Radiant Joy Brilliant Love

by Clinton Callahan

  Mike says, “I did this because I wanted to live with a Nine Cow Woman.”

  SECTION 14-B

  Reinventing People

  Nine Cow methodology sounds so simple. Actually it is simple, but it is not easy. We use Nine Cow methodology often in our everyday relationships with people, but we use the methodology unconsciously to surround ourselves with pigs, idiots, and untrustworthy persons. It contradicts years of habit for us to try something different than pig-making. It is not so easy to use the Nine Cow procedure consciously to surround ourselves with Kings and Queens, with real friends.

  I sometimes tell the Nine Cow story in trainings and then I pair up men and women and have them sit facing each other. I invite each man to look at the woman and speak to her as a Nine Cow Woman, and I invite each woman to look at and speak to the men as a Nine Cow Man. And they cannot do it. At first this was very unsettling to me. But, after repeated experiments, I learned that this is actually how it is. Nine-Cowing someone takes practice because in order to Nine Cow someone you have to reinvent reality. This is how you recreate people. You reinvent your experience of who they are by looking for evidence that supports the story that leads to your experience of your experience.

  In every moment you are creating or storytelling, and your creating/storytelling is either serving your conscious purposes or your unconscious purposes. When you relate to another person, whether it is your mate or even a stranger, you are either creating a King or Queen or creating a pig. If you are trying to make the person wrong, prove that you are right, point out how they are making mistakes, how they do not understand, you are making them into pigs. You are either functioning as a King-maker or pig-maker. You get to choose. Them being a King or a pig is entirely up to you. With each thought you think, with the tone and spin on each word that you speak, you get to choose. If you are a woman living with a man, you have a choice as to whom you live with. What you want is revealed to you by what you have up to this point chosen. Your choice may not have been a conscious choice, but conscious or unconscious, you have chosen it. If you are living with a pig, guess who makes him into a pig?

  The world is rich in evidence. You are immensely creative. You can find evidence to support any story. Even the tiniest bit of evidence is sufficient to support your story that your partner is a pig. “He picks his fingernails. He loses his glasses. He trips over the spots in the linoleum.” One incident is sufficient evidence for your Box to create a story about someone for a lifetime. The same amount of evidence can be used to support the story that they are a King or Queen. You get to choose.

  Mike did not at first have much evidence to support the story that Mary was a Nine Cow Woman, but he found one thing and he clung to it. Maybe it was the delicateness with which she held her wrist when she passed the tray of food. Maybe that was the only evidence he could find to support his story that she was a Nine Cow Woman. That one thing is enough. Mike then only paid attention to her wrist. By monitoring his attention he practiced eliminating any other evidence from his awareness. If contradictory evidence ever arose he undoubtedly used his Voice Blaster (see Glossary or Section 6-B) to vaporize the images, the feelings, or the voices in his head. A fierce commitment to discipline made it possible to avoid indulging in contradictory evidence. The quality of delicateness in her wrist was all that he saw about her. This is exactly what we can do when we look at our mate or our children, our colleague or our neighbor. We can choose to look at them and see only evidence to support the story that they are a King or Queen.

  Choosing the evidence you use to make stories is not about being naïve or Pollyannaish. It is not about blinding yourself and living in a fantasy world. Choosing the evidence you use to make stories is about taking responsibility at the level of story making. As you stop making stories that serve your unconscious hidden purposes, you become a conscious story maker.

  A word of warning: If you are planning to try the Nine Cow experiment, you should know that it takes a minimum of three months of effort before the subject of the experiment begins to believe you – before they start to recontextualize themselves in response to your perceptions of them. For three months you are going to look at only one tiny little piece of evidence to support the story that he or she is a King or Queen. After three months something extraordinary will start to shift in them, and it will show up when you least expect it. The changes that happen are literally “impossible.” You will have reinvented reality.

  She Said

  “I don’t want to hear about the darkness,” She said,

  With a gentle aching cry.

  “Write me a love song, “She said,

  “So I can open my sweet wings and fly.”

  “I don’t want to dwell in the madness,” She said,

  “I want to concentrate on the light.

  So keep your cynicism to yourself,” She said,

  “I want to love not fight.”

  Thank God for the Women.

  Thank God for the Women

  In these times of confusion.

  Thank God for the Women

  They keep us from drowning in illusion.

  Yeah, thank God for the Women.

  “Take your talk of war and pain,” She said,

  “Get it out of my face.

  Leave it for your conversations with the other boys.

  I want to talk of love and beauty and grace.”

  Thank God for the Women.

  She slaps us in the face with Her cold hard truth

  That turns soft and warm when our hearts let loose.

  Thank God for the Women.

  “I will not indulge your terrors,” She said,

  “Let my touch begin to heal.

  There isn’t time to hash out all the wrongs,” She said,

  “It’s only bright joy we need to feel.”

  And I said, “Thank God for the Women!”

  “Confusion and doubt are useless,” She said,

  “Things are simple in my view.

  I’m not interested in things that don’t work.

  I’d rather give myself to a life of loving you.”

  Oh, thank God for the Women!

  (Lyrics from the CD écrasé par l’amour (crushed by love) written and sung by Lee Lozowick. Muse-ic Records © 2004 Lee Lozowick. All rights reserved. Used with permission.)

  Reinventing reality is a huge responsibility. Think about it. You become responsible for who other people are to you. Your story about them creates your experience of them, which creates their experience of themselves. You become responsible for how they see themselves.

  Normally we think that we first experience someone and then, based on that experience, we understand who they really are. But human beings are so vast and complex that there are thousands of things you could experience about any given person, and use to create your story. Normally you select one or two details that match the requirements of protecting your Box’s opinions. Although you often choose superficial evidence, you decide that what you have chosen to experience about that person is who that person actually is. Then you are stuck in the past, relating to your old story about a person, rather than being in the present relationship with the person as they are now.

  For example, when your boss walks in the door you already know what your story about your boss is. You immediately put on your scanners and start looking for the evidence you can use today to support the story that you already have. When you find the evidence you think, “See! He really is an asshole! Look at this evidence! The evidence proves it! Who could argue?” All you see is the evidence that you looked for, and you create your entire relationship with your boss based on that evidence.

  You pass your life this way never getting to be-with who is really there. And the days you have spent creating assholes to support your unconscious hidden purposes – you will never get those days back.

  An experiment to try would be to “reinvent” your boss or your child. The next time you see them use the same scanner yo
u used to find evidence for making him or her into a jerk, but this time use the scanner to find evidence to prove the story that they are geniuses in their own way and worthy of your highest respect. Look and look and keep looking until your Gremlin takes a nap and releases the editorial controls of the filters of your Box. Suddenly you will have new evidence to work with. With your boss, your child, or anyone you are doing this experiment with – and I recommend that you do it often – the evidence could be something as small and simple as noticing that their shoes are polished, that they comb their hair, that they love dogs, or that they ask interesting questions. The next time you see him or her, focus on that one detail about them to the exclusion of all others, and tell yourself, “This person is responsible. What attention! What care they are capable of! Shoes are just physical objects, but with all their other responsibilities they really care enough to see that their shoes are polished.” Then say to him or her, “Good morning, Mr. or Ms. Fritz,” or, “Good afternoon, Sam. I’ve never told you this before, but I have great respect for you because of how you care for details. Your shoes are an example.” Do not expect any particular kind of response. This can be a brief interaction. Then continue with your reinvention by telling your colleagues or neighbors the same thing, and then tell your mate the same thing. “I have such respect for them because of their attention to this.” Keep looking for evidence of things you can truly admire and appreciate about your boss or your child and do that for three months. In this time you are creating a legend about them – a legend they will not be able to resist – and more and more of the evidence will start conforming to the legend you have created. Soon you will have produced a Nine Cow boss or a Nine Cow child. Now, whom would you rather work for or get ready for school in the morning? A Nine Cow person or a pig?

  How you see and speak about people is how they will show up for you. What is possible when you relate to someone as worth nine cows is a lot different than when you relate to them as worth two cows. When you relate to someone as worth nine cows, as being whole, complete and with a bright future – as opposed to someone with “problems” and needing to be fixed – the possibility of a Nine Cow relationship emerges. You now have created for yourself a playing field for extraordinary human and Archetypal Relationship. Then, simply refuse to change your mind.

  CHAPTER 15

  The Experience of Countenance

  Over fifteen years ago I was introduced to an experience that I have come to refer to as Countenance. Without linear preparation, without maps, my attempts at trying to figure out what happened and how it fit in with the rest of my known world at the time, were rather futile. Still, I wanted what happened to have happened, so I wrote about it as best I could. What I wrote is included below. Looking back, I now understand that the capitalized “You” in this and all further writings in this book refers to impersonalized Archetypal Love.

  SECTION 15-A

  Countenance, the First Time

  From my journal, April 1994

  You got me. I did not think that You ever would. I might even have bet on that. After all, I am forty-two years old. But looking backwards I can see that all the clues led me step by step to the point where my heart gets broken.

  I did not think that it would happen like this, gazing. Just gazing, and drinking tea! I did not suspect that in that moment You were reaching for me. In actuality, there probably has never been a moment when You were not reaching for me. All these years You have been waiting, waiting, endlessly patient. Were You confident in the results? I doubt it. I would not have been. But without hesitation You have only waited, never ceasing to reach out for me.

  Then unexpectedly, this one time, as I gaze, something slowly burns through the thoughts just as the sun burns through morning fog. It is the realization that You are reaching out to me, that even with all my imperfections, my human frailties, You completely want me and receive me. The dawning reformulates my consciousness, like what happens when you study chaotic patterns in special posters where you change the focus of your eyes and suddenly three-dimensional pictures appear. The new image is always inherently there but the viewer must shift to perceive it. Somehow I shift.

  As I come to realize that You are completely open and intentionally inviting me to fully enter Your realm, a bolt of pure terror rips through my body. I am instantly and automatically blocked against that kind of surrender, that kind of intimacy. If I continued then in a moment I would be closer to You than to my own mind. My eyes want to dart around the room, my mouth wants to chatter, my mind generates a million questions. I know there is something else I should be doing right now. Please let there be something else! Anything but this!

  Yet somehow, miraculously, I do not make a sudden knee-jerk move that could “accidentally” destroy the space. Somehow the mind does not interrupt me with interesting or necessary thoughts to distract my attention forgetfully away from You. Somehow, the four bodies around me have built up barely enough tolerance of the intolerable that I can stick around rather than running away. What is happening now is the result of having 51-percent vote to stay put on this extremely intense spot. Maybe it is only 50.01 percent. Barely there, hanging on by a hair, like a tightrope walker balancing on the line for the first time without a safety net, making it, but verrrrry wiggly. Then, I remember to take a breath, and coach myself, “Relax those knots between your shoulders. There, see? It is not so bad, is it?” I keep trying. I keep paying attention. I try to relax and let the presence of the presence grow. I cannot grasp it, so subtle it is. If I grasp, it vanishes like smoke. If I relax in total alertness without pressure it comes back again. I am thinking, “Just allow. Just notice. Just accept and enjoy. It is not going anywhere. If you stop going anywhere it will stay there with you. Breathe!”

  Way back in there, somewhere, the mind is also screaming: “Hey! Stop this immediately! Let’s get out of here! What, are you crazy? We are going to die!!!”

  But there is another, deeper part of me that is feasting, gorging itself on this endless supply of indescribably nourishing nectar. And this is the part, right now, that has its fingers guarding the controls.

  And You just keep opening more and more, but with sensitivity, only as much as I can handle. You seem so relaxed, so comfortable, as if this were the most common thing in the world, while I am teetering on the edge of insanity.

  It seems that without feeling like I deserve it at all, I am somehow being initiated back into the Garden. It is the Garden that Archetypal Woman builds within the space held for that purpose by Archetypal Man. This is the Garden that Woman is, the Garden of Eden. Without explanation, without excuse, without warning, the door opens wider and wider. If I accept the invitation, I will be subsumed in Paradise. You are initiating me into what it means to be 90 percent Woman. Many forces urge me to be a thief, a vandal, to try to take all the goodies I can, then destroy what is left and run away. That would be possible because You are completely vulnerable. Matriarchy is defenseless. But to stay here, to keep from being expelled, I must become a beggar, one who has nothing to offer but gratitude, and who appreciates whatever is given. There is a fine distinction between what it is to be a beggar and what it is to be a thief. To be permitted to stay I cannot lie, no matter how much face I lose. In fact, I must lose all face, and instead just feel what I am feeling – the truth, all my fears, all my sadness, all my excitement.

  In Your embracing smile I see that there are no bad consequences to losing face. It is me you are offering to embrace, not my face.

  As I begin to sink into the immense stillness of Your presence, to accept Your invitation to be-with You, I also begin realizing that nothing else could ever feel this good. Nothing else could ever be so satisfying, so nourishing, so healing, so fulfilling. No kind of physical sensation, not touching the softest skin, not kisses, not orgasms, not swimming in the warm tropical ocean, not baking in the sun, not mangoes, not homemade cookies, not the most beautiful sunset or the most incredible movies or the most superb concer
t. As I relax into it – my body humming like a high voltage transformer – the only thought I have is a kind of attention which is monitoring my Gremlin. There is no way I want to lose my focus and let that monkey-mind take back control by asking fancy questions or cracking wiseacre jokes. No way. I keep calming the Gremlin while he sits muttering to himself at my feet on a very short leash. I keep trying to pay attention and relax.

  I notice that I am losing my usual concerns about even basic human needs, like knowing what time it is, or knowing what happens next. I begin to wonder to myself, “Can you imagine resting in this? What if it could be like this forever?”

  At the moment, this seems possible. Perhaps I died and went to heaven. On and on and on it goes. Nothing else is important. Nothing else matters. Nothing else counts. It becomes clear that the whole purpose of human-realm life is to support the miniscule chance that there could be a moment like this. And You have been just waiting, wanting, aching to share this with anyone who will come, offering direct undiluted contact with You since forever! How stupid I am for not surrendering to this before, for not accepting Your offer. How could I have been afraid of being so totally welcomed and held like this?

  I am scared to stop. What if this is it, my only chance to drink of You? What if…

  And realization hits me like a hand smacking a mosquito. I have been had.

  Here I have been given what feels like an endless source of pure ecstasy and after unreservedly jumping in I realize three things: 1) Once I have tasted Paradise I can never not be hungry for Paradise. 2) I am going to have to stop ecstatically drinking of You like this at some point, and go off to take care of the mundane details of life. 3) I am not in control of whether or not, or how, or when You are ever available to me like this again.