Collected writing
Mastery 101 (Continuation or Related Passage)
Look at where you are. I mean, right now, really, look at where you are. Consider that everything you can take in through your senses is there to be available to you and to support you on your mission. Now, listen. Listen to all the sounds around you. The Sounds contain messages, cues about where you are and what's going on around you. Open yourself. Breathe in the air. Distinguish between the sounds of nature and the sounds of man. Allow your hearing to expand beyond the immediate, into the more outer realm of music, vibration, frequency, and the original Sounds uttered by the ancient Masters. Take a nice deep cleansing breath, and allow that deep, low, guttural Aaauuummm to escape upon the wisdom of your breath. Imagine yourself closing your eyes. Center yourself, relax. Imagine that you are in a squared circle, about to face the opponent of your life. This is an All or nothing, winner-take-all, fight to the death. Your awareness begins to peak, your pupils dilate, your body tunes itself to prepare for a confrontation which cannot yet be seen, heard, nor felt. You stand strong, in complete command of all of your faculties. Now, know that you cannot lose. Everything you need for this victory is at your fingertips. You are Caesar returning home from the wars. The crowd is roaring at your feet. Your most trusted field commander stands behind you on your golden chariot, whispering these words, and these words alone: “Remember you are mortal….” Okay, come on back. Your crowd, your mob, your flock, your crew, they will always be around to help and support you. Hotlines are open, and operators are standing by. Imagine yourself opening your eyes. Look around you again. Take in the smallest particles of detail. This is a lesson in acceptance,in embracing and enfolding the truth of who you are at this very moment. Though chaos might rage around you, you are the calm center of the storm. You are not the only one around whom the cyclone spins. Chaos is a function of entropy, a universal law, which dictates that all things are subject to the forces of randomness, disorder, dissipation into heat, which further fosters the thermodynamic breakdown of the system itself, till it reaches a state of stasis, or thermodynamic equilibrium. That's a fancy, scientific way of saying ashes to ashes dust to dust, as all things must come to pass. I'm not a religious person. I am deeply connected with what I call Source. I grew up around metaphysics, and understood, in my way, the meaning of Mind over Matter from the tender age of four years old. I have been around the energy of religious and spiritual practices from various ancient traditions, for all of my life. These sadhanas have always been an integral part of my life. My Father used to call them, “Story Drives,” a chance to get out of the house and away from the studio for a while, to clear his head and take notes on a new storyline. My practice is very much the same in this respect. I've now proven to myself that I do my best writing on the road. My father's road and mine are very different, though they both lead to the same place. Along the way, my father tallied up a reputation as one of the most creative and valuable members of our industry. I have had remarkable success in the creative arts as well. Based on the last 7 years, it could be easily said that I do my best and most prolific writing on the road, not unlike Jack Kerouac or John Steinbeck. I am clearly not these most revered authors. I have achieved what I can only call an order of mastery with regard to who I am and what I do. What's the next move? Roy Huggins, one of the great old Hollywood wizards, used to tell me in a story conference, “Stop thinking ahead. We're most interested in what's happening on screen right now. Don't cut your story off at the roots, because you have some misplaced idea about how it should turn out.” Roy and I worked for many years to answer one question: “What happens next?” Taken to the level of action toward bringing this type of creative strategy to the forefront, we put this principle into action as: “What’s the Next Move?” Ask yourself this question. What's the next move? Be still, and wait for the answer. It will become apparent and obvious in a moment out of time. Sometimes, it is a matter of putting one foot in front of the other, and moving off in the direction you are pointing. More and more, as we approach mastery, the task becomes to sit, still and silent, and wait for the event or person to come to us. Buddha suggests that we learn to sit, to think, and to wait. Of these, due to an ever-present restlessness of my mind and body, learning to slow down and wait has been the most difficult of these three answers. When the answer you seek appears, it will do so as an unfettered particle of thought energy, like an oak leaf floating down river. At first, it looks like all of the other fallen leaves. But, this one contains the answer you're looking for. You examined the leaf carefully, natural scientists that you are. You notice it is about the same size as your hand, and roughly the same shape. You see the life-giving veins that stretch throughout the entire plant. You also notice that what you are holding, is, quite clearly, dead. You look off and see the tree your leaf came from. It is a towering sentinel oak, in a thriving Grove among the rocks, the soft wet Earth and the dazzling Green hills. You understand that the leaf is as You are, an animated, still life portrait, Frozen in Time. The question remains: What's the Next Move? Now, listen to the first impulse of your intuition, your natural knowing. Now, I'm not suggesting that you take time before every choice to sit and meditate and examine things like Fall color oak leaves. For that, I recommend upstate New York. In fact, swiftness is a virtue. The point is to attune yourself to your own Inner Guide, to enhance your relationship with your own, natural intuition, Relaxed power Field command Air command Infrastructure Support personnel Signs and symbols Synchronicities Assessment Strategy Executive conference Medicine Instrument, weapon, toy or tool Conventional physics and the quanta Calculations Alphanumerics: letters and numbers Secret codes Pythagoras and Egyptian mathematics Fractals Hallucinations Uniqueness and singularity of every moment Dark societies Self care, self protection, protection of others Seeing motives Right practice Fearlessness Defense and self defense Lineage, ancestry, tradition Opponents, adversaries, enemies Friendlies and unfriendlies Good guys, bad guys, citizens and assholes Spiritual entities, good and bad Co-flows, cross flows, counter flows Understanding one another… do you feel I have understood you well enough? Prophets and false prophets Puppets and marionettes Trapped spiritual forces The martial arts Sun Tzu and the art of war