sense of standing in the center of my journey ... allows me to recall that I am also standing in the heart of the Mystery.

If you'll allow me I'd like to go back a bit to an earlier journey than my own ... which nonetheless I perceive to be continued in my own journey as well. The journey I refer to we can begin to reference in antiquity and by all rights it would be proper to do so ... yet I'm not that kind. So let's pick up the thread of a journey begun for all intents and purposes at the dawn of the "Age of Man" ... an epic tale now spanning about four million years or so ... and recorded for about the last 5000 years of that. Let's rush all the way near the most current chapter of this history of the journey to around 1900 A.D. by the Georgian Calendar or so. This year marks the time that represents as well as any the start of the part of the tale I want to tell.

Somewhere round'about 1900 A.D. or so the dawning of the modern age was about to begin. The demi-god "Science" had well begin to replace, legions of Sumerian, Egyptian, Babylonian gods and the gods of countless other tribes and peoples spread over the surface of the planet, all the Dionysian gods and even the more wrathful Apollonian G-d of the Judeo-Christians-Moslems, a god of nomads and desert tribes, a god of justice. In this place of which I speak ... the North of Europe ... the gods and prophets of the East where all but unknown. And, for the small group of the tribe of Judah left searching for a home there remained virtually no G-d known to many of them at all ... so many turned to face the new rising religion of Science.

Two of these men of the tribe ... both men of Science, began to shape the early part of the 20th century with profound new ideas ... a new cosmology was being shaped ... a "relative" cosmology ... where the hand of G-d was less obviously or explicitly found. Yet I propose that both of these men were in fact searching for the G-d of Israel, the one their ancestors knew intimately and the one they knew their ancestors had worshipped for generations beyond number. I propose to you dear reader these men were desperate in their search to find His fingerprints and relieve their existential and ontological angst and suffering. I suggest you consider further that these men were driven by this desperation to do the monumental things they did. What's interesting most it seems that though they may have forsaken their G-d the G-d of Israel had not forsaken them.

One man went to the purity and poetry of the language of maths (I prefer the British term - poetic license if you'd like), while the other went the less sure and more elusive route of plumbing the depths of the Unconscious and creating a new language to describe what he found there ... in the dark. Together these men reshaped the cosmology of their time and left as a legacy the cosmology most of you reading this found and find yourselves growning up in instead.

What maybe most defines this legacy remains if not the command, the desire, to expunge the Mystery ... the Dionysian ... the Goddess ... to bring to the world an illumination of explanation and understand ... Apollonian in form ... and ruthless, leaving no mystery unsolved. Yet even the disciples and high priests of Science that followed have not routed the Mystery from the Universe ... she remains ... alluring ... sensuous ... demanding ... and tempting as ever. She calls to all who have ears to hear ... and offers a glimmer of herself to all who have eyes to see. Her sons ... and her daughters too ... remain drawn to her song, her visage ... and most of all to her caress.

So here then our tale begins ... with the G-d of Israel and the Goddess too ...

The sacred form ... of the soul rejoined ... the male and female in communion and concert ... Yin and Yang swirling and complete ... ever restless in a sea of perfect calm ... the Universe abides ... and the song of the heavens awaits only for the turning of our face to the bridge of stars to make itself known.

Here at the heart of the Mystery resides the Work I've submitted to ... that found me when I most too was desperate ... and in my desperation ... searching found what I'd had all along, and was blinded and deafened to, until I awoke again to the sublime Mystery. The Work in fact remains to submit to the Mystery ... without desire or cause to know Her ways ... to be at peace and come to rest in Her bosom ... and there know ourselves instead. The letting go ... the price of entry into Her ... of our desire to understand or explain Her ... to accept Her whole and complete ... to know Her Being and Becoming are one and the same.

This Work then holds forth the demand to reside in the Mystery. To let go the search and find ourselves found. Not only to accept the mystery of Her, but to encourage a deepening of the Mystery as well. To add to this force our own ... to reach beyond the limits of the Known ... into the depths of the Unknown ... whilst letting go completely of desire or ambition to know what cannot be known.

This acceptance is the prime directive ... the sublime submission to accept the joining of the soul with itself ... and release ourselves to become what we are ... instead of what we desire to be. I fear I go too far for some ... maybe even for most ... and while you've indulged me at my request I offend your sensibilities with my suggestions. That rebuking the priests of Science while they hold the alter at which most worship remains a offense punishable by the worst of penalties ... exile. Yet I know that I must follow Her to the end of my days ... and to the end of the Cosmos if She but asks ... and to this end I submit myself with devotion ... following the Mystery into Her lair ... and finding myself coming home.

I invite the most intrepid of you to follow ... to accept the caress of the Mystery ... and let go ... let go of the desire to know ... the desire and demand to understand ... to embrace the gift she offers of "experience" ... pure ... raw ... unadulterated ... and to feel the energy of it flowing ... saturating you ... filling your loins ... until you believe yourself full to bursting ... and then allowing yourself the release ... shuddering with it ... allowing it to stagger you ... with the realization of the power and awe She holds ... until you find only yourself ... content ... and connected ... laughing at the thoughts you'd held of ever being alone ... and knowing the truth beyond words ... what cannot be contained by words ... beyond the very reach of language itself ... laughing with the joy of knowing this ... pure ... raw ... unadulterated ... energy ... flowing in and through you ... and seeing everything and everyone permeated by Her as well.

I wonder ... how many have the courage of belief ... such that such a letting go of everything known will be possible ... as it was for at least one of these men of Science, a man who called upon his G-d to remember him in the end, as he saw not only the fingerprints but the whole mind of the Maker in the design of the Universe ... and left us to embrace the Mystery again ... with wonder and awe at the magnificence of the vastness sublime?

This Blog of Ours ...

As I'm tooling around the whole bloggin' world I'm thinking that there has to a be a purpose that connects the whole thing together ... something larger than ourselves that contains us, supports us, nurtures us and even gives our lives meaning ... and yet doesn't constrict, condemn or control us. Those of you who are familiar with my banterings know I'm referring to what I call ... G.T.S. .. or the relationship with "that which is Greater Than Self" ... some people think of this as G-d ... others think about this as Nature ... or even the Universe ... and some others think about this as simply as their Family or the Community in which they live. In any case the relationship and state of being suggested by G.T.S. represents the essence of an idea that is central to virtually all my thinking ...

What catches me so often continues to be as I think in terms of G.T.S. in how many place and in how many ways this idea shows up. I simply cannot think of a spiritual system, from formal religions to the most secular approaches, that do not include a mention of and direct reference to a relationship with something greater than ones self. In most spiritual systems the central theme focuses on this relationship. Then as I stretch the boundaries where I spend my time and do my wanderings to areas as diverse as literature, film, fine arts ... even sports ... I find mention after mention and reference after reference to this relationship as central to what it means to be human. In some cases this references suggests that this relationship represents the most human of all characteristics ... what in fact "makes" us human.

Neuroscience suggests to us that we are 'hard-wired' to have this desire for and experience of G.T.S. ... that a drive to experience G.T.S. ... was built into the deepest circuitry of humanity sometime during our primitive evolution. The question remains and begs answering, "Are we hardwired to experience G.T.S. or are we hardwired so that we are aware of the experience of G.T.S.?" Regardless of the answer it seems we are driven to have this experience to the point of sacrificing virtually all else to attain it ... even at the cost of our life itself.

What has become more and more true of this drive most recently concerns the way in which it continues to become more and more secular in terms of the way we consider it, pursue it and manifest it in our modern lives. Yet the drive itself never wanes or withdraws ... it lingers however weakly at the periphery of our collective awareness just waiting for the smallest breeze to pick-up up on it ... ready to explode in a fervor of activity and excitement in regard to the next wave of humanity searching for a way to make the connection.

We've seen these waves come and go ... come and go ... the search for the holy grail of Enlightement ... from the birth of religions ... to the migration of and proliferation of methods ... Zen ... meditation ... yoga ... tai chi ... sweat lodges ... to the most modern of all ... the replacing the search for the holy grail ... with the search for the silver bullet of enlightenment ... and the self appointed priests of Harvard Yard annointed to spread the word ... "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out" ... at the alter of LSD. And we moved on from there ... keeping much of the attitude and desire intact ... coming back to the tried and the true ... again and again ... and some of us even finding what we were searching for in the practices we adopted and now call our own.

Yet at the heart of it all remains the single, simple idea ... "making the connection" ... it would be most accurate and true to say the soul of the search for spirituality in our times resides in this ... "making the connection" ... and we most find in this connection ourselves ... unadorned ... and unfettered ... and here residing in this simplest of all forms ... making the connection with others ... with all that surrounds us and ultimately with ourselves ... we find what we were looking for ... we find ourselves complete ... whole and satisfied.

This then suggests to us the essence of community ... how we come together ... one to one ... one to many ... and the many together. The community evolves a culture of it's own ... the markers and signals that identify us as members ... draw us together ... keep us together ... and ultimately attract even more folks to the tribe ... increasing the ranks of the committed. A dream of this community may be to see the day when the tribe includes us all ... embraces the entirety of humanity ... with all it's variation and diversity ... into one great family once again ... as we must have been when the first humans appeared in the world.

However, for now we can be content with the idea that this community continues to spread ... that the connection becomes more available ... more accessible ... more present ... each time we put our attention on it. This simple realization then can be the most profound realization regarding the essence of communicating and connecting with others as well. This realization forms the foundation for massive edifices of persuasion, influence and motivation to be built ... the desire we all hold to truly and fully know the experience of making the connection ... and the profundity of this realization includes the awareness of allowing this to become the basis of how we organize and operate ourselves ... and like this we willnot ... we cannot be conned ... or misled ... and like this we will choose both our leaders and when to become leaders ourselves wisely as well.

Only the true of heart and strong of spirit need apply to this school of communication so to speak. Only those souls willing to do the work required to become an authentic and genuine person can gain access to this kind of profound illumination ... and yet in the end what they gain ... the boon ... the elixir ... the gift ... and reward ... remains with them to their dying days ... they get to find and keep themselves ... standing in the world complete ... and whole ... satisfied ... both independent and capable of being interdependent ... leaving behind all sense of dependency on any one or anything other than the massive truth they have found in making the connection for themselves.

We live in a time of great change ... great opportunity ... interesting times as the ancient Chinese Taoist sages would say ... and maybe now more than ever before in the history of mankind ... when we have in our hands the means for such destruction and also for such potential ... on a scale unprecendented in the history of this world ... contained in the hands of a species seemingly so ill-prepared to hold this power ... that we most need to remember the greater purpose ... why we're all here toolin' around together ... each of us for a little while at least ... and become willing to create the possiblity for greatness in ourselves as both the led and the leaders ... and the hope that we can find in ourselves that which is Greater Than Self ... and connect to one another from there.

That's all for now ... until we meet again ...

Joseph Riggio

Just Perfect ...

"... this is a test ... this is only a test, had this been a real occassion something surely would have happened ..."

So there you go about it ... a new fangled way to reach out and touch someone ... blogging. In some ways it couldn't be easier to say something ... whether or not you've actually got something to say ... and in another way ... why would anyone want to read another thing coming off the Internet when there's already so much information inundating them already?

The only possible clue to the popularity of blogging ... and "NO!" the insane desire of people to pontificate, rant and rave regardless of the vacuity of their words doesn't cut it as the answer, because even the insane drop their volume when no one else remains ... seems related to the willingness of people to search the 'information superhighway' for someplace interesting enough to rest awhile. That means that if a 'blog' comes across as particularly interesting it will in fact become popular ... despite the prolific amount of drivel available in every flavor and form in this medium.

There you have it ... the damn thing has to be interesting enough ... to catch and keep people's attention. That means either it becomes outrageous ... National Enquirer ... Star ... kind of conspiracy, alien romance or sexual scandal kind of stuff ... religious, political or sexual smut ... or especially focused at a group of like minded folks who are drawn together by some particular slant or idea that resides at the heart of the particular blog in question ... and of course ... "then there's sex ..."

So then the $64,000,000 question (inflation and all ... and the zero's cost me nothing') ... "How in the hell do you make it interesting enough for people not only to read the damn thing ... but to want to read it again and again ... and again ... sex notwithstanding? That then will in part be the particular focus of this particular blog ... the skill set that some people already have almost enough of already, that almost all people want more of ... and that some don't yet have any of and desperately want to have some of ... and while all of this applies to sex ... "NO!" in this particular case in point I'm not referring directly to it (SEX?) ... I'm referring to the ability to capture the attention of others, influence and persuade them, gain fantastic amounts of wealth and power ... AND THEN THERE'S ...

SEX .. sells itself ... short ... tall ... fat ... skinny ... black ... white ... red ... all over ... sex had been referred to as one of the primary motivators on the planet ... and not just with humans ... but among all animals ... sex drives the species forward ... and for many if not most people it both captures and holds their attention (as you of course know already if you've read this far) ... at least long enough to create a penetration and hopefully a connection ... regarding the material you want to insert in the delivery of your information transfer ... and an openness occurring on the other side makes this easier and more pleasant as well. There can be no question that sex remains both a prolific and powerful force to open things up and start the fires of imagination ... and imagination still remains one of the greatest if not 'the' greatest tool in the professionals (or amatuers if you'd prefer) persuader's/influencer's arsenal. Yet ... and here lies the punchline ... there are also othere tools in the arsenal equally worth becoming familiar with and expert at ... it you want it more often ... to come out your way in the end ... especially when you're interacting with others and the outcome depends on them as much as it does on you.

And while there will be no shortage of sex ... and "YES! ..." I will show you how to use it "(SEX!!!) ... especially in regard to persuading, influencing and maybe most significantly of all ... motivating ... people ... yourself and others ... sometimes more of one than the other ... and sometimes both equally together ... I will also be paying particular attention to extending your range ... and depth ... with regards to your tool ... kit ... and technique both ... count ... on it ... this will not be a 'one trick pony' in terms of the positions we take ... yet it will all focus in and get down ... to just one thing ... you're ablility to be effective in your life ... on your own and with others ... and ultimately wind up just where you want to be ... sittin' pretty ... leaning back ... smoking' ... after a job well done ... putting your life together ... in a way just right for you ... and includes others ... as you choose them ... one at a time ... or all together.

So look forward to a much more outrageous ... and blatant disply of the tool (as I've said) kit and technique both ... as we go forth. A much, much larger arsenal awaits you ... so do let me know if you're interested yet ... if I've mangaged to catch ... and capture you attention ... at least enough to get you to consider coming ... back ... again ... and maybe again after that ... so see what I'm up to here ... on this blog of ours.

Joseph Riggio