Same Ol' Shit

Continue to troll the limits (there seem to be none) of the deep, dark, blue.  For sure, a candidate for ECT.  Expect to admit (submit, resignedly) myself to the nearby university hospital in the next week.  Oh boy.

Have been "hiding out," really -- blog-wise and otherwise -- so as not to "inflict" myself upon others; this deep discontent no doubt potentially "catching."  Oops!  Did I get some on you?  I am terribly sorry!

Oh, Gawd!  If I could just "let go" a bit, perhaps . . .  relax!

Just this catalog of the world's woes I suppose I fixate upon . . .  Central to so much of this aching: the dark pall of the Bush/Cheney cataclysm . . .  it is almost as though my conscience works triple-time, as these men lie, and war, and torture, and subvert the rule of law without flinching . . .  primarily, let's face it, at the behest of Big (Bad) Oil.

Caught an excellent installment of Independent Lens: Democracy on Deadline.  Journalist Carlotta Gaul's work in Afghanistan was featured, particularly her reporting on the high incidence of suicide by self-immolation among Afghani women.  I can SOOOO relate!  It struck me how these women sort of take the horror and injustice that surrounds them out on themselves -- the classic, psychoanalytic take on depression -- anger turned inward.  "This is so wrong, this circumstance I am in.  But I am powerless to bridle the instigators of all this villainy.  There is only one way for me to end the crimes being committed against this heart.  I will still my heart!"  Depression as a symptom of collective conscience-lessness.

Also caught a "sports" story about a former footballer who struggles with depression -- concussions the focus (related link).  I recall at least two, fairly serious bangs to my head before I was 16 (my first suicide attempt: age 17). 

Speaking of shit . . .  Following is some blithering mish-mash I recently addressed to Ken Wilber.  No reply, as of yet.  (His blessed minders culled it as spam, OR, The Man truly does have better ways of spending his time and attention. I completely understand.)



(subject line:) shitting on your porch

dearest ken,  

as an "informal" student of adi da going back to the publication of breath and name [1976?], i always took seriously (perhaps, too seriously) the admonition, "come to Me when you are already happy."  this, with related, "traditional" tenets of reverence for the person, the time, and the attention of the Guru (one simply does not casually intrude or impign upon the "great blessing work" being accomplished by the guru), checks me no less, here, now, as i "dare" to intrude upon you and your most-august work.  true, i have written to you before (about a "future of capitalism" conference i sought to convene [didn't happen]), and, indeed, you did reply (spinning me into a bhakti-esque, He-spoke-to-me! swoon of fandemonium).  but that was a different circumstance, and i suppose i felt more "worthy" or "with it" then.
 
here, among growing throngs of friends, petitioners, hecklers, and who-else, i clamor for your attention to beg advice on a fundamental, personal vexation.  this is not, "i've got it! we're here! let's go! let's co-celebrate this ever-unfolding Miracle! how can i pitch in?"  rather, this is about my broken bits; the "log in [my] eye;" and me plaintively asking you for help.  

at the same time, before going any further, i wish to extend my deepest sympathies to you and yours as goes your own harrowing encounters with these, our poignant, always-fatal frailities.  grand mals and defribrillations . . .  my heart goes out to you, to becca (dear heart), "the boys," et al.  truly, the Very Heart of the Kosmos must have skipped a beat right along with you.  

once, on an integral naked thread, i characterized myself (a bit too glibbly, i suppose) as 'ken wilber's "stan"' -- reference to the horribly fanatical fan "eulogized" in a song by eminem (ft. dido).  i recalled then, in the same note, how the arrival of spectrum of consciousness had 'saved my life!' (saved from interminable despairing: where is the real wisdom in our midst?)  some self-approbation was intended, and some chiding among friends, with that "stan" reference -- nod to "shadow boxing" and the like.  there is and has been, as i'm sure you know, kind of ruckus going on, near and far, about who loves you more.  (your critics be damned!)  "oh yeah! you think you like ken's stuff, huh? well, well, i, really, really, really like ken's stuff! AND, i've, i've really, really liked ken's stuff a lot longer than you have, you dweeb!"  but i missed the mark, because a shit storm ensued appropos eminem's apparent misogynism, etc., and the dark spectre of fanatical fans gone very wrong.  whoa!, like, not what i intended at all.  many points lost.  (attempted to broach the subject of "dick management" there, as well -- tackling some of our exquisite-bond-breaking FIOKI pathologies. that raised a few hackles, too.  and i didn't, as it turned out, stick with integral naked much longer.)  

anyway, what might have been closer to the mark -- with the same measure of self-approbation (re: "projection" and so on), but absent the unintended, darker drift -- would have been the characterization of "ardent devotee."  truly, the poiint, then and now, is that "student" simply doesn't capture or convey the profound affection i feel (as more and more of us do) about both your presence in our midst and the colossal Gift that your work is to us all.  WOW!, you really, really brung it, brother!  truly-ooly awesome!  [we need some new superlatives here!]  Kosmic, dude!  frickin' m-er f-n kosmic!  

blabber, blabber, blabber.  

so, my plaint: "major (refractory) depression"  i have struggled with this "noonday demon" for much of my life.  chronic becomes acute; eases back to chronic, tumbles back down to acute, again and again -- repeat, and repeat.  drug, food, and vitamin therapies.  holotropic breathwork.  (love stan and christina!)  talk-a-thons.  cry-a-thons.  rage-a-thons.  hospitalizations.  etc., etc.  right now, my name is at the top of the "outpatient" list at the nearby university hospital, in albuquerque, for an electro-convulsive therapy session.  suggested to me before, this will be the first time i am resigned to giving it a whirl.  "really works. should be used more often" -- that's the prevailing word.  the psychiatrist i've consulted there suggested i consider a vagus nerve stimulation implant, as well.  we'll see.  

so then, it's debilitating, degenerating depression -- this is the prasad i lay here at your feet.  yeehaw.  i feel here like i am shitting on your porch.  i am a broke-down monk-junkie, of some sort.  no dope or alcoholism.  my jones is this psycho-spiritual chemistry of nearly-unmitigated grief.  ("the guy is just too sensitive.")  

i'll be 48 this month.  presently, i live in a small travel trailer parked on some land my sister owns, in the eastern foothills of the sandia mountains (near albuquerque).  i share this "cell" with my faithful, true-heart (canine) companion, kanya, and several boxes of books.  in and out of several schools ("great books," green architecture/community planning [amory lovins, another long-time object of adoration]), work situations (high-end cabinetry, the last), and "marriage-like commitments" (who can live with all this heartache?) over the years.  i have not had a "real job" or shared my bed in (what's it been, now?) 4-5 years and counting.  though i supposedly engaged in remodelling my sister's nearby home, i've accomplished near about diddly since i got "parked" here 2 years ago.  i've applied for social security.  i haunt the web; did some blogging at zaadz a few months back.  watch c-span and link tv (miss "westwing").  i've got high blood pressure and sleep apnea ("how about some non-restorative sleep to assauge that fatigue?)"  have not managed to read a book in ages, though your, integral spirituality, and, what terrorists want, by louise richardson sit here on my table collecting dust.  my latest shrink assures me my brain is rotting owing to the depression, the apnea, etc.  waiting for wednesday.  pissing and moaning all the while, and well aware of billions who have it worse.  (how dare i bug you with this shit?!)  

what's the root?  not to set up an either/or -- it is both/and.  yet, what if this is, primarily, the "god-shaped hole" that has become the flaming cauldron my soul dangles over?  the occult-anatomy "dove" in my brain straining to spread its wings?  or, what if, like an old, scratched record, i've simply gotten stuck somehow at the inhalation phase of the tonglen loop?  is there some way to "bump" the juke box and get me unstuck?  

this ocean of sadness is boundless and multi-generational, i have no doubt.  this grief and aching cannot all be my own, nor all of it "contemporary" (though, needless to say, there is no lack of soul-racking shit going down right now).    

I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I can not tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me.   ~ Abe Lincoln    

the thing is, i worry that this impending "medical" intervention might, inadvertently or otherwise, weld shut heaven's gate, in my case, rather than therapeutically "reboot" my psyche.  is there a better course?  

so, yes, let's figure i am "genetically prediposed."  i am "enjoying" this bourgeios opportunity to encounter "anxiety."  yipppee!  developmentally, i was "bent" (one psychiatrist found, "PTSD") in this direction.  but,  was i also born with real religion, real yoga in soul, such that only "THAT!" will do?  all the rest of it, it seems, every last bit -- any and all "experience," high or low -- is dross.  

i say this having once traversed an episode, in the mid-90's, of tasting One Taste -- or so i've supposed.  i was outside any community of realizers, of whatever stripe; was living in kansas at the time; lone-wolfing it, as ever.  (not that i wouldn't have preferred it otherwise.  moved near Persimmon [aka: Mountain of Attention] at the end of '79, landing at Harbin Hot Spriings, a hill and a valley away.  woulda coulda been at Namkhai Norbu's feet, or half a dozen others.  shoulda woulda been to boulder and II by now.  but have been stuck in this ditch, and not wanting to "inflict" myself upon others any more than has been unavoidable.  [my poor, dear family and friends!])  have had no formal relationship with any teacher before, then, or since.  so i can offer up no serious authentification or qualification of the state i entered into.  but, near as i can tell, there IT was (here IT IS, for real): "the Innate Great Perfection," plain as day; simple; obvious; by-Grace-given . . .  "the Location of Happiness . . . prior to experience"  "I AM THAT!"  and, lo, all the rest, every last bit of it, is not dross afterall, but is THAT!, too.  THIS persisted, day and night, uninterrupted, for months.  in some quarters: "the biggest deal, ever!"  and yet, no big deal, at all.  "always-already true."  everyone, everywhere, everywhen . . . seamless!  a samadhi of some sort.  i "woke up," or so it seemed.  (i even wrote to adi da and crew at the time: 'alright! let's do this!')  but, over time, my "poor white trash" fundaments persisting, my melancholy genes, or whatever, and it's "dark night of the soul" all over again.  foreground and background re-trade places, and it's back to the status woe.  for several years after, the Taste was "nearby."  with the right practice . . .  who knows?  but it's forgotten, more and more.  "never-lost liberation" does still, noticably and (variation on a theme) recognizably, dangle like ripe fruit (but without falling), closer than my breath, from time to time -- but less, and less.  "dark night" persists.  

by the way, tasting One Taste, in my case (if that is what it was) -- beyond not being psychotherapeutic (hello! the ego, with its foibles, does persist!) -- seems to have, i don't know, compounded or vouchsafed this dark-night, broke-down thing i do, in some way.  like "ambition" was obliterated.  "IT IS DONE!"  what more can be gained, won, added to THIS?  like some "renunciate" switch got flipped.  personal efforting of most any sort just seems to have "Atman project" written all over it.  practice?  there is only THIS, always-already.  it may just be that i managed to find the pathological wing of "enlightenment," too.  (Traleg Rinpoche's work on "right view" might be instructive here.)  

also, the state, whatever it was, had a definite "feminine" component of "fullness" to it, for me -- though not exclusively.  like, "my cup runneth over!"  satiation beyond satiation.  Infinite Divine Love!  more than enough for everybody, if we'd but notice!  when THIS becomes the starting point of our acculturation . . . WOW!  (you have done soooo much to bring this along!)  

incidentally, as well, fire [?] and all living things seemed to have a subtle, extra, previously-unnoticed luminousness to them.  ("the Bright?")  

one more (dis-)qualifier: this was after a hospitalization for depression; following a profound, profound emotional catharsis and nearly abject "surrender" (getting out of the way).   AND, this was the first time i'd started taking anti-depressants  so, i was taking Prozac and something called Pamelor when this episode kicked off.  (had a girlfriend, later, who often joked about Zen stories of enlightenment -- many of them with a seemingly incidental mediating factor: "he dropped the stick on his toe . . . and he became enlightened!"  was i ripe back then, expect for simply being "synaptically-challenged?"  pivotal, this, or incidental?  subsequent courses of anti-depressants (including vitamin P) have not born a similar boon.  i wonder if the 'extra luminousness' came from the Prozac.  ???  at the time, i gave adi da and dzogchen and advaita vedanta (and a notion of Divine Grace) more credit than the Prozac.

in any case, my diksha or ILP (ha! that's a stretch! what ILP?) has always been lame and/or broke down.   i get a little wind in my sail now and then, but . . .   

this, that episode, is (marginally) like the one, bare "qualification" that allows me to marshal this gumption (this gaul) to bug your truly precious, high-and-mighty ass.  (i mean that with adamantine affection.)  maybe this propensity here -- paradise won; tasting One Taste -- has some importance beyond the trivial fate of this particular bag of skin.  yet, i am losing brain power.  and i am nothing like the "hightly-functioning" (to say the least) folks you swim with.  i am so on the margin out here, sitting on my duff, chain-smoking and watching c-span.  i am as ragged as i have ever been.  i would be an ant among Indras at II and similar environs.  why the hell am i bothering you?  

at this particular crossroads . . .   maybe something like personal desperation trumps respect and my usual go-it-alone-ness.  maybe if i had asked for help sooner?   but here, the prospect of losing you, in your latest travail . . . the chance, the small chance, of this ECT session being "terminal" in one form or another (did you ever see the "gnostic" allegory film, the man who fell to earth, with david bowie?  the best and brightest "blood let" the poor bastard and he can never again "go home".) . . .   your recent convulsions / my preparing to induce one . . .   someone perpetually suicidal suddenly anxious about death, yours and mine . . .  go figure.  and, other converging threads: snippets of integral politics at your blog (the presaged, monumental "shift" right around the corner utterly heartening, btw), and one little line there about "depression,"  

Or perhaps I should say, I am slowly allowing for the simple possibility that something deeply positive might happen in the manifest realm, because my depression had ruled that out entirely, and so I wasn't even capable of looking at the facts.

that pops out and smacks me in the face in a way that most other readers probably don't appreciate.  elsewhere, you've written and spoken about depression, as about so much else, with such blazing clarity (you and able lincoln, dude, you get it!).  cumulatively, and more than ever, it's, "just go ahead! ask the smartest man on the planet, the most accomplished former dishwasher -- ever! -- for some help, already!"  yeesh!  "Dear Great Sheik . . ."  if somebody has a clue about this depression thing, perhaps it is you.  unseemly as it feels, i'm attempting here to elbow my way into your sensory range, to the front of the crushing crowd, with the penitent's question, "yo ken! any suggestions for this one?"  

i took part in a teleseminar with saniel bonder several months back, and dared to bug him about my puny quandary.  in a brief question and answer, over the phone, in about a hundred words or less, i squeaked, and he averred that my being stuck in this mire was "more about the Heart" than a bio-psychological malady.  (i love saniel!, going back to his "senior editor" days with adi da.)  

another thing that struck me on your blog of late, another inducing thread: becca (dear heart) using the term "transmission" in reference to your teacher work!  i have no doubt this does and has applied to what you do for some time.  but, until now, i'd just never this said about you.  cool!  

so this is it:  can you aim that thing?  (that transmission thing)  maybe it's a matter of honestly advising me to lay down my sword here on karuchshestra field; leave it to a younger, brighter generation; ready the rocking chair; stop caring so much . . .  

it may be, only an army of angels could pull me out of this murk and muck.  perhaps a more concerted intervention is required than is meritted or justified.  angels have to triage, too, no doubt.  kosmic cost/benefit analysis.  

to conclude, i'm not just here, hat or begging bowl in hand.  i love you, brother!  there is something so very deeply, fundamentally reassuring about "the Nature of things" owing to the fact of your appearance, and all of the [no-known-superlative-suffices] work you are accomplishing and instigating.  from my heart of hearts, and out of this well, this infinite ocean of soul sadness (not just my own), and from Awakeness to the Condition of all our conditions, too, the Deepest Deep Thanks!!  you have delivered SO MUCH!!!  (wtg, Kosmos!)  

to the True, the Good, and the Beautiful!   as d. t. suzuki would sign,  

nobody special  
(robert lyons)  

peace out!