Infectious Madness by Harriet Washington

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
This writer is speaking on Book TV now. If you would like to listen to her presentation at a different time, google Book TV and the book's title: Infectious Madness. There is a wide range of research indicating microbial causes for mental illnesses ranging from depression to schizophrenia. The writer opens with reminders that both rabies and paresis (the end stages of untreated syphilis) are microbial illnesses. There is compelling evidence that a certain parasite can result in schizophrenia. There is a theory that Alzheimer's too may have a microbial basis.

A fascinating discussion.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24396853-infectious-madness


Cedar
 

New Leaf

Well-Known Member
This writer is speaking on Book TV now. If you would like to listen to her presentation at a different time, google Book TV and the book's title: Infectious Madness. There is a wide range of research indicating microbial causes for mental illnesses ranging from depression to schizophrenia. The writer opens with reminders that both rabies and paresis (the end stages of untreated syphilis) are microbial illnesses. There is compelling evidence that a certain parasite can result in schizophrenia. There is a theory that Alzheimer's too may have a microbial basis.

A fascinating discussion.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24396853-infectious-madness


Cedar
Fascinating indeed, one must wonder as the Polar Ice Cap melts releasing ancient microbial viruses, will we return to cro magnon tendencies?
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
I have read about that very thing, Leafy. Not that we would revert to earlier evolutionary stages, but that as viruses aren't really alive in the first place, viruses frozen into the ice caps thousands of years ago would still be viable today.

Here is another interesting thing I learned, today.

When we go to the bathroom, about half of that material is microbial. There are all kinds of fascinating things to learn about gut flora.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_flora

Who knew?

Cedar
 

New Leaf

Well-Known Member
Flora and fauna of the gut is fascinating. Antibiotics are known to mess with this delicate balance, thus resulting in the back door two step as Nana called it. :confused::poop:

Probiotics is a big thing in the health food industry. Interestingly enough, my husbands second bout with endocarditis was caused by lactobacillus in his bloodstream. It is beneficial in our gut, but in an immune compromised, mechanical heart valve replacement patients blood, deadly. Fortunately for the hubs, after intense antibiotic treatment again, he pulled through.:halfsmile:
 

New Leaf

Well-Known Member
You two have been through so much, Leafy.

Cedar
Yes, Cedar, we have. It has been like Lemony Snicket's Continuing Series of Unfortunate Events, for quite a few years now.
:9-07tears:


At times, I imagined myself as Lieutenant Dan, except that I do have enough respect for God and the ocean that I would not put a challenge to both of them. Ever. Not at the same time or singularly.


I was ....angry. Anger is an important emotion in recovering, but I do not like to stay there, it is low level, base thinking, cro magnon, if you will. Anger is at it's beginning, motivational, taking us to our deepy dark places investigating our swirly-whirlies, but not a place to linger, for it is destructive to ourselves, and those around us.:angry-very:

Other times, I pled with God, saying "Dear Lord, I am NOT as strong as you think, can I have a break now?" While admittedly, at the same time sarcastically and silently intimating innerly "Really? Again? IS that all you've got?" Okay, maybe that was a challenge to God, because even He knows my innermost thoughts, silly, silly Leafy.

In a series of years, we went from one truly catastrophic, physically, emotionally, financially devastating event to another, all the while dealing with our precious G-F-Gs.

Instead of a break, I was heading for a breakdown.

This is where I discovered that perhaps I owed my siblings some thanks, because my childhood "training ground" while at one level, led me to some life moulding, altering decisions based on low self esteem, also made me, well.... strong. I survived my childhood in spite of them, and myself. ROAR.

Meanwhile....back to your post on viruses and mental disorders.

I have often felt that mental illness is an intensification, an extreme magnification of what occurs in all of our brains, our internal voices gone awol, berserk and destructive.

I have looked at some articles on this, triggered by our discussions, and our dear friend Feelings experience with family members and her son. Curiosity spawned as well, through swimming upstream in the FOO rapids.

http://www.psychologicalscience.org...ech-is-driven-by-predictive-brain-signal.html

There are also some very interesting articles on the affect allergies can play on the brain, causing extreme emotions and outbursts.

I remember the book and movie Sybil, and how we were all so profoundly affected by it. I've read that the book sold so many copies that it was in competition as a best seller with the Bible! Of course there is some controversy about the therapist now, and the diagnosis of multiple personality disorder.

I am wondering if the fascination brought on by studying psychology and mental illness is so drawing like a moth to a flame because it touches something so close to home with our own inward and outward struggles?
:secret:


What I am sharing is that in many instances, I know I have pulled my own "inner voices" out of the proverbial closet to get through difficult events. Am I mentally ill? I do not think so. I think I have developed characteristics and personifications of myself that are 'my go to" strengths in great times of need. I understand I am one and the same with these, "selves" or portions of myself, but that I do not need their intensity always. Kind of like Fearless Fly, not always wearing his glasses?






I am mostly, Hiram, or Hiramette.


By the way, dark chocolate gives me super powers. I digress.

:hypnotized:

Do we all have a bit of "Fearless Fly" in ourselves? Putting on our glasses in times of need, when our "Hirams" are overwhelmed and it takes every bit of strength to get through the day?

And if so, how do we prevent ourselves from teeter-tottering over the edge of no return?

Dadadada DAAAAAAAAAH!





What say you? Cyber friends?
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
viruses aren't really alive in the first place, viruses frozen into the ice caps thousands of years ago would still be viable today.
This gives much potential to science. Viruses are being used in gene therapy as vectors. I do not much understand it, but viruses can catalyze responses by deficient genes to adapt in ways to overcome their intrinsic deficiency.

But it is scary, too. It is like a race to survive, or not. Kind of metaphorical, no?

It is so interesting. Here we are losing our bio-diversity, in terms of species at an ever-alarming rate, which are irreplaceable in a genetic and evolutionary sense. But in terms of micro-organisms, and non-living viruses, we may be gaining a deluge, from the polar cap. As well as the challenge it presents. To our survival.

my siblings some thanks, because my childhood "training ground" while at one level, led me to some life moulding, altering decisions based on low self esteem, also made me, well.... strong.
Isn't that a paradox? I will paraphrase Jung here: The strength is in the wound.
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
Do we all have a bit of "Fearless Fly" in ourselves? Putting on our glasses in times of need, when our "Hirams" are overwhelmed and it takes every bit of strength to get through the day?

And if so, how do we prevent ourselves from teeter-tottering over the edge of no return?

I love this discussion.

Yes.

We all do, Leafy.

The answer to your question about a tipping point: So, imagine the moon shining over calm waters. Now, imagine a storm blowing in. And the saying that accompanies that imagery is: "Though turbulent waters reflect disruption, the moon itself is unperturbed."

I could not find the exact quote for that one. But you see what I mean, right, Leafy? Whatever it feels like, however it looks, the moon itself is unperturbed. That is what is real. Not the disturbed, chaotic reflection, however real it may appear.

Another way to see: Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now) would ask: Who is the one watching the glasses being put on? Who is aware of the creation of a character, a persona representing strength or wisdom or courage? That awareness, that watcher, that which sees...that is real.

That is Presence.

The Seer.

He goes on to say something like: Though the pain body seems overwhelming, I assure you, it cannot stand before the fact of your Presence.

Eckhart Tolle will be very good for you to read I think, Leafy.

You are fine, and loving, and kind. You are here with us, now. You will come through this time beautifully.

***

I believe we all create imagery to instruct us, Leafy. If this were not so, there would be no art, no humor, no love. No mathematics. No music or literature or movies. There would be no religion; no Hero's Quest. No response to Star Wars, an epic saga of evolution of self if ever there was one.

No Dodge Ram trucks; no fashion industry.

No Wizard of Oz, and no audience for it, or for any of these things.

An artist is someone who can communicate emotion without getting in the way. Do you know what a Noh play is, Leafy. It is Japanese (I think it is Japanese). The actor wears a mask. And strives to portray the point of Nothingness; the silence between the stars.

And sometimes, if he is a very talented actor, he can.

Once we understand this is so, we can see words and images and communication itself as something other than we have believed it to be. (As turns out to be the case for pretty much everything.) Our words are the poorest of substitutes for communication. Our imagery ~ that is where we are real. That is why music can affect widely divergent populations. It is also why we need to learn to appreciate music with which we are not familiar before we can follow the magic in it.

Music is language. Math is language. Art of any kind is language. Dance. Tango, for Copa. Ballet, for me.

Rain.

Horses, and the love of them ~ that is a kind of language. Beauty and strength and speed and courage.

Your imagery is telling you what you need and then, showing you how that feels, so you can know how to be brave, and kind.

It is okay to be broken, Leafy.

That is how we grow.

***

My imagery is how I know what is really going on.

:O)

It is where I write from.

***

There is a difference between real and role. When I feel very safe, I let real happen. These things have to do with internal, versus external, locus of control I think, Leafy. When we are in a role (perfect mom, beautiful woman, funny lady, friendly person, angry person; nurse, teacher, doctor, homeless person) we don't really get to be there. In a role, we assess the other person's response, and give them what they need us to be. This is how we survived our childhoods. Over time, we don't know we aren't what I call real, which means present to the moment we are in. I didn't. Until role stopped working. I was no longer Perfect Mom. I didn't care enough about anything anymore to be Perfect Wife. I couldn't be Smart Lady because I felt so stupidly inept, to have raised children who suffer as mine do. It took a little courage, but I set about answering those questions.

I had to know what happened.

Was I evil? Stupid, in some way that didn't show? Had I done something horrible to my children that I had repressed? Because I was breaking open, I had to be real. There was no role that could encompass what was happening to all of us.

But what happens, if we have integrity, is that once we are real, we refuse to interact through role, anymore. This is very hard when we interact with our families of origin.

I think those traumatized routinely as children retain belief in The Magical Child. I think that is part of it. Choosing real over role is scary. Brene Brown is helpful to us, here. Eckhart Tolle is helpful to us, here.

Charles Williams' Descent Into Hell.

So, I need to sign off for the evening, everyone.

Copa, hello.

:O)

I miss you.

Cedar
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
Copa, hello.

:O)

I miss you.
I miss you Cedar. I am trying to figure out your circumstances now. I had seen your ratings earlier and I had assumed you were reading on your cell phone.

Now that you have posted, I am confused. Did you not leave as planned yesterday? I am envisioning you on the road...onto your destination to set up internet. Rapidly. Except not driving rapidly.

Now? I am not sure where you both are. I know you drive straight through, so not at a hotel. Not in a restaurant with wi fi. D H.

New Leaf, I will respond to your post as soon as I am able.

Be well, all.
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
however it looks, the moon itself is unperturbed. That is what is real. Not the disturbed, chaotic reflection, however real it may appear.
It is about vantage point and choice.

There is always a place from which we can see differently. Viktor Frankl in the camps would see in his mind's eye a picture of his wife, and he would feel transported. In those moments he was free and untouched by evil.

Of his parents and his wife, only he survived. His wife may have, at that moment, been dead but he chose to see her. And for him, she lived. True or false, real or imagined, does not matter. But only the personal choice to triumph over circumstances, and oneself.
Who is the one watching the glasses being put on? Who is aware of the creation of a character, a persona representing strength or wisdom or courage? That awareness, that watcher, that which sees...that is real.
And if it is another person, Cedar? Like a therapist. Or in your own case, you, with your sister. When you see her in her loonyness directing her grandchildren to display their precociousness to feel power herself.

Or is it ourselves? Are we the one's who see? When I see myself chatting up the sales clerks, gleefully manipulating, to bring them a moment's pleasure or to myself, a moment of mastery, the sense that I can have some effect, when I leave my bed. That I still"work" as a person.

I do not see this. I do not believe that the reality comes from knowing or seeing...at least by mortals. Every body distorts.
He goes on to say something like: Though the pain body seems overwhelming, I assure you, it cannot stand before the fact of your Presence.
This I believe. This I can understand.

The actor wears a mask. And strives to portray the point of Nothingness; the silence between the stars.
The most powerful part of the sentence are the words that are left unspoken.

The most powerful person in the family is the one not there. Perhaps banished or shunned.

Once we understand this is so, we can see words and images and communication itself as something other than we have believed it to be.
Words and images that are there...are but guideposts to reveal what is not.

When we are in a role (perfect mom, beautiful woman, funny lady, friendly person, angry person; nurse, teacher, doctor, homeless person) we don't really get to be there. In a role, we assess the other person's response, and give them what they need us to be. This is how we survived our childhoods.
I am thinking of D H here. Who says NO just because.

Remember our "friend" Nono, who asked that I hold a golden necklace seemingly worth thousands and give him a loan for a nominal value of one thousand dollars.

And M wanted me to because he was our friend. Nono had asked M who then, in front of him, asked me. The expectation had been I would do the polite and generous thing, say yes.

I said, I needed to think about it and talk to M.

I told M, "No." If you want to loan him the money, sell your truck, and give it to him.

I told M: I am not responsible for the lifestyle and life choices of Nono. (His wife works and gets to keep all of her money for her perks. He buys expensive consumer goods for all.)

I do not want to be a pawn shop or a bank.

So M told him no.

And this "friend" of 5 or more years will not answer the phone to M.

Saying No revealed the truth behind all of the other words.

I told M: Nono has every right to reject me. But to reject you, who has little and no control over me. You did not deserve this. It is unforgivable.

And M? He says everybody acts from who they are and choose to be. M does not judge. The understanding of Nono was that it was correct to ask for the loan. For M Nono has as a right to hold his own beliefs about things.

M says, I do not need him. He is not in my family. But I will not again go to look for him. If I see him. If he comes here. Fine. I will not reach out for him again.

M does not take things personally. He lets people be who they are without taking it personally. Nobody is right or wrong. Just different. He is only in charge of himself. Nobody else. He accepts that right off the bat.

From this way of being there is less shame. Less guilt. Less judgment. Me? I judge. In the case of Nono. I just feel mad. We have always paid him well for any work he has done for us. We offered for him to stay here without cost when he separated from his wife. He did. I judge.

Maybe Nono feels shame. But why reject M?

I somehow veered off topic. But somehow it feels like it relates.

COPA
 
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Copabanana

Well-Known Member
I am thinking now of a master of ceremonies at a circus with silver hair and white tux and his whip. And his schtick? The power of No.

NO and NO and NO and NO.. And from all of those not otherwise specified emerges a grand chaos, initially, and finally, the coherence of a new kind of truth.
 

New Leaf

Well-Known Member
“To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly. Things, people, or conditions that you thought you needed for your happiness now come to you with no struggle or effort on your part, and you are free to enjoy and appreciate them - while they last. All those things, of course, will still pass away, cycles will come and go, but with dependency gone there is no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with ease.”
Eckhart Tolle


Okay Cedar, you have me researching this fellow and here is what I found.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/09/28/1064687666674.html
excerpts from article-


Tolle asks the reader “not to stop thinking, but to step out of being completely entangled in the stream of thinking”. This, he believes, “is the the real meaning of spirituality. People still think spirituality is having certain belief systems — in God or angels — but ‘spiritual’ means to be able to step beyond the conceptual reality in your head. In other words, accessing the dimension of stillness within yourself.”

Brought up near Cologne in Germany as Ulrich Tolle, he had a miserable childhood, largely because his parents constantly argued. “Even aged 10 or 11 I was trying to figure out ways I could commit suicide.”

Refusing to go to school, he was taught at home and learnt several languages, as well as studying philosophy and astronomy. At 19, he moved to London where he worked in a language school teaching businessmen.

But “suffering from depression, anxiety and fear”, he started “searching for answers to life”. Believing these lay in philosophy and literature, he took evening classes, and then went on to King’s College, London. He was 27. “For a moment I thought, ‘I’ve finally made it’. And then after a few weeks I got depressed again.”

One night shortly after his 29th birthday, Tolle says he was in a state of suicidal despair. “I couldn’t
live with myself any longer. And this question arose without an answer: who is the ‘I’ that cannot live with the self? What is the self? I felt drawn into a void. I didn’t know at the time that what really happened was the mind-made self, with its heaviness, its problems, that lives between the unsatisfying past and fearful future, collapsed. It dissolved.”

He pauses and reflects. “The next morning I woke up and everything was so peaceful. The peace was there because there was no self. Just a sense of presence or “beingness”, just observing and watching.” He laughs lightly. “I had no explanation for this.”


Interesting, because we are discussing mental illness, and it's causes, as well as how our experiences with our FOO shape our lives.

http://www2.nami.org/Content/Naviga...Depression_Symptoms,_Causes_and_Diagnosis.htm

Traumatic experiences may not only contribute to one’s general state of stress, but also seem to alter how the brain functions for years to come. Early-life traumatic experiences have been shown to cause long-term changes in how the brain responds to future fears and stresses. This may be what accounts for the greater lifetime incidence of major depression in people who have a history of significant childhood trauma.


So Tolle was able to overcome his depression, by his studies and by ultimately living in the state of "now".

I find it intriguing that he studied the Greek philosopher, Epictetus, because his writings influenced my Dad greatly. Below are a few quotes-



Enchiridion ("that which is held in the hand") of Epictetus- Ad c 125

"Seek not to have things happen as you choose them, but rather, choose that they should happen as they do, and so you shall live prosperously."

"Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions. "

"APPEARANCES to the mind are of four kinds. Things either are what they appear to be; or they neither are, nor appear to be; or they are, and do not appear to be; or they are not, and yet appear to be. Rightly to aim, in all these cases, is the wise man’s task. Whatever unduly constrains us, to that a remedy must be applied."
- Epictetus



The answer to your question about a tipping point: So, imagine the moon shining over calm waters. Now, imagine a storm blowing in. And the saying that accompanies that imagery is: "Though turbulent waters reflect disruption, the moon itself is unperturbed."

I could not find the exact quote for that one. But you see what I mean, right, Leafy? Whatever it feels like, however it looks, the moon itself is unperturbed. That is what is real. Not the disturbed, chaotic reflection, however real it may appear.

Yes, Cedar, I see what you mean. It is that we have no control over events and circumstances, yet, we have control over how we react to them. To know this and gauge our responses accordingly with enlightenment, love, forgiveness, is to become the unperturbed moon.
He goes on to say something like: Though the pain body seems overwhelming, I assure you, it cannot stand before the fact of your Presence.
Presence, higher thinking, spirituality. Overcoming.
Once we understand this is so, we can see words and images and communication itself as something other than we have believed it to be. (As turns out to be the case for pretty much everything.) Our words are the poorest of substitutes for communication. Our imagery ~ that is where we are real. That is why music can affect widely divergent populations. It is also why we need to learn to appreciate music with which we are not familiar before we can follow the magic in it.

Music is language.

Indeed- In tribute to my fall trip, the language with which Vivaldi describes fall. What feelings it invokes while listening....


Then there is Tchaikovsky.....


Math is language. Art of any kind is language. Dance. Tango, for Copa. Ballet, for me.

Rain.

Horses, and the love of them ~ that is a kind of language. Beauty and strength and speed and courage.

Your imagery is telling you what you need and then, showing you how that feels, so you can know how to be brave, and kind.

Thank you Cedar, how beautiful life is, even in the misery of it, there is something to be thankful for.

Infectious Madness, was the start of your discussion.

One might suppose that we have veered far off topic, but I dare say that we have delved very deeply into the inner workings of the mind and spirit.

Who is to say that the great thinkers, composers, artists, theorists, mathematicians, dancers, etc. were not somewhat "mad" themselves?

To have such talent, focus. Drive.

To be able to touch others very souls, this is no ordinary mind at work.


Thank the good Lord for all of the beautiful variations in our world, and those sharing their gifts!

Leafy
 

New Leaf

Well-Known Member
This gives much potential to science. Viruses are being used in gene therapy as vectors. I do not much understand it, but viruses can catalyze responses by deficient genes to adapt in ways to overcome their intrinsic deficiency.

But it is scary, too. It is like a race to survive, or not. Kind of metaphorical, no?

It is so interesting. Here we are losing our bio-diversity, in terms of species at an ever-alarming rate, which are irreplaceable in a genetic and evolutionary sense. But in terms of micro-organisms, and non-living viruses, we may be gaining a deluge, from the polar cap. As well as the challenge it presents. To our survival.

Very scary. In a similar discussion my brother said- "Nature does not care whether or not humans are here."

Isn't that a paradox? I will paraphrase Jung here: The strength is in the wound.
Childhood trauma might actually strengthen one for future difficult events? If our lives were always easy, without challenges, would we be able to survive the ups and downs with dignity?
I think the paradox is when we place ourselves in similar circumstances, because the feelings that we learned from our past are familiar, the paradox is the uneasy comfort we find revisiting the pattern.

Leafy
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
Or is it ourselves? Are we the one's who see? When I see myself chatting up the sales clerks, gleefully manipulating, to bring them a moment's pleasure or to myself, a moment of mastery, the sense that I can have some effect, when I leave my bed. That I still"work" as a person.

I do not see this. I do not believe that the reality comes from knowing or seeing...at least by mortals. Every body distorts.

Good Morning, Everybody

:O)

Copa, somewhere, I posted that we had decided to wait until next Saturday. We had something go wrong electrically. (After the issue that required a plumber for what was going wrong, plumbing-wise.) We are waiting for the electrician to call, and hoping he can come, today. If he does, we will leave, tomorrow. We have electric heat, and cannot leave with the problem unresolved. It has been the craziest summer!

The part of us that witnesses, that quiet, centered place at the heart of us, that part that is there, if we listen for it. This, so they say, is the part of us that is eternal. This is the part of us that knows we are angry, or filled with joy, or that we snapped at someone because we were tired and doesn't care. It is under the reaction. It is under the motivation. Maybe, something like Jung's underconscience. This is what we "see" in the eyes of living things. It is the difference between the energy we feel from a living plant than from a plastic one.

When you see yourself chatting with sales clerks, Copa, that essence aware that you are taking on a role, even as it happens. That is the thing I am talking about.

I didn't know you knew you were doing that, Copa.

You are amazing, and very brave.

Yes, Cedar, I see what you mean. It is that we have no control over events and circumstances, yet, we have control over how we react to them. To know this and gauge our responses accordingly with enlightenment, love, forgiveness, is to become the unperturbed moon.

Well, no. To understand that whether we forgive or not, whether we love or not, even whether we live alive in this life or not...the moon is not affected, however much it seems to have been affected by the Wind, or the tides, or gravity.

The moon is the moon. As long as we are looking at a reflection, we are getting it wrong.

Reflection, emotion; Narcissus, seeing what he sees and believing it real.

Enchiridion ("that which is held in the hand") of Epictetus- Ad c 125

"Seek not to have things happen as you choose them, but rather, choose that they should happen as they do, and so you shall live prosperously."

Yes, and to understand that we have been seeing and saying these words throughout time, the same things, at the heart of it. Christ, Buddha, all great art, every dancer. The broken places: where the light shines through.

Have you read Pema Chodron, Leafy?

It is her contention that there is nowhere to balance; no place of safety.

Presence, higher thinking, spirituality. Overcoming.

Letting it be. Not higher thinking so much as ~ okay. So, in Buddhism, the newbie says: "I am awake!" And the response is: "So you believe."

Something the matter with our perceptions...or is it that there is something the matter with our perceptors? We do not see until we do. Then, we cannot not see.

Huh.

Things keep breaking open.

And we realize those things were always there.

We are the ones breaking open.

Huh.

Indeed- In tribute to my fall trip, the language with which Vivaldi describes fall. What feelings it invokes while listening...

Yes, I think so too, Leafy. We are hearing out of time, through a language never learned. Who is it, there in the heart of us, that hears and can understand, what the musician knows?

I read that, because it is as stringent a science as higher mathematics, music ~ any kind of music, a simple drum beat, even ~ can put us back together, when we are broken open, incorporating what the musician has given. In the rhythms, which are composed as much of silence, as of sound, right?

They say this is because the rhythms are taken from the rhythmic, four chambered beat of our own hearts.

:O)

Is that not terminally cool.

That part of us that can hear that music and needs no picture...that is the witness, is the seer.

Think of a toddler's response, or an infant's, to music, to the music of the mother's voice, and of the father's voice.

A symphony of sound and scent and color and time.

That is what it is, to be alive. That is what is different between a living plant and one of plastic.

I loved this:

Then there is Tchaikovsky.....

Thank you, Leafy. This was beautiful. Vivaldi, as well. But this was more beautiful. There is a piece by Sibelias I will try to find for you. Icy, and stringent, and very beautiful.

Thank you Cedar, how beautiful life is, even in the misery of it, there is something to be thankful for.

When we believed we were losing our daughter, all that was left was laughter. It was the strangest thing, Leafy. After all of it, all that was left, when we thought we were losing her, was that I was so delighted to have known her.

Huh.

Everything that was not laughter seemed to have been foolish.

Our daughter did not die.

Reality receded.

Huh.

So, we are back to the Buddhist newbie:

"I am awake!"

"So you believe."

Huh.

Who is to say that the great thinkers, composers, artists, theorists, mathematicians, dancers, etc. were not somewhat "mad" themselves?

They were all mad, Leafy. Read about the childhoods of any one of them.

Or, were they the sane ones.

Looks like we are back in Buddhist territory, again. Or, Christian. Or, myth and legend from time immemorial.

Huh.

To be able to touch others very souls, this is no ordinary mind at work.

I think this is exactly how an ordinary mind at work, works. I've read about communication in the animal kingdom that indicates the same energies are at work there.

Think about Jung; about what he believed about the nature of consciousness.

Joseph Campbell.

Charles Williams; Shakespeare; the woman story teller Scheherazade who created The Arabian Nights. Hansel and Gretel. Copa's Sleeping Beauty imagery. Clarissa Pinkola Estes. The old woman, singing flesh onto the bones.

I've read that the world is not only stranger than we believe, but that it is stranger and more wonderful than we can believe.

Huh.

Buddhist newbie, again.

Here is my healing music. I play it all the time, and then, for a time, I do not.


Cedar
 
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Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
I think the paradox is when we place ourselves in similar circumstances, because the feelings that we learned from our past are familiar, the paradox is the uneasy comfort we find revisiting the pattern.

Not to go all metaphysical here, but I really do think it has to do with patterns and resolution. It is less that we are victims than that we are active players; on some level, conscious players. In a very real way, though we never can see it until we do, there is a tapestry.

Like a kaleidoscope.

That is how we see. Everything crashing down around us creating patterns we can make no sense of.

BOOM

We break.

What broke?

Everything as we believed it to be.

***

Here is something you will find interesting, Leafy. I think this discussion took place before you and Feeling found us. It has to do with Nietzsche's contention that love comes first. Somewhere in FOO Chronicles is that Nietzsche quote. It had to do with loving to be alive because love came first. Love is what we do, what we have always done, what we in fact, are.

It was terminally cool.

:O)

Again, same things everyone is always saying, has always said.

Think now of a Down's Syndrome child.

Cedar

Regarding the electrician, everyone. He does not have the part he needs, which has something to do with a "relay". D H understands. The electrician will come in Spring. For now, D H will set up heaters on thermostats.

Huh.

Amazing.

We are leaving tomorrow morning, and this time?

I mean it.

:O)

Cedar
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
Viktor Frankl in the camps would see in his mind's eye a picture of his wife, and he would feel transported. In those moments he was free and untouched by evil.

This speaks also to who we were taught we were, in our families of origin. In our mind's eyes, in times of challenge...we see the abuser's perception of us at the time they were hurting us. Whatever the abuser believed about how they could justify hurting us ~ whatever the abuser believed that enabled trampling of personal boundaries that should have been sacrosanct ~ that is what we will believe about ourselves.

That is why we go role: competence. The decision to fight, and to win. That is what was destroyed in us at the hands of our abusers.

We are more courageous than the average bear, maybe. I think this is true.

Someone I can't remember now wrote that very few people understand just how much energy some of us devote to being normal. I would say all of us devote an incredible amount of energy to being normal. In that way? Those of us never especially normal are fortunate beings.

We go ~ what was it called, in Watership Down? Tharn? When the rabbit freezes from fear of the predator?

Some part of us, the traumatized part of us, knows how to deal with challenge. It is so easy for us to slip into role. But every time we do, the freaking stupid abuser wins. The power of shame, the fiction of external locus of control, wins. Within us, the things we were taught about power and power over and where we fit ~ until we revisit those things we were taught by people caught in the grip of something they understood no more then than we understand it, now ~ until we revisit those traumatic places of breakage we carry, until we see ourselves being hurt through our own eyes and never again through the self-justification of some half-crazed abuser, we cannot achieve internal locus of control.

Everytime I think of that stepfather, Copa, I become so angry with him. Not even for the beating, which you survived, but for what he did not provide. For what he did not see, in the living wonder of that child that you were simply because you existed. That was the responsibility given him.

He failed Copa, so abysmally.

***

It is scary to be real when we have been hurt into self desertion, into self betrayal, to survive.

roar

Whatever. Here we still are.

Of his parents and his wife, only he survived. His wife may have, at that moment, been dead but he chose to see her. And for him, she lived. True or false, real or imagined, does not matter. But only the personal choice to triumph over circumstances, and oneself.

Yes, I agree, Copa. That is why Maya Angelou and the black lady from Matrix and Lisa Vanderpump (and my newest mom, Dr Ben Carson), can hold strong in the places I can not.

We are fortunate in that.

I think we could not heal, if we could not do that.

The thing is, those who abused us were wrong. Once we can see it, we cannot unsee it. However they justified what they did, the emotional charge of it is reclaimed for ourselves. The things that happened become nothing more than just what happened.

Without the energy charge that froze us in place, that made us go "tharn" when we were hurt, every time we were hurt, the memories are no longer traumatic.

But somehow, we cannot see it until we see it.

Then, we do.

Huh.

Or is it ourselves? Are we the one's who see? When I see myself chatting up the sales clerks, gleefully manipulating, to bring them a moment's pleasure or to myself, a moment of mastery, the sense that I can have some effect, when I leave my bed. That I still"work" as a person.

Yes.

I think the answer is very much Yes.

So, you are on a path that is a continuum, Copa. I am so proud and happy for you. I did not know you were aware that you were in role. You are flirting with real, Copa! Wow, that is so hard and scary and you are seeing yourself do it.

We are doing like, excellent work here, everybody.

Wow.

Ha! Copa!

:hugs:

Brene Brown's concept of the arena will help here I think, Copa. And her concept of sitting with the feelings, of simply observing the feelings and the responses and how that all feels. And to do nothing but observe.

There is nothing you have to do, Copa. There is nothing you can do.

The feelings have nothing to do with what is happening. The feelings are overwhelming because everything gets lumped together under that category Mortality/mortal fear that overwhelmed the little girls, or the little boys, we were when we were hurt.

Standing in the face of it, that is courage.

You are progressing at the instantaneous speed of something faster than light.

So courageous, Copa.

Yay.

Good for you.

I am so happy.

Have nothing to fear; nothing to protect. Remember we used to say that, in FOO Chronicles?

I do not see this. I do not believe that the reality comes from knowing or seeing...at least by mortals. Every body distorts.

We do, Copa.

I think it might be a question of the nature of the distortion; of the color of the filter. Some of us are somehow okay with knowing there is no answer. They are steady; able to concentrate. They tend not to ~ I don't know. They feel like the eye of the storm. Like they walk around in the silence and peace and out of timeness at the eye of the storm.

Maybe, that is where we are going, too.

There are no answers, there.

It would have to do with balancing and knowing that.

Maybe, this is true.

Here is an interesting fact: Marijuana's effect has to do with messing with our senses of time. We see and know things that were always there but that we have taught ourselves to disregard.

Now, that's interesting.

One of these days, I am going to smoke marijuana, again.

Whatever you guys. I never said that.

:O)

And if it is another person, Cedar? Like a therapist. Or in your own case, you, with your sister. When you see her in her loonyness directing her grandchildren to display their precociousness to feel power herself.

Okay, so in this one, Copa, what I see really is sadness in my sister ~ a desperate attempt to require that she be seen by sucking the air out of the room so she cannot again be excluded. No one can shut down a child. In that sense, my sister's reward was attention to her children that she needed when she was a little girl. That is how I see now, Copa. That is what I mean when I say once we see, we cannot not see.

And there is compassion.

Huh.

The therapist.

I don't know what to say about that.

But what happened is now just a thing that happened. The shame in it, the forever emotional horror of it, is gone. For the levels I have explored and come through here, it is not a vital, virulent thing requiring a role to survive the shame in it.

Thank you, Copa.

And Serenity, if somehow, you are reading with us.

And Recovering Enabler, for the beginning.

:O)

I am thinking of D H here. Who says NO just because.

Exactly.

It was an amazing thing to listen to him talking to the electrician this morning. Or, to watch him see what is.

That is internal locus of control.

I am very curious about this.

I said something to that effect to D H this morning.

For heaven's sake.

I think he gets me, though.

Like M, Copa. That kind of honest "let it be what it is". I think that is where we are going.

The most powerful part of the sentence are the words that are left unspoken.

The most powerful person in the family is the one not there. Perhaps banished or shunned.

I had not thought of it like this, Copa.

You are correct.

Very much so.

Huh.

Words and images that are there...are but guideposts to reveal what is not.

Yes.

And there is a quote about that. But I am trying to hurry this morning, so I can put everything in order for tomorrow.

From this way of being there is less shame. Less guilt. Less judgment. Me? I judge. In the case of Nono. I just feel mad. We have always paid him well for any work he has done for us. We offered for him to stay here without cost when he separated from his wife. He did. I judge.

Maybe Nono feels shame. But why reject M?

I somehow veered off topic. But somehow it feels like it relates.

D H would never see these events as rejection of him, anymore than M does. I think the difference is that they are not trying to forever figure out who they needed to be to keep the person in their circle. For M, and for D H too, they
are the heart of the circle. We are forever trying to figure out how we went wrong. This mindset is an artifact of abuse.

I think.

I think it has to do with what we learned in the eyes of the abuser.

In how they saw us in order to do the very wrong things they did.

We believed them.

That is the core of the shame issue.

That we believed them.

They lied.

Remember when I went through that thing about who was the liar here, me or my abuser?

It was the abuser.

That was the liar.

But to admit it felt like a dangerous betrayal.

It's all so complex, except it isn't.

:starplucker:


I am thinking now of a master of ceremonies at a circus with silver hair and white tux and his whip. And his schtick? The power of No.

NO and NO and NO and NO.. And from all of those not otherwise specified emerges a grand chaos, initially, and finally, the coherence of a new kind of truth.

Like in The Wizard of Oz.

Or the mystic writings at the heart of every religious or philosophical belief system.

***

"I am awake."

"So you believe."

Enter Pema Chodron.

Or, my mom Dr. Ben Carson.

:O)

I really will be offline for some time now.

You guys are entirely too fascinating.

Cedar


:hugs:
 

New Leaf

Well-Known Member
So, imagine the moon shining over calm waters. Now, imagine a storm blowing in. And the saying that accompanies that imagery is: "Though turbulent waters reflect disruption, the moon itself is unperturbed."

Moon, high and deep in the sky
Your light sees far,
You travel around the wide world,
and see into people's homes.
Moon, stand still a while
and tell me where is my dear.
Tell him, silvery moon,
that I am embracing him.
For at least momentarily
let him recall of dreaming of me.
Illuminate him far away,
and tell him, tell him who is waiting for him!
If his human soul is in fact dreaming of me,
may the memory awaken him!
Moonlight, don't disappear, disappear!



Safe travels Cedar.
 
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