How Checking Out In Front of the TV Clarified My Views on Masculinity

 My current path has been moving strongly out of “hibernation” and into activity and major evolution.  It’s been a lot of internal and external changes, including getting more “buff” from the gym. 

And it’s led me to points where my system feels it’s “too much/too fast” and pushes back, insists that I take it easy.  And I listened – I’ll listen for a while anyhow, a little rest and chill is good. So I flipped on some streaming.

Tried “Principles of Pleasure” for about ten minutes.  The “intersectional” and trans agendas weren’t serving me at all, so I ditched it.  I found a documentary on the “Manosphere,” which seemed interesting.

It was disappointing.  Mostly because Louis Theroux decided to make it a documentary about Louis Theroux instead of actually looking into the phenomenon with real curiosity.  What kind of men are attracted to the “Manoshpere”?  He doesn’t seem to care, he just dismisses them. 

He discusses their message, but only so far as he can do a “gotcha.”  But what is their message, and what about it resonates with so many young men today?  He doesn’t know, he doesn’t care.  Great documentary, wanker.

When I watch these things, I look for the value – what about this can be of value and service to me?  What can align with or clarify my vision?  There are aspects of the “Manoshpere” the resonate – focus on physical fitness and strength training, placing  a high value on masculine power and leadership, however imperfect their interpretation might be. 

And they are successful. Yes, a lot of them are grifters and that’s a problem.  But Justin Waller is a legitimate successful businessman.  There’s no dismissing that.  They’ve done well in their own way.  And you can argue with their morals or model but you can’t argue with success. 

So there are some positive things there.  You don’t have to support OnlyFans or like their podcast model, or even agree with much of what they say to recognize there is real value.  And there is no denying they have a following.  And that following has some commonalities.

They have clearly tapped into a crisis of masculinity.  A lot of young men are lacking any kind of male leadership in their lives.  These are men who are raised mostly (or entirely) by their mothers.  They were taught in school almost entirely by women teachers.  Maybe in high school they got into a sport and found a good male coach and some older young men who could mentor, but they’ve spent most of their lives trying to figure it out on their own.

The problem with the “Manoshpere” is it substitutes real male mentorship with grift and easy answers.  It provides little if any foundational work.  It’s a bypass, which is very attractive to people who feel lost.  There are a lot of bypasses out there.  Some lost boys join Antifa.  Some lost boys subvert their masculinity in hopes the girls will like them and they’ll be accepted (on someone else’s terms).  Some lost boys join the “Manosphere” and develop angry, reactive patterns around women.

Getting back to the documentary, while the “bros” don’t provide a great model for masculinity, it’s better than the “soy boy” model Theroux offers.  And ten minutes of “listening to women” talk about their grievance agenda was my week’s quota of torture.

So, no, weak weenie “woke” men and feminist women are not part of the solution to the crisis of masculinity. The left has no answers, since it literally created the problem in the first place and is too stubborn and arrogant to do any soul-searching. (Plus its model is about controlling people, and personal sovereignty is their enemy.)

So, yes, the “bros” are very imperfect.  But “listening to women” is not going to connect men to their masculine core.  And listening to men who went down the “listening to women” path isn’t any better. (There’s a place for that listening, but after a man has connected to his masculine core and can relate to women from a place of strength and partnership.)

Some of the things the “bros” say is accurate.  Women have no interest in men being successful, in fact it goes against their interest.  In order for a man to find his masculine core and be successful as a man, he needs to separate from women and find his own identity, free from any influence of women. This is an essential aspect of developing into manhood.

“Go your own way?”  Not so much.  Men need community.  A gym is better than nothing, but there are alternatives.  Telling men to forge their path alone is cult/grifter messaging. It’s separating and isolating someone to take advantage. 

Raging against perceived systematic oppression (“the matrix”) is horseshit.  It’s as annoying when it’s leftist women or right-wing men and it serves nobody.

But while the pattern is unhealthy, there is an element of truth that, if followed, can lead to finding that masculine core.  And that’s learning to differentiate between external programming and your personal sovereignty.  Learning to undo all of those patterns and beliefs from society, from women, from soy boys, from the media, from grifters, and everyone else and learning to differentiate from “what is someone else’s voice” and “what is my own voice.”

Now that practice is gold.  That process will transform a confused man-boy into a real man, standing in his own power, who can relate to women and the world from a place of sovereignty. 

And this process isn’t about complaining about feminists or soy boys.  It’s about noticing.  It’s about getting quiet, instead of getting angry.  It’s about really listening – to yourself, to everyone around you.  It’s about learning to feel into yourself – not your emotional reactions, but you inner sense, to recognize who you really are.  To learn to separate the bullshit outside, and even more importantly the bullshit inside, from your core self and your truth.

When you begin to understand that both the “Manosphere” and its critics are both working to manipulate you for their own gains, and can develop the patience and humility to notice how you are being manipulated, and can work on healing those parts of yourself, then you’re on your way to being a true alpha. 

Wisdom From "The Divorced Dad"

 My final child support payment cleared the bank, and a “divorced dad” chapter that has spanned 23 years has come to a close.

Another chapter of “splitting time between California and Florida” that has been going on for the better part of three years now is also rapidly coming to an end.  Within the next 18 months, the move will be permanent.

Both of these transitions felt “way out there” until they were right up in front of me. And both offer their own opportunities for wisdom.

The very long “divorced dad paying child support” chapter was one where the lessons evolved as my inner truth emerged.  I spent a long time in a reactive state – some form of fear/accommodation/stress/frustration/anger pattern went on for years.  Those are all reactions coming from a place of weakness and lack of clarity about my inner truth.

Over time, I went through various stories – the “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” story.  This isn’t true.  Reacting in the same way to multiple negative events does not build strength, it just reinforces unhelpful patterns.

Fortunately I didn’t spend much time in “woe is me” or “I’m a victim” patterns, these are quicksand for the psyche and very hard to extract from.  One of my exes is still in victim status from an ordeal that happened over 26 years ago – all it did was invite more experiences in her life where she was the victim.  Who wants that kind of life?

I also didn’t get trapped in rage, though I spent far too much time in anger patterns at it was.  Very corrosive patterns that I would describe as similar to what I’d imagine stimulant addiction feels like.  The angry energy becomes a baseline and not having that energy feels like depression.  But then when a situation would actually call for me to stand up and fight, my system would be too exhausted from the pattern to put “good anger” to use.  Anger is a tool best used sparingly.  One should not avoid it or be afraid of it, but treat it as an ally to be used only on rare occasions when that energy is called for.

But just because I didn’t wallow in the “really bad places” doesn’t mean I had it figured out.  I was still allowing myself to be run by patterns that were not serving me.  Just because I found patterns that were comparatively better doesn’t mean I was much better off.  Ultimately we were still crabs in the bucket and, if nothing changed, we were cooked.

Ultimately, when I released those patterns and could see clearly, I came to realize my situation was neither good nor bad.  There was nothing inherent about my situation, it just was.  Getting to that point where I could simply accept “this is my life” was a significant turning point.  At that point, I stopped blaming, judging or getting upset or disappointed because things weren’t some way I imagined they should be.  I could look clearly at my life and simply accept “this is my life.”

Acceptance doesn’t mean collapsing into resignation and defeat.  It just means you’re no longer entertaining delusions, expectations or fantasies and looking at the world the way it is.  This is my life.  That takes some inner work, courage and wisdom to fully recognize and accept.

From there, the real challenge begins.  This is my life, and I genuinely don’t like a lot of things in it.  What is it that fuels that dislike? Is it external preferences and judgment or inner truth?

Well, if inner truth isn’t clear, that’s going to be a very difficult question to answer. If, however, inner truth is clear, the question answers itself and then it’s a matter of aligning with what is true and accepting this reality.

Finding that inner truth, that “Teal Flame,” this has been the real work.  It is the foundation on which all authentic architecture stands.  You cannot truly build a sovereign life without it, instead you’re at the mercy and whim of external realities.  Everything feels “not quite right” (or badly off course), and yet you have no means to correct course.

I can honestly say the challenges I experienced as “divorced dad” provided much of the incentive to discover and hone my inner truth.  The pain of feeling out of alignment and having “nothing work” was a strong motivator to get in and do the real cleansing and healing.

And that journey has taken on many aspects.  Much of this has been shared here, although the story of that journey goes much further back.  Along the way I learned many things and had all kinds of breakthroughs with either directly or (mostly) indirectly led me closer to finding that inner truth.

Once that inner truth, that Teal Flame, that Kaelen’Zur, began emerging, the truth about my life also came into focus.  The experiences in my past were never good nor bad, they were either in alignment or (more often) out of alignment.  An entire marriage that made no sense from any perspective suddenly makes sense from this perspective. 

And it also explains the seemingly sudden and complete end – my unconscious realignments have been strong, sudden and unrelenting.  And also concerning – why do these “returns to center” have to be so abrupt?  And what about all the time spent out of alignment?  Couldn’t there be a better way?  But without that foundation, this was the pattern:  wander, course correct; wander again, course correct again.

And for a while I could accept this imperfect pattern as “my way of being.”  But it’s not an easy way to life, and an even harder way for those around me to live.  It’s a lot of suffering for small wins in life.

My spiritual journey mirrored this pattern until more recently things came into awareness and major fundamental shifts began taking place.  Whole aspects burned away, revealing the strong, unrelenting, simple truth that was there all along – the Teal Flame.  And from there, the “good things” from other modalities could be brought into the new, sovereign architecture, no longer “backsliding,” but moving forward.

And that’s the point when “divorced dad” died (or the fake story, anyhow, since I’m still here).  That was always a story, a holding place for the real story.  Which is in fact no story at all.  There is no moral to the story, and there is no story.  It is my life and my truth.  That’s it.  And a process of aligning with that truth and staying on course. 

And that is “fatherly wisdom” that can be taught.  That is wisdom from experience that is worth keeping, worth refining, worth exploring and worth sharing.  It isn’t a story or a reaction or a “life lesson.”  It is a process and a truth, a consciousness and awareness that can exist and does in every one of us, though most of us are too clouded or distracted to be aware.  But we can learn to become aware.  And it can be taught.

And that’s something far more valuable than all the child support payments combined.  Though I still won’t miss them.

The OS behind the actions: How intentions can corrupt a growth path

I'd been finding a good balance here in Pensacola, between being productive at work, getting to the coffee shop and doing some writing, going to the gym, meditation and spiritual practice, gym, walks and other things.  It's made my days very full and fulfilling, I've moved into a place of connecting with my community instead of just escaping into fishing and withdrawal.

I'm moving from a place of loneliness and isolation into a place of integration and genuinely listening to and following my heart.  I've upgraded my wardrobe, my lifting, my writing and my overall life.

All of which brought me to yesterday morning.  I woke up early and decided to "just go" and fish Johnson Beach.  First problem, the road was closed, because I was too early.  Second, it was dark and setting up is a pain at that time.  Third, it was cold in the morning, in the fifties, and I never like fishing in that kind of weather.

And finally, I was tired.  My system was deeply fatigued.  Yes, the new experiences I've added have made my life here more rich, but I hadn't left myself any space to, well, space things out and allow my experiences to integrate.  It was not manic, but in that vein.

And eventually "following my heart" becomes "following the schedule." Natural increases in strength become "max out because that's what I do."  And eventually the body and system have enough.

The body has a way of telling me it's tired or strained.  One is the cortisol spike at 3am.  This isn't a "go with it" event, this is a "you're off track" event.  My system is stuck, either in inaction or unconscious action/reaction.

So here I was, on this beach, in the cold, finding myself not really appreciating the beauty around me, but very much in my head and trying to ignore my body, which was telling me it was tired, cold and sore.  But hey, the glasses and hat are a nice new look.

I managed to catch a couple decent fish, it wasn't a bust, but I just wasn't feeling the experience.  I brought Orion stones and the meditations felt forced.  Everything felt out of place. 

As I was bringing in my lines to go home, one of my poles started bending - a strong but gentle bend.  I thought I had seaweed, but it was sort of moving, very gently.  I kept nudging it in and noticed a sea turtle had become caught in my line.

I kept nudging this gentle creature to the shoreline, worried my line would break or the creature would get scared and struggle and I'd have a stalemate on my hands. Instead, as the turtle got to the shorebreak, she turned herself and extracted herself from the line, leaving my rig and line (and her) intact, and off she went.  

It was a beautiful experience.  Yes, I felt anxiety and concern for the turtle.  I also felt uncertainty.  But I followed my higher instinct and the turtle's movement until we were able to disentangle.  

This was a sign - both that I'd allowed my higher self to get snared by an abusive pattern (which led to my fatigue and presence on the beach in the first place), and how to disentangle.

The turtle is aligned with my higher self - slow, gentle, it rides the currents, it doesn't fight them.  It doesn't overreact with fear, it trusts the process and conserves its energy to act when appropriate.  It carries an innate wisdom that lives in the moment without being owned by it.

And it was that slow, gentle, wise self that got me out of that situation, that saw me off the beach, that came home and went back to sleep until I had my baseline energy back.  This is the pace of my higher self, it is slow, it rides the current.  It is gentle and wise and not governed by fear or reactive patterns.  It is the living embodiment of heart's desire.

And yet this can get snared.  Habit, emotional drain, fatigue, anxiety, these can cause the higher self to get hijacked until a good heart-centered stack becomes another to-do list for the ego and the same things that elevated me now drain me.

The heart has many desires, many new experiences it wants to enjoy.  And yet, a wise higher self knows to follow the current.  There is a time for action, a time for courage, a time for "doing," but stay in the current, move with it, glide, nudge.  The old turtle didn't get there by darting to and fro, or going as fast as it could.  

And that's the wisdom coming through from my higher self: slow down, find the flow and ride it, nudge, don't force.  And know your loyalty is to your higher self, not the individual items on your wish/to-do list. 

 

Pensacola Beach Sunset

The surf fishing on Sunday wasn't anything to write home about.  Nothing but June grass, not a single bite.  But the beach is beautiful and the sunset energy is amazing.

This is my home. I've spent a lot of money and effort to make it my home, and sometimes it feels like it's a waste or going nowhere.  But when I'm out here in my element, it makes sense.  Every time I come out I have to spend some time on the beach, no matter how the time of year or quality of fishing.  I need this energy.

And I need the Pensacola side.  Perdido Key is nice and good for fishing, but the water is murky and it lacks that emerald shine of the Pensacola side.  

Growing up in Southern California, it's taking me some time to get used to south-facing beaches.  Whether it's on the beach or on the kayak (and it's usually on the kayak), the sunsets are extraordinary.  The clean energy, the way the clouds shade the sun with gorgeous red, pink and orange hues, the nature all around, it's a special feeling.

This is my base, the foundation for my energy work and creative flow.  I bring this back with me to California until I can fully move out here and completely meld into this environment.

I have a gym here now - World Gym.  I love it.  It's a lot more laid-back than the UFC in Torrance, which is kind of a madhouse and way too loud, but a good place to lift.  I have a couple coffee shops I like, some areas I like to walk.  Fishing is no longer the foundation, it's something I do, along with other things and the days flow quickly and smoothly.

And this is the source of my current creative and energetic evolution.  The new novels, the emergence of Kaelen'Zur, the personal evolution, all sprung forth from here.  Which really is to say it sprung forth from my heart, my true center, because I chose this.  All of this. 

I finally, fully feel like my true self.  I am home.

An Open Heart Comes When You Stop Giving Away Your Power

 You want to feel a heart opening, a deep connection with humanity? 

Stop looking for it. Stop asking for it. Stop waiting for others to give you permission or approval. Stop giving yourself away in the hopes of an exchange. 

Stop giving away your power. 

Stop telling the world you’re not good enough by training the world to take your power before acknowledging your worth. Claim your sovereignty - not angrily and reactively, but out of genuine love for yourself. 

Know your worth. Feel your worth. Communicate that to the world and accept nothing less. Not out of entitlement, but just this is how it is. 

The world is not scary. People are not looking to reject you. Learn to recognize and avoid truly bad people and bad behavior (especially your own). After that, just know the world really doesn’t care about you the way you think it does. 

Which means you don’t have to live behind armor and masks. You can just be, it’s your birthright. Stop hiding and diffusing your energy behind incongruent wardrobes, nervous tics and habits that are only there to keep people away, and beliefs that just suck your energy and offer nothing. 

You don’t have to judge or assume things about people you don’t know or the world around you. You can let it be - good, bad or indifferent - it’s not going to take your power anymore. You stand on your own, and you can let everyone be. 

You don’t have to feel personally attacked when someone has a different opinion than you, or a different lifestyle. You don’t have to feel threatened, attacked, insulted or feel pity for others. You can let it all be and let yourself be. 

You don’t need to prove yourself or give away your power to be loved or feel attraction from the opposite sex. You don’t owe your employer more than your time, talents and effort. 

And when you stop giving away your power to a world that either isn’t asking for it or doesn’t deserve it, you can stop living in fear and anxiety. You can let your heart truly open and feel the experience around you. You can truly live from an open heart. 

The way we lived when we were children, before we were taught we weren’t good enough. 

Thoughts on the Afterlife

Came across an article about a woman who has "died" three times and experienced the afterlife.  What was interesting is that her interpretation of that post-death experience matches very closely with my own personal revelations, both experientially and in coming into contact with others who have passed.

Fear of death - the fear of the destruction of our consciousness and ego - is normal and natural.  It is also false and unnecessary.  (Unless you are someone who has good reason to believe your punishment in the afterlife will be severe, in which case that fear should be your signal to change your ways.)  It is both a lie created by the ego to control our spirit and a lie perpetuated by society to collectively placate our individually oppressive ego patterns.

Those of us who have seen the truth about death know it is beautiful, sacred, peaceful and a natural part of life.  There is no end, only transitions and death is a transition into something transcendent.  And that "something transcendent" is already available to us in the living world.  The ego does not want us to know this, because that would render the ego useless, it would lay bare the truth, that the ego is weak, knows very little and is governed by base emotions like fear and anger.

As a society, we have collectively created a structure to defend our fragile egos in the face of infinite connection.  Our egos need us to believe their death will be the end of everything, not a step into pure freedom and true life experience. So our egos connect with other egos to create a self-sustaining architecture, all for the purpose of sustaining their illusion of control.

The Teal Flame does not recognize the egoic falsehoods, at the individual or social level.  It's all bullshit.  And just because a lot of people buy into that BS, doesn't make it any less false.  When the stories and fears are placed into the flame, they burn away to nothing, but the true person remains.

Your fear of death is an ego shadow.  Embracing the impermanence is a recognition of the essence of life, which has no beginning or end.  Life is not some chemical reaction or some spontaneous event, it is a universal experience that exists beyond space and time and can manifest in the physical world, but is not limited to that manifestation.  

We are an expression of this universal force, this experience.  Call it God or Source, it doesn't matter because it doesn't have a name.  We are here on Earth as a temporal expression of the divine, and we will continue as such after our death.  And it is this temporal, cyclical energetic experience that makes life on Earth so beautiful.  It is fragile, it is only here for a short time before returning to the infinite.  And it will return and bring forth new life.  

Fearing death is fearing the essence of the divine experience.  Seeking to forestall death through weird artificial means is ungodly.  It misses the point of life entirely.  Our bodies are finite, our lives are not.  In the finite there is beauty.  The mystery of what is beyond is not a mystery - when we can feel past our physical experience and feel into what is beyond our physical bodies, emotions and thoughts, that is the infinite that resides inside us and what we will experience when our physical bodies pass away.

Transmission: I Am the Teal Flame

Buzzing, tingling, full, deep-bass awakening and wide-awake energy last night.  The transmission called my name, woke me from a sleep with nobody in the room but myself and my sweet cat.

She meditates with me.  And sometimes interrupts my meditations by tapping me, to make sure I'm okay.

I couldn't get the name, but I heard "SHA."  I went back to sleep, too intent on sleeping to answer the call.  

In the morning - WHOA! I listened and message received.  Full, tingling, surging, awakening, crystal clear transmissions straight through my body and mind and into my soul, and then out again as my soul answered.

"You are the Teal Flame."

I see it.  I feel it.  I hear it at the soul level.  

The teal flame.  Kaelen'Zur.  The name given in another transmission, one that someone tried to unplug but couldn't stop.

The name I accepted with skepticism, another goofy "Burning Man Playa name."  It turns out to be true - and the exact power to extract the truth and burn away the BS in everything around me.  

No more testing for truth and asking for answers from "someone out there," the flame resides within.  I offer it as my gift - complete incineration with no quarter.  The power of truth, freedom and transformation.

"You are the writer, the creator, the healer, the Teal Flame.  The world will compensate you generously for your gifts.  This is your path, your destiny, your purpose, your truth.  It is YOU."

Not just to clear out my own BS, not just to transform my own life, but to cleanse, transform and heal all I choose to touch, all who choose to go through the flame.

It's not a "feel good" healing energy.  It's not "love and light."  It's a commitment - to burn away anything that's false, corrupt or impure and transform what's left to align with your purpose and destiny.

God laughs at our plans, and the Teal Flame works for God.  It is not going to grant you wishes or so things on your schedule or time table.  It'll clear your shit.  Including the part of you that is attached to that shit or making excuses.  It'll clear false identities and stories.  You may not recognize what's left, but your true self will finally be at home.

If that sounds like too much or too intense, that's cool.  You can't jump in halfway, once you step off the ledge you're in all the way.  So jump or don't jump, that's up to you and you should consider that carefully.

But if you're ready to jump, consider this your invitation to jump into the Teal Flame and start being your true self.