Blog 67 Be Prepared: Gear Up (Gary)
I’ve got my Cool Max socks and shirt, my water bottle with Emergen-C, camera, stop watch, knife, Sting Kill, sun screen, note pad, pen, clip-on sunglasses, and lastly my special pack that Mark bought me that just holds my water bottle and a few of the items. The rest go in my pockets. It's funny because I am always critical of sports that require all kinds of special (especially brand name) gear. Yet this is de-re-gore for me. Here I am with all of my special shit. I realize it is fun to carry all my equipment, and that each item has become almost sacred. They work, and they can make a difference. I despise the culture of wanting, yet I have perhaps played a part in what I most resent. I want so I walk. That does seem to be a part of it.
Is it okay to just “want” to be alive and live well?
My great mystery is unraveling. I am discovering things about myself in the walking and the writing. I walk because I want something. That rings true. I know I crave the contact with Nature, and the energy I get in my body, but yet I continue to talk about what I want. Maybe I am struggling with the conflict of wanting, and never having enough, like everyone else. Hmmmmmm. Could be true, doctor. (Is the word really “want?” How about “starved?” My mother couldn’t even remember if I was breast fed or baptized. Obviously I had no one to feed me everything we are starved for beyond food.)
The weather dictates the changes in my gear, and I have a number of other items I add or subtract depending on climatic conditions. And before I go out the door I check Air Now on the web to make sure the air quality is considered safe. It's the shits to be on a good start to a hike and realize my lungs are heavy, burn, and I cough because I know I am getting something in my lungs that doesn't belong there. The wood smoke rising from homes on the surrounding hills on cooler days can be debilitating and a nuisance.
I grab my gear from upstairs and do a quick trot down to the door. Neither of us wants to be chastised for being late. Mark’s old BMW convertible pulls up shortly or he is waiting with his bandana on his head. Oh, one of those things I forgot to mention.
When did a bandana become cool? Actually I think it looks pretty stupid (you will find our judgments throughout by the way). Like you’re a fucking pirate or a Russian cleaning lady who is out to pick up a new broom or something. I am sure some athlete started this, and now everyone has to follow, much like the backward baseball cap. I know I only wear the bandana under my hat when it’s hot. I soak it with cold water and slap it on my head. It helps. It has become another somewhat sacred tool, certainly on hot days. (You fool, don’t you know you will be rejected and won’t be loved if you wear that? Mom has a set of requirements for love. Pay attention.)
BUY THE BOOK
BLOG 66 SUFFERING (Gary)
The heat helps. It can be brutal but Mark and I seem to love it. It claims us and we give it all up moment by moment as we think we might drop. It's kind of like our lives. Both of us have tried so hard to have life be different from what we have known: 107° and no shade and a 25 lb. pack go steadily up hill. It forces us to do our best at what we know and can do. It’s really more of the same.
I know that has been my life, to always be struggling up some kind of hill. Somehow this is more gratifying and tangible as we have a finish line. We can see it, it's achievable, and almost immediate compared to other things in life.
The tree is our goal. Just to get to the tree. The last hill is a bitch and we seem to push each other faster. The pace has changed, and we are now competing against our last time. Awe for the mountain, the tree, and to pee. Maybe something will grow better here due to our efforts. We check our stopwatches and give ourselves an "Alright!" and a high five or "Oh well, still pretty good" and a fist bump for the day, then a gentle hike down.
Sometimes I am depleted for three days. Other times I want to go to the gym and continue the work out. It seems kind of crazy as I write this to walk three miles up The Hill and three miles back and then want to go work out. Maybe this is true masochism. Now that is something I haven't studied.
Maybe I am addicted to a certain amount of pain. Where did I possibly learn that? Well, the military teaches you to survive pain with your buddies. I most pointedly remember basic training, and a bunch of us sitting in a room full of tear gas after a 4:00 a.m. forced march. It was cool doing an ordeal together. I also remember the times I have sat in a sweat lodge with a group of people and “sucked dirt,” got closer to the floor and cooler air, or continued sitting upright in a “warrior sweat.” Is it good or stupid to be the last one sitting up when you notice even the Shaman is down once the steam clears? I don’t know. I felt stupid, alone, and not liking it. Being the lone survivor sucks, again. And being the hero . . . eh.
Maybe it's the group experience, the shared suffering that is so addicting. I certainly know how it is to suffer pain alone. This doing it together is very satisfying. I always tell my clients that doing it alone sucks. I believe that.
I learn as I talk and as I write, yet in the past I couldn't write, and it is only recently that I seem motivated, maybe because, here again, I am not doing it alone. This could be another difficult journey, but because it is shared I relish the hardship. I know Mark, who is a writer, is going to push my ass hard to get it done, a commitment to do something very difficult and productive that will require discipline and sacrifice. How often did he warn me about that? I am in. Wow, that actually feels exciting. Okay, I am addicted to pain and suffering, as long as it is for a good cause. Maybe our ramblings will influence others to take on a challenge or maybe just enjoy the story of two crazy bastards who love to push our edge physically and emotionally with vibrancy.
The Hill keeps it simple. It's grind rocks, pick up glass. Don't fall on your ass.
I can recall The Hill breaking me down several times. It's hard to be resistant to emotions here. I get vulnerable quickly, especially before something like the Hill of Cruelty.
Mark on grief: “Go deep into the darkness until you find the pinpoint of light.”
Or, from Gary: “All in to the light through surrender.”
Mark: “Honor the light. Use it to turn loss into honoring” (said just before The Hill of Cruelty). Another form of connection.
What does it for you? What opens you up to life and grief? I challenge you to be awake and connected. Connected to what? Yourself, the core of you, and what awakens you and keeps you awake.
Is it a race or my stream of consciousness carrying me up The Hill? I love breaking from the shade into the sun. I find myself in a sauna. It's the feeling of being baked by the earth and the sun. I am like the earth here. The mud and water God put together. I am cooking like a good bread. It feels right. Not at all punishing, as some might hold it, but rather a form of aliveness I feel to my core.
God, my gut hurts today. My stomach muscles that I worked out yesterday are talking to me today since my hill hike. Ah, time to take the shortcut down.
BUY THE BOOK
Blog 65 War/VIETNAM (GARY)
I talk about Vietnam to someone in my circle at the Roasting Company and what it holds for me: "You know you can look at that place on Google Earth." I think I have heard of this before but chose not to look. Today I finally download Google Earth, and I am blown away at how the whole earth can be put on my computer.
I enter “Nha Trang Air Base” in the search field and I get its history. Then I go back to Google Earth and enter “Nha Trang Air Base or airport.” I don't remember which but there it is. I feel my body shuddering as I look closer and closer.
It's not there. What I remember is no longer there. The only building I recognize is the large steel roof of the base church where the priest forgot part of the mass. I am dismayed, relieved, and in some sort of state of shock. How could something that affected me so profoundly no longer be there, and how could I be looking right at it? To me, it has been alive and active in my mind for forty-one years. To me it is like last year. It's gone! It is hard for part of me to believe, but at least part of me gets it now. My story no longer has a physical presence, and it's hard to comprehend. Maybe now I can be home and be free of Vietnam?
I think I am done. I am finally home, but there is one more episode that makes it all complete for me. It is hard to type this because the emotions are so strong. This happened last weekend.
I show up in uniform for my first California State Military Reserve Meeting. I get my first salute at the doorway to the armory. I shadow the lieutenant and take emergency readiness classes. Then it's time for lunch. A group of us decide to walk three blocks to the fast food place. It's hot, we are all in uniform and someone honks their horn. I think it is someone making fun of us. Then I notice someone is waving at us. On the way back from lunch someone is waving at us again. Then someone stops and wants to take our picture. The police officer waves as he drives by us. I finally realize these people are proud of us, and acknowledging us. I discreetly wipe my right eye and hold back the emotions as I connect with what I so missed when I came back from Vietnam, a “Welcome Home.” I got it. Thanks America, I finally got it.
After the weekend drill at the armory I am driving home in my tight new uniform, and wearing my hat with the captain's bars. It is a warm summer day and a man ahead of me is driving his red Ferrari with the top down. I used to envy that or fantasize what that might be like. But today it means nothing. I feel only pride and a sense of satisfaction. I am home. I am happy driving my truck and I am home, at last I am at home.
This July 25th, 2008, makes it 40 years and 341 days for me to come home, but who is counting? Ha, ha, ha. I am home. HOME AT LAST.
“A man afraid of himself has no place to hide.” — Gary Plep, 1976.
Yet whenever I think I am done with something I am not.
It is Monday evening’s group three weeks later. I have supported one of the men to journal. This evening he claims time as he has something he wants to share. I am thinking it is something about his childhood or relationship.
He says quite flatly, “I would like to share a story about Vietnam that I have never shared.” I tear up just a little as I have an idea now of what is coming. He asks if it is all right with me and I tell him, "Yes, please do."
He describes flying a helicopter in Vietnam to pick up dead and wounded, and it is a hot landing zone, meaning there is a lot of incoming enemy fire. He lands, picks up dead and wounded, and before he can pull up a sniper with an AK-47 in a tree directly ahead shoots out the bubble of his helicopter sending shattered pieces of plexiglass everywhere. He is hit twice. He yells to his copilot to pull the chopper up and out of the landing zone, but as he turns to yell at him he sees he has been shot dead between the eyes. He is on his own now, and pulls up and out and flies to the hospital landing zone some fifteen minutes away. He makes it to the zone, falls out, and hits the ground unconscious. He wakes with Nurse Molly (actual name unknown) holding his hand, and telling him they didn't think he was going to survive. She visits with him daily until he recovers. One day a staff officer comes to see him, pins a bronze star on his chest, shakes his hand and leaves. He is back to the war zone and flying out dead and wounded again. He and his colleagues are angry with the copilot for doing something stupid to get himself killed. That is post-traumatic syndrome for you. Not logical. He states, “I am still angry, not at him. Just angry.”
Both of us wiped a tear or two from our eyes, but I was surprised to see I could just be there and he could tell the story so calmly. He said it was the first time he had told anyone this story. I tear up a little now as I write, and have great respect and appreciation for the women who saved our souls: another piece of the healing and coming home.
Too many movies. I guess I will never be done, but I am HOME. It has been hard to feel whole while part of me has been in another country. I needed to be welcomed home by strangers on a street, honking their horn as they drove by. I needed to welcome myself home.
Welcome home, brother. You have traveled a long distance to get here.
BUY THE BOOK
Blog 64 Alone (Gary)
I don't trust anything. I am scared to be here. I have seen so many people give it all up for false gods that I have come to believe it, too. Part of me doesn't want to, but part of me does. A practice, a discipline of just being here with Sue and my Cedar, but even that can change. My Cedar will go away some day and I will be alone again. Everything leaves either through will or age. Even me. Maybe the recent acknowledgments from men are telling me it's okay to be here. That it is enough. That I am enough. That was it.
When I came back from Vietnam I was hit hard with ALONE AGAIN in a strange world. ALONE, yet I preach not doing it alone. Here I sit, still alone, not home, as the home I was to come back to wasn't here anymore. Where is my home? I have searched my whole life for a home. I have been in this house for twenty-one years this month, but only now am I considering making this my home. Not “be here now,” rather, “be at home now.” Claim this home and be here.
Too bad life takes so long to achieve. I could achieve life here. Quiet, oh Fantasy Mind. Stop. Is it too late? So much of what I do is an attempt to make it be safe where I am. Maybe I don't have to keep at it. Maybe I am HOME.
I realize that I am sitting in our new and beautiful wicker chairs with my feet up and my dog lying nearby. It sure looks and feels like I am at home. I couldn't walk The Hill today due to a wild fire and its intense smoke polluting the air. The house smelled like smoke and outside was like being close to a fire and having the smoke blown toward you, except it didn't go away.
The State Military Reserve finally called, and I guess I may be "in" with the answer to a few questions regarding my medical history. It will require my attendance one weekend a month. Maybe that will force me to be home. Maybe the exploring I want to do is done, unnecessary, and less valuable than showing up for someone else. Maybe I am almost here and The Hill has brought me home. That feels right in my heart.
BUY THE BOOK
Blog 63 Disappointment (Gary)
I have to look back to where I got that sense of feeling cheated. I spent a great deal of time alone as a kid, either looking out the window to see what others were doing or simply looking outside of myself. Then I spent a lot of time watching TV, which we did not get until I was twelve. I spent an enormous amount of time dreaming, and picking my world out of pictures. Then at puberty I created pictures in my mind and hedonistic ideals. I created my world from these images. My move from a small town in Oregon to a large city high school in California and the “greed” teaching of an elder friend didn’t help. I began to believe that everyone should have these ideals. Didn’t everyone? I don’t think they fantasized to the extent I did as I had little other stimulus. Now I am plagued by all these images, which I must put into their proper perspective, or go to my grave with a visual lust and feast that can never be achieved. I must consider the source. I placed these images in my mind out of scarity and probably anxiety for lack of of something else. I altered my situation with fantasy. So now, IF I can fill myself with what is real (Sue, Sarah, Heather, Chris, Eric, Cedar, friends), grasp the abundance in what I have, I will be okay. I have to wrestle with the fantasies. Maybe if I don’t wrestle I will be okay.
The fear of missing something comes up. I like excitement. It, too is a drug. Lament I find anxiety when I consider letting go. Maybe if I could find joy instead of excitement? I find myself sad and fearful of being still. I never could. I was moved around so many times as a kid. Then there was my fiancé’, and the hope that I could make a “still” life work. I could build a peaceful place. At the same time there was my deployment to Vietnam where my world became foreign and ripped apart by the men senior in rank to me and older than I who didn’t adapt well to living in fear. Yet we all shared a certain amount of excitement of living and surviving in a war zone. Physiologically, fear and excitement are two sides of the same coin. Alcohol and sex were the drugs of choice. My squadron commander said laughinly that we had the highest rate of veneral disease on base, WOW. I was twenty-one years old and I was going to become a good Catholic boy while I watched even the priest, who was teaching me the Catholic religion, drop out an essential part of the mass. All the while the letters from my girl were changing and I was hearing about her “friend”.
I came home to a whole new culture where my story was not wanted, my pain not recognized, my woman with someone else. I lost all hope. I recently asked my wife sincerely if the war was over, as in my heart I have never settled. I am not back. This is why I have to go back to Vietnam and the Wall. You see, ever since my mother and father separated when I was three, I had been looking for some kind of order I could rely on. I thought I found it until Vietnam. Now I don’t trust what I have. I gave up all hope. I recently visited a Vietnam veteran in the hospital and he said Vietnam left him not trusting anyone.
Wanting to include some history of the Vietnam War, I opened a book offered by another therapist who is a Vietnam vet and participates in one of my men’s groups. I thought I might find something revealing and perhaps soothing. I just flipped to a page, and found a Vietnam veteran writing about going to a veteran’s organization after the war and getting into fistfights because the prior generation wouldn’t legitmize our war because we “lost”. That was one more stab in the heart I had to put the book down.
BUY THE BOOK
Blog 62 Ego (Gary)
I wrestle with ego and beauty. I will start with ego: my fear of it. I don't like too much acknowledgment. This comes up as I have recently received significant acknowledgment. I find that I don't like it. Yet I have been touched by the differences in men's lives because of something I contributed.
Is it because I don't value myself enough to let it in? I always say I despise ego because I have seen what it has done to people. Am I afraid of my own? That is what the mirror could be telling me.
Let's explore this. Maybe it's a cover. Maybe I don't want the responsibility of having made a difference. Then I would have to show up more. I would have to stand out, and there is a risk to that. Is it the risk of making a fool out of myself, or being shamed, or looking stupid? I have to be with this, but I talk it out loud to Mark as we walk together. Mark attempts to help me see that I don't abuse ego. I get that I have been hurt many times by others’ egos. Disappointed and hurt. At the same time I can get in an ego state that creates arrogance, and then I awaken and stop myself. I don’t want to separate myself. I prefer to join. My goal is to not feel alone but rather to feel connected and loved.
BUY THE BOOK
BLOG 61 Ego Vs Acceptance (Gary)
Ego vs Acceptance (Gary)
Mark and I walked on Friday. That finishes my exercise for the week. I talked about my frustration and pain in dealing with recent clients’ addictions. I don't usually get worked up over such conundrums, but the ego involvement was so pronounced.
One man is a survivor from Vietnam. He is a boat person whose ego helped him survive, and now he is a multimillionaire who looks very successful, with multiple symbols of success, and multiple addictions that are leading to the end of his marriage. My other client relapsed, and had to go through a hospital detox because his ego didn't know what to do without the sustenance of alcohol.
Often, people without their addictive substance end up anxious and relapsing because they don't know how to survive without it. They have to be taught acceptance. I know this fires me up because I am still learning self-acceptance, and I can say that because I have become quiet enough to get the ego out of the way. When the ego is quiet life can be pretty sweet. That is why I walk The Hill with my brother, continuing to collect more evidence for further change in my own psyche.
Hoka Hay (Gary)
I am sitting in the sun
in my beautiful back yard
with my dog,
looking at my thriving plants’ colors.
It is Fall..
Hoka Hay:
Today's a Good Day to Die. BUY THE BOOK
Blog 60 Surrender (Gary)
Note: Interesting timing for this piece.
“God damn would you stop whining! You are becoming histrionic.” Mark is testing my patience around surrender. I say, "Ye of so little faith." Yet ONLY he has ever been in this place. That's my job just like it is his sometimes. Not to fix but to listen, although I would claim he has more fixes than I. Sometimes he doesn't want to listen long enough for me. I surrender and listen.
You see, I believe that it is useless to fight, or try to control certain events. It feels to me that things always seem to provide a lesson or a better way that you won't realize until later. Enough people have told me stories that were tragic yet in some way the outcome made sense. Obviously, some things are just tragic, period. My side hurts, yet I am setting too fast a pace for Mark. He invites me to go on alone. I slow up and tell him I will follow his lead. I will walk with him. We are not as fast today but we still make it to the tree in a great time. We turn at the tree for the downhill, and our physical energy is spent as well as his angst. We float down. It has been a good hike. We have seen only one bike rider and at least one of us has left a large piece of our load here. We are quiet now. Thank you, spirits of the mountain.
Blog 59 Shadow (Gary)
I notice that sometimes we are in shadow and sometimes in light. What a great metaphor. This walk is a perfect exposure to all the elements, most particularly those within our self. I also came across a black feather today, and wonder what bird has left a part of himself, and was it from grooming or from trauma? Is he alive? That, too, is symbolic to me.
Can we rid ourselves of the dark parts? It seems to me we can, but it is usually only through grooming ourselves to a different level of understanding, and letting those parts go, or through some trauma that forces us to change. Most of the time it seems to me that we are forced to shift through some form of trauma. Maybe this is a message for me to let go of something dark. I don't take everything I see as a symbol or sign, but I feel quite often it happens the other way, in that there was a sign and I didn't pay attention to it, and should have. So I look at today’s sign and ignore it only to look at it again now as I write. I have slowed enough to observe from a deeper place and ponder the question.
Is there a deeper sign here? I play with it and have to say there is some truth in this possible message. The more I let go of what fantasies lay in dark shadows, the more productive I am in writing this book or getting any task accomplished.
I pick up the black feather and reflect on what magic it may carry. As a matter of fact, it was resting in the shadow of the trail. I carried it with me into the light. It doesn't seem to hold much for me now, so I let it go. How perfect, I think now, as so often I embraced something in a dark way, and when I thought about it—and by doing so brought light to it—it didn't have any value. Of course, you deserve an example.
Surrender (Gary)
“God damn would you stop whining! You are becoming histrionic.” Mark is testing my patience around surrender. I say, "Ye of so little faith." Yet ONLY he has ever been in this place. That's my job just like it is his sometimes. Not to fix but to listen, although I would claim he has more fixes than I. Sometimes he doesn't want to listen long enough for me. I surrender and listen.
You see, I believe that it is useless to fight, or try to control certain events. It feels to me that things always seem to provide a lesson or a better way that you won't realize until later. Enough people have told me stories that were tragic yet in some way the outcome made sense. Obviously, some things are just tragic, period. My side hurts, yet I am setting too fast a pace for Mark. He invites me to go on alone. I slow up and tell him I will follow his lead. I will walk with him. We are not as fast today but we still make it to the tree in a great time. We turn at the tree for the downhill, and our physical energy is spent as well as his angst. We float down. It has been a good hike. We have seen only one bike rider and at least one of us has left a large piece of our load here. We are quiet now. Thank you, spirits of the mountain.
BUY THE BOOK
Blog 58 Support (Gary)
What I loved about Mark Ruskell was that he was a straight shooter and if you needed a hand with something he was there. We had many honest conversations about our feelings, and we had a boatload of adolescent fun together. We went on a couple team trips to Mexico and a canoe trip in which he was the only one to come back and save my ass from spinning in a circle.
Remember that old science experiment where you put a pin on top of a cork in a bucket of water and watched it spin as a compass needle? That was me, and that was our first adventure since our Sterling Men’s Weekend. I had decided to be macho after the Sterling Men's weekend, and took one of the canoes by myself after a water fight. Well, I got in the middle of a lake, and the wind just kept spinning me in a circle like the pin-on-the-cork experiment. I spun from east to west and back again time after time. I was exhausting myself trying to move forward only to be blown in a circle. Mark came back for me, and we somehow got me to the dam where the trip ended. His weight and strength saved the day. I never forgot that.
To have a friend who will come back for you is a treasure and a measure of someone you want to walk with throughout life. Do you have friends who will do that for you? If not, seek them out. Those are the kind of friends I have chosen, and it most certainly made life’s struggles much easier.
The Hill became more than a hill, or exercise, or being in Nature—it became a relationship: a relationship with Mark(s), and a mirror to reflect back an image of myself and my relationship with me. Each chapter reflects part of my, and our, struggles for wholeness. Sometimes those are the most beautiful times.
It's amazing that we always fall into a pace that is mutual. Maybe it's just that, but I add the word respect. It is a pace of mutual respect. This walk is many things, but I think our pace represents a mutual respect for each other. We have melded. Why so? Is it the walk? I think it is because this walk is a catharsis for two, sometimes weary, older men. Notice I didn't say "old." Fuck that. I am tired of people referring to themselves as old. Especially when I know we are in better shape than most forty-year-olds.
We are trekking through our past and into the present through our babble. I really shouldn't call it babble because that might give you the wrong impression, but sometimes it is just that. That is what catharsis often is: just a lot of babble. The mind seems to need to occasionally relieve itself of too much gas (yeah, that is often part of the walk as well) or something. Yes, brain fart now has a new meaning. This is either because we have pressed the mind too hard, or because it's in an infinite loop. It's stuck without any way to free itself other than by babbling. Simply put, the mind needs to detox from all the input it gets from the world. Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now, refers to this as "the pain body."
BUY THE BOOK
Blog 57
Earth School (Gary)
I believe we are all here to learn something, otherwise what the fuck. Life is a school for the soul and if you don’t get the lesson it will be repeated. I hate those repeats.
I wasn’t hungry for the learning. I was starved, literally starving.
I feel that past generations were forced to choose more of a shadow way of thinking in order to survive. We have the greater luxury of conscious thought to choose which one will predominate.
Some go numb, some awaken,
some are just shaken—by Nature.
It is the God-given caldron that blends
the best and worst of a man to go deep if he allows.
To stretch, wither, and die if he chooses.
I prefer awaken.
It chooses me and I choose it.
I am open to every smell,
every breeze, tree, flower that varies with each season,
the colors and shades, feathers, scat,
a rush in the brush.
It is all vital to me.
Clean air, blown in from the coast,
blue skies, cloud formations always changing,
shadow and light, blackberries,
early morning feeding birds,
my track upon the ground.
It is here in the dust I am most alive.
I live here; I exist in the city; but I live here.
This is where love comes from.
Its origin is here and I can feel it.
We are born here and this is returning home for me.
Thank you.
Thank you for Love.
It originated here and I feel in my heart that we all did.
Home is in it.
In the earth.
Maybe that's the body.
The soul seeks a higher place, and as yet unknown to me.
What might it be?
Maybe it's flitting in and out of all of it,
the whole spectrum of the universe.
As I look out over the expanse of ocean,
breathe in the air,
I am enlivened:
to pull it all into my body and—soul.
Drink in the river. Swallow it whole.
I am it, and it is me.
Ah, so close to God.
It is an energy that moves in all things.
Spirit, Holy Spirit, no, Wholly Spirit.
I soar with thee.
There is a God for me and She is in everything
but clearly seen up close.
Most clearly seen up close!
Thank you.
This reminds me of Mothers, Sons, and Lovers where Michael Gurian talks about drinking in the sea of the feminine. I now think of the Universe as the Divine Feminine or Divine Mother. That is where I walk. I walk with the Divine Mother. She nurtures my soul. She feeds me light and dark energy and makes me feel at home. This is where I come from and this is where I go back to. I am a part of it and it is a part of me.
BUY THE BOOK
Blog 56 Choose the Light (Gary)
I’ll get back to the point. I notice that any time I go somewhere, I do people's inventories. Part of me is always contrasting and comparing, evaluating and judging. Hell, I do it just driving down the street comparing houses, cars, people, almost everything in my field of vision. Recently, I have made a real effort to stop this dark practice of projecting shadow on everything, realizing it's the ego that is always on alert to protect, defend, or fight for itself. I notice when I stop this mind chatter I automatically shift my focus to more productive aspects of life. It's a positive shift. In other words, I bring in light rather than dark energy. When I do this I am automatically more productive. So sometimes I walk in the shade and shadow, and sometimes I choose the light. Today I choose more light. I am separating from my mother’s shadow. I end my allegiance to her cause. I fight the negative imprinting we all have from our parents rather than surrender and be just like them. I had to choose: Will I be awake, or be asleep and unconscious of choice? That is part of the work of therapy.
BUY THE BOOK
Blog 55 Sacred Moments (Gary)
As I walk The Hill several times each week I try to lock each experience into my memory as though I may never be able to do it again. Just like the way I am playing ball with my dog right now. Yes, as I write this I am playing with my dog, Cedar. He loses the ball under the cabinet, and I have to get down on my knees to retrieve it. I will always remember these moments because it is a part of "our" game, a sacred game wherein life is precious because I know that his life is short. Not because he is ill but because he is a dog and he maybe has four years left. That kills me to know but at the same time keeps me conscious and holds "our" time as sacred. Not so different is my relationship with Mark.
We share much that I treasure, and I hold each walk sacred because that too may end. Either because he moves to establish his career, or moves away, or one of us becomes ill or dies. It all happens. Staying conscious is part of the walk, the walk of life. I could choose to ignore my feelings, but I choose not to because I also enjoy more of what I have. I am alive to walk and feel life fully, living each moment to its crest, rather than the way I used to do things, which was to feel like someone had to pinch me in order for me to believe the experience. Disassociation is another way to avoid pain.
I felt outside of my experience much of the time. I know I am not the only one who does this, so that makes it okay for me to disclose, right? I can feel my ego again. I certainly don't want you to hear that I have any flaws. Ha, that's funny, because I always tell my clients that I prefer humility, but now, with you, even though I probably don't know you, I have to be humble. It's a good thing. I know I have been a successful practitioner partly because I am real and willing to share my wounds, my teachings, what I have learned, and laugh at my flaws. It’s also a way of screening my clients for motivation. I only want those who are willing to join me, in a sense, and do their work, otherwise it is a wasteof time and energy for all. I know with all certainty that is what makes my men’s groups so rousing.
BUY THE BOOK
Blog 54 The Quality of My Death (Gary)
I walk the hill alone today. There is gusting rain and fog on The Hill. I must go. I am pulled by The Hill and I must respond. I ignore the blacktop leg of the hike to the trailhead, and look forward to entering the sanctuary of the open space.
I brought my iPod, which quite normally I would judge as an intrusion into Nature, but to me it's a new toy that I must play with. I am listening to David Deida (The Way of the Superior Man, 2017) lecture on love, passion, and heart. It is an intrusion on the soul of Nature, yet it blends by subject.
I am wearing Levis and a rain jacket. My pants are buffeted by wind and rain, but that's okay; I am warm enough on the inside with a long sleeve pullover and a Polartec top. There is no one on the trail, and I am loving it: the closer to the summit, the more severe the weather and the denser the fog.
I feel a sense that I would be an unconscious easy prey for a mountain lion as I am cocooned inside my rainwear. I hear only gusts of wind and rain outside of my iPod lecture hall. I reach into the outer pocket of my fanny pack and pull out the scabbard containing my razor-sharp knife with its ten-inch blade and molded grip that I carry for safety, and place it in my right rain pocket and keep my hand on the handle. I am totally contained now. I am safe and “snug as a bug in a rug,” as my mother used to say.
I have another realization in the writing of this that I pulled my knife less for safety and more for not wanting to risk embarrassment. I feared being killed only if I didn’t protect myself. This was akin to the situation I was so chagrined to realize in Vietnam.
I was put in a possible attack situation where I was alone and couldn’t really protect myself against what I understood to be overwhelming odds. I didn’t want to die a fool or in shame. Believe me or not, I wasn’t afraid to die in a fight but I had some pride in how I died. Dying was a given; dying alone in shame and embarrassment was not acceptable: a BAD feeling believe me especially having experienced abandonment as a child. This was my worst moment. At least on The Hill I had some control over the quality of my death, here and now.
BUY THE BOOK
Blog 53 Men of Fire (Gary)
At this moment I am sitting on a hilltop waiting for my Men of Fire group to arrive, a heart centered group of men that I have led for eighteen years. I have a slight ache in my side (still trying to cleanse my liver) but I am comfortable in my inflated camp chair, sitting atop a slight mound of gravel and moss between two large oaks, with a view down into dry grasses and a forest of mostly pine.
Ah, smell the clean air. Life is good. I don't need no stinkin’ fantasies. I am HERE, and my wife says I am important. How about that! I have actually prided myself on being unimportant. I have to laugh a little. Somehow that is a funny part of my journey, another piece of the past that no longer serves me. I choose to let it go and accept (perhaps) that someone really loves me and thinks I am important. Okay, so I am still absorbing that possibility. Big inhale. It's good to be important to someone. I just don't want it to go to my head. I've had practice at this so I think I am good. I wish I could smoke a cigar here and maybe have a glass of champagne, a little celebration of self. Why not? No fires or smoking, high fire danger. Darn, I had to bring that up. Maybe in another place like this soon. That would be good, HO! I don't know why it was so fun writing this today, but it was.
I've been reflecting, and I've come to see the trail as no longer dirt and stone, but ironically as a mirror, flattening my illusions and countering my false beliefs.
Find ways to practice experiencing and, even better, seeing and feeling. It has been a big part of finding my way home.
BUY THE BOOK
Blog 52 Completion (Gary)
I notice a slight pant as I edge up The Hill, and in just about the center of The Respite I let out three big sighs as if on automatic. It has been a heavy day in my private practice, and I recognize the sound of my own grief, like carrying a heavy emotional load. One man has threatened suicide, one told us last night he may have cancer, and another didn't show up for his appointment and may have relapsed, again, into his alcohol addiction. No sooner do I realize my grief than I see a hummingbird slip its tiny beak into a pretty red cylinder of a flower. Everything is okay now. I leave The Respite and begin the steeper climb. Ah, life is good, and I take in the air. I notice this week that I am feeling good without my usual fantasy wonderings. There has been little thought given to cars and real estate. I am enjoying each moment there is to enjoy. I occasionally ask myself how I am feeling, and when I stop to answer it has been to just notice that I am very comfortable.
How often do you allow yourself to “just notice” where you are? It’s a way, with practice, that you can know yourself, or you can become a “human-doing,” as they say, rather than a “human-being.”
BUY THE BOOK
Blog 51 The Hawk Comes Home to Die (Gary)
There are little saplings everywhere here on Gurian’s land, and I am listening to the creek. Again why do I cry here? Now I look at the meadow and I cry some more. It is tall green grass and a forest of trees just beyond. But why do I cry? It feels so sweet; I have missed it. My heart hungers for this so much my head cannot know. A white butterfly wings past. My heart seems to sing behind it until it disappears. The wind opens the trees to more sun, and it feels for a moment as if I am in heaven. The sweat lodge is fifty feet away. Perhaps I am home again.
Michael tells me this is where the hawk came to die a couple weeks ago. Mike was coming to his meditation spot on the creek, and this old beat up hawk didn't move from his spot only a few feet away. The next day Mike saw him sitting in front of the mountain house, and in the morning he was dead. He had come here to die. It is a good spot to die, or die into, as we all will or could.
Butterflies continue to visit and the sound of the creek is soothing. This is similar to the place I grew up, years before I started my walks in the clouds. It was there on logging roads that I hiked and became lost in marshy creeks with skunk cabbage abounding. And water skippers who hopped around in the water. This was where I learned to explore and hike. My friend and I would go to the war surplus store to get our gear. Our packs were WWII vintage. My brother did the same but his were WWI vintage. Ah, the smell of the fresh cut trees from the lumber camp, and the smell of the chain saw oil. You could smell it from a distance. I realize more than ever why my hikes in the hills of Los Gatos mean so much to me. Even fighting off the flies in the hot sun brings me back—back home. This is a respite.
BUY THE BOOK
Blog 50 A Sacred Object (Gary)
My mother before she died would often say, "What does it matter?” In her depression, nearing the end of her life in convalescent care, she gave up. I now understand what she said at a different level. I see the value not of giving up but of surrendering to what is. I like the Alcoholics Anonymous saying, "Let go; let God." She could have been at peace by letting go, but instead she was angry and bitter that she wasn't getting what she wanted and that her life was over. The point is it doesn't matter. Nothing really matters unless you make it matter. In a sense she was right. Even then there are often times when you do so much better by surrendering and letting go. Just like it is on The Hill. Some days I just have to surrender to the heat, the rain, or the fog, and I love it.
Since the fire trail has been graded recently there is little if any glass or garbage to pick up. I consider it my duty to keep this trail pristine. It's a sacred trail, and needs to be respected. Yet there are years of broken pieces of glass that litter the way. I will say much of it is gone, thanks to me. To me it breaks the spell to find a shard of green glass sticking up from the ground where there has been peace. Peace: that is a good word to describe this for me.
I now connect the dots. The Hill has become another sacred object, like the ducklings I loved and cared for with my aunt, and like my uncle’s hat. They all have given my life a sense of stability and meaning: a true grounding.
What grounds you to or in right action? Without something to ground you, you will spin, moving as fast as you can. Thus is born the “Addiction to Hurry” (Jones, 2003).
BUY THE BOOK
Blog 49 Looking For My Tribe (Gary)
Most certainly one of my heroes in this regard is one of my clients who after much personal pain, abuse, and abandonment by his father, and twenty-three years of recovery became an incredibly loving man. He didn’t graduate from high school yet has a very successful contracting business. I don’t know about you but I have worked in construction and most contractors have a hard edge. John can have that edge; however, he greets his men with a hug. Sometimes they don’t know what to do with that. Those who have known him for a while will stand there and wait until he is available. He also spontaneously engages strangers, one of my favorite things to do. I call it “not being a victim of circumstance.”
The lesson this man has taught me is to lead yourself into the life you choose. Wait for no one or for any thing, validation, acceptance, encouragement, or sign.
I know now that when I accepted Michael Gurian’s invitation to visit his 105-acre country estate north of Spokane I wept there because I felt accepted. At first I thought it was my response to his total acceptance, but that wasn't all of it. It was the embrace of the alder trees that surrounded me, the warmth of the sun, the gentle cooling breeze, the butterfly that landed on my shoe. There, as well as here, I am not alone, and I am blessed with total acceptance. So where does this hunger for benign acceptance come from?
I remember the first indicator. It was first grade. We were supposed to draw something for some kind of art project. It seemed we were all trying really hard to get it right. Somehow it was challenging. I remember giving it my best, but Johnny next to me wasn't taking it seriously. I remember now he was drawing a duck. Wow, that just flashed into my mind (the value of writing from a “let go” position). He was fucking the duck, so to speak. I loved ducklings as my aunt and uncle had frequently taken me to the park to feed the ducks and I had a string of toy ducks to pull around on the floor. I loved ducks. How could he do that with no respect? It was so wrong, and so awful, I took his drawing and ripped it up. I got in trouble for it, but I knew what he was doing was bad and wrong, and now I reflect that I must have had a fear of destruction of beauty, which for me may have been the equivalent of abandonment.
I think it had something to do with security because I had found something beautiful and sweet, and I treasured it. I was so emotionally bereft, so insecure and fearful of abandonment, that little things meant a tremendous amount to me. As a child I guarded my little treasures with a passion. That fuzzy yellow duck must have been an anchor of sorts.
There was another time when my uncle’s brother came to the house, and I thought he was wearing my uncle’s hat. I got really upset and adamant that he couldn’t be wearing my uncle’s hat. It was actually part of their shop clothing, but I didn’t know that. Everyone evidently thought this was cute, but actually it was another example of me trying to maintain a sense of security, a knowing that sacred items would stay as they were; if they did it meant everything was going to be okay and I would be safe.
I know as an adult that what anchors me or makes me feel grounded is being or doing what my mother initiated in me: my father was dead when I was three years old, and I was to take care of her. Thus the hero was born.
What anchors you?
BUY THE BOOK
Blog 48 Neighbors on the Walk (Gary)
I recently met Corrine and Bob, who have a home at the trailhead, and made immediate friends with them because I took a liking to their old dog. I think it was because the dog took a liking to me as well. They showed me the house that was for sale across from theirs and even invited me to come up The Hill with them while they changed the community water filter. What a treat. I didn't go with them but instead took their suggestion of a shortcut down The Hill along with information regarding a closer and legal place to park. Wow, it certainly pays to extend oneself. I always say to my clients that everything happens out of relationship, so here it is. What a pleasurable return on investment. Sometimes we can get a little selfish in how much we interact with people because we become consumed with our full minds. Yes that includes me.
Speaking of others on The Hill, there is Hanna the Akita whom we pass on most hikes. She is there to bark at us, as that is her job, and occasionally when she is lazy, she just ignores us like we are old news. We were blessed to have her on the trail with her master, a delightful lady and her new baby, one day last year. I took their picture and emailed it to her. That was sweet. Most times I would just say hi and keep moving, but this day Mark and I took a minute and I made the offer of a picture. Now she has a pleasant keepsake of herself and her baby in Nature with her dog. Simple gifting can delight the soul. It was Bianca, Hanna, and Jessie, and now, a year later, it's Bianca, Hanna, Jessie, and Paula. Another picture, another email. We now seem to have a ritual of doing this twice a year by running into each other by chance.
Another time I made a good attempt to get what seemed to be a lost dog back home. Initially he startled me a bit—okay, a lot—as he came around the corner. I am always hoping to see a mountain lion so when I saw him come around the blind bend it was a relief to see he was a dog. You know how that is: Watch out for what you ask for. I read his name and the phone number off his tag, and called the owner to rendezvous at the trailhead, but the dog took off again. I had to let him go. I called the owner and that was it. Then I ran into a biker and asked him to assist. We ran into each other on another hike and he said the dog had followed him to the top and he seemed to have found his way home. We now share that little saga every time we meet. That's another sweet story from The Hill.
I got it. This is all about proving myself. The climb, the hardship, the heat, the cold, the pain; I get to keep proving myself on a regular basis. There is no moment lost. And maybe I will make a connection along the way. Maybe that is why I notice whether Diane, or whatever her name is, and her daughter notice me at the end of the trail because they have seen me before. Sandy, who lives on The Hill, talks to me. Then there’s Corrine and Bob who say hello. I am seeking validation of existence. I have always known that but not known that. Ah, the value of connection and not feeling alone.
I have found that life is much fuller and richer when seen as a series of shared experiences and a validation of the value of each other. Sometimes it’s a simple smile or nod. I get just a little high from the smile or nod back that tells me I am not alone.
I encourage everyone to reach out to the small spark of life that passes from one soul to another as it energizes and lifts the spirit. It’s also a reminder of your humanity.
BUY THE BOOK