Meditations on God

The Sword And Shield Of Truth (Happy Birthday To My Wife)
“I wasn’t born nice. I have to try really hard to be that way.”
—My Wife

Some people tell us exactly who they are, leaving us with the choice to believe them, accept them, love them, or leave. These people do not try to be someone else, they do not hide their truth, and they do not expect that everyone will like them. They are who they are and they wear their flaws, fears, and insecurities on the surface right along with their desires, demands, and affection.

Being truthful about who they are does not necessarily mean that they like it. It simply means that they admit it, they own it, and they live with it. Being the first to acknowledge their flaws is both a form of strength and a protection because, if they can tell us about their shortcomings first, we cannot later say that we were deceived, unwarned, or strung along.

These people are not for everyone. Many of us need softness, illusion, grey areas, and even uncertainty in our relationships where we can hide in the shadows of the unspoken and unexpressed, never really knowing others or revealing our true selves. This allows us to ease our way into and out of intimacy, vulnerability, and the sometimes harsh, blinding light of honesty.

The truth is not always kind. It is not always careful. It is not always gentle or forgiving. The truth is what it is. If we can learn to live with it and with those who wield it as both sword and shield, we will have a powerful ally who will be forever faithful, who will never let us down, and who will fight for us and protect us at all costs.

Happy birthday to my beautiful, smart, strong, and always honest wife and mother to my precious daughter.

Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.

Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.

Follow Robert Van Valkenburgh and Holistic Budo on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and LinkedIn.

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May 9, 2020

care, carefulness, courage, faithfulness, gentleness, honesty, honor, intimacy, kindness, life, love, marriage, protection, strength, truth, vulnerability
The Warrior And The Healer (We Need Both)
Some of us were born for fighting and others for healing, but all of us are necessary.

Within any given tribe, there are warriors and there are healers and neither is intrinsically more or less valuable than the other.* Each has a necessary role to play for the good of the tribe. Within every cultural group, we need both fighters and healers.

Some people are aggressive by nature and only feel useful or fulfilled when in active conflict with some other group or individual. They see the potential for conflict in every encounter and define success or failure in wins and losses. These people both protect us and move us forward by any means necessary, sometimes at the cost of their own lives.

Other people are more passive by nature and feel most useful or fulfilled when resolving conflict, when solving problems, and when healing relationships. They see the potential for mutually beneficial solutions that bring individuals or groups together instead of dividing them apart. These people heal us and keep us healthy by any means necessary, sometimes even at the cost of their own health.

We need both the warriors and the healers, but we also need to know, in our relationships, which role we play. Our role may change from relationship to relationship, but we each tend lean more toward one role or the other. The key is to know which one we are, whether the warrior or the healer, to embrace this truth about ourselves, and to focus our time and energy on becoming more effective and more useful to our tribe in our natural role.

*Obviously, this is an oversimplification. There are many more roles in any given social group than this and each role has some overlap with the other. In reality, these roles are actually quite fluid as the needs of the group changes from day-to-day, especially in an emergency.

Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.

Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.

Follow Robert Van Valkenburgh and Holistic Budo on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and LinkedIn.

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May 8, 2020

community, effectiveness, family, fighter, fighting, healer, healing, medicine, purpose, role, tribe, usefulness, warrior
Finding Comfort And Company
We are not meant to be alone, but it is far better to pursue our own path in solitude than to lose ourselves in the pursuit of company.

We all need a place we can go where we are able to be ourselves. We need a place where we can live out loud, where we are unashamed of who we are, unafraid of what others think, and undeterred from the pursuit of becoming better than we were yesterday. We need a place we can go where others are in pursuit of the same goal, in their own way, for their own reasons.

We also need people who see who we are, who we are trying to be, and our potential to become even more than we imagine. We need people who see us, who support us, and who push us in the right direction. We need a place and people who bring light to our shadows and where our collective lights shine brighter than our individual lights ever could.

None of this is easy nor is it promised to us, but that does not mean it is not necessary. The plain fact is that such a place may not yet exist for us or others like us and we may have to build it ourselves with the hope that others will find their way to it and to us. If our path to this place is long and solitary, we must learn to enjoy our own company along the way, to become comfortable in our own skin, to become stronger in who we are and what we value because no one was ever made happier by shrinking down for others out of fear of loneliness.

Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.

Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.

Follow Robert Van Valkenburgh and Holistic Budo on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and LinkedIn.

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May 7, 2020

belonging, comfort, community, company, family, fellowship, friendship, happiness, network, pursuit, support
Art Is A Shared Story Of Emotion
“I’m not serving a menu. I’m serving a story. I’m serving my soul. I’m serving a conversation and I want you to talk back to me. I want you to dialogue with me.“
—Dominique Crenn

Within every artistic expression and experience, there are always many stories being told.

There is the story that the artist tells him or herself about who they are as a person, a creator, an artist, and as a member of society.

There is the story the artist tells him or herself about what their art means personally, what it means in the world, to the culture, and what it means to and for others with whom it will be shared.

There is also the story that the viewer, listener, reader, taster, experiencer, or witness tells about his or herself, about his or her culture, about the artist, and about the art itself when it is shared with them and when they share it with others.

Even the culture within or from which any piece of art is created tells its own stories about that art, but the art also tells a story about the culture it grew out of or was created in opposition to, and when foreign cultures experience this same art, a new, different story is told by and about these cultures, the artist, and the art itself.

Throughout all of this, the art is also telling many of its own stories. It is telling stories about individuality, relationships, creativity, conformity, rebellion, influence, preferences, possibilities limitations, clarity, confusion, joy, pain, beauty, ugliness, divinity, and profanity.

All of these stories are ultimately about one thing, however, and that is emotion. Art’s true story is told in the emotions it was created out of and the emotions it evokes in others. Art’s essence, its’ purpose, its’ most pure expression, manifestation, and experience is a feeling, an emotion, and, ideally, this emotion tells its own story while simultaneously transcending stories altogether.

Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.

Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.

Follow Robert Van Valkenburgh and Holistic Budo on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and LinkedIn.

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May 6, 2020

art, artist, creation, creative, creator, culture, emotion, feeling, feelings, life, stories, story, storytelling, writer
Our True Form (Light And Shadows)
“The bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light.”
—Socrates by way of Plato, The Republic

When my brother first came back from living abroad, I remember he looked different. He had a smile, a Kangol hat, and a warm glow of contentment and confidence. It was as if he knew exactly who he was and where he was going.

This image has stuck with me over the years and has always reminded me of the Greek philosopher Plato’s ‘Theory of Forms.’ Plato held that we live in an imperfect world of shadows, with the true, perfect essence of things, their true ‘form’ existing beyond us in some ideal, spiritual plane. According to Plato, we can attempt to know the true form of things, including ourselves, but it will always remain elusive to our grasp in this life.

The reason what I saw in my brother on that day, whether real or imagined, has always reminded me of Plato’s ‘forms’ is because I think that, at certain times in our lives, even if for a brief moment, if we are truly fortunate, we experience the truth of our ourselves in our ideal form. All of our shadows give way to the light and we glow as the best versions of ourselves in the reality of who and what we are meant to be.

Rightly or wrongly, I believe that we all deserve to experience ourselves in this way at one point or another, that we all deserve to live in the light, to grow familiar our own truth, and to stand tall, confident, and radiant in who we are. Beyond that, I also believe that we have a duty to see the light in others, to look beyond their shadows, and to embrace their truth, their essence, and their ideal form, even if it does not yet exist as such in this world.

Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.

Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.

Follow Robert Van Valkenburgh and Holistic Budo on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and LinkedIn.

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May 5, 2020

darkness, essence, light, plato, shadows, socrates, spirit, the republic, true self, truth

The Sword And Shield Of Truth (Happy Birthday To My Wife)

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The Warrior And The Healer (We Need Both)

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Finding Comfort And Company

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Art Is A Shared Story Of Emotion

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Our True Form (Light And Shadows)

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