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Moms as champions of ancient intuitions chained down by imposed 'reality': Jujitsuing confines! |
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by Chuck
(No verified email address) |
24 Jan 2006
Modified: 11:31:25 PM |
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This article invites you to think through what is going on around you, whether it is coming from biological family members, or from what could be termed to be *extended family* and others you wouldn't "normally" think of as "wanting to have" for family, or affinity groups, or meaningful community. |
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"How we see what we see affects the quality of our reality."--John Trudell, Lakota depth charger
A letter to a biological family member, in response to what has too long been a "same old again"/expectation of "normal" parental/offspring relations turns out to have aspirations both *radically therapeutic* and visionary-inspiring--if only we DARE to perceive such in such ways.
Below are excerpts with pontifications.
My Mom as a champion of ancient intuitions who does not permit herself to see such as gifts. Over and over again, as she inevitably enters the "stage" of "old age", she "acts out" in ways that my 'good education' can perceive as "early warnings" of "losing it" (and which 'most people' would begin calling 'irrational'). She has something like a war with herself, as the push-pull of her social conditioning tugs one way (pursuing the unemotional, stern way of so-called "conservative" 'pragmatisms'--the soldier-orders in her head), and her privately-held humanity (so deeply buried under decades of social armor) and intuition/mom-erly instincts, another.
We've all experienced this. Most of us probably do not think through this too much. We fall back on the imagination that we've found before us, not realizing the value of thinking through such. We're so deeply conditioned to be separated from each other, to fear and "protect" ourselves from the authoritarian *reflections* of our parents, that we don't see how we begin derailing our radical desires early on.
So, when my Mom jumps into something she wants to 'nip in the bud'--before any crisis might arise--i could choose to perceive her actions in the terms that "normalized" perception imposes, and retreat to war mode; or, i could try on the Toltec suggestions as a garment and *not take* such energy *personally*.(1) And instead, do a radical jujitsu with my perceptions and look my Mom as the descendant of a tribe that she is--and her spirit, her spontaneous wayz, as a direct flow of ancient intuition-- no matter how "offensive" or "problematic" or "inappropriate".
Such ways of seeing begin to be revealed as those imposed upon us and our sensibilities.
In that way, we privately perceive, if not openly articulating.
To openly articulate such, one would also need to be articulate in the ways such response would be perceived by the domesticated or corralled imagination, and in my view, would have to articulate that view *in the terms* that that view has been indoctrinated in: i.e. if i do not act "normally" i am surely "mentally ill" or something along those lines.
Ultimately, we'd like to articulate such, but the *art* we choose in which to decorate ourselves and our way of perceiving would depend upon the depth of our relations.
If our Mom was like Maude, in the film "Harold and Maude" then it is probable that we could be quite creative. If our Mom was like "Mommy Dearest", however, or Margaret Thatcher, we'd have to think and be more oriented to their war-stuck terms, i figure. My own mom is quite rigid, but more in a grey area.
As my Mom gets older and more, uh, "senile", she might allow herself to play along and enjoy! But for now, all i can do is try to point out the truths i see within her language. For her, i see flailing and venting, and lack of getting a grip on her true heart, her true desires, her living life as she would most like to. Or at least *admitting* that she is going about all this in an imperfect way.
i see the war going on that fights within her. i have myself been in such a war, before i apparently stumbled onto ideas beyond those Given, so i can see the war she fights, and seems so 'hypocritical' about as she talks of wanting happiness for me, while at the same time sending out poisonous, if belated, attacks (subtle and not so subtle).
This war includes the following example:
On the one hand, it's like you, Mom, want us to listen to you, and on the other hand, like you don't want us to listen to you.
And i'm wondering how a psychologist would frame this (i'm not wanting to "go there" into that unless you continue this way with these poisonous beliefs you seem to *want* to hold onto for some reason).
Mom, i care about you and that is why i am still trying to share this, using reason (while admitting that i am not 'reasonable' in some ways myself! Yet, my unreasonableness does not remain a **private hell**, unlike what i see you making for yourself). Can you see this care?
i hate to see you dealing with your fears (so many many it seems) all alone, never trusting anyone *really*.
i feel, for what it's worth, that this situation is becoming some kind of *hell* you are creating/have created within yourself, and i think you're bringing it all on yourself, and disallowing any bridges of help from those who care!
*******************
Care
The trick here, though, then becomes the care of the informal, radicalized, who want life beyond the institutions and institutional imaginations of the war-styled ways of doing things, and the ones we have often fallen back on because it seems "easiest" (that is, until we *ourselves* find ourselves in such a position, from the 'good intentions' of others).
Beyond our informal care, "patients"/"clients" begin to go "crazy" as they create ways to deal with all of their pain and misery. i say that these are mostly self-taught, because our severely alienated social imagination no longer has knowledge about how to beautifully enhance and complement this time of life.
The war that is everyday, not just 'the war in Iraq', but the war throughout "our" entire war-oriented society has so deeply reflected into us that we have forgotten the magick of perceiving beyond these confines which we now take for granted!!
So, my Mom's largely self-taught, or 'folk', heroic efforts to hold onto sanity and memory are being systematically pulled back by all these perceptions that she has bought into as a young person and has forced herself to fit into all her life. And now she clings to them because it is all she remembers. She buys into the idea of being 'genetically pre-disposed' to Alzheimers' dis-ease, and doesn't think through it, it seems to me. As a nurse, she wasn't permitted to think through what it may well mean to be "genetically pre-disposed", or what it may well mean to "get" Alzheimers.
My own gut feeling (which i've learned to trust), as well as close experience with two such persons so 'afflicted' is that Alzheimers *begins* from the misery and pain of experiencing lives (if only when older) that are so superficial as so many of ours in the context of "normified" reality. And the gentically pre-disposed thing may well only mean that we have a biological tendency to have certain things happen *when* we are not finding meaningful or adequate ways of say, jujitsuing the imposed "norms" of what passes as "normal" "family relations" in "modern" society.
So what if we found ways to **get these situations off of our collective chests**! A process in which we permit ourselves to enter into and mutually explore, and learn more. (2)
In my view, it makes sense to *informally* make use of all possible tools around us. Whichever ways we feel may be fun to explore. For some it may be to play like Maude in that movie, but find a way to do it without having SWAT teams mobilized against you for stealing cars and such. For others, it will take the form of exploring aboriginal ways of being, as we think about ourselves all as descendants of tribes.(3)
Responsibility
The one that has a way of perpetually kicking us below the belt is the one about being 'responsible', being 'mature', being 'financially secure'. You get this more and more as you get older and are perceived to be stuck in what are known as so-called "childish" ways. As if being oriented deeply to critical thinking and challenging status-quo imagination is something to be viewed as scathingly and with as much contempt as children are truly viewed in war societies today.
Why not just let these beliefs slide and look at the bigger picture of enjoying life--especially within these communities we have been told could be oriented to love? Some of us are able to force ourselves into --or for those who seem to enjoy 'fitting in', ***perhaps such is more of an ability to *dance* with!?***-- the Given Flows, others of us see that such flows cannot work for *us*, for our hearts, and we do not even try too hard (while finding ways to just squeeze by).
What if we could step back from this immense pressure and work/play to **complement** each other, creating truly meaningful community, instead of what is going on--all these hierarchies and things which keep us separated, and making a kind of war on each other. What if we were to open up our hearts and seek a process of articulations which allowed for contexts to actions or perceived inactions? On all sides?! Wow! What could such be LIKE?
This isn't to say that we should metaphorically "throw off our clothes and run naked in the streets", but to basically permit ourselves to free up our imaginations when we see how crucial such could prove to be in times of duress and stress. For myself, i have these visions, yet i also reach out to resources already created, such as the Mental Patients Liberation Alliance. (4) Such projects, can all be seen as part and parcel of the larger process of this evolution of mind-set i've been thinking about and wanting to translate and articulate in various forms.
The last challenge boils down to comprehension. Noam Chomsky has spoken about the problem of the u.s. intelligencia not even *comprehending* the "radical" conclusions his institutional analyses come up with. And he has spoken about the problem of a 'good education' and i think that some of you are seeing what he means more clearly now. (5)
The question then becomes, how deeply do we allow ourselves to see? And when?
1) See specifically the Toltec ideas as posited by don Miguel Ruiz in _The Four Agreements_
2) For ideas about letting 'madness' be a process, see the 1960s "radical psychiatrist" R.D. Laing. His _The Politics of Experience_ could be a good start.
3) There has been varying levels of challenges in taking up such tools, i.e. possibly AIM, Inc.(??)'s attacks of the 'New Age' and 'Men's Movement' and authentic natives called 'sellouts'; but i feel that there are two grey areas to pursue from the vantage point i discuss and these can be *radically played out* **while seeking to *respect* the traditional needs of tribal peoples whom have not been fully destroyed**. Both of these grey areas, i feel, can be gone about via informal, as opposed to 'formal' ways of doing things--without profit-motives, without alleged all-powerful 'leaders', without interactions subordinated to "professionalisms" and other meta controls; and in this informality we permit ourselves to speak/art our hearts, take our lives into our own hands, invite and get challenged by dissent, all towards radically powerful/mutually liberating spirit which we deeply colonized peoples have so largely forgotten and not permitted ourselves to see.
4) The Mental Patients Liberation Alliance is a non-profit group of ex-mental patients which looks at *difficulties in living* in liberatory, non-industry terms, towards mutual liberation. They operate a toll free number 1-800-654-7227 (i think this is it)
5) For both ideas, look up the phrases on google or similar, especially with "chomsky.info" or "zmag.org". i originally saw the former underlined quite well in "Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times" directed by: John Junkerman. |
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