I am, after all, a study in what happens when someone loses almost every aspect of their persona at once. Partner, lover, confidant, father, mentor, householder. What was left was botanist, musician, teacher, hermit, poor person, survivor. That is, aspects of my persona that have been around for a very long time and that predate 2011, when A and I started out, by about 40 years. I started putting together the cactus researcher/botanist identity at about age 12. I've been playing drums since age 5. The survivor role is an interesting one to look at, as it formed over several years of repeatedly being reminded that no one was going to do for me what I could do for myself. The hermit role goes even deeper and can feel like my "true self." The roles that feel like our "true selves" can be the most problematic. I said to an astrologer once, "Well, I feel like she's my soul mate, but she's also kind of an awful person." And the astrologer said, "Who says your soul mate can't be an awful person?"
So, one thing that happens when we lose most of our persona is that we fall back on older aspects of identity. We can't bear to have no identity at all for very long. (Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind cannot bear very much reality).
My first AA sponsor used to tell me not to fill in the blank. He'd say "I am," and he'd stop. And he'd ask, "Now what do you think of when you hit that blank?" And I would instantly and without reflection fill it in with something, anything. Even awful things are better than nothing.
I am stupid. I am smart. I am worthless. I am a good person. I am a drummer. I am an alcoholic. I am a teacher. You get the idea. And he would say, "What does it feel like to just leave it empty?" Terrifying. That's what it feels like.
Not as much anymore, but at 1 year sober it certainly did. I honestly didn't even really know what he was getting at, back then. In the intervening 12 years it has become more clear.
At last night's Al Anon meeting, I was reflecting on what it would mean to "put my relationship with my Higher Power first." Or-- to work on not relying on the unreliable. Since everything is essentially unreliable-- that is, being is groundless-- then it's not so much a matter of choosing "the right thing" or "the right person" on which to rely, but of giving up the entire enterprise of relying. On anything. That's faith. The same first sponsor used to say "Faith is getting to the edge of everything you know and stepping off into the total darkness, knowing you will either still be on solid ground or you'll know how to fly." Yeah buddy. I don't step into the dark. The universe has a sick sense of humor. Falling from a great and gruesome height is not my idea of a good time.
But it seems a solid enough fact: everything is unreliable. Panta rei. Except: emptiness. Absolutely unconditioned being. The nothingness that is the only thing that is always there. This is what the Buddhist teachers found when they went in to meet reality every day for years on end. They found the only reliable thing. Nothing.
So is it any wonder that our process is non-linear when it comes to grieving the loss of the unreliable? We put our faith in that which is only living, which can only die. We exert ourselves to the utmost to keep everything in place, to hold on to everything we cherish, to protect, protect, protect what we have. And, as Pema Chödrön says, the stronger the protection, the greater the suffering. When we inevitably lose whatever it is we have filled in the blank with, because after all the blank was there first and always, without exception, has priority, we are stuck. Left with what seems like flimsy stuff. Left with simply being "I am." Nothing else. Nothing at all.
We don't usually stay there very long. We can either fall back on some ground of identity or other from the past, or identities that were covered over by roles we adopted on top, or we can stick to some new role or identity, if we want to work even harder. The first sponsor used to call this "substituting one set of controls for another." His main critique of the brand of spirituality as actually practiced in 12 step groups was mainly this-- that people had a grand opportunity for a deeper spiritual experience and that they basically squander it on simply adopting a new persona. I used to argue that at least the new persona was sober and working on being decent and kind. He'd acknowledge that much, but scoff at the religiosity of that brand of recovery and its doctrinaire and dogmatic manifestations. AA Fundamentalism, he called it. And believe me, it can be strong with some people.
It even seems like some people get away with being sober for years simply as a matter of habit. They seem to settle into AA as a kind of Kiwanis Club of bland social support, well-intentioned service, even-keeled and flat cheerfulness. Whether or not this marks an actual improvement over the misery of active alcoholism depends on which perspective on the deeper meaning and purpose of life you hold. If I think the meaning and purpose of life is to diminish misery but still be essentially miserable, cool.
Most of the time, I like to put myself into something familiar. The flannel pajamas of an old familiar identity. Even if the flannel is worn, looks ridiculous to others, or maybe unluckily hosts a family of venomous scorpions. But they are usually asleep. They usually don't bother. If you just make absolutely sure you lie on one side only. And don't move too quickly. And try not to breathe.
Now it seems like I am alternating between brief (lengthening?) moments of an experience of freedom, an acceptance of free fall, the essential groundlessness of simply being, and then entering again into attachment, these days usually in the form of searing anger. When I think of A or her new person, for example, the most common phrase to blaze across my fevered brow is: "Fucking Assholes." So I predictably fill in the blank with "angry. I am angry. I am really fucking incredibly goddamned angry. I am an angry person." It has that edge of danger to it, where it could eat the I entirely. I could *become* anger, is how it feels. Anger danger! It reminds me of this weird saying of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas:
"Blessed is the lion which the man eats, and the lion will become man. Cursed is the man whom the lion eats, and the lion will become man."
Your writing today brings tears to my eyes. What would happen if you were to say not, “I am”, but rather “we are”? If you were to say “interconnectedness”? In getting in touch with a piece of agave, you get in touch with the soil, the sun, the rain. Mother Earth. You are a child of the sun, you come from the sun. This is true with the Earth. Your relationship with the Earth is deep, and the Earth is in you. What if you were to walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet? In the words of Thich Nhat Hanh:
ReplyDelete“Walk and touch peace every moment.
Walk and touch happiness every moment.
Each step brings a fresh breeze.
Each step makes a flower bloom.
Kiss the earth with your feet.
Bring the earth your love and happiness.
The earth will be safe
When we feel safe in ourselves.”
What would happen if you were to say “Emptiness” means empty of a separate self? It means full of everything. Emptiness is the ground of everything. A wave on the ocean has a beginning and an end. Yet the wave is empty. The wave is full of water, but it is empty of a separate self. A wave is a form that has been made possible, thanks to the existence of wind and water. If a wave only sees its form, with its beginning and end, it will be afraid of birth and death. But if the wave sees that it is water and identifies with the water, then it will be emancipated from birth and death. Each wave is born and is going to die, but the water is free from birth and death.
If you look at anything carefully and deeply enough, you discover the mystery of interbeing. And once you have seen it you will no longer be subject to fear. Let us penetrate and be one with the with the earth, or with the wave, realizing our own nature as earth and water and be free of fear.