• This is the final part of a short series introducing three archetypes that underpin our work as entrepreneurs, freelancers and professionals—The Artist, the Merchant and the Seeker. (They are also the subject of my book, coming out in June.)

    In part one I talked about the Artist, and how so many of us have our inner creativity trained out of us through our schooling, culture and resulting wounding.

    In part two I wrote about the dilemma of the Merchant. How can we bring our offerings boldly to the marketplace without selling out our depth or authenticity?

    This article is about the third archetype. The Seeker.

    Together, these three—The Artist, Merchant and Seeker—make up a triad that sits at the heart of our work. No matter the specialism, if you’re an entrepreneur in the modern marketplace, you’re standing upon the foundations of these archetypes.

    Examining them, and how they sit inside you, can be most helpful to the work at hand. In fact, I’ve found it most illuminating to myself and clients I’ve worked with. So much so that I’ve spent about 1000 hours writing a book about it!

    Our culture teaches us that we have to compartmentalise ourselves, that we can’t bring our full range and depth to our work.

    This is not only a false narrative (the marketplace has in fact already moved on) but holds us back from the greater transformation we’re all a part of.

    When we learn to integrate these dimensions of ourselves, in our own unique way, we’re able to find richer success in what we do, and deeper peace in who we are.

    And so in this article I want to speak about the Seeker in you, and the fundamental perspective it holds inside your work. We’ve been afraid to truly own this one for quite some time now. Yet it holds the key to our future.

    The Archetype of the Seeker

    The Seeker is the part of you that searches for truth in all its forms. The quintessential explorer on the path—they seek to discover the hidden secrets of this world.

    Whether it is the rational observation of the natural sciences or a mystical inquiry into the nature of your own mind, it is the Seeker that drives your quest for truth.

    This is a core dimension of our humanity. We cannot help but ask the big questions.

    “What is this world? Why are we here? Who am I?”

    Since time immemorial the Seeker was a natural and present part of our lives. Life was spiritual. Because we’d never considered the alternative. Our lives were spent in constant relationship to the gods and the spirits.

    One of the earliest professions we know about—the shaman—is a deep Seeker, able to traverse the pathways of reality bringing back knowledge and understanding. This is how we lived for most of our existence.

    It’s only in the last couple of centuries that we took an unprecedented turn as a people. We killed God and became rational-secularists.

    It’s this dissociation of mysticism and science that has both accelerated our amazing technological progress, and hamstrung the awakening of our greater consciousness. We’ve got into a twist, where rational science and spiritual mysticism are seen as contradictory, rather than two dimensions of the same seeking.

    Awakening to our True Nature

    My own path of seeking has taken me into extraordinary places over the last 10 years. I’ve explored things I never would have imagined, and realised truths I had attributed only to genuine spiritual authorities.

    But as each new expansion occurs, the whole thing feels simpler.

    “Oh yes. I remember now.”

    I remember some of why I came here this time. Which of course means I remember being here other times too. This has been quite a revelation to me, and helped calm an enormously confused part of me.

    In 2023 I had a series of awakening experiences. Even though I’m perturbed by the ease with which the term awakening can be thrown around nowadays, there really is no other way to say it. And I think it’s time we speak more of these things.

    One of the truths I awakened to was that spirit, and spirits, are very real.

    Consciousness really isn’t based in the physical world. When we die, we don’t cease to be. In fact, we return to and remember who we really are.

    This means there are beings who don’t have bodies. In fact, this is the true nature of all beings. Physicality is but one of our possible dimensions.

    So what we call “non-physical beings” are in fact real. And we can talk to them—if we’ve found the methods, and healed enough of our fucked-up nervous systems to do so.

    I wrote about some of these experiences in Meetings with Spirit Guides.

    It is quite a strange and wonderful revelation to discover that there are non-physical beings who we can communicate with, and who can wisely help guide us along our path. This is something that I would have called myself deluded for believing 10 years ago.

    For my birthday in 2023 they told me they had a present to offer me. They “spoke” as they always do, inside my own head, as though they were my own thoughts. But now I can (mostly) tell the difference.

    That night they spoke loud and clear through my heart that was cracked and open.

    “Would you like to hear about what is in your soul contract?”

    I felt amazed. And absolutely leapt at the chance! I’ve been fascinated by my purpose ever since I can remember thinking about life…why am I here? What’s my role?

    It felt like the most wonderful gift.

    They gave me a small list of things. Many to do with my intentions, and the challenges I came here to face. They dropped right into my core, and have shaped things ever since.

    One of the things they told me is not just personal to me. It’s also true for a great many of us.

    I came here in this life at Mother Earth’s invitation, to help with her great project.

    Project Earth: Collective Awakening

    There is widely shared prophecy, if you know where to look. We’re going through an enormous shift as a species and as a planet.

    But while the details are all being worked out in real time, and the future undetermined, there is a bigger plan.

    Earth herself (for she is also a being) has decided it’s time to awaken to a fuller/higher dimension herself. And that means us (the humans) waking up to who we really are. For we are the apex species—her most complex children—and so her awakening happens through our own.

    This is a remembering—something we used to know, but have forgotten. And it’s also an unprecedented evolution. For we’ve come such a long way since those early days.

    And we’re at a critical juncture. Right now. This phase we’re all living through is the meat in the sandwich.

    She invited enormous numbers of souls to come and help with this collective awakening process. There are hundreds of millions who volunteered to come and help. I am one. I suspect you are too.

    It can feel like an amazing idea before you’ve started. And then you get in the thick of it and wonder why on earth you agreed to do it. I often feel this way. When the challenges mount, and the whole thing feels hard as fuck.

    This is now a collective experience. We’re in the thick of the game, trying to resolve paradigmatic issues, in a world gone crazy.

    It is the archetype of the Seeker that plays a central role in this unfolding, and shows you the way through the swamp of confusion.

    How do we now walk the path of truth, given all the complexity and paradox we now take as given?

    What does the spiritual path look like? We can’t walk our ancestral one, for we’ve forgotten it, and the world is completely different, and our minds too smart. We can’t follow the traditional religious paths, because that’s what got us into the mess in the first place, and required us to “kill god” and start anew.

    We have to find new paths. Ones that help us integrate all we already know. And allow us to choose the way.

    Part of this new path, I believe, winds its way through our work. Not simply something confined to the monastery or temple, but as an explicit part of who we are and what we offer in the marketplace.

    The Seeker in our Work

    I remember when I first started creating businesses, we had to be careful with our revelation of the Seeker. Even in “progressive” circles anything too spiritually “out there” would see markedly smaller responses.

    In the early days my friends and business partners would talk about “trojan-horsing” it. Rather than leading with the spiritual/consciousness stuff, we had to smuggle it in.

    I became good at it, but I also resented having to do so.  

    This has already changed a great deal. Even in the last 5 years, I’ve watched the Seeker emerge boldly into our mainstream reality more. I’ve lost count of the number of prominent people I’ve heard speak about direct and profound spiritual truths on mainstream podcasts. People who would never have spoken about such things in public before, are unashamedly describing their deep spiritual experiences and their existential worldviews.

    I find this tremendously encouraging. For I hold a deep belief…

    It’s part of our work to discover the truth of our nature. To be a Seeker. And to share our discoveries with those on a similar path.

    This is not an adjunct to your job—something you do on the side or as a secret hobby. It’s a core dimension of your work, and the business you run.

    At its heart I feel this is about us truly owning our spirituality. No matter the content.

    This is still uncomfortable for many of us. There are real risks in the marketplace.

    Telling everyone you talk to mystical aliens could quickly erode trust you’ve built up. Even if it happens to be true. Because some stuff is still pretty fucking far out there.

    And yet, I think we’re all still running on old stories—ones that urgently tell us that it’s dangerous to reveal our spirituality and mysticism.

    It’s not surprising. Our ancestors were literally hunted down and killed for outwardly practicing the mystical arts—burned at the stake or tortured by the inquisition. These memories are still embodied in us, as forms of trans-generational trauma.

    But damn, if there’s ever been a time in recent history when it is safe to fully reveal our spiritual selves, it is now.

    This is an edge I am leaning into. And in this very article too!

    Because I think it’s one of the great invitations of our time.

    It’s part of Project Awakening. And it’s part of our work.

    Each time we reveal the true spiritual seeker in us, we make it easier for another to do the same.

    And each step takes us a little closer to the remembering of who we are, and what we’re doing here.

    If you liked this article, my book: Artist, Merchant, Seeker will be published in June. Get on my mailing list if you’d like to receive a free copy.

    Ewan Townhead

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  • It’s been humbling to have realised just how much I live life out of my head. I know I’m not special in this regard, it’s pretty much the norm. But still, it feels confronting as fuck.

    As the years of body practice have finally started to pay off, and I’ve learned how to feel the inside my whole body, I’ve discovered the parts of my archetypal energy I’ve been suppressing all these years.

    The opposite of living in your head is living in your fuck. I mean this technically. If you map the energetic centres of your body from top to bottom, the head centre (6th chakra) is opposite your sacral centre (2nd charka). They are a binary pair in certain respects.

    When we descend our attention down into the 2nd centre, we feel the energy of fuck.

    I was brought up to believe it was just a bad word – a swear word that describes a naughty thing. The English have all kinds of social rules about stuff we all do but agree not to talk about. Fucking is very high up the list.

    Different types of fuck

    The energy of fuck is simply the energy of creation, the natural act of birthing and making something new. It’s built into the organic structure of every living thing we know about.

    Fucking requires two to make a third. In animals this means a male and a female. One is the fucker, and the other the fuckee. They both create the fucking, but from opposite ends of the spectrum.

    Fuck energy therefore is your (literal) birth right. But it isn’t just about physical fucking though. Sex is the physical expression of deeper energy codes.  The root energy itself is applicable (and necessary) in many walks of life.

    It’s the part of me that pushes through my resistance to send the message I’ve been putting off for days. “Fuck it, I’ll do it now.”

    “You can’t say that to them!” The protectors inside protest. “That’s a huge risk!”

    “Yeah…fuck it.”

    It’s good for cutting off the possibilities you really don’t want too.

    “Fuck that. No way.”

    Or to put it another way, fuck energy is unambiguous. It knows what it wants and doesn’t. It’s “fuck yes!” or “fuck no!”. There is no “fuck maybe!”

    It’s also the part of me that helps me combat the over-empathising my mind likes to do amidst conflict. I’m so used to seeing thins from the other’s point of view, and getting myself all twisted up.

    “Well, I can understand why she feels that way. I didn’t help when I did that thing. She just got really frustrated.” Which is all well and good, except it often disassociates me from my own experience and emotions, clogging up and confusing me.

    “Oh, fuck her.” I say to myself as I retreat from the kitchen and take some space to rediscover my centre again.

    Fuck energy doesn’t seem to hold grudges. It’s in the moment. “Fuck her”, in the moment. And then when I’ve felt through myself fully, I can own the anger and the hurt and open my heart to her experience more genuinely.

    As a man, I’m much less comfortable being in the receiving end of the fuck spectrum. When things are really challenging, and shit is falling apart, I can feel like I’m getting fucked by life. At the worst moments I feel like the innocent victim in some horrible abuse story. In my rare moments I feel like the lover of the Gods, who is opening themselves to the penetration of a deeper truth.

    Fuck energy is also at the root of boundary creation. Like, shit is going down, and someone won’t get out of your face.

    “Fuck off.”

    Although fighting fire with fire can tend to flare the other’s “fuck you” energy in return, which then makes a big explosive mess.

    The incontestable truth is the one that simply comes from your own core – “fuck no”.

    The pure energy does not make the other at fault. It’s not about them, it’s simply you claiming what’s true for you. This is felt directly in the body. The feeling of “fuck no” and “fuck yes” are loud if you’re present enough to recognize them.

    The energy rises from your pelvis and lower belly. Just send your consciousness down there for a few moments, let the whole thing relax and drop. It’s right there.

    This is not generally something we tend to do in normal life! I was trained from a young age (like most of us) to exclude this energy in my body. “Now be a good boy Ewan, sit at your desk and do your work.”

    “Fuck that.” My body wanted to say.

    “OK Mrs Shaw.” I said instead.

    We’re trained by our culture to suppress it most of the time. And with good reason. Fuck energy used without consciousness awareness, through a wonky nervous system can be very destructive.

    Fuck energy can be scary. It’s powerful. We’re not taught how to play with it safely. And the fear cuts both ways.

    To feel violated by someone else’s fuck energy can wound us deeply.

    To have our own fuck energy rejected by someone else wounds us too.

    Many of us carry trauma from situations with a lot of unconscious fuck, whether our own, or those of our ancestors. Society has been successfully fucking up our nervous systems in this regard for centuries now.

    But used with consciousness it is the energy of creative change itself.

    The energy at the root of creation

    Fuck energy is creation energy. And that means it actually works both as creation and destruction. That’s why kill energy comes from the same place. And why fucking is also what creates the biggest miracle we know – the birth of a new being.

    A woman’s body runs a creation/destruction cycle on a monthly basis. It creates the nurturing conditions for a new baby to enter, and when it’s not used, tears it all down again and bleeds it out.

    There is an inbuilt polarity to our experience of this energy. Biologically it’s modelled for one to fuck, and one to be fucked. On the level of energy, we’re made of both, and can channel the power of both.

    Therefore, you can also think of your own fuck energy existing on a spectrum between two poles.

    Masculine fuck energy is required if you want to make a splash in this world of ours. This is true regardless of your gender. You have to penetrate the market, open up the space of possibility, and spread your work in the world.

    And yet, as we can see, so many are also burning out on that yang determination to keep smashing through walls, competing for the prize, attaining alpha status. Our society – for so long modelled on the power of the masculine mode – is coming apart at the seams.

    Feminine fuck energy is required if you want to receive the bounty and beauty of this world of ours. This is also true regardless of gender. You have to open yourself to what’s present, surrender to what’s entering you, meet life and work with love and acceptance.

    I believe the deeper invitation is tantric—to integrate the polarity of fuck in our stories, our bodies and our energy. To realise that you can penetrate the world, and fuck it, from love. This is everyone’s right through their own free-will, regardless of biology. And to realise that you’re also being fucked by the world. This is everyone’s right too—to open and to receive what is already being given.

    In other words, the integration move is to learn to fuck and be fucked.

    This begins with allowing yourself to feel your own fuck. The word carries the energy quite brilliantly. If you want to explore your own fuck, just say the word to yourself, out loud, then keep saying it and notice what that name calls forth in your own body and feelings.

    If you want to increase the intensity, try running your hands over your hips, glutes, belly, groin, genitals, pelvic floor – where fuck is rooted. Feel your body respond to your own hands. Notice your experience.

    This energy is vital for a life of creative expression and joy. It’s all your own sovereign energy – the thrust forward into life to search for your desire, the leaning back into life, receiving the beauty you yearn for.

    So find your fuck. And to learn to play both sides. To be both fucker and fuckee. And enjoy the fuck out of the experience.

    Ewan Townhead

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  • This is a new kind of material for me to share. Because the core teaching I want to give you doesn’t come from me. I was taught this by my spirit guides, and one in particular. Which just still seems like a strange thing to say for me.

    I can say though, that as I’ve imbibed these teachings I’ve also realised that I intuitively knew it all along. I’d read spiritual texts on this kind of matter, knew some theory. But being taught it felt more like a kind of remembering. Part of me already knew and has always known, but the larger part of me was still scratching my head.

    It’s a teaching that goes right at that fundamental question…

    Who am I?

    I hope it illuminates more of who you are.

    Teachings on the two selves

    Daphne is a short and beautiful, like a tantric mystical farmer weaving her love through her brilliance and endless bubbly wisdom.

    Or at least, this is how she appears for me, and the name she has given me to call her. As a non-physical being she of course is not that one character. She is simultaneously all her various lives and experiences – she is her whole self. But like my other guides, she shows up as if she was the character in one of those specific earthly lives. She says Daphne was her last life here. She had nothing more to do here after that. It’s a life she’s told me a lot about.

    She brings this exquisite mix of grounded wisdom and spiritual love, all infused in pleasure and kindness.

    This is what she told me about the nature of self. She says this is universal truth, told in a particular way.

    “In my language words, sounds and the things themselves are all one. Practically this is a phonic language – the sounds of the words carry the same sound as the actual thing – its unique harmonic vibration. And so when you say a word you are in fact saying the name of the thing, which then calls that thing to you.

    In my culture we would talk about the two sacred selves that each of us is.

    So you can think of yourself as having two selves. You have many more, but the fundamental distinction – the base duality – is in these two.

    The first is the small self, the one in this body with these parents and this name. And the other self is the big self, which is none other than God.

    In English, the names for these selves are Me and I Am.

    Me is the English name for the small self. Me is the little one, the small self who is trying their best to be a good person.

    The name for the big self is I Am, because you can add any other name of any other thing in the universe, and if you contemplate it long enough or deeply enough, you’ll find it’s true. For example “I am the light.”

    In your rational psychological world, “me” is the real self — the ego. You are Ewan, this is who you are.

    In spiritual terms, you are not your ego. You are consciousness itself. This is a fundamental tenet of all your mystical systems.

    However, your world has not integrated these two truths together.

    For us the sacred duality was self-evident. For this is of course the nature of things here on Earth – that we live inside of duality. We are here as a small one – Ewan who worries about things and doesn’t like fish, yet we are actually a big one – you as soul, a self-aware sovereign slither of oneness.

    It is this dual self that gives all of the ingredients required for the incarnation game.

    When both are held as sacred, it is in the distinguishing between them, and then the integration of them, that “awakening” happens.”

    I’ve sat with and absorbed this idea for two years now. And I think at its root, it’s alchemy.

    Here in the physical earth realm, we are bound by duality. By design. And so the solution to the apparent problem is to play with and from, the duality itself.

    The transformation happens when the pair of opposites creates a third thing. The prima materia is used up, and now we have novel new light – increased consciousness. We have integrated an earthly experience into our soul. We have evolved in a fundamental way.

    This is a different worldview than the one that says we must transcend the ego, or indeed the one that says we are only an ego.

    Me – the small self

    Daphne continues…

    “So Me is the name for the sacred small self. It works like any name, if you call it, it’s owner comes to you. So if you’re feeling scattered, discombobulated, like you don’t know where you are, you can say this name like a mantra.

    “Me.”

    This can feel a little odd in English. English confuses these two selves in interesting ways.

    For example, the self that feels hungry and grumpy is of course the small self. So the correct grammar would be.

    “Me feel hungry and grumpy.”

    Which is of course incorrect in English. Unless you’re a child who hasn’t learned the “right way” yet, in which case, that’s exactly what you say.

    English tends to infantilise the small self. This is a mistake and removes the awareness of its sacredness and divinity.”

    I’ve been part of so many spiritual circles over the years that see the small self as the problem: the thing that needs healing, that is based on limitation, that is simply an illusion. Those things are all true, from a certain perspective. Yet what Daphne’s teaching has really done for me, is to return the small self to its rightful sacred status.

    It’s us. We are the divine child playing at the incarnation game.

    This world may be illusory. It’s not actually what it appears to be. And neither are we. But we are not an illusion. Me is not an illusion. It’s the very real and sacred experience of being human.

    Problems and language traps

    We’re very confused about all of this as a culture. This confusion is revealed by our language and the way we use it.

    For example. In spiritual or self-development circles, we often talk about maturation as going beyond the ego – transcending it. Things like…

    “When you truly transcend the limitations of your ego, you will know God.”

    This is a true dimension of the pathway to self-realization. However, already we’ve run into a language problem.

    The word ego in this context comes from Freud. Except, he never said it, because he was writing in German. What did he say?

    “Das Ich”.

    Which translates literally as “The I”.

    The “I” — the self — the subject who’s looking out at the world. Freud’s term is already a 3rd person objectification of the self.

    The I.

    But our English translation goes one step further. It then objectifies the 1st person self – “I” – into an object — “the ego”. We end up with a very abstracted and objectified perspective. And the thing we’re actually supposed to be examining?

    The self. You. Me. The thing that is closest to your experience in every single moment.

    Our culture teaches us to marginalise the small self. In fact, if we spend too much time making things about “me”, we have words for that. Selfish. Egocentric. Narcissistic.

    Yet so much of our work as now people is to help the little ones inside. This is why we need so much therapy and self development.

    In the end though the small me is actually not so small. In fact the more you grow up the little ones (always with love, never without love), the bigger Me gets. And Me can get pretty big.

    The big self and the master key spell

    Ultimately, we’re not just these small selves that we appear to be. We’re souls – inseparable and conscious parts of source itself – we are source. This is hard to remember down here (the point of the game).

    It is to help play this game and erode the mistaken identity that we’re given these different names. Daphne describes the name of the big self like a spell – a master spell that carries deep power. It’s a key to manifestation magic – a spiritual technology that helps things come to be.

    “I Am is the name of the big self, because you can say anything else after those words, and it is true. This is the secret of the higher self, to imagine is to be.

    In other words, anything you say after this spell becomes true (in some way), and truer the more you say it.

    Which of course cuts both ways.

    I am the light and love of consciousness

    I am fucked-up and my life is shit

    Equally powerful spell. Very different outcome.”

    In our modern world, we use the negative form of this magic casually and regularly. We condemn ourselves with all kinds of powerful hexes. “I’m no good at this”, “I’m never going to be happy” etc.

    The creative form of this magic is simple, and deceptively potent. What’s the thing you want to use the master key to become?

    The goal is to feel what’s true in your soul, and yet feels untrue in your self-concept.

    “I want to be a painter.”

    Ok, so you say as a spell, several times a day, for x days…

    “I am a painter.”

    Do it like a meditation. Say it with presence and intention. And and notice, and watch what happens to you when you say it. Acknowledge it. Say it again.

    If your soul wants to be a painter, and little Me feels like she can’t draw for shit, then it’s the perfect alchemical process for you. To forge a higher truth through the fiery resistance of the ego. As you say it, all the parts of the Me that don’t believe it, will pipe up to point out the apparent contradiction.

    “I am a painter.”

    “Ha you! You wish.”

    “I am painter.”

    “You definitely are not! You’re a loser.”

    “I am a painter.”

    “But I really don’t feel like a painter!”

    You keep saying it, and like a child trying to wiggle out of an argument, the small self will change it’s tune.

    “I am a painter.”

    “Maybe.”

    “I am a painter”

    “Ok, yeah, I guess I am.”

    “I am a painter.”

    “Yes, ok. I just wish I was better.”

    “I am a painter.”

    “…”

    “I am a painter.”

    “OK I am. It’s my style, I don’t know how I do it. It just comes out.”

    “I am a painter.”

    “Yes. I am a painter.”

    Over time, the two selves find equilibrium in the truth you are manifesting.

    The mantras I’ve taken on have been working me in exactly this regard. I’ve had guidance to find them. They’re things that I can feel my soul is asking me to claim, but which little me feels he has no right to at all.

    Saying them often makes me feel like a fool. One I’ve been working with for the last year is about my reclaiming my inner sovereignty and agency. I say “I am the King.” I feel foolish even sharing this with you! Which confirms it’s working.

    So whenever I remember, I just say it to myself a handful of times. And when I say it, of course all the parts of me that don’t feel kingly pipe up.

    “You’re not a king. Get back to the fields peasant!”

    They’ve become better natured over time. More like jovial hecklers and less like mean judges.

    And the spell works. Slowly, over time.

    Here are some more tips from Daphne…

    “The best way to use this spell is always to remember that it is simply a spell. Words carry power. Yet they are but a slice of the whole magical pie.

    Words that are read aloud like a good boy in class carry some power.

    Words that are spoken from the heart, honestly and sincerely carry all the power you need.

    Be careful what you ask for. While genuine affirmations are always manifested, the form is entirely out of your control.”

    The integration of self

    So often I feel so small. The world feels really big and scary, I feel so inept and ill-suited. I can try and muscle my way out of it. “I can handle it!” I proclaim, getting a tighter grip on the stick, remembering how big and strong I am, and putting aside my childishness.

    It doesn’t work in the long run. It’s just a cover. I end up using increasing effort and energy to “hold myself together” while inside I’m of course still feeling small. This is what many spiritual gurus and world leaders do. Which ironically enough, makes them very egoic!

    The other way doesn’t work either. Despite all my spiritual training, just “accepting the smallness” and “allowing my feelings” seems to leave me feeling smaller than when I started. And even more in touch with the feeling of intense vulnerability and trauma that incarnation seems to elicit.

    The alchemy I believe, lies in the integration and simultaneous embodiment of both selves. To allow myself to feel small, to embody the feelings of fear and pain. And to remember I am big, to embody the expansive soul truly am.

    For we are each both of these selves. In every moment.

    And we have collectively forgotten who we ultimately are – each a divine spark of the One, the source of all that is. Each of us a soul who chose these experiences to come and learn from, such that the One may know itself through the Many. So that the big can experience itself through the small.

    We really do need to wake up to who we really are. The soul. The One. “I Am”. The spiritual path is correct in this respect.

    Yet we must not make the mistake of our spiritual culture, and exclude the little one from the journey. That’s us too. I’m me. You’re you. And these little separate selves are so deeply sacred.

    Together they create the human being.

    Me — I Am.

    Ewan Townhead

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  • Wish upon it. Pray to it. Follow it.

    Do not think you are it, or believe other people when they say you could be. Do not mistake the mortal for the divine.

    The proper posture is one of devotion. The star is not reached through fame, it is never reached. It is the source of divine potential, an infinite omega point to which we are endlessly beckoned.

    Where does your star call you? What do the heavens whisper?

    If you don’t know, you must ask.
    If you do know, you must ask.

    For your destination is that transcendent possibility, the unmanifest future that already rests within you. Just as the oak is already contained within the acorn.

    And when the light of heaven shines down upon you, you will reach toward it. Like the tree that grows steadily toward the sun. The reward is illumination. Of you and your extraordinary beauty. The price is the same.

    And you will shrink before its splendour, and the exposure of your own. This is only to be expected, for you are cradled in the innocence of one who has forgotten who you really are.

    This is not a fault to be corrected. It is the divine design of something we cannot comprehend.

    The star asks that you face it, and be guided by it. That you stand naked before the light, and follow the path it shows you.

    Ewan Townhead

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  • In the first part of this article I talked about shame and how we’re carrying so much of it, and that it is the root of sin. Not in some old clichéd Catholic sense, where we come from some original bad stock.

    We’re ashamed because we’re struggling to find the courage to step out and show the world just how fucking good we are.

    This is the greatest sin of our times.

    To turn away from what is asked of you – the true work you know you came here to make. To pretend it isn’t that important, or that you’re not good enough to be it. And we’re struggling to face this great sin, because the very notion of sin is something we’re no longer comfortable with.

    But just as the toothache doesn’t go away because you don’t like dentists, sin doesn’t go away because we don’t like the Church.

    And because we have banished sin, we have also banished the means to work with sin. We have forgotten that there is an ancient tradition that can guide us through this gauntlet of shame, guilt and unworthiness.

    This is the lost technology of spiritual transformation. And it is what this article is all about.

    We’re all sinners

    Not the way we were told when we were children. No, we’re all sinners because this is a time like no other. A time when the old rules really are crumbling to dust. We have more freedom than at any other time in the history of the world.

    We’re free to have sex with people we want to have sex with, without the fear of roasting forever in hell. We’re free to write and speak whatever we want without the threat of being burned at the stake. We’re free to rise above our upbringing without social castes to slam us back into place. We’ve even been freed from the industrial imperative to be efficient, safe and predictable. We’ve been freed to speak the deepest truth we have.

    This is the age of the great level playing field.

    And God is calling for all great people to come and play the new game. The one where we win when we each create our own beautifully unique puzzle piece of life. And together, we create a new picture of society.

    And when we inevitably pretend to not hear that call, we sin.

    “Who the fuck am I to start a global foundation for women leaders? I don’t even feel like a leader myself. It’s just a pipe-dream. Life is more complicated.”

    “I may have a passion for mystic muff diving, but I can’t make a living out of that! That’s crazy! I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing and hope one day I’m rescued.”

    “Just because I dream of writing best-selling books, doesn’t mean I can, or am allowed. That’s for the talented people, who live of mummy and daddy’s millions.”

    It’s easier to numb out. So we do, and God’s call becomes like the buzz of the refrigerator, and we continue for years pretending it’s not there.

    But it’s not that simple is it?

    You block your ears, so you don’t hear the call. And then you don’t hear other stuff either. You don’t hear your friends telling you how talented you are. You don’t hear your lover telling you how beautiful you are.

    So you block your heart too. Because it’s too much. And then you block your balls and your pussy too.

    And then you’re a drone. Doing society’s bidding. Being a good soldier. While you quietly die inside.

    And maybe I’m being dramatic. And maybe it hasn’t got that bad yet. And maybe it never will. But what if it already has, and we haven’t noticed, because we can’t even feel how numb we are.

    And I’m numb too. I’m as big a sinner as you are.

    This is written for both of us. I’m not preaching from a position of privilege. I’m writing this because I’m calling myself out. And maybe you at the same time

    And I’m writing it because there is a way out.

    Repent, and ye shall be set free

    “When they said repent. I wonder what they meant.”
    – Leonard Cohen

    And well you might Leonard, because it’s another confusing term, like sin. But repentance is the way out. And as Robert Frost said, the best way out is through. And repentance takes you through shame, into love, into integrity, into deeper truth.

    But I get ahead of myself. What is repentance?

    Repentance usually means regret. When I repent I feel deeply sorry or remorseful.

    “I’m really sorry Mrs. Jones. I didn’t mean to crush your prize rose bed.”

    But this meaning is only half the story. Once again, we have a translation issue, though this time it’s the issue of Greek into English.

    The Greek world that was translated into ‘repentance’ in English was the world metanoia. Which means something rather different than regret. Let’s play detective for a second, because it’s going to get interesting.

    Metanoia has two elements. Meta means ‘beyond’, or ‘change’. And noia comes from noos which means ‘thought’ or ‘mind’. So it essentially means to ‘go beyond one’s thoughts’. It means to change one’s mind, change one’s way of seeing, to go beyond how you thought it was.

    This is the original meaning of repentance.

    And it is also the very subject of this article. The practice of repentance is the lost technology of spiritual transformation.

    Connect with truth, and step beyond

    Repentance is the decision to turn back toward what is asked, and engage honestly and truly. To repent is to surrender your insecurity and shame, and face what you know you are avoiding.

    Repentance is coming back into right relationship with truth. And it has four steps, which I’m going to lay out for you.

    Confession. Forgiveness. Penance. Restoration.

    Now, we’re going to run into language issues again. I’m going to use words that may have strong connotations for you. But just like Sin, and repentance itself, I’m going to invite you to cast off the meanings you were given, and feel into the primordial meanings, the original meanings, before they were distorted by time.

    Because this model of repentance represents a beautiful mapping of a natural cycle, one that is designed to deepen the bonds of what matters, and what is true. It is a process that transforms shame into guilt, into connection, into intimacy, into new action, into new depth, into new truth.

    This is not a formula. It is a dance of karma, intimacy and dignity.

    The Four Steps of Repentance

    1. Confession

    Confession is sharing the thing you don’t want to share. It’s calling your best friend and admitting that you’re really struggling. It’s telling your lover you’re feeling attraction for someone else.  It’s praying to god because you feel so lost.

    It’s the sharing of burdens, a friendly shoulder upon which to rest, as you confess your difficulty. And it works. It’s what all good therapists do for their clients, what great parents do for their children.

    It is a place to reveal our deepest secrets in safety.

    Brené says that shame can’t survive with words around it. She says shame needs 3 things to survive: secrecy, silence and judgement. And that the moment we share the object of our shame, the virus starts to whither, and the heart begins to open.

    This is sharing.  This is confession.

    This is the first step.

    I was born to do magnificent and important things in the world.

    I know it. But to confess how deeply I feel this destiny is to also uncover the deep shame I carry for not knowing how to live into that greatness. And the deep fear that I may be mistaken, and delusional.

    “You could touch a million souls” the whisper says to me.

    And it’s getting louder.

    “You’re one of the old souls that lived a thousand lives and opened a thousand hearts. You were there, when we stepped out of the Garden. You were there when we spoke on the mountain. You were there after they hanged him. Don’t you remember?”

    Am I crazy? Something tell me I shouldn’t we writing this. But it feels like a relief to get it off my back. To share it with you. To confess to you.

    2. Forgiveness

    I love you, and I forgive you. I know you’re trying your best. I know you’re a good and beautiful person. I know you don’t mean to. I love you. Everything is ok.

    This is empathy. And compassion. It’s universal love.

    Regardless of what you do, I still love you. There is nothing you can do or be that would stop me loving you. You have no choice in the matter.

    They said Jesus will forgive you all your sins, and they said it because Jesus represents the force of this universal love. And in His heart, you are always already forgiven.

    It’s what we need from others, from God. And it’s what we need from ourselves. Self-love, the first love. Because it’s all the same love. It is This Love.

    I know you. I love you. I forgive you.

    This is step 2.

    My sweetheart, I understand.

    You want to stay safe, hidden, in the dark warm folds of familiarity. Of course you do sweet man. They told you this was the way to live your life. That’s what kept you safe in the school playground when the other kids would tease you for your difference. And in another time, when they killed you for your insolence.

    You are my sweetheart and I love you. You have such pure intentions. I’m always here for you ok? I know it’s not going the way you want. The way your father wants. But you don’t have to apologize to me. You’re always already forgiven. You are always already loved.

    But thank you for telling me. I’m here whenever you need me. Always.

    3. Penance

    And. Words are not enough. Not meaning to do it, is not enough. Apology is not enough. Forgiveness, alone, is not enough.

    You must do penance.

    Penance is not punishment, or healing. It is not saying a thousand Hail-Marys.

    Penance is restorative action. It is right-action. Doing what you know in your heart is good and true. It is doing what you need to do, to bring relationship back into the moment, enlightened by a new consciousness, entwined by a new depth.

    It’s clearing up the mess you’ve made.

    Whether this is with yourself, with those around you, or with God, the intent is the same: to repair the fabric of our inter-connected relationship, and allow depth to transform us.

    This is step 3.

    I know my innocence does not excuse me from what is asked. God has called me out.

    “I love you. And my love is so strong, that I won’t stand by and let you be less than you really are.”

    He is turning up the heat. He is asking me to go and speak. He is calling for what I have to say. He is beckoning me to stand amongst those who would listen, and gift from your heart, that which I see and love.

    “You must choose to step out of what you think you know. And commit to the path you do not know. To come back to me. And love through me. With all your naked heart can bare. Do you accept your penance?”

    I do. I am afraid, but my faith is stronger. Yes my dearest Lord, I do.

    4. Restoration

    We are brought to a place of greater intimacy with ourselves. With truth. With God. With goodness itself.

    We have followed the mystic injunction, and allowed the hand of our own hearts, to steer us.

    We have restored the circle.

    We have joined hands once again. But this time the grip is warmer, stronger, and more true.

    And more joyful.

    For this is the siddhic beauty that shame invites us toward. Joy. True, and pure.

    This is the final step, before it begins again.

    Welcome back my love. I missed you. But this time we feel different. My hand rests deeper in your hand. My step moves more elegantly with your step.

    This is the path into alignment. This is the never-ending quest into our own eternal embrace. This is the place you are called to, that I am called to, that we are called to.

    This is what is asked. And you have answered.

    Shall we dance, just one more time?

    Final Thoughts

    They say that great artists steal. If one day I can with all honesty call myself a great writer, I will know I stole well, and with grace and novelty.

    And so, to stroke that potential, I confess to you now that this article, indeed all my articles are taken from the mouths of many others.

    For this particular article, I borrowed generously from a single book. It’s an amazing book by the equally amazing Barbara Brown Taylor, called On Speaking of Sin. And if any of my ideas have spoken to you, I wholeheartedly encourage you to read her work. She is a true preacher of truth.

    And I leave you with the words of another. Words that have haunted me this year. Beautiful words. Godly words perhaps. I leave you with Rumi.

    The breeze at dawn has whispers to tell you.
    Don’t go back to sleep.
    You must ask for what you really want.
    Don’t go back to sleep.
    People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two world touch.
    The door is round and open.
    Don’t go back to sleep.

    Ewan Townhead

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  • We’ve thrown out sin.

    It’s gone, along with religious guilt, dogma and other old dusty concepts that clash with our modern sense of freedom. It’s gone because it was a moral label from a by-gone past. Or at least, that’s what we think.

    But I’m going to tell you a story that I never expected to tell.

    That not only is sin not what they taught us it is, but that it’s a vital part of the spiritual path. Or just the creative path. The one where you become yourself, and create the work you were made for.

    Sin is not the old sin of the Catholic Church, or Bible class, or violating the Ten Commandments, or screwing your neighbour’s wife. It’s something real and vital. Something at the very root of a life of wholehearted fullness and authentic success.

    Sin is a good thing, an important thing, a powerful thing. And that’s what I never expected to say. So, this article is about sin. And not only sin, but about the greatest sin of our times.

    And it begins with shame.

    I’m ashamed

    I’m ashamed of stealing money from my parents when I was a kid. A friend and I were building an elven army from little lead figures that we painted. And they were really expensive. So we stole money.

    I’m ashamed about the way I’ve treated some of the women in my life. I’d promise them my heart, and so they’d open. And then I’d realize I’d compromised my freedom too much, and I’d leave them. And they’d get hurt.

    I’m ashamed about the way I’ve manipulate people to get what I wanted. I did that with my first business. When my business partners got in the way, I played a nasty political game to try and get rid of them. They still don’t talk to me.

    I’m ashamed about all the messes I’ve made, that I didn’t go back to clear up.

    And I’m ashamed of not going after my dreams as hard as I could. I tell people I’m here to do big things. I feel like I am. I wrote recently that I felt I should be famous. Not because I want fame, but because I want to impact the world. I feel I’m here to make a big difference.

    And I feel ashamed that I don’t live up to the magnitude of that ambition during my day. I get scared, and play online pool, or read novels, or eat sugar, or smoke pot. Because it feels safer, because it insulates me from the increasing volume of life’s call.

    And that is the modern sin. The greatest sin of our times.

    That we are not truly listening to what is asked of us.

    That we are turning away from the path we know we’re meant to walk.

    That we believe we’re unworthy of the great mission that burns inside our hearts.

    The original nature of sin

    I was not brought up Christian. I was never baptized. I never went to church as a kid. We had the occasional bible reading from Miss Bathmaker at school. I was brought up as an atheist, with a sprinkling of new-age.

    I thought religion was a crock of shit, until my 20s when I became interested in the work of spiritual philosopher Ken Wilber. And I got into meditation, and Buddhism, and mysticism, and Rumi. Then over the last couple of years, I’ve been drawn increasingly into the mystical teachings of Christianity. And I’ve written about the guidance I’ve found through my friend Jesus.

    Earlier this year I was reading some letters. They were private letters that my mentor Rand had generously shared with me. They were written to him, from his spiritual coach. And in one of them I discovered a discussion about sin. And I was pulled in.

    It’s such a cultural-laden word. What do you think of when you read it?

    Sin.

    Naughty little girl? Stealing. Men fucking men. Abortion. Murder. Worshipping the wrong god?

    That’s always what I thought it meant. An old, out of date word that Christians used to shame people, so they got in line. And I think that’s exactly how it’s used a lot of the time. But sin doesn’t originally mean ‘doing bad stuff’. The original meaning is something so much deeper.

    To learn why, we need to go way back in time at least 2,500 years to the original Hebrew Bible. This was the book that got turned into the Old Testament (the really old, pre-Jesus bit of the Bible). In this original Hebrew text, there were three words, that when translated into Greek, were translated into a single word, in English – ‘sin’.

    But these three original Hebrew words don’t mean ‘bad’. No, what they represent are different degrees of being out of relationship with God.

    Not evil. Not wrong.

    Out of relationship with reality.

    Missing the mark of where you’re meant to be, want to be.

    I felt a giant shiver run down my spine when I first read it. And I’ve told the story many times to friends since. And I still get a shiver each time.

    Sin is disconnecting from your own truth. Sin is violating the principles we live by, and refusing to come back into relationship with reality.

    And a lot of us are doing that. Especially with big things that really matter to us. Like living the purpose we know we came here for. And when you turn away from that truth for long enough, you start to feel something grow in the centre of your being. Something that twists and hurts.

    Deep existential shame.

    Because you know you’re not doing what you’re supposed to be doing. This is why it starts with shame. But shame is a tricky thing.

    The inauthenticity of shame

    A couple of years ago I was staying in a friend’s apartment, and was shooting videos of myself talking about some ideas I was excited about. And the same thing kept happening.

    I’d be in full flow, excitedly talking, gesticulating, emoting. And then mid-sentence I’d slow down to almost nothing. And my head would drop. And I’d close the laptop lid. And sit there. And pretend it hadn’t happened, and go do something else.

    And on the fifth time I actually noticed it.

    “What the fuck was that?”

    I opened up the laptop again, turned on the video and started spontaneously coaching myself on what had just happened. I even moved position in my chair to play both interviewer and client.

    “Wow, so what happened for you there Ewan? That looked intense.”

    “Yeah it was. I don’t know. I was just talking, and then my gut got really tight, and I felt hot, and exposed. It was like I was getting pulled down into something.”

    I discovered the shame spiral.

    I feel ashamed about something. And then I feel ashamed about feeling ashamed. And then ashamed about feeling ashamed about feeling ashamed. Ad infinitum.

    And the weight gets ever heavier and my identity ever smaller, as I’m sucked down into the blackness of unworthiness. But this time I’d seen it. And got curious.

    What is shame?

    I looked it up. It’s an old word. It means literally a “feeling of disgrace”. I was enthralled. Dis-grace. A feeling of not having any grace. And then I clocked it. Shame is not an emotion. It’s an assessment. Something happened, and now you can’t feel your own inherent grace. You’ve lost touch with it. And so you think you don’t have any.

    “I’m worthless. I’m such a bad person. I not good for anything. I give up. It’s all fucked.”

    Shame is a shitty thing to feel, because, I would argue, it’s not an authentic experience in and of itself. The feeling is real, the somatic weight is real, and it’s pointing to something real.

    But the experience of shame is predicated on the belief that you’re inherently bad, and without grace.

    And that’s simply not true.

    Now, shame is not bad. It’s inevitable. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t feel it. And what it does, is show you where you’re out of alignment with your own truth. It shows you where you’re out of relationship with God.

    It shows you where you’re in sin.

    Shame is the start of the trail back out of sin, and into deeper relationship with truth.

    The invitation toward a deeper truth

    The Catholics got it right. Sin is about shame (and guilt). But not in the way they thought. The traditional teaching is that shame is a consequence of sin. Something like this…

    You sin, and so you feel shame as a consequence. Which is good. But makes you feel bad. Because a sinner should feel bad. Because sinning is bad. And maybe if you feel shitty enough, you won’t sin again. And you’ll get into heaven.

    So, when you sin, we forgive you, punish you, and then you’re saved.

    Which is a nice attempt.

    But created some damaging results.

    Chronic unworthiness. Institutional sexism. Screwing under-age choir boys.

    I’m being slightly unfair here. Because these ideas were actually revolutionary and transformed culture as we know it. The problem is that the revolution happened a couple of thousand years ago. And things have moved on rather a long way. So like I said, nice try, shitty results.

    And to understand why, we turn to the research of the brilliant writer and researcher Brené Brown. Brené makes a crucial distinction between shame and guilt.

    Guilt is “I did something bad”.

    Shame is “I am bad.”

    Guilt is about behaviour. Shame is about identity.

    And people who feel one or the other lead incredibly different lives. Her research is unequivocal in its findings. Large levels of shame in a person are highly correlated with high levels of addiction, depression, aggression, suicide and other really fun stuff. High levels of guilt are inversely correlated with those things.

    In other words. Guilt is really good for you. Shame fucks you up.

    I think shame is guilt that has no outlet toward transformation. It’s guilt that has rotted and gone bad. Or it’s guilt that has been smashed into a hard shameful truth by some religious hammer.

    Shame is an amazingly big assessment to make. Something happens that you don’t feel good about, and you extrapolate out, and make some sweeping statement about the infinite truth of your infinite existence.

    I watched porn.
    Bad people watch porn.
    That means I’m a bad person.
    And a bad person is worthless.
    I’m worthless.
    Period.

    You take a black mark and decide to tar your whole human existence with it.

    So while shame is in some sense, an inauthentic feeling, its root is not. It’s a beacon, and it’s pointing toward greater relationship with ourselves. And the journey winds through guilt.

    The great gift of guilt

    Being out of relationship with god, out of alignment with your truth is inevitable. It’s what happens when we live. And guilt is this amazing gift. It’s what we feel when the alignment slides out of whack, when we’re out of integrity with our code of truth. It’s our higher self smacking us on the ass.

    “Hey buddy. That doesn’t feel good does it? In fact, it hurts. Change direction.”

    It’s like a series of little lights, guiding us down the path of greater truth, greater goodness and greater beauty.

    But when we don’t listen to that feeling. When we don’t let it penetrate us, hold us to account and spark our discomfort, then that guilt starts to toxify. It goes stagnant, and it turns into shame.

    Shame is toxic. And it stops us from acting. Because if I am bad, then I’m powerless to do anything about it. I’m a victim of my own rotten core. Shame feels final. It’s not, but it feels like it. The gift and the power lies in embracing your sense of guilt.

    In part 2 of this article, I’ll go in depth into the basic principles of working with shame and guilt, and how to transform them into deeper truth.

    But for now. I want try and summarize the nature of sin.

    Here’s the basic recipe

    1. Sin is what happens when you get out of alignment with your own truth.

    So, sin is not smoking pot. Sin is smoking pot if you know you have a lot of important work you want to do, and you ignore your sense of integrity, and get high anyway.

    It’s sin, because you violated a deeper truth. Not because you ‘broke a commandment’.

    1. And when you enter into sin, you feel guilty.

    Not because someone said you should, or because bad people smoke pot. But because you know you’ve violated your own integrity. True guilt is yours.

    1. And if you don’t honor that sense of guilt. And take action, then it will start to rot. And the guilt turns into shame.

    Shame is a nasty fucker, who eats up a whole bunch of stuff. But is actually trying to help us by turning up the volume on our suffering.

    Because many of us are sinning. And there is one sin that is standing out. Head and shoulders above the rest.

    It’s a great sin.

    What is being asked of you?

    You have a great body of work to express. It’s yours. It’s unique. It’s precious. It’s fragile. It holds untold power. And God is asking you about it.

    What is being asked of you?

    Only you know. And you do know. Maybe it’s being shouted in your face. Maybe it’s that insistent whisper that you know is always there, and that you dampen with busyness, or television, or bravado.

    What is being asked of you?

    If you’re truly honest with yourself, you’ll likely find a place where you’re not listening. We’re all doing it. It’s the greatest sin of our times.

    There has never been a time like this. When the barriers to sharing our work with the entire world are gone. Completely. The internet and the information age have shattered the barricades of tradition and hierarchy.

    The only blocks now are yours.

    It’s your fear. Your terror of truly showing yourself. Of not wanting to fail. Of not knowing how to do it right. Of not wanting to be rejected by everyone. It’s my fear too.

    And when we don’t listen, we suffer. Because however much we practice numbing out, we know deep down that we’re more powerful than we can bare to imagine.

    And I know you’re ashamed.

    And I am too.

    And this is the invitation.

    For both of us.

    To listen to what is asked.

    And come face to face.

    With that which calls us,

    In every moment.

     

    This article is the first part in a 2 part-series. In part 2 – The Lost Technology of Spiritual Transformation – I explore an old and powerful practice that people have used for centuries to work with shame, and transmute it into greater depth and greater truth.

     

    Ewan Townhead

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  • Business isn’t about you and your weird tastes. It’s about your customers. And if you want to be successful, you can’t talk about the far-out stuff that you happen to like. That just won’t fly.

    No, you must talk about handsome return on investment, the tangible benefits to their short-term goals, the problem your product will solve for them. You must talk about effectiveness and results.

    This is the language of business. More. Better. Faster.

    You must not talk about God, or destiny, or anal sex, or consciousness, or intimacy. These things are woo-woo, inappropriate, or irrelevant.

    This is how it has been for some time. This is business as we have known it.

    If you wanted to bring your weird stuff into this paradigm – spirituality, relationships, consciousness, art, sex – you couldn’t advertise it at the front door. You had to smuggle it in the back door.

    You had to ‘Trojan Horse’ it.

    The Trojan Horse marketer is the one who pretends he’s normal, professional, conventional, but is secretly doing something he fears you wouldn’t understand.

    She tells you she’ll teach you effective leadership strategy, when actually she’s doing deep transformational work with you. He tells you his course will help you pick up women, while he’s actually teaching you the art of authentic relating.

    It was the only way you could make a business out of consciousness.

    And many of us still believe that’s the way we’ve got to play it.

    The days of the Trojan Horse marketer are numbered

    People are dying for meaning, depth, originality, vulnerability. Authenticity.

    They don’t want to be sold to, by some faceless corporation. They don’t want dry perfunctory newsletters that advertise a bunch of discount offers. They don’t want business to feel like business.

    We want real connection. We want to feel someone’s heart, what they stand for, what they care about, where they’re afraid of, how they want to change things, why they give a shit about this weird and wonderful world of ours.

    The language of old business was effectiveness.

    The language of new business is connection and authenticity.

    The Trojan Horse strategy while necessary for so long, is fast becoming a liability. Because it’s based on a façade.

    You think you’re getting a gift from the Greeks. You’re actually getting an invasion force. You think you’re getting a normal business product. You’re actually getting something that you didn’t even know you needed.

    It’s the opposite of transparent authenticity. And the people who want your weird woo-woo consciousness products are far too wise to fall for your façade.

    The market wants the real you

    You don’t have to smuggle the weird stuff in any more.

    In fact, if you’re in the business of consciousness, and you’re still playing the Trojan Horse strategy, it’s probably hurting your business.

    The old strategies are dying. Fast. Their effectiveness is waning, on a monthly basis.

    You’ve got to switch it up.

    I know you’re hiding behind conventions because you’re afraid to get real. I get it. It’s totally understandable. But it’s not going to work. It’s probably already not working.

    Show yourself. Your real self.

    Into tantric monkey spanking? Come out. Despite the possibility of ostracism, you don’t get to choose your authentic fetishes.

    You’re a closet libertarian, you thinks the occupy Wall Street stuff was a crock of shit? Yes, your left wing liberal friends may accuse you of having sold your soul, but you may also discover that your true views aren’t as fringe as you thought.

    Inexplicably drawn to psychedelic rune reading? Yes, your more straight laced customers may beat a hasty retreat, but they’ll leave a space for a bunch of new folks who love themselves some rune action.

    Your Trojan Horse strategy may seem like it’s keeping your business afloat. More likely though, it’s actually protecting your ego from the discomfort of revealing something true and vulnerable.

    Time to get real

    I know you’re holding back. I know it.

    I know there are what seem like a whole bunch of good reasons to stay held back. I get it.

    And I know there’s something slowly twisting inside you. You’re not where you want to be. You’re not who you want to be. And you know it.

    And yet, you still hold back.

    I get it. There’s a lot at stake.

    It’s your identity. It’s the image you’ve been cultivating. It’s the story you’ve woven of who you are, and what you’re capable of. It’s fear of the consequences.

    And, you know it’s time.

    Time to tell it how it really is.

    That used to get you fired. Old business likes the predictable, secure stuff. They want the conveyer belt to keep chucking out the same safe thing day after day.

    Throw a spanner in the works. Break the rules.

    Show yourself.

    Your real customers will thank you for it. Profusely.

     

    Ewan Townhead

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  • I was at dinner a few nights ago with a friend. We’d just spent a day with the spiritual teacher Adyashanti. We’d both been deeply moved by the experience, and by him.

    As we talked about life, love and religion, I happened to mention that I’d felt increasingly drawn to Christianity over the last couple of years. He was a little surprised, and wanted to know more.

    I want to share with you what I shared with him. It’s a story that is achingly close to my heart, and one I feel quite uncomfortable speaking about.

    Even with a close friend, I felt awkward speaking the name Jesus, aware of the cultural connotations that the word has for so many of us.

    But as I finished my story, he told me how much more permission he now felt to embrace the spiritual depth of Christianity, and let go of the old associations he had from his own upbringing. He said to me…

    “What if, by you telling this story, someone else’s estranged relationship to Christianity can be healed or reborn?”

    He was right. What if? So here’s the story of my friendship with Jesus.

    I Grew Up Atheist

    Atheism, if you didn’t know, is a contemporary religion that doesn’t have any Gods. The atheists typically don’t like the Christians. And so as a child, I didn’t have any friends who went to church or who had read the bible.

    Even at school I was protected from the Christians for the most part. We’d have the occasional shallow bible reading from Miss Bathmaker. But even as a 7 year old, I knew what she was teaching us wasn’t true.

    Growing up, Christianity was the old dusty religion that we’d replaced with something much more rational and humanistic.

    In fact, for most of my life, spirituality in general was hard for me to accept.

    Even when the work of philosopher Ken Wilber changed my life at the age of 23, it was his teachings on spirituality that I found hard to swallow. I would digest the philosophy and psychology at an alarming rate. But all the Buddha and Brahman stuff? That felt weird and alien. I didn’t know what to do with it.

    It was the practice of Chi Kung that really opened me up spiritually. I practiced it on and off for 4 years. But while I would study with my own teacher, to this day I have never read a single book on the Shaolin Arts. I didn’t want anything to do with the philosophy.

    And then, a few years ago I started feeling this curiosity for Christianity. It would come out in mild ways at first. And then 2 years ago, it got serious. I was going through one of the darkest periods of my life, and felt a call to study Christianity. I remember hours spent sitting in front of the wood burner at my dad’s country farmhouse, reading about Jesus.

    I talk to Jesus

    Not every day, but often.

    Often when I’m meditating, I’ll call forth his image. He normally stands in front, and slightly above me, a little way off. Recently he started standing slap bang right in front of me. He has a beard. He’s wearing white. He has some kind of pattern around his collar. He’s a big man. Strong.

    I’ll ask him things. I ask him for help. I ask him what God is asking of me.

    He’s so compassionate with my struggles. His heart is always so open. When I’m upset, bowing my head under the pressure, I’ll look up and he’s crying too. He feels my pain as I feel it.

    He’s ruthless with me. A few days ago he slapped me around the face. He told me to wake up. He told me to wake up and stop turning away.

    For the last 7 months he’s kept saying the same thing to me over and over.

    “You must speak.”

    No-one taught me how to do any of this. It just started happening.

    I’m not a Christian

    But I love going into old churches and cathedrals. I’ll sit in the pews and meditate. I’ll surrender to the chorus of the place, let it infiltrate me, carry me.

    A few months ago I was in London. had a few hours before my flight back and decided to go to St. Paul’s Cathedral. I’d never been there before.

    I sat underneath the great dome and I gave myself to the place. I was taken up and out. A great expansion reaching up to the dome, and further. As my awareness floated higher, my heart was grinding itself against my ribs. A profound feeling of love. Loved by him.

    Loved by the man who changed everything, and who never wanted any temples, churches or religions to be created in his name.

    Jesus was a human warrior of the heart

    It feels quite vulnerable to write this to you.

    Not simply because of the closeness of this story and this man to my heart. But because even now, I can feel the part of me that associates Jesus with weirdos. I see in my mind’s eye a different man who ‘loves Jesus’.

    A stubborn and judgmental religious man. A nut. A bigoted evangelist. Some Bible bashing zealot who will condemn you unless you accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior.

    Except the Jesus that man speaks of is not my Jesus.

    My Jesus was a human who lived and died. He was a brilliant thinker, and a spiritual revolutionary. He was the least zealous spiritual leader of his time. He was a man who taught that awakening is not about escaping the world of form, but embracing it.

    He was a man who bucked against his destiny. Sometimes pleading to be absolved of the responsibility he felt, and the pain he was asked to endure.

    He was a man who got angry and spoke out, condemning those who abused power for their own egoic gain.

    He was a man who taught that the heart is the center of life. He was a man that loved others with his own human heart, deeply and profoundly. He was a man that loved a woman profoundly.

    I have tears even as I write this.

    He told me once that he felt sad that the stories of him had edited out his great love, Mary, with whom he taught and entwined. The woman who was the other half of his awakening and of his teaching.

    My Jesus is not a man who will judge you if you do not do as the bible says.

    He’s laughing as I write that. That’s so very far from who he was.

    What I’ve learned from him

    As I’ve strived to bring my work into the world, there’s one thing that I’ve been continually challenged by, one trial that has faced me down in a myriad of forms. Doubt. The great doubt.

    Can I really do this?

    Am I truly worthy?

    Who am I to say this?

    I’ve walked into new territories where the maps have been sketchy at best. I’ve felt continually pulled back by the gravitational force of safety and conformity. And I’ve questioned my work, deeply, time and time and time again.

    I could not have come through all the trials I’ve faced without a faith in something larger than myself. I could not have stepped out vulnerably into the unknown without a trust in a force greater than I.

    Jesus has been a divine guide for me. A true representative of God. And a man, who lived, loved and lost. He’s always there for me if I want to ask him something.

    I just asked him what he thought of me writing this piece. He said he likes it.

    He said he likes me speaking.

    Ewan Townhead

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