The Symbol of the Wave

Philosopher Alan Watts' essay on Zen
used the metaphor of a wave ~
while each wave appears
separate and distinct
  all waves are part
of the ocean they share.
Likewise, there seem to be
nine patterns of personality fixations
yet each is whole in spirituality's ocean.

The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth

One of my favorite stories about C.G. Jung is a reported dream where he was drowning in a vat of human waste and calling "Help me out!" to his therapist, who stood on the rim of the vat. Instead of taking his outstretched hand the therapist pushed Jung's head down into the liquid, saying, "Through, not out."

That's often what it feels like when I commit to greater self-awareness and then see what I've gotten myself into: "Get me out of this!" No matter how innovative my efforts, there's a quality of struggling in, yes, a vat of shit.

In an episode of "John Adams," he teaches one of his sons about the virtues of manure, insisting that the young man mash it around with his hands. Adams' recipe for compost would delight today's organic gardeners -- seaweed, marsh mud, dead ashes, rock weed, livestock waste, kitchen scraps.

My own dung has a similar variety -- scraps of history; ashes I thought were dead; a deep sea of muddy droppings from unconscious creature selves; weeds I'd imagined pulled forever; the waste of years spent serving an ego-image.

I keep in mind this quote from William Bryant Logan's Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth: "Not only the grain in the mealbag, but the full-blown rose are, in one sense, the gift of turds."

Grace and Grit

"Friends and family often wondered, is she being unrealistic—shouldn't she be worrying? fretting? unhappy? But the fact is, by living in the present, by refusing to live in the future, she began exactly to live consciously with death.

Think about it: death, if anything, is the condition of having no future. By living in the present, as if she had no future, she was not ignoring death, she was living it. And I was trying to do the same." Ken Wilber, Grace and Grit.

After I finished reading Grace and Grit I couldn't sleep, not sure what was going on, but when I told someone about the book I started weeping. Then I knew what was going on.

Treya Killam Wilber fought so hard and died anyway within five years. I had a good prognosis and knew I could easily live another twenty years after my December 2010 surgery. Or not. The Buddhists tell us to live our death. This doesn't mean worrying all the time. It means living NOW, whether you have twenty minutes or twenty years left. 

I try to do the same.

How Society Grooms Women

Journalist Connie Chung penned an open letter supporting Christine Blasey Ford, while for the first time publicly sharing her own experience with sexual assault. Rachel Yang, Variety.

Shortly after it was published, I read Connie Chung's account of being sexually assaulted by her trusted family physician when she was an innocent young woman seeking birth control. Someone will no doubt have asked, "Why didn't she stop him?" when he brought her to orgasm with his fingers. Such a question would come from someone who has no idea of the strength of social conditioning on females to trust doctors and others in authority positions.

Feeling sick to my stomach, I remembered a similar experience when I went to a gynecologist before my first marriage. Though not as naive as Connie Chung had been, I wasn't sure about the physiology of sexual intercourse, and the doctor was a woman. So, when she explained that she was slowly stretching my hymen tissue so I wouldn't feel any pain on intercourse, I didn't stop her, even though I felt its inappropriateness, especially because I'd told her about being raped at age 16. Nonetheless, I did exactly what Chung did, kept quiet and afterwards dashed out of there as quickly as I could, embarrassed and ashamed.

We tend to think of sexual grooming as specific to child sexual abuse, but the elements are the same in any form of abuse -- the appeal of a relationship with someone who gives you special attention, the underlying assertion of power not evident until trust is established, and the sense of secrecy based on the expectation of not being believed, or chastised if believed. Those negative judgments can be overt or covert.

In the case of my being raped as a teenager, I was on a family trip to Scotland, my parents knew I was walking on the beach near the hotel where we were staying, and they looked for me when I was not back after dark. Yet when I finally stumbled in, the police they called insisted on a medical exam to make sure I was telling the truth.

And then MY PARENTS NEVER MENTIONED THE SITUATION AGAIN! No one asked if I wanted to talk about it, no one assured me that stopping to chat with the man did not make the rape my fault, no one commented on my sudden need to have a light on in my room at night.

The Scottish man who raped me used an abbreviated form of sexual grooming--approaching me when there was still daylight with a casual question about my being American and some conversation about the golf tournament I mentioned my Dad was there to attend, treating me like an adult without ever being openly seductive, then offering to walk me back to the hotel, as it was getting dark. A very nice local man being thoughtful to a tourist. I was flattered and trusting, only half-way back to the hotel realizing--while deep in conversation--he'd walked me to an area away from the lights where sand dunes blocked a clear view from the road. When we saw the headlights of a car--which I knew was my father because one of the lights was out--the rapist clapped a hand over my mouth and said, "If you make a sound, I will kill you."

Why am I posting this in "The Only Gate is Now?" Because this blog is where I've written about surviving another kind of death threat -- breast cancer -- and reminds me that no matter what life brings, "there's nowhere to go, there's nothing else to be." Staying present for me means not numbing out, not dissociating from the emotions that flashbacks arouse. I dealt with my anger at the rapist of the past, but not until forty years after the event, awakening terrified from a nightmare and writing it down so I wouldn't numb out again, emotions that eventually found a home in my poem, "Union."

I had to allow the anger to move through me again when aroused by Brett Kavanaugh's appointment in spite of Christine Blasey Ford's testimony and his obvious lack of integrity, and beyond these specific events to the larger world we live in, characterized by the ascent of greed and dominance of wealthy white males, to the exclusion and--often--terror of anyone not part of that club.

The Pattern That Connects

"Premonitions open us up to each other and to the greater world... they show that we are part of something larger than the individual self, that we are an element in the great pattern that connects." Dr. Larry Dossey

The opening story of Malcolm Gladwell's Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking should convince even the most skeptical that there are ways of knowing beyond the ability to make logical connections:

"A team of experts with state-of-the-art measurement tools took more than a year to assure the authenticity of a supposedly ancient Greek statue the Getty Museum of California was going to purchase for $10 million. Then several art experts looked at the statue and knew instantly it was a fake. One said he "heard" the word fresh, which seemed odd to him, but on further examination he realized the statue was too "fresh" to be that ancient." (David Brooks, New York Times).

We all have the capability to access these versions of a "sixth sense" although many shy away from that possibility, especially those who fear the unfamiliar. Even the word premonition carries an aura of foreboding - that something "bad" is going to happen.

When we're fully present, however, the possibilities are neither good nor bad, we're simply open to a broader context of knowing, a larger "mind" or "field." Whether you experience this knowing as a feeling in your bones, an image, or a nagging thought, it's saying to you, in Larry Dossey's words, "Wake up. The evidence for a larger world is staring you in the face."

Dream Journaling

For years, I've used Clyde H. Reid's Dreams: Discovering Your Inner Teacher as a straightforward format (based on Jungian dream analysis) to walk myself through the key aspects of a dream:

• Date of dream:

• Title:

• Motif:

• The dream in detail:
• Context: what's happening in my life at this time?

• In this dream, who are the main characters known to me before?
     Name: 
     Outstanding characteristics:  
     What part of me is this?

•  Who are the main characters not known to me?
      Same sex figures (shadow)?
      Opposite sex figures (anima/animus)?

• What are the outstanding features of this dream (flood, explosion, animal, house, etc)?
      What part of me is this feature or image? What is it saying to me?
      What important symbols appeared? How are they related to me?

• What archetypes may be manifesting themselves here?

• What feelings did I have during/after the dream?

• What other thoughts, ideas, or memories does this dream trigger in me?

Like a Flower...

The following interchange with a reader who's an Enneagram style Five tells a story. Read it and note how she opens up (and gives permission).... 

Dear Mary: I'm an Enneagram Five, and lead a pretty full life doing social work, but I'm 50 and have never been in love with anyone. Looking at myself objectively, it seems a tiny bit sad, but not enough to do anything concrete about it. I hate the idea of sifting through many people, and maybe some will be compatible. It wears me out just thinking about listening to all those people, so I convince myself it's better to be alone, unless someone compatible just happens to cross my path. Thank you for the service you provide to those seeking more knowledge. Will anyone else see this note?

Dear Reader: I understand how satisfying life can be when work is interesting. However, you do imply that a relationship might be worthwhile ("I convince myself it's better to be alone"), if you could find someone without "sifting," or perhaps if listening were not so exhausting for you.You asked, "Will anyone else see this note?" Not if you don't want them to.I'm reading a fascinating novel by Irvin Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept. I believe Neitzsche as described by Yalom was an Enneagram Five. Perhaps if you read Yalom's book you might find something interesting that applies to you. 

Dear Mary: Thank you for recommending the book; I'll read it... I thought a secretary or helper might respond and only on a public web page. I even tear up my journals promptly because I can't bear the thought that someone might read my innermost thoughts, so yes, I'd like my notes to be private. I interact with so many people each day, my time alone is pretty much a gift. I believe I would interact well with anyone who knows the Enneagram and is healthy in whatever style they happen to be, but I don't know a soul who has done more than read one book about it or just glanced at the subject. Are there any Enneagram students in my area? Thank you immensely for your time.

Dear Reader: I'm sending you information about the closest chapter of the International Enneagram Association (IEA). There's a page at the IEA web site with news about regional chapters that may be a source of information for you. I recommend joining the IEA if you haven't already. Even if you're not a "joiner" it's a way to gather useful information. Also, I hope you'll attend the annual Enneagram conference.By the way, I give my time freely, and not totally without self-interest. Often these inquiries lead to an article, which supports my writing. Even when someone like you asks that nothing be published, I always learn something from the interaction; so this interaction is a resource for me, too. For example, in thinking about how to respond to you, and re-reading When Nietzsche Wept in that light, I noticed Nietzsche as described by Yalom is very sensitive to weather changes, and very sensitive to touch.This led me to remember a wonderful book (and tape), Oliver Sacks' An Anthropologist on Mars. One of his stories is about Temple Grandin, an adult woman with autism who created a sling to comfort and carry cattle. She then got the idea to create her own "squeeze machine" because from early childhood she longed to be touched but couldn't tolerate it. She lies in her sling daily, with controls that allow her to create as much or as little pressure as she wishes. A wonderful metaphor. 

Dear Mary: If others can learn from anything I might share, feel free to go ahead and publish any of my comments. I'm evolving and I know one of the greatest things we can do is share with one another. I trust you and will make every effort to attend the conference. Thanks for all your information; know that I will use it. About the touch issue. I love being held and always longed for that as a child, but being from a large family, my parents didn't have a lot of individual time for me, though we each felt completely loved by them and by each other. My relationships seem to be those in which I give much of myself, but only about three or four people are capable of giving to me in the manner I prefer to receive. A therapist held me perfectly only three times over a period of about a year and a half, and that memory sustains me anytime I need to be reminded of what it might be like if our creator could be here in person, to allow me to feel his/her love and my connection to what we are other than just being a part of this world. I'm hugged often by children and friends, but I can never bring myself to ask anyone to hold me. If there is anything you ever want to ask me, feel free; and you may use it in any way you deem beneficial. I've seen the benefits of your sharing.

A Sacred Sorrow

"Going to pieces or falling apart is not such a bad thing. Indeed it is as essential to evolutionary and psychic transformation as the cracking of outgrown shells... What 'disintegrates' in periods of rapid transformation is not the self, of course, but its defenses and ideas... [opening] us up to new perceptions, new data, new responses." Joanna Macy, Chapter 16, Sacred Sorrows

My first cracking of the shell, when it hit, was comparable to what's been depicted by others: a sense of emptiness when approaching activities that had been fulfilling, disorientation, feeling separate from others and from myself (I could look in the mirror and not even recognize my own face). It was also clear I'd walked through a door that had shut tight behind me. 

That step into a space between the worlds was taken in the Spring of 1997, when I ended my second Naranjo workshop with a deep commitment to engage fully with life. For the first month afterwards I did just that. Then I fell into depression of a kind different from the familiar and transitory times of feeling dispirited. I finally realized that for me to really engage (the Nine's spiritual goal) I'd have to go through a wild and scary ride. 

I've read many books and articles about depression and about transformation. There are accounts from survivors of depression and references to spiritual struggles, but few personal stories of how transformation can occur during these dark times, how people are different as a consequence of this experience that disconnects them from all that's familiar. It appears that many who experience the pain of transition stop the process -- by taking antidepressants, being unwilling to endure the discomfort, and/or failing to recognize this could be a passage to something new and not simply a dark and endless tunnel with no light at the end.

Based on my own experience, if you use the Enneagram beyond playing games to categorize people, you will find yourself on the path of transformation whether you expected that to happen or not. I'm not a Catholic, so didn't originally turn to such resources as Suzanne Zuercher's Enneagram Spirituality:

"What does this surrender based on the necessity to admit our truth feel like? It is the experience of anguish, because anguish is to be aware of, to admit, what we cannot accept and embrace about ourselves... Such pain gradually lessens as we become more humble, simply acknowledging what is so."

As much as I admire Zuercher's work, however, her examples are generic and related to Christian scripture and beliefs. Riso and Hudson have broadened our perspective in The Wisdom of the Enneagram, writing that the "great religions of the world have provided a multitude of practices for personal transformation; so have modern psychology, the self-help movement, and contemporary spiritual thinkers." They also disclosed some of their own transformation process:

"Part of our discussion had to do with whether or not we would ever see the proverbial 'light at the end of the tunnel,' since each of us was constantly going through a fair amount of pain as we uncovered layers of neurotic habits and unresolved issues from the past… Even though excavating the various strata of the psyche meant going through layers of pain and negativity, making conscious the old accumulated psychic junk that we had not wished to deal with, it would be worth it." 

Over the years I've heard the voices of all nine styles. I don't think I'm crazy. Quite the opposite. Caroline Myss (Spiritual Madness: The Journey of the Modern Mystic Through the Dark Night of the Soul) said we invite spiritual madness whenever we say "I want to see clearly." 

I've come to view the nine points as representing passions with which we all struggle, though a stronger dynamic exists for the personality fixed at that point. And I've been in and out of the abyss as if batted around the Enneagram, experiencing the dark night of the soul from the perspective of all nine styles, particularly the Four, the Five, the Seven, and my own, the Nine. This has given me more empathy for the varieties of distress each style must encounter. And each point has valuable lessons:

One of the ways I've experienced a Four-like anguish is an existential angst, a mourning for all the pain and evil in the world and an attraction to "doing something about it" (e.g., volunteering to take meals to AIDS victims) without actually moving past my emotions and taking action. My own experience reflects that of one of my Four friends: when I'm in this place of mourning I avoid meditation/prayer because of the fear that if I looked for my essential Self "there might be no one home." When I can stay with this fear I remember myself, become more clear about what I value, and act accordingly.

When my sense of desolation takes a Nine tone I feel a deep fatigue; avoiding the energy, focus, meditation/prayer that would be required to discover my true will and purpose. I'm now better able to observe my fear that if I looked, there might be "someone home" and that discovery would require action! Now when I notice myself avoiding engagement (energy, commitment) I stay with the fear, it ceases to control me, and I feel a sense of contentment and even joy. More and more I find myself committing with enthusiasm to people/projects that match my own agenda and values.

During one whole month I experienced a Five-like down time, a retreat into intellectual safety, much reading and analysis, a strong discomfort with sharing my own deep emotions. But I experienced it from afar, observing it to exist more strongly than ever before, but at the same time separate from "me." By the end of that month I easily and generously connected with family, friends, clients and enjoyed those connections freely: sitting in the middle of friendship in a way I'd never experienced. I was not conscious of a plan to work through my feelings, but I did commit myself to staying centered and enduring the "madness." As Myss pointed out, my answer didn't come in a letter! It came in the changes I saw in myself after I returned.

My Seven-ish spiritual madness, when it shows, is more a manic state of avoiding deep work, a sense of unbearable pain and fear of confinement -- a fear that if I get down in there I won't like it and I'll never be able to find my way out. Because it is so dread-full, I bring myself out of it quickly. But the learning from this shadow work is fantastic. This is where I hear the voices of addiction yet being separate from them. For example, I've become able to hear the ego aspect that says, Wouldn't it be fun to stop writing and go out for a chocolate sundae; then you'll feel so much better. Or, Wouldn't it be fun, instead of going home and working on that project, to stop by this department store and see what's on sale? When I can sit with the feelings and ask myself, What do I really want? the answer is always some version of a journey to the Soul.

I still sometimes fall deep into sorrow. But as Clarence Thomson said to me, "I'm amazed at the intuitive intelligence of some of my Nine friends. Our culture doesn't always support this kind of intelligence, even when, and especially when, it's hard to put into words." Well, I have learned to trust the sorrow is sacred and my intuitive intelligence, my gut sense, my Essential Self will guide me in the process of self-remembering, my spiritual unfolding.   

Stigmata

I've completely healed from my cancer surgery, feel vigorous and happy, and have a positive prognosis (only one in four women at my age and with my kind of breast cancer and gene expression will have a recurrence within ten years).

Yet when I visited my son on Saturday, he worried that the three-hour drive might be too much for me, and a friend of his took great pains to tell me how great I looked and how happy he was to see me doing so well (I could almost hear the unstated "...for someone who has cancer").

Later, I shared my perspective with my son that I had cancer. Now I'm cancer-free, focused -- like most other people -- on staying healthy and preventing a recurrence. I wonder, though, if some potential clients will hesitate to hire me. I've been quite open about my diagnosis and surgery; will they see me differently, as "a cancer survivor"? Will they feel uncomfortable with me? One woman wrote this about her work experience:

"I avoided telling many coworkers of my diagnosis, fearing being treated as if I had one foot in eternity, and the other on a roller skate... I could see it in the eyes of those who weren't well-informed. The stigma was virtually painted on me for a while."

Stephan suggested several aspects of stigma associated with cancer, one more self-imposed ("No one will love me because I have no breasts"), the others more social: disapproving/blaming ("She should have had regular mammograms"), or setting us apart as "sick"/avoiding us because they don't know how to talk about cancer and feel awkward asking questions.

I suspect that avoiding or pitying or blaming cancer survivors has a deep psychological root in fear of the ultimate reality: we're all going to die, and nobody likes to be reminded of it. As Irvin Yalom wrote in Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death, "Self-awareness is a supreme gift, a treasure as precious as life. But it comes with a costly price... Our existence is forever shadowed by the knowledge that we will grow, blossom, and, inevitably, diminish and die." All humans carry the stigma of the wound of mortality.

My bout with cancer was a huge awakening, a deeply moving experience I don't regret in any way. Instead, I'm grateful for the sometimes blinding clarity, boundless gratitude, and deep presence I live in much of the time. Yet I sometimes obsess on the relentlessness of death. So I'm adapting the Buddhist practice of death meditation, meant to remind us to live each moment fully because life is precious and short, and  -- when we are dying -- to remove our fear so we have a good rebirth.  

"Old masters advise, 'Stick the word death on your forehead and keep it there.'" Philip Kapleau, The Zen of Living & Dying.

My own death meditation is immersion in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry about the inevitable. I started, at Yalom's suggestion in Staring at the Sun, with Tolstoy's Ivan Ilyich, who said, on his deathbed, "It can't be. It's impossible! But here it is. How is this? How is one to understand it?"

A favorite nonfiction piece, from The Death Issue of the literary journal Conjunctions, is Sallie Tisdale's  "The Sutra of Maggots and Blowflies:"   

"The first time one tastes certain complex flavors they are unpleasant, even offensive. But in time it is that very flavor, its complexity--the bitterness or acidity mingling with other layers--that brings you back... This is a little bit of what I feel toward flies... Flies have long been considered the shills and familiars of gods, witches, and demons. They are so unutterably strange, all swarming and speed and single-mindedness, and they cannot be avoided... (We) shred our world like giant pigs rutting after truffles. We poison our nest and each other and ourselves. We eat everything, simply everything, but we turn away from flies."

Death images in poetry range from Khalil Gibran's For life and death are one, even as the river and sea are one, to Baudelaire's Death, who carries a bouquet, handkerchief, gloves, and moves with all the careless and high-stepping grace of a courtesan. For Emily Dickinson, Death was a traveling companion: Because I could not stop for Death / He kindly stopped for me / The carriage held but just ourselves / And immortality.

I leave this meditation for today with Anne Sexton's poem "Rowing," from The Awful Rowing Toward God:

...I am rowing, I am rowing

though the oarlocks stick and are rusty 

and the sea blinks and rolls

like a worried eyeball,

but I am rowing, I am rowing,

though the wind pushes me back

and I know that that island will not be perfect,

it will have the flaws of life...

I, too am rowing; I am rowing.