Dark Energy Dynamics

Sansaku: Dark Energy Dynamics

10/30/23

The ratio of dark energy to light is roughly nine to one, same as the ratio between verbal and nonverbal communication.  We might focus on the literal and material, but dark energy dynamics matter more.

The more we study these dynamics, the more meaning we derive from the factual ten percent.  Twenty years ago, Garon drove George to the Alzheimer’s unit at Edgewood.  He’d been slowly introduced by spending time there.  This time, he would not be coming back.

Dipping into family history.  The director of the unit told Irma: “Best if you don’t come to visit.  He needs to see this place as where he lives.  He keeps asking everyone about his wallet and when he’s going home.”

There’s a soft-hearted nurse.  George camps at her door.  He wants her to call home.  It’s relentless.  She caves out of compassion.   The conversation strange.  Irma: “Hello, Sweetie.”  George: “Who are you?”  Irma: “I’m your wife.”  Long pause.  George: “I don’t know your voice.”

She told him they’d been married forty years.  He couldn’t remember her.  His voice was flat, like he’d been heavily tranquilized.  George said he didn’t belong here and had no pain.  Irma tried to explain.

“It was shocking,” she said, “to hear the magnitude of his decline.  I told him many times: I’m Irma Walters, your wife.”  The memory traumatic, she kept hearing and it echoed, how he said: “Irma who?

The director knew what she was doing and Irma quickly learned: “No way am I going over there for dinner or a visit.  I need to let him adapt.”  In no time at all.  He appeared to be a body lost in space.

How much does love and memory matter?  Dark energy dynamics.  In my universe, by far the heaviest.

Ready to Center

Saansaku: Ready to Center

10/29/23

My journal is surprisingly empty this morning.  I don’t remember dream detail, although I was eating a burrito-like concoction that supposedly was medicine.  Both of us a little low from our Covid vaccination.

We binged a show that started smart and edgy.  A show about a show and the stressful lives of the characters.  The last few trauma-drama episodes we watched left me empty.  Trouble falling asleep.

I wanted to get work done.  Leaves to mulch before the promised storm, clay buckets from the studio to empty in our settling pong.  And there’s a leak under the house.  It gets me down.  We have to wait until Wednesday for the plumbers.  Unsettled.  That’s the feeling.

Cold is on the way.  The last time I checked, seventeen degrees.  I’m concerned about the frost-free faucet that isn’t working.  I’ll be wrapping it in towels tonight.  Sorry for the bummer post.

I worked with memory for a living and study my own on a daily basis.  Jung said counseling helps correct the attitude of consciousness – it tends to get one-sided.  Today I’m feeling low.  Winter’s a-coming.

Yesterday, I didn’t eat as well as usual and because of the rain stayed inside.  Too much TV for me.  Can’t help but counsel myself.  “What’s with the subtle depression?”  It can feel like a losing battle.

“Okay, what else?”  Feeling guilty for the laziness and binge.  Instead of cooking, microwaving frozen dinners.  “Big fucking deal, get over it.  Loosen the screws.”  Today the sun is shining, I’ll be taking a walk with a friend, and soup is on the menu.  Chyako’s latest reel comes to mind.

When students crash pots, she teaches them how to recycle clay.  To dry the clay, they form arches.  Then it’s back on the wheel, ready to center.

The Perfect Introduction

Sansaku: The Perfect Introduction

10/28/23

Susan made the Counseling Center the place to go.  No longer awkward to walk through the door; it was cool.  You wanted to be on that team.  We had a free pass to go where we wanted and ate as a gang.  Louder than magpies, everyone knew us.  I was proud to belong.

We existed as the underground in an academic hierarchic world.  I’ve never needed to apologize for being just a counselor.  And yesterday:

We walked the river trail in the same way we paraded through campus.  Finding friends, new and old, and interacting.  The Dumpster DJ herself and a friend with a Jungian mom.  Nancy said we messed with heads.  I agreed: “A few with loose screws that needed tightening, but most too tight, in need of loosening.”  Susan’s a master of loose.  I’m a disciple.

Behind the library we encountered a pregnant woman with a magical fifteen-month-old.  Susan announced: “I steal children.”  Violet smiled her beatific smile, but her mom wasn’t sure what to do with our highly intrusive style.  She chose to join in.  Why not?

The Book of Susan in my life’s Bible is one of the best.  We could have been a series, a top-notch dramatic comedy.  A full twenty-five seasons, an ensemble cast, and a script that wrote itself.

Sheryll came to visit and Susan planned a get-together.  It’s what she does better than anyone else I know.  At camp, she’s the social director.  Sheryll asked how she’d recognize Susan.  I said: “That’s easy.  She’s as tall and loud as you, and will probably have a stain on her blouse.”

On meeting her, Sheryll nodded and said: “You’re right.”  Susan with precognitive insight responded: “I suppose he told you I’d have a stain like this.” She pointed to her blouse.”  The perfect introduction.

Shared History

Sansaku: Shared History

10/27/23

If I hadn’t kept a journal, not sure what I’d know about myself.  Sartre wrote: Introspection is always retrospection.  I need repeated reflection over time.  What happened long ago is still happening and the more I relate, the better the story.  The other way to learn, relationships. 

Out late last night telling stories at Susan’s.  Our favorite happened close to forty years ago.  A group of school counselors met once or twice every year and we invited Susan to speak.  She’d been recently hired to be the counseling center director.

I didn’t know at the time she’d be a major player in my life.  And I don’t know if I’ve ever written this down.  I haven’t had to; it’s been told and retold many times.  This story has a structure.

Susan handed me a Werther’s and said she made it.  Wrapped in the original wrapper, I thought she went to a lot of trouble.  Unfortunately, I said this out loud.  I’m exceedingly gullible.  She took full advantage.

Since then, I’ve learned it’s easier to lie than to cook.  Last night it looked like a home cooked meal.  She said: “I don’t do recipes, I know addresses.”  She told us where it came from.  She’s highly skilled.

In our long list of embarrassing highlights, Werther’s takes the cake and candy.  She’s turning eighty on Halloween Eve.  As colorful and real as they get.  We made quite a pair.  Touring a new building, we interacted with every open door.  Gene yelled: “Oh good, the coyotes have come to cleanse this place that feels so bad.”  We acted more like clowns.

Given the conversational nature of reality, David Whyte’s phrase, relationships matter more than anything.  My life would be poor without her.  Shared history, that important.

Erotic Disclosure

Sansaku:  Erotic Disclosure

10/26/23

At the risk of too much erotic disclosure: the act of making, pouring, drinking tea.  Just now, gently pushing the plunger into the vessel of a French press.  Feeling the friction, all the way down.

The shape and form of the pour.  The French press into Thermos.  The green-gold color.  Sound and scent.  And then a second pour, into the round black yunomi.  Just a little.  This keeps it hot.

The teacup has a skin-smooth feel and is one that Chyako made and used for many years.  Relationship and meaning, embodied in clay that’s been fired and glazed.  The inside is white.  No wrinkles, but there are two superficial cracks with stains that add character.

Lip to lip the flow of warm liquid tea.  The gulp and sigh.  Then back on the table.  It feels like a gift.  The gift of connection.  When it comes to gifts: you cannot have your cake unless you eat it.

A fascinating dream that took me back to childhood.  A character named Kinder-Claus that delivered instant karma, good or bad feedback depending.  Keeping me pointed in the right direction.

I scatter sentences like seeds.  “Only as affect tolerance grows can the light and dark sides of the self be integrated.”  The writer goes on to say: “It’s the process of humanization.”

Light is not the opposite of dark, nor dark the opposite of light.  They’re yin-yang complements.  Viktor Frankl wrote: “What gives light must endure the burning.”  One of the gifts I get from cancer.  More light.

It’s not just drinking tea.  Dancing to the beat and Van’s voice: “Full Force Gail.”  Like pouring a cup and taking a sip, I get up and out of the chair.  The great gift of sensation.  Even the pen, erotic.

Not Until I Looked

Sansaku: Not Until I Looked

10/25/23

Enough drama yesterday.  The test result arrived late afternoon.  If pressed, it’s what I’d have guessed.  The PSA was undetectable, less than 0.01.  Three months off the hook.  Although it rendered my worries moot, the existential questions haven’t gone away.

One of the sayings I taught: Where you stumble and fall is the place to dig.  That’s where the treasure is buried.  Cancer is the root that tripped me.  Where I’m digging.

Some words drop like rocks into wells.  They won’t be coming out.

I spent a couple of hours following a YouTube trail.  The movie, “Julia,” popped up and I went looking.  In ’77, a hit at the Oscars.  It came to Durango my first year at Timberline.  A powerful story.  Jane Fonda plays the writer, Lillian Hellman.  YouTube mentioned a scandal.

The story had been stolen and not accredited.  The real Julia was Dr. Muriel Gardiner.  I knew her daughter, Connie, and three of her grandchildren.  The story better still.  An underground hero.

When asked if she was natural liar, she took her time and calmly responded.  “It depends on the situation, but yes with the Nazis.”  She moved to Vienna to study with Freud.  There’s too much to tell.

I’m grateful for the TV, but I’m aware it can damage the soul.  Not just the content, but medium.  It allows us to view the most horrible things without feeling.  This is training in dissociation.  I want it to wake me.

Unlike screens, dreams are flush with feeling.  Meaning personified.  Team-building was the theme in last night’s dream.  Instead of sports the athletes were dancing.  I was walking in socks not shoes.  But not until I looked, puddles on the ground, did I feel my socks were wet.

What I Needed to Know

Sansaku: What I Needed to Know

10/24/23

I’ve been taking advantage of an unsettling and uncertain situation.  The PSA test result is still not in and I’m a wee bit post-traumatic.  The last time this happened, I learned about the cancer.

I’ve looked and relooked, a dozen times.  Still not there.  Los Lobos popped up on the IPhone.  I’ve been moving to their anthem: “Will the Wolf Survive.”  Doing a check-in with the body.  Feeling good.

The PSA was heavy on my mind when I went to bed.  This influenced early dreams in an obvious way.  Trying to stock the drugs I use to treat.  But later in the morning, the more symbolic scenes.  Our table at the restaurant lacked sufficient olive oil for the bread, but we took what we needed from the tables closest to us.  I walked with Olive yesterday.

Climbing up a stairway, a bear coming down.  Blond brown fur, not dissimilar to my own.  I pretended not to notice and avoided direct eye contact.  Not as scary as it should be.  This happened two times.

Some kind of sign, but I’m not sure which.  It’s going to be what it’s going to be.  I’m committed to this path, but there’s a lot I don’t know.  I do know I’m grateful and gratitude matters on this journey.  I wrote a song that has the line: If waiting is patience and patience is faith…

Waiting in the lobby for my name to be called.  The phlebotomist was way behind.  A woman exited and said: “Does it look like I’ve been through a war?”  I’m one of those types that talks.  So was she.

The bear reminds me of danger, the uncertainty I face.  So close I brushed his fur.  I’ve been eaten by a bear in a dream.  I didn’t die, but something happened.  I was taken to a place outside of time.  I could ask any question.  I did and discovered what I needed to know.

A Bit of a Mash

Sansaku: A Bit of a Mash

10/23/23

A new relationship and I haven’t been kind to the elm seed bugs.  They look like baby box elders without the red strip.  When touched, they give off a strong unpleasant odor, described as bitter almond.  We’ve had a hundred, others thousands or more.  They’re on the rise.

Looking up and out the window, magpies scold a raccoon who’s running fast across the fence.  A second one close behind.  They climb down the narrow space between our fence and the neighbor’s.

In the front yard, two young bucks are locking tiny antlers and butting heads.  One of them appeared to be missing an antler.  I felt badly for him, but when I looked a little later, both antlers there.  A new story.

A bird got into the house in my dream.  The feathers reminded me of an owl or hawk, but the size was closer to a songbird.  Easy to catch, I put the bird in our freezer.  What the hell is that about?  But no sooner done, than I opened the door and the bird flew toward a window.

Talons stuck in the curtain; I caught the bird a second time.  I held her lightly.  She grasped tightly.  It didn’t hurt.  I carried her to the door and let her go.  I thought the bird did not belong and made no attempt at relationship.  It bothers me now.

Friends of mine have recently gone for it.  If you don’t, you won’t make the needed mistakes or find the necessary trouble.  Aim high and miss often.  An odd recipe for success that not so oddly works.

Although I’m not a fan of war and enemy metaphors, my foe is a worthy opponent and deserves great respect.  Three months have passed since my last PSA.  Two hours away.  As far as I can tell, no change.  Yesterday a neighbor asked.  He said he prays for my health.  I blessed him.   

I Won’t Finish

Sansaku: I Won’t Finish

10/21/23

I got the saying from George: “As to taste there can be no dispute.”  I was twelve maybe thirteen and gave it serious thought.  He used it as a weapon of defense and not a tool of understanding.  He felt free to criticize, but it was not a two-way street.  I did my best to understand.  We can be both right and wrong.

Time as a line goes on and on, it never ends.  Time as a circle is like a story.  At the end of a story, when all is revealed and if I like the taste, I’ll go back to the start and watch it again.  I’m doing that with “Ted Lasso.”

I want the spirit of the show to permeate my soul.  Ghandhi thought the destiny of humanity depended on learning that our nature is much loftier than we imagine.  A vision of what we can and should be.

What is true success?  One of the best answers to the question: To love and be loved.  Susan gave it and we all wrote it down.  She nailed it.  Mark uses her response when he teaches.  Getting to the essence.

In the presence of essence, we have vision.  Meaning clarifies.  It’s becoming who we’re meant to be.  The life we’re meant to live.   I’m constantly beginning, starting over.  I won’t ever finish.

Particularly true today.  I’ve been writing on empathy, which is standard of care for counselors and much more complicated than commonly believed.  I’m grateful for friends, empathetic medicine.

And we’re going to plant the garlic bed today.  Lots of leaves to mulch.  The big box elder in the front yard is at it’s peak.  Drinking a beer under the liquid yellow light, a woman stopped to tell me.  Perfect.

We were leaving on a road trip in my dream.  I had to jump through the rear window to get in.  Three already there.  I didn’t have much money.

A Fundamental Mystery

Sansaku: A Fundamental Mystery

10/20/23

Nan Shin, a Zen nun, wrote about her cancer.  When a friend learned of her condition, he said: “Good karma.  Brings you closer to the Way.”  Nan Shin hadn’t seen it like this. Instead of bad karma, she was burning karma.  Illness as the cure and not affliction.  An opportunity for enlightenment.  This comes from Kate Duff’s Alchemy of Illness.

Simulation is a classic sci-fi theme.  How do we know what’s real?  One philosopher said: “If we’re to believe modern physics is true, there’s not much difference between waking experiences and dreams.”

I was having trouble with our nightly salad and trying to remember.   Didn’t know that I was dreaming.  Thinking I missed some of the essential ingredients, I made a list: garbanzo beans, tofu, jicama…

I saw a shooting star this morning.  Bright and right in the spot I was looking.  It flashed across the sky and vanished.  Feeling very blessed and lucky.  That’s the wish I made.

We found two brown envelopes stuffed with cash at the bottom of a box that could have been easily tossed.  While this seemed like a good thing, trouble from the start.  Once again, didn’t feel like a dream.

Transcendent implies higher levels of reality and consciousness.  Maslow put transcendence above actualization.  The mystics describe it in detail.  Open Rumi anywhere.

“Let the beauty we love be what we do.  There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground… Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field.  I’ll meet you there.”

The transcendent function allows for communion between the ego-self and soul.  What emerges from the dialogue, a fundamental mystery.