it’s become impossible to step back - What Casts the Shadow? by Seth Mullins

That’s how I learned to play so well within just a handful of years. I gave up on the romanticized notion of a normal social life and focused on practicing and creating. Tommy, meanwhile, had picked up the bass. Somewhere along the line we discovered that we each had halfway-decent singing voices as well, at least for the kind of abrasive music we were writing.

Description:

A troubled young rock musician, a mystic mentor, and a generation of lost souls longing for a new voice to emerge from the wilderness... When an altercation outside of a performance venue nearly proves fatal, Brandon Chane begins to realize how far his life is spinning out of control. His efforts to channel his pain, frustration and thwarted loves into his music may not suffice to save him. Then he meets Saul, a crisis counselor with the soul of an ancient medicine man, and a far-reaching journey of healing - one that may teach him how to steer away from the very edge of the abyss - begins

GUEST POST

Looking to the World to Fulfill Us

Most of us learned at a very young age to seek affirmation of our own worth from somewhere "out there" in the world. Without approval we have no value. Our society reinforces this message in thousands of subtle (and not so subtle) ways.

This is a dynamic that can play itself out in intimate partnerships, friendships, business connections, all kinds of relationships in life. When we're reliant upon someone else to demonstrate our worth to us, we enter into a relationship basically saying, "I'll fulfill your needs if you'll show me who I am."

A lot of romantic relationships that might otherwise have flourished end up floundering and falling apart because one partner (or both) expects the other to provide something that no human being can. A sense of self, of purpose and fulfillment, all these things have to grow from within us. If we project the need for them onto others and expect them to provide the answer to the riddle of our lives, they'll inevitably disappoint us. Not only that, but we'll be blind to the fact that they're probably searching just as hard for answers as we are.

This is, sadly, probably the most crippling effect of expectation and need: it prevents us from seeing other people for who they really are. We give our love only on the condition that we get affirmation in return; when people fail to do this, we withhold love. It's an old game that's been played out for as long as humans have been around.

In “What Casts the Shadow?”, Brandon Chane’s mentor, Saul Mason, tries to help him identify that ways in which he disowns his personal power and, as a result, then feels himself at the mercy of the world.

“Your suffering only ever has one real cause,” Saul went on. “Do you know what it is?”

I could only shake my head.

He pointed towards the window. “Believing that your experience comes to you from out there! When you thank or blame the world for whatever happens to you. When you’re ignorant of the fact that it all originated within you - like most people on this planet are, day in and day out.”

This was all too abstract for me, like some Eastern “all is illusion” philosophy. I was suddenly agitated.

“All right, Saul, give me one concrete example of what the hell you’re talking about.”

He didn’t have to think about it a moment. “This girl who you’ve been seeing: Do you think your meeting happened by accident?”

“Well, how would you explain it?”

“I’d say that you crossed paths with her because you were ready to let yourself be cared for. I can see that in you. I hear it in the way that you’ve been talking all throughout this session. You discovered the intimacy with yourself first, and then the relationship followed.”

Our own inner guidance, that quiet but clear voice from within, is a greater authority than any guru, teacher, parent, spouse, etc., because it is from this place that we can know that we’re on a path unlike any other’s. 

When people come together freely, understanding their own worth and not needing the world to mirror it, it is the very essence of unconditional love. Some people may need to know themselves a little better before they can achieve this. They may need to try loving themselves before they run out and pour affection onto anyone else. Our society isn't going to encourage anyone to take this route. It insists that the right diet supplements, deodorant, and hair gel will do the trick. But if we take a little more responsibility for our own reality and truth, it just might spare us - and the people we involve ourselves with - a lot of pain and confusion in the long run.

EXCERPT

The Edge of the Precipice

I suppose you could compare it to driving on a high mountain road. You don’t realize how close you are to free-fall, or how sheer and far is the plunge, until you go around a bend where one side is exposed to open air and then there it is: The Abyss.

There’s this edge that you can come to – I imagine it’s a different place for each of us – and you just know that once you get swept over it you won’t be coming back. By the time you’re close enough to see it it may already be too late. You could find yourself teetering, suddenly hearing the warnings that life had been giving you all along, knowing that it’s become impossible to step back; because by that time, those other forces – the ones pounding like the rapids at your back, always trying to push you towards that edge and then over it – have grown too strong.

Tommy and I first talked about forming a band together before either of us had learned to play an instrument. We both perceived music – particularly, its heavy, extreme underside - as the ideal vehicle for our personal salvation. The first guitar that I purchased, a Fender Telecaster that I immediately spray painted black to my father’s horror, became my refuge. It was my best friend and confidante. It gave me a convenient excuse to avoid social situations that, more often than not, would only remind me of how far off the beaten path I really was – and, oftentimes, land me in one merciless scrap or another. Instead, I could just sit in my basement room for hours, listening to my various hardcore underground cassettes while trying to trace the riffs I was hearing along the frets of my charcoal-colored axe.

That’s how I learned to play so well within just a handful of years. I gave up on the romanticized notion of a normal social life and focused on practicing and creating. Tommy, meanwhile, had picked up the bass. Somewhere along the line we discovered that we each had halfway-decent singing voices as well, at least for the kind of abrasive music we were writing.

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About the author:

Seth Mullins writes visionary fiction, stories that seek for a marriage between the invisible inner landscape from whence our dreams and deepest inspirations come and the waking world, the world that we call ‘the real’, which sorely needs those life-giving forces. The result is fiction that seethes with surface drama and conflict while at the same time revealing aspects of the deeper mysteries of reality and of our own souls. 

The Edge of the Known series, his most recent project, is also inspired by years spent as a songwriter and performing musician. Seth has spent part of his life in Connecticut, New Mexico and Oregon, and currently lives in Vermont.

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