Lety Speaks

And speaks and speaks and speaks, etc.

Ever wonder why all that happens at The Teaching Drum Outdoor School becomes a soap opera? Because these people have absolutely nothing better to do.

Lety writes so much like Tamarack we were tempted for a time to believe HE had written this new-agey junk. The student who sent us these letters assures us, though, that the letters came from Lety's personal email account, and we don't think Tamarack computer savvy enough to have broken into it.

In any event, Lety channels T's evasive self-absorbtion like no other.

First of all I want to thank you for sharing Tamarack's e-mails to you and for opening channels for this exchange to happen.

While waiting for your package to arrive, I asked to read the piece you included with your application for the year long program... I was delighted by the fluidity of your expression - I found myself hoping it would go on and turn into a novel. Your writing created vibrantly colorful images in my mind's eye. Your style is the kind I hate coming to the end of. How could Tamarack not fall in love with this Spirit?!

When your package arrived I felt very open and vulnerable, I wanted to be so, that I may truly receive what you were offering me, in a clear vessel, rather than one cluttered by my own preconceptions. When I read "I need to melt the ice, hold my breath and immerse myself." - Tamarack's passion, turned in your direction. I had to breathe and sit with my feelings.

Here I need to backtrack:

When I came to the yearlong program, I had been separated from Tom, my husband, for almost 2 years, celibate for the same amount of time, fulfilling a long ago promise to myself from which I had taken many detours: to Know MySelf, in my wholeness, the intrinsic and unchangeable, in balance with the moody, temperamental and ambunctious personality. All the aspects and levels which make me Me, connected to the volume of I AM.

My experience at Nishnajida allowed me to poignantly feel a wound up mechanism, which, though rapidly unwinding within the safety and relatively uncluttered mental space I was in, was nevertheless, always within me, acting as a barrier between me and Me.

During the darkness of the Solstice, alone at Wabanon while Seekers were away for the holidays, the wound-up mechanism inside me, unwinding at its own pace, finally came to its last turn - and with tear filled, shimmering eyes, I witnessed and Experienced Me!What I saw and felt filled me with the most reverent awe. How could I
not fall in Love, in love with the Beauty and Glory of the omnipotent immortality nestled in a fragile, soft, perishable shell that was me.

My Joy knew no bounds. The Fruits of my fulfilled Promise intoxicated me with their Nectar. Peace permeated my inner world just as the glimmering white snow quilt covered and warmed the Mother's bosom. I felt freedom from my own relentless judgements of myself; from my trying (though not wanting) to be 'someone' in one of society's domesticated molds, and from my compulsion to justify my every action, thought and feeling by the nebulous rule of good vs. evil.

The Relations from the Natural and Ethereal worlds Celebrated with me, nay,as me. And me as they; my lungs were the trees, breathing for the Mother. The lines of separation disappeared, and yet, I was still in a definite and finite body. Thus, I walk since those days, with a perception which is all inclusive though within the parameters of my own limitations. This is both my challenge and my Gift now.

Early January, Seekers began returning and I began the process of reintegrating to the human community. It was then, that I began noticing Tamarack with different 'eyes'. Up to this point there had been nothing to warn or prepare me for the outpour and intensity of feelings towards him that broke my carefully protected feeling dam. Neither he nor I expected what was to come, and it literally blew us out of the water.

The recognition that we were 'intended mates' felt like Something, other than us had selected us to be together - we were not even each other's 'type', and had not fathomed that we could be attracted to each other in the way that unfolded. I was terrified: "but I only came to Wisconsin for ONE year - NOT to spend the rest of my life!!!" I lamented, realizing how deep my roots had grown in New Mexico.

This would be a terrible blow for Zinnia, who just wanted her mom to return home (Zinnia had left the program around Dec. 11) and to have her old life back. And for my mother, who secretly hoped Tom and I could be reconciled. And all my friends, who are more like my chosen family...and all for what??? for a 'recognition' which I could not explain in words, but which was clearer than anything I had ever perceived. To deny it would be akin to refusing to inhale my next breath.

I decided to fast for five days to gain the strength and perspective that I needed to walk the path unfolding before me. I fasted in the earth lodge at Winter Camp with the support of my group + Jill and Jonas, who heated rocks morning and night to keep the lodge warm. It was early February and temperatures were below zero. With the end of my fast I released my celibacy vows and embraced my future as I had come to embrace my Present during my lone Solstice days.

To put things into chronological perspective: I started to feel drawn to Tamarack the first couple of weeks in January. By around the third week I had realized this was not a simple attraction. After much trepidation on my part and with much encouragement from my inner Voices, I wrote him a letter basically letting him know that if he felt the same signs I did, I wanted to walk our Vision together. We were spending more time together including some nighttimes. I was committed to my time at Nishnajida - so he would sometimes stay at camp with me. We slept together, but he respected my desire to remain celibate. (I am using the word celibate to mean not
engaging in sexual intercourse.)

When things started to feel clearer regarding our intendedness, he told me that he and you had been exploring an important connection between you, the purpose of which had not yet been clarified.

- CUT -

I know Tamarack feels deep caring for you and admiration for the beautiful womin that you are, as well as sadness that you be in pain. Anger and hatred can hurt the people acted upon with these intense feelings, but the damage inflicted on the hated cannot begin to compare with the destruction that the feelings in themselves wreak on the person holding them within.

In the time I have shared with Tamarack platonically and intimately, I have known him to be a kind person of integrity and high moral values. He encouraged me to 'interview' his past mates regarding him, his character, his healing history, etc. when we first got together, so that I may know him from a wider perspective. Even though I do speak with both Jill and Lisa, two of his latest relationships, I have not 'interviewed' them, but I believe I will do so now in honor of the situation that has ensued between you and Tamarack and which is gifting me with a reminder of the importance of full and open communication, of a flow that connects us with all aspects of being, and not only the positive ones. Tamarack's cherishing of my 'flaws' and 'weaknesses' together with my 'joy' and 'wisdom' encourages me to reciprocate the Gift toward him and others...

Besides, I too, care about you as the brilliant person that you are and want to help in any way I can, to alleviate affront or injury, if there be such; to serve as a sounding board, if one be needed, and to also hold your shadow side in respect and honor for the important role that it plays in the grand scheme of life. I am open to talking on the phone or in person and extend an invitation to you to visit in person if you should desire it. Our home is your home and our hearts are open to you. Not one of us can truly return Home until we are all healed and restored to our intrinsic balance.

Even though I may not understand exactly where or why the rift began between the honorable feelings you and Tamarack shared, I feel unconditional love towards you as well as towards him. Perhaps because I have come to love myself in this way.

Everything in my reality mirrors to me how I truly feel about myself. If someone or something shows me ways in which I still despise or judge myself without mercy; that person or situation does me great honor by opening my eyes to a place within me which needs integrating and cherishing. I therefore owe that person or situation a great debt of gratitude. The beauty of this reality is that by paying my debt, I restore the balance that was missing and which blesses not only me, but the whole.

I sincerely hope that your wish, which is my wish also, comes true and that we may always be blessings to one another. Lety

Good Morning ____, Back after another night rich in dreams and Guidance. Wasn't able to send this letter last night and this morning realized why. Wanting to integrate the following awarenesses into the body of the previous letter, I recognized the need to share them in the order in which they are becoming apparent to me.

First of all, I most sincerely hope that my words do not feel like a condescending shpiell. My intent is to communicate that this exercise of examining my feelings and motives is timely and takes me to explore my own perceptions and hidden agendas once again. Every time I hear myself giving 'advice' to someone, or thinking that I'm helping someone else figure something out, I surely find down the line that those words fit me to a tea and help me to expand my awareness and knowing of myself. Of course, if these words happen to help clarify or heal, then the blessing is multiplied.

On my life journey, I found that I held a very deep and strong belief that I was intrinsically evil, and that my least possible denominator surely was dark and low - I stalked myself as I extended that perception about myself to everything and everyone about me. I was even suspicious of the most enlightened people I met, for they too carried within them that 'original sin', and like myself, were so fallible.

As my walk continued, understanding dawned that without forgiveness, I could not experience my own Divinity, that I would be unable to see the Divine within me unless I was able to forgive that which I believed not to be Divine. Forgiveness expanded my perception: my Shadow, as a vital player in my creation - gave texture, dimension and perspective to an otherwise flat landscape. As I was able to forgive myself for that which I was not (the shadow my light cast), then I was able to experience my truest Essence, my Divinity, and consequently, the Divinity of all.

No longer needing to charge an 'eye for an eye', because that 'other eye' is also mine. Relief floods me, there IS justice.

Cherishing this opportunity to recognize the perfection that we already are, I thank You and hold you in my Heart.