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
Monday, October 14, 2013
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.
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.)
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