Willard Walch is the 4th generation in his family to be raised on a cattle ranch in the Rogue Valley of Southern Oregon. In this interview, Willard shares some of the personal struggles he’s wrestled with over the past 7 decades of his life and what he’s learned about the importance of staying true to his authenticity.
Growing up in the 1950s with an expansive network of land, animals, neighboring ranching families, and plenty of hard work, some of his life’s most important lessons were learned from the landscape, lifestyle and the good men and women ranchers around him. Willard credits his mother as his main influential teacher in helping him identify and honor his own Truth, and speaks honestly of his walk to sobriety and the tools he’s gained as an adult through his experiences with the Mankind Project, his work as an Attunement Practitioner, the 12-step program, and Kundalini Yoga, all of which have aided him on his journey.
Now in his elder years, Willard shares his wisdom, his vision, and the importance of what he believes is his current work, honoring the feminine.
I spoke to him in Ashland, OR in 2021.
Music by: Manpreet Kaur @manpreetkaurmusic
www.sacred-truths.com
Willard Walch is the 4th generation in his family to be raised on a cattle ranch in the Rogue Valley of Southern Oregon. In this interview, Willard shares some of the personal struggles he’s wrestled with over the past 7 decades of his life and what he’s learned about the importance of staying true to his authenticity.
Growing up in the 1950s with an expansive network of land, animals, neighboring ranching families, and plenty of hard work, some of his life’s most important lessons were learned from the landscape, lifestyle and the good men and women ranchers around him. Willard credits his mother as his main influential teacher in helping him identify and honor his own Truth, and speaks honestly of his walk to sobriety and the tools he’s gained as an adult through his experiences with the Mankind Project, his work as an Attunement Practitioner, the 12-step program, and Kundalini Yoga, all of which have aided him on his journey.
Now in his elder years, Willard shares his wisdom, his vision, and the importance of what he believes is his current work, honoring the feminine.
I spoke to him in Ashland, OR in 2021.
Music by: Manpreet Kaur @manpreetkaurmusic
www.sacred-truths.com
Willard Walch Transcript
Willard Walch: To be honest with you, I think my mother had a lot to do with that. About being authentic. She demanded authenticity and how she did that was she told her truth. It didn’t matter what it was, you told your truth.
And I learned that that was safe with her, right? Because there wasn’t a punishment around it, or a judgement around it.
It was more of just like, you tell your truth and we’ll go from there as opposed to hiding out, having secrets, and she didn’t push but when it was time and there was an issue, she just asked, “If that’s the way it is?” and it stayed with her.
Willard Walch is the 4th generation in his family to be raised on a cattle ranch in the Rogue Valley of Southern Oregon. In this interview, Willard shares some of the personal struggles he’s wrestled with over the past 7 decades of his life and what he’s learned about the importance of staying true to his authenticity.
Growing up in the 1950s with an expansive network of land, animals, neighboring ranching families, and plenty of hard work, some of his life’s most important lessons were learned from the landscape, lifestyle and the good men and women ranchers around him. Willard credits his mother as his main influential teacher in helping him identify and honor his own Truth, and speaks honestly of his walk to sobriety and the tools he’s gained as an adult through his experiences with the Mankind Project, his work as an Attunement Practitioner, the 12-step program, and Kundalini Yoga, all of which have aided him on his journey.
Now in his elder years, Willard shares his wisdom, his vision, and the importance of what he believes is his current work, honoring the feminine.
I spoke to him in Ashland, Oregon, in 2021.
Emmy: Good afternoon, Willard. Thanks for being with me today.
WW: Thank you, Emmy. Glad to be here. I am.
Emmy: Willard, you and I have had some really beautiful and intriguing talks over the years. And I just want to give a little background to that. Before Covid, we used to meet regularly with a group of other people, early in the mornings, like 4:30 in the morning, once a week to do what was called our sadhana practice which was essentially an early yoga practice followed by an hour of chanting. And sometimes we would go have our morning coffee or tea afterwards at a local coffee shop. And sometimes it was just the two of us.
WW: Indeed.
Emmy: And during those beautiful post sadhana hours, we would hit on some very intriguing, heartfelt subjects. I’ve held those conversations very dear to my heart, and it’s my hope that with this interview we can kind of revisit some of those themes that we’ve touched on in the past.
WW: Very good, I’d love to. Those were special days for me, they really were. Particularly, I feel like that’s where our friendship evolved for me. For me, definitely was just being there with you one on one. Having those conversations over tea or coffee.
Emmy: Yes, powerful moments.
WW: I miss them, actually. Kind of. (laughs) Getting up at 3 in the morning! I don’t miss that so much.
Emmy: But the coffee afterwards, (laughs) and the talks!
Let’s start with a little bit about your past. You were raised in Southern Oregon on a cattle ranch in the 1950’s. Would you briefly describe your upbringing?
WW: Yeah, I’d be glad to do that. Yeah, I was born in 1949 in Sacred Heart Hospital here in Medford, so I think it’s noteworthy that yes, I was raised on a cattle ranch, that cattle ranch actually came to being the essence of it in 1883, and that’s when my father’s side of the family came to the Rogue Valley via wagon train and established wheat farming essentially in the beginning, out in the Antelope Creek area, Climax, those areas.
Yeah, that’s where I was born. I think I’m 4th or 5th generation and I’m 72 years old. Yeah, I’ve been here my entire life and so was my father and so was his father.
But Jacob, the patriarch, he came out here from Iowa. It was in the late 1870’s; it took a while to get here to the Rogue Valley, we’ve been here a while.
Emmy: And you know the art of cattle ranching?
WW: I know quite a bit about it, you know, but I haven’t been involved in it since left home, really at the age of 18 and went off to college to Willamette University. But I’ve been back in that area doing different things but as far as me being involved in it, only up to the age of 18 full time and then after that, through my 20’s here and there.
Emmy: Was it unusual that you went to college?
WW: It was at that time, yeah.
Emmy: What sorts of things were you drawn to as a young man?
WW: It’s so interesting for me for you to ask that question because I didn’t think about it then, but what I enjoyed, but looking back on it, I enjoyed being out of doors, because that’s what my life was: it was basically from daylight till dark, I was outdoors. There was just so much to do on that ranch.
And there was always something to do and there was always something that had to be done. And that was just the way it was; and so at the time I resented it at times and there were times I absolutely loved it, just doing the work and being with men.
Being with men and I didn’t realize that until I was older. I worked with men from the get go, whether it was feeding cattle, haying, or irrigating, or mending fence, that was basically so-called man’s work, not that the women didn’t. The women, I would say, would be more of the husbandry part of it big time, as far as taking care of…
We took care of cattle and horses, but the women took care of chickens, pigs, hogs, gardens, you know, canning and so did I, you know, but I didn’t realize until later in life what a privilege it is to work with men as growing up.
Particularly suburban people, they don’t. They don’t know what their fathers do. They don’t go to work with their dads.
Emmy: So, you knew what your father did and you were in the company of men?
WW: Constantly, constantly, pretty much.
Emmy: And that was a positive thing for you?
WW: (Laughs) That’s a mixed bag! But in general, yes, because I began to understand there were some men that I learned from, but I learned from I would say their mistakes. Their character.
But I learned a lot of things from men in good standing as well, you know, that had good character who meant well. So, it was a mixed bag, but overall, I would say it was a very positive thing; I feel comfortable with men, regardless of who they are, I mean it’s just like, okay.
Emmy: I know we’ve talked a bit about how wonderful it was to grow up in a place where you could just walk at night by yourself and look at the stars and not be surrounded with vehicles or people, the isolation.
WW: Right, it was isolated, in terms of the nearest neighbor boy was like 4 or 5 miles away. So, you didn’t just go hang out with your buddies, you know. That happened on the school bus or at school. Sometimes when we worked: particularly gathering cattle and the roundup because the community would coalesce together to help with all of that, right, so families would show up, right?
Emmy: To help each other.
WW: You didn’t hire anybody, people helped one another. That’s one thing I really learned in that community. This was out in Lake Creek, this was before the corporate ranches showed up is people helped one another. And it wasn’t a matter of, an odd thing, it’s just what you did.
Gordon Stanley who lived down the road three miles who had daughters, needed some help from young guys, we came. Whether it was with cattle, or particularly during hay season, it was a big thing, you know, you just did it. That’s all there was to it.
Emmy: And I bet the women helped each other, too.
WW: They did, they did, they would prepare the food and whatever needed to happen and just show up, you know. By the way the women did a lot of this work too. By driving a tractor or riding a horse, marking, and branding. There wasn’t a huge division, really. It was more a matter of man power if you want to call it that.
Women would show up if they were needed, they just showed up that was just the way it went, you know. There was a lot of that actually. So, I was in the presence of women quite a bit, too, quite a bit.
Emmy: Was there any influential adult or several for you?
WW: You want to talk about the positive? (Laughs)
Emmy: Either way. Either way.
WW: Yeah, I think I’m going to keep the negative part out, just because it’s just probably wise.
Gordon Stanley, he was a neighbor, a rancher, his family they were German, they came here. His brother Chuck: they were my dad’s age. They were older men; they were good men. They weren’t cruel which I saw a lot of on certain men. They were good with animals which taught me a lot. They weren’t cruel or overbearing, or tried to make things happen, they would let things happen, they would allow things to happen and be there as far as like on the cattle drives, they didn’t force it. They let it happen. Cattle and the horses know what they need to do, essentially, if you let them.
Emmy: Willard, you’ve talked about different themes in your life, throughout your life, including maintaining a sense of sacredness and being accountable and authentic. What does it mean to you to be an authentic male?
WW: That’s a really good question. That’s something that’s been developed over the years. I think, to be honest, authentic, I think my mother had a lot to do with that. About being authentic. She demanded authenticity and how she did that was you told the truth. It didn’t matter what it was, you just told your truth.
And I learned that that was safe with her, right? Because there wasn’t a punishment around it, or a judgement around it.
It was more of like, you tell your truth, and we’ll go from there; as opposed to hiding out, having secrets, and she didn’t push but when it was time and there was an issue, she just asked, “If that’s the way it is?” you know, and it stayed with her.
Emmy: And you felt safe telling her…
WW: I did, but she wasn’t no pushover, she was a tough woman. So, I would say, perhaps, my mother was more on a steady basis, was by far, the most influential person in my life.
No question.
She was tough, but she was very smart, artistic, and she worked from her heart and her intuition. She was very bright. She could debate you in any way. But that’s not where she lived, she lived in her heart and her intuition and she trusted that; she trusted that with people. Some people thought she was judgmental. But no, when she was in the presence of whatever it was, she knew what it was, she wasn’t going to be, what do they call it these days…
It’s gaslighting. You could tell her whatever you wanted to, but she already knew the answer. That sounds like judgment but what I learned what it was, is that she knew what her feeling about the situation, what she was really grokking in the situation. You weren’t going to talk her out of it, until it shifted for her.
And I didn’t understand that, so much as I just witnessed it, right? It was something I emulated in my life without me knowing I was doing it.
It’s been going on in my life since I was a child, where I intuitively know what’s really going on. I know. Will I talk myself out of it, or be talked out of it, yeah, I have. I have. I have.
But I’ve learned the older I get, that if I listen to that and go with it, things seem to go a lot easier if I don’t try to intellectualize, rationalize, talk myself into something, it’s always a mess. And I say ‘always’ because it is always a mess. (laughs) Or messier than if I’d just listen to my gut and my intuition and just let it happen that way.
And you’ll find out what’s right, what works, that’s my experience anyway.
Emmy: You’re a father and a husband.
WW: I am.
Emmy: You’ve been drawn to a number of different modalities that have influenced your search for authenticity. Perhaps it’s more your journey to stay authentic, is maybe more accurate. One of them is called The Mankind Project. What is the Mankind Project? How did you discover the Mankind Project and what has been your experience with this organization?
WW: The Mankind Project, you correctly said, “is”. It was, “The New Warriors’ Project” when I experienced it. I think I first heard about it in the early 90’s, maybe late 80’s through some men that I had already been working with in this spiritual organization called the Emmisaries. So, a couple of them went to this initiation, this rite of passage, and came back, and it just felt right for me to go.
So I went with another fellow, Don Pines, a friend of mine, a poet.
Emmy: How long ago?
WW: I didn’t travel out to Milwaukee, Wisconsin with him until 1993 I think.
Emmy: For this.
WW: For the New Warrior’s initiation weekend. So, yeah, we flew out there and wound up at this camp out on the boonies on a lake. You couldn’t even talk about it then to other people when you were done, not even your wife, that’s sort of thing.. It was pretty interesting, you could talk about generalities, you couldn’t go into specifics.
Emmy: You weren’t allowed to.
WW: You were asked not to. (laughs) So….that’s all changed. But no, it was a rough weekend it was one of those things where they tear you down, and they do that in a lot of different ways and then they build you back up, that kind of thing, right? And it just demonstrated to me that there needs to be a rite of passage for men in modern society.
We have different rites of passage, and different venues, but there not called rites of passage, right?
If you’re a football player, and you stay with that, that’s a rite of passage. But it’s never taught that way, right? And it’s not exactly a healthy rite of passage in my opinion.
The arms forces, right? Boot Camp. It’s a rite of passage, is it healthy? I don’t know. I wouldn’t hold judgement about it because I’ve never been through it, you know.
I’ve been through some other boot camp in my teenage years, and they’re never called that.
So, for me, it’s like, I actually went through my first rite of passage consciously, right? This is how it was laid out: this is what we are doing, guys, and this and this and this needs to happen, you can leave any time you want. But in order to get out the other side of this, if you really want to know what it is to be a man. And that may sound kind of high handed, but the fact of the matter is that most men that I know who have gone through it have come out the other side changed, dramatically changed.
And mainly because they have to meet their shadow, or shadows, and you have to do it to get out the other side. There are people out here: men, there are no women around,
Men who are pegging you, right? And making you work, making you deal with what they see, in your shadow, right? You have to confront it, at least once, right? And actually, see it for yourself because it’s reflected.
It was a monumental experience for me, it changed my life. Other things have changed my life as well, but this was like a conscious, I’m walking into this.
Emmy: A defining point…
WW: A defining point. When I get out the other side and I can tell you it was a defining point, there’s no question about that.
Emmy: And you were about 44 years old.
WW: I was, yeah. And that led into other seminars and workshops with Cliff Barry, who’s a shadow work genius in my opinion and I’m not the only one.
And those years in my mid- 40’s I went to a lot of work with shadow work with both men and women. It was very valuable for me.
Emmy: Can you speak to some of the themes that come up during these weekend workshops for men?
WW: There’s what called the Hero’s Journey. And there’s several different aspects depending on what’s man is in the circle, right? They do what they called Gut’s work which is …. you’re it, right? And there are several men in there that are basically putting the pressure on you to see what this is. You know, and it’s not done like “you are this!” It’s more like you have to discover it yourself.
It’s a process that’s actually hard to explain, but sooner or later you have to confront this thing in you, that is basically holding you back in your life whatever that could be.
For me, it had to do with my dad, it had to do with me of not facing the fact that I hated my dad, on some level, the things that I saw in him, the things that I saw him do, the disrespect, never being good enough thing. But, at the same time I held him in high esteem, but nothing was matching up, right? It just wasn’t real. So, I went through basically killing my dad in this ritual; it was totally liberating.
That kind of work, I think, allows people to not kill other people, not destroy their marriages, get out of addiction.
All kinds of things. That kind of work allows you to see why you are doing these other things that are destroying you, that are holding you back?
Emmy: You’ve struggled with addiction. You’ve spoken very honestly to me about that. Has the Mankind Project helped you with that?
What kinds of things helped you?
W: Well, I was still actively in my addiction when I went through my rite of passage. So, I don’t know that it helped me, I can’t say specifically how it helped me, but I think it did.
There were a lot of factors for me getting sober. It was my 3rd time, and I’ve been like 22 years sober now without a drink or drugs or any of that. I think what got me sober was the old saying, “I get sick and tired of being sick and tired.” I knew I had an issue with it with alcohol in particular. I think the first time I tried to get sober or did get sober I was 27 or 28.
The third time I was like, 40 maybe. I think what happened and the reason I didn’t succeeded was that I was never sick enough, I knew I was sick but not sick enough, right?
I could convince myself, “Well, I’m sober,” and that wasn’t hard.
The last time, I was 49, and I was just done, and I went to AA meetings, and did whatever I was told.
I was just like, I wasn’t going to let my mind convince me that I didn’t have to do that, right?
I didn’t have to have to go to meetings or I didn’t have to have a sponsor or work the steps. I don’t really have a problem; I just drink too much. (laughs) That was my attitude until it wasn’t.
Emmy: Did it impact your family, your relationships?
WW: Of course it did. But you don’t see how it does, because I didn’t drink at home, for one thing. I actively drank for….
I knew I had a problem because the first time I drank, I got thrown in Jail. The second time I drank, I got thrown in jail.
Emmy: Your father had a problem with alcohol?
WW: He did. He did. So did my mother’s family, but my mother didn’t drink. But she had all the markings of an adult child.
Emmy: Is it hard to stay sober?
WW: Not for me. Not now, not then. I didn’t decide to quit, I was just done. I don’t know how to explain it. Yes, AA was…going to all those meetings, I mean, I went to hundreds of meetings, having a sponsor, and doing the steps, all that works, right?
And I did all those things, so I would say because of that it wasn’t hard to stay sober. And I also know that I was done, but there have been times where I thought about drinking, and that sort of thing and that’s about it, it’s usually a fleeting thought. I know this when I’ve seen it happen to my friends who’ve been sober for 15- 25 years, they go out and they’re dead within a year. It’s just the way it works, it’s crazy. So, I see those things and it’s just like, no, it’s not an option and you know what? I don’t miss it. I don’t miss that stuff. I don’t miss it a bit.
I really enjoy being clean. It’s my ideal, but I don’t take any pharmaceuticals medicines. Any health problems I have, I usually try to find out a way to dealing with whatever physical or mental/emotional issue with what I eat or drink and exercise, meditation, and all those things. I find they work. It’s been working for me for over 20 years, particularly since I meditate before, but once I came into contact with Kundalini yoga about 4 years, 5 years ago.
There’s another transition in my life.
Emmy: Tell us about this.
WW: This is actually probably the biggest transition as far as really coming into my own.
First of all, I want to say, it couldn’t have happened without being sober. I just know that, and there are people who are well into their addiction and Kundalini yoga. But I know for me, it just wouldn’t happen.
I tried other things but they just didn’t take, the alcohol was just more important.
Kundalini Yoga, that’s how I met you!
Emmy: Yes, you did. You walked into my gin joint, so to speak.
WW: Yeah, I did. This is a great story: my daughter got into Kundalini Yoga in 2013, it was 2015, towards the end of it when I got involved. It’s a remarkable practice, it’s just a remarkable practice and that’s how I met you: I walked into your class because my daughter, Danielle had given me as a Christmas present, or birthday present, one or the other, a pass to come to Kundalini yoga here in Ashland. And I didn’t do anything with that, “Whatever, sweetheart, thank you..”
So, I went down to LA for Christmas and she said, “How’s that going, Willard?” She calls me “Willie” and she knew I hadn’t did a thing, and she didn’t give me any guff about it, so I went to a class down there, and I had been dealing with PTSD big time, and it was getting worse and worse and worse and worse, and I’ve done therapy and da da da da, da, da, da,, and some of it helped and some of it didn’t. The main thing I was dealing with it every day, so I was angry, I was so angry. I went to this class in LA that she goes to every day, and I didn’t realize I had an experience, I knew something had shifted, altered but I realized two days later I wasn’t angry. I’m not angry; what happened?
I track it back, and I was like, that class. Something happened. I don’t even remember what it was. You know how Kundalini, they’re an hour and half long and they have this that and the other thing.
And then you’re done. (laughs) You don’t know what happened. And I was doing things that I didn’t understand. So, anyway, then I came into your class and that was it.
Emmy: And you stuck to it.
WW: I stuck to it. I loved it. I couldn’t get enough. I couldn’t believe how good I felt.
Emmy: And then you became a teacher!
WW: I did. I did. I did.
Emmy: At what age?
WW: I was 68, I guess.
Emmy: It’s a pretty grueling schedule! To become a teacher
WW: It’s over the top. (LAUGHS) It’s way over the top
Emmy: And you did it, Willard. You flew down to LA once a month…
WW: Oh, I know. The only way I could commit is to commit. What I mean by that is I signed up for it, paid for it, I bought all my plane tickets; to me money is just a commitment. So, if I’m going to do all that, I’m in. There’s no way out at that point.
It was way over the top, way over the top, way over the top, but then half way through I surrendered. I don’t know how to explain it, I wasn’t that I surrendered to the yoga, or it wasn’t that I surrendered to the teachers or to the regime or the regiment, everything I was doing; I found myself in a place where you, you got to give it up.
It was just a feeling, it wasn’t even so much conscious, but I remember consciously going “if you’re going to keep doing this this way, it’s just going to be hell!”
It was my mind. It was my mind resisting this, resisting that, challenging this and challenging that and being angry about this… Everything out here was a problem. I just, I surrendered. I just remember this one meditation, it was done, I was done. And from that point on it was like heaven on earth. The training…
I mean it was still difficult, but I wasn’t resisting, and something just let go, and it changed my life, one more time.
Emmy: Tell us about the Attunement Practitioners. You are also involved with the International Association of Attunement Practitioners for a while. It’s defined as both a personal spiritual practice and a healing modality that works through the endocrine system to balance energy flow allowing one to experience stillness, peace and harmony. A lot of it sounds similar to yoga, but I know it’s different. What has been your experience with Attunement?
WW: I came into contact with this in 1977 which was another transition period for me. I basically left my life of trying to do it on my own, drugs, sex, and rock and roll, that sort of thing. Hitch-hiking around the United States, just ramming around trying to figure it out.
I came into this practice of attunement through a woman. Her name is Diane Shaddock: she introduced me to the Emmisaries and they have this practice called Attunement and that’s where I began to experience it with her.
And basically, it can be between several people, but most of time it’s just one on one and you don’t touch, usually, unless you ask permission, but you don’t need to.
Basically, you hold both hands. Someone stands on your back or you’re lying down. And you hold your hands on both sides of your neck, to balance the axis right here where your spine and your neck come into contact with your backbone and up here where your neck comes right past your skull. So, there’s an area there and you can feel it in your hands there where it’s buzzy and what have you and suddenly it just comes into balance and you can feel this clear channel and it starts going through you and then you leave one hand there basically and start at the pineal, pituitary gland, come down the thymus, the kidneys, down to the gonads, or the ovaries if you’re a woman and back up through.
There’s different ways of doing this, right?
But the main thing is it does balance the energy and you are sharing the energy with another person. So, that’s the basic technique of it although, it can get much more relaxed and advanced.
There’s long distance attunement that I practice to this day with people. And it’s been a valuable tool for me. It’s allowed me to realize that you can contact people energetically, consciously if you want to. It sounds kind of airy-fairy because it does sound airy-fairy. But it isn’t! There’s just a lot of, for me, a freedom in that. It’s a healing modality if you want it to me. But mainly it’s just for…to come into a place of deep meditation with another person. In a certain specific way, through the endocrine system, right? It’s a powerful experience.
Emmy: How do you feel after you receive one?
WW: I feel like often times, when I’m in deep meditation when I’m out of that. This will take about 20-30 minutes on the outside of the attunement.
Emmy: Can you give one to someone who doesn’t know how to give it back?
WW: Yeah, absolutely as long as they have my consent.
Emmy: You can treat someone, if you will.
WW: Yes, I can, I can treat you but I have to have your consent, it has to be a conscious thing, you just can’t just randomly go, oh,..
Emmy: I’m going to send this to you.
WW: That’s invasive, and that’s arrogant to boot, even if you can do it.
Emmy: When we were talking about addiction, do you have any advice for people who suffer from addictions?
WW: I don’t know if I have advice so much. If you and I were sitting here and you’re asking me advice: I would tell you, first of all, I would ask you do you really have a problem. Do you? Do you know for a fact that you have a problem, and if you do, explain it to me. And if you are, are you really ready to quit, are you ready to give it up and start the change, you know, start the change.
I think so many addicts, people with substance abuse think it’s going to be a huge thing in their life immediately, right? They’re going to give up so much.
And I would say it’s an illusion because the friends you have, aren’t your friends, they’re addicts. Okay? You enable one other to be that way. And I say this because I’ve gotten sober 3 times, every time I did, all those people disappeared. Immediately. (laughs) Because-
Emmy: You’re no fun anymore!
WW: You’re not part of the ritual.
Emmy: No, you’re not. You’re not playing by the rules.
WW: No, you’re not. So, I would just say, you have to admit to yourself. And not just like randomly say, “Yeah, okay, I’ve got a problem.”
For me, I had to go to a place of depth. And I’m not saying it has to be that way for everybody. I don’t know. For everybody. I’ve sponsored other people and I’ve seen how they’ve quit or didn’t haven’t quit. And you can usually tell. I can tell from my own experience. Both times in my experience I wanted to quit, but I didn’t want to stay quit. I wanted to somehow still incorporate drinking in my life, right? All I have to say is you’re an alcoholic and it’s affecting your life and you want to seriously start to change, you gotta get off the substance; you gotta do the steps. The steps are a wonderful thing: that’s shadow work right there! A lot of it. And surrender. I mean, the steps take you through that whole process and you go through it with another human being. You don’t do it alone. You start the process alone, but you work with your sponsor, or whoever you want to, work with anybody.
Emmy: That’s an important piece of it: you’re not alone.
WW: It is. You’re just not alone. People bad mouth AA and the 12-step program and all I can say is “Well, did you really walk the walk? Did you really do it?”
That’s the deal. That’s what works.
I know people that I drank with and in my judgement, drank more than I did, and they quit! And I know one fella, still a good friend of mine, been dry for over 30 years, but he struggled.
The biggest thing that happens with addicts is they quit but they don’t deal with the reasons why they were drinking.
So you have this person, usually, who is still confused, upset and angry, still!
Emmy: And you’re confronted with that and you don’t have alcohol.
WW: Right. Yeah.
Emmy: What you’re saying harkens back to your mother, to speak your truth. And you know when you’re speaking your truth, it’s about having an honest conversation with yourself.
WW: The only time I brought my mother to tears, I was like 24, 25. And she asked me out to out to the ranch and sit with her. And tell me, “I wanna know what’s going on with you. You’re not the person that I raised. I don’t want to know so much what you’ve been doing, but why you’ve changed?”
Emmy: Meaning you were taking drugs and drinking alcohol.
WW: Yeah, I was a garbage can, I took whatever was on the plate. And I told her the truth and it brought her to tears. She cried, it was just….It’s not one of my favorite moments in life, but it was healthy for me, I walked away from it knowing she and I were clean about it.. She knew. And I was honest about it. I remember that day vividly.
So I would say, you know, that was the beginning. It wasn’t just a couple years from then that I got clean.
Emmy: Did your mother ever see you sober?
WW: Yes, yeah, she did.
Emmy: Willard, we’ve spoken about many things already, what kind of practice helps you stay authentic to yourself these days?
WW: My meditation practice.
It’s where I confront my demons. It’s where I confront my falsehoods about myself. It’s where I confront the gold in myself; it’s where I confront my shadows; it’s where I confront other people that reflect back to me and my shadow. I know for a fact that if somebody triggers me, their behaviors, or something they’ve said, it’s not going on in me anymore.
So, it’s not about that person, oh, it could be, but more than likely it’s about me. So, my meditation helps me go to those places and like really get honest with that.
And once I can get past that, and then I can really move into what I call the ‘glow of meditation’ where it’s a beautiful thing just to be with yourself. It’s a remarkable thing.
I think it’s what people are looking for when they’re getting high. To be honest, they’re also trying to get away from something, but when I reflect back on it, the better moments of getting high, are like a meditation only it’s very fleeting and cannot be attained again. That’s one of the things particularly I think heroin addicts and a lot of alcoholics too, they’re chasing that one moment was blissful, but that they can’t get it again. Not really.
And with meditation it can, and it actually gets better, I have found. There are moments and rhythms to it.
And I harken back often times when I’m meditating to when I was growing up on the ranch, and I was alone and by a creek or out in the woods just sitting, right? and just being there. And not even knowing what it was at the time, but I was communing with nature and the energy around all that, I felt wonderful. I didn’t have a name for it then, I just knew that I liked it, right?
And now, when I sit on my deck and meditate in the morning, and the birds are out and all that, and I get past all my wakeup BS… (laughs)
which by the way, it’s a wonderful thing if you can get past that it changes your day…if I wake up with my game on.
Which I used to do: a short little prayer, a cup of coffee and “I’ve got shit to do now,” and I’m out the door. It’s just a horrible way to live, for me, it was, I just didn’t get it, I was just carrying everything forward, that was annoying me or not annoying ….just this cacophony of stuff.
Now, I walk out the door, it’s all good, most of time. It’s all good.
Whatever’s going to happen is going to happen and I’m okay with it.
And learning how to breathe, oh my god, that was so huge in my experience, to just learning how to really breathe into stuff and expand your lungs during the day and get that feeling. Your body loves that stuff.
Our culture, my culture growing up was never taught any of that: how to use your breath. On a consistent basis throughout your day.
Really use your breath to bring you back to a place where you need to be, which is a calm place to deal with anything.
Emmy: And it’s even more than just calm, it’s about going back to that place that your mother spoke of: going back to you. Your inner truth and own authenticity: your breath will get you there.
WW: It will. If you have to take the time to consciously breathe, you’re not interacting, for me; I’m not interacting with what’s upsetting me. Anymore. It’s like, I’m breathing and I’m focused on my breath, and things are changing now, and this out here, it’s what it is, it’s fine. I’m not hooked to it energetically. I’ve broke that connection when I use my breath.
Emmy: As the yogis say, “Breathe consciously and you live consciously; breathe shallowly and your live shallowly.”
WW: It’s very true. (laughs) It takes a while. I wasn’t trained to use my breath. I can remember coming back from yoga training or your class and breathing and I intentionally started watching the news that would upset me but I would watch the news and use my breath. Otherwise, I wasn’t practicing. It was like, I had to get some conscious way of intentionally pissing myself off, and using my breath to calm down, and the television is how I did it. (laughs) It was!
Emmy: There’s something about meditation, that takes you, at least in Kundalini It can take you beyond time and space. It can take you out of your own identity. Whatever that may be.
Your gender, your orientation, however you identify with you, and that’s indescribable. And gives you tremendous insight.
WW: And, for me, tremendous hope. Quite frankly. Like, there’s an experience beyond what I’ve been taught, or what I’ve experienced, and the tools I’ve been given and there’s truly a transcendent place to live. To live and act out of that.
I’m new at this! I do know that I have the rest of my life, that’s really heartening to be honest with you, that I have these kinds of tools now to experience life as a miracle. There’s so much magic; I’ve gotten into photography. I’ve always kind of had an eye on it, but I realize there is so much beauty in this world.
Constantly, constantly, constantly, constantly if you’re willing to relax and open up to it as opposed to how I was before. I guess I was shut down, but it was more like I was involved in my business, all this external stuff, right? Constantly, drawn into whatever that looked like or whatever that was and now it’s more like I have a place where I can separate. It’s not really a separation so much as it is a move into silence. Inside myself.
And silence isn’t even a good word, I don’t even like words sometimes to try to describe this stuff because it’s so experiential, but it’s a place where I can see magic happen now. And I can experience magic happen now.
Particularly in nature or not so much with people.
Or with someone frankly like you, who is conscious or on the same path or with an attunement. And I can experience that with other people as well. Sometimes I sense it’s just me that is experiencing that. Whatever that person is. It’s just opened up a whole new world for me to be in.
Emmy: Let’s just talk about your elder years. You’re 72 now. And you’re entering into your elder years. Would you like to comment on what that means to you and what do you see the purpose of these elder years. For you personally, what is your role as an elder?
WW: I just find myself seeing people in a totally different way: I see the gold in them. I don’t know necessarily if that’s the feminine or what it is. I don’t feel like a mother so much as I just feel like nurturing people and not in big ways, just accepting them for where they are in their lives and seeing what it is they enjoy doing. Again, I’ll go back to meditation, but it seems like when I’m in that place where I am right now, and things are attracted to you and all you have to just be yourself. One thing, I want to live into my 100, and I want to live healthfully, right? I don’t want to live to 100 just to be 100, the reason I want to live is, I want to live longer! Like I’m really enjoying life now.
Emmy: Maybe for the first time!
WW: For the first time consistently. For sure. There’s no questions about that. Consistently I am enjoying.. it’s not that I don’t have my moments, I do. I have this battery of tools and support from certain people like yourself or others. But I know I can count on, I just know it.
Not so much to lean on, but to share a deeper experience with. And I don’t need a lot of people anymore.
I can remember in my younger years, oh my god, people everywhere! And I was everywhere. It’s been was a long journey, that’s over 40 years ago, and I started my journey into sobriety and a spiritual journey if you will one of discovering who I am and what this world is and what it means to be in it in a healthy way and it’s been one layer after another.
Emmy: And I think just being who you are you are a role model for younger people.
WW: Without even knowing it. You don’t have to go out of your way to do it. You find yourself doing things.
Emmy: As you said, you call in what you need and it comes.
WW: Some of it is conscious and some of it isn’t. It’s like the birds in the morning, the squirrels, in the morning. I go out there at daylight or whatever it is. And I’m sitting out there with my breath, and different yoga…
And the squirrels are running around the deck yakking at me; they’re not happy that I’m there . And the two mountain blue jays they show up and they’re kind of talking to me, “What are you doing here?” I’m serious, that’s what it feels like ..they get used to it.
I have crows that show up and ravens show up. They probably show up anyway, but I know that but all I know is when I’m there, and they’re there, you experience something together. And that’s kind of a metaphor for me in regards to…I didn’t ask for the blue jays to show up or crows;
it’s the same with people, they people that need to show up, they’re going ot show up. If the circumstances that need to show up, they are going to show up.
Emmy: Willard, is there anything else you’d like to share today?
WW: I just want to say this: I think mankind, womankind, humankind, is in a place where we really consciously, I have to, and I’ve been working on this, is to honor the feminine aspect of all life as a man. That’s going to be part of my work from here on in, and I’m not blaming men and I’m not blaming women and I’m not even blaming humankind. It’s more that there’s a psychosis is going on, some sort, some dysfunctional thing where the male part of all this has dishonored the feminine. It goes man to women, it goes to this earth.
And I think women have some work to do too, but that’s not my job. My job is to discover for myself, on a day-to-day momentary basis, a moment to moment how I can honor, not only the feminine in myself but every aspect of it because it has been dishonored.
Emmy: The Divine Feminine.
WW: Absolutely, it’s just been dishonored. That’s my opinion that’s my take on it. For me, that’s my next walk in life. We’ll see how that rolls. And it’ll start at home with my wife. (laughs) I deal with women quite a bit because of my business: I’m in their homes, I have a wood flooring business. It all started with my mother, she demanded respect and she would not put up with disrespect.
Emmy: And you work the earth and with animals.
WW: Yep. And I also learned disrespect for women from men. Some men. Big time. And it’s was accepted. So, there’s stuff I need to work out, and I have worked out over the years, and there’s just more stuff I need to work out and…
Emmy: And you have a daughter.
WW: I have a daughter. I have a beautiful daughter; I have a dynamic daughter. For sure.
Yeah, so, I’m looking forward to that really.
Men can say they love women, blah, blah, blah, whatever, they love the earth. But it all comes out to the way you talk, the way you think. And so that’s what I’m working with. And the way I treat the earth. I did work with the earth.
I have a lot of respect for it, but there’s also some shadow stuff in there that pops up, that really is not me. It’s just not. It’s not any of us, it’s just stuff we’ve inherited or we think needs to carry forward and we do it without thinking about it or being conscious about it. And those days are over, for me. They’re over.
If I want to continue to really enjoy my life, I feel like the next part of my life is discovering what that is and myself and others and respecting it. And being consistent about it.
That’s the main thing.
Emmy: Willard, thank you so much for being with me today and sharing so much.
WW: Thank you. I’ve enjoyed this. I have.