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It’s Been A Long Time …

Posted by Joseph Riggio on Wednesday, May 23, 2007

It’s been a long time ... been a long time ... been a long, lonely, lonely time ...

Howdy all, if you recognize the intro you'll know something of my history and where at least some of my attention was in the 70's. Our histories shape up in funny ways ... often in ways that are out of our awareness. I've been away and it has been a long time precisely because of this ... the distance it takes to get far enough from ourselves and what we're doing to recognize what all of that may be when viewed with some perspective.

As a fan of the modern anthropologist, Edward T. Hall and his work, I recall reading in one of his books a comment about not being about to recognize the ubiquitous nature of your own culture from within. Specifically Hall stated that you must get outside of or beyond your own culture to become aware of what it even is, that to you/for you your culture "is" the way the world "is" ... it is what's real."

So for a long time for me in part my culture has been the MythoSphere ... or the world of the MythoSelf Process work I do and the people I engage in the process of doing this work. Truly it would be most fait to say that this work is a lifestyle choice, a way of being in and moving through the world by virtue of making specific choices in a consistent and sustained way.

I've highlighted some of these choices before here in my blog and elsewhere in my writing as well. These choice include:

  • Operating from the positive/excitatory bias
  • Perceiving and responding in wholeform
  • Organizing teleologically
  • Acting Intentionally

    • There are others which I've pointed to here and there from time to time, and yet this short list may begin to give you a sense and/or a reminder of what kinds of choices are associated with the MythoSelf Process and the lifestyle I refer to in relation to it.

    However, it continues to fascinate me that the most common question I continue to get asked will be:

    Well, what will I be able to do as a result of taking the MythoSelf training?

    Yet it remains consistently clear to me and in my answers to them that this process has never centered on what you either will or will not be able to do. The core of the MythoSelf Process has been and remains oriented around who you are ... the ground of your being. This position generates all of your experience in the world ... your perceptions ... your responses ... how others will respond to you ... you name it and you'll find that the answers reside in this ground of your being, what I so fondly refer to as your ontological position.

    So the invitation has been and remains:

    If you are ready, willing and able come along and begin the journey ... this is the adventure of your life. The opportunity is for you to explore who you are, the life you are living and what is possible for you in this lifetime. Once you've left the dock there will be no returning to that port of call again ... while the journey is magnificent, you can be assured that the shores you will land upon will be ones that are only now semi familiar to you ... dreams and imaginations of exotic places ... yet by journey's end these are the very shores you will call home.

    Now, I get that this journey will not be for everyone. In fact the invitation takes years to hear for most. And even then, when they've heard the call, it will only be those who have prepared themselves who will ready, willing and able to partake of the adventure fully. Yet, more and more clearly I recognize that this is the call that seduced me decades ago and the journey I've been on ever since. Along, the way I've been a herald, a guide, a guardian, a magic helper ... even a monster at times. Yet, most of all I've been the hero on my own adventure ... and learning what it means to become the returning buddha ... the enlightened teacher, one who has been there and seen for themselves the transcendent reality and the liberation therein contained.

    After a lengthy apprenticeship I've become familiar with "stalking reality" in the Zone myself (ref.: "Stalker" - Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979 and the "Generative Imprint" Model - Roye Fraser). I've gone through being:

  • merely curious
  • desperately desirous
  • arrogantly certain
  • patently unsure
  • playfully aware
  • peacefully empty

    • All along the way I've know there wasn't really anything to "know" and less to "understand." I thought there might be some things to "get" and I believed there was much to be "experienced." All that and more has been part of being on the journey and even when I was lonely I was never really alone. This among many gifts bestowed upon me on the adventure has been a singularly profound awakening for me. The simple realization that, "I am always in relation to ..."

    And, letting go of doing ... even the desire to be doing has been among the hardest thing of all. So, now when I hear others asking of me, So, what will I learn to do as a result of taking the MythoSelf training? I'm first inclined to laugh and then sympathy for them overrides this impulse and I respond most often by remain quiet and telling them, "Simply this." Sometimes that can be enough.

    I'm becoming more comfortable with the idea that's been said before, "When the teacher is ready the student will appear." ... or at least something like that. And, I'm coming to understand that the readiness of the teacher becomes most apparent by the level to which they themselves have become transparent and allow themselves to be vulnerable ... innocent ... knowing in their unknowing ... as well.

    Maybe someday, if we haven't met yet we will ... on the great journey called life ...

    Best regards,

    Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
    Princeton, NJ

    For a complete MythoSelf program overview, detailed program descriptions, logistics and pricing information on MythoSelf training programs Joseph will be running in 2007 download his introductory letter and the program brochure: 2007 MythoSelf Series. (4) Comments • (34) Trackbacks • Permalink

    Joseph.....

    Thank you for the reminder of what makes the journey so very special.

    Be Well.....
    John J

    wizardpowr on Wednesday, May 23, 2007

    Dear Joseph,

    Thank you for your timely sharing.

    It’s has been two years since I first encountered you/MythoSelf. The past two years were both turbulent and serene at the same time. It’s like a smiling Buddha sitting in a roller-coaster.

    For two months ago, I’ve decided to engage with the world differently. As application of my NLP skills. As test of my new founded inner peace. As refinement and reinforcement of who I am – the self that I experienced and regard as my core/essence.

    You said “When the teacher is ready the student will appear.” Likewise, when I’m ready (when my true self is manifested); the “world” that is meant to be for me will emerge.

    There’s no hurry to meet that world. Nor any rush to “create” it.

    Thank you.

    Best regards,

    Isabella

    Isabella Lo on Wednesday, May 23, 2007

    Joseph, Although I have not been visible I have been hear.  This post resonated with me in a different place a different sensing of you and a fuller awareness of you not only as the all powerful teacher but as a human making your own journey. 

    As someone who started this journey way back and heard a calling from you about slivers of space in the Money seminar and through the years till now, I can look back and be aware of my own profound journey and learnings not ended I know now until the day I die and then, who knows! 

    Now I am experiencing another stage of my journey, one that you have helped me to enter gracefully - that of growing older and embracing the last quarter of my life… well equipped from the rigorous experiences with you and my own willingness to explore and follow my path. 

    For some months I’ve had a sense of letting to of what was, the old way I’d presented myself to this world and a familiar path of ‘doing nothing’ and allowing it all to happen around me.  And from that void one or two clear branches are springing, thick and luscious not thinly spread.  The cherry tree is pruining itself wink

    Most profound for me is this sense of being, me and the connection to all that is… and the powerful directionality of intent that has run through and informed my moves and pulls me towards what must be.

    So thank you for being you and for being the teacher I needed at that time and for my learning that the greatest gift a student can give to the teacher is to leave and in that leaving there is a return. 

    I am on my adventure in it fully immersed experiencing the joys and sorrows and the ups and downs and knowing life is that.. it is not a total blissed out state that some mistakenly believe it is, but it is the full on experience.  Strangely the path is both clear iin that steps I take resonate and dark as hell in that I’m stepping into the dark depths of relationship.  Perhaps the greatest test of all for a human where we come to meet ourselves full on like Luke Skywalker did only the reflection comes from another.

    A new adventure in the adventure of life.

    Thank you and my blessings and love to you always.

    peta

    Peta on Wednesday, May 23, 2007

    What a great post, Joseph. Thanks! And, on my way home from work yesterday - right after I read this - I heard not one, but TWO Zeppelin songs on the radio…

    All the best,
    Allison

    abriggs on Friday, May 25, 2007

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