By Soren Hauge
Editor's Note: The following essay is excerpted from Soren's book The Wild Alliance, published by Lorian Press.
It is time for you to say goodbye to your habitual surroundings and begin the journey. Your daily life unfolds in comfortable and well-known surroundings where you follow rules and routines appropriate for your personal life. It is important that things function in a healthy, daily cycle so you can concentrate on your responsibilities and tasks and your relationships with family, friends, colleagues and networks.
However, when greater adventures await you have to prepare. This implies that you have to consider what you need, and what you have to leave behind you. This journey you will embark on does not have any outer equipment or preparations. In truth, you do not need anything besides yourself. Therefore you must be willing to do almost the opposite of what you know when you go on a trip to well-known destinations. On this journey, you need as little as possible in regards to cultural baggage, religious conceptions, national or ethnic habits, as well as patterns from your upbringing and education. In the widest possible way, you are asked to be as independent as possible and free from luggage, suitcases and trunks.
It is no easy thing to let go of most of what you have been raised to believe, trained to conceptualize and socialized to take for granted. It is very difficult. Again and again you may discover that you drag along with you heavy bags of all shapes and sizes. “That’s how I’m used to doing it”. “This is part of our tradition and heritage.” “My parents taught me so.” “This is the way we do it in my hood.” “This is central to my values.” On and on it goes. The question remains: How willing are you to let go? Do you think that minor adjustments will do for a great adventure? On the other hand, are you prepared for a completely different and much deeper process?
If you have to do something extraordinary, you must be willing to dig deeper, make yourself more inclusive and step out of your comfort zone. The Hobbit House is a warm cave full of lovely, recognizable stuff, merry tunes and cozy corners – all so intimately well known. Perhaps there is also occasional boredom there, but at least it is comfortable. So you think. Now the time has come to turn your head in a new direction and prepare for a real adventure that will be able to change things for good. Nobody can do it for you. You have to give yourself the green light. Are you ready?
The Wind Blows
“The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (John 3: 8.) The winds of the spirit blow and they are free and not under any human control. Spirit, our deepest reality and inner being, is untamable. It cannot be subdued, bent or adapted to anything. It cannot be trained and made domestic and toothless. The conventional life we know so well is constructed in many ways upon compromises, adaptations and comfort securing survival, functionality, comfortable recognition and controlled growth. It is all reasonable and fair, seen from the mundane, ordinary life perspective. Nevertheless, the wild winds of the spirit often blow in the opposite direction of customs, habits, tradition, law and order. The security mechanisms, rules and regulations of civilization aim at securing and unfolding the well-known, daily rhythm with a certain calm and foreseeable functionality. Up against the daily waves of repetition, with only minor variations, the winds of spirit seek to stir, animate, vitalize and make possible new unfoldments and entirely new pathways. It easily provides occasions for collisions between daily common sense and the stormy renewals of the great forces. Conservative cautiousness collides with unfettered, propelling currents of pure spirit.
Spirit, the heart of sacredness, does not bother with strategy or political maneuvering, it does not compromise. It is unbound in its pure, raw nature. Love is not just being nice, just like kindness is so much more than the socalled civilized politeness. In a similar way, deep creativity is much more than, and very different from, the skillfulness of being handy. There is quite a distance between having clever wit and embodying compassionate wisdom just as there is a distinguished difference between moderate tolerance and deep acceptance. It is important that we fully recognize the rhythm of daily life and the practical values of numerable, splendid routines. However, behind, above, below and through this dimension something else is on the move. Into the stream of predictability moves something immense, which is high as a tower and deep as an abyss. This vast river of life is liberating, and paves the way to continents and sceneries never contacted or heard before by any human being.