group dynamics: August 2007 Archives

The Rock Star told me that he feels like he's "standing in the middle of a storm" as he's helped people moving out and moving in for the past ten days.

Does he look like he's bothered by much to you? ;-)

As The Captain steered and navigated us along the Atlantic seacoast and up the Connecticut River, I marveled at our isolation.

No, we were not the only people on the water (although many times, especially in the early morning, it felt this way). We were the only people sailing. Cigarette boats, smaller fishing boats and larger cruisers pounded by, sometimes slowing considerately so as not to pummel us with their wake, but not always. How is it, I wondered, that people seek to escape the frenzy of daily life by transferring the same frenetic energy to their recreation? Everyone we met commented on the "speed" (as in lack thereof) or our humble craft. There we were, two women (egads!) on a tiny boat (one kayaker who stopped to chat boasted his boat was longer than ours by two whole feet!), rejecting modernity's rapidity and its characteristic exertion of control over the environment.

Sailing is a wonder. I was blessed with spectacular weather during my stint as crew for Shemaya's Serenity Sail - a bit of rain the first night (for which we were totally prepared), otherwise sun and the vagaries of wind and current. The second night boasted a spectacular sunset, a full moon and an eclipse! We had nice long downwind sails on Day Two and Three. By Day Three I was doing pretty well with steering - having worked out how to work the rudder to keep the bow pointed where we wanted to go. In the little bit of down time just before bed, we read Over the Edge of the World. "By sailing west until they reached the East, and then sailing on in the same direction..." (p. 2), Magellan and his crew changed humanity's conception of the world. While discussing this as we tacked back and forth up the mouth of the Connecticut River (the first time!), I had a flatearther moment. I don't know how else to explain it; I was sitting in Serenity, with water stretching quite a distance in all directions around me, land rising up on two sides and the Long Island Sound behind...I tried to imagine the magnitude of the shift in consciousness required to reject the obvious evidence provided through the perception of my own eyes: the world seemed flat. I comprehended the world as flat (for all of a second or two, just long enough to register).

An email from a colleague came with this quotation by Frantz Fanon:

I ascribe a basic importance to the phenomenon of language. To speak means to be in a position to use a certain syntax, to grasp the morphology of this or that language, but it means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization.

He did it.

He really left.

The dawg.

shit. I'm sure that is not right. I had it in mind until I sat down to write this. Will someone correct me?

This is like when I thought you all were talking about female genital mutilation in India: how hard are you laughing now? ;-) Yes, I am just a phat redneck. (sigh)

Ethel the Philosopher is writing on non-propositional knowledge, which is almost phenomenological but not quite. Cassiopia the Easily Wounded is working on something else (I'm not sure what).

Then we saw my classmate from years ago, who I've now seen three times in the last two weeks: "In Panama we say, 'Now I see you in my soup!'" she exclaimed while passing me on the street. :-)

Wittgenstein was a misogynist who believed genius has a price. Did Nietzsche believe this too? I don't know, but we had an impassioned discussion tonight about the possibility that systemic change begins with us. (Maybe it was just me who was passionate?!)

I think there were a hundred other things I was supposed to remember for the blog, but come on! I can't do it all by myself! ;-)

"How was your year?"

Deborah's first question was too big for me to answer right away. It was, in fact, almost exactly a year ago that I returned from Istanbul and spent a day with Lee, meeting her friends Deb and June on Long Beach. As usual, Lee outdid herself with hospitality on both ends of this year's quick trip to Albuquerque, not only taking care of me but spontaneously entertaining three of my friends.

On the return flight, I'd done as much work as I could, continuing to read and write on my proposal. Underneath the intellectual activity however, a crevass yawed open so sharply I could hardly find means of articulation:

I would like to believe that the pain will fade. I know its pang will mellow, becoming more manageable if still poignant. Smaller triggers will elicit edges, twinges persist in their acuteness. The overwhelming character will ease, etching itself into identity such that intangible nuances of care and compassion will be enhanced. Unless one turns bitter, or chooses to ignore pain’s presence, these simple if tragic events will not be repeated. Indeed, exactly the same “mistake” will not occur again, rather conditions will call out disguised in a new form, sneakily enticing enactment of another version of the sad same ol’ same old thing. A quick wit and sharp intelligence will recognize the pattern – at least momentarily – before defenses once again seek to avert disaster (bringing it on? We must learn new ways.)

Arriving late to life, my mind opens so slowly to intersubjectivity. Communal relationality at the core of all myths that inspire me, even those of heroic deeds (which must be done on someone’s behalf). Sleep seeks me, the computer’s battery fades, this flight home extended, a delay. I am such a product of my time, yearning yet hemmed in, alive against the crushing numbness of institutional regimes demanding my labor, my subsistence ecked out against rules and policies and expectations not to rock the fragile boat. There are no life rafts here.

Lee's generosity is always a surprise - not that she offers, but that she so means it. Sam's progeny. :-) The connection between Deb and I continues. Her new work is fascinating, pursuing the theme of gestation shaping her (and my) work and life. I am compelled even more by Deb's words about her art. Perhaps next time I will bring an audio recorder? She could be podcast. :-) The new watercolors continue exploring bodily and root systems but invert the positive and negative ground. Her guiding principle, "everything contains its opposite," allows her to generate abstract images which haunt with familiarity. A chord of recognition is struck, then followed by a question: this speaks to me, eliciting a sense of ease, but I do not know exactly what or why: in her words, what is evoked is "a comfortable mystery." Lured by mystery yet safe enough in the zone of the familiar, perhaps we can look more closely?

Our reunion has that feel - none of us realized the timing until hours of interaction had passed. Yet the bonds that tied us last year are as strong and sudden now as they were then. An anniversary marked with all the important things: fellowship, food, fun. I must follow up on June's suggestion to read Christopher Moore (Practical Demon Keeping seems exactly right, and The Stupidest Angel definitely appeals).

Meanwhile, as we compared notes of the last year, Deb dropped some gems about acquiring "a knowledge of how you do things," and that what matters are not your circumstances "because everybody has circumstances" but "how you accommodate the circumstances."

So, whether you can't convince a dog to accept a hardboiled egg from your hand, or your jeans get wet in the surf, the point is (as an email from Ruth asserts) to learn to dance in the rain.

I told mom that Tommy is a keeper. (Not that my opinion really matters, but it is nice to meet him and discover that I like his sense of humor and appreciate his integrity.)

He's got an amazing mental focus, evident in his stories and daily interactions. He credits his mom (who "never thought no harm of no one") and Jesus Christ. Tommy is blessed with great health and has had incredible good luck (as well as plenty of horrible experiences that might have more deeply wounded a lesser person). He loves his work - forty-five years as a teacher and still going strong! Tommy is walking testimony to the positive effects of following one's passions.

He built a house, by himself, when he first started teaching in New York during the 1960s. Seven thousand square feet, mind you, with no prior experience. As I listened to him recount various anecdotes about buying the land (a killer deal), refusing shoddy or haphazard assistance (nothing beats one's own craftsmanship), resisting the collective jealousy of many who wanted him to fail, and connecting with children despite adult animosity...I thought to myself, we are rather alike, he and I. Not because of these particular experiences; mine have been different, less extreme and/or targeted in alternative ways. Rather, I think Tommy and I both have some kind of internal drive that anchors a conviction in our own perception of the world. I am not claiming that my views are more right or better than others, but that believing and adhering to them has been an effective strategy for me to arrive in (at least some of the) places I want to be.

I woke up this morning thinking about conflict: why it happens between individuals and what "it" is that occurs, the phenomena itself that we label "conflict." I know a bunch of analytical theories about why conflict happens, and plenty of communicative strategies for avoiding or resolving interactions that involve conflict. I believe conflict is an irreducible element of life. The challenge of conflict is balancing the tasks of managing oneself and respecting others. The mechanism of conflict is the meeting of two (or more) different interpretations of "reality" - the struggle is which version will take primacy. Collaborative relations have no assumption that one or the other viewpoint is more/less important or real than one's own.

I am such a slow learner. :-/

Anyway, I related to Tommy's story of building a house, both because I miss having a home to fiddle with, but moreso because the metaphor is suitable for my ambition. I want to build a house of ideas, a mental/social construction of possibility, a framework for interaction that enables collaboration as an equal alternative to hierarchy: a home of power with, rather than power over.

He fed us a feast. Not that you'd know He-of-No-Worries defended his phd the other day and is imminently en route to a post-doc in Munich. Rasta the Jamaican Impasta was here, and Andi (headed off to his own post-doc at Yale), the not - so - innocent friend from Columbia, and the Ever-Smiling Evil Indian kept us well entertained. Thoughts of ABD Singh drifted in the background (He of No Revisions).

An intriguing critique of the Indian media cast some doubt on the claim that India boasts the most mature democracy in the world.

Most important, however, are the certificates Dada wishes to distribute to his friends.

After spending hours shredding the evidence of broad swaths of my existence, it was kind of a few friends to allow me to join them for dinner despite the Orwellian eye of the blog. They promptly and thoroughly diminished the residual shards of self-importance to mere egotistical flotsam. With friends like these . . . !

I finished Morton’s novel this afternoon. “Love me, love my goblin,” Nora wishes of Isaac, but doesn’t know if he will (284). “She knew that this was going to be her life: wherever she turned, the suffering world would be upon her.

She didn’t know if she had stumbled onto a fact about existence or merely a fact about herself. Life isn’t just suffering; she knew this. Life is also joy and creation and procreation. Yes, we’re a community of suffering, but we’re a community of ecstasy as well. (278)

I identify with Isaac too. “It was amazing, the way thirty years can be irrevocably altered by one bonehead move” (262).

Tonight’s discussion themes over dinner verged on the morbid (aging, death by water, alcoholism), yet were tempered by laughter, teasing, and hopefulness. “You have too many friends.” Cassiopia was by turns sympathetic and a liability, the Ever-Smiling Evil Indian relished her pseudonymity, while the innocent friend ridiculed swimming only in water where one’s feet can touch bottom. I know I can tread water for some hours, but I will be sure to get well-trained in the use of emergency communications gear so that I can call for help when the seagulls, flies, and gusts of breeze appear!

“No matter how many wrong turns you make, you can always go in a new direction. As long as you’re alive” (257). Renee is an iconic representation of the future to Isaac; she reads Frederic Jameson on Hegel [The Cultural Turn]. Isaac wonders if

“what he really missed was the belief that there was an overarching meaning in his life . . . a thread that tied one day to the next, a bright thread of meaning that took the loose purposelessness of everyday life and gave it form and value and direction” (287).

We also spoke, tonight, of pedagogy and the ending of a course, which always seems to happen right when the norms get settled and the group is ready to evolve. Finally, a majority of individual students have become willing to be affected by the material and each other. Perhaps the institutional structuring of higher education was not deliberately designed to curtail critical re-education, but the course-by-course (teacher-by-teacher) system is starkly effective at cutting off community-building that might lead to social change. “Death moves in on you from a distance, taking things away. The circle of places you even dream of visiting becomes smaller and smaller” (195). Nora’s Aunt Billie has been like a parent to her, within the limits of her capacities.

Nora insists on treasuring the moments with her Aunt, loving her without reason: “Billie was kind, but it wasn’t because of her kindness; she was generous, but it wasn’t because of her generosity. The love wasn’t there because of anything Billie had done. It was just there. Certain people are given into our care, and we have no choice but to care for them” (188).

Nora admires Isaac’s photographs: “He had a distinctive style…a distinctive way of seeing people….his subjects, his people, seemed strong…

People, she was thinking, have handles, and different artists grasp people by different handles. Dostoevsky grasped people by their feverishness, their intensity. Yeats grasped people by their nobility of character. Whitman grasped people by their sexuality, or by whatever it is in us – something that includes but is larger than sexuality – that makes us want to merge with others. (168)

Time slowed for me today. For several stretches of road, coasting well under the speed limit, I felt oddly vacant. Nora muses “that maybe the point of life was to send one dream into the mind of the universe. Everything else in your life is incidental to the dreaming of that dream, but you can’t know which one it is” (263).

I believe we can choose which dream we want to shape the meaningfulness of our lives, but we may not be able to assess its success. After all my many (oh so many!) years on earth, my patience improves. Some times are for pleasure – being asked questions (162) by my friends tonight pepped me up a fair bit. Having a still mind is the most recent manifestation of patience – who knew such quietude is possible? Other times are for holding tight with “a love that [is] unbendable and complete” (140).

If I built an ontology on the triad of dreaming into mind, taking turns as necessary, and seeking the strengths of everyone I encounter, might this balance the force of devils and angels (Rilke), or Nora’s goblins and graces, warring for my soul? And who will remain my friend, as we try to make out each other’s words through the static of our own thoughts? (60)

from Shi-choo (Grandmother) the Evil Kachina

"These are our times and our responsibilities. Every human being has a sacred duty to protect the welfare of our Mother Earth, from whom all life comes. In order to do this, we must recognize the enemy - the one within us. We must begin with ourselves..."

(Shi-Choo elaborates): The outside is merely a reflection of our insides. My mind is designed to tell me that I'm not crazy for thinking what I am thinking. Even if I have angry thought, my mind is giving me excuses and reasons why it is OK to think what I'm thinking. I need to be knowledgeable about the laws of harmony and balance. I cannot twist the laws to serve me but I can adjust my life to serve the laws. This is the law - I am here to serve the earth. The earth is not here for me to misuse and abuse. Allow me the insight and knowledge of how to live in

See, if you hang out with those types long enough they learn all kind of things about you (such as how often you floss). Eeeck! New recommendations for old farts like me is to floss Twice a Day!

Downtown Amherst, Sunday night. GQ haircut, spiffy duds, trademark banter (Beyonce’s backup band members, Hermit Island, show production, and party locations. Did he tease about the blog? Hmmmmm....

Smart guy: defended his thesis a year ago (Trophy Children Don't Smile) and keeps up a very sharp website. Worth knowing.

Also posted in my other blog, A Place in Space, since this one was unavailable due to maxxed out storage capacity.

camping in the dawn land