Thoughts about Truth

Posted on April 23, 2012 by jenny

I’ve been sitting here puzzling over the nature of “truth.”  Someone who was at my presentation last night started talking about people living long ago being warlike.  I asked “How do you know?” and he couldn’t really tell me.  I find it fascinating that people can read something in a book, or hear someone say it, and take it for “truth.”  When I do that, it’s because something resonates for me.  I already have some ideas and this new notion fits in.  If it doesn’t fit, I usually think something like “that’s an interesting story.”  When I first read Eugene Gendler’s “Focusing”, I learned the technique of paying attention to my body to find the answers to personal questions.  “Who gave me that book? Was it Sue? No.  Was it John? Yes!”   How do you know it was John?  Pay attention next time.  (For me, in my body, it’s a sensation of something socketing into place.)  Martha Beck has another body-centered technique you can use to make a choice (or to find what your deep self had already decided.)  She calls it “shackles on”, and “shackles off.”  Doing Somatic Experiencing is another technique that can add a lot of detail to the felt sense.

That’s all well and good for personal truths.  What about bigger truths, scientific truths, or religious truth?

I had a thought about “truth”, about learning “truth” from experience, rather than from reading or “figuring it out.”  It’s a bit like there is no “correct” version of a folk dance, there is only the version that this group of people do at this time, in this place.  On the other hand, there are versions that are more “true” to the way this dance has been done in other times and places.  This makes “truth” more like a line of flow that you are more or less in alignment with.  On the other hand, if I pay attention to my body it will tell me whether something is “right” or “wrong” for me.

Is there a “truth” that holds true throughout all time and space?  I doubt it.  On the other hand, I can read something like the values of hunter-gatherers, and feel a resonance inside me — yes, this is the way human beings were designed to live.

Niels Bohr, one of the great names in quantum physics, said “The opposite of a fact is a falsehood, the opposite of a profound truth is often another profound truth.”

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Knocknarae

Posted on April 22, 2012 by jenny


Knocknarae is a mountain on the west coast of Ireland.  Its name means Hill of the Ruler.  On top is the cairn of Maeve, Warrior Queen of Connaught, and she still means enough to the Irish people that they have refused to allow her cairn to be opened.  I went there because my traveling companion had taken a class in Celtic Mythology, and knew about Queen Maeve.  We discovered that there was a “Neolithic graveyard” on the east side of the mountain, so we went hunting.  I was interested in Neolithic relics because I had heard about the possibility that Stonehenge was an astronomical computer.
This was one of those synchronicities I look back on with wonder.  My senior year at Wellesley I needed to write a paper about a modern building for a class I was taking in Modern Architecture.  I was home in Cincinnati, and a friend of my parents had a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.  When I asked him, he was very apologetic, but had refused many people and felt he had to refuse me.  He referred me to John Garber, who had designed a Church of St. John such that the sunlight fell on the altar at Christmas, Easter, and St. John’s Day which is near the summer solstice.  Of course I was intrigued.  When I met John Garber our first sentences were “Where are you at College?”  “Wellesley.”  “What’s your major?”  “Astronomy.”  “Would you like a job?”  He wanted me to come teach astronomy to his children at their summer place on the Damariscotta River.  He was interested in Astronomy because he had read Gerald Hawkins’ first article on Stonehenge, which had just appeared.  John said  he was interested in the Neolithic because that was when humans had settled down, and it was the beginning of architecture, agriculture, and astronomy.  I had a great time that summer, and it started me on the path to Archeoastronomy.
So when I stood at the dolmen that was east of Knocknarae, I already had a suspicion that the neolithic people were more than ignorant savages.  Dol-men means Table-stone in Gaellic, and a Dolmen is a structure with several (usually five) uprights holding a capstone.  This creates a chamber, and many of them were used for burial.  Between grave robbers and erosion, the earth mound that once covered them is long gone.  I looked at this balanced construction of stones inside a circle of stones, not on top of a gentle knoll but just over the height toward the mountain.  The capstone is trapezoidal, Knocknarae is trapezoidal, Maeve’s Cairn is trapezoidal, on the right, out of the picture is another flat-topped mountain.  Somehow the dolmen focussed the whole landscape, brought it together in a single magic shape, a huge piece of sculpture bigger than a cathedral.  I decided that this was the greatest piece of sculpture I had ever seen.  Since then I’ve been to London, Paris, Florence, and Athens, and still haven’t seen anything to equal it.
It turned my world upside-down.  I could no longer imagine that we “modern” humans had progressed since the Neolithic.  Considering the mess we are making of the world, that’s more true than ever.

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Guidance

Posted on April 19, 2012 by jenny

(Written in September 2006)
Dear Guides & Guardian Spirits, I’m feeling pretty discouraged. The whole political / environmental mess is so overwhelming, and it looks like all attempts to fight it — on many fronts — are unavailing because they have the power.  Please help me.
    Dear Jenny, there is a tremendous ground swell of change that isn’t really visible yet.  Patience.  Let go of the need to see outer results and keep doing what you are doing.  Just teaching circle dance makes a difference.  Just working to heal your own psyche makes a difference.  Just dancing “Grandmother Dances” with Kayla and Iona makes a difference.  Let your weary heart rest on the Ocean of Compassion.  Remember the algae that rebalanced the living machine.  You are part of a great group of people, living and dead, who are working to move the Earth through the Great Turning.  Never fear, you too are part of the circle.

The algae that rebalanced the living machine can be found at the end of Circle of Hope.

“The Great Turning” is Joanna Macy’s term for the huge shift we are undergoing at this time.

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Discouraged

Posted on April 18, 2012 by jenny

(Written in September 2006)
Opened a communication from NHPA (New Hampshire Peace Action) with the text of a full page ad that says in positive terms what I was trying to say a few pages ago — do you want your tax dollars to support a failing war effort, or to help our schools, neighborhoods, etc.  I got momentarily fired up & Kayla said she’d contribute $20.  But this morning — even as I read it to Kayla, I felt the let down.  It articulates a worthwhile vision, one that warms my heart — and at the end it says “Vote” Vote?  Vote for a corporate controlled Democrat instead of a corporate-controlled Republican? Vote — and see your vote lost, uncounted, nullified by a Supreme Court Judge?  We need to do more than vote.  We need to take back our democracy…

Told Lynelle how despairing I was feeling — she recommended prayer.  I remember, when I was really bummed out in the winter and I went to Kripalu, and recommitted to spiritual practice, without the expectation that I would feel better.  So.  Here’s my prayer: May the hearts of people be changed so that they will be willing to live more sustainably.  May the hearts of people be changed so that they will be willing to live more sustainably.  May the hearts of people be changed so that they will be willing to live more sustainably.

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Champion the Underdog

Posted on April 17, 2012 by jenny

I’ve been wondering why posts on activism, and work like Elisabet Sahtouris’ is important to someone suffering from PTSD.  Kathy Weingarten wrote that children raised in a “good enough” environment grow up with three assumptions:  the Universe is Benevolent, Life is Meaningful, the Self is Worthy.  Trauma breaks this basic safety, suddenly the Universe is Malevolent, Life is Meaningless, the Self is Not Worthy.  For me, that basic safety was destroyed early.  I grew up in a world I couldn’t trust — except for school — so I never bought the conventional worldview: that America is the land of opportunity, that if you work hard you can make it to the top, that if you’re poor it means you’re lazy.  I was always a champion of the underdog.  I experienced myself as an “underdog”, as a cripple, as an inadequate person, even though I was one of the brightest in the class.  The only positive feedback I got was from my teachers in the form of grades.  So I developed my intellect, not my emotions — which tended to be painful and seemed radically out of control — and not my creative talent, which I didn’t know I had.  My sense of oppression (“Don’t think you’re so great”) and exploitation (“You can take care of the kids while we’re gone”) made me sympathize with the poor and downtrodden where ever they were.  I had gained a healthy respect for “primitive” people after I saw the dolmen under Knocknarae and explored the astronomical alignments of Stonehenge.  Finally, working with Somatic Experiencing changed my experience of my own body from seeing it as troublesome and sabotaging things I wanted to do, to experiencing it as a source of healing and wisdom.  If my body’s own wisdom, when I allowed it to speak, was far wiser than my neocortex, then surely the wisdom of Nature, and of the indigenous people, is far wiser than that of the scientists in their laboratories.

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Ocean of Compassion

Posted on April 16, 2012 by jenny

“Ocean of Compassion” refers to an experience I had at Findhorn in the summer of 2001.  Earlier that year I had started reading Peter Levine’s book on the physiology of trauma: Waking the Tiger.  There are warnings all through the book: if you start feeling upset, put the book down and find a therapist.  I started reading the Chapter on hypervigilance, found it utterly fascinating, but by the time I finished it, I had gone into a spiral of hypervigilance through the roof.  I sent the book to my therapist Karen and made an appointment to see her, but she didn’t have the skills to help me.  I stayed terrified through the summer, despite two important workshops I signed up for (hoping they would ground me or distract me or something) and then was unable to take in as much as I wanted to because I was so terrified.  It finally took a tranquilizer to calm me down and I started seeing a Somatic Experiencing practitioner that fall.

The event at Findhorn was the Festival of Music, Song and Dance.  I remember sitting out watching the dancers, too scared to join them, then finally making myself go out and join the line.  Holding hands with people on each side of me, I would focus fiercely on the steps and after a couple of minutes I would be OK.  Later, I would hear Bessel van der Kolk say that what heals is “touch, rhythm, and movement.”

I also went with a friend to meditate in the Nature Sanctuary.  It’s a lovely little building, made of stone & plaster, shaped a little like a snail, with odd shaped windows and a sod roof.  Inside there was a beautiful mandala of spirals on the floor, a bench all around the circular wall, and some cushions.  I began to meditate and had an extraordinary experience.  I could feel something, almost like water, that rose up to the level of my heart.  It felt like I was sitting in water, supported by it and held by compassion, and at the same time I knew that this was an ocean that surrounded the planet, just as high as the human heart.  For quite a while afterward I was able to recall the experience.  Now it’s just a story, a remembrance.  More recently I found out that one of the names of the Dalai Lama is “Ocean of Compassion.”  What really struck me was I experienced being held in compassion, but there was no being who was doing it, it was just pure compassion.  I hadn’t known that was possible.

Another experience that summer was singing the Peace Mandala in the Great Hall.  The Peace Mandala is made up of six chants representing six major religions on the planet.  I found a YouTube version that is a little different from the one I learned, but it gives you the idea.

Peace Prayer Mandala is sung in Tibetan, Arabic, Hindi, Hebrew, Latin and English.

Om mani padme hum (a Buddhist mantra, chanted to create spiritual transformation)

La illah ila allah [There is no God but God]  Arabic

Shanti shanti [Peace]  Hindi

Shalom [Peace]  Hebrew

Gloria in excelsis Deo  [Glory to God in the highest] Latin-Christian

O Great Spirit, earth and sky and sea
You are inside, and all around me   in honor of Indigenous people

The six chants could be sung together as a round.  There were about 200 of us in the Great Hall.  They had large pieces of paper with the words held up in the center, and asked us to gather in 6 wedges so we could each learn part of the chant.  Once they had us all singing together, they suggested that we should drift around outside, joining each chant as we came to it.  Finally they told us to sing the one we felt closest to and start moving around the floor.  I was singing Om Mane Padme Hum, and could hear all the other chants passing by.  It felt like we were the planet, the whole world, each singing the name of God in their own language, and making beautiful harmony together.

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Guidance

Posted on April 15, 2012 by jenny

(Written in July 2004)
Dear Guides and Guardian Spirits, I’m feeling pretty miserable.  Sad and scared and blocked in several directions.  My heart aches.  There’s no place I feel safe.  I’ve tried to bring compassion to myself without success.  Please help me.
Dear Jenny, relax.  Remember when you were at Findhorn singing the Peace Mandala in the Great Hall, and how you felt that it was the whole world.  There is a deep truth here.  There is a lot more good in the world than you are normally aware of, and you are very firmly connected to it.  It is hard for you to feel the connections because you are not often actively involved with people who are working for a sustainable world.  Remember your connections to Findhorn, and the Ocean of Compassion, remember Ocean Arks and Commonway, and the Circle Dance Community.  There, there dear, we are sorry it’s being so hard right now.  You will get through this, you’ve come through much worse.  Do spend the day with escapist reading, typing guidance, work on the Hope booklet.  Everything else can wait.  You must take care of yourself now.  We are with you and we support you.

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No Expectations

Posted on April 9, 2012 by jenny

(Written in September 2010)
It’s interesting. I’m feeling OK right now.  Yesterday I decided that I wasn’t going to do anything today, I also expected to feel horrible and figured I’d just soldier on.  This has happened other times when I’ve had no expectations for myself.  It’s really odd, I don’t think of myself as having expectations, I certainly don’t have obvious ones, but only deliberately dropping them seems to result in being OK.  So I seem to always have expectations for myself.  I guess it’s something like “I’ll do the right thing and then feel better.” Last night I accepted that I would feel bummed out today, and decided not to fight it.  Such a mystery!

Started reading in 2007. Came to some helpful guidance:     Dear Jenny, your stony feeling is another dark night of the soul.  Your task is to witness it, stay with it, offer compassion, or at least have the intent of compassion.  There is nothing wrong with you or defective, that you are stuck in this cold unfeeling place.  The fact that you refuse to live your life from this place shows who you really are, and attests to the truth about the universe.  The universe is not a cold, uncaring place.  It is full of creativity and a vast compassion.  Bring your cold stoniness to this compassion and relax.  You only need to hold them together, you do not need to make anything change.  (January 12, 2007)

And this:  Nauseous & headache despite foot bath yesterday and foot pads last night.  Goddammit!  I DON’T sit around feeling sorry for myself.  I work really hard to keep going in the face of unpleasant emotions and confusing and debilitating physical symptoms.  (January 14, 2007)

Another guidance:  Dear Jenny, we love you.  We gather around you sending warmth and affection your way.  You work so hard!  And you so badly want to give good things to people.  Dear, you yourself are the gift of your life.  All your hard work on yourself, and the wisdom you have learned from the struggle with despair and terror are what you embody in the world.  When Kayla says she feels safe to talk to you about anything, when someone in a workshop comments on your authenticity, they are responding to the energy of compassion that you embody.  You change the world by your very presence.  Relax, dear, stop trying so hard.  It is perfectly appropriate for you to focus all your energy on taking care of yourself. WE LOVE YOU.    (January 18, 2007)

I’m thinking of a blog post on the positive effect of no expectations.  There was the time I injured myself by saving a wine glass from falling and breaking.  It hurt so bad I just had to be OK with not being able to do anything.  There was another time, when I accepted it might take weeks to find the right medication, and the depression cleared right up.  And last night, I decided that if I was going to do the adrenal test today I wouldn’t do anything else.  I figured I’d still be able to make the phone calls even if I was depressed.  I think doing them boosted my morale, but that doesn’t always happen.

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Continued Struggle

Posted on April 7, 2012 by jenny

(Written in September 2010)
Woke scared & sad.  It’s grey and it rained in the night so all the fall colors are glowing.  Yesterday was tough.  I cried so much with Karen that I got a headache.  Caryn would have made me stop and work on it, but I felt too hopeless and tired.  I just felt like a miserable blot on the earth’s surface and could see no reason for going on.  Karen said it was old tapes and to throw them away.  I couldn’t do it.  It just seemed so obviously true.  I was also terrified that I’d never come out of it.  Karen said it was OK to not know what to do, it was OK to be upset.  Finally I repeated the affirmations “It’s OK to not know” etc.  Karen talked about how as a child I was expected to know a lot of things that no one had ever taught me.  I struggled to feel some compassion for myself but couldn’t quite get there.
Drove home with the same sense of wrong and bad, seeing a landscape full of pain — full of evidence of a losing battle, until I got to the highway.  Then there were just trees, and I was sometimes able to see the beauty.
Somewhere along the way I decided to just keep going.  I have a little hope that Lydia Faesy (a naturopathic Doctor) may be able to help the thyroid/adrenal problem.
Karen said that the effort to act “normal” takes a lot of energy.  That helped me understand why I was so tired after Wed evening board meeting.

About a week later, my friend Lynelle said that she had realized afterward that telling me about Diane being “grateful to be alive” might have been hard for me.  I acknowledged that it was.  She said she didn’t feel it either, that it was something Diane always had, and she, not really envied, but wondered at.  That helped a lot.

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Struggle with Self-Hate

Posted on April 6, 2012 by jenny

(Written in September 2010)
I cooked rice but I wasn’t able to eat breakfast.  Called Karen.  She said not to “shame & blame” myself, but of course I’m comparing myself to Diane who’s “glad to be alive”, who faced life-threatening illness and lost both breasts.  That made me feel like I was just whining and complaining and feeling sorry for myself.  But I can’t “snap out of it,” I can’t consciously will myself to be any different.  So I just want to die.  That’s how I felt yesterday, and no voice pops up & says “You don’t want to die, you just want your life to be easier.”
Went over to Neskaya for the Board Meeting.  At first I just felt what’s the point?  I found myself not caring if Neskaya kept going or not.  That felt very sad to me.  I was finally able to be distracted from my pain.
So here I sit, hating myself for being such a wimp.  Somehow I’ve got to find a way to feel compassion for this poor woman who’s hating herself.  OK, take a big step back.  Here’s this woman who was traumatized in infancy, and taught as she grew up that every thing was her fault.  Especially if she was having a bad time, she was told “You just want to be miserable.” She was given no guidance and support for how to live a healthy life.  She struggled for years against debilitating bouts of depression and anxiety.  She got married, only to find that she was unable to be sexual, blaming herself until years after the divorce when she found out she was struggling with PTSD.  Now she’s getting older, and has less and less energy.  When she’s depressed, even the basics of buying and cooking food and walking the dog become difficult.  She just wants to die, and she hasn’t any energy to fight that either.

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