I recently attended an amazing weekend conference at Asilomar with the poet David Whyte. I was moved in many different directions within myself over the weekend and enjoyed the many layers of thought, emotion and spirit that became apparent within me. I knew that the words he spoke and the inquiries he presented would continue to move through me so I took a lot of notes. I thought I would share some of my notes from the weekend. These notes are unedited, copied from my journal and were things that either David said or that I became aware of becasue of what he said. So some of it is close to a quote and some is very far off from his own language and very much in mine. The theme for the weekend was 'The Pilgrim Way'
Notes:
We have many names throughout our lives. Some names are better than others. We should be careful not to take on names that we don't want.
Rededicating ourselves to the path, falling in love with our path
You don't get to choose your path. The pilgrim path doesn't let you choose what you want from the world and what the world wants from you.
The pilgrim wanders
Pathmaker there is no path, you make the path by walking.
A pilgrim is someone who is passing through quickly
Redicating ourselves to our path makes us available spiritually to attract and seduce life to ourselves again
Falling in love is a willful neccessity to letting down control.
Illness asks us to give full attention to the parts of the body that need our full attention and to acknowledge the parts that are working and let them do their job.
There is an artform to asking for help. Both visible and invisible help. Invisible help is what you don't know that you need.
The ability to ask for something that you do not know you need makes you brave and face fear.
Open space inside yourself to make room for new horizons within.
Walk into fear.
All new revelations come as a stranger. A hand to take you that you have not taken before.
We live in a time of distrust of strangers.
What is my relationship to what is known or not known? Do I only connect with what is in my circle?
The courageous path is the heartfelt path. The path we care about following.
Escape the refining story we've been telling ourselves. Leave the story open to outside revelation.
Stories that are told over and over to create an identity are limiting.
When home (identity) becomes prison, it's time to walk out the door or listen for a knock.
Innocence- the ability to be found by the world. Innocence is a way of paying attention.
Allow yourself to be transformed by experience.
There are processes that will occur with or without your participation.
The way we listen to the world shapes our identity.
To feel abandoned is to deny the intimacy of your surroundings.
Put down the weight of your aloneness.
Forming friendships with the world of the unknown.
The ground of your own being as a place of inquiry
Attention is a form of transformation.
Internal smmetry
The horizon inside ourselves.
Make ourselves equal inside to the largeness of life.
By witnessing the larger horizon that you perceive for another, you invite them into that space.
Invisible arrivals
What story am I telling myself?
Ask yourself more and more beautiful questions.
To learn how to uncover yourself.
Have a conversation within yourself that can lead you somewhere.
What stories in my life am I insisting on too much?
Ask yourself fierce and liberating questions.
Pay attention to how you speak to yourself.
As soon as you give way to the powerlessness, you are on your way.
We constantly choose too early in the process, before things have come to fruition.
How much surface area to I have to meet anything other than myself? Where is the contact point?
Where is the place where my feet are actually touching the ground?
Are you large enough to live with even the paths that you haven't figured out yet?
When nothing makes sense it takes a lot of energy to try to build a story prematurely before allowing the path to be defined.
Taste the phsyical makeup of your own imprisonment.
Get out of daily rituals you've learned to keep yourself locked in that prison cell.
Remember the long draught that preceeded your arrival.
Strength to let go of the thirsty self.
...as if you deserved what you loved all along."
Note all the ways you feel it's impossible to be free.
Make a list of three things you think are impossible.
"Give up all the other worlds except the ones to which you belong."
"Anything or anyone who does not bring you alive is too small for you."
You don't do the work of transformation. You engage in conversation. Hang out in edges, make ourselves available for seduction by the world.
You are meant to make yourself available to the next tall dark stranger, only it might not take the form of a stranger.
What am I in conversation with?
Am I listening to invitations?
Devotion is a fierce form of attention.
Don't take other people's questions into your body. Ask your own questions.
There is a part of you that already knows your next step.
Your success in incarnation does not depend on your control.
A good relationship with the mirror of existence.
Risk yourself for the things that call you back.
There is no path that goes all the way.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013 at 08:03AM 
