Briefly, stories involve origins and your story both shows who you think you are and keeps you that person. Who are you? You're this story.
This is why they call psychoanalysis the talking cure (although in Freudian usage back in the day, this was meant to cure physical symptoms with psychological origin, not to just recut your story).
Forget your story; abandon psychodrama.
It's to the point now that I can tell precisely where my ego is, by looking for where the pain stops. That border cleanly outlines the ego. And I can practically CHOOSE whether or not to live in that place. So two things of note: One, it's a place, that I can identify so cleanly that I can almost put my hands on it. Two, it's a choice as to whether or not to see the world through that lens.
This is something I didn't think would be possible say, a year ago, or even four months ago. There was this puzzle--well, ok, "the hard way", right? But what now? What am I going to progress to through this? Where does it lead?
First came some equanimity, but it wasn't solid. I could lose it, slip out of it, sink into pain, fear, rage, intense emotions. WTF?
Second, came this. Equanimity's still there, but it's optional. The ego pain is optional (well, not for the ego itself; better said, LIVING in the ego pain is optional).
So now it's a matter of STEERING.
**************************************
Forget your story; your story is your ego's story. The story of "you," yourself. The ego's story. It's not evil, it's not bad, you don't get enlightenment when you forget it. Hating the ego is as pointless as anything else; there's no need to do that.
But forget your story because YOU CAN LIVE WITHOUT IT.
How am I typing this right now, who is "I", who is doing this typing? I don't feel pain, although I'm aware that there is pain in me, which means that "I" am aware of the pain "my ego" feels. Who the fuck are the TWO OF US? See?
Of course the Sutras, for example, have clean answers for this. The quintessential clean answer: you're Awareness, not the ego. Congratulations.
Draw back from history, which whether you know it or not, TELLS you how to feel about things. Think about that for a minute. Here, I'll give you a moment's silence to think that one through.
***********************************
Draw back from history that tells you, for example, that this time's sexual frustration is an ECHO of all of the past evils of past sexual frustrations. There's NO NEED for it to stack up like that, and in fact, we lose all specificity and marvelousness, all PRESENTNESS, by letting the past dominate the present like that.
So forget your story, not because you want amnesia for those factoids and those beliefs, but because you want liberation from how they FORCE YOU TO THINK about your present day circumstances.
Forget it.
Do the Sutras say this? Of course they do. But it's a different universe to find this on your own, to put your OWN language to it from experience and then find it ECHOED there.
**********************************
Forget the ego's story and stop living in it, but keep living.
It's like looking up from a book.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
"Put your foot on your ear."
This was the final suggestion in Kino's Hips-and-Hamstrings workshop, which was dedicated to forward bending and external rotation. We covered Padangusthasana, Trikonasana, Parsvakonasana, Prasarita Padottanasana, Paschimottanasana, Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana, Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimo, Padmasana and then some various experiments and preparations which the Intermediate gang would recognize as steps toward Eka Pada Sirsasana and Yoganidrasana.
I can put my left foot on my (left) ear but have to lean my head up to get the right one to make contact with the respective ear (and in upright FBH, that's no good, man). That's ok: it's back to Backbending Days, so I'm putting the FBH on the back burner again (it'll come back quick, as it always does).
***************************
I did Mysore in the morning and Hips-and in the afternoon. I'd had a full week's practice (well, Tuesday and including Saturday, which is 5 days, so for me, that's a full week) and it had radically improved up to Friday, with the exception of less Kapo than Thursday, and then Saturday was a bit tighter and a bit slower, but with bigger breath and good focus, so I'm not upset about anything this week practice-wise.
The biggest Kapo was Thursday's hands-up-the-feet, beyond the toes. That's edging in on April 2010 territory.
The quickest practice was Friday's 95-minute Primary-and-to-Kapo-with-dropbacks, which is a personal record (I don't often go for speed, and also don't really care, but for those making notes, that's a personal record for that many poses).
My Primary totally straightened itself out over the practice week. From a modified unbound Mari D early, to full wrist bind on both sides, in four days. From a Supta K entry on the floor to my usual Dwi-Pada-ISH entry where the ankles hook over (not behind) my head (not "full" but totally sufficient for both entry and exit).
***************************
The Mysore class was freaking me out, just with anxiety about how a practice with a senior teacher would go. You know this tendency. Not just that you want to bring your big game, but that you want practice to be GOOD for that teacher, a sort of approval, almost like bringing a sort of weird gift (but one laden with psychodrama). But also, you want to be WORTHY of the final backbend or the next pose or even the good adjustment. You want to have EARNED it. There is all kinds of writing out there about where crap like this comes from and how to manage it. For me, it's much more common when I don't have any kind of regular exposure to teachers (read: most of the time, except for Spring 2007 and Summer 2008).
So mostly without my willing it, I cranked up the breath and moved really slowly. I mean to the point of feeling out practically every moment of the descent to Uttanasana in each salutation. REALLY slowly, which also brought really carefully.
I had nice power through standing, but started fading in energy late in seated, so was taking breaks between each Marichyasana and eight-finger bound the second side of D, which was a concession to said tiredness.
For Navasana I asked Kino about Troy's "press to handstand after each" and she said, "Can you do it?" to which I answered no, and she said, "Try it after the last one, after you've built the strength." I did, and I had a good and somewhat scary flying-up of the feet, but as usual, not as high as my hips, and while I can feel the START of a hip rotation, I can't beat gravity yet. When that comes, it's going to come ALL OF A SUDDEN some day.
The keys there are 1) fly the feet out WIDE 2) extend totally out of the shoulders 3) press hard into the hands and I'm now discovering 4) LOOK WELL FORWARD. Somehow that invites the hips to move up forward, and that's where lightness is.
The shoulders WILL come forward of the hands and yet by some miracle, you will NOT fall forward. This is exactly the same moment of terror as trying to learn the hips-beyond-head entry of Sirsasana or the hips-forward-of-feet movement in Prasarita Padottanasana, but it's in the shoulders, and your whole body is ABOVE the point of the pivot, and so that's where the suuuuuuuuuper terrifying extra bit is, in handstand.
**************************
Backbends are easier now, the baby backbends of Intermediate. In particular, I can breathe, think, be aware and even adjust, in Parsva Dhanurasana, which used to be an uphill climb with breathlessness. I'm still kinda beat and sometimes dizzy when I jump up for Ustrasana, but in the pose itself (Parsva, this is), I'm good. It's coming.
I'd lost the floaty-uppy of Laghuvajrasana but that made a nice return on Friday and Saturday. For me it's easier if I let the head JUST touch the floor, than if I try to muscle it and keep the head just OFF the floor.
Hands barely touching toes, in Saturday's Kapo. It was fine. No adjustment. Five down, five pressing up, pop to kneeling. I did six wheels (again, two sets of three) and then four dropbacks, and the standups were springy, easy and fun. THAT's damn unusual. Kino and I did two hangbacks (hands crossed), one dropback and then turned it into the walk-in "final backbend" which creeps toward Chakrabandhasana.
And about that:
When I drop back, I begin hands-to-tailbone and really crank the breath long and deep and get the spine as long as I can, and I take 2-3 breaths to GET back into a hang. Then it's at least three more breaths, hands to forehead, elbows close, then it's AGAIN at least three breaths, hanging back arms extended. I'm strong (er, tight) enough to hang back like that as long as I can bear it, but if I take too long and get the psoas too stretched out, it won't pull me back up to standing.
So when Kino simply did the swing-backs with me, I didn't get as deep as when I drop back, because there was not that "hang time" for the psoas to lengthen, which means that I started "final backbend" most of A FOOT behind where my hands had landed when I was dropping back (remember, my Mysore rug is striped, so I can tell things like this).
Kino had me walk in, and I did, but then I got stuck, so was finger-creeping forward, then came down forehead to mat and KEPT finger-creeping, and I have NO IDEA where my hands wound up but they were WELL ahead of my head.
Let me say a word about how I give myself the "final backbend" when I'm practicing: I drop, walk in, walk in again if I can, head down, creep, and I ONLY move the hands in enough to where I KNOW that I can press up, pop the heels if necessary, and then PUT THE FEET FLAT and hold a tight Urdhva Dhanurasana for five. Sometimes I'm so close that my arms go numb almost up to my shoulders for the five breaths.
In the Kino assisted final backbend, I pressed into the hands (and she said, "Use the fingertips!" which helped) but barely got my forearms to come up off the floor. Nowhere NEAR arms straight, and nowhere NEAR an Urdhva Dhanurasana. I'm so, so, so curious what the hell this pressup looked like, and again, I can't imagine where my hands were. Was I "close"? Were the heels "right there?" Not in the grasping sense of "gimme the chakra-b" but in contradistinction to my own "final backbend" where I really emphasize the ability to hit the wheel.
Kino said, "You're getting deeper in it."
The psoas stretch in my typical final backbend is VERY intense. The psoas stretch in my Kino assisted final backbend was not. I think this is because I didn't press up very much. BUT, that begs this weird question:
What is it, to emphasize the walk-in (closeness to feet) OVER the pressup (straightness of arms, intensity in psoas)?
How would it differ from emphasizing the pressup over the walk-in, which is how I currently do it?
If I could touch my heels without being able to press up, what would that be worth (aside from the, you know, gold medal you obviously get, HAH!!) as opposed to pressing up into a full and gradually tighter and tighter wheel?
I guess I'm asking, how do the classical ashtangis teach this progression?
I can put my left foot on my (left) ear but have to lean my head up to get the right one to make contact with the respective ear (and in upright FBH, that's no good, man). That's ok: it's back to Backbending Days, so I'm putting the FBH on the back burner again (it'll come back quick, as it always does).
***************************
I did Mysore in the morning and Hips-and in the afternoon. I'd had a full week's practice (well, Tuesday and including Saturday, which is 5 days, so for me, that's a full week) and it had radically improved up to Friday, with the exception of less Kapo than Thursday, and then Saturday was a bit tighter and a bit slower, but with bigger breath and good focus, so I'm not upset about anything this week practice-wise.
The biggest Kapo was Thursday's hands-up-the-feet, beyond the toes. That's edging in on April 2010 territory.
The quickest practice was Friday's 95-minute Primary-and-to-Kapo-with-dropbacks, which is a personal record (I don't often go for speed, and also don't really care, but for those making notes, that's a personal record for that many poses).
My Primary totally straightened itself out over the practice week. From a modified unbound Mari D early, to full wrist bind on both sides, in four days. From a Supta K entry on the floor to my usual Dwi-Pada-ISH entry where the ankles hook over (not behind) my head (not "full" but totally sufficient for both entry and exit).
***************************
The Mysore class was freaking me out, just with anxiety about how a practice with a senior teacher would go. You know this tendency. Not just that you want to bring your big game, but that you want practice to be GOOD for that teacher, a sort of approval, almost like bringing a sort of weird gift (but one laden with psychodrama). But also, you want to be WORTHY of the final backbend or the next pose or even the good adjustment. You want to have EARNED it. There is all kinds of writing out there about where crap like this comes from and how to manage it. For me, it's much more common when I don't have any kind of regular exposure to teachers (read: most of the time, except for Spring 2007 and Summer 2008).
So mostly without my willing it, I cranked up the breath and moved really slowly. I mean to the point of feeling out practically every moment of the descent to Uttanasana in each salutation. REALLY slowly, which also brought really carefully.
I had nice power through standing, but started fading in energy late in seated, so was taking breaks between each Marichyasana and eight-finger bound the second side of D, which was a concession to said tiredness.
For Navasana I asked Kino about Troy's "press to handstand after each" and she said, "Can you do it?" to which I answered no, and she said, "Try it after the last one, after you've built the strength." I did, and I had a good and somewhat scary flying-up of the feet, but as usual, not as high as my hips, and while I can feel the START of a hip rotation, I can't beat gravity yet. When that comes, it's going to come ALL OF A SUDDEN some day.
The keys there are 1) fly the feet out WIDE 2) extend totally out of the shoulders 3) press hard into the hands and I'm now discovering 4) LOOK WELL FORWARD. Somehow that invites the hips to move up forward, and that's where lightness is.
The shoulders WILL come forward of the hands and yet by some miracle, you will NOT fall forward. This is exactly the same moment of terror as trying to learn the hips-beyond-head entry of Sirsasana or the hips-forward-of-feet movement in Prasarita Padottanasana, but it's in the shoulders, and your whole body is ABOVE the point of the pivot, and so that's where the suuuuuuuuuper terrifying extra bit is, in handstand.
**************************
Backbends are easier now, the baby backbends of Intermediate. In particular, I can breathe, think, be aware and even adjust, in Parsva Dhanurasana, which used to be an uphill climb with breathlessness. I'm still kinda beat and sometimes dizzy when I jump up for Ustrasana, but in the pose itself (Parsva, this is), I'm good. It's coming.
I'd lost the floaty-uppy of Laghuvajrasana but that made a nice return on Friday and Saturday. For me it's easier if I let the head JUST touch the floor, than if I try to muscle it and keep the head just OFF the floor.
Hands barely touching toes, in Saturday's Kapo. It was fine. No adjustment. Five down, five pressing up, pop to kneeling. I did six wheels (again, two sets of three) and then four dropbacks, and the standups were springy, easy and fun. THAT's damn unusual. Kino and I did two hangbacks (hands crossed), one dropback and then turned it into the walk-in "final backbend" which creeps toward Chakrabandhasana.
And about that:
When I drop back, I begin hands-to-tailbone and really crank the breath long and deep and get the spine as long as I can, and I take 2-3 breaths to GET back into a hang. Then it's at least three more breaths, hands to forehead, elbows close, then it's AGAIN at least three breaths, hanging back arms extended. I'm strong (er, tight) enough to hang back like that as long as I can bear it, but if I take too long and get the psoas too stretched out, it won't pull me back up to standing.
So when Kino simply did the swing-backs with me, I didn't get as deep as when I drop back, because there was not that "hang time" for the psoas to lengthen, which means that I started "final backbend" most of A FOOT behind where my hands had landed when I was dropping back (remember, my Mysore rug is striped, so I can tell things like this).
Kino had me walk in, and I did, but then I got stuck, so was finger-creeping forward, then came down forehead to mat and KEPT finger-creeping, and I have NO IDEA where my hands wound up but they were WELL ahead of my head.
Let me say a word about how I give myself the "final backbend" when I'm practicing: I drop, walk in, walk in again if I can, head down, creep, and I ONLY move the hands in enough to where I KNOW that I can press up, pop the heels if necessary, and then PUT THE FEET FLAT and hold a tight Urdhva Dhanurasana for five. Sometimes I'm so close that my arms go numb almost up to my shoulders for the five breaths.
In the Kino assisted final backbend, I pressed into the hands (and she said, "Use the fingertips!" which helped) but barely got my forearms to come up off the floor. Nowhere NEAR arms straight, and nowhere NEAR an Urdhva Dhanurasana. I'm so, so, so curious what the hell this pressup looked like, and again, I can't imagine where my hands were. Was I "close"? Were the heels "right there?" Not in the grasping sense of "gimme the chakra-b" but in contradistinction to my own "final backbend" where I really emphasize the ability to hit the wheel.
Kino said, "You're getting deeper in it."
The psoas stretch in my typical final backbend is VERY intense. The psoas stretch in my Kino assisted final backbend was not. I think this is because I didn't press up very much. BUT, that begs this weird question:
What is it, to emphasize the walk-in (closeness to feet) OVER the pressup (straightness of arms, intensity in psoas)?
How would it differ from emphasizing the pressup over the walk-in, which is how I currently do it?
If I could touch my heels without being able to press up, what would that be worth (aside from the, you know, gold medal you obviously get, HAH!!) as opposed to pressing up into a full and gradually tighter and tighter wheel?
I guess I'm asking, how do the classical ashtangis teach this progression?
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Kapotasana is good for things.
I'm back at the Y, which means gym mats under my orange Jade Harmony. The benefit of these, discovered last year, is that I can latch my fingertips onto the edge of the fat mats and use the ledge to push into a maximal Kapotasana B and I can hold it as long as I like.
The major benefit of doing that is that I can crank open the low back and engage the quads and then feel the abs and psoas get into the stretch, and it's marvelous.
And since I'm doing Kapo and then directly to backbends (my perennial classical practice, since July 2008), I am juiciness itself for the Urdhva Dhanurasanas which follow, of which there are still 6, in two sets of 3, and then three dropbacks/standups and one final "Kino backbend" with walking in and pressing up and then popping to standing. Kapo also nicely introduces the flexibility in the abs/hip flexors which make the dynamics of dropping/standing easier. Those two feed each other. I'm glad that I have ALL WINTER LONG to practice with my "mat ledge."
I WILL get to practice on Friday, barring any allergic response on the part of the boy, to flu vaccine which is grown in eggs (he's allergic to eggs and to peanuts).
So potentially a four-day week and then up to Chicago Friday night, and then Kino Mysore and Kino hips/hamstrings on Saturday, back to Indy, and teaching the yoga on Sunday and then it's back to school and yoga and seventh series and discipline, on Monday.
Tuesday's practice was tight nonsense, after the four days of altitude sickness and bad sleep in Colorado (with boy refusing liquids, and dehydration panic, and all that loveliness), but today's practice was suprising wonderfulness; sure, I'm still rebuilding the right hip in Mari D and Supta Kurmasana, but that's happened a hundred times, it's to be expected.
The major benefit of doing that is that I can crank open the low back and engage the quads and then feel the abs and psoas get into the stretch, and it's marvelous.
And since I'm doing Kapo and then directly to backbends (my perennial classical practice, since July 2008), I am juiciness itself for the Urdhva Dhanurasanas which follow, of which there are still 6, in two sets of 3, and then three dropbacks/standups and one final "Kino backbend" with walking in and pressing up and then popping to standing. Kapo also nicely introduces the flexibility in the abs/hip flexors which make the dynamics of dropping/standing easier. Those two feed each other. I'm glad that I have ALL WINTER LONG to practice with my "mat ledge."
I WILL get to practice on Friday, barring any allergic response on the part of the boy, to flu vaccine which is grown in eggs (he's allergic to eggs and to peanuts).
So potentially a four-day week and then up to Chicago Friday night, and then Kino Mysore and Kino hips/hamstrings on Saturday, back to Indy, and teaching the yoga on Sunday and then it's back to school and yoga and seventh series and discipline, on Monday.
Tuesday's practice was tight nonsense, after the four days of altitude sickness and bad sleep in Colorado (with boy refusing liquids, and dehydration panic, and all that loveliness), but today's practice was suprising wonderfulness; sure, I'm still rebuilding the right hip in Mari D and Supta Kurmasana, but that's happened a hundred times, it's to be expected.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Practice, Equanimity, Energy, the Time Off to Come
This article that I'm writing is due next Wednesday. We're going out of town to see family from Friday til Monday night. Tuesday is a day off (school's "fall break," which is naught but a long weekend), but basically, Thursday night is the deadline for this, my grading, all my life stuff, and everything pre-trip. It's intense.
So I didn't practice beyond Wednesday last week, and none over the weekend either (although I did sacrifice practice to let J work out at the gym, which is better for our overall relationship and certainly for her desk-boundedness these days, than my practicing is).
Practice returned on Tuesday and and today; I'll practice again tomorrow, and then take the whole weekend off as we negotiate family travel and altitude sickness at 11,000 feet in Colorado. Then practice will return (hopefully) again for TWR next week, and Friday we get the kid a flu shot and have to spend FOUR HOURS with an allergist to see if the kid is allergic to the egg medium in which they grow the immunization. Friday night I'll drive to Chicago for a Saturday with Kino at her Chicago workshop. HECTIC, October, is thy name. HECTIC.
But that'll all be fine.
What I politely and obtusely refer to as "long asceticism" on Facebook hit 750 days sometime in either late September or early October. I keep general track but I don't count days or anything. This is about relationship developments between me and J during seventh series. I think that we've had a total of something like eight sexual encounters (of any sort whatsoever) since morning sickness began, which was in the second week of September, 2008. That's over two years ago. Half of those eight belong to the nine months of pregnancy; the other four belong to the SIXTEEN MONTHS since then.
It's mostly that we both work and have no time. But J also found that business painful for the WHOLE FIRST YEAR of the child's life, so that wasn't any fun. On the one occasion between May 2010 and now (and there's been only one), she said, "It's starting to feel better." Well at least THAT's true.
Nonetheless, this type of superhuman asceticism (think I'm exaggerating? Try going touchless in your major relationship for 750 days. Go on punk, fucking try it, I dare you) is building equanimity. By that, I mean that there's been a progressive de-neuroticization of what one could call my sex drive (noting that current sexual science says that this desire is not a drive, any more than a desire for lollipops is a drive), and without that neurotic element, the desire can't stand by itself, it can't stand "independently of me," as it were.
I think that most people don't think about this as much as I already have. So let us proceed with some attention to how this works.
My awareness of desire came almost instantly with neurosis because it showed up in the midst of a lay Catholic ethical system which made the body "evil" or at least "to be disregarded" and puberty then made the body not only tactile, but irresistible. In order for me to exist physically without being committed to either self-hatred or guilt or both, a total metaphysical destruction had to be accomplished. Then I got married to a Catholic whose subjectivity had been undercut by high-powered maternal guilt tripping, and we had essentially no sex life for five and a half years. When that exploded, things got sexier and more interesting, pretty much straight from December 2002 to September 2008. I haven't been single in all that time, not for even one day. So that's been interesting.
But for all that time, desire was still neurotic, sort of linked to repression that it couldn't overcome, but instead sort of grew out of. Like a weird kind of Surrealism. It took the recurrence of asexuality, what I call asceticism, to break that neurosis, simply over time. April 2010 is when it really cracked open; perhaps if we're lucky, I put a post about that in here.
But when desire de-neuroticized, the whole idea of it also collapsed. On what could it be built now? It wasn't that I didn't find J compelling (or any number of imaginary situations as well), it was that I didn't know WHY or HOW I should govern said desire. Doesn't it just "show up" and then you either get some or get frustrated? Isn't THAT how it's supposed to work? Desire sort of APPEARS FROM WITHIN and then you act?
And this set of questions is powerful magic.
This fall--in teaching four classes--I've found that communication has a slight eroticism to it. Teaching has a sort of perfomative eroticism. Writing a paper on tactile aesthetics (and films which have overt sexual content, although it's also intellectualized and juxtaposed with images of disgust and horror) becomes a totally erotic exercise; learning has a tactile, a delicious, quality (Jane Gallop said that in one way; Gregor Maehle says it another, as he gives the example of letters being drawn in honey, so that the student learns that education is tasty).
Tactility took over my life (my research, if I love it, always does this). And it replaced neuroticism, sort of "spread out" my own tactility/eroticism, started finding it everywhere, in all PHYSICAL ACTS, more generally in ENERGY EXCHANGE (this is also how, for example, very smart people who talk about kink or polyamory, talk about those things).
And then equanimity becomes a sort of calm in the face of the continuing asceticism. Not a resentful "oh, it's ok" or an equally resentful "I can live with this," but an actual calm. Not quite an acceptance (doing asceticism for this long is itself an acceptance), but just a calm space. No emotional complaints, no joy, no pain....quiet.
Quiet.
I haven't had that at ANY point in the last two years, neither inside nor out.
And it's blowing my mind a bit. SO. MUCH. AGONY. And then suddenly at about the start of this month, equanimity. Out of nowhere. Perhaps unrelatedly, I'm not leaking any energy this month to sexual distractions. I can't tell if that has anything to do with it or not, but the equanimity makes it easier to not waste time (and perhaps energy) with all of that.
There is a self-possession that comes with equanimity, one wants to use metaphors of depth or containers filled with water; there is a reserve, a sort of deep gravitational power, to equanimity. One stands, one feels one's own weight. And as far as relating goes, I realize that I can either "do that" or not. And there's no punishment, no lack, and no pain, but neither "luck" or any of that, in making that choice. This has never happened before, never. I can ask J if she wants to go to bed, the same way I can ask her if she thinks we should have candy canes in the house, and without loss, without dread or anxiety. And I haven't yet, because I DON'T NEED TO, and I'm pretty much just hanging back enjoying not needing to.
So while this is still asceticism, the equanimity overrules it.
Coolest. Thing. Ever.
So I didn't practice beyond Wednesday last week, and none over the weekend either (although I did sacrifice practice to let J work out at the gym, which is better for our overall relationship and certainly for her desk-boundedness these days, than my practicing is).
Practice returned on Tuesday and and today; I'll practice again tomorrow, and then take the whole weekend off as we negotiate family travel and altitude sickness at 11,000 feet in Colorado. Then practice will return (hopefully) again for TWR next week, and Friday we get the kid a flu shot and have to spend FOUR HOURS with an allergist to see if the kid is allergic to the egg medium in which they grow the immunization. Friday night I'll drive to Chicago for a Saturday with Kino at her Chicago workshop. HECTIC, October, is thy name. HECTIC.
But that'll all be fine.
What I politely and obtusely refer to as "long asceticism" on Facebook hit 750 days sometime in either late September or early October. I keep general track but I don't count days or anything. This is about relationship developments between me and J during seventh series. I think that we've had a total of something like eight sexual encounters (of any sort whatsoever) since morning sickness began, which was in the second week of September, 2008. That's over two years ago. Half of those eight belong to the nine months of pregnancy; the other four belong to the SIXTEEN MONTHS since then.
It's mostly that we both work and have no time. But J also found that business painful for the WHOLE FIRST YEAR of the child's life, so that wasn't any fun. On the one occasion between May 2010 and now (and there's been only one), she said, "It's starting to feel better." Well at least THAT's true.
Nonetheless, this type of superhuman asceticism (think I'm exaggerating? Try going touchless in your major relationship for 750 days. Go on punk, fucking try it, I dare you) is building equanimity. By that, I mean that there's been a progressive de-neuroticization of what one could call my sex drive (noting that current sexual science says that this desire is not a drive, any more than a desire for lollipops is a drive), and without that neurotic element, the desire can't stand by itself, it can't stand "independently of me," as it were.
I think that most people don't think about this as much as I already have. So let us proceed with some attention to how this works.
My awareness of desire came almost instantly with neurosis because it showed up in the midst of a lay Catholic ethical system which made the body "evil" or at least "to be disregarded" and puberty then made the body not only tactile, but irresistible. In order for me to exist physically without being committed to either self-hatred or guilt or both, a total metaphysical destruction had to be accomplished. Then I got married to a Catholic whose subjectivity had been undercut by high-powered maternal guilt tripping, and we had essentially no sex life for five and a half years. When that exploded, things got sexier and more interesting, pretty much straight from December 2002 to September 2008. I haven't been single in all that time, not for even one day. So that's been interesting.
But for all that time, desire was still neurotic, sort of linked to repression that it couldn't overcome, but instead sort of grew out of. Like a weird kind of Surrealism. It took the recurrence of asexuality, what I call asceticism, to break that neurosis, simply over time. April 2010 is when it really cracked open; perhaps if we're lucky, I put a post about that in here.
But when desire de-neuroticized, the whole idea of it also collapsed. On what could it be built now? It wasn't that I didn't find J compelling (or any number of imaginary situations as well), it was that I didn't know WHY or HOW I should govern said desire. Doesn't it just "show up" and then you either get some or get frustrated? Isn't THAT how it's supposed to work? Desire sort of APPEARS FROM WITHIN and then you act?
And this set of questions is powerful magic.
This fall--in teaching four classes--I've found that communication has a slight eroticism to it. Teaching has a sort of perfomative eroticism. Writing a paper on tactile aesthetics (and films which have overt sexual content, although it's also intellectualized and juxtaposed with images of disgust and horror) becomes a totally erotic exercise; learning has a tactile, a delicious, quality (Jane Gallop said that in one way; Gregor Maehle says it another, as he gives the example of letters being drawn in honey, so that the student learns that education is tasty).
Tactility took over my life (my research, if I love it, always does this). And it replaced neuroticism, sort of "spread out" my own tactility/eroticism, started finding it everywhere, in all PHYSICAL ACTS, more generally in ENERGY EXCHANGE (this is also how, for example, very smart people who talk about kink or polyamory, talk about those things).
And then equanimity becomes a sort of calm in the face of the continuing asceticism. Not a resentful "oh, it's ok" or an equally resentful "I can live with this," but an actual calm. Not quite an acceptance (doing asceticism for this long is itself an acceptance), but just a calm space. No emotional complaints, no joy, no pain....quiet.
Quiet.
I haven't had that at ANY point in the last two years, neither inside nor out.
And it's blowing my mind a bit. SO. MUCH. AGONY. And then suddenly at about the start of this month, equanimity. Out of nowhere. Perhaps unrelatedly, I'm not leaking any energy this month to sexual distractions. I can't tell if that has anything to do with it or not, but the equanimity makes it easier to not waste time (and perhaps energy) with all of that.
There is a self-possession that comes with equanimity, one wants to use metaphors of depth or containers filled with water; there is a reserve, a sort of deep gravitational power, to equanimity. One stands, one feels one's own weight. And as far as relating goes, I realize that I can either "do that" or not. And there's no punishment, no lack, and no pain, but neither "luck" or any of that, in making that choice. This has never happened before, never. I can ask J if she wants to go to bed, the same way I can ask her if she thinks we should have candy canes in the house, and without loss, without dread or anxiety. And I haven't yet, because I DON'T NEED TO, and I'm pretty much just hanging back enjoying not needing to.
So while this is still asceticism, the equanimity overrules it.
Coolest. Thing. Ever.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Real quickly...
Rick Hanson's stuff rocks socks. Self, Couple, Team. Lack of balance in one throws the other two out of balance as well; a crystal clear way to see the effect of differing priorities.
I don't have my hands on any of R. A. Masters' stuff yet, but a praise of anger and whole books on confronting the shadow? HOT! Hot hot fire! I anticipate with eagerness.
No squishy feel-good stuff here, says an Amazon reviewer. Damn right!
Googling around led me to Bill Kauth's big work-in-progress, "We Need Each Other: On Building a Gift Community," which is very cool and in places touches the whole Situationist idea of play and community-building (but without all the Marxist idealism) and I'm digging that too.
Tangentially, a friend (and once student) of mine is really deep in the ManKind Project (which Kauth co-founded), and so that's also tangentially involved.
Finally, I was at a workshop this morning about "Eportfolio," a way of evaluating student work online, and this is important because the university where I teach is undergoing external assessment (read: big super terrifying evaluation) in 2012 and so all of the units want to get their assessment act together. This "Eportfolio" program could help the Art Historians to figure out how well and how many students pass what the university uses as "general education requirements" and further, to track students' development of those skills from course to course and even paper to paper.
The difficulty will be getting faculty to use the system and basically do double grading (one for the assignment proper, another for the "qualities" that said assignment engages) but this is my task right now, at least for researching, because of the big spooky 2012 assessment.
On the walk from the workshop to my class (where I taught Surrealism for three hours) I was thinking about how difficult this would be for faculty (what a hard sell it would be, that is) and how the workshoppers had said that the "altruistic souls" do it without prompting. Would it really take altruism? Wouldn't it just be a basic pain in the ass, like so many pains in the asses that we deal with? In fact, don't we chronically deal with pains in the ass all the time, is that not EXACTLY our work itself?
And then the world detonated, a rephrase of an idea happened and a wall crumbled and things looked different, like some flash of the whole self from _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_.
Wait, we deal with FRUSTRATING BULLSHIT all the time, right? But we do it anyway, right? We wash the dish, change the diaper, write the lesson plan, compose the recommendation letter, we do that sort of shit DAY IN AND OUT, yes? This would be just MORE of that, and we have skill! This is in fact PRECISELY AT WHAT WE EXCEL. We are SO WELL PRACTICED. It would, and in fact, would only be, NATURAL to do this, because it's just MORE OF OUR VERY SKILL SET.
And then I realized, experientially, that "frustrating bullshit" is just perjorative slang for REAL LIFE.
And the binary collapsed: call it what you will. Vacation versus work, labor versus leisure, day versus night, classroom versus bar, whatever you want. Travel versus domestic, fight club versus office, whatever. Call it whatever. It all went to pieces. And as the Buddhist monk says, "Sitting is just action, it is just REALITY."
I still see ways to divide the world and maintain the barrier, but I don't believe in it anymore.
This is the fruit of reading all that Trungpa and the fruit of PARENTING, of all things. Parenting is absolutely NOTHING IF NOT FRUSTRATING BULLSHIT, but that is to say, now, REALITY.
Pressure to "relax," to "find time," and such, dropped. Vanished.
Because now, it's easy. If I want to take a break from washing dishes, I do. If I want to engage some sort of labor, or something needs doing, I do.
Desire comes not from OUTSIDE; likewise OBLIGATION comes not from OUTSIDE.
It's like pulling my hand off the hot pan handle. Now I can do anything.
I don't have my hands on any of R. A. Masters' stuff yet, but a praise of anger and whole books on confronting the shadow? HOT! Hot hot fire! I anticipate with eagerness.
No squishy feel-good stuff here, says an Amazon reviewer. Damn right!
Googling around led me to Bill Kauth's big work-in-progress, "We Need Each Other: On Building a Gift Community," which is very cool and in places touches the whole Situationist idea of play and community-building (but without all the Marxist idealism) and I'm digging that too.
Tangentially, a friend (and once student) of mine is really deep in the ManKind Project (which Kauth co-founded), and so that's also tangentially involved.
Finally, I was at a workshop this morning about "Eportfolio," a way of evaluating student work online, and this is important because the university where I teach is undergoing external assessment (read: big super terrifying evaluation) in 2012 and so all of the units want to get their assessment act together. This "Eportfolio" program could help the Art Historians to figure out how well and how many students pass what the university uses as "general education requirements" and further, to track students' development of those skills from course to course and even paper to paper.
The difficulty will be getting faculty to use the system and basically do double grading (one for the assignment proper, another for the "qualities" that said assignment engages) but this is my task right now, at least for researching, because of the big spooky 2012 assessment.
On the walk from the workshop to my class (where I taught Surrealism for three hours) I was thinking about how difficult this would be for faculty (what a hard sell it would be, that is) and how the workshoppers had said that the "altruistic souls" do it without prompting. Would it really take altruism? Wouldn't it just be a basic pain in the ass, like so many pains in the asses that we deal with? In fact, don't we chronically deal with pains in the ass all the time, is that not EXACTLY our work itself?
And then the world detonated, a rephrase of an idea happened and a wall crumbled and things looked different, like some flash of the whole self from _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_.
Wait, we deal with FRUSTRATING BULLSHIT all the time, right? But we do it anyway, right? We wash the dish, change the diaper, write the lesson plan, compose the recommendation letter, we do that sort of shit DAY IN AND OUT, yes? This would be just MORE of that, and we have skill! This is in fact PRECISELY AT WHAT WE EXCEL. We are SO WELL PRACTICED. It would, and in fact, would only be, NATURAL to do this, because it's just MORE OF OUR VERY SKILL SET.
And then I realized, experientially, that "frustrating bullshit" is just perjorative slang for REAL LIFE.
And the binary collapsed: call it what you will. Vacation versus work, labor versus leisure, day versus night, classroom versus bar, whatever you want. Travel versus domestic, fight club versus office, whatever. Call it whatever. It all went to pieces. And as the Buddhist monk says, "Sitting is just action, it is just REALITY."
I still see ways to divide the world and maintain the barrier, but I don't believe in it anymore.
This is the fruit of reading all that Trungpa and the fruit of PARENTING, of all things. Parenting is absolutely NOTHING IF NOT FRUSTRATING BULLSHIT, but that is to say, now, REALITY.
Pressure to "relax," to "find time," and such, dropped. Vanished.
Because now, it's easy. If I want to take a break from washing dishes, I do. If I want to engage some sort of labor, or something needs doing, I do.
Desire comes not from OUTSIDE; likewise OBLIGATION comes not from OUTSIDE.
It's like pulling my hand off the hot pan handle. Now I can do anything.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Shortest Post Ever (Maybe)
1. Intermediate through Karanda, only because it felt so damn good yesterday. Right now I think this is the practice for a while.
2. Neurosis round 2, set off by friends who are working on a second kid. Suprising depth and intensity of anger, jealousy.
3. Kapo toes last night, footpad today. No months of work required. Cool.
4. Standing up is hard because rocking up intensifies the lumbar bend and psoas demand BEFORE the springiness comes from the thighs to the abs. In Kapo terms, it's because you do Kapo B before you do come up, even when standing from backbend.
5. Fully committed now to beating the neurosis once and for all. Victory here is literally moksha. I expect it to take all this lifetime.
6. Don't see it as an enemy (that just makes it reproduce) but put SPACE into relating to it. Take a BIG dose of Trungpa on this, before turning it into the Gita.
7. I can't tell anymore if desire belongs to me or doesn't. "I" is becoming even more permeable and a little bit irrelevant. This is unspeakably painful but good when I can see it clearly.
8. J wants me to read books about householding, about ordinary lives, so I'll be happier. You can't be the witch doctor and be happy with that. We negotiated that I will try to find books on parenting experiences (fiction or not) that are anywhere close to my own. I could use an echo, some company.
2. Neurosis round 2, set off by friends who are working on a second kid. Suprising depth and intensity of anger, jealousy.
3. Kapo toes last night, footpad today. No months of work required. Cool.
4. Standing up is hard because rocking up intensifies the lumbar bend and psoas demand BEFORE the springiness comes from the thighs to the abs. In Kapo terms, it's because you do Kapo B before you do come up, even when standing from backbend.
5. Fully committed now to beating the neurosis once and for all. Victory here is literally moksha. I expect it to take all this lifetime.
6. Don't see it as an enemy (that just makes it reproduce) but put SPACE into relating to it. Take a BIG dose of Trungpa on this, before turning it into the Gita.
7. I can't tell anymore if desire belongs to me or doesn't. "I" is becoming even more permeable and a little bit irrelevant. This is unspeakably painful but good when I can see it clearly.
8. J wants me to read books about householding, about ordinary lives, so I'll be happier. You can't be the witch doctor and be happy with that. We negotiated that I will try to find books on parenting experiences (fiction or not) that are anywhere close to my own. I could use an echo, some company.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)