Integration

“The seat of the soul

is where the inner and the outer world meet.

 Where they overlap,

    it is in every point of overlap.”

                                      — Novalis

I don’t know why I dread writing this piece so much. It seems like the assertion of a naturally occurring kind of integrative process would be good news. The overlap, as Novalis says in his brief aphorism, is the “seat of the soul.” For me, the amazing thing is that Nature seems to be guiding us (by that I mean we humans) towards greater integration as we age, and an increased likelihood of achieving the overlap. That realization thrills me, but something else bothers me. I don’t know what it is.

First, I’ll start with the good news. Aging has an unexpected effect. My guess is that the integrative process, which I have come to see as the principle developmental and instinctual thrust of later life, has languished out of sight, because of the blindness of ageism, and the inability to break wisdom down. Nature, never-the-less, seems intent upon ripening human beings into a fuller expressions of themselves. The instinct of integration kicks in during later life in some unexpected ways. The productiveness of commercial and economic activity gives way to the productiveness of increasing uniqueness and becoming more fully oneself. The outside moves in. Creation seems to matter more, in the long run, than the economy.

Devaluing the old, devalues our own future. The human potential movement reveals just how ageist our culture is. The most experienced, most mature, and ripest of us (humans) have been ignored, and worse yet, mistreated. The present is dominated with either/or thinking of the worst sort, and doesn’t acknowledge the benefit of any form of integration. The overlap is not even a possibility in this kind of polarized world, at least not in our human-made world. Fortunately, Life has a larger agenda. Some people escape the gravitational pull of mass assumptions and become more. They are the true elders. Their lives reflect a kind of wisdom that comes from a higher order of integration.

I can fairly easily grasp the warm pleasure that permeates my body when I consider, and notice within, the compelling attraction of freedom and integrity. These by-products of integration have a gravitational pull of their own. But I notice I still feel some trepidation, an unnamed anxiety starts flooding my being, I feel like I’m walking more deeply into a minefield. There is something dangerous here. What could it be?

I’m not sure. It does occur to me, as I dwell on this uncertainty, that pointing out the natural flow towards integration might be construed as an attack upon the other, earlier in development, positions. Am I doing another version of what is so prevalent in this world? Am I saying that polarization is bad? No. I realize that one has to live fully through each stage, to ever even hope to get to anything like the big picture and actual integration. Aging is fraught with lots of difficulty. Not the least of these difficulties has to do with the question about how to hold the past?

It is so hard to talk about the full-range of human development without giving full and essential recognition to every stage in the process. Being human is all of it. There isn’t a point where one is more or less human. All stages are essential to becoming a full human. What does this mean? I don’t know, I’ve only recently begun to grapple with this picture. I thank God, I have lived long enough to actually see this much of the picture. It’s a marvelous vista I get to behold. But it’s a demanding one too.

For instance, I can see that we (humans) are complex. It obviously takes a while for us to unfold fully. And at each step in the process the world looks different and we become capable of different things. None of these developments is all of who we are capable of being. And all of those stages are favored by some, as the way it should be. Human history is full of conflict. Much of it has had to do with asserting the preeminence of one stage of human development (as embodied by a particular culture or individual) over another. I don’t want to add to that misdirected hostility. I’m not asserting that the aged perception is better, only that is different, and that it adds to the larger picture.

I think a big part of what it adds is the perspective gained from integration. Later life is about the coming together of seeming opposites. Inner and outer, as the poet Novalis points out, and also action and stillness, anger and peace, solitude and relationship confinement and freedom. These are seen as opposites, but can also be seen as single points, spaces on the spectrum that overlap. I think our ultimate ripeness is like that, the places were opposites overlap, places of integration. And, each stage in the ripening process adds to that integration.

This is delicate terrain. I can feel the Great Mystery at work. What I think I know, which comprises the discoveries I am uttering here, are my best attempts to give voice to what I couldn’t possibly know. Integration seems to include not knowing. I wonder if it includes the audacity of expressing what one doesn’t know? 

Disability II

“The first thing you do is to forget that I'm black. 


Second, you must never forget that I'm black.”

                                                     — Pat Parker

I live within the same contradiction this black person is describing. Only, I am disabled. I don’t have dark skin, but I have other identifying and obscuring characteristics. It takes some capacity to see paradoxically to really grasp the complex and often contradictory world of a minority person. They, like me, are defined and not defined, by their bodily situation. It is hard, at any given moment, to know how best to treat us. The moment, like our being, is ripe with contradictions. That is why it is wise not to forget our wholeness.

Paradoxical awareness is a necessity. It includes the opposites, contradictions, — the wholeness that includes complexity. Sympathy for the broken, like me, or the visible minority, like the quoted one, starts not with feeling sorry for us, but with an internal acknowledgement of the genius of Life. It has wrought a living contradiction.

This is especially important because each of us is headed in that direction. As we become ourselves, then inevitability sets in, and we age, becoming unique and edging further into minority life. The eccentricities of age are our uniqueness. They depend upon others being complex enough to see, and honor what Life is creating.

The prejudice of agism, is on the same continuum as our on-going difficulty with bodily vulnerability. The loss of functioning that galvanizes such fear around disability is the same as the inevitable losses of functioning that come with aging. A failure to see accurately now, abets the failure to be seen clearly in the long run. Agism, and the prejudices around disability, are part of the same blindness.

It is hard to get this truth.  To really grasp it takes the development of a kind of paradoxical awareness. That is why I keep drawing attention to my own state. Not because my situation is so difficult, but because it is likely to be other’s situations in time. Perhaps yours. There is an inevitable switchback that looms ahead.

There is an image that haunts me. It is a good image, but I am haunted by it because I’m not sure I can live up to it. Once, long ago, I heard someone talking about the elders of his people. Elders amongst his people were capable of laying their gifts down on the ground just outside the village. There, they waited and watched to see what the villagers took. The elders were capable of leaving their gifts for the villagers without attachment to any particular reception. The villagers were free to take what they wanted. 

This issue, being disabled, and knowing that my treatment is equivalent to the treatment my community is going to receive, is like an elder’s gift. I’m having trouble just laying it down, and being unattached about my community picking it up. The difficulty is in me. I know it. I can see that people must be, and are, free to do with this awareness as they will. Some might see and value it, most will not. That’s got to be all right with me. There is no gift, if I am attached. There is no freedom, if I am insistent. I know it.

I don’t know if joy or grief is in order here. Letting go seems like the most beneficial thing I can do. But letting go means acknowledging the freedom of others, which includes acknowledging the possibility that certain kinds of suffering will go on. Freedom endures. Prejudice endures. Can I endure knowing that I have to accept this? That particular combination is more than I imagine I can bear. Being an elder, not in years, but in these difficult matters, isn’t easy.

I have this crazy notion, probably its profoundly narcisstic, that being a physical wreck, like I am, is of some use to my larger community. I’m crazy enough to think that this connection (see above) might be it, but bodying it forth asks so much of me, that it is melting down my passionate desire to be in service to others in the way I want to be. I am confronted by something large, inscrutable, and totally unbending. What is, is a product of our freedom, and it isn’t. Reality limps like a good cripple disabled/enabled by our freedom, and our unfree choices.

The warning I want to broadcast is only of use to some, most notably me. Prejudice evidently has its uses. I want to reduce it, to limit the hurt and weight of negative expectations, but that is really up to Mystery. All I can do is accept that my efforts are of necessity limited, they may serve the part of me that must discharge the feelings that come with awareness of harm, but change is above my existential grade-level.

I am learning. It is always the hard way. I am both grateful and chagrined about my clumsy learning process. Still, I am more accepting. I’m slowly letting go of the reigns —my illusion of control — and enjoying the wild ride of no hope. 

Wonder

Like Mystery, everything seems to be shot through with wonder! The spaciousness that flows from these places, within all parts of reality, leaves me breathless. I am disturbed, by living within so much magnificent mystery. Because this is so, I’m finding it harder and harder to think and comment about anything. Probability seems to dictate that no matter how I look, or which way my attention is drawn, I behold a certain amount of wondrous uncertainty. Its all so much, so mysteriously undetermined, while being solid, that I wonder if I can even sensibly write about it.

Reflecting, as I am, on this aspect of my experience, and trying to find words for it, is, no doubt, part of the foolishness I was born with. Somehow, without any intention on my part, I’ve become aware of something so thoroughly palpable because it isn’t there. I mean, rather crazily I’m sure, that what isn’t there is what seems to accompany what is. And, even more strangely, gives it shape, dimension and meaning.

I was never prepared for this kind of perception. And it seems, that uttering anything about it is hopeless. Still, I keep thinking that there should be someway to talk about it. There seems to be something about reality that contains a probabilistic something that keeps everything connected and free. How is that possible! I don’t know, but I have noticed. The perception thrills me, and it leaves me befuddled. I can’t adequately articulate this aspect of my reality, yet it is so awesome I can’t ignore it either. I feel compelled to share it, and at the same time, I am aware that I am not really able to describe it.

So, what am I talking about? I can’t really say. I am trying not to use, over and over again, the words mystery, uncertainty, wonder and unknown. They need a rest, and only dimly refer to what vibrates in the background. I want to convey, and hear other’s perceptions about, this quick-silver facet of each moment, because somehow sharing such befuddlement is deeply reassuring. Maybe that’s what I’m doing here, noticing the wonder that keeps my heart beating.

Anyway, it seems like, in my dottage, this awareness has come on stronger than any past point of my life. I have a mixed reaction to this awareness. I love it. It seems so freeing. I have been released from all assumptions about what is going on here. Simultaneously, I feel a sense of foreboding. It is making me a more eccentric old man. I am being herded by Life into a smaller and smaller corral. Becoming more unique, is hard on a social animal, like me.

All I can say, honestly, is that I am growing more and more impressed by the sense of wonder growing in me.  My life is changing. I can feel it. Maybe this is death setting in, or maybe, I’m finally coming to Life. I no longer can say. Whatever is happening, is unbidden, I know that, or do I, maybe in my childhood, I called in this late-life sense of wonder. All I seem to know now, is that the flow is carrying me, through this canyon, where the walls are made up of a kaleidoscopic experience that bedazzles and befuddles me.

I could say Life is wondrous. That seems true. Putting that awareness alongside of my awareness of how cruel, destructive, hateful and arbitrary Life can be, leaves me on-edge. I teeter between hope and hopelessness. I don’t know why I can see all of this, but I do. Some days it hurts, some days I feel so lucky. All I can really say, and think, is, isn’t it a wonder!?

Violence

“Violence is the language of the inarticulate.”

Recently I heard this quote. An African-American man who was in Martin Luther King’s inner circle spoke it. He was explaining that he was charged with the task, by Dr. King, just hours before he was assassinated, with institutionalizing non-violence. And, over the years he had taught many non-violence methods to others. In that time, he reported that he had learned what is said above. People who do not have the capacity to express themselves in a better way, often resort to violence. Awareness of this limitation, I think, is extremely important. Not just in terms of limiting violence, but also in terms of empowering speech.

I spent years as a couples therapist, and I saw first hand how much violence there was in primary relationships. Now I understand, that that violence was frequently due to a particular kind of inarticulateness. Like all couples therapists, I stressed the importance of good communication. But, unlike many, I focused on a particular challenge of relationship. That was, when communication is good enough, so, that partners realized they didn’t like the messages they were getting from their partners.

Typically, and often mistakenly, partners try to change each other. Sometimes they assume, wrongly, that their partner is just failing to communicate clearly. The problem that couples often have is not that they are failing to communicate clearly; it is that they are unable, and often unwilling, to deal with what is being communicated. They don’t know how to handle (read, take care of themselves in the midst of) so much differing. 

What does this have to do with the amount of violence in the world? People who don’t have the necessary means to take care of themselves in situations, where there is significant differing going on, like in relationships, groups, and communities, lack the ability to communicate well, and end up resorting to a host of violent actions that convey their inabilities. This hurts — not only others — but the one who is so limited, and most of all, it hurts the bond of connection that is always present. It makes that bond seem invisible and non-existent.

As a community and environmental activist, as well as a psychotherapist, this bothers me. The personal nature of violence is well documented, and that is what most people think about when they give it thought, but I would like to see equal consideration given to the costs to the surround. We live in a culture where it is considered right to think we are not connected, where people commonly assert that we suffer because we are separated. For that reason, the belief we are already separated, much of the violence against our environment and our experience of social connection, is overlooked.

It is hard to maintain a solid sense of self in a world that isn’t what one is imagining it to be. Differing, introduces one to this reality, to the discrepancy between the reality one imagines and the reality that is. There is a great big challenge that comes with any social engagement that contains any differing. It is dis-heartening how many people are unprepared for, and unable to cope with this dimension of social reality. People are unable to take care of themselves, and therefore unable to really meet, and be articulate with, others.  When this kind of inarticulateness manifests, it creates violent rifts in our social and environmental fabric.

This is one of the reasons I am so enamored with old folks, especially elders. It seems that elders are more solid, less reactive, and more interested in differences. They have some capacity to be articulate in situations that many others find impossible, and thereby others act in ways that are oblivious of social or environmental bonds. In fact, elders seem more intrigued by differences, and because they go into them, they see the world more accurately than most. This is a service that is anti-violent. It accepts a more complex world.

I am probably as against violence as anyone, but I find that the kind of inarticulateness that gives rise to violence is not limited to individuals; it is also an expression of the inability to meet and greet a world of differences. Most of the wars that have made up human history were fought because of an inability to tolerate differing. Now, thanks to the development of some old people, I can see the possibility that we can outgrow that form of inarticulateness.

I am finding that the old like to interact. I’ve noticed that this desire is about more than just overcoming isolation; it is as much about a hunger for a more accurate take on reality. Elder curiosity, about differing, takes on the fundamentals of our being. If that perception is true, then within human reach, as part of our species’ being, is the capacity to put violence behind us. Elder interaction is a form of speech, an important form, which is rarely heard in this culture. A form of speech that can remind us that non-violence is a part of our nature. 

The Other

The other is a whole lot more than the desirable stranger, the consistently troublesome, triggering one, the errant relative, or the one who turns us into manic puddles of desire. He, or she, drives us mad, arouses violent impulses, and brings craziness to life right before us. Others, populate our crippled world, and frustrate our efforts at living freely. They make us forget ourselves in a host of ways. And, they serve, by always providing us, with someone else to blame. They seem to be a perfect foil, an unerring mirror, which reflects back to us our true relationship with ourselves.

The difficult truth is that the other is inside. Few of us really know ourselves that well. Inside is where stranger becomes strangeness, and discomfort graduates to intolerance. The other is the gift that keeps on giving, in ways that are vastly under appreciated.

This different one seems to be hanging around everywhere. Sometimes, he, or she, morphs from friend into irritation. The other is always there doing the dirty job of being projected trouble, or relief. If only the other would grow up, be less deluded, or enlightened. I mean, whoa, I’m so cool, I’m just waiting for all of you others to notice! Hurry up, and don’t be so insensitive! I am somebody else’s other, and you know what, I can’t even be me, when they are about. Not without effort anyway.

The world is populated with this irritating, and sometimes intriguing, other. Everywhere one goes — even within — there is this alien getting in the way. One would think, there is some kind of conspiracy going on. Others are everywhere. Humanity is worth saving, if it only didn’t come, with others —those who look human, but obviously are not.

Somehow, part of the task of the time, is to find a way to live with all these differences. That is obvious, and un-obvious, all at once. Here’s what I mean. Staring into the world helps identify all of the weirdness about, and generally raises alarm, and generates a host of strategies for limiting contact and trying to manage one’s exposure. This is the usual social dance that leads us into a balkanized, ghetto-strewn, isolated, prejudiced and marginalizing world. This is a result of the obvious.

The un-obvious part is that the one holds the key within. Depth is being called for. Not the depth promoted by a spiritual or psychological practice (although these sometimes help), but the depth of putting down roots deep into the mystery of the self. This is a strange land all its own. The deeper you go, the less one knows. In fact it is at the point of growing a familiarity with indeterminancy (a healthy “not knowing” of one’s self) where the relationship with all other things opens up. The un-obvious part is what is not-known poorly. Getting savvy enough to enjoy “othering” means abandoning believing there is a right way to be.

Of course that is easier said then done. Even if one stumbles upon the un-obvious, and recognizes it, there is still the matter of growing comfortable within one’s own skin. This takes time, and lots of raggedy, sometimes-painful experiences.

When maturity sets in, then a strange thing happens. Through transforming the self, the other gets transformed. The intruder suddenly becomes the introducer. Another level of reality, a more complex one that is paradoxically simpler, is brought into view. The other is a work of art specifically, and impossibly, designed to increase one’s awareness. Miracles are unfolding in extraordinarily ordinary ways. The littlest thing has a life of its own.

The other is always masquerading around, pretending in very real way, to be the one who impedes, while being the one who instructs. Life uses aspects of our wholeness to introduce us to our diversity. Paradoxically, a deeper integration happens when we split up into an infinite number of pieces. Each of them, the others within, and the others without, are tickets to our place in a greater wholeness.

The emotional reaction that one often has, when realizing the presence of an other, is as much excitement of return, as it is anxiety about hardships to come. 

Surrendering Attachment

Throughout the years there has been a very special set of guidelines that have informed my work on behalf of consciousness. They have grown me into the person I am. The guidelines, which are called “The Four-fold Way,” are the products of Basque wise woman, Angeles Arrien. Angeles passed on last year, but has left us all with these universal cross-cultural practices. They represent the world’s wisdom. And, they have the capacity to shift consciousness, into subtler, and more poignant, forms of awareness. Each is a deep and compelling practice, which will with time, reveal the underbelly and glory of reality.

The Four-fold way is composed of the easily remembered guidelines  “Show Up,” “Pay Attention,” “Tell the Truth,” and “Surrender Attachment To Outcome.” They represent truly multi-use guidance.

I’m writing about them today, because I want to focus upon the last of them. I am finding special relevance, and huge difficulty, with the last one, surrender attachment to outcome. This guideline has always been the most reliable, and hardest to practice, for me. I think I especially need it now, to take me deeper, as I am ageing, and experiencing so much loss.

I have learned how important it is for me to let go of my expectations, particularly in my relationships, but now I have entered old age, and I am realizing that I have to let go of everything.

I have, with the help of the perspective, provided by this guideline, settled myself down a lot. Change — the impermanence that is everywhere — tends to throw me less often. But, as I face the loss of energy, functionality, loved ones, and even self-assumptions, that comes with age, I find I chafe more, even with this good reminder. Grief, seems to be becoming a regular emotional feature of my life now. Letting go isn’t just a practice, it is a choice-less experience that seems to be ushering me toward the inevitable. There is relief in knowing death is approaching. I’m not too worried about that, I’m anticipating a kind of solving justice, with no more disabilities.

Instead, what I find difficult is, that I am learning as I age, what is really important. And, those things, which have come into focus so recently — pass so quickly. I barely have a chance to take hold before I have to let go. I used to hear Johnny Cash sing, “now that I am old enough to finally live, I’m old enough to die.” The poignancy of that reality is kicking my butt. Letting go, surrendering attachment to outcome, has taken on a new level of meaning, and is delivering me to a new, deeply poignant reality.

I am still practicing surrendering, and I’m getting more and more into the world’s creation myths that feature a creation deity who’s tears are the source of all things. It seems that existing is a grievous thing (I know it is also a miracle) because it inevitably means dying. Creation and destruction, birth and death, surrender and attachment are all paradoxical parts of this great Mystery, and they take my breath away, as they ask me to be human. I sometimes flounder. And that is when that particular guideline helps me the most. When I have occasion to remember, surrender attachment, I recall that other humans came this way, and foundered more wisely on these same paradoxical shoals, alive with grief and wonder, compassionately trying to take it all in, and becoming more broken down and alive along the way.

I haven’t been able to reconcile surrendering attachment with my desire to live yet. I don’t know if I ever will. I don’t know what ripening has in store for me. But, I find that I am ever thankful that Angie found the wherewithal to give this aspect of human experience, such an elegant, and abbreviated wording — now as I stumble across it, I become ever so slightly more humanized.

Ageing seems to mean placing more emphasis upon surrendering. I prefer to think the powers that be are essentializing me, getting me ready, for the final stripping that is simultaneously a birth into a new, and hopefully wiser, form. I am letting go, because I have to, not because I’m good at it, but I am getting softened up, hopefully becoming more malleable, and slowly fading, into I don’t know what. I don’t know exactly why, but I trust being human, existing in this bittersweet world, and waiting for meaning to ripen into greater realization.

The Universe is grinding me down. I am learning to surrender. I don’t know much more than that. I don’t know how to account for it, but I feel grateful. Life has made me up, breathed life into me, and exposed me to grandeur. The trip seems to come with a very exacting price tag, but I think I might have paid it anyway. Surrendering seems to be the price/wonder of this trip. 

Stuff

I’ve been sick these past few days. Coughing, sleepless, and sore, my attitude has gone into the dumpster. I don’t know about you, but when I’m sick, I begin thinking more about death. During the worst of my illness, when I am desperate, tired and alone, I begin fantasizing that death is near-by.  I don’t know if it is wishful thinking on my part; I am ready for my sickness suffering to end, or, if it is some kind of dread that dying will be just as lonely, energy-less, and debilitating. In any case, I’m not my best when I’ve been ill for a while. All of this, left me thinking this week about growing old, and trying to come to terms with living/ dying.

One of the things that came to mind was about locating myself in terms of being an elder-in-training. I know I’m intent upon moving along an elder path, but I’m wondering if there is a way of recognizing movement forward. While I was sick I thought about this some more, and decided there was. I came to the conclusion that my relationship with the ‘stuff’ of my life was a good indicator. If I was letting go of stuff I was on course, and if my stuff was mostly in charge of me, I wasn’t.

Now this thought benefits a lot from the conversations I’ve heard in the last months.  Old people have sat in circles discussing their relationships with things. Each of them is facing their own mortality, knowing they aren’t what they used to be, and that they are being reduced as they age. In talking about the difficulties in facing their stuff, and getting rid of what is no longer relevant to who they presently are, they shared something of the exacting rigors of growing older. A lifetime of necessary and unnecessary acquisition was giving way to a different way of meeting the future. Letting go of stuff, was like letting go of parts of the self. It was painful, and these old people also knew, it was liberating.

Such an exquisite pain!

There is something about growing older that is so poignant and beautiful. There is so much surrender involved! The process is like moving into a series of smaller and smaller houses. Each move requires letting go of some things. Amazingly, some old people, grasp the freedom that this shedding brings. Along the way, though, is a kind of forced march, a period of loss, an era of giving up aspirations, dreams, accomplishments, hard-earned competencies, identities, and lots and lots of stuff. Wriggling out of old skins is painfully difficult, even while it is liberating.

Stuff is the detritus of a life, while the real thing is the liver — the one who has grown ripe by going through many stages and becoming multi-layered, nuanced, and complex. Losing is part of that complexity, a necessary ingredient, that liberates all of the flavors that contribute to a real richness, a bountiful character, an inner fullness. Knowing this aspect of what it means to be human, of getting to be alive, is a gift that comes primarily to the elderly. It is a gift that comes with an exacting pricetag. It is ours, it comes to each of us, but the price is high. To gain what is our birthright, we must give up everything. It is a trade that can only be made in the secret recesses of the individual heart.

In my sickness I could see all of this. I wonder if I am up to it. Can I let go of everything? I like my life now. I never imagined it could be this good, despite being disabled, poor, and marginalized. Still, I know I have more letting go to do. Everything that can be lost, will be.  Going toward the light, means lightening up. That is easier said than done.

Stuff is the most visible dimension of a much deeper process. It indicates something about how that process is going.  Meditation training should include the dictate, “I’m not my stuff,” as well as “I’m not my Body.” They are both very similar, and both things that will be left behind.

In the meantime, though, stuff is a good way to grasp where one is viz. a viz. the exacting nature of Life’s reduction of us into essence.