Believe-it-or-not…

This morning I have officially become a blogger for, of all things, Psychology Today! I, who have utterly failed to benefit from countless attempts at a zillion different kinds of therapy for over three decades….

You can find it here:

Suffering, Seeking & Sanity

It’s 1976, and I’m speaking to Karen, my partner at the time,   bemoaning my lack of commitment to anything. All of my close friends over the years, up to and including my wife, Shari, will attest to  the fact that I am a habitual bemoaner. (Be·moan: “To express grief or disappointment about something.” In Yiddish, it is translated to “kvetch,” which adds the elements of whining and complaining. It could be argued that, depending on my audience, I am both a  bemoaner and a kvetcher.)

Read more….

Dispatch Tulum: Part 2

 I rarely touch alcohol in our daily life, but there’s a sense of obligation I feel in Mexico at every meal; after Shari orders her Diet Coke with extra limes, the waiters always turn to me with an all-knowing, shit-eating grin, as if we secretly understand one another, and say, “And for you Senor, una cerveza? Tequila?” Those are the only two choices. “Si.” What else could I possibly say? I average two cervezas per lunch and two very strong margaritas each night, and it’s perfect timing given that I’ve just started a new tricyclic antidepressant, the accompanying literature for which includes a warning against combining it with alcohol, but what could I do? This was tequila-land.  As it turns out, the only sign that the drinks effect me at all is that I seem to find the idea of ordering “Casa Varnishkes” hilarious and worth repeating several times until I get a chuckle out of Shari. 

Fig. 1

We go for a kayak trip through the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, which a number of people told us was a “can’t miss” because of all the wildlife, but our guide waits until we are well into what appears to be an uninhabited swamp to mention that it is “too bad you here now, all the birds finish for this season,” so there is only an endless expanse of mangroves (Fig 1), which he talks about continuously and at length, the only part of which I’ve retained is that apparently it’s a plant that grows in swamps.

Fig. 2

Several times he steers us close to a clump of mangroves (Fig 2), claiming that he hears the call of some exotic creature hiding in the middle, only to say, “Too bad; when we get back, I show you picture, is incredible.”  It reminds us both of the “Jungle Night Walk” we took in Costa Rica where the guide spent a considerable amount of time pointing out an inchworm (Fig. 3).  We’re never too successful at spotting the animals that are featured on all the postcards and t-shirts from any particular region.

Fig. 3

For example. this is my t-shirt from Costa Rica (Fig. 4), but the shirt is the only place we ever saw this parrot:  

Fig. 4

The one notable exception to this occurs when we visit the famous Mayan ruins of Tulum, the highlight of which are all the lizards everywhere, reminiscent of Jurassic Park, only in miniature (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5 

 Shari and I discovered early on in our relationship that one of the things we share is an incredible lack of interest in reading plaques or learning about the history of things. That became clear the day her cousin from California dragged us through a historic battleground site in Fredericksburg, Virginia in 110 degree heat, while he not only read each plaque, but shot video footage of them.  The truth about battleground sites, though,  if you look carefully, is that apart from the plaques, there is absolutely nothing there but grass.  In any event, we paid our obligatory visit to the ruins in Tulum, failed to learn anything about Mayan culture, and pretty much decided to spend the rest of the week snorkeling, reading in the hammock, playing with Foxy the Dog, and staring wistfully out to sea.

A Rata, A Cata, A Flata…and Kata!

Dispatch Tulum, May 2009:

It’s a ghost-beach here, post-swine-flu scare. The tourists have mostly cancelled their trips, and we have the place nearly to ourselves. Employees outnumber guests at all the restaurants, hotels and attractions; we went to Hidden Worlds to snorkel in the cenotes, underwater caverns, and we were greeted at the door by the greeter, who greeted us, and explained our options: $25 per person would get us into one cenote. For $40 each they’d throw us a second cenote. Given that we were the only people there, you’d think they’d give us all the cenotes we wanted. The greeter turned us over to the cashier team: one woman took our money, a second woman put it in the register, and a third handed us our change. Then a Welsh woman appeared, the Director of Something, and gave us a general orientation about what to expect on our tour. We were then put on a jungle jeep and driven down a very steep and bumpy dirt road where we were met by Elena, who showed us to our lockers and took us to the head of the path, at the bottom of which Daniel took over and walked us to the cenote entrance and turned us over to our guide, Noah. Counting the driver and the man in the Mayan knickknack shop on the way out, it took ten paid staff to handle our visit. And each time we met someone, we started to bond with them, thinking they would be our guide for the day, only to have them dump us a minute later. No sooner than we got back to the States, I discovered this deal on their website:

We missed the Cenote Special, and we didn’t even get the Souvenir Snorkel. But the caverns were very cool.

 

 

 

Fig. 1

Joaquin at Alamo Rent-a-Car assures us that it’s just bad luck that we got a flat tire about two and a half minutes after renting the car, and he also assures us that despite the fact that we purchased an exorbitant amount of insurance to cover every possible contingency, such that our base rate of $12.50 per day became $55, sadly, none of it covered flat tires. Meanwhile, while I actually do know how to change a tire, the jack I find in the trunk looks only vaguely jack-like and I can’t begin to visualize how it works. Miraculously, we had just picked up a young female hitchhiker named Kata, who happened to be the one person in Tulum that we knew—Shari had met her the previous day at our hotel–and thankfully, she has a cell phone and calls Joaquin for us, who comes directly over and has me literally try to push the car onto the jack, which seems like a bad idea to me—“Poosh, Senor, poosh”– and then as he tries to use a big rock to prop up the jack, (See Fig. 1) he says, “You may not believe me Senor, but I never change a tire my whole life.” I do believe him. So Joaquin gives up and goes to get what Shari calls a “mechanico,” convinced that she can turn any word into Spanish just by adding an “o” at the end. (When we were in Hidden Worlds and our jungle jeep encountered another jeep coming toward us, Shari said to our driver, “Muy traffico,” which means “Very traffic.”) She uses an “a” at the end for feminine words, so flat becomes “flata.”

 

So Kata saved us from the flata, which struck us as oddly serendipitous, given that only the previous night, our first in Tulum, a cata had rescued us from a rata.

Fig. 2

Having lived in the country for many years, we’re generally not all that squeamish about rodents, and even now, living in Richmond, our cats brings us birds, decapitated bunnies and wild chipmunks on a daily basis. But a rat in our hotel room on our first night in Mexico, well…let’s just say I smelled a rat. Thankfully Luna, (Fig. 2) the eponymous cat of the Cabanas La Luna, wandered into our room—we had the door open to enjoy the ocean breezes—and she proceeded to play cat-and-mouse with the rat, with lots of scurrying and squeaking going on in and around our bed as we sat bolt upright, surrounded by mosquito netting, (Fig. 2a) putting our money on Luna.

Fig. 2a

When things got quiet and Luna hopped up on the bed to settle in, we took it as a hopeful sign that she had scared away the rat, and we finally turned the light out and fell asleep…only to be awakened suddenly by a thrashing explosion of activity as the rat scampered over Shari’s head and Luna leaped across her pillow in hot pursuit.

So all in all, it wasn’t really a very restful first night, and we waited until morning to take the crab outside that had crawled up the mosquito netting above our heads. (Fig. 3)

Fig. 3

More to come…

P.S. My Apologies…

       Remember the classic split screen moment in Annie Hall?  Diane Keaton and Woody Allen are in simultaneous therapy sessions; Woody’s character  is complaining to his therapist that, “We hardly EVER make love–maybe three times a week!” while Keaton is saying, “We make love CONSTANTLY–maybe three times a week!”

     When I showed a recent royalty statement to Shari, in the very same moment that I was grumbling that I had “only sold 1254 books,” she was exclaiming enthusiastically, “Wow, you sold 1254 books!” 

     With the addition of copies that I have myself sold or given away, as well as previous books, articles and online pieces, I probably have had between five and ten thousand readers over the years, I’m guessing. And in considering Shari’s point of view, it suddenly dawned on me that when I stated in my last post that  my books had “not sold in significant numbers,” I was essentially deeming thousands of readers as insignificant! 

      So I’m sorry I said that, especially in light of  the kind responses I received to my last post, and I am very appreciative of those readers I do have, so thank you.  

    And, on another matter, I’m feeling much better and back to “normal,” whatever that is.

Oahu ‘07

DARKNESS VISIBLE

 

            William Styron, the prize-winning author of Sophie’s Choice and half a dozen other notable works, also wrote Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness, describing his unexpected descent into an episode of near-suicidal depression at the age of 60, which landed him in the psychiatric ward for seven weeks.  He eventually recovered. In the memoir he wrote:

             “In virtually any other serious sickness, a patient who felt similar devastation would be lying flat in bed, possibly sedated and hooked up to the tubes and wires of life-support systems, but at the very least in a posture of repose and in an isolated setting. His invalidism would be necessary, unquestioned and honorably attained. However, the sufferer from depression has no such option and therefore finds himself, like a walking casualty of war, thrust into the most intolerable social and family situations. There he must, despite the anguish devouring his brain, present a face approximating the one that is associated with ordinary events and companionship. He must try to utter small talk,  and be responsive to questions, and knowingly nod and frown, and, God help him, even smile. But it is a fierce trial attempting to speak a few simple words.”

            Yes, I thought. I completely understand. 

            If you’ve read my book, The 99^th Monkey, then you know that I have a long history of battling debilitating episodes of depression, and playing around with various psychopharmacological agents—mostly legal ones!–in my efforts to maintain a happy (or at least a happi-er) face.  Even in the best of moods I’ve never been one to enjoy the strain of obligatory chit-chat, and prefer to spend most of my time either alone or with companions with whom I can easily share silence unless there’s something worth saying.

            Which brings me to this “Mostly Silent” blog; I have been true to that title, more so lately, because I’m afraid I recently had a brain chemistry meltdown and “went under” for several hellish weeks. I had recently tapered off both Wellbutrin and Paxil, believing I could handle life on its own terms again, and during the weaning process, under my psychiatrist’s supervision, I had introduced the sporadic, “as-needed” use of Adderall, an amphetamine salt—a form of speed that is popular on the college campus these days as a “neuroenhancer” for all-night study sessions. 

            Adderall turned out to be a bad choice for me; unlike the overall stabilizing effect of antidepressants, it is an “upper,” and in my case, what follows an upper is a downer, creating the need to either do more Adderall to get back up, or suffer through withdrawal, which took several days of intense mental anguish before I was relatively back on track. In the midst of my struggle, I took a workshop in California entitled “Libido,” which stirred up some very painful and personal issues, and followed that immediately with an extended visit to the increasingly difficult scene at my parents’ home, where my Dad is under the enormous burden, drain and strain of caring for my Mom, who’s Alzheimer’s disease brings more heartbreak, deterioration and mood explosions daily. 

Mom

            And my role in the family is to cheer everyone up!  Like William Styron, that’s hard enough for me to do on the best of days, let alone when the inner storm clouds are fogging over my cortex and attacking me from the inside out.

             I may also be suffering from PPPS: Post-Partum-Publishing Syndrome:  I’ve had several books published, mostly very well-received and praised by readers, but none have sold in significant numbers, and though I myself have written warnings to would-be authors, saying, “Don’t expect your book to change your life!” it is nevertheless always a bit sobering, humbling and disappointing after the initial rush of publication and reviews and book tours dies down and I find that I’m still here, with not so much as a wink or a nod from either Oprah or the New York Times Book Review.  It makes it a bit harder, as a writer, to “get it up” again.

                  

      But if one’s motivation to write is not simply fueled by an adolescent  and empty drive for fame and fortune, the only possible reason to write at all would be “writing as gift,” as a form of offering oneself in a way that hopefully will be useful to someone else, such that one’s life doesn’t feel like a scribbling diversion and waste of time. And that’s why I have been mostly silent, waiting for something worthwhile or useful to say.

Isadora

     However, as Isadora Duncan declared in her autobiography, “If anyone wrote the truth of their lives, they will have written a masterpiece.” Therefore, theoretically, the simple and honest relating of my truth–and yours– is probably sufficient and “worth sharing,” but it takes a certain degree of courage to do that, and sometimes I feel more courageous than others. 

            A closing quote, another from Styron’s memoir:

            “My brain…had become less an organ of thought than an instrument registering, minute by minute, varying degrees of its own suffering.”

            Yes, I understand.

 Me, Halloween ‘07

Please send sandwiches…

 

      Here is a Hafiz poem for those of us who have spent time meditating on silent retreat and have also been on antidepressants:

 

Not many teachers in this world

Can give you as much enlightenment

In one year

 

As sitting all alone, for three days,

In your closet

Would

Do.

 

That means not leaving.

Better get a friend or two to help with

A few sandwiches

and

the chamber pot.

 

And no reading in there or writing poems,

That would be cheating;

Aim high—

for a 360 degree

Detox.

 

That sitting alone, though, is

Not recommended

 

If you are normally

Sedated

 

Or have ever been under a doctor’s

Surveillance because of your

Brain.

 

Dear one,

Don’t let Hafiz fool you–

 

A ruby is buried

Here.

_______

     My brain has been under surveillance for years, but the results have been spotty at best.  If you’re looking for me, check in the closet.

 

_______

     My friend Trew Bennett, from Buck Creek Pottery in Faber, Virginia, sent this in response:

 

I don’t sit alone, well I do, but not for three days,

at least not yet.

But I do pot alone…and sometimes that spinning wheel
 

on a rainy, foggy day,
 

seems to whisper encouraging secrets to me…
 

and so I keep on potting…
 

_________
 

  

     Thursday evening I’m appearing on a panel of writers that is titled, “The Gods Must Be Crazy: The Intersection of Spirituality and Writing.”   Again, Hafiz to the rescue:
 

What
 

Is the
 

Root of all these
 

Words?
 

One thing: love.
 

But a love so deep and sweet
 

It needed to express itself
 

With scents, sounds, colors
 

That never before
 

Existed.
 

    Now if I can somehow stretch that out into a two-hour panel discussion….

 

 

 

 

Music or Love? Choose one…

     “Every human being is the mirror of the God he conceives,
and most are pocket mirrors.”                                      

    –Margaret Anderson, The Unknowable Gurdjieff

  

  I’ve been reading a lot of books about Gurdjieff lately. Being that he is dead, it is safe from the comfort of my armchair to be fascinated by him and his work, and the shroud of secrecy and exclusivity that surrounded him. Of course if he were alive today, undoubtedly there would be some that would revere him as an enlightened mystic who could do no wrong, while others would denounce him as a manipulative cult leader.

Sai Baba

While some spiritual teachers, like India’s Sai Baba, for example, manage

to attract and accumulate followers by the millions, others, like Gurdjieff and the late Adi Da Samraj, went out of their way to make it nearly impossible for the merely curious to even get near them. Gurdjieff was notorious for at times being rude and outrageous in his behaviors as a way of scaring off those who were unable or uninterested in looking past surface appearances. (And in reverse,  he once offered  to pay a particular student to not leave, simply because this person’s continued presence was a constant source of conflict and upset to the rest of the group!)

Adi Da Samraj

          Of those who pushed through such trials and ordeals and managed to enter his inner circle of students, many  wrote memoirs of their experiences. The passage  below about music comes from one such account by Margaret Anderson in her book,  The Unknowable Gurdjieff. The selection isn’t explicitly about Gurdjieff, but  reflects one of the phases she passed through whilst under his tutelage. And it is likely not unrelated to that fact that Gurdjieff was himself a musician and composer of sorts, and would often play his “sacred melodies” for his students on a small harmonium-type of instrument that featured a keyboard and bellows.

Beethoven manuscript

     “I had always lived on music, I wanted to hear it always, I venerated music, I think I thought that love of music was a measure of the soul’s stature…My idea of what life should be was perfectly illustrated by those pictures of Beethoven playing to his friends, who sat listening with their heads bowed in their hands. I was always seeking the emotion which would allow me, compel me, to put my head in my hands. Life was never life to me unless my heart stood still.   

      ” …Even today when I suddenly hear a phrase of great lyrical music, I hear myself thinking: life is music, can there be anything greater?

Chopin

 …I listen as if listening would take me to some other sphere…Is it possible I am hearing anything so beautiful? Can anything so beautiful really have been written? What did Chopin feel when he wrote it?     

      ” …I felt that all people who didn’t live in this state were without blessing and that they  must be helped into it. I sometimes tried to decide which state –love (romantic love) or music — I could relinquish if allowed only one. For some reason I could never explain I always decided  that I would have to give up love. Perhaps because one can arrange to have music continually; love isn’t always available, and it is so often unmusical.”   

  Comes down to that age-old question:  You’re on a deserted island and you can take only one thing with you, your lover or your iPod. Which one do you choose? 

                   This…                               OR …                         This ?                                                             

Dance of the Hummingbird

Whenever I water flowers

somewhere

 

a hummingbird appears

and dances.

 

For a long time

I’ve watched that dance

not knowing

what moves me so.

 

Today

I see.

 

In a hummingbird’s dance

there is no bird

only movement.

 

The dance

danced without “I”

is the dance with a heart. 

                                  –Don Juan Matus, 

                                                                   translated by Ok-Koo Kang Grosjean

***

     I spent much of 2008 getting certified to teach The 5 Rhythms™ Work developed by my old friend and teacher of 30 years, Gabrielle Roth.  One of her favorite quotes, from Osho Rajneesh, is very reminiscent of the hummingbird poem: 

Dance until the dancer disappears,

and only the dance remains.

     To be trained in Gabrielle’s work is to learn to be a Houdini of sorts; that is, to master a disappearing act.  While The 5 Rhythms process appears on the surface to be about dance and movement, those are simply the forms used to engage in what is actually a deep spiritual practice;  a living, breathing, embodied and vibrant spiritual practice measured, not in hours spent meditating on a cushion, but in buckets of sweat, as the title of her well-known book suggests,  Sweat Your Prayers. 

     Often, when I teach, I suggest that students pretend God Herself has inquired as to how we are doing, and we must answer only with the body in motion, a physical prayer that can express the full range of our humanity, from the agony of yearning to the joy of union, or perhaps simply the childlike play of the imaginative spirit.  But ultimately, the practice asks us to be like the hummingbird, to drop the self-conscious, ruminating “I” and disappear into the authentic and original movement of our being itself, emanating from, and ultimately returning to, the silent still point within where the Great Mystery finds a place to dwell.

Gabrielle

www.gabrielleroth.com

 

Small Moments, Many Times

     “Small Moments, Many Times” is the title of an article of mine that was just published on RealitySandwich.com. It’s about the way we all seem to keep coming back to “just this,” no matter what exotic spiritual experiences or altered states we may visit.  So rather than persisting in the seeker’s great dream of  finally arriving somewhere someday and taking up permanent residence in the Nirvana Hotel, perhaps we’d be better advised to cultivate our appreciation of those small moments we are given, those fleeting glimpses of the mysterious, vast reality of Grace in which we exist. (I should talk, after essentially kvetching my life away.)
     The article is also about the sobering recognition that in the world of spiritual teachers, usually it turns out that  the “emperor has no clothes.” (Meaning, it just might be that we have met the Guru, and She is Us. )

You can read it here:
Small Moments, Many Times

 

We’ve got time…

         Margaret Wheatley, author of  Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time,  recounts that  the Dalai Lama once told a group of her colleagues not to be anxious, because,

“The work you are doing now will bear fruit in 700 years.”

(Courtesy of Susan Hagood)

        Whew, that’s a relief.  Meanwhile, for more immediate gratification, a piece I wrote on  “Writers Writing About Writing”  has just been published online  at  The View From Here, a UK blog and print magazine.

           In the article, I mention Rilke’s admonition in Letters to a Young Poet,  that one must  ”confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.” 

Write or die???  Come on, Ranier, cut us humans a little slack.

Read article here.