Ownership of the Kingdom of Self

Permaculture of land is about relationship of elements. Managing recourses like rain run-off into cisterns for later use as irrigation. Or, good bugs which eat other bad bugs which eat my crop. So I may create a pond or cistern and or choose to manage the food and habitat which support the beneficial bug.

Permaculture of self and life is about relationship, relationship of the elements both within and without. At some point I’ll have to evolve Personal Permaculture into Primaculture, the first culture of self. Healthy Primaculture, healthy self, healthy planet, but too soon for that. So back to stories we go.

Ownership of the kingdom of self begins with stewardship of stories. I keep returning to stories because stories are the fabric which bind us together or tears us apart. A well cherished story can launch us beyond the world into which we were born or serve to bind us to a life unlived. They are potent little buggers which hide in plane sight.

A wise friend and guide had an interesting psycho-story equation;

Take any persons prevailing story,
Stand it next to the stark reality of their lives,
The space between those two…
=
Their neurosis and general mental wackiness.

I have used this map personally. Finding too much sky visible between the story I was telling myself and the base reality. The trick is, I need a story big enough to grow into, but not so big that I get lost or bullshity in the process.

I have a friend who was the first to operate a western style business inside of Poland at the time of the fall of communism. The second biggest obstacle to overcome, besides corruption/bribery, were the stories. Whereas America has its classic rags to riches stories; communism’s version told of the person who wanted to do better, be more, or earn more.., it ends badly, they allll end badly. Very badly every time, they dared to want more and bad bad things happened. As a business person, my friend needed to inspire excellents and optimum production, to do so he needed to navigate around giant monolithic obstacles in the form of stories. Stories designed to maintain the party line.

Most of us have such internal Stonehenge built of stories we consider reality.

In navigating my story I keep a close eye on what stories I am telling myself about others. If I think that someone had done-me-wrong, I have to consider what I get out of telling the story. From a victim position on the wheel, its rather tuff to become master of my kingdom of self, let alone a conscious creator. I have a good friend who has a narcissist for an Ex. She always knows what he is up to by what he tells her, she is thinking. Projection, it’s dead common and a worthy beginner map. Just like in dreams, one way to track them is to see all characters’ and elements of the dream as a part of self. Only for a time, then the rules reverse.