“Overcome me, baby, overcome
All I’m asking is to be alive”
- Vienna Teng, “Momentum”
I was swallowed whole by the snake I went hunting. Luckilly, I remembered to bring my flute and my knife and have managed to cut away, piece by piece, until I found the heart and disgorged it. I’m out of the pit now and playing the flute, trying to understand exactly what happened. Things I learned in the belly of the snake:
- Nonassertiveness has been my achilles heel for a long time. I am this way from my father (we recently discussed this). As I examine this further, I see that I have never integrated my animus (Jung’s archetype for the masculine/warrior). Odd, as this is the opposite of what Jung says should happen. Men should be warriors struggling to integrate the anima (female archetype). I’ve never identified with men. I don’t follow sports (save for a 3 year mania where Anna and I were rabid Bulls fans together). I’ve always been repulsed by Robert Bly type of men’s groups. Or by men’s groups in general. I mean, isn’t the world a big men’s group? I have never been a warrior. I never talk to men at parties - I talk to the women. Nearly my entire readership and blogroll is women. Men seem mostly to be fools. Nonassertiveness - I’ve normally been paralyzed with anxiety to, e.g. ask a waiter to bring more water. This was a source of stress between Anna and I. She needed a warrior and I was often a wimp. Now that I’ve seen this weakness with my conscious mind, I’m finding it surprisingly easy to overcome. I watch people who are assertive (especially a guy at work I really admire who is assertive and also has a kind heart) and I learn from them. I’m making great strides in areas large and small here. I’m beginning to find my own internal warrior. Perhaps my mind knows I can’t afford to be back inside that snake. I almost got completely digested.
- On the subject of God, I rejected the Christian god 20 years ago. The imbalance toward the patriarchy in Christianity filled me with the urge to defecate. But I do believe in God. I’ve been afraid to admit it for a long time. To surrender to the idea that there is some greater power that I can not access via my ego, my intellect. Some experience that is tangential to reason. My ego and intellect are what have allowed me to survive, (to be a warrior?) in this merciless, capitalistic, patriarchal world. I’ve studied Buddhism for years, but I avoided the more mystical aspects of it. Now I see there is some joy in surrender. Oddly, I’m becoming more and more disillusioned with Unitarian Universalism. We have no common symbols, no shared myth. Like Seinfeld, it’s a religion about nothing. To deny the power of symbols and archetypes is to institutionalize suffering, the very thing that religion should be attempting to alleviate (speaking only in a spiritual/psychological way - UU is pretty great in terms of social justice). The west is *impoverished* with the downfall of religion and myth. It’s Hollywood’s job to peddle myth now and they do a pretty craptastic job of it, mostly.
- I have no idea how to understand love, romance, commitment, and connection with a member of the opposite sex. None. I think few of us do - it’s the curse of our western psyche. I’m beginning to unravel some of the mystery of it via Robert A. Johnson’s “We”. I do know I fell in love with a girl. Fell in love once and almost completely. And it utterly wrecked me. Yes, it re-triggered my grief about Anna. But it also triggered something much, much older and deeper. I thought it triggered something old in my family of origin. Now I’m beginning to see it’s even older and deeper than that. Which would explain why it hurt down to my soul’s core. And why it’s still so inexplicable.
- I have been living without intention for a long time. I’m beginning to learn to cultivate mindfulness via meditation practice. Something I’ve wanted to do my entire adult life. I guess that tight, dark snake belly is the motivator here, too. It feels like learning to ride a bike or even to walk for the first time. The intent at the outset was to alleviate depression. The larger intent is to find some inner peace for the first time in my life. To truly be able to see my thoughts, feelings, physical sensations as weather patterns in the sky and to inhabit the sky itself.
Now I’m late for the sky and haven’t meditated yet. Time to get practicing.
thordora
| 27-Nov-07 at 7:10 am | Permalink
You’re sounding better my friend.
Mindfulness if so hard. I try but, well, I’m lazy.
Mardé
| 27-Nov-07 at 9:05 am | Permalink
Good going, Jason. Thanks for linking to that story. Life is hard when you chose to feel it or are forced to. It’s easier not to until you’re forced to. I still trundle along in my almost-79 year, wondering what it’s all about but getting concerned because life is short. On UUs, I think there are changes going on in UU-dom. The chalice, memories of Ferenc David, closing circles, acceptance of some mystery are a few. I keep searching for “God” or a grasp of the mystery. But I digress. Keep working on that mindfulness, but don’t panic if it doesn’t work — you’re changing. Thanks for expressing your depths of feeling.
bine
| 27-Nov-07 at 11:23 am | Permalink
wow, my head is buzzing now after reading this, but i think i get it.
i think this assertive-nonassertive dilemma is something many of us fight with in one way or another. i find myself drawn towards nonassertive men, i shun “typical” mens groups, but i know sometimes i wish for a warrior. though grischa and i are not a classic warrior/nurturer couple it works in a way - i can let him know when his nonassertiveness is starting to push me into a role i don’t want to be pushed into. but there’s still a lot to learn there for me, i think.
it’s amazing that overcoming nonassertiveness seems to come so easy to you. maybe this is really the key to it - seeing that weakness with your concious mind.
i believe the curse of our western psyche is rather that we try to understand love, romance, commitment and connection with a member of the opposite sex. i’m not really sure about it. we are kind of obsessed with understanding everything, while some things just are.
i think jung is right in assuming that the human psyche strives always toward wholeness, to complete itself and become more concious, but i think this does not necessarily mean we have to fully understand this process to grow. we are not so different from plants growing toward the light, maybe we have just forgotten how to let it happen to us.
i hope you will find peace going through this, it sounds like you have worked yourself a good way out of that snakes belly. good luck to you, my friend. i’m thinking of you daily.
jessica
| 28-Nov-07 at 1:48 am | Permalink
I’m smiling for you, my friend. I always choose the warriors, though I am a warrior. I like to rest a bit sometimes and let someone else wield the axe. But that, too, is a double-edged sword. It’s tough, eh? Love you dearly…
Sam
| 05-Dec-07 at 12:53 am | Permalink
okay i clearly need to sign up for the monarch notes of this. all i understood was the nonassertive stuff. I am over-assertive. that has its own problems. maybe we should each switch half with each other and it would balance us both out.