Leaving Massachusetts

The sun shone. The rain came, a torrential downpour complete with thunder and lightning. And then it snowed. And rained some more. All in 10 days. I'd forgotten how bizarre the weather could be in New England.

She was brain dead but we kept her on life support long enough for them to find donors for her organs. Four people were given a second chance at life. This is a comfort to me somehow, knowing that some part of her lives on in others. Like me, she had no children.

She was cremated. Her urn is actually a beautiful wooden box, which we will take to Hawaii. We will disburse her ashes in the same place we did our mother's ashes 6 years ago.

I went to her boyfriend's house to get her things. I had this odd moment, this memory-echo, when I went to get into the rental car stuffed full of clothing and paperwork and medical supplies. I remembered Tammy and me in Hilo, standing next to my mother's car, which contained all of her belongings. It seemed so sad that her life fit into a car, and my sister Tammy sobbed then, horrible wracking sobs that echoed in the jungle with the same mournful quality as wolves howling. My other sister unpacked the rental car when I got to her place. I couldn't seem to do it. I was so blocked on it, for some reason. But she understood and did it for me.


We had a quiet ceremony at the funeral home. Just family and a few close friends. Friends of hers opened their restaurant early and served us lunch. I had homemade tortellini soup and a portobello mushroom salad. It was all quite tasty. It was the first thing I remember tasting in a week, actually.

Friday we opened her bar for a goodbye party. Last call for alcohol. It was just for 4 hours, but there must have been 250 people who showed up to pay their respects and send her off. I think she would have liked it. She always threw a good party.

I'm in Portland now, with an 18 hour turn-around and then to California to see my sister Caro before she dies. She said come now, she is tired. The tumor on her aorta makes every beat of her heart painful, and she is ready to go. And so I am coming.

Such a painful way to start a new year, with so much loss and suffering. I could make it mean a lot of different things about the world, about life... I could chose to make it mean that life is unfair, that it sucks--all sorts of things. I choose instead to make it mean that Tammy is free of suffering and Caro soon will be, and that life is what it is and every day we have is the most important day of our lives.

Enlightenment and erotic submission

Control is an illusion--surrender it to me.

Some say "all life is suffering" but for what purpose?

If your life seems without purpose, let me give you purpose--suffer for me.

Suffer for me and I will lead you toward enlightenment.

The Tantric model for the enlightened mind is orgasm.

The moment of enlightenment is like the moment of climax--that moment of blissful non-thinking being, of pure consciousness.

At the end of the path of suffering is enlightenment.

If enlightenment is like unto orgasm, let me enlighten you.

Surrender control to me.

Suffer for me.

And perhaps, if you are very good, I will let you cum for me.

'self' as a function of 'being'

Enlightenment struck my mind like lightening as I sat on the cheerful orange-red couch, looking into the care-worn face of the woman I was paying to coach me through the 'grieving process'--a process which seemed so simple on paper... In that moment, the two halves of my brain split open like a flowerbud erupting. With exquisite clarity, I awakened to the realization that I had a fixed conception of who I was, who my True Self was. I had this idea that my Self was something that existed somewhere, that it was a thing. And I recognized that most people I knew subscribed to this notion of the 'thingness of self'.

In examining this concept, I found that there were defining moments in my life that seemed to reveal something about me, sometimes good, sometimes bad. I could find myself in a set of circumstances and know, based upon my past experiences and my understanding of who I was as a result, that it was something I could or could not handle. A bully could push another child down and I would fearlessly walk up to him and give him a push back and belittle him. Why wasn't I afraid? Because I knew myself as someone who could withstand a bigger bully than any I would ever find in the school yard (my father) and I knew myself as a protector of those smaller than myself (my sisters). I knew myself as smart and my sisters as pretty, because that is what others said. I knew myself as kind because I found myself unable to intentionally harm another. I knew myself as unlovable, despite all the people in my life who said they loved me, because when I was a girl my mother left me, and if my mother left me, surely there must have been something wrong with me, because your mom is supposed to love you always, no matter what, right? Grandmother told me that a young lady must be cool, calm, collected, cultured, poised, refined, and intelligent, and she did her best to raise me up as such, and for the most part, I self-identified as those things. It was a comfort to know who I was in the uncertain, ever-changing mess that life was.

A few years ago, I found myself experiencing a profound dissatisfaction with who I was, and what's more, a stubborn resistance to changing. I found myself saying "That's just how I am" and "I've always been that way", far too often, using those words as a barrier between my self and the dangers of questioning the nature of that self. Four people I loved died in as many years, and my inability or unwillingness to process and share my pain and grief created a gulf between myself and the living. Eventually, it was my recognition that the stress-response and coping mechanisms I had developed prior to adulthood were hopelessly outdated and needed changing that caused me step outside myself and seek help and open my mind to 'new' ideas.

"I feel lost, I don't know who I am anymore," I told my therapist. "I used to know who I was. I need help finding myself, finding better ways to cope with death and stress."

"What if there is no True Self?" My therapist asked me. "What if there is no Self to find? What if the only way to cope with stress is to accept the inevitability of loss and let your old Self die?"

And so I began an inquiry into the nature of the 'thingness of self', and in time that inquiry led me to consider that 'self' is not a static thing, but rather, that 'self' is a function of 'being'. By this, I mean, the self is a function of who we are being in the present moment. And it just so happens that, for much of my life, who I was being was my past. Who I was being was the self I had constructed, the Shining Tower of Self built with stones labeled 'smart' and 'strong' and 'resilient' and 'kind', and in its shadow dwelled all the things about myself I had rejected. The sea of life pounded at this foundation--at the thingness--of my self, and I did battle with it, resenting the intrusions of uncertainty and change and loss.

And as I did so, I grew more rigid. I clung to a way of being that was defined by what had worked for me in the past. I am these things, I told myself, I have these qualities, and I will survive this--I will not be undermined. My stubborn attachment to this sense of myself basically lead me to pretend that everything was fine when it was not. Eventually, the tension created between the circumstances of my life, and the person I was trying to be, made things unbearable for me. I was trying to force the reality of the moment to fit into the mold of the past so I wouldn't have to change.

And one day I stood at the top of the shining tower of self, and I bared myself to the agony of my being, to the agony that who I was being was creating in me, and something happened. For the first time in my adult life I was truly present to the moment, and to my experience of it, and in that moment of transcendence I understood. I understood that who I was was a function of who I was being, and that I was free to choose to be another way, and that I had nothing to lose by embracing each and every moment of my life as it came. I had nothing to lose because the past was dead and I had been living in and being in the past, and in doing so was denying myself life. I once mourned the loss of my innocence, of my wonder, of the magical thinking of childhood. Today I experience wonder and joy. I know innocence when I am not reliving the past in the present moment. And I have embraced 'magical thinking' -- I have learned to think in terms of what is possible -- no matter how improbable -- and pull it toward me, to live it, to live as if it is not just a possibility, but a reality.

Because if who I am is not set in stone, then I can be whoever I want to be. And if who I am is not set in stone, then neither is my future. Anything I want out of life is possible if I am true to the moment, and living in the moment, and being who I want to be, each moment, every moment of my life. So, if I want to know who I am, I have only to examine how I am being. And if how I am being is out of sync with who I want to be, well then, its either time to revise my expectations of who I want to be, or, its time to bring my actions in line with who I want to be, so as to avoid unnecessary anguish and suffering. Who I am (for myself and others) is truly a function of who I am being in the world.

And speaking of being, right now I am being very lazy. I should be packing, not babble-writing.

Everybody's got a story

So.. I was contacted by a gentleman via my stories on Literotica and we've entered this dialogue . He told me a bit about himself and asked me if I had any advice as to how he could be more sensual. I responded as follows:

If you want to be more sensual in a sexual way, more comfortable with your sexuality, then I would recommend that you make love to yourself. Masturbation, with self-love. I masturbate daily. I treat myself to long baths twice a week... I shave, oil my legs and mound, and retire to my bed for an evening of fantasy and voluptuous masturbation.

And because he'd not had much success in his intimate relationships the past few years. I asked him some questions:

You say that the women you have been with in the past you were able to be open and sensual with, but now, you aren't sure you can. What has changed? What happened in your past that you are getting hung up on?

He responded with his story. A good story, a painful story, an honest, self-revealing story that moved me and inspired me. A story of a man who suffered a profound loss and still went on to create an extraordinary life for himself. I responded with:

As for what you wrote.... There isn't anything wrong with you. Really.

I think that what went awry for you in your relationships is what happens to most of us, including me. And it has to do with Fear.

The thing about Fear is that we will always feel fear. Our fears will never go away. We may resolve some of our fears, but we will always encounter situations in our lives that cause us to feel afraid. And most of us respond to life out of fearful places. We let our fears get in the way of living life. We allow our fears and our pasts to dictate how we respond to the current situation instead of being present to what is really going on. But I've learned that it doesn't have to be or stay that way. Before I tell you what I've learned, let me share a bit of my story with you, so we can establish that I do understand where you are coming from and why you feel as you do.

My mother left me with my grandparents when I was 10. My grandfather died that same year. My father got custody and moved us to a new town, and he moved my sisters and I nearly every year from then on. I lost my mother, my friends, the life I knew, over and over again. I was so tired of the pain of loss, and so afraid of losing people, that I stopped bothering to form attachments at all. When I entered romantic relationships, I insisted that my lovers understand that the relationship would end, sooner or later, and that I could not, would not, be possessed. I was an emotional coward hiding under the guise of being a 'free spirit', and I knew it, and I knew myself for a fraud.

In my early 30's things started changing. I faced the fact that the way I approached life and the methods I used to cope with the stresses, disappointments, problems, and fears in my life were not working, and I went looking for something that did work. I read self-help books, did two years of therapy, wrote in my journal, conversed with people, attended worshops, and contemplated my life.

And one of the things that became apparent was that I needed to be courageous. I needed to have the courage to face that I would always have fears and problems--that there was no magic wand that would smooth out the road of life ahead of me--and that I needed to find the courage to not let those things stop me from living my life right now.

One of the Christophers in my life told me that I also needed to stop trying to plan and predict life. Intellectually, I understood what he said. I understood the argument that if one can plan and predict life, then one is not living life... one is re-living the past by over-laying it on the future. But recently, I GOT it. I got what he meant on a visceral level. I got the whole thing Jung said about neurotic suffering. I got the whole thing about fear of the uncertainty of life causing me to pull as much of the familiar past forward into my future as I could. I realized that in my fear I was forcing myself to re-live the past, even though I really didn't want to. I really, really, don't want to relive the past. It is dead, and there is nothing for me there.

Today, the future is wide open. It is a vast nothingness, a place of potentials, and I have the power to chose to either fill it with the expectations and fears and disappointments of the past, or create the life I want to live out of it. And I want to live an extraordinary, vibrant, fulfilled life. And since I want to live an extraordinary, vibrant, fulfilled life, I am choosing to BE an extraordinary, vibrant, fulfilled person. But in order to be those things, I had to accept that fear would always be a part of my life, and find in myself the courage to not let it stop me from living the life I want to live and being the person I want to be.

So there it is. That's my story, and my advice. Find the courage to let your fears remain where they belong, in the past. Sure, you may open up to someone and you may get hurt. That's Life. That's the risk we take. But being hurt isn't so bad, and adults are by nature far more compassionate than we give them credit for. So open up to lots of people. Play the odds. Keep trying. Keep living. Keep being the person you want to be, and you will find that others will be drawn to you, to that person you are being, and you will have the love and companionship you have chosen for yourself. Really.

It will be interesting to see what happens next.

In memorium

Ten days ago, I lost a friend.

We met online just over a year ago. We never touched, never saw each other smile, but we talked often, wrote, shared of ourselves. He guided me through my first attempt at editing a poem of mine, and I listened and gave feedback on a novel he was writing. Over the past year he went through many changes, several crises, strain in his marriage, etc; and me, I was working too hard, suffering through the crisis of my sister's health, and juggling an active social life. He developed a crush of sorts on me, and I discouraged it as best I could without abandoning our friendship, because the level of communication and understanding we shared was something special.

I tried to get him to tell his wife about me, to be less secretive about our relationship. But he was afraid. He did something stupid on New Years Eve, something not involving me, thankfully, but the effects were that he sent me an email stating that he had to break off our relationship because his behaviour was damaging his marriage and hurting his wife.

I've gone through a wide range of emotions. I recognize them as the grieving process. Loss. I've always been so bad about loss. But he taught me a lot in the past year, and now he is teaching me to grieve, as my therapist says I should.

This past year I learned a lot about the pros of putting myself out there emotionally--of taking risks: Joy, pleasure, love. This past week I've learned the cons, as well: Pain, loss, suffering.

And so far, I've no regrets. I could take away the lesson that I was stupid to become emotionally involved with someone I never met, but that is cowardice speaking. My life has been enriched for knowing him, and that is the lesson I will take away from this... keep taking risks, keep loving, continue to make connections and grow.

As for him, I wish him well. I wish him happiness and laughter and good health. He knows my boundless compassion and he has it. I will continue to include him in my metta meditations. I have always said that even when a relationship between two people must change, the things they love about each other do not. Love does not stop. At least... not for me.

Goodbye dear.

Sunday's epiphanies

An online acquaintance contacted me for my perspective on something. We talked about what was going on with him and once we'd discussed his dilemma, he asked:

"So life has been hectic for you this past week--you get it all resolved?"
"Does one ever resolve life?" I responded.
"Your question intriques me. Is it possible for a person to resolve life if they isolate themselves from society and all influences?"
"I think that is the wrong approach"
"What is the approach?"

And the answer to his question pulled from somewhere deep inside me. I didn't think about it. It was like something in me was waiting for that question to be asked.

"One resolves the ambivalence of life by ceasing to attempt to impose expectations on the present in order to influence the future."
His next question showed that he was misunderstanding me. "So just exist? For me to take that approach in life--would be death--not to have expectations which I equate with having goals - direction or path in life. So with that I guess I really don't want resolve my life. Or am I missing your point?"

The past few months of living sort of gelled and this moment of clarity illuminated me. I felt like I was glowing, like I was a beacon of metta. I had this sensation of overflowing with love and gratitude and compassion.
I said, "We put the past into the future. We carry it around and our expectations create a future based on our pasts. And by 'expectations' I dont mean goals and what not.

I'll use an example to illustrate what I mean... Lets say you call you mother, and it seems that every time you call your mother, she says 'so when are you getting married' and it annoys you. So you avoid calling her, because you KNOW that she will just ask you when you are getting married. And when you do call her or talk to her, you already have expectations of what she is going to say, and you already know how you are going to react. So you aren't really being fully present to the moment...you're clinging to expectations of what will occur in the future--carrying unresolved issues from the past forward. And thus the phone call goes more or less as you expected."
He is a quick one. "This I understand. My body and mind are ready for the question--I am ready to pounce back--I should make the call for the right reason and and approach with an open mind and allow the moment to create itself. In speech communication we talk about not allowing outside influences - verbal, auditory, past experiences etc to interfere with the moment--to shut it all out--exist in the moment--so If I understand your approach in life--you have learned to do that in your life more than most --and thus why you are so clued into all that is going on around you."

I wasn't sure if he was trying to flatter me, or if he was being genuine, but I responded to his words at face-value. "I still do it. Its not a matter of tuning it all out. It is a matter of accepting it all, and then none of it clamours for attention."
"Ok understood," he said.

And then we embarked on a conversation about various topics that eventually lead to me saying that lately I've been finding it a challenge to communicate with others lately, and how it bothers me.

Eventually he said, "Is that what bothers you--that people fail to understand why you respond the way you do--that they can't understand your belief system?"
I tried to think to the best way to explain. "I dont care about being understood, in general. I dont feel misunderstood, I dont feel a need to be understood. But when someone asks me a question, and I give them my best answer, they sometimes look at me like I have three heads. Like the question and answer session about 'can you ever resolve life', but worse. I've responded to others to relinquish expectations of the future, and most people dont get it. Really dont get it, that we drag the past, kicking and screaming, into our futures."
He answered, "I understand what you are saying: let go of your past so you can move on in you life. It is difficult for most people to let go of the past--right?"

I knew he was missing something, a nuance, something I'd been working out the past couple of years. "Its funny--when we think about letting go of the past...we think about discarding it. Wadding it up and throwing it away. But really, uts about not clinging to it. Letting the death grip of fear go, and accepting the past--all of it. And then it is where it belongs.. in the continuity of the moment."

"Yes, but there is a difference between not forgetting, and allowing the past to influence. There is a distinct difference..."

He was close, but he wasn't getting my meaning. So I decided to use an example again. "Did you read about that dream I had, the one about being hit over the head while I was travlling, and panicking about my suitcase being empty, and how it seemed so important to be able to prove who I was?"
"I did."
"My analysis of the dream is that I have anxiety...Over the past two years I've emptied the emotional baggage, but I'm still towing the empty suitcase along... because w/o the baggage, I am afraid I won't know who I am. My ID, Everthing that made me 'me', everything that I identified myself with--was in my baggage. And so I am anxious to figure out--to prove--who I am."

He said, "Well - you are the sum,of your past. But today and tomorrow can add / change who you are. Letting go of the past does not mean giving up your ID."

"I am a vessel. Emptied and filled continually... what happens changes me, but does not become me. I am the container, not what is in it. Does that make sense? And one day, perhaps, I will release the container too :) Perhaps that day I will be enlightened?"
"So you don't believe what happens to you today--that in 2 yrs when you look back--is not a part of your new id?"
"What happens changes me, but does not become me. I can feel fear, anxiety, joy, pain. Do they become a part of me? Or do they effect me? And don't I have the ability to decide how much?"
"Why can't they be both?"
"I never used to feel afraid. I used to BE afraid. As a child I was convinced of the inappropriateness of my emotions, so I ceased expressing or feeling them... I pushed them down, deep down... and they became a part of me in ways they were not meant to be."
"If I remember correctly -- enlightment is what buddhism strives for."

"No. The end of suffering. Release from the wheel of suffering."

"Mmm... ok. Now here is something I have observed in life. Very talented writers, producers, muscians - artsy people - all have unusual suffering in light but give us positive views on a number of subjects in life. Life without suffering is less interesting. Jesus had to endure suffering -- so we know he was not a buddhist."

"Ah, but there are some compelling argumnnts for the idea that for the period of Jesus life of which there is no record--that he disappeared into Asia, and came into contact with Buddhists. Jesus, out of love, suffered for the sins of all mankind. His sacrifice was supposed to release his followers from suffering. They were supposed to be assumed into heaven during their lifetimes. They were supposed to become enlightened."

"Well it didn't work did it?"
"Apparently did not."

"I can't wait to talk to my dad about Jesus converting to Buddism," he laughed.
"I think that... Well...it is blasphemy to some, but I think the Rapture is a figurative expression of what it is to become 'enlightened'. I think that the imagery for early Christian texts, the attempts of the writers to give people something concrete to imagine what enlightenment was like... have been taken too literally. The inducement to give up one's clinging to pain and fear and suffering and 'sin' by one person's suffering for all...was apparently not enough.
Jesus said: This is my commandment, that you love one another. And love/lovingkindness/metta is the foundation of what Buddha taught. Loving yourself, loving your neighbor, your family, and your enemies... this is part of metta meditations. 'Love thy enemy as thy self' is so very buddhist."

"There are basic commonalities in most religions."
"It is amazing...How it all fits together... all the religious teachings. You are correct. They all say the same thing: Let go of your pain, your fear, your hatred, your 'sins', and love instead, and send it out into the world, and you will be set free--you will find the way to heaven / nirvana / paradise."

"Yes it is, and yet we can't seem to get along."

"I think the judeo-christian-islamic 'sin' is actually 'holding on to negatively charged past experiences.'"
"Interesting observation."

"The catholics tried to make it easier for people to let go by 'absolving them'--by giving them a ritual by which they could release their sins / regrets / pains... but it all got twisted. Eventually, you had to buy absolution. One way or another, you had to pay. It is all so very clear to me. I've considered posting some of this on my blog, but I'm worried someone would track me down and burn me for being a heretic :) The fundamentalist movements in all faiths create such zealots."

"You are a female -- witch burning in Oregon will pass."
"I'm only 30 minutes from Salem :)"
"Yes and now killing is ok to defend your beliefs."

"The world is crazy. But what is crazier is that every day it becomes clearer and cleared what the insanity is. And it is too simple, and people would not listen."

"So - simply put you would recommend?"
"The insanity is fear of the uncertainty of everyday life. The solution is accepting that uncertainty, and loving every moment you have.

And it is fear of death, dying, going broke, loss... Fear of loss. Fear of the unknown. That is why we project the past into the future... why we drag it along with us. Because it is familiar. We know we can survive what we have experienced before."

"Fear keeps us stuck."
"You have come along tonite for me at a perfect time... to help me put into words what I have come to understand intuitively but felt unable to express coherently."
"So you better understand yourself?
"Its not about understanding myself. There is nothing to understand :) The bags are empty."

"Sure they are "
"Right now, in this moment, they are."
"Got it - :-)"

"5 minutes from now, tomorrow morning, it may be different. God, I sound like..."

"Your grandparents?"
"Such a... such a smug ass."

"Nah--I understand and relate to what you say."

"Good to hear. Maybe others will."

understanding and acceptance

I find myself trembling on the edge of a realization. It is similar to that realization I had several months ago about questions and answers. That some questions cannot be answered, and that the answers aren't important--its the noticing, the asking, that matters--and the ability to let the questions go. Release.

And I am there now with 'understanding' and 'acceptance'. I am realizing I do not have to understand. I realized this as a result of my anguish over not understanding the suffering of those I love. There are things I may never be able to understand, no matter how smart I am, no matter how hard I try, no matter how many questions I ask.

If there is only one thing I have to understand, it is that I must accept that there are things I may never understand.

It sounds so simple, but its a tough lesson for me. I expect I will continue to struggle with it, but I've gone back to my meditation on practicing acceptance, and hopefully this time it will stick. In the meantime, there is nothing I would like more right now than to snuggle up to someone I love and trust and bask in the joy of just being with them. Unfortunately, all desired candidates are either otherwise occupied... or too far away.

Transformational or tragic: you choose

I do not have a favorite Season. Whatever time of year I am in right now is my favorite time of year. This goes even for the infamously 'damp and dreary' Pacific Northwest winters. Right now, Autumn is scampering through the Willamette Valley. Her touch, though chill, brings blush to the trees and bushes. Scarlets, rich golds and oranges, the thousand shades of green fading to brown. And for all I love the colour of the foliage, there is something else that grabs my attention. Grasses. Ornamental grasses. They are producing their tassels now, their heads swaying and dancing with bits of fluff and silk, their sharp leaves rustling in the breeze. Their movement is hypnotic for me. I spent part of my Friday lunch break laying on the grass near a clump of zebra grass, eating an ice cream bar, enjoying the feel of the sun on my skin, the scent of fungal mats growing, and the soughing sound of the wind in the grass. And as always, in moments of solitude and silence, when the monkey brain is happily resting, thoughts and sensations blended in a swell from the unconscious, and my mind rocked gently with a question to contemplate: Two people can experience the same event. For one it is an instrument of tragedy and destruction, for the other, it is a tool of growth and transformation. What is the key to experiencing something as transformational instead of tragic?

I recognize that this is a satellite concern of the question of suffering that has preoccupied me during the past year. There is no doubt that my sister's horrific illness and my own agony over her suffering and my helplessness in the face of it have transformed me, just as the deaths of four loved ones in five years did. The weight of these experiences of loss of and pain--they can be crushing. My therapist assures me that they do crush some people, that some people never recover from tragedy. But it seems to me that one person's tragedy is another person's catalyst, and the difference between the two is subjective, experiential. Something within a person, some quality or characteristic, then, must be the key to determining if an experience will be transformational or tragic. What is it?

I have a friend whose life parallels mine more closely than anyone I know, and yet, our approaches to life are so very different. We've had similar experiences of adversity early in life. We are both the eldest children: she the eldest of two girls, me the eldest of three, and then later, of five, girls. We both raised our siblings. By the time we were teens, we'd both experienced abuse, neglect, loss, rape. We are both highly intelligent: we went to Ivy League colleges, read voraciously, enjoy intellectual pursuits. But there are differences. She had her mother, I did not. I had my father, she did not. While my father was physically, mentally, and emotionally abusive, he is not the one who sexually abused me. Her step-father did. She is stunningly gorgeous. I am not. She is extremely extroverted. I am not. She is attention-seeking, I am attention-aversive. Neither of us has married, neither of us has children, but she wants both, and I do not. With the exception of one, all of my partners have been good to me, but her relationships are invariably abusive. At present we are both single/unpartnered. I am happily, deliberately so, and she is not. I am growing, changing, evolving. She is not. Or atleast, not in a positive way. She is stuck. She is 'stuck', and everything she experiences that is unpleasant is something that 'happens' to her. She does not take ownership of her thoughts or actions, she does not examine cause and effect--she is the victim of circumstances of her own creation and she won't accept that. Something in her is inflexible, resistent. She cannot accept that she has the power to influence and create her life. Why does she --and so many others-- insist on being a victim?

I am a doer, a fixer, a very capable, get 'er done person. I am confident in my ability to do anything I want to do, and do it well. And yet, in the past year, I've had to face the awful truth that sometimes I just have to accept what comes, to rely on my ability to handle what comes my way, and let it come, let it flow over and through me, teach me, change me--and rather than let the pain of it cling to me, becoming something tragic--I let it go. Why is it some of us can do this, and others cannot?

Marcus Aurelius once said: "And as for me, let what will, come. I can receive no damage from it, unless I think it a calamity; and it is in my power to think it none, if I so decide." Powerful words, words that emphasize what I have learned since the dawn of the new millenium: that my thoughts and attitudes are causal, creative forces in my life. Calamity or Catalyst--it is in my power to choose which it will be. We all have the power to choose which it will be. At every crux, since earliest childhood, I have chosen the path of transformation. I have taken life's body-blows and continued humping along, limping sometimes, crawling other times, and yet invariably, after a short period of recovery, I am skipping, whirling, dancing along my path. Happy. Peaceful. Contented. Despite the pain of living. Why?

Am I shallow? Is that it? Is it that nothing I experience touches me so deeply that I feel intense, debilitating pain? No. The answers are 'no'. I know pain intimately. I know agony and sorrow and loss. I have endured what others consider unendurable, and yet I live. I live, and what is more, I thrive. How? Why? What is the key to transformation instead of tragedy?

After thinking on all this, after pushing it down into my unconscious and letting it percolate back up through my conscious mind, I think... I've come to think it is a quality of mind or character or self (whatever you want to call it) that can be identified by the following overlapping, inclusive labels: adaptability, bouyancy, flexibility, mutability, pliancy, resilience.

Since thoughts and attitudes are causal, creative forces in our lives, people who meet life with a flexible mindset are more likely to respond to what is really going on, in ways that are appropriate to the situation, and thus they more likely to craft something positive from their experiences. Resilient people are more likely to adapt to change, to bounce back after adversity--like a leaf of grass or a bamboo pole does once the pressure is released. Flexible, bouyant people 'know' that they will not only survive a 'negative' experience, but will thrive. Adaptable, pliant people 'know' that who we are is not static and thus breakable, but rather, that we are 'becoming' and thus resilient. And so, I suppose that, at base, its not what happens to us that matters--no matter how intensely painful or uncomfortable. What really matters is the attitude that we meet our experiences with, how those attitudes affect our responses, and the meanings that we give those experiences. How we feel, think and act is what determines if our lives are heavenly or hellish, tragic or transforming.

And so I suppose the answer to the question "What is the key to experiencing something as transformational instead of tragic?" is: a resilient, bouyant spirit. What makes someone resilient, bouyant, adaptable? How does one become those things? -- Those are new questions that I would love the answers to.

Contemplating Carl Jung on Neurotic Suffering

[audio entry]
Confined to my bed, trying to be a 'good girl' and do as the doctor said, as I have been urged to do by so many, I decided to pick up one of the many unfinished books at my beside and read between naps.

Which is how it is that I was reading Carl Jung's theories about suffering, about the transformational power of true suffering, and the tendancy of people to manufacture useless suffering. He referred to it as a form of childish neurosis, the redundant, compulsive clinging to self-doubt, drama, worry, and anxiety as a replacement for honest confrontation with the deeper anguish that the transience, uncertainty, and loss present in our lives generates. An anguish which awakens us to the signficance of our lives, which shows us the depths of our courage and the inner resources we did not know we had.

In the face of pain and difficulty and loss, we feel overwhelmed, uncertain, adrift. We need to make sense of this pain in some way, to find the resources within ourselves to move beyond it, to find in it an opportunity to grow, to develop our strengths. Many rise to the occurance of suffering in their lives... some do not. Many move on to the next challenge in their lives... and some do not. Some of us cling to the familiar sufferings, never getting past them. But why? Because it is a way of exerting control over our lives. We know, whether consciously or not, that life is suffering, and deeply fearful of our abilities to handle the pain that will come our way, we cling to what we know. Confronted with the familiar, we are secure in our ability to survive it.

But doing this, living this way, caught in a cycle of familiar sufferings, we remain little more than children. Neurotic children, feeling helpless as we continually repeat the same mistakes, suffer the same setbacks--even as something in us demands that things change, fit into out fantasy fairytale visions of how things should be, enabling us to avoid responsibility for our thoughts, attitudes, and actions, laying the blame at the feet of anyone other than ourselves--our parents, our gods, our societies.

And in doing so some never learn the lesson that while pain and loss and uncertainty are inevitable, suffering is not. Suffering is not. Suffering is subjective, it is generated by our psychological responses to our experiences, and thus, it is possible to alleviate suffering, to transform it, to turn it into something transformational and transcendant.

Sometime in the past two years I've come to understand this consciously. Of course, there is often a gap between understanding a thing and acting upon it, and even when acting upon it, there is the necessity of practicing a thing, of becoming proficient at it. I am still bridging that gap, still struggling to leave behind the childish and neurotic clinging to idealistic expectations that create dissatisfaction with the now.

And the now, the present, this moment--is what I have--and it is by far the most powerful, charged moment of my life.
Conscious of all this, I am carefully evaluating how well I am leaving the neurotic child behind, and how often she rears her golden-blonde head. I love that child, I have embraced her, but her coping mechanisms are out-dated. I must take care not to cling to the familiar sufferings. I've no need to live in a perpetual state of crisis. It is ok to be content, to be at peace, to live in and experience the beauty of life as it happens, free of fearful expectations.

Anguish

Anguish is my constant companion these days.
Anguish burns, did you know?
It sears the soul.
I am surprised no one can see it, see the conflagration of emotion running just beneath my skin.
Especially when sympathy is offered.
Why does sympathy act as an accelerant?
It accentuates the anguish.
I am not hiding from this pain.
I let it fill me and then release it, hoping joy will take its place.
Seeking a moment's serenity.
Knowing the current will flow and anguish will return once again.
The inevitable cycle of suffering.
Anguish
I braid her hair in my dreams.
I brush it out, that thick glossy hair the colours of chocolate, and twine it between my fingers.
Anguish
She's fallen again.
She's pulled her PICC line out twice.
Anguish
The hospital has assigned someone to her 24-7.
There is someone with her 24-7 and its not me.
Anguish
The lotuses are in bloom and she cannot see them.
The cherries are sweet and she cannot eat them.
Anguish
I danced Sunday and she cannot walk.
The sun is warm on my skin and she is cold.
Anguish
She is dying and I must accept what I cannot accept.
This is the wrong ending. The wrong ending. The wrong ending!
Anguish

The transience of life

For years, I've been told that I have a very interesting perspective on life, that my sensualism and my intense enjoyment of the beauty--the everyday sensual immediacy--of life is, if not unique, then unusually well-expressed.

I started this blog with the intention of making public some of these deeply personal written and photographic expressions, because the media is so overwhelming in its attention to, and expression of, the current of negativity running through the world right now. I wanted it to be an antidote.

For all the deeply personal information I've put here, I've tried to address various topics in such a way that anyone could relate to what I was saying. I've been seeking to express what I have in common with others, what all of us have in common--the universality of the human experience. I wanted to show everyone who read this blog to the beauty of their own existence. Reality beauty.

Life is so very beautiful. So very beautiful and so terrifyingly transient.

It is this transience I am addressing today.

I have a sister who is ill. Very very ill. And as her illness has progressed from acute to chronic, as she faces the prospect of a life radically different from the one she had just 9 months ago, she has lost the will to live. She is slowly dying. She is allowing herself to die in a very slow and excruciating way--and she denies it.

And I... I am caught in an ethical dilemma. It is easy for me to say that Life is beautiful. My life is beautiful. My world is beautiful. And it is all the more so for all the suffering I have experienced and witnessed. It is easy for me to be outraged with her for giving up. It is easy for me to urge her to keep trying. But her life is not mine.

My ethical dilemma is this: It is her life, and her choice, I know. But she is not making the choice consciously. She is in denial, both of the seriousness of her condition, and her apathy. And I am torn between respecting her wish--respecting her right to die--and my horror of the death she has chosen. I am being urged to do something more than I have been, to take extreme measures, to intervene. To Intervene.

There is a fine line between interference and intervention. When I ask myself, intellectually, what the difference is, I know it is a gray area. But my heart, oh, my heart knows the difference.

And so, I have grabbed the horns of my dilemma, and committed myself to an intervention that will earn me more verbal abuse and rage from her. I prefer her anger to her apathy. I prefer that she live.

I'm girding my loins to go into battle with a woman for her life. I'm not sure when I'll be able to post again, but I did not want those who follow this blog to continue to be concerned by my sudden silence.

Namaste.

On population decline in First World countries

Robert J Samuelson posted an op-ed column in the Washington Post called "Behind the Birth Derth."
It is an intersting commentary on Putin's incentives to get Russian women to have more babies, as well as addressing the larger issue of plummeting birth rates in First World countries. This is not an issue I have given a lot of thought to, but as I read the article, a few thoughts percolated up.

That this is not a new issue. A hundred years ago, Teddy Roosevelt urged native-born Americans, especially those in New England, to make the sacrifices necessary to raise larger families, because (if I recall correctly) 'eugenics' was on the rise and there was a perception that the "superior" Northern European race would eventually die out as a result of low birthrates. And this, long before the widespread availablilty of birth-control devices and pharmaceuticals.

That, while he posited various possible reasons as to why the birthrates are so low in industrialized countries, Samuleson missed a few things, either becasue he did not think of them, or because they are too 'hot.' They are as follows:

One, education, particularly a socially liberal education, suppresses the desire to reproduce. In grade school we are educated on the causes of so much poverty and disease and infant death in Third World countries, the primary culprit being over-population. The same thing with envrionmental degradation: over-population--too many people and too few resources. People who are aware of the world and their responisiblities toward their fellow man are not going to go on a breeding binge. It is perceived as a very selfish thing to do. Additionally, the availability of education and career paths to women created options they did not have before. Women, particularly those who choose not to reproduce, are no longer economically dependent upon men, and are no longer pitied as 'spinsters' and 'bluestockings'.

Two, those religions which stress abstinence from sex until marriage, consider birth control a sin, and relegate women to child-bearing, child-rearing drudgery have been falling out of fashion the last couple of centuries, again, partly as a consequence of the growing liberalization of society and the increasing availablity of information across socio-economic levels. Religion, supersition, poverty and ignorance would appear to go hand-in-hand with a brood of runny-nosed kids who themselves are having children while their mothers are still pumping out their younger siblings.

Three, the rise of the "nuclear family" in Western culture has destroyed the incentive to reproduce which one would think that a higher standard of living might give. Really. Lets face it, It takes two people working full-time++ in order to support a First World household, with or without children. We like our high standard of living and want to maintain it, and we don't have the internal or external resources to earn our bacon, fry it, and serve it up to our children without feeling overwhelmed.

By this, I mean that raising children responsibly is time-intensive and financially expensive--health care, child care, the necessity to take time off work to care for them when they are ill, the cost of keeping them educated and participating in supervised and "age-appropriate" activities, the cost of keeping up with compulsive consumerism of the pop culture which is driven by children and teens who lack purpose and meaning in their lives... Until relatively recently, children were raised in a more communal/community environment--they lived in the same house, neighborhood, or town as their extended families, of whom grandparents, great-aunts and great-uncles were the primary caretakers of young children. But with industrialisation and increased mobility, it is much more common for adults to live separated by hundreds of miles from their families--and raise their children themselves in a small, nuclear, family. This creates a lot of financial and emotional stress, and the observation of this stress by others who have not gone the 'child' route tends to raise doubts. I know this from personal experience: I am known to say that "I like other people's children" or that "I like being an auntie" far more than I would enjoy being a parent, myself.

Fourthly, there are social and environmental ills in the world that provoke people to refrain from reproducing, if they have a choice. The world is so full of murder and rape and molestation and extinction and pollution and scarcity and neglect--why pass that on to children? Many feel that we should first make the world a better place to live in, before bringing more people into it. Why add to the epidemic of suffering?

Lastly, those who do not examine history are doomed to repeat it. It is obvious to me why Europe's birth rate is much lower than that of the US. Sure, the US has a far more religious population, in general, than European countries, and thus more children (heck, religious states like Utah have birth rate that is something like triple that of states such as New Hampshire), but that's only part of it.

Europe is more crowded, it has fewer resources, and its people are still living with the consequences of World War I and II in ways that the US is not. Much of Germany's aggressiveness in the early 20th century was attributed to a growing population that was feeling crowded and resource hungry, a population that, having purged its country of most of the immigrant and non-Arian resource competitors, began looking at expanding their territory to give themselves more room to grow.

To quote Samuelson quoting Wattenberg:

"The forthcoming and dramatic depopulation of Europe and Japan will cause many problems," writes Ben Wattenberg in "Fewer," his excellent book on the subject. "Populations will age, the customer base (for businesses) will shrink, there will be labor shortages, the tax base will decline, pensions will be cut, retirement ages will increase." All plausible. In 2000, one in six people in Germany and Japan were 65 or older; by 2050 the projections are for one in three.

Is opening borders and allowing immigration from countries that cannot support their populations a solution to the above-mentioned consequences of de-population? Probably. But immigration is a real sore point in most First World countries, as illustrated by immigrant riots and demonstration in France and the US. And the reason (I think) is because we socially-enlightened First Worlders do not feel it is right to maintain a second-class of laborers supporing a social and cultural elite---and yet, as a whole, we do not want to comprise on our standards of living in order to help raise others up...

There. I'm done babbling. Really. Now that I've emptied my mind of such dark thoughts, I'm going to wash my hands, brush my teeth, and retire to my delicious bed with a yummy fantasy involving me, a man who knows how to use his mouth and fingers, and restraints. Mmm.... yes.... I feel much better already.

Reflections on Integrity and the Human Dilemma

Lately I have been thinking about drive and ambition, purpose and resolve, and the confidence needed to support that resolve, and how integrity fits in there, between the drive of the ego to survive, to thrive, to achieve, and the conscience which tells me that it is of vital importance that I not hurt others in the process of getting what I want.

I recognize that my words, thoughts, deeds, and intentions create an environment that either supports or weakens my resolve. And whether it supports or weakens my resolve is dependent on my integrity, my ethics, my system of values. I am a person of conscience. And while I have few morals in the sense most people seem to, my values are very simple and I live in harmony with them: I do what makes me happy. And I try not to do what will make me unhappy.

Notice there is no undertone of fear. I lack fear with regards to my integrity/values because I am not a religious person. I do not have a 'faith' which dictates my ethical integrity. I do not allow myself that luxury: faith does not confront the questions of existence and how we respond to it; faith simply provides consolation and assurances that following a certain spiritual and moral road map is the answer to those questions.

There is not much that I invest 'belief' in because... in believing something, in taking it on faith in the absense of experientially substantiated fact, I close myself off to other things, one of which might actually be the truth. I refuse to believe in things that I cannot know. I neither affirm nor deny the existence of a god or gods, or an afterlife, or reincarnation, or a soul, or any of those Big Unknowables. Instead, self-honesty requires that I recognise what I do not know and I cannot know, and focusses me on what I can address: the human dilemma and the possible resolution of it.

And the human dilemma is this: at core, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, we humans are are isolated, anxious creatures in a hostile world. Most of us experience ourselves as beings pitted against the rest of the world--just one more desperate soul struggling to survive amongst countless others. It is this desperation which puts us in conflict with our own integrity, I think. Desperation often drives us do or say things which hurt others and thus ourselves. Whether we admit it or not, we humans are empathetic beings in a participatory / shared reality, and we cannot hurt, abuse, or lie to others without diminishing our own Integrity, that law within. Thus the sense of conflict between survival and integrity. Thus the human dilemma.

And the possible resolution? Remembering that we have 'reality' in common. Remembering that we are more than just competitors for the 'better' things in life. Remembering that everything is transient: that we are all born, that we will all die, and that we will all suffer in between those two inescapable events. And lastly, realizing that as long as we fear the inevitability of suffering, we perpetuate it.

I think that most people don't realize that when we act with integrity, when we operate from a place of compassion and empathy for ourselves and each other, when we stop clinging to our fears of the undeniable and inescapable transience of life, we create a world with less suffering. Or at least, we are less likely to contribute to the fear and suffering. Ultimately, my integrity, and the integrity of my thoughts, words, intentions, and deeds, are based upon my sense of what I have in common with others, rather than what separates or distinguishes me from them.

The Internet, more than anything, has taught me that much.

Desire as something sacred

I think that 'desire' is perhaps the singlemost misunderstood concept in the world today, so before I write any more on the subject, I should probably clarify what I mean by 'desire'. In the context of what I am thinking, desire is more than just sexual longing... Desire is the energy that strives for transcendance. It is the unending quality of yearning that drives us to persevere, regardless.

I am coming to see Desire -- the energy that is Desire, not the act of desiring -- I am coming to see it as something sacred. I am shifting from an ego-based identification with desire into a more reflective consciousness that permits an appreciation of what is sacred in the mundane world. In learning to see Desire as sacred, there is a transformation in the way I view and experience a lot of things...

Society teaches us that it is wrong to desire, but I've realized that all my life I've keep my desires too small. Too limited. There is this division in the world, this belief that we have to conquer desire in order to become better people and better the world, that desire is wrong or bad, that it controls us.

What created this 'division'? The belief that the seeds of suffering lie in the nature of our endless pursuit of our passions. That there is virtue in disengaging ourselves from desire, because desire can lead to obsession. But that is the wrong tactic! Oh, we can try not to come into contact with our desires, we can push them away, we can deny them. But they will be there, pressing at us ever stronger--and that is how they become unhealthy obsessions. It is not that desire should be controlled... it is that what we desire should not be internalized to the point that we cling to it for fear of losing it, or grasp desperately for it when it comes into range.

And so it is that I believe that the separation of the spiritual from the sensual, of the sacred from the experiential, and the enlightening from the erotic, is a mistake.

And so it is that I believe it is important to understand Desire as something sacred, to accept and explore Desire in a love-relationship. I am beginning to recognize the importance of experiencing desire as something sacred in a relationship that is intimate emotionally, mentally, spiritually and sexually.

Time, place, people, things, and love

Just a couple of generations ago, a man here in the States romanced and later married the girl next door, and he stayed married. He got a job in the same field most of the other men in his family were in, and he raised his children in his home-town, where they grew up surrounded by cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. He went to church, paid his tithes, went out once a week with the guys. He worked hard, provided for his children, avoided excess, and saved for retirement. And his life was set up such that he felt it was necessary to be a better man than his father was, and provide a better life for his children than he had.

Today, most men can't remember the name of the girl next door, probably because there were so many of them...ours is such a mobile society. Instead of romance and courtships, he substitutes a quickie with a woman he met in a bar, or on a plane, or at one of his kids' Little League games. Children grow up isolated from their extended family. Radio, television, and political personalities are the high priests of our society, and Truth is the sacrifical lamb they offer upon the altar of Reality TV. The suffering of others has become our entertainment, covetousness and excess are customary, and financial planning typically involves buying a lotto ticket. And today, men wish they were half the men their fathers were, feeling diminished because they and their wives have to work like dogs in order to provide that mythical 'better life' for their children.


And where once we loved people and used things,
Today, we love things and use people.

PMS and feeling rather Domme

It appears that I was PMSing this weekend, and did not realize it until Sunday morning. Two months in a row. Grr. I hope this does not become a regular thing. Being on the Pill is, as I predicted to Dr Lewis, causing PMS. The rapid drop in hormone levels as a result of ending my cycle is acting as an amplifier for whatever I am feeling at the moment, making it more of a challenge to remain rational and in control. Especially when I do not realize what is happening. I am always feeling very sexual at the end of my cycle, and there is something about PMS that makes me more aggressive. I actually called Chris yesterday. Thank god he was not home. I have a feeling that having sex with him just because I wanted to fuck would have been a giant step backwards for me with regards to my quest for the union of emotional intimacy and my sexuality.

I'm feeling much calmer now, but still sexually keyed. I'm feeling very domme. I have this urge to tie a man up and make him beg. It is interesting to learn what makes a man malleable, be it pleasure, pain, or fear. I think men reach the surrender point sooner than women do. Women are more flexible, but in many ways, they are indomitable. They will surrender, but there is something you cannot penetrate, something at their core you cannot touch. I think it is this place from which women draw the strength to bear the suffering of childbirth, and it is this core that makes women so elusive and so difficult to 'break'. But men, now, men are wimps when it comes to pain or any kind of suffering, and they tend to surrender to the illusion of submission much more whole-heartedly. In my experience, it is a lot more work to dominate a woman than it is a man. Women don't often buy into that illusion. If they are going to surrender, its going to be to the real thing. So you'd better be a real Top, or its just play-acting, and something in her will despise you for your weakness.

Lots of memories lately, of my years at college and women and sex, and MR. Poor MR. Or lucky MR, depending on the perspective. He did look scared when I found him in Kat's bed. And I made him pay, yes, he was tied up and begging until he was hoarse, not because I was jealous or angry, but because he felt guilty. He felt he'd done something wrong, and therefore he had, and he wanted to be punished, and we both knew it. What an amazing thing, that line between pleasure and pain, and the thrill of comingling the two. Mmm, yes, it has been way too long.

Contemplation at dawn

I greeted the sun this morning after I dropped SP off at the airport. I went to my favorite spot to watch the sun rise over Mount Hood. It was a cool, refreshing morning, all the more sweet for knowledge of the heat to come. I spent several minutes practicing stillness, just breathing, listening to the sounds of an awakening world and savouring the splendid isolation of each moment as it blended into the next. I was moved to photograph the sight of morning mist flying the sun's colours, gentle herald of the light's upcoming triumph over darkness. I do so love that timeless moment before the sun crests the horizon, when I am swathed still in the embrace of night, and my eyes see anew the shapes of things, cast as they are into sharp relief.

Afterwards, as I drove home, I listened to the Sonata No. 1 for violin and piano by Camille Saint-Saens. I considered again the Philosopher Serf journal entry on a Herbert Marcuse quote, still formulating my thoughts on the way human beings recognize themselves in relation to what they own, and what they want. I thought about dawns and dusks, beginnings and endings, births and deaths, depletion and renewal, gain and loss, achievements and failures. I recognized that when I achieve something I have worked toward, I feel reborn.

And yet, as I grow comfortable with this feeling of renewal, something familiar arises: anxiety and fears are born from the ashes to which they were rendered by my triumph, success, acheivement, or acquisition. On occasion, my new possession or state loses lustre as something within me catches glimpse of the next thing I desire. Or more often, my joy is slowly tempered by a growing awareness of imperfection. Dissatisfaction thus creeps in, and sometimes anger, or pain, because that which I have attained has resolved nothing, it has only created the need to adapt to something 'new', with its oft unexpected complications. I try, I do so try, to accept that this is the nature of reality, that it flows and changes from moment to moment, that fearing what this mutability will bring is not only fruitless, but harmful to me.

In a moment of naked self-honesty, I asked myself why I had bound myself to this cycle of wishes fulfilled and wishes feared and wishes denied. Why can I not simply be pleased with my joys and my achievements, fully accepting and appreciating that life and everything in it is tragic, changeable, transient, cyclic, poignant, and occasionally, when I am lucky, joyful? Because I operate under the illusion that perfection is possible. That attaining what I desire will alleviate that pervasive sense of confusion, loss, and fear.

I recognize in myself that tendancy to feel that all I have gained and achieved is imperfect, insignificant, unworthy; thus my habitual rejection of abundance in my life. And so the cycle begins again, as I move on to the next new goal, or wander, listless and lost, overwhelmed with dissatisfaction, acheiving little more than a creative repetition of the past.

What I have and what I want are all the same, in the end. They have no intrinsic value in and of themselves, other than what I project onto them. They are merely projections of my longing to be free of the condition of suffering which we call "living."

[audio-entry]