Sacred Awakenings Series: Angelis Arrien

Produced by The Shift Network, hosted by Stephen Dinan
Gratitude and blessings to our volunteer transcriber, Annette Hallette
To listen to the full audio, register at http://www.sacredawakeningseries.com

Stephen Dinan: Welcome to the Sacred Awakening Series. We are delighted to be able to introduce a new featured guest today, Angelis Arrien, who has been one of the wisest most heartfelt Elders of the whole consciousness movement for quite some time. She has written a number of remarkable books. She is a cultural anthropologist, award winning author, educator and consultant. She is originally from a Basque immigrant family. The Basque are from the Pyrenees Mountains in Spain. She is very interested in cross-cultural studies and holds an advanced degree from U.C. Berkley. She has really devoted the last forty five years to the pursuit of the universal and  perennial wisdoms which she has  summarized and distilled and explored in her seven books. The most well known “The Second Half of Life,” and “The Four Fold way: Walking the Path  of Warrior, Healer, Visionary, and Teacher.”

Angeles you have had a tremendous career and offered so much wisdom in so many realms. Thank you so much for joining us here tonight.

Angeles Arrien:  It is my honour and pleasure Stephen. Thank you very, very much.

         

Stephen:  I always find it nice to have a little bit of a personal back story for the leaders we feature, to allow people to connect with you on a personal level.  Could you share some of the personal life experiences that really put you on to the path to being a Spiritual leader today?

Angeles:  I always knew I wanted to be a teacher.  I always wanted to be involved in something that would be meaningful to human beings cross culturally. Those two things I knew, but the rest has been an invisible guidance. I really wanted to increase cultural and religious tolerance in the world and that has been my focus really through the teachings of the Four Fold Way and also taking a look at what we share as human beings beyond our cultural imprinting and our family conditioning. What are the points of unity where we can appreciate the diversity that resides on the globe? In many ways I have been very very blessed in that I have been able to travel to as many countries as I have  being a cultural anthropologist. I was sitting on the steps of the Sorbonne, lost in thought when a young man asked what I was lost in thought about .Well I thought this was probably a come on line and I tried to defer it. But he said “No! I am really interested in what you were  so lost in thought about , so I said “well if you must know,  I was thinking that if I ever was going back to graduate school, I would want to  study something that was more into music , or religion ,and philosophy, something that was more international.”  He said “Well I know what that is”, and he reached into his back pack and pulled out a catalogue and showed me cultural anthropology, and sure enough it was music and philosophy and religion and arts and international work. It was a catalogue from UC Berkley which he gave to me wished me luck and left. That was the beginning of my journey, a catalogue left by an important stranger

Stephen: Hmm! That seems a good way to start the journey. The Basque tradition is not one that most people are familiar with and it is something that you have drawn from in creating your work. I would love to just hear something about that and what are the unique qualities of it.

Angeles: Well the linguists of today still do not know where the Basque language has come from. It still remains a mystery.  It is not an Indo European language at all. Even though many people think that the Basques may be the last of

Cro Magnon man. The language itself is very ancient, and like most mountain peoples very land based. The Basques have learned very much from nature as a mirror, and nature and silence are what really have determined the character of most mountain people.   

Stephen:   Was there not a time when you made a long pilgrimage back through that country, and made a spiritual re- connection with that country

Angeles:  Absolutely! El Camino is a huge old pilgrimage trail, an initiatory trail, and so it has really formulated so much of my interest in Nature. It is one of the reasons that I have for years taken people on wilderness experiences, three days and three nights in the desert, or on the California coast.  I have taken over ten thousand people  out on the land , because I really believe that once people are really deeply connected to Nature and silence, that  the combination is very transformative in  remembering who we are and why we are here.

Stephen:  I think that one thing that you bring that is very unique is this kind of archetypal perspective to walking the spiritual path. It connects to the four fold way. Perhaps you could speak about the power of these archetypes in starting to see our journey in a different way

Angeles:  Well when I was in my early thirties I began to take a look at what all the cultures in the world have in common, and how that fits in with the archetypes. In this I was deeply impacted by the work of Margaret Meade, Joseph Campbell, and Houston Smith, also Mercia Eliade. Every culture of the world has Laws of Governance or ways of leadership and transmitting, which is the archetype of the way of the warrior. Warrior is and old fashioned term for leadership. Every culture of the world has a medicine model, and a folk medicine model that runs parallel and that is the archetype of the way of the healer. Every culture of the world has an educational model  a way of transmitting values and knowledge  that is important to them, which is the archetype of the way of the teacher. Every culture of the world has a way of being involved in manifesting one’s life dream, or one’s life calling or creative gifts and talents. They all have the creative arts and the performing arts, which is the way of the visionary. It’s interesting that some of us start out developing our leadership gifts, or our healing gifts, or our teaching gifts, or our visionary gifts. The mark of a healthy person, in many traditional societies, is one who is equally strong in their visionary and leadership capabilities as well as their teaching and healing gifts.

Stephen: So we don’t want to pigeon hole ourselves in any one of these archetypes.

Angeles:   No! No! No! In fact we want to weave them all together, which they naturally do anyway.  Leadership requires that we stay connected with our heart, which is a way of transmitting healing, and also a way of teaching, imparting information. It is also a way of manifesting one's creativity.

Stephen:  So each archetype is like a curriculum for us to master in moving towards this larger wholeness.

Angeles:  Absolutely! That is well said!

Stephen:   So when you work with people using these archetypes, how do you go about making them real and relevant and powerful for their journey?

Angeles: We work seasonally.  The archetype of the Warrior, the leader is the winter work. The archetype of the healer is spring work. The archetype of the visionary is really summer work, and the archetype of the teacher is the fall…learning how to let go, and work through our attachments just as the leaves fall from the tree.

It’s the Warrior’s way to show up and to choose to be present: and it’s the Healers way to pay attention to what has heart meaning, and it is the Visionary’s way to communicate what we see, to tell the truth without blame or judgment; and it is the teacher’s way to be open, to out come to plan well, and prepare well. Not to be attached to outcome but open to solutions that we have not considered.  I bring what are the best leadership tools, and the best ancient and modern practices of   leadership, we work with that during the season of winter. I bring together the eight universals that support health and well being, we work with that in the spring. In the summer we take wilderness experience, three days and three nights, either in the Arizona desert or the California coast, on three hundred acres of Pomo Land, for really seeing where we are with our gifts and creativity, gifts and talents and life calling. Then in the fall we take a look at the wisdom way, which works around forgiveness and letting go. We do work about being able to apply our experience in ways that make a difference in the world, through fair self talk, and releasing our harshness around the self critic.

Stephen:   What I love about that is that archetypes often sound a little abstract to people, and you have bought them down to a very elemental level with the season changing. It is a nice way to imprint the balance of the two because a year obviously is composed of all equal parts of those seasons, so it seems a great way to do it.

Angeles:  what is interesting is that we are creatures of Nature, and Nature’s rhythm is medium to slow. There is nothing in Nature that moves in the fast lane unless it is in danger. So we are in an age when there is so much living in the fast lane and living out of our rhythm. There is a lot we can do in the fast lane but there are two things we can never do in the fast lane. We cannot integrate our experience or deepen our character .We have to slow down and come back in to our natural rhythm which is medium to slow, and take care of the three crucibles of life. Many of us will make room for work and creativity which is one crucible, and make room for family and relationships, which is a second crucible, but the third crucible of self care, and renewal, and regeneration, and reflection, is an important crucible which many people have a tendency to sacrifice. I know in this culture people refuse to car pool because it’s the only time they have to be alone, or that they want alone, in order to renew or just process the day of work, before they enter home. So this is another benefit of working with the seasons because we come back into Natures rhythm, which is our natural rhythm, which is medium to slow. This allows us to take care of all three crucibles of life.

Stephen: I really love that idea that life’s rhythm is really medium to slow. This is something my wife and I will often remind ourselves of because we have a tendency to get into an over-hyped rhythm ourselves. It sort of connects in a interesting way with your other most well known book “The Second Half of Life” In our culture we really have this bias towards the fast speedy youth kind of energy, and we have tipped the scales in that direction, and this whole sort of medium to slow reflective kind of pacing we tend to associate more with our elders, but we don’t value it as much in our culture.  I think you have done a beautiful job of starting to reclaim that kind of wisdom, and the great beauty of that second half of life. Perhaps this would be a good opportunity to start talking about that.

Angeles: Well I think it’s interesting because the one thing that motivated me to write “The Second Half of Life” is that America has a horrendous statistic of having a higher suicide rate among its youth and its elders than any other culture in the world. I think there is a real reason for that. First of all we are a very young culture. We are the youngest culture. Every other culture of the world has intergenerational bridges where they call on the creativity and the vision and the energy of the youth, but they also call on the wisdom and deep experience of the elders. They don’t separate out the elders from the community, or separate out the youth. So I think this country has more people entering into eldership, which really begins at sixty years of age, with the turning point being at fifty, the halfway mark. We have more people now in this country that are coming into their sixties than any other age group. Wisdom is not age bound. There are many twenty, thirty, forty, fifty year olds that are very wise; but if after the age of fifty we are not demonstrating some kind of wisdom, it’s less than becoming. I think that is one of the great passages that are happening right now, in this culture. Many of the boomers are being initiated into their wisdom years. I think it is interesting that there is a connection between the millennium, the eighteen to thirty year olds, and the boomers. Many of them want this intergenerational connection and are starting to build that.

 Stephen:  I wonder if there are certain practices that you teach, or recommend for people, to help really engage this medium to slow rhythm and start to open them to the sacred dimension of life.

Angeles: Well there are two tracking tools that are really very helpful. They take us back to a reflective mode at the end of the day. In order to be able to integrate our experience we have to able to track it and most people don’t track the experiences they are having during the day. There are four questions which act as tracking tools, and if you ask the four questions at the end of each day, then you are able to reflect on the day, and you are also able to integrate your experience. Integrated experience is what develops character. Without taking time for reflection, or integration, or practices, we cannot integrate our experience or develop our character.  These questions are

1: Who or what inspired me today?

2: Who or what challenged me today? Challenge in the truest sense means to stretch or grow.

3:  What surprised me today? Children love surprises, but as we age we tend to lose our connection to adventure, or wonder, or curiosity, or discovery. Surprise keeps us flexible, and so does humour, and laughter, and fun, and play. If we don’t like surprises, and we have lost our sense of humor, then we are less flexible, and we become quite rigid or controlling. So it is important to track ‘What surprised me today?’ because you can always count on surprises every day. The Inuit people say “You can count on two plans for everyday, my plan and the mystery’s plan” and usually the mystery’s plan brings surprise or the unexpected.

The last question would be

4: Where was I touched and moved today? Wherever I was touched and moved today, that is where my heart is still open. If I can’t be touched and moved then my heart has begun to close. Human beings are here for two purposes, one is to learn about love, and to express love, and the other is to create and contribute and to serve.

These four questions are reflective questions that help integration. They are four tracking tools. 

The second practice is the practice of gratitude. If you practice gratitude on a daily basis it keeps the heart open and if the heart is open then we can experience life and answer those questions quite readily. If the heart is closed then we have more difficulty integrating our experience. It is impossible to give gratitude from a closed heart. Cross culturally we often give gratitude for our blessings, but worldwide there are really four portals for giving gratitude; One: for our blessings; Two: for our learning; Three: for the mercies or compassion that have been extended to us, or mercies or compassion we have extended to others; Four: for our protections, and how our families and children have been protected, or are safe during the day.  Those are the four universal portals for giving gratitude.

These are the two major tools that I think assist people in reflective and integrative practices.

 Stephen: That is really very stimulating on a deep level. It’s making me realize how we jam in more and more experiences in our culture and in our way. We get a little adolescent fixation because we are not providing the time to integrate and digest, as you are saying with the four questions; What inspired me? What challenged me? What surprised me? And what protected me? So you are taking the opportunity every day to digest and therefore to translate the experience into a deepened character. This is a formulation that I have not really heard elsewhere.

Angeles: It’s also tracking at the end of the day; What was strengthened in my nature today? What was softened in my nature today, some of the rough edges rounded? What was opened in my nature today? And what was deepened in my nature? What fell into place or came together as part of the deepening process? So that is also another tracking tool.

 Stephen:  I would like to open the floor for those wishing to ask questions now, but I would also urge everyone to visit Angeles’s website for information on her upcoming workshops and seminars http://www.angelesarrien.com

Avianca:  I missed the first portal for giving gratitude

 Angeles:  The first portal is blessings, giving gratitude for blessings.

 Avianca:  It’s interesting because you touched on something for me. I have been keeping a gratitude log for about eight or nine years, and every day regardless of what kind of a crappy day I am having, I will just write what it is that is a blessing . You have inspired me to go back...I keep it in my Blackberry …so I went back and I found that on September 11th 2001, living in New York City I wrote “my family is alive, everyone I know is safe, and those that aren’t safe are in the care of God”. It is amazing to me how something so simple is so mind blowingly deeply spiritual so I just wanted to thank you to, as well as ask that quick question.

Angeles:  Well thank you so much. The practice of gratitude, recent research has shown does, not only, support our health and well being, but it also, supports creativity and productivity and increases our natural abundance as well.

 Avianca: You know I like that you use business terms, I am going to hit up my boss with that, but that is a whole other thing! Thank you.

Arlene: I have wanted to be with you for a long time. I just have two questions. Can I use the name ‘A Braided Way’? It’s actually a quote of yours” we must learn to walk the braided way.” I have a small healing business.

Angeles:  Yes you may, of course, as long as you attribute it.

Arlene:   I myself, my dreams, have lost direction. My shamanic journey gave me wrong information, my astrology led me down the wrong road, and I‘ve lost my way, in my personal path, not in my work. This is kind of a big place for me, and I am not sure what comes next. Anywhere I turn is wrong, and my whole journey was wrong which has never happened before.

 Angeles:  well the good news about any detour on the path is that you always come back clearer on what you need emotionally, and what you don’t. I think probably what is happening is that you are being asked to look more inward, and trust more your own intuition, rather than going outward.

 Arlene:   Okay, well that makes a lot of sense. But everything on the outside really bombed

Angeles:  Unfortunately you can’t rely on the external, but you can always count on the internal. I would take a look at spending some time just in meditation. The wisdom voices always declare it. They are never analytical, critical or judgmental or doubting. The wisdom voices always declare it. If it’s like

“Call now”!
“Finish it by Friday”!
Or “Time to rest”!
“Vacation in Hawaii in April”…

It’s always declarative. So you don’t want to be making decisions from the critical or the doubting or the over analytical, second guessing voices within, because then you will get lost. So just wait until all those voices calm down then, in meditation, or there will be like white noise then stillness, then the wisdom or the intuitive voice will pop up.

 Arlene: Okay, Thank you. I am glad I will get Emails from you now.

Angeles:   That’s great, Thank you very much.

Jean:  I am asking you to repeat the four tracking tools for the end of the day, I did not get them all.

Angeles:  Who or what is inspired me today? Who or what challenged me today? Who or what surprised me today? Where was I touched and moved today. 

Jean: There were some others?

Angeles:  What has strengthened in my nature today? What has softened the rough edges of me today? What has opened me today? And what has deepened or fallen into place today?

Jean: Thank you. That is wonderful, thank you so much.

Angeles: You’re welcome, thank you so much.

Theresa: I have heard you speak about Tarot in the past.  I have my own Tarot practice. I am curious about The Four Fold Way and if you connect those paths with the suits of the Tarot? And if so, then how?

 Angeles: The suits are also associated; Swords with the mental process, Cups with the emotional processes,  Wands with the intuitive or spiritual processes, and Discs or Pentacles with the external  world, health, finances work,  and creativity.  The four Archetypes are also associated with the four elements of Earth Air Fire and Water. Swords are Air, Cups is water, Wands is fire, Pentacles or Discs is Earth.  The Visionary Archetype is associated with Fire; the Teacher Archetype is associated with Air; the Warrior Archetype is associated with Earth; the Healing Archetype is associated with Water

Theresa: Very good, thank you.

Angeles: You are welcome.

Max: I can witness for anyone on the call today just what your teaching has done for me. I have done the Fourfold Wisdom Path, and your Indigenous Wisdom Training. Four years of it has stood the test of time for me, and certainly continues to do so in my work. I returned to you a few years ago. Somebody was talking about losing heart. Well I was where the transformational process really takes you to that liquefaction place , where you are just undone .Once again you started me on my path, just by sharing those four questions for tracking. Once again, here today just hearing you, something about being in your energy field I so … well you know ... I love you!

Angeles: Well thank you. It’s nice to hear from you and I hope you are doing well.

Max: I am doing well. It’s probably time for me to work with you again! I do have one question for you. There was a place there where you were talking about the integrated experiences and, of course, one of my favorite quotes from you is       ” to walk the mystical path on practical feet”, and the moderator said something about this being a mature model, and you said something about “we can’t move forward and be on purpose without these reflections”…I wonder if you could speak a bit more about this.

Angeles:   Without integrating our experiences we cannot develop our character. Also we do not mature. Character development or reclaiming the authentic self requires reflection and integration. Without time for reflection, or integration and practice, we cannot reclaim the authentic self, so as to do our character development work.

Max: Beautiful! That is exactly what I wanted to hear again.

 Vivian:  Hi! I resonate so much with everything you are saying, and I would like to ask you two questions. How do you integrate the energy of vortices? Because Nature is comprised of those. I was wondering if you are looking at different vortices in the earth. Also; is there a community practicing all these tenets, that you would recommend?  I would like to live in that kind of world. I have had 30 years of meditation, and integration of what has occurred in those meditations. I find that energy is very important to me

Angeles: Where do you live?

Vivian:  I live in the high desert of California, north east of LA. So I live in a community that is filled with vortices which are untapped, but also I feel like I am like a dowsing rod.  Wherever I walk I can feel the energy, and sometimes it’s pretty negative, because there have been some burial sites that have been disturbed.

Angeles:   Right I think what would be really important. The earth in itself is a living organism. In our work there is a wonderful campaign ‘Four Years Go’.

The next four years are going to be a very important time to take care of the earth, and in ways live more green. As we can come more into alignment with outer nature, it helps us come into line with our internal nature. So since you are sensitive to the earth as it is, it would be important to take a look at this wonderful movement that is called “Four Years Go”. I think this will give you a wonderful community that is working on the same thing. (www.fouryearsgo.org)

 Vivian:   What about the vortices? Do you work on those? Do you integrate that in your work?

Angeles: No I don’t specifically. Basically my work is mostly about getting people connected to the land, and taking care of the earth.

Vivian: That’s very similar. That’s exactly what that is. Thank You

Angeles: You are so welcome.

Stephen:  Well now, Angeles, something I have heard you say before,  that I think is quite wise,” Really important things we need to say multiple times just to make them sink in”. Maybe we can end this call with some of the most important things that people can take away, from what we shared today. Just repeat some of those so that they sink in for us.

Angeles: The two sets of questions are good questions for integration work and reflection work

 The first set:-

What inspired me today?
What challenged me today?
What surprised me today?
What touched and moved me today?

The second set of questions would be:-

What strengthened me today?
What softened today?
What opened today?
What deepened today?
What fell into place is deepening?

Then there is the practice of gratitude that keeps the heart open .There are four universal portals through which we can express gratitude. Many of us are, of course aware of the first portal which is blessings; we give gratitude for our blessings. We give gratitude for our learnings, which is the second portal.  We give gratitude for the mercies that have been opened, that have been extended to us today or that we have extended to others, compassion and mercy, or kindness that we have received or given. Then the protections, to give gratitude for how we are protected by the seen and the unseen world.

That we are actually working everyday with the four archetypes of the Warrior, an old fashioned term for Leader, the Healer, the Teacher and the Visionary.  Every day we just need to show up, choose to be present, which is the Warrior’s way. When we show up then we can see what’s in our heart, and know what is in our heart, and that is the Healers way. We can pay attention to what has heart meaning. Once we know what’s in our heart, and we have shown up, then we can tell the truth without blame or judgment, or share what we see from an authentic place which is the way of the Visionary. Then we can be open to outcome, not attached to outcome, because we have planned well, and prepared well, that is the Teacher’s way. That encapsulates some of the major places we have been today.

Stephen:  I really appreciate that. It is very practical. I love the saying “walk the mystical way on practical feet.” The way you distilled all that out feels very practical, but it is also making that deep sacred connection. Is there one message that you think the six million people here on Earth really need to hear at this time in our history? What would the message be that you would want to share?

Angeles:  Show up with your gifts and talents and make it a better world.

 Stephen: Any sort of prayer or blessing that you would like to share before you exit?

Angeles:   Let us fill and surround the world with love

Stephen: Thank you, Angeles for your great gift of Beingness, and your Presence which just shines through your words. You just radiate so much heart, and love, and wisdom.

Angeles:  Well thank you so much for the opportunity and making it so easy and providing such a wonderful crucible for people to come together and remember who we are, and why we are here.