Bats

So. Without anything in the way of explanation, here are some webutiae of the spiritual significance of bats.

From Phylameana:

The bat totem can trigger change or transformation. Its visit can be a warning that change will soon occur and not to be afraid. Sometimes the bat is a symbol for facing ones fears. It can also indicate a time of an awakening because the bat, a nocturnal mammal, awakens in the dark. Its presence can illuminate dark shadows. It can also be a sign of opportunity.

…and from StarStuffs….

Initiation, death-rebirth, changes are taking place which are blessings, facing facts in ones life, fears are always beneficial, trust instincts. Bat tells us it the end one phase of life and the beginning of another. Bat can show how to navigate in the dark and unknown. Soon you will see the world with a new perspective, teaches sensitivity to vibrations around you, navigation, introspection and demonstrates ability of observation and power of meditation and solitude along with ability of working in groups when necessary. Bat shows how to make those important transitions.

…and Shamanic Journeying….

Bat’s wisdom includes shamanic death and rebirth, initiation, viewing past lives, pollination of new ideas, transition, understanding grief, the use of vibrational sound, camouflage, invisibility, ability to observe unseen, secrets. […] Bats help us to release fear and patterns which no longer fits within our pattern of growth.

Bat flying into your life signifies that transformation of the ego self is about to occur, the end of a way of life and the start of another. This transition can be very frightening for many, even just to think about. But you will not grow spiritually until you let go these old parts of you that are NOT NEEDED. Facing the darkness before you will help you find the light in rebirth. The bat gives you the wisdom required to make the appropriate changes for the birthing of your new identity.

If this is your power animal, you would benefit from all types of yogic practices, especially those to do with awakening the kundalini. […]

Crossposted from Epinephrine & Sophistry

Writing Ritual Workshop – Three Card Ritual

Sunday, I attended the Rite to Write workshop by the glamorous, clever, and VERY energizing Jen Violi. It’s difficult to say whether the workshop was healing using writing or writing using healing…either way, it would have likely been beyond me a year ago, as I had some issues with things that are not measurable/reproducible.

There was this one bit, in the workshop….

It’s difficult to say exactly what this was for, or what it did. All I can report is that it appears to have done something in [balancing me/adjusting my perspective/clearing old thought forms/cheering me up].

These days I’m all about What Works, rather than What I Can Reproduce And Explain Empirically. So.

This was the procedure.

0. Determine a focus, a situation that is unsatisfying and would do well with restructuring, or with a new resoltuion
1. Select three cards from a tarot deck
2. In order of selection, dub them “Beginning, Middle, End”
3. Write a story with a paragraph devoted to each card, relating allegorically to what was determined in step 0; you have 15 minutes. Start with “Once upon a time”, to encourage you to not recite history, but something removed from it a step or two.
4. Read the story aloud, preferably to someone else.
5. Remark (or let your audience remark) on the indirect cues, ie tone of voice, patterns of emphasis, facial expressions, change in diction or meter or whatever might indicate emotional emphasis
6. Rewrite the story; same three cards, same step 0, same order, but resulting in a victorious or positive story; you have 15 minutes.

This should not produce anything but two hastily-written stories. In fact, the outward signs are two hastily-written stories. I seem to have found something more in the exercise, though.

My step 0: “I haven’t been writing, or doing much of anything else for me. I love writing, I feel good when I do it or have done it. Now most obstacles are out of my way and … I am still not writing.”

I drew from an animal-oriented deck.
The Wheel, showing all animals
Eight of wands, showing ants trudging in a labyrinth
Nine of swords, showing a crow on a shattered stump, lightning behind him

First round:

One upon a time –

–there was a man who could be anything. The secrets of how to share the strength of all things was his when he could focus to employ it, to take part. He knew to soar, and how, what it was to play and frolic in the waves or dance through the plains. The myriad possibilities were overwhelming to him; with all good things open to him, how could he choose what was right and proper to do? And the maelstrom of potential success and fulfillment bewildered him.

There were those in his life that he had chosen to love, and they had their own abilities and problems, different from his. They could do for themselves, but they chose not to — for whatever reasons — and so were unhappy. The man (who could be anything) decided to help his loved ones, and do for them what they did not do for themselves. Their needs were not sated, but multiplied, so the man split himself endlessly in the form of millions of ants, to fetch and find and carry and dig and care for. Soon there was nothing of him that was not split among the millions of ants.

The world, in form of a mighty black bird, found ants nourishing and pecked away at the man. Little by little, his split power and self was eaten until there was only an ant left. He took shelter in a tree, but the storms and the bird tore at it until it was shattered and uprooted, and he was trapped.

Okay, my inner 16 year old was alive and well. I got that.

I was paired with a lovely woman about thirty years my senior. We traded thoughts (having written oddly similar stories) and then rewrote.

Take 2:

Once upon — you know.

There was a man who could see the world. He not only could see what was in it, but could see the patterns of how it moved, and understood the reasons and the ultimate good of it. Knowing these things split him endlessly at first, but understanding the patterns of all things, he was able to guide his attention into a new vision of order, a grand march of majestic grace and power.

There were malefic entities in the world, and these took the form of the tiniest of creatures; ants. The endless scattered ants of trivial pain and petty frustrations bit at him, ran at the edge of his awareness and distracted him. With his new understanding of the patterns of all things, hew as not moved to resentment or anger — that burden would be too great, and not needed — but recognized that the pettiness and trivia need not be so great. He spun his understanding, guiding the ants through a labyrinth of his intention, spinning off the malefic portion each carried and leaving the ants to be merely ants, a part of the whole.

The trivial pains and petty frustrations he gathered up and laid at the base of the rotted stump of the tree of good and evil, piercing it through nine times (once for each of the charms Oden learned on that tree, so long ago) to hold them in place; if they needed to be malefic, they could do it there. Seeing that he had freed not just himself, but the ants as well (and perhaps even the malefica, which wants its own poisoned kind for company) he took wing — for understanding can let one do that — and returned to the majestic grace of all things, to see how he could take part in the beauty of the interwoven patterns.

So here’s the odd bit:

I’ve been writing, now.

I wonder if I’ll ever be smart enough to understand how this stuff works.

Crossposted from Epinephrine & Sophistry

Trickling Down

I spent the better part of a week sorting through my head and having mini-epiphanies. The gist of all of them, though, was that I have decades of 1. not saying what I want, so as not to draw disapproval for wanting the wrong things and 2. I wasn’t surprised by Ma’s behaviors.

I moved through a mourning process as the idealized mother I carried in my head had passed — but I did it quickly. I don’t do anything quickly. I agonize, analyze, consider options, think things through, ask advice, and then start over with the advice.

Which means that I already knew all of this, and was ready to change my behaviors and how I relate to my mother.

In a strange (for me) surge of pro-active behavior, I made an appointment with Lexi to get my brains strained. I figured that there would be, after three decades or more, a million million tiny behaviors and interactions and hidden relationships and strains and traumas and hidden finance charges that I could spend years looking for, or I could go to Lexi. I decided that the whole dramatizing metaphor/magic/headtrip/energy clearing route was the more sensible; I have things to do that are better to spend time on than fiddling in my own misery when I already know the answers and the outcomes.

So, off to Lexi.

Apparently I had done a damned fine job of cleaning up on my own. There were things, but they weren’t horrid or difficult or even involved. We’d set an agenda before we started, though, and while Ma headed the list, there was plenty of other good stuff to do, so we did that. I have cleared my energies, give or take, which was one of those things I didn’t have an opinion on beforehand … and seems to have done me a world of good, and continues to.

Uhm. And there are some indications that this sort of business (the psychic journeys, the energy work, and all that good fuzzy-headed stuff) is going to be on my agenda for a bit. There appears to be something there for me, although I can’t tell you just what that might be, nor could I have mentioned it with a straight face a year ago.

I wish I could dispense with the level of self-awareness that recalls that I didn’t always feel as I do today, and feels vaguely ridiculous about the philosophical variance.

No Alibi (April 20, 2010)

My mommy says mean things. And does some, too.

*sigh*

When Ma was feeling that we were moving forward on the plan with Lee & Dorothy, she started vocalizing her disapproval more strongly. I’m okay with that if it was because she didn’t feel that she was being heard. The thing is, what set her off was when I was recounting how due diligence was performed on every point she had brought up. No chance that she felt I wasn’t hearing what she said.

Which means that she felt that I wasn’t hearing what she meant, or that she didn’t care if I heard as long as I didn’t do what she didn’t want me to do. What she meant wasn’t “there’s a problem with x and y and q.” What she meant was “I have expressed disapproval; your role is now to tuck your tail down and roll over, peeing yourself and the floor.”

When that didn’t happen she escalated again. It went from “I think you are both out of your minds or dam fouls.[sic]” to “This cult bitch has been able to come between us.” and “I do have to deal with your impaired judgment and how it affects me.”

Ad hominem attacks in prejudiced tone. Lovely.

My mother is a manipulative person. So am I, but I don’t insist that people do what I say; I just try to get them to do what I believe will make them happier. She just wanted me to do what she wanted me to do.

Maybe not. Maybe she had my interests at heart.

But she is a person who will attack others in prejudiced tone. She did not bring me up to think that it was all right to call someone a nigger, nor to separate the Jews and the Christians. Apparently it is okay to separate out the Pagans and the hippies, though.

Prejudice is prejudice. I can’t tell the difference. She might as well have called Dorothy a nigger.

Since I was in my teens, I’ve always known that Ma and I could turn to each other for counsel, for trusted support. Right now what I know is that my mother is severely limited and can do hurtful things when she doesn’t get her way. What I know is that I can’t trust her to be objective, and to behave well toward other people.

I can’t trust my mother not to hate and spit bile and judgement.

I’ve been mourning for a few days now. We will still be close, and I still love her, but I am very pointedly aware of her shortcomings, and that there are things in my life that I simply should not share with her. That’s a horrible change.

I keep trying to remember that she is the same person she was last week, and a decade and four decades ago. That isn’t helping. It just calls into question everything during that time…and everything I call into question, I find is explained by the newly observed behaviors.

Judgement (April 17, 2010)

So.

I have some certain issues with judgement. That is, judgement directed at me. I avoid it at many, if not all costs. I’ve told my manager at work, “my goal in relating to you is to have you never say anything to me except, in passing, ‘good job’ or ‘I’ve put you in for a raise,’ because I’ve been such a model of appropriate behavior that you don’t have any need to actively manage me.”

It never occurred to me that might be a little … pathological.

I am cautious to be considerate, appropriately groomed, appropriately attired, appropriately behaved….

Appropriate. Showing discretion.

Discreet: Not drawing attention, anger or challenge; inconspicuous.

“Not drawing anger or challenge.” Oh, yeah. That’s the one that rankles. That’s what’s at the heart of what I told my manager. That’s at the heart of why I let customers milk me for more labor than is appropriate. That’s at the heart of why I am so careful to never lose my temper, why I am always careful to see to it that my behavior is always seen to be on the moral high ground — high ground I am willing to share, but that I must be standing on.

That’s what is at the heart of my relationship with my mother.

Zee muzzer. Ve often look to zee muzzer.

Yeah.

I felt excluded when I was too big for laps and my little brother wasn’t. There were undoubtedly other attentions as well, but that’s the one that I can remember. Ma wasn’t stupid; I have no doubt that, at some point, she noticed my neediness and sussed out what was up.

I don’t know that she used my neediness as a lever on purpose. It doesn’t matter.

When I was bad, I was grilled. Did I think I had behaved the way I was supposed to? Okay, fine, I was bad, and that’s a useful teaching technique. But when I didn’t think I was bad, it was not okay for me to say that. There was no screaming or such, but there was clear disapproval, expressed with distance (aha — there’s that leverage coming into play), and I learned what was being taught, and quickly, so I could get what I needed from the relationship.

Learned to be good, right? No, don’t be silly.

I learned to strive to be better, more appropriate, so I could “Not draw anger or challenge.” When I was called out for not being good, I worked as hard as I could to figure out what response she wanted from me and give it to her.

I didn’t agree with the responses she wanted from me, I didn’t believe I had been wrong (necessarily), but I had learned that it didn’t matter what I thought was right and wrong. I was being quizzed on what I thought was right and wrong for the sole purpose of punishing me for thoughtcrime.

I learned that lesson well. Anybody expresses disapproval of me, I immediately try to spin the situation so that it is clear that I am not guilty of thoughtcrime; I’m a good person, see, it’s just a trick of the light or circumstance that made me look like I didn’t deserve to be loved. So love me.

Yeargh.

I am currently entering into a real estate deal that entails joint ownership of property. This is because it will permit most of what we would like from our lives in the next few decades, and it is pretty much our only chance to own our home and have it paid off before I’m pushed out of the work force when I’m 65. Ma doesn’t like the deal. The people we’re working with are pagan hippies, the ownership isn’t conventional, and you can’t get your money out of the property afterwards, you’re tied to the hippies, you’ll lose everything.

My immediate response was to want to justify my decisions. I supported them with the research (lawyers, engineers, county building commissioners) that we’ve done … and deleted all of that from my email. Then I tried again … and deleted all of that. I ended up with a one-liner, saying that I understood her concerns and was glad she still loved me; I love her too.

I can’t sleep. She disapproves. She knows my reasons and disapproves and now I won’t get loved or attention or something horrible like that. I have to change all of my plans so that I won’t be found guilty of having an opinion she doesn’t like.

Bollocks. I’ve thought about this for two years, and have run numbers and numbers and numbers. This is, at worst, not a bad plan and will result in my saving a tidy chunk of cash and losing some weight during construction. At best I get a lovely home in the woods, pay it off in less than 15 years, and only pay $125k for it.

Ma is conventional. She has an accountant’s sensibilities, an Episcopalian’s intimacy, and a mercenary’s ethic. I don’t know what her axe is to grind in this, but I don’t care. I won’t give in to my inner judge on this one.

I’ll let this cook for a week or so, and if I haven’t come to terms with what my head knows, then I’ll seek out Lexi again and have her give me a boost. I suspect I need it. I don’t see how something this basic, something expressed in my behaviors daily, is going to change just because I know the source of it. There will need to be some healing, as well, and Lexi is great at helping with that.

Maybe some sleep now. Sleep would be good.

Trilby V – Why Magic Worked

This hypnotherapy stuff has had immediate and far-reaching, damned near comprehensive, results. That isn’t, in my experience, how any kind of mental hygiene works. Normally, one talks things out until several things fall into place:

    Define the situation
    Determine what actions are creating non-optimal results
    Recognize the stimulus that provokes actions
    Consider alternate actions that will either preempt the situation or change the reactions to the stimulus
    If you’re really on your game, you think up indicators that will mark success

This is, necessarily, a drawn out process. One has to define the world, define oneself, reformulate based on hypothesis, and then change with no more motivation than a willingness to see something new happen — which usually (again, my experience) means gritting one’s teeth and carrying through the new actions without feeling motivated to do so.

And, natch, it doesn’t work terribly efficiently, people being ineffective at concision. A lack of accurate or complete concept at any step will cause trickle-down faults.

I imagine hypnotherapy varies widely from provider to provider, and possibly from application to application. But. What was done with me was asking me to set a scene from my actual past. This was analyzed briefly for relevance and proximity to my issue-origins. When the scene was revealed as not actually terribly close to the origin, we went further back, finding related scenes closer in, and so forth. Eventually a scene came to light in which formulation of behavior was still taking place, and then a fictitious scene was improvised wherein I was asked to step in as my adult self and redirect my younger self.

I’m fairly good at visualization and role-playing, so this was an actual experience for me. The result was that I actually experienced a rewriting of what actually happened, and, without necessarily thinking much about it, carried forward an altered experience of events that I shuffled into my existing life, which provided slightly altered reactions to current events, and when new actions were called for, slightly different motivations were present to let me make changes with greater ease.

What, I wondered, was the difference between the two methods? Both found the situation, the stimuli, the reactions, the new actions.

One was explicit. One was subtextual and inclusive by implied relation, based on a gestalt.

I think I get it.

Talking things out, thinking them out, is only as useful as the thinking. Acting something out includes many factors that are not necessarily consciously considered, and so factors that are not known, not acknowledged, or poorly understood while acknowledged as significant are all worked into the solution. Everything, every action in the scene became symbolic. The symbols bore the meaning they did because I assigned the symbols and took their meaning they had without my having to formulate it in words, thereby granting each symbol and symbolic act greater bandwidth and greater impact because of that.

Magic.

Good stuff. I approve.

Crossposted from Epinephrine & Sophistry

A Section From the AuthorWay

I write the words
Tracing paths of golden pollen on the page

I write in beauty
Beauty in the sentence before me
Beauty in the sentence behind me
Beauty on the next page
Beauty on the page before

And in beauty will I edit
And in beauty will I edit
And in beauty will I edit
And in beauty will I edit

The writing magic raises me in its pen
And I am come to the page, blessed

Sa’ah naaghéi, Bik’eh hózhó

Crossposted from Epinephrine & Sophistry

Trilby IV

Interesting. New things keep popping up. Nothing traumatic or world-shaking, but sort of … pervasive.

Apparently, what I’ve done is go to the foundation of many of my behaviors, lifted the edifice, and pulled out the chunk of gravel that was caught under the sill. When you put the building back, it’s the same building, but just that tiny bit more level, more stable, and when you stand on the dining room table and dump out a crate of ping pong balls, they will bounce in slightly different patterns than they used to. And the plumbing is less prone to leaking.

Erm. Perhaps not the most facile metaphor, but one gets the idea.

I had session 2 last night. I noticed just as many — or more — things about the basis of my behaviors, and was more involved in the forward motion (since I understood the process better), but there was nothing … well, nothing world-shaking or traumatic. I think I may have found an awareness of the one or two bits in my head that relate to me going all stupid periodically, and what I have left is the settling of everything that used to rest on those, and the trickle-down effects that will continue to manifest as I, ah, *waves hands about, looking for a word*, re-collate myself.

This sort of business is difficult to relate, I’m finding.

In any case. Beneficial. Useful. Clarifying. Empowering (however much I hate the overcommon usage of that word).

In conclusion (to paraphrase Libby, that darlingest of rock-stars), I have eaten my inner child, I am Iron Man, and my head is a light bulb — all of which, on reflection, makes me wonder if it is the surreal aspect of this approach that makes it so much easier to move forward.

Crossposted from Epinephrine & Sophistry

Trilby III

I’m just going to name anything to do with this sorting-out process related to the hypotherapy “Trilby (variable)”. It’s likely to be highly internally oriented, poorly explained, and easily skippable.

So.

I’m wondering how much of my current amiable aimlessness has to do with the fact that, until recently, the majority of my behaviors were determined by pathological means. Take away the pathology and I can no longer recognize a motivation — that is, I can’t recognize a motivation that doesn’t show up with several unseemly friends, lightly slapping a billy club against its leg while it asks me to come play.

This would seem to be a training issue, if so. I can do that. I’m a fair wonder at learning new patterns.

Crossposted from Epinephrine & Sophistry

Trilby, Part II

I keep finding that I’ve just gone through some decision that, a week ago, I’d have made badly, only now I’ve made it well.  I’m asking for what I want, no difficulties, no will needed, no tooth gritting.  I don’t even notice it until afterwards.

While I was nice enough to me today, and have had a nice day thereby, I still haven’t written.  Dunno if that has anything to do with anything.  Sat at the computer for a while, and just surfed until I got up and found food and a book instead.  My current goal is to do the things I want to do, but not make them duties, nor flog myself until I do them.

Y’okay.  Rome wasn’t burnt in a day.  I’m pleased enough, and have another appointment on Wednesday.  Meanwhile, I’ll just make certain that I spend a certain amount of time each day giving myself opportunity to procrastinate.

Crossposted from Epinephrine & Sophistry