Centers, Circles, Related to All by Mark Hatmaker

 

I offer this for my Old-School Trinity Warriors who see engagement and tempering of Mind-Body-Sprit as co-equal and unified enterprises, where a lag in one is a lag in all—no one would train only the left side of the body and allow the right side to lie fallow.

I offer this lesson from The Suakhet’u Program which uses an amalgamation of the empirical method and the "Sensory Opening" teachings of indigenous peoples. [The Suakhut'u Program will be released January 1st, 2024 to kickstart The Year of the Warrior.]

The Suakhet'u is not reflective of the ugly epithet “cultural appropriation” which originally implied use or study without context.

We strive here, as in all things, to become acculturated. That is, slip into new garments to see how they wear and discover whether we may want to add new colors and perhaps a scarf with flair to our well-worn wardrobe.

Just as one may stay with a family for a week and find some of their habits curious-from rising times to toasts before meals--we roll and go with the flow while under their roof. We then return home and find that one or two bits of loveliness stick with us and soon find ourselves toasting before meals or slipping our shoes off before we come inside.

Warriors seek the same easy acculturation that we would in a host’s home as we would in every experience of everyday.

“I am standing at the Earth's center.”-From a Lakota Teaching

“The center of the universe is everywhere.”-From a Hopi Teaching

We find this observation echoed in tribe after tribe, people after people. If we pursue the idea with thoughtfulness, we realize that the teaching is true both materially and metaphorically.

Proofs to the Material Claim

[Culled from emergency/personal navigation texts.]

·        You stand in the center of the universe.

·        Above you is your zenith, below you is your nadir.

·        All around you is your horizon.

·        It is a series of 360-degree circles that surround you.

·        From horizon to horizon is 180 degrees.

·        From horizon to your zenith is 90 degrees.

·        To measure the height of any object in the sky is called an “Angle of Separation.”

·        To measure the distances between objects on the horizon this is a horizontal angular separation.

We will stop the physical navigation there, but, if we were to continue we see that each location that you occupy is in fact the very center of your subjective experience of the universe.

If I were to navigate the world based on your coordinates I would go awry.

Our positions are specific to where we stand, sit, lie, and take each and every breath.

Our desires to navigate from one spot to the other are like-minded, but our individual paths and experiences will vary.

Our internal “centers” are also set to the personalized GPS of our own thoughts, opinions, assumptions, prejudices, love of cantina salsa, disregard for a certain movie genre, etc.

All of our priors, all of our past journeys go into assessments of how we view the world from our center.

All of our desires to navigate from our current centers [physical, emotional, spiritual, etc.] will also influence how we see the steps to our next centers.

The world may look the same in the long view to each of us, but our physical and cognitive parallax conjure vastly differing vistas.

Just as Wise Warrior-Navigators know that I can’t get to where I need to be by using a text from your physical GPS coordinates, the even Wiser Warrior of the soul know that I cannot use your internal GPS to “find my way.”

The best I can hope for is to learn from your energy-saving stride and you may learn from my habit of stopping often to take a back-bearing.

Wise Warriors realize navigation and centers are external and internal and see the folly of making them universal.

The Wise Warrior is deeply appreciative of the gift that each center is his or her very own center and lives the gift of being at the center of all Creation.

Wise Warriors do not view “Being AT the Center of the Universe” as, well, being the center of the universe in the egotistical sense.

It is an understanding of relation to all.

“All things are related. We are all Brothers and Sisters in this walk.”-Navajo Teaching

That is a sentiment that we all nod our heads to.

One that we all agree with.

But, I ask, after that nod, how often do we behave as if this statement were not mere Hallmark platitude but empirically verified fact?

Many of us view “We are all Brothers and Sisters” as a noble goal wrapped in a metaphor of hopefulness, but I offer that the Navajo teaching that is echoed in all Native cultures, in fact in all creeds—from Christianity, to Islam, to well, all is a statement of fact.

I am not making a deadened-fact reference to “We are all related” in the neuter “We humans are all genetically related” sense. Although true, it does not go far enough with the truth.

In the Native sense, the “We” of “We are all related” is a broadened category of family.

We are related to the wind that stirs the hair on our arms, the Earth that we can feel warm our bare feet, the atoms within our being that were forged in far away stars, the Labrador mix that makes us smile with its effervescent greeting, the beta carotene in root vegetables that nourishes our bodies.

The Native teaching and empirical science tells us that there is an infinite variety of interplay, communication, scenes of tragedy, drama, compassion going on everywhere around us at all times.

One Instructive  Scene w/ Our Giraffe and Acacia Tree Relatives

·        Giraffes in Botswana love the leaves of the acacia tree.

·        The trees “desire” not to be eaten so once they are being munched upon the tree begins to release tannins that deter the giraffes from further consumption.

·        Is this a sign of tree “intelligence” or reflex action?

·        Other acacias in the vicinity pick up a separate chemical messenger on the wind released by the acacia being eaten.

·        This messenger does not contain tannin and does not deter giraffes, but it does tell other acacias to begin releasing tannin.

·        Is this inter-tree communication “intelligence” or reflex action?

·        The chemical messengers are wind-borne, giraffes attempt to thwart this strategy by beginning their acacia consumption with downwind trees.

·        Is this “Intelligent” strategy by the giraffes or reflex action?

I wager those who have read thus far are warmed to the marrow by this single peek at the family drama that surrounds us at all times.

For those that fall into the “reflex action” camp…

·        Bill loves BLT sandwiches. In fact, he loves them so much he pilfers them from the breakroom fridge.

·        Chris, the owner of the BLT does not desire his sandwich to be eaten so he writes his name on his lunch.

·        Is Chris exhibiting reflex action or intelligence?

·        Bill, being hungry and without ethics eats Chris’s BLT all the same.

·        Chris puts a sign on the fridge that says “Bill steals lunches.”

·        This does not prevent Chris’s BLT from being eaten but it does warn the acacias down the line.

·        Reflex action or sign of intelligence?

·        Bill sees that those in the breakroom are on to him, so he drifts up to the third floor breakroom in search of another unlabeled BLT.

·        Reflex action or sign of intelligence?

 

Whether one is convinced by the twin stories or not we still are likely to recognize that the world is more complicated [and interesting] than we often give credit.

Without exaggeration, we all stand in the center of our subjective creation.

We wander among infinite co-centers.

When our eyes and ears and hearts and minds are open wide we see less separation in these separate centers and more familial likeness that inspire the same kinship we feel for the smiling Labrador Retriever greeting us.

This openness “requires” less “sameness” less “towing the line” less “Why don’t you think as I do?” from fellow centers.

“Psychological differences exist between all nations and races. There are in fact differences between families and individuals. This is why I attack every leveling psychology [I would add leveling politics, creeds, etc.] when it raises a claim to universal validity. All leveling produces hatred and venom in the suppressed and it prevents any broad human understanding. All branches of mankind unite in one trunk yes!...but what is a tree without its many separate branches.”-Carl Jung

May we all celebrate our centers well and with familial bonhomie!

And for those who think such thoughts are soft-minded piffle, let’s close with a hard-minded military pragmatist on the ultimate value of treating every moment as a moment of value. Every minute as a training opportunity for the soul, a forge for the mind, body, and spirit.

“We know not of the future, and can not plan for it much. But we can hold our spirits and our body so pure and high, we may cherish such thoughts and such ideals, and dream such dreams of lofty purpose, that we can determine and know what manner of men we will be whenever and wherever the hour strikes, that calls to noble action…no man becomes suddenly different from his habit and cherished thought.”—Major-General Joshua L. Chamberlain, 1893.

May our habits and thoughts be all we desire as these current cognitive GPS coordinates dictate our future paths.

Mabitsiar’u Nea Ekasahpan’a! [Respect My Warriors!]

[Excerpted from The Suakhet’u Program. For more on this, see here.]