Doing The Work

I once attended a workshop entitled “The Rejected Part of The Body.” Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? Well it was. Actually it was one of the best workshops I’ve ever attended.

Given by two women I deeply respect and admire – Paula Reeves and Mary Hamilton – there were about 20 of us who shared a week together with a loose structure of dreamwork, storytelling, art and movement. Paula began the week with a story, before bed the first night, and then the days were organized around dream sharing in the mornings, reading, walking, resting. Then in the afternoons Mary would lead us in visulizations and movement, gently guiding us into a fuller embodiment and working with whatever pains, blocks or obstacles we found there. All this followed by art and in the evenings there was more story and usually a chance to share our personal stories.

The story that began the week was Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell and it was told over the first three nights. I highly recommend reading this in whatever variations you can find. Compare them! It is a story rich with metaphor and rewards.

It stirred some mighty dreams. Especially since we knew we were going to focus on the part of our own bodies that could/would be represented by Dame Ragnell herself, in all her glory:

“Her face was red, her nose running, her mouth wide, her teeth all yellow.
Her eyes were bleary, as large as balls, her mouth just as large.
Her teeth hung out of her lips, her cheeks were as broad as a woman's hips.
He back was as curved as a lute. Her neck was long and also thick.
Her hair clotted in a heap. In the shoulders she was a yard across.
Her breasts would have been a load for a horse. Like a barrel was she made.
To recite the foulness of that lady there is no tongue fit.
She had ugliness to spare.”

Of course that rejected part of our own bodies also has ugliness to spare, doesn’t it? Not sufficient to simply dislike it, this particular part (and for everyone it is different) it is the most loathsome body-part ever. “To recite the foulness of that [part] there is no tongue fit.” Indeed.

Taking that story and unpacking it for personal reflection allows for an enormous amount of growth, and brings a lot to consciousness. To encompass this in some direct, concrete way we used a large floor cloth – made of unstretched artist’s canvas about 7 ft long – and on our first afternoon we lay upon it and the outline of our bodies were traced by a friend.

Over the course of the week we began to fill in the outline … with color, design, image, affect, whatever came up in the dreams and in the movement work was transferred to the body outline. If you could you would work directly with the area that was so loathed. The requirements were few: (1) draw a ground for the body is a place of grounding and so the image cannot float freely (2) don’t judge as it is not ‘art’ in the sense of making something beautiful, and what may look awful and scary to someone may be a representation of great beauty to the one drawing it (3) don’t talk about it else you dilute the energy.

The dreams I had that week were circling around and around my mother and my childhood. Each dream was of a different time period in my life and felt so real that upon waking I was surprised to not be in my childhood home.

The colors that filled my canvas are brilliant and I used oil pastels so that I could mush them up with my fingers and blend them together. So the piece is large, and loud and boisterous, taking up all the available white canvas and arguing and shouting and laughing and breathing and messing up all over the place. These are the things that made me feel so incredibly ‘in-the-way’ as a child….even though the house I grew up in was boisterous and loud and I was not.
There is a part of me that has felt, and perhaps continues to feel, that there is no room for me. Whatever it is I do or think or say is not appropriate, right or good enough. It's all pretty obvious on that large cloth. Lots of letters too - writing, writing, writing.

I began to see that the self-loathing, which may start out as a taunt or a thought, gets placed right in the body, right in the flesh. And so the flesh suffers.

For me it is/was the feet. The most loathed part of the body. That part of my I rejected and hated. What this ended up doing was depriving me of a standpoint, and just think of the ramifications of such a metaphor.

I know I am not the victim of someone else in this regard, and I’m not really the victim even of myself. But continuing to go along as if it was okay to simply hate a part of my body would have continued to deprive me of the ability to stand up for myself, to take a stand or make a stand, or to stand on my own two feet. Lacking those metaphors would indeed keep me childlike far beyond any recognizable childhood, and stunt my life.

So why keep up the hatred, the rejection? The process of coming to terms with this self-rejection and having the space to ritualize it with art, with dreams and with reflection made a dramatic difference to me. This brought to consciousness the loathing and rejecting, giving me the opportunity to choose - do I keep it up? Or can I let it go? If I do let it go what will it mean? Will I replace it with something else? Do I have to reject and hate something in order to keep going?

One of the closing rituals was called “Dolor” or something like that (it’s a Spanish word) and it means to tell the sorrowful tale. We partnered into dyads and walked in a single direction, connected to each other with arms linked and the one on the inside told the sorrows of her life to the other. No interruptions, no comments. Just deep, present listening. We walked together for 45 minutes. At the end of that we paused and went to the center of the room where there were basins and towels. And the outside woman, the listener, bathed the feet and hands of the tale-teller. Silently, and with great love.

Then the process repeated. Going in the other direction they switched places and listener told her tale, and the other listened. With deep attention. And then the washing. With great love.
Our world and our society is much poorer for the lack of such rituals among friends.

I do feel lucky to have participated in so awesome a ritual and to do work of that nature.
I continue to use the floor-cloth in my own personal work, and in my artwork. I have some I’m working on now. I don’t know if I’ll be able to share them….they still tend to be pretty personal.

But maybe so.

One day.

Orphanhood

I read the article in today's New York Times Magazine - Growing Up Buckley - and find that it haunts me as I continue to go about my day.

Such a poignant and loving piece. But I mean that in the real, nitty-gritty, we're-a-fucking-family kind of loving. Not hearts and flowers and pink ribbons. I admire Buckley's writing, and while he may pooh-pooh the role of a humorist, I find it a talent that is ever more rare and certainly a good one is hard to find these days. It seems rather out of fashion in writing circles these days.

But this isn't one of his funny pieces, although I continue to smile at some of his angles and perspectives.

Mostly, though, I am struck by the profound role of parents, life, death and presence. How the hell do people show up for death? How is it possible?

Visceral fear has gripped me for most of my life if I thought about dying and I'm very glad to say that seems to have passed. I no longer am afraid of dying. Goody for me. But really, so what? How absolutely banal can one get?

Both of my parents are still alive, getting frail and elderly, but very independent and alive. They still piss me off regularly. I worry sometimes that I'm so basically detached from them that I won't grieve when they pass. That I won't really, truly care.

Not the rip-your-heart-out-and-shift-the-ground care. What's up with that? Certainly my parents neither of them is any kind of a criminal monster. They may not have been up to the formidable task of loving me as I wish they had, but they are, after all, mere mortals. How could they really measure up to that anyway? Especially since they have now lived so long that I have been able to surpass every single thing they have ever "done for me" as I have parented my own children - with more presence, more love, more suffering, more care..... blah blah blah can you hear me?

How gross.

So these are my thoughts as I mull Buckley's article. I am glad he wrote it. I couldn't stand Bill Buckley's politics, that's for sure, but there was something about him that was mesmerizing. I'm grateful they weren't my parents. I'm glad to see that one doesn't have to have that oh-they-are-my-best-friends relationship with one's parents in order to show up at the end.

These moments of facing my own banality, and my own incredible self-absorption are frighteningly uncomfortable. I don't seek them out. I don't really enjoy them.

But there is something false that begins to rear its head when I imagine NOT writing it down.

This is me too. Along with the things I strive to be, I am this too. Untested. Unschooled. Inexperienced. Fully-parented. I am not an orphan.

Funny how that ties in from the last post to this one.

Retreat and Advance

I'm sitting in the Atlanta airport. Feeling amazingly calm. Not surprised, but amazed and glad to see it lasting in this beehive of activity.

I've just spent the last 2 1/2 days at a Trappist monastery. No special retreat, no special program. Just reading, resting, reflecting, rejuvenating. The impulse to quiet is strong in me, and always has been. Growing up I lived in a boisterous family with lots of activity and very little room to spread out or quiet down.

When I look back on it now, I can see that it was an excellent learning opportunity. If I had not been forced to learn how to survive and thrive in chaos I doubt I would have chosen to challenge myself that way. I used to long for orphan-hood or at least to be an only child. I wasn't particularly into having my family die - I just wanted them to not exist. Perhaps not in the first place.

Science wasn't my strong suit. Or maybe I was just before my time.

At any rate, I pretty much always felt out of the groove of my family and rather like the ugly duckling -- who simply didn't fit or belong. My childhood journals and diaries are filled with prayers and pleadings for the impossible. I guess that was my view of my life - an impossibility.

Now, 50 years in I discover that there are actual geographic places that I can go to that fulfill my deepest needs. This particular bit of Springtime I am filling two highly dichotomous needs.

Solitiude ... spending time in retreat at the Monastery. A gorgeous idyll.

Humanity ... spending a remarkable 10 days in New York City and immersing myself in Wagner's Ring Cycle at the Metropolitan Opera.

Can life really get any better than this?

I don't think so.

Life List

I just finished this incredible book - Life List by Olivia Gentile.

This video of her book is awesome...and will lure you into the amazing world of birding!

I am a total amateur, but I love birds in my backyard.

I never seem to have the camera ready for the exotics. But at the end of the day, I just love them all. Even the Blue Jays. If you watch them long enough, they are far more interesting than they seem and they have many more tunes that they sing than the screeching warning call that is so familiar.

The Goldfinches, when they migrate through, are amazing in their determination to eat every last nyjer seed on the planet.

This year I ran out. It was my first real learning experience with commodities. Seems that Nyjer Seed is grown in some foreign country, and by the time it got in its ship to the US, the price was in flux.

So the damn ship stayed offshore, and as the Goldfinches were migrating through we ran out. I'm not kidding. I scoured the internet for it and was willing to pay over $50 for a 10 pound bag. But by the time my order went through the company (in Texas) had to call me to tell me they couldn't get it. Pissed me off.

Well..if you get a chance, read the book. It's terrific. I have an extra copy, so if someone wants a copy email me : artandsoulfoundation at hotmail dot com

Empty Nest

Our fifth child moved out on Friday. She had been out before, but was back since December. This move includes a year-long lease and a very decent and kind roommate. So, for some reason this move seems real. The real one.

For the last two days it has been a frenzy of moving, cleaning, re-arranging. There are still closets jammed with god-knows-what and stacks of things to be given to Goodwill, to the long-sleeve-shirt-drive-for-Migrant-workers and bags of hangers to be recycled. There are boxes of books from childhood that can't be tossed, and boxes of books from a year or so ago that I can't find.

My legs ache. My sinuses are filled with dust. There are tears just behind my eyeballs.

Children moving out and getting on with things is a good thing! Trust me. This is why there is an "age 15" so that you can let go of them when the time comes. Gratefully!

But still. Cultivating a still heart, and seeking space in my insides, leaves me feeling the enormity of it as well. The time passing. The huge shift from keeping a house full of kids to living in a house without any.

The many birds - Cardinals, Indigo Buntings, Mockingbirds, Thrashers, hawks, chickadees and finches are all building nests. I watch them busy busy busy in my backyard.

And I, too, am building mine. But what a different type of nest.

And so it goes.

Interactive Poetry Duet

I
You aren't worth turning in cat.don't you
Know that you're already your own worst
Enemy?

You're my pet. I post, you sock puppet
Right in. I own you. Sock puppets R U
Nic theft isn't above you any more than
False reporting to the cops is anyway.

"I'll Be Blunt" post again..showing the Slate
editors' proof where he revealed how
you had stolen every conceivable
tempo nic variation you could come
up with?

Yes, lord, nic stealing another specialty
of your stalking no infraction too low
for you to go in your sociopathic-
like mind.

Trying to obfuscate and twist
my intent. You are a sociopath cat,
indeed to attempt to do so.

Albeit, a very lame one.

II
Dead horse rotting in the sun
the king won't let me bury anyone.
Flies flit back and forth carrying the meat
some new nic, with a stick, takes up the beat.

Dead horse rotting in the sun
can't ignore the stench, can't pretend the battle's won.
Wish I could tear my eyes away and leave
but new nics arrive, tugging hungrl'y at my sleeve.

Dead horse rotting in the sun,
crowds begin to gather, darkness bleeds the fun.
Feeble are my tries at turning shit to loam,
legion are the new nics as they glut the cyber home.

Dead horse rotting in the sun,
no one knows what happens when the rotting's almost done.
Clever lads who paint a lady with nought but burger grease
are simply hosts for new nics who bring nothing but disease.

III
Bloated horse, you've stayed too long
for why else would I sing this song

Always floating to th' top o' th' Fray
every single fucking day

Bloated horse, my god you stink
when I whiff you my heart doth sink

The nausea brought about my it
starts to bother me just a bit

Bloated horse, you they beat
but what's left is barely meat

Long ago it splattered
as though any of that crap mattered

Bloated horse, you never leave
and for that I truly grieve

But I know someday you'll go
and the difference it will show.

IV
Surely you have run your course,
Stinking, putrid, rotting horse.
Day by day you rise up – how?
Stinking, putrid, rotting cow.

Not one whit does niceness show,
Stinking, putrid, rotting crow.
Now you suck the brain from skull,
Stinking, putrid, rotting bull.

People’s lives are lost in fog,
Stinking, putrid, rotting dog.
Futile effort to traipse your heap,
Stinking, putrid, rotting sheep.

I must leave you - do or die,
Stinking, putrid, rotting fly.
Else you’ll never ever end.
Stinking, putrid, rotting "friend."

V


Beating the dead horse
For all to see your great shame
Whack it hard for me

This will never end
The pointlessness of it all
Spinning nics abound

Stinking, stupid horse
You are most annoying here
Moreso than I am

Pixels wasted there
Saying the same thing again
I know ignorance

VI


Sing to me, Muse, of horses long dead – rotting in the square,
yet to the despair of all about, none can ignore as the wraith
rises in the MBTU.

Sing of the days gone by, Muse, when Fraysters wrote great songs
and the threads were long, and filled with soft-spoken and
learned wit.

Sing to us all, Muse, of the wand’ring of great Heroes such as
Brewmeister and Ioz, who have, lo these dark days, moved beyond
the putrid stench of laid low Best.

Oh for the days of long ago Heroes, those of Achillean splendor
and great depth of purpose
and prose.

Oh, Muse, sing … sing to us and bring us once again those glory days,
those bright-filled days, those light-filled days,
those glowing, glistening gleaming days.

Sing, oh Muse, and release us from this grasp of wine-dark,
impoverished thread-baring that lashes itself to corpses of dead horses,
and whose stench rises in the coming night,
like darkness from the Western edge of the world.

Oh Muse, sing.