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Micah Doverd

@tatonkuh

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When I return from a dark retreat, people always ask, “So what did you get from it?” That’s very hard to explain because dark retreats are less about insight and more about the kind of knowledge that defies any sort of explanation.

But in the retreat that I completed just a few weeks ago, an insight came that was so clear and so deep that it altered me. Simply:  Who I think that I am is just a story that the mind keeps replaying, but it’s all over. Everything that happened, everything that I did, everything that everyone else did, it’s not here anymore.   The past has been dictating who I think I am, but it’s not real. Who I am, who I get to be, is just a choice I make every moment: this moment… and this moment… and this moment… and this moment.   A feeling of freedom that came from that, a recognition of, “Oh, wait, I don’t have to believe any of that. I can just let it go and choose something new.”   —  Of course, without integration, this insight simply becomes a form of spiritual bypass. So to integrate it, I’m paying attention to where the old stories assert themselves, lovingly meeting those parts of myself again and again, and offering them what they need until freedom is what remains.   It will be the work of a lifetime. taken in Donostia-San Sebastián by @tatonkuh

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3 months ago

It was an honor to be able to complete a dark retreat alongside my best bud @drallenbittaker — here’s us seeing the light for the first time after 5 days. As always, the sheer joy of being alive and experiencing the fullness of life after such stillness is powerful and profound. Hence the unrelenting giggles. 🤭 taken in Mazunte, Oaxaca, México by @tatonkuh

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3 months ago

👁️ There’s a hidden structure governing all of existence, most especially you. And if you aren’t aware of it, you will be its slave.

What is it?

The universe expressed as infinitely interacting patterns from the scale of galaxies to atoms. The orbit of the Earth determines temperature. Temperature determines weather. Weather determines rainfall, which determines plant growth, which allowed for agriculture, civilization, social hierarchies, ultimately leading to groups creating ideas to influence you to do what they want.

What are those ideas? Just patterns passed through the infinite interactions of the cosmos arriving in your head.

You yourself are a pattern: The sum total of every pattern that has ever imprinted on you, your genes, the way your mother did or didn’t hold you, that barely noticed billboard nudging you toward a cold, sugary drink. Everything you are is part of this pattern, except one thing: your awareness. 🌌

Your awareness isn’t a pattern. It’s that which contains all patterns, including the pattern you call I.

Now, it’s time for me to come clean.

I lied to get your attention. You’re not the pattern at all.

You’re awareness. You’ve just forgotten.

Your freedom from suffering, from conditioned choices other people imprinted on you to serve their interests hinges on you remembering that you are awareness itself. And by remembering this, you unfuse from your inherited patterns of thinking and feeling. You become that eternal presence which sees and is happiness itself.

Think about it. Flow state, belly laughter, wonder, love, awe. What do they all share? Being rooted as pure awareness. Whether you’re staring into your lover’s eyes or stunned at the Grand Canyon at sunset, the defining characteristic is when you experience yourself as awareness, bliss is what arises. So you can chase all those peak experiences if you want.

But all you really have to do is sit quietly and be. taken in Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain by @tatonkuh

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3 months ago

How dare you? I mean it.

How dare you pollute your mind with trivialities? What they think of you… That they didn’t think of you at all… That you’re too fat… That you’re too skinny… That you’re too much… That you’re not enough… It is ALL noise.

One day, far sooner than you think, the reaper will come. And when he does, you won’t be able to escape, to negotiate, to beg. He will take you.

But before he does, you will ask yourself: why?

Why did I give my one and only indescribably precious, unfathomably beautiful life to petty fears, complaints, and worries? Why did I waste this perfect jewel?

You will find that in that moment, you would give anything for the circumstances you once feared as the worst possible outcome. So do not waste it. Death is coming. The end of all things waits to swallow you.

While you have breath, live. Set down your fear, your complaints, your sadness and victimhood. Burn with the fire of life and make your mark on this world.

And do it with love in your heart. taken in Dana Point, California by @tatonkuh

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4 months ago

No always means yes. I'm talking about the invisible second, third, and fourth order consequences of our choices.

Have three glasses of wine at dinner.

First order: relaxation and delight. Second order: waking up feeling like dog s--t. Third order: can't focus, can't exercise, pushing off what matters. Fourth order, repeated over years: chronic inflammation, heart disease, 15 years of life you're dead for.

We're terrible at valuing consequences beyond the immediate. We say to our future self, "f--k that guy, let him deal with it."

This is what I mean when I say no always means yes. When you say no to the easy first order pleasure, you say yes to the second, third, and fourth order joy,
fulfillment, and aliveness.

But make no mistake — in a world specifically designed to seduce and numb us into mindless complacency with an infinite sea of first order pleasure, this is perhaps the greatest challenge of our time. And it's unrelenting. We don't have to overcome it once. We have to overcome it every single day.

So how do we say no to our addictions, big and small, and yes to a fuck yes kind of life?

It's not willpower. You cannot white-knuckle your way into a beautiful life. And if you somehow do, you'll be so locked into the pattern of discipline, you'll be unable to enjoy it.

Discipline that doesn't run out comes from clarity. Connect with the truth of your choices. Really see them. Not the first order pleasure — the fourth order consequence. See the full cost of every yes to comfort and every no to your life.
Then create a vision. Not a vague fantasy — a felt, visceral, bone-deep vision of the life that would leave you at peace on your deathbed.

A vision so alive in you that when the easy road calls, something deeper says, "No, I know what I'm here for, and it's not this."

Because in the end, the question isn't whether you have the strength to say no. It's whether you've found something worth saying yes to. by @tatonkuh

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4 months ago

The first half of this year was hard. It tested me and my capacity to keep my heart open and stay loving and tender.

So when the first half of the burn came, I was ready to smile with an open heart in the face of its little tests.

And when they passed, what a burn it was — the exact celebration of life and love that my spirit and soul needed. I entered grateful. And I left even more grateful.

What a blessing to celebrate life at the burn and to have a chance to honor my mother’s passing in the presence of my dearest friends at the temple.

Until next year. by @tatonkuh

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a year ago

Just over three weeks ago, along with my brother, sisters, and stepdad, I held my mother’s arm as she took her last breaths and told her I loved her so much, that it was ok to let go.

We said the Sh’ma (the “essential” Jewish prayer) one last time for her, just as she did every night for us kids when she put us to bed every night as kids after scratching our backs.

We took turns holding her mouth closed to encourage her soul not to try to re-enter the body until the funeral home came to take her body — as is the Jewish tradition.

Being with her in the moments of her passing was one of the most beautiful and sacred experiences of my life, as was the four months prior when I had the incredible honor to live with her and my stepdad and serve as a caregiver as she finally succumbed to the nine year off and on battle she fought with cancer.

There is no way in just a few words I can possibly capture the extraordinary essence or radiance of Deborah Toland Swindal, the phenomenal woman I had the inconceivably good fortune to be able to call my mother.

But I will say this: she was the holiest person I know. Not because she was religious or even that spiritual. But because I believe that God is just a synonym for love, and though she was human like we all are and didn’t get it right all the time, her life turned around one thing: love.

She was its servant, its steward, and a faithful teacher of its singular importance. The extent of her love and her care — her “mothering” of all those she embraced and welcomed into her life — was truly breathtaking. The only thing that ever got in its way was her fiery Moroccan temper and tendency to hold a grudge. But even that was because she loved so deeply that hurts were almost unbearable.

My grief has mostly been the pain of too much tenderness. It’s almost too much gratitude to bear that I had a mother that loved me so deeply, so unconditionally, so unfailingly.

Taking care of her taught me what real love is — service without any expectation of any other reward, because loving in that way is its own reward. It was her final lesson in love, and it has brought me to my knees in awe and gratitude.

(Cont’d in comments by @tatonkuh

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a year ago

Seeing daylight after 12 nights and 11 days in darkness. Wasn’t my first dark retreat, but still shocking how intense it is, feels like a rebirth, and in a way, it is.

What an incredibly beautiful, incredibly challenging journey 🙏🏼 Will share more about the journey soon on upcoming podcast with my dear brother @drallenbittaker

Many thanks to @posada.arigalan for hosting me and taking great care of me through the process. ❤️

(Sorry for the camera angles, we’ll do better next time)

#darkness #meditation #consciousness #awakening #spirituality #spiritual by @tatonkuh

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2 years ago

Today, I turned 41.

In a writhing, loud, vibrant, alive yet dying, seething mass of humanity, ancient and unsanitized — literally and figuratively. Suffering on full display, the poor and sick and sadhus with bowls rattled for whatever you’re willing to part with, held in a backdrop of great and grimy beauty, too.

India. Varanasi.

In this place where a person cannot hide from the suffering inherent to life — poverty, sickness, burning bodies alongside the Ganges demand you look honestly instead of hiding behind the screen of denial constructed by the mixture of wealth, privilege, and avoidance of mortality we hold so dear in Western culture — it is fitting that the Buddha gave his first lecture on the nature of attaining liberation from that very same suffering.

It is an outrageous and beautiful assault on the senses in every way. Unending honking. Strange and unfamiliar scents that caress or violate the olfactory system, garish colors and garbs in tones clashing and foreign. Traffic — human, animal, vehicular (rickshaws to tuk tuks to motorcycles to tractors to busses) — unceasing, unrelenting, and from every direction. Smog that’s so dense it appears to be fog. Speeches and music and chanting over loudspeaker.

There is nothing like this place that I have ever seen. I suspect there never will be again.

What I am most present to is the extraordinarily blessed circumstances into which I had the good fortune to be born, materially speaking, and the unfortunate fact that that same privilege disconnected me from the hard truths of human experience that this place reveals alongside its strange beauty.

It is hard to see it all, and it is also so impossibly beautiful and captivating it is impossible not to be drawn in.

What a blessing I have to be able to be here, to have the freedoms I do to experience it, and to have run across enough wise people before coming that it can touch my heart.

It is showing me life isn’t “safe.” It can’t be. But if I accept it as it is and my own mortality, embrace it, then I can truly live.

Love you guys. Here’s to the next loop around the sun. taken in Varanasi, India by @tatonkuh

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3 years ago

I came home from Burning Man this year a hot mess. I was exhausted, and frankly, the playa kicked my ass. I was immune to the magic, it seemed. My burn was grumpy, hot, and overwhelming.

Except for one time — when I was creating. Playing music to a (small) crowd as we served bacon. Making a vision real.

No matter how spectacular (yes, even you, Burning Man), at some point consumption gets boring. That was the lesson I took home.

I just didn’t know it consciously. I found out intuitively.

Probably because I was so over stimulated, I decided to stop consuming all media except music for the entire month of October, but I started early in September. I didn’t know what would happen.

Apparently, what wanted to happen was an explosion of creativity. 62 pages written in a week. A group coaching program with 80 people out of nothing in 10 days. And more aliveness and joy than I’ve felt in a long time.

This is home. And home feels really good, especially because I haven’t been here in a very long time. Ahhhh…

Oh. And if you’re curious about this thing I made, link is in my bio if you wanna check it out. 😘 taken in Black Rock City by @tatonkuh

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4 years ago

As I navigate a period of really intense physical difficulty and emotional difficulty, one of the thoughts that keeps popping into my head is that maybe all this is happening because “I’m afraid to step into ‘my purpose.’”

So I thought about it tonight for a while because this is one of those thoughts with barbs that just hooked the shit outta me.

And I remembered that only the ego thinks it needs a purpose and that it needs to do anything to fulfill one. (The soul / our true nature knows better).

The ego is afraid it won’t be enough or won’t be loved or will be alone forever if it doesn’t do enough.

There is fear present for my scared ‘lil ego, and that fear is ready to be loved, met, and supported by something bigger than me, yet still me.

But I’m also realizing there’s also no “moment” where purpose happens, nor if there was would it be for the ego to know.

There’s just a series of steps of more and more authentic self expression as a human/divine being, hopefully, and less and less of the ego in the way.

So I’m reminding myself (and you too), “You’re already doing it. Just keep taking steps. One day at a time.”
—
P.S. This photo is the door to the “Buddha Cave” where I spent 8 nights and 7 days, alone, in absolute darkness last summer. I know this is part of “my purpose” because of how it shaped me. But I suppose so is everything else, huh?
—
#purpose #wakingup #awakening #spirituality #spiritualawakening taken in The Hermitage Guatemala by @tatonkuh

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4 years ago

Echoes of a dream I once had
Soft shimmers of light
Subtly dancing across the eternal emptiness of mind

Lives almost lived

Births and deaths and birthdays and sweet cakes covered in the rainbow frosting and golden sprinkles of true love

Distant imagined memories of funerals for people that never lived, never loved

All as real as the ground beneath my feet
Which is to say
Not real at all
Yet somehow solid, hearty
Felt all the way through to the bones
Like the jolly, buttery laugh of that grandfather I never got to be

Thank you for these echoes of what never was

And always shall be

Thank you for these echoes of not quite you and me

Thank you for these echoes that set me free
—
“Echoes” taken in Sayulita, Nayarit, Mexico by @tatonkuh

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5 years ago