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"Just
finished the Escort to the Beloved chapter. I have cried for the first
time since December 8, 2000—the night of the car accident
that nearly
took my life. I didn't cry then. I think I became an observer of my
life. I can't begin to thank you for writing this book.”
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Trebbe Johnson's Newsletter
February 2008
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 Dear
Questers, Friends, and Seekers of the
Beloved,
You never know where you're going to find
teachers and helpers to guide you to the
next way station in your life. Sometimes you
can't find help where you expect it (school,
doctor's office). Then again, a mentor or
guide might show up in an encounter with a
stranger that lasts only a minute. Sometimes
a teacher is a tree or a river, sometimes a
helper is prayer or a story. In this issue
of the newsletter are stories about three
very different teachers and helpers: a
Tibetan Buddhist practice, Walt Disney, and
Britney Spears.
To those who are receiving this newsletter
for the first time... welcome! Here you'll
find news of upcoming Vision Arrow events,
reflections, profiles of extraordinary
people, and stories of transformation that
occur when we accept, in small, bold,
startling ways the invitations that the
world is always sending us.
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TUAREG STRUGGLE, TIBETAN PRAYERS
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 One
night last month, as our group of vision
questers and guides sat around a fire in the
Sahara Desert of southern Algeria, we got
into a conversation about freedom and
survival. Our Tuareg guide, Adem Roth
Mellakh, was describing how hard it has
become for the nomadic Tuareg to maintain
their lifestyle and livelihood. Government
regulations requiring fixed addresses and
passports have curtailed the people's
movements and forced many to give up their
camels and move to cities. In Niger, uranium
mining has encroached on traditional lands.
As a matriarchal culture in patriarchal Arab
society, the Tuareg, with their ancient
ways, are often treated as outcasts. Many
have formed a resistance group,
Movement for Justice in Niger (MJN), and
the military has retaliated by harassing
Tuareg families and shooting their animals,
and has even killed people. Still, the
Tuareg are determined to fight policies that
affect them without giving them
representation. "For the Tuareg," Adem said,
"freedom is more important than life."
A couple of people in our group later said
they felt this discussion had been
depressing. They would have preferred to
spend the evening, as we often did, singing
songs around the fire . "We can't do
anything about it," one person complained.
"Why focus on the negative?"
Perhaps one of the great questions in this
intimately, instantly linked-up world we
inhabit is, what do we do with all the
information we are given, particularly if it
causes us pain?
It's easy to assume that the only response
to helplessness in the face of suffering is
to withdraw or else be dragged into despair.
Yet when we widen our minds and hearts to
take in what is grievous and frightening, we
find that, instead of becoming mired in
sadness, we actually feel liberated. We
become more compassionate human beings with
bigger hearts.
A practice of Tibetan Buddhism, Tonglen,
offers one answer to the dilemma of how to
co-exist with the pain of others. In its
most simple form, this complex practice
entails giving and receiving to another. In
a relaxed and open state, close your eyes.
As you breathe in, imagine that you're
taking in the suffering and pain of the
other, but gently, without becoming attached
or overwhelmed by it. Then, as you exhale,
breathe out love and compassion to this same
person or people. Sogyal Rinpoche, who
describes Tonglen in his book,
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying,
writes that "when your heart is blocked, [Tonglen]
destroys those forces that are obstructing
it [and] it helps you to find within
yourself and then to reveal the loving,
expansive radiance of your own true nature."
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WALT DISNEY'S THREE
ROOMS
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 A
story from Eugene Hughes of London:
It seems that Walt Disney noticed
that many of the great ideas
generated in his studio tended to
die before they ever got a chance to
lift off into realization, and he
determined to track down the cause
of this unfortunate trend. What he
discovered was that visionary ideas
often met a premature demise because
people immediately leaped from the
vision itself to the problems they
might encounter in bringing it to
life.
After pondering the problem for a
while, Disney came up with a radical
solution. He created three rooms for
carrying out the creative process.
The first room was dedicated to the
Vision. The only job for people here
was to generate great ideas. The
Vision then went to the second room,
Implementation. Here, a different
team devised ways to bring it to
life. Next the plan (Vision +
Implementation) went to the
Critiquing room. There yet a third
team discussed the Implementation
and made suggestions for improving
it. Now the plan returned to Room 2,
Implementation, where it received
further tinkerings and amendments
based on the input of the critiquers.
Then it went back to Room 3. Often,
it would move back and forth between
the second and third rooms several
times before it was ready to be
launched.
Here's the important part of this
story: At no time did the plan get
sent back to the Vision room. Once
the vision left the room in which it
was born, the door shut behind it.
The Vision itself remained
sacrosanct.
I love this insight. How often do we
reject our ideas right away because
we start dreading the difficulties
we might have manifesting them? In
so doing, we turn our back on the
sweet, beguiling invitation of the
archetypal Beloved to embrace a
potentially life-changing part of
ourselves. We say no to Eros, the
force of attraction that calls us
forth into what is new and vital and
full of potential. Why not follow
Disney's model in our own lives:
respect our ideas and visions as
whole entities, born of the
ever-mysterious human imagination.
Maybe we could even designate a
special desk or notebook for playing
with these ideas. A different place
(in our office and/or in our mind)
would be devoted to deciding how the
vision will be enacted. Allowing
ourselves to believe in the
intrinsic value of the vision will
certainly free us up to be more
creative and less fearful as we
craft the best possible way to move
from vision to implementation.
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AN
UNEXPECTED TESTIMONIAL
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 About
a year ago, in an article about
Britney Spears's steadily
unravelving life, US Weekly
reported: "One sign Spears might be
preparing for a turnaround? She's
reading The World Is a Waiting
Lover, Trebbe Johnson's book about
the spiritual quest to find one's
'inner Beloved.'" Horror and
exhilaration rose up in me in equal
measure. Whereas I would have
preferred to learn that it was a
more grounded celebrity like Susan
Sarandon who was reading my book,
this was exposure Big Time.
The New York Post referred to
the US Weekly story, and book sales
soared over the next couple of
weeks.
I sometimes wonder what it would be
like to be a superstar like Britney
Spears, followed and watched and
judged from a thousand different
directions every moment of the day
and night. Surely it would take a
very mature person to maintain her
equilibrium. My heart goes out to
Britney Spears. I, too, went through
the hell of addiction and insanity
when I was in my late twenties, but
at least I had only my own guilt and
remorse to wake up to every day, not
that of the entire gossipy,
voyeuristic world. I'm afraid my
book didn't help Spears much. In the
end, it was she who helped me.
Thanks, Britney. |
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BOOK AND
WORKSHOP NEWS
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 Check out the
new
Parabola, the wonderful magazine
of myth and tradition and read my
article, "Never Tell." The theme for
this issue is SILENCE, and I explore
the intimate, mythic relationship
between the secret and silence.
Upcoming workshops on Desire and the
Quest for the Beloved will be held
at Morristown Unitarian Fellowship,
Morristown, NJ, April 11-13;
Cincinnati May 2-4; and Washington,
DC June 8-12 (evening sessions). For
information about the Morristown
workshop contact Bob Evans, BobEv1@aol.com.
See the Vision Arrow website for
contact information about Cincinnati
and Washington, as well as upcoming
workshops in California, Diana's
Grove in Missouri, and other
locations.
Once you've been to Bali, you'll
fall in love with its people, land,
and joyous spirit. We had a
cancellation on our Bali from Within
journey, so there are once again two
spots (maximum of six) available.
This is a rare opportunity to get an
inside perspective of the island
where spirituality, beauty, nature,
and daily life are so intertwined.
Fifteen percent of profits of the
trip will be donated to Tamblang
Sacred Spring Conservation Project
of Munduk, the village in northern
Bali where were will spend five days
duing the trip. |
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Contact Information
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phone: 570/727-4272
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