“Which of you to gain me tell

Will risk uncertain pains of hell?

I will not forgive you

If you will not take the chance

The sailor gave at least a try

The soldier being much too wise

Strategy was his strength

Not disaster”

~excerpt from Terrapin Station by The Grateful Dead

I remember this part of the song as if it was yesterday. It was a moment at a Dead show that had me recognize that a prominent part of me was in defense and safety mode for most of my life. I was feeling this inner urge to let my body go into a euphoric dance but was holding back. I could sense it yet still stayed within a narrow bandwidth of expression. 

When those lines came out of Jerry’s mouth and landed in my ears they went to my heart and then my soul. I had been playing the soldier. I was not the risk-taking sailor in this tale. In that moment I felt a surge of desire move through me to let go and just be me and let my body do its thing. I felt alive and in joy. 

Granted I was under an influence of chemistry, but the moment stuck with me from that time on. The soldier would take the lead over the sailor and at times they would switch. It has been an ongoing challenge for me to be more rooted in my heart, my truth, and surrender. Being in this intimate community and in a deeply intimate and sacred union relationship, this soldier has had to deconstruct and to let my sailor more into the ebb and flow of daily realness and trust. 

I won’t lie. It has been very challenging. I feel that I am being confronted with eons of strategy and protection that have kept my woundedness in a holding pattern until new light shines that it must either be felt and gone deeply into or risk losing so much potential for a love beyond what my soldier could possibly let in. This feels like a perennial masculine challenge and conundrum. The surrender into and the trust of our divine mandate to heal and recode this legacy of pain, fear, and inadequacy. 

I have felt how much has had to be constructed, maintained, and eventually popped in order to feel and see the depths of our woundedness. It is not our weakness, but our strength that resides inside of it. It houses our resilience even if it has been in suffering or in a numbed state. Having deep compassion, care, and curiosity are what help to bring out this defense and woundedness. 

It is in this loving state that the true King of Heart can emerge to guide the inner factions back home into wholeness and realness. Not some perfected image of what it means to be a man or a king, but what lies at the core of our being and our own personal truth and needs. That is where our kingdom truly lies. 

In the meantime, I sit with the soldier, the fallen angel of the Divine, and we feel together in trust and in grace that we are on our way. That we are healing, we are held, and we are more than enough in the eyes and heart of the Divine.

*****

Gabriel Amara is a SoulFullHeart Facilitator for both men and women.  Visit https://www.soulfullheart.org for more information about sessions, group calls/events, videos, community, etc.