Fun with Tyrants.

Another month, another shamanic meeting, this time about tyrants. Not your Caligulas but things, places, situations and people who just seem to get the better of you. Like when I go out the front door and it’s raining and cold and there’s a moment when I almost decide to shiver and be miserable ‘cos it’s crap. That’s the moment the weather tyrant’s caught me off guard and won its little battle with me. It’s all down hill from there. I kick the cat, stomp around with my head just above my naval and generally think life’s a bitch and then I’ll die. And a passer by says, “Don’t you love these rainy autumn evenings, really make you feel alive.” I resist the temptation to punch the smug son of a bitch but all he’s done is beat this particular tyrant that I have succumbed to. That’s the drift of it but humans are a bit more complex to deal with than weather. On the wheel of tyrants there’s North (air, mind and intellect), East (fire, spirit), South (water, emotions) and West (earth, physicality) each with their own version of people who can catch you off guard. The aim is not to lose or to fight them, but to win the little battle they’re presenting you with. For example in the south the tyrant is the little pest who whittles at you till your emotions are frayed and then steps in to have their way. Answer, keep your emotional composure and just observe what they’re doing. In the north there are those who use intellectual arrogance to undermine, in the east their position of spiritual or hierarchical superiority, and in the west their physical presence. In essence if someone approaches you with a submachine gun don’t go ‘oh my God’ and collapse, don’t whip out your pistol and make a fight of it, just turn the light off or suggest, “You look so incredibly strong I bet you can run miles further than I can carrying that gun, show me.”  In Indian speak that’s ‘counting coo’ or taking their dream. That sounded too airy-fairy to me till I thought about it. Their ego wants its way, you know like world domination or whatever, which is the dream, and this dream, being their internal construction is based on a set of assumptions. If they get you to accept them too it’s good night all, but if you confound an assumption, prove it’s invalid, the dream falls like a pack of cards and its, “Not so clever now are we Mr Goldfinger.” So next time I’m all miserable and insinuating it’s all your fault don’t take it on, smile and say, “Sorry Stiffmouse I thought you were just doing your impersonation of Tony Hancock, which is excellent by the way.” And now the difficult bit. What sort of tyrant are you to other people? And how are you a tyrant to yourself? Go figure.