Death to the Ego? Not.

"Death to the Ego!" I've heard that war cry, so common in personal-growth circles, several times in recent days. And each time, it left me profoundly saddened.

You see, the oft-demonized ego doesn't deserve to die. No part of us deserves to die.

No part of us deserves to be dismissed...or dissed. All parts of us have value. All parts of us have worth. All parts of us are capable of growth and transformation. Of redemption.

Many writers and therapists would have you believe that the ego is some inner evil that must be cut off, stamped out and killed before we can move forward.

"Ego," I read the other day, "is the biggest — and perhaps the only — obstacle to true enlightenment. If we want to be free, if we want to be enlightened, we have to pay the price: death of the ego."

Not only is that view wrong-headed, it is damaging.

Certainly, the ego or "small self" can stand in the way of our evolution. Yet whatever else it is or does, it is still a part of our greater self, of our oneness. Of God.

God, however you define it, is made up of all the pieces of us — dark and light, evolved and not. God is not just the pieces we like or would prefer.

When we use phrases like "death of the ego," we're advocating an act of self-hatred and self-destruction that is not at all godlike.

How can we call for oneness in one breath and the destruction of a part of ourselves in the next? How can we preach love as the energy that creates and heals all when, in the same sentence, we preach hatred toward parts of ourselves?

If your arm is broken, do you cut it off because it's now a useless appendage? Or do you allow it to heal, lavishing extra love and energy upon it because of its weakened condition?

The ego is no less deserving of care and no less capable of healing and transformation.

I passionately believe that we are called to love, honor and respect all aspects of our beingness, not just the ones that behave in right/light ways.

We live in a throwaway culture, tossing out anything that's broken, a culture where imperfection is punished and misbehavior condemned. What have we become we that we're now throwing away bits of ourselves?

The ego is nothing more than a terrified, lesser-developed aspect of ourselves, a child-aspect that feels threatened by change it does not understand and so resists, often disruptively.

In many ways, it's like a fearful child. We don't kill our children when they don't act in a divine manner, when they're frightened and act out. We reassure them, we hold them, we love them. We make sure they know that they're safe.

Through these compassionate, godlike acts, we gently correct their failings and contribute to their growth and evolution, and to our own.

Our call is to do the same with the ego. Speaking of killing, expelling, conquering or controlling it is the antithesis of the Christed energy we claim we are seeking to embody.

Some might respond by saying that these are only words, that nothing is really being killed.

Perhaps. But language is not random. We choose our words, and these words reveal more about what we think and feel than we often realize. If we use words like "death" and "killing," than that truly is the consciousness we are projecting.

Oneness, too, is a consciousness, one that cannot thrive outside of us if it doesn't first thrive within. And it cannot thrive within if we reject even a single part of ourselves.

Oneness is an act of integration. Preaching death to the ego is the opposite: dis-integration.

The only path to enlightenment is the path of love. And the only path of love that has any value is the path that begins with self-love, with the love of our entire self — the wounded as well as the healed, the frightened as well as the fearless, the dark as well as the light.

Loving it doesn't free it to be in charge or hold us back. It does free it to have a voice, to express its fears, to cry for help in the only ways it knows how.

That same love frees you to embrace every part of you, to welcome home the ugly, wounded, frightened prodigal-child/ego and to live the fullness of a divinity and godliness that includes all aspects of your beingness.

I believe in you, in every part of you, and I love your darkness as well as your light. Won't you do the same for yourself?

Namaste,
Mark David

On the Road Again?

It's Monday. I've just hung up from talking to a friend back east. A little voice whispers in my ear: "Wouldn't it be great to hit the road again in the fall and visit your friend?"

Hit the road? Again!?

Some background: If you're new to these newsletters, you may not know that I spent the 30 months from December 2004 until August 2007 on the road full-time, traveling back and forth across America. When I landed in Albuquerque in August, I didn't believe my traveling days to be done. I did expect, though, to be through with the full-time variety.

Apparently not.

It's Tuesday. I wake up and the energy around an eastbound road trip feels exceptionally strong. "Well," I say to myself, "it could be a good opportunity to take my books, talks and workshops east." I say that even as I realize that I might be rationalizing a trip back east I wouldn't likely surrender to without having work as an excuse.

Some more background: I've been feeling for a few months now as though my time in New Mexico could be drawing to a close, as though I could be relocating to California by year's end. Of course, I assumed that I would stay in Albuquerque until that time. But even before Monday's revelation, the space between Labor Day and Christmas was starting to feel uncomfortably blank.

It's Wednesday, and that blank seems to have filled itself in. Unless things shift again (always a possibility), I will put everything storage in August, go to Sedona for my daughter's September birthday and, in a curious echo of recent years, drive off on faith into the unknown.

If my 2004 departure was a moment-to-moment, largely unplanned odyssey, I expect my 2008 departure to be somewhat more focused.

My intention is to spend some of my time between now and then — hopefully, with your help — mapping out an itinerary of talks, workshops, booksignings and, if there's the demand, sound activations.

In this moment, I'm open to going anywhere east, north and/or south of here — in the U.S. and into Canada. If you have any ideas or suggestions, or if you'd be interested in helping me organize and/or promote something in your area, I'd love to hear from you.

Like my 2004 road odyssey — like every day of my life — this is a journey launched on faith.

I wrote these words to conclude The Voice of the Muse at time when my days on the road had ended and I was launching a new adventure here in New Mexico. They apply equally well today, as I contemplate what's next...

As I move into the next chapter of my life..., I am reminded that this, like all journeys, is one of infinite surrender — word by word, moment by moment, breath by breath. I am particularly reminded of this as I reflect on where I wrote the first draft of this piece: in Santa Fe, a city whose name translates as "holy faith."

In this moment I cannot tell you how this chapter will end nor where the next will take me, just as I cannot yet know where The MoonQuest's sequel, The StarQuest, will go as I return to its pages.

All I can do — all we can ever do, in writing as in life — is trust in the
story.

It has never let me down before.

Truly, the story knows best.

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