9 years ago, I died. Only now am I starting to be reborn.

In numerology, there is this idea of cycles and that every nine years you traverse through specific themes and lessons. As there seems to be a lot of things coming to the surface now and changes taking place, something has recently become apparent to me.

9 years ago I was expelled from the Marine Corp...

...9 years ago is also when I killed myself..

Now, I don't want to get into the whole story of it in this, but it was one of the profoundly influential (believe it or not, death was still not the most profound experience I have had...actually only about 3rd or 4th on my list) and life changing experiences I have ever had. It shattered my understanding and sense of identity I had come to be given. Transcending time and the idea of “self”. Re-inhabiting the multitude of experiences I have had over eons. Reliving entire lifetimes that, from our perspective here, in this moment of Earth’s time, would be the past. And yet, I experienced these things from my present perspective and, it would seem, within this current lifetime because… I came back.

(or did I? I can get into a whole trippy thought experiment with that. Perhaps some other time.)

It is confusing, one of the lesser reasons I never really talked about it… aside from the fact I never really talked all that much anyways. Most of my stuff seems to be too far out there for most. To experience something so transcendental and beyond our force fed idea of what “self” and “Life” are, it was a lot to try to grasp and integrate.

After getting released from the Marines, I lived in many different places, always spending most of my free time to myself, locked away in my cave. Sure, I was drinking, smoking and popping pills in there, but I was also seeking answers and, believe it or not, thinking that the drugs could help me see beyond myself once again…

They were a tool towards better understanding…

They were an escape from my self inflicted misery…

They were the things that were holding me back all along.

I wanted answers… What had happened to me? I was hiding away, sure, but I was also in my cocoon. I wanted to solve the mystery of existence, all else in life was merely a distraction. Friends and family included. Nothing material was more important than the Truth.

Some may have looked at me and thought I had given up, that I was a failure. Little did you know I was seeking something beyond any one of us, something greater than anything found pursuing societies proverbial “carrot on a stick”. I wanted Ultimate Truth, not hand me down nonsense from so called authorities, with their agendas and desire to maintain control over the people. In a world where profits reign, ignorance begets the greatest of profits.

So, I left the society I had grown to despise and even hate. I couldn't understand how this world could be led so far astray. How it could become so backwards of what is possible. So I left… ish. I did my Costa Rica thing and then returned, thinking I could try again at this whole “civil society” thing. I couldn't.  So, I go with a backpack to Northern California, thinking I could just camp if nothing else works… 9 months later (there's that number again) I come back.

I then at some point go off into the forest of Northern Michigan for 2 weeks with a few granola bars and no water… just to see how it would go. Remember, I wasn't just sitting in my room all fucked up, I was also researching spirituality and ways to transcend my sense of self again. Funny enough, both Jesus and Moses went off to be alone with no food or water, as did Mohammad, as did the Buddha, as did Gandhi, as did Lau Tzu, as did many spiritual masters of old. And here all you religious zealots sit, thinking you know anything and forcing your second hand opinion onto others and yet too afraid to truly seek and actually DO what those you worship did. What silliness! They were role models in which to strive to become, not ideals to toss your personal responsibility onto.

I am skipping over so many things, but now I will bring myself to where I am now, Guatemala. After working here with The Doctor for 3 years and, as I started this silly wannabe sermon, 9 years of drugs and alcohol, I am now, finally, free. Pills, Booze, Cigarettes, Pot; all no more… And I feel power returning. Power That I have long forgotten about in my drug diluted memories. A power I had always been afraid of, which is one of the reasons I smoked and drank. To numb myself… To keep myself in check… To keep myself weak… To carry on in my mental life story that life sucks and always will. To keep some sense of pity towards me for all the bullshit I have had to go through. To keep me passive… to keep me quite…

To reinforce my own thoughts of myself… That I can never be better than the failure I had become. After all, considering my birth, childhood, tours in Iraq and stripping of it all in the end... what else was expected from me?

...But I don't have to succumb to normalcy… I can rise above societal expectations. I can become something greater than even I could imagine for myself… And so can you, so can anyone! It is all about what we think we are capable of that becomes our reality…

Change your mind,
Change your life.