I overcame the resistance, and gazed inside. There was my tummy, the physical representation of accepting nourishment. I became aware that I had some accepting to do. I knew I yet had to fully accept what happened to her and to me.

I accept. I took a hold of that rose quartz sphere I’ve never really held, after years of it being with me. Dear heart-love-energy. I accept.

What followed was peace, relief, fighting ceased.

In the spot, dark room, piercing hot white light on the top of my head, making my hair hot and my stomach drop. Why? What beliefs do I have of you that I let this happen? Do I perceive you as a threat to my self-worth?

I am in control when you don’t expect it of me, demanding perfection. It is I that demands it, do you too? Are you demanding it of yourself. I sprinted off from the start line and hadn’t stopped to collect myself, to collect energy, and your attention.

Reminds me of the Cardigans song “In the Round”

I am young and I’m alive
I want to talk about things
I am young and I own my life
I need to talk about it, baby

In The Experience of “Negative Otherness”: How Shall We Treat Our Enemies (2002) psychologist Stephen Gilligan, Ph.D. argues for an alternative to dealing with our enemies rather than simply fighting or fleeing. He claims that these two options are often insufficient, limited in their effectiveness to resolve conflicts. Fight or flight is the traditional way in which creatures resolve conflict in the world. This calls forth images of a Hobbesian state of nature and the way creatures coexist in such a state. Gilligan writes that different ways humans display fight are: repression, domination, demonization, demonization, numbing something, analyzing, disassociating. Exhibiting flight, we: “check out,” take drugs, surrender, have anxiety, paralysis, or depression. Gilligan observes that responding in ways such as those listed above often does not seem to get us very far. We continually encounter conflict, threats to our happiness and freedom, and sometimes even other people who want to kill us. However, Gilligan poses that dealing with negative situations using fight or flight results in a continuation of cycles of violence and human suffering. Following an analysis of modern and pre-modern myths, Gilligan posits the possibility of another way to be in the world. Instead of responding to an adversary in one or another form of fight or flight, one could seek to transform a situation. He asserts that when one is able to stay connected to themselves during a conflict with a negative other, and maintain a relationship with it, the encounter can become creative, a “nonviolent event that leads to new understandings, new conversations, and new realities,” (3.) He offers us some examples of what this looks like for individuals.

A self-ascribed post-modernist, Gilligan wants to shift our consciousness from the fight and flight response. However, it must be noted that even Gandhi himself (who is put forth as an example of this third way of engaging with an adversary) said that there were situations were violence is the only correct response. (In Merton, 36) Although this may be the case, every encounter with a negative other is an opportunity to see if we can remain “connected,” and examine whether an alternate way is possible, even beneficial.

His essay is tailored to a discussion of personal psychology, but is Gilligan’s analysis of how we understand, perceive and act in relation to “negative others” applicable to social phenomena? In reading Gilligan, I believe to have discerned themes of his psychological analysis in a) religious terrorism, as discussed by Mark Juergensmeyer in his Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, and b) in the nonviolent protest of British rule in India by the followers of Gandhi, as portrayed in Steve York’s documentary India, Defying the Crown. Is it the case that these movements exemplify Gilligan’s analysis on a large scale? I will argue that they do. The goal of my study is to defend this position and consider the implications to social struggle around the globe.

I will begin by explaining what is meant by Gilligan when he uses the term negative other. As a broad concept applicable to diverse situations, Gilligan uses the term to encompass a variety of adversarial situations. A negative other can be an adverse thought or feeling, it may be an addiction or a compulsion; the term can also apply to other people, structures, and/or institutions perceived to be causing one harm. This is significant because it shows that this psychological term is able to be applied in a political and social context, and to individuals and groups.

Next, I will explore Gilligan’s analysis of two ways in which we may deal with a negative other. The first I will refer to as the fight or flight paradigm, and the other I will term the transformational paradigm. I describe them as paradigms, because these methods of dealing with an enemy are informed by two distinct ways it is possible to view the world and our relationship with it. I find foundations for these views in ontological philosophy, and I will explain their philosophical underpinnings by turning to the works of Descartes and Merleau-Ponty. Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy expounds mind/body dualism, and Merleau-Ponty’s The Phenomenology of Perception provides a discussion of the I’s intrinsic embeddedness in the world. Touching upon these works places Gilligan in an academic context and substantiates his analysis.

Descartes

Descartes is a figure to whom we owe a great deal when it comes to science and philosophy in Western culture. Since Descartes, there has been an ongoing debate in philosophy. Scientists and philosophers continue to puzzle over the “true” nature of the mind/body relationship, that of the self and “the other,” and of the subject/object relationship.

Descartes is credited with the thesis that the mind and body are two separate “things.” This Cartesian thinking is evident in how we speak today. For instance we may well hear said that a trip to the spa is beneficial for body, mind, and spirit (as if we possessed these three mutually distinct components). “…[T]he fact that I can clearly and distinctly understand one thing apart from another is enough to make me certain that the two things are distinct,” said Descartes in Meditations. Descartes described the mind as immaterial, non-extended in space, indivisible and governed by reason. The body described as material, extended, divisible, and party driven by causality and physical necessity. Consequently, Descartes was preoccupied with the question of how these apparently opposite substances interact with one another.

Few philosophers today accept dualism. Additionally, there are many scientists who argue that there is nothing that cannot be explained through the natural laws of the physical world. Nevertheless, Descartes, devout and skeptical at once, attempted to reserve a special place for the mental in the physical world of mechanistic cause and effect. Descartes is credited for 1) creating a space for the possibility of free will distinct from a physical universe guided by mechanistic laws of cause and effect, and 2) for placing subjectivity at the front and center in the study of the mind. It is, after all, a unique position to be in as a human being, a witness, a self. In contrast to the inanimate universe, many of us believe, we are special in that we have consciousness. So, the question comes up, what is it like to be a human being?

Merleau-Ponty

The work of Merleau-Ponty is significant in outlining a shift in thinking about the human experience in the world. In Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau-Ponty responds to Cartesian thought that separates the self and the world. Science, he argues, is merely a second-hand explanation of the world, of our experience in the world. There is a primary experience (that of perception) that is a more direct experience– a more poignant reality. He explains how, for example, a hand is not primarily known to us by its anatomy, structure, and make-up. It is rather more intimately known by its ability to grasp things– we understand a hand through its graspability. According to Merleau-Ponty, the world is known by what it calls forth from us. The stairs, for example, are understood by us as something to climb up or to descend, rather than the notion of a construction of wooden planks nailed together, with a series of levels connected to each other in 90 degree angles. This implies an interwoven relationship of us and the world, where one is upheld by the existence of the other.

Merleau-Ponty analyzes patients with brain injuries and anomalies and missing limbs, and their particular psycho-physical responses to sense data. Outlining his discoveries, Merleau-Ponty sheds doubt on a simple stimulation/response explanation of behavior in the body. For instance, sometimes it is the case that simple cause and effect does not explain a phenomenon in the body. For instance, when one feels pain in an arm that has been severed and is no longer there, it is not because this hand has been injured. It has in fact been long gone. Thus, Merleau-Ponty throws his support behind the notion of being-in-the-world, or the imbeddedness of the “I” in the world it inhabits. The “I” is called forth by the world as it acts, or manifests behavior. Merleau-Ponty explains:

My body and the world are no longer objects co-ordinated [sic] by the kind of functional relationships that physics establishes… I have the world as an incomplete individual, through the agency of my body as the potentiality of this world, and I have the positing of objects through that of my body, or conversely, the positing of my body through that of objects… because my body is a movement towards the world, and the world my body’s point of support. (Phenomenology of Perception, 408)

Merleau-Ponty further shows where the Cartesian cogito fails. If thought of oneself is the foundation of their existence (I think therefore I am), then the “I” is only able to be accessed by the self. (The thought of yourself is accessible to you alone.) In this schema, subjectivity, my humanness, is alien to others, because others aren’t able to have my thoughts. Simultaneously others’ subjectivity is alien to me. In Descartes’ world it is not out of the question that an evil demon is creating the world that we perceive. And our senses easily fool us. In his skeptical approach, it is not certain at all that there are other consciousnesses walking around in those bodies called other people.

The “problem of other people” is tackled by Merleau-Ponty. He claims to begin to find a solution in the body. If bodies cease to be “objects” and rather are understood as manifestations of behavior, then I am not reduced to an object by another person, and they are not reduced to such in my field of experience. Here it is not the thought of oneself that defines the subject, there is no subject, per se, there is a manifestation of behavior, something done equally by all humans. My body perceives the body of another, and discovers in that other a familiar set of intentions and similar way of dealing with the world. For Merleau-Ponty, language, communication, inter-subjectivity is key in breaking down existing cognitive boundaries between one and the other: I may have so much mystery surrounding a stranger that has walked into the room– all I know of him really is the appearance of him, all of my experience of him (so far) is his body as an object. How do I really know he is not an empty shell of muscle and bone? How do I know really that this particular stranger has thoughts like mine, feelings like mine, behaviors like mine, or that he has them at all? I can only begin to get a sense of his humanness, his subjectivity when we enter into dialogue.

Having established a philosophical framework for Gilligan’s analysis, I return to Gilligan, who advocates shifting our posture from one based on the idea of disembodied intellect (a mind separated from body and the world) to that of embodied consciousness, or the understanding of the interwoven nature of the “I” with the world.

Gilligan attributes the phrase “embodied consciousness” to psychotherapist Marion Woodman and her book of interviews Conscious Femininity: Interviews with Marion Woodman. By removing the rigid boundary between self and the world, a picture emerges where an adversarial situation, rather than being taken as completely exterior to a person, is seen as something that is a part of the “I” experiencing it. It is the world calling forth a behavior. Here, we come to a choice of how to respond. Will we have a knee-jerk response and fight or flee, or will we engage in dialogue to better understand and even gain control in what is happening? Obviously, one of all three may be most appropriate in a variety of scenarios. I am simply suggesting that knowledge of another way to look at things may yield new options heretofore closed to us due to our lack of awareness of them.

Gilligan describes methods to place oneself in a frame of mind enabling one to access the experience of embodied consciousness. The prominent examples he uses are aikido, the japanese martial art, and satyagraha: the practice written about and put into practice by Gandhi. Both of these methods offer an alternative to dealing with adversaries violently.

The discussion of satyagraha brings me to an analysis of the methods, strategies, actions we take in relation to our enemies and their varied results. It also brings me back to my question, whether we can relate our individual experiences of this to the experiences of groups. At this point of my thesis I will also need to define “social movement,” so that I may engage in a comparison of strategies social movements use to engage their negative others. In the next section then, after explaining Gilligan’s theory, I look to case studies that seem to illustrate the fight and flight paradigm and the transformational paradigm in relating to enemies.

The first case study I have chosen to examine is Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda is an example of the first paradigm of relating to the enemy. I argue that for Al-Qaeda, the enemy is seen as something separate and objectified, as something that must be destroyed. I will discuss ideas and systems present for Al-Qaeda which influence the strategy used in response to the perceived threat the United States presents for them. To discover these ideational and systemic factors, I examine Osama bin Laden’s “Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places” and interviews with Al-Qaeda operatives and would-be suicide bombers.

Second, I explore Gandhi’s nonviolent movement against the British in India, which, founded upon the principles of satyagraha resulted in the liberation of Indians from their British colonizers. In that historical moment, Gandhi’s strategy transformed the Indians from subservient, oppressed subjects into a free people, unable to administered by their colonizers; and the British, who retreated from using unjustified violence which would have been necessary to continue their role as dominators, abandoned their position in India. As in individuals, one success in choosing a nonviolent strategy to solve problems does not indicate that any kind of transformation is permanent. Personal experience can attest that personal growth and new ways of being take constant practice– each moment produces new challenges, choices, and possibilities. Gandhi’s assassination and the failure of India to form a peaceful and united nation indicate that asting transformation did not take hold in India. All this said, I claim that Gandhi’s movement is a pertinent example of the second paradigm identified by Gilligan, discerned on a mass scale. Furthermore, I must note that we are not assured that all of Gandhi’s followers were of like mind with Gandhi. Not all of his followers were able to refrain from objectifying and demonizing the British. Therefore, I cannot imply an assumption that all people in a movement are of like mind. Therefore I will have to restrict my discussion to the principles according to which mass action is organized. I will discuss ideational and systemic variables at play in India to parallel my study of Al-Qaeda. Additionally I will incorporate at least one interview with someone who had participated in Gandhi’s movement.

I have chosen these two case studies because they are extreme cases of the two different paradigms I discuss, while both encompass a religious dimension. Both case studies include groups of people experiencing oppression, but, interestingly, both groups did not implement a common strategy. Also, because al Qaeda is at war with the United States, I have an opportunity to identify that the response of the United States to her adversary is fight, in kind. This makes my analysis and argument relevant to the challenges of our times.

With this juxtaposition of groups, one with a violent strategy and one with a nonviolent strategy, I hope to show two examples of the divergent ways people deal with enemies, as put forth by Gilligan, on a large scale. I argue, based on the evidence, that systemic factors such as oppression do not necessarily cause a violent strategy in group action. Crucial, however, seems to be the particular stance of an accepted moral authority. Ideational leadership seems to have more to do with whether group action is violent or nonviolent.

I observe that the paradigm a leader of a movement uses in framing the adversary influences the actions of a great many people, as demonstrated by the followers of both Gandhi and bin Laden. The organization of movements based on one or another of these strategies potentially either leads to exponentially increasing amounts of bloodshed, or it can lead to a largely peaceful mass movement able to achieve even a momentary victory, aligned with what has been called a developmental force by psychologists: love.

Whether on an individual or mass scale orchestrated by a clear leader, it seems that we have a choice in determining our strategy at overcoming adversity. Will there be progress towards peace, independence and prosperity, or a will there be the perpetuation of a cycle of violence? It is because of this that my study is significant. Leaders of movements wanting freedom from a perceived enemy display this choice writ large.

In order to free ourselves from an incomplete paradigm and effectively deal with enemies in a manner that has the potential to better resolve an adversarial situation, it is helpful to understand the framework behind the divergent strategies that are available to us. Additionally we need the courage to face the fear and anger that an encounter with the “other” may call forth. The more of us that are aware of these ideas and methods, the more likely it is that we will produce leaders able to orchestrate peace and progress, as these factors mutually support one another.

Literature Review

In “The Experience of Negative Otherness: How Shall We Treat Our Enemies?” (2002) Gilligan critiques the philosophical legacy of modernism, linking it to ineffective, violent strategies in reacting to adversarial situations. He poses a theoretical framework with which he suggests an alternative. Gilligan introduces us to a concept of “embodied consciousness” which improves upon the notion of the “isolated, disembodied intellect.” Vivacious and connected to the world, nature, and the present moment, embodied consciousness is a state of mind that “allows one to deal with differences creatively, without demonizing one’s adversary or getting locked into fixed understandings or rigid positions,” (5.) Gilligan describes how one can access a perspective of embodied consciousness, and describes it phenomenologically.

Gilligan’s term “embodied consciousness” comes from therapist Marion Woodman in her book Conscious Femininity: Interviews with Marion Woodman (1993). This book explores the theories used by Woodman in psychotherapy. Within it I find discussion of Woodman’s conception of soul, which need not be a religious concept (as asserts Jonathan Lear in Love and Its Place in Nature: Soul is not necessarily something immortal and separable from the body.) Soul is a crucial component to tapping into a new perspective, and a cornerstone in Gandhi’s satyagraha, as I will explain in my thesis.

Mark Juergensmeyer’s Terror in the Mind of God (2000) is significant to my work as it demonstrates a method used to explain a certain type of violence exhibited at the societal level. Analyzing instances of contemporary religious terrorism around the world, Juergensmeyer analyzes five cases and conducts personal interviews with participants. He finds common themes that run through his case studies. Juergensmeyer analyzes ideas present behind religious terrorism and the conditions that seem to propel it. He asserts that it takes a culture of violence to pull off religious terrorism. Like Juergensmeyer, I will look to case studies and interviews in an attempt to discern patterns and explore possibilities. ?

As I study Al-Qaeda, I will look to Osama bin Laden’s “Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places,” (1996.) This is a primary source for a leader of a group that has chosen the ultimate form of violence towards an enemy. I find the ideological foundation to Al-Qaeda here, and I find the manner in bin Laden discusses the enemy. This provides me the insight into the manner in which he thinks ontologically. Bin Laden describes exactly how America is the “negative other,” and what must be done.

Anat Berko’s book The Path to Paradise: The Inner World of Suicide Bombers and Their Dispatchers, (2007) provides insight into the personal psychology of the individuals involved in this type of religious terrorism. With this book I hope to gain an understanding of some of the systemic factors at work surrounding Al-Qaeda. I hope to discern what their society is like and how it fits in with what they do.

Talal Asad’s On Suicide Bombing is a scholarly work which questions assumptions prevalent in the West related to death and killing. Contextualized in knowledge of secular and religious tradition, as well as social, political and anthropological research and theory, Asad examines various explanations of religious terrorism as well as the emphasis of many writers on motives. He provides a valuable insight on the old and familiar concept of fighting evil. For Asad, it is important to be mindful of the forces that shape the discourse surrounding this kind of violence, which is a stance that I adhere to as well in my work. I expect that this book will help support my argument.

Gandhi’s movement is the obvious case study to look for the principles of satyagraha, or soul-force. Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj (1938) outlines Gandhi’s basic ideas and philosophies. I use this essay as a primary text for Gandhi. It defines “home rule” and discusses how it can be achieved. Selected Political Writings by Mahatma Gandhi, edited by Dennis Dalton include Gandhi’s writing on satyagraha, as a practice and as a strategy against the oppressor. These sources provide the ideology and world-view espoused by Gandhi, the principles upon which his movement was organized.

I have also found an interview with a participant in Gandhi’s social movement of Indians’ struggle against the oppression by the British. Rita Kothari, in “An Interview with Narendra Desai, a Gandhian Activist,” discusses the organization of his campaign: secret messages and subversive writings, “machinery of communication” that disseminated information. This interview brings to light the systemic operations of a group on the ground that provided a unifying aspect to the group.

Taken together, these works that describe both ideational components to religious violence and nonviolent resistance, and systemic factors at play among individuals and their cultures, historically situated in a particular socio-political context. The first case study reveals the cycle of violence unleashed by demonizing a negative other, that this does not seem to resolve the conflict in any lasting way. The information on Gandhi and satyagraha by contrast, demonstrates what “embodied consciousness” looks like in the world, as the Indians momentarily transformed themselves into a free people as they nonviolently pushed the British out of India.

What has preceded has been a review of the literature I will be using in my study to argue that ways in which individuals see the world manifest in the concerted actions of groups in response to adversaries.

Theory

In his essay, Stephen Gilligan expounds a theory describing how and why we relate to negative situations the way we do. His theory is grounded in philosophy, incorporating ontological elements of analytic and continental traditions. Thus, Gilligan asserts two paradigms that inform the way conceptualize or think about adversaries, and explains how these respective paradigms influence the way in which we act in relation to conflict.

The first world-view assumes a distinct split between the subject and object (between the self and the world.) In this paradigm, one traditionally fights or flees from something perceived as a threat. It even occurs that one demonizes an enemy. Juergensmeyer says that this is “easy enough” when one is dominated, feels oppressed, and has suffered under the influence of an outside power. Additionally, it is easier to kill someone to whom you have no personal connection; it is easier still to kill someone that has been objectified, dehumanized, and made into a representative of evil itself. (Juergensmeyer 175-177)

The second paradigm presents the “I” as intrinsically embedded into the social and natural world. It frames an adversarial situation as the world calling forth a behavior. Conflict poses an opportunity to recognize the choice one has in reacting to someone or something posing a threat. This presents an opportunity for growth and development.

Gilligan believes that when one acts from the dualistic standpoint where one and the world are completely distinct, where an individual is completely separate from the enemy or negative other, one generally perpetuates conflict rather than solves problems. When the self and the world are viewed from a more holistic perspective, one is much more effective at actually resolving adversity.

Method

My purpose is to investigate whether Gilligan’s psychological theory of engaging the negative other can be applied to social movements.  In doing so, I will be using Mark Juergensmeyer as a model for the method I will use to achieve this goal.

In Terror in the Mind of God, Juergensmeyer explores the phenomenon of religious terrorism. After selecting five case studies, Juergensmeyer interviews militant religious activists and their supporters.  He scrutinizes the mindsets, the ideas, the associated communities, and other forces at work combining in a particular historical moment to produce a culture of violence.  (7-10) He describes his work as a cultural study of religious terrorism. (14)  “It takes a community of support and, in many cases, a large organizational network for an act of terrorism to succeed,” writes Juergensmeyer. This points to an interconnectedness between individuals and the group to which they belong. Violence happens, according to Juergensmeyer, when specific political, social, and ideological circumstances combine to produce it. (10) Thus, by studying individuals, political and social contexts, and religious story lines, Juergensmeyer opens a window to examine “cultures of violence.” (6-12)

Juergensmeyer intentionally and precisely chooses to use the term “culture” when describing the “cultures of violence” because of the way it has been defined by several scholars.  He wants to encompass the elements these scholars have brought in.  I too, wish to build on this foundation as it is pertains to my work. Juergensmeyer’s culture includes the ideas of Foucault, Bourdieu, and Geertz on the topic. Thus, Juergensmeyer’s cultural analysis includes the notion of “episteme,” which is a world view or paradigm that is the prerequisite of all knowledge. For Juergensmeyer, culture draws in a notion of network of socially entrenched ideas about society– a system of cognitive and motivating structures. This is the social basis for what Clifford Geertz described as the “cultural systems” of a people. This system includes the meanings, the patterns of thought, and the systems of knowledge adhered to by a particular society. This includes both secular and religious ideologies. (Juergensmeyer, 13.)

This aspect of Juergensmeyer’s work is significant to my own because as I seek to show that individual psychology can be discerned in the actions of groups and that world views inform both phenomena, Juergensmeyer demonstrates how individual actions are linked to cultural paradigms and world views, ideas, meanings and social systems.

Thus applying Juergensmeyer’s theory as well as method, I will partake in a comparative cultural study of two groups using different strategies in response to an adversary. I will rely on foundational documents to gather information on the ideational factors of the movement. I will look to interviews with participants to understand systemic factors and psychological elements at work in the actions of organized groups. I will compare and contrast these case studies, inferring that the theories I discuss fit the patterns analyzed in the case studies.

Conclusion

The goal of my study is to discuss that there is more than one way to think about an enemy, and to demonstrate a link between the way we conceptualize our enemies and the actions we take towards them. I wish to show that this pattern is observable not only on an individual level but that it also appears on a larger scale in the world. I will discuss two “social movements” that I claim exemplify two paradigms of approaches we take in response to the “negative other.” I discuss two of the alternatives: one in which an enemy is demonized and dealt with by violence; and the other in which the adversary and the subject are mutually transformed in a historical moment. Both on the individual level and in considering actions painted large on the world canvas, it is important to know that there are often options in how we resolve problems. Bloodshed and prolonged suffering can be avoided, and cycles of violence broken. Human growth and development are the by-products of acknowledging the option.

Works Consulted

Asad, Talal. On Suicide Bombing. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.

Berko, Anat. The Path to Paradise: The Inner World of Suicide Bombers and Their Dispatchers. Translated by Elizabeth Yuval with a foreward by Moshe Addad. Westport: Praeger Security International, 2007.

Bin Laden, Osama. “Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places.” Online News Hour (August 1996). http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html (accessed November 11, 2009)

Descartes, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy. Edited and translated by Cottingham, J. London: Cambridge University Press. 1985.

Gandhi, Mahatma. Selected Political Writings. Edited by Dennis Dalton. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. 1996

Gandhi, Mohandas K. Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule. Edited and pulished by Jitendra T.Desai. Ahmedabad, India: Navajivan Publishing House (Navajivan Mudranalaya.) 1938.

Gilligan, Stephen. The Experience of Negative Otherness: How Shall We Treat Our Enemies? (2002) Seishindo. http://www.seishindo.org/articles/st_gilligan2.html. (accessed July 6, 2009.)

Juergensmeyer, Mark. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. 3rd ed. Berkley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2000.

Kothari, Rita. “An Interview with Narendra Desai, a Gandhian Activist.” Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 3, no. 3 (2001): 439-445.

Lear, Jonathan. Love and Its Place in Nature: A Philosophical Interpretation of Freudian Psychoanalysis. New York: The Noonday Press. 1990

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception. New York and London: Routeledge Classics, 2002.
Merton, Thomas, ed. with introduction. Gandhi on Nonviolence. New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1964.

Woodman, Marion. Conscious Femininity: Interviews with Marion Woodman. Toronto: Inner City Books, 1993.

I’m playing chicken with seeing the doctor for some prednisone. I have been on the SCD diet, but it was not kicking in this time.

I started up again doing weekly or bi-weekly colonics. I started an intensive acupuncture treatment. Interestingly, I found through the electronic meridian test that the Chi in my stomach was weak, and too strong in my lungs, large intestine, and three warmers (whatever these are). The lungs are grief, which does not surprise me. The “autoimmune” label does not surprise me, because when I was a teen I had suicidal tendencies because of the grief that I was submerged and trapped in. The weak stomach makes sense.

Stomach is where we accept nourishment. I have understood that for me, the diarrhea is a repudiation of that nourishment, as was the bulimia of my youth. It is time for me to ACCEPT the nourishment that is self-love.

I’ve started taking huge amounts of oil of oregano, topically and ingestion, following Jini Patel Thompson’s protocol. Bentonite clay, vitamins, fish oil, enzymes, probiotics. I’ve pulled out all the fireworks I can muster.

Last night I felt a shift. I wasn’t in SO much freaking pain in my legs. I hope this trend of betterment continues.

Your essence is good.
It is your job to help us with our health care.
You finance it through our monthly payments.
Your service is that we don’t have to have the savings to cover our asses.
You shoulder our responsibility.
It is not your job to deny claims or tell doctors how to do their job.
As a result, it is also your financial incentive to help us stay or get healthy.
What are you going to do about it?

Hey Lawmakers!

Expand the taxes on products that make us unhealthy.
We already have a liquor and cigarette tax.
Tax corn-syrup, sugar, partially hydrogenated oils.
Lawmaker, laws are to protect us.
Engage with agri-business!

For Jung this was a better term for the Collective Unconscious.

Merleau-Ponty said that the Objective Psyche resides in cultural objects. In relics and landscapes, one finds proof of the presence of the Other, of other people, beneath a veil of anonymity. One is seen in the pipe for smoking, in the spoon for eating, in the bell for ringing; and it is in the perception of a human act and another man or woman that a cultural world is verified. – paraphrased from the French Phenomenologie de la Perception, 1945

The first job I applied for was a new charter school. I waited around all summer for it, but it never got off the ground. That job would have been cool, a mentorship job at a school for kids that were not making it in the public schools, but oh well. Perhaps getting that first job like that would have made it too easy.

Then I found from an intern job at school for learning English. It was fun at first, but then it was disasterous due to a clash of energies with an office Queen. It only paid minimum wage, and I was overqualified. It was not a good fit for me. It became apparent that it would not serve in taking me closer to where I am going- to what I intend to do.

I came to the conclusion that for my resume, the best job I could get that was the best paying was restaurant work. Even though I had said that there was no restaurant on my horizon after Bang! whom I love and which has been the ultimate for me as far as a service career. After removing this restriction on restaurant work, I pursued the service industry again.

I started applying to anything that popped up on Craigslist.
I applied at a newly opening pool hall in Northglenn. When I walked into the room the day they were seeing applicants, there was a huge line and there were maybe fifty people in the room. There was one lady interviewing a bartender applicant. Luckily, another lady surfaced and she called the girls applying for server/waitress positions in tow groups. There were six others in the room with me, and at the end of the group interview, two of ten went home. I was happy I had the job. I was happy that I had a job.

But when the pool hall actually opened, it was in actuality a cocktail job. I remembered that I really dislike cocktailing. This place was far away from home, it was slow with just opening, and they charged money for water. $1 for even just tap water. This rule, aimed at kids who hog up tables from drinking customers, was off-putting to customers, and to me. It was a drag, and so I quit. It was a good practice of saying “no, thank you” to a scenario.

At this point I went on a shamanic journey with Antonio. I was looking forward to laying down and putting my feet up, and even just dozing off. When I arrived I paid a visit to the Great Mother to do her services and ask her to release jobs for the community.

I just wanted a restaurant job where I could just be a dinner server.
That is exactly what came about with the Indian restaurant. I had a friend there, but the other server was this Indian chick who was reasonably nice, but trained me harshly, expecting me to memorize every word she said, and then humiliated me if I needed to ask something she somehow expected me to know. Again, as with the office Queen, I tried to stay compassionate and take her meanness as an opportunity to practice not allowing myself to be thrust into hatred and antagonism.

I was so submissive, I needed this job, and I just took her abuse when she dished it out. I wore my blue velour pantsuit from K-mart that I just had to have. I needed some bling to go with it. I got out my gold chain my mom gave me with a south-western gold bear pendant that I hadn’t appreciated until now.

I dreamed about a circular room with six doors surrounding its parameter. Two warring mobsters came out of the doorways to stand-off with guns, but a great bear came out as well and put the men to shame with her ferocity.

There was a Bang! reunion when Christina and Shannon were in town with Jen, Josh, and Dani Gaines. I went into work in my black uniform with the golden bear swinging under my blouse as I tapped into this gold bear energy. It was perfect. Noone, not even the mean waitress could fuck with me. However, with the owner supposedly in a deep hole not paying some employees and the energy off, I knew I had to find something better. I found a dear friend there in a Nepali man with a beautiful wife that I wish the best for always. I had to leave before I told any more people how awful that unfortunate place was. Cockroaches (as have the other restaurants in the oldest part of downtown) and burst sewer line in the frigid arctic weather we had.
I remembered that I had to be specific in what I wished for. I wished for a job that was a good atmosphere that made me good money and that had good people, nice co-workers and customers.

I found an add for Poppies, applied, (I was the second person there) and got hired the next morning. I told the waitress and the owner why I was leaving in the nicest way possible, and I went in to work at Poppies, which seems just fine. It’s not forever, but it’s a great for now.

So, once I tranced out in Antonio’s basement room and my spirit traveled to the lower world, I met this monster. I knew it was a manifestation of a deep grief. The monster was chocolate brown and furry. I began to shave it, and I tied a ribbon in his hair. This monster needed to be buried, so that is what I did. This did not seem to be enough to dispel the energy, so I saw it draw into an underground stream, which carried it away, away, away.

This has been extraordinarily valuable in my waking life. When I have felt grief (especially about Walter Kitty, I have given to my tears freely, and I breathe them along instead of packing them in. I get a sense of that underground stream, and it washes the pain away, away, away.

In light of the last post on yoga and digestion, hips and mother complex, (seen here) where I discussed being grounded through the heels (connecting to mother, the great nourisher) during forward fold, and the new ability to see into the gut region, the seat of the second brain or the soul, I wish to discuss another facet of this: the squat.

The squat rounds my low back. As I wrap my arms around myself, I am soothed, as if Mother was here in her most loving embrace. This engages my anus and my rectum, and strengthens the muscles connected to my loose hip.

For a girl with digestive and mother-related issues, this is an excellent pose too. I am continuing the work with uttanasa and garland pose with arms hugging the legs, coming down and back up through chair pose. I warm up with a sun salutation.

I take this as an opportunity for growth. I must shed the fear and paralysis of sticking up for myself, and stand up for what’s right. I can’t go on avoiding uncomfortable situations at my own expense. This is the perfect opportunity to practice talking back to this harpy, because I don’t really care about this job.

Meanwhile, I manifest something better. I had forgotten that you must be careful what you wish for. I had gone into this just wanting a job. Any restaurant job. Well, that is not good enough. I want to work someplace that doesn’t stink (literally), that has nice people, is busy and I make good money, a place that I want to be…

Another healer I was working with recommended Dr. Berceli’s book, The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process. I didn’t get the book, as money is tight, but through browsing the web I found that the premise of his book is based on the idea that we shake after a trauma for a reason: it releases the trauma from our system. His book describes how to bring on a state of shaking muscles specifically to release trauma still being held by the body.

I feel that the baby’s breath works the same way- especially for me in my gut region. When I pant and my belly shakes, and then I deeply inhale and exhale, I feel “stuff” dislodging. I love it. It is the only technique that I actually feel working, and I am so grateful for it. I can use it any time, any place, rather discretely. It has also changed the way I cry. I no longer pack it in, but using the breath, crying is the release that it is meant to be.

The pain in my sacrum from my weak left buttock, which let my leg dangle off to the side, brought my attention to the options represented by the new awareness I was getting in my left hip and the muscles around it. I went to see Rick Olderman, and he helped me a ton. I learned to work my left buttock more and stretch my front thigh area. RIck’s work is amazing.

The physical correction of lifting my left quad even more in a forward bend put me down more firmly into my heels, rooting me more firmly to the Earth, the sacred Mother Matter. Fascinatingly, this adjustment in my forward bend, as my crown stretched toward the earth, facilitated an opening of awareness in my anus… the chakra associated to this deals with rootedness to Earth. I knew I had been cut off here. My teenage bulimia too, repudiated motherly nourishment and nurture. There in the gut, power center, fear of my father depreciated my self-worth. There, when I am there in a forward bend, staring at my knees, I see the other side of me. Folded in half, the other side of me is directly in front of my gaze. I can look into my gut, look for the blocks, breathe in opening, offer my attentive love, and she responds.

That is the thing to do in some of these yoga poses, and it had just been theory before: connect the crown and the anus. As humans, we are connected to spirit AND matter. We are mind AND body. Both demand our awareness– the rational and the irrational. Words AND symbols. The spoken and the unsaid. The good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the civilized and the wild. When the one is repressed, it begins to clamor for attention. Doesn’t it?

Rick, the physical therapist whom I highly recommend can be found here and here

So, Do you have a man?
My momma’s mom asked me
Bent from the wait of her years
Even though I sat
I looked up to talk to her.
She looked up at me
Gazing through my momma’s eyes.
I answered as though speaking from my momma’s soul
She could never stand still in all her life
Nor did her eyes ever look so worried.

Yes.

And what do you want to do?
Write books, enjoy films from the hearts of beautiful foreign places
That would make it hard to raise a family.
It would.
But I could only be faithful
To the lover that is Art.
One must find the quiet of the soul
Hear the tiny voice of the Calling
Which gets louder
when the exclamation is
Love!

Money is cold
and lifeless.
A barbed wire barrier
to that which is most meaningful.
Those who lust after money
and claw after power
Stuff a rag into the mouth of that
tiny voice
Which offered purpose for their life.

Living is an Art.
The job of the artist is
to show us what humanity is.
Essence of expression
From the interior of the Soul
Convey the abstractions of the realm
Flitter out of the cuccoon
Transmute metal into gold.

II.

The president should be a philosopher?
As the conquistadors
Explored the world
They exploited the Indians for earthly treasures.
Burned, destroyed, and slaughtered.
The ruler philosopher whispers
Explore your Selves
it is not a voice
which is the calling

Oh yeah?
I will transform this situation,
so that it serves me.
My thriving life force.
Don’t throw me under the bus
and expect me to protect you.
I am overqualified for this.

This hostile situation
will be my stepping stone.
I will choose personal power.
But what about Love, though?
What about her?

Love is in standing up for myself.

I think I’m upset that I’m only going to be making minimum wage.

We started out by naming what we’ve heard: father complex, power complex, inferiority complex, oedipus complex, money complex, etc, etc. We know we have a complex when there is an extreme emotional response to a situation in life.

Complexes form in childhood, in parent relationships, and in relationships we’ve had with others. They are the result of conditioning childhood experiences pertaining to instinctual patterns and survival; events, traumas and difficulties.

They can be explained in terms of cause and effect. Complexes are pieces of ourselves that were split off from the ego and driven into the unconscious through acts of repression.

When complexes are unconscious and unrecognized, they drive us. Furthermore, what we don’t acknowledge, we become more of! However, when we name them, we can take control, instead of letting the complex control us. When such an intense feeling arises, and we can identify the complex, we can have an “aha” moment, and rationally recall a strategy that we may have formulated regarding the action we wish to take in response instead of reacting blindly. The power of the complex can only be broken by making conscious what is repressed in the shadow, unknown part of our psyche. However, the complex resists! We cannot resolve them by the intellect alone: we must utilize our feelings, the body, and emotions.

We also know a complex is present when there is a gap, or pause of silence and searching during an association test, versus a rapid, prompt response such as “black, white.” “Cat, dog.” Also, if there is a different choice of response a couple of days later. They are found in slips of the tongue, dreams, and blanks in memory.

We cannot live without this shadow and the complexes: they are inner experience from which life flows. They provide opportunities to raise the level of consciousness in a being. They are reflected in Fairy Tales, which in theory illustrate processes of the psyche. Intensity of moments tells us of them. They are energies that are the roads to the unconscious, without which the psyche can’t function. They are feeling-toned contents, these complexes. They are a habitual attitude, acting like an animated foreign body.

There is a nuclear element to complexes, and an element of constellated associations. Regarding the nuclear aspect: it is a factor determined by experience and that is causally related to the environment. Also it has an innate individual character determined by millions and millions of generations of human experience regarding aspects of existence like father, mother, child. Complexes have a personal shell, that is, a cover woven from concrete, personal experiences, and an archetypal core at the level of the collective unconscious. We all have had experiences relevant to the above mentioned aspects of being human. We all have experienced Child, Father, Mother in some way, throughout our entire existence, both individually and as a collective.

Psychologically, we work from the personal level to the archetypal core. We must sweep our own doorstep instead of blaming the world around us for being dusty. What we can’t see in ourselves we project out into the world. For instance, as in Paula’s example of her friend’s daughter, who had commented on a dream that she had had the night before. The friend’s daughter dreamed that her boyfriend had cheated on her. Do you think he would he ever cheat on you? Paula asked. No, said the girl. Would you ever cheat on him? asked Paula. The girl flushed bright red, apparently because the cheater was actually the dreamer herself!

The ego has four attitudes towards the complexes:

1. It is unconscious to its existence. It is let out in forgetfulness, slips of the tongue, etc.

2. It identifies with the complex. This results in OCD behavior, multiple personalities.

3. It projects the complex out into the world, and

4. It confronts the complex. Only love helps the ego deal with the complex effectively. However, here one must be in a place to be able and willing to deal with suffering.

I was crying and I asked Chris to hold my hand. He said some things that helped me. Assigning blame to someone else was simply not empowering. Why then, would I choose these parents, this situation? Maybe I had an ancient habit of Self-abuse! Another way to look at it, is, in order to know who we are, we must learn what we are not. It is true, I am a nurturer! Under all of the self-abuse, I am a very nurturing person. How fitting– before, when, attuning to my unconscious, I asked my pain what it looked like. I saw an image of a big, cave-sized gaping vagina. What a symbol of the feminine. I must be going through a transformation of turning a negative archetype into a positive one. And to confirm, possibly I dreamed the death of my father, who symbolizes all those old feelings. I want to be free of them. In my dream, I said to myself, luckily I had called him and stayed in touch in the last days of his life. Love wins, and transforms.

The next night, last night, I dreamed that I didn’t want to marry Chris. I was chasing some bodybuilder. This is a strange incongruency that I haven’t figured out yet.

I love Linda too, but after our fight, I lost my sense of safety somehow. I’ve been working through the sadness of losing her in a way. However, this was a really good dream. My psyche, (soul) is really be working some things out in my personal unconscious lately. It is very much so responding to my attention.

I ended up being loose with my specific carbohydrate diet afterwards (yesterday) having chocolate cake, which a girl brought to the school, some potatoes that came with the special at the restaurant when we tried the special, some french fries, and some chocolate mousse. I was fine.

I am happy because my guts have been doing so much better. I have found a job I love being at, I have been listening to my body and doing art and poetry and relaxing when I need. I have been writing down and chalk drawing some dreams. This is a good state of affairs.

What is it like to be a …
Triangle Mountain Tree Rock Eagle Bridge Dog Child

Things going on in my life: I started an internship at the Colorado School of English. I am actually getting paid very little while the internship, but I love the environment- all the international students, and the teachers- one happens to be an old favorite friend of mine! The director is french. Maybe one day I will be brave enough to put my french language training into practice! Languages are definitely a special skill of mine, and it feels great to be in an area that complements this. The position may lead to a full time job! Hopefully it will pay more than minimum wage so that I can stay. I would be an admin, I’m assuming.

Also, I sold a bunch of that Soviet propaganda that was found by a dumpster. It was given to me by a friend who knows I’m czech and interested in these cultural and historical type of things. I was alerted by another friend they were worth some money. He ended up buying some as an amateur collector.

What other riches are lurking beneath the surface??? I look forward to their revelation!