by Cauble, Don
A matter of lack… or a matter of forgetting… or a matter of not remembering… or a matter of ignorance… a genetic imprint… or just bad temper?
Is the lack within us? Or how we perceive ourselves?
Can you identify yourself without a greater social identity?
I think of Buddhism, in this case, as a greater social identity. Like being an American. Or a UO Duck fan. Or a poet. An artist. Jane thinks in terms of family. I think in terms of friendships. I'm comfortable being three thousand miles from my sister and other family members. Yet, I love my sister and we are close. I love my brother, but both of us like our solitude. (A solitude that can have its conflicts with Jane's family needs.) I'm comfortable having a friend such as you living at a distance. (A friend "such as you"… well, I don't have any other friends "such as you.") Even my wonderful friend Michael, we can talk about anything, the way you and I do, but we don't get together often. And Lo, my oldest friend… Eugene is getting further and further away… as time goes on… and gas prices go higher. So I wonder if my "collective" consciousness is a bit under developed… or if I'm just ignorant of how much the collective affects me. Social consciousness is like a great beast that lumbers along, now and then shaking itself, like a dog out of water, and then lumbers on, looking for something to feed itself.
I'm sure you still suffer a great sense of loss with the death of your wife, Karen. How could you not? Her energy still lives inside of you. Or at least that energy within you that she connected to and brought alive and burning into your everyday life. Love does not bend with time, as William the playwright said, or something like that. Yes, the form may well change, but let us not confuse form with the energy that creates form and is ever changing these forms. I do not understand the other way—the way so many people seem to feel and live. How can you love someone and then later hate or despise that person? I can understand choosing not to have that person in your life anymore because, for whatever reason, that person's influence is no longer beneficial or acceptable to your life and consciousness.
I seem to be rambling now. So, I will end this attempt at writing an essay.
Oh, you've expressed in your own beautifully articulate words much of these thoughts in a letter early this spring and I was planning to comment on something you wrote but never found the right moment:
By way of preliminaries, I've never identified myself in the usual ways. The process of identification, of selecting patterns to call "I," "me," "myself," is subtle and usually hidden from our awareness. Most people identify with their body, or feelings, or thoughts, although we can also identify with patterns, roles, and archetypes. In our culture, the most usual self-identification is with our social or biological role: "I" am a man or a woman, a parent or a child, a certain occupation—doctor, lawyer, farmer, Indian chief. Or we take our sense of self from our family history, our genetics and heredity. Sometimes our sense of who we are is taken from our desires: sexual, aesthetic, or spiritual. For some, identity derives from our intellect, or our astrological sign. Some people choose an archetype, of hero, lover, mother, adventurer, clown, or thief, and live their whole life based on that.
For myself, I realized that I was not my body many, many years ago, in my 20s. I certainly never identified with my job. It took some decades to realize that I was not my mind, my intellect, either, but eventually I did. For the last twenty years I've dimly perceived that I am a spirit, but I've never been able to be precise about it. I agree with a line I've heard in AA, albeit rarely: we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a human experience. But what does that mean? I've come to see my sense of self, a very human sense of self, as a play of patterns, and the world, too, as a play of patterns, but I cannot determine, either intellectually or intuitively, the shape of those patterns as clearly as I would like.
…In the end, things, people, and tasks die or change or we lose them. Nothing is exempt, including my body and mind. Spiritual practice, especially meditation, has taught me that I don't even possess my own experience. I do not invite my thoughts, nor do I own them. Many times have I wished some thoughts would stop, but they never do. There's been many times I wished certain thoughts would arise, but they do not come at my bidding. In fact, my thoughts seem to think themselves, arising and passing according to their nature. The same is true of my feelings; I do not control them. My feelings often seem to me like the weather: rain and thunder one day, sunny skies the next, all changing according to certain conditions. One day I'm happy, the next day I'm sad, and at various times during a single day I can feel irritated, excited, restless, or contented, at peace. Where do these feelings, moods, and emotions come from? My body, too, follows its own laws.…
I might add here that, yes, the body follows its own laws but (there are so many buts in life) the mental and emotional actions certainly help shape the direction or expression of those laws. And maybe they are only laws because somewhere, sometime, in the evolution of our human consciousness we accepted them as laws. But, then again, maybe we had no choice in how we viewed or experienced these "laws." We vibrate with a certain frequency that's particular to humans and humans alone, and that's why we see things the way we see things and why we're not a tree, a toad, or a rock. Anyway, that's a side thought. You have expressed your position quite clearly and, I will add, my position as clearly: We do not know.
So we read what others have thought and experienced and we go with what resonates with the core of our being. Or, as with most people, with the core of their social consciousness. Did the Ancients have a better view of the stars and of the origin of the universe and their own existence than we do, right now? They certainly had fewer distractions than us, I would think; but they also had less exposure to different experiences. (However, just as with the Biblical writers and Jewish thinkers, we know little of their private lives. I understand Rumi's Master was murdered—or lived in fear of being murdered—by a rival teacher. So I take all their teachings and examples with a grain of salt. Just as I do my own thoughts.) These ancients Masters and thinkers were busy formulating a direction that we could follow. But their ancient directions, their religions, their philosophies, end where my essence begins.
In a historical sense, I believe that now is the time for us to harvest the best of their knowledge. You've chosen the essential teachings of Buddhism, coupled with AA, to give formal shape and continuity to your way. You might consider these as training steps in the road of life. That doesn't mean, of course, you won't continue to practice and honor the principles you've learned in these teachings. (Just as I still carry the Deep Feeling Work I did in the 1980s.) You've come with these teachings to the edge of the known world. Now, you're on your own. In the sense that you have to trust your own play of patterns. I know, it doesn't seem so grand, does it? It feels like so much "not this, not that" because it is "not this, not that." We have to trust that place. We can just as easily say, "I AM THAT." But then everyone wants you to define THAT. And you have… already.
To be at ease with your own play of patterns… and know that your play of patterns holds as much truth as Ludwig Wittgenstein's play of patterns… as the tree's play of patterns… or the toad's play of patterns… but… and this is a tiny, big old stumbling but… if you want something greater, grander, than who you are… something that doesn't feel so "empty"… so "not this, not that"… I suppose you could think of yourself as both the space that holds the cup together (inside and out) and the particular moment in time that allows the space to hold this cup together… or is it the other way around? Anyway, you have to be both, as you've pointed out. It's a bit complicated for my head. As long as the cup will hold water….
And I'll drink to that.
Rummaging around in the
basement
A confessional poem
...just as the sludge at the bottom of a lake is hidden
by clear, sparkling water.
—Irène Némirovsky
trans.
Sandra Smith
All Our Worldly Goods
A Novel of Love Between the Wars
1 / Inner cave
There's a softness in me at times,
a weakness, like quicksand,
a human sink hole,
an overwhelming that panics me,
that threatens to cave in on me
and undermine everything I do,
and I must close my eyes tight
and fill this place—
this feeling that wants to throw in the towel,
that would welcome not being,
not being here in this world,
if only for a moment
this place that I can withstand only
by allowing God—
not some historical tyrant at war
with others of his kind,
not a religious idol, image, or concept,
some ancient king sitting on a golden throne;
but the creative, unknowable essence
of all that is—
to fill this vastness,
to remind me that I am spirit,
and have always been,
and that I exist because I am,
and for no other reason, or meaning,
or purpose, that you and I may understand.
2 / Enter self-doubt
Ambition does not inspire me.
Reputations do not awe me.
I place a golden halo over the head
of no man or woman,
nor do I worship unseen forces,
powerful they may be.
Fame may well escape me, indeed,
for I do not seek it.
(Yet, do not all poets want to be known and loved?)
Words do not come easily,
words of importance, that is.
The poet speaks with a voice
that belongs to all of us.
The poet—
man, woman or child—
contains his image, story,
and the image and story of each of us.
The poet burns a forever flame.
He flows, purifying his words as he goes.
He appears and disappears, elusive as the wind.
The poet breathes with the scent,
the rot, the colors, the hope and despair,
the aspirations of the earth;
he breathes with the heartbeat of the earth.
I am not this poet.
He has left me in the dust,
a pillar of self-doubt, ravaged
by my own self-inflicted arrows.
3 / Once more, with patience
I don't know how to say this,
this frustration I feel—
you know, to put the frustration into words
in a poem, to make them worthy,
so to speak.
Otherwise, it's just whining, more bitching.
"And the world bitches without pause,
there's no end to misery."
As a genuine poet, David Pendarus,
once said, a long time ago.
I inherited the genes from my mother,
this high-strung nervous system,
this unruly impatience.
Add to that, if you wish, that I'm a fire sign.
But so what?
"I alone am responsible for the evolution
of my soul."
Pendarus said that, a long time ago,
gazing out though the windows of his cell
in a Greek prison.
Right, now I know how Sisyphus must have felt.
Every day I stumble and fall,
pick myself up...and, like in the song,
start all over again…and again…and again.
4 / My own twisted drum beat
"Rage, rage, against the dying..."
& this rage, this anger,
—this continuous drum beat under my skin;
the plucking of an outrageous oud;
the sudden flaring of a flame;
an aborted gene of meanness—
springs out of me,
a monster hiding in the closet,
the boogeyman under the bed,
the body buried in the basement
suddenly come to life, a flash
searing through my brain and nerves,
tearing from my tongue,
ripping the air and the protective aura
of the other;
or lashing out at the ignorance
and stupidity of this world we've created,
like a stadium fan waving his arms,
yelling obscenities at the umpire,
screaming at the coach, the other players:
the enemy, myself, screaming
at God, tearing out my heart,
if only for a second, a moment,
then, just as quickly,
vanishing,
into remorse, at times,
into shame at others,
into psyche self-flagellation,
like those idiot monks who lash themselves
with whips on their backs,
for ecstasy, for forgiveness?
I don't know and I don't care
about their religious motivations.
It's my own twisted drum beat
in this journey toward the light
and release,
and absorption,
back into this beloved earth,
that captures my imagination,
this journey that has allowed me
to see my own terrors,
my own beauty.
5 / And in the darkest corner
Imagine a huge spider,
(or a rat or a poisonous snake).
Fear hides in the darkest corner
of this basement,
behind every pillar and stud and beam,
behind every moving box, every stack
of old books,
every nook and cranny;
for my anger, frustration, impatience,
all serve their petty tyrant
like branches on a fat tree,
but the tree itself, fear,
sends its roots deep into the limbs,
the twigs, the nerves, into the body;
and fear attempts to invade my soul,
guardian and protector of any action
that does not bear fruit from the heart:
the center of my being and the consciousness
that connects me to your center
and to the center of this that we call upon
without knowing its true name,
that some would liken to a mother's love
for her child,
for nothing shall stand between the two,
or threaten the child
for the child is none other than life;
and where does this life begin
if not before the beginning,
before earth and shape and form,
before the sun and spiraling galaxies,
before the point, the moment,
the no-time and no-space
in time and space where the mind
can no longer venture,
where you and I no longer go home
and there is no where or when or how
but only is.
6 / Not knowing
I don't know what purpose I write
these lines—no longer do I know
if for you or for me.
I feel like that song bird in the trees
outside my Portland window—
the one that's now singing:
but to whom? and for what purpose?
Do most poets feel this way?
(Or should I call myself a poet?)
Once I knew—or thought I knew.
My words, like arrows with bittersweet
barbs, I aimed for the closet heart,
the sleeping mind, the social zombie;
and, yes, I aimed those arrows,
much of the time,
at some beautiful woman,
her eyes wide shut, asleep in her life,
not seeing me or anyone real
in those lovely eyes.
How arrogant, my actions!
(But with the best of intentions,
no doubt.)
Just as in the evolution of dogness,
their sensitive noses dismissed, somehow,
the stench of their own shit,
as now they track it unwittingly into the house
and onto their pillow beds.
I walked on stilts,
in a manner of speaking,
the way poets often will.
But that's all gone: the chase,
the quest to awaken, the need to shake
the leaves in spring.
It's autumn now, a different season,
no time for lust or beauty stripped bare
like camel toes in your astonished face.
I honor that singing bird in my mind,
that sweet bird;
that wild flight of imagination,
and I go—I fly—with that backyard bird
to wherever the singing goes,
for that bird carries my heart in its song.
Winter, thinking of spring
"There has not been for a long time a spring
as beautiful as this one..."
wrote Czeslaw Milosz in 1936,
five years before I was born;
and now, this moment,
I'm looking out the kitchen window
of my Portland home—a home
across the street from a cemetery.
I'm staring at a layer of ice
and falling snow and cold eastern wind
layering the ground, the trees,
and the streets in white,
as our great nation seems to be coming undone,
ripping apart at the financial seams,
after years of an unpopular war and political
chicanery, lying and deceit.
But this thought now—
our departing President,
the falling snow, the cold (the harshest
in the Valley in nearly four decades),