can we get there?

Into the fires and on the way out of danger

the copy of the key that opens the gate that leads to the canal

The I Ching throw last night was, first, hexagram 59, Huan, wind over water: Dissolve-Disintegrate-Dissipate, with all three of the lines of the flowing water hexagram changing, making the second hexagram Chia Jen, The Family, The Organization. 

I am currently only using a very concise little book on the I Ching, The I Ching: The Book of Changes and How to Use It, by Wu Wei. The interpretations are brief and to the point. For Huan:

A dangerous situation exists which can be resolved by perceiving the source of the danger and gently dissolving, disintegrating, or dissipating (as in scattering) the dangerous elements. Seek divine guidance in whatever way is appropriate for you to retain help in revealing the heart of the problem and in learning about ways to dissipate the danger. Even the greatest danger can be successfully dissolved. Perseverance in searching for the source of the danger and in seeking ways to dissolve the danger is required. Success is certain.

Bottom line: A dangerous situation is beginning to dissipate, but you do not have the power or intuition to see to the heart of the danger and fully dissipate it. Fortunately, you have a powerful friend or associate who will come to your aid and either end the danger or take you out of it. If your friend is slow in coming, ask for his help.

Line 2: You are in the middle of a dangerous situation which is dissipating. Even though you are strong, your position is weak, and, therefore, you will continue to be in danger until the dissipation is complete. You must immediately take refuge with whoever or whatever gives you strength and stability and maintain that refuge until the danger is past. 

Line 3: You are nearing the end of a dangerous situation that can only be resolved by seeking within yourself the cause of the danger. By letting go of your hardness and rigidity, perhaps a grudge, you free yourself from the danger. Holding hatred or grudge against someone or something binds you to the person or object. To free yourself, you may have to be forgiving and generous, which will also free those against whom you hold the grudge, but you will be the greatest beneficiary, and all occasions for remorse will disappear. If you are being held in a dangerous situation by your desire for a person, object, or goal, you may have to forego the attainment of that which you desire to free yourself from the danger. 

The second hexagram, Chia Jen, The Family or The Organization:

This kua depicts the inner structure and workings of a family unit or of an organization. When all the members of the family or organization fulfill their respective duties, showing each other the love and respect due to each of them, then the family or organization functions efficiently and harmoniously. A superior person has substance in his words, meaning that he does as he says he will do and speaks the truth, He cultivates duration in his way of life, meaning that he perseveres in walking a virtuous path, he does not change with every passing fad, and he is constant in his loyalty and dedication to the group. 

Of course, regarding the first set of themes from Huan, I'm reminded of the general theme of step 4, "Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves." The whole truth behind the efforts in step 4 is to free yourself by letting others off the hook. In particular, that third changing line contains the pith of the enterprise: 

"By letting go of your hardness and rigidity, perhaps a grudge, you free yourself from the danger. Holding hatred or grudge against someone or something binds you to the person or object. To free yourself, you may have to be forgiving and generous, which will also free those against whom you hold the grudge, but you will be the greatest beneficiary, and all occasions for remorse will disappear."

To not be bound to others in the midst of hatred, a grudge, anger, resentment, hurt feelings, it is necessary to let go inside myself. The resistance is that then I have end the futile quest for justice and retribution and I have to get next to the idea of their freedom as well as my own. Of course, the truth is, they are already free from my hatred and grudge-- they honestly do not give a shit, most of the time. So the delusion that I am the arbiter of fates and the master of earthly retribution and justice can be dissipated by working persistently on forgiving.

How to do that? Step 4 suggests that the most powerful tool I have available to is simply focus entirely on my own role. 

"We turned back to the (grudge) list, for it held the key to the future. We were prepared to look at it from an entirely different angle. We began to see that the world and its people really dominated us. In that state, the wrongdoing of others, fancied or real, had the power to actually kill. How could we escape? We saw that the resentment must be mastered, but how? We could not wish them away any more than alcohol." 

..."Referring to our (grudge) list again. Putting out of our minds the wrongs others had done, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes. Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened? Though a situation had not been entirely our fault, we tried to disregard the other person entirely. Where were we to blame? The inventory was ours, not the other man's. When we saw our faults, we listed them. We placed them before us in black and white. We admitted our wrongs honestly and were willing to set these matters straight." (Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 66-67)

Regarding the second hexagram, I am reminded of one of the most powerful passages in the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions, by Bill Wilson-- found on page 53:

"But it is from our twisted relations with family, friends, and society at large that many of us have suffered the most. We have been especially stupid and stubborn about them. The primary fact that we fail to recognize is our total inability to form a true partnership with another human being. Our egomania digs two disastrous pitfalls. Either we insist upon dominating the people we know, or we depend on them far too much. If we lean too heavily on people, they will sooner or later fail us, for they are human, too, and cannot possibly meet our incessant demands. In this way our insecurity grows and festers. When we habitually try to manipulate others to our own willful desires, they revolt, and resist us heavily. Then we develop hurt feelings, a sense of persecution, and a desire to retaliate. As we redouble our efforts at control, and continue to fail, our suffering becomes acute and constant. We have not once sought to be one in a family, to be a friend among friends, to be a worker among workers, to be a useful member of society. Always we tried to struggle to the top of the heap, or to hide underneath it. This self-centered behavior blocked a partnership relation with any one of those about us,. Of true brotherhood we had small comprehension." 

Phew. How can you argue with that?

The entire theme of dissolving resentment through forgiveness, which is accessible via finding one's own role and thereby having the power to let other people off the hook, and then subsequently finding one's "right size" and a more solid place within existing structures-- that's perhaps some of the most difficult work we do, if we ever bother to do it at all.

It also reminds me of a passage from the introduction to a book called Emotional Agility, by Susan David:

"Emotional agility is about loosening up, calming down, and living with more intention. It's about choosing how you'll respond to your emotional warning system. It supports the approach described by Viktor Frankl, the psychiatrist who survived a Nazi death camp and went on to write _Man's Search for Meaning_, on leading a more meaningful life, a life in which our human potential can be fulfilled: "Between stimulus and response there is a space," he wrote. "In that space is the power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

Which in turn reminds me of this passage from Assagioli:

The patient should be encouraged to use his mind, through observation and discrimination, to bring clearly into his awareness the irrational aspect of his drives and emotions, and also the possible drawbacks and harmfulness to himself and others of their uncontrolled manifestation … To act on the spur of an impulse, a drive or an intense emotion can very often produce undesirable effects which one afterwards regrets … Therefore, he should learn – by repeated experiment and effort – to “insert” between impulse and action a stage of reflection, of mental consideration of a situation, and of critical analysis of his impulse, trying to realize its origin, its source. R. Assagioli – Psychosynthesis

Which also loops ahead to some of the 11th step structure of our daily lives-- in particular, the monumentally important "As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action." (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 87).

In reviewing all of this, it is brought home to me powerfully how far off the beam I currently am. I woke up at 2 in the morning again, this time full of what seemed like a rage that would kill me. I actually put my own hands around my throat and experimented with what it would feel like to choke myself to death, which is of course impossible. Then I started punching myself in the head, since I figured that would stop the horrifying thoughts I was having. This is not my usual way of being, allow me to reassure you, dear reader. 

But so be it at this time. I have little to no control whatsoever over what I will wake up thinking at 2 am. In this case, I was imagining the ex's new paramour gloating about how he had utterly defeated me and won her hand. How he had humiliated me and stolen from me the central partnership and relationship of my life. And I was imagining my ex gloating right along with him, mocking my grief, dismissing my pain as inconsequential, glibly going on about her new life with a killing indifference to me. 

In the midst of these thoughts, the searing pain of my own humiliation and rage finally becomes great enough that I become willing enough to seek relief. It is no consolation whatsoever that relief MUST come in the form of forgiveness of both the new paramour and the ex. I have no other choice, if I am to live free myself. I can't wish my way to freedom, I can't pursue retribution and expect to live a useful or happy life, and I can't simply wallow and allow my hatred and bitterness or self-hatred and self-destructive impulses to dominate me. 

The great consolation is that there is one single word in the first hexagram, Huan: "gently." "A dangerous situation exists which can be resolved by perceiving the source of the danger and GENTLY dissolving, disintegrating, or dissipating (as in scattering) the dangerous elements."

Gently, not by fantasizing about choking oneself, or trying to beat awful thoughts out of my head. Showing up for persistent and gentle dissipation of danger. The first steps in step 4 grudge work involve honestly admitting just how fucking pissed off we are and getting clearer about why. 

The great news is that I am the source of the danger. This is great news because I can begin to find ways to show up for myself. If the danger were outside of me, there would be nothing I would be able to do. "Seek divine guidance in whatever way is appropriate for you to retain help in revealing the heart of the problem and in learning about ways to dissipate the danger. Even the greatest danger can be successfully dissolved. Perseverance in searching for the source of the danger and in seeking ways to dissolve the danger is required. Success is certain."

One way to use wind on water.....

The Story that it is Not a Story is Not a Story

Yesterday I backed away from making narratives, he said, narratively.

But it hit me that I am always telling tales. I posted the last few pages of Joyce's The Dead in a St. Patrick's homage and read it and realized that kinship with Gabriel. Making a story out of an experience. Of course we all do this.

But then I started experimenting with the idea that where I am has no story to tell. That, for example, there is no reason that the ex ended our partnership and there will be no lessons learned from it. Nothing will come of it. This runs so counter to my usual mythologizing and narrative building that it hit me like a shock. Ironically and in a way that made laugh out loud, I heard myself ask-- "but what would that mean?"

One of my Facebook friends posted "Fake it til you make it!" The thought crossed my mind: Do nothing until you do nothing.

Maybe I am simply leaving space. I have left a lot of spaces and I have been leaving space and leaving a lot of space. The most comforting place right now is the silence among all of the thoughts, questions, memories. My morning ten minute Vipassana meditation has been a roiling cloud of madness the past few days.

On a couple mile walk last night-- and here's some story for you-- where one has to pass through a gate and then walks along an ink blank line of water (a canal; Western Canal #7)-- it occurred to me that an interesting practice might be to substitute the form of gratitude for the form of anger, or sadness, or nostalgia. My sentiments most often run either into blazing resentment or aching nostalgia these days. And I think storytelling is an attempt at a knowing anodyne-- but of course, the map is not the territory. You can know where you are and not know shit about the place. Or you can know everything about a place but have no idea where you are. Knowing where you are and knowing everything about it-- is that reserved for gods?

What would it be like to give thanks for whatever it is that is passing through, wear it more lightly, and recognize that it was great to have the experience? It is much lighter and diaphanous than telling a story, which precipitates out of thin air and solidifies into something opaque and often sort of gunky.

I had dinner last night with a woman I've been friends on Facebook with for about 8 years. She is the only hypnotist on the island of Dominica. Quite a claim to fame. It lends itself to a story.

I also sent the following message to the ex regarding spending time with her son:

Good morning, I hope you are having a good Friday. 

I have been reflecting more on what time with the boy would be like in practical terms. Do you have a particular idea of what would work best for you? Do you have a sense of what he wants or would like? Knowing the boy and how complicated and busy your life and his are, I am imagining that a regular day and time would work best. I would be happy to get him from school on Thursdays at about 4 and take him somewhere 90 mins or so, help him with his homework, and then drop him off at your house after you get home, for example. Just one idea. Maybe that's more regular than you imagined. 

When you get a chance, please let me know what you and the boy have in mind and I will endeavor to make it happen. 

Thank you,

I have not received a reply, more than 24 hours later--

la·cu·na

ləˈk(y)o͞onə/

noun

1. an unfilled space or interval; a gap.

   
   

   "the journal has filled a lacuna in Middle Eastern studies"

   • a missing portion in a book or manuscript.
   • ANATOMY

     a cavity or depression, especially in bone.

So in the interstices is where I most want to put a story. If there were no spaces maybe we would just have immediate experience. I am not in the habit of saying to myself "It is probably meaningless that she has not replied in more than 24 hours." In fact, I am in the habit of filling the space with the most negative thing I can think of, fairly regularly. 

But there's a crossover into some freedom by simply giving thanks, repeating "no gain, no loss," and letting blanks be blanks. 

boundaries and capabilities

The Full Crow Moon outside the house of a beautiful friend of mine in Albuquerque.

It became crystal clear to me yesterday that I don't get to be done with any of my situations through the old strategy of running, let alone burning bridges.

How I am going to work spending time with the 8 year old son of the ex has been on my mind a lot lately. By turns, it has seemed completely impossible and absolutely something I am obligated to do (not in a bad way), with every other feeling in between.

So I met with my AA sponsor last night, who definitely plays the role of boat captain on the river Styx at times, and we got to work on it.

Every time I interact with the ex these days, I feel tangled, in pain, conflicted, angry, soaked in increased confusion, etc. It knocks me off center and feels poisonous. If I had not spent 5 years helping to parent her son, my preference right now would be to have absolutely no contact whatsoever. But when I put myself in her son's shoes, I can only imagine that he must find it unsettling, sad, disturbing and weird that there was this "fake dad" (as he used to call me) one day and then the next time he was at the house, that guy was just gone, as well as all of his stuff. Poof.

So I'm thinking for the sake of his sense of at least a little bit of reliability and continuity in a fucked up world, I want to show up for him on some basis. But I also want to know what he honestly wants. I guess the first meeting with him I'll just ask him, since he has a high degree of emotional intelligence and is a good advocate for himself.

Working through a very thorough step 4 resentment on the ex last night with the sponsor, it became more and more clear that I had melded the ex and her son into one entity: ex-and-son. And that this is unnecessary and a disservice to the son, who is a different person from the ex. So a good clean boundary was established again and it became more imaginable to spend time with him, even while it requires contact with the ex.

I can put my feelings of anger and resentment toward the ex aside for an hour or two every week or every other week in order to be of service to an 8 year old boy. I am capable of that much. Being capable of it is helpful, also.  I mean-- it helps me to realize that I can show up for that.

At home in Hades

One of the much-missed aspects of life with the ex was her insistence on a highly functional combination of comfort and utilitarian practicality. She is highly skilled at making nests. Over the 5.5 years we were together, I saw her nesting ability at her post-divorce apartment, at a small condo into which I eventually also moved, and, finally, at the house she bought in Chandler. She is one of these people who actually pays attention to her physical space and her habitat.

Missing it so much motivated me to exert considerable effort and resources into getting some basics together. The other motivation is that, the next time I move-- or even, perish the thought, get ejected from a long term domestic partnership-- I want to have a basic rig that can go anywhere for a landing. After years of a peripatetic life, with such a high number of moves, I am finally realizing that the old strategy of purchasing crap and then discarding it when I move in with a woman who has better stuff ought to end.

If I just get a few essential things that are relatively durable, I can break up and get back into relationships like mad.

I also realized I need a highly functional and relatively spacious area to get moving on grad school and stay moving.

What the work station looked like out of the box

Assembled, after a couple hours-- but no major hitches. A miracle. 

The room a few days ago when I first moved in

Now

Waiting for a highly reviewed mattress frame to arrive today to put the new bed on. Then I'm going to get brackets and buy a headboard. Adulting is weird. 

Where a dissertation will be written, if it kills me

I have no idea what I'm doing but at least I feel like I can get going on whatever that is that I do not know I am doing. 

Rex says "Little old furry things are looking up"

The shame of motives late revealed

...the conscious impotence of rage 

   At human folly, and the laceration 
   Of laughter at what ceases to amuse.
And last, the rending pain of re-enactment 
   Of all that you have done, and been; the shame
   Of motives late revealed, and the awareness
Of things ill done and done to others' harm
   Which once you took for exercise of virtue. 
   Then fools' approval stings, and honour stains.
From wrong to wrong the exasperated spirit
   Proceeds, unless restored by that refining fire 

   Where you must move in measure, like a dancer.

-Four Quartets, Little Gidding, TS Eliot

The topic at the men's meeting that is my AA home group last night was resentment. Another one of those bizarre coincidences that happen so frequently in the recovery experience. The night before, the step work group had just started on step 4 (Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves) and our assignment for next Monday is to name two people toward whom we bear resentment and what the cause is. (This is basically the first 2 columns of a 4 column process-- more on the other two columns later-- let's just say the columns get harder as you go to the right). 

Also, the counselor suggested, yesterday, that I write a detailed letter of everything I wish I could say to the ex from a place of anger or even outright rage- he said "You know, a page or two." He doesn't know me very well yet. I have no idea if an "empty chair" process (think Clint Eastwood ranting at an invisible Obama?) will be productive or not. 

I do know from incontrovertible experience that the steps work. Step 4 is some of the most powerful voodoo in the whole set of tools. Not because it gets us finally to the simplest question regarding resentments (why are we angry?), but moves far past that to the ultimately liberating set of insights that arrive, whether we like them or not, when we start to discover and accept our own role in our situation. 

But before we get to the piercing vision of our own role and the acceptance of that truth, we have to walk right into the tire fire. 

"Being convinced that self, manifested in various ways, was what had defeated us, we considered its common manifestations. 

Resentment is the "number one" offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick. When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. In dealing with resentments, we set them on paper. We listed people, institutions or principles with whom we were angry. We asked ourselves why we were angry. In most cases it was found that our self-esteem, our pocketbooks, our ambitions, our personal relationships (including sex) were hurt or threatened. So we were sore. We were "burned up."

(Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 64 and 65)

Etymology of resentment:

1610s, from French ressentiment (16c.), verbal noun from ressentir (see resent).

"take (something) ill; be in some degree angry or provoked at," c. 1600, from French ressentir "feel pain, regret," from Old French resentir "feel again, feel in turn" (13c.), from re-, intensive prefix, + sentir "to feel," from Latin sentire (see sense (n.)). Related: Resented; resenting."

Synonyms: 

• acrimonystar
• animositystar
• animusstar
• annoyancestar
• antagonismstar
• bitternessstar
• cynicismstar
• displeasurestar

• exasperationstar
• furystar
• grudgestar
• ill willstar
• indignationstar
• irestar
• irritationstar
• malicestar

• outragestar
• passionstar
• ragestar
• rancorstar
• acerbitystar
• cholerstar
• dudgeonstar
• exacerbationstar

• fogstar
• huffstar
• hurtstar
• malignitystar
• miffstar
• offensestar
• perturbationstar
• piquestar

• risestar
• spitestar
• umbragestar
• vehemencestar
• vexationstar
• wrathstar
• bad feelingstar
• ill feelingstar

These emotional states are my natural reaction when the aspects of my self perception and my ego listed above (and more)-- self esteem, pocketbook, ambitions, personal relations, sex-- are hurt or threatened. Already, I'm leading a double life, because I'm not expressing that I feel threatened or hurt. I'm trying to get to power by expressing anger, by displaying a forceful reaction rather than the honest weakness of my position. This duplicity is built into my entire emotional life until I begin to recognize it, and, often, long after that. 

While I might think my expression of anger is a display of power. it more often appears like this to others who have a more honest place to stand in the situation, for whatever reason:

When you're new in recovery, at first you feel a sense of adventure or eagerness to get going on your grudge list and get all of your resentments on paper. "Finally, someone is going to listen to all the wrongs I have suffered!" What we don't tell you, you can easily find for yourself-- if you just keep reading.

"The first thing apparent was that this world and its people were quite often wrong. To conclude that others were wrong was as far as most of us got. The usual outcome was that people continued to wrong us and we stayed sore." (Alcoholics Anonymours, p. 65-66)

By the time we get to page 67, we are faced with the following complete reversal: "Putting out of our minds the wrongs others had done, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes. Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened? Though a situation had not been entirely our fault, we tried to disregard the other person involved entirely. Where were we to blame? The inventory was ours, not the other man's. When we saw our faults we listed them. We placed them before us in black and white. We admitted our wrongs honestly and were willing to set these matters straight."

That's the big voodoo of step 4. That, right there. A very hard turn to take, until it becomes more natural, almost like a habit. Especially hard when the wrongs of others are so apparent and easily conjured. And when it feels so powerfully that our own faults have caused a situation of such intense suffering that it seems looking straight at those facts would immolate us.

Looks like a road?

When is a road not a road?

Up at 4:30 today, another one of those journeys into plotting revenge, or thinking about what I would say if I had the chance (which I do not), or remembering very recent experiences of connection and fondness with the ex and grappling again with the surreality of my present circumstances. I pushed all of this futility aside in favor of rattling anxiety about my PhD program, how eternally behind I am, how much there is to do and how little head space I feel I have in which to get it done. 

But then, as I often do these days, I decided to get up out of bed (REI camp bed that leaks a little bit, in spite of 7 or 8 patch jobs). Coffee. Morning prayers. Into tackling one thing at a time. Started to work on the presentation for the California Botanical Society Graduate Student Symposium on the challenges of species distribution modeling over small spatial scales for rare plants. 

The only records for my study species in GBIF

Also started working on the presentation for a seminar I am in. Looking at integrating pollinator and herbivore interactions with plants, and the ways that herbivory changes phenology. 

Also made a list of all the shit I have to do today on a practical level. Coinstar to get rid of change. Ha, good luck getting rid of change. But. A very silly thing that will make a huge difference: a new clip for the window crank in my car, so that it stays on the crankshaft. As it is, I am picking up the window crank, putting it on the crankshaft, operating the window, putting the crank back down. Ridiculous. 

Yesterday, I finally fixed the window regulator on the driver's side. The window has not been rolling up for months. I think it stopped working back in October of 2016. This is how depression works. Tolerating broken shit is seemingly easier than getting it taken care of. Sometimes something kicks in and I'm actually capable of tackling stupid shit. Entropy-- what a bitch. 

Window regulator

Learning is odd also- a while back, I didn't even know what the fuck a window regulator was. Now I know how to replace one. Why do these things happen? Scarcity, for one thing. The estimate I got to replace this thing was $375. The part cost me $40. If I had money to burn, I would have just had it done. But there's something great about doing it yourself and knowing you saved $300. These little triumphs are actually not little at all. 

Good stepwork last night with a small group of men that gets together every Monday night. We are starting on a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, using a workbook called Big Book Awakening, an incredibly thorough approach developed by a guy named Dan Sherman. Apparently, Sherman was also a UFO conspiracy theorist. Interesting. My own real world is strange enough.

On the way home, along Baseline Rd., I stopped at a Panda Express for dinner. I was in such a state of emotional shock that I waited in line for about 30 minutes for truly substandard food. The music on the sound system was utterly awful, cloying, grating, sonic torture. But it didn't matter. The cast iron mattock of grief had hit me square in the forehead. There are times when I just completely check out. 

Counseling check in, teaching a human anatomy lab, AA home group tonight. Usually about 70 to 100 men in all stages of recovery or not. With luck, it'll be Tuesday night again.