Monday, October 14, 2013

I apologize to my readers for the most confusing blog from yesterday.  It is strange, and perhaps not, that help arrives sometimes from unusual  circumstances, due perhaps to a trivial exchange from which a spark rises, unforseen in time and place,  and by utter chance a fire, which had smoldered in my mind for twenty years , is ignited.
    The mind awakens,  Ha! Ha!... this may be the time, the right time. And then I laugh, yes, because I had not even thought about it before, but the dowsing had shown it.... My cognitive self does not think of the "dowsing: I Ching, etc... because so far it is incomprehensible how the future can become known to consciousness by a simple falling of sticks or other divinatory methods.  And what 'clear cognition' cannot comprehend is often regarded as illusory.
    There are two parts in whatever you may want to call" My Self"... and perhaps many more...and often they do not communicate well, as I am quite aware of this. And it is O.K.  They  have an analytical and inspirational function, together they reinforce one another and dispel doubt, the  stalking killer nestled deep in our mind.
    When the Prophecy is fulfilled in space-time doubt is dispelled, the  event is obviously accepted and one forgets that its existence was known by the "unconscious" before "its time. The strange has become acceptable because IT DID OCCURR  and life is back to "normal" again,  consciousness is no longer split.  That is it for to-day, namaste

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Of What> I don't have the faintest notion about this process, don't even know how to go on my own blog

and need help to navigate  the internet!!!! Anyone out there living in Philadelphia, PA? I also have a documentary which is cock-eyed and needs working on so I can place it on Amazon...don't have a notion on how to proceed....  If someone out there goes on my website, please email me if you can help me navigate better. My computer helper vanished in Machu P...or so it appears.
  Yes, this sounds nuts, but some grounded help may surface this way.... like shooting with your eyes closed....  into the ethernet..guess it is called "faith".  Sometimes I have missiles of  faith, sometimes I simply sink in a swamp.  To-night is swamp time. Have to say hallo to the gators. Need a good night's sleep. F.

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

WHEN GOOD PEOPLE DO BAD THINGS


It is a very general statement. Good and bad are polarized aspects of living behavior. They are relative in nature. But sometimes emotions color the psyche and feelings modify our reactions towards what we feel is bad or good for our existence at the time of the action or our thoughts about it.
Motive is paramount.  The relationship to the offending person is also important.  What else falls into the diagnostic package? The personal relations we may have or have had with the offending individual and the level at which the insult was perceived.
Most of the time the closer one’s relationship is to the offending individual, the greater the perception of injury.  Other items cloud our perception like our knowledge of past aspects of the offender’s history which might explain at an emotional or cognitive level a hidden aspect of his or her psyche.  All of us are partially if not hidden from ourselves, definitely hidden from others. The masks we use in our behavior and the filters with which we modulate them are part of our signature as individuals.  Our past history is the elastic mold continually created and adjusted by any new action from whose inspection we can acquire clues about our individual needs and desires.  Professionals inspect and track the mold’s changes over years. 
So, what does the person think, feel and do when he or she discovers she has been betrayed ? The initial response is a mixture of great sadness - how can a good person do something so bad. This is followed by intense anger.  Thoughts of revenge flash through the mind. Tears well up in the eyes.  Depression and a feeling of deep impotence can be quite paralyzing if the perpetrator is a close relative.  It may constrict the person into a psychological feeling of “no exit”. An individual who does not allow hitting bottom while in self-deprecation or fear but uses his or her cognitive apparatus for analysis of one’s emotional whirlwind can bypass this.
Looking at oneself diverts the focus from the “other” to oneself. Am I capable of doing such a thing? Have I ever done such a thing? These are thoughts about one’s own integrity and a comparison is made between one’s self-conscious manipulation of one’s consciousness versus the memory of the emotionally perceive angst.
We actually dwell in such conflicting realities every night, while the conscious self does not feel responsible about the ghosts rising to scream and play with us.  Some are familiar with those visions and how they may have been acquired in past living or lives, if there is such a thing, Personally, I do know that there is a resonance with past happenings through which knowledge of the past somehow surfaces into our daily lives. Can we use the newly acquired knowledge of a possible past existence in order to expand our self -awareness?
Knowledge becomes valuable but it also invokes responsibility for its use and needs to be cognitively evaluated whenever we have enough mental data to do so.
Speculation can also divert the self into identifying with the aggressor, compartmentalizing our behavior and constructing fancy intellectualizations due to denial of what seems unacceptable, because it implies great emotional losses and compromises our ability to function in a well-integrated manner.
In view of these and other less acceptable responses to psychic or physical injury, what recourse does the injured party have?  Detachment from the injury is possible if the mind’s power of analysis can allow it.  The mind can only do so if we place ourselves imaginatively speaking in the aggressor’s shoes and thus walk through a limited, but perhaps probable excursion into our own past and present behavior, and come face to face with our own psychic fragility recognizing and perhaps choosing to accept the half hidden and frightening part of ourselves which C.G. Jung referred to as “the Shadow.”  I also refer to such memories as ghosts lurking in our psychic basement. Only the light of inquiry shall free them. This sounds charitably healing and perhaps Platonic, but does it indeed release our anger into harmless vapors?
For many years, I have been puzzled about the commandment to love one’s enemy, viewing it as obviously absurd. Can’t we get killed in the process?  How is this form of life called “agape” to be expressed when we actually feel like destroying and thus preventing the enemy from further harming us?  Tough thinking is required when the perpetrator is one’s mother, one sibling, one’s child, one’s spouse, etc.  We need to differentiate between three states of mind:  forgetting, dreaming of vengeance and remembering cognitively, but at the same time letting go emotionally.  By doing this psychic mental dance advocated by psychologists in vogue, we acknowledge the power of the “shadow” and somehow do not allow it to reign over our psyche. Sounds good. On the other had, Prevention of further injury or betrayal is part of human wisdom, because at times our blind emotions may lead into hell’s fires.  When that happens we need to offer generosity not because we are weak, but because freely offered generosity is simply a need required by every person in order to heal one’s self-esteem by feeling good! There is also a difference between forgiving and forgetting. The wise person shall remember and use preventive measures while looking in a mirror. The “other”, the “Thou” of Martin Buber is still in front us; yes, we are part of the other, and respect it.  The mirror is there in order to also separate us from the “other” at the same time that we recognize it.
Duality is part of reality for the functional part of our lives. Overcoming it can lead to madness or to the loss of self into the greater Ocean of Life where we all came from and shall return. These excursions into such extreme realms better be brief and memorable.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Unintended Table Turnings


Blog, Feb. 19, 2013

Are we actually free or we are driven at times to fall unintentionally into muddy potholes then change clothing before proceeding on the journey in new attire, as a new person?
     I yearn to get far away from concerns of food preparation, bills, focusing on how other members of the household meet their needs or carry on with their own work under at times dire circumstances.  I also need new attire, not just because I am in the process of reaching hard ground after having lingered in a swamp, but because I also need shoes!
    My problem started when I first rented the second floor bedroom where I still live, a sense of uncertainty pervaded me at the time....  I was going to have a real daytime job and be self-supporting. This had not been the case previously, since I had been a housewife for the previous twenty-two years making little money while creating art in two basements. A divorce altered the course of my life. Also, an apparently inconsequential event occurred in the summer of 1983.  I was enrolled in graduate school at the University Hospital in Philadelphia. A paper was due for the summer school course I was attending at the Medical school downtown. One evening, after my return from school I asked my landlord, who was an excellent writer, to correct the typos in the final paper for the course. It was about 5 PM. Before I went to bed I asked him to return the corrected paper, which was about 6 pages long. He had not finished correcting it. I stayed up longer and asked him again about it because it was due the next day. He was not yet finished. I left for school without it. When I handed it in the following day to my thesis advisor who also happened to be the Department Head, everything appeared to be all right. I was somewhat concerned because my research had expended beyond the requirements of the course, but the more the better!
    The first half of the summer semester ended and I received a letter from the head of the department asking we to withdraw from the Master’s program because I had several incompletes and was failing. As a child and adolescent I had been raised on footage of low self esteem: not pretty, absent minded, sloppy, messy, dirty, etc. and having failed to finish the paper in time was an added reminder of my incompetence. Therefore I simply accepted the verdict and did not question it when I went to the last meeting with my advisor, who had that summer become the new department head. I deserved it. I recall vividly what he asked me at the time: “How do you perceive yourself? “  Somehow a picture appeared of a fully opened sunflower living in a dark basement. I described it to him. I was an underdog who managed to survive anywhere. Thereafter our conversation was brief and I agreed to leave the program.
Something haunted me about leaving a half started session with a transgendered patient whose trust I had finally acquired, and who was starting to have some self-esteem.  Yes, my procedures were somewhat unorthodox, but the psychiatrist in charge of the 12th floor of Hahnemann University Hospital approved of them. Besides, I didn’t really think that I was failing!  On the other hand, I would no longer be able to get a job as an art psychotherapist because it appeared that I would not get my M.A.
    In a quandary I called a very good and old friend of mine, Eve, and related her my mishaps. Her reaction marked a change in how I would react to unfair insults for the rest of my life. Her voice was clear but firm, her support of me was unconditional. Her words were those of a commander giving battle instructions to a reluctant soldier. “You can’t take this lying down! You are telling me that you don’t believe you are failing. This man wants to get rid of you because of the subject matter of your paper, which appears to go against the belief system of the department guidelines. You need to absolutely go to the registrar, and check your grades and find why you are failing!”
     She obviously threw more nuggets of wisdom and common sense at me that day over the telephone. But the next day I did go to the registrar. No, I was not failing. All my previous incompletes had gone, except for the last paper, which supposedly was sent in late and for which there was not yet a grade. As a matter of fact, spelled out in black ink on my report, I had several A’s. The registrar suggested I speak with the Dean of the Medical School and ask him for re-enlisting. I was upstairs in five minutes. The dean looked at my records and said that he did not see any problem, why should there be one? Would I want to continue with my studies? All was clear. There was no problem.
   My head reeled with surprise and anger and also for gratitude. “No”, I said, I shall not continue because I would feel most uncomfortable. “The man asked me to think it over.  As I left the tall building and walked outside, a strange sense of relief overcame me. Did I really want to spend the rest of my life counseling schizophrenics and paranoids on the twelfth floor of Hahnemann Hospital where male aids related stories to one another about  how they raped and fondled drugged or unconscious  female patients in restraints?
     On the other hand, what was I going to do now?  (See next installment.)