Flow is my Father; Love is my Mother

As I move through this strange bewildering journey called life, I deal continuously with the cards dealt me in my family of origin. Looking at the shadow tendencies in my life, I see echos of my parents still affecting my decisions and attitudes. My father spent much of my childhood in depression, and my mother in bitterness that he was not what she had wanted or expected.

Often I have looked for the redeeming qualities in them; and there are some for which I am grateful. But lately, I have asked, what are the qualities I have learned from life that gave me birth as a spiritual being, that fathered and mothered this new phase of my life where I live so much richer than before?

Flow has been a critical lesson for me. Instead of demanding the universe be a certain way to meet my expectations, and becoming passive when it does not, I have slowly let go of my insistence, and have learned to flow with the stream of life. It is a dance - I desire certain things, and the universe likewise has its tendencies; together, if we dance and flow, we affect each other, and an ease develops where there is a sense of fitting together, a sense of companionship. Flow is what allows me to take action in the world without cursing the failures nor insisting on impossibilities.

Likewise, love, in the form of acceptance, has been equally critical. I am learning day by day to take everything I find inside me - every nasty thought, egotistical desire, grumpy stinginess, and fearful withdrawal - and look at it with gentleness, like an unruly child whom I love no matter what he does. Once that unruly part of me starts to feel loved and accepted, there is a melting and a sharing of the secrets that has been keeping him fighting me. There is that sense of safety, of home, where you truly cannot do anything wrong.

So, flow and love are my true parents - the reaching out and the reaching in, the masculine and feminine, the creativity and the vulnerability - they are replacing the very imperfect forms that introduced me to life. Maybe the purpose of my original parents was simply to hand me over to better parents when the right time came.


Comment posted by
at 12/26/2006 8:31:30 PM
This post has a very nice poetic flow. Rather than focus on concrete actions or specific examples, the post gives me a more visceral feel for how you are integrating the legacy of your parents. You are healing their emotional impact from one level up; from a level that is more symbolic and embracing rather than specific and linear. Kind of like the healing we may experience in dreams where the impact can bypass the logical mind and be felt on a deeper, more somatic level. The poetic/symbolic/transpersonal and rational minds work together to create integrated healing.


Comment posted by
at 12/26/2006 6:39:51 PM
It is less about redefining my birth parents, and more about seeing flow and love as my parents, guiding me towards a life that is richer and more satisfying than what I had before. I have often approached life from the attitudes that my parents unwittingly taught me, but am slowly learning to adopt these new attitudes as guiding wisdom.

I find it hard to reject my parents’ attitudes, despite their obvious harm - it feels as if I am rejecting my parents themselves. And in a way, I am - I am leaving the familiar attitudes of home and choosing a new way with no memories to guide me. Part of growing up, I guess.


Comment posted by
at 12/26/2006 6:21:10 PM
I had a chance to read your Christmas post about flow and love. It sounds like your journey towards self acceptance is finding a self definition,

I got a little bit lost in the theory, though. Which part is something you are experiencing in yourself? which part is what you are experiencing from others, if any? It seems like you are redefining the roles you have learned about your birth parents, your mother’s bitterness and your father’s victim mode of resentment. Like maybe you believed, at some time, that this was the way the world was. And maybe you are looking at them differently? Or are you finding substitutes for what you really wanted? Or are you finding the love and flow from an internal source to nurture your own child? I am confused about what you might be saying here.

I hope you don’t mind sharing more - this is a bigger picture than you usually write about your own inner world, I think.

Humility

Humility - an old-fashion word, and not very popular today. For me, it brings up images of self-degredation, or lack of pride in onesself. “Humble yourselves”, in the religion of my childhood, was synonymous with denying what you knew was right in favor of someone who had authority to tell you what the truth was.
Yet we also lose something without this word in our vocabulary. What do we do when we fail at our own values? There are things we believe in, ways we want to live, values we want to measure up to - and as humans, there will be times we fail, when we act in ways we are not proud of, when we do not act like the person we want to be. What is our attitude towards ourselves when we fail?

Well, we can get out our affirmations and psych ourselves up, memorizing statements about how worthy we are, reminding ourselves of the good things we’ve done, and how we will do better next time. Or we can beat ourselves up, repeating critical voices of the past that would have us believe we barely deserve life for the atrocity we’ve committed.

But humility can provide an attitude that is both realistic as well as loving, by acknowledging our weaknesses. We don’t always have the strength of will or presence of mind to live the way we want to live. We can recognize that we are people who cannot always do it alone, that we need the strength and support of others who believe in us. In short, to have humility is the recognition of who we are - not who we want to be, nor who we fear we might be - but simply who we are, with our strengths and weaknesses, successes and failings.

Humility is next to compassion - if we cannot see our weaknesses clearly and without distortion, without shame and without excuses, we cannot have compassion for ourselves. Nor can we truly have compassion for others’ weaknesses if we harbor shame of our own.

We are unfathomably glorious yet terribly fragile creatures, living in a world that, despite the risk, we have to trust.

Remembering Home

At birth, we wake up to find ourselves incarnate - we discover we are in a new body, surrounded by a new world of strange sensations. All of childhood, we are pushing away the cobwebs of sleep, trying to be fully present and understand this strange place which for a few decades will be our home. Flashes of what came before this life quickly fade, and we are swept away in the drama of being human.

But occassionally, our previous life laughs at us from behind a shadow, or sparkles at us in a glint of sunlight. We ponder who we are apart from the perspective of a body walking on a planet. We get glimpses of ourselves, and others, from some more universal perspective, that we can occassionally reach out of the whirlpool of feelings, desires, pleasures, and sufferings of this life.

Sometimes we become vaguely aware of the dream - the illusions we live in, that we are the center of the world, or the victim, or the lost child, or the one who can solve everyone’s problems. Sometimes we start to notice the props off the side of the stage, or get a glimpse of the audience behind the footlights. Sometimes we have the sudden feeling that everything is set up, and everyone is following some role. Sometimes we notice that a director is prompting our next lines, rather than us choosing what to say and do.

And that is the moment we can ask, if our life is a drama, who is it who got the role? What motivates the actor to take on this life? What is the actor’s true nature outside of this 80-year drama? Who was he before, and who will he be after? And who is he now, in between the moments when he says his lines with such passion that we think it is real?

How many times have these same lines been said in show after show? How many times have the same crucial emotions run their course through endless shows? This cannot be who we are. Can we wake up before the play ends? Can we wake up to the fact that our lines were written by someone else, and we have yet to speak what is true for us?

Somewhere, deep within, is the memory of what came before all this began. Somewhere, there is a place where we will laugh gaily at how we could have forgotten so completely for so long. Somewhere, our true home awaits.


Comment posted by
at 12/4/2006 9:49:44 PM
JUST A DAY AGO I FIND MYSELF POSTING TO A FRIEND HOW TO EXPERIENCE DIRECT REALITY. AND AS YOU HAVE ALLUDED TO YOUR DRAMA ANALOGY, I HAVE TO SAY THAT TRUTH LIES IN THE KNOWING THAT WE CAN SEE OURSELVES PARTICIPATING IN THIS PLAY IN A WAY THAT MIGHT SEEM FIT. WE WILL PLAY DREAM THE OUTCOME. AND IN THE END IF THIS OUTCOME DOES NOT FIT, WE JUST WALK AWAY DISAPPOINTED BUT HOPEFULLY STILL WITH OURSELVES INTACT. AND WE PROCEED TO THE NEXT PLAY UNTIL WE CAN FIND THAT WHICH TRULY FEELS LIKE WE HAVE COME TO A PLACE WHERE WE CAN FEEL WARM AND COZZY. LIKE BEING IN THE MOTHER’S WOMB. BEFORE THE DRAMA BEGAN. I WONDER IF THIS IS WHAT LIFE IS ALL ABOUT.

Changes

Well, a new look for my blog, and a new software package behind it.  Also, a new feeling of growth and change springing up from within, and a new desire to share it with others.

I ponder my fate as someone with deep mood shifts - these past few months have been hard ones for me.  I think I experience life more acutely than some - both the ups and the downs.  And if I believe that life is ultimately more about joy than pain, then there is a net gain from being a moody person (although, don’t ask me to verify that when I am down!)

Pathwork says our choice is not whether to feel pain or pleasure - our choice is whether or not to feel.  We can either live life numb, or we can scream from both the agony and the ecstasy.  What a choice!  But it seems I really don’t have much of a choice, as I seem to have been born this way.

So, I am alive, some healing and new lessons have come my way, and I look forward to sharing more with all of you in the upcoming weeks.

Comment posted by
at 12/4/2006 1:09:22 AM

Also I like the changes and improvements to your blog, Gene. Now I can reply without being called “Anonymous”. Andy

Comment posted by
at 12/4/2006 1:06:11 AM

It’s good to hear what you both have to say, Gene and Heidi. I look forward to our next get-together at Gene’s, whenever that may be. Andy

Comment posted by
at 12/3/2006 5:39:18 AM

Gene,

What you are saying sounds so familiar to me. I sometimes read what I wrote a few days or months or even a year ago, and it is like I was a different person with different feelings - my mood shifts and ultimately my perspective had shifted. I’m glad I have my own words to validate my own patters. Because I forget how good something felt when I’m down and I forget how badly I felt before when I am feeling really happy.

And at other times, when I feel fresh and excited about a new inner break-through, I go back to see the same pattern in old writings. I’d written all these “new” discoveries in myself before. I see the same struggling passion voiced long ago when I think it is all brand new today.

I feel, today, that I have made real progress. I feel like I am a different person from it - I truly believe in it, deeply. Yet, I read the same passages I wrote a few years ago - the same feeling; like new discoveries and new changes in my patterns made me new — I am puzzled and sometimes discouraged by this counter-discovery in myself.

Is it illusion that I find myself a new person today? Am I fooling myself? Had I forgotten those lessons I learned so long ago and am I re-learning them all over again today?

Or is there yet another new (if only subtle) shift within me that is truly new again?

I don’t have answers to what is really going on inside of myself.

But I’ve been aware that I have a strange pattern seeking and finding wonderful insights. I think, re-reading my own writings and learning how my patterns work is enlightening in itself - perhaps that is part of the change, part of the new person I become. Just knowing that I probably have been here before at a different time and space in my life.

Maybe that’s what you are saying here, too, when you talk about pondering your fate.

Maybe some of us build a life of unique patterns. Maybe knowing ourselves is to know our own patterns without fixing them, just knowing them and living them for the way we are designed to be. (And that “knowing” in itself, is a huge shift in and of itself, maybe?)

I was only going to make a short comment, but your blog got me thinking, so I’ll go ahead and post this part, if it’s ok with you?

Murmur

"Voices leaking from a sad cafe
Smiling faces try to understand
I saw a shadow touch a shadow's hand
On Bleaker Street"

We murmur with the hopes that someone
yes, someone
will hear the sounds
and somehow see into the chasm of the immense soul
seeking a touch
just a single touch
to pierce our dream of dualism

Each of us carries the burden
of the unspoken secret
the unseen story
the untouched pain

Each of us fearfully yearning
for the piercing of the membrane
that protects others from the shock
of who we are

How precious is that moment
when two souls touch

When true understanding yields words superfluous

And, for a glorious instant,
we are not alone

Truly Letting Go

At some stages of our lives, we can only go so far into the darkness, because we do not have the resources to deal with everything we find there. We delve in, and deal with as much as we can, and come back out, or heal, or take a break, and integrate what we've learned. At some point we go back in again, a bit deeper, because ultimately each journey, while it hurts, also teaches us the truth about ourself, and I believe down deep most of us want the truth more than anything, and we are willing to suffer great pains (in sufficiently small doses) in order to find it.

Confronting our darkness usually leads to the necessity of letting go of something we cling to - insistences, dreams, fears, hopes, demands, wounds. The letting go is not easy, and we often fool ourselves by slapping on a new coat of paint.

When we only partially let go, whether it be a relationship, a dream, or a plan, there is a thread left, and the dying is not complete. When the resurrection comes, we will follow that thread back to our old ways - the same patterns, the same boxes, the same insistences we had before. When we can truly let go completely, there is the cold silent darkness of death. There is no road back, no chink of light, no anticipation. We let go, and fall into the abyss, and we are no more.

Only at that point can there be true creation. Only then can we rise from the dead a new creature, bathed in white, free to be truly here now. It is possible, after truly letting go of something, we may still return to the same job, the same relationship, the same house. But this time, it will be by free choice, and by intent, and not out of serving some age-old fear that lurks within. When you have faced death fully, there is no longer a place for fear, and you can live instead by love.

Death can be the ultimate terror, because nothing is promised you on the other side. To truly let go requires total faith that life is ultimately good.

Comment posted by Rich May
at 9/17/2006 10:29:00 AM
I really enjoyed your thoughts, Gene. This vividly shows how we deal with changing ourselves.

There are times when I know something has to change, really change. I often find myself using the same old methods, with perhaps a little more determination than the last time, hoping other people have softened up and will do things my way. I sometimes think leaving people alone for a while, then coming back, I will find they have changed. Perhaps time will have changed them.

It is then I remind myself that doing the same old things, the same old way, will yield the same old results. I know I must be the one to change, not others. Others are not trying to change. They don’t even see a reason to change.

On the other hand, I really don’t want to let go of my dreams. I only want to see them clearer. If they seem contradictory and impossible when I look at them through enlightened eyes, I want to delve deeper into what they truly mean to me. What is it I really want? These hopes are stories covering a deeper need. I want to see what is real and true.

It is very hard to let go. Perhaps dying is too much to ask. The string to the familiar always remains. Even when winter comes and everything seems to die, it all comes back from apparently nowhere in the spring. Maybe just planting something new and doing everything you can to make it grow will be enough.

Comment posted by Anonymous
at 9/17/2006 9:47:00 AM
Just think we could actually die many deaths. Each day we have stuff to let go off. Each day we can clean up and start fresh. We can walk gently on this earth, conscious of how all that is will be no more. We can play like a child with the wisdom from our experience.

It is strange how we keep ourselves from doing things for fear that we may die, and we dont even know what this death is other than not existing anymore and not being able to do the things we want.

No Calamity

If we fully grasped
the preciousness of life

the intensity of living would be as great as
the intensity of dying

Lying in the grass would be as important
as curing cancer

Peace would be
as passionate as war

And we would spend as much energy on giving
as we do on security

If we lived life fully
death would be no calamity

Comment posted by Beth
at 8/27/2006 6:36:00 PM
Hi Gene, I just read No Calamity. it is beautiful.

Comment posted by Heidi
at 8/27/2006 11:11:00 AM
Gene,

You've said this so beautifully - our passion, intensity, joy and love of life for the simple sake of life is our most precious possession and our richest gift to each person we connect with.
Thank you for your clear words.
Heidi

Little Bobbing Heads

This morning, the clouds outside my window are completely still, like a painting. They are so still that I can see the progress of the slowly rising sun behind them, periodically peeping out through a break before gliding on behind the next cloud.

Out there, in God's world, there is no anger, no hate, no right or wrong. There are no should's or shouldn'ts, justice or injustice - there are only clouds, sun, breeze, sounds, creatures. In my head, a totally different world rages - what people should and shouldn't do, what is fair and unfair, how some things are better than others, or worse than others. Throughout this planet are billions of little heads bobbing around with worlds similar to mine, believing in rights and wrongs, just and unjust wars, all convinced that their little world is reality.

Yet between all these little bobbing heads is this vast space, filled with air, trees, creatures, events, sounds, sights - and not any hint of right or wrong, beauty or ugliness. Words like "better" make no sense in this world - is a tree better than a bird without someone to compare them? Is a flower beautiful without an admirer? Only when the eyes in these little heads transmit the signals of what they see to the gray matter not far behind, those signals are reinterpreted to justify the little world inside.

It is odd that we, the most conscious creature on the planet, should be so unconscious of the difference between what we see and what we believe we see.

Comment posted by Tom
at 8/15/2006 2:14:00 PM
I enjoyed your latest blog post. You are becoming a true advaitan! (non-dualist) (smile)

Comment posted by Anonymous
at 8/15/2006 9:20:00 AM
"Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder" some say, but I think it's also in what is beheld, and we are spirit and flesh, beholding.--Andy

The Mystery of Spirit

There are things in the world that fill us with awe. Something as simple as a blue sky in the morning can bring an untamed joy to our sleep heads. A wildflower may arrest our stroll and attention with its beauty and delicacy.

Yet there is no beauty inherent in any of these things. The symmetry, delicacy, color, and scent of the flower are not good or bad - they are just what they are. The experience of beauty resides solely inside of the observer.

Here is the mystery - how does a conscious, feeling, experiencing being arise out of a mechanical and unconscious universe? How can a ghost live within a machine, so alien to its nature? While our bodies obviously belong to the earth, and we share many similarities with the animals and other life forms, our spirits - our consciousness, our feelings, our interpretation of what we experience - seem alien to this world. We look around, and we find ourselves alone among in our experience of wonder and despair.

Yet, like the voice of a gospel singer rising freely above the supporting steady rhythm of the choir, there is a glory in our wild spirituality that sores so high above the rational and physical world that created us. It is only human beings who can understand how wonderful the world is, and who likewise will understand the depths of the tragedy should it not survive.

The miracle is not the beauty of this world - the miracle is that there are human beings that stare in awe and wonder, and are filled with feelings of incredible joy when they behold it. It is only within our experience of the universe that the miraculous lives.

Comment posted by Anonymous
at 8/10/2006 8:14:00 PM
What a fascinating subject, the mystery of spirit, how our life and consciousness on this fragile planet came to be, and what we are and what we are part of, and where we might go from here. Faith in creation by God conflicts with the scientific view of chemical events and evolution of life on a hospitable planet in an immense universe coming from a big bang, and out of these ways of thinking I wonder if our seemingly cold and material universe might have some kind of consciousness--spirit--, that some may call God, that is reflected in physical laws such as gravity, and in nature and life and in our human consciousness, even though this universal consciousness does not come from a physical brain as our human consciousness does. Humanity must realize its potential and destiny, not only to survive, progress and improve itself, but to explore the universe and search for other intelligent life. On this subject, some might enjoy reading "Starmaker" by Olaf Stapledon, an imaginative story of a man whose mind explores the universe in search of other intelligent life and the Starmaker, which is God.--Andy

Meditation as Coming Home

I am an irregular meditator - my habit comes and goes with my mood. I have never found sufficient discipline nor guilt to meditate regularly each day. But I am aware enough of when the need is there, and often make use of my small back yard to sit and connect with something bigger than myself.

This past week, something happened that has never happened to me before. I found myself looking forward to meditating as an actual relief from my normal mental habits. It felt like a warm and familiar place, one where I could relax - like finally, it was okay to not be constantly judging, or deciding what I should or should not be doing, or what was okay or not okay with the world.

For a few minutes, I was relieved of the burden of having to decide the morality of every action that every person and government took, as well as my own self-worth, and worthiness of love. I could let go of anger, interpretation, theories, and return to that space where all I need to do is observe. I hadn't realized how tiring it gets trying to make sure I am right all the time.

My place of meditation that day felt very familiar, like an old friend, as if I was held in warm hands like a baby - nothing to do, nothing to decide, nothing to judge. It felt familiar, being outside, hearing the cicadas, feeling the sun. All there was to do was notice how things were, and to notice myself noticing how things were. It was so simple.

That feeling returned the next few times I meditated, like and old friend greeting me, and I settled down to simply enjoy being there. A few times, I found my mind drifting back to the world of moral responsibility, but I quickly returned to my friend, the world around me, who was patiently waiting for me. I felt like I should apologize for drifting off while in his presence, but realized there was no need to, because his presence was still there, just as strong and warm as before.

It feels like I have come home.

Comment posted by Anonymous
at 8/7/2006 4:02:00 PM
I'm glad meditation does so much for you, Gene! Back in the 1970's I was initiated in TM (Transcendental Meditation) for relaxation. Ahhhh! I promised not to reveal the technique, so I won't. Some ways of meditation, some described in books, involve no word or mantra, and some do, such as "One", to be repeated silently in rhythm with the breathing, or naturally, not in rhythm. Whatever works with you is fine! I do not mean to push TM or any one technique. And I would recommend regular exercize also. With TM, at first I felt what seemed like energy streaming along my spine, and felt refreshed and cleansed and youthful, like I would never feel tired. At a meeting of new TM initiates, others reported other experiences, some simply relaxation. Days later, continuing TM, what I felt was just relaxation, as if the initial cleansing and newness were done. Once at a meeting about meditation, not TM, the one leading simply said "Go into your space" and I did just that, like being asleep or unconscious--nobody ever told me to do that before--I must have needed that! Now, years later, I am out of the habit, and meditate seldom, and usually have the TV or radio on except to sleep. What Gene said brings back memories. Although I am retired and no longer have the stress of office work, my better judgement tells me it would be good for me to meditate regularly, or at least now and then. Andy

Comment posted by Lee
at 8/7/2006 10:30:00 AM
Thank you so much for your thoughts. The words I use for myself are attentiveness and noticing; they speak to me in a way I want.

I'm trying to develop life itself as a meditation...........not only as something I set aside time to do. For instance, writing this reply is a form of meditation.

So I'm at the stage of checking in with me and discovering how much attentiveness I feel.......is my mind all over the place; am I focused; CAN I focus and I just notice. Once I notice I look at whether I want to be where I am and if I don't what will it take me to shift. As I'm writing this it sounds very mechanical/in-the-head, but it isn't. It's very fluid and heartful.

Perhaps an example would help. This past week at work..(I'm a nurse)....I had worked 40 hours in 3 days (12-12-16) and was on day 4 working a 12-hour shift. I got a very difficult energy-sucking patient admission. It came to change of shift for the 8-hour nurses and the admission (which wasn't finished) now didn't fall into my block of rooms. Another nurse asked if wanted to keep the admission when she was dividing the patient load. She asked in a way that I interpreted she wanted me to keep the admission. I said to her, "I hear you saying that you want me to keep the admission and no I don't want to keep the admission and I'm exhausted". Those words came out of my mouth and I instantly noticed I needed to get a grip on things; I was out of control. It wasn't her fault I was exhausted. I had chosen to work those hours and I was working another 12 hours the next day with this same nurse. Just the noticing helped me tremendously. I got up and walked over to the assignment board and said I would keep the admission to finish as much as I could in my 12 hours. I live with this mind-set at work that I need to get it all done and it has to be complete and perfect and it makes me crazy......we're a 24/7 operation and it's the responsibility of all of us........I don't have to carry that responsibility load myself.

I went into day 5 knowing my energy was low, even though I had gone to bed early to protect my energy.....I was now working 64 hours in 5 days. I was very conscious that no matter what happened that I wanted to practice remaining upbeat. Sure enough, doesn't one of my patients almost code and I've got to get him off my floor down to ICU. I cannot tell you how much energy this can take and the documentation after the patient has been cared for is enormous and very time consuming. It only took a moment of noticing when the adrenalin rush was coming down after the patient was off the floor and I was documenting that while I was enormously behind, I was taking it all in stride.

So what makes me out-of-control one time and in-stride the next.........that my friend is the key. As I said, I'm only in the noticing stage......but my practice of observing me and all around me is growing and I'm learning every day! Gene, thanks for sharing. It was great to spend this time with you and those who might read.

Discussing Under the Influence

I was just about to make my clinching argument to the blithering idiot in the chair across from me, who probably didn't have enough brains to understand me anyway, when a tall man in an officer's uniform came up to me.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I need to ask you to step out of your seat."

"What? Who are you?" I demanded angrily.

"I'm the conversation officer, ma'am, now please step out of your seat." Amazed, insulted, and a bit scared, I did as he said.

"Ma'am, I'm arresting you for D.U.I.E."

"What on earth is that?" I demanded.

"Discussing Under the Influence of Emotions", he answered back with a steely face.

"I wasn't influenced by emotion!" I shouted, "I KNOW PERFECTLY WELL WHAT I'M SAYING."

"Ma'am, please cooperate, and this will go much easier. Now I need to have you do a few tests. Would you please breathe into this analyzer?" Still annoyed, but getting more frightened, I did as he asked.

"What is that supposed to measure?" I asked.

"It tests to see if your breathing is deep, slow, relaxed, and completely fills your lungs", he said, writing on his pad. "I'm sorry to say that the results show you are breathing rapidly and shallowly - a sure sign of not being centered. Now I'd like you to walk forward slowly in a straight line, feeling your connection with the earth under each foot." I walked as slow as I could, but didn't feel much of anything, except anger and humiliation.

"Just as I thought, ma'am, you are not grounded at all - your first chakra is completely disconnected." He scribbled more notes on his pad. "For the last test, I'd like you to look deeply into the eyes of the person you were just arguing with, and tell them from your heart that you still love them." This I simply could not do, no matter what the consequences. I cast my eyes downwards.

"I see," he said, "you are coming from a place of fear instead of love."

Fear? I thought I was angry. Could I have been angry because I was afraid of something?

"Ma'am," the officer interrupted my thoughts, "you know that with a few more violations of this nature, you can lose your privilege of connecting deeply with others. Your driving influence in this community may be severely curtailed."

The emotions were starting to settle, and I began to realize how out of control I had been. I began to see how I was doing significant damage to this relationship.

"Fear and love do not mix, ma'am." he said with a kinder voice. "There's nothing wrong with having emotions - just be careful how you express them."

He continued, "Ma'am, I'm going to make this a warning, but with repeated violations, you could end up in isolation.  Please remember, relating to others is a privilege, not a right." And with that he walked out of the room.

I looked back to my opponent, who was still looking at me.  He didn't seem to have noticed the officer at all. Now underneath his glare, I noticed he too seemed to look scared, the way I had been. So I sat down again next to him, took a deep breath, and said,

"Okay, I'm ready to hear you now."

Fireflies in the Grass

Last night, I was sitting out in the hot tub, and noticed some fireflies in the grass. Their fairie lights always fascinated me. The magic was still about them, undispelled by years of adult rational living.

One of them was lit constantly, as fireflies do when they're dying, and I wondered what had injured it, and why the fireflies were in the grass instead of sparkling in the night air. Then I remembered.

Last morning, I prayed to the gods to give me a bug-free backyard. I prayed by hooking my hose to a pesticide and spraying it over the grass and shrubs. The mosquitoes had been horrible as I had tried to catch a few meditative moments outside, and I decided to do something about it.

And the gods answered my prayer. But I hadn't thought about the fireflies.

This is our dilemma, isn't it? The wonderful power we have gained to conquer disease, build a better world with better food, assure the ability to stay warm in the winter, a better world with transportation and education and medication - that same power is what has enabled us to destroy forests and mountains, wipe out species, and alter the temperature of the planet to what may turn out to be a lethal amount. How can we know today what we will need tomorrow to survive? Which actions will we regret, and which will turn out to be wise?

We are a naked child sitting in the grass playing with a loaded gun, incapable of comprehending the power that lies in our hands.

Comment posted by Patrick Levasseur
at 7/29/2006 10:44:00 AM
I had forgotten all about fireflies as a child until I moved to northern Vermont this year. My first night there it was pitch black, without the moon as I hadn't yet turned any lights on from my nap, pondering my fate and lonelyness. To my horror I saw these eerie lights flashing through the kitchen window out in the yard and my heart sank with fear as I got the nerve to go outside and investigate. I was suddenly taken back to my childhood and remembered the fairies that would float along in the air as the light faded in the sky. There were hundreds of them both high and low, illuminating the pitch black so I was able to see the different parts of the yard for just a moment, and then disapearing again in to blackness. I could hear the bullfrogs in the pond as they took turns singing to one another and suddenly wasn't afraid anymore. I felt so grateful, my heart was pounding, and felt as though it was going to explode. I wasn't alone for that while, I finally had a home at such a wonderful place, mosquito bites and all.

Comment posted by Anonymous
at 7/19/2006 7:34:00 AM
I agree with your comments, Gene. When I was a young child, on a summer night I would look at and chase after the fireflies (also called lightning bugs) in the back yard, and look up at the stars, but now I don't see either as much as before in the DC area, perhaps because of pollution, although I saw fireflies in the back yard of the people who hosted the Folklore Society's monthly Open Sing most recently; apparently they thrive only in certain kinds of places. Humanity is harming life on our planet in a number of ways, and I feel concerned about it. By the way, I enjoyed all that our group did last Sunday evening at your home; thanks for having us over. Andy

Father Zossima's Brother

I'm including a post from Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov". It's rather long, and the russian writers are not usually who I go to for inspiration, but this piece has always moved me to tears, and somehow seemed relevant to the recent postings. I want to share it with you all.
Father Zossima's Brother

In the sixth week in Lent, my brother, who was never strong and had a tendency to consumption, was taken ill. It was a late Easter, and the days were bright, fine, and full of fragrance. I remember he used to cough all night and sleep badly, but in the morning he dressed and tried to sit up in an arm-chair. That's how I remember him sitting, sweet and gentle, smiling, his face bright and joyous, in spite of his illness. A marvellous change passed over him, his spirit seemed transformed. The old nurse would come in and say, "Let me light the lamp before the holy image, my dear." And once he would not have allowed it and would have blown it out.

"Light it, light it, dear, I was a wretch to have prevented you doing it. You are praying when you light the lamp, and I am praying when I rejoice seeing you. So we are praying to the same God."

Those words seemed strange to us, and mother would go to her room and weep, but when she went in to him she wiped her eyes and looked cheerful. "Mother, don't weep, darling," he would say, "I've long to live yet, long to rejoice with you, and life is glad and joyful."

"Ah, dear boy, how can you talk of joy when you lie feverish at night, coughing as though you would tear yourself to pieces."

"Don't cry, mother," he would answer, "life is paradise, and we are all in paradise, but we won't see it; if we would, we should have heaven on earth the next day."

Everyone wondered at his words, he spoke so strangely and positively; we were all touched and wept. Friends came to see us. "Dear ones," he would say to them, "what have I done that you should love me so, how can you love anyone like me, and how was it I did not know, I did not appreciate it before?"

When the servants came in to him he would say continually, "Dear, kind people, why are you doing so much for me, do I deserve to be waited on? If it were God's will for me to live, I would wait on you, for all men should wait on one another."

Mother shook her head as she listened. "My darling, it's your illness makes you talk like that."

"Mother darling," he would say, "there must be servants and masters, but if so I will be the servant of my servants, the same as they are to me. And another thing, mother, every one of us has sinned against all men, and I more than any."

Mother positively smiled at that, smiled through her tears. "Why, how could you have sinned against all men, more than all? Robbers and murderers have done that, but what sin have you committed yet, that you hold yourself more guilty than all?"

"Mother, little heart of mine," he said (he had begun using such strange caressing words at that time), "little heart of mine, my joy, believe me, everyone is really responsible to all men for all men and for everything. I don't know how to explain it to you, but I feel it is so, painfully even. And how is it we went on then living, getting angry and not knowing?"

So he would get up every day, more and more sweet and joyous and full of love. When the doctor, an old German called Eisenschmidt, came:

"Well, doctor, have I another day in this world?" he would ask, joking.

"You'll live many days yet," the doctor would answer, "and months and years too."

"Months and years!" he would exclaim. "Why reckon the days? One day is enough for a man to know all happiness. My dear ones, why do we quarrel, try to outshine each other and keep grudges against each other? Let's go straight into the garden, walk and play there, love, appreciate, and kiss each other, and glorify life."

"Your son cannot last long," the doctor told my mother, as she accompanied him the door. "The disease is affecting his brain."

The windows of his room looked out into the garden, and our garden was a shady one, with old trees in it which were coming into bud. The first birds of spring were flitting in the branches, chirruping and singing at the windows. And looking at them and admiring them, he began suddenly begging their forgiveness too: "Birds of heaven, happy birds, forgive me, for I have sinned against you too." None of us could understand that at the time, but he shed tears of joy. "Yes," he said, "there was such a glory of God all about me: birds, trees, meadows, sky; only I lived in shame and dishonoured it all and did not notice the beauty and glory."

"You take too many sins on yourself," mother used to say, weeping.

"Mother, darling, it's for joy, not for grief I am crying. Though I can't explain it to you, I like to humble myself before them, for I don't know how to love them enough. If I have sinned against everyone, yet all forgive me, too, and that's heaven. Am I not in heaven now?"

And there was a great deal more I don't remember. I remember I went once into his room when there was no one else there. It was a bright evening, the sun was setting, and the whole room was lighted up. He beckoned me, and I went up to him. He put his hands on my shoulders and looked into my face tenderly, lovingly; he said nothing for a minute, only looked at me like that.

"Well," he said, "run and play now, enjoy life for me too."

I went out then and ran to play. And many times in my life afterwards I remembered even with tears how he told me to enjoy life for him too. There were many other marvellous and beautiful sayings of his, though we did not understand them at the time. He died the third week after Easter. He was fully conscious though he could not talk; up to his last hour he did not change. He looked happy, his eyes beamed and sought us, he smiled at us, beckoned us. There was a great deal of talk even in the town about his death. I was impressed by all this at the time, but not too much so, though I cried a good deal at his funeral. I was young then, a child, but a lasting impression, a hidden feeling of it all, remained in my heart, ready to rise up and respond when the time came.

Comment posted by Anonymous
at 7/12/2006 10:21:00 AM
Wow that is beautiful and inspiring. thank you.

Dancing with delight

Last week I danced with Heather. She just glows with this pure joy when she dances - no flirting, nothing put on, no sexual energy - just the pure joy of dance. I look in her face, and I remember what pure joy feels like.

Every 32 beats, we are apart, and I forget, and we come back together, and I remember what joy looks like again. It fills me with such glory and happiness.

The odd thing is nothing external changed. I danced, I looked into her face, and suddenly I was happy. All she did was remind me that joy is available. The implications are staggering. It means I could have been that happy all along, and I just forgot that the dance was that enjoyable, that the dance makes me happy, that life is a wonderful thing. It's remembering the joy we had as a little kid from just sucking on our toes.

Why can't it be that way all the time? Why am I not accessing this energy all the time? It's inside of me, as my friend Ann always says.

Are there reasons to not be happy? Yes, I can think of some. But most of the time that I am unhappy, the reasons are not valid. Most of my depression comes from repetitive thoughts of the past, and are not in touch with the present moment. Heather was deriving her pleasure from the present moment, from the pure experience of the dance.

There was no desire for anything, nor any fear of losing anything. She knows it's temporary, it will go away - but she also knows it will come back. That absolute security brings her absolute happiness.

We wander around looking for meaning, forgetting the simple joys. There is meaning in happiness. When Heather dances, there's meaning there. It's not nothing. It's absurd to say there's no meaning there. For that instant, the dance is so important, it fulfills her whole being with joy, and she glows.

May we all awaken to the joy inherent in the dance of life.

Comment posted by R in Northern Virginia
at 8/4/2006 10:24:00 AM
Dancing is glorious! I remember the freedom when, as a teenager, I learned how to really move my body. A dear friend of mine, who is, incidentally, a beautiful and talented dancer, taught me. She moved with me, put my hands on her body to better experience the sinewy movements which define the difference between joyful dancing and the fulfilling of an obligation.

Your post really is about living the present moment -another lesson I keep forgetting and relearning--but reminded me of that dance experience--tten years ago, a lifetime for a woman in her twenties.

Keep sharing your thoughts, pleas. I recently discovered your journal and am enjoying it.

Small Details

Days go by, and I hesitate to write in my blog because I don't know if it will please my audience. I so much crave attention from others, as if, like the falling tree in the forest, I would cease to exist if no one heard me. And yet, I know my audience is few - dear friends, yes, but not the world-wide acclaim my ego would hope for to assure me that I am loved.

Today I sit outside with nothing between me and the air, reading the journals of Etty Hillesum, and from her frankness, I am again inspired to write. She details her life as if it matters - as if her feelings about a tree being cut down matter. My tendency is to look for "important" things in my life to share - great insights, clever sayings, dramatic events, as if the rest of my life is not really worth it. Yet the smaller things are important to me, or I would not go through them. I would not have driven to the store to buy eggs for breakfast if it had not mattered - I could just as easily have had cereal. But I took the trouble to dress, go out, go through traffic, go through the cold store, and come back maybe 40 minutes later, just so I could have three fried eggs.

Etty's journals show such intimate delight in her life that I can see that it is the small details that make life worth living - it is noticing and loving the movement of the sun, first as it beat down warmly on my skin, making me sweat, then as it moved behind the house, bringing a refreshing chill on the breeze. This is living, this is what life is about perhaps. We fight wars and diseases and amazing hardships just so we can sit in our backyard and feel the sun and breeze once again on or skin. Is this not the purpose of it all?

Today I am at home, alone, relishing my aloneness. I had planned to be in Oregon today, and I cancelled the trip at the last moment and at significant expense, because something inside me was in agony, struggling to be heard. Too often I ignore what appears to be trivial to me - this time I listened. And in the stillness I see more clearly that I need to speak and live my truth, and how I need to pick my words, not for imagined effect on my popularity, but because it is what I need to say.

Comment posted by Gene
at 7/9/2006 5:32:00 PM
Why, I'm delighted, Sapphire - you're the first new voice on my blog. Thank you for speaking up. Hope more posts speak to you also.

This lesson continues to challenge me - my distain for triviality runs deep, and I need to reach even deeper to find reality. After all, what will be left after we have destroyed the earth and there is no one left to even remember our passing? Nothing - no cures for AIDS, no great philosophies, no technological breakthroughs - nothing except our experience - the fact that one day, a glorious creature basked in glorious sunshine, and was fully aware of the glory of that moment. Perhaps that one day, that one experience, is enough to justify the long journey the universe has travelled to produce such a miracle. Is it possible?

Comment posted by Sapphire
at 7/9/2006 5:15:00 PM
I happened to find your blog on the main page of Blogger and read this post. It is so elloquent. I think many of us fall into that same rut of perhaps starting a blog for ourselves, but then when people visit, our ego swells and then it changes to blogging to keep people coming back for more. We lose sight of the fact that we started the blog for ourselves, not for the masses.

Comment posted by Anonymous
at 7/8/2006 8:34:00 PM
I'm glad you said that, Heidi, about loving life and all its little pleasures. It's good to hear from you also. Andy

Comment posted by Heidi
at 7/8/2006 7:27:00 PM
I imagine a professional counselor would have wanted those 3 eggs for breakfast also *grins* It is refreshing for me to hear someone expound on the melacholy of the inner mind only to be calmed by the beauty of the most trivial mysteries of nature in their own back yard. I'm glad others find peace in simplicity - and yes, maybe that's really the purpose of life - just being alive and loving life, I think. God doesn't need us to be important for Him - he's already done it all for us. But I guess sometimes we simply need to feel and express it and that makes it all important to us.

Comment posted by Anonymous
at 7/8/2006 8:01:00 AM
Hey, I hear you, Gene, whether you're a falling tree or whatever! Keep letting us know your thoughts and where you're at, and call us together to meet at your home whenever you feel like it, or be alone when you feel like it. (Being alone in a crowd, like at a folk festival, is what I often do; it's better than being really alone at home, although at home at least I can watch cable TV.) We need more people in this world who like attention and add something to other people's lives. It sounds like you're going through some heavy stuff right now that you don't want to keep to yourself, so maybe you would benefit from some professional counseling. Anyway, it's good to tell us what's on your mind. Andy

Shadow - The Final Frontier

I have become dedicated to the ancient edict, "Know thyself". If I am truly the creation of the divine, then getting to know myself is the most immediate way of getting to know the divine. And getting to know myself means getting to know the part of me in shadow as well as in light.

The Shadow is a Jungian term used to describe the parts of ourselves we are not aware of, that tend to act independent of our conscious desire and will. The shadow is simply a part of ourselves that the light of consciousness does not reach. It is not evil; it is simply unknown. Many of us hide our goodness as well as our faults within our shadow.

These days, I find myself digging into my shadow more and more. It is the part of me not yet known, not yet accepted or integrated into who I am. It is the final frontier - the part of me that has eluded my awareness the longest. In it, I believe, lies the secret to who I really am - a divine being on this earth in order to experience being human.

There is ugliness in the shadow, just as a wound can be ugly. But hiding the ugliness prevents help from ariving and healing from taking place. We often shrink from ugliness, especially our own, because we think it makes us bad. Thus we avoid the healing light of consciousness where we need it most.

In order to have the confidence to look into our shadow with curiosity instead of dread, we must know without a doubt that we are good, and what we find has nothing to do with our inherent worth. Otherwise, digging up dirt is just another way of confirming our suspicion that we do not deserve love.

Comment posted by Gene
at 7/9/2006 5:49:00 PM
Yes, all of me is good, including my shadow. The shadow is not something of evil - it is merely something I have hidden from myself. If I do not know I am divine, that means my divinity lies in shadow, and I need the light of consciousness to shine on it so I can know I am divine. Much of us lies in shadow, otherwise we would not act with the ignorance we do.

I hear you, Lee - I still like the word "ugliness" for a reason. Much of what people do, including myself, is ugly. War is ugly. Suicide bombers do ugly things. Politicians who server their own interests instead of the interests of their constituancy are ugly.

Ugly in my mind does not mean bad. A gaping wound in my foot can be ugly, if it is swollen, bleeding, and full of dirt. But the proper response to ugliness is to shine a light on what is ugly, give it careful attention, clean it up, care for it, and bring it back to a healthy place.

For me, this is a kind and loving way of looking at the things I do that I am ashamed of - I am not bad, but sometimes I look at how I act or think, and I cringe - I cringe because I see it is contrary to my divine nature. The person who does not cringe is no longer aware when he is far from his true nature.

Comment posted by Lee
at 6/29/2006 8:43:00 PM
Gene, you said: "In it [shadow], I believe, lies the secret to who I really am - a divine being on this earth in order to experience being human."
I believe the great discovery for you is that you are already a divine being.........you don't need to understand any more of yourself to reach that conclusion.............don't keep looking to find the divine...........feel the divine that is right there within you and look for the divine you haven't discovered!

Gene, you said " There is ugliness in the shadow, just as a wound can be ugly. But hiding the ugliness prevents help from ariving and healing from taking place. We often shrink from ugliness, especially our own, because we think it makes us bad. Thus we avoid the healing light of consciousness where we need it most."

Gene, I'd like to rewrite this..........There is love in the shadow, just as a wound can be love. But hiding the love prevents help from arriving and healing form taking place. We often shrink from love, especially our own, because we are afraid to recogniaze our greatness. Thus we avoid the healing light of consciousness where we need it most......right at home within ourselves.

Often shadow is associated with dark and dark is associated with negative..............there is great love in the shadow. There is not ugliness in my shadow............ugliness is in the eye of the beholder and I'm not ugly nor do I have any ugliness.

I believe that all of me is good, including my shadow; I'm a work in progress. I'm all good and there are good parts of me that I'm trying to make better.

I've spent way too much time on the negative side......I strive to be on the positive side and stay there and improve myself from the positive perspective.

Gene, thanks for giving me a venue to reaffirm my lovliness!

Comment posted by Heidi
at 6/29/2006 5:30:00 PM
I've been thinking about what both of you commented on about philosophies of the hidden self and getting to know the shadow.
It sounds like you are both intrigued more with the fearful elements (although you do mention the more desireable ones that may also be hidden.)

In my experience, I have been so deeply exposed to the "thou shalt nots" the forbidden rules of society, culture and peer groups the sense of shame and guilt that I've lost much of my child-like self confidence and desire for self-love.

I hope you are right that in my journey, I can re-discover how to love myself as much as I strive to love others!

I've been on a journey lately that speaks to the beauty within and I'm struggling with recognizing that inner peace. I think I am far too familiar with the fearful side (probably not my shadow at all anymore) I am quite a stranger to loving my own inner person as fully as I would like.

Comment posted by Anonymous
at 6/29/2006 11:54:00 AM
I agree with what you say, Gene. I am not so familiar with Jungian psychology and the "shadow", but I know that Freudian psychology recognizes the id as well as the ego and the superego, and both Jung and Freud recognized the subconscious, I believe, and that it influences us without us fully realizing it. Eastern religion recognizes the chakras, energy centers in our body, which include the lowest chakra related to sex, reproduction, and self preservation, and that we need a balancing of the chakras, that each is a natural part of us. Religion tries to fill in gaps in scientific knowledge with faith and myths that sometimes turn out to be wrong in light of scientific discoveries. Modern science recognizes biological evolution leading to the development of humans, who rise above nature in our sense of morality, and our society, folkways, intelligence and technology, and exploring the universe, yet we are still a part of nature, still having physical needs and limitations including mortality regardless of what we may believe about an afterlife. I believe in living one life at a time. Christianity talks about "original sin" and our selfish nature, but I also believe in "original goodness", our natural feeling of love and caring for each other based on empathy aside from any religion-based belief in divine rewards and punishments or in a spiritual command to "love ye one another" or "love thy neighbor as thyself", which assumes that we do love ourselves, a healthy self-esteem and wanting to enjoy life. I agree with the saying "know thyself", including what is in our "shadow" or subconscious or selfish side of each of us as a basic part of ourselves. There is a saying, by some Jewish thinker, I believe, that being strong (morally) includes controlling our passions. Recently I went to a discussion of "Have we learned anything from religion?" I have found that I have some things to unlearn from my protestant Christian religious upbringing. During the 1960's, that wonderful golden age of love, flower power, and breaking free, there was the saying, "If it feels good do it, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody". I agree with what one Jewish thinker said, that "the good life" includes enjoyment as well as morality. Here's to the good life! Andy

The Would-Be Guru

It has been a real blow to my ego to discover, after I'd been writing this blog for several weeks, that the world has apparently not been desperately waiting to learn every profound thought and experience of my life. Even friends don't seem to have caught on to the vast amounts of wisdom they could be gaining if only they would read my blog. My guru image is being severely threatened.

It has challenged me to question why I am doing this. I know that I have a strong desire to be seen and heard, and the idea of putting myself out on the world wide web for all to see was very appealing. And, as far as I can tell, I have very few readers, or at least commenters. But I continue to write, even though the fantasy of becoming one of the most widely read blogs on the web has quickly faded.

So why do I continue? I discover it does something to me to write, and to be potentially exposed, even if no one ever reads what I write. I know they could, and that makes a difference to me. I am challenged to ask who I am, how I want to present myself to the world, what do I choose to hide and what do I choose to show, and why.

How much my fantasy of greatness continues to fuel my posts, I don't know.

Comment posted by Gene
at 7/9/2006 5:39:00 PM
Hi, Lee. You ask good questions. "Do you think you are wise and great, and if so, do you need others to validate that or convince you?" Yes, a part of me indulges in the fantasy that everything I do is wonderful. Another part indulges in the thought that nothing I do has any worth at all. I know that reality is neither, but that does not always stop me from acting out from these extremes."

"Why does it make a difference [if people could read your blog]?" Because when I harbor fantasies about myself, there is no challenge, other than my own vigilence, to the fantasy. When I consider putting it out on the web, I suddenly am faced with the spectacle of hundreds of people reading my claims, and it sobers me. I have to stop and consider what I *really* believe about myself, and not just what I fantasize. So the exposure forces me to be more honest with myself. (After all, what would people think of me if they caught me lying??? :) )

Thanks for your input.

Comment posted by Anonymous
at 6/28/2006 5:41:00 PM
I try my best to keep as low a profile on my ego as I possibly can and I'm not always successful. To be doing something so that others will feed the hungry ego is a process to be examined. It's looking outside one's self for self validation instead of writing the blog purely from energy within to feed the energy within.

"I know that I have a strong desire to be seen and heard" Why do you have that desire. Do you want people to look up to you (in the physical sense, they already do!); do you want to be seen as wise or great? If so, where does this need come from? Do you think you are wise and great and if so, do you need others to validate that or convince you?

"I discover it does something to me to write, and to be potentially exposed, even if no one ever reads what I write."
This is writing more from within........for you! You put yourself out there for YOU and what others do with it is their choice. You are not responsibe for them; your blog cannot rescue them, they must do that themselves.

"I know they could [read the blog] and that makes a difference to me"
Again, I ask, why, why does it make a difference? Apparently Andy has been reading your blog but you didn't realize that. Do you feel differently now, why? You really don't know what he thinks of your blog, but you know he's reading it............so what now?

I'm not saying we should all be islands and what others say and think about us doesn't have some meaning and purpose. I believe humans to be social creatures. But I am concerned when actions are generated for the purpose of feeding an ego rather than for the action itself and letting the Universe decide the fate of the action.

I hope some of this makes some sense............Lee

Comment posted by Anonymous
at 6/28/2006 12:08:00 AM
I read everything you put on the internet, Gene, even though I don't always reply. By the way, I was out of town at the Old Songs Festival, a great folk festival, near Albany, NY, and returned late Monday, otherwise I would have replied sooner. Andy

Baby Birds and the Future of the Human Race

Zipping along in a hurry to get to work, I saw a bird in the right lane that I assumed would fly away when I got near enough. It did not. It make a few unsure hops towards the curb, and stopped as I swerved around it.

I realized it was a baby bird, not yet able to fly. Normally it would have been obvious to me to get to work on time rather than mess with the trivial issue of a baby bird on the road - but reason did not prevail. I found a place to turn around and drove back, hoping I would reach it before someone's tire did.

Eventually I was driving slowly past the spot where it was, and I saw it on the grass by the curb. I stopped my car in the right driving lane and hoped I would not cause an accident. Visions of President Lincoln stopping on the way to a meeting to help a pig out of a mud pit flashed through my mind. I got out and easily picked it up in my hands. It gave a squalk, then tried to eat my finger, while I looked around for a safe place to put it.

Next to the side walk was an immense stone wall, with no break within sight. Overhead, two robins were chirping frantically in the trees. There was no nest to be seen. Full of misgivings, I set the baby bird down under the parents, as close to the wall as possible, hoping that the parents could figure out some way of keeping it out of the road. It seemed pretty hopeless.

Why go to all that trouble and care for a baby bird, when next to me several dozen acres had just been cleared for a new building, with untold destruction to hundreds of creatures which had found a home there? As someone said, it mattered to the bird.

And why go to all the trouble of saving the earth from global warming? We are, after all, only one planet of theoretically billions, which may have life far more intelligent than ours. Why bother? Because it matters to us.

It is not logic that drives us to preserves life, nor to get out of bed in the morning. There is some passion deep within us that we do not control. It is because meaning is found deep inside, and not from some religious edict or logical conclusion of what we should do.

I find myself today more distracted by the thought of tires and feathers than melting icebergs. Today, that is closer to home. Tomorrow may be another story.

Comment posted by Anonymous
at 6/27/2006 11:54:00 PM
Gene, your comments bring some things to mind. I remember seeing a peeping bird that couldn't or wouldn't fly, standing up to a barking dog that had the bird backed up against a curb, so I scared the dog away.
I heard the story about Lincoln and the pig, that he helped it get unstuck from a fence, so in school I drew a picture of that, and I didn't understand why my teacher didn't like it, until years later when I realized she must have thought it looked like Abe was having sex with the pig.
I, too, have thought about the idea that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe, but we only know of it on our own living planet. But suppose that somehow there is a universal life force that focuses itself all in one place, which happens to be our planet? But any way you figure it, life on Earth (Gaia) is precious and we must save it! Andy

Comment posted by Gene
at 6/26/2006 7:12:00 PM
I got the journal fixed - my host switched servers, and I was pointing to the wrong one. Thanks for noticing.

Comment posted by Heidi
at 6/26/2006 7:11:00 PM
I love the story -- I have been there when you rescued birds before, too.

BTW - your journal only goes up to June 12 -- that last couple of posts seem to be missing.

A Hard Morning

I woke up this morning with the most beautiful hard-on I have had in a long time. Full, and bursting with life, I felt like if I turned over, you could spin me like a top.

Finally, an experience I can claim women can't understand. It has been a while since I woke up this hard. It is not a particularly sexual feeling - there is no need for any kind of satisfaction or release. It is satisfying just to feel the energy buzzing in my body and pushing outward - as if the thickness yearned to expand and fill the universe. I feel the pleasure of it pushing against the sheets, strong, bold, incapable of hiding.

Why does it feel so risky to write about my sexuality on the world wide web? I'm not revealing anything someone couldn't have guessed. Am I afraid of losing readers who don't want to know I have a penis? Am I afraid of breaking a taboo? (who, me??) Do I want to pretend I am just a mind, and my body is just an uninteresting machine carrying my head around?

Since I started this blog, I've struggled with just how honest I want to be. The fearful part of me does not want to offend anyone, nor allow someone to laugh at me. Yet it rankles me to have to be selective about who I admit I am. It reeks of the days when I was ashamed, when such things could not be spoken of, when mother was listening on the other side of the door.

Yet I feel there is some tremendous gift awaiting me if I put all of myself out there, even if no one is reading this blog. *I* know I have revealed myself - I have nothing left to hide. If I chat with someone who thinks I reveal too much about myself, I can say, "Boy, you should read my blog!" Of course, they will when they go home, then pretend the next day they didn't. Isn't that what we all want, to know and be known?

I long to integrate all that I am, to shed the right and the wrong, the fear and the ego, and just let be what is. Isn't that, after all, what the universe does? The sun doesn't turn its face - it shines on the sexual and the mundane, on the lawyer and the hamburger-flipper, on the suicide bomber's morning as well as the innocent people he will kill today. This, to me, is the meaning of the phrase "God is love". The universe does not ask who deserves to breathe its fresh air this morning - it freely gives regardless of our judgments.

The hard-on has faded, and now I can tuck it away and go out among the other penises and vaginas properly hiding under business clothes, in a world where we have all apparently agreed on the fantasy that certain parts of us do not exist.

Comment posted by Anonymous
at 7/10/2006 11:23:00 PM
Gene
You are just beautiful
that's all

Comment posted by Anonymous
at 7/9/2006 5:24:00 PM
wow, you are brave to put that out there. and I like what you said about it.

Reclaiming Innocence

The receptionist at my new doctor's office was a young chinese girl with a big smile, soft voice, and innocent face. As she took my patient information, she chatted about herself and the world. She had the presence of an infant, as if she were grabbing her toes and softly cooing, pleased with everything, laughing at a delightfully absurd world. I could not imagine that my bodily woes and worries would make any sense to her.

As we chatted, I felt my face lighting up with the reflection of hers, and vague memories arose of a world I once knew, wide-eyed in a benign universe. I felt in love over her smile and a few meaningless words, and suddenly I wanted her, wanted to possess her laughter and light, wanted to pull her body into mine so that I could merge with her naked joy of life.

And the thought occurred, was I simply wanting to strip her of her innocence so that through her I could re-experience the pain of my own loss?

I know all too well that that there is something in me that keeps me from reentering that world - the fear of being fooled again, of being too naive, of risking vulnerability, of pain. And so I peer longingly over the wall I have built that guards me from what I long for, convinced that I need to be serious and grown up and realistic.

Yet her smile lingers in me, and I am unable to give up the desire for what I have left behind.

More thoughts from the discussion

I left the discussion yesterday feeling lonely. Perhaps I had hoped to find kindred souls, people who resonated deeply with my own experience, people whose experience I could deeply resonate with. Instead, the struggle of intellectual polemics still weighed on me, and I left, feeling unseen and unheard.

Yet a woman there had heard me - she even remarked outloud she was interested in my point of view, and wanted to talk more with me about it. No one else's remarks had gotten that particular honor.

I thought about it as I was walking away, thinking, I should go back and be open to the chance that this woman and I might have some common interest of the soul that would at least partially satisfy my hunger. But I did not turn around. The vision of being alone, unheard, not understood was so dramatic, poinent, even enrapturing, that I chose to continue in my drama than disturb it with the possibility of a different reality.

It is an old story, one I am increasingly becoming tired of. It is true that as a child, I found no connections, no one to relieve me from my self-alienation by telling me, "Here's who you are. Here's what I see when I look at you." I grew up in this strange confusing inner world of swirling thoughts and conflicting feelings, and found no one who could help me make any sense of it all, or give me a sense of who this person was who had the thoughts and feelings.

And when I go to an event like this, and I am not fully reassured that my thoughts are valuable, I fall back to the old story - still dramatic and full of pathos for me after all these years.

It is time to let the old story go, and step into my power.

I'll meet you there

I attended a discussion today on "Why are we here?", from which I wrote the previous post. As with many discussion groups I have attended, there seemed to be this sense of urgency among the participants - urgency to get their point of view across, urgent to be heard, urgent to answer the challenge leveled at their pet theory.

Many people either had "the answer" or were looking for one. It was an intellectual discussion, which I do enjoy, yet I found I was seeking to hear people's experience of wrestling with the question more than the answers they had found. For a while, I sat there inwardly criticizing them for being too much into theory instead of experience, and busily putting together a compelling argment for why they should not try to prove things. Even when the paradox of that struck me, I found it hard to give up.

And I thought to myself, what would a meeting be like if everyone stopped trying to draw conclusions, and just experienced each other's life instead? Would we all just sit there and stare at each other? How would we talk? Could we still ponder the mysteries of life without aiming to come out of meeting having decided who was right and who was wrong?

Yes - I have experienced that, and I know it is possible. It is the yin of conversation rather than the yang - it is the listening instead of the talking. It is talking just enough so that we can listen to the experience of others, rather than listening just enough so we can talk about our own ideas.

Seeking meaning through rational discourse is a bit like Barry Manilow singing "I write the song", which was written by Bruce Johnston.

I have had enough of theory. I crave touching someone's soul, and having their soul touch mine. I long to reconnect to the intimate web I was born into, the mystical world of connection with everything in me and around me.

"Out beyond right and wrong there is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.

 Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other'

Doesn't make any sense." - Rumi

Awakening to Meaning

We wake up from the sleep of pre-birth and find ourselves in a world of feeling, mystery, rich with significance. Things around us and in us make us cry, become afraid, become happy, curious, angry. What we experience is meaningful to us from day one.

Yet, as adults, we research the world and study the laws of science, the mechanics of the universe, and discover to our dismay, that meaning is not there. The world appears fairly mechanical, operating by cause and effect. Even the study of our own brains results in a mechanistic explanation, and the study of our emotions yields an understanding of hormones and brain activity. No where in this scenario is there any purpose, any meaning, anything that explains the deep experiences we have, and continue to have, throughout our lives.

Many reach the logical conclusion that there is no meaning, and we must either invent one and live in pretense, or accept there is none and live a life of contradiction to what we believe. Others believe that meaning is defined by an authoritarian God, who simply decrees it into existence. Neither alternative is very comfortable.

A shift has happened in us when we became rational beings, during the pre-teen years - we started to look to logic instead of experience as the source of truth. Originally, we had a set of experiences, and we found various theories we learned or overheard helped us categorize and make sense out of our experience. But eventually, the theories became the truth, and we started judging our experience according to what we believed, and rejecting experience that did not fit.

When we lose experience, we become adrift in a world of rationality, cut off from our core being, the being that experiences. We ask, "Why am I here? What is my purpose in life? What meaning does my life have?" But there are no logical answers to these questions that truly satisfy. If I say I am the product of random forces that began with the big bang, that gives me no comfort in feeling I belong here on the earth. If I say my purpose is to be happy, or to satisfy my desires, it seems pretty useless to pursue pleasure, education, fame or money for this person who will be dead in 50 years. To what end do we do these things? If I say my meaning comes from my religion or God, then what of others who believe differently?

One cannot derive "ought" from "is". One can look at all the facts of the physical world, and probe the depths of brain neurology, and study the history of evolution, but never can we take a set of facts and derive a statement of "should" from them. Morality, value, purpose, meaning, are all inherently unreachable if one starts from the world of facts and reason.

Yet we all had a sense of meaning once. When we were born, we didn't question why we were there. We were intimately connected with our little universe, instantly reacting to stimuli, deeply connected in a web of objects, sensations, feelings, reactions, expression of our inward selves, instantly responding and interacting with living beings and caretakers. We were part of the web of life.

When we became convinced that logic led to truth, we lost that connection - we lost the intimacy we had with the universe, and lived in the world of facts and beliefs. And one cannot start at reason and arrive at living. We can experience a proof, but we cannot prove an experience.

What then? How do we discover the meaning of life? The answer does not lie in any rational statement, because that will never touch the soul. The answer cannot be arbitrarily chosen if it is to be real. The answer can only arise spontaneously out of experience, like sexual desire arises from our bodies.

I look at a sunset, and I do not conclude there is meaning - I discover it. I discover that the colors fascinate me, that the scene moves me, that my thoughts spontaneously wander around the world's bigness and my smallness, around how life can be full of amazing beauty that appears without anyone's effort. I did not decide there was meaning; rather, I stood before the world and discovered that meaning was there. There is no deduction here, nor induction - there is only spontaneous discovery.

It may take us years to discover a meaning for our individual lives, for we are much more complex than a sunset, much more wonderful, much more paradoxical and mysterious. But when we stand fully and honestly before our lives, and really see ourselves, we will eventually see the meaning that is there.

Comment posted by Gene
at 6/18/2006 9:28:00 PM
A beautiful poem, Alex. I look forward to your comments also.

Comment posted by Alex
at 6/13/2006 7:45:00 PM
Gene,

While I'm considering how to respond, I leave you with this:

http://www.panhala.net/Archive/It_Was_Like_This.html

Alex

Comment posted by jaiamma
at 6/12/2006 10:16:00 AM
Hi Gene, I found this post of yours to be very meaningful... (smile) My experience: "Everyone wants to be happy. No one wants to suffer." (the Dalai Lama). People who are experiencing suffering search for meaning. People who are free from suffering don't. Note I distinguish between suffering and pain. Suffering is not just the ups and downs of everyday life, but fundamentally human suffering is being burdened with the deep belief (felt in the body, emotions and mind) that who we are is limited to our fragile, mortal bodies and our personality (often dysfunctional).

Any "meaning" of life derived from intellectual analysis is like trying to find sweetness by licking a sheet of paper with the word "honey" written on it.

There have been brief moments in my life when I've experienced deep bliss. In those moments I and everything was and felt perfect, complete and deliciously beautiful. If, in those moments, someone had asked me "What's the meaning of life?" I would have laughed and said "Look at that tree! Look at that child! Look at that old beggar! Can't you see its all perfect and blissful just as it is? That's the "meaning" of life; this amazing present moment just as it is. Why search for something that is already here? Its like a fish searching for water."

So, Gene, I'm in joyful agreement with your primary points. That the "meaning" of life is found when we deeply experience the present moment just as it is, without judgment. Its beautiful that people search for the meaning of life because they are really searching for who they truly are (beyond mental concepts). Everyone wants to be happy, and everyone eventally will discover that true, unconditional happiness (meaning) is only found when they realize they are the whole cosmos; are the Divine Presence. They are not little vulnerable egos that will disappear into dust.

For me, the meaning of life is a felt experience in the body and emotions, not any kind of concept or philisopical notion. The nice thing about having those moments of bliss is that when I'm in my suffering (which is most of the time) I still feel that the "meaning" of life is this present moment. That feeling is a continual remnant or residue of my bliss experiences. I response to the question about why God allows suffering, one great sage said "I like suffering. It brings me closer to God." So, if approached with the right attitude, suffering can dissolve the ego rather than reinforce it.

The search for meaning in life is really just the search for the end of suffering. That completely defines my life; the search for the end of suffering. That search fills me to the brim with meaning & purpose. As I grow, this search is simply about accepting and surrendering to each moment just as it is (especially my pain). Continual opening of the heart is the meaning of life. Suffering ends when my feeling that I am a separate self dissolves. 99% of the time I feel separate. But that 1% has seeped deeply into the rest of my life.

I deeply appreciate Gene how you're exploring these big questions and turning the light of your awareness right back into your own being, searching for your true self. Being an optimist, I feel that as the world evolves, more and more people will engage in that search as they discover that excessive material pleasures don't bring true happiness.

Charles

I just found out that my friend Charles, about whom I've written twice before, died on Sunday. Recurrent pnemonia apparently finished the process that was inevitable anyway.

Death is the strangest thing. How can a person simply cease to exist?? If a tree is cut down, there is a wood pile, or sawdust, or rotting trunks on the ground. And of course the physical body of Charles still exists. But the spirit - the voice, personality, ideas, experiences of his life, his memories - all have suddenly vanished without a trace. We will never know anything more of what it was like to be Charles than we know at this moment, and even that will fade over time.

Here I can see the essence of spirit quite clearly. Don't talk to me about the personality just being a very complex set of neural connections, or that everything is ultimately arrangements of molicules - that does not explain what has happened here. Something spiritual has happened; something we call a spirit is no longer there. It is not a "thing" that has gone - it is a capability, a capacity to touch my life, to teach me from years of experience and from a bank of wisdom accumulated at great price. I no longer can stare into his eyes and feel the thrill of words coming from a person with very different life experiences than mine. I can no longer have my vision expanded by his particular point of view. I can no longer listen to him disrupt the chapel service with his long passionate speeches.

And some day, I will die. How can I fathom that I, not my body, but the thing that feels, experiences, weeps, laughs, thinks - that that thing will be gone? That all I have experienced and today hold as so important, will disappear? That the desire for life itself will no longer be? Who will I be, when I am no longer I? Who was I, before I was me?

I am forced once again to face that great paradox of meaning - why am I here? I have struggled with this question since I started counting the years left instead of the years lived. The task now is, to cease hiding, to cease pretending, and to wrestle with what is, allowing the dance between this thing we call reality and the thing I call me, to shape me and my philosophy as it will.

Comment posted by Heidi
at 6/9/2006 8:04:00 AM
Gene,
This one so much touched me especially with knowing several people pending death and also Charles now gone.

I think I feel like this especially when I am in the heart of getting the very thing I have longed to receive -- I feel so inadequate when it is gifted to me.

This poem makes me feel less alone in my struggle.

Heidi


[Panhala]
Life While-You-Wait
Wislawa Szymborska

Life While-You-Wait.
Performance without rehearsal.
Body without alterations.
Head without premeditation.

I know nothing of the role I play.
I only know it's mine. I can't exchange it.

I have to guess on the spot
just what this play's all about.

Ill-prepared for the privilege of living,
I can barely keep up with the pace that the action demands.
I improvise, although I loathe improvisation.
I trip at every step over my own ignorance.
I can't conceal my hayseed manners.
My instincts are for happy histrionics.
Stage fright makes excuses for me, which humiliate me more.
Extenuating circumstances strike me as cruel.

Words and impulses you can't take back,
stars you'll never get counted,
your character like a raincoat you button on the run ?
the pitiful results of all this unexpectedness.

If only I could just rehearse one Wednesday in advance,
or repeat a single Thursday that has passed!
But here comes Friday with a script I haven't seen.
Is it fair, I ask
(my voice a little hoarse,
since I couldn't even clear my throat offstage).

You'd be wrong to think that it's just a slapdash quiz
taken in makeshift accommodations. Oh no.
I'm standing on the set and I see how strong it is.
The props are surprisingly precise.
The machine rotating the stage has been around even longer.
The farthest galaxies have been turned on.
Oh no, there's no question, this must be the premiere.
And whatever I do
will become forever what I've done.

~ Wislawa Szymborska ~

Two Kinds of Anger

I've been purposely avoiding putting much theory on my blog, because I tend to theorize a lot in my head, and theory does not create intimacy. Yet sometimes it can be invaluable, and this one is an important understanding for me, that might be useful to others.

I've always had issues with anger - other people's and my own. I tend to be terrified of it, and avoid it at all costs. I've suppressed much of my own anger, and have wound up often feeling like a victim and carrying resentment.

From my work with Shalom and other places, I've come to see two different emotions that I have both been calling anger:

- Passion - I may feel strongly about something, such as the war, and express my thoughts with energy. Or someone may be violating or about to violate a boundary of mine, and I say "No!" strongly, with power, with energy. I have often suppressed this energy from being expressed in my life.

- Resentment - I may dislike something that has happened to me, or some situation that I cannot change, and develop an attitude of feeling like a victim, powerless and abused. It may include the desire for vengence, or withdrawal, or the belief that I don't deserve to be happy. I have often indulged in this attitude, and suffered a lot from it.

The psychological technique of emotional release, where one brings an emotion to the surface and expresses it strongly and bodily with the purpose of releasing it, has been controversial in the field of psychology. It is done in co-counseling, primal therapy, in Shalom work, in Pathwork, in the Mankind Project, and many other systems of healing and growth with great effectiveness, yet many professionals remain against it. I've puzzled over that a lot, because it has been very effective for me. This distinction above holds the key for me.

Emotions that are habitual attitudes are strengthened the more they are practiced. Emotions that have been suppressed and are brought into our awareness give us a new option that we were resisting before. Those of us who habitually feel rage, or resentment, or sadness, or powerlessness, are not people who need to practice those emotions - we need to practice new options, new ways of looking at life, new ways of reacting to situations. Those of us who have denied the existence of certain emotions, or suppressed the expression of them, need to understand why we are cutting off part of who we are, and one method of understanding is to get us to experience it and see what we have been resisting.

What I have resisted is personal power - the kind of anger that rises up when my boundaries are being crossed, and say "No!" What I have taken on as a habitual attitude is the kind of anger that is a smouldering resentment, a feeling that I've been had, an inability to let go of the past or see life from a new angle.

This frees me to change. When I discover resentment within me, I can try on a different attitude without fearing I am "suppressing my anger" - a big no-no in psychology. Likewise, when I feel strongly about something that is not as I think it should be, I can express strength and passion without being cruel or vendictive, and that is an attitude I need to practice, since I am resistant to it.

The point in looking inside is to free ourselves, not create more rules. The point is freedom - to have more options, not fewer.

Your thoughts are welcome - I'd appreciate hearing what others think.

Comment posted by Heidi
at 6/5/2006 10:02:00 AM
Wow!

You've covered a heck of a lot of ground in a few short statements - my head is spinning!

I feel like I want to expound on each sentence and point out that there's a lot more to it! But I think you are making a point only on how we process our anger regardless of the source of any particular situation.

If I am personally resentful about a relationship or work or community issue, I've been developing a new way of dealing and it is working! You talked about changing our mental processes to get rid of old anger patterns. My counselor said this is a fairly new concept in the psychological world. The old world required us to dig into childhood issues to heal the root cause but it also believe that many of our habits were hard-wired. The new thinking has discovered that our minds can create new neural-paths to our thinking processes when we practice and eventually by-passing the old thinking habits will become natural thru practice. I find this very encouraging.

I look inside myself to find what my desired longer-term goal is and then I try to overlook the small annoyances in favor of grooming my thoughts for my larger goals. I've spent a lot of year getting to this newer place of thinking and it is working for me - like you said. Rethinking old ways of being angry so that we can better serve our deeper goals which are usually a desire for being understood and for connecting somehow.

You also pointed out that a lot of our feelings are not conscious and we tend to go on automatic in our rages and "pet peeves". Are you saying that a sign to watch for is a routine in our angry thinking? That is, if it feels routine, it is probably an old record and most probably no longer valid?

My fear in all this heady stuff is that in practicing positive thought patterns, I might be going into denial or suppressing feelings that will come back later in my head - with a vengeance. I am not entirely confident that I am doing it correctly, so I have this underlying fear that I'm missing the point.

No one's coming

I played piano a lot as a child. I found in the world of music a way that I could express the unexpressable inside of me. No one would tell me, "Don't be sad. Don't be angry" when I played sad or angry music. Somehow, music escaped the judgments and limitations placed on other expressions of feeling in our house.

When I played piano on a summer day, a fantasy would always come to mind. Someone who knew much more about music than anyone in my family or our social circle would be walking down the street, and hear my sound drift through the windows, and would stop and listen in amazement. "Someone in that house is a genius!", they would say; "Someone doesn't know the gifts he has! They need to be discovered!". And they would come in, and whisk me away to a musical school where I would be trained, and my genius would be discovered, and I would become world-renoun, and finally recognized as having something of value inside of me.

As an adult, I have a similar alternate fantasy. There is an island I periodically swim to - it is unknown, and involves hiking to a deserted part of a river, swimming across the river, climbing up rocks and down a deep slope on the other side, and there I can lay in the sun in total isolation and peace. I would do this journey, and then imagine some beautiful woman would come along, discover me, and make love to me in the sun and the wildness.

The odd thing is that I first make myself totally unreachable, and then hope that someone will reach me.

A mother would do that. If a child was lost in the woods, she would search day and night, climb over every hill, call on everyone she could think of to help, and would not give up until all hope was gone. One of the comforts of being a child in a loving family is you can try as hard as you want to hurt your parents, or destroy your world, or isolate, or be obnoxious, or become unreachable, and the parent's love and patience will always overcome the distance you create. Love will always win out. And some of us, since we did not get that at home, are still trying to get it as adults. Unfortunately, as adults, we are far more capable of hiding and isolating ourselves, of creating barriers to intimacy, of sitting in victimhood and resentments, and we can succeed, if not in actually stopping love, in preventing ourselves from experiencing love, sometimes for the rest of our lives.

This weekend, I realized that no one is coming. I can make the difficulty of getting through my barriers so difficult that no one will ever succeed. I can create a world so full of victimization that no one could ever convince me I am loved. That I can sit as a victim forever on my isolated hilltop, waiting for someone to come along and save me from myself. And that I am now poweful enough that no one can tear me away from my own insistance.

The thought of letting go of my defenses is terrifying. I've been hurt too many times. I don't want to be fooled again. Each mere glance causes years of hurt and betrayal to flare up before my eyes, and once again, I feel betrayed, and withdraw more.

Yet no one is coming. No one can save me from myself. I will be all alone unless *I* take down the walls and do not make it so difficult.

It is my choice whether or not to know love.