01 Nov In Celebration of Terry Patten upon News of His Passing

The Integral practitioner and spiritual teacher, Terry Patten, died on October 30th. I’m hoping that many of his followers share with each other and the world the influence he had on their lives.

Terry was also one of my best friends for almost thirty years. Having had that privilege, I want to share a bit about what the more private Terry meant to me.

I hope that processing my grief in this way will somehow be in service to you as well. While I’m wrecked that Terry isn’t here to review the text, I’m confident he’d give a hearty thumbs up to my endeavor.

To begin, Terry was an explorer of consciousness. His attention was always at the growing edge of what it means to be a true “evolutionary.” Sometimes this took the form of sampling “out there” gadgets and devices. When Terry owned and ran his Tools for Exploration catalogue, back before the Internet, you could count on him to sift through all the sketchy offerings to find and recommend the cream of the crop.

Sample dialogue

Me: Hey, Terry, have you heard about the new (insert product here) to increase your (insert extrasensory ability here)?

Terry: I tried it. Wouldn’t recommend it. But let me tell you about a similar product that really blew my mind. (Cue 10 minute monologue, which I always wished was taped, about how his perspective was forever upleveled by this new transformation hack.)

Often the story was almost too fantastic to believe, and as a result would bring out my natural skepticism. But Terry was the prototypical Skeptical Inquirer, and by this point he had reliably run the experience through his own filter of doubt and his finely tuned excessive-claims- reducer. That meant I didn’t have to hold back from what he was sharing and could instead just revel in the tale. And learn from it.

Next, Terry could see me and my travails more fully than just about any other person. So whenever I shared something vulnerable and complex about an experience I was having, it was glorious to be reflected back by him.

Instead of offering advice, or a similar experience of his own, or even a lovely summation of what I’d shared, Terry would instead find themes and depths and resonances to my story that I hadn’t even noticed or considered myself.

In the process he invited me to embrace a version of my journey that was as honoring as it was provoking. He helped me to stay humble, and open, while at the same time to step more and more into my potential as a fragile, messy and majestic human.

Don’t you want to do that for everyone?

Terry and I were also touchstones for one another through more regular life stuff. We met each other when married, then got divorced around the same time, and then repeated that pattern again.

This timing meant that we could offer each other a rare kind of compassion and solace for even the most absurd indignities that both the single life and long term relationships so consistently provide.

We cried and laughed about those indignities with equal measure, usually as the fools in our own telling, all the while tending to the unspoken questions beneath the mortifying (and sometimes really entertaining) details:

Could two highly conditioned American men actually get over their egos and shadows enough to become genuinely available for triumphant romantic love?

Could we become as soft as necessary for authentic intimacy without contorting ourselves into the dreaded SNAGs, or “Sensitive New Age Guys” that so many of our female counterparts were becoming repulsed by?

These questions ranged beyond romance as well. Without ever naming it, Terry and I were always looking to help one another develop an ever more potent blend of masculine and feminine energies. Sometimes this took the form of radical disclosure.

When I was recording my podcast series, Teaching What We Need to Learn, in which I interviewed teachers about their vulnerabilities, Terry wanted to help me take the endeavor to the next level.

For his interview, Terry chose to detail and explore all the ways he could sometimes be, in his own words a “total asshole.” It’s no surprise that his segment packed a unique wallop. You can listen to that interview here:

http://teachingwhatweneedtolearn.com/listen/

Another beautiful aspect of Terry’s nature was devotion. He was a true “bhakti,” or wholehearted worshiper of the divine. This led to his many years, during his twenties, as a disciple of the spiritual teacher Adi Da.

But Terry also wrestled with his guru and didn’t shy away from the cultic qualities that infected this spiritual community. Eventually he left, but in a way that embraced paradox and subtlety, and that was signature Terry.

In other words, Terry never saw or experienced his time with Adi Da in black and white terms. He didn’t have to flatten his guru into simply “the bad guy” in order to break free. Nor did he have to leave behind the treasures and great soul friends he made in that community.

This lovely embrace of nuance shines brightly even in this very moment. As I write, Terry’s body is being tended to in a three day vigil according to Adi Da’s teachings, and led by his adherents.

Terry’s rare ability to weave together and embody multiple truths spanned many aspects of his life, and our friendship. For example, Terry was always a great talker. No one else I ever met could spin a yarn or preach a gospel with Terry’s tireless gusto. Sometimes it was dizzying, impossible to keep up with. Other times it was sheer poetry. Most often it felt like a privilege to behold, because in the end it really wasn’t about the words.

Instead, it was the radiant quality in Terry that brought the words forth. You could always listen to Terry as if his psychological and spiritual riffs were jazz. You could let them just wash over you. And better yet, no amount of loquacity kept Terry from being able to rest fully and profoundly in pure, unfettered silence.

If our regular dinners (when we both lived in Marin) or marathon phone calls (once I moved to Portland) got too heady, we’d eventually come back to the world around us and how best to heal and change it.

Activism was our grounding. We knew that an us/them orientation was never going to make things better, but precisely how to make things better was a topic we explored, and did battle over, relentlessly. For Terry this was a beloved pursuit long before we met. It was a pursuit that preceded his work with Ken Wilber, and his time with Adi Da as well.

As some of you may know, Terry grew up in an intentional community with a socialist orientation. He was a true “red diaper baby.” All of this to say that Terry’s unique and inspiring vision of what’s possible for our planet developed over the course of decades.

In other words, A New Republic of the Heart was truly his life’s work.

And when a dedicated transformational community arose around that book and its vision, when people actually were motivated to begin living the principles and practices that Terry shared, that uplifted him like nothing else.

To witness Terry’s boundless joy over the New Republic of the Heart community was sheer delight.

Even as all that was happening, Terry and I still shared more prosaic concerns. Chief among them was money. Truth be told, money was never easy or abundant. The life of most unaffiliated spiritual teachers includes that struggle. So we would often compare notes about things like how best to market online, or which retreat centers covered their teachers’ travel expenses.

I include this because Terry consistently offered his wisdom with seemingly effortless grace. His Beyond Awakening podcast, for example, just gave and gave and gave. You might not ever know, as a result, that behind Beyond there was lots of blood, sweat, tears, pressures, worries, disappointments and just overall grueling work.

A consistent inquiry in my times with Terry was whether or not we would ever find a way to do all that needs to be done without sheer exhaustion and burnout.

And yet, even when beleaguered, Terry never turned down an opportunity to plunge into the frigid Pacific. Or to dance. In the last few years of his life he lived in another kind of intentional community, a modest mobile home park tucked away from the more glamorous Marin homes surrounding it. Here Terry found great kindred spirits who loved to dance as much as he did, and who made it a part of their everyday life.

That’s how I see my beloved friend Terry now – dancing – even though he’s passed on from physical form. I see him smiling, spinning, holding his arms outstreched to the heavens, boundlessly grateful for such a rich, full life, and for the chance to share it with all his loved ones.

There’s a void in my heart where my friendship with Terry used to be. It aches. But only when I keep myself apart from it.

When I lean into it, or better yet dance into it, I can feel that the void is actually full. Terry is still here, coaxing me to find new forms for our connection and new dimensions in which we can bow to great Mystery.

Together.