Going On a Year

Sansaku: Going On a Year

7/31/23

Two landmark days in a row.  I picked the early summer apples.  The crisper’s full of the best, the next best made into sauce.  It took all afternoon.  And yesterday I trimmed the garlic that’s been curing in the shed.  Twelve bundles of twelve.  We’ll plant and give away the best.  The next best we’ll eat.  They’ll last until next summer.

An old-fashioned key and a most unusual lock in my dream last night.  Remember when Alice was small?  She’d entered through a rabbit hole.  No way could she know what was coming.

I didn’t seed my dreams.  I didn’t need to.  The body knows.  Today another blood draw.  On one hand, no big deal.  My seventh time around.  But then again, it’s charged with meaning and emotion.

The time of the draw, high noon.  The wheel of fate starts spinning.  I won’t know the number for a good six hours.  The time in-between the most fruitful.  I’ll be walking with a friend.  I plan to process.

A password not a key opens the portal.  The phone will let me know.  Same as school, I get a grade every quarter.  I’ll know where I stand after that.  What I’m feeling runs in four directions.

Given my type, I’m skilled at denying.  There’s nothing to worry about.  And worry is the second direction.  A current of fear.  One never knows.  I’m also rational and fairly calm.  This is feedback; info I want and need to know.  I’m headed for the shadow at the moment.

Denial softens emotion, fear ramps it up.  Rationality levels, shadow puts the pedal to the metal.  Wrestle with the cancer, treat it like an angel.  “I won’t let go until you bless me.”  Cancer won’t back down.  Neither will I.  Going on a year.

A Vow of Intention

Sansaku: A Vow of Intention

7/30/23

Moist, humid, feeling like rain; how many ways to say it.  The monsoons have arrived with the rufous.  Fingers crossed.  A hummingbird moth on the bee plant, sipping purple nectar.  It lets me get close.

Consciousness began, according to a myth, by dividing light and dark, day and night, wet and dry, hot and cold, yin and yang.  But there’s a fundamental unity to consciousness.  One drop contains all water.

And the thing about consciousness and drops of water, they’re fractal in nature.  Magnified, a drop contains a world.  Expanded, a world with oceans.  And similar to water, there are tipping points in consciousness.  Ice melts into water and water into vapor.  Many states and stages.

I’ve read that before some liquids melt into vapor, they give off an opalescent glow.  An iridescent show.  I’m imagining that mystics emit something similar in terms of consciousness.  They heal the many splits.  In the long-run, so does science.  Fiction turns to fact.

I can feel bombarded by pathogenic waves, frequencies hostile to life.  Instead of the buzz of the economic beast, I’d rather tune to the hum of the earth and cosmos.  There are ways to change the channel.

I turned on the tube.  Convicts in prison study the book, How to Win Friends and Influence People.  Keys to exploit and control.  Words are substituted for reality.  Not the same.  Turn on the mind.

The mythic Word, the one that starts the world.  I’m guessing it sounds more like a hum and a tone.  Creative vibration.  Instead of the buzz of traffic, I’m tuning to the humming of the moth.  I even hugged the ash. 

In the form of a number, another confrontation with cancer.  I’ll try to stay tuned to the Earth’s hum.  Already making a vow of intention.   

When the Rufous Arrive

Sansaku:  When the Rufous Arrive

7/29/23

When the rufous arrive and claim their hummingbird feeder territory, the monsoons are supposed to be close.  And this is the week for labs and a Lupron shot.  Hanging like a black-hole shadow in my dream.  The image was a cancerous development south of town.  An exponential growth of condos.  The old Durango gone and not coming back.

In a strange way, I’m grateful for the trial I undergo every three months.  My delusion takes a hit.  I’m forced to confront harsh reality, something my type will avoid with considerable resistance.

I was told that cancer is a bully.  But I’m better at making friends than fighting tough guys.  Besides, I’ve read the Jungian lit that portrays cancer in a much better light.   So far, my relationship is tight.

I don’t talk about cancer at parties like I did a year ago.  But a number of people asked last night and I was curious how I’d answer.  “Much better than expected.  I’ve tolerated the androgen deprivation well and the numbers are good.”  That’s where I stopped.  I don’t want to jinx the process.  I’m incredibly superstitious.  Time to trance dance.

I thought Covid came to teach a lesson, but like anything we fear, we go to war.  Cancer tops the list.  There’s so much uncertainty.  No wonder it triggers defenses.  But I’ve chosen from the get-go to believe there’s mystery and meaning to this outrageously intense experience.  And after a full year, I haven’t changed course.  Holding steady.

Because cancer’s a trauma, it can go a number of ways.  There’s a reason to study positive psychology and post-traumatic growth.  One of my favorite definitions of counseling:  A better narrative.  We can scare the shit out of ourselves with the stories we make up.  Rufous hummers are little bullies and good at picking fights.  I’ve learned to love them.     

A God-Given Talent

Sansaku:  A God-Given Talent

7/28/23

The trip was always pointed toward the opera.  It’s not for everyone and I didn’t expect I’d be one.  But it seems I’m at the perfect age and stage of life to experience.  Besides, with my surgical eyes, I can see.

We took the road by Georgia O’Keefe’s place and into the land of enchantment.  We stayed in a lovely casita, ate ridiculously good food, and did a little tossing and turning at night.  The weather blister hot.

When we arrived at the opera, spectacular clouds began to gather.  We ate our picnic on a scenic spot looking west.  You could see a hundred miles.  Los Alamos out there.  We shared a small bottle of Prosecco.  The rain began to fall.  The desert never smells any better.

The set and setting need to be Googled to get a feel for the extreme elegance and beauty of the place.  The grandeur.  The inside so much bigger than I thought.  The proper stage for a ritual performance.

The fairy-tale opera, “Rusalka,” reads like a dream.  The Nymph has come of age and falls in love with a not so pretty Prince.  He’s wounded a doe with his arrow – a not so subtle allusion to sex.  Both are crazy. 

The Nymph makes a bad deal with the Witch.  No Queen to be found.  When magical beings fall in love with humans, there’s going to be trouble.  The crippled Father couldn’t help.

The stage is set to resemble a psych unit.  There’s a pool of water with a tower of chairs, stacked and unstable, a symbolic centerpiece.  Welcome to the psychotic process that unfolds.  Unlike a dream, on the back of the chair in front of me, the words translated.  That mattered.

I couldn’t get over two things: the beauty of the setting and the singers.  Those voices, the volume.  Chyako says, “It’s a god-given talent.”

Fun

Sansaku: Fun

7/24/23

Psychologists haven’t been impressed with dream thinking.  They compare it to the thinking of the very old and senile, the very young and not yet trained, and those with organic brain conditions.  This includes the thinking of the drunk and drugged.

But from the point of view of dreams, our conscious level of emotional thinking is pitiful.  Turn off the sound, watch commercials.  It takes a child to see, the emperor has no clothes.  How could we miss that?

I’ve been tracking my emotional thought processes with respect to cancer.  Instead of cognitive logic and linear language, dreams think in terms of symbolic image.  They carry an affective charge, crystallized emotion.  What the experience of the experience looks and feels like.

Groups practiced emotional thinking.  We walked around the dream asking questions: feeling tone, context, associations?  The dialogue with image and emotion, what Jung called active imagination.

Although I spaced last night’s dream, emotional fragments remain.  I don’t tune-in by cognitive thinking, it’s a passive state of mind.  I listen for the inner voice.  Images naturally arise.  What matters.

We’re getting ready to leave for a spell.  Many small decisions: what to pack and not forget.  Very busy in the dream.  Close up the house, let the neighbors know, take out the compost.  Think about the clothes.  We’re going to the opera down in Santa Fe.  I won’t be posting.

Something a friend said comes to mind: “We need to turn it down a notch.”  This is all about emotion.  Thinking of my own, no need to get worked up.  For a time, time to drop habits, go with the flow and enjoy.  The dream reminds me.  We’re doing this for fun.

The View Gets Better

Sansaku: The View Gets Better

7/23/23

Plenty of flatwater time on this river I’m running called cancer.  Lots of good places to camp.  But instead of going down river, I wake up to the same stretch each day.  And every day, something has changed.

Sometimes I’ll dream a word that organizes a dream.  The night before, the word was settling.  Settle has thirty-three definitions.  Putting one’s affairs in order.  To resolve.  In the dream, I was coming home.

Last night a poem at the heart of the dream.  A motivating factor.  I wanted to read it, wanted a copy, it felt like a clue to what’s going on.  The poem was the second in a series.  I’m starting my second year.

Without symbolic capacity, much of what happens is meaningless.  Fact versus truth.  Events become experiences and dreams transform experiences into meaningful symbols.  I’ve watched mine evolve from an unwanted weed to the process of settling and poetry.

Reality is made of relationships.  It’s a big idea.  Meaning and matter collide.  Infinite complexity.  If a relationship seems simple, get a little closer, slow it down.  Cancer comes to life.  Uncertainty.  My next appointment in a week.

I’ve gone looking for the symbol every night.  Unpredictable.  A random stroke of form and color appears on a very large canvas.  The pattern slowly builds and tells the story of my relationship.

According to Jung, dreams help repair our relationship to reality.  It’s putting ourselves in accord with the unconscious.  Lots of words apply: centering, attunement, resonance, coherence, even settling.

Instead of over the hill, past our peak, that’s the time to climb.  Above timberline, massive exposure, harsh weather.  The view gets better. 

A No Regret Day

Sansaku:  A No Regret Day

7/21/23

A no regret day.  I liked the way we did things.  Even got away with gluttony.  We left for Middle Mountain, crack of noon.  The road to the trail, Cave Basin, winds though groves of aspen, meadows with huge ponderosa, and climbs into the alpine forest.  Lots of dead spruce.

We came for the flowers as much as the view.  A field of sky-blue columbine.  Color is good for the soul.  Lined and cracked, filled with plants, the limestone boulders, living art.  We stopped at the top, ate sweet cherries, popped the pits.  Doesn’t get any better.

The drive down the road, mostly first gear, gave view to the immensity of the location.  Across the valley, rugged peaks, couloirs filled with snow, same color as the clouds.  The drive around the lake.

We stopped at a country store for ice cream.  Quite a scene.  The old guy, with hair actually worse than mine, couldn’t find the cones.  The young guy got pissed and said, “Left of the grate.”  The old guy looked confused, “What grate?”  The young guy, carrying a plate of tostadas and looking disgusted, went behind the counter and showed him.

Then the scooping began.  I thought he’d hit his head on the freezer lid.  The one I’d picked was in the back and almost empty.  He had a terrible time.  I don’t know why I chose Spumoni – the fruit bread of ice creams.

The woman at the counter over-charged a dollar.  She looked confused at the number.  I made sure to tip her.

Instead of a cake, Chyako wanted flan for her birthday.  Wouldn’t you know, the place was close at hand.  She let me steal sips from her perfect margarita.  I shared a little mole.  The flan came topped with a cherry and whipped cream.  Two spoons.  A day to remember.

The Difference Profound

Sansaku: The Difference Profound

7/20/23

I chose the card for beauty.  A flower garden elephant design.  Chyako’s birthday.  I dreamed about the garden.  Big surprise, I messed up the hoses.  In the end, it didn’t matter.  We sat on the edge, just above the garden, and delighted in the beauty.  Polished stones, coming from the ground.  Over the years, I’ve found a number digging in the dirt.

Two albums on the table.  Chyako growing up in far-away Japan.  Photos to remind me.  I’d like to tell her younger self: “You’re going to be surprised and delighted.”  Birthdays are a fine time for taking stock.

A friend of mine asked if anyone was there when I talked to myself.  Spending as much time as I do, talking to myself, I didn’t expect to find anyone else.  But Chyako’s always close and never far.

In this life, the face of love for me.  I’ve been singing the song I wrote for her: “I whisper in your ear, and know that you can hear, the many words of love…”

We’re going to go on a hike today to someplace we’ve never been.  It’s good to have an adventure now and then.  I’ll need to get busy packing lunch and watering.  The garden loves attention.

Since I planted dream seeds before sleeping last night, I shouldn’t be so surprised and delighted by the garden in the dream.  A fitting symbol.  The word for paradise was once a garden.  That hasn’t changed for me.

And I haven’t written what I want to say on that beautiful card.  I’ve told her, so it won’t be new.  But I’ve been saying, “I love you,” for almost thirty years.  It sounds the same, each time I say it, but like an acorn and the oak, the difference is profound.

I Want to Feel It All

Sansaku: I Want to Feel It All

7/19/23 

At its best, journal writing is similar to free-association and is not in service to the super-ego.  It takes me to places I need to go.  Sometimes places I avoid; other times places I’ve never known.

Jung said dreams describe in affective-images where we’re coming from, where we are, and where we need to go.  I read old journals same as dreams.  More a direction than place; how I need to go.

In last night’s dream, a group of us were going all over the place.  We plowed through snow and close to cliffs.  We went for supplies at a store and bought what we could.  I told them a story about my best friend Bill and how our love for each other didn’t survive adolescence.

It felt like a trek.  My first association, the trip to Santa Fe.  We YouTubed a talk about “Rusalka,” the opera we’re soon to see.  Her name means water nymph.  She has the bad fortune of falling in love with a human and things don’t go well.  The famous aria, “Song to the Moon,” set the mood for the dream.  I want to feel it all.

The temp didn’t drop last night.  Warm and humid, there’s a change in the air.  I woke a dozen times and slept a little later than usual.  After writing down my dream, I opened a journal and saw this sentence: “While the soul loves story, the spirit loves matter.”  Dark and light.

Secrets are a source of shame, one reason I’m open with cancer.  Instead of trying to transcend; I want to transform what could be shameful into strength.  The adversity into advantage idea.

I have good and bad days.  Not extreme, but relative.  When I feel badly, it’s not that bad.  It’s because my good days are sublime.  High and low.  I want to feel it all. 

Feeling Lucky

Sansaku:  Feeling Lucky

7/18/23

Some resistance to sharing the dream.  I hit a pedestrian.  Driving too fast, I crossed a line.  Before I could stop, a shift in scenes.  In a car that’s about to explode.  My eyes are closed; I’m totally relaxed and waiting for the blast.  It doesn’t come.  Earlier, I’d driven through a lot being tarred.  I shouldn’t cross, but did.  Then I started to speed.

Death is a top-ten symbol.  Every day, every moment, up and down the scales.  Always dying, always rebirthing.  Concentric circles, twelve turns to one.  The archetype of qualitative change.  Transformation.

I watch the sunrise here.  Light hits the tree.  The sky changes color.  When I lived at Timberline, I studied the shadow as it climbed up the ridge in the evening.  I stayed until the stars came out.  Over the years, two of my more important jobs.  What I practice.

Happiness studies have concluded we spend an inordinate amount of time on deciding and we’re happier with fewer choices.  Too many movies, too many brands.  One reason I live a simple and ritual life.

I felt renewed when I woke up today.  I’d slept the whole night through.  Feeling serene, even blissful.  No pain of any kind.  The grief of guilt and let-go of dying felt real in the dream.  I was grateful to wake.

An existential shock to the system.  A jump-start to the day.  Looking forward.  Just a few choices.  Chyako teaches.  I made a large pot of tabouli.  Good food matters.  Today I get to water.  Feeling lucky.

Luck is a natural anti-depressant and forms healthy antibodies in the psychological immune system.  Gratitude and praise belong to luck.  Despite the bad luck in the dream, I felt lucky when I woke.  One of many favorite definitions: “The more I practice, the luckier I get.”