Dark Shadow of Self

Yesterday, on the drive home from practice and a brief stop at Whole Foods, I must have listened to Gary Jules sing Mad World half a dozen times. I just love that song, the lyrics are simple yet beautifully encompass elements of the human condition. I'd venture to hypothesize that such songs as this elicit as many meanings and associations as there are people listening. Here's the refrain:



And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very mad world

Many of us have seen the "crazy of the busies" in ourselves and others--running around blindly doing so many things for the purpose of avoidance of coming face to face with ourselves, our unique and beautiful qualities as well as our demons. Busy is wonderful when it's organized, efficient, productive, and examined. But running around keeping busy, busy, busy just for the sake of being busy can easily be labeled as a sort of madness.

I want to hone in on the lines "The dreams in which I'm dying Are the best I've ever had" as dreams have been a topic of much interest to me. For me, when one dies in a dream it can represent the death of an aspect of one's self which is usually a very good thing because after death there is rebirth. We die to the old and are born to the new. We rise as phoenixes. We shed our skins and re-emerge to face the world anew. We let go of those parts of ourselves that no longer serve us, or that are harmful and toxic to ourselves or others and in doing this

We enlarge our worlds ("Enlarge your world" Gary Jules sings).

There is a particular dream that many of us have had in which we come face to face with our darkest side, our most scary aspects, our Dark Shadow. This can be harrowing to say the least, and is usually the prelude to a significant transitional period. Here is how mine played out:

In the middle of the night he appeared at my bedroom door, a dark figure cloaked in black, faceless, not at all unlike Darth Vader. He never speaks, and I find it so very hard to look his way, and I'm very scared. It's a nightmare that's happening in the worse way. I am paralyzed with fear. I try screaming but nothing comes out. He walks over to me and I close my eyes. I can feel his presence right next to me. He plunges a knife deep into my chest and the pain is so excruciating that I awaken from the dream in a panic and feel the pain of the stab until it slowly subsides. Was that a dream? It was so real. He comes again week after week always moving next to me on the bed and stabbing me. These nights are agony when he comes.

I book an appointment with my most beloved therapist, my spiritual guide, teacher, a man I totally love, admire, and respect. I haven't seen him in months. He tells me that my visitation is that of my Dark Shadow. It's those dark parts of me whose very existence I have refused to acknowledge, deal with, accept...this part gets complex so I'm going to gloss over and move on. How do I make him go away and stop scaring the hee bee gee bees out of me? You embrace him, I'm told, you make yourself face him without fear and let him know you want to befriend him, get to know him, love him.

I cannot imagine actually doing this but once I understand this shadow is really me, and that I must go directly into and through the fear to understand it and for healing to begin, I make up my mind that this is exactly what I MUST do. And so I do it, nothing really dramatic, I just do it. When next he comes I somehow manage to sit up in my dream and face him and send out feelings of acceptance, of fearlessness, of a willingness to get to know him. He vanishes and never returns, but my work has just begun. Lots of work. Never ending. Learning to take "the road less traveled", the "path with heart". Fears fall away and I trust this spiritual/psychological process of healing, of recovery, of being real with myself, of being honest with a rawness I'd never known. I brought my dark shadow into the light, hence integration began. Transition.

Jung calls this the Shadow Self. St. John of the Cross writes of the Dark Night of the Soul. I needed to die unto myself in order to move into a new world of being awake, paying attention to me and my needs. (At first this may sound selfish but until we are in touch with ourselves, until we learn to heal and to love ourselves, we are of little use to others). I had to let go, forgive, seek guidance and understanding, and this has been very hard work. Over time we gather the tools we need to help us on our journey.

Last night I picked up Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love and within seconds came upon the following passage:

"I explained to the medicine man that I've been having the same horrible nightmare since childhood, namely that there is a man with a knife standing next to my bed. This nightmare is so vivid, the man is so real, that it sometimes makes me scream out in fear. It leaves my heart pounding every time (and has never been fun for those who share my bed, either). I've been having this nightmare every few weeks for as long as I can remember."

The medicine man goes on to explan that this man is not her enemy...

Wow.

Momentary Lamentations

There is always so much yard work to be done around here, and at times I enjoy it immensely, it puts me outside and more in touch with the natural world. I refilled all the bird feeders, cleaned the bird bath, gave the hummers fresh sugar water, trimmed the Jerusalem sage, made a quick trip to The Natural Gardener and helped Dale select and plant a shrub--Elaeagnus x ebbingei--, watched the buzzards fly overhead in search of dead carcasses. So many slaughtered deer by the roadsides. As I scooped up a bunch of trimmed algarita branches destined for the burn pile I could feel their sharp thorny leaves piercing my skin and noticed little splotches of blood here and there. Suddenly I felt an eerie sense of heightened awareness, almost as if I'd traveled some distance away from all that is familiar. With a crispness of tone I hardly recognized, the nearby cooing of a mourning dove gives me pause to wonder at my surroundings and look at things from a totally different perspective. The ground is dry and powdery in spots, as I walk along I step into heat spots, like walking through a warm ghost cloud. I'm prone to peeling off my clothes, and feeling what little breeze is blowing, the warmth of sun. A few clouds have rolled in and I think I hear the distant clap of thunder. A brief shower of very light rain falls gently like a half-hearted baptismal rite, just a little tease from above. Mixed with sweat and perhaps a drop or two of rain, little trickles of blood flow down my scratched skin and I wonder how it would feel to lay down and roll in the dirt amongst the thorny leaves of the burn pile and let myself bleed into the earth and feel the sky pounding down on me as I listen to the sad lament of doves.

Once upon a time, after ascending the stairs from the smoky depths of the grotto with the 14 pointed silver star marking the birthplace of Christ, on which I planted a kiss, a friend whispered in my ear that she found nothing holy or sacred at all about that place, certainly not even closely comparable to the holy and sacred sight of a field of flowers. I agree.

A Measurement of Time

I have been totally confused as to the day/date the past few days. It all started with my watch which has a little window that shows the day of the week and the date, like this:

SUN 6

Of course I have to already know it's July and it's 2008, which I can usually manage. But when a month such as June comes along with its 30 days, my watch isn't programmed to know that--it assigns each month 31 days. Therefore, I have to remember to make the correction manually, in a timely manner or I'll get all confused. So all week I've thought July 4th was on Saturday, at least on and off. One moment I'll get it straight, but the next moment I'm in sync with my incorrect watch date, fluctuating back and forth in my mind as to the date and day of the week. My friends tell me I have way too much time on my hands. There's a pun or two in there somewhere.

Which brings me to one of my all time favorite yoga teachers David Moreno (Ahbi). I love him dearly and would take as many of his workshops and classes as possible, if I could. We've tried to work out a schedule whereby he returns to Austin and teaches a workshop for my gay yoga kula in conjunction with doing a workshop at Castle Hill, and/or Yoga Yoga but he is so busy that this idea we've discussed several times may or may not ever happen.

David does not like me to wear my watch in his classes. Period. He says it interferes with my internal clock. Even if I never look at my watch during his class, he says it still interferes with my internal clock through some process akin to osmosis. Ironically, David has issues with watches and clocks, and I say this endearingly, because he is always (BEFORE class) asking me what time it is, and he has brought an assortment of little clocks to class that invariably are either not working, have the wrong time and need adjusting, he can't read them because he forgot his glasses, and so he will hand me a little clock and ask me to read it or fix it or adjust it. It's really just hilarious.

Which brings me to my issues with watches: growing up, I didn't know my Dad well at all. He worked in the oil fields of south Texas and was often gone from home for weeks, depending on the rig location. I now know he had a difficult childhood and saw atrocities beyond my comprehension during his time as a WW II soldier. So when he had time off, he would go straight to the bottle and would usually be rip roaring drunk by the time he got home. He and my mother would have awful fights and I spent a great deal of my early childhood living in a state of fear and hyper vigilance (trying to protect Mom). He often presented gifts to my sister when it wasn't her birthday or Christmas, just something he enjoyed doing. But I got nothing, and that hurt a lot. My mother and grandmother would try to compensate for this, but that really didn't help. On Christmas during first grade I got an Elgin watch, presumably from Dad. I wore it with pride and had that watch until I was 16 and it was stolen. Now I feel nearly naked without a watch and have quite an assortment of them. I think they represent a subconscious connection with my longing for Dad and his love.

I must say how delighted I was to see that Kale, a superb yoga teacher from Australia who has been teaching for 30 years, now at Castle, wearing a watch while teaching his classes. He is truly a great teacher and yogi. And he wears a watch! Yes! I'm vindicated!

Feelings have just come up for me and here they are: my mother made many mistakes during her life (who hasn't?), beginning with her choice to get married young and drop out of high school and to stay stuck in a bad marriage for 18 years. But something did shift for her and she set about making many changes to her life, and even though I always loved her deeply, it wasn't until later in life that we became best friends and I admired her in many ways. But our early years were difficult. She died in 1996 after a long and difficult battle with COPD and bladder cancer. I was with her during her final hours, and held her and cried. The last words she ever spoke in this world were to me, and she whispered in my ear "I'm so sorry." So I say to Mom, it's all ok, all is forgiven, we all struggle with life and making decisions and screw up. I miss you. You did your very best. And Dad, I know you loved me but you were suffering with so many issues that you just couldn't cope with, and were so overwhelmed. It's okay, I have only forgiveness and love in my heart for you.

Often, along with our work, it takes time to heal, sometimes a long while. There is liberation and freedom in forgiveness of others and of yourself. For me, letting go of long held resentments, deep seated anger, self-pity, etc...is always the beginning of healing.

"Sacred Activism" (Rifts and Chasms)

I watched a documentary recently featured on P.O.V. (an excellent program that airs on public television stations, and yes, in liberal Austin, Texas, this program seems to usually be aired after 9 p.m., or after 10 p.m.) that profiled the pretty awful plight of elderly GLBT members of our society. I'd no idea how many GLBT elderly people struggle so hard to make ends meet, how rare it is to find GLBT friendly nursing homes, assisted living homes, and general health care. AND, we are talking about a majority of retired GLBT members of our society, NOT just a few. A majority. It must be remembered that these folks grew up in the 20's, 30's, 40's, and 50's and the world as we know it now, in this country, was very different. It was not always easy to find and hold decent paying jobs unless you lived a closeted life. There was a lot of discrimination. Few of these domestic partners knew to go to an estate planning attorney. Who would suggest that to them, and how many could afford it, and how many available attorneys were there at that time that dealt with such matters? Many have lost partners with whom they were in long term relationships, and find themselves being evicted from their homes because the title of the house was in the partner's name. There are no social security benefits to be had from one's partner, hence the exclusion of Medicare. Even today if you are in a long term relationship and do not have Durable Power of Attorney/Medical Power of Attorney you are not allowed to visit your partner in the hospital if anyone objects, and yes, families do object. You may be not be invited to speak at your partner's funeral, or have any part of that whole process. Horror stories abound, even today. So many of these folks are invisible, they are marginalized, they are disenfranchised. No rights or benefits in regards to their partners. Some companies are making exceptions these days, but these people have little to no governmental representation. We don't know who they are, or where they are. An interview with one young gay man said he feared older gay men would only want sex from him, but if he could be guaranteed that wouldn't happen, he'd welcome having coffee every morning with an elderly gay man. Unfortunately that paints a very sad picture in my mind, the fear of our elderly based on such assumptions and in my opinion, very unsupportive reasoning. Another young gay man said he didn't know anything at all about elderly GLBT people, they were indeed invisible. There is a great rift, a real chasm between younger GLBT folks and older GLBT people, and I find this very sad indeed. I can easily imagine a mentoring program between young and old. It has been an incredible blessing for me personally to have a gay yoga kula that is accepting, loving, and embracing, and to find myself accepted into the yoga community at large--in general they are a group of uniquely special people with great big loving hearts. This makes me cry with tears of gratitude. I'm also blessed to have a wonderful life-mate, and we are going on 34 years together soon!

I only recently became aware of Andrew Harvey, a gay writer, yogi, mystic, scholar, etc....he advocates "Sacred Activism"...not dissimilar in my mind to prayer in action. Getting out there in the world and doing something to help others. Really putting your beliefs into action. Reaching out to touch someone. Sometimes a smile given to a stranger on the street can work miracles. We are all connected.

http://www.andrewharvey.net/sacred_activism.html

Faces and Facets of Fear

I started watching Eckhart Tolle's DVD The Flowering of Consciousness I (based on his book(s) which I haven't read) last evening with my partner and wasn't surprised at how the *pointing of his words* resonates with much truth for me. There is no end to self-improvement, no end to seeking, no end to the path, the quest, the search for meaning in all things. Do we ever really discover exactly or totally who were are? Of course not. Answers are enriching when they come, but they are often accompanied by even more questions. I think this is all very good and is the nature of things. Ebb and flow, wax and wane, stumble and fall, stand steadfast, try to be a good warrior, stay fit and healthy in body, mind, spirit, and then stumble again and fall. And cry.

I am reminded of a woman I met and befriended who had a sad look in her eyes that was visible beneath the defensive arrogance and cocky self confidence she exuded. She told me her husband had committed suicide and her high school age son was experiencing similar signs of depression. "Sometimes you just have to put one foot in front of the other and not think beyond that." I thought to myself at the time what little understanding this woman has regarding the complex issues of depression, suicidal ideation and succumbing to the suicidal impulse, the deep scars that many of us bear that pull us down hard. But now I look back on those words of hers and in them I see wisdom, in the sense that if you are focused on just moving one step at a time you are focused on being in the present, and in this there is much relief from suffering. It really isn't that different from focusing on just taking your next breath. I grew to love this woman and to admire her for all her suffering and her constant seeking of solace in the solemnity of an isolated monastery in NM where I too sought answers. Her worldly wealth made issues such as food, shelter, health care, etc., all of which are extremely important to every single human being on this planet, non-issues for her, but in lieu of having to focus on survival issues she had to cope with issues such as deep despair, loneliness, isolation, abandonment, and not feeling loved in this world. (That last one has been a recurring one for me that comes from my core and can have a profound effect on me and my sufferings). Again I quote Bayda:

"Suffering is guaranteed as long as we demand that life be free from discomfort."

"You believe you can't be happy because your life is difficult. This is backwards. You can't be truly happy until your life is difficult."

"Suffering is the result of insisting that something be other than it is."

And so one day while traveling my own deep rooted fears caught up with me, deep depression and despair set in, and I didn't feel I could possibly go on any longer. This same woman saw the fear in my face and when the armed soldiers came to take me away she intervened and spent many hours of her time helping to get me into a hospital that could take care of me. For this my dear E I am forever grateful.

So for now I'm going to simply put one foot in front of the other and not give a whit about knowing anything about anything.

Inner Courtyards of Quietitude

I find it interesting when a yoga class theme (if there is one) closely correlates to my own recent musings whether it has to do with thoughts, feelings, love, relationships, forgiveness, compassion, awareness, letting go and so on. About thoughts, we clearly are not our thoughts and I think I'm finally getting my mind around that, so to speak. (I'm slow). Our thoughts are not who we are, they can often be just mind chatter, a pretend dialog with another, a fantasy, and my favorite is the trio that comprises the IFS of addiction--what if only? (about the past), what if only? (the now), and what if only? (about the future), we can truly become addicted to such thinking. It's natural for the mind to do this, and I don't think I'll ever come close to stopping it, but it's revelatory when one can recognize what's going on and know what the mind is doing and say to oneself "that's just my mind being active, nothing more and nothing less." I don't think that's where our deeper/higher selves reside. We are to find ourselves beyond all that clatter and clutter and clacking. Today during my drive in to Austin I decided to imagine all the cars around me as though they were thoughts, and when someone decided to drive on my tail I decided to be aware of what they were doing but not react or respond. And the same for the cars that rush past me only to find themselves many car links behind me at the next stop light. I merely observe but try hard to not respond. Be aware but relaxed. It's a bit of a meditation that I think may make driving safer for myself and others. Perhaps meditation isn't the right word here because all meditation techniques I'm familiar with should never be done while driving (except maybe short ones at stop lights).

Bayda writes: "See your thoughts for what they are; Just thoughts. And see them for what they aren't: the truth about who you are and what life is."

Anxiety is always about the future. Bring your mind to the present, to what is happening right now, and you can recognize anxiety as just another thought."

"Notice how often thinking and talking are detours from the painful work of being present to life."

In class today Gioconda read a poem by Hafiz that repeats this same motif. Sometimes we can just put our hand up in a gesture of "no, more" to our thoughts to quieten them, to let them know they are familiar companions but they are not wanted in this moment. As Elizabeth Gilbert says, they are like our neighbors, always there, and we can live in harmony with them, but distance is good. I like the metaphor of fences make good neighbors---I think we need to erect fences to our thoughts and tell them from time to time to just stay on their side of the fence!

Fortuitous Encounters

No doubt my favorite living contemporary painter is Alyce Frank. She lives near Taos NM in a small town with her husband and produces paintings that reach out and touch me ever so deeply. I believe one of her favorite painters and source of inspiration is Vincent van Gogh. Alyce is represented in several galleries. I had read a little about her but had never met her, seen her, nor seen a photo of her, nor had I actually seen one of her paintings *in person*--I had viewed them first on postcards I found in Abiquiu NM near to where I lived for nearly a year a few miles beyond the village of Canones, then in books and online. I knew she loved to paint plein air especially in NM. A couple of years ago my partner and I took a driving trip out West, heading for California. One day while touring Yosemite Park in one of those large tour buses we made yet another stop to take in the breath taking scenery. I noticed a couple of painters parked in an old station wagon with large easels set up by the side of the road. Something stirred in me and told me that I just HAD to go over and say hello and introduce myself. I walked away from the group and headed over to the painters some little distance away. I walked right up to them and introduced myself and then blurted out "Are you by any chance Alyce Frank?" To which she replied, yes, I am, and this is my painting partner Barbara Zaring. I was both in awe and shock at this so called *coincidence*, and it turns out Ms. Frank also got quite a little thrill from the whole event. She was the artist in residence at Yosemite and I had no idea of any of this. Wow, what magical things can happen, especially when we take that risk and move right through our nervousness and doubts and fears and follow those inner urgings. A few weeks later I received a call from the owner of the Fenix Gallery in Taos who informed me that Alyce Frank was so impressed by the encounter that she wanted me to have one of her paintings!!! I simply couldn't believe it--her paintings typically sell anywhere from $4000 to $10,000 and more. Well that part proved to be just a bit too good to be true as I learned that what was meant was that Ms. Frank was offering me a painting for less than half price, plus shipping and handling. In that case I kindly asked if I could chose a different painting than the one she had set aside for me and she indeed approved my request. Now I have an original Alyce Frank oil painting hanging in my living room titled El Salto. I love it, and I love how I came to be the owner of such a beautiful piece of art by my most revered contemporary painter in the whole world!!



Another fortuitous encounter happened one day at a support group meeting I was attending weekly at the Austin Men's Center (Co-dependence anonymous). What a great group of guys! We came together weekly and shared our stories without judgment, offering one another support, care, and love, and many of us coming to the knowledge that we are not alone in this world with our problems , issues, and suffering. It was my plan to make a trip to the bank and retrieve some documents from the safety deposit box after the meeting. I had placed the safety deposit key in my bag. The key itself is tucked away bright red little envelope. It was cold outside and so before getting in my car I decided to get the key out of my bag and put it in my pocket so it would be readily available when I got to the bank. I searched and searched in my bag and could not find it. Eventually I removed every single item from my bag, sorted through everything, placing everything on the floor, then carefully sorting through everything again and slowly putting everything back into my bag (a small backpack) but the key was NOWHERE to be found. Suddenly I heard someone in the adjacent room crying and I went to see what was going on. One guy, who was needing to leave to get to work was listening to another guy who appeared to be in deep pain about something, and his sobbing was intense. I went into the room and sat down and held him while he cried, and cried, and cried, then told me his problem. Later, when he had recovered his composure for the time being we exchanged names and phone numbers and he became one of my best friends in my life. He taught me to paint, something that I had never done before. I had a deeply ingrained belief that I had absolutely no artistic ability whatsoever and therefore had never taken an art course, not even an art history course. My first piece of art that I brought home from first grade and proudly showed to my mother turned out to be the object of unintentional, but very hurtful ridicule. My mother told me and everyone else who came to the house that I had brought home the ugliest piece of art she had ever seen in her life. She repeatedly displayed this artwork of mine and had many laughs at it's ugliness. She told me I had no talent whatsoever. Hence, I had avoided the visual arts my entire life up until I was 39 years old. But that was soon to change. This beautiful man I met that day was a gifted artist and he taught me to paint. He encouraged me, he praised me, he inspired me.



After our meeting that day I got into my car to head for the bank, realizing that I had been unable to find the safety deposit key, something that had kept me there at the center longer than was normal as I had searched my backpack extensively, which had allowed me to meet my new friend. I just KNEW I had put that key in my bag before leaving home so sitting there in my car, I opened my bag to again begin yet another search for the elusive key and there it was, sitting right on top of the contents of my bag, in plain view.



I have learned the hard way (naturally) to look at such mysterious events with complete openness and try not figure out the meaning. Conjecture, theories, interpretations that may lead to certain actions on my part have proven to be not the best course of action, not the best way to understand these things. Rather I've learned, and still learn, to be still and watch and go slowly and be introspective but without coming to all sorts of self misguided conclusions, because when one does that, it removes the mystery, it removes the element of the mystical, it seeks to concretize that which may very well need to remain ethereal.



Note: the first painting above is El Salto by Alyce Frank as are the next two; the fourth painting was done by me.