1995: Biological Foundation for Mood Disorders

Posted on August 30, 2023 by jenny

I wish I had named the book and the author.  I find it fascinating that it took so long for me to find out that I was dealing with trauma, that my reaction to the noise of the planes was a symptom of the changes in the brain that trauma causes. Part of the reason I didn’t believe that I had been traumatized was that, though my parents were alcoholic, they weren’t violent. I didn’t understand that trauma happened, not because of the violence of the traumatizing event, it has at least as much to do with the capacity of the brain and nervous system to absorb and integrate the experience. Because the brain and nervous system don’t mature until the baby is three years old, a baby’s brain and nervous system are unable to process events that would not be overwhelming to even a teenager.  Such as being left alone. Because a baby is helpless, if it’s left alone, it will die if no one comes to provide warmth and food. The moment the reptilian brainstem concludes that the baby will die, and goes into fight-or-flight, we are dealing with trauma. A baby can neither fight nor flee, so the default is freeze.

From my journal for October 3, 1995

I’ve been reading a book about new discoveries of a biological foundation for mood disorders, panic disorders, even bulimia — actually I’ve also learned more about the manic side of the cycle and see that the tired/wired state is in fact a manic state even though there’s no euphoria.  Somehow I had always thought that the manic state would feel good, and it doesn’t.  Perhaps it did once, when I was younger, and cosmic visions and inspiration seemed like a gift from the universe and a justification for my life.  Now I see that the visions are ungrounded, I’m unable to give them expression in a way that I find satisfying.  Yes, I see why uncontrolled brilliant talking was one manifestation of mania in the young men of Byron’s time — and I see that it’s just talk, just the dissipation of energy in words, something I’ve worked very hard not to do when my re-emergence out of the candida depression meant that I had more manic episodes.  I went through a brief one last week, and noticed the buoyant feeling but didn’t like being so ungrounded.

I also wonder whether my reaction to the airplanes does not have a physiological basis.  In a way, it’s so physical in its effects.  I can’t breathe, can barely walk, and my brain won’t function.  And it ends relatively quickly after I get away from them.  The book describes enormously complex biochemical interactions and the connection between malfunction of neurotransmitters in the brain and all kinds of disorders.  She makes a very good case for the use of medication to help with a lot of these.  It’s also very clear that nothing is either all physical or all psychological — a trap that is easy to fall into with too little knowledge.  She suggests that childhood trauma may play a role in this, we simply don’t know to what extent trauma can affect the physical/chemical structure of the brain.  Obviously there’s a lot of interplay between a physiological predisposition and a triggering event.  The book has certainly made me think again about trying to find a doctor who knows something about the complexities and could guide me in trying to find something that would help my reaction to the airplanes.  At the moment I feel very angry at the idea of taking a medication that would just dull my response to intolerable conditions in the world — this is too much like my parents’ use of alcohol to deny conflict, and like my own denial of the enormous damage done to me.  …  And I also think that my fear that if the pain caused by the planes was removed that I would then go on in blissful complacence and fail to fight against injustice and pollution — this is ridiculous. …

I did, actually, find someone who was able to help me with the noise of the planes. When I was first here at Kendal I noticed a lot of noises.  Mowers especially bother me, though not to the extent that the planes did. Other noises bothered me until I knew what they were at which point they tended to disappear. I love that I described that fear that I “would go on in blissful complacence” and then realized that it was ridiculous, there was no way I would stop fighting for things I believe are good.

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1995: “Truth” and “Self”

Posted on August 25, 2023 by jenny

This is was written during the time when I was having a bad time with the noise of small planes, especially the ones that towed gliders up from the Franconia Airport. I wrote this after a particularly bad day. I’m posting this because it shows how I use my journal to explore important issues in my life.

From my journal for September 30, 1995

The truth is that when the planes come that often, I lose all my skills for effective living, I become emotionally paralyzed, unable to make the simplest decision, even one to get away from the noise that’s driving me out of my mind — literally!  I feel driven out of my mind as I’m driven out of my house.  Well, it won’t be forever.  Winter’s coming, the cold weather will stop them.

It’s very painful to be blasted out of my mind.  I see that’s what I identify with, my thinking self, and when conditions make it impossible to think I feel painfully lost, abandoned, at the mercy of hostile and disruptive forces.  It makes me think of the therapy session when I said I was afraid if I relaxed and gave in that “I wouldn’t be able to fight.”  That surprised me when I said it, but it also let me know how constant was the sense of attack, I saw that I was always “fighting” all through my childhood.  What was I fighting? not a clear danger on the physical level, not a physical fight, but a fight to maintain my “self” and my values against a barrage of emotional sabotage and invalidation.  And I see that my “self” is not what’s important to me, I’m not concerned with the image I present to the world, or even with maintaining some consistency of personality.  What I am concerned with, what I most fear to lose, is what I value, and I’m afraid that if my “self” dissolves, as it did yesterday, what I value will dissolve too.  As though I constructed and maintained what I value through the use of my consciousness and if my consciousness is disrupted then the things I value collapse back into the void and disappear forever unless I can laboriously build them up again.  My goodness!  Is that what I believe?  Obviously I feel that the things that I value have no existence apart from me, that I am “letting them down” if I’m not alert every moment to fight for them and maintain them.

I say “things that I value” and what are they, and the one that stands out is “Truth” and all the rest are connected to it: honesty in relationship, authenticity of artistic expression.  There’s also beauty, and I’m not sure if/how beauty is connected to truth.  But I see that it’s not just “truth” that I value and will fight to maintain, but the truth of truth, which I why I was never content to accept received truth from the experts and authorities but was always searching for what I could accept as truth.  And that search has led me to see that there is no objective, monolithic truth, there are only an enormous number of relative truths all contained within a much larger truth.  (That is to say, that the truth that there are relative truths is itself a larger truth, a larger container, that holds paradox and mystery as well as “established facts.”)  So I see that what I value is what I “can accept as truth.”  This means that it’s my truth that I value and will fight for.  And my “self” is the instrument whereby I detect truth, and this “truth” is not an object, but a path through the shifting realities.  This is why my “self” is so valuable to me, and why it needs to be kept in condition, honed sharp as a razor, tuned up to concert pitch.  I’m as dependent on my “truthsense” as any pilot depends on his instruments when he is flying blind.  And just as that pilot’s survival depends on the existence and accuracy of his instruments, so my “survival” depends on my “truthsense,” not in a physical sense, but in the reality that only my awareness of truth, that is my awareness of my next step, makes it possible for me to go on living.  But unlike the pilot whose loss of instruments may result in a crash, I’m more like the sailor in irons, I have only to wait and the wind will rise again, the sky will clear, and I’ll have something to help give me a sense of direction.

Reading this, I find it too intellectual, I think it’s too easy for me to get caught up in thoughts, in verbal expression, and lose the sense of experience. In the present, I’m still concerned about Truth, but I acknowledge that all that I really know is true is what I see with my own eyes, or hear from someone who saw it, and whom I trust. And even then, I can see incorrectly! Back to the Book of Job, and God saying “My universe is beyond the comprehension of the human brain.”

I’m intrigued by my description of being like the sailor in irons — which means the boat is caught facing into the wind, and so can’t use the wind to move. I also thought it meant when there was no wind at all, which is how I’m using it here. I say that the sailor only has to wait and conditions will change. But unlike the sailor in irons, I have no faith in changing conditions. My belief that I have only myself to change things comes from childhood when if I asked for help, my parents would make me wrong for asking. I believe that there’s no older, wiser being that I can count on.

By the way, the word “truthsense” comes from a science fiction novel, Dune, by Frank Herbert.

Reading this over, yet again, I am struck by a sentence in the second paragraph: “Obviously I feel that the things that I value have no existence apart from me, that I am “letting them down” if I’m not alert every moment to fight for them and maintain them.” I do question whether I really believe that, but don’t go any farther to examine it. Ah! An earlier sentence says “a fight to maintain my “self” and my values against a barrage of emotional sabotage and invalidation.” The only thing I don’t say clearly is that that barrage comes from my parents. I have to defend my values against constant invalidation by Mom & Dad.

I see that I have no faith at all in external conditions changing in a way that will help me out.  When I’m lost and without direction or motivation, I can’t believe that anything will change that except my own efforts, and so I’m unable to wait patiently but begin to thrash around, trying to change what can’t be changed.  This doesn’t mean that my own efforts aren’t important, but that I can’t do it all by myself.  And even in the case of the airplanes, there are some powerful forces fighting on my side, darkness and winter can be counted on.  And I can count on my “self” to come back once it’s clear that the noise has stopped for the day.

It’s now clear that my “self” is much more complex than I think in 1995. Work with the “parts” has shown me how complex my “self” is.

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Reclaiming my Creativity

Posted on August 24, 2023 by jenny

On Tuesday, August 22, I had an extraordinary session with Erica. I told her I was having trouble doing adult type things, especially if they involved dealing with bureaucracy, and at first I was scared that I was getting senile. Then I thought maybe I was blended with a young part. She helped me get in touch with the part. It turned out to be a pre-verbal baby. Reminded me of the one I rescued from a crack in a rock.  Erica said “Ask if there’s something she’d like to reclaim about herself?” All I could get was a felt sense which I translated as “something about not being forgiven for being creative,” and something about “making a mess.” (An unforgivable sin in the house where I grew up.) I told her making a mess is a feature of being creative. I can feel in my body her excitement, relaxation, and curiosity. It’s actually OK to be creative! It’s so interesting that this all happened after I read, typed up, and posted the piece from September 1995 about feeling a hostile force stopping my creativity. Of course that woke up the part who then wanted to be heard and healed.

Went back to find the passage about the time I was working with Debbie Alicen and she said I was creative:

From my journal for January 6, 1989

I said I realized that I had this image of myself as shabby and cowardly that grows out of or belongs to my relationship with Mom & I realized it’s just not true.  I’m not shabby, I’m courageous in refusing to go along with what she wants, hanging up when she’s drunk, etc.  I’m not cowardly, I’m sensible in not trying to confront her about her drinking.  So Debbie said “now we know what you’re not, tell me what you are.”  I said “Honest… intelligent… hardworking…”  As I was groping she looked at me quizzically and said “You’re leaving something important out.”  I had no idea.  She said “It should be first.  You’re CREATIVE.”  I said “What evidence do you have?”  She said “You wrote a book!  Your journals, your drawings… “  I cried.  I said “creative” means making trouble, making messes, they said “Don’t think you’re so great” they stomped on me when I tried to express myself.  I said I feel like I’m doing about 1% of what I could do

Yes, about 1%. But I did do some really creative things. Imagine what I might have done with support and encouragement.

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1995: Self-Mutilation

Posted on August 23, 2023 by jenny

So amazing to read this. I started cutting myself in California when a boyfriend left me for someone else. I did it for a number of years in my 20’s, and stopped, interestingly, when my brother said “Buddha says ‘life is suffering’.” When I read that self-mutilation could be a consequence of sexual abuse, I thought it explained why I couldn’t have sex with my husband. This is the story I told on stage in Journey Into Courage. It wasn’t until years later, after our divorce, I discovered that I had been traumatized and that self-mutilation can easily be described as a result of trauma.  Jacqueline Winspear says of soldiers traumatized during World War I that “they would injure themselves as if to make visible the wounds to their souls.” This makes much more sense. I definitely felt that no one could see that I was in pain, though it was especially my parents who totally missed it.

From my journal for September 29, 1995

This is where I began the session with Karen, saying that I needed to let go of my hope/expectation that I could somehow make up for all the years of not being creative by producing full blast in the time that is left to me, that I needed to mourn the works never completed (like the quilt) and that I had to let go of the illusion that my creativity could “just” come alive again and everything would be fine.  Bringing my creativity back to life is turning out to be an unexpectedly, indescribably painful process, like trying to recover a limb after frostbite.  And I don’t know whether it will really resurrect into full functioning, or if I will be a limping cripple all my days.  Better to be a limping cripple than a frozen corpse, I think, but I hope the pain will end, or release, or at least come and go.  At the moment I have pain alternating with numbness.  I don’t understand why it is so painful, perhaps I will see it some day with hindsight, I only know that it is enormously painful, that what I feel in my body is a sort of prickly discomfort, with sharp melting pains, as though I were trying to get into a new skin that was lined with many small sharp blades, or as though I was lined with many small sharp blades, or as though I was trying to push the ability to feel from my core to my skin through a barrage of tangled brambles.  That’s the best I can do, and I understand better now the feelings behind the impulse to cut my skin with razor blades and write with the blood.

This work to understand about my creativity will have a surprising result on the very day this was posted.

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1995: Difficulty with Creativity

Posted on August 22, 2023 by jenny

This is a description of a therapy session with Karen Collins who I saw in Montpelier for many years. I was amazed at what it reveals about my difficulty with my creativity. I had understood at one point that when Mother said “Don’t think you’re so great” it was because she was both threatened by and jealous of my intelligence, creativity, and enthusiasm. This journal piece certainly reflects that. But my recognition was long after this piece of work.

September 29, 1995

Work with Karen.  We talked about the creative cycle.  I said I was bummed out by the number of projects I had begun and never been able to finish.  I used the seasonal quilt as an example.  I had painted the design, bought the fabric, cut out pieces for one or two squares — I can’t remember if I ever started sewing.  It’s all in a box labeled “quilt” that hasn’t been opened in years.  I said to Karen that I hadn’t enjoyed it because I hadn’t been able to finish it, and that I saw that I’ve been able to change my attitude because the dollhouse has been different: I enjoyed every bit of time I spent working on it this year, and I still have the enjoyment, even if I never get any farther.  Later, I saw that I had, in fact, enjoyed painting the design, though I couldn’t hold on to that enjoyment when I actually began to make the quilt.  And I see now, writing about it, that what killed the quilt project was expectations, haste, and stinginess.  I didn’t buy enough of the background blue color to just appliqué mountain and meadow pieces on to it, which would have made the job of keeping the squares flat much easier for an inexperienced quilter.  I expected myself to baste it and then sew it on the machine, I have enough experience now to know that the enjoyment comes from the meditative sewing.  It’s possible that I could resurrect this project, though at the moment I have no expectations.  Certainly I couldn’t do it without the deep quiet of winter and perhaps some moral support in the form of a visiting friend.

I looked for, but could not find, the original painting. I saw the pictures as a particular landscape going through the seasons, the mountain, meadow and maybe a tree, I can’t remember what else was in the picture. Twelve square pieces, 3X4, to make the quilt.

I talk about “winter quiet” because this was the period when I was having such a hard time with the noise of planes.

Third cup of tea!  Really, I’m very bad this morning.  But I need help to go on writing about the session.  OK we talked about the creative cycle.  I described it by moving my hands up in front of my body, out and down in a circle.  I described my failure with a motion that went up, but then fell back before it could reach the top of the cycle and move outward.  I saw that I was angry at myself for my continual failures to push on through.  Karen asked if I could separate out that one who was angry, or perhaps the one who she was angry at, the wimp who just couldn’t push through.  I can’t remember now, it was confused, I think they both appeared together, a whiny drip complaining that I just can’t do it and someone accusing her of not caring enough.  I put that one, or both of them, in the chair and then found myself shouting “That’s a lie, I do care, I do want to do those projects.”  O yes, I had come up with a voice that says “you must not really want to do that” and recognized it as an introject of mother’s voice and that’s what I put in the chair.  Once I got angry I wanted to throw things at her, Karen supplied me with cushions and I threw them, and finally turned the chair completely around and threw all the Kleenexes from my crying in there too.

Then as we began to explore the creative cycle again, Karen pointed out how the anxiety rises with the creativity.  As I watched her repeat my gesture, I saw how, when I got to the part of the cycle where I should begin moving my hands outward toward the world, that what met me was a blast of hostility, that instead of a wimp who gives up, I was a person struggling against a very powerful current, so powerful that I am often swept backward, no matter how much I care about the inspiration or the project, no matter how much I want to share what’s in me with the world.  That current of hostility is mostly introjected from mother (though it’s partly there in the world as well) and triggered by any sign of disinterest or difficulty on the part of the audience.  When I saw what I was up against, when I saw the pressure and power of that hostility — of a mother who makes her four-year-old daughter wrong for singing and dancing, a father who loses his temper when she makes a mess — I saw that I was not a wimp who gives up but a child overpowered by her parents.  I said “But I never did give up, I went on being creative — ” and Karen, in a swift beautiful move, went down on the floor in front of me and said “Yes!  You went on being creative.”  And I see that each time, as I met the force of the hostility preventing me from pushing my creative expression over the threshold to share it with the world, I would retreat back into safety and find some quieter, less threatening way to express myself — I wrote in my journal instead of writing letters or articles — but I never stopped writing.  No matter how small and insignificant the outlet I never stopped finding ways to let my creativity out, like grass pushing up under asphalt.

I saw the power of mother’s hostility, what I failed to see was that it was much more powerful than my urge to be creative. It’s a wonder I produced as much as I did. I see that help from outside was what made it possible. Support from the Center for Archaic Studies helped me get The Feminine of History is Mystery into print, Journey Into Courage was created by a group, I had Dana’s support to build Neskaya.

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1995: Interviews and Feedback about my Performance in Journey into Courage

Posted on August 20, 2023 by jenny

This material is some of the first I typed up from the handwritten journals after September 15 when I stopped typing them. I’m not typing everything, just pieces I think would make good blog posts.

After the Video of Journey Into Courage was made, Bess arranged for a premiere of the Video in Burlington. A couple of reporters called to interview me.

September 25, 1995

Susan Kelly called from the Burlington Free Press and we talked for half an hour.  I could hear her typing madly while I talked.  She sounded very excited about the things I said, so I hope a lot of it shows up in the final article.  It was interesting that the talk with Deb McIlwaine, wanting information for the local paper, warmed me up so certain verbalizations were ready to hand: “I had all the advantages, but my parents’ alcoholism sabotaged my ability to make use of them.”  I had the same sense as after the videotaped interview, of having been heard, of someone really being interested in what I had to say and paying close attention, and finding that in that accepting and supportive atmosphere I’m able to speak powerfully and passionately and intelligently.  That feels so satisfying, to speak my truth and speak it well, and have it be heard.

That “accepting and supportive atmosphere” is exactly what I didn’t have at home. My parents were not at all interested in hearing me speak my truth, they invalidated me and turned away. At the time of Journey, I thought my inability to have sex was because I had been sexually abused, and didn’t know it was due to being traumatized. See script for Journey.

Jacqueline Winspear says of soldiers traumatized during World War I that they would injure themselves as if to make visible the wounds to their souls. Understanding that I was traumatized let me know that I cut myself because I felt that no one could see my pain, or listen to my pain and therefore it was invisible.

September 27, 1995

Lynelle watched the Journey Video with Daria and had some interesting (and heartening) feedback.  She said she thought it was very good.  She had a hard time with Tonya’s description of a flashback of oral abuse, and Brenda’s tale of the “Elderberry Huts” which is really creepy.  She said she thought I was the person she would most like to talk to, that I seemed to have more vitality, my voice was very vibrant.  She said that I and Tonya, and possibly Ann, seemed to be connected to something deeper, that the others weren’t.  The reporter said I was the one she most wanted to talk to as well, which makes me feel much more comfortable about being present while others see the video — I have been feeling very embarrassed about how ugly I am and imagining that people would be put off.  I will try to watch myself with more objectivity and see if I can see what Lynelle is talking about.

Going back and reading this is so strange. I realized that I got all this good feedback, but simply wasn’t able to integrate it. Now, when Erica or Elizabeth says they hear a special energy in my voice, I notice the comment and realize that I’m unaware of what they are talking about. It seems like the person other people see and the person I experience myself to be are completely different.

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1995: Vision for a World Where I Can Live

Posted on August 16, 2023 by jenny

From my journal for August 1995.  I had gone to Dance Camp, but I was limited in what I could eat because I had systemic yeast.  No bread, no wheat, no sugar, etc.  The cook at camp was not sympathetic or cooperative. So I came home.

Back from circle dance camp, disappointed, the food was not abundant, tasty, nourishing enough to sustain me through a day of dancing.  Even this morning, after a good breakfast of eggs, bacon, potatoes, I began to feel a little shaky in the late morning.  I took some rescue and ate a snack of granola & yogurt.  What I really wanted was shortbread, and I had even turned on the stove, but the ghee was cold and my hands weren’t strong enough to open it.

So here I am in the hut, with candle lit and tape of Tibetan monks.  I wanted to write down a vision of a world in which I could live, one in which things like Circle Dance Camp would be commonplace and easy to get to, in which organic food is grown locally and easy to get, in which machinery is quiet and powered by sunlight, in which travelers can go by train, or car, or bicycle, or horse, or gypsy cart, or air vehicle, in which people are joined in “clans” or “families” by interest and temperament rather than by blood — so that I could travel across the country stopping for the night at Dance Camp or Bird Lodge, knowing that I would be welcomed and fed.  There would be a system of community bicycles, so you could get off the trail and find a bike to take you wherever you wanted to go, and there would be no “tragedy of the commons” because each of us would think of the bikes as “mine that I share with my friends and to be cared for” rather than “theirs, to be abused and exploited.”  There would be a clan of “Bike People” whose job would be to see that there were plenty of bikes in good repair at places where they were needed.  People would exercise their bodies more, and visit with friends more, and not be so stressed-out with sedentary and oppressive work.  There would be bonfires and dancing and ceilidh’s and discos, and jazz jams and rock jams, and local entertainment every night.  There would be seasonal pageants.  There would be high-tech building materials available so it would be easy to build a sturdy warm free form house, with a little help from friends. When you wanted a couch, you would go to the local furniture maker and commission something to your specifications, or trade at the monthly exchange Fair, or build it yourself.  Our houses would be works of art and culture, filled with beautiful, rich, objects made by hand that were the expression of what each of us wanted to live with.  There would be Men’s and Women’s Lodges, similar to old style monasteries, where people could live or retreat when they needed/wanted that life style. There would be whole territories given over to people who liked noisy internal combustion engines, and other territories where planes would not even fly over because there would be an understanding of the importance of silence.  Cities would be smaller, with smaller buildings, parking for cars on the lowest level, and gardens on the roofs, so they would not be industrial deserts.  And there would be room for lots of other things, that I don’t even know about, that I maybe don’t like myself, but could certainly live with as long as they weren’t forced on me.

O yes, and there would be an understanding that children are the future, and each new birth would be greeted by the adults with delight, and they would then watch, with joyful patience, to see who this new being was going to turn out to be.  Parents who were having a hard time would have an extended family to turn to for help, and the possibility of exchanging a child who wasn’t a good match for one that was, with the understanding that nobody is wrong here, and that each of us will eventually find our “tribe”, united by spirit, not by blood.  Blood relationships would no longer have the possessive and limiting characteristics that they have today.

Other parts of this vision are already written in the F of H, and in the Woman’s Way vision for any woman pregnant with an unwanted child.  I’d like to get this into some sort of form so I could share it at circle dance camp, and so that other people could add to it, naming clans they’d like to see, and activities they’d want to have be available.  I don’t want to see anything ruled out, even noisy planes, as long as it’s understood that when one activity impinges on another as noise impinges on silence, then they have to be given separate territories or silence disappears.  And I want there to be room in my world for silence, for monasteries, for gypsies camped by the side of the road, for tents with banners flying and shrines that are to be approached only on foot.

I hold this world in my heart, and in some ways I live there already though my body is not there yet, just as I’m still at Circle Dance Camp even though I couldn’t stay.

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1976: “Feel Good About Myself”

Posted on August 13, 2023 by jenny

It’s both interesting and painful to read this. At that time I failed to connect my fear about sharing my enthusiasm with Mother’s frequent remark “Don’t think you’re so great.” But that’s what did it. I suppose feeling good about myself is also “thinking I’m so great.”

Women’s Workshop April 14, 1976

the core of the weekend for me was Saturday night.  we had split into two groups, I was in Phyllis’ group.  She had worked with Nan, with Sandy, with Brooke, with Shiela, and asked for our feelings as a way to close.  I had felt that I wanted to say something, but could not think what, but now my stomach began to feel very anxious, so finally I said that.  Phyllis asked if I wanted a body massage like the ones the group had given Shiela and Brooke.  I was not sure, but said yes — and was very aggressive about asking for what I wanted.  But afterward my stomach still felt tight, though i felt very relaxed.  Phyllis asked me how I felt and I started into a routine about whether or not my anxiety was important enough to deal with.  She put her hand on my mouth and said ‘I don’t want to listen to your head.’  Immediately i felt utterly safe.  I could say whatever came to me, and trust Phyllis to decide if it was important.  So I just lay there quietly and the word ‘woman’ came swimming up.  So I said ‘It must have to do with being a woman because thats why I’m here.’  a long pause.  ‘I don’t feel that I am nurturing and compassionate, and I would like to be.’  a pause.  Phyllis ‘why would you like to be nurturing?’  I thought or said ‘It would make me feel good about myself’ and then started into a routine about how one should be nurturing for the sake of others not to feel good about oneself.  She stopped me again and suddenly I realized that ‘It makes me feel good about myself ‘ was a perfectly good reason for wanting to be nurturing, I started to voice it but just saying ‘feel good about myself’ brought up all sorts of emotion and tears and I knew we had hit the core.  Phyllis made me sit up and face her, and I said ‘you mean its all right to feel good about myself?’ and she said yes, and I asked the group and they said yes, and then I asked them if it had been OK with them the first night when I had gotten all enthusiastic about journal keeping and they said things like ‘it inspired me’ and ‘im glad you wanted to share it with us’ and I burst into tears and said ‘you mean it wasn’t bragging?’  Phyllis said ‘how do you feel now?’ and i said ‘like a little bird that has just broken its shell and is looking around.’  In some ways a very childish scene on a very childish level, but the very strength of my emotions convinced me of the damning reality of my belief that it was wrong to feel good about myself.  Now I see the source of my difficulties in trying to feel good about myself, even though I’ve been struggling to do so for the last year and a half, believing that this was the only way to begin to be loving and outgoing to other people.

There are a couple of places where I use lower case “i” instead of “I.” Don’t remember when I started doing that and when I stopped. I am struggling to understand my need to call what happened “childish.” Of course it’s true in the sense that a younger part of me was scared about “bragging.” But I think there was also an adult who wanted to disparage what I had learned.

I note now what I didn’t record then, that the contract I made (to “stop putting myself down”) led to this understanding.  Of course I would put myself down, especially when I had been enthusiastic, “showy”, if I thought that it was morally wrong to feel good about myself.   March 89

“The contract” was an exercise at the beginning of the workshop. Often comments that are added later happen when I’m typing up the journal.

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“Attainment too is Emptiness”

Posted on August 12, 2023 by jenny

Writing group didn’t happen this week. I’ve been feeling very odd, and finally decided I would try to write about it. Not what I expected!

Written on Friday, August 11

3rd cup. coffee.     I want to do a writing like I do in writers group.   keep the pen moving.   o gosh — I’ve been feeling really empty.  Sometimes it feels good, like when I say “May my presence be a blessing” and then feel the blessing energy flowing through me.  But mostly it’s too close to meaninglessness.  I try to keep my mind quiet, hoping that a deeper voice will speak, or maybe just give a feeling, like the one I had after Daddy died.  Not so much hearing him speak as just getting a feeling of the truth: that even though he didn’t begin to understand me, he still felt kindly toward me.     . . .  odd meaningless syllables. . .    So. being empty.  I read somewhere recently that the word translated as “emptiness” in the Buddhist scriptures should really be translated as “spaciousness.”  Not emptiness as meaninglessness, but spaciousness as room for the new and the unknown.  Again this morning I had a song in my head, an earworm, about Mister Snow.  What possible meaning could that song have for me?  I never wanted a conventional marriage, and certainly the one I had was not conventional.  There goes the A/C again.  I heard others around me going off in the night.  Very aware that humans are damaging the earth’s life-support system.

Thinking of the Gaia Hypothesis, that the earth is a living creature that self-regulates, reminds me of how easily I was able to extend that to the Universe.  Brian Swimme said Tuesday night that the rate of expansion of the universe is such that life can be created and flourish.  If it was any faster, material would separate too fast to form enough stars to continue the process.  If it was any slower, material would collapse into a black hole.  I was thinking that this proved the Big Bang, but I realize now that the speed the galaxies are moving would correlate just fine with the steady state hypothesis, which only requires one hydrogen atom per cubic yard to be created every million years.  I think this still doesn’t fit with the observation that galaxies are found in flat sheets or huge clumps with a lot of space in between.  So we have a way to go with our theories of cosmology.  Swimme also said that the universe was not static but evolving.  But I think people have seen that for a long time.  It was only the church that said science was wrong, the Bible was literally right.

That’s it.  I’m done.

The song about Mister Snow is in Carousel. Often when there’s a song in my head I can take it as a message, but this one is clearly not.

When I got my degree in Astronomy at Wellesley College in the 60’s, there were two theories of the origin of the universe, the “Big Bang” and the “Steady State.” Though people talk about it as though the Big Bang is proven, it is just a hypothesis that has so far been supported by the evidence. One problem with cosmological theories is that they assume that the “laws” of physics, as we have determined them in our laboratories here on the planet Earth, a typical planet going around an ordinary star in an average galaxy, that these “laws” hold true for all time and space. But we know from Einstein’s theory of relativity, that how “time” functions is related to how fast something is moving. And space can be distorted by gravity. So I think we are a long way from knowing the truth about the universe.

Another theory of the origin of the Universe is the one proposed in a book published in 1991, The Big Bang Never Happened, which is based on the alternative views of Hannes Alfven.

Tuesday nights I have been watching a course promoted by The Shift. It’s on Science and Spirituality and the teachers are Matthew Fox and Brian Swimme.

I could not think of a title for this post, so I’m using a line from the Prajna Paramita Chant that I learned at the Rochester Zen Center.

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The Importance of Meaning in One’s Life

Posted on August 1, 2023 by jenny

I’ve been reading Viktor Frankl‘s book about his experience of concentration camps, and then his conclusions about what helped him survive. Dr. Frankl was a psychiatrist. He said that Freud thought that what motivated human beings was pleasure, Adler thought it was power, but he himself said it was meaning. The book is called “Man’s Search for Meaning.”

Writing group on Monday, July 31

Viktor Frankl says that what is most important in people’s lives is not pleasure, not power, but meaning.  That explains why so many people’s lives in our modern culture are empty and ultimately unsatisfying.

I want to look at my life and see where I find meaning.  One thing for sure is my blog.  It always feels good when I publish a piece.  I tell my truth as best I can, and then I put it out there.  I don’t really care if people read it, what’s important to me is to make it available.  Though I was glad to find out that there are people reading it.  Especially since I haven’t posted a reminder on facebook in a long time.

Mocha is important in my life.  The times when I feel like I want to die I realize I wouldn’t feel good leaving her alone.  Taking care of her, taking her for walks, is an important part of my life.  I like getting her outdoors, I like watching her explore the world.  Sometimes she doesn’t want to go where I want to go and we fight about it.  I’ve been working on finding ways to have a conversation about it.  Sometimes I let her do what she wants to, sometimes I lower my voice and say “Come!” and she obeys.  I also like being in Nature.  When I’m outside I do my best to be present to what is there, to the plants, to the weather, to the people and the buildings, to how my body feels.  So my relationships with Mocha and with Nature are full of meaning for me.

The moon is important.  I try to see it every day.  Very frustrating with all the cloudy weather.  The hardest time to see the moon is the waning cycle.  I have to look in the morning, as early as possible.  The hardest season to see the waning moon is summer because the waning moon is in the winter section of the ecliptic, the Zodiacal signs of Sagittarius and Capricorn, so it’s low in the sky and hard to find.  This month I managed to see several crescents, the first quarter through thin clouds after the sun had set so it was bright enough to see, then a waxing gibbous once, and then one just short of the full moon.  I hope to see the full moon tonight.  The weather was better the last couple of weeks.  Whole months have gone by when I haven’t seen the moon at all.  That’s very frustrating.  I really feel lost when I don’t see the moon.  It’s like it lets me know that I’m home in the solar system which in some ways feels more home to me than the USA.

Where else do I find meaning? with my good friends, like the ones I’m doing this writing with.  In fact this writing group is full of meaning for me.  It’s a chance to explore deeper topics in my life, or just to do a free writing and see what comes up.  Most of what I write in this group is meaningful and gets posted on my blog.

Frankl says that “meaning” is specific to the person. “What matters … is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.” (p101)

This is a great topic to be exploring. There are things I did in the past that have a lot of meaning: The Feminine of History is Mystery, Journey into Courage, Sacred Sites, Neskaya. They give me a reason to know that I have done good things with my life, not huge things, but things that at least have brought meaning to some people.

I did see the full moon last night!

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