Author: Andrew Arthur Dawson

I was driving down the road coming from the grocery store the other day when suddenly there were quite a number of cars stopped. Was it an accident? Was there construction? Was someone trying to turn down a street or into a driveway? Nope. None of the above.

A wild turkey was in the middle of the road. Several of the flock she was part of were on the other side of the road in the woods pecking at the ground for food. My first reaction was all ego. How she was preventing me from getting to where I was heading! Thoughts ran in my mind about why the closest car didn’t get out and just “shoo” her across to the other side! Then, my spirit took over and I realized how self-centered I was being. I didn’t really have any where that I needed to be any time soon. I took a deep breath and then suddenly, the turkey came into full view as she had been hidden by the car closest to her.

She was absolutely breathtaking. Her full feathers were cropped out like a big puff ball and her tail was completely extended outward for full viewing. There were several bright colors she bore and I immediately felt compassion for her. What would it be like for me if several large vehicles were staring me down and I couldn’t see the rest of my friends on the other side? She continued to try to walk in one direction but with the impatience of drivers and their vehicles, they prolonged her reunion by cutting her off each time she would try to pass. Thus she was essentially going around in circles. Eventually she did made it across with I’m sure, a much calmer feeling within.

How much of life is like that for all of us? I know for me at times that when things are looming in front of me, staring me down, antagonizing me, or intimidating me, I can come out in full view. And while I don’t sport pretty feathers, what I show outwardly is a lot less attractive. I’m not sure anyone would feel safe and comfortable in the position the turkey was of being cut off from her friends and loved ones and having to fend for herself from foreign objects with loud engines in front of her.

Sometimes I wish all of us in this world would practice just a little more patience. All I can do is my part and I know that the next time I am seeing something try to cross the road and I’m closest, I know that I will wait patiently for it to get to the others side before I move forward and create more confusion and problems for it.

So why did the wild turkey cross the road anyway…? To prove she wasn’t a chicken… Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha….

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

I belong to a wonderful men’s organization called the Mankind Project (MKP). In 1999, I was introduced to MKP by a friend who was going away on a weekend retreat for it and asked me to go. He told me it was called the New Warrior Training Adventure. It sounded amazing by name alone. At the time I was harboring a lot of pain inside and was told the weekend may help get to the root of it. Given my analytical nature, I wanted to know a lot more about what goes on and consistently I was given vague answers which irritated me yet made me that much more interested. The best description I could get was that the weekend was there to help me find me. And I needed that. Badly.

During that time of my life when I was considering going on the training, my father’s suicide had been weighing heavily on me. I had been carrying a lot of anger, sadness, rage, and disillusionment in my life since his death and hoped somehow the weekend might help alleviate it. It did. And it was the spark I needed in my life to begin a spiritual journey of growth, reflection, and change.

Today, I am part of what MKP refers to as a “IGroup”, which is a group of men that meet together in various frequencies, some once a week, some every other week, and some once a month. During one of these meetings, each of the men present have a chance to reinvigorate themselves drawing closer connections to themselves and to the other members (referred to usually as brothers). More importantly, each man also has the opportunity to work through any issues they may be facing, utilizing tools that the initial training first exposed each man to.

Most of my life I’ve tried to work through many issues on my own and did not get very far. Before MKP, I also was a bystander in my own life and expected things to change without putting forth too much effort. In other words, I didn’t want to have to work too much to get what I wanted in life. Even worse, prior to MKP as well, I blamed everyone and everything for what was wrong in my life and I took no responsibility for things that I committed myself to. This organization helped me to go deep within and find the root causes of why I was that way. It helped me to heal many wounds that were buried deep within me. And most important of all, it helped me to move forward in my life being accountable and in integrity with myself and with all others. I believe it created a foundation in my life that I never had growing up in such a dysfunctional family.

I’m currently in an IGroup that meets twice a month. In my last meeting, about 30 minutes into it, I was feeling disconnected to everyone and wasn’t sure why. There’s a part of the meeting where I am able to identify whether I’m “clear” or present with everyone else that’s there. I spoke up and said I wasn’t clear. Through a small piece of work that followed, I verbalized that only one person had hugged me prior to the start time that night. In the past, my ego would have felt that everyone who walked in after me should have come up and initiated a hug. My IGroup on the other hand, helped me to see that my piece of work in this was to be the initiator of each hug. I know it might sound rather simple but for someone like me who for so long expected everyone else to change to make me happy, hearing this was profound. And so I had the chance to express my needs and wants at that time and offered to give everyone there a hug. At that point, each man accepted and stood up and embraced me with warmth and connectivity. And guess what? After that, I was clear. Not just with each of them, but also with myself, remembering this was why I joined MKP in the first place.

While MKP helped me to create a platform to have an accountable and integrity based life, separating myself from all the addictions that once controlled my life, and asking God to be at the center of my being each and every day, has created a lot more peace and happiness within me. One of the greatest lessons MKP first taught me is that change begins from within. I’m glad I took the time back in 1999 to do that initial training. I’m even happier that I’m currently active in an IGroup again. But most importantly, I am confident that God guided me to this group of men, as I can already see the positive changes happening just from showing up, being accountable, and living with integrity.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

My sister left Massachusetts today with her family. Her flight left early this morning and I received a message that she arrived at her hotel in Nashville safely this afternoon. What I found most interesting was on Saturday for my final visit with her in this area, saying goodbye wasn’t difficult. Ironically, I felt more of a sense of peace. A few days ago I wrote about geographical cures and how I know my sister will learn that lesson one day. What I didn’t write about was the ups and downs that we have gone through in our relationship as brother and sister.

Growing up, my sister and I wanted nothing to do with each other. One would have thought that the two of us would have drawn closer with our parents being so dysfunctional and alcoholic. Instead we became polar opposites and took different sides. During my college years, when she had already begun her first post graduate corporate work, I was too focused on my drinking and drugging to care about her or anyone else for that matter.

All that changed in October of 1996, when I received the phone call from her that our father committed suicide. My sister and I spent a lot of time supporting each other after that. I even for a time lived extremely close to her home in one of my geographical cures not too long after my father’s death. Unfortunately, I became too self-absorbed to draw in a healthy loving sibling relationship and I abandoned the closeness that was growing between us. Over the years after that, when she needed me most, I avoided her. When I needed her, she was always there. If I was in a jam, she came to my aid. If I was feeling that death was better than life in one of my many suicidal moments that I once felt, she consoled me and kept me going. Hardly ever was I there for her. When I moved back to Massachusetts in 2007, she took me in as I had no where else to go. Over the course of the past five years, I have battled myself and had moments where I’m sure it felt as if I was finally getting healthier and becoming a real brother to her. Time and time again, I fell short of that and got wrapped up into any number of other addictions that I suffered from. A year ago, the pain became great enough to turn over all of my will to God and allow God to guide me in every part of my life. Since then, I have worked on my relationships with everyone that is still in my life, especially with my sister.

Actions have consequences and selfish ones can lead to a long time of recovery from them. Over the past year, I have done what I can to show my sister I’m getting healthier and never going back to the darkness and addictions I had lived in. Where I had been invited at least once a week to come to her house and hang out and then spend the night in the guest room, I was limited to a few hours of scheduled time, sometimes even just an hour and no more. At first I was angry and full of rage, demanding justice and saying that I need more time with her and my nephews. My anger distorted my thoughts and usually ruined my time with her when I was granted an hour or two. In the final months I had in Massachusetts with her, a shift began to happen within me about how to look at this differently.

I stopped looking at what I wasn’t getting and started being grateful for what I was. The few times I got to see her were not filled with arguing and drama because I came to understand within me that healing takes time, especially with how I treated her for most of my adult life. I realized that if all I was going to get was an hour or two, once a month, to see her, that I might as well make the best of it and show her and her kids how much I love each of them.

On Saturday, when I hugged her goodbye, I didn’t cry, at all. In fact, I didn’t even feel sad. Through my prayers, meditations, and having God at my center, I came to the realization that her moving away will give her time to heal from all the damage I’ve caused. It will give her time to clear her head and all those thoughts about how I once treated her. It will allow her to feel a little safer with knowing all we can do is communicate via phone or Skype for awhile. And it will allow her heart to miss me and maybe, just maybe, grow a little more fond of the potential the two of us have to be best friends and a loving brother and sister to each other.

We both have come a long way in our lives from our childhood craziness. I am beginning to see how my spiritual work in serving God is changing my life for the better. As for my sister, you can see it in one of the last messages she sent to my phone.

“Looking forward to the time when you can visit us in TN. Love you a lot. Thanks for being my brother. I couldn’t have asked for anyone better than you.”

Now I feel tears in my eyes…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson