So I hope by relating these synchronistic events (in my July 22 blog post), from Calleman's propitious call in March, to my recent dreams the reader can understand why I feel liberated and motivated to reveal my vision quest experiences for the first time.
Of all the people on this planet I am one of the very last you would bet on to sign up for a 10-day vision quest in the eastern California desert. Until this trip I had never camped out or even spent one night in a tent. Growing up, my idea of the great outdoors consisted of playing basketball on the blacktop playgrounds of upstate New York. So let's look at the circumstances that motivated me to sign up for a 10-day vision quest in the desert.
I moved to Seattle in 1989 from Denver. I specifically chose Seattle because it was the only major city in the United States I could go and not know anyone for a radius of at least 1,000 miles. Having grown up and starting my career in sales with IBM in the Northeast (New York); gone to college in the Midwest (Wisconsin); and spent 10 years in the Rocky Mountains (Colorado); the Pacific Northwest was the only place I could go and completely reinvent myself.
I needed a fresh start and was reevaluating everything about my life. I closed out my corporate career in 1982 when I resigned from General Electric Medical Systems in Denver. The next 5 years were spent in the investment banking/brokerage business specializing in capital formation for small over-the-counter (OTC) companies. (OTC would eventually become NASDAQ).
To say it was the wild, wild, west in the OTC market would be an understatement. The small capitalization stocks were mostly unregulated and suffice it to say it was the first time I really saw what people do or say for money. It was raw, brutish, vulgar, and obscene. After a few years I realized for the first time in my career I was in a game I could not win. It was devastating and destructive for my ego to discover there were people who would say and do things that I was incapable of morally or ethically doing in order to win, make a profit, or gain influence or power. I hadn't realized until then the powerful moral compass I possessed and the strong sense of doing what was ethically correct, which for the most part was supported in my Fortune 10 corporate career. I now understand why I loved highly competitive athletics; there were rules, a scoreboard, and a referee. Very, very different from that world of situational ethics with no moral code of conduct that was more like a three ring circus with its array of clowns and freaks running every which way with no ring master giving direction and guidance.
I refer to that period of time in my career as my shark years and in fact some people nicknamed me "the shark." Those years were about winning, getting results, and playing hard and working hard. When I arrived in the Northwest I didn't have any idea what I would do career-wise but I was certain my executive days of swimming with sharks in the deep waters of greed, vanity, and power were over.
Then I discovered the newly evolving world of "bears." The popularity of books addressing men's issues like Sam Keen's Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man, and Robert Bly's Iron John had opened the popular culture to a whole new part of the male psyche. The unconscious and disowned inner feminine was now being addressed. This revealed deep psychic wounds in the area of feelings and emotions due to the exploitive patriarchal model dominant in American capitalism.
I spent more than three years chanting, drumming, hugging trees, facilitating ropes courses, and working in non-profits, and counseling and coaching. The characteristic that best described the bear culture was nice, very nice. But the problem I observed was they were as dysfunctional in their own process-oriented ways (conflict avoidance, passive-aggressive, etc.) as the results-oriented sharks. But the biggest difference came in the area of personal finances: unlike the sharks, the bears were not only wounded, they were broke!
What to do? I became painfully aware as my financial resources dwindled, I fit nowhere. I was between a rock (sharks) and a soft place (bears). That's why I started Moore & Associates. Putting on my corporate pinstripes and tying up my wingtips, I decided to see if I could make a living in the field of executive career coaching and counseling. It quickly grew into a successful small company with a handful of employees. I was building a solid reputation as a really good business coach and counselor especially with senior level executives at Fortune 500 companies as well as highly motivated and ambitious young professionals (especially in the areas of sales and marketing).
This was when I first began using the plush bear and shark to teach and demonstrate to my clients how the attributes of a bear and a shark were both in their own way indispensable to climbing the corporate ladder and having a successful career. When I'd finish a coaching session, I'd put the bear on top riding the shark and say, "This is what you need to be if you want to be successful." My clients were entertained but didn't miss the symbolic message: the need to balance the hard and soft skills, money and meaning, profits and people. Thus began the initial evolution of the TeddyShark process.
But I was working long hours, and as the only person generating the vast majority of sales and revenue, I was wearing down. I was now in my fifties while the three key members of my team were 32, 27, and 27 with seemingly an abundance of energy. Then a great opportunity presented itself. Through one of my senior executive coaching clients we were included in the list of qualifying companies for a large corporate outplacement contract that was about to be awarded because of a downsizing due to an impending merger. The long and short of it was I coached my team and prepared a sales presentation strategy to be led by my partner Michelle Hurteau. To the surprise of many, they delivered and we won what was to be a million dollar contract.
"You never know what is enough
unless you know what is more than enough."
--William Blake, Proverbs of Hell
My shark was ecstatic, my bear was exhausted and I started to secretly plan my exit strategy. I was going to be free (fly, fly away). When the check arrived I figured we'd get current on our bills and move our offices from Seattle to Bellevue. There would be enough operating capital that my young 3-person team could grow the company as they saw fit and I could take at least $400K-$500K, put it into CDs and find a small inexpensive home on the Oregon coast and leave the everyday world which I knew I no longer fit. I had had and seen more than enough.
The best laid plans...
We got the check in February of 1997. I told no one about my secret intentions. As I knew would happen, the core team had inflated, became all puffed up because of course we had the money, we won the game, and now they were the greatest, invincible. (I'd seen this movie; I starred in it 20 years earlier. I couldn't bear to see it again). I couldn't wait to get out, to be free - liberated from the religion of making money and the god almighty dollar.
I scheduled a celebration dinner with my young proteges at a new restaurant in downtown Seattle. I thought it was going to be my secret farewell team celebration. We all arrived, had drinks and appetizers, and the conversation shifted as they began to talk about their hopes and dreams for the company. I had attended their weddings, knew their families and for me, they were my extended family. As the evening played out I was stupefied when a loud silent voice inside me said, "You're not leaving!" Stunned, I sat there dazed and confused for the rest of the night downing one microbrew after another. I knew the voice was right.
Poem 53: Pain of Separation (Blessed Are Those...)
How desolate it must be
for those beings blessed with the awful grace to see:
life's material search in vain,
as each and every worldly pleasure a gain
of nothing more
than an ever-shortening respite from the pain.
--TeddyShark Saves Shibboullyville
For the next several weeks I went through the motions trying to fend off deep depression. I was having an existential crisis. My love affair with the world was over. I had played life's game as my family, society, and economic system had taught me. I'd won and won, and won and won. And each time I won, the victories became more shallow and more empty, the pain more intense. I felt I'd go crazy if I heard one more person say to me, "yes Phil, I hear what you're saying but I don't know what's wrong with you. If I had what you had I'd be happy." This just added to the sense "I must be crazy!" I was stuck and I didn't know what to do. That is until I got my Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) quarterly journal and saw the summer programs:
There it was: Vision Quest July 10-20 - seek out a new vision, finding out your true purpose in life. Sedonia Cahill from Santa Rosa, California, experienced in leading over 60 vision quests would be the group facilitator. She would teach the principles and guidelines as practiced by the Native American Indians using their sacred medicine wheel as a teaching tool and retreat/vision quest guideline. I was desperate and signed up immediately. I needed a vision, and a mission with real meaning. I needed to be inspired by something or someone otherwise I couldn't imagine staying in the world much longer. I was just recycling the gods of money, power, and relationships and even they were wearing down. I needed help.
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