On the Processing of Uncertainty

My son mentioned in his email last night that while he felt excited about going to boot camp, the longer he had to wait, the more "hazy" this feeling got. For some reason this triggered something inside me, as if suddenly a panoramic view of all the patterns converging here came together in my mind and I could see clearly right into the heart of what had gone into him making this decision. This is what I wrote him on that account:

I think maybe that hazy feeling might be part of why you committed yourself to this, the fact that deferral from goals you envision can make it very difficult for you to focus on those goals. I think a part of your impetus to do this comes from a very smart sense that if you don't master that business, it will master you, and lay waste to your hopes and dreams through inactivity. And I think in the sense that once you commit to something like the military, things are out of your hands until such a time as you are truly ready to take them back arrives, you found something that ironically made you feel safe: something bigger than you that you can't get out of, can't get around, can't slip out from under. From my own experience ... I know how downright terrifying it can be at times to recognize all that you are capable of -- note I do not qualify that word ALL -- and in the next breath realize the implications of that in ways that have eluded my capacity for words at the moment. By choosing the program you have chosen, you have chosen deliberately to invest a great deal of trust in an entity with whom you have no previous experience, the Army. So I know you must have seen something in them to warrant believing that they possessed a combination of attributes as an organization uniquely suited to provide you with what you need.

To put it in no vague terms, you chose to put yourself someplace where the choice would be taken away from you for awhile. Where the only thing truly stronger than yourself -- do or die -- becomes your master for a time so that you may learn to master yourself and by so doing, master life. Unless I miss my guess, that seems to be what I am hearing in you making this decision. I know it cannot have been an easy one, and I know it will not get any easier. And you probably knew that too, which is why you picked something that would not ask you every day if you're sure you want this or not, but would possess you and own you, having taken you ONCE at your word and letting that once suffice. Oh yes there will be times of fear. There will be times of doubt. There will be times of feeling trapped by your decision, of missing what you are giving up for a little while -- your former notion of freedom, which you actually discovered to be a form of bondage -- of imagining you might have made a terrible mistake and asking yourself what have you gotten yourself into?

But there will also be times of absolute crystal clarity ringing right down to the core of your being. There will be times of pure magic, of bonds with other human beings you could never have imagined, of the stark juxtaposition of the deepest love amidst the harshest, grittiest interactions and realities. There will be moments when your blood will course with fierce fire through your veins of growing strength and acumen, of determination, of absolute surety and confidence transcending the moment, that you will truly know what it means to be both glad and grateful to be alive. There will be moments of breathtaking elation, or sobering realization, or quiet satisfaction. And like everything else in life, the trick is to pay attention to the good, take the bad with it but don't let the bad write the story or set the tone. "Remember ye that all existence is joy, that the sorrows are but as shadows. They pass and are done, but there is that which remains." You are a natural spiritual and philosophical alchemist and memeshaper; I KNOW you know how to make gold out of shit. ;-) You'll have even those shadows (which cry) questioning what side they serve.

The man from whom your middle name is derived once wrote,

"In order to obtain freedom to do your will, it is necessary to submit voluntarily to discipline and organization. Evolution implies structuralization. The power of man is greater than the power of the amoeba, because he has specialized the function of the protoplasm of which he is composed. In order to do the one thing which you will truly you must therefore renounce all those other things which may tempt you to swerve from the one purpose of your sojourn amongst us."

To enter the experience described here is the best type of initiation, one that unfolds naturally in life experience itself, and grows inside you and with you. As you have already correctly divined that Love is the greatest Magick on earth, let Love be your inspiration when things seem dark or confusing. Let it be your guide to an eternally self-renewing source of courage, hope and strength that will spring forth from inside you. And turn to it in private with your worries and troubles. This is the true essence of real prayer, which has nothing to do with religion when it's honest, earnest and personal -- just like the military has nothing to do with politics when someone you love goes into service.

His subsequent email informed me, among other things, that I'd nailed it on the spot. Which I knew I had done while I wrote it. It was one of those times you can just feel it, and no doubt whatsoever.