WHAT MY DOG HAS TAUGHT ME ABOUT COMPASSION

1- compassion is a ball
2-the world is an overgrown field
3-I am a dog

Here`s how my dog tells me compassion is supposed to work.
I can carry compassion around in my mouth and never share it with anyone, even my closest friends. I can tear it apart and eat it. If I do this then it will be gone with very little evidence that it ever existed. On the other hand, if I put my compassion in play, share it and celebrate it`s existence then joy and happiness can come into more than just one life.
This requires a certain amount of trust and understanding on my part. I must be willing to release what I am holding, turn it over and trust someone else will know what to do and honor an unspoken agreement. I must have enough trust in a relationship to interrupt, make our presence known and then lay what I have before whatever I`m trying to interact with. I must be willing to be gentle yet insistent and accept the risk that I may be ignored.
I have to be aware of and understand the subtle nuances of my sphere of compassion. When it gets tossed into the weeds I must not give up until I find it and bring it back, even if that requires asking for help if I can`t reach it.If I give up then the process stops and we all stand to lose something.
Finally, I need to understand when an exchange is over and "no" means the end of things, at least for today. It does not mean I have to abandon my compassion, it just means I have to keep it to myself for a while and remember where I put it.
If I do all these things then I`ll be ready when something comes along that is willing to pick the ball up and play along.

In honor of our visit to Geburah here`s a bit of a different perspective on the life of the Warrior.

CUT MAN

Standing outside the ropes
waiting for the bell
For my work to begin
for my date with blood
and damaged flesh

Place the seat
ignore the crowd
and the corner man`s chatter
focus
and fix the machine

Stop the leaks
see to the dents
grease the pressure points
get it ready
to go back in

No matter how
badly damaged
how totally wrecked
as long as it is conscious
and draws breath
it continues to function
it will fight on

Fool the flesh
stop the bleeding
lie to it
tell it
it`s fine
make it believe
it still has a chance
to win

Then send it
back in.

RUNNING THROUGH THE MILL. We are now at the point when climbing the Tree of Life we get to the 5th sphere of Geburah and one of the things that is thrown into the mix by our teacher is the concept of "Grist to the mill" , how something may need to be transformed in order to become more useful to us. This particular saying refers to the raw grain or grist which is not really useful in the form it comes to us. we need to transform it into flour by passing it thru a process, like a mill, and grind it into a fine powder in order to make it far more useful to us. The correspondence to the magickal/spiritual side of our studies in the Mystery School is that many times things that are not apparently useful and may actually cause friction between us can, under the right circumstances and conditions when exposed to an appropriate process become just like that grain and be transformed into something that can nourish us and help us grow. When this topic was first brought up it brought to my mind two other concepts from the lower sephiroth of the TOL; The Machinery of the Universe and the two sided question of; "what is your will, to what end?". This is where I`d like to start the tour of the mill where my mind is presently working. In past class discussions we talked about how certain everyday tasks we have since handed off to machines once allowed us to slow down and process the problems of the day in a different manner. Back in the time when most things were done by hand the simple tasks required to harvest, thresh, winnow and then mill grain in order to make something simple yet sustaining like bread, which is considered the "staff of life", usually were tasks that allowed us to engage more with both the world around us and the Earth that nourished us both physically and spiritually. These simple tasks with their rhythms and repetitive motions kept our bodies and rational minds busy while freeing our subconscious to work on other problems while we entered a near trance state. As we delegated our labor to machines the cost to us was both an increased disconnect from our environment and the Spirit of the Earth along with trading that near trance "processing state" in exchange for less tiring and tedious yet more closely focused guidance of the machines we had developed to become more efficient and productive. What does this have to do with the mill you might ask. The answer to that would be found in the grain and even more specifically the thing that brought the grain into being, intent. Let me use a little backwards planning and look at what brought me here for a moment. I was chasing that "To what end " part of the question I mentioned earlier.Once I had distilled the "to what end" down a bit I began to see what might be the final product and could then ask other questions like "who`s will does this serve?" and the ever popular "How did I get here and why?". When the milling is all done you can see that in order to get what you truly need you have to feed the mill the appropriate material, in the proper quantity, at the proper consistency and rate. That material usually has to have preliminary work done to prepare it for the mill in order to produce acceptable results and not damage the mill itself. For grain (the grist in this case) this entails harvesting at the proper time and conditions, drying, threshing and winnowing the grain, as I mentioned before. All this preliminary work needs to be done before the grain can even be transported to where the milling will take place. Very little grain ever goes from stalk to stomach on the same patch of ground. We talked earlier about the nature and spirit of labor in regard to intent. We know that the energy and intent of everything that touches something that feeds and nourishes us, that contributes to our growth and evolution in this world, leaves an imprint, an imprint on the Earth and our environment as well as our physical and spiritual lives. That being said, lets look at the progression of intent from the individual worker on up through the "spirit in the Machine", Before we do that I`d like to ask a question first, something to keep in mind as we move from sticks and stones to gears, pulleys, hydraulics and microchips. That question is; "What is it that powers YOUR mill? In the beginning, when we took life much slower, milling grain involved just a few people, perhaps even a solitary individual beating grain into flour using wood and/or stone while their mind processed other things as they fell into that rhythmic, repetitive process. At the end of the day they hopefully had what they needed to feed their family plus at least a little more to either sell, trade, or store as a hedge against leaner times. Back then we were more in tune with the world around us and the Earth beneath our feet. After we learned how to domesticate and partner with the other animals and work stone with simple tools the first rotary stone mills came into being. Now we contributed less in physical labor but our animal allies worked more in our place. We also had to find ways to grow more as we had to not only feed just our families now but our new partners as well. We also spent less time traveling from place to place and more time running in circles while herding asses but I digress. somewhere along the line water power came into the picture. Now what an animal used to do could be done by coupling the stone wheels of the grain mill to a water wheel. Things still moved in a circular motion,they just did it on a much grander scale. The wheels became bigger and the mills became larger. At some point farmers stopped doing their own milling and began handing it off to someone with better equipment as they felt they could get better and more consistent results. Water power gave way to steam power, then internal combustion engines and finally electric power. Some areas used wind instead of water power to run their mills, the windmills of Holland are the classic example of this. Even in this day and age where we have microchips and hydraulic controls we still many times hang on to the simple, ancient process of stone on stone grinding of appropriate material into a useable final product. Only the methods of power and control have changed . So lets get back to that question of "what powers your mill"? Is it individual will and intent, An ass traveling in circles, or is your mill powered by Air (knowledge and intellect)or Water (emotion)? Perhaps your mill is powered by steam (high energy emotions)or the Fire (will and passion)of an internal combustion engine or boiler. Maybe your mill is more modern and is powered by electricity (Spirit). Let`s take a closer look at the action of those two stone wheels for a moment. All grain mills, regardless of power, rely on two surfaces grinding against each other to process grain into either meal or flour. The simplest mills consist of a pair of stone wheels, one stationary and it`s mate that rotates above the fixed wheel and presses down on it to do the grinding. Most wheels have grooves cut into their faces to help keep the grain, meal, or flour moving and grinding. The grain enters from above and pours into the center of the upper wheel. As it is ground it moves outward until it falls free of the stones and the grinding process is ended. So the process starts at center and moves outward till it ends with the final product.from there the end result is directed away from the stones to be put into bags or bins. Now that we have the basic process down lets talk a bit about control. The miller depends on training and experience to adjust the speed of the mill, the clearance between the wheels (factored by the pressure from the upper wheel and the rate of grain feed), and the grinding duration (time spent between the wheels). All these things working together effect the final outcome and whether the finished product is useable or not. In this day and age, chances are, the flour you get is not even made from the grain you harvested and dropped off. Grain is grain and, just another commodity, and you trust your friends and neighbors are just as trustworthy, conscientious and committed as you are. See yet another disconnect? Now if the miller doing this work for you lets his mind wander and not enough grain is fed into those stone mill wheels they begin to grind on each other instead of the grain. This creates stone dust which contaminates your flour making it unsuitable for your use. If that lapse in attention continues it could also wear the mill stones down, causing damage and shutting down the mill, Bad news if you`re the mill owner. Likewise if the miller feeds too much grain into the mill things won`t be ground finely enough and the fine flour you had hoped for will come out as course meal unsuitable for use unless you repeat the process and refine the consistency of the final product. So now ask yourself what really produces the end product that is supposed to sustain you and your family? Was it your individual will and intent, your guides and allies, or the skills and abilities of another that you handed the work off to? How much does Divine Will or outside influences and imprints play in what you intend to put to use? Lastly, is what your mill produced what your really need or did you settle for what was handed to you? Did you see this harvest all the way through yourself, from sowing the seeds to reaping and preparing the grain with no cut corners or did you hand off the bulk of the work and then accept a replacement you were assured was every bit as your own workings? Before you leave the mill you`ll want to open that sack and take a look at what`s really inside. You don`t want to get your oven all fired up and an entire kitchen`s worth of pans prepared only to find that what you thought was finely ground wheat flour is actually moldy corn meal now do you?