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Depth Psychology

By

Sunny Strasburg

It is at least 130 degrees, muggy, pitch black, and crowded to the point that I am touching the strangers around me. In this absolute darkness, my non-visual senses are more perceptive. I smell the sage smoke and wet soil, and the stink of the repulsive man seated behind me….my shadow. Feeling the humidity of the sweat dripping from his meaty body, I vigilantly listen for his movement, to sense where he is in this tiny, crowded space. I can’t stand it, I want to run, get some fresh air. I have to get away from him, escape. Why is he here? Anyone but him, with his backwoods dialect and his brutish, scarred face. My mind is racing. I am dizzy with fear and hate and panic. I heard he killed someone. “Open your heart,” I silently chant,” You should be past this…come on! You’re a therapist!”

Before us, in the center, there is an almost imperceptible glow of hot, melon-sized rocks. Water is thrown onto them and the steam and heat force me to drop to the cool earth. He bends forward as well, his arm leaning against my flank. The heat is overwhelming. It is breaking us. My judgment and fear subsides into the immediate threat of the suffocating heat. The “other” becomes the heat and we all psychically band together against the enemy in order to survive. Now I am open hear him. He hacks and then sighs a low moan. My heart finally cracks open and I feel the connection to him and everyone else in the sweat lodge, as we all sweat, heave and wrestle with our inner demons. The sound he utters builds into a pitiful, mournful wail. My thoughts suspend and I listen…no, I hear. He sounds so lonely. “Momma, I’m so sorry….Mommy?” He sobs like a child; his shoulders curl forward and heave. My anger falls away, and the fountain of my own isolated sorrow rises. My breath catches with an animal wail and I join in a harmonizing cry.

This was a recent experience I had in a Native American sweat lodge ceremony. The shadow I experienced in corporeal form was Joshua, a convicted murderer and gang member on the path to rehabilitation. He had come as I had, to the ceremony of the medicine man. Though his methods seem unorthodox to the modern consensus, the tribal leader maintains a very ancient tradition that is deeply relevant to the healing of alienation and dis-integration.

In a tribe, even this very temporary one comprised within a sweat lodge, the shadow cannot be “othered” or scapegoated, but must be faced and worked, turned over and over like a pearl in an oyster. In a smaller tribe, there is not enough population density to push the shadow out of your life. He shows up at the campfire night after night.

 We all cook in the womb of the sweat lodge and own up to the ways in which parts of our selves are ex-cons and murderers. The lawyer talks about his secret cocaine addiction, the C.F.O. admits being raped as a boy. The midwife, two Native American Elders, and homemaker all reveal their personal torments. But these shadows are not labels; they are verbs, events that happened to these heroes along the way. And we are all in the process of changing, unfolding along our paths and discovering meaning along the way. We all suffer and hate, love, hurt, connect, withdraw, and grow.

The Apache language has no words for, what we call in the English language “guilt” or “shame”. The Apaches said that those words were developed by white men to control one another. Actions that we think of as mistakes were considered by the Apaches as wonderful opportunities to discover more about themselves and growth toward deeper wisdom.

In psychological development, initiative is strongly associated with children’s spontaneous play activities. Spontaneity and playfulness will be seriously impaired if guilt and shame was prevalent in a child’s upbringing.

Internalizing the locus of control…that is a belief that we create our lives as masters of our own fate, rather than being the victims of events that happen “to us”, involves overcoming guilt and shame and speaking our own truth.

I recently read a wonderful book by Dr. Aaron Kipnis, Angry Young Men which touches on the need to belong to something bigger than ourselves. Additionally I, myself, have been on a long quest to find and co-create a deep community—a tribe—in which to belong. Our modern, western cultural experience tends toward isolation and loneliness. Alone in offices, we peer through windows of pixels to connect to one another via Facebook. We drop our kids off at daycare to drive to work alone in a metal box. Then we work in a cubicle, come home, flop on the couch and crank the volume on the TV. We glean meaning out of sitcoms and myth systems out of film. We are desperate for meaning—and tribe-- in this plastic world.
Essential to the sustainability of a healthy tribe are to create a sense of meaning, rites of passage, and witnessing by elders. The meaning, and thus the reality we create, through our actions, either fills us with a sense of purpose and self actualization, or shames and stunts our growth. Shame combined with lack of opportunity can lead to social apathy at best, and violence at worst. We are social, story-telling organisms, propelled by an archetypal drive to create tribes. Tribes are bonded through a sense of meaning.

Rupert Ross said that primordial languages often center on the use of verbs rather than nouns. Native Americans for example, tend not to label individuals, but look at people as a process rather than a static thing. “When we apply such labels to real people, however, they tend to stick. And when they stick, they cause us to start denying the complexity and wholeness of the human beings we are speaking of.” (Ross, R. p.105)
When living close to nature, everything is in a constant flux of change. Nothing stays good or bad forever. Judgment and expectation get us in trouble. They become shorthand for a dead-end label that some thing or some one is good or bad. “The third Zen Patriarch advised that the ‘Great Way’ belongs to those who do not make distinctions between the poles, but rather, to hold both with a compassionate heart.” (A. Kipnis, p. 232)
          

Like most American people, I have a deep, perhaps irrational, fear of murderers and rapists. Whenever I am in the presence of someone I know has committed some violent act, I am engulfed by the fear of being consumed, killed and thrown away like a candy-bar wrapper. In most of the sectors of my life, I avoid these ‘others’, but when my therapy practice brings me in contact with them, being street smart seemingly requires a cold detachment and distrust.

A few years ago, I volunteered to teach art classes at a lock-down center for homeless, drug addicts in mandatory rehabilitation. I entered the position with a gung-ho, hopeful attitude. This rosy-colored view had a narcissistic substrate. I thought I could go in, roll up my sleeves and genuinely connect with each of them, providing the love and mirroring they never had. I believed this would somehow immunize me from dipping down into their dirty world.

I was eaten alive.

Wise to my naiveté, my blind enthusiasm enraged them. My second day, I trembled as a huge, toothless gangster Chola hurled toward me and screamed three inches from my face, “You f*cking bitch….c*nt! Don’t you be dis-re-specting ME! I aint you dog, your f*cking project! You can leave…. self righteous BITCH! I can’t!” Her spit sprayed my face and I started to cry. She flopped back into her chair with a nonchalant grunt, and I stood there, not knowing what to do. I desperately wanted to disconnect and “other” her. I wanted to defend my privilege and save her from the visceral reality she had articulated.

After that, I was much more cynical and careful. I had a new kind of respect. But I remained determined to stay real with these people. And within all the crazy-making drama, darkness, and defeat, there were shining moments in that place which sparkle in my memory. One night, the women were all working on a large mosaic together. The scene rekindled a deep, archetypal knowledge in me that felt tribal. A southern woman started in her low, gospel voice, singing, “Lean On Me.” One by one, the entire group joined in and once again I cried. This time, I cried for the beauty and tenacity of the human spirit. She sung the song of community, of tribe, of connection.

If each of us holds the paradox of good and evil within, a tribe creates a container in which to hold these disparate elements. Tribalism is a perennial archetype which reemerges whenever it is absent in the dominant culture. Whether it is belonging to a gang, being a Dead-Head, or owning a Saturn automobile, tribes create a feeling of belonging through unified meaning. This meaning, whether implicit or explicit, becomes the group’s mission statement and their raison d’etre. And the mission statement can be anywhere along a spectrum of possibilities. They can be syntropic, healthy, and positive or destructive, dystopic and entropic. Inner city gangs evidence this.

“Gangs offer pride and self-rule. They challenge dominant culture…Gangs are attractive because they fill an essential need in adolescent male psychology for membership, acceptance, display, recognition, pride, a sense of mission, and a feeling of power.” (A. Kipnis, p. 156)

Humans have a need to make meaning of their experience. In 1713, George Berkeley hypothesized that only what is perceived exists. Postmodern psychology continued with the assertion that there is no meaning ‘out there’, but rather a solipsistic mosaic of stories which create infinite realities on each of our own life’s journey. If we can choose any reality, why choose nihilism? It creates learned helplessness and leads to depression. Humans are hard-wired to seek and create meaning. We are also social animals who habitually create tribes. Cohesive meaning is the glue which binds tribes together. The tribal archetype will inevitably emerge. Gangs are tribes. It is not tribalism which creates the problem of gang violence, nor is violence inherent to gangs. It is using violence to create meaning which is the problem. This begs the question, why would anyone choose violence as a source of meaning?

Violence is the lowest common denominator. It is basic survival, eat or be eaten. When animals including humans, are given no other choice, they will lash out in order to survive. What do we do with those whose drive for meaning is based around risk and violence? Rather than taking away all opportunity for growth and change, such as school suspensions, denying voting rights, and refusing to employ ex-cons, and recovering addicts, our society would benefit to help establish a positive meaning for gang members that creates syntropy rather than entropy.

For many former bad boys who are good men today, some sort of spiritual experience turned the direction of their lives. So in paying full homage to good parenting, education, counseling, real justice, community support, and economic opportunity, it would be remiss not to acknowledge the power of a spiritual community or teacher to restore a boy’s moral compass to working order. (Kipnis, p. 200)

The meaning, and thus the reality we create, through our actions, either fills us with a sense of purpose and self actualization, or shames us and stunts our growth. It is our own internal compass of morality which guides our choices, rather than an externally imposed didactic moral code. This meaning must resonate in our heart for it to have any long lasting effect.

In order to clarify this internal morality, we need to experience our edges. We need to be pushed in experiences and mirrored in that journey. This is why rites of passage, like the sweat lodge or peyote vision quest, are essential to realigning the compass of “bad boys”. For ex-con Joshua participating in sweat lodges, exploring rites of passage facilitated by a medicine man fills his need to belong to something with a higher purpose. The tribe creates a container for Jake to explore honesty, vulnerability, and personal responsibility.

As with tribes, rites of passage must be activated by a sense of meaning. Again, that meaning travels along a spectrum of possibilities. Childbirth and prison tattoos appear to be opposites, but both are rites of passage. Getting jumped into a gang, peyote vision quests, running a marathon, Bar Mitzvahs- these are all the ways in which the archetypal rite of passage is created. One of the primary rites of passage is the boy’s journey into manhood. A medicine woman once explained it to me this way,

A woman’s vision quest is always childbirth… there is no other vision quest for men or women as powerful as childbirth. But for men, it is different. The vision quest is the sacred sweat lodge. Vision quest is suffering. It brings you to your knees. No more lies. I don’t care how old you are. You are not a man until you go on your vision quest.

The inner city adolescent feels this call to belong to something bigger than he is. His intrinsic nature spurs him to recreate what his elders for generation after generation have done, to become a man and mark this transition in some ritualized way.
If a boy cannot win the respect of his elders he will run toward other means to attempt commanding the attention he craves. Gang initiation has more in common with the traditional rites of passage than most institutional approaches today. When a boy is initiated into a gang he gets a new family. He becomes part of a powerful tribe. His ‘jumping in’ ceremony confirms his courage. He is thus regarded, by the other homies, as a man. (A. Kipnis., p. 216)
           
The solution isn’t to disband gangs, but rather to embrace them. Support is needed in order to create a more sustainable meaning and intention for the gang, and bond the members through rites of passage which instill a sense of pride and growth, rather than negating or violating the rights of others.

The remaining essential factor in creating and sustaining a functional tribe is mirroring by elders. Without the witnessing of someone who has been on the path, the meaning, and the importance of the ritual are lost. The psyche will act out the rite of passage over and over in endless repetition until it is witnessed. This is seen in the rave culture. Seeking ritual ecstasy through ingesting “X” (Ecstasy/MDMA) produces a cathartic merging and sense of belonging. This emulates a rite of passage, though often the meaning is lost when the psychedelic pilgrim sobers up because there was no shaman present to witness, digest and reflect the meaning for the seeker. The same is true for gangs. Drive-by shootings, hazings, school yard bullying- all of these acts are repeated and escalated until someone takes notice. Elders and mentors are essential to de-escalating violence.
For troubled young men, one of the most important conduits through which to receive that ‘gift’ is a caring and capable adult. Many just need one to guide their journey toward responsible manhood and let them know they have a unique gift to give the world. (A. Kipnis, p. 213)
           
 Minority, male elders and mentors in particular are needed to replicate the mirroring ‘bad boys’ missed in their development. Racism, lack of opportunity, culture and socio-economic stress create a culture for inner city kids in which fathers are often absent or abusive. A strong, grounded and positive masculine hero maps the path for lost souls. ‘Bad boys’ can see that another reality is achievable. Participating in a positive tribal community, building love and a sense of growth and possibility, can create a hopeful future.

I don’t want to negate the very real concerns of attachment problems, Axis II personality disorders, and abuse which complicate rehabilitation for ‘bad boys’. There are psychopaths and sociopaths, Dysthymic and ne’er-do-wells, but in differing times and circumstances, people are people.  All of us need to be witnessed in a space in which such labels can be set aside.  Some part of the spirit remains unbent by circumstance and regret and yearns to connect, to shine in its own way and have its contribution acknowledged.  

There is a place for creating intentional tribes and rites of passage to restore a sense of purpose, belonging, respect, and morality. Regardless of the method of rehabilitation, the ultimate success depends on whether or not the tribal morality can inspire. Then it may be assimilated and accommodated into the psyche, to emanate from within to create a lasting frame of relevance for the gifts of the individual. The tribal morality must be able to allow and integrate the intrinsic diversity of personalities and how they react to the stages and challenges of the life journey.

PURA VIDA

“Turn here! He said right at the corral, didn’t he?”

I hop out of the car to open the barbed wire gate and Martin drives through. I stroll back to the car as a curious Brahma bull ambles toward me. Up and down the dusty road, and three more ranch gates and we arrive at a big tree with a broken, abandoned sandal at the base of the trunk. “This must be it.”

We descend down a steep trail. Some empathic person has taken the time to install a crude rope handrail trying to make the trail slightly less treacherous.

“Careful, kids.” I call back as I turn around the final switchback.

Dropping down into the canyon, the dense jungle opens up and we can’t believe what we see. An assortment of waterfall after waterfall fills the dark rock chasm, glistening in the mottled light of the forest, draped in the vines. The rushing water has carved seven pools out of the serpentine stone and overhung by jungle. It looks as if it’s been intentionally created for a postcard. We count eleven different birdsongs and stand there in awe of the spectacular view.

I had read about these falls on an obscure travel website talking about the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica. When we arrived in the surf town of Mal Pais, we started asking to its whereabouts, but none of the gringo immigrants had heard of them. The local Tico children were the ones who knew.

I didn’t realize how much Martin’s beautiful, eloquent Spanish would gain us so much access to the locals. As soon as he would speak, Ticos would inevitably break into a huge smile and ask him which Latin American country we were from. They have a fraternal energy with other Latinos, but I sense they don’t feel that same simpatico with North Americans.

We learned all sorts of details about life in Costa Rica from the Ticos. We asked several local people about the waterfalls, and they gave us clues as if they were leading us on a treasure hunt. A teen at a Soda in Cobano instructed Martin to find Eri in the house across the corral and pay him 400 colones (about 80 cents). He would then give us permission to enter his ranch to access the falls.

I scale two waterfalls and find a serene pool to settle in. Behind me, another river pours and bubbles down the stones above. I stand in it and get the best “hydro-massage” I’ve ever experienced. I can’t believe our little family is the only people here. I’m so used to everything being over-discovered, predigested and Disney-fied. If a natural wonder like this was in the USA, some entrepreneur would inevitably have built a huge resort and a fence around it and charged $25 to enter. I caught myself having this thought, and puzzled at being the vessel for it. It seemed to be simultaneously inevitable, absurd and blasphemous.

Our kids strip down to nothing but sandals and squeal in delight at all the visual, olfactory, auditory and tactile stimulation flooding their little bodies in this moment.

This is raw beauty…. paradise.

I stand in the water and look out at Eden. I thank the Goddess and Pachamama for making it just so. Sweet blossoms are falling off of a huge tree upstream, drifting down the current like little temples.

Emotion, gratitude and nostalgia overwhelm me and I begin to cry. Barely audible over the sound of rushing water, I tell myself aloud, “Remember this…remember this.”

I take in the vision of each of my children.

“Remember Andre floating leaves down the waterfall.
“…Remember Xochi swimming with that huge smile… her missing bottom tooth.
“…Remember Gio pointing at this and that, endlessly asking questions.”

You see, my mind has turned to mush. I’m afraid that my ability to interpret anything and set the intention to categorize the memory for long-term storage has dissolved. Or so I think. Actually, I know now that being totally present in this sensing moment is the only way to remember what is around me.

Throughout the week, I’ve noticed a strange shift occurring within my psyche. My outward persona seems to be disappearing. My need for external validation has been fading. Rather than my usual self-conscious reverberation of perception, my consciousness has taken up residence in my senses. ”Sunny” has now become my eyes, my ears, my skin, my nose, my mouth. And not in a conceptual, interpreted, and let’s say “perceived” way, but in the incoming sensation, now.

Costa Ricans tend not to put mirrors in the bathrooms. It’s always a peculiar experience for me to go entire days without seeing my image reflected back to me. It is unusual for me not to have that critical internal voice goading me to straighten myself up in order to look presentable. I notice the contrast with those who live here. They are not guarded. They are immersed in the rhythms of the days. Trying to upkeep a facade must seem like a needless effort.

Without mirrors, I feel like I’m seven years old again.

Now we’re sitting on the stoop at Guzman’s Mini-Supermercado. I’m eating a red Popsicle in the heat of the afternoon with Martin and the kids. I examine how the mosquito bites on my legs look like the Seven Sisters constellation. The trickle of melted Creamsicle slowly migrating down my four -year-old’s arm catches my eye. I watch him go through the thought process of how to solve this happy and sticky dilemma. He looks this way and that, peering around his wrist. Finally, he opts to stick out an orange tongue and lick his wrist down to the elbow. Gio’s brilliant, green eyes flash up at me, looking guilty and he searches my face wondering if I’m going to stop him. When I’m an American, I fish through my bag for a wet wipe, scold him for not eating faster and wipe off his sticky arm. But in this humid moment, I look on without judgment, enjoying the visual beauty of my son, taking happiness at his pleasure of eating a Creamsicle on a hot afternoon.

Nicoyans are known for having some of the best rates of longevity in the world. I understand why.

The women have an innocent and playful curiosity about them. They’re soft spoken, inquisitive, and demure. I notice a surge of envy in myself as I watch our waitress at the Soda. “I will never know that bliss.” I think to myself. The substrate of my psyche has been polluted by a reflexive and narcissistic cultural mask that I have been conditioned to serve. We Americans think we’re super important. We tend to filter everything through a lens of commodities to be consumed- including our own life energy. We are constantly scanning for the angle that will fit these consumables into the holes of the mask- a mosaic of status, effectiveness of time.

What is “wasting” time anyway? Is it ours to waste?

Referring to time as a limited resource here seems silly. Time here feels more like air, an ever present element, or like something beautiful and transient like a sunset.

And that reflexivity and instant gratification feeds that endless gnawing and yearning for more of the commodity…whatever that is…more money, more time….more stuff. It’s a dangerous and empty projection. We keep hoping that that path of more, more and more, is going to lead us to what we really want…happiness, connection, friendship, and love. It never will. That gnawing is the engine of scarcity and alienation. That’s the conspiracy that we’ve all participated in created by our culture. What we really want, and what we have been trained to want, are deeply different. Here, there is earth and rain, mangoes and chickens, family and work.

It’s here always. All we have to do is stop searching and see it. It’s in the Creamcicle trickling down Gio’s arm. No, rather it is in the noticing of it, and enjoying the sensation of it happening.

And now, we’re driving through the back roads of the jungle at night searching for a glimpse of the erupting volcano. The kids are out for the count after a long day at the hot springs. I feel the heat rising off my skin and the slight scent of sulfur. My hair is still wet in the humidity and I feel its coolness on my shoulders. I roll down the passenger window and reach my legs out into the breeze. The moonlight is blue on my skin and the air smells like flowers.

Elton John plays on the only radio station with reception. “Blue eyes…baby’s got blue eyes….and I am home again….”

The Costa Ricans seem to live in that sense of fulfillment. Rather than eternally seeking more, and more, and more, they find homeostasis in the “enough”.

I reflect on Jared Diamond’s, Guns Germs and Steel and wonder how much of that attitude in the tropics is due to the fact that the air is a comfortable temperature; anyone can walk 100 feet and find food growing on a tree. There is no need to stockpile for a harsh winter. There is no need for that Puritanical dourness and competition for resources.

We think we’re superior in the US for having technology, high-rises and a consumptive, growing economy. But really, what is that all for anyway? Somehow we tricked ourselves into thinking that dishwashers, clothes dryers, cellular phones and computers were going to make life easier…leading us to that wishful projection of what we really want…..happiness, connection, presence.

Well, if we could have all the happiness we ever desire from eating a mango, swimming in the ocean, or feeling the sunshine on our face, then what is all that technology for? Are we “advanced” or just more complicated? Are we “developed” or just disconnected from the earth and therefore less happy?

I prefer my mind to go back to mush. For now, I am here.

I am.

The Costa Ricans call it Pura Vida.

Polyamory: Label or Process?
By
Sunny Strasburg and Martin Stensaas

1/5/08
What does the label “polyamory” mean? Literally, many loves. And, some would assume, therefore many lovers.
In the popular culture, this term conjures up images of wife-swapping, anything-goes kinkiness. Somehow its true meaning has been perjoratively distorted into something resembling “polyfuckery”. Asking people what they thought it meant, most snickered and said, “Swingers”, “Sport fucking”. Some confused it with polygamy or bi-sexuality. To distinguish polyamory from “swingers,” one can characterize swingers as more physically available, whereas polyamours are more emotionally available.
Though the term polyamory is commonly used as shorthand for sexual openness, its core remains in the un-nameable poetry between souls as they recognize and honor the sparks they see within each other. What distinguishes the spirit of polyamory from more conventionally defined relationship roles is the suspension of fear, both of our selves and of others. To truly be free to love requires a deep trust in the resonance within oneself, and the discernment to recognize and honor that quality in others. A beautiful poem by Rumi captures this glimpse:

We have not come here to take prisoners,
But to surrender ever more deeply
To freedom and joy.
We have not come into this exquisite world
To hold ourselves hostage from love.
Run my dear.
From anything
That may not strengthen
Your precious budding wings.
Run like hell my dear
From anyone likely
To put a sharp knife
Into the sacred, tender vision
Of your beautiful heart.
We have a duty to befriend
Those aspects of obedience
That stand outside of our house
And shout to our reason
"O please, O please,
Come out and play".
For we have not come here to take prisoners
Or to confine our wondrous spirits,
But to expereince ever and ever more deeply
Our divine courage, freedom, and
Light!

In its essence, the polar extreme of polyamory is one of intimacy. The human heart is quite capable, under the right conditions, of honoring multiple channels of intimacy. In contrast, the monogamous polar extreme would hold that intimacy is the product of an exclusive emotional and presumably sexual relationship.
Of course, the reality for many people is somewhere in the spectrum between these two poles. They may have a mosaic of different types and qualities of intimacy. For example, someone may cultivate brotherly love with buddies or co-workers, smoldering romantic tension at the taco stand, occasional flings with an old classmate, and a comfortable domestic sexual partnership at home. So what is it, then, that qualifies as polyamory? 

The main feature is that all those involved would have full knowledge of, and consent for, what the others feel and do. This of course requires a deep respect for the need others have for additional meaningful relationships. A great deal of effective and honest communication is required to achieve this, and boundaries must be clearly and carefully established among all parties to prevent misunderstandings or disrespect.

For those to whom this concept is new, perhaps the most puzzling thing about the label of polyamory is that it is not a formula. Though conventional monogamous marriages may vary, there exists a general consensus about the conventional sets of expectations, entitlements, and compromises that most couples would expect to abide by. 

In contrast, polyamorous arrangements are cultivated and clarified in an ongoing process. There is no particular guarantee about sex, quality time, income, and so on. These and many other factors must be addressed on a situational basis. Frequently, there is an arrangement of veto powers for the primary dyad of the polyamorous couple. So, polyamory exists in a rare paradox of brave experimentality and playfulness, while remaining rigorously ‘no-bullshit’ in the open communication of the positions of its participants.

Mainstream cultural fears about such arrangements may be unfounded. Though most people in a committed relationship would describe themselves as monogamous, over time, many –if not most- of these relationships are terminated by breakup or divorce, on average at about 4 to 5 years. In contrast, a survey of committed polyamorous couples found their average duration to be twice that, at over ten years (www.prairienet.org/~star/polypaper.html).

Advocates of monogamy-only relationships, such as the ‘Family Values’ set, may pause to acknowledge that chances are quite good that they or their spouse are de facto in some continuum of what sexologist Betty Dodson terms “serial monogamy with cheating on the side.” So looking at it that way, the monogamous program in many cases is just a truncated and more dysfunctional version of polyamory: less duration and poorer communication.

Many practitioners of polyamory are in long-term relationship. To do this sustainably requires participants to be highly functional, self-actualized and honest with themselves and their interactions. In other words, this is not something that everybody can do. We all know that many lack the communication skills and ego security to even start an intimate relationship or maintain it, let alone add additional people to the equation. It requires an active and self-directed morality, one in which empathy for others’ experience, personal responsibility, and raw honesty are ground rules. As someone who lives the poly lifestyle recently said, “What really seems important to me, in relationships these days, is not choosing monogamy, but choosing openness, authenticity, trust and communication.”

To place this attitude in its proper context of psychology theory, we can draw some important insight from psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg’s famous ‘Stages of Moral Development.’ He describes morality as a series of six levels that develop concurrently with reasoning ability. For example, young children and later young adults go through a typical progression involving: 1). avoiding punishment, 2). discovering selfish opportunities, 3). conformity with conventional attitudes, 4). law-and-order based on authority, 5). the consideration of the greater good of the society, and 6). acting from the principled conscience. With increased development, the social imagination allows insight into the experience of others and the broader society.

It is important to note a major distinction between levels 4 and 5. The social-order maintenance of level 4 operates from a fundamentalist belief that laws or social conventions are moral by virtue of simply existing as laws or traditions. Therefore they must be maintained to prevent some anticipated anarchy of further rule-breaking. In contrast, level 5 social contract orientation is based in the democratic idea that laws are malleable by the collective in order to serve the society and its individuals better.

Rather than people being the tools of law, we have laws used as tools for the people. This idea is at the heart of the distinction that divides medieval fundamentalist thinking from the later humanist thinking of the Age of Enlightenment which revived democracy and its associated rights. From this perspective, we can approach level 6 and see that the humanist endeavor tends toward a goal of more integrated ethics. As microcosms of the society and its rules, interpersonal relationships are negotiable constructs much as laws are for the greater population. 

It is not difficult, then, to see how the negotiable constructs of polyamorous relationships are naturally at home at the level 5 or 6 end of the moral spectrum. The ethical navigation is done from within, mindful of the individual and social drive for maximum harmony, justice, and happiness. Having said this, however, it must be acknowledged that such an ideal social container is rare, delicate, and maintenance-intensive. Predictably, importing a person who operates from the ‘lower’ levels of moral development will almost certainly tangle the mobile of a polyamorous arrangement, interfering with factors of trust and communication.
Some fear that a relationship will self-destruct if it is allowed to be open to additional emotional or sexual connection. Maybe it will. A relationship, if opened to these possibilities, needs to base itself in a deeper connection, one that meshes at an unchangeable level, spark-to-spark, where the details of logistics and score-keeping cannot move the foundation. Such a suggestion may sound daunting or fierce, or even somewhat unattached. It is. If the connection is incompatible in its deepest sense, then it will likely fail, whether propped up over weeks or years, monogamous or otherwise. If it is doomed, something better may await.
If the connection is strong, it will be enriched by the combination and learning of new energies. The fierce soul wants to know. This is not a place for fears. This is a place where the lust for life honors the self and other equally, guided by the faith that deeper styles of the soul will find their proper fit and resonate more harmoniously, more playfully, and more indestructibly.

Polyamory can provide the opportunity for self knowledge, deeper expression and strong intimacy. The philosophy and psychology of polyamorous arrangements impose a rigorous honesty with oneself and others, requiring the withdrawal of our own projections and the relinquishment of the concept that another person holds the key to our happiness or we to theirs. We are in relationships to experience joy and resonance within ourselves and to discover it in ourselves and to discover it in others.hers.

Art Show at Alex Grey's COSM, Dec, 8 in NYC

Hey All,

My paintings will be featured at Alex Grey's Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, Entheocentric Salon on December 8, 2007 in New York City.

Woo-Hoo! :)

Check out this and other events at cosm.org/

Radical Cultural Paradigm Shift from the Biologist Perspective

This is a stunning perspective of the radical cultural and environmental shifts we are all currently experiencing from the perspective of evolutionary biologist, Elizabet Sahtouhris

When you look at your society now, this may seem a difficult and hopeless time, with unemployment at a new high and unsustainability in the very air you breathe. But if you learn to look at the present from a broader evolutionary perspective, you will see the potential for a very different future. In fact, the present is really an unprecedented time of opportunity. Think of it as a stage between caterpillar and butterfly -- a time of metamorphosis when an old unsustainable system fights to preserve itself as a new system struggles to be born.

Caterpillars chew their way through ecosystems leaving a path of destruction as they get fatter and fatter. When they finally fall asleep and a chrysalis forms around them, tiny new imaginal cells, as biologists call them, begin to take form within their bodies. The caterpillar's immune system fights these new cells as though they were foreign intruders, and only when they crop up in greater numbers and link themselves together are they strong enough to survive. Then the caterpillar's immune system fails and its body dissolves into a nutritive soup which the new cells recycle into the developing butterfly.

The caterpillar is a necessary stage but becomes unsustainable once its job is done. There is no point in being angry with it and there is no need to worry about defeating it. The task is to focuson building the butterfly, the success of which depends on powerful positive and creative efforts in all aspects of society and alliances built among those engaged in them.

-- Elizabet Sahtouris

Mindful Love

A beautiful reminder from my tribe friend..Project Love

When we live in a mindful way our attention is focused on the present moment and we are unconcerned about what happened in the past and unafraid of the future. While we can do that in many areas of our life, when it comes to love and relationships all of our knowledge about mindfulness can slip away. When we have to deal with who loves us, how we are loved and whether we are loved, we often live in the past or the future, feeling sorrow over what did not work out or meet our needs or wondering whether we are ever going to have a partner. But the key to being loved is to be mindful about love.

If our focus is on our past relationships and what was good, bad, right or wrong with them, we are being mindful of the past and our reality will reflect that. Whether that involves our parents, past partners or friends, being mindful of the love or lack of it that we received in the past simply creates that in the present. If our focus is on the future, where we are concerned, for example, that we are without loving relationships or partners, then we create that concern and fear in our future. How much love do we want right now?

What we are mindful of is what we are giving the full attention of our mind to. When it comes to love, our experiences often guide our thinking and beliefs. But love and its manifestation in our reality starts with us. It doesn't matter who did or did not love us in the past, how much we love ourselves in this moment is what determines the kind of love that we will have in our reality today and tomorrow. When we are focused on how much others did not love us our mind is focused on how 'unlovable' we are. And we will attract people who reflect that back to us.

To practice mindful love we start with loving and appreciating ourselves. Make that a meditation, a daily practice. Find at least one thing to appreciate about yourself, recognize the uniqueness of you and the miracle of your being each day. When you are focused on how much you love and appreciate yourself that becomes the focus of your mind. The love you seek from others will follow and your mindful love practice will manifest relationships with people who reflect your self-love back to you.

Annubis

This is my newest work, "Annubis". It's based on a recurring dream image I've had of me as a She Wolf.

This image is Annubis, the Pscyhopomp on the River Styx. But also the She Wolf with her twins, Romulus and Remus. She/He is balanced masculine/feminine, the trickster. She/He travels the liminal space between gods and mortals, under and material worlds, dendrite and synapse. She/He is both and neither.

2nd Internship at the Inpatient Drug Rehab Center

Damn! I'm a witness to some intense shit since I've been at my 2nd counseling psychology internship at the inpatient drug treatment center. Extreme sexual, physical and emotional abuse abounds in every fucking corner! My god, how do some people survive?

I leave some nights crying as I drive home. I'm doing lots of self care, and curiously, absolutely love being there. I feel more hopeful than I have in a long time. Paradoxical, I know.

I'm seeing that my form of activism is helping strengthen the weakest links in our society one by one by witnessing them. Our society is only as strong as its weakest member.

And, I fucking love the Humanists more than ever. Rogers was so right on with his metaphor of potatoes in the basement. As long as there is even a crack of sunlight (on the other side of the dark room), the potatoes will send a tendril toward it and reach for the light. How true of the tenacious human psyche!

I just have to remember to breathe!

Mother Moon, My Eclipse

FIRST, A STORY…

I came to Burning Man this year on August 28, 2007, at 1:00am with Aquabug and Jazzy. As we found our camp at Entheon Village, we settled in to watch the spectacular lunar eclipse. In its full shadow, the moon turned a strange, raw umber color. As it did, I felt a deep shift in my body, my own moon cycle began.

This year’s Burn was purging for me, my own eclipse. It was a moving out of purgatory and into the liminal space between synapse and synaptic gap. I was a psychopomp, with my anchor fully released and finally pulling my boat to the banks of the river. All of the games I play in my ego realm…the extroversion, sexual libido and networking agenda, melted away.

I felt I must save what energy I had in order to brace myself for the force I had seen on my psychic horizon for months- a storm on the edge of my consciousness gathering force as it raced toward me.

Aquabug, Jazzy and I got the flu the second day of the Burn. I lay in my trailer sweating, puking, shitting and bleeding. Finally after two days, I made my way over to the healing dome and breathlessly asked the medicine man if he could heal me. “I’m purging everything. I’m completely empty and can’t hold anything in.”

He smiled, and said, “Good.”

He sang to my belly and I cried without tears. I was too dehydrated, I couldn’t spare the moisture. Physically I was healed, but I was fragile and knew I needed to step lightly, with kindness for myself. I had to be in “Power Save” mode as I recharged and re-hydrated my body and soul.

I watched myself with musing curiosity as I dipped in and out of my dross. The neural cow paths are deeply cut trails of habit in my dendritic firings. Politeness, fear of missing an opportunity, and the ways I care take others, are as habitual as brushing my teeth.

Last year I had made an intention as the Man burned to finally be released from my narcissism. I came to recognize that I have a deep need for mirroring stemming from a lack of it during childhood. I have a propensity, in particular, to seek attention from men I am attracted to. This may be, arguably, a simian urge to procreate with the finest of the species, but my higher callings seem to be requiring a redirection of my id/libido into something more constructive than finding the hottest person to fuck.

I had come to this stark and embarrassing realization that much of my motivation in this lifetime has come from seeking to be a muse for men. I want to be pretty, smart and fantastic in hopes of winning their loyalty and love. Conversely in my projections, I turned beautiful people into my own muses- flat cut-outs of power peddlers who withheld my every need just out of reach.

Selfishly somehow I had constructed this Rube Goldberg Machine where my projections turned my muses into carrots-on-a-stick which I used to propel myself into a frenzied state of motivation. Inevitably, when I finally win their attention, the projections deflate and I leave them abandoned and then I’m off, desperately seeking my next obsession- like a hungry ghost. This libidinal program is narcissistic and hollow. Discovering my game ruined it for me. Ignorance was bliss.

Somehow by the grace of the goddess, part of me has arrived to a place where I see myself to be much more than a narcissistic attention seeker. I realized that I am fantastic…a rare gem of intellect and beauty, love and empathy. In this satori, I came to see that all of us are “all that”. I suddenly became lucid to every sentient being’s juicy spark…and not in the dross, but in all the ways in which we fumble, fuck up and grow in our imperfections. I have come to see that all emotional experiences, indeed, the most highly charged affections, fuel the evolution of the universe into more and more syntropic, crystalline structure of magic and beauty.

As I circled along throughout the year, I moved toward embracing that I am a goddess walking this earth plane. However, I still relish (a bit excessively) in the ego strokes I receive from my peers. I have found there is a curious tension between wanting to share myself with others, beckoning them with what I have to offer, and allowing their energy to penetrate me. This is a precarious balancing act- to avoid dipping into needing their justification or expecting their actions to take any direction in response to mine.

An hour before the Man burned this year, I waited in line for dinner. A man with an accent and long dreadlocks sidled up next to me and casually asked my name. I turned to him and he gasped, eyes widening. Once his initial start settled, he peered at me more intensely than I think I’ve ever been seen before. This was a bit disquieting for me, but he had such a grounded, calm demeanor, I didn’t feel agitated in enough to excuse myself, but rather I was curious. He said, “Is it all right if I spend some time near you? Go on and do what you are doing. I have a suspicion you’re someone I’ve been looking for, and I need some time to feel if that is true.” I reluctantly nodded.

He followed me, calmly gazing at my face as I made my way back to my camp with my meal. As he peered down into my soul, I felt a tap root stretching down out of the soles of my feet and reaching 16 feet deep into the earth. Paradoxically, I also felt very self conscious. There was part of my ego which felt exposed and vulnerable.

I witnessed a resistance growing within me and smiled at the paradox. All I do is wander the earth in search of being seen, and then finally there was someone taking the time and intention to really “see” me, and I was racked with shame. I wanted to run away and hide from his deep, all-seeing gaze. I caught this and decided it best to surrender. I thought to myself, “Now is the time to be seen, girl! Soak it in, relish it, milk it for all its worth! Now’s your chance! “

Yes, this was it! Last year’s intention would be fully realized once I allowed the mirroring I am surrounded by to penetrate me. I must absorb the love, get wet and saturated by it. This is the only path to quench my insatiable thirst for more, and more, and more. And I can do this and not need to feel I have to immediately return the favor to my witness. It is gracious to accept the gifts we are given.

With this thought, I exhaled, the tension in my body melted. The man spoke for the first time in 30 minutes. “I have a poem I wrote for you thirty years ago. I’ve been searching for you. May I recite it to you now?” He recited a poem that was so beautiful and relevant to what I had just been experiencing.

You are the embodiment of the Goddess I have been waiting for…..
I am here to mirror and witness your being….
I fully empower you to embrace that you are here to stride on this earth,
Confident in the fact that you are the light,
And you are here as an inspiration for all who encounter you.

After the poem, I apologized…. I had to get to the Burn. There was something there I had to do. He was very sad, taken by me and wanting to spend more time together. Without guilt, I released him in love and compassion. I thanked him tearfully, and ran to catch the Burn with my lover.

I climbed to the second floor of the Ganesh art car just in time to watch the Man light up. My tribe family was there watching the spectacle spread out below us. I considered what my intention would be this year. I was not inebriated in a chemical way, but felt a psychic awareness and ability to sense people’s energy which felt psychedelic. I tapped into each member of my tribe’s force field, tasting and relishing their spark.

Some of them were oscillating at my vibration, ready to leap into the new realm of greater connection and awareness. Their faces beamed with anticipation, auras pulsing with energy. Others seemed to languish in the murky depths of their egoic samsara as they desperately scanned faces for recognition and affirming energy. Others were preying upon energy, like psychic vampires. The tension of the two poles between the id and superego tipped this way and that like a metronome within every person, varying depending on their level of personal evolution and intention.

The beautiful man I’ve been trying to seduce with my psychic-three-ring-sexy-circus sat on the banister looking highly inebriated. I made my way to him to share what I had been experiencing at the Burn. As I spoke to him, he looked away, distracted by a beautiful girl’s ass as she bent down to get a Pabst Blue Ribbon. My face felt hot and my ego stung with his indifference.

Suddenly my habitual reaction melted away and I didn’t care about his reaction anymore.

“Don’t cast pearls before swine….he isn’t feeling you right now, its okay.”

That was the final electrical plug of externalized energy which I had sent out like sentinels. I had attached myself to the allusion that I need affirmation and mirroring from an outside source. Like a retractable power cord, I felt my energy coil back up inside of me. I was released from needing any response from him or anyone else.

It is irrelevant whether I am worshipped or denigrated. I will walk my path, unobstructed.

This New Year is going to be about using the energy I am reclaiming and radiating that out to fully step into my literal sacred contract as a mother. I have three beautiful souls I worked hard to birth into this physical reality, physically, emotionally and psychically. Now, my Divine Children are in the process of unfolding into light-workers of their own accord and my destiny is to be present, facilitate and witness that process.

I will also create a physical manifestation of the shift this new intention brings. As I expand my networks to wider and wider concentric circles of collaborators, I will create side-by-side with other visionaries, toward the merging of all my (seemingly) disparate paths-psychology, art, events planning.

I finally have crystal clear vision of how they will dovetail beautifully into this new creation. I will facilitate events in which the participants surrender to the experience for a discrete amount of time. This shift will create a sacred container for processing psychological self awareness, sublime witnessing of art and self, and participation in rhythm, music and dance.

These venues will become an alchemical retort- inducing sublime experiences for participants…hopefully in this surrender, they will allow themselves to boil down into their prima materia by addressing intellectual, emotional and physical realms.

In this creation, abundance will flow to me and those I love. The right people are showing up in my life every day- the synchronicities are stacking up.

I step into myself, my destiny as a sorceress, and an alchemist of the soul.

I have entered the retort myself, heated up, cracked, and fused again. This has made me incredibly strong. I have had my own eclipse and the shadow has crossed me. I have boiled down into black goo…prima materia, then reconstructed, and resurrected like a phoenix…Rising Red Hawk…into a mother of many realms. This is my purpose and the gods and goddesses have been waiting patiently for me to arrive to board my own mother ship.

AND NOW THE STORY IN NEW WORDS….
(At dawn, after the Burn, Aquabug and I traced our steps back to our camp. I had been crying for hours. Suddenly I remembered this story I heard years ago, as told by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. I retell it now in my own words)

This particular story is about Mother Moon. This mother had many Divine Children who populated the green world below her. At night, darkness ruled outside of her luminescence, and space was a vacuum. It was the blackest, velvety black one can imagine…and completely silent. Her glow meant safety and life during the nocturnal hours.

When dusk settled in, the night-blooming jasmine opened themselves, releasing a delicious, dewy scent. The Divine Children would gather beneath Mother Moon and snuggle together, deeply breathing the heady scent of jasmine. Together they slept and dreamed lucid and creative dreams, full of epic journeys.

Although the children were mostly ignorant to the dark ways of the world, they were aware of one evil presence in particular. Wherever their mother’s light could not reach- beneath the rocks, around the trees and in the long shadows, there were hollow, hungry ghosts which lurked in the darkness. These ghosts devoured any sleepwalking children who haplessly wandered outside of their mother’s moonbeam.

Mother Moon’s lovely, serene face radiated down upon the land as she made her way across the sky following an eternal circadian cycle. The hungry ghosts could not venture into her light to capture the children, because if they did, they would dry up and erode into nothing but dust.

Because the Divine Children had grown wise to the ways the ghosts preyed upon them, the hungry ghosts grew even more insatiable and desperate. Their sticky bodies began to rot and stunk of decaying flesh and death.

In their desperation, the hungry ghosts schemed of new ways to capture the Divine Children, dreaming of the night they could roam freely in the expansive darkness. One particularly cunning spirit devised a plan to capture Mother Moon and douse her light.

One night, a group of ghosts gathered up a cloak and a mirror and ventured up into the sky, creeping up behind Mother Moon along the dark side of her face. One ghost reached his sticky arm around her, and in a trembling fist, he offered her a mirror carved out of bone and edged with silver. Losing an arm, having it turned into powder, was a small sacrifice for the luxury of freedom.

Mother Moon caught the mirror just as it fell from a cloud of dust. She brought it to her radiant face, curious. She had never seen a reflection of herself, and upon seeing her image in the mirror, she was taken aback by her own beauty. She gazed lovingly at her reflection and momentarily forgot about her children. In her distraction, the hungry ghosts gathered up the cloak and threw it over Mother Moon. They tied a knot in the bottom so almost no light could escape.

Her light disappeared under the cloth and all that could be heard were her muffled cries for help. Thirteen of the hungry ghosts jumped on top of her and wrestled her to the ground. They dug an enormous pit with their gnarled hands and dragged her down into the tomb. Then they rolled an enormous granite boulder over the pit and buried Mother Moon alive.

All that remained was the tiniest lip of glowing silver light around the base of the boulder. Now, even her muffled pleas for help could not be heard.

The world was enveloped by the darkness and the hungry ghosts were unleashed to feast upon the children, now vulnerable without Mother Moon. Night after night, the children tried to find places to hide, disconnected from one another and terrified while the ghosts ate them alive. They devoured them with insatiable hunger.

But there was hope. Even in these darkest times, there was one courageous and smart child who refused to forget. She decided that the only way her people were going to survive would be to gather a search party and set out to find and rescue Mother Moon. She formed a small tribe and set out for the forest.

After many nights of fruitless searching and near deadly encounters with the hungry ghosts, the search party decided it was of no use. It was time to surrender. They felt despondent as they turned back toward their village, knowing full well that there may be not a single child left alive to come home to. As they trudged along with their eyes to the ground, the smart child kept her head held high. She knew she must be watchful, for opportunity favors the prepared mind.

Suddenly, she noticed a strange light, a lip of silver radiating around the base of a boulder. “That must be Mother Moon!” She exclaimed, tugging at the hand of the child next to her. With a renewed energy and hopefulness, the children pushed the boulder out of the way. Mother Moon threw off her cloak and leapt from her tomb. She beamed at her children as she rose into the sky. With every stride, her light increased tenfold.

She found her place again among the stars and once again her children were safe in her loving radiance.

Onion Skin

I have had several moments over the past few weeks of feeling engulfed by deep despair, and then at other times, ecstatic bliss. It seems all this lability is stemming from peeling another layer from the onion skin of my psyche. Specifically, witnessing as I walk in all of these disparate realms in which I connect with the people who are the cast members of my life- family, close friends and lovers. I sit with therapy clients and delve into their underworlds.

The lines of my therapy clients and friends has blurred. Not in terms of therapeutic boundaries, but in terms of seeing how almost every single person I know (including myself) is crazy. It may not qualify as a DSM diagnosis, but the archetypes are very much present in our lives. I watch in dismay as my friends and family are caught in the archetypal grips of enmeshment, mania, depression, control, neuroticism, addiction, and feeling lost. Inspired by Kohut, it seems that most, if not ALL of this stems from being externalized and in desperate need of mirroring that we didn't receive as children.

After witnessing others the past few weeks- friends, family and therapy clients, I have had the beautiful insight to reflect back onto myself. The world is an amazing mirror of the projections of our own psyches. This gives us enough distance, that like fish, we may discover the water we swim in.

Let me try to articulate this as best I can. I've been gripped in a narcissistic archetype over the past year. Finally, I have realized that I am an amazing person- I have arrived. Funny thing is, I arrived the day I was born, I didn't need to "go" anywhere. Ironically, this realization is exactly the homeopathy which releases me from narcissism. No matter how many times I seek someone to tell me I'm beautiful, amazing, intelligent, a goddess, will it sink in until I see myself as those things.

We project that some drug "out there" will give us what we can't or rather, wont give ourselves; and when I say "drug" I mean that in the most global sense: addiction to people, chemicals- both legal and illegal, work, approval, etc

Fuck, I could have given that to myself years ago and avoided all of that suffering!

Then, my projections withdraw and I don't need anything outside of myself that isn't already present within. My engulfing feelings have been realizing that the people I have been so desperately seeking approval from are as lost and in need of mirroring as I am. No one is coming to save me, and as Pema Chodron said, "I feel so much better now that I've given up hope."

Its the myth of the process of othering. Dionysus' body is killed and dismembered, then buried in a thousand different places. Metaphorically, the psyche is shattered into thousands of pieces. But then fertility comes to the earth where Dionysus' body parts have been buried. The juice for us lies in the places we are split. That is where the most growth happens.

It sounds cliche, but I'm suddenly not feeling so lost anymore, but rather, find I am here, square on my path- precisely where I'm supposed to be. Beck's lyric says, "When you get to the point, you're at the end of the line."

Any substance, whether it be chemical or human, which collapses and disassociates my psyche, is toxic and unproductive. I'm moving toward the energies- human, plant, chemical and animal- which after being in their presence, expand me. This in turn creates a deepening of self awareness and my ability to love. There is no addiction in this process, only playfulness, love, kindness, creativity.

Everything else is an addiction- mental masturbation. I'm choosing to get down to what I'm here to do, discover my own psyche and to love you.

Unplug : POP!

VISION QUEST 4/15/07

My hand rests on the cat. He’s warm and purring.

I am dissolving into bubbles of soda…effervescence. A wake dissolves starting outward from the point of my hand and radiates 360 degrees outward. Euphoria, psyche orgasm. My cells dissipate out into my aura. My face dissolves away into ticklish bubbles and the only matter left is my hand. I know when my hand is gone, my journey will begin.

I wait there.

I turn into a shopping cart in a store parking lot. It’s a hot summer day and the air is tinged with a dewy, yellow haze. It’s the 1960’s gauging from the 12 year-old boy I see and his striped shirt. He’s crying. His mother has caramel colored hair styled up into a bouffant and a yellow dress. Her orange-stained lips are pursed as she shuttles him into the store.

I go deeper.

Ah, now here comes the mother ship coasting along. Sometimes they tease you and you must have intention for them to take you in.

I look down at my arm as it dissolves in this world too. Then I notice the bubbles dissipating off of me are actually little sentient beings. They are bugs, plants and mycelium creatures scurrying around in their busy lives.

A voice- my own goddess voice says, “Slow down. You’re always looking ahead and miss all of this. This is transcendence.”

I’m a white translucent grub-sticky humanoid. I stretch and arch my back, my neck grows and my head becomes a long, blind tentacle. I am entombed in earth. An ignorant giant stomps the ground above me, oblivious to my presence.

And then the scene opens up and my vision restores. The scale is awesome. I’m crawling along the bottom of an enormous flower blossom with my sticky feet. The soil and microbes encrust the bottom of the flower like jewels- infinitely complex worlds- a microcosm of the All.

I peel a petal back from the underside of the blossom base. I am reminded of my physical form and it feels like I’m lifting my own upper lip off my teeth. I slip inside.

This is the portal.

Another world opens up into a gorgeous vista- pink and orange sunset and the smell of fecund earth. I see a giant pink and green thistle blossom. Something is bubbling at of the center- something black like oil. Oh, now I see its a baby’s head crowning, birthing itself from the flower. Out she unfolds like a wet butterfly out of a chrysalis. But she is no delicate butterfly. She is the Black Goddess Kali- death and rebirth- made of hard, teak wood. She has six arms and awesomely beautiful.

She stands waist-high in the thistle blossom and her silver eyes scan the scene. Her eyes have a silver iris, the only light on her dark body. She is a black scarab beetle, shiny and hard. Her arms dance as she slowly coils her body around, searching. I duck down. If she sees me, I think I’ll die. Waves of panic engulf me, I feel as though I’m drowning, my head dipping under the water.

“Calm down. Allow her to see you."

I stand up.

Her eyes look into me, down into my soul. She understands- sees everything that is me- all of it. She is neither malevolent, nor benevolent, but detached. In that instant, I become her. I am the scarab beetle now. I feel my power and infinity. I am no longer attached to death or life. There is no sense of time, only a gentle, eternal flow. No energy is destroyed and yet everything material is constantly changing. It generates, dies, regenerates, hanging on an eternal armature of intention. It is impossible to articulate the gravity of this in words.

I transport from the thistle blossom into a sanctuary- the Elysian healing temple. I lie on a stone slab and two silverfish-beetle women caress me. They have long, iridescent blue beetle wings cascading off of their heads and elf faces. The women gently loosen my hard-black wings from my back- gently, gently lifting them. Underneath is raw flesh- sticky, and wet- my entire back is an open wound.

“This must air out.” They say, “You have no skin under your exoskeleton. This flesh will dry. This will loosen your wings so you may fly.”

I think to myself that I haven’t been healed like this since I was a child with my grandmother. In a single moment, I remember every detail of her care. I am flooded with nostalgia and gratitude. Yes, it was she who saved me.

I exit this world.

The Path with Heart

From Carlos Castaneda: The Teachings of Don Juan

Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions. To have such clarity you must lead a disciplined life. Only then will you know that any path is only a path and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. I warn you. Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary.

This question is one that only a very old man asks. Does this path have a heart?

All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long long paths, but I am not anywhere. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.

Before you embark on any path ask the question: Does this path have a heart?

If the answer is no, you will know it, and then you must choose another path. The trouble is nobody asks the question; and when a man finally realizes that he has taken a path without a heart, the path is ready to kill him. At that point very few men can stop to deliberate, and leave the path. A path without a heart is never enjoyable. You have to work hard even to take it. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy; it does not make you work at liking it.

I have told you that to choose a path you must be free from fear and ambition. The desire to learn is not ambition. It is our lot as men to want to know.

The path without a heart will turn against men and destroy them. It does not take much to die, and to seek death is to seek nothing.

For me there is only the traveling on the paths that have a heart, on any path that may have a heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge for me is to traverse its full length.

And there I travel--looking, looking, breathlessly.

death and falling

I went out in the backyard last night, connecting with Daisy and Nucleus. It was incredibly overwhelming to lose two loved pets in a week. My dog and my cat being "put to sleep"- the euphemism we use to make it seem less cruel- to kill our own loved ones.

I tried to rake the leaves...my old self always feeling like I need to keep busy. I was flooded with all the times I've experienced deaths. I collapsed on the bench outside and sobbed, the rake fell.

Martin said that when he had Daisy put down, she was nervous. She knew something was up, which was exactly what I hoped she wouldn't do. That broke my heart. He held her and gave her love. The anger he had felt that she broke through the fence and attacked two innocent dogs melted away. Here he was, remembering the puppy we rescued from the pound. The proud dog who we watched trying to hold down her territory when the Shasta coyotes kept blowing her cool.

He averted his eyes as he told me when she got the injection; she swayed a bit, and then fell. It was so fast there was not a moment to suffer. Then his gaze met mine, imploring and sad, but his jaw was set. My face probably looked the same. We couldn't help but wonder that an aggressive dog like that might hurt our kids next. Daisy couldn't help that she was part pit bull and that pit libido always undermined the best intentions of her superego. Nucleus was somehow easier to “put to sleep”- to kill. He had a terminal virus and he was suffering.

I kept thinking about falling. The endless falling of death, the entropy. That was how it felt watching my step dad die from cancer. Each day, his cells seemed to be falling away from him, his soul on a dimmer switch as he slowly fell away from me. Slipped away.

I thought about all the ways I watched for a sign that his soul survived. There were many- the grande finale when his cell phone called mine. The caller ID listed his number and we were astonished, looking over at his idle phone sitting dead on the counter. It was a beautiful metaphor for the body and soul…the phone and the call. But then I wondered if it is a way to comfort myself to make up a story because nihilism is so crushing. But it did happen.

And if we do keep some semblance of self on the other side, what parts do we keep? Is Daisy in heaven joyfully ripping apart the souls of other dogs? That would certainly be heaven for her since that’s what she loved in this realm. And there's the autistic boy whose mother I counsel. He doesn't speak, chews deep wounds in his arms, and contorts his body in terror day after day. Would his own mother recognize his soul on the other side? Would he speak and smile at her and thank her for her presence, holding love for him as he smeared his shit all over the walls of their family home?

Then comes the thought of my own death. That falling. Watching this soft animal body that I love fade away and disassemble, piece by piece.

Will anyone remember me? What will be the flavor I leave behind?

My step dad, Jerry was so amazing- a beautiful soul- and there are already so many little things I've forgotten, that have fallen away from memory. And in a few decades, there will only be a faint memory in the minds of a few. After that, maybe two or three lessons that we learned from him, that we passed onto our kids.

That and the house in Mount Shasta that he built for me, and strangers live in now. They will never appreciate his rough hands working every square inch of that house. Building it out of love for me.

And here comes our other cat, Fat Paw. He gives me love, cuddles me. My tears dry, I gather the rake up and try to make order of my life.

Noun or Verb=Control or Love

VERB

What would happen to reality if we began to focus our language on the use of verbs rather than nouns? Would focusing on the process and releasing expectation allow us, as well as our loved ones, to unfold into our destinies free of guilt or shame?

I recently read an article written by Rupert Ross about how many Native American languages are verb-based and tend to avoid the use of nouns. A Cherokee, speaking in his mother-tongue, could go an entire day without uttering a single noun. It’s interesting to note the difference between that and our English language. In our culture, we learn nouns much earlier than verbs. Children are encouraged to label everything…dog, cat, mommy, daddy.

I began to ponder the far-reaching implications of this and I began to grasp how important this difference is. Because language is the way we filter our perception of reality, our linguistic construct is the framework in which we tell ourselves our stories, both personally and culturally.

PROCESS

My studies in depth psychology, experiences as a therapist, mother, lover and friend have led me to a hypothesis that all that really matters to us are the ways in which we recount our personal narratives. The reality of a situation (and I have serious doubts if there even is such an external, constant thing) is irrelevant. In the face of hardship, if we have a positive explanatory style (Rotter) and an internal locus of control (Bandura), we navigate challenges in a healthy way and feel contentment.

For example, imagine two women witnessing the atrocities of a war. Both were victimized by the enemy, and barely made it out alive. Upon recounting the story, one woman tells of the horror, framed in a worldview in which God is ambivalent to our hardships, life is about suffering and good people are doomed to live lives of desperation. She will very likely suffer from anxiety, PTSD, and perhaps manifest this stress somatically in the form of cancer or a heart attack. The second woman recounts her story as a hero’s journey. Yes, it was horrible, but she survived! Now she takes each day as a gift, a blessing from God. She made it out alive and now she is fully present because she realizes that life is unpredictable and precious. She is a much happier person, and doesn’t suffer psychologically and perhaps physically as much as the first woman. I witness this all the time in my practice. And the people who have the most enriching lives are those who envision themselves on a hero’s journey.

What difference does it make what “really” happened?

Let’s circle back to exploring the concept of verb-based languages. In witnessing people’s stories, I’ve been focusing on the process, the verb of the story, rather than the destination, or the label. It is in the journey where the juice lies. In life, there really never is an ultimate destination, but rather a long, winding path with all sorts of exciting perils and treasures along the way. When we focus on process, no one is labeled as a static victim or perpetrator. We are all in a state of flux, unfolding in each passing moment. There are infinite opportunities for change.

Indeed, I am hardly the same person I was a year ago. Are you? Even in this moment, I am more than a single label. In this present moment, I am a woman, a mother, an athlete, an artist, a writer, and much more.

LABEL

Recent scientific evidence reflects this way of thinking. From the quantum mechanics viewpoint, nothing is a “noun”. All things are energy vibrating at a density we perceive as solid matter. Matter, or noun, is an illusion.

I recall a story told by Pema Chodrin: Two monks were sitting in the shade of an enormous oak tree in meditation. They were both quiet for a long time. Suddenly, the older monk looked above him and pointed up at the canopy of branches spreading across the blue sky. With a surprised look, he exclaimed, “They call that a ‘tree’!”

Indeed, such an amazing collection of energy in the process of synthesizing sunlight, growing up towards the sky, blowing in the wind and reaching its roots deep into the soil is vibrating energy, a verb. It cannot be labeled as a static thing, a tree! And neither can we. We are not a flat character, a label of “mother”, “man”, “boss”, “thief”, “hero”. We are consciousness and transforming energy shifting with each passing moment.

Most of our suffering emanates from fear, which is almost always an expectation of some dreadful outcome in the future. If we can hold ourselves in the present moment- the process- the verb, rather than live in a narrative of expectation and attachment to a particular outcome, then we are in a state of peace. We do not hope, we do not expect, we embrace what is now, unfolding in this very moment. Because hoping, expecting and fearing are focusing our energy on some future event, rather than what is happening now.

CONTROL

I’ve been observing the ways in which some people filter their stories through the lens of fear. Specifically, I’ve noticed how many people try to control and own their partner in relationships. The couple’s reality becomes the expectation that the other person will fulfill a prescribed label. There are cultural and interpersonal prescriptions for what we expect a boyfriend’s role is, how a wife should read her script, how a mother is supposed to act. All of these nouns become a static placeholder in hopes of quelling the insecure person’s fear of abandonment. The narrative becomes so completely engrossing that the relationship loses all spontaneity and unconditional love. The relationship becomes a screenplay of “oughts” and “shoulds”. This is a vicious cycle. The more one partner pursues the bottomless gratification that the other will be the character script they have prescribed for them, the more rigid and isolated the couple becomes. The pursued partner feels engulfed by feelings of guilt for having perpetually let the other partner down, and resentment builds.

Life is energy and energy is constantly moving. When we desperately cling and block the flow of energy, it builds up like a dam. Controlling others through guilt, fear and shame might work for a while, but eventually that energy will burst forth and flow somewhere. If the person’s energy is held too tightly, controlled through fear and shame, eventually the relationship will rupture and the energy will finally be free to move again.

LOVE

If we truly love another, we love in the moment. We take delight in our partner’s unfolding, wherever that takes them. We withdraw our projections of labels, and prescribed roles. We create healthy boundaries for ourselves, and let go of expectation. If our partner’s river of energy flows with ours, we go in the same direction. We enjoy our traveling companion immensely, deeply, for as long as that energy oscillates with ours. We may offer an invitation in love to join us, but we let go of the outcome. We do not ask another to contort themselves to meet our expectation, and we do not distort ourselves to meet theirs.

ATTACHMENT

As humans, it’s very challenging to release attachment, particularly when engrossed in survival. Perhaps that’s why I see more women controlling their partners through fear than men. We women tend to be programmed by our culture to think we need men around to survive and to validate us. I used to think a lack of attachment (not in the Bowlbian sense), equaled a lack of intimacy. But really, it’s just the opposite. Without attachment we are free to let go of the expectation-the label- the noun- and we are able to show up now. When we move completely out of fear, we release into spontaneity and unconditional love.

FEMININE

Living in the present moment is the feminine process. We hold the paradox in this liminal space and we surrender to the vulnerability of not knowing what will happen next. In primordial cultures, like those of Native America, a feminine reality, the ability to stay in the process of the unknown, created a worldview in which language developed to be verb-based. In our modern, Newtonian culture, we feel a directive to know all the answers right now in order to feel safe. Somehow labeling others as “husband”, “father”, “priest”, “murderer” gives us the illusion that we have created something predictable and therefore safe to either encounter or avoid. We think giving it a name helps us to control it. The language puts a stake in the ground, a placeholder of expectation of role for that person. This shorthand helps us place them securely in a little pigeon-hole for safekeeping. Unfortunately for those of us who live in that reality, our pigeons are constantly escaping! Nothing stays the same and we are left feeling confused at best and insane at worst.

Perhaps verb-based cultures only work in societies which are not overpopulated and have no need to compete for resources. In a densely populated society, we may need nouns and labels to create a shorthand so that we can navigate an increasingly complex world. The label becomes a pointer to an entire file folder containing volumes of information. But relying on shorthand forces us to miss out on the discovery.

It seems to me that it would serve us well to release our fear and need to control others, so that we can truly be free to love. This beautiful poem by Rumi sums up loving in the process.

We have not come here to take prisoners,
But to surrender ever more deeply
To freedom and joy.
We have not come into this exquisite world
To hold ourselves hostage from love.
Run my dear.
From anything
That may not strengthen
Your precious budding wings.
Run like hell my dear
From anyone likely
To put a sharp knife
Into the sacred, tender vision
Of your beautiful heart.
We have a duty to befriend
Those aspects of obedience
That stand outside of our house
And shout to our reason
"O please, O please,
Come out and play".
For we have not come here to take prisoners
Or to confine our wondrous spirits,
But to expereince ever and ever more deeply
Our divine courage, freedom, and
Light!
~Rumi