Date: 2006-02-18
To: the FEMA Self
Miles today: 0.0

Hmmm at the end of that last entry I said I'd dive a little deeper into what FEMA told me about myself. I just re-read that entry and it needs pictures more than anything. I'll work on that.What's the number one thing I can learn from that experience?I tend to put the dumber parts of me in charge.The mirror's reflection is quite clear: Bush, FEMA, and my past corporate masters . Not too smart. So, in reflection, the same is true with me. My life's not grand right now -- it never has been. I'm much more conscious of making sure the dumber pieces of me don't run my life. Oh, they do. It might be 90% now instead of 99%. Letting the less enlightened parts of me run my life is an addiction. I've been doing it for 30-something years.So where are the smart parts of me (and you)? They're not in the past or the future or written in some old book. It's not a list of 7 habits or ideas about Mars and Venus. It is an intelligence that is there all the time, but it's too courteous to get in the way of my mind's repetitive ramblings. It's not pushy, and will let me screw up and have as much pain as I want to.It sits and waits at my feet for me to greet it. It is a paradox because I say it is a thing but it is nothingness, stillness, formlessness. It is the silence that makes space for the sounds. It is not the words on this screen but what makes it possible to have words on the screen....my focus has just switched...   I will update this post shortly... I promise ok, continuing...A greater intelligence is accessed when you (and I) give space for... space. As i said, it is much to courteous to interrupt you during your busy mind time.... which in our society, can be all the time. "You mean to make my life better and let a more conscious and intelligent part of myself be involved in my daily life I have to be quiet or still inside?" Yes. Alternating activity (which is usually conjoined with some mental commentary that is out of the moment) and stillness/beingness will do wonders. I wish I could do it with consistancy. I'm always thinking there's so much to do. "I'll take some time for myself when my list is shorter..." Ever say that? lol The joke here is that the list won't get shorter until I take a break. Pretty sticky, isn't it?Another trap I run into is "taking some time for myself" turns out to be another list!!! The stillness that is needed, the being-ness that lets in the more intelligent parts of myself, comes from practicing being in the moment and just witnessing what's there. Not mentally labeling or adding to my current experience - whether it is commuting on a bus or sitting in the sun on McAffe's Knob. Just open up all the senses and turn off the mental chatter.Thru hikers do this. What do you think trail magic is? It is the insanely intelligent part of you finally getting into your life. Isn't it fun? Don't you love the surprise of finding magic just when you need it or didn't expect it? The second thing I noticed about FEMA when I reflect back on the experience is how the first set of fire service leadership stood their ground against "the man" and got the axe. (This was at Camp Gautier.) The leadership that moved up to fill those positions behaved differently. They wimped out. They wanted to keep their positions more than moving the group forward to be able to better respond to the affected people of Mississippi. They saw the first group lose what they had and feared the same thing for themselves. So they caved to FEMAs idiotic and time wasting mandates. Our morale and desire to help plummeted. The leadership saw what FEMA was doing was a joke, saw our increasing frustration with them and FEMA, and decided to play nicey-nice with FEMA instead of stepping down and letting others lead.So, in reflection, there's a part of me, a very patterned part of me, that desires not to lose anything I've attained. Any loss is seen as bad and I ignore the deeper intelligence in me that does not fear gain and loss because it knows where its going. Like the fire leadership, there is a part of me that identifies with my titles or position in life. They have Incident Commander, Operations, Task force leader and so on, while I have identifications such as computer programmer, photographer, firefighter, and thru hiker. I can see through my life that I've worked very hard to keep in-place the things, the identity, I worked to build. Losing the identity is seen as loss. The identity is a structure... a box. I've worked really hard to keep myself in a box??I wonder how long I waited to hike the AT because I was so busy keeping my structure in place? Possibly 10 years. The more intelligent part of me tries to tear down was is not needed (ie. change the structure) in my life to get me to where I want to go. But as I look back, I tried to maintain a certain status quo (not changing the structure). So, I have been working against myself a lot in my life by not letting the structure of my life change and seeing change as loss.All that from a month in Mississippi with FEMA? Wow.