Observations that dive deep into life and come up with treasures for all

Silver Thread Dialogues (STD)
(0r) A  Spiritually Transmitted Disorder

Silver Thread Dialogues are Facebook based dialogues designed to help you get free of  your personal labyrinth. We are all in a labyrinth being devoured by our Minotaurs but it is not too late to find the silver thread given by Ariadne, who has compassion for you. The little play on the meaning of STD is not by accident, but by irony. The situation is that in our society today we think the labyrinth is normal. Our struggle to fix ourselves and the world, over and over, without success is the labyrinth— the world says just keep trying, you get it right soon enough. But that was ten thousand years ago and nothing has changed except our world gets worse.

Obviously, the Minotaur is getting satisfied, and we are growing desperate as the  earth is being destroyed, our jobs are going, and our personal lives are devoid of meaning, hope, and nothing seems to work. We need a Silver Thread. But we don’t need someone to tell us how to get out of the labyrinth because each of us has a personal and unique labyrinth. One map or set of instructions will not fit all. This is where the ST Dialogue can come in as a radical and revolutionary approach to freedom. I will walk with you in your labyrinth and together we can discover the right turns to take.

Lets take a moment to look at why the labyrinth is confusing. We are trapped by the  Catch 22, which is an impasse between two right but contradictory messages. We turn this way, and are guilty for not going the other way; we go the other way and are guilty for not choosing the first way. We are damned if we do and damned if we don’t. This is the labyrinth of the mind. If you notice, this is a conflict between mind and heart, thought and feeling, objective and subjective. The labyrinth is us!

The reason we are lost and can’t make a decision  free from doubt is that these two messages have different frames of references; they are like two fingers that don’t meet when you close one eye.  Subject vs objective is a lose/lose choice because they are of different dimensions or views. One see the world as in me (subjective or what I feel) the other sees me in the world (objective or what I should do). These two views create a puzzle out of which the intellect cannot get. The labyrinth is not logical! Thinking will not help you here. And that is what we are conditioned to do, think our way out of a fix. STD is not a new belief or method or technique or even a teaching: it is a discovery that you can make with a guide.

The dialogue of discovery can bring you out of your labyrinth. You have to create yourself with a new vision of who you are  to escape the labyrinth. The Minotaur is you. Are you the brave heroic Theseus? Is your mind as pure as Ariadne?  Do you want to make your world a friendly place for you and your family, where you are in harmony with others and circumstance? This is possible. This is your birthright.

Getting back to STD and the Labyrinth: if we are conditioned to believe the labyrinth is normal and that our disorder is order, then what is abnormal or totally different from what we think we should do would be the normal and the real order. To walk with STD is to give up what you know and open yourself to what you don’t know.

We need to make the labyrinth your home; we need to transmute disorder into order. We can transcend the conflicting message through discovering how to bring them together into a greater vision of who we are, a vision that includes yet transcends the pairs of opposites in which we are stuck. Message me if you are interested.

Posted under Facebook Dialogues, General Observations

Being stuck between contradictory positions, either within one’s own mind or in relationship is—now hold onto your chairs—the best place to be…if you want to be free, that is.

Are you interested in discovering how you can be an alchemist and turn the base metal of conflict into unity, which is creativity. You can turn conflict into creative potential. Are you interested?

I’m looking for a Way to connect with FB friends in a confidential or public way where a dialogue is created that resolves conflicts through the intention of discovery. The Intention is the engine that drives us to create our way out of conflict.

But first you have to run out of gas. Realizing that one is stuck is running out of strategy gas. Then you are willing to try something different. A Dialogue with a Spiritual Teacher is the high test gas that transcends the old conflict and creates of new vision of who you are. From that vision—which is not an ideal but concretely real you—you spontaneously act. And in that action you are free. I believe this can be done here on Facebook.

First, what is a spiritual teacher? Someone who is not afraid to get muddy, but one to whom the mud does not stick. When one is stuck, it matters not if you are spiritual (whatever that is), religious, or secular or none of the above; what matters is that you are conflicted. It is the conflict that is the message, not the mud. This conflict is what one works with. You don’t work with the mud, because unless you see the conflict, you will just get stuck in another patch of mud down the road. So, I hope this clears that up.

Next, I won’t be charging a fee, per se, but asking that if you get unstuck by dialoging with me, then you can give a donation to my caus. What’s it worth to have someone come to your ditch on your road and help you get moving again?

We shall call this Silver Thread Dialogues, for those who want to discover their innate creativity and free of conflicts that block it. It will include daily listening to short meditations from http://www.irest.us/ and making confidential journal entries on FB messaging to me after the meditation. These journals will keep a record of your dialogue as your progress through the blocks.

Spiritual Teaching is a Silver Thread (remember the golden thread given to Theseus by Ariadne to get our of the labyrinth?) Being stuck in contradictory directives is our labyrinth. We all have a Silver Thread to follow out of our labyrinths. We just need some help finding it, that’s all.

We are creating an empowerment tool here, this combination of (1) turning inward for the planting of intention and harvesting the fruit (2) writing to give form to the harvest (3) dialogue to expand the harvest and create the seeds for the next harvest.

Posted under Facebook Dialogues

Friday morning and you guys have been at it all night. Don Cicchetti “And you did all this by simply contradicting Jesus.” I can only say that the contradiction is in your mind, not mine. In Christ there is no contradiction. But you see I’m speaking from a Subjective view while you speak from an Objective view, (nothing wrong with that) and here is our fundamental contradiction that threads through our many conversations. You look at me objectively and compare what you perceive  an ideal or what you believe and that which you conform your idea of who you are too.

I don’t do that. My view is from the Subjective so I don’t conform to any exterior belief or ideal. And when I perceive you, I see no contradiction because I have nothing to contrast you to. Nor do I have anything to contrast myself to. Without an exterior reference from which to compare and contrast, there is no contradiction. You see what I saying here. I hope you do.

You are not right or wrong to me, You are just you, complete in your uniqueness. I have no wish for you to be different than what you are. You are okay….unconditionally okay.

So…in so many words (don’t get excited) I love you…..but not emotionally, to be sure. There is no emotion in love. Love is an unconditional relationship. That means I affirm you. Now this is what I mean when I say there is no contradiction. In affirmation, there is no contradiction because you affirm the pairs of opposites in life, or the contradictions. When you affirm life you are affirming death/life. Life is death, death is life; affirm life is affirming death.

This is also what I meant some discussion ago when I said Christ is ambiguous. Life is ambiguous for it is a mix of good and bad, up and down, in and out, hot and cold. What is hot for one is cold for another. This is especially true when m 100 year-old mother comes to my house and freezes while we are sweating, having turned the heat up to warm her up.

But my point here…jab…jab….is that Christ is not a thing but a relationship with life, an open relationship in which there is no conflict. Oh, jesus was a thing, a body in space time, but Christ, which Jesus became through death of his Jesus personality, is a relationship that is the Way.

This is the Way I view it and experience Christ. This Way is open in all religions and traditions (but by different signs on the door) if you can find it. But you have to give up your contradictions to fit through that door.

This is what the teaching of Christ (to me) is all about. He sets you up in an intolerable contradiction out of which you are just dying to get.

Posted under Facebook Dialogues

When someone  dares to read the Bible manual for yourself, you come up with your own meaning, your own ideas, your own truth. And of course, those who have the job of Bible Tech Support want to do their job, so they correct you and try to get you back to the authorized manual.

This is the way the game is played. This is the way you get a second birth.  If they didn’t do this, your hesitant steps at reading the manual for yourself would not progress. We have to strengthen our faith in ourselves through contest with those who challenge our authority. “Who do you think you are?” they say. “I am Me” I say.

But if we stand firm and continue our interpretation of this manual, we discover that the Bible is a Living manual, not a dead script written for a pre-scientific age. So the language of the Bible is in metaphor, symbol, analogies, parables. Everything is like this or that; nothing is clear fact like rocket science. No computer manual is written that way. The Bible is written so you either have to depend upon an authority (priest/church/clergy) or wander around on your own, discovering yourself as you go. You are an undiscovered land. The Bible is you map, but you have to read it into your life because that is where you are walking. Reading the Bible is a creative act through which you discover who you are before the Bible was written.

So there are two entirely different languages here: one used in the rocket science manuals and a poetic one used the Bible. One is prose, the other is art. You have to read the Bible and see yourself in it. And since you are unique, and face you see will not be seen by others—for they see their face—once you see you own face, no body can tell you it is not your face. So keep looking.

Posted under Facebook Dialogues