Best Ride In Town
I grew up in a little village far from where I live today. I only remember snippets of my childhood. Glimpses of moments when people were wondering about how happy I was. I seemingly didn’t have a care in the world, being too busy enjoying life.
Then the black-cladded women with very strange headdresses showed up in my life, and I had to spend every weekday in their care.
They were scary, and they didn’t care much about being happy. I don’t think they knew or remembered what being happy was like. Or maybe they were just taught that it was a bad thing.
Yet, they were supposed to teach me about life.
There is a story about John Lennon writing on an assignment about what he wants to be when he grows up that he wants to be happy because his mother, I believe, told him that the most important thing in life is to be happy, so that’s what he thought the assignment was about.
The teacher told him that he didn’t understand the assignment, to which Lennon answered the teacher that he didn’t understand life.
Kay’s elders told her early on in her more than 13 years of apprenticeship with them that the most important thing you can do for yourself and the world is to walk a path of awakening and let yourself be happy.
It took me decades to claw back the gifts of happiness, of enjoying life that little boy had in the early years of his life, but I did.
And even though the world has gone mad, and most people are hopelessly asleep and completely clueless about how manipulated and deeply programmed they are to never be able to remember who they are, what it means to be human, or to recognize the immeasurable gifts that being alive on this planet, here, today, offers, I, for one, know I came here partly because it’s the best ride in town.
Ok, fine, maybe not the best, but it offers opportunities for experiences and perspectives, not the least of which is being able to know and live happiness in the midst of utter insanity, which could be hard to find in other places, I reckon.
Why the heck else would we choose this joint for our life in this lifetime?
After those early years of happiness mixed with black cladded women trying to instill the fear of god in me, I went through many years of confusion and chaos. Sex, drugs, and rock n roll would be one way to describe that time.
I won’t bore you with the details, but toward the end of that phase, it started to become very much apparent with each passing day that I needed to figure out how to change course, or it wouldn’t end well. And along with that realization, I began to understand that I needed healing, lots and lots of healing.
The sex, drugs, and rock n roll phase was a fine distraction from how deeply lost I had managed to get myself. But, I realized that it was crushing my soul and tearing my heart to pieces, and somehow what was left of me realized that if I don’t solve that riddle and get myself out of the mess I’d floundered myself into, I wouldn’t make it much further in this life.
Between that time and where I am today are four decades of experiences, battles, struggles to try to fit in, doozies of mistakes and failures, and pain and suffering, which I will share a bit more as time permits and my muse inspires. And, of course, there was lots of learning and growing and healing. Lots and lots and lots!
Suffice it to say I did find another human who understood my journey and the sheer bottomless emotional torment I was struggling and fighting with. That encounter radically changed the trajectory of where my life was headed.
Of course, at the time, I had no clue how truly radical that change would be, but I know that encounter is a big reason I was able to create the life I am living today, a life of which being happy, at more and more times deliriously so, is a big part.
Without that encounter,it is distinctly unlikely I would have found my wife, the teachings, or the help and guidance for growth and healing that I was fortunate to be gifted with since.
So that today, I can say that I am happy. A similar kind of happy as the little boy was those many, many years ago, only with distinctly immeasurably more awareness about it.
I love myself and my life and the beauty of life, even in the midst of the insanity the world has been made into.
And, there are no black-cladded women with strange headdresses to be found anywhere in my vicinity. 🙂
If this journey reflects similarities to yours, or even if it doesn’t, and you are looking for guidance and healing and how to get and stay sane in the midst of the insanity of this world, check out our upcoming Apprenticeship Program at https://www.katasee.world/apprenticeshipone.
If you want to learn more, you can join us for our upcoming Healing Talk this Friday at noon MT about the Benefits Of The Ka Ta See Apprenticeship. To join, go to https://www.katasee.world/live.
You can also talk with me by setting up a time on my calendar at https://www.katasaee.world/talk. Or you can get in touch with our dear friend and excellent Ka Ta See Practitioner, Lora Keddie. You can reach her at www.lorakeddie.com.
This may not be for you. Then again, it may be that encounter for you that changes the trajectory of your life and brings radical and remarkable growth and healing, and happiness, as these teachings have continued to do for me.
In love and Song, always!
Helmut
www.katasee.com
We teach you how to catch!
"Is that what your tradition is going to teach me? To pursue this unknown?"
"One can pursue forever and never catch," Chea said, imitating running with two fingers going round and round in front of her. "We teach you how to catch.”
- Chea Hetaka - The Reluctant Shaman by Kay Cordell Whitaker
You can find The Reluctant Shaman at https://amzn.to/3RNujsV.