My voice is coming back. For the first time in over a year, I'm able to speak from my heart without feeling like I'm tearing muscles in my throat.

I woke from a dream last night with the following sentence seared in my mind:

In only the way gazing at dream gems can; I had the spontaneous recalling that when I first lost my voice, I had the intuition to learn to sing. The first song I wanted to perform was Jonny Cash's Hurt.

And now I am sitting at my dining room table at 10:48am, weeping.

I sung along on the first listen. My throat hurts.

I cried during the second listen. My heart opens.

I listen to Trent Reznor's version for the first time. I admire him.

I listen to Cash's version for a third, fourth, fifth, and sixth time and cry until it takes 7 tissues to clear the snot from my nose and mustache.

Note: if you haven't yet, before continuing, watch Cash's Hurt without looking at your phone or opening a tab on your computer. Make it to the end without task-switching.

Cash's Hurt reminds me of my favorite poem from college; Ozymandias by Percy Shelly (if you struggle to envision the poem's image, here is a phenomenal animated version).

What is it inside me that resonates with this song and poem? Why did Ozymandias grip a 20 year old boy, and why does Hurt call to me as my first 'medicine' song to learn? What is in me that is called forth by these artifacts?

'Unapologetic ambition colliding into entropy's inevitability,' comes to mind first.

Carl Jung has a riff where he talks about the 'Black Light' of God, or the 'Black Sun.' He riffs that the Christian God, like the Moon, has a Dark half that modern man struggles to see because he 'splits God in half.'

Cash's Hurt nourishes something in me that nothing else does. He speaks from the POV of a true elder of western culture. He speaks from the POV of a Western Elder looking at The Black Sun.

Cultures are a kind of soil. They each produce different plants and animals. A healthy culture is one that achieves sufficient ecological complexity. The keystone of a healthy culture is whether or not it produces elders.

An elder is different than an older. An older is simply someone who is old (in our current biological paradigm these are those 65 and older). An Older still thinks, behaves, and feels much like a 30 year old. They think mostly about themselves, their security, their safety, and their reputation.

An Elder is different. An Elder is someone who has spent decades of their lives sacrificing their comfort to cultivate mastery at a craft, and they use that craft to get their soul into culture. Eventually, time takes from them their energy and drive to be cultural visionaries, and they then transition into Elderhood.

The focus of Elderhood is to help the young adults in the culture transition from their egocentric games into soul-centered games.

Elders help the caterpillars enter their cocoons.

Cash won the Western ego game more completely than almost anyone else who has tried. And now, at the end of his life, he gives us a final performance as he faces Jung's Black Sun.

The Black Light of God is death. The inevitable mysterium tremendum that plods toward each of us from beyond the horizon of our dreams and desires.

You and I don't see Death yet. She hasn't crest our inner horizon. We see only the Light of God.

The Elder sees Death coming.

I think I love this song so because it tempers my unapologetic ambition.

The Western psyche is a unique being. It wants greatness. It wants fame, status, sex, prestige, and power.

The most common 'trap' I see in my friends, students, and clients is that they try to skip this stage of development of the Western psyche.

They try to be 30 year old Buddhas. They pretend they're Christ before they've admitted they're human.

And I understand why we act like this.

Ram Dass never spoke about his trials and tribulations in his homosexual relationships. Alan Watts never shared what drove him to cheat on his 5 wives. Terence McKenna and Timothy Leary didn't reveal why they chose their lecture tours over their children's childhoods.

Cash's Hurt is more honest than them. Cash went for his adolescent dreams. And he touched something that, in my opinion, none of the spiritual teachers above touched.

Cash become a true Elder of the Western psyche because he allowed himself to be crucified.

When we fully admit the desires in our heart, and we pursue them with furious devotion, we fulfill something unique to the Western attitude. We fulfill the preconditions required to actually give birth to the unique soul slumbering within this precious body.

Do not fall for the trap of pretending to be Buddha before you admit your ambitions.

Do not pretend to be the Christos before you've admitted you're a wolf.

Do not try to lead before you've tasted power and learned you can put the cup down before you get drunk.

For the love of God, admit you're a human, pursue your passion, and stop fucking pretending you're something you're not.

The irony is, true Elderhood only comes to those who have pursued their passions to the bottom of the cup. Your soul knows if you're holding back.

So wipe your tears and admit what you want. You're not an Elder, you're allowed to be an idiot. Be naive. Be audacious. Make a mess. Collect your stories.

And whenever you start to take yourself too seriously, come back to this song. Let it wash away your self-importance. Let it remind you that the most important part of the journey is how you treat those you travel with along the way.

Cuz we're all gunna get to the destination. It's death. So stop rushing. Savor the fellowship and enjoy the muthafuckn plot.

To all those who travel with me and I yoke my own empire of dirt, I love you, thank you, I'm sorry, and please forgive me.

Song I'm Listening on Repeat

do i need to say it?

In the spirit of death and endings:

After 7 years of leading Fit For Service, we're closing shop at years end. To celebrate, we're throwing a final online summit. We're giving away access to all the recordings we've compiled over the years plus admission to 3 days of workshops, Dec 19th-21st.

my final workshop will be about how to create a biz that cultivates your dharma.

​Get your tix here.

Quote I'm Enjoying

"People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. They will practice Indian yoga and all its exercises, observe a strict diet, learn theosophy by heart, or mechanically repeat mystic texts from the literature of the whole world—all because they have not the slightest faith that anything useful could ever come out of their own souls."
-Carl Jung

Weekly Journal Prompt

​"God Damnit, what do you want?!"​