The Babies Came Closer

Sansaku: The Babies Came Closer

4/30/23

Beetle-shell poles with iridescent patterns are power tools I’m learning to use.  But the theme to the dream was simple: How to save what is good and protect from what is bad.

Cultures are known by their highs and lows, but not by their norms.  The same applies to people.  The journal helps me stabilize.  Careful with my words, I watch as they turn into thoughts and then feelings.  It needs to be the other way around.

Basho thought drinking too much wine was like writing a poem with too many lines.  There comes a point where more is less, but up to that…  Taoists take the path of least resistance, wu wei, effortless effort.  Non-interference, letting things happen.  My problem with the problem.

From the time I was born until the coming of George, there were two realities not unlike school and family.  Corder at home or gone.  George never went away.  A bulldog leashed behind a fence.  His bark was operatic.  Our feral father was more like a cat.  He jumped fences at will and always landed on his feet.  I was like him, but I’m not.

I’ve given this some thought: I’m grateful George was not my dad and fate waited until I could handle the controlling mood and anger.  George used reason as a weapon.  Impersonal, unfeeling.  A masculine disorder.

I’m back to All Things Must Pass and “What Is Life.”  George my favorite Beatle.  It gets my body moving, back in synch.  The same reason I like to take walks.  Yesterday was magic.  I even had my phone for photos.

Swollen with snow melt and the Animas raging, six newborn goslings, a conspicuous yellow-green color, rested and fed beside the trail.  I got a stare from the parents.  Deciding I was safe, the babies came closer.

Sometimes I’m Overcome

Sansaku:  Sometimes I’m Overcome

4/29/23

Overlapping narratives, multiple perspectives.  I wanted to see if I could write a clinical letter.  Turns out I can’t.  Unconscious echoes.  What it’s bringing up in me.  Counselors pay attention to resonate feelings.

The dream wasn’t ominous until I wrote it down.  I had to choose between a number of amorphous blobs.  About the size of a person, the color of grey-matter.  Similar to gravestones – one had the name of a friend who is dead, but like a metamorphic pupa, they were living.

An artist had created them and once I chose, he got to work crafting the undifferentiated goo.  No idea what he would do with it.  The archetype of life and death and rebirth.  There’s also marriage and divorce.

Being the youngest child and lacking language, I paid attention to my feelings.  I knew something was wrong, but had no words.  He was acting incongruent.  I learned the truth two months before he died.

He was having a torrid affair and about to leave Irma when his lover was killed in a horrible accident.  He went off the rails and crashed his life in reckless abandon.  A gifted empath, Irma knew him better than anyone and could sense what happened.  Incredibly guilty, he blamed.

Until I turned twenty-two and made my pilgrimage, I wasn’t ready to hear.  He might convince a jury, not her.  She looked at him with those lovely human eyes and stood her ground.  “I wanted to smash his head with the bedside lamp.  You know it, the one with green leaves.” 

Irma was forced by fate to feel more than she ever thought possible.  The shame was intense.  I asked how she could hold her head high and she said, “You kids.”  There’s so much in that.  Our elephant mother.

Sometimes I’m overcome.

Hostile at First

Sansaku: Hostile at First

4/28/23

I understand that relationships are exceedingly complex and no one can know with any certainty what another should do.  A counselor long enough to learn.  And yet we’re called upon to help.

I’ve never been a parent, only an uncle, and tend to side with kids.  Because they knew I didn’t punish, I’ve heard a lot of secrets.  Almost twelve when Irma said that George would be our new dad.  I lost all power of speech.  This wasn’t like her.

How I felt and dealt with the parental situation is clearly a very good prompt.  I’ve opened the wound many times and suffered a few tidal waves.  There’s an ocean of emotion in there.

A swerve turns into a crash with over-correction.  It’s why I’m slowing down.  No need to be hasty.  The custody letter has given me access.  The narrative I had as a child was relatively straight.  I knew the role that alcohol had played in his demise.  Irma joined AA.   She answered my questions according to my level of emotional development.

We’ve talked for hours and hours about the two fathers.  She mastered the arcane art of acceptance and forgiveness.  I was her apprentice.  What we recall and experience depends upon feeling.

Garon and I remember the period between Corder’s departure and George’s arrival as one of the happiest times of our lives.  Brothers have rarely been closer.  Easily hurt, I was easily healed.

Two scenes from the dream:  Representing cancer, a can of crab I plan to open and eat.  All the ingredients for an incredible sandwich are there.  And then I’m confronted by a large German Shepherd.  Hostile at first, he’s old and has few teeth.  Soon we kiss and snuggle.    

Catchy Gospel Tunes

Sansaku: Catchy Gospel Tunes

4/27/23

There’s no better counselor for alcoholics than an alcoholic and I come from a broken family.  Would I call myself recovered?  Chyako lets me know, I’ve got some work to do.  The letter to the court I need to write won’t fit the form.  I’m hoping that it’s better.

I normed with chaos.  Corder’s emotions were strong and volatile, his behavior erratic.  I was probably hypervigilant coming out of the womb.  Irma buffered the craziness and her steady calm centered the storm.  I’d have caught the craziness without her.  It runs in the family.

Someone suffering the bipolar extremes in mood is a tremendous pain in the ass to live with and waves were running high.  Irma kept the boat afloat in heavy seas.  She stayed on course.

I loved my dad, but I’m incredibly grateful he didn’t fight for custody.  That might have ruined my life.  Being the high-powered lawyer he was, the battle might have worn Irma out at a time we most needed her.

Constancy matters.  I came home to a place that was safe and not like a jungle.  I’m grateful Corder cruised and left us alone for much of the time.  When he showed, Sheryll acted out and Garon disappeared.  I was like a dog who tried to please and couldn’t understand.

I know for a fact we can interact with the past; I do it all the time.  And while I’ve never counseled little kids, I’m choosing to counsel myself.  I want my child-self to know: “Things will turn out well.”

Redemption drives the narrative.  My dreams are different now and the themes are easy to identity.  You can’t get too much love; we make mistakes and need to clean them up; give what you can, take what you need.  Catchy gospel tunes, playing in my head. 

Brainstorming a Letter

Sansaku:  Brainstorming a Letter

4/26/23

I dreamed about my dad last night.  He was staying in a cheap motel.  I knocked and he opened the door.  Smiling, he looked like himself.  The room was small and crowded.  The feeling was friendly.

By way of synchronicity, I encountered a journal entry where I described our stay in a cheap motel on the Benson Highway.  We were on our way to Tombstone, but it’s not the road trip that matters.  It’s the context.

I’m going to write a letter for a custody battle.  Strong impressions, few specifics.  I haven’t met the kids and it’s been years.  But emotional environments are something I understand and the task takes me back.

If an idea isn’t strange, there’s little hope for it.  I lived in a fairy tale world.  The youngest child, I paid more attention to relationships and how I felt than words.  There were problems in the kingdom.

Our fun and loving father wasn’t always fun and loving.  Irma did her best to shelter us.  The air so heavy with emotion, sometimes I couldn’t breathe.  I listened in the night and heard through walls.  No wonder I didn’t sleep soundly and had a lot of nightmares.

Counselors use informed intuition or clinical judgement to evaluate how a person or system comes across.  I know and love both parties; I always have.  But I’m worried for the children.

I was one of those kids and know how it feels.  Rather than biasing, as it easily could, it’s given me insight and knowledge.  Lawyers deal with facts.  I dealt with the reality of two unhappy parents.

When I came home from school and opened the door, I sniffed. The link with the dream.  I could smell conflict and emotional tension.  What I’m smelling now.  I’m thinking of the kids and what they need to grow.      

Searching for Something

Sansaku: Searching for Something

4/25/23

Drifting in a hot air balloon along the coast of California, the biggest tree I’ve ever seen.  I called it a sequoia, but it’s more like a redwood.  High above the ocean in the dream, the tree was that much higher.  The exposure and awe caused fear.  I had no control and felt outrageously vulnerable.  This brought on the fog.  I don’t know how I safely landed, but I did.  I was told there’s another tree like that down a different trail.

From the air I could see that the strip of old growth forest surrounding the gigantic tree wasn’t very wide and only a few islands remained of the greater forest within a large grid of fenced-in farmland.

A number of very strong feelings.  The awe of that tree.  I could hardly believe what I saw.  Like a dream within a dream.  Apocalypse derives from revelation and a lifting of the veil.  The glimpse was long enough.

I don’t think of Billy Joel as a spiritual person and neither does he, but “The River of Dreams” points out the fact, he’s got doo-wop religion and knows how to sing.  It’s my song du jour.

The main function of a conversation in a therapeutic situation is not to accomplish something, but to improve the quality of the experience and grow the relationship.  I’m doing that with myself.

The book I wanted to write turned out to be a journal.  Too long and tedious for anyone else to read.  I can hardly read the writing myself.  Sansaku cooks it down by typing no more than a page.

Time can feel like a flame or a pour where the shape of the form depends on the flow.  “In the middle of night, I go walking in my sleep, from the mountains of faith, through the valley of fear, to the river so deep.  I must be searching for something…”

Sharing

Sansaku:  Sharing

4/24/23

Charging the phone describes the way I’m coming up to speed and eighty percent is good enough for both of us.  I’m not under the weather, which is rainy today, just slower than usual to charge.

I live a small life, but compensate for that in dreams.  Last night a neighborhood bar full of friends.  It looked like the dining room at Timberline and a guy named Jim Henson, not the Muppet man, was entertaining with a sophisticated humor that inspired us.  Because of him, we felt sharper, more aware.  I feel that way with Garon.

I read his Earth Day homily yesterday and he’s as scientific as I am not.  In the dream, he asked me to speak.  I retreated to a corner of the bar and started writing about pride.  For the land and living here, for belonging to a group, and for having the chance to express.

Hegel chided:  What we learn from history is that we do not learn from history.  I read Cancer and Consciousness thirty years ago and thought I understood the book.  Having just finished it again, the underlining isn’t bad, but little did I know.

I need to copy some quotes.  They read like seeds I planted long ago.  History matters.  I led a group for newly diagnosed cancer patients and what I knew about cancer I learned from books and them.

Terrified of cancer at the time, I underlined that cancer’s a good way to die.  Not sudden like a heart attack, cancer gives us time and doesn’t have to be a nightmare.  Many testified.

“If you want to live a long time, health problems can be the greatest blessing in the world.”  And thumbing through the pages: “I got better by sharing the pain.”

Talk About Trust

Sansaku: Talk About Trust

4/23/23

A semi-haunting dream.  Am I looking for a healing?  If so, a fascinating answer to the question.  The right front tooth was badly cracked and the dentist the one I had as a child.  He said, “You need a bowl to fix it.”

I visited a potter high in the mountains, like our Swiss-German ancestors he spoke with an accent and showed me his work.  The pieces were beautiful, wood-fired, but heavy, even clunky, and wouldn’t serve.

The one that integrated into my mouth looked like one of the bowls Chyako brought home.  White except for the rim.  What a color.  Better than gold.  It came with a name in the dream, River Without End.

In the background, a poem by Antonio Machado.  “Last night as I was sleeping, I dreamt – marvelous illusion!  In my heart a spring was breaking out.  The water of a new life that I had never drunk.”

The bowl held a sacred substance of considerable virtue.  It tasted like red wine.  And the feeling in the dream, cracked tooth included, was hopeful and good.  Wounded masculine teeth.  Healing feminine bowl.

When I went outside to pee, the pattern on the rock resembled a buffalo.  Head down and grazing.  That’s a change.  Yellow tulips, closed for the cold and night, were opening wide with the warmth of sunlight.

It’s the time of year when the mother goose sits on eggs for days and days.  The river will rise and the one island can easily go under.  When the goslings do hatch, I imagine the first thing they say to one another: “This explains a lot.”  Like waking from a dream.  Marvelous illusion!

And then the yellow-green puffballs jump into a river that’s raging.  Following their mother in a line, dad follows from behind and protects.  Talk about trust.

A Healthy Human Male

Sansaku: A Healthy Human Male

4/22/23

Crude oil comes in natural form, flowing from the deep in dreams.  Cooking the symbols down, meaning refines into essence.  High octane fuel for the kind of consciousness I’m seeking.

I asked about the masculine and the dream-body responded.  The theme was frustration.  Nothing worked out the way I wanted.  I needed to wash a small load of clothes, but a dude with five sacks beat me out and wouldn’t concede.  I asked, but didn’t fight.  Then let it go.

It was snowing outside and my beloved van, which looked like the cruiser, had a broken window that wouldn’t close.  The roof leaked and the insulation was soaked.  I pondered the disaster and what I’d do.

When I hiked in the canyons alone, without glasses or shoes, I waded for miles in shallow water, following drifts of soft sand and avoiding sharp stones.  But if attention wandered and I got few steps ahead, I often stubbed a toe.  No one to blame but myself.

I still stub toes.  The form to begin withdrawing funds from my 401 feels like a twenty-page maze that’s taking me down.  The context to the dream is that and a very sore body.  I feel like a car in need of repair.

I’ve never needed a surrogate mom, Irma more than fulfilled.  But I’ve found a number of surrogate dads to love and learn from.  What would Reece do?  He died of cancer and showed me the way.

Still close, he knows how to deal with that fucking 401.  He’s patient, persistent, determined.  He’ll get it done and take the blame if not.  When people say, “Shit Happens.”  He responds, “Clean It Up.”

Dead in the waterbed he loved to stir with Susan, he looked like himself.  And right to the end, a healthy human male. 

Masculine Love

Sansaku:  Masculine Love

4/21/23

Our house is on a crest and looks down upon the town.  The large ash and apple trees attract birds, especially corvids.  I’ve been friendly for years but haven’t fed them – except for the mice I trap.

I had bread in the dream and the crows were not afraid.  I was the one with a touch of fear, but I held out my hand with the offering.  The crows, as large as small cows, were passive and gentle.  With open beaks, I fed them like a mother bird.  Chyako down below, the fence no longer there.  I followed.  Next to the chokecherry grove, a honey mango tree.  Ripe fruit on the ground.  I took her some.

I’m recording my dreams as soon as I wake.  Like my day-to-day life, I could fill up the pages.  It matters what we choose to remember.  I saw a pattern on a rock this morning.  First a woman in front of a loom, then a mother cat licking her kitten.  About as feminine as it gets.

If not the Dead, Bob Marley reggae-rocked the campus.  Love is the theme.  The difference between a machine, a bird, or lover as a symbol for the body, is a key that unlocks the meaning.  My focus these days.

When newly diagnosed cancer patients drew spontaneous pictures, Kubler-Ross could discern the unfinished emotional business they needed to confront.  She’d say seeing mine, “The masculine is missing.”

Our father ran away to Tombstone, Arizona.  Lived a fantasy life.  The other one, George, dreams dried up, sat like a black hole in the living room sucking up light.  I’ve wrestled with the father complex for much of my life and it’s a big part of the reason I chose not to have kids.

The masculine is wounded in this culture and generations damaged by uninitiated men.  I can see where this is going.  Masculine love.