Desperate Play

There is a quiet, simple joy that comes with knowing that within us there is an antidote to all ailments. I know, that sounds like a preposterous assertion. But, think about it for a moment. Plausibly, the Universe has created a balancing agent, that restores equanimity, and encourages creativity (expansion) to go on, impervious to the slings and arrows of Life. Like everything else, we are composed of the stuff of the Universe, and thus contain within us, the power to go beyond where we have been before, and actualize wholeness wherever we are.

I forget what I know, much more often than I remember. I guess the compelling nature of human life baffles me just enough that I get distracted. I begin to believe this is all there is. In this kind of delusional moment, I forget where I’m from, and where I’ve always been. My earthly endeavors begin to take on a gravity of their own, and I fall sway to a weight that goes with the illusion. I lose some perspective while taking on another vantage point. Then, I am susceptible. I think I am bounded by the gravitational pull of the conventions of this time and place.

I labor under the weight of this place’s expectations. I get torn by the feelings that I am supposed to be one kind of man, while I am another. I now have an invisible disability that exacerbates the ones that can be seen. All of this adds weight, enhances the pull of gravity, and compresses my attitude, leaving me a lump of human protoplasm distorted and quivering. It isn’t fun to be so burdened. Worse yet, it isn’t even near the best I can do. I suffer from the potential I seldom get to use.

Firmly, under the sway of earthly and societal delusion, I trudge through life, like a good soldier, or a good cog in the system, forgetting what is within me. I even have trouble admitting to myself that I might be depressed. All I can muster is a metaphor of journeying through an arid landscape. I have begun to despair. The larger life that had really spawned me, has been reduced into a desiccated incoherent lump. I am thoroughly human, a victim of existence, a forgotten spark of the primeval light.

I am desperate. I know I am here because there is more to the story. I just don’t remember what. There are lots of stories. Divinity, if you believed everything said, is everywhere. But re-experiencing it is another matter. Stories, even the genuine experiences of others, don’t help. My desperation, is not for an uplifting story, its for a visceral unfolding. I want to be part of the flow.

Desperation, the emptiness of some aspects of life, has driven me back. I am turning once more to an old friend of mine. Oddly, this old friend is me. In some form of youthful instinctiveness, the old childish me used to perform powerful rituals by merely playing. I think I became human, the Divine child taking form, through play.

I had to get thoroughly lost to find myself. It took years. Now, I’m coming to a new place. I am once again lost at sea, bobbing in the great ocean. But now, I’m scarred, I’ve worn the rigid mantle, become the quintessential, followed the herd, felt the blistering of aloneness, and become old. Play frees me from the predictable me. I get to be what I don’t know. I am becoming again, only this time, there is no one, but myself, to guide me. I don’t have to to make sure I stay between the lines, be scored against anyone, or told what to do. When I begin to think of the things that assail me, like strange playground equipment, I get excited not depressed. Challenges are opportunities. Life looks and feels different.

Suddenly, falling and failing, has a new complexion. I’m beginning to have a more satisfied attitude. One that looks forward to what the day brings. I haven’t fully integrated this new/old awareness or attitude yet. I’m still in the phase of not completely believing it. Play is altering the way I’m encountering things now, and I’m enthralled with the experiential learning that it is provoking.

Maybe the aridity of some facets of my life drove me to re-discover what I already knew. I’m Lucky, that could be possible. But, I think that play is an aspect of the creativity of the Universe — that is within each and every one of us.

Play with that idea for a while.

 

  

Oasis Moments

The bleakness can be overwhelming. Life can be like trudging through a dessert. Out beyond hope is an endless procession of dull and almost lifeless moments. One keeps moving, because, that is all one knows how to do, because, the life-force keeps beating one’s heart, because, some animal part of one’s organism refuses to stop. Soon one’s internal landscape is as arid as the place one occupies.

The journey through life sometimes means going through these kinds of badlands. They zap and tax one’s soul. Without this kind of darkness, the garden contains nothing resembling light. Through some kind of other-worldly alchemy the darkness and light are linked, and bleak aridity coexists with the profusion of life. It is one of the glorious hardships of life. Poverty insures some forms of wealth. As does wealth insure some forms of poverty. The flow is paradoxical, blowing all means of cover. No one seems to know why we humans are party to this kind of sometimes macabre, always miraculous, dance form.

Anyway, this Slow Lane is not really about this form of the miraculousness of life, Rather, it is about how the rains sometimes come to the dessert unexpectedly. There are, what I call, oasis moments. Times when the waters of life fall from the heavens. Periods where everything glistens — and blessing permeates and refreshes the air. Such moments renew, and lend hope to hopeless endeavors.

The metaphors of miraculous and Divine intervention shine in most of our memories. The parting of the Red Sea, the locusts saving the Mormons, the coming of the just-in-time, the release of Nelson Mandela. These moments bear the stamp of the miraculous, but they are so big, so historical, that they threaten to eclipse the moments of such grace in our regular salt of the earth lives.

I don’t know about you, and your life, but I have danced in the rain of unexpected and surprising help. My pedestrian, unremarkable life has stumbled upon eras of grace, little times when someone has opened their heart, or their mind, and given me the boosting benefit of the doubt. Irrationality happens — in a good way. Unbelievably, the Sun shines with new energy.

I don’t know how this happens, but somehow it does — old lovers find each other, the desperately broken are sheltered, the abandoned are embraced, the hopeless cause discovers another carrying shoulder — and wEEE all carry on, despite the darkness. Oasis moments come right out of the darkness. How does that happen? What does it mean?

It isn’t given to we humans to know. But, we sometimes benefit anyway. I suppose I’m writing this because I have noticed. I can’t explain what has shaken my cynicism. I know I’ve done too little, to deserve such moments, and they sometimes come anyway.

This community is one for me. I have someplace to go with my wonder. It is a gift that goes way beyond whatever I thought I was cultivating. An oasis sprang up to meet my cry. Each of you is a component of someone’s oasis, mine for sure, but likely someone you may not even know. The oasis moment is us. How remarkable, and how perfect! 

 

 

  

The Devine Gauntlet and Self-regulation

Life hurts. Sometimes, that is for the best. Read further, and I’ll tell you why. It is the hardships and pain that traumatize and haunt us. It is those same things that shape us. I consider these difficulties to be initiating wounds. They always bring great difficulties, throwing us into the abyss, and marking us for life. At the same time, they provide access to a dark and formidable kind of awareness. What disables us also enables us. Black holes are at the center of each galaxy.

As my life has proceeded, my relationship with the unexpected hardships of life has changed. Now, I am older, and see things far differently than when I was younger. Looking back, I can now see, that much of what I formerly thought of as tragic, I now consider, great and difficult lessons. I have been mostly formed through what has been messy, traumatic, and confusingly painful. Certainly, this included my stroke, but before that, there were a myriad of heartaches which sensitized me, and sent my life off in directions I wouldn’t have predicted. It was like I was struck by lightening multiple times.

I found the metaphor of the gauntlet gave me a poignant image, that conveyed the initiating and loving quality of this on-going ordeal. In Native American tradition a gauntlet was an initiatory ordeal that helped the brave mature. One ran through all the warriors lined up and striking the initiate with branches. Running the gauntlet insured pain, helping harden and prepare the initiate for the ordeals of life.

It seems, that is exactly what happens in some people’s lives. Life hits us, over and over again, in the most salient ways, lovingly preparing us. The ordeals shape us, sensitizing and preparing us to serve in the most extraordinary ways. I now think that there is a Divine Gauntlet that trips us up, and sets us on the appropriate course. In this way — to be hurt is to be loved. The most difficult parts of life might just be the ones that teach us the most.

What must it take, to deal a painful blow to those you love, and rely on? I have also seen that this isn’t some abusive or sadistic aspect of the projected Divine.

 I have learned, not only to weather pain, uncertainty, and hardship, but something equally important — the ability to regulate myself. I don’t mean to put myself down, rather, to hold myself steady in the face of headwinds. It has been the difficulties that have revealed to me my strengths and weaknesses. I have no confidence without hardships. Life has supplied me with plenty of opportunities.

Now, I praise the wisdom, that brought me to my knees over and over again. I consider the painful, difficult, disruptive times in my life to be the most important blessings I’ve received. As the saying goes, “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.” My newfound strength isn’t muscle, it is awareness.

Life loves us enough, so that it runs us through the mud, besmirches us, and strings us so far out, that there is no return. It has been learning this, knowing that one can be this loved, that has made me Lucky. I share this view with you, to make this possibility yours, if you want it. I know life has more tricks up its sleeve than this one, but the Divine Gauntlet is a real one.

May you find your way of being loved by the Divine. 

 

 

 

  

A “Long-avoided Latency”

I don't know its nature.

I have no term for it.

I cannot see its shape.

 

But, there, inscrutable,

Just underground,

Is the long-avoided latency.

                                       From Seed by William Everson

There are many benefits of getting old. You wouldn’t know it if you just paid attention to what is being said culturally. But, this one, the long-avoided latency, is one of the best, which suffers the most, because it is most easily misperceived.

In truth, this attribute of the powerful integrative force that moves us all towards the finish line, is one that has a paradoxical nature. It can appear in a good news/bad news way. It isn’t one or the other, but both. Frequently, it is seen as either good news, and one misses its dark, illuminating power, or as bad news, where one tries to further avoid the wholing energy it brings. The long-avoided latency is both— a paradoxical call from one’s depths — an indicator of the soul’s longing.

I’m pointing at an attribution that doesn’t come to everyone (wholeness manifests in many forms in different lives), but when it does, it is powerful and cannot be ignored. It can manifest as a dream, a physical symptom, relationship issue, fatigue, depression, or a social difficulty. Ultimately, if one does not appropriately respond, then regret sets in. Organically, one’s life vitale is bubbling to the surface, just in time. The chance to actualize your existence, to become your full miraculous self, is happening while you are alive, and still have time to do something about it. That is part of the good news. Your deepest self, the Great Mystery of who we humans are (which some people call soul), is sending marching orders. That’s the bad news.

Destiny is calling. One doesn’t ever get to know if destiny exalts or eliminates — it marches to a more Universal drumbeat than we are used to. Still, our sense of wholeness rests on the movement of the Cosmos.

Just as a wound, or a great piece of luck, can provoke a way of living, a long-avoided latency alters one’s trajectory. The longed for, even in the deep unconscious, manifests — creating chaos, heartache, and a way home — a home that no one knew was possible before.

I’ve had friends who have been called by something they knew their age couldn’t support. They were drawn into being older, broken by some greater aspiration, and alive in a way that could only be explained by a new level of fulfillment. What has been dormant has suddenly come to life. Aging has brought some new, perhaps old, elixir to the surface.

It might involve suddenly being drawn to a particular musical instrument, like happened to a composer friend of mine. It has awakened a joy that was there, but unexpected. Another man I know had a dream of a favored long dead pet, that re-awakened his longing for emotional closeness. His sense of fulfillment in this life awaits his response to this long-held desire. I write, though I don’t consider myself a writer, because a long-avoided latency grabbed me, from inside, and caused me to sit, reflect, and record. These words come from an unknown dynamism that turned the light on, perhaps planting it with the awakening of life in my mother’s womb.

It could be some seed is awakening within you.

 

 

 

  

Noticing

I was such an oblivious young person. The world revolved around my perceptions, and they weren’t very nuanced. Aging changed all that. Not nearly fast enough. I remember going to grad school when I was in my late thirties still believing the world was like I perceived it to be. It wasn’t until my stroke in my mid-fifties that I began to get a clue about how far off I was. When I realized everything was passing so quickly I began to perceive the world so much more accurately. Still, I had a long way to go. I’ve had to get old enough to be occasionally embarrassed by my age to grasp and begin to believe what I actually noticed. It is when I could take in the real complexity of everyone, and began enjoying the uniqueness of who they were, and could sense the wild profusion that surrounds me, that I began to get that things are not at all what they seemed to be. There is something going on, that I am catching glimpses of — but am somehow only being let in on, if I pay real attention.

Finally, I noticed, that I hadn’t truly noticed much. That is what started me writing the Slow Lane. I attributed much of my failure to notice to speed. No doubt that was partially true. Speed does distort everything. But, I came to grasp that it was my arrogant beliefs, that kept me away from the what melded unpredictability and uncertainty into the world I was living in. Since then, I’ve grasped that I have a lot to unlearn. Instead, of arrogantly trying to fit in, I am now quietly trying to let things come to me. The Mystery is friendly, but requires a deferential presence.

Growing older is certainly a lesson in humility, especially with regard to noticing. Happily, aging has provided me with a kind of ballast that helps me withstand much of the pretense that appears almost everywhere. One of the reasons we older people struggle so much with loneliness and isolation is that many others prefer pretense to what we now are capable of perceiving. Life has some requirements that go way beyond the cultural moment. I’ve grown up, as I grew less and less what I was supposed to be.

I was trained as a psychotherapist. I was supposed to notice some things, mainly what was wrong. But, something happened on the way to a successful career. I noticed what was right. Going from pathology to wholeness, from noticing failure, to noticing courage and success, altered everything, and introduced me to a Universe of possibility. I began to wonder. I noticed other things about Life, that I’d been misinformed about. The stroke, which drove me to the edges of social reality, helped me notice that there was a lot more not known than there was presumably known. I fell into nonconventional noticing. Aging became a romp in an untethered world. What a delight, I noticed the freedom from dreary pretense!

I cannot claim to be fully grown. I simply say “I’m ripening.” But, noticing has developed into awe. I can rarely have an encounter where I don’t come-away with some deep impression. What I perceive isn’t always accurate, but is a lot nearer the mark than before. Plus, now I’m imbued with a more demanding curiosity, that insists I notice the uniqueness of the ones I face. I am always poised for surprise. Noticing has become a kind of passport into the magical-spiritual realms. Lately, I’ve come to believe there is no such thing as a failure to communicate. Aging, has resulted in openness to Life’s impingement.

As I said before it didn’t start out this way. I was granted the same senses as everyone else. I noticed something in the air. I didn’t know it. Life directed my attention. It ran me through a mill I could never imagine. In my case, being reduced to a portion of my former self (something I think happens to all of us, as we age), had the affect of sharpening my attention, and awakening me from the dream I was compellingly lost in. The world took on a glow I couldn’t adequately account for. Sensations bombard me now.

Noticing, now goes beyond my attitudes. I periodically lose heart, I go into a funk where hopelessness assails me, turning me back into a human doing, trying again to earn my salvation. Even when that happens, noticing distracts me. Reverie overtakes me, and I am delivered back into this strange world that always captures my attention. I notice, whether I want to or not.

Sometimes I feel this is a blessing, sometimes not. It doesn’t seem to matter. I end-up noticing stuff anyway. At-the-moment, I think I’m some kind of noticing machine, a flesh and blood probe, sent here by some truly sentient species to gather impressions. In other words, programmed to drink it all in. If it weren’t for my youthful blindness, I might believe that. Instead, it appears, as though aging has made me more aware.  Not just more aware, quantitatively, but qualitatively too. I seem to notice more what matters. Each moment seems to have a patina of meaning.

I can’t get over it. I’m so depressed I’m thrilled. Life keeps running me through the wringer. I’ve become slap happy. Noticing goes on like a nightmarish dream, turning into a warm bath of belonging.  I would be remiss if I said this was the way it is. I’ve noticed how myopic I can be. But, and here is the good/bad news, it goes on anyway. My shortcomings are just more gris for the mill.

Now tell me, how does it play out for you? Have you noticed?

 

 

  

A Social Koan

For years, as a community-builder, marital therapist, and relational man, I’ve had the recurring problem that I am about to describe. Briefly, what I found, in myself, and in all of the others I worked with, was an intolerance for difference. This was so prevalent in relationship everywhere, that I found myself thinking about it a lot. People were so prone to emphasize their similarities with each other, and to fear, hate, and run from differentness. I experienced this over and over. It seemed like this intolerance was a feature of separation.

After years of experiencing it intimately, and witnessing this intolerance in long-term relationships, and in the politics of this nation, I began to view this tendency as a fatal flaw in our relational practices. My thinking about it went so far as to consider this tendency to be impeding the evolution of our species — the problem that hangs over us, and is behind our wars and divorces

As a marital therapist I began my sessions with a new couple by seeing how they related to their differences. There were stages where differing was considered a strength, and others where differing was seen as a threat. How they dealt with differing was often the root of their issue. The things they did to protect themselves from how they differed, were all too often, perceived by their partner as offensive. A relationship would become hollow, dead or dissatisfying, and even violent when they were unable to avoid being different. Irreconcilable differences is the most common explanation for divorce in our culture, and is more commonly the root of dissolution of many unmarried relationships. Differing is unavoidable and dangerous relationally.

You can see the same thing playing out in the political arena. It isn’t just about immigrants, race, gender, or worldview. It is the basic threat that differences pose. We, as a species, are intolerant of those who seem to be different from us. These could be great, or little differences, but in the end these variations lead to disputes, conflict and warfare.

I’ve come to consider this weakness in our species’ make-up, to be such an important one, that it is a kind of developmental dilemma, that is impeding our growth (ie. a social koan). We will never achieve becoming citizens of the Universe, if we cannot get along with ourselves. The things we do to defend ourselves, are not only offensive to others, but eventually threatening to ourselves. The environmental crisis is a good example of our intolerance of otherness, and how we undermine what we ourselves depend on.

This isn’t just an abstract problem that happens occasionally. You can feel its presence in your life right now. Tune into the tensions you feel around the on-going challenge you have being yourself. How different can you be and still be loved?

This mostly unanswered question haunts anyone in relationship, maybe not now, certainly not always, but eventually. It is one of the great uncertainties of our time. Old people are focused upon freedom, particularly the freedom to be themselves. Some of them are able to achieve it, but all have to grapple with an intolerance of differing that is so deep that it makes the joy of uniqueness a real accomplishment. Relationships of all sorts are haunted by the chasm of difference, that makes relationship so rewarding and so damaging.

There is no cure for this intolerance. Diversity, being exposed to lots of difference is helpful, but we have to grow ourselves; our awareness of differences, our ability to handle negative reactions, and our capacity to stay ourselves while engaged with otherness. All of this, calls for a rare maturity — a growth of the self— that also means coming to terms with our own inconsistencies. The mystery of who each of us is, is great enough, to teach us how to deal with what we don’t know, and don’t want to deal with.

The way out of the bind of difference, is through those differences. It takes a rootedness in our mutual dependency, a rootedness that comes more easily to those who bear up, and let themselves be tested by wild profusion of Nature, ours and the unexpected.

 

 

 

  

What’s So Good About Getting Older?

The supreme reward of growing older might be

 

“our widening capacity for patience,

for the spaciousness that meets life on its own terms

and becomes one with the unfolding mystery.”

                                                                                                               Kahlil Gibran

I was introduced to being older by my stroke. I jokingly said at the time, that I was aged from 55 to 95 in about 4 years. Now, at 75 I no longer think that was a joke. My interest in aging has grown over the years. It has led me to, and through, a lot of things, and a lot of relationships with older people. Plus, in the meantime, I’ve become one of them. All of that experience has sharpened my interest in this particular era of Life. I think it holds some unique attributes, that make the final laps around the track, some of the most meaningful and important stages of Life.

In the early years after my stroke, I used to regard myself as a ‘precocious elder.’ I became one early (before my 60’s), but aging has made it really clear that I still had a lot to learn about what getting older involves. The last few years I‘ve had the feeling that this stage of my life is unlike any I’ve experienced before, and certainly more compelling. Everything up till now has been important, and involving, but this last phase of life, is having the effect of bringing it all together. I am turning out to be familiar and unknown, an unfolding mystery, like Gibran says.

The feeling of being old, and new again, is somewhat disorienting. I am surprised by what I regularly forget, and by what I amazingly remember. I experience déjà vu a lot, and then I’m struck by the beauty of some formerly pedestrian event. It is as if I’m a child again. Older and wiser, and even more sensitive and open. Moments last longer, strike me deeper, and more regularly blow away my pretenses. I am not what I used to be, and am on the way to what I have always been. I am broken down, frailer than I’ve ever been, and somehow more spiritually alive. I no longer believe death isn’t coming for me, but strangely, I am more welcoming than ever.

Letting go has become a big thing in my later life. I have an ambivalent relationship with it. I hate having to get rid of stuff, the shedding of identity, that comes with a life careening toward the finish line. I’m not finished yet, and I’m more finished than I’ve ever been. Getting rid of myself is an inexplicable way of finishing. I am ready to move on. And already I’m living as a ghost of myself. There is the pain of loss and surrender, and the joy of freedom. This is a bittersweet brew, that had to steep a lifetime, to be aged properly, so that the paradoxical flavors of simplicity and complexity could blossom.

I am the penultimate result of a lifetime of human longing. Aged with care, and just another one of a host that are passing quickly. It is some kind of demented race to a finishing line that one never sees coming. Sometimes gone even before one starts. The metaphor of a journey doesn’t begin to describe the weirdness baked into this transition. Thank the Mystery, Nature had the sense to create a beginning and ending.

Unlike other eras in life, the uniqueness of old age is how palpable is the ripening that takes place. No matter what one’s circumstances are: rich or poor, privileged or not, disabled, demented, savvy or naïve, this is an equal-opportunity action, that is imposed on all of us by nature. It puts everyone through the wringer. And it squeezes out of us our truest nature. That is a late-life gift that makes all the ups and downs precious.