The Golden Path

Aligning to a future without end

A few days ago I arrived back in Asheville after visiting a brother in Arizona for Ramaka Kriya initiation. Phoenix is a good place to burn, and Sedona was the perfect place to dream into what wants to be born from the ashes.

I’m still in the death portal that opened in October with the falling of the leaves and the limpa of Hurricane Helene. I’m not yet ready for rebirth, but as we approach the Winter Solstice I’m starting to feel the hope and promise of the sun’s return.

Parts of me are still dying and returning to the Great Mother to be turned into humus for the next season of growth. Ruminations about the past still haunt me at times. Grief still finds me in unguarded moments, and I mourn what was and hoped might be.

I’ve tried simply letting go of my grief and ruminations. I’ve tried disciplining my mind with meditation and mantras. Neither approach has been very useful, because both contain a desire to push suffering away rather than confront it. So now when pain arises, I breathe it into my heart and allow it to become a part of me.

Instead of fighting the pain, I’m surrendering to it and inviting it to teach me what I have yet to learn. Suffering pushed away always returns. Suffering seen, accepted, loved, and integrated, has nowhere left to go.

If you are suffering this holiday season, I invite you to give this practice a try. The greatest healing balm I have found is love and forgiveness of ourselves and others, and gratitude for all that the past contains.

As I process the grief of losing family, home, and beloved, I’m starting to see and appreciate the blessings of the loss. I have often felt dislocated, disconnected, and without purpose as my old ways of knowing myself have fallen away.

I’ve felt like Abraham, who was asked to sacrifice his only son.

The period between loss and renewal is a difficult one. But God is not without mercy. Even in the depths of loss there are embers of renewal, which hold the promise of resurrection after the death.

A blessing of this time of aloneness has been that I’m able to listen deeply to what wants to be and move forward unencumbered to meet it. It has been a long time since I was truly single. I’m 38 now, and haven’t been without a companion or partner since I was 24 years old and in my second year of law school.

There was never a gap between things coming apart with my first partner and coming together with my second. There was overlap in emotional intimacy, and I moved directly from one shared home to another.

I never dated before my first partner or had a romantic relationship. I had a few crushes growing up and one great unrequited love during high school. But until my first partner, I had never known the feminine heart as a lover.

My first partner loved and supported me unconditionally with selfless devotion. Her kind and gentle heart was a constant that was easy to take for granted. It was a familiar sort of love that I was used to receiving from the feminine. In exchange for that love, I became her provider and protector, which gave my life orientation and meaning.

But as we grew apart, the more sinister side of that dynamic began to appear. We fell into the trap of love without intimacy. We stopped being best friends and became unable to share, know, and appreciate one another’s heart and soul. We avoided confrontation and kept things sweet and simple, warm and loving. We sought comfort at the expense of truth, and became estranged from one another while sharing a home.

Some people are able to meet while young and grow together throughout life’s ups and downs, deaths and rebirths. That was not the case for us. When we met, I was an ambitious young man who wanted to be king of the world. A few years into the relationship, I had a spiritual awakening that left me wanting only to be one with God. You might say I became more ambitious, but it came at the cost of my worldly aspirations.

We spent a decade trying to reconcile our paths and create a shared vision for our future. Eventually we gave up. We reached an impasse. Our differences were irreconcilable.

That was hard for both of us to accept. We had imprinted deeply on one another. We were family, and it was hard to imagine a world where we were not together. I felt responsible for her life, happiness, and safety even though we never wed. The world is a harsh and dangerous place, and I worried she would not survive.

Our final lesson together was the hardest, which involved releasing one another to our respective fates.

When that home came apart, I went directly into my second partnership and a new shared home. I’m still processing the lessons of our coming together then falling apart within a year.

When the heart wanders from one to another without a period of knowing ourselves outside of a relationship, we tend to seek out the opposite of our most recent partner. That isn’t always a bad thing, or fatal to the new relationship. But the attraction is usually biased towards the unmet needs of our previous relationship. The new partner usually possesses things our previous partner lacked, but may be deficient in qualities we took for granted, which are nevertheless necessary for our happiness.

That is something I am still integrating, and a reason for my decision to enter into a period of celibacy and self-reflection. I’m still figuring out what I want and need in a partnership. Which is requiring me to first get clear on what I want and need alone.

Most men's primary mission in life is to protect and provide for their families. That gives them purpose, meaning, and satisfaction even if the work they are doing isn’t particularly enjoyable. I am the beneficiary of men and women who did whatever it took to protect and provide for their children. My immediate ancestors were coal miners and pioneers who worked long hours in hellish conditions to ensure their children had a shot at something better.

I am among the first generation in my family to rise above basic survival. I carry the dreams and prayers of my parents and ancestors, who gave all so that I may live, dream, love, and find a way to be useful to God.

For the first time in my life, I can say the line will not end with me. When I have questioned why I still breathe in recent months, my unborn children have come to remind me why. They have become my point of orientation and purpose, connecting me to the future in a way that makes the hardships of the present worth it.

For them to be born, I must prepare the way. My work is to create a world in which they may live. My job is to create a future they can occupy.

I’m open to the idea that this is a fantasy created by my subconscious to help me move through a particularly difficult time in my life. But I prefer to live in a universe in which that isn’t true. I like useful delusions, they make life bearable, and feel a lot like faith.

Maybe I’ve read too much Dune, but I’m starting to sense a Golden Path running through my life that flows into a future without end. It is the timeline where humanity survives and joins its place amongst the stars. I’m becoming more sensitized to it. I’m starting to notice when I’ve gotten off course and when I’ve entered a decision point where only one path has a future.

We all hold a piece of the Golden Path. Our individual work is to become aware of the golden thread running through our lives and follow it. Our collective work is to braid those threads together and create a shared future for humanity that represents our highest potentiality.

My piece of the Golden Path is Ramaka Temple and my children. Bringing them into physical manifestation is my contribution to a future without end.

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RAMAKA KRIYA
Ramaka Kriya is universalist in that it honors the truth in all religions. It is tantric in that it views every human experience as an opportunity to learn, grow, and gain greater intimacy with God. In Ramaka Kriya we seek to live a life of skillful means through the righteous use of energy, and to bring ourselves into ever greater integrity with truth and love.

SATSANGS
Ramaka Kriya Satsangs are a co-created immersive that gathers kindred spirits to deepen self realization through the use of effective spiritual practices, song, and community. Satsang is a sacred occasion where we gather together to be in the company of truth. During a Ramaka Kriya Satsang you can expect to deepen your heart's capacity for love and your mind's absorption in meditative awareness. At the Satsang you will learn the Ramaka Kriya meditation practices, which involve the use of pranayama, mudras, and mantras to facilitate purification and opening of the subtle body to deepen meditative awareness and self realization.

I have begun traveling and teaching Ramaka Kriya to raise funds for Ramaka Temple. If you would like to sponsor an event please reach out.

MEDICINE COUNSEL
I offer mediation services and consultations on entheogenic law and integration coaching through Medicine Counsel.