oh...just me: June 2004 Archives

More awful dreams last night - when I was actually able to sleep! All kinds of family stuff is getting stirred up.

Read an article in the Albuquerque Tribune about a study on lying - turns out more and more Americans think it's ok to lie to get ahead. "Individuals, it seems, are getting weaker when faced with temptation," writes G. Jeffrey MacDonald for the Christian Science Monitor.

I don't think anyone in my family-of-choice or it's immediate circle is lying as in telling untruths. But I do think we are all challenged to express our honest perceptions carefully, accurately, and with integrity. And I am feel I am never gentle enough. :-(

For years (most of my life) I had "escape dreams". Up until my 30's, these were me trying to escape from something with no help. They weren't actually nightmares, they were scary but not usually terrifying. More as if it was just a fact of my life that I had to get away from....all kinds of characters. People who wanted me for some usually unspecified but no good reason (or none that I wanted to participate in). About ten years or so ago, these dreams started to include me and others...I was responsible for assisting a handful of folk to get away from whoever was chasing us.

Last night I dreamed about being in court. I was defending myself against some baseless accusation and testifying to adverse impact upon my life. The particular detail I recall is how I was sometimes prevented from working, and that I only got paid when I was able to work.

Upon waking, what struck me was a change in theme of my dreams in general. I think this has been going on for awhile. Instead of escaping, its about sticking - about standing my ground and facing the "chasers" or "accusers". I don't recall other dreams now, but I do have this image in mind, which I don't think I've dreamed but comes to me every now and then: of my feet growing roots and anchoring me in a nonphysical yet substantial firmament.

My mom has so much stuff! ohmygosh. We moved all the big stuff today and I'm toasted but it's the little stuff that's gonna do us in over the next four days, I'm sure of it. A couple of other residents (both women, most of the single residents are women) saw me pushing the loaded dolly and asked, "Where are your menfolk?" My impulse was to say, "I am the menfolk!" but I moderated, "I'm it; and it's ok." :-)

Well. Here I am at the Buena Vista Active Adult Community in Rio Rancho, NM preparing to haul my mom's furniture and assorted (thousands) of belongings down the hall to her new one-bedroom apartment. Somehow, just me and a dolly are gonna pull this off. Mom will help, of course, she's pretty fit, but.....this is going to be an adventure.

Don't want to lose this guide to hiking trails right around my neck of the woods!

What a great ritual Ingrid and I did on Bare Mountain! After an invigorating 25 minute hike up, we took in the view of the happy valley then settled down to business.

After smudging with sage, we each collected a few leaves and wrote on them fears and/or angers that we wanted to discharge. I envisioned my two in broad, rather than specific terms, although I did have specific people/situations in mind.

~ fear of hurting (others) and being hurt
~ anger about fear (in myself and others)

Then we shredded our leaves into the sage smudge and let them smolder, purified by fire, before tossing them to the wind. The really cool thing that happened is that while we were doing the purifying part, four turkey vultures flew right up to us and circled several times, probably drawn by the smell of burning sage (truly yummy).

We ate then, and Ingrid read from her animal medicine cards book about the critters in her dreams last night, and about dragonfly (who we also saw at the peak), and I read about raven (closest we could get to turkey vultures, smile). Then, I did a spread, drawing swan in the east, buffalo in the south, contrary whale in the west, contrary crow in the north, and contrary moose in the center. Wow. I have to say that it was one of the best (in terms of gratifying) readings I've ever had. :-) Included several cautions but validated

The longest day of the year. The longest year of my life? ;-)

The complicated architecture for the winter solstice at Pueblo Bonito is represented in the print [the FP] brought back from her training in NM last summer. If I was there now, I could have witnessed "the sun rising from behind a large knob-shaped rock outcrop" marking the summer solstice, keeping the ancient Chacoans calendar.

Ingrid and I will celebrate.

Building on Benjamin Disraeli's, "Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning," Svoboda (1996) wrote "All learning begins with seeing...but we must reflect on what we see and ... then if we want to learn, we must open ourselves to the possibility of pain."

Quoted by a presenter at a commencement ceremony from an article, Anxious Exposure, by Leavett & Richards, Smith College Studies in Social Work 67(3), June 1997.

I survived another driving lesson with Hunju yesterday. Ohmygosh! She's improved so much but the 12-point turn in the middle of rush hour traffic on Rt 9 just about did me in. :-) Later, she was telling me about the Korean notion that everyone has "the one worst year" in their life. We decided this probably is mine. Ingrid suggested however, that I shouldn't tempt my luck by making any predictions or assumptions about how much (or even whether) things could be any worse. Obviously, they could be. Thanks, universe! I think I've had about enough!

Unfortunately for Hunju, she doesn't think she's had hers yet. Ingrid rejects the notion altogether - how depressing would it be to anticipate a year of hell? Seems like one of those double-edged aphorisms: can be a comfort from the point-of-view of struggle, and a bane from the point-of-view of the relatively undisturbed.

Dad called yesterday to let me know he had a mild stroke on Thursday. He lost the use of his left (dominant) arm. He seems ok; they ran an extensive battery of tests and couldn't find anything except elevated blood pressure (his is usually quite good, so I'm guessing that was a reaction to the stroke, not the cause). Says his arm is back to about 80% now. One test not yet back has to do with blood enzymes, but his heart, arteries, and brain all looked great. Probably stress related.

The bro is still in rehab (4th placement in a row, I think?) and doing ok there. Speaking of parallelism, the synchrony of events between mom and I is downright weird, however our choices about how to deal are radically different. I'd like to think it indicates that I've learned my way out of some of the most destructive aspects of my growing up family's dynamics, but maybe I've just invented my own bizarre twist to them, who knows?!

"If you want truly to understand something, try to change it." - Kurt Lewin

I had anticipated not being called and updated on developments and scheduling but the lack of communication still hurts. The excuse is too convenient. At the same time, perhaps my 'silence' means something too. :-(

The parrallelism between my family's dynamics, process, and discourse and my research interests are extremely obvious, aren't they?

Lewin's "research discovered that learning is best facilitated when there is a conflict between immediate concrete experience and detached analysis within the individual."

I've been remembering details like, "what if I don't want to deal?" I can note innumberable instances of difference between the immediate experience and its association to a larger abstract process. I was aware of many of them at the time they occurred. I even predicted their outcome, if uninterrupted.

Well, they've been interrupted now but (apparently) much too late to matter to a productive mutual co-construction and creation of change. In many regards I'm losing my optimism that things can work out. The accumulation of injury, whether deliberate or unintentional, is massive.

Ms. Hannah Mae Reichel will complete third grade in less than two hours. Holy Moly Bejoly.

Yesterday at field day I got to run the best station - the egg toss (with wooden eggs and spoons in 4-5 person relay teams) and the water bomb relay (same but with the "bomb" tucked between chin and chest, no hands!) Hannah said it was "the best!"

Sarbjeet and Lynn ganged up on me to take the 4th game of cutthroat after I'd won the first three. :-)

My "skill" is so sporadic as to qualify as nothing more than luck, but they were quite entertaining about it. "Uh oh, we made her mad!" Lynn exclaimed at one point when I actually sank two in a row.

Nice to play at ABC too, where Winnie works and there's always a chance of seeing Stephen.

Yup, my friends have been awesome. Just want to acknowledge this, despite everything else, my friends are rocks. There's Sarbjeet, who confided me during a private moment yesterday that I didn't look like I'd been taking care of myself (gasp! the nerve!); and Ingrid, who presented a compelling argument that the reason I remain optimistic about a happy future with [the FP] (not necessarily as lovers but at least as friends) is because the visions or intuitions I have about said happy future are actually glimpses of a parallel dimension in which we ARE happy together. Unlike this dimension in which all indicators of reality are that we'll be lucky if we can even maintain cursory communication for any significant amount of time.

I'm tempted by this different dimension notion, it would let me off the hook in some regard, perhaps make it easier to "let go" (the one piece of advice that seems to recur most frequently). I understand, via Stephen Hawking, that science actually supports the notion of different dimensions, however these alternative dimensions do not have the same characteristics as ours does, which makes belief in parallelism a bit more challenging for moi. It doesn't make me a disbeliever, per se, but I must say that I approach such concepts with a fair amount of skepticism. One of the sanest people I know (who also qualifies in the good friend category) regularly reveals her vision of multiple dimensions and realities and I don't disbelieve her experience; its just my own perception that I question!

There are other friends too (not to neglect anyone!). Raz has disappeared into the tangled dimension of eastern Europe. Ruth's steady pager presence is a constant source of humor and common sense. Li and Qun are very generous with their time and their baby (who I wish to claim as my own, but that would be a bit presumptuous, don't you think?). Carolyn is terrific too. Then there's the wider circle of folk who I interact with more loosely and yet still meaningfully...who knows, perhaps they too will warrant a mention in this sycophantic weblog. :-)

I'm enjoying Conforti's book but can't take in too much of it at a time. Too close to home. The following quote refers to "the divine", however, it also articulates my current psychoemotional stretch into (what feels like) quasi-sainthood...

"The Greek language has various terms to denote love. Eros and philo refer to love with a subject and object, a love that is a personal involvement and usually expects something in return (gratitude if nothing else!) - Whereas agape indicates love without any specific focus, an overflowing fullness of the heart, which cannot but be shared with whomever comes in contact with it, without expecting anything in return...[Ritsema, 2003] (p. 3-4). Living solely within the personal domain (Eros and philo), we end up recycling all too familiar information and material. However, touching the transpersonal (agape) creates an opening into something much greater than oneself."

Rudolf Ritsema (2003, p. 3-4) of the Eranos Foundation in Conforti, p. xxii

Conforti is arguing for an a priori morphogenetic field that seeks to express itself in archetypal forms. So I have to wonder about my archetype, knowing that I am drawn into certain group situations that share some key characteristics. I'm not completely swayed with his disregard of any kind of dialectical co-construction, but can see where pieces coincide with other theories and concepts that I do abide - such as the notion of valence.

One must also wonder about the valence/archetypes of other members of these groups.

Again, it seems I am the messenger who must be killed. :-( Discourse change is So Hard!

Also interesting:
The Synchronity of Jung's Response to Reality

Spock might have had it backwards.

Sir Michael Marmot, author of the famous Whitehall Study, argues that health and length of life is influenced to a high degree by social standing. His new book, Status Syndrome, is summarized in this BBC story, The Secrets of Long Life Revealed?.

Iris is spreading this around because it says people with PhD's will live longer than those with less education. :-)

Did I mention that I dove into the world of tag sales yesterday? :-) I got some free weights and a bench, along with a couple of other knickknacks (sp?) for a whopping $12.

"Freud...saw the tendency to repeat as as attempt to avoid anxiety and internal distress. He explained that repetition is enacted as a defense against remembering. If the traumatic event is externalized through some form of repetition, then the anxiety that will inevitably arise if the meaning of the event is considered and consciously examined is lessened. Freud thus theorized that repeating is a way to avoid remembering."

By repetition, he is referring to "an organic compulsion ... [for]...how the germ of a living animal is obliged in the course of its development to recapitulate...the structures of all the forms from which it sprung" (Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, p. 37; in Conforti, p. 6).

This includes the individual life, how adults reenact the patterns of relationships in the family of origin; and also in groups (I think!) as in the moment of leverage for change presented by a problematic moment. This is what Billig refers to as dialogic repression. Conforti rejects social constructionism though, arguing for the presence of an a priori archetypal impulse in the psyche that each person is unavoidably riven to: he takes the psyche itself as a pre-given thing. His argument will proceed, I think, along the lines of evidence of tension between the nature of the archetype seeking to express itself (energy intending toward form) and ... something else - what?

From Field, Form, and Fate: Patterns in Mind, Nature, & Psyche by Michael Conforti.

Yesterday was a sucky emotional day. This morning wasn't too great either. After inflicting unintended daggers of pain with the one who wants to be "ex" (both ways), it was some comfort for a girl child (probably 3 or 4) to play hide-and-seek with me at Anthony's in St. Johnsbury while I ate breakfast. I chose to interpret it as the universe reminding there is still room for joy.

I've noticed that its pretty dang hard to keep up this blog thing when I'm down. The effort to present myself well - Stephen's bottomline function of rhetoric - it taxing, and often just too much effort. I have also been pressed for time; as there are many things I've thought worth documenting. Got to get to the comic frame if I'm gonna do any good!