It's mine, mine, mine!

Disputes all over the world and of all sizes, including wars, conspiracies, and feuds, can be boiled down to what my friend, Gene, calls landlines. Literal and figurative landlines. From the Middle East fiasco to the children arguing in the backyard.

When we moved to Eva, a very small community in rural north Alabama, one of the first stories we heard was about two neighbors, we'll call them Hatfields and McCoys. They stopped speaking to each other. If the Hatfields walked into a restaurant and saw the McCoys sitting there, the Hatfields left immediately. And vice versa. Neither would be in the same building at the same time.

The thought of that wore me out. Think of the energy and effort they expended just thinking about avoiding each other, or the fear that they might run into the other when they went out. How quickly I would just avoid going to the post office or anywhere -- never leave the house! Maintaining that much anger is a full-time job.

And often, the only release people find from that dead-end job is violence -- of word or action. We all feel trapped sometimes, but when there is no way out, violence is the result of false perceptions. Of course, other options exist, but we're blinded by our anger and pride. We require new tools, a new reality.

What started the argument? It was a dispute about a fence line. Who's land did it fall on and who was responsible for it? One of the great Native American beliefs is that land can't be owned. It all comes from the Great Spirit, to be used, honored and replenished.

Unfortunately, like the Hatfields and the McCoys, our culture, and others around the world, is built on ownership. Who has what? And what belongs to whom? And how much more can I get? Ownership breeds attachment. Attachment threatens our peaceful existence. Yet my chest swells with pride when I think about our 95 acres of Alabama forest and the log house we've built in the middle of it.

When I'm feeling isolated and small, I worry, irrationally, about what could happen. I get fearful and imagine bad things -- oooohh -- very bad. And of course, losing what I've got always looms large. I start thinking about ways to protect myself, my family, my stuff.

Even though I know better.

In 1995, I left a very affluent situation and, overnight, found myself with $11 in my pocket, $250,000 in unsecured debt, and all my possessions crammed in the back of my Ford Explorer. As I bounced from friend to family, flopping on their couch or in a spare bedroom, my fear of losing everything stayed with me. Yet, all I owned (and of very little value) had been reduced to what I kept in the back of my SUV.

One last gift from God wiped out that fear.

In October of that year, Hurricane Opal roared inland from the Gulf of Mexico. Instead of dissipating into rain and wind like most hurricanes, it rolled straight up I-75 to Atlanta dropping trees, crushing houses, and flattening my Explorer -- with all my possessions inside. As my friend, Bruce, and I stood on his porch in midtown at 5 a.m., we watched the big oak drop across my only remaining possessions. Stunned, we burst into laughter. Bruce said, "Man, you have absolutely nothing left. Nothing else can go wrong for you." We laughed, then I cried, then I shook, then I laughed again.

In a strange way, I felt free. I could not lose anything else. I had nothing. Nothing to bind me. Nothing to distract me. No attachments. All my possessions, the few remaining items I was guarding so closely, those things I held as my only connection to the old life, were gone. There was nothing to hold me now. I could soar without being tied to the ways things are.

The path was cleared for me to discover the Truth about my nature. I never would feel the connection to stuff, and the fear of loss, that comes with acquiring things like I had before. I began the long, slow journey that I'm still on. Within a month, I had an apartment and a "new" old car. And more attachments to more possessions. But I had felt the freedom of no attachment, the peace comes from knowing that all things are a gift from the great flow of the Universe. I'm learning more everyday to tap into that flow. And the flow is never-ending, ever increasing and always available.

If I can just remember it daily, that's my new reality.