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| Subject: surrender part two | |
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Author: kristen |
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Date Posted: 00:25:21 05/01/04 Sat This was written five days after we moved in to this new house... Tonight is the evening of day five. We are in the new house. Context: The sounds of hanging on and letting go have been filling our home these past few days. They sound like this. Echoing, laughter, crying, coming, opening cans of diet soda, closing doors too loudly, footsteps on hard wood floor, the washer, the dryer rumbling, the vacuum, the doorbell or phone ringing, laughter, moaning, tiptoeing, sighing, screaming, denying, questioning, clanking dishes, absolute silence, truth telling and typing….The very clean white walls have been filling up with the energy of us. It has been heavy and it has at moments been light and airy. Mostly the heavy. But from afar one would never know. For example, if you were in the hills of San Bruno mountain you might peer across and see through shadeless windows a topless Taosha, or a studious Rob in front of his laptop. A dressed up Nicole nearby a Kevin in boxers. A frumpy Josh or George and a frazzle haired Kristen. A moving about Allyson in the pantry labeling jars or organizing something somewhere. We are 61 Golden Aster but we are in our own world. It is certainly a large and beautifully crafted home. It is slowly being broken in with our tracks. Here is a particular opening scene – 11:30pm Tuesday night: I(Kristen) walk in the door. I’m just back from dropping George off in San Francisco where he’s going to film a short video clip of himself doing Laura. Nicole and Rob sit at the kitchen table. In the living room, Ally sits on the couch sniffling. She looks like she’s been crying. Kevin’s pacing around the edges of the kitchen and bordering the bedroom. He is surrounded in uncertainty. Ally gets up. Gathers her things. Leaves. She is upset and says no when I ask if she needs anything. I feel her. I walk over and pour myself some tea. The kitchen feels emotional. And soft. Yellow light hues. Nicole asks Rob about his feelings. About the divorce. He is going into his list of things to do. It is long. “ Rob, if you broke your leg, and had to take two days off all this would all get done. Why don’t you do that? Let yourself feel it.” Some space opens. He begins to share about how it hurts to be judging how he acted all those years, how he did this or that back then because of such and such, and Carol, she did this or that, and how he didn’t realize something so obvious to him now. Nicole gently listens, offering her thoughts. “You can stop judging the man you were then based on the man you are now. You’re beating yourself up, your regrets, they are the equivalent of me beating myself up for not knowing how to tie my shoelaces when I was five.” Rob hears her. Suddenly Ally slips on the stairs. This house continues to be one giant metaphor of our lives. Like a fractal it contains within it all the sounds inside our minds. Each noise it makes is a smoke alarm reminding us of the truth, …just when we might be forgetting. Earlier in that morning we gathered. To check in. Talk. We were there in a circle, for hours. About three. We had to move through a lot to get to clear. For a good amount of time, we carried out a scene I sincerely wish all women had the opportunity to see. Here is how it went. ---Just as Nicole did with me a few weeks ago when I relapsed, she asked Ally how Ally would handle herself, if she were Nicole. Ally and Rob have been in a situation. Ally is struggling. She is asking for support. Nic- “You be me and I will be you.” The game began. Seamlessly it flowed from heavy to light, light to heavy. It was spontaneous and alive. Had it been in color it might’ve ranged from pinks and reds to deep blacks and blues. In the end Ally came through, her cheeks flushed, glowing, coming and crying. Her ego invisible. What they did blew all of our covers. Nicole and Ally copped together to the way women work. To some of the wicked and painful manipulations that we women contrive. Revealing the absolute desperate habitual way of using sex to own a man and convincing ourselves that we are alone, must compete, must win, must not trust, and cannot be figured out. How we fool even ourselves because the belief in aloneness and a need to protect what is ours is so deeply engrained and running our lives that we are behind it looking outward. Not seeing it because we wear blinders to hide from ourselves and the ugliness of it all. Watching Nicole and Ally, I witnessed myself. Nicole as the voice inside Ally’s head, that one we don’t ever hear…“But you don’t understand what its like to be me….I’ve been doing it myself for thirty years. Why after all this time would I begin to trust someone else? To tell me about another way? Why should I ever want to let go of what is clearly mine anyway and don’t you dare try to take it away from me. I will beat you. And on top of all this why would I ever trust you, you’re just going to leave anyway and you never really cared about me to begin with….look what you did to your husband, look what you did to your best friend… And now you are stealing what is mine, go ahead and try -I am the one in his bed.” It was like swirling through the insides of a woman. We all together traveled in and through it...and out. The deepest rut being going into how it feels when you hold on for the life of you. To another person, because it is what you know. The grasping. And the reaching. When reaching desperation and the loneliness of it all. I think each of us was revealed to ourselves. This reaching -It may be a reaching for a person, sure we’ve all been there. But it also may be binging on donuts and purging in total fear, it may be running to the tenderloin in frantic search of the next crack fix. It may just be a opening another can of diet soda when you’ve already had three and you cant even tell if you’re thirsty. There’s having a fine glass of Chardonnay or a fancy kind of smoke. But whatever, when you get real, when you give it up, you know. You’ve been betting your life and banking on your survival there. To let go feels like suicide. In various religions, this concept is referred to as “craving” or “attachment.” But I like the images associated with “grasping” and “reaching”. They are more active. They involve movement. People may see sex cult on the outside but there are many ways to see us. A window in you will see bedroom doors open and people’s hearts widening. You will also see doors slam and hearts crunch. You will see tears of joy and tears of pleasure and tears of anger and tears of grief. You will see a dance, a song a melody and an orchestra. You will see love at its best. When Ally slipped on the stairs, I felt her contraction. Her absolute agony. I could see myself and those moments when I desperately wanted to keep eating. I saw her tired heart and felt it tearing as she is letting go of what she always knew was safe. Maybe she has been living her life just so that all of us in that moment could together learn a lesson about how strong we are and how the same we are. Maybe she lived with her attachments so that all of us could see ours and forgive ourselves. Nothing happens to us without our permission. We can’t let go until we choose to. Recalling that few moments on the stairs – we heard her fall. We ran over. Nicole, Robert, Kevin, slower, me. We leaned over the bannister. Ally was crouched down. Furrowed brow, weeping. For me, this was a true family moment. I see her, my friend, a role model, and a true devotee. I use the word ‘devotee’ not in the familiar sense, worshipper or follower, but in the sense of the ‘lover’ and defined as ‘one dedicated to’. I see her as a devotee of freedom. Of choice. Of pleasure and of friendship. Nicole: “Surrender. Ally you have got to just give it up. If Kevin can give up crack. If we can all do it. I know you can.” Ally looks up, says ok. Between us and her was a thick cloud. But she said yes anyway. And that is the definition of surrender. To say yes and go on with life. To say yes anyway – even when ALL SIGNS ARE POINTING TO NO. To search inside yourself for faith and that tiny spot inside that knows the truth. BY ALL MEANS NO. I am reminded of the Hesse poem I will be reading in the course. It goes something like this--- “He reaches for the sky to catch that star that he has fallen in love with. He is in the air. He is lunging. It is a beautiful stride. Only he grasps at nothing. There is nothing there. He never actually lunged. He didn’t have the faith that he could find the star. He didn’t have the recognition that, the star was the lunging. Or that he already had what he sought; And that even if he caught it, then released his hold, he would still have the star. He was lunging for something he could not own. Love is unownable. It only attracts - is not attracted.” Nicole and I recently had a conversation about how I was on the fence. She pointed out what she saw. That my life had come to total black and white. Either I do everything in the name of surrender, or I take the path backwards into hell. I am so grateful that I have been given the opportunity to get to this location. Our home and our lifestyle, George and I were talking a couple of days ago, IS the dream we have all been dreaming. We are here. We ARE living it. When Nic was in the bathtub on night one, we shared about the idea of how much each of us have had to shed or drop to get to here. That is one of the reasons we are so close. Because we are living the same reality. Each with a different mini-series. We have each dropped , many parts of ourselves to play this game. And those things we dropped along the way to get here are still for some of us, clammering at our feet, looking for some sort of hole to hook in. I suppose there will always be some clammering happening and another set of dragons lingering ahead. To some (we are aware) we may look like a cult. And yeah- we are into the new age spiritual thing. We’re meditators, we’re into personal transformation, try to practice compassion and humility. And we are researchers, writers, even hippies and yogis. You could certainly call us a commune. But, drop out the movie sets, the apparent subject matter of our research, as well as the glamour and showtime glitz, you will quickly see the real and the raw. That the real research we are up to is an observation of what is. And the practice, letting things be. I think the real insides of tangled up desire are unraveling in us. We are letting our hearts open and some blood is seeping out. I will say that without the recognition of attachment and its bindings, I would live continually over and over again in it. As many humans do. Somehow I was fortunate enough to be offered a way out. For each moment I witness a friend in surrender I am gifted. I am freed. I once described surrender as a feeling, not an action. And shared how I had learned this truth. Tonight I add an element to my definition. I am seeing surrender as an ongoing process. With dips and valleys. And peaks. And yes there is always a fencepost. Thank God for the opportunity to see myself in my friends to feel them to watch them weep as their ideas about protection drop away, their cheeks flush and they say good bye to what no longer serves them. And I am so grateful to Nicole for having always another drop of nectar, even when she is almost dry she continues to share whatever is left. I suppose that is because in her service she gets to have us, the real people behind or fears. And she gets to continually let go of her own. Thank you God for my life. I am so fortunate for this extraordinary life among true friends. Tonight we seem to have awakened deeper to what really matters. That we are the house the rest is nails, plaster, and boards. We’ve just had to have this experience here to confirm it. To confirm how ready we are for the Center and our energy to be funneled and undispersed. To be honed, And for a recognition that no matter where we are we will be together because we will do what it takes. We are in agreement that the truth is all that matters really. And we will keep coming back to it. Keep listening to each other when we are lost. Keep asking directions off our own little islands. I sit here and wonder… how many people are acknowledging the enormity of the sensation in a woman’s body. Or the gorgeousness of allowing it to come out and be felt, celebrated and honored. How many are cognizant of its deep repression yet choose to live in the now and celebrate its release AND choose to acknowledge addiction as humans safety when in resistance. How many women are out there plastering flowery language over their genitals and beating around the bush when it comes to opening into the feelings that really exist inside. How lucky I am to recognize that every sensation is up to my own translation. And there is always a way out. How many have been shown even an inkling of what is possible for them sensually? This is why I am really here. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
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