Bodiespeak

This is why I love living in San Francisco:
Last night I went to my neighbours' house, which is actually about four doors down, and is painted dark purple.  It was the first time I was going to hang out with Travis, a friend of a friend who I have met in several different occasions.  Travis is the guy who never wears a shirt.  Travis is a character.  He is a marvelous man, who has created his profession as a "cuddle therapist".  It would be long to describe what cuddle therapy is, so here's a short piece by photojournalist  Lauren Crabbe.  Travis is a lovely being.  We talked about his "15 years of playing video games every-single-day" and a trip that is.  The virtual world, the age of computer connections, this alternate reality which was created and allows people to live a life of adventure and fantasy.. 
We talked about the pineal gland and Dimethyltryptamin.  And we admired the wonderful aesthetic value of whipped cream.  We mentioned negative numbers too.  And of course, there was polyamory and how it is really a complete way of life, of presence and mindfulness, rather than merely a sexual thing.
It is so refreshing to meet someone who wants to articulate those things.  Sexuality is an aspect of our use and experience the energies that run through us.  (With... Travis(!) - but another one; my recent-former roomate- we got into a heated conversation, a couple of weeks ago, about what we called "tantric clowning." But I shall also return to this...)


So I love living in San Francisco.  Because here, at the moment, I meet a lot of people, men and women, who understand and live out a revolution in consciousness.  We are queers and we are here. :)  We're at the last frontier of a big experiment.  We're populating a city in a foggy Bay, her hills and curves...
We meet the East and its sacred understanding, that all is One and One is Two.  And we talk of the ten thousand things around the kitchen table, on a Tuesday evening.


And tonight... again...  A conversation with two of my roomates (Blessed be these powerful womyn!!) gave voice to so many insights.  Imagine three female therapists sitting around a bowl of pop corn (homemade, seasoned with agave, sesame seeds, cinnamon, and salt) talking about romantic relationships and projective identification.
Guilt is an ego-centric phenomenon.  That's okay; it was meant to happen this way.  We might just have overgrown that mechanism!  Because what's the point of taking the blame when somebody else's "psycho-emotional" buttons get pushed and led them to act out hold woundings?  We all do it, that's for sure.  We all re-enact the stories we believed in as kids.  And some of these stories were real, and some were very real.  But if we're lucky, we've had the privilege of getting ourselves beyond the level of survival, so that we do not depend on a caretaker.. or simply.. an other.
Fear of abandon, for instance, is a real experience.
In many circumstances, the child who loses a parent will experience a threat to her sense of survival.  The developing "I" is still depended upon the reflection of an other, and the loss of that reflection is perceived as of directed towards the "I", thus imprinting the the familiar "Daddy left because I was a bad boy/girl" mentality/belief.
Now, as adults... we seek ways to grow beyond this guilt.  We try our best and our relationships still bring up so much wounding, so much hardship, so much pain.  We seek intimate relationships and we come to face so many resistances once we're engage in them.
Or do we fall into them a bit more compulsively... par la force des choses?
We find our mirrors.
To find ourselves.
Isn't that so much beyond us?!
Isn't that proof that we do not have control, and therefore aren't responsible for so much of what happens? (Don't get me wrong, however, for we do agree that it is an art to find balance on this line.)  And if we don't have control, then of course it can be scary.  So we may feel angry, or perhaps frightened into numbness... 
But giving up control alleviates a tremendous part of the guilt.


And at the same time let us not forget that the fear is real.  The being and the body know the feeling.  It is a signal, a notice that something is potentially dangerous for the self.  It is a sign to become not only careful, but mindful.  What is the fear about?  As adults, some fears will be imagined.. based in fantasies.  But sometimes,  they are right on.  And what my roommate (R.) was saying is that this intuitive attribute, which we all have, has been repressed.  If we're lucky and privileged, we can come to possess a good sense of our body and our emotions in it.  And fear, for instance, is a good one to notice.  The body does not lie.


There is wisdom in intuition.  There is wisdom in listening.
There is power in claiming your ability to listen.
There is power in re-claiming your ability to listen.
Ase!
My other roommate, N., said that.  The crazy thing is that it was almost as if she'd been sent to name that for me.  I mean, isn't that what keeps coming up in therapy?


That and so many other things.
All One.
Because all me.  Which is you, and you, and you..