Not Knowing

Before the longing to know in human nature, came the deep need to explore.  One only needs to look at babies and small children to recognize this.  A toddler will climb up and down stairs repeatedly to experience this interesting physical phenomenon.  Or adventure all sorts of objects into their mouths exploring the thing’s dimensions, as well as tastes and textures.  Once the newness of something is ‘known’, we move onto other adventures.  And so it goes.

As ego develops in human beings (thanks in part to all this acquiring of skills and knowing), the focus shifts from exploring to knowing.  The culture at large supports this.  The value of not knowing falls to the wayside.   What is the value of not knowing?

The knowing state is a static state (usually).  It tends to be fixed, inflexible, not expansive.  It also tends not to be open, is incurious and often prejudicial or biased.  One’s sense of identity (ego again) is often wrapped up nicely in what we know.  This is a comfortable place to be.  And the basic human/animal organism’s main thrust in life is to find and maintain comfort in all things.

So, what is the value of not knowing?

To the basic part of myself, not knowing is of no value, in fact should be avoided at all costs (even at the cost of ignorance or denial of not knowing).  Possibly why projection is such a powerful and forever present aspect of daily living.  We project onto others who we believe ourselves to be, who they are, our desires… everything.  Distortion is inevitable.  Our reality is of our own creation. This is a way of cementing our knowingness.  Projection, like ego and knowing is always with us.  An awareness and interest in how it is manifesting is to slip into the curious, requiring another type of attention.

To the other part of myself, the part or parts that have more possibilities, not knowing is of value.  This is the (more conscious?) part, the aspect of ourselves that separates from the enmeshment of engagement, that isn’t buried in the past or future.  It’s an acquired state, being in the unknown.  Outright uncomfortable, almost painful at times, not knowing throws out most of what I thought I knew and leaves me feeling stranded in an unfamiliar abyss.  Most of me fights hard to leave this disruptive place.  If I am lucky enough to gain some experience there, it becomes less and less awful the more I allow myself to experience it.  Something in me recognizes the value of that kind of bearing.

So, when I am in front of an octogenarian failing in memory or a three year old having a melt down, sometimes bearing witness, being with, is a more useful act than supposing the reason to the unreasonable behavior (and god help me, if I attempt to fix it).  I stand with them in not knowing.  I only know what is, right now.  And I am with them in that unknown place.  Wonder flows, tensions fall away.  We’re only human after all.

Human Duality

We have this miraculous organism, a vessel from which we move and act from.  An aspect of this organism is purely autonomic and mechanical; another aspect of us has the possibility of conscious creativity.  How do we reconcile these aspects?  Give each aspect its due?  Find a relationship, understanding and acceptance between these two vital aspects of our human experience?

The Autonomic/Automatic/Mechanical
This is the part which we most often abhor; we don't like the way it looks, resent its sometime mis-workings, and ignore/disregard its incredible capacity.  The eyes dilate and moisten according to circumstantial conditions or the light present.  The heart and all the related nerve and electric impulses, pumps away circulating life's blood and oxygen through our system.  The lungs working in concert with the heart expanding and contracting, filtering oxygen, releasing carbon dioxide just the amount required for optimal function.  Our many yards of gut move (again in gorgeous relationship with nerve impulses) through our torso, breaking down food in regular, specific steps, absorbing and distilling what's needed at each step and allowing the waste to move on and out.  Our sensitive, under the radar thermostats know when to subtly sweat to cool us down and do so beautifully.  Our hearing capacities modulate incoming sound through its interesting internal shape and form, allowing for further interpretation to the rest of us through facile and lightning fast neurotransmission.  

Our body's fascia, ligaments and musculature along with the nervous system responds most often accurately and with incredible swiftness to the subtlest of stimulations.  These are just some of the miracles of everyday functioning in our bodies, going on almost entirely without any thought or intention on our parts.  Purely mechanical. Purely automatic.  We almost always have no say in its workings, and even with directed thought, impact it marginally.  This autonomic functioning happens every second, every minute and hour of every day we live.  If it wasn't healthy, there would be no life, no being in this human form.  There would be no possibility of the other aspect of ourselves, the creative consciousness, to be.  This other part of us could not exist without this mechanical part working well.  Both aspects have to be related to know a full life, to pursue a purpose.


The conscious, spiritual, creative part:  the Part with the possibility of Choice.
This is the part we also can (and do) largely ignore.  Something in us aches when it's not in play, feels alone, even abandoned when not regularly engaged.  It's opaque, almost hidden or its invisible nature is easy to miss, not pay attention to, relinquish for long periods of time when we (or ego) are on autopilot. For those of us who invest considerable time and effort in revealing and nourishing this often mysterious aspect through contemplative practices, we tend to put this amazing part on a pedestal, believing it is the end all.  Whereas, the sometimes sublime experience of this in self and in community is compelling and can create a vertical experience in what usually is a linear life, unless one lives in a hermitage on top of a high mountain, trying to live from that place is not realistic and actually not desirable for the daily human experience.  It is the actualization through movement between these two parts that make life interesting and provide the large framework from which a meaningful life is possible.

One part has delineated form.  The other is without form or measure.  Both are essential to an existence.   Depending on your indoctrinations, we spend a lifetime struggling with that which is weakest in us or succumbing to that which is well settled in us.  We do this repeatedly for decades, often way past the stage of it being static.  We spend a lifetime knowing and building up further our strengths, be it the creative life or the logical, way of reason.  Rarely do we stand between what we know and what we don't know, without prejudice or reaction, and have that experience.  Our incredible human duality.

Back to the questions:  How do we reconcile these aspects?  Give each aspect its due?  Find a relationship, understanding and acceptance between these two vital aspects of our human experience?

It would be so easy to be Cartesian and rely on old adages like, "if you don't have your health, you don't have anything."  Health is reliant on each aspect being functional and well.  A troubled spirit impacts the body and mind.  A troubled body and mind impacts the spirit.  We are designed to be in concert in our Whole. Finding one's own deep appreciation, even a love for both the automatic and the conscious creative may be required.  With appreciation and respect comes an interest and curiosity and perhaps eventually a tenacious unwillingness not to be in regard of the other.  Our life long, well fueled natural propensities may release their grip on us, the enamor not as strong as in earlier decades.  Vulnerability fears flatten, don't have the depth or width they used to have, leaving an opening for other more lively questions or findings.

Dualities: The Good, the Bad and the Earthbound

We have this strange, stratified, practically surreal paradox going on in the world at present.  On the one hand there are the power obsessed which range from individuals controlling their own mini-fiefdoms, resisting inclusion insisting on exclusion --to corporations and governments which are doing the same on a more macro scale.  Here, there is an aversion to relationship.  A more authentic relationship would mean, a willingness for an open tolerance that has breath in unoccupied spaces between people or entities and in oneself.  This would require a letting go, a willingness to be insignificant, a leap into the unknown, a relinquishing of personal resources and time.  At present, there is a lot of lieing, collusion, covert plotting/implementation, backdoor deals, conspiratorial setups to manipulate the external facade and the inevitable cover up of same.

This is a universal (cosmically lawful?) contraction of sorts; as opposed to an expansion or period of release witnessed in other eras or periods of time.  As was said, we are seeing this on all scales; from government, world politics to corporate institutions to even our friends and neighbor's conduction of personal affairs.  It's a proliferative, invasive and a toxic reaction to fear of being nothing.  It is a manifestation of a world bereft of a spiritual compass or conscience.  There is a resistance to this seen by other public power brokers.  Through humor, mobilizing masses of people or throwing money at the contraction through media or otherwise, there is an attempt to bring a transparency to the inequitablility.  From my perspective, this is the other side of this deeply troubled coin (even though I am entertained and often grateful for the latter's exposure attempts).  They are polarized to the other side of the coin, and also are unwilling to be insignificant, invisible and without their own wieldy (heady) power.

I am everybody and every time, I always call myself by your name.  --Pablo Neruda

And then we have, on the other hand, the legions of unsung hero(ines).  Those people who are off that power grid, living their life through a deeper guidance, a conscience that manifests in small, often invisible and insignificant ways to the world at large.  The family members who have put their own personal, well planned trajectory on hold to mindfully care for an incapacitated other, be it a family elder or physically/mentally challenged child, young adult.  What is inconsequential to many is significant to them.  Personally insuring the quality of life for a loved one who may never be a person of power in the world (pay back). And this is usually done at great financial expense and an abdication of massive chunks of personal time (never to be recovered).  There is no fanfare and rarely an acknowledgment of this noble endeavor.  It is an often silent, private, hellish (on some levels) navigation, touched by unspoken suffering, without remuneration and always at an exorbitant financial cost (in one way or another).  Prompted by a sense of deep obligation and almost always love, of the agape sort.  These are people who are both well prepared (financially and internally) and unprepared for such a commitment.  But they all take it on regardless because of their innate sense of integrity, justice and conscience.  It's a breathtaking choice of selflessness to make.

Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.-- Wm. Shakespeare

Is this not a perplexing and unusual juxtaposition of universal energies?  Granted, it is probably not a new juxtaposition.  I think of India, the famous historical power plays/brokers of the past juxtaposed with Mother Theresa's work with lepers, the terminally ill and other outcasts, done mostly under the radar of public notice, the first few decades at least. There are countless vocationists who have dedicated their existence to educating and caring for underserved, unnoticed populations all over the world, for little to no pay.  And the unconscionable power mongering has indeed always gone on, as these other more conscience-centered activities, have too gone on.

Does the world require these two different cosmic energies to co-exist in the world?  The constant friction of these energies may be necessary to keep the planet turning? Or maybe its not the polar forces themselves, but the friction that is created as they inevitably dual while in co-existence.  There is a tremendous energy generated there.  Enough energy to catapult nations into revolution and/or war.  On a micro scale, it's enough for individuals to make a cataclysmic shift in themselves; stop drinking/drugging, take a serious life inventory that prompts a leap into another way of being.  Or is it merely, we are at the mercy of these inevitable paradoxes?  They cosmically do their contraction/expansion thing on cue, and we similarly on cue, do our response/reaction to these big lawful forces?

In a way the inner struggle to cultivate a conscience through a lifetime is related to the universal duality these forces manifest.

“This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?” ― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Repetition and Transformation

We live our lives in repetition.  So much of our comfort and discomfort is in the everyday cycling through sameness.  Repetition can bring a type of death.  It also can bring a type of renewal.  Renewal to what might have become mundane; the ordinary transformed.

I've taken to like ending my blog each year with a poem post. Below is a year-long series of tweets by poet Ian McMillan, describing the same walk he takes every day, wherein he illustrates the possibility of transformation in an ordinary, everyday sameness.  It is long, so freely skip and play in-between, allowing the impression of a new sameness to fall on open senses.

May 2014 bring the miracle of transformation in ordinary sameness to us all.

Each morning, I get up early and go for a stroll through my ex-mining village near Barnsley; just before 6am, I walk to the newsagent, then down a long hill and up a steeper hill and back home. It takes me about 40 minutes and I tweet about the stroll as soon as I get in. I’m excited by the idea of creating minimalist poetry about a limited canvas, trying to find something new every day from the same mile and a bit. The moon is a regular presence and so is the word “beautiful”. Here’s my selection of some of the tweets I’ve posted since  Christmas Day 2012:

25/12: On my early stroll, by the zebra crossing, one Belisha beacon working, one not, Like the cheapest open-air disco you ever saw.

27/12: On my early drizzly stroll I pretend  I’m in a film noir walking the mean streets of ~LA until a bloke with a dog says “ R8 kid!  Cold ’un!”

28/12: On my early stroll I’m battered by  the breeze, a skiff on the pavement’s lake. A  bit of old Christmas paper like a gull with  holly wings.

29/12: Early stroll. Find a pound coin on the pavement. Beats that 5p I found the other day. Moonlight alchemy!

30/12: On my early stroll I’m struck by the simple beauty of a No Entry sign. The red circle, the white line. It has the power of art.

5/1/2013: Different ways of looking at the moon: gaze, peer, peep, stare, glance, gawp. Pointing sometimes, like today. It was so beautiful.

6/1: Early stroll. The moon hasn’t turned up. I’ve been moon-jilted. Maybe it’s slept in. Sky like an empty purse with no coin in it.

8/1: Early stroll. Beautiful sliver of a moon low in the sky. I could almost touch it. I will. I daren’t. I might. Would it feel cold? I daren’t.

20/1: Just took the snowgrip things off my shoes. They feel like something you might find in the haunted wing of a lingerie shop.

21/1: Early snowy stroll. I find myself trudging, so I try to vary it: jazz trudge/hero trudge/tap trudge/thoughtful trudge/satirical trudge/trudge.

28/1: Early stroll. A man at the bus stop wearily lifts his arm as the bus approaches: it’s an exhausted hand-jive, an almost-signal, a wavelet.

16/2: Early stroll. I come across three discarded pens, and an empty pack of headache tablets. A poet’s passed by, I reckon.

23/2: Early stroll. Here we go, another day to seize, from aubade to nocturne, from first  kettle on to last light off!

1/3: Early stroll. Birds fly across the moon,  blossom begins to appear on a tree down the hill. I’m walking through a haiku, it seems.

3/3: Early stroll. I’ve eaten my apple then find another apple on the pavement. Tempted to eat it, so tempted. Barnsley: garden of Eden. Me: Adam.

8/3: Early stroll. I say Good Morning to a bloke in a camouflage jacket and he seems surprised that I can see him.

9/3: Early stroll. There’s a door in a skip and I’m tempted to open it, go through, find a mystical and magical land. Somebody stares at me from a bus.

10/3: Freezing early stroll. Grit wagon  trundles by and sprays me. Now I’m gritty.  I’ll go home and write a country song and a detective novel.

11/3: Early stroll. By the almost-demolished school, a bunch of red fire extinguishers  like chess pieces waiting for a game. Snow speckling them.

12/3: Early stroll. I see the bloke in the  camouflage jacket again, but walking behind is a man in a hi-vis jacket. His evil twin/ soul/conscience?

14/3: Early stroll. A big piece of gold-coloured wrapping paper, lifted by a breeze, flies towards me like a primitive sculpture of a mythical bird.

23/3: Early snowy stroll. A craving for colour in the white. So, thanks to blue bag in tree, green sparkly hat in front of car, crushed marker pen.

29/3: Early stroll. Cold, brilliant blue morning. By the flats where the farm used to be I remember a fire, burning hay. I was 6. My face warms.

30/3: Early stroll. An empty bus passes and I crouch to look at the moon through its moving windows. The driver slows down, thinks I want to get on.

7/4: Early stroll. A mystery by the demolished school: a small box with HARMONICA  written on it but no harmonica in it. I stand and listen: birds.

8/4: On my early stroll my left shoelace unravels itself: so that’s what walking is, a gradual progression that leaves you naked. Better speed up.

14/4: Early stroll. I walk past a door and the smell of toast and the sound of someone whistling and I want to go in and eat and whistle.

15/4: Early stroll. Beautiful visual image of five garage doors in a row, each door a different colour: a green/a blue/a green/a brown/a blue.

20/4: Early stroll. A row of black socks on a washing line seems to be walking in front of a tree just beginning to sprout pink blossom. I find 50p.

21/4: Early stroll. I wish I knew the proper names for clouds, but I don’t. So I’ll call that one George, that one Thinking, that  one Yesterday.

25/4: Early stroll. Meet my brother who looks just like me. Our voices mingle in the morning air. Our breath hangs in sibling sentences.

26/4: Early stroll. I often see that horse in that tiny field but this is the first time I’ve seen that trampoline in the corner. Possibilities.

27/4: Early stroll. That house joined onto the dancing school is To Let. Imagine living there, living near rhythm. Living near jazz and tap.

2/5: Early stroll. I’ve walked up and down these hills for fifty years so I must have worn a groove. I’m erosion on my own.

4/5: Early stroll. I stand, as I often do, where the long-demolished football factory was,  to listen for the sound of ghost footballs  being made.

12/5: Early stroll. An abandoned ironing board near the paint shop. Six snails move towards  it. A bread van lurches as it passes: inside,  rolls roll.

16/5: Early stroll. A runner gasps by. The grumpy bloke who never returns my Good Morning returns it grumpily as we walk through fallen blossom.

18/5: Early stroll. Dandelion clocks in verges. Abandoned football on top of a bus shelter, looking like the moon. Clocks/moon: time/space stroll.

19/5: Early stroll. A tiny snail rushes towards a huge snail. A discarded lipstick sits on the floor, waiting for a smile.

26/5: Early stroll. Bright sunshine, and a full moon dawdling over my brother’s allotment, which is bathed in sunlight, moonlight,  lettuce-light.

30/5: Early stroll. It’s such a lovely morning that I feel my shadow wanting to skip. I try  to resist, but my shadow insists. Roof  pigeons watch.

2/6: Early stroll. Equine excitement on the street: four escaped horses corralled into a  front garden by a passer-by. House owner  still asleep.

3/6: Early stroll. A plane makes a chalk mark across the sky. Passengers look down and  say “there’s @IMcMillan on his stroll. We’re in his tweet”.

4/6: Early stroll. Under a sky the colour of boredom I hold my stomach in as I pass a Slimming World poster and almost tread on a slug.

5/6: Early stroll. Sculptures: the wheelie  bin monoliths, the single stone placed on the low wall, the imperfect pavement circle of spilled pop.

13/6: Early stroll. A home-made (stick and string) bow and arrow on the floor. I pick them up. On the corner: a hubcap that could be  a shield.

15/6: Early stroll. Muggy, damp. Two snails make their slow way towards two discarded beer cans near the roundabout. Party time  next Tuesday.

30/6: Early stroll. A helicopter flies very low over my head just as I walk by a huge white arrow in the road that’s pointing at me. I  walk faster.

6/7: Early stroll. Mist over the valley where the pit was. An empty eggshell on the floor as though the mist has escaped from the egg.

9/7: Early stroll. A fridge-freezer in a garden like the start of a fridgehenge, and a bus full of people in hi-vis jackets like a sun on wheels.

27/7: Early stroll. Dozens of snails climbing Mr Moody’s garden wall. Slow music on a brick piano. Rose petal patterns on the path.

28/7: Early stroll. Two small blue betting-shop pens on the floor tell a tale of hope. A single stick of rhubarb points Northward.

30/7: Early stroll. Someone has placed a hubcap on a low wall; it’s like a grey metal sunrise. I lean to try and align it with the real sunrise.

31/7: Early stroll. That brick-shaped piece of polystyrene means that someone, somewhere is building a polystyrene house. 4th little  pig, maybe.

2/8: Early stroll. I find a single jigsaw piece by the empty houses. Turn it over: a blue sky. The man on the mobility scooter waves.

19/8: Early stroll. A vivid sunrise over the old pit then, unbelievably, a single orange button by the bakery. The sunrise represented.

22/8: Early stroll. Mist over the valley, the  trees poking like broccoli. The man in the  Men at Work sign is still wearing wellies. The moon hides.

23/8: Early stroll. In the soft-edged rain I  buy a big bag of porridge at the shop then  trudge down the street like a disappointing/surreal Santa.

24/8: Early stroll accompanied by the nihilistic dance music of a burglar alarm. Three party poppers stuck to the wall of the betting-shop: win!

26/8: Early stroll. The few pink clouds fade, reflecting the pink rose petals scattered  on the pavement. Beside the chip forks. And that biscuit.

28/8: Early stroll. Moon like a half-constructed emoticon. A runner pounds by so I increase my walking speed momentarily. As does that  ginger cat.

30/8: Early stroll. Bright cool morning. As I pass the streetlights they go out and I try to ignore the stone in my shoe which nags like  a memory.

6/9: Early stroll. A few leaves on the floor like scouts for autumn’s wagon train. The temporary traffic lights are at red and I stand very still.

11/9: Early stroll. Three white vans pass,  followed by a black van, then a white van. Like a chess game on wheels. One overtakes. One turns off.

14/9: Early stroll. Couldn’t find my glasses  so the sunrise glowed like a three-bar electric fire and the grumpy bloke shone like a  shaky angel.

15/9: Early stroll under shifting, dramatic skies. A white van trundles by, the passenger holding a map. I see it twice more: lost, wandering.

20/9: Early stroll. The moon slips in and out of the clouds, auditioning for a horror film. I stand in front of the new CCTV camera,  holding a cucumber.

22/9: Early stroll. The moon hangs in the  sky like an idea I wish I’d had. Two carers  rush to change a flat tyre. Someone waits in a room somewhere.

23/9: Early stroll. Single lights: the security light illuminating the cemetery, the car  with one headlight like a radioactive monocle, a bathroom.

26/9: Early stroll. Dark and quiet. The man  on the mobility scooter nods as he rattles  by, crushing a discarded Bob Marley cassette, tape waving.

30/9: Early stroll. I eat an apple from my tree under a fingernailclipping moon. The two  grey-haired ladies walk by me laughing. I spit a pip high.

6/10: Early stroll. Vivid constellations remind me how small I am. A man says “Has tha seen a white dog?” Is that it there, shining in  The Plough?

14/10: Early stroll. Morning still as a coat  hanging in a wardrobe. I find a shiny penny beside a red removal van from Cornwall. A man’s cig glows.

15/10: Early stroll. Five minutes later than usual, so I pass different people. The bus shelter is empty. That light is on. That light is off.

19/10: Early stroll. Can you be dazzled by  the moon? This morning I was. A red necklace lies on the path like a jewelled snake. Two  shattered brollies.

21/10: Early stroll. A white cat looks at a white car, as though trying to decide what kind of cat it is. Two people ignore my cheery “Morning!”

22/10: Early stroll. The scaffolding on the pub throws beautiful shadows in the pavement. Raised voices from an upstairs room. A  hedgehog bustles by.

30/10: Early stroll. I wish I could save this morning’s light in a shoebox and release it on a gloomy December afternoon.

1/11: Early stroll. In the heavy mist, a discarded 2p coin gleams like a fallen moon. I pocket it. Hens cluck at me from behind a hedge.

3/11: Early stroll. The sky is a delicate,  questioning blue. That green box I moved off the road yesterday waits for me on the  pavement, frostily.

5/11: Early stroll. Rain flecks my glasses and a man in a black coat and black hat passes with a black dog on a lead. Only the lead is visible.

18/11: Early stroll. A light goes off in a bedroom and on in a kitchen, as though light has  fallen downstairs. Loaves are put on the  bakery shelves.

22/11: Early stroll. Perspective and slope make that man as tall as a tree. A red van parked by a white van: wine on wheels.

24/11: Early stroll. A tennis ball sits in the  pavement like a failed idea; the two older women who walk most mornings smile at the Christmas lights.

26/11: Early stroll. The moon is a huge grin in the sky. The dead cat by the Post Office looks oddly peaceful. The paper boy’s head is down, hood up.

28/11: Early stroll. The moon is in and out of the clouds. My old house is empty, but it has new windows. I lift a fallen bin. It clatters.

30/11: Early stroll. A clear sky vivid with stars and an astonishing sliver of almost-orange moon. Two skinny men in tracksuits appear from shadows.

2/12: Early stroll. Over several months that cardboard box has turned to mulch. It has a time-based beauty. I slip on it, laugh, slip again.

3/12: Early stroll. I’m held by the sight of leaves falling from a tree in the cemetery. The man in the paper shop draws his wife a map.

5/12: Early stroll. Those hedges have been trimmed so the view down that back street  is different. I refuse simile, even when I see a red glove.

6/12: Early stroll. A woman in bright white shoes waits in a darkened bus shelter. A kid goes by on a bike with his hands in his pockets. Puddles.

7/12: Early stroll. Sign on a lamp post: LOST BLACK LAB. A man whizzes by on a bike, coat flapping like a super-hero’s cape. Cycleman!

8/12: Early stroll. A man comes out of his house, looks at the ladders on top of his van as though he’s contemplating climbing them to the moon.

13/12: Early stroll. The ginger cat beside the tarpaulined caravan. The tattered circus poster. The lit snooker table in the empty pub.

Provide and Protect

I am writing about protection because it's been coming to my front door in one aspect or another over the last few days.  One of the rules about protection is when it comes to your threshold,  you sit up, pay attention and do what you need to do (provide) to be safe and, well.... protected.

The word "protection" tends to raise red flags.  But in my mind, protection is as benign as brushing your teeth routinely or getting your oil changed on the car every few months. Care and a thoughtful maintenance are precursors to both providing and protecting.  For both realists and alarmists, protection is required when one is vulnerable, in a weakened moment, or partial to victimization at a given time.  As a generalization, responsible parents are exemplary at this and I've noticed as a group, men also are very good at it, when cued into that part of their nature.  Call it sexist, call it chivalrous, there is something comforting in watching men vigilantly watch out for their women folk in the myriad of ways that they do.

Protection comes in many forms; who you are, what you believe, what rituals you are familiar and comfortable with will dictate what form will serve you.  Every religion has their symbology which can serve as protection.   Christians have worn crosses around their necks for centuries for (Jesus') protection.  Veils required in some religious houses hearkens back to the dark ages when veils were seen as a protection from evil spirits (bad spirits skim off the head gear and avoid synagogue/temple entry?). High thresholds (18") at the entry of traditional Chinese abodes are meant to trip up evil spirits. If you were the mythological god Achilles, you'd know what you would have to protect. And so it is with us.

We know our weaknesses.  And we are usually aware of what to do to keep ourselves from harms way.  Some examples:  Heated buildings-cold weather winter combination brings chafed skin conditions; we protect and provide by using extra emollient lotions, increased vitamin C and E intake (bolsters and strengthens cell structure, inhibiting breakdown) and cover overexposed skin to water and the elements.

Flight or fight responses are protective mechanisms.  A vulnerable person in a threatening situation could get their rankles up, be peskily annoying, scream, argue or take the fall back approach of disappearing or acting ignorant/stupid.  Any one of these choice of expressions is an individual's hedged bet that they will be left alone or be helped (squeaky wheel gets the grease, no matter what squeaky sounds like).

Then we have provide and protect tactics when dealing with energy; our own or others.  Talismans like jewelry, stones, pendants that have significance (have been blessed, come from a strong source) are often used.  My mother used to tell me engagement rings (even though they came first) went second over wedding bands as a source of protection for the marriage. Prayer or ritual around safeguarding one's own energy field in preparation of a difficult encounter or anticipated negative field is useful.  "Power" clothing and certain colors are psychic and psychological protection for perhaps an intrepid meeting. The main action is one of creating an intention while including provisions that become a reassuring reminder.

What would be a meaningfully considerate act to ourselves when approaching a threat?  The very consideration of the question is the first step in providing protection and a thoughtful care gesture to oneself.  Things and situations that threaten, scare and steal energy from us cannot always be avoided.  Entering the crucible is often necessary for our arising.  But considering what protects our energy, rituals that support our being--- is a self-care approach that affirms a right self-Love.

Creativity and Wellness

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions.”  – Albert Einstein

Creativity is an aspect of the spirit, the free flow of (divine?) energy through the Self/self.  Creative impulse is dependent upon the senses to manifest.
Our visual, auditory, tactile, kinesthetic, gustatory and olfactory 'receptors' or senses, are the conduit from which creativity flows through and from.  Our sixth sense, proprioception (the general sensation of our bodies, including intuition), is also a receptor to creative expression.

“If you do not answer the noise and urgency of your gifts, they will turn on you, or drag you down with their immense sadness at being abandoned.”-- Joy Harjo, Crazy Brave

Wellness is deeply related to the contact we have or don't have to our innate creativity.  In a way, our relationship to our creativity-- the essential 'juice' in our life, is how we know ourselves.  It's our Home.  Satisfaction, Pleasure, Wonder, deep Feeling all live there; the place where meaning resides and where we long to be. If we are cut off from this, we are cut off from ourselves and our health will be negatively and profoundly impacted.

“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.” ― Eric Fromm

Being related to one's creative spirit is to be engaged in some measure to joy, curiosity or wonder.  Hence, in this relationship, many of the body's relaxation markers are usually in full effect, countering normal stress.  It is most often fun, enjoyable and deeply pleasing to one's being to be in the creative.  Even when problem solving, or weighing creative responses to a 'call' of the imagination, the sifting and dissemination of one's creative impressions are both interesting and relaxing, even though there might be considerable stimulation.

There is no downside to exploring and participating in one's creativity.  And, there are a myriad of reasons why it is damaging not to do so.  Mostly, one cannot really know oneself, one's purpose without opening to the wild-woolly, quietly-sublime spirit that lies within.  And not fully knowing, or frequently experiencing that in one's unique journey in a lifetime-- well, it's just not good for you.


“We tried to make something much more holistic and simple. When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can often times arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions.”
 -- Steve Jobs

Creativity takes many forms through life's continuum.  Watching small children exploring their creativity is like experiencing the force of an open fire hydrant.  They gush forth energetically; their stream of imagination, powerfully raw. There is no holds barred, no clamping down or editing themselves, no self-consciousness.  They ride the tumultuous rapids known as their flow, ecstatic in the wild ride.  As we age, creativity becomes more nuanced and sublime.  With maturity comes an ability to listen more deeply and globally.  We have a more seasoned willingness to step back and watch the force unfold, rather than ride the rapids of the creative known in an earlier period.  It tends to be a slower, measured and richer experience after 40 as opposed to the intense, tumultuous experience of a younger person.  We trust the process.  As Jobs says above, a [mature] person has the patience and experience to keep peeling the layers away, staying with the question, problem, participating in crafting the experience in the process.  It's a different type of transformation.

Transformation is the by-product of being in the creative state.  Whether it be breathing through the development of a mathematical equation for those so inclined, or following the body's impulses in a movement exploration be it sport or art, the creative spirit strikes Home differently in all types, indeed all human beings.    

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.” ― Martha Graham

What makes for a state of wellness is complex.  But inextricably linked to it is the health of the spirit.  The health of the spirit is founded in the creative.  The first few words of Graham's statement above are also familiar words used to describe wellness:  vitality, life force, energy.  If you possess these qualities, you are considered robustly healthy.  Spirit illnesses, like addiction, chronic anxiety or misery, grief or depression are serious states of dis-ease that leave our creative reservoirs and health coffers empty.  It is as if a firm lid is on the wealth of our interior riches, our vitality and life force, as Graham puts it.  Those who suffer this, suffer illness; a loss of essential capacity, a compromised refuge to the Self.

Creativity and Wellness are essential operating elements to being a Whole person.  They are inextricably linked and pay service to the other.  As a culture, we must start seeing and nourishing this relationship, instead of denying its importance.  This relationship is not negligible; our health and wellness depend upon it.

Rest

"Rest is the conversation between what we love to do and how we love to be. Rest is the essence of giving and receiving. Rest is an act of remembering, imaginatively and intellectually but also physiologically and physically."*     --David Whyte

Out of the four stress management principles I advocate in my teaching to others and in my own practice, rest is the most difficult for me (and many of my clients) to grasp. (Maybe we should try NOT grasping...) Not being able to relate to rest must be an American thing.  Or maybe its a 21st century thing.  We have trouble not multi-tasking.  We resist sleep.  We struggle with stopping, not doing.  It might seem we are hard-wired to 'accomplish' or that our worth and value is seated in purposeful activities.


In my post, A Right Rest, I speak about the many varieties of rest that are available to us, that sleep or napping might not always be the right rest we are looking for.  It delights me that only a poet (Whyte) could so eloquently speak about rest being a conversation about loving and being.  It must be our tendencies to leave feeling out of our purposeful driven doing activity and the disinclination (due to discomfort?) to stay far from a closer connection to our being.

"We are rested when we are a living exchange between what lies inside and what lies outside, when we are an intriguing conversation between the potential that lies in our imagination and the possibilities for making that internal image real in the world; we are rested when we let things alone and let ourselves alone, to do what we do best, breathe as the body intended us to breathe."*

Whyte's quote above and in his excellent essay, Rest*, eludes to the play of outer and inner and the ability to let go, to be closer to our more whole selves through the influence of our breath.  Many of our indoctrinations have us resisting quiet or rest because it is a type of death; we have little to externally show for it; and that is unacceptable to the most of ourselves.  In short, we most likely have an attitude distortion about rest: what it looks like, feels like and what it does for us.

"To rest is to give up on the already exhausted will as the prime motivator of endeavor, with its endless outward need to reward itself through established goals. To rest is to give up on worrying and fretting and the sense that there is something wrong with the world unless we are there to put it right; to rest is to fall back literally or figuratively from outer targets and shift the goal not to an inner bulls eye, an imagined state of perfect stillness, but to an inner state of natural exchange."*

*David Whyte, Essay #21 "Rest"