The warrior's path is a map to healing, freedom, humanity and most importantly spirit.  It has been retrieved from various people like the many wise and honored men and women that took the time out of their lives to visit and help maintain the prison circles here in Massachusetts, as well as authors like Castaneda, Deepak Chopra, and Dr. Dwyer.  It is for us truth, undeniable, love, unconditional, and intent, uncorruptable.  It is the wisdom and knowledge of our Native American ancestry.

For me this last instruction is the essence of the warrior's path.  A warrior lives today in a way that will honor their ancestors and make certain that there is a clean and healthy earth for the unborn generations.   A-Ho

                                           Shield Wolf

A warrior works diligently to clear their connecting link to spirit

A warrior fights the battles within themselves first and foremost

A warrior knows that opposites are only concepts used to describe the world

A warrior reassesses their description of the world

A warrior is not insulted by the doings of their fellow beings

A warrior leaves nothing to chance

A warrior strives for freedom

A warrior strives to "see"

A warrior learns the art of listening

A warrior strives to overcome their learned and conditioned behaviors

A warrior learns the art of hunting and stalking

What does a warrior hunt?  Personal power.  What does a warrior stalk?  Themself.

****Personal power is what is gained in place of the energy (power) that is wasted on the contrary.

A warrior is ruthless in their pursuit of personal power

A warrior doesn't live in maybes

A warrior never goes where they are not invited

A warrior never indulges

A warrior doesn't live in folly

A warrior recognizes the folly of the world and uses controlled folly to get along

A warrior lives by strategy and tact

A warrior knows that realizations are always personal

A warrior knows that realizations cannot be achieved by niceties

A warrior lives indifferently yet always with compassion

A warrior lives in accordance to their original instructions

A warrior puts forth healing in all that they do

A warrios life isn't about likes and dislikes

A warrior treats every act as if it's their last battle on earth

A warrior's best advisor is their death, because a warrior knows that in the light of death there is no time to be petty

A warrior lives unconditionally

A warrior knows that the only thing they can control is themself

A warrior uses the world sparingly

A warrior chooses their words wisely

A warrior lives in the moment

A warrior knows that true power, magic, truth and love can only be found in the moment

A warrior accepts the responsibility for their actions, reactions, and inactions

A warrior accepts the responsibility for all the events and circumstances of their life

A warrior learns the art of letting go

A warrior systematically erases their past through recapitulation

A warrior acts through clarity

A warrior never  makes assumptions

A warrior never makes excuses

A warrior lives by actions

A warrior strives to eradicate their self importance

A warrior knows that all things in life are equal

A warrior can cut anything from their life in the wink of an eye

A warrior chooses a path and follows it to its very end

A warrior never compromises

The warrior's path is a path with heart, a path to freedom.  Not freedom as a concept but, freedom as freedom was meant to be "a state of being".  The warrior's path has become a necessary set of instructions to return human beings to their true natural state, to help one remove their individual fixation on the contrary that we human beings collectively created and, have convinced ourselves, as a matter of justification, is our true nature.

Here in the prison circles we were given a great gift, one that opened our hearts and minds and reconnected us with the source of true intelligence (spirit).  Living spirit is not a set of rules or ideals that govern one's life, it is to return oneself to a natural "state of being", to the totality of self.  The magic about the warrior's path is if one takes any one of the instructions and follows it, all the others will be revealed, in other words, to follow one, is to follow them all.  What we've learned and come to know is, "truth" does not contradict and, truth as defined by the warriors path is the knowledge and wisdom of spirit, spirit is the intelligence of everything that ever was and will ever be.  The warrior's path and it's instructions are the essence of "truth".

As I said, the instructions of the warrior's path are all one and the same, so where to begin is up to the individual, for me it was "a warrior learns the art of letting go".  This lesson came to me from a very wise and honored elder, the do's and don'ts of how and why don't matter, let's just say that the "concept" of letting go entered my thoughts and somehow became a debate of my psyche, so much so that I lost sleep in the frustration of trying to grasp it's meaning.  This went on for a couple of weeks until one night I concluded that letting go sounded good but was an impossible task, I mean all the stuff we hold onto had meaning and purpose (didn't it?).  That night I had a good night's sleep because, as I know now but didn't know at that time, I let go of the idea of lettig go.  This was my first step into the warrior's path.  I remember that I woke up the next morning feeling good, free, so to speak.  At first I just thought that I had a good night's sleep, a few days later I realized the "truth".

When we talked about letting go at the circle most of the brothers were of the mind that it had something to do with forgiveness, we've seen that it doesn't.  Forgiveness implies a power over another or the self, whether to or not to, this implies attachment.  When I realized the freedom of letting go, it led me to recapitulate my life (a warrior erases their past through recapitulation) which helped me to accept full and complete responsibility for all the events and circumstances that made up my life.  This led me to a warrior's indifference (a warrior lives indifferently, yet always with compassion).  When one finds a warrior's indifference they can no longer be insulted by the acts of their fellow beings and, when we are no longer insulted by the folly of others then there is no longer food to feed one's "self importance", which is one of the biggest blockages to our "connecting link" to spirit................................

There has been a lot of talk about love lately.  Most people admit they are confused as to what love truly is.  I was talking with a brother the other day and we touched on the beginnings of where that confusion stems.  A child who was naughty gets punished by their parents, when the crying stops the parents explain that what was done (the punishment) was because we love you.  I guess that could be one of many building blocks to our confusion about love.  It's strange when I remember situations of that sort that I was witness to, there was always anger involved.  Now it seems to me that if we punish our children because their actions angered us, then "We punished you because we love you" is just a justification to the truth, that being "We punished you because you pissed us off and we want to control you".  I guess you couldn't say that to a child, so tainting what love is becomes the only option.  Anyway, as me and this brother furthered our conversation, we agreed that love must be put into motion, that love without motion is just a concept and like all concepts opened to debate.  The thing is, me and this brother we "know" what love is and what we "know" is "without a doubt".  I know that sounds arrogant so let me take the arrogance away by saying so does every living being in creation.  It's simple, whenever we involve ourselves in the contrary (anger, jealousy, self pity, hate, judgement...) we cut ourselves off from the flow of love.  The debate about what love is doesn't stem from our inability to know love, it stems from our justification of the things that we do that are contrary to love.  A-Ho

"It is better to be a Warrior and stand alone than to be a fool that lives up to the expectations of others

I was listening to a talk the other day.  This person was speaking about his personal struggles in life, he spoke about his victories, as well as his defeats.  For me personally, I can truly appreciate when any human being realized their life is out of rhythm and makes the effort to return it to some semblance of truth and understanding.

A wise man once said, "remove the log from your own eye before you try to take the speck from someone else's."  (or something along those lines)  It seems that for some reason when a tidbit of truth breaks through our scrambles, blurred perceptions we almost immediately start reaching for those specks, unfortunately those logs always get in the way and we end up making things worse.

Anyway, this person went on to say that he realized that no one is superior to anyone else, nor is anyone inferior.  I liked this truth, it goes along with the doctrine of the warrior's path that all is equal.  It also sat well with the group, I looked around and noticed most of the heads nodding in agreement.  This person went on to say that we shouldn't judge ourselves or others too harshly, we are after all products of learned behaviors, he said he never met anyone who wanted to grow up to be a junkie, alcoholic, or criminal.  Again, great message.  (If he had only stopped there!)  The next thing he said, although meant to inspire, was nonetheless condemning and contrary.  He said, "Just remember NO ONE IS PERFECT!"  Everyone has faults and more than likely will until the day they die, we are after all - "Only human". - That wasn't the worst of it, the worst of it was that not only were heads nodding in agreement but, also they gave this man and his message a round of applause.

I know that on the one hand it certainly appears that the greatest excuse and contradiction human kind has ever created "We are only human" - may appear to be true, but we are not only human, we are spirit, the intelligence of everything that ever was and will ever be.  We, in our truth, are love.  Then why we may ask is everything so screwed up?  Because we took what we are and turned it into an excuse for the contrary things we do.  We have separated ourselves from a total being into 3 parts:  body, mind and spirit.  Spirit knows mind and body, but body can never know or fully appreciate spirit until the mind is cleared from the affects of our physical experiences, it is then that the healing power of spirit comes through and we return to the totality of ourselves.  We will never get there if we go on condemning ourselves and our fellow humans with contradictory messages that only set us up to fail.  We are only human!  No one's perfect!  Let's stop being only human and return to being truly human by returning to the totality of self.  Also, let's stop living from the perception that we are imperfect beings condemned by our faults, and realize that we truly are perfect beings who are trying to rid ourselves of our imperfections.  A-Ho

There is no benefit of doubt, there is only the going against one's better judgement.

                                                 Shield Wolf

Hope is the ability to look beyond the events and circumstances that cloud our lives.

With hope we create new horizons and solidify the path before us.

Without hope we are stagnant, waiting among the defeated for the inevitable.

                                                          Shield Wolf

Although we believe the things we know, we don't always know the things we believe.

                                                           Shield Wolf

It is said that opinions are like A-holes...but, isn't it more so that opinions are A-holes since they are from where all the crap of the human psyche spews from?

                                                                   Shield Wolf