Walk Like an Elephant

"In one of his insightful talks Zen master Shunryu Suzuki said that in your practice you should walk like an elephant. 'If you can walk slowly, without any idea of gain, then you are already a good Zen student.' There's a mantra for your religion: Walk like an elephant. It means to move at a comfortable pace. No rushing toward a goal. No push to make it all meaningful." Thomas Moore, pg. 43, A Religion of One's Own

All I need to say about this quote is yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I think that is why I love baseball so much. A few years back, an elder friend of mine once said, "your a baseball player, the game and its pace fits your character." At that time in my life I hadn't played the game for close to a decade and wasn't coaching. He'd only heard me talk about it and seen me play catch with a weak and wounded arm. I was around 25 at the time and about ten years earlier I had my arm surgically repaired because it would not stay in it's socket anytime I threw a ball. I've never had full strength in my arm since. And ever since then anytime I took the field the feeling of being weak and disabled has always accompanied me. Anyway, the comment confused me because he'd never seen me compete. Nonetheless, the comment has always stuck with me.

This also points to why one of my biggest bitches about paying the bills by means of being a part-time rural letter carrier is that the job is based on speed. You're suppose to try and be back to the office at a certain time no matter what. If an elderly customer wants to sit down with a cup of coffee and chat about their childhood or gossip about a neighbor; or you want to pull over and watch a bear stroll across a field with her cubs, the clock is always ticking, and I despise it.

This also takes me back to a comment that a Facebook friend of mine made about a year or so ago: "It's interesting to me why your work is so far away from what your values are." It's one of those comments, I think, that cuts right through to the bone and arises periodically until the space between the work and the values isn't so vast.

Time to get ready to help out a fellow carrier pedal mail so she can go to a funeral.

Beyond The Playground Fence

"Schooling of any kind is unnecessary and counterproductive in human children." Daniel Quinn, Pg. 166

My sister recently inspired me to go back and reread the chapter titled, Unschooling The World out of "My Ishmael." That chapter helped me understand why as a boy I always wondered what was beyond the fence that surrounded South Beaver Dam school's playground. And why I entertained the fantasy of me and a few friends packing up a some clothes, matches, and primitive weapons and spending a couple of nights next to a campfire under the stars. Perhaps James Hillman is right, the heart imagines its way out of things

Emotion

A life after Ishmael reflection: One of the effects that reading Ishmael back in the late-nineties had on me was that it moved my emotions out it into the world. In other words the inrage started to change into outrage. Reading Derrick Jensen's work then pushed it further.

"Emotions are mainly social. The word comes from the Latin ex movere, to move out. Emotions connect to the world. Therapy introverts the emotions, calls fear 'anxiety." You take it back, and you work on it inside yourself. You don't work psychologically on what that outrage is telling you about potholes, about trucks, about Florida strawberries in Vermont in March, about burning up oil, about energy policies, nuclear waste, that homeless woman over there with the sores on her feet--the whole thing."--James Hillman, pg. 12, We've Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy and The World's Getting Worse

Why I'm Here

Two decades ago I moved up to northwestern Wisconsin. Right before I left a friend of mine said, "What the hell you moving up there for? There is nothing up there." There are moments when I wonder why I'm still here. As James Hillman has said, we never really know why. But I'm going to speculate as to why anyway. The answer might be found in this quote by Lewis Mumford: "Every generation revolts against its fathers and makes friends with its grandfathers." Both of my grandfathers grew up on farms in northern Wisconsin. I was nourished by stories from northern Wisconsin since I can remember.

A Brief Reflection on The Insolent Chariot

How do I define pain? Having to go to the bank to pull out cash to buy a vehicle. Lewis Mumford wrote this back in 1966: "Only war can claim so many premature deaths; for the death rate from motor cars is greater than the combined death rate from falls, burnings, drownings, railroads, firearms, and poisonous gases, plus some two thousand other deaths from undefinable causes. And though only roughly half as many Americans were killed outright by autos in the last four-year period as were killed in our armed forces during a similar term in the Second World War, nearly three times as many were injured."

I imagine it's only gotten worse.

An Ancestral Question Answered?

I haven't had much time in front of the computer lately. Still busy trying to get two pole buildings built before November 1st, and generally getting ready for winter. Posting will be light for awhile.

James Hillman writes in Lament of the Dead:

"...the way I understand archetypal psychology, that you must always understand who is asking the question. The task is not to get the answer, the answer is who is dominating my mind, so that that's my basic question, who is determining my point of view. It's like a deconstructive 'I'.' You don't just want to get an answer. The real answer is 'Why is that my question?'"--James Hillman, Pg. 56, The Lament of the Dead

Another reason why I think I cried with a sense of relief after reading Ishmael back in the late nineties was that an ancestral question was answered for me. A question that my grandfathers were asking generations before me. Plus, I had just come off from living and working with my grandfather for close to seven years. To a certain degree I had an understanding of his point of view and inner struggles. And if you follow Jungian psychology those inner struggles are also mine to some degree. This is probably why I tried my damdest to get him to take a look at some of Quinn's ideas.

Intercourse

Reading about sex and intimacy this morning. This quote interested me:

"It's no accident that the word intercourse means both physical lovemaking and intimate conversation."--Thomas Moore, pg.171, Soul Mates

Writing Down Dreams

This past week or so I've found myself writing down my dreams first thing in the morning. I've been writing in a journal for years now and have never written down my dreams. One thing that I've learned so far is how fast I forget them before I write them down. It seems like I should have my notebook next to the bed so when I wake up in the middle of the night I can get it all down on paper before it slips into nothingness. Ironically, I ran across this quote in the James Hillman autobiography this morning:

"We may also understand our resistance to dreaming as a resistance in our 'natural' nature to Hades. We 'can't remember' go vague, forget to jot it down, or scribble it beyond deciphering, and excuse ourselves by pointing to the obvious slipperiness of dreams. Yet if each dream is a step into the underworld, the remembering a dream is a recollection of death and opens a frightening crevice under our feet."--James Hillman, The Dream and the Underworld.

Yes, indeed Mr. Hillman, they're definitely slippery.

On another note someone the other day had mentioned that when I get done reading Hillman they've got something more immediate for me to read. It was a book about the role religion and Rockefeller money played in colonizing Indians in the early part of the 20th century. At the time I wish I would've asked, what can be more immediate than the souls immanence in a culture that shows very little concern for the soul?

Unexpressed Tolerance Felt as Hoplessness

I'm still immersed (captivated might be a better word to use) in the biography titled: The Ideas of James Hillman, by Dick Russell. There are so many new and refreshing ideas in his work I think it would take me a couple lifetimes to understand them all. Also, since I'm learning more about his life I've been inspired to listen to some of the talks I have downloaded of his. I have been delivering mail quite a bit the past couple of weeks so I've had plenty of time alone in the car for listening. I'll share a quote out of the talk titled Myths of the Family below.

"Family love allows family pathology. An immense unexpressed tolerance felt as hopelessness for the hopeless shadow in each. The shadow that we carry as a permanent part of our baggage and which we unpack when we go home."--James Hillman, 32 minutes into disc one of Myths of the Family

This is fascinating to me and I'll tell you why. He's expressed elegantly what happens when we go home to our family. For who better knows our shadow than our families? Robert Bly once said that you usually can't see your own shadow but your family and friends can. Also paralysis is the greatest form of acceptance there is because there is no attempt to change anyone. In other words, the regressive needs of the soul are contained within the family.

Hard Books

In the past my wife has given me a hard time about reading serious books all the time. For example, I read a half a dozen psychology books by James Hillman this winter. It used to bother me to a certain degree. I, of course, thought it was some kind of neurosis or obsession. There just aren't many people around me that read the stuff I read, at least that I know of. It sort of gives one the feeling of an expatriate. It also reminds me of an interview that I listened to with the poet Robert Bly recently. In it he mentioned how our culture has really fallen apart in the last 10 to 15 years. One of the reasons he gave was that no one tackles hard books anymore. It also takes me back to a comment that a guy I work with made a year or so ago: "I don't read because I don't have the time. I've got more important things to do. I'm too busy."

I wish I had more time to read. I don't because I've got responsibilities to my family. Or perhaps it's like I've heard Hillman say in one of his interviews: I'm stuck in family values. Something the republican part and new age Christians continue to hammer home to their followers. If you ever want to listen to a really good talk about family that James Hillman did well ever 20 years ago google: Myths of The Family. Or I could find a way to email it to you.

Here is a quote related to the subject at hand:

"Studying literature or other things is just study, but philosophy is living and is part of you. I sit and think about it all the time. I have tried to get back to reading a novel or two, but just can't [get] interested or started. It is the first time such a thing has happened, I usually have a lot of books I should read and want to read."-- Pg. 212, James Hillman writing in his early twenties, The Life and Ideas of James Hillman

That quote resonates with me. I've always been really attracted to philosophy and can't find the time to start and get interested in a good novel.

Depth and World

"Think lightly of yourself and think deeply of the world."--Miyamoto Musashi

This advice would've helped in my early twenties. Perhaps this is why male initiation is so important. Oh well, I'm alive to talk about it now.

Play or Pay

The other day the library sent me Phil Jackson's new book Eleven Rings. Outside of coaching two baseball teams, practicing with my sons, and taking care of life's other priorities I've had the opportunity to read twenty pages or so out of ER. This morning I was taken by this quote by Lao Tzu:

The best athlete
wants his opponent at his best.
The best general
enters the mind of his enemy...
All of them embody
the virtue of non-competition.
Not that they don't love to compete,
but they do it in the spirit of play.

This is probably one of the biggest challenges I have noticed when I'm coaching, especially in tight games. The spirit of play (I don't know if play necessarily needs to be light) turns into a must-win situation. I don't think this is a bad thing. It's just an observation, I guess.

There is something deeper that I got from the Lao Tzu quote, though. As a culture we don't keep that spirit of play in mind when we engage The Community of Life. We annihilate our competitors in the biological community. If they're competing with our food and our food's food we are at war with them. And we're going to go extinct if we don't stop this.

My First Day of School

This morning I found myself sitting on the couch looking out the front window at our birdfeeder. There were cardinals, nuthatches, pine siskins, and various other birds (Even a few chipmunks) that were feeding on black sunflower seeds and playing around. As I was doing this a thought came to mind: This really lightens the heart. Generally, in the morning, I'm pissed off about some aspect of our way life. I don't know why. It could be the coffee or it could be the books I read. Who knows.

While doing this it occurred to me that the kids in my community were on the school bus on the way to school at that moment. Then it occurred to me the same was true for me when I was child. At that time in the morning I was either on the school bus or in my parent's car on the way to my grandparent's house, and if not their house then the babysitters. Then I was taken back to my first day of grade school. I spent the first twelve years of my life growing up in a trailer court. And on school mornings all the kids of the trailer park would meet down at the bus stop at the main entrance of the park. On that morning the school bus pulled up and the kids that have done this before were getting in line to await the opening of the sliding door. As they did this I took off running down the highway that ran along the front of the court. It wasn't planned, it just happened. My mom had to run down the highway and drag me back to the bus. I was in tears. I did not want to go to school. I hated the idea of being away from home all day.

Eventually the bus driver and my mom got me calmed down. I ended up sitting in the front seat of the school bus that day. The bus driver assured me everything would be okay and she'd take care of me.

Throughout my life I've looked back on that experience simply as a young boy not wanting to be away from his mother. But it occurred to me this morning that it wasn't just about a young boy being too attached to mom. I may not have wanted to leave my family. And I'm not just talking about my parents and my sister. I'm taking it beyond mom and dad and sister. I'm thinking about the frogs in the crick alongside the house, the baseball diamond just a few hundred yards away, the old abandoned camper that used to sit in the field, the red recliner that my dad used to sit in after work, the old basketball hoop in the yard behind the house.

There was something inside of me that morning that just didn't want to go to school. And there are days like today when that something is alive and well.

Melancholy, Madness, and Morning Coffee

For years now I've made it a habit to get out of bed before everyone else does in my house. I sit alone with a book, pencil, notebook and coffee. This morning I found myself sitting at the kitchen table with a black cup of coffee reading this passage out of A Blue Fire.

"We find the senex in our solitary taking account, sorting through, figuring out; alone behind the wheel on the way to work; head under the shower, under the dryer; alone at the kitchen table looking down into black coffee, in bed staring into night--the senex mind tying together the unraveled fringes of the day, making order.

"Here is our melancholy trying to make knowledge, trying to see through. But the truth is that the melancholy is the knowledge: the poison is the antidote. This would be the senex's most destructive insight: our senex order rests on senex madness. Our order is itself madness."[James Hillman, pg. 215, A Blue fire]

I sit here frozen and distant with my cup of coffee...

Work and Pleasure and God

As a child I was told by a family elder that "God put you on earth to do one thing: Work. And don't you forget it." If I could go back in time I would've responded with "Work is a beautiful thing if it brings you pleasure."

Perhaps that should be the final measure of your work's worth. In other words, maybe the question that should be asked: Does my job bring me pleasure?

Brief Comment on Gayness

I don't understand the problem with Jason Collins (NBA center) coming out of the closet. If you don't like gay people then don't date one. It's pretty simple to me. The day we get sex and our sexual orientation under control it's all over for us.

Pain and Pulpwood-Cutting

The quote below speaks to me. Why? I had to decide who I was when I was eighteen, and I did. I became a pulpwood cutter. I went numb from the neck down. But it wasn't about being comfortably numb, it was painful as hell.

"As adolescence ends--if there is no effective initiation or mentorship--a sad thing happens. The fire of thinking, the flaring up of creativity, the bonfires of tenderness, all begin to go out, It's as if the Army Corps of Engineers channels wild rivers into concrete banks. This happens to many boys, perhaps most. They become consolidated. They take what is around them--the pulp-cutting job, the few local opinions, the drinking culture, the 'Vocational School'--and they consolidate. They feel they have to decide who they are right now. They have no time to feel the traumas; and now that numbing of pain takes over; that numbing often becomes the essence of male life, much more of essence than domination or power over others. They adopt their dad's way of 'holding it in.' They store anger in their bodies, but worse, as John Lee has said over and over, the men do not learn how to express the anger in healthy, eloquent, or fruitful way. They experience anger but don't know what to do with it. There is a continuum that runs from experiencing anger to expelling anger in two seconds, skipping over verbal expression completely, and the result for some men will be domestic violence, hitting wives and children."

"Most men will not be violent. They will live in this state of expressionless consolidation all their lives, without violence, but without spontaneity or creativity either. The numbing of anger and grief will be the primary task of their psyches.

"The man who remains creative will make art for the rest of his life out of the remnants of infantile and adolescent conflicts. For other men, the end of adolescence means a shutting down of expressiveness and a fading of the fires. That is the way it has been for hundreds of years."--[Robert Bly, Pg. 127, The Sibling Society]

Initiatory Books

Lately I've been thinking of Daniel Quinn's and Derrick Jensen's work somewhat as books of initiation. I've also thought of my struggle to express myself here and in my journal as an initiation also. Why? Because I think Western Civilization is dying. It's at its end. And when the majority of the people in this society don't understand this on a conscious level one needs someone to articulate this to them or they'll think that they are going nuts. And eventually after one has this articulated to them they have the urge to express themselves also. Anyway, I ran across these quotes in A Terrible Love of War by the 20th century philosopher Michael Foucault that rationally explains what I'm getting at.

"For Nietzsche, Bataille, and Blanchot, experience has the function of wrenching the subject from itself, of seeing to it that the subject is no longer itself, or that it is brought to its annihilation or its dissolution. This is a project of desubjectivism."

"...however boring, however erudite my books may be, I've always conceived of them as direct experiences aimed at pulling myself free of myself, at preventing me from being the same."

"Which means that at the end of a book we would establish new relationships with the subject at issue: the I who wrote the book and those who have read it would have a different relationship with madness, with its contemporary status, and its history in the modern world."

Stuck in Muck

I've always been interested in psychology, especially after getting to know depression and anxiety well in my late teens and early twenties. They scared the shit out of me to be quite honest. I never thought I'd climb back out of whatever hole I was in during that period. And once I did, I've never wanted to go back, atleast not to that degree. This, of course, leads me to a quote that has been popping into my head the past week or so. I made an attempt to find it yesterday and couldn't, but this morning I was successful.

"It must be remembered that sensations of the ugly and evil impress us more violently than those of what is agreeable...sickness makes the rougher mark...Illness...makes itself by it very incongruity."--Plotinus

Whatever the hell had a hold of me then left a mark.

Highway 53 in '93

Pulling some books off the shelf looking for writing inspiration. I turned to Robert Bly's Iron John this morning. Why? I really like his style. I also think it's because I have a 13 year old son that is well on his way to becoming 14 living in our house.

"We are living at an important and fruitful moment now, for it is clear to men that the images of adult manhood given by the popular culture are worn out; a man can no longer depend on them. By the time a man is thirty-five he knows that the images of the right man, the tough man, the true man which he recieved in high school do not work in life. Such a man is open to new visions of what a man is or could be."--Robert Bly, Iron John

I remember the day this realization hit me. I was driving up highway 53 on a gray, cold, frigid day in February. I was 18 at the time. I was returning to my grandparent's house in northwestern Wisconsin after visiting my parents and high school friends in southern Wisconsin. I was tired, hungover, and on my own. Then the darkness set in. Of course, at the time I didn't know what the hell it was. I still don't know if I have an answer, but I think I have a better idea.