Learning How to Fight

The warrior path of healing and service to the good of all

Life and the medicine are teaching me how to fight. I wish I didn’t have to learn. I prefer peace. But all who love peace must learn to fight in order to preserve it. Because eventually an adversary will come to your door, and you will be given a choice: fight, die, or be enslaved.

When I first began the medicine path I was a lawyer who didn’t like to argue. I’ve always been good at seeing all sides of an issue, and my default position has been dispassionate objectivity. I could fight and I could win, but I was a mercenary - a sword for hire. I rarely liked my clients or had much interest in their cases. They had a job to be done, and if the price was right I would do it.

When I walked away from practicing law in 2021 I thought that part of my life was over. I joined Parker on this journey out of a desire to do something purely good in service to the good of all. In my naivete I thought I was moving toward a life of peace and selfless spiritual service. Little did I know the path of healing is a warrior’s path, and by trying to serve the good of all I would be engaging in endless spiritual warfare.

All I can say is I was fool enough to try, and am too stubborn to quit.

I had a lot of resistance when the medicine started telling me to go back to practicing law. It felt like defeat. I felt like I was letting Parker down and giving up on the work we started together. But it was what was being asked of me, so I knew it was the right thing to do.

The Homework the medicine gave me back in January was to literally get my house in order. When the police came to my door in April I was sitting on the couch grappling with the awareness that I needed to move out and part ways with my former partner. But knowing a thing needs to be done and doing it are two completely different things. I felt stuck and didn’t know how to move forward.

Then the loyal opposition knocked at my door, and the message was clear. Not only was I going to have to find the will to live, I was going to have to find the will to fight. In the days after, I wanted to die. I lost the will to live. I lamented the unbearable existential burden of existence itself. I thought about suicide. Then the medicine whispered in my ear, “Then what? Where will you go?” Which caused the realization that I am deathless awareness to seep more deeply into my being.

There is no escape from the present moment and all it contains. This body may die, but the work still must be done. The lessons still must be learned. The tests still must be passed. The only path forward is to confront our problems head-on and meet the challenges before us.

That’s when I found the will to live and the desire to fight.

I decided in April to sell my house in Kentucky and part ways with my former partner. Which was the hardest decision I’ve ever made. Because while it had been clear for a long time that we were on diverging paths, she was and remains one of the great loves of my life. But it became clear that loving her meant letting her go, even if she didn’t see it that way.

After I made that decision everything else started to fall into place. I came into union with my current partner during the Huachuma Pilgrimage in July. Then moved out of the house I had shared with my former partner for nearly ten years. By September I was joined by my new partner and her son in our new home in Asheville, North Carolina.

I spent the first two weeks in Asheville applying for jobs. I wish I could say the mercenary within me is dead. But he isn’t. I applied to a lot of jobs during that two week period. My criteria was simple: remote lawyer jobs that pay well and don’t do evil.

I got a few interviews for well paying mercenary jobs, but no offers. Then I got an offer from one of the lead firms representing service members and their families who were injured by contaminated water at Camp Lejeune Marine Corp. Base.

The truth is I don’t even remember applying. But it has turned out to be a dream job. Not only have my basic criteria been met, but I get to sue the government, protect the water, and serve justice and truth.

I have a lot to be grateful for this Thanksgiving - a new home, a new family, and a new job. But the lessons of war have just begun. I have been given the gift of a beautiful life. One more beautiful than I ever could have imagined. That was the gift. If I want to keep it I must be willing to fight for it and protect it. Which means being in a state of war with the undisciplined desires of myself and others.

The cultivation of beauty requires relentless self-discipline and self-inquiry. The loyal opposition fears the light and loves it. It envies what is beautiful, and wishes to steal or destroy it. The adversary is both drawn to the light and repelled by what it reveals about itself.

Yet the enemy outside of us is the least of our worries. The loyal opposition is no more than the externalized manifestation of our own unhealed parts. They show us where we are stuck and how to get free. They tempt and exploit those undisciplined parts of ourselves that would destroy the beauty we have created. These are the chinks in our armor of light, and the only parts of us susceptible to attack.

So thank you adversary for being my greatest teacher, and the steel against which my blade is sharpened. Thank you for teaching me more about myself. Thank you for helping me strengthen my weaknesses and purify my heart. Thank you for making me more worthy of beauty and love.

I know that creating beauty and serving the good of all means my battles have just begun. But I’m starting to take pleasure in the fight. I’m starting to go into battle with laughter on my lips.

One of the battles before me is the court case in Kentucky. The prosecutor brought felony charges against me for possessing medicine. I drafted a letter to him explaining that it was for religious/spiritual purposes and protected by law. Then a few weeks ago we met and he offered me a plea agreement.

All I have to do in order to walk free is plea guilty to a misdemeanor and it will all go away. If convicted of a felony I will lose my law license and the prosecutor knows that. He was hoping I would take the deal and run.

But my will to truth is stronger than his fear based desire to control god and nature. So I kindly rejected the plea offer and told him I’m willing to die for my right to practice my faith.

Over Thanksgiving I will be drafting a motion to dismiss the charges against me and hold the controlled substances act unconstitutional under Kentucky’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act. It will be a case of first impression in Kentucky and will establish the right of everyone in the state to practice these ways.

I will continue to seek peace. Every step of the way I will encourage the prosecutor to do his duty to justice and truth and dismiss the case. But if he demands war he will get it, and I will win. Because my truth is stronger than his fear could ever be.

I was asleep, and disinterested. But now I am awake, and possessed by purpose. I had forgotten myself. But now I remember who I am and what I came to do. Truth is my master and teacher. Truth is the fire that burns inside of me that cannot be destroyed.

My job as a warrior of light and servant of god is to restore dharma and destroy falsehood.

I pray for peace, but I am prepared for war.

I will never surrender. I will never yield. I will never break. I will always endure.