08/16/2010 – Santa Fe

I’m traveling through Santa Fe en route to Colorado. Its 1:30pm, and the sun is hot, the air is dry. The people of Santa Fe, the brown-skins, and the ultra pasty whites with their dripping Jewelry adorn this place with their contrast: the haves and the havenots. People with resources, and people without. People with Water, and people without.

Driving through all the Indian reservations, and the towns stricken with poverty, Casinos litter the place. Casinos - places of the promise of money in an area where there is absolutely none. Living on the hopes, dreams and possibilities and false hope. The faces of the people that live here are hard. Hope can quickly change into despair and fear when you have no access to true Water.

When you have no money, you use what skills you have to survive. Skills are always means of acquiring resources. Whether you’re a craftsman, or an officer worker – the means are unimportant, the purpose is to pull on your skills, on your inner Water. It’s always fascinating to see how people make their money. When driving through these towns it certainly isn’t obvious. Yet these people live, and survive. Many are artisans and create amazing art.

If we have no relationship to our deep inner reserves, what other way is there to be in the world but to fear for our lives and our very survival. The power of the Water element is wisdom and courage derived from self-reflection. Why are we so afraid to look within? Will we actually find that we are powerful beyond measure?

…

Now I’m driving through the desert. The roads are straight and merge into a hazy horizon. I stop on the side of the road to survey the expanse before and below me. I can see down into a plateau in the East. I can see for over 50 miles. I see two storms pummeling the desert with their diagonal beams. Like huge jellyfish, these cloud monsters traverse the sky and send down lightning and tendrils of rain, like curtains that touch and caress the land. This area is completely unpopulated, and fully owned by the diety that rules over this place – a place undisturbed by man’s powers. The fields almost seem to reach up and embrace the storms, opening their faces to receive the gift of life, of wisdom, of possibility for a new future itself.

Do we reach out to our community and regard them as resources, or as threats and competition? Do we trust our inner wisdom, or do we feel like we have nothing that others can use or benefit from? Are we afraid to live, or are we courageously following the storms in our lives?

I’m reminded of a Kidney point, IV6, Illuminated Sea which grants us the experience of illuminating the depths of our potential, providing us with reassurance and the illumination of our inner wisdom. As we reflect on the vastness and expansiveness of our reserves we no longer fear the depths but are present to the resources to manifest our potential. When this knowledge is present, we can live at peace even in the desert, knowing that we will not just survive, but thrive.