Documenting a 'historical' moment in my personal life...for my records.

Took a step today. Bought myself an eisel. In wood. It is the elephant in the room after the treatment couch. Incidentally the eisel made me aware that the couch is the biggest elephant, as it should be, as I want it to be in a certain sense. But of course in the end each thread weaves into an embroidery like an orchestra the feel of which determines its oxygen'ness and oxyneableness.

Don't you shush me!

Sounds, needless to say, play a very big role on our mental makeup. ‘shh’ a dangerous sound. Insignificant and innocent as it seems, is a wordless way to tell the brain to shut up, to not express. A nasty thing I learned to do when I had voices in my head which needed to be heard, to be expressed, for I was busy surviving through what should have been fought against with all my might. The suppression of what makes a person that person; the suppression which makes that person have a secret silent under-the-surface life, that makes a person develop a persona to put up with the world. Shh. It is uttered to stop a child from crying, from speaking out loud, expressing emotions, voicing an opinion..first by people around and then u do that to yourself as a conditioned reflex to quiet down what clamours to be heard.

Yearn

Maybe at the heart of life is a yearn that is just as part of what keeps life ongoing as the Chaos; perhaps both are related. Subtleties. It is like the lingering taste in the mouth, the sentence that says and yet leave soft ripples of meanings, a warm fuzzy feeling from the bonfire or candle, a softness in the eye of understanding. It sort of fills something inside and yet opens a door for more space and lingers on a faint silent yearn.

The amoeba in me

..is carving a niche in everyman's (and everywoman's) land. In the jostle for space and recognition, is tippy-toed'ly yet with a bravado that only someone who has not dared be seen for who they are can have once in a while, like an amoeba venturing out its pseudopods before rolling into its next step well aware of its vulnerable position and yet also its need to move. For reasons of its own and also larger than its own. Because it is alive.

Tonsured! (like the sound of the movie title, Tangled!..just the opposite)

Getting civilized. Scary. To me it means conforming to the masses - to their views of 'normalcy,' loose ends neatly tucked into place, straight jacketed with a face to put on every time you walk out of your personal space to face the world. After a thrilling, eye-opening, freshen-my-worldview tonsure experience, I have hair growing that needs to be trimmed and made to look 'acceptable.' Gone is the wash-wipe-readytogo ease. In comes mirrors, comb, oilcontrolling shampoo and barbers, and 'the style that best suits me with the hair I have.' Civil-ization. Now I have a hairclip to deal with the elongated hair which I could just as easily snip off with my home scissors to my fancy to make it be manageable, if not for the fear of 'looking' mousy. I could so easily tonsure again. I am this close to doing it.

It has been 9 months since I did it but it is so fresh in my memory. How was it when tonsured? Nude. I thought it was me feeling vulnerable and naked, a free target for any one and everyone to stare and think aloud and be shocked at, but not surprisingly it is the onlookers who were naked. Unguarded in facing unfamiliarity, not understanding 'why' and perhaps faced with their own fears of being exposed mirrored in my 'exposure.' It did feel like I was skinned, leaving my flesh beneath exposed for the unvoiced questions but naked expressions in their eyes. Everything came into the expression in their eyes, differed from person to person but the range is not the everyday questions, or perhaps it was just so deeper that they took on a quality new of their own. Gender. Nationality. Belief. Purpose. Sexuality. Friendship. Fellow human being. Belongingness. Human. Commercial value. Worthy of association. The separatedness/aloneness in being human was pretty stark in their alone, vulnerable, scared, confused looks when they thought no one was looking but me - the unfamiliar entity with whom they could unwittingly drop their guards and be their vulnerable self for just that little while. I felt sad that my hair was growing in fast and yet wished for it to grow fast for fear of becoming a permanent outsider. The pull to 'belong,' to not be the 'odd one out' and thus become 'visible' is scary and hence seek the comfort of being 'invisible' in the crowd, in belonging, and then again to be 'unique' and to 'stand out in the crowd' and be 'famous.' guess the difference is in 'acceptable' fame, enviable fame, shining star, not vulnerable and exposed. It perhaps scratched them where they dint want to but I would do it again for it peeled away a layer of deadness (dead skin?) and freshened something more important, more essential at my core than any training could have accomplished. I could see the condition of being human from the underbelly and hence a tiny peek into what it means to be human.

I am going to do it again. I just want to get 'civilized' again enough to get the kick out of tonsuring again, so now it is clips and comb ...and perhaps I will get some red streaks for a change!

Submarine'ing

Don't know about everybody else, but I have a peculiar habit of sorts. When I am seen doing something, I stop doing it and submarine, meaning I do it somewhere else where I won't be seen only to stop doing it again when seen doing there and submarine again. It is like playing tack in a queer way. I do know we each have a vulnerable self, one that shies away from being judged and found wanting, from being made fun of, from destructive criticism,..from being treated as anything but as whole and complete. We each are in a journey of some sort, at least I am, trying to make sense, a coherent sense, of the world I find myself inhabiting, often feeling like an alien visiting a strange planet with several things to like about it and like enough that I want to poke around and know everything about it if I can, amazed by a lot of things, want to make friends with the inhabitants and whatever there is that would respond in any way people/animals/plant/stone/forces of any kind/moving/unmoving...several things in this strange planet fascinating. Often feel I dont know the language the inhabitants speak and have to figure out how to communicate with them. Sometimes see them look at me like they have just noticed my 'alien' antenna or alien skin color/tone and will question me about it! Don't think the inhabitants would appreciate much that I notice things about them and about living life on the planet. Do feel lonely sometimes and want to talk alienese but haven't found anyone who speaks alienese the way I do and so have to resort to voicing on posts like this one, and submarine every now and then.

Demons

Literature talks of energies sometimes occupying the human body, the absolution of which requires not rejection or resistance but compassion and acknowledgement of its own strength and presencing its strength for itself. When transliterated, the cliche, 'we have our own demons to deal with,' may not be any different from that of the 'dead souls' or 'ghosts' that are the subject of horror stories. Just like the horror stories usually having tormented souls that seek redemption, the demons in our own psyche need acknowledgement and appeasing, one after another. Question is the frame of mind when one is ready to face the demon in our mind's closet and see it for what it is and be willing to appease its distress.