Not my job

How tempting it is, when someone we hate provides an opening, to let them have it with both barrels. Self-righteous anger feels so powerful. Telling someone off feels like justice. Finally! In displaying my anger openly to this person, I will be vindicated! I'm gonna whittle you into KINDLING, motherfucker!



The truth is, this kind of behavior simply shows someone who you loathe that you are still attached to them and still engaged in the wrongs you think they did you. It also shows that one is operating under a delusion-- the delusion that it is one's job to set the record straight, get justice, teach the other person something or even just let them know what a steaming pile of shit they are because, by God, they DESERVE to know what a steaming pile of shit they are. 

I hereby resign from this job. I hope to resign from it all day today, and maybe even all day tomorrow. It's not my job. I'm under no obligation to stay attached to people toward whom I bear ill will. I am under no obligation to achieve justice in this world, or teach anyone I hate a lesson, or set the record straight or, well, anything. I'm under no obligation to do anything at all.  

"We have found that justified anger ought to be left to those better qualified to handle it." Bill W, 12 and 12, page 90.

Because it really is potentially a life or death matter. One of my old hobbies, after all, was drinking AT people who had angered me. It is a classic alcoholic caper of utmost self-destructive impulses. "This person wronged me! I will imbibe a large amount of poison so I can show them how much they wronged me!" Weird. 

In fact, my obligations lie elsewhere and are much more valuable and important than wasting all that energy and getting entangled in unnecessary pain. It's of primary importance for me to let go and move on from people and situations that rouse rage in me. Instead of going into battle, it is very important for me to work with my own emotional state, my own defects and my own role in creating my own life. In these ways, instead of being always at the ready to slash and burn, to let everyone know how wrong they are, to get retribution using acidulous speech, I have the energy to be of service to people I might actually help. I have the focus on myself, on where I am going, on where I want to be in this short life. I refrain from indulging in any acting out that would further attach me to the object of my loathing, and I get a chance to work on my loathing in ways that might convert it to something useful. 

The delusion of all acted out anger is that it is a powerful display of rejection, of not caring, of justified enforcement of separation and a way to let the other person know that we think they are shit. The truth is that acted out anger is a display of attachment, of still caring *a lot*, of being enmeshed and a way to let the other person know that we think they are important enough to get angry toward. 

This is not a rejection of the energy of anger-- it must be felt and dealt with on its own very severe terms. It refuses to be dismissed, mollified, pushed away. It can absolutely signal to us that we have truly been violated and that we need to protect ourselves or others. But it need not be acted out in the direction of the "cause" of the anger, or even in any outer way. It is in fact happening in me-- not out there. So the proper place to address it and find ways to let it move through and not condition my behavior, is to address it in me, where it is happening. When I put it out there, I expose myself to harm, at least, and at worst I cause a lot of harm as well that will have to be cleaned up someday, if I am to live. 

Part of the reason I have often acted out anger in shitty ways, especially in writing or speech, is I hate feeling angry. It is my attempt to get the burning shirt of anger off me. I want to get out of anger as quickly as possible. It scratches my shiny look good of being a "nice person" or a "good man." Sadly, none of the strategies I have tried to use to get out of it quickly work in any effective way, however. 

Becoming comfortable with the discomfort of feeling anger is part of owning it and avoiding causing harm. Or even-- imagine-- making the world a better place. Think of what the world would be like if everyone took responsibility for their anger. Non-violence in a true sense has to start with this. It can't start with pretending one isn't angry or blaming or avoiding. Violence comes out sideways. Owning, sitting with, processing, recognizing, praying and meditating and dissolving through the action of compassion toward oneself and others-- that's where non-violence starts. 

Which reminds me of the three tenets of Zen Peacemakers:

Not-knowing thereby giving up fixed ideas about ourselves and the universe

Bearing witness to the joy and suffering of the world

Taking actions that arise from not-knowing and bearing witness

Too hot for words

Digitizing the four albums from Columbia called The Quintessential Billie Holiday- spanning 1933 to 1937, when she was 18 to 22 years old. This early period is not as well known as her Lady in Satin agonies. Amazed by the strength and spirit in her voice and the generally jaunty and untroubled or even outright upbeat subject matter (the usual Tin Pan Alley romance). Also some great playing from Roy Eldridge, Ben Webster, Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa, Teddy Wilson, Cozy Cole, etc. 

A real reminder of the ravages of heroin and booze, as well as how disposable all of America's great geniuses have been when it comes to black music. 

Also from the vaults, I finally transferred from VHS to DVD a video of a performance I was part of back in the summer of 1991(I think), Jazz in the Sangres, a festival that used to be put on every year in Westcliffe Colorado. With bassist Zimbabwe NKenya, John Baldwin on cornet, me on drums and piano and Steve Feld (MacArthur genius grant winner for his ethnomusicology of the music of Papua New Guinea) on low brass.

I continue mining, digging out ruthlessly and working on transmuting what I find. Mostly getting rid of anything and everything that I can condense, digitize, replace, make useful again in some other way. 

It's not exactly fun but it feels absolutely essential somehow. And it is an externalized version of exactly what's going on "inside." One thing that will be strange: revisiting the writing I did from about age 18 to 25 or so, that I have been carrying around but not re-reading for the past 3 decades. I'm thinking I might scan some of it-- but otherwise, I imagine a ritual fire of some kind. 

Surrendering territory

In the middle of a sex and relationship inventory in AA.

"We reviewed our own conduct over the years past. Where had we been selfish, dishonest, or inconsiderate? Whom had we hurt? Did we unjustifiably arouse jealousy, suspicion or bitterness? Where were we at fault, what should we have done instead? We got this all down on paper and looked at it." (Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 69)

How does the appearance of this:

Turn into this:

One of the aspects of this inventory I have not looked at in the three times I have done it previously is how much of my codependency was motivated by my own selfishness, dishonesty and lack of consideration for others. How much of the patterns of codependency caused my own jealousy, suspicion and bitterness? I have taken the view in past inventories that I was mostly duplicitous and incapable of loyalty, monogamy or honest communication, and of course those are legit patterns of mine. But now it looks like these are symptoms-- the *result* of addictive relationship patterns. So, as we always find when we revisit step work, it's time to go deeper. 

I like how, in CoDA, "the only requirement for membership is a desire for healthy and loving relationships." (Tradition 3). I guess I have that desire, although it kind of feels at the moment like I just don't want the unhealthy and hateful relationships of my past. I am full of the awful spirit of NEVER AGAIN GODDAMNIT. That will have to do. 

Some of my behavioral patterns in romantic, sexual and love relationships with women that arise near the beginning:

-Jumping into commitment very quickly
-Interpreting sex as a requirement for commitment 
-Assuming the other person is also ready for commitment and interpreting all of her behavior that way
-Getting into domestic partnership situations quickly
-Changing myself outwardly in order to get approval
-Getting into regular, almost constant "small message" performance of romance-- texts, emails, nicknames, special salutations, etc.
-Claiming to want reliable monogamous commitment when that is not what I want
-Overlapping, so that I am always in relationship
-Putting on a mask or persona and/or adopting relatively rigid roles
-Adapting my personal aesthetic/preferences to those of my partner (food, clothes, style of travel, music (sometimes, also usually switching to headphones to listen to music), art on the walls, literature, decor, sense of humor, facial hair, etc)
-Reducing or putting aside my involvement in music, horticulture, hiking/travel, writing, education, professional advancement, recovery in order to spend more time with others
-Intense communication and transparency or at least the appearance of same
-Emotional dependence in the form of always checking my compass against the mood and attitude of the other
-Making a lot of space for my partner in spite of not giving myself very much, including shifting the focus of many conversations toward her and what is going on with her

Later on, the patterns definitely shift in important ways:
-Withdrawing after a period of intense relating; withdrawing even more if asked to be more present
-Neglecting to communicate my own sexual preferences and desires openly
-Staking a claim for isolation, traveling alone, etc. 
-Return to increased involvement in activities and recovery
-Rebellion against the earlier concessions
-Resentments that come out sideways (such as returning to some aesthetic preference I had abandoned earlier-- maybe changing my haircut to a style the woman hates or wearing clothes she thinks look stupid, etc.)
-Hidden sexual relationships, intrigue, porn, the double life
-Complete shut down of communication, especially around my own emotions
-Internal blame of the other person for the gradual failure to connect
-Almost complete cessation of sexual interaction, or at least an almost total icing of passion with sex becoming rote and obligatory
-A very platonic feeling, sometimes even quite tender, friendly and loving, but with little to no intimacy-- cordial but distant, familiar but guarded 
-Fantasies of escaping the partnership
-Idealizing and "falling in love" with a "new" person and taking these juvenile romantic feelings seriously enough to act on them destructively or impulsively

In spite of the later emergence of these patterns of avoidance, fear and resistance, I still usually hold intense feelings of attachment to the other person and deeply appreciate the friendship, not to mention that I am often domestically and socially embedded. Separation has usually led to rending pain and confusion, guilt, remorse, shame, nostalgia, feelings of very low self worth, suicidal ideation, self-destructive acting out, impulsive decisions. These overwhelming consequences of breaking up have even occurred when, while still in the partnership, I hated it and felt truly imprisoned and dead inside, or was acting out sexually with others, or even had "fallen in love" with someone "new." 

The "new" relationship usually also emerges during a time when I am depressed to some degree or other and seems to offer a "cure" for my low mood and despair. Or the new relationship is the catalyst for ejecting me out of the old one, and seems like "this time it will be different." (This is just like drinking, by the way). I also tend to think that the "new person" is "so different!!!" from my existing or former partner. These delusions operate very powerful for me. Then depression has tended to settle in yet again- the black-eyed dog shows up at my door. Baffled by how something so amazing can go so sour, I become withdrawn, bitter and hurt. 



So there are definite interaction effects between cycles of depression and both phases of the relationship. There used to be intensely connected and obvious alcoholic cycles as well-- reduced drinking with efforts to hide and control at first, with gradual emergence of more frequent and heavier consumption-- and I think in sobriety there are similar cycles of hiding the symptoms of the "ism" of alcoholism at first, with gradual "alcoholism creep" coming back into play-- sensitivity, paranoia, resentment, grandiosity, arrogance, selfishness, self-centeredness, self seeking, isolation, etc. 

A three way interaction then of persistent depressive disorder, alcoholism and codependency. A trifecta of romantic bliss, definitely. 

Side note: This may all sound pretty harsh and like I should cut myself some slack. I can cut myself some slack *after* looking at these things in a searching and fearless way. This is how recovery works best for me. Once more into the breach-- clarity-- eventual behavioral change. It turns out that fearlessly facing these real patterns causes no harm at all. In fact, the opposite-- harm is sustained in my life through fake ass bullshit self esteem exercises that do not accurately identify my character defects and only contribute to my already narcissistic tendencies. This is the main reason why counseling therapy sometimes does not work for me-- many counselors are trained to be "advocates" for their clients, "boosting their self esteem" and getting their clients to "engage in positive self talk." These exercises work okay for people who are not already delusional and stuck in codependent patterns of victim/perpetrator extremes. But they seem to reinforce my defects in some profound ways. For example, a counselor who might advocate for me as a generous, kind, loving man might also fuel my fires of self-righteous anger-- "the dubious luxury of normal men," says Bill W, and I agree with him. I don't need to work from the outside in to make contact with what is good, true and reliable in myself. I need to work from the inside out. And that means making the character defects that are simply true *into the actual path*. 

I have found women who have wanted to hang in there anyway and I have pushed them aside. I've also found women for whom the initial charm of the "fixer upper" project (since I am usually depressed and a mess at first) has most definitely worn off, and they have pushed me aside. The timeline seems to run in roughly 5 year cycles, with smaller spirals of intensity and failure mixed in. 

I have been mostly in recovery from the more glaring aspects of alcoholism for the past 13 years. Now, suddenly, I am also seeking definite ways to ameliorate the depression and heal from the codependency. Efforts on all fronts! 

The basic shape of my codependent behavior, however, is to drop all of my defenses and boundaries at first. I am eager to surrender the territory, even when the woman I am with is not asking me to. I surrender the territory without negotiation, without necessity. I proceed without caution in any way. What's mine is yours, you get to keep what's yours and even what isn't mine is yours-- take all of it. I don't need any space, bolundaries, time to work on stuff I love, time in recovery. I don't really care about all of my preferences that I just deeply cared about yesterday. Bah! Art isn't important to me, my surroundings aren't important-- you go right ahead and set up house and I'll settle in. Food-- whatever you want to eat. Travel-- wherever you want to go. Until about 2 years from now. Then I am going to start fucking shit up. 

I have a long way to go to understand a couple other things. Namely, what kind of picker do I have that seeks women who are looking for a fixer upper, who have strong preferences so that I set up an arena where I can cave and "go along"? And, importantly at this time, how did I try, either successfully or in a futile way, to "do things differently this time" with A? I do know there were self-conscious efforts to "do things differently," but, clearly, in some ways anyway, those efforts were a kind of total catastrophe. But maybe not all of them. Maybe, even without A's interest in salvaging a single fucking thing, I can go into the blasted wreckage and find a few jewels. 

Insight and resistance

Reading Dropping Ashes on the Buddha, getting next to that form of formlessness. It was strange reading it when I was out in the wilds. I was sitting on a rock looking out over a majestic canyon, watching ravens ride the thermals, hearing the sound of the brook on the rocks, feeling the wind and warm sun, 9000 feet in the sky. Contemplating the great insight of the meditation traditions of the East-- that all of what we perceive and experience, and our self, and our stories-- is illusion, Saṃsāra. That attachment to illusion causes suffering. To be liberated from suffering, one must be liberated from Saṃsāra. 

I have an easier time accepting that insight when things are shitty, or I'm in the middle of Phoenix, or whatever. Up high in that glorious canyon, well it's very seductive. Why would I want to let that go and come to the full realization that it's just illusion and is not real? 

Of course, Seung Sahn would yell "KATZ!" (KATZ! (Korean): traditional Zen belly shout; used to cut off discriminative thinking.)or ask me "Are the canyon and Zen mind of absolute emptiness the same or different? If you say they are the same, I will hit you thirty times. If you say they are different, I will still hit you 30 times!"

There's this passage in We Agnostics, in the book Alcoholics Anonymous:

"We read wordy books and indulge in windy arguments, thinking this universe needs no God to explain it. Were our contentions true, it would follow that life originated out of nothing, means nothing, and proceeds nowhere." (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 49).

An Eastern meditator from any one of dozens of traditions would hail that single phrase-- originated out of nothing, means nothing, and proceeds nowhere-- as the best news there is and the highest insight Bill W ever had. My conditioning hears it as the darkest nihilism, the most depressing kind of existential indifference. 

Are those the same or different? Watch out-- you're going to get hit thirty times. 

I might start saying to my sponsees: "If you answer one way, I will hit you 30 times! If you answer the other way, I will still hit you 30 times!" Except for the sponsees that are bigger and angrier than I am. 

Anyway, it feels like a big obstacle to finding peace in my heart, this passionate attachment to the world. The world continues to cause me intense chronic and acute suffering, and yet I am in love with it. I have a kind of worldly Stockholm Syndrome.

It is true that, as I get older, I can begin to see the equally seductive allure of non-attachment. It feels like a way to cheat loss (which increases as one gets older) and death itself-- if there is no Self, nothing dies. There is no loss or gain. Let go of all of it because sooner than you think, you're going to be forced to let go of all of it anyway.  

Even there, the "problem" (KATZ!) is *attachment to non-attachment*, one of the most serious pitfalls along the path, according to many traditions. Even with my desultory and typically Western daily ten minutes of silent meditation-- undisciplined, cluttered, egocentric-- I get momentary glimpses of the great emptiness, silence, absolute peace and liberation that seems much more "real" than the world. I can easily see how people might just disappear into that and become attached to it. 

It just seems to me that my consciousness is like a lint roller or strip of Velcro. Sometimes during meditation, it feels like my soul is one of the gloriously overloaded pickup trucks you see in Mexico. 

What makes it hard to just let go is holding on, ironically enough. 


I can see why Westerners often are more drawn to some form of purposeful meditation-- focusing on loving kindness, or even doing tonglen in a very literal way, breathing in poison and exhaling medicine. Anything to hang on to some sense of structure and form.
Our entire cultural legacy is based on epic poetry, "the hero's journey", the "I", stories and tales, even the Christian idea of a personal savior and the Self having eternal life after death. The level of attachment in our culture is very strong.  

Or why we think of meditation as a means to an end: inner peace, stress reduction, a more clear mind at our job, less anger, etc. In No Self, No Problem, Anam Thubten writes: 

"These days, people often go to resort areas where they have massages and hot tubs, yoga and meditation. People think that meditation is a way of relaxing their body and mind. They think it is a way of rejuvenating themselves, a way of removing wrinkles from their foreheads. They think that they will be eternally attractive because of meditation. But this not what meditation is about. 

Meditation is not a stress reduction program. Of course there is nothing wrong with using meditation as a way of reducing stress and anxiety. That is much healthier than taking intoxicating substances or turning oneself into a zombie in front of the TV or becoming unconscious by stuffing oneself with ice cream....

Meditation is like inviting fire into our consciousness. That is what true meditation is all about."

It's very challenging for me to just sit, even for 10 minutes, and watch the breath. To observe thoughts passing and to let them go completely on the exhale. To not only let go of all the clutter piled in the back of the truck, but let go also of the truck. We don't want to stay in complete emptiness and groundlessness for long. Of course, "we" are supposedly an illusion-- the self that is in terror of letting go completely into emptiness is an illusion that "knows" it will die in emptiness. 

Not surprising there's resistance. 

Not bringing a story to suffering

A friend of mine in recovery found out a couple days ago that his wife has several tumors on her thyroid and in her throat and will need biopsies and surgery, at least. If the tumors are benign, she still needs surgery. If they are malignant, the prognosis is very bad indeed. 

The opening share at the men's group last night included a reading of the famous acceptance paragraph that I (coincidentally haha) posted 4 days ago:

"And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation—some fact of my life —unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes."

This obviously offers quite a conundrum: it absolutely seems like a fucking awful "mistake" when someone we love is facing a terrible medical situation. I have a sponsee right now who is trying to get to step 3 (Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him) and he's stuck on this kind of dissonance. What kind of God is it who would co-exist with so much suffering, torment, agony and destruction, let alone allow it, let alone maybe even be the cause of it? This is not an easy question to answer satisfactorily. Ultimately, it's a cul de sac, because, well, the fact of suffering isn't changed one bit by any honest answer. 

It's easy to pass right by. Get into some deep denial. Preach some kind of bland acceptance and an irresponsible hand waving. Or even fetishize suffering itself, or exalt it as some kind of noble and tempering fire through which we must pass to get to Heaven. Or whatever. The language in the famous AA passage above provides people with a great opportunity to respond to the suffering of others with a kind of fucking ridiculous and shallow, shit for brains suggestion of radical acceptance. 

I am with reality as much as possible-- and that acceptance is just an alignment with the facts of existence. The wording that says "Nothing absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake," includes within it a false duality where there is rightness versus error. It's much more helpful for me to just get with what is. It could well be that "things happen by mistake," or they don't, or whatever. What difference would it make? Isness is isness. 

Things are what they are. That's hard enough to accept, let alone this weird and unnecessary idea that everything "should be" a certain way, or is "exactly as it is supposed to be," or whatever. These, again, are judgments regarding purpose, meaning, narrative, oughtness, error, etc. Not useful, ultimately. In fact, delusional. 

The most useful thing of all is to accept exactly what is. So, for example, my friend who finds out his wife might have cancer doesn't have to wrestle with what kind of God, why suffering, crisis of faith, resentment toward a cruel universe or any of that. He has to sit with the fact that his wife might have cancer. I mean, that is the case. That is what is happening. 

So if we can get out to meet what is actually happening, at any point in our lives, we are making real progress. If we insist on a narrative of purpose or noble suffering that exalts us or any of those other judgments, we are missing the richest experience there is, which is simply to come to terms with exactly what is. Because in all that story-making about how "everything happens for a reason" or "nothing happens by mistake" we can easily find our flat out terror of simply sitting with reality. Without bringing any of our story-making, judgment, explanatory powers, projections, bargaining or whatever. If we need a programmatic God who always has a plan and if we need the infantalizing reassurance that "everything happens for a reason," we can easily create those myths out of whole cloth. But if we want to be free and have a direct experience of the present, we're going to have to put those toys away. 

The fact is: here we are. What is happening is exactly what is happening. That is where true acceptance lives. This is this. And here I am with it. There's no need to varnish this direct encounter with tall tales of purpose or redemption. In fact, for someone in the midst of acute suffering, the varnish is insulting. It suggests that a "truly spiritual" person rises above. That the anger and terror is somehow a "deficiency." In fact, getting to the moments of fearless acceptance require a passage through all of it-- through all of our humanity. 

I vow to make space for all of it without judgment. That's a reliable home for us. The rest is tale spinning. 

  

Reclaiming, retrieving, meeting

From Friday through Monday morning, I went out of the city and into some wild spaces. The first stop was a place new to me in the Pinaleño Mountains of southeastern AZ, a glorious and almost totally deserted undeveloped site called Snow Flat. The Pinaleño Mountains are an amazing sky island in the middle of very dry uplands. 

Snow Flat on night one was icy cold and completely still. The absolute silence was unnerving when I woke up in the middle of the night. I was the only person camping there.

One of the repeated themes in the story with A was my commitment to take her to tall trees at least a couple times a year. It's a setting she is recharged and inspired by, and it provides an antidote to the desert for her. She doesn't really share my love for the desert-- or the ocean, for that matter. She's much more of a high mountain, lake and tall tree person. So, in exchange for trips to drylands, I'd always try to get us up high. Another theme in the story is the many, many camping trips we took during our 5 years together-- Mogollon Rim, Arches, Santa Fe, a two week trip down the entire Baja peninsula and back in July (!) with a ton of camping, Vail, Zion, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Bahía Kino in Sonora, Prescott, Flagstaff-- so many trips.

One of the ways I grieve is to go right into experiences that are important to me that used to be experiences shared with the departed other. Sometimes I have to wait, because the emotional associations and the sharp pain of missing the other person in a shared context feels like it will be too much. Other times, especially when the experiences are absolutely vital to my wellness, I gather my courage and just go right in.

My experience of all sorts of wild settings with nothing but a tent and a few other things is so vitally, crucially and indispensably important to me that I decided to do my usual spring travels, no matter the resonances and reminders.

It was a very mixed and challenging trip. The experience of unspeakable sadness at missing someone in the midst of deep solitude and vast beauty. The experience of beginning to reconnect with myself and get some ground under my feet. Reading No Self, No Problem and Dropping Ashes on the Buddha, meditating, yet still unable to rein in intense mental turmoil, suffering and attachment. Yet also getting glimpses of peace, ease and loving kindness. No distractions. Right up against everything I was experiencing in a completely unmediated way.

Anger was a huge part of what I encountered in myself, ridiculously searing in the midst of such a peaceful and empty place. I'd look at tall trees and recall, for example, that A's cover photo on Facebook is of the mountains outside Seattle, where she went with her new person in February. My paranoia rises up, thinking she intentionally put that public photo up in order to wound me, since I tried to take her to similar places and we shared a lot of times in places like that. Only the Cascades of course are better, better than the mountains we went to, etc. Agony of barbed wire thoughts. Heightened at times by the fact that I had hoped we would travel to these places together-- places I was excited to show her.

My mind refused to quiet, much of the time. I continue to have also actual physical feelings of a stabbing pain in my heart, the actual physical location of where grief and loss shows up in my body. Or an alarming anxiety, emerging from nowhere, rooted in the fear of being destroyed, immolated, obliterated by my own feelings, that shows up in my guts and has a twisting feeling.

On the other hand, there were moments of grace and freedom, thankfully. Moments where I truly started to feel free of all of it, and know I was capable of facing down all of it, "going through" it (as our metaphor says) and reclaiming a vital experience for myself, without the searing attachment to another person who is completely gone, but also without forcing it, going into aversion, pushing away or whistling in the dark.

This is the value of the journey to the underworld: in shadow and fear, we reclaim and retrieve what we've temporarily lost, or we realize it will never be retrieved and we let go, let go, let go. Stick a fork in it. Acceptance of the finality of death and the constancy of impermanence. Realizing that we can stand right in the middle of it and not be destroyed. Or that, even if we are destroyed, we aren't destroyed.

On Saturday, I left Snow Flat for a quick visit to some plants I wanted to see in the Big Lue Mountains on the AZ/NM border.

I traveled to the Gila Wilderness outside Silver City and spent the night rolling in the tent under the tall trees in the midst of a strong wind storm. There is nothing like the rushing, soughing, roaring sound of wind in Ponderosa pines. It's like being inside a waterfall roaring off a cliff. It felt appropriate and fitting, a big bold and wild mirror.

The next day, I went to Silver City briefly, then to the Continental Divide Trail at highway 90 in NM, hiked a few miles out and back, ate lunch sitting on a rock.

Then to a forlorn old mining site southwest of Lordsburg called Granite Gap.

The original plan was to then head back to Phoenix. But I was drawn powerfully back to the Pinaleños, especially as I traveled up 191 and saw them from the road.

So back up I went, to 9000 feet. Once again, Snow Flat was deserted. This time, I hiked down the small stream and discovered that the short trail opened out to a vast canyon with heart rending views.

This was tough in some ways because I knew A's son would have loved it. It was an easy hike, but with enough difficulty and mystery for an 8 year old, and the opening to the canyon was so sudden. I sent up a prayer for A's son, for his continued wellness and great adventures in his life. I still haven't been granted permission to spend any time with him, which I am expecting means that A thinks it best that I just don't spend time with him at all. I think, if this is her decision, it's a shitty decision-- but she's the boy's mother, and it is completely out of my hands. I have been tempted occasionally to contact his father and try to get some time with him that way, but then I realize this is not really about him so much as about me trying to manage and control a situation which is unmanageable and not in my control. It feels more sane to just put A's son in the hands of the universe, so to speak, and not take any action or make any sudden moves. I only hope he is at peace with my sudden disappearance and that he doesn't have any abandonment stuff that he carries forward.

In meditation in these wild places, I got a deep and abiding sense of the roles I had been playing. Anam Thubten writes at length about the chasm between our true nature, our true Self, and the roles we play, the stories we tell and our attachment to those roles and stories. The grief, despair, pain, loneliness and anger are as real as anything else, but this trip out in order to meet something and be sure it is retrieved and reclaimed reminded me that I lost "only" the roles and the story. That what is true and reliable can't be lost. No matter how obscured by ego, narrative, attachment and forgetting, our true nature begins to come back and trust us again, especially through meditation.

A woman here in the Valley with 40 years of sobriety talks about the mountain and the weather. Rain, snow, wind, fire, flood-- it's just weather. The mountain is always just the mountain.

Into Nowhere

A couple nights out under the sky tonight and tomorrow. Back on Sunday, probably. Job interview today for a full time science and math teaching job-- but how can I balance full time teaching with finishing the PhD? Probably not possible, but I'm going to explore it anyway. The job is with a great arts high school in Phoenix. 

The hexagram of the moment. 

I like the translation "Calculated Inaction." 

DeKorne's note:

"To nourish oneself through inaction is to digest and absorb the energy of one's instinctive responses. As in any nourishing assimilation, their strength then becomes your strength. The true adept is one who has digested all of his passion and is thereby empowered to use it for his own purposes. Instead of engaging in civil war, he has united his forces to act in the world."

The hexagram also includes an aspect of eating and drinking in good cheer while waiting-- the recommendation is that that is the way of the superior person while waiting in the face of danger. Sort of like "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die." 

In the ebb and flow of my inner life these days, I never know what is going to come up. This morning, at about 1, I woke up infuriated that A has not contacted me or communicated with me. Some wiser voice in my head, or my higher power, or something, gently said "Can we find a way to work with this?" That was all. I reconfigured my stance a little bit and mulled that over. 

Can we find a way to work with this? 

What happened then was a turn to all the possible ways that a lack of communication is to my benefit. For my protection. That is one way of working with an obstacle: it's for my protection. Like a closed lane on a highway, closed because there's a huge rock slide or something. Aggravating because all of the traffic slows down, we sit and wait, etc. But I wouldn't want to drive at 70 mph into a pile of rocks, no matter how awful the traffic jam is. 

So that's one way to wait with assurance-- to take whatever is an obstacle or an apparent delay and assume it is for protection. To be grateful to have protection from my impulsive nature that always wants to rush in, engage, get entangled.

That helped me get back to sleep and I overslept today-- up at 5:15 instead of 5. 

A simple idea that seems like it's on the far horizon

"As spiritual seekers we don't have to invite challenges but we do have to celebrate challenges when they visit us. I am not saying that we have to go around looking for trouble. That is not our assignment. But when troubles arise we must know how to surrender to them and accept them. We even have to be jubilant in a crisis and think, "Oh, this is such an extraordinary, golden opportunity to practice how to accept what I don't like. If I am able to accept this condition at this moment in my life, then I will be able to transcend all of my fear, all of my insecurities. This is a blessing in disguise." We have to almost prostrate to the challenges when they visit us without invitation. When they are actually knocking at our door, we have to be thankful to them. In that sense, as spiritual seekers, we have to take our whole life as our practice, as our path. Life is our path. From the moment we wake up in the morning until the time we go to sleep at night, our whole life is filled with opportunities for cultivating acceptance, patience. tolerance, forgiveness, awareness, and mindfulness." --Anam Thubten, No Self, No Problem 

What the fuck is that all about? Not the way I have been taught to live. How have I been taught? 

To fight, to resist, to argue, to bargain and negotiate, to obliterate reality, to look for a fix, to run, to fall into self pity, remorse, regret, anger and other disturbed states. I was not taught by family or culture to accept. To come to terms with reality by adjusting myself. I was taught to struggle tremendously in the effort to change reality to suit myself. 

The above passage reminds me of one of the famous bits of AA literature, the Acceptance paragraph from the story called Doctor, Alcoholic, Addict in the 3rd edition of Alcoholics Anonymous. 

"And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation—some fact of my life —unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes."

Anam Thubten goes on to write about a sort of vow. It's very simple: "Today I will accept everything exactly as it is." Yesterday, I was repeating that kind of thought every time I noticed myself fighting. "I accept everything exactly as it is." I wasn't able to get there, but I was able to remind myself of the basic idea. It is so alien to my usual way of living through pain and suffering, through loss, grief, anger, sadness. "I will accept it all exactly as it is."

ritual and reality

Yesterday, the counselor had me do one of those things that I hate doing-- an exercise working with non-verbal expression to create a process where I could see how attached and stuck I was and maybe find some relief, even if only symbolic. 

So, first, he had me write down all the things I am holding on to, all the feelings that seem to not be moving through but seem stuck.

Jealousy, outrage, disbelief, sadness, anger, resentment, regret, remorse, nostalgia, sentimentality, fear, self-loathing, self-righteous indignation, loneliness. 

I wrote these down with a water soluble marker.

Then he had me draw a picture of how it feels to be stuck in these things. This is the kind of work that I resist so heavily. I have this skepticism about it which probably springs from shyness, a lack of any art skills whatsoever, feeling like it will be foolish or I'll be exposed and it will be too revealing. Who knows-- let's just say I always give these kinds of exercises the side eye. 

Anyway, here is a facsimile of the drawing I did-- stick figure me wrapped in what I imagine is a combination of a strong living vine with spikes and rusted barbed wire, in a cage, with arrows flying at me from all directions. 

The counselor said, "I'll be right back, just meditate on that for a minute," and left. He returned a couple minutes later with a clear glass bowl with some water in it. "Now take your list of the feelings you're holding onto and put it in the water." I did. The paper curled up, floated, slowly started to absorb water. The words started blurring up, turning into ink. I couldn't help myself-- I reached in and pushed the paper down, under the water. 

Then he had me put the drawing with the vines, barbed wire, arrows and cage and my miserable, trapped, assailed and suffering self into the water. That image too started to blur and wash away, especially after I pushed it down. 

I must reluctantly admit that this exercise had and continues to have an actual, palpable effect on my attitude toward my tumultuous emotional life, feelings of stuckness and suffering, feelings of not only being trapped but also being exposed to arrows of pain that seem to come from all directions and are unpredictable. There was some actual movement in myself, watching the words melt, watching the ink just be ink, floating in the water, and then watching the image of myself dissolve as well. 

Of course, the counselor noted that I couldn't wait for a longer process of the words and image to dissolve. I felt compelled to push both pieces of paper under the water. Understandable.

In spite of my reluctance to participate in these game-like rituals, now I have an image for the power of some container greater than myself (clear bowl with clear water) dissolving attachments (the ink just drifting into nothing, the paper completely blank when I took it out, the ink not even visible in the water either). The image alone is enough to at least remind me that I can let go if I choose.

One of the terrifying things about this passage has been the overwhelming feeling of having absolutely no agency. No boundaries, no input in decisions, no control at all. Everything in the breakup, for example, has been completely unilateral. My dissertation proposal is completely at the mercy of my committee. My grant proposals are completely at the mercy of grant committees. I had little agency in moving-- either with timing or to where-- I felt compelled to jump at the opportunity for the room I am renting. So one of the big themes is that I am just being swept along, against my will, into the unknown, into situations where I don't know the outcome. 

Flash flood on the river Styx. 

But this little series of images of the abstract nouns for abject feeling states and my abject assailed figure, washing away to absolute nothingness and clarity in a clear bowl of water-- surprisingly helpful. I grudgingly admit. Maybe I'll even be willing to do more of these non-verbal rituals. Maybe. 

Devotion

Thai food last night at Smile Lao Thai came with a fortune:

Later on, before bed, I was reading No Self,No Problem by Anan Thubten and there was this passage:

"Part of us wants to hold on to that last attachment. We want to awake a little but not completely. It's convenient for the ego to not awaken completely but this is the only way to liberation. Sooner or later we have to completely awaken. That means that we have to completely dissolve into that great emptiness, the ultimate truth of nothingness, without holding on to anything, not even enlightenment, not even confusion about liberation or truth. We have to let go of all of it. How do we do it? When we try to get rid of it, it doesn't work. It backfires because who is trying to get rid of it? There is nobody there in the ultimate sense. So this is about melting; this is about dissolving the self, and when we know how to dissolve the self, then liberation becomes effortless. It is like drinking nectar rather than working hard. In general, this is a way of dissolving the self ecstatically and without any struggle, without any resistance. Devotion plays a very important role."

Just like that, out of the blue. 

He goes on:

"When we pray, what we are doing is evoking the spirit of devotion. Devotion is about no longer resisting anything."

Yesterday was a long, exhausting day of obsessing over the events from January to now, back into a maelstrom of thoughts and memories like white hot daggers, assailed pretty much all day, no matter how I tried to turn it over, let go or reset my perspective. I went to a church to attend an Al Anon meeting and walked the labyrinth they have in the back. 

While walking those turns and recursive folds, I realized I get into the habit of prayer but without devotion-- that is, the form of prayer without the substance of it. The words rather than the "spirit of devotion." I have some fancy prayers memorized that I throw out there every morning. But walking the labyrinth it hit me that I can get devotionally real and just flat out cry for help. 

A prayer: I am fucked. I am a fucking mess. I need help. I can't do this anymore. I can't bear it. I'm lost and fucked. I need help. I have no idea what happened or why. I feel like I'm dying. Please help me. 

That is the spirit of devotion I have been missing. Beyond the fine words of fancy prayers, or the high concepts of tonglen meditation or enlightenment or dissolving the self. Or step work or step 4 or bodhichitta or any of that shit. Just flat out absolute abject misery and the honest, desperate opening up to the universe for help. Nothing fancy. Not exactly like drinking nectar, but down on the ground, ass-kicked, broken through and through. 

The non-linearity of my trip trough Hades is more apparent as more time goes by. Because on Sunday I felt real peace and acceptance. I slept through the night for the first time in a while. But it is a mistake to think that moments of respite will be permanent, any more than moments of abject misery will be permanent. 

The Al Anon meeting was about the slogans. Being a sophisticated intellectual, I have always resisted the slogans of recovery in general. But lo and behold, some of them hit home and came in handy later in the night, when I was still obsessing, unable to sleep. I got up and meditated for 20 minutes and then I kept thinking about Live and Let Live in particular. The first part opens the way for the second part. When I am a ghost in my own life, the choices, behaviors and attitudes of others take on enormous power. When I go into my own life more and just do the next thing that has to be done, sometimes one minute at a time, obsessing over the lives of other people diminishes, sometimes substantially. 

A way down

"The way up and the way down are one and the same." Heraclitus

One way down is to put pen to paper, even when you expect nothing of substance or import will happen. And for some reason, probably related to sense memory, putting an actual pen to actual paper has a different effect from typing digitally. There is a physicality to it that seems to invite more of the unconscious mind out to play.

In working through a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself in this latest round of step work, I have rediscovered something I knew before: you can reflect on a close family member, for example, and not "feel" any resentment toward them at all. But once you put pen to paper, you'd be surprised.

Of course, sometimes you either honestly are clear in regard to some central figure in your life, or you know immediately and without reservation that you have a resentment. But sometimes, especially if your defenses are strong or you were raised to be "nice," or you are just good at denial or whatever, you would swear you carried nothing but kindness and tolerance in your heart toward a certain person, but once you actually start writing, watch out.

I am in that process now with my immediate family members. And this is the third time I have done a 4th step. And I am 13 years sober. So the lessons are many-- we don't know on our own power what we are actually carrying around, for one thing. That is an important thing to keep in mind. We think we know our emotional landscape and what our various defects and problems are. But we honestly do not.

For those who aren't familiar with step 4 (Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves), the idea for the resentment inventory is to make a grudge list of people, institutions and principles. Then in column two, write a brief description of the cause of your resentment. Then in column three write (from a limited list of descriptors) what of yours the offending behavior or idea affects-- is it your self esteem? ambition? pride? pocket book? sex and other relationships? security? It's also helpful to connect what the offending behavior affects with what your fears are. Finally in the very important 4th column, you put aside the wrongs done to you entirely and look for your own role. Where had you been self-seeking? Selfish? Dishonest? Afraid? What harm did you cause, if any? (Usually there's some harm).

A concrete example:

Column 1     Column 2                                       Column 3                                      
A                  She's completely cut me off           This affects my
                     and is giving me the silent              self-esteem, pride,
                     treatment                                         sex relations and relationships
                                                                             security, ambition, pocket book;
                                                                             fear: being abandoned, rejected,
                                                                             ignored, hated
Column 4 (my part)
I abandoned her emotionally, repeatedly, starting in summer 2016. I tried to punish her for her new relationship from November through January by giving her the silent treatment and acting out resentment. I refused to communicate with her for weeks. I made it clear that I hated her new person and had lost respect for her as a result of her becoming interested in him. I let my jealousy completely ruin our communication.

This process is repeated as fearlessly as possible for everything you put on your grudge list. My advice to sponsees is to always, always put immediate family members and all close relationships (including boss, sponsor, friends, etc.), whether they "feel" resentment or not, and then start writing. If nothing comes up, great. Move on. But something almost always comes up.

This process is some of the strongest medicine in life, let alone recovery. It has worked repeatedly to relieve me of the most abject attachment to the wrongs others have done me, real or imagined. It has set me free repeatedly. My fear that justice will not be served, or I will not get to punish people who have wronged me, or I will lose a vital part of my identity or whatever-- all of those fears end up being baseless. The end result is getting rid of damaging stories, attitudes and baggage that are blocking me.

As people sometimes ask in AA-- How free do you want to be? If you want to be free in profound, lasting and fundamental ways, try the way down. Down into your deepest hatred, fear, pettiness, jealousy, anger, selfishness, entitlement, egomania, indifference and lack of compassion. The full glory of your inescapable humanity.

A few caveats: cultivate a strong sense of a spiritual foundation and connection to a power greater than yourself first. In particular, a few months of a daily meditation practice is very helpful. Take that connection with you into the work. Also, never take the way down without a guide. Find someone who has already done a 4th step and work with them. Follow the directions meticulously in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 64-71.. Come up for air occasionally. It can be immolating work and it is easy to become self pitying or otherwise to get lost. The point is to get free, not beat yourself up. Just be clear eyed and honest with yourself and keep moving.

If you are painstaking about taking the way down, you'll find it is the way up.