It Seems Sometimes Too Much Pain to Heal

0157 Wednesday July 21st, 2021 Pe'ahi, Maui, Hawai'i

I was blessed to be invited to attend a Mankind Project I-Group meeting last night that featured live attendance. It was my first in-person meeting since the Covid-19 panic set in with its rigid mandates, approximately a year and a half ago.

I was struck by the vividness, the sheer power and energy of men gathering to share and honor each other with their truths and willingness to listen. I had forgotten how incredibly emotive and safe I could feel in the presence of such men--some of whom did not know me, but accepted me as an Elder of the community. As the meeting progressed, I became aware of the growing openness and felt-sense of connection. The lingua franca was that emotional honesty, being willing to tell the others exactly what each was feeling, with no fear of offending, with a generous sense and thirst for the truth.

I opened up a great deal in this meeting about some of my personal dilemmas, shame and fears. I had not really intended to do so, but, in the presence of such a strong emotional bond, and feeling I would be honored, not shamed or harmed in any way, some very distressing material just roared out--not seeking solutions or advice, simply so that I could express what I was feeling and no longer have to carry it.

It is now many hours later and I am still feeling the enrichment and vitality of that release and of genuinely being "caught" by the others in the group with no effort and a great deal of love. I am grateful.

Keep On Keepin' On!

"Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. T. I cannot remember the new fellow who took over the care taking of the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur after Emil White died, but it is a noble effort. Thank you. we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths we all derive from the same source. There is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians. We have only open up, only to discover what is already there."

The above is from Henry Miller's Sexus (1949), p. 26, part of the Rosy Crucifixion Trilogy.

I so resonate with Henry Miller's work in toto. I cannot remember the new fellow who took over the caretaking of the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur after Emil White died, but it is a noble effort. Thank you.

I have struggled all of my life to unfold, the largest part as a writer. I have had to shed many skins to emerge bigger, more attuned, more alive. I am writing now because I have just come out of another such period where I had been quite withdrawn, more isolated than usual, profoundly depressed and yet able to focus (at least to some extent) what juice and energy there was on my two current book projects.

The one is my first "professional" literary design and editing job. I am being well-paid in a work trade agreement with an author who has become a very dear friend, generating his first book about his methods of becoming an Integrated Leader in all the quadrants of one's life. It is a beautiful piece. I am honored and excited to participate.

The other is the eighth novel in a mystery series I have written with the protagonist being a psychologist in San Francisco who somehow keeps getting involved in murder cases, directly or indirectly. I have admittedly been inspired by Johnathan Kellerman and Stephen White (both Clinical Psychologists) who broke open this fertile field. There are others, but they are the best, paying close and careful attention to the principles and practices of the profession. (I have read far too many books written by writers who presume on lack of education and training to "make up" elements of their books based on a superficial reading of Freud, for example, or using current buzz words from psych, believing they understand the greater depth). Enough said.

This is in context of my highest praise for Henry Miller's work as a master of the craft and inspiration to me to excel daily, to step out of whatever personal or interpersonal "stuff" in which I might get temporarily enmired--and move on, continuing my own work, what I call my Great Work (whether I will ever be enshrined in the coming millennia in the hallowed halls of great wordsmiths or not. I am grateful for my abilities and of having pursued their exploration for the last fifty years. A hui hou!

There is No Other & Redemption - A Soul Poem Journey

This poem, and the one that immediately follows, are the Alpha and Omega of a soul journey I have taken in the week previous to their being written, and now posted.

There is No Other (2021)

Wednesday Afternoon

My heart is cracked open.

I cannot stop crying.

Viscous tears flow

lava-like, thick, toxic,

releasing ancient feelings

no longer able to be held,

suppressed, hidden

they come unbidden,

my heart is crying out

yelping shouting, aching—

Thursday Afternoon

I am bereft, shattered, broken.

My heart so hurt,

fearful I might never be loved,

be lovable, wanted, needed.

I am so broken open.

I may never stop crying.

Friday Afternoon

And suddenly, my mind opens—

What I have been seeking

does not exist—

There is no other!

There is no other!

There is no love for me,

outside of me!

There is no one

outside of me!

There is no other!

June 31st – July 2nd, 2021

Pea’hi, Maui, Hawai’i

Redemption (2021)

Redemption.

To redeem, to “buy oneself back.”

Perhaps that is the entire point

of what is loosely called human life,

of all the pain and struggle,

the sturm und drang

of daily mortal life,

of all the pain and shame and hurt

that seems such the “reality”

in which we, all of us, participate

willingly or otherwise,

this bullshit Biblical “Vale of Tears,”

into which or onto which

we have all been projected, directed

unsuspecting, wrapped

in thick wads of shame and disbelief,

or worse, belief

in false twisted doctrines

in which we are bound,

from which we must struggle

to attempt to get free

in order to breathe more easily;

simply in order to be

that from which we all came originally,

simply to be, then twisted

and re-arranged to meet the needs

of the existing structure

and those who control it, hurt

and harmed to satisfy

the blood hungers and lust

of malformed individuals

given temporary command,

in asperity, the deluded authority

of command, of demand,

to demand ownership of the souls

of others for maligned purposes,

to feed the visceral cravings,

miscegenated hungers

fed and digested as truth, as soul food

by tyrants and despots

who’ve convinced us

to honor them in perpetuity,

to keep the sick system alive and well,

constantly resuscitated,

with new generations of children

internalizing the shame and blame,

to re-create the chaos

for the emotional benefit

of those who cannot tolerate

the soulful fresh air and sunshine.

Shocked into terrified silence

by the vituperativity of violence,

and the callousness of their hearts

from which it is required we recover,

in order to have some small semblance

of the Divinity that we really are.

July 8th, 2021

Pe’ahi, Maui, Hawai’i