The Joyful and the Worm

Last week, dear Lois of the Cross-Country-Save-The-Pets Odyssey invited me out of the blue to fly to the East Coast next month to celebrate her birthday and mine: if she paid my ticket, would I come? Well, wow!! Would I?!

But something new developed. On the one hand, pure joy at Lois' invitation; on the other, a gnawing, hollow, anxious feeling of "I don't deserve this." As luck would have it, that very same day three of us got together for a practice Voice Dialogue session. I was the last to be facilitated, and my pair of opposites were these two characters: the joyful and the worm. Both of them felt extraordinarily young. Both said they had been with me "forever." There was an interruption during my session, something Martha-Lou had warned us about as being potentially dangerous. I don't know about dangerous, but I did feel somehow split, half the mind tuned deeply inwards, the other listening to doors opening and closing and trying to identify sounds. I felt fragmented and it was a feeling that continued for some days. The presence of the two small children stayed with me: instead of sinking back to wherever they live, they were very much with me at all times, one on either side. I felt I was walking around with my arms around them. A weird feeling.

The next day, I saw HH. I told him about the invitation, my torn feelings and the Voice Dialogue. As a Gestalt therapist, he said, "Let's have them talk to each other here." I was alarmed: in Voice Dialogue the selves don't talk to each other. They don't even know another self exists. He said, rather grimly, "They'll talk with me." I insisted on having the center self present as well: in Voice Dialogue, center is the aware ego; I needed a home base, since both these two were exhausting. They appeared with no trouble at all. Cringing, clinging worm sat to my left, Happy Ali on the right. I sat between them and I could literally feel their presence, these small children, the one pressed up close to me, the other, trying so hard to be cocky and brave, but finally admitting, "I feel as if the sky is falling." I sat between them and mothered them, stroking the fabric of the couch (where I imagined they were sitting) with great tenderness. They cried through me, and I cried for them. As HH said, "All three of you are crying." It was quite a session. What it meant came much later.  I made HH tell me what had happened. He said, "You know what happened." I said, "I know - but she needs to hear it," nodding towards my right. So he addressed that little Ali who has tried so hard all these long years and who now sat there bewildered. What had she done wrong? HH was inspired: he told her, "You're still a part of her. You're not going anywhere. You're the one who can throw a party for forty people with no trouble; you're the one who can cheer people up by making them laugh. She can't do those things. Those things are your gift to her." She smiled then (does it sound mad to talk of 'she' in reference to myself?) and relaxed a little. I said to HH, "Do you remember when I first started coming here, you said I reminded you of the story of Atlas, holding the world on his shoulders? The similarity being that as a child I held my mother on my shoulders, my mother being my world? I feel now as if I have just set the world down. My hands feel so light." It was a cathartic moment. It wasn't that I had set down the burden of cheering up my mother. It was that I had set down the burden of being the Alison who needed to cheer up my mother.

That evening I hosted a meeting at my house. Only a few people from my little sub-committee could come so I had also invited the Advisory Committee. The AC is the committee that does the brunt of the work for Long Beach Meditation. Four people came. Three from my lot: one severely jet-lagged and sleep deprived, one in physical pain, one straight from a long day's work; and one lone member of the AC, up from the desert. Nobody else came from the AC. I was so angry that nobody showed up! Not only that, but nobody had even bothered to RSVP! I thought if THIS group of people can't be bothered to respond or show up, what does that say about the organization? My meeting had nothing to talk about without the others being there. I would have cancelled had I known they wouldn't show up. And so on and so on. Isn't it easy to slip into blame and anger? To get all spitty-faced and self-righteous because after all, look at me, doing the good thing, having my meeting and where were the rest of you... It hit me in the night. Who was it who was getting so bent out of shape? Yet another childish facet, dutiful, responsible, doing everything right according to her sights, in order to be accepted, win a few gold stars, get that pat on the head.

It was all so clear. Who is the one whose hand shoots up to volunteer for any old thing? Nothing is too much trouble, too much work or too time-consuming. And for what? To fill that nagging hole, to silence that wormy voice on the other side, the one that can only cry, "Not good enough!" If I am accepted by the group, better yet, if I make myself indispensable to the group, then I MUST be all right. And all of this chugs along unconsciously, as long as everything goes according to plan. When there's a glitch - when I throw a meeting to which nobody bothers to come, for example, and my reaction is a sort of self-justified muted rage - it becomes glaringly obvious that I have some other agenda going on, some need that isn't being met.

I've been doing this for a very long time. When Victor first invited me to be a member of the AC, my first and honest reaction was to say with a rueful laugh, "But I hate committees!" In the next breath, I hijacked myself with a speedy acceptance, so pleased was I to be a part of the inner sanctum. Thrilled to be chosen, because that must mean I was worth something.

So it has been a hard haul getting to this point two and a half years on. Who wants to admit to themselves that they are not half as good a person as they like to imagine they are? That they have been run for a lifetime by two little kids: one, the pleaser who knows so well how to make herself liked; the other, full of fear, holding all the negativity because the other, so much stronger and  forceful, will allow no part of it in her world.

My first thought was to disband my little committee; my second to detach from the AC. I feel that somehow these two little ones cannot be allowed to run the show anymore - no, 'allowed' is the wrong word. Poor things: they ran it because there was no-one to relieve them of the job. It had worked pretty well, after all - Happy Ali got me a good husband, a beautiful daughter, kind and generous friends, a life with enough leisure time to ponder all of the above. She had no idea that things were not as they appeared on the surface.

The thing is, knowing now what I know, I cannot continue as before. If there is an adult in this house, it is more than time for her to take charge and let those little ones rest. If things carry on as usual, what was the point of all the pain?

Me in my uniform, being cheerful.

Once upon a time, I decided crying served no purpose, sorrow changed nothing, and took a determinedly cheerful route. And at the time, I was absolutely right. I was a child without a voice and there was nothing to be done but make the best of it in the only way I knew how. To make myself be liked, to fit in, and the way to do that was to be happy because "Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone." My motto.  I find it interesting to realize that at boarding school, the place where I had no voice, I who was never sick, was sick at least once a term with tonsillitis. I lost my voice for real and as a result, I got to spend a few days in the Infirmary, being looked after as much as any of us were looked after, by the school nurse/nun. She was not in the least a cuddly nun, being the whitest, palest person I have ever seen, in a white habit yet, but she was a cool, competent grown-up, respected and capable, and I, who yearned to be looked after, at least felt safe if not loved with her.

A card I sent home when I was around 12. Pretty much sums up the way it was for six years of my life. In the picture marked 'change' I am changing my stockings and doing up my suspender, in case you're wondering what that black thing is.

Anyway. If I revert to things as before, then that little girl who had no voice way back then will continue to have no voice at 50 bloody 7. How can I, knowing what I know, go on as before? For all of the four previous Beginners' Courses, I have been there every Sunday from 1 to 5pm, doing the registration, the greeting, taking the form back at the end of the day, updating it on the computer, sending it off to the treasurer, printing it out for the following week. Even when my cousin was here on a once in a lifetime visit from Australia, at the same time as my beloved daughter was down from Berkeley, I made sure I took precious time to do that job. It was my DUTY.

I cannot think of anyone who would do that, everyone else seems to have such clear priorities. How did mine get so skewed? I cringe to remember an incident when Helen was in high school and I was teaching: she scarily fainted twice as we were getting ready to leave the house. I had never seen anyone faint before and it scared me to death. I called the paramedics and even though she had come around, they loaded her in the ambulance to take her to the hospital to find out what was wrong. I went back inside to get ready for school. Minutes passed and the doorbell rang. It was a fireman.

I was surprised they were still there. "Um. We're waiting for you. Are you ready?" he asked. "No, no. You go on ahead," I said, trusting them to do their job. Helen was safe. I had to get to school and arrange my classroom for a sub. THEN I would go to the hospital. When I got to school and told them in the Office what had happened, and the principal asked, "But where is Helen now?" "In the hospital," I said. They practically pushed me out the door to go to her. I remember being confused. Surely doing my DUTY - my teacher job - was more important than being a mommy?
Oh God.

The Oh God comes from this. From right this minute, realizing I have internalized both of my parents' opposing voices, only they are playing from an eerily childish perspective. This is how my priorities got skewed. A common scenario: My mother, shy, bookish, intellectual, hating the superficiality of diplomatic social life, suffering from ferocious migraines, begging my father to be allowed to stay home - or if they had to go to some such cocktail party, that he would promise that they would leave early. Dad, so English, so pragmatic, also sociable and charming, would say in disgust, "Pull yourself together, Maryse!" Showing a rare irritation in his voice, "How can we decide now to come home early? We might be having a lovely time. Why are you always so negative!" And she, with her pain and her migraine, like that was dismissed. She would deflate, literally sag, while he scolded her. She became invisible. And I, the quiet onlooker, Daddy's girl, must have determined in some dim corner of myself, that I would do my duty, I wouldn't let the side down - and there, plucky, cheerful, dutiful, all those things sprang into being to counteract my mother's perceived weakness. So that years and years later, I could abandon my teenage daughter in a screaming ambulance going to who knows where, as she was suffering from who knows what. And abandon her again (along with my cousin) to check in the Beginners' class. I wonder how many times I have abandoned her in this way? As many as my father abandoned my mother, I would imagine.

My volunteering to do it all was part of this 'isn't Alison wonderful' campaign being waged by the little girl. It worked too, didn't it? Except that the approval I was really seeking, my father's, my mother's - ah well, I will never get that, will I? In that last week before my Dad died, he told my sister that she was "the best daughter a man could wish for." I loitered around his bedside, hoping he would tell me I was also a pretty damn good daughter too, but he never said it. Words! He died in my arms, but he never said he loved me. I've been searching for my father's love my whole life. I only found that out today.

It is a terrific joke on the part of the Universe, a masterpiece of timing, that today happens to be the day that my self-appointed father/mother figure, poor long-suffering Victor, is signing the lease on a place in Ojai. Which means he will be dividing his time between Long Beach and Ojai, which is about two hours away. I imagine that he will spend more and more of his time in Ojai, leaving us here to get on with it. To the child - the whole bloody kindergarten in me - this is abandonment all over again, except instead of me being sent away to boarding school, Victor as parent is sending himself away. I thought I was okay with it, had become used to the idea, but for him to be signing the lease on this particular day, in this particular time period, seems especially significant.

In Voice Dialogue, every facilitation is designed to strengthen the aware ego. It is not a place one can live out of, apparently, although one can aspire to. My greatest fear is that here I am, deeply aware of the children who at last see a chance to lay their heads down and rest - and is the adult strong enough to pick up the reins? Am I strong enough? Brave enough? Aware enough? So many years of conditioning to work against. So much easier to say 'stuff it' and go back - only, I can't go back! I see creepy motives behind every little thing I say or do, and where once I thought I was wholly good, now I see how dependent I am on others' good opinion. Most of what I do has the aim of pleasing others. And if it's not forthcoming - look out! Krishnamurti asks if it is possible for us "to live with what we actually are, knowing ourselves to be dull, envious, fearful, believing we have tremendous affection when we have not, getting easily hurt, easily flattered and bored - can we live with all that, neither accepting it nor denying it, but just observing it without becoming morbid, depressed or elated?"

Can we live with all that? Can I? I have no idea. What happens now? I do know that my meditation practice has suddenly received an infusion of energy. Perhaps all that energy I was channeling elsewhere is now available for me to use for my own purposes. I have lost three pounds, after spending weeks and weeks on a gentle gain. I am positive that fat is an excellent defense, a way to feel safe, at least for me. I had a dream at the start of this period, that someone was pushing to get into the house and I was pushing on the door trying to keep them out. Trying to scream to my husband , "Unwelcome intruder!" but I had no voice. And whoever it was, pushing from the other side, was winning. Who was that out there? Was it that poor little disowned self, the little worm? No, it felt big, angry, powerful, but maybe it felt like that because I was so afraid of it. Woke up before I saw what it was, heart pounding, sweaty, nightmare symptoms. Perhaps there is simply something in me pushing to the surface that is saying "Enough! I won't be shut away in the dark any longer!"

Snuffy, Spirit Guide aka Circus Dog

I've been crying a lot. Grieving my Snuffy, my little dog who had to be put down 18 months ago. He was twelve years old, but had been sick for five years with a chronic illness. Back in my twenties, I had a blind psychic friend who told me my spirit guide was a black dog. Somehow I imagined a big dog, like a labrador. A couple of days ago, it occurred to me it could have been a small black fluffy dog; my spirit guide could have been Snuffy. Made me cry. I have not cried for him until now, not once, always managing to say with great common sense, "Well, he was in such a bad way. It would have been one thing if he'd been run over, if he'd been young... but you wouldn't have wanted him to live a minute longer than he did, the way he was." Which are - come to think of it - exactly the same words I have used about my father, wasting away with cancer. I haven't cried for him either, once past the day he died.

Everything is related. Everything repeats, until we get it.

I don't think there is a darn thing I can do about any of it except remain open, inquire into everything and be honest with myself. And start saying no, or at least, "Can I get back to you on that?" That would be a start.

I have faith that it is ultimately good: I created a 'Beyond a Vision Board' just a few short weeks ago in my writing class; it's like a collage filled with images and words that appeal to you right where you are, not aiming at some future time. Mine is filled with images of mothers and children, prayer hands and water, and the words 'Open to Change with Heart' and 'You are You. Whole.'

Whoever that is.

My 'Beyond a Vision Board'

P.S. Writing all this out feels like an enormous weight has dropped away. I thought, if Lois rescinds her invitation, it won't matter, because I have learned so much that I would not have learned otherwise. Instead, today a long phone call followed a flurry of emails and together we booked my flights, made plans, became giddy with excitement. Pure joy and gratitude. No hidden worm.

All Day Silent Meditation Retreat

 I have been to so many of Long Beach Meditation's silent retreats in the past two years, I forget how daunting it was in the beginning, to sit and walk and eat mindfully and in complete silence for hours on end. Now I welcome the silence. I am such a busybody normally, as if someone appointed me Official Helper and my role is to be ever vigilant, leaping to the rescue - never mind whether the person wants to be saved or not. As Victor wrote to me, "But when one jumps in to "save" someone, who are they really trying to save.  So many times, we just cannot stand the pain someone else's suffering causes us.  It is like the story of the butterfly emerging from it chrysalis - if you try to help it, you injure it permanently." I understood then that I am eternally trying to save my mother, who suffered more than anyone I knew, and since I failed to "save" her, I keep trying (unconsciously) with others, and of course that doesn't work so well either. What it does do is reinforce those feelings of 'not good enough.' The past once more reaching out a ghostly hand to stir the pot of the unthinking present.

Zeeba in a box

We did discuss this, HH, my therapist and teacher of a different ilk, and I, the day before the retreat. I told him all about Sasha's workshop and the uncovering of 'not good enough' and all its sad consequences. He gave me homework, something to consider over the next fortnight: "Do I matter if I am not being helpful or cheering people up, and if so, how?" Good question. How do any of us earn our place in the world - and why must it even be earned? It is something that so strikes me with animals: my cat who balances on my shoulder, leans down and gently closes my nostril with her paw to wake me up in the morning, makes her demands known as a matter of course, and trusts that the people in her universe will provide. Such huge trust our pets show us, that of course they have a right to jump all over things and act as if they own the place and we will look after them just because. How did we lose that same sense of belonging? I suppose because our universe, unlike our pets', is unstructured and unsafe - anything can happen at any time. Of course that is also true in our pets' world too - there are earthquakes and house fires and accidents that we can't prevent - but the illusion is that we can keep these creatures entrusted to us safe, and since they don't know any better, they play along so we can all feel safe, at least until it inevitably comes crashing down. We put our pets in a box of our own design, and take care of them perhaps as we secretly wish someone would take care of us.

So the first thing on Saturday at the retreat was to bring the focus out of the head, out of thinking mind and into the present. The effort involved makes it abundantly clear, at least to me, that control is an illusion. It is enormously difficult to keep the attention on what is happening moment by moment. Victor described our minds as computers, whose job it is to learn a procedure as quickly as possible so that it becomes automatic. Obviously a useful survival skill. But now, the effect of that hard-won automaticity is that we rarely look out at the world with new eyes; everything is filtered through the totality of our experiences to date: from the general - gender, nationality, religion - to the specific - our upbringing, childhood, schools attended - to the minutiae of any given moment - hunger, fatigue, even the bloody weather. An overcast day gives rise to a completely different state of mind than a bright sunny one.

So we slow everything down in a retreat in order to look closely at the robotic programming and break the pattern. This is especially apparent in walking meditation. Since it is so difficult to sustain concentration (and I'm talking the sort of concentration that causes you to break out in a sweat), Victor suggested trying to hold the attention for short intervals - maybe five minutes at most - and concentrating on walking, by slowly, slowly raising the foot, lifting it in the air, moving it forward, setting it down. He demonstrated what this looked like. His movements were incredibly slow, the minutest increments, aware every second what was happening in the body. Meditators in other traditions tend to laugh at Vipassana meditators for creeping about like robots, but in fact what is happening in the mind is anything but robotic. That's the whole point. To be aware of the tiniest sensation throughout the body, as it engages in something as ordinary as walking.

Walking meditation

In the second walking meditation (having already zipped far too quickly through the first, intent on the restroom and a cup of coffee, nothing mindful about any of that except to hurry up before the bell signaled time was up), with Victor's challenge fresh in mind, I happened to stand up on my zabuton, the larger cushion upon which my meditation cushion was perched, rather than the floor itself. Some of our zabutons are a heavy foam rectangle but this one was more like a pillow shaped like a square, stuffed with down. Because it is uneven, it proved to be extraordinarily difficult to stand and walk on mindfully. I tried closing my eyes and almost fell over. Lifting one foot in tiny increments was easy - any larger movement done as slowly and I would have toppled for sure.

I felt like a baby learning to walk, weight listing from side to side, trying to find a centered place of balance. That moment when the foot absolutely must leave the ground felt as perilous as jumping out of an airplane not knowing if your parachute will open. I had to fight the urge not to get down on hands and knees and scuttle to safety. So creeping in this manner off my zabuton and over to the door of the hall on two wobbly legs took an intense amount of time. I barely made it to the door when the bell rang and it was time to turn around and creep right back again. Seated once more on the cushion, it was interesting to transfer that same level of concentration to keeping the mind on the belly breathing. At one point I could feel myself flush with the heat of the effort and my scalp prickle with sweat. Of course the moment I was aware of it ("Oh look! I'm concentrating so hard I'm sweating!"), it stopped. And I was reminded of Victor's analogy of the mind when it stills being like a forest pool, and all the little critters feeling safe enough to come out and show their faces. Some of the critters are so skittish, they dive back into the undergrowth the second they have been noticed. Who knew sweat could be skittish.

The day continued to unfold in its untethered way. One of the best things about a retreat is the putting down of the paraphernalia of time. One person is the designated bell ringer and rings a small handbell to signal a return to our seats. For the rest of us, we are able to let go the whole concept. Like not speaking, not watching the clock is tremendously liberating. A whole day in which to do nothing but watch your mind and get to know it a little better. If last week's workshop was all about what Sasha termed the 'descending' (psychological) work, this silent meditation retreat was all about the 'ascending' (spiritual) work. I realized they are two halves of the same coin and must be done together. To do the psychological without being grounded in meditation and the body keeps the work too much in the head, at the level of thought; to do the spiritual work without the corresponding psychological work can become a New-Agey exercise in spiritual bypassing (meaning you sweep the messy emotions under the rug because all is now supposed to be sweetness and light). Pema Chodrun writes:

"... it is helpful to understand that meditation is not just about feeling good. To think this is why we meditate is to set ourselves up for failure. We'll assume we are doing it wrong almost every time we sit down: even the most settled meditator experiences psychological and physical pain. Meditation takes us just as we are, with our confusion and our sanity. This complete acceptance of ourselves as we are is called maitri, or unconditional friendliness, a simple direct relationship with the way we are."

This was the aim of both weekends, to begin to establish that "simple direct relationship with the way we are." Workshop and retreat demanded an honest exploration of self: the one through inquiry into body sensations uncovering deep emotions, the other through sensation in the body developing concentration and mindfulness. Neither had anything to do with thought.

                    ******************************************************

I wrote a poem after an All Day Retreat, in January 2010. I understand what I wrote a whole lot better now, and for sure it is much harder than I imagined then! But here it is - it does capture a little of the spirit of the thing.


Singular Heart  by Alison Cameron

The beautiful quote that inspired the poem:
“The wise enshrine the miraculous bones of the ancients within
themselves.”

We converge in the early morning,
singular minds and sturdy bodies
settling on our separate mats,
clutching our complicated stories,
social smiles pasted on wary faces.
We shield our battered hearts and
hide our collective eye.

As watery sun inches across pellucid sky
we sit and walk
and walk and sit
with measured step and even breath
training monkey mind.

Slowly, imperceptibly,
the marrow of our ancestors
infuses our bones as
we show our soft underbelly
stretched out like the dead.

Trust, says our Teacher,
Turn the Light within.

Sitting tall at close of day
the barking dog is still.
The sweet song
of a singular bird
calls out with her small clear voice.
As if in response,
our singular selves rise up and merge
to fill the room with one singular mind
thrumming like a tuning fork
to the communion of sorrow shared in our silent world.
Our light shines -
no, blinds -
through the cracks in our vulnerable hearts.

I am undone.

Three Days on Retreat at Yokoji Zen Center

The Path - actually the road to the retreat center.

Well, a few more little detours on the path to digging into the early years. I guess I'm not looking forward to going there. Although I don't think the detours are detours at all. They are the Path itself. Of course, your life is your path. Meaning, as my extraordinary niece learned after spending ten days in the Amazon on retreat with a shaman (now there's a story!), that your specific life is your path: everything that happens to you, every person you meet, has something to teach you. That's an exciting thought, isn't it?  So it's important to look at the so-called interruptions and see how they figure in the scheme of things. I had three big ones in the past couple of weeks. My daughter flew down from Berkeley to spend her birthday week with us; my cousin from Australia unexpectedly arrived for three days on Friday; I drove Helen back up to Berkeley the following Tuesday, and came back to Long Beach the next day (long drive!); and Thursday was the beginning of our three day silent meditation retreat at a remote Zen center a fair drive away from home.

Helen as tiny snow angel

Any time I spend with my daughter is a happy time. She turned 22, and chose to come home to spend her first birthday with us in four years (since college). She strengthens me, gives me courage in myself, simply by her presence. That she wants to spend time with me makes me think perhaps I haven't been too shabby a mother. This is not a question that secretly begs reassurance: I believe your mother essentially stops being your mother at whatever age you are when you leave home. I had my mother until I was eleven; after that, I feel I brought myself up, muddling through with the help of my peers at boarding school. My mother was simply not there. So once Helen passed eleven, I was flying blind. Add to that strange American rituals like sleep-overs, proms, high-school electives, driver's ed, parent-teacher conferences, FAFSA, dating - all of which I had either managed on my own or never experienced. I was at a loss as to how to shepherd my daughter through many of these alien rites of passage. That she managed, we managed, is more testament to her than me, with a huge nod of thanks to her Dad, my husband, who is American and grew up in a large family with the kind of Mom I would love to have had. So all this to explain that whenever Helen rolls back into our lives, she brings a jolt of joy.

But something else. She also puts me back in the role of Mom. Remember Martha-Lou, the Voice Dialogue lady, advising me to find time every day to let myself cry? This is hard to do when you are being Mom. I don't care how old or mature your child is, it is surely disturbing to hear your mother say, "Excuse me, dear, I have to go cry now." So, I didn't.

Michele, my Australian cousin

Helen's arrival closely followed by my cousin's was surely no accident. This cousin is a middle child in a family of eight. Her father is my mother's brother, who was as terrifying to his children growing up as my mother was to my sister and me. My cousin took a different tack. Instead of becoming a people pleaser and an all round good girl, she rebelled. At 17, she decided she had had enough of being quiet and shy and set out to change herself. A little younger than I, she has become quite fearless, traveling the world by herself, independent and comfortable in her own skin. She is blunt and direct, fiercely proud of her wrinkles ("I earned every one of them and I don't want anyone telling me I look younger than my age. I am proud of my age and how far I've come!"), a sort of warrior woman, and just who I needed to come visit at a time when I'm feeling a little precarious. Her blood is in me, after all. But here's what she taught me. Sunday morning and I was torn between conflicting duties: my regular Sunday at Long Beach Meditation, checking in the beginners for the new series of meditation classes; and my cousin on a once in a lifetime trip to America; and Helen 's visit. I was agonizing over this until Michele said mildly, "Why not do what you want to do." Her words stopped me short. I have a choice? I can do what I want? An idea so rare it brought tears to my eyes. In the end, I checked in the beginners but chose not to stay, Helen went for a bike ride with her Dad, and Michele and I went whale watching, spending a splendid afternoon sighting hundreds of dolphins and many blue whales.

Yokoji, the Zen monastery that was our retreat center

By the time the retreat came around, I had been busy doing, driving, planning and coping for days. I was more than ready to set it all down and be quiet. I envisaged a peaceful time in this rustic setting: we were staying in a real Zen monastery, in the mountains below Idyllwild, about three hours away from Long Beach. The monastery, called Yokoji, was off the grid: electricity came from solar power and a small generator. No cell phone reception, no paved roads, shared accommodations and loos, a communal bathhouse, vegetarian fare and no dessert apart from fruit. Two resident golden labradors and one visiting very friendly pitbull. Bring your own sleeping bag and pillow and bath towel. I envisaged a rough, semi-camping experience, and was pleasantly surprised to find it far nicer than I'd anticipated. We spent so little time in our rooms that the bare bones of the sleeping arrangements was not a problem. And enough loos were dotted about the place that that wasn't a problem either. We spent our days either inside the zendo (the meditation hall), or walking outside, 30 or 45 minute sits alternating with 30 or 45 minute walking meditations. We had an hour's rest after lunch, an hour of yoga in the afternoon and in the evening, an hour's dharma talk given by Victor. The day began supposedly at 6 a.m., but I was usually awake earlier than that and in the hall by 5 or 5:30. The last sit was over at 10 p.m..

Victor walking down from his cabin, being greeted by one of the resident dogs.

Friday, after the first walking meditation, Victor challenged us to break our patterns. We sit like statues, he said, hardly daring to move, trying so hard to be "good little meditators". And then we go outside and pet the dogs, stare at the mountains, walk at our usual brisk clip. So the question is, can we take our meditation off the cushion? Can we break our patterns, so ingrained, so persistent? Victor suggested the only way he knew how to do it was to slow everything way down, walking especially.

The beautiful butterfly wing

So at the next walking meditation, I walked back and forth over the wooden bridge. Two boards' width was exactly one foot length. Ten precise steps with each foot covered the bridge. Back and forth I trod, carefully, mindfully, placing each foot within the planks of wood, not lifting the one foot until the other was stable, synchronizing breathing and walking. After plodding back and forth many times, I noticed something sticking up between the boards: half of a butterfly wing, a beautiful wing, unusual, multi-colored, pink and blue and black. It was perfect. And I would never have noticed it if I hadn't deliberately been walking so very slowly! Happily, I picked it up, examined it and wondered what to do with it. I carried it back to our zendo in cupped hands. We had an altar upon which people were encouraged to place treasures. I hadn't brought a treasure, but now I had one. Later when we were sitting, I had to smile. Picking up the butterfly wing and putting it on the altar was such typical Ali behavior. "Look what I found!!" Even without words, sitting in silence,  it is possible to shout that message. So much for breaking patterns. The atypical thing would have been to have left the wing alone for someone else to notice in wonder, when they were walking slowly and mindfully across the bridge. I considered taking the wing and stuffing it back where I had found it, but thought that would be silly. Still, the whole incident underscored how being aware of patterns - let alone breaking them - is a moment by moment affair.

A second, related theme of the weekend was, do we take refuge in awareness or in the personality? The whole thrust of our being is to take refuge in the personality, in the self. We say, "That's just the way I am. That's me!" Yet the self is impermanent, thoughts are fleeting, emotions too. Ajahn Sumedho, the wonderful American Buddhist monk whom we are studying on Wednesday nights says,
"The mood comes and goes. It changes, revolves; it's happy, sad, elated, depressed, inspired, bored, loving, hateful, and on and on like this. According to the conditions that come together at this point, then the mood is this way. It's so easy to say, "Oh, I'm in a bad mood" or "I'm in a good mood." Our language is like that, so we become the mood. "I feel happy today, everything's fine" or "Today is one of my bad days." That's why I encourage this investigation of thought, so that you're not creating yourself, endlessly reinforcing the sense of a self through your proliferating thoughts."
p. 230, The Sound of Silence 

Picnic tables on the right

I sat writing about this at a picnic table after lunch that first day, intoxicated by the scent of the pine trees all around, the sun warm on my back, the breeze gentle. It was perfect. Then I thought, imagine if it were cold, rainy, muddy... The monk who gave us our orientation talk told us that just the day before our arrival there had been a hail storm such as he had never seen in seven years of living on the mountain. Hail stones as big as golf balls. So imagine if it was like that. Would I be feeling so mellow? No. Taking refuge in the personality with its "proliferating thoughts" then is dangerous, just like Ajahn Sunedho said - we are "sensitive," dependent on too many factors, any one of which can change at any moment: weather, temperature, bodily aches and pains... (Ah, but when everything is good! Then "God's in His Heaven, all's right with the world"... and it's almost impossible to summon up energy to inquire within).

Victor sitting in front of the altars, big and little

Friday night's dharma talk was for me one of those electrifying talks that Victor conjures up at least once on retreat. Here is the quote around which he built his talk:

"The empty mind cannot be purchased at the altar of demand; it comes into being when thought is aware of its own activities - not the thinker being aware of his thought."
J. Krishnamurti, 
Only Revolution California Part 3

"When thought is aware of its own activities..." that would be us! WE are thought, the thinker IS thought. Not simply being aware of our thoughts, "Oh, that's just a thought!" But that which is thinking, "Oh, that's just a thought!" is itself a thought! The empty mind is the mind that realizes this. Hard to do, you're - er - thinking. Well, yes. From the standpoint of the ego, impossible. Because the ego is the part that thinks. Awareness - that which we truly are - does not think. It reflects. It mirrors back what is. But we have allowed the thinking mind to take over to such an extent, our sliver of pure awareness is almost lost. And this is why we must work so hard at something that is probably quite simple: being quiet and still in the mind. Being with what is, moment to moment, without reference to thought, to memories past, or expectations for the future. When you sit for any amount of time and try to stay in the present moment, you immediately see how difficult this is. As Victor has noted, the mind has a tremendous resistance to staying in the present. It has nothing to do. And if it has nothing to do, it catches a whiff of its own mortality and it panics. Who am I, without thought? Incessant thought, that critical voice in the head that endlessly comments and judges and compares and analyzes. Whatever else it is, it feed us the illusion that we are not alone. Stephen King, master of horror, said, "Alone. Yes, that's the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn't hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym."

The thinking mind is robotic, mechanical. You can argue that it's not, but the proof for me was when I was doing The Artist's Way, writing three pages every morning without fail for twelve weeks straight. In the ninth week we were instructed to go back and reread what we had written. And what a shocker to find that certain thoughts played out compulsively over and over again, each time written as if I'd never had that thought before. In fact I would have sworn it was brand new. Yet here was the proof. Pages and pages of repeats. The Voice Dialogue work shed a little light on that: maybe the thought seemed new because each time a new persona was thinking it, and since they have no interest in speaking to each other, don't want to know each other's thoughts, then perhaps for that one it is in fact a new thought. (I don't know if this is true. It's just a thought!)

So for me the galvanizing thing Friday night was when Victor told us this: "Imagine that you have just been given a spiritual book. One that you have searched for, longed to read for years, and at last, in this very beautiful library, the book is placed in your hands." He continued, "Wouldn't you read every word, every page, of that book with interest and curiosity? Now..." (drumroll) "...imagine that you are that rare book. You must learn to read yourself, your thoughts, your mind, with equal interest and curiosity."

"Know thyself"

After this dharma talk, I was wide awake, mind racing. If we hadn't been in Noble Silence, I would have been up all night discussing this. Isn't it funny how an idea can spark something? I felt like a keen college student, exposed for the first time to Big Ideas. I loved being that book in the library. Because it seemed to bring together all the strands we have been reading and talking about lately. And for me it also seemed to marry the psychological work to the spiritual, which is usually quite a conundrum: How to bolster the self on the one hand only to knock it down with the other?

So I was thinking, if awareness is a mirror, it is reflected through the self. Each of us has our own unique self through which to reflect back out into the world this awareness, which in fact we share with every living thing. Call it energy, if you like. You can have bright energy, high energy, low energy. Your job then is to polish your mirror, your self, so that what you reflect back into the world is bright and clear-seeing. So yes to therapy, to self-examination. Chogyam Trungpa spoke of spiritual bypassing - how much easier it would be, to just hurtle over the murky bits of the self and get straight to the calm sitting. But it doesn't work like that. The things you do not face simply go underground; they do not disappear. Maybe you will be able to tiptoe through life avoiding the thing that will trigger you - but since you are likely unaware there even is a trigger, how do you know what to avoid? Until the unfortunate day when that buried aspect of yourself comes roaring out, to everyone's surprise, but mostly your own.

All my life I have leaped over the sad bits of my life, like a super-hero leaping over tall buildings in a single bound, eager to get on with it, with life, with its seemingly continuous forward motion. I bought my family's unspoken motto, "Never look back, never go back." Now I am finding out that I must go back and revisit every dreary floor - I like the image of trudging up and down each skyscraper, in and out of all its rooms, down the corridors, the elevator shafts.

The funny thing is, after we have done the work, spent the effort reading every line of our one book, it seems we will find that the book wasn't the thing at all. After all, it is one book among billions, a single volume in that library containing a copy of every book ever written. So what? Is it the library, is that it? The container of all those individual stories? As the ocean is to the little wavelets on its surface, each wave unique yet part of the whole? So what's the point of reading our own story so carefully? Is it to discover the commonality of our stories? If I plumb my own depths, will it increase my compassion for others? There are only so many plots after all...

Talk about "proliferating thoughts."

I had an interview with Victor the following morning, still brimming with excitement over these ideas. We sat outside at a picnic table. I told him how much I loved the idea of reading the book in the library. Mildly, he pointed out the fatal flaw - "WHO is reading the book?" Aaaargh. He added, "Why does there have to be anyone reading the book? It is being read." So imagine that. There is nothing to do, nothing to be. It just is. Hard to fathom this! I love words, I love analyzing and yes, thinking. And analyzing and thinking provide a good cover for not doing the actual work. HH tells me the same thing. So often I will plunge into an intellectual discussion, while he keeps trying to bring me back to feeling, as in, "What are you feeling right now?" Most of the time, I haven't a clue or don't want to know. Who wants to be sad? I'd rather live in my head.

So here I am on retreat, thought firing on all cylinders, and Victor is warning me that the mind is very clever, it can find connections between anything. My clever mind is busy doing just that. I can spin a good story about investigating elevator shafts, but in fact I am back to my old trick of leaping over the tall buildings, aka messy emotions, flying high on pure thought.

Meanwhile, something else is going on. I noticed during the first full day, Friday, whenever I was feeling particularly upbeat and happy, for instance during the little story of the butterfly wing, there would follow a tearful interlude. Nothing dramatic, just a little drip of cold tears. They weren't even accompanied by great physical sensations, no tightening in the throat or heaviness in the chest, just a steady drip of tears. In the restroom below the zendo was a little card tacked to the wall - "In case of cold weather, please don't turn the tap off completely." I knew enough about cold climates to know the dangers of pipes bursting from frozen water expanding. I thought the stream of my cold tears was analogous to relieving pressure in the pipes. I thought to myself that this was the little girl from Voice Dialogue, the one who holds the sorrow, feeling safe enough to show her face and gently weep. It was all very calm and measured and actually rather pleasant.

Somehow I lost control. I wish I could tell you how it happened. And why. It would be nice to be so aware I could pinpoint the exact thought that set me off. But truth is, I can't say for certain what happened. By Saturday afternoon, the sorrow was growing, the tears less polite, the sensations in the body becoming unbearable, until I knew that sooner or later I was going to break down. I thought yoga wold help - it usually does - but when I found tears sliding into my ears while lying in savasana, I knew meltdown was impossible to avoid. The very next sit, the one right after yoga which is usually the best one as far as I'm concerned, the pipes burst. Luckily I remembered that at Goenka they would escort you outside not just for laughter (as I knew firsthand), but also for sobbing. In both cases, the sounds and emotions can infect others. So when I felt an unstoppable "ugly cry" arising, I got up from my seat and with a panicked glance at Victor and a vague wave at my face, fled the zendo.

My room, there's my bed right by the door.

I charged down the hill and into the room I shared with Wendy. I threw myself on my bed and sobbed as if my heart would break. The same thing had happened at last year's retreat, but in the morning. And it didn't last as long, nor was it as severe. And I managed to chatter to myself, before, during and after, about what was happening and what it might mean. This time around, there were no words or thoughts in my head. Just sobs, just like during the Voice Dialogue session. It helped a lot having that behind me. I wasn't panicked about a need to attach the tears to a particular story.  Goenka again said something useful about our stories - that the story is only necessary to lead us back to the emotion. Once you feel the emotion, you can let go of the story and simply stay in the body. So the thing here was to cry it out. I felt like a child who is overtired and cries for no reason - but still needs to cry. I did go on and on with the crying, and felt a little frightened. I wondered if I'd ever being able to stop. Then Wendy came to the room after the sit and in silence stood next to me, in silence rubbed my back like the good mother she is. After a long while I was able to whisper, "I'm ok." Thank God Wendy had been part of the Voice Dialogue workshop and had seen that sobbing child before. Plus she's a therapist and one of my strong supports. I frightened myself, but I didn't frighten her. It was a huge help. Eventually she left for supper and later I found out she asked the Yokoji people to put a plate of food aside for me. She whispered to me it was "up the stairs in the kitchen" but I didn't know where the kitchen was, and since I wasn't hungry, I didn't hunt for it. But I appreciated her kindness.

My favorite Buddha

After Wendy left and while the others were eating supper, I washed my face and escaped from the room. I took my notebook and pen and held them tightly, words ever my lifeline, although I didn't write. And I walked all over the property. There are Buddhas scattered about the place, stone ones with big ears, wooden ones, carved ones, big ones, even a funny little one wearing real clothes, an orange bathcap and robe. I found my favorite, a tall androgynous Buddha with fresh purple flowers around his/her head and a small child looking up beseechingly.

Big yellow comforting dog

I sat next to it and for the first time noticed a tall wooden pole next to me. It had five sides, each side with words painted upon it. The side facing me read, "Buddha Spirituality. Experience No Separation." Which so fit with what I had thought all those hours ago in the morning, about why we must study our own little books in order to better understand one another, that I copied it into my notebook. Then I felt self-conscious to be caught mooning about on a rock next to the Buddha, face all puffy with tears, so I walked about some more. The dining hall was empty by now so I made myself a cup of tea and took it out to the picnic table where one of the big dogs was stretched out.  I put my head down on her yellow fur and cried. I think many people have done this very thing because she knew just what to do. She turned her head and licked my face, lay back down and let me cry on her some more. When I was quiet, she got up and moved to the end of the table and I made my way back to the zendo.

Tran hugging me in the silence

Tran and some of the others were outside, looking up at the setting sun reflected on the mountain. Tran is my beautiful young friend who always makes me laugh. She hugged me with such strong arms I could carry on with the evening's program. (In an aside, Tran played a large part in last year's retreat. This year, when we were allowed to speak, I told her, "I think we've grown up a bit since last year." At least we weren't wildly inappropriate and there's a switch).

When I finally did get to bed, I could hardly sleep and next morning I was up and dressed in the dark and in the zendo by 5. Someone was doing yoga stretches at one end of the room and I wrote in my notebook at the other. I wrote about the night before, all those tears, that there was no reason. And that it's all thought, isn't it? Anything I write is a thought. A thought put into words. If it can be put into words, it's a creation. Was it that idea - that we are thoughts - that on some level is so bleak? But that thought is itself a thought. How the mind can occupy itself, going round and round in thought.

We are not vegetables if we don't think. I think that is the fear. (My fear. One of them.) There is much beyond thought, beyond the descriptive power of words.

 For instance, the words to the left, by Brian Andreas, read:
"I read once that the ancient Egyptians had fifty words for sand and  the Eskimos had a hundred words for snow. I wish I had a thousand words for love, but all that comes to mind is the way you move against me while you sleep and there are no words for that."

"There are no words for that." Yet we "know" just what he means. When I speak of the comfort in Wendy's hand rubbing my back, or Tran's strong embrace, you can imagine how it felt. Words are the signpost to something beyond thought. But we've invested thought with such importance that now we must go through contortions to turn ourselves off. I do realize the hand, the embrace, the sense of touch, are still creations, still "things" arising from the senses, from this conditioned realm. But we start where we are, and here is where I am. I imagine pure awareness is that empty stage and all the little selves quiet. Nobody wanting anything from anyone. And there. Silence. Of course in the imagining, I conjure up another creation...

Life is not linear after all, but a spiral. These reflections are not very different from last year's retreat reflections. Then I wrote after that crying jag:
"My little girl, felt in the tight heart of the night before, was the one who was shattered. After spending an entire, excruciating year clawing her way into the light, now she is dismissed, and told she is "only a thought?" Oh no! This was a plunge back into darkest pit."

Ajahn Sumedho again, "When the self starts to break up, some people find that it becomes very frightening, because everything you have regarded as solid and real starts falling apart." What's different is that each go round, it seems what I thought I understood, I only understood intellectually. It has to be experienced in the body. As Victor wrote a year ago, "There is no path that skirts your crying, Alison." I didn't understand that then. Perhaps I couldn't. Not sure I fully understand it now, it runs counter to years and years of programming and change is not easy. And now I have come full circle: this is where I began, trying to break the old patterns. The retreat showed just what a monumental task that is.

When we were no longer in Noble Silence on Sunday, I told Wendy I think we live our lives from the tip of the iceberg. And we haven't a clue what's going on below. Hardly an original thought but I understood it in my bones. Also that I felt as if I never needed to overeat again. That lasted until the next meal, but at the time it felt like I no longer needed a padding of fat to cushion life's edges. I did feel lighter, as if all those tears had shucked off a great swathe of old sorrow. How, why, to what purpose or for how long, who knows. My aunt, my mother's sister, says I am reclaiming my childhood, my self. We will see where it goes. If I say I have a destination, I am looking for a certain outcome, I am setting up expectations and am no longer open to what is. So we shall have to see.

And probably at our next retreat, I will spiral around once more to these same reflections and I will cry and be shocked and write about them as if they were brand new.  But hopefully I'll expose a little more of the iceberg. (What did I just say about setting expectations?!)

Victor read us more from Krishnamurti on Saturday night:
"The sky is very blue, the blue that comes after the rain, and these rains have come after many months of drought.  After the rain the skies are washed clean and the hills are rejoicing, and the earth is still.  And every leaf has the light of the sun on it, and the feeling of the earth is very close to you.  So meditate in the very secret recesses of your heart and mind, where you have never been before."

In my next blog, I will explore that sad little girl who lives in "the very secret recesses" of heart and mind and see what she has to say.

Victor, My Mother, My Shadow and Me

In response to last week's blog, I received an interesting email from one of my online writing friends. She reminded me of an incident I had completely forgotten about. Two years ago, a few of us from the writing group spent a long weekend at our teacher's summer house in Oregon. There, our teacher announced she was planning a course on writing about the shadow.
 
I was uncharacteristically furious with her for even suggesting such a thing. I thought it was a dangerous thing to do without proper support and said so, loudly. Now I know who was upset: Happy Ali, who has made a career of shoving all negativity firmly under the rug. My writing friend pointed out that in the years since then, I seem to have surrounded myself with a "tremendous support system" and now I am "free to take that deep dive."

I look around and realize to my surprise that yes, I have collected around myself an inordinate number of warm loving people who are on some sort of spiritual path, many of them therapists, besides HH, my 'real' therapist. And then there is Victor, who is the key. Why is that? Because besides being my meditation teacher and a psychotherapist (not mine), this tall thin man from Tennessee astonishingly wears the face of my tiny French mother.

Goenka tells a story during his ten day meditation retreat, about an artist who paints a portrait of a beautiful woman and promptly falls in love with it. His friends laugh at him, telling him, "It's only a painting!" But he doesn't listen. Next he paints a terrifying face, only to give himself nightmares; again his friends tease him. The point is, we do this all the time. We are that deluded artist. We paint a picture of who we imagine someone to be and tack it up over their face and then we react to our own painting, ignoring the real person underneath.

So it has been with Victor. What is brilliant is that we both know he is my mother - or not actually my mother of course, but the signpost to her. It has taken a while - years! Two things had to happen: first, he had to be impervious to Happy Ali's easy charm. It seems I have spent a lifetime getting people to like me. Victor understood that early on, in an off-the-cuff remark, saying, "You can't bear anyone thinking you're not wonderful." I remember staring at him, blank with incomprehension: what was he talking about? Then HH asked me over a year ago, "How many people don't like you?" Another blank lasting several minutes. He said, "Wow. You've really worked hard at this." That was my first clue that this is apparently not normal. Doesn't everyone work tirelessly to be liked? Until last weekend's Voice Dialogue exercise, I had no idea how vested I was in being completely lovable.

(Victor did recognize things like my intelligence, which I've consistently undervalued, if not actively dismissed. How could I be cute puppy-dog and also quick-witted and bright? If you're intelligent, you have to take responsibility for yourself. Guess which one feels a whole lot safer and easier to be?).

Determined to breach that wall!

The second thing that had to happen was that I had to be repeatedly hurt. This caused us both quite a bit of distress. He would set up boundaries, I would apologize and try to comply, yet within days I'd be once again throwing myself over the wall. He had no recourse but to rebuff me, sometimes gently, sometimes harshly - and while I would see dimly that I was behaving in a way I would not dream of behaving towards any other teacher in my life, it didn't change a thing. Victor the psychotherapist understood this was something I could not control and that therefore "something profoundly psychological" was going on. He urged me to seek a therapist. I found HH and all three of us uncovered my mother. Through Victor, with HH's support, I can revisit grief so buried I had no idea it existed.

The old Chinese Zen teachers speak of "ripping off your face." They are deliberately rude or hurtful, intending to provoke a reaction that shocks their student enough to look into themselves and wonder, "WHO is hurt?" Their aim is to rip off your false face. This is also Victor's aim. He has written, "What you are trying to do is utterly courageous - you are trying to heal the small self while working with a meditation teacher whose job one is to help strip you of the delusion of self." The work for me has been to take that hurt and inquire within, asking myself WHY this is hurting me so badly? What is triggering this sorrow and where is it coming from? 

This is especially true right now. Things are in a bit of a turmoil within Long Beach Meditation, the upshot being that Victor is taking himself away to spend a week at a time in Ojai, a small town approximately two hours away from Long Beach. He speaks of renting a room there and coming back to Long Beach only on the weekends to teach and hold the Sunday sits. This has devastated me out of all proportion to what he is actually proposing, a sure sign that this is not Victor who is doing the devastating, but rather something stuffed down that is rising to the surface at last. Why is it surfacing now? Because I reckon at 57 I am finally able to handle the grief I literally could not bear as a child. And I have to plough through that grief to get to the other side. We all know this, don't we? When someone dies, you have to mourn them. There are no short-cuts.

At first I thought the grief was pointing to boarding school, only this time, instead of the child being banished, sent into exile, here it is Victor, wearing a parent face, voluntarily sending himself into exile. The similarity in both cases is the sense of powerlessness: there is nothing I can do, then or now, to fix anything. It is utterly awful. And then I uncovered that it's not just boarding school. That was the big finale, the cannons and fireworks at the end of the 1812 Overture. Quiet sorrow, unremarked for the most part, existed well before that. We don't tend to think children feel things. Not really. What I am experiencing is testimony to how wrong that idea is. Children feel, all right. But if nobody is there to help them understand what is happening, the sorrow goes underground. And we get stuck. Victor again, "I think - I really think that growing up hurts even the strongest of the children, let alone the ones who had no one to help them with it."

And unless some shocking thing happens in a life that makes us wake up from, as Victor calls it, "finding a comfortable nest," we will "settle down and live out patterns laid down so long ago." Do I really want to respond to Victor as a three year old, or an eleven year old, or a bolshy teenager towards her mother? Of course not! Yet I have done all three, powerless to be otherwise because I was unconscious of the triggers that were setting me off. Where's the choice? the awareness? It's all rather excruciating. But I wanted to share with you why I suddenly have this compulsion to go ferreting about in the past. My sister has said, not recently, thank God, "But Ali! It's over now! We had a very happy childhood and anyway, what's the point of looking back?" The thing is, the past colors the present. It is affecting my life in the present. I can't just skip over it and pretend everything is fine.

Amma, India's Hugging Saint

Something I need to tell you. In June, Amma, India's Hugging Saint, visited L.A.. I have been for the last four years, I wouldn't miss it. It is such an extraordinary experience: the giant ballroom of the LAX airport Hilton hotel transformed into an Indian bazaar, with kirtan music all night long, booths and stalls selling items to raise money for Amma's charities, Amma herself sitting raised on a stage hugging people hour after hour without a break, eternally smiling, loving, completely immersed in the person now held in her arms. The people leave her embrace transfigured with tears, usually smiling, deeply moved. I love to watch. Anyway, on this occasion, while waiting for my hug, I went to see a Vedic astrologer who travels with Amma's entourage. I had seen her twice before so my information is stored in their computer and no time was wasted sorting out time and place of birth. I had a question about Victor, because just the day before we had had a particularly painful meeting and I was feeling unsure about his continued role in my life. The astrologer told me in this life I have good spiritual teachers. The thing that made me sit up and take notice was when she said my teacher falls under Saturn - and "Saturn does not do well in this world" - virtually the exact words Victor used once in a letter to me. She said he was a good teacher for me. She said Saturn is all about breaking attachments to the world in what appears to be a harsh manner, in order to deepen one's spiritual practice. She reminded me that nothing in this world is real. "You want to wake up, don't you?" she said. "He has more to teach you." And it is going to be very hard on me, but necessary. It seems I am in a phase of bringing up deep buried sorrow from many previous lifetimes, not just this one. I have to cry. And Victor is the key.

The idea of staying with grief. We don't do this, we're not taught the necessity of doing this. My sister tells me that she cried every time she left home for a good week at a stretch, from when she was 11 until she was 17 and probably older. She was known as the "sensitive one" when we were growing up, while I was the "independent one". Now we are old and the roles are reversed. Her early tears have made her strong, like the English side of my family; whereas my independence was just a sham, a wallpapering over the cracks.

I always thought the black widow's weeds and black armbands of olden times were to let the world know you were in mourning, a visual cue to treat you carefully. Now I think perhaps another purpose was to remind you, the mourner, that you were in mourning. A quick glance down at all that black would keep you focused, I imagine.
Victor is currently leading a Beginner's Course, in which we have explored the differences between shamata (concentration) and Vipassana (mindfulness) meditation. I discovered I am very good at shamata, I can hone in on the breath, or last week's empty stage, or a vision of the mind as a bowl filled with water and stay perfectly still in order not to spill a drop. Then it dawned on me, no wonder it's so easy. I've been doing it for years! I perfected this skill at boarding school: any negative thought and it's as if a steel wall drops down, smooth, shiny, impossible to penetrate. That's how I could "decide" I would never be homesick again, and by God, I wasn't. This new-found grief is like the cracking of the ice floes: the sheet of steel is coming down  and me - "Happy Ali" - with it.

I have always wanted to write. Ever since I was five years old, dictating "The Mystery of the Grand Piano" to our neighbor next door. But I never felt I was old enough to do the kind of writing I wanted to do, whatever that might be. For now, at least, it is this, examining a life. My life! You have to have enough life under your belt before you can look backwards and make sense of it. I write, like a lot of people do, to make sense of my life. I was blocked for months after Goenka, thinking what on earth did I imagine I had to say?  We are, after all, painted portraits, even - perhaps especially - to ourselves. But when I think of friends who have dealt with "real" sorrow as children, parents divorcing, a mother dying, alcoholic fathers, physical abuse, I feel ashamed that my little grief in the scheme of things is just that - little. But this is Happy Ali talk, it is my father's voice in my head telling my mother to "pull yourself together, Maryse!" It is my mother, impatient with her "lack of stamina." She would often quote that line about God only giving you what sorrow you can handle, and she would say that God must think her very feeble, because her sorrows were so slight in comparison to practically everyone else, and here she could barely bear it. We - her robust English family - tended to agree with her. And now look at me, turns out I'm more like her than any of us ever guessed. But I think now that there are probably many people like me, who didn't endure huge sorrows, who led what was to outside eyes a happy or privileged or entitled childhood, but who suffered nonetheless. And perhaps my little part in all this is to sound a note of warning, not to judge, not to go by appearances. Be kind.

I sent last week's blog to my writing teacher, the one who wanted to create that course on the shadow. I apologized, saying I finally understood why I was so angry about it and hoped she would now understand. She wrote back, "I read your blog entry. Fascinating, and I’m so pleased that you’re moving forward into the darkness because that’s where you’ll find the light."

Next week - into the darkness! Or at least a loiter around the entrance...

Voice Dialogue: "I" Am Not One, But Many

After months and months of struggling against that awful feeling of "Who cares if I ever write another personal blog?" I have something worthwhile to share.

I have had an extraordinary weekend, heavy on multiple personalities. Did that get your attention? The lead-in was a private screening of an unreleased movie Saturday night in which a good friend plays a woman with five distinct personalities. The movie was shot on a low budget (and it showed), but my friend's performance was very good, and unnerving to watch. The idea that someone is not who they seem, can become another, lead a double life  - aren't we fascinated with the concept? I know I am. I can remember as a child watching my mother get ready to go out, mesmerized by how simple make-up and party clothes changed her into a stranger. In this movie, the eeriest metamorphosis was watching the lead turn herself from mini-skirted trashy girl into a menacing young man in front of our eyes. This was even more compelling than my mother's transformations because it involved taking away: strip off the fake eyelashes, slick back the bouffant hair, scrub the face clean and there, a man. A killer yet! Whoa.

This unsettling movie was followed Sunday morning with a workshop on Voice Dialogue, facilitated by Martha-Lou Wolff, Zen practitioner and Voice Dialogue facilitator. We met again in the same house as the movie screening, our lead actress now playing hostess. Strange! Eleven of us formed the workshop and we began promptly at 9 o'clock. What is Voice Dialogue, you may ask?

Voice Dialogue is a psycho-spiritual technique developed in 1972. The theory, as Martha-Lou explained it to us, is that we each contain a multitude of selves, some primary, forged in childhood, some vulnerable, some less socially acceptable and therefore hidden. None is considered "bad" - they each served or serve a purpose, hence their existence. The work consists of becoming familiar with these selves. Of coming from a central place and being able to listen to the selves (particularly in cases where you feel "torn") and choosing the best one to handle whatever the situation calls for. The idea of choice is paramount. Instead of simply reacting blindly because a button got pushed and the self that always rises in response to that particular trigger takes over, there is another way. There is a neutral central place: Martha-Lou called it being the conductor of an orchestra, or the Executive, or the Manager or whatever word you choose to call it. From this center point, you can listen to who is arising, hear what they are saying and decide whether to act or not.  (When I described the technique to my therapist, he said "It sounds like what you'd get if you crossed Zen with Gestalt therapy.")

Martha-Lou told us that in herself, for example, she is a professional woman with a PhD in clinical psychiatry, well-organized, efficient - who also has a wild motor-cycle mama self who loves blues and jazz.


So she takes that wild self to blues clubs and jazz concerts, she rides her bike around Berkeley, where she lives - and she wears glasses with a blueish/purplish frame. She smiled when I commented on them, and said whenever she feels she is becoming too staid, she just glances out the corner of her glasses to catch a swatch of the world in shades of purple.



We did an exercise to get a better idea of what our own voices looked like. We were to imagine someone with whom we have difficulties. It could be someone we loved or actively disliked; the point being that they possessed attributes that drove us nuts. Then we were to come up with three adjectives to describe these annoying or provoking behaviors. Several in the group shared their adjectives and Martha-Lou asked, "How would you describe the opposite attributes in yourself?" The idea then was to imagine taking a "homeopathic dose" of the opposite, the characteristic you denied, to bolster up the vulnerable self. For instance, if the annoying behavior could be described as bossy, controlling, righteous, could a smidgen of those things be applied to the self that reacts negatively when faced with 'bossy' etc? If the opposite of bossy is a people-pleasing 'good' self appalled at such 'selfish' behavior, could it be that we could use a little of that very thing that we so dislike in others? Could we find some kind of balance?

What I appreciated about this exercise was that it was a given that those traits that so annoy you actually exist within you. It wasn't about understanding the other person. The other person was simply the doorway into these traits that we are so sure we don't possess, that in fact we have disowned and buried. It wasn't about getting into a dialogue with the opposing selves and achieving some sort of compromise. It was simply acknowledging that they exist within us. Carl Jung believed (said Martha-Lou) that we are born containing all the archetypes, but because of upbringing and life circumstances, we develop some, let others lie fallow. Martha-Lou spoke of other cultures that acknowledge the diversity of human characteristics by creating a panoply of gods and goddesses. She told us how in Ancient Greece if you felt yourself deficient in a particular quality, you went to the temple of the appropriate god and they would take you in and feed you and bathe you and nourish you until you grew strong in that area. It is not like our therapy, with the idea of "fixing." It is more a nurturing and encouragement of something that is already within us.

I asked the question dear to my heart, "What do you do when you think you are one thing all your life, a particular personality, and then you discover you are not?"

"That's a little difficult," she responded. "First you have to acknowledge the possibility of another self. What were your three adjectives?"

"Oh, anger, irritation..." I trailed off.

"Of course," she said. "You fly under the radar, doing all you can not to upset anyone. You've done that your whole life."

She was absolutely right and I told her so. "You ARE good!"

"Yes!" she agreed, and I thought that was quite wonderful that she could wholeheartedly endorse her own worth. "I've been doing this for thirty odd years. I AM good at what I do!"

After a short break, Martha-Lou announced she would show us what a Voice Dialogue session looked like. She chose me to be the guinea pig. She positioned me in a chair directly facing her. She said, "This is center. This is the place of the Conductor. This is the place where you are most truly "you"."

I was aware of the others sitting in a semi-circle around us. She said I might feel a little self-conscious at first, but not to worry, soon I would forget all about them. Luckily, I knew most everyone there and felt very safe with them. I had nothing to hide. She instructed the others to pay attention to my voice and body language, that that would change depending on which self was in charge. And she advised them to note their own feelings and reactions in response to whatever happened to me.

Then she asked me to move my chair slightly to the right. She wanted to meet the dominant personality. It was eerie. I move my chair and I find myself beaming at her, just as friendly and open as could be. I gestured helplessly at my face with its huge smile - "Here I am!"

Happy Ali!

She smiled back. "I can see! Radiant! Tell me about yourself."

"She's friendly, uncomplicated, wants to be liked -"

Martha-Lou interrupted me, "I am friendly, uncomplicated, wanting to be liked." She reminded us all, "Each self thinks she is the only one, the top dog. They don't want to know about the others, or talk to the others - they're think they're right and it's that simple."

So I continue to sit there, grinning like a fool in full-on Happy Ali mode. I tell her, "My husband loves me, everyone loves this Alison. They don't want me to disappear."

She reassured me. "Selves don't disappear. You could do this work for a 100 years and still you would have your primary selves. Besides, your purpose isn't to get rid off or kill off a self. What's wrong with this self? She has stood you well, she has taken you this far; there is no need to get rid of her!"

"That's a relief!" I say, smiling away.

"Anything else you want to tell me about her?"

I shook my head. I couldn't think of a thing, I was so busy being cheery and happy and uncomplicated, busy winning her over, busy being likeable. So strange to see my self, this self, in action.

Martha-Lou instructed me to move my chair back to center. Immediately the ear-to-ear grin dropped. She suggested that while there was nothing wrong with that primary self, perhaps from that center point, to consider turning down the dial a few notches. Not be quite so "Hello World!! Here I am!!" I nodded. For the first time I was aware that being Happy Ali takes an awful lot of energy. It was a relief to come to center and rest. Like a performer heading back to the dressing room and kicking off their shoes and no longer needing to be "on".

Then she had me move my chair a few inches to the left.

Instantly - and I'm not kidding, it was immediate - I was sobbing hysterically, head in my arms, arms on my knees, doubled over in one of those huge, snotty, wrenching, what Oprah calls "an ugly cry". There were no words, I couldn't speak, I couldn't lift my head. I heard Martha-Lou gently and soothingly talk to this self. "You contain all the grief. And there's a lot of grief to contain. None of the other selves want your job. This one is all yours and you've carried it for a very long time."

Eventually I calmed down some and Martha-Lou told me to move my chair back to center. On the instant, the tears dried up and I could speak. Interestingly, there were no words in that crying self, no story attached. She just WAS sorrow and she needed to cry. Also that I was aware of only a couple of disjointed sentences while I was sobbing. "Look at her carrying on!" was one, but it had no juice; the tears so over-rode everything else, there was a sense of standing aside, of a hushed assembly finally letting this very young, very sad self let rip.

Back in center, Martha-Lou advised making time every day for this sad self. Writing out the stories (shades of my therapist saying, "Write your autobiography - very s-l-o-w-l-y!" giving myself plenty of time to weep along the way); drawing, painting, sitting in meditation: above all, giving myself permission to cry. I nodded. I was rather shaken.

The final part of the session was the awareness piece. This was where Martha-Lou had me come and stand beside her while she retold the story of all that had just happened. Standing next to the facilitator's chair, looking down on my now empty chair, following her explanation, I felt like I could easily keel over. I was swaying, the feeling inside one of lightness. Looking down from that vantage point of overarching awareness, it was clear that those selves were like husks of corn, inconsequential, wisps of energy, some stronger than others, but that was all! And for this we stand our ground, pick fights, get upset and self-righteous, belligerent or sad? It's like trying to put a suit of armor on a hologram.

Our very intense morning finished soon after that, with a short group discussion about what they had witnessed, the others, and what it brought up for them. I curled up on the couch, exhausted and starving.

It was interesting to note that the ones in the group who were also struggling with sorrow in their lives had cried right along with me. Another found it difficult to watch such pain and asked Martha-Lou how she was able to "contain" me. Martha-Lou reminded her, "I've been doing this a very long time. I could contain her because I have been that in that sad place myself. I know what it feels like." 

I roused myself to say that the most helpful thing of all, the absolute key, as far as I was concerned, was the idea of the central self; that someone else could step up and take charge, and the others - especially my very young, energetic smiley self - could finally rest from running the entire show alone.

It would have been good to take a nap and assimilate all these new ideas - these selves, newly labeled! But it was not to be. Time for a quick bite to eat and I was off to Unity Church for our Sunday meditation. We were starting a new Beginners' Course in Mindfulness Meditation, and I was, appropriately enough, the greeter. So with my big smile, I stood at the door and checked people in, slipping easily into that role (and why not? I've been practicing for over fifty years, I know it very well!). But also very aware, really aware, that it is simply that - a role I do well.

Victor teaching the beginners on Sunday at Unity

Later though, when it was time for our regular Sunday sit and forty minutes of silence, I got a glimpse of how this technique could be helpful on the meditation cushion. I found myself writing an email in my head to Martha-Lou, inquiring about future workshops, wondering who would sign up for said future workshops, etc. The miracle is, I caught myself! I imagined that center chair; imagined myself saying,"Thank you very much, Miss Secretary, that's very efficient of you to want to get on to that right away. Hold that thought and I promise you we'll write that email first thing tomorrow morning. But right now we are meditating and nobody need do anything." I had a sense of the empty stage, actors waiting in the wings, me as Director reassuring everyone that it was the intermission, the pause. Nobody needed to grab the microphone and hustle out there, literally "creating a scene." I have never had such a clearer illustration of what Victor describes as "the drama between the ears." We're making it up as we go along, guys! WE are doing it!

For a fraction of a second, I had a sense of "just sitting" - being aware of everything around me, the sounds, the sensations, without feeling there was a "me" holding it all together. I was just a part of the whole, not playing the starring role. What a relief!

Of course, every action has a reaction. Next day, after the high of the workshop and corresponding slump of fatigue, I realized something else. I had never understood just how limiting was that Happy Ali self, even though for close on two years now, I have understood intellectually that there is more to me than her. I discovered that through meditation (consider the name of my blog!), and followed it up with therapy, which is on-going. But while it's just about the first thing I said to HH, my therapist, "I am tired of always being happy,"  I didn't know it in my bones.

Not until we did that exercise with the chair did I see how rigid was Happy Ali in not allowing anything negative to touch her. No anger, no sorrow, no nothing. I could cry at commercials and movies, other people's sorrow, but never my own (what sorrow?). Remember, I thought up to maybe four years ago that I loved boarding school, very happy time, midnight feasts, taught me independence, blah blah blah. Happy like hell.

Feeling that little one's sorrow, wracked with sobs (and yes, it's a cliche, but I have rarely allowed myself that intensity of crying: one night out of six years of boarding school; my first romantic break-up; my mother's death: there, three times in 57 years), I realized they are extreme states, true opposites. Only one of them is where I have lived most of my life, with a smile plastered on my face, being pleasing to the world. The other, through the depth of her tears, showed me as nothing else has yet done, the true cost of those smiles.

("Is there always an opposite?" I asked Martha-Lou.
"Always," she said.)

It is hard to come to terms with this today, the realization that I have lived virtually my whole life in a self-constricted narrow band. I am grateful to my young self for choosing such a happy persona ... but I think this is Happy Ali rearing up, yet again searching for the silver lining, turning her head away from - shunning - that crying child. Alice Miller, the famed psychologist, says the work of middle age is to grieve. So, I grieve.

I shared with the group on Sunday a story I have been told about the Ancient Greeks and how clever their understanding of the psyche. I haven't been able to find proof that such a thing existed, but it's so sound, it should have. It was understood that a soldier who had faced combat could not be "normal", needed a period to purge themselves of the atrocities they had witnessed (and committed), before rejoining society. Returning warriors would strip off their armor and enter naked a tall narrow tower, open at the top to the sky. They would be walled in for a time and allowed to rage and scream, the thick rock muffling their cries, the blue sky absorbing their pain. On a small scale, Martha-Lou and the group were for me on Sunday my sanctuary, my safe place, container for this terrible sorrow.

Post-script:

In later blogs, I'm going to explore the stories - that life story HH is urging me to write - that brought that relentlessly cheerful character into being. I am not losing sight of meditation - it was meditation, after all, that first uncovered the existence of the sad little girl. Novelist James Carroll said: "We tell stories because we can't help it. We tell stories because we love to entertain and hope to edify. We tell stories because they save us." I understand the need to write my story to save myself, but the only way I can make myself do so is if I feel someone out there is reading my words. Mostly it's about a mother, my mother, and a pivotal year in Haiti involving servants and privilege, executions and slums. I hope you will read along with me - it's lonely work, writing, and it's not easy looking back. My hope is that what I have gone through - although specific to me - will help you reflect upon and grieve your own life.  And though I'm bad about answering in the comments, strangely, it makes me feel shy,  I do read them and appreciate them very much.

Hopefully there will also be more of Martha-Lou. All of us present at Sunday's workshop want to carry on with her. There's a stage in Voice Dialogue that involves working in pairs - you say something that triggers some self in me, who triggers some other self in you, back and forth. Imagine how many selves could be engaged in a simple conversation, if you were not aware of actively choosing the best one to handle the situation?

The final piece is working on dreams. Martha-Lou's teachers were trained as Jungian analysts; therefore, like Jung, they believe dreams are critical. In fact, his belief in the importance of dreams has cropped up elsewhere in my life this week, in a personal paper Victor wrote about the possibility of psychological change entitled "Change". (You can read it online at Long Beach Meditation's website). Martha-Lou gave a "for instance": if a man she had never worked with came to her wanting to work on fear, she would suggest they first do a couple of Voice Dialogue sessions to see where he was. However, if that same man came to her with a dream that was obviously about fear, she would work with him right away. Why? Because if he is dreaming about it, it's telling her the unconscious is willing to divulge some secrets; and if he is consciously remembering the dream, it further tells her that he is ready to work on fear in "real life" (whatever that may be). Fascinating stuff. And as if to underscore how important dreams are, just today I read this quote on someone's Facebook wall:
"A dream that is not interpreted is like a letter that is not read."
~~ Talmud

So, meaty stuff ahead. I hope you will stay with me for the read.