The Eagles Eye: Healing from a Higher Perspective

 The Stick Man with the Brick Hat

By. Dr. DA SillyWiggle

There once was a man who wore a humongous hat filled with bricks. He was a skinny man, almost a stick, and his hat was heavy. The brick hat was not just heavy but HEAVY, especially for a man with a body the size of a stick. He wore the burden of the brick hat for so long that the top of his head had become flat. Even though his body was the size of a stick,  the muscles of his shoulder and neck painfully bulged and were stiff. He was not alone, everyone he knew wore this brick hat too. It was the way it was and the way it would be. It was common knowledge and often repeated that if anyone took off their brick hat the entire world would fall apart. 

Briefly, the stick man recalled that he started carrying these bricks when he just learned to walk. Toddlers wore little mini hats with mini bricks and the hats and the bricks grew with their body. As he did from time to time, the stick man took out a brick one at a time to ensure they had not started to crumble from age and needed to be replaced. He checked each one and glossed over the words written on the side of each brick.  He examined his brick of suffering, next was shame, then came guilt, there was worry, and another was fear. Everyone’s bricks had slightly different words on them. He found it somewhat strange that he could feel each brick’s weight even from just reading their words. 

A part of him longed to put down his brick hat but he feared the harm that would come to him and those he loved if he did. He sighed and resigned to the idea that it was his lot in life to suffer and placed the bricks back into his hat and gently put it back upon his head.

Over time his neck muscles became constantly sore, stiff, and they grew even larger from the burdens of his brick hat. Has it become too heavy? Could he bear its burden any longer? He cast out his thoughts and questions only to find a very unusual voice pass through his mind. Go for a walk in the forest. He resisted and pushed this voice away.  He used a similar technique any time he had any thoughts about leaving his brick hat behind. The unusual voice came back up again. Go for a walk in the forest. This time, he buried the voice into a deep dark recess of his mind. He imaginaged a small little metal box, stuffed the voice inside, and locked it up with a small mental key. He hoped to never hear from it again. The stick man wasn’t to blame, his resistance to entering the forest was natural, for his entire life he was constantly warned of the forest and that punishment would come for him if he went into the forest. Those who carried their brick hats much longer than he always warned that nature was meant to be conquered, not communed with. Even more blasphemous was the idea that nature was meant to be enjoyed.

Several days passed and the stick man with the brick hat went back to all his usual routines. But despite stuffing this unusual voice into his deep dark mental box under lock and key, the voice came back. Go for a walk in the forest.  This time, he argued with himself. ‘I can’t go to the forest,’ he yelled out loud in response. He did again what any reasonable stick man with a brick hat would do, he stuffed the voice down even further this time and found a bigger and thicker box within his mind. He was determined to lock this away, this time he put two mental padlocks on his big thick box. He felt some relief when he heard the mental padlocks click deep in the recess of his mind. Unfortunately, when his attention came back to his body and environment, the brick hat felt heavier than ever.

Several more days passed. ‘Not again,’ the man with the brick hat screamed as he felt the now familiar beginning of the strange voice. Despite his agitation he noticed something was different about the voice, this time there was a soothing and calming character he hadn’t noticed before. There was a tone in the voice that was different from everyone who wore the brick hats. Let your burden go, come for a walk in the forest. 

‘I’m either going crazy or this voice may be trying to help me,’ the stick man with the brick hat said out loud to himself. He felt the feeling tone of the voice resonate through his body which spurred him on. He quickly packed into his car and drove off towards the forest. He had always hated driving and even more despised making turns because it was so difficult under the weight of the brick hat and this drive was no different. When he arrived, he breathed a sigh of relief that the drive was over when he pulled up to and stopped at a small path near a country road. He looked around and noticed his car was the only one there. He saw a forest path entrance. Next to it was a wooden sign and on it was written in a bright red and sinister script the word, ‘Forbidden’. 

He took a deep breath and stepped beyond the sign and onto the dirt path that led into the forest. The dirt felt soft and welcoming underneath his shoes. His feet felt the stark contrast to the concrete he was accustomed to moving over. The stick man with the brick hat noticed something odd, there was a heightening of his feelings as he wandered about the forest. This brought up some confusion for him, the feelings he felt within the forest were the exact opposite of what he had been warned against. He felt a lightness and wonder in his heart as he saw birds darting from branch to branch. He felt a quickening of his step as he stopped to listen to a small stream that trickled along a ridge. His mind felt calm and his thoughts slowed and this gave him the courage to venture deeper into the forest. 

He walked for what seemed like a very long time until he came to a tall and ancient tree. There was something about this tree that fascinated the man. He felt called to sit along its trunk until he heard another voice. Leave your hat with me. Just for a moment. It will be ok. The man felt his sore neck muscles and it was as if their pain was also speaking to him like the tree. Once his muscles knew they had his attention, the man felt electric shocks that shot through his neck and down the back of his head. ‘Ok! I get it!’ he shouted out loud. Slowly and cautiously he took off the hat and set it next to the tree. He swore he could hear his muscles let out their own sigh of relief as he removed the weight of the brick hat. His feelings were now mixed, he simultaneously felt the comfort of the forest but also a fear that he was now breaking all the rules of his society. He was truly now a black sheep. Another sigh came to him as his shoulders dropped for the first time in any moment of life that he could remember. He looked at the hat sitting next to him and his fear crescendoed. The burden of the hat called to him and he felt like he needed the hat. He grabbed the heavy brick hat and he placed it back on his head.. 

Over time he continued to visit the forest and with each visit he discovered that no harm ever came to him as a result. In fact, he always felt better and he noticed that his discomfort only came when he put back on the hat. He came to understand that his discomfort had somehow come from being disconnected from the forest. Time and time again he visited and he only found relief amongst the company of his forest enclave. Each time he visited, he would sit with his back against the great and mighty tree. 

With each visit the lightness of the forest stayed with him longer until one day he removed his brick hat and simply left it in the forest. A shock of fear shot through his being and almost paralyzed him when he realized that he would return to his society without his brick hat. What would the others think? Would the feeling state change and would the world indeed fall apart because he had put down his brick hat? To his surprise the world never fell apart, his fellows who still wore the brick hats only stared or sneered. Over time he began to notice there were others who decided to remove their brick hats. He found it odd that he never saw them before. As even more time went by, others in his society looked to him as an example and he provided them inspiration that they could remove their own brick hats. 

In some strange moments he felt the emotional echoes of his suffering and he even missed the burden of the brick hat and his fading ideas of how character and sustenance were born from suffering. These moments decreased over time until they became few and far between.  His stick body changed too. The bulk from his tired neck and shoulders migrated lower until he no longer looked like a stick from the neck down. This cycle continued until lightness and connection to the forest and his own innate nature became so strong that the trailblazing man no longer missed his brick hat at all.