Posted in Psycho-Bubbles on June 12, 2011| Leave a Comment »
A beautiful quote:
If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another – Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dali Lama
A strikingly similar – but disturbingly different – quote from recent correspondence from legal counsel for X.
“A wise friend once told me, “if you want control, give up control.”
A world of difference between those who wish peace, and those who want control. Telling.
Posted in Psycho-Bubbles, Reflections on the everyday on May 30, 2011| 2 Comments »
Marking the creation or dissolution of a union, what does a piece of paper mean?
Philosophical and emotional arguments rise between, and around, couples seeking sanctity of relationship without the legal bind of a marriage license. How can an earthly document confer justification for loving bonds that are surely the product of divine intervention in our dusty affairs? Why do we need that piece of paper?
Of course, some do not need that piece of paper. Living together in unmarried bliss is popular these days – but that is not this story.
And in the end – when one out of two marriage relationships runs their course before death did they part – what is the need for an earthly document to confer justification for ending surly bonds that were surely the product of demonic intervention in our dusty affairs? Why must we wait for the weight of judicial ink to legitimize a long done deed?
I can speak only for myself.
Marriage, like any other ritual, recognizes and reorganizes boundaries–these two are together, they have certain rights, obligations, and a changed status in our society. A marriage license is capable of taking the ephemeral nature of relationship and reducing it to dated script on a page.
A decree of divorce also recognizes and reorganizes boundaries – these two are no longer together, each has certain rights, obligations, and a changed status in our society. A decree of divorce is capable of taking the muddy detritus of an exhausted relationship and casting it out – clean and succinct on paper that can be held, scanned, and filed. The word is good.
But the interesting stuff is always what is in between – in the deed. As light is both particle and wave, so relationship is both word and deed.
The deed of marriage includes the creation of space to allow energies, stories untold, to percolate, inform, and intrude into the lives of our partners. To watch, to support, to help another through the years – by both kind word and courageous deed of standing by as witness to their transformation.
Their struggles are not ours, but can be held by us – and we can be worked by their torment – but we may not impede, intrude and seek to extinguish their struggle because it makes us uncomfortable.
We are worked by respecting the work of another. In this space before I have invoked the word namaste – to honor the divine life of another. That – I believe is the shining work of any relationship.
And when the deed is done, there is value in following strings and struggles back to their origin in ourselves, to suffer long enough to take them back – lest we do it all over again, with or to someone else. Some of us – like me – just take a little longer to catch on – like 20 years worth.
Neither a marriage license or a divorce decree touch these things – they are simply the words that mark the beginning, and a conclusion, of that deed.
Because relationships are energetic, they can never end, they only change – both documents recognize that. But the decree of divorce terminates time with the masque, while leaving the good work done with the energy.
I will celebrate the day I get the word I am divorced. Not with a bender, or with grim, resolute triumph – but with a broad smile, and a balloon I think. A yellow helium balloon. And I will take that balloon somewhere pretty, and I will let it go.
Posted in Psycho-Bubbles on May 14, 2011| Leave a Comment »
It only takes one to believe
Someone to hold the right and the wrong – Now
To keep the future whole.
Posted in Psycho-Bubbles, Reflections on the everyday on May 11, 2011| Leave a Comment »
I thought I would be divorced by now.
But I am not.
A six-week wait for a draft Divorce Decree from counsel for X yielded a sketchy, incomplete physical rendering of a document that must capture every single detail to avoid more…confusion. Just today, the Very Expensive Lawyer transmitted a proper draft Decree after starting the document anew.
I thought the occasion of the Great Trial settled things.
But it did not.
Shortly after the Trial, a disagreement arose over a seemingly small detail that is actually very large. The matter may itself be heading back to a courtroom.
I thought my small home might be refinanced free and clear by now.
But it is not.
Transactions to clarify and confer new home ownership cannot occur until Divorce Decrees to clarify and confer new life ownership are signed. Shortly, pertinent dates will pass and the refinancing must be started again. More money, time, and effort thrown away.
I thought the spring would come.
And it did.
My presence in my bog has been slight in past weeks. Fatigue, for me, proffers observation, not expression. As such, one of the richest gifts of this now almost two-year ordeal is understanding the greatness of friends associated with me. Each one unique, yet each a dazzling thread in a luminous tapestry that stretches just far enough to catch me, each time I fall. Tempering touch keeps me between heaven and hell – suspended. It is a place to Be.
So many years ago, I thought I wanted to know.
And I do.
Posted in Psycho-Bubbles, Reflections on the everyday on April 22, 2011| 1 Comment »
Driving along, singing a song, button punching on the FM dial.
Life in the fast lane – life once lived. Friends, interests, pleasures pursued, laughter, so much laughter. The so-trivial pursuit of falling in and out of love – who is with who – and oh, that was last week. Restaurants, champagne, night drives in the desert, moonlight, star bright, ocean deep – so much.
Struggling to keep up – a mirror – it never occurs. Flashing school bus lights, battles over custody rights. Friends – let that go too, what was then is not now. The so-trivial pursuit of escape from matrimony. Coupons, cold sweat at the cash register – too little of too much.
Funny how an old song – tune, words, time – gives back so much more than memory.
Posted in Psycho-Bubbles, Reflections on the everyday on April 14, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Seasons change. Winter’s grip eased with trial and time, spring is undeniably here. Today I took off my gloves.
Each winter, each day, inside or out, I wear knit gloves. My hands chill quickly, chilblains, unsightly, gloves help. This winter into spring, the fahrenheit fell with my child support. When alone, turning down the thermostat was an economical, albeit cold, measure.
Gloves are useful, especially mine. Stretchy, conforming, let me navigate a lot of the world without actually touching its colder surfaces. Protection.
But gloves leave me out of touch. Leafing pages is difficult, a warm handshake unfelt. Correspondence, interchange, presence in the tactile world is difficult. Limitation.
Like many people these days, I am looking for work. These words, and the hands that form them, must touch the world, and help me find my way. Time for these gloves, those habits – that protected so faithfully – to yield to a warming world.
The gloves are off, my hands are healed. No longer covered, they traffic in this world, and so I hope, will I. Seasons change.
Posted in Psycho-Bubbles on March 16, 2011| Leave a Comment »
It begins in the east, of every life, season, or day like this one.
Dawn through vaporous clouds, as smoke clearing a battlefield. Where were those things, golden things I left behind lifetimes ago?
Burnished red gold, survivors of the fire, the war, that swept these parts. The sword – discernment – refines and enlivens parts laid low. Compass – direction – orients and leads the way forward. That torn scrap of ancient parchment, not a map but just as good – depicts an ornate sphere, but asunder, leaves destiny unclear.
Those once dead arise, even slain Asclepius, great healer of the Greeks, rises by the caduceus. The hobbled sphere completed – redrawn by nature, the workings of ants, the almost unseen agents of life, leading to infinity. The trailing path of the blazing sun, chariot on the western ocean.
Visions, fleeting dreams hidden for safety an epoch ago under the stone of this wrecked colonnade. I find them again, I knew they were there, it took so much to remember, to recall again into life these things, these golden things at dawn.
Posted in Psycho-Bubbles, Reflections on the everyday on February 17, 2011| Leave a Comment »
On walkabout. 50 F., snowpack diminishing by the minute.
Trash day. Four houses down, Santa is in the can. A blow-up lawn decoration, once cheery, illuminated, now ignominiously kicked to the curb. Only place to go when you are inflated, is down.
The sky is big, the birds are loud. Good ice day. The best ice is a tease. Beautiful, solid, but cracks under pressure. Not a bad thing. Elemental vulnerability.
Rounding the corner, an endless ribbon of dry street. How did I get to this?
Head down, something glittering catches my eye. Newly liberated water rushes streetside toward the storm drain. Cloud cover strays, a reflected, iridescent sun travels the gutter beside me, keeping step in its watery, changing world. Sun shining below my feet. Involution. For precious few moments, my world rights.
The clouds recover. The gutter ends.
Dry pavement, dirty snow, everything melts.
Posted in Psycho-Bubbles on January 7, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Is Curiosity Precognitive?
I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious – Albert Einstein
It encompasses all – how, why, what, when – yet is satisfied by none. True curiosity is never slaked, only whetted. Exhilaration, exhaustion, endlessly nested paper boxes, opening on distant ideas, strung on, strung out, never clear, never possible, but somehow, somehow related.
Inquisitive, solicitous, attention or desire to learn or know about an object of interest – the experience defies its label. The very word curious does not capture, settle, or contain the action of the mystery it seeks to describe.
Curious is a word often used to describe an urge, better – a yearning – toward something. But is that urge, that yearning, something other than natural curiosity?
We often consider preoccupation of quiet attention, or curiosity, as indication of path – career or avocation. But career and hobby are mere overlays to the greater business – life, both noun and verb – the churning, restless formation and dissolution of energy into activity, objects, on into years well lived, or not well lived. Curiosity is concerned not just with activity and objects, but the subject of life itself.
Noted mythologist Joseph Campbell wrote follow your bliss…he did not instruct us to charge blindly at the future. No life is trackless. We follow a scent, we leave footprints.
Go This Way
Do we choose our direction, or do we serve our curiosity?
It is inevitable that the words fate and destiny creep into discussions of this nature. Let’s just say fate is what we are dealt, destiny is what we do with it. If you did not see it coming, it is fate. Destiny reveals itself in how you respond. The aphorism fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, works here, as does the black sheep of that family be careful what you ask for, you just might get it. Fate is biological potential, dust to dust. Destiny transforms dust beyond imagination.
The Lady of Note is considering credentialing as a yoga instructor. From my perch, she seems a natural, it would be a balanced move for her, and a gift to those she instructs. Her interest – the curiosity and disposition – is there. If events conspire, perhaps it will be so.
In pursuing her inclination, the Lady of Note is doing what feels right to her. There is an apparent coherency between life circumstance and how the Lady of Note wants to expend her energy. The Lady of Note is both choosing her direction and attending to her own curiosity – easy enough.
But as the Lady of Note carries her desire into action, is she, as agent, consciously moving her curiosity forward or is she yielding to a latent physiologic or environmental factor of greater complexity? Is it possible a path, pattern, or schema precedes conscious recognition of desire?
In the 1970’s, pioneering neurophysiologist Dr. Benjamin Libet famously found unconscious brain activity precedes conscious thought by about 200 milliseconds. The shorthand on this suggests our actions are chosen before we choose to act, or simply, that unconscious intent antedates volition.
And the same lapse between event and registration occurs externally. Try this at home: touch your arm. Feel that? It sure seemed like you touched and felt at the same time. But about 500 milliseconds elapsed between stimuli and experience of stimuli. Neuroplasticity matched sensation with visual image to support your perception of simultaneity.
Inconsistency annoys neurons that reside in the brain. They routinely match up, and drop out things we see, hear, and sense, in pursuit of a more believable picture. It is the kind of process that makes objective reality an oxymoron, and the reason why it is literally impossible for any two people to see, or feel, exactly the same thing. No worries though, just a little neurological fine-tuning, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
Despite kicking the door wide open on the question of free agency, a lifetime of work led Libet to believe free will can be maintained, because consciousness bestows veto power – sort of like the difference between fate and destiny.
Nonetheless, this research reveals we don’t write the story, we arrive in the middle as it emerges in our lives. We move forward on a path that lies behind us.
I once heard scientist and alternative therapy researcher Dr. Beverly Rubik say where thought goes blood flows. Where thoughts run, so goes energy, intent, and eventually hands or feet, perhaps over to Starbucks for that much-needed latte.
The Man (or Woman) Behind the Curtain
So if curiosity is indeed a golden thread we are following, who, or what is weaving the thread?
Some might say divinity – but we should probably be looking for either an immanent or tutelary demi-deity – something grounded both in and out of mortality – after all, it does make its presence known through process of nature and neuron alike. Something like the daimon, Self, archetype, neural field, or any emergent property greater than the sum of its parts. All of those critters are purported to accompany us at birth.
Angel or demon, pick your poison. By whatever name, it is a multi-faceted, multi-talented figure, energy, or condition conferring varying degrees of motivation, from easy curiosity to hard-gripped obsession, or as those of a Jungian bent would say, possession. A force that shapes by question, and strikes down by answer.
It is the work of a lifetime to neuro-anatomically, and thus psychologically, build a relationship between that which moves ceaselessly below consciousness and that which articulates it.
And Beyond That…
Curiosity – the siren call of the daimon, the music or task to away in any myth or folktale. A fatal rapture begging for a conspiracy of events, of objects to align, albeit briefly, to reveal the always arcane connection beyond view.
The further from view, or the more distant the desired understanding – the harder the fall. That events and people conspire is certitude. It is, after all, curiosity that killed the cat – the merciless thrill of dying to one’s own art.
The glinting thing unseen by others on the road, but for which you curiously hunger, it is your future – and you didn’t lose it there, it has been waiting a long, long time.
Will you stop long enough to pick it, like Persephone’s flower and be swept into the abyss? Or will you gaze at it long after dusk and become drunk with loss on an infernal dark road within looming wood?
What will you craft with your golden unraveling thread? A noose or a great sail to explore? Is your life a tapestry or a hapless tangle?
Unappreciated by most, curiosity is both destroyer and deliverer. That which guides our life, unrepentant curiosity, also guts it. But the architecture of destruction also carries the means to deal, the gift is in the wound.
Is curiosity precognitive? That one was easy, of course it is. If you want to know the future, just watch where you are going.
Curiosity is little more than another name for Hope.
– Augustus William
…we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
Posted in Psycho-Bubbles, Reflections on the everyday on November 1, 2010| Leave a Comment »
It is Halloween to some, Samhain to others. On the old Celtic calendar, this is New Year’s Eve. Tomorrow, November 1, begins a new year, the next season – winter.
November 1 seems an appropriate start to winter. We now face our darkest moments of the year. By December 21, solstice, things will get a little brighter.
Samhain is a fire festival. Fire, consumptive and life giving. Burns between time, worlds, madness and sanity. It takes as it gives, because that is the deal.
At the end of the year, at the end of the universe, when tide meets tide, there is no sound. When the wind has whipped last leaves from the trees, when the ship that slipped its moorings has been dashed and pushed from shore to shore – there is an oddly familiar, but unknown place, where it all settles out.
Ends are never ends, they are only in between. It can be a very strange place.
In that place, rules do not apply, the language is strange, unknown. The howling of the wind creates stillness, the effect of human drama, nary a ripple.
Is this the place beyond chaos? Or is it yet another deception of the immram, the great sea journey, another island of eventual horror? Fatigue along the route extinguishes curiosity after a time – abandon oars, things happen as they will – the ship knows its way, even if the captain knows not.
Life is seen from this place with a half smile, and millennia-old eyes. When you reach it, you may say “it was hard,” “it is good to be somewhere else,” “I wouldn’t go back.”
Clear of chaos, or in the depth of it, there is stillness—gentle indifference—to loss or victory, neither matters. They who wish it claim Nature is benevolent, those who are sure of these things state Nature is cruel.
In the end – because that is where we are all going – we each find this place. With every small and big finish. The secret is death, as life, turns toward us the face we turn toward it. And that is what marks both the end of chaos, and the beginning of the next life – our own reflection. Nothing more, nothing less.
Nothing more, nothing less. Greetings of the season.
Shouldn't...but Do 