Gaia Community: tamettao's Blog

What does your horizon look like?

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 09:06:15 -0000

My literal horizon (through the glass darkly) is of bird activity at a feeder, small garden and hillside beyond - as in the photo pretty much.

Metaphorically it's an interesting exercise to 'both be in the room and outside it', as Deida calls it - to be fully in your life but also have an awareness of the Witness, and thus to expand your horizon beyond your current room, job, family, life-drama.

I remember one day in the last year of my film-making work in Bradford when I was struggling with unhappiness and reluctance to go in to the office - grieving the death of my dog Rosie who had given the office an emotional heart, feeling tension with my colleague, affected by the grimness of the old mill industrial-decline cityscape of Bradford - and I was listening to an Advaita Vedanta teaching on the ipod. The last instruction was to 'be interested in this day as if you are in a lucid dream'. (So-called-'Reality' being ephemeral, illusory and 'dream-like' when viewed from another perspecive.) Anyway, it jolted me into that remove of 'Being both in the room and outside it', and I entered my work office with a detached curiosity. Then something curious DID happen; my colleague offered me a home-made muffin. Very tasty it was, but that wasn't the point - the unexpected act of generosity and kindness was (this from a guy who hadn't offered to make me a hot drink in years, despite me always offering to make him one when i made one for myself etc.). Just goes to show that unexpected things happen in dreams...!

Yeh, so widen that horizon and watch yourself dreaming!

Comic Life

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 21:12:09 -0000

(Taking a while to do this blog as learning how to insert multiple images...)

I've recently been communicating with my 8 year old (non-religious) Godson 12,000 miles away in New Zealand by making comic strips. He started doing it first - it's easy to add photos or scanned art-work - he drew some coral reef fish for me on a trip to Samoa, and included them with photos, thought bubbles and speech bubbles in a comic, much to my delight.
It's really easy to use, and I'd recommend it for communicating with children, or for kids to make visual scrap-books of holidays and special events.
(I don't have any financial interest in the company, and this isn't an 'ad' - just something I'm finding useful and fun - the software is called Comic Life and is fairly inexpensive - £15-£20 depending on deluxe version or not, and available for both Windows & Mac).

I'm at the age where...

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:42:31 -0000

physically, as a woman, I'm over the other side of the menopausal mountain.
A friend stopped to chat in the street on her way to have a smear test, and spoke of the pain of speculums after the oestrogen rush is over...I'm at an age where I knew what she meant!

I was reading David Deida - (live now, love now, we're all meat-bags heading for decay and death). I was thinking that as a woman there's another D to watch out for - 'dessication' - aah the journey of ageing...Dessication, Decay and Death..hmmm. (Gratitude for natural projesterone/oestrogen creams).

So I wonder about the 'Juice' - yes, heart juice, love juice seems accessible at any age. I'm at an age where opening to that is becoming ever more important. The journey of growth and spirit beckon - perhaps women are even programmed for this once fertility ends - hormones change, libido loosens it's grip (well, at least in my case) and allows space for...Spirit?

It would be interesting to know how old people FEEL. I've read some blogs - people of 40 feeling about 20. My inner experience of my age is often quite young - 18 maybe (I'm gonna be 50 next year). I asked my mom who is 75 and she said she felt quite young - about 20.
I know in the therapy room we can journey back to feeling the child again...

During retreat there was an interesting experience of connecting to a part of Self that was not so much older and wiser, but eternal and all-knowing. Consciousness isn't in time so doesn't age - that's a comfort!

How can we stay connected?

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:30:05 -0000

By noticing that i breathe in the air you breathe out and vice versa and that trees make this possible.

How would you respond to those who feel overwhelmed by bad news?

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:01:18 -0000

I'm a fan and forever-on-going student of Non-violent communication, and the following is wisdom from that source:

Receiving empthically requires 'presence'; being with the other with our whole being; not just listening with our ears and using our intellectual faculties. As Chuang-Tzu says,
"The hearing that is only in the ears is one thing. The hearing of the understanding is another. But the hearing of the spirit is not limited to any one faculty, to the ear or to the mind. Hence it demands the emptiness of all the faculties. And when the faculties are empty, then the whole being listens. There is then a direct grasp of what is right there before you that can never be heard with the ear or understood with the mind."

Some of the common 'no-no'responses are:
advising (I think you should...),
one-upping (That's nothing compared with what i went through...),
educating (You could learn from this if...) ,
consoling (It wasn't your fault...),
story-telling (That reminds me of when...),
shutting down (Cheerup. Don't feel so bad...)
sympathising (You poor thing...)
Interrogating (When did this happen...)

They're all part of believing we have to fix the situation to make the other person or ourselves feel better, and prevent us from being present WITH them.

I agree with Jon that our silent presence and sometimes a touch to connect is often the best way to be with someone overwhelmed by bad news. (Dogs are brilliant at this; they sit by you when you're sad and sometimes lick your tears!)

As for the second part of the question:

What would you tell young people who feel overwhelmed by the problems in the world? How would you encourage them? What would you say to spread hope and encouragement?

I liked barefoot girl's response. (This blog is full of quotes, but hey; i quote wiser people than me...) so here's one from Buckminster Fuller:
"Never forget that you are one of a kind. Never forget that if there weren't any need for you in all your uniqueness to be on this earth, you wouldn't be here in the first place. And never forget, no matter how overwhelming life's challenges and problems seem to be, that one person can make a difference in the world. in fact, it is always because of one person that all the changes that matter in the world come about. So be that one person."

In your view, what life stage is the human family in?

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 09:40:08 -0000

I support the Integral world view that we all evolve through developmental stages
( First Tier:archaic/magic/mythic/rational/pluralistic - 2nd Tier - integral, super-integral and up), and that as a whole our centre of gravity is also evolving upwards.
One of the books in Jon's loo library is about the Pendle Witch Trial in 1615 (i think). Pendle hill isn't too far from where we live ('though it's in Lancashire and we're still in Yorkshire here so historically the War of the Roses divides us - [white rose Yorkshire, red rose Lancashire]). Reading the trial notes and the magical worldview that the most educated members of the UK justice system had in the 1600's beggars belief. Nowadays we would expect most British 5 year olds to have outgrown those belief systems.
Today the greatest majority of humanity (70%) is still at [Traditional/mythic/blue-value-meme/amber] worldview level. That's pre-rational, so a pretty scary centre of gravity. Only about 2% are purportedly 2nd Tier Integral thinkers - but that will change, and a time will come, maybe even in our life-times because evolution itself is exponentially speeding up, when most 8 year olds will have integral worldviews and beyond. Then the human family will have a degree of maturity of the compassionate sages at our growing tip, and that will be an incredible time to be alive.
It is also possible that in the chaos that ensues from our continued destruction of this planet and each other, that survival will become paramount, and we may regress down-spiral for a time, or destroy each other and the earth before we fulfill our evolutionary potential.
Let's hope we grow up in time...

What do you find mysterious?

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:15:41 -0000

Acts of Grace, luck and synchronicity for starters...
In the integral meeting with Terry Patten he went into the 2nd person relationship with God/Spirit/ISness/Whatever-you-want-to- call-it - The 'Thou' of all that.

I'd been having some difficulty with it, having rejected mythic versions (bearded guy in heaven, Hindu Gods and Godesses, Tibetan Devas etc.) and developed some severe rational anti-bodies to the concept. Bowing and praying meet resistance in me, whether it's to Christian crosses or Buddhist statues.

I can appreciate Spirit in other things e.g. Nature Mysticism (3rd person), and i can accept the idea of the Non Dual and that Spirit is in me and i am Spirit, and have had tastes of that in meditation (1st person).

The 2nd person, 'Thou' relationship should be natural for humans as we are social animals and completely wired for relationship, picking up incredibly fast and minute body language signals etc.
I DO feel my perspective is beyond the existential angst of the Modern and Post-Modern world view - I have accepted some form of meaning-making spiritual infusion in life since my early twenties - but faith and devotion still meet those rational anti-bodies when it comes to the 'Thou' relationship.
What's mysterious (and attractive) to me is considering that there is an alive consciousness pervading everything ('an interiority', Terry called it), and that dialogue with it in some form may be possible...(feelings of gratitude and love?).

My guess is 'ISness' has been dialoguing with me all along (through acts of Grace, luck, synchronicity amongst other things) - but I have to learn the language... and currently that's still a mystery to me.

It's like horse trainers completely missed the signicance of a horse turning it's ear towards them or lowering their head or chewing their lips until someone like Monty Roberts (or Native American Indians before him) deciphered it as a body-language and said, 'Guys and Gals, that horse is desperately trying to have a conversation with you...'

I'd like to unravel the mystery of communicating with the 'ISness'.

When have you felt the most free?

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:54:22 -0000

Freedom is a state of consciousness.

The time i probably felt most free was ironically on a very strict vipassana 10 day silent retreat. There were lots of rules of containment: [no talking, no eating after midday, sit for 40 mins/slow walk for 40 mins - keep this up for hours, silent work duties, no distractions like watching TV etc., bed by 9.30pm, up by 5am...no straying from the monastery grounds].
So, on the physical level i was very constrained. However, there was method in the apparent madness; i discovered a surpising contradiction: the tighter i was held, the more i could expand in spirit. When we learn how to slow down and then be still our true nature becomes apparent to us - our true nature is boundless; so apprehending that we realise we ARE free. And then it's JOY, JOY, JOY!

So, Freedom is a state of consciousness. Or maybe I can take that perspective only because I'm not physically enslaved...('though i did see a DVD on Vipassana meditation in Indian prisons, begun by a radical woman prison governer of Delhi jail who wanted to effect real change, not just contain people, and the experience liberated both the guards and the prisoners on one level...)

Where would you go on a pilgrimage?

Fri, 30 May 2008 15:10:53 -0000

Externally to some place of awesome natural beauty - the Niagra Falls sprang to mind. Angel Falls. Victoria Falls. Some stupendous waterfall that makes rainbows in its spray.

Perhaps I'm a bit of a pantheist; nature usually evokes a more 'spiritual' feeling in me than religious edifices and rituals. My parents are atheists with orange-green meme worldviews, so I never had religion thrust apon me - rather I had to journey out of the flatland of scientific materialism to find my own post-rational version of turquoise+ 'Spirit'. There was an ex-missionary living in the community i grew up in and i tried Christian Sunday School twice. Even at 6 I had trouble believing mythic Christianity - and the sun was shining and there were trees to climb and hang upside down in - far more fun.

Travelling with my best friend in Central America in 1991, she went to a Quaker meeting in the Cloud Forest in Costa Rica, and I elected to watch the hummingbirds at a feeder for an hour in the Meeting House garden.

More recently in 2005 I spent the best part of 2 months on retreat in Thailand - great experience, very relaxing and earthing; watching giant yellow and black butterflies flitting in the forest canopy. Meditation is great, good for me and part of my daily 'spiritual' practice. Even on a meditation retreat within a Buddhist framework I remember being distracted by dragonflies and the desire to be outside during the pujas and the chanting.

Internally I would like to pilgrimage to Nirvana.

Where do you find security?

Thu, 22 May 2008 15:56:32 -0000

I remember as a child coming across the concept that 'in a hundred years all the beings you know will be dead, including yourself'. An early lesson in impermanence; the world of form is constantly changing and the only constant is the flow itself of birth and death. Notwithstanding egalitarian breakthroughs in human life extension (and even with our current life-spans we're seriously stressing the planet's biosphere), I now have half that time left, and that's the living to 100 years scenario... So, no security there.

One idea that helped pull me out of spiralling financial fears around my recent redundancy after a 20 year period of settled work was Susan Jeffer's phrase of 'I can handle it' ( Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway). Life will throw us difficulties; our own ageing, sickness (at times) and finally death, and similar sufferings of our loved ones, is a universal given, and all life journeys will contain additional stressful or heart-breaking scenarios to cope with, learn from, and grow wiser from (hopefully). Victor Frankl was a holocaust survivor and author of Man's Search for Meaning, and he said that although we cannot control what happens in our lives, we can choose our attitude to what happens - he called this the 'last of the human freedoms'. So we can choose to be courageous and grateful and kind, no matter what - and I get a sense of security from that choice.

During an 'awakening experience' sustained for 10 days in different depths of state-flow during a silent retreat, i accessed the witness self and radiant ground of being. There is a part of us that doesn't change; the very awareness that always accompanies our experience of this world of form. Certainly it is a constant during our lives, and it makes sense that, like energy, it cannot be destroyed... So I do get a sense of security from that. As the Buddhists say, 'Take Refuge in the Buddha-Dharma'. You may not be a Buddhist, but you can still take refuge in that unchanging ground of Being...same thing by another name.

What kind of person do you want to be?

Wed, 07 May 2008 13:40:13 -0000

Still full of awe, and always with a growing edge.

What separates you from others?

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 11:36:05 -0000

That i am good and you are bad. That kind of thinking.

Last night i went to see the Coen brothers new film 'No Country for Old Men', because they are wonderful directors, but against the better judgement of part of my being that tries to choose wisely about the images that are seared into my brain...

Great direction, great acting, 'crap' content. (For those of you who haven't seen it yet it's about a drug deal gone wrong and the assassins on the tail of the guy who finds the money...) Yet again the mean red meme playing itself out for our entertainment. In terms of content i disliked the film intensely. i mean i'm trying to have a tropos towards the general direction of being more Bodhisattva like - to rid myself of fears for the survival of my separate self and practice the paramitas of generosity etc. In that film when a man practiced generosity to stop and help the guy with his car bonnet up, the object of his generosity just happened to be a cold-blooded killer, and he got totalled for his pains - well, is that going to encourage people to help someone whose car has broken down, or are they going to be haunted by the fear of a pressurised air canister?!?

This morning in sitting i decided to do the shadow work 3-2-1 process on the assassin: When i viewed him as a separate being [3] (albeit archetypal and fictional), i viewed him as a totally heartless individual who took what he wanted without a trace of compassion, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake.
When i engaged in conversation with him [2] i could understand his sense of power and satisfaction at his ruthless strategy to succeed.
When i became him [1] i felt the joy of annihilating opposition. Perhaps cyber space is not the place for a fairly private person to admit to having fantasies sometimes of wanting to hurt and obliterate others who infuriate me...the fantasies can be quite graphic but i won't go into them here!...and then i snap myself out of it and spiral up and empathise with my feelings and needs, and try and do the same for 'them', by which time, hopefully, the desire to leave a wake of bodies has dissipated... It's not only in desiring physical annihilation of the other that my shadow assassin operates; it enjoys defeating others in argument etc ('though more recently I'm coming to see that it's more satisfying to be happy than right).

Anyway, back to what separates us from others - i guess i'm saying that if we own what we perceive as being 'other' then it reduces the distance. I am fortunate in this lifetime not to be an assassin (so far), but it doesn't mean that i don't have assassin-like qualities at times. Because i do, i realise that i'm not totally separate from that archetype with the bad hair and the penchant for tossing coins to decide life or death and the gas cannister and the guns.

However, it's also quite a relief to turn from viewing brutality to what inspires me instead. A quote from Anne Franks diary:
"It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and so impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart."

Who have you underestimated?

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 09:48:08 -0000

When I savoured this question a memory came up that I want to share, but i need to alter the question slightly to: 'What have you underestimated?'

The answer is LOVE, as manifested in all sentient beings, and the little being that taught me this was a crippled dog...

A friend and I were based in a very rural area in Tamil Nadu, India, on a rural development project; mainly learning, but giving back where we could via english lessons, cycling training for women and writing the project's annual report for western funders.

Once a week we'd cycle from the training base to a small town where the project had it's offices. One day we were confronted in the road by a tiny puppy with a twisted spine, yapping up at us. We stopped and i remember smiling and thinking 'Yeh, you and whose army?!'

Something about it's courageous spirit touched me and I cycled back to a small roadside kiosk and bought some milk bread and gave it some. She was starving and ate readily. My friend was embarrassed and said to me that i shouldn't feed a dog when people were starving, but i just felt that kindness was ok.

Feeding the puppy became a weekly ritual for me, and once when i forgot the bread and she was waiting and wagging expectantly i cycled back for bread again.

The day came when she was waiting in the road and i bent down to feed her still straddling my bike and she looked at me and wouldn't take the bread. I looked into her eyes and i realised something was different; she was shining...I also understood a lot in that moment, wordlessly; that she was dying and had been waiting to see me before she died.

I got off my bike and sat at the edge of the road and she came and put her head in my lap and i stroked her head softly for the first time, and she was looking at me with love pouring out of her and she was so much more than a tiny, twisted dog. I began to cry and was aware of her love and gratitude, and realised i was the only being who had shown her kindness in her short life. She crawled off then under a fence. i never saw her again; i knew i wouldn't.

I had given her some bread but she had given me something indescribable - she was the first of a few dogs that have brought love into my life.

Do you stand up to bullies?

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 16:41:14 -0000

This is an interesting question; many facets to it: stopping people trying to bully us personally, stopping people trying to bully others, stopping nations trying to bully other nations, attempting to redress social structures that are unfair and result in an e.g. economic 'taking advantage of' etc., and probably loads more...

There have been quite a few situations where i have intervened to stop bullying, starting from when i was quite young...

I find it interesting to consider how far i would go in protecting another - would i give up my own life to protect another? How wide is my compassion and my fearlessness????

I find stories where people have risen above personal fears and protected others very moving, e.g. in war situations. I hope I would do that, but i don't really know until a situation arises and my courage is tested...

The Dalai Lama says "the greater the force of your altruistic attitude toward sentient beings, the more courageous you become." (The Art of Living)

What is your relationship to apology?

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 09:14:53 -0000

Do you find it easy to say you're sorry?
'Sorry is the hardest wo-ord to say' so Elton John warbles -
It can be - pride can get in the way; I've had that experience of battling with stubborn pride... but from my experience it's always better to soften up and admit my fault and surrender to the mercy of the other...

When someone apologizes to you, how do you feel?
Better - it releases resentment. Also forgiving. Also connected; we all make mistakes - 'there but for the grace of God go I' etc.
In canine terms it's like the other has rolled over onto their belly and exposed their throat - a socialised dog will never go for the other's jugular in that situation...

What about when you've apologized to someone else?
It feels good to rinse off some of the shame and remorse from having hurt someone by apologising - I'm not a Catholic and have never been to confessional, but apologising for me is a little like asking for a fresh start with someone; admitting error in my behaviour with an attendant uspoken contract of being mindful to try to not make the same mistake again - how I imagine a confessional to operate.

Who has been a beacon for you recently?

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 11:07:51 -0000

Buddha. 'make of yourself a light' he said, before he died. A beacon to reach my own inner beacon. Shine on you crazy diamonds.

Recently I've been taking refuge from awareness of cruelty, pain and looming environmental catastrophe by 'thinking and feeling positively'. This works quite well most of the time - but it can also be a rather fragile and brittle defence against the full roundedness of 'what is'. (It may also actually get in the way of required action to the reality of conditions). There is a lot of beauty and love in the world, but also so much that is human madness; destructive and cruel. The yin and the yang, the shadow and the light...

So I realise again that i need to learn to be with 'whatever is' in an equanamous way. It helps to remind myself of the beacon of the 'True Authentic Self', and also, in my experience of that connectivity-without-boundary, the light joyousness that accompanies it's apprehension - maybe just a gladness to experience 'freedom', or maybe a quality of bliss inherent in the non-fabric of that 'formlessness'?...

Anyway, was it JC who said 'be a light unto yourselves'? Ultimately external beacons are only useful if they help light the way into the center of our own flame.

How do you decide that something is true?

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 14:50:01 -0000

'If you want to know this, do this'

If i want to know if something is true in my subjective reality, i check in my body - heart, solar plexus, gut..

If i want to know if it's raining outside I get up and look out the window; that kind of truth can be seen.

if i want to know if you are telling the truth, it might depend on your past track record of trustworthiness, or by using a lie detector, or by asking your kid who says he's brushed his teeth if you can smell his breath for mintyness, or if a past president says 'I did not have sex with THAT woman', and she says he did, then waiting for the evidence of a semen-stained dress...and then armed with that evidence I can confirm or reject what you/he/she is saying is true.

Mutual understanding is an awesome concept, and also quite tricky - how do we know we've understood each other? in relationship break-ups it often becomes painfully obvious that one has assumed too much on the mutual understanding front...
M. Rosenberg, author of Nonviolent Comunication, suggests that in conflict situations it actually SAVES time if each party paraphrases what the other has just said, so each party feels heard and understood...it's not necessary to agree with each other, but it is necessary to recognise each other's truth, 'coz without that it's WAR - which happens far too much...

Where do you want to go?

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 09:53:19 -0000

I'd like to dance up the spiral staircase of the UL quadrant, gathering compassion, wisdom, patience and clarity en route and rest in equanamous spaciousness with light pouring out of my crown chakra and chopping wood and carrying water and parting the water and saving beings from the suffering of the world ...

i understand that spacious awareness is available to me all the time, but i still often have difficulty 'raising the veil, curtain, adjusting my inner vision or whatever' to rest in it.

I'm pulled by the allure of 'just one more adventurous journey' of desire in the mind, too - even 'though when i succumb it has a familiar 'dukkha' (unsatisfactoriness) about it. Everything i DO has a duck in it, I find, especially when floating along the stream in my ego awareness, so time to duck down and go deeper...suddenly I'm swimming with dolphins in new Zealand and loving it even 'though i know the duck is here somewhere...it's so hard to let go of the places i want to go; this world of form is so enticing!

What is your renaissance?

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 12:56:06 -0000

Being caught in the slipstream of (some of the) world evolving to integral consciousness; 2nd Tier, and, wouldn't it be great?, the draw of 3rd Tier. (Spiral Dynamics).

Feel like a chick tapping on the inside of it's shell; sometimes my mind expands to hold a new concept; little beak shaped cracks of daylight appearing, but haven't broken the shell wide open - look forward to blinking up into the huge feathery softness of mother hen-ness and the peeping of other chicks...or whatever it is I'll see when I can see with new eyes.

My middle name is 'Rennie'; born again, and I 'kindof' believe in reincarnation, so have probably been literally born again many times, and, of course each new heart beat, each breath, each new cell growth and dendritic synapse connection, each new thought or mood is a kind of rebirth if we don't see ourselves as a solid, finite organism; but rather as a flow of things that come into being and pass away - kindof Buddhisty insight of 'impermanence'.

However it's the moments of worldview-shattering insight that I tend to think of more in connection with 'renaissance' - so one of mine was transcending (and including) the rational, modern world view when I encountered things I couldn't explain with that paradigm on walkabout in India in my early 20's. Another was experiencing kundalini fed states of bliss, connectedness and serenity and access to knowledge, and a falling away of jadedness to see things metanoically etc on silent retreat in a Theravadan buddhist monastery; which gave me an experiential base for believing in the stages of 3rd Tier development.

After a long retreat in Thailand in 2005 and other travelling visiting loved ones, I got hit by a car when jet-lagged on return. I think Tai Chi helped because i leapt and turned, so went up and over rather than going under that 4WD. As I was flying through the air I felt a great love and gratitude for the opportunity of life, and for having travelled etc. I didn't slough off my mortal coil just then; I was in an altered state, and was supported out of the road by a rescuing 'angel', and then spent time reassuring the hysterical driver. The 3 of us hobbled down the street, my arms over their shoulders - the whole experience was very heart-based for me. Anyway, currently I like to think of that as a time when I may have died, and to view the time I have now as precious or borrowed in some way; like being given a second chance. It doesn't feel creative or paradigm-shifting enough yet to qualify as a rennaissance, but part of me is looking out with new chick eyes for opportunities to serve, for reasons, for being given life in the first place, let alone a second chance...

Rusty springs in my jaws

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 11:47:30 -0000

Today in sitting I was using a sloppy combination of The Journey work and Focusing and I chased sensation around until i came up with the image of rusty springs in my jaws. 'What is it that i cannot tell?'

It moved to a memory of shock at hearing someone described as 'a snake' and having a Hamlet image of poison being poured into my ear, administered by Cleopatra's asp. I didn't want to have my image of someone made toxic, and yet there was a certain veracity in family dynamic; the snake was about reptilian incapacity to share from the heart...we suffered because of it, and also adopted it in part because of it.

It moved to wanting to reject the harm of physical and mental hurt, and in the 'camp fire process' an understanding that pain creates more pain to mirror the veracity of its own feeling. So, compassion for the hurt one that is also the one that hurts. (There was such an unmet need in my family for us children to be received in Being - probably in most families). Seeing, too, that i have played both roles. A forgiving and asking for forgiveness...

I thought about the teaching from the tyrant, and decided that 'though there had been damage as a result, there were also gifts. An image of being beaten with a stick on my elbow and a childhood rage that made a forward promise that when i was big i would be able to defend myself, lead to an interest in martial arts and a path bedecked with jewels...

I had an image of jaws held together with spaghetti (probably inspired by the photos of Poppy's jaws with spaghetti - see Tantricksta's photos) - ones that could open easily and not always clam shut - there is more held there but it was time to go for a run with Poppy.