The Way of the Warrior: Holding Space for The Fourfold Way

Chris Corrigan corcom at interchange.ubc.ca
Mon Sep 24 22:58:49 PDT 2001


I was holding back on this thread a little, but I think something has
coalesced in my head enough to be able to wade in...

I know a man who is a fire fighter here in a city near Vancouver.  He is
a former Marine.  He spent several years in the US Marines stationed in
places like Okinawa and others.  He received a commendation for saving
the life of a pilot who crash landed his plane and was dragged from the
burning wreckage by my friend.

My friend is almost completely unable to operate in the world.  He is
trailing the baggage of two failed marriages, an almost total lack of
empathy for living things and an inability to temper unprovoked fits of
rage and depression with critical thought.  He willingly tells me that
in basic training he was stripped down so that instead of being a man he
became a wetware payload delivery system.  His job was to do whatever
was asked of him, unquestioningly.  He was not encouraged to take a
stand.  He was trained to take a fall.

He was a soldier.  Not, as I understand it, a Warrior.

He is the only soldier I know well, and the only one that was in a
branch of the US armed forces, so my knowledge of soldiers comes only
from that miniscule contact with the culture of soldiering.  But it
occurs to me that there is a possibility that the young men and women
Harrison is talking about are soldiers and maybe not Warriors.  I feel
very scared for them, because they are about to be put in harm's way, to
possibly face death and if not, to return to a life that may never make
sense for them again.

I understand Angeles Arrien's  Way of the Warrior to be threefold: to
show up, be visible and to empower others through example and
intention.  I know she refers to peacemakers but to her list I would add
people like Nelson Mandela and Subcomandante Marcos, people who have
acted in the realm of violence in the past but know when enough is
enough.  Seems to me that well timed restraint in the face of threat, as
well as just the right amount of opposing force in times of dire
emergency make up the way of the warrior too.

Personally, I don't know if I am a pacifist or not.  I have never lived
in a situation where my only choice has been to kill or not to kill.  i
guess I would find out then, although it would probably be my last piece
of self-awareness.  It may be that there is a time for killing and a
time for dying.  And likewise there may be times when it is not useful
to kill or die.

My understanding of the Warrior role from the traditional teachings I
engage in, through sweat lodge ceremonies and other practices echo
somewhat the Way identified by Angeles Arrien.  I have always heard
teachers talk about the role of the warrior being one of peace and one
of balance.  In fact, ironically, as the warrior occupies the north
which is the seat of action, the home of the whirlwind, it seems that
the role of the warrior that has been presented to me is one of standing
still.  It brings to mind an image I have of Buster Keaton in "The
General."  As hundreds of people and a train are heading past him he
stands facing the opposite direction and then ever so slightly leans
into that direction as if facing a wind.  Exerting enough force to keep
a stand.  If the role of the space holder lies anywhere, perhaps it lies
in the north.

My understanding of the medicine wheel is that we each try to live life
in balance of the four directions and the four archetypes.  This does
not mean that at times we show our Warrior face and at other times we
show our Healer face.  It means that we live as
warrior/healer/visionary/teacher all at once.  It takes a lifetime of
practice and self-awareness to integrate these four forces in one's
life.  But I think that is what we are supposed to do.

If living in Open Space has taught me anything, it has taught me this:
the fullest expression of humanity is for each of us to hold space for
ourselves and others to expand our now to include as much as we can.
That includes darkness as well as light, which is why the task is so
onerous and so challenging and sometimes makes me want to throw up from
the anxiety of it all.  If we are to take the daring step of expanding
our now to fill with light we must also be prepared to take the risk
that it fills with darkness instead,  Anyone who has facilitated an OST
meeting in a conflicted environment will know what I am talking about.
Darkness will show up there just as easily as light, and our challenge
is simply to hold space.

I think the way of the soldier is not to open space at all but to close
it.  That is what my friend John was trained to do.  He was trained to
close space so that a military objective could be acheived.  It was up
to the politicians in his world to open it again.  Even as a fire
fighter, he is no longer motivated by the desire to save lives.  He now
willingly risks his life with one objective in mind.  To close the space
for the fire.  Instead of directing his energies at fighting people, he
directs them at fighting fire.

We do need soldiers sometimes.  Sometimes space has to be closed, and,
as it violates every natural human instinct to do so, we need highly
trained people to do it.  People that have been conditioned not just to
close space, but to slam it shut.  Sixteen of those kinds of people
recently casued massive devastation in New York, Washington and
Pennsylvania.  On that plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, apparently
there were others who fought what is already becoming a story of epic
struggle to overcome their instincts, their wills to live,  and close
space for one last terrorist attack to occur.  Because they weren't
trained in this "art" they must have had to fight not just the hijackers
but also themselves, their natural desires to stay alive.  In so doing
they gave their lives and perhaps saved hundreds or thousands of
others.  The decision to close space on such a scale as that is very
often the last decision a person gets to make in life.  It must be a
horrible place to be, devoid of humanity, except where maybe it saves
others.

It *IS* time for the Way of the Warrior, but I think it has always been
thus.  And time for the Ways of the Teacher, the Healer and the
Visionary in each of us to conspire together to create the ideas that
will get us out of this mess and not further into it.

Those are my thoughts.  Deep sigh as I send this off.

Meegwetch and peace,

Chris


--
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Consultation - Facilitation
Open Space Technology

http://www.chriscorrigan.com
corcom at interchange.ubc.ca

RR 1 E-3
1172 Miller Road
Bowen Island, BC
Canada, V0N 1G0

phone (604) 947-9236
fax (604) 947-9238

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