THIS IS THE WAY
Can six days of solitude and fasting in the wild prepare us to be Warriors of Peace?
“This is the Way” - the Code has spoken! If you are fortunate enough (or cursed, take your pick) to be born into the ultra-macho, rigid warrior code of the Mandalorians - a Star Wars-spinoff featuring the most unyielding war cult this side of ancient Sparta - these words leave no room for rebuttal. There is a Way, it guides our lives, and the Way has spoken.
And, oh yeah, don’t ever, ever, for any reason, remove your helmet, or we will shun you as a pariah.
(An admirer atttempts to remove the Mandalorian’s sacred helmet)
Or as another pop culture phenomenon would express the warrior Code, when Game of Thrones anti-hero Jaime Lannister invested the valiant Brienne of Tarth as the first woman knight of Westeros -
In the name of the Warrior, I charge you to be brave. In the name of the Father, I charge you to be just. In the name of the Mother, I charge you to defend the innocent. Arise, Brienne of Tarth, a Knight of the Seven Kingdoms!
(Ser Jamie Lannister knights Lady Brienne of Tarth in the final season of Game of Thrones)
And millions around the world wept and cheered when this scene aired for the first time, as millions wept and cheered at the mind-blowing sight of a youthful Mark Hamill showing up as the one and only true Jedi Knight, Luke Skywalker no less, to rescue the adorable “Baby Yoda,” Grogu, in the climactic episode of The Mandalorian’s second season.
(A stunningly de-aged Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker comes to Grogu’s rescue in The Mandalorian)
To me this says that millions of us secretly long to live by a Code worth following, a Way that may yet give meaning to our arid lives.
I first heard the term Sacred Activism in early 2009 - a pivotal year in my life as it turned out - and the following definition from mystic/activist Andrew Harvey burned itself into my heart:
Sacred Activism is the fusion of the mystic's passion for God with the activist's passion for justice, creating a third fire, which is the burning sacred heart that longs to help, preserve, and nurture every living thing.
In the fifteen years since then, I’ve taken a number of outsized risks in the name of Sacred Activism: leaving my marriage, turning my life upside down, leaving a safe job to take a hazardous free-lance journalism assignment in Indonesia exposing the corrupt financial elite, being ridiculed for attempting to lineally restore the original Order of the Knights Templar as the container for a new and enforceable international court of human rights (the original Templars were key movers behind Magna Carta, the underlying document of human rights in the West), going on alt-journalism whistle-blower shows to expose the Big Pharma/Big Telecom interests which so massively benefitted from the 5G/CV/Vx phenomenon, and, oh yeah, moving to the wacky, wonderful, remote mystic haven of Crestone, Colorado, which harbors mystics and dingbats in equal number, where I left the old wannabe Templar movement behind in an effort to truly understand and practice the ancient sacred science from which the original Templars arose.
(Michael Henry Dunn in Crestone, Colorado)
And all the while I’ve kept up my core occupation of singer and storyteller as best I can, writing two memoirs, recording and sharing sacred chants where I could, and doggedly developing what may yet prove to be a world-impact, revelatory documentary on the hidden spiritual life of a certain wildly popular global icon.
Like anyone else, however, I grow weary, disillusioned, discouraged, beaten up, my brain stress-fried and my heart devitalized, stumbling through errors, failures, and betrayals as we all do. And yet, most likely because of my steady adherence to the meditation path of my sacred teacher, Paramahansa Yognanda, I am always nudged by an unseen hand towards ways of healing, to sacred places and dazzling wilderness where one’s spirit can be restored.
The most recent such merciful miracle led me to a Sacred Passage retreat in utter solitude, in total wilderness, under the guidance of the remarkable mystic, scientist, adventurer, activist, author, shaman, and master teacher, John P. Milton, a founding father of the Environmental Movement, who over the last 50 years has led thousands of people on transformative vision quests into wild Nature - the only place, it seems, where we can shed the burdens of modernity and reconnect with our original indigenous selves, where, through practices derived from ancient lineages, we can observe the “outer nature” of our worldly selves, witness the emotional tumult of our “inner nature,” and reconnect at last to our True Nature - that transcendent Self which can move beyond Communion to true Union with our beloved Source.
Six days of fasting on water in utter solitude on a remote beach in Baja California, with no one but crabs, coyotes, snakes and hundreds of square miles of Organ Pipe Cactus to talk to - this may seem akin to the medieval practice of the Knight’s Vigil, the fasting ordeal before the dubbing ceremony of elevation into the Order. (The fasting, by the way, is not required - I chose to keep things simple by not bothering with food, as fasting can significantly deepen meditation and has many other healing benefits).
(Michael during the Sacred Passage on a remote beach in far south Baja California)
The effects of the Sacred Passage are still unfolding. I’ve gone in a few days from utter solitude in Wild Nature to being stuck in traffic on Sunset Boulevard (on my way back to Colorado soon), and I am still integrating that intense experience every step of the way.. But I can offer this: if you do indeed yearn for a life of greater meaning, for a Code to live by, a Way to practice, I urge you to find a time, a wild and beautiful place, and if possible, a qualified teacher, to give yourself the blessed experience of reconnecting to the core essence of your being, to the reason you came here, to the vision which has, perhaps, been your quest all along. You may find afterward that your life can no longer tolerate inauthenticity, can no longer endure soul-killing compromise. You may end up making radical changes almost without intending to, as your soul reasserts its primacy as the guiding reality of your existence.
Gazing at the endless waves, or watching the distant spout of passing whales, or simply observing the sun, the sky, and the quiet flow of your breath, you may hear your spirit whisper to you…
This is the Way.
blessings,
Michael
Hi Michael, You are a brilliant writer! Interestingly I’ve just started watching the Mandelorians. Not religiously, but enjoy what I do watch occasionally. I’m almost certain six days of solitude and fasting in the wild can bring us to be warriors of peace! Thank you. It is an adventure I’ve similarly done from time to time