Cherotic Magic Revised - CHAPTER 2 - Chero - Part 2
By Frank Moore, 1990
(SECTION 6)
Each energy center “breathes” several kinds of energies in and out, very much like the lungs/nose breathe air in and out. Each center both takes energy in and projects energy out. Some energy centers are commonly thought of as one-way channels. The eyes obviously let in visually the outer world to our brain, our mind, our inner reality. But the eyes also visually let out what is happening inside us, who we are, and our personal power into the world. All of the centers work on this breathing principle.
In eroplay, the centers are randomly opened up so that this chero breath can be free and deep. Eroplay creates a complete cycle of chero. This cycle is created when you touch your own body. But it becomes more dynamic when this chero cycle is between two people. This interplay opens and relaxes the centers of both people, letting them both cherotically breathe deeper and easier. This deep, easy breathing is what is healing. (We will get into the difference between healing and curing later.) Both people get healed in this interplay and the energy released through the interplay helps to heal the outer world. This is important to understand because many people think healing is a one-way helping/giving channel. Because of this, they are careful “not to give too much”. “I must protect myself and my personal power; maintain my own space, my control over the situation.” This attitude is thought to be individualism.
But in reality, it robs the individual of her power. It isolates her, fragments her. It makes her think she has something to protect, to hide, to defend. It makes her think that she is some limited, weak, fragile being that has to be guarded. All of this is wrapped up in the glitter packaging of individualism and specialness. This attitude makes the chero breath shallow and one-way. It makes the person fragile. Vulnerability is not fragile. Vulnerability is a rubber ball. It gives very easily, but it bounces back to its original shape after it undergoes pressures of hard knocks, and it keeps rolling on the path.
Chero healing as eroplay is a two-way channel whether in play, art, magic, or everyday living. It must be this way to be effective. To create this deep two-way chero breathing you must be willing to both deeply project and deeply take in chero with anyone who is willing to do the same. This willingness will be a demanding screen which will protect the apprentice far more than any defensive wall built by fear and doubt.
There is a basic martial arts principle: if you try to resist an attacking force with your personal “strength and power”, the odds are you will get harmed. But if you do not resist, and go with the opposing force, you can combine your will with that opposing force and channel this new stronger force to your advantage. This is true no matter how “weak” you are. We will use this principle in our work.
But to not resist, you have to rise above the western conditioning of “individualism” which tells us to be a rugged individual like John Wayne. Be alone, self-contained, isolated, rigid, afraid. You fight or run as an individual. But you soon learn that even if you win, you lose as an individual because there is always something or someone bigger than you are. So that in all cases you need the help and the protection, and hence the limits, of the society. But if you neither resist nor run, if you go into the opposing force with a vulnerability that rechannels the power into creativity, you will be empowered and will be in the position to link up with other persons.
Two of the major keys of having and using power or creativity are doing what you say you will do and sticking to what you set out to do, not for “horizontal” progress or goals, but to go for “vertical” depth of meaning, of inner reality, and of exploration (to use Grotowski’s directions).
Western culture is geared for progress on one level ... to reach goals, to move forward. In the sixties, there was an attempt to change this to a search for inner realities with a radically different set of priorities, to go deep as well as, or instead of, going forward ... to live without fear or limits. This was the root of the phrase “going with the flow”.
But this noble attempt at nonlinear living soon got absorbed into the horizontal mainstream. In the seventies, the “going with the flow” nonlinear living became living in fear of not getting “trapped” in any one thing – be it a relationship, a career, a discipline, etc. – for “too long”. The search for freedom became a fearful avoidance. Again isolation and fragmentation came. But this time there was no meaningful progress or goals to aim one’s life at. Life became a shallow pool with no sides. So every time the pool started getting deep, it just spread outward, remaining shallow. From this blobby pool was born the Yuppie generation.
Often people now say they can not make commitments because they have to keep their options open. What they are really saying is that they are not in control of their own lives. This is a modern sickness which robs people of their credibility and integrity. It robs people of their stability. It casts them afloat without a compass. People have said they cannot promise to be at a certain place at a certain time the following week because they do not know what will come up in the meantime. This is an extreme case of the sickness. They do this for “freedom” and “spontaneity”, just as a person with an eating disorder vomits or does not eat to be “healthy” and “beautiful”. What this sickness does is trap the person on the surface level, making him a collector of things, experiences, and relationships. As Grotowski said, it makes a person a “tourist” in life. By avoiding “traps”, he is in the trap with no depth, no intimacy, no overview.
Another aspect of this sickness is the basic dishonesty of fragmentation. A person makes a commitment, a choice, a decision. But in a few months (if not sooner), when things get hard, or when they get boring as the glamour and romance fade, or when some new thing comes along, our would-be hero slips out of the previous commitment. He usually acts like the guy who made the commitment was a different guy than our would-be hero now is. So obviously our hero is not responsible for that other fool’s commitment. And he was a fool because he was so dumb and weak that he let himself be tricked into commitment.
So, with this illogical logic, our would-be hero can go with the clear conscience of a newborn, because he has been fragmented from his past self. Well, maybe not so clear a conscience ... maybe some guilt and regrets. But that is the high price of “freedom”.
This is the modern plague. This attitude causes an incredible amount of waste, pain, disappointment and disillusionment. It causes a large part of the negativity in the world. If we applied this to economics, I am sure we could show how if everyone did what they said they would do, the national debt would be erased.
But if someone is fragmented from himself, he does not think his not doing what he says and his unwillingness to make commitments harms others. He does not think his acts matter. This is the meaning of having no bottom line.
One reason why I do what I said I would do, why I make commitments, is that it is not right to let other people hang, which is what I would be doing if I did not have the power of responsibility.
But I make and keep commitments mainly for myself. I am in control of my life and reality ... past, present, and future. It is my creation. This makes it possible for me to create what I want. Creation is magic, and magic requires commitment. To create deeply requires the removal of time. My ability to make and keep commitments lets me create my own framework on my own terms. I keep my commitments because I made them and I am in control. The only exception is when others fail to keep their commitment to me. This is not an excuse, but seeing what it is.
This framework is where real freedom comes from. It gives credibility, which in the outer world is the power to create. The more credibility I have, the more creative power I have. My word is my power. If I do not keep my word, I lose my power. It is that simple. Since I create my framework, it is not a rigid jail. It is a flexible, evolving framework. When what look like opportunities come along, they must fit into my flexible framework. If they do not, I know they are distractions which I can let go by. Since I am operating in long-term time and my framework is evolving, I can include real opportunity in my framework without abandoning my base. Evolution moves in spurts of expansion and contraction.
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