Love

If Whitman sings the body electric

I might say smooth creamy vibrant

Grounded and flying, still and whiplash fast

Sharp and flowing gentle as good night or morning

And a day full, all liminal in fullness

Then fear is tight, constricted, like fragile glass

The very breath feels heavy

As if to weigh down the too light body

Where it should float the vibrant smoothness

And breathe... Tight, foothills of panic, tension

Cheeks blow

Mind notes parasympathetic

Bright mind where aligned is flowing

Like Whitman's choir singing

But here stalled and waiting

Fear drives each slow step, twilight

Cheeks blow

Mind notes parasympathetic

Breathe

The smoke of his once-ness, in the beginningless now

This is not the liminal of fullness

Past comes into present

Present orchestral in hues of vibrant smoothness

Though yes, still shot with fear of broken glass

And so another turn around the spiral

Yet tomorrow

The very air sings the body electric

Liminal in fullness, bright mind dances

Joy as it turns the diamond, in Indira's net it sparkles

Sharpest thoughts, the fastest flowing

Liminal in fullness, body whiplash fast

Then earth and sea too sparkle

Gentle flowing as fire rises

The body breathes

The smoke of his once-ness lost in its embers

In each body our embers sparkle

Glow in each other's light and turn the diamond

And so another turn around the spiral

Incongruence

I have found myself considering those developmental years of late adolescence and early adulthood when it was far from obvious that the world had a place for the kind of man I seemed to be. There's definitely still a charge around those memories. Unpacking the charge into the beliefs, ascribed meanings and fears generating emotional charges at the time and understanding the emotional residue in the present and the unresolved trauma which can be triggered is quite a complex business. Most gay men of my generation will say something along the lines of '...it was like trying to put together a jigsaw without the picture on the box lid'. And of course that's true to a greater or lesser extent for all young people. But there's a key difference for gay men of my generation, we had no public script. In my own case although I had arrived (as a result of an early normal fast tempo puberty) at my final height of 5'6" by 16, I remained slight and young looking right through my twenties. Throw in a non-sporty observant temperament, and (initially repressed) homosexuality and it seemed like I wasn't going to be able to fit the culturally limited image of manhood. Early responsibilities as a care giver had added to this and the result was a lack of social embeddedness. Nothing especially new here then, territory I explored back in the coming out days one way or another. But I came a cross what I find to be a useful term- incongruent masculinity. And in the days when one doesn't see a viable script, is not mirrored and has limited emotional support or buffering it is all too easy to add meaning to what might otherwise be neutral facts and misinterpret incongruence as insufficiency. And so incongruence, compartmentalisation, lack of social embeddedness and early responsibilities resulted in what psychologists call asynchronous development. Such development has its costs - mainly grief for the unlived life but also its benefits, awareness being one, or to put it figuratively - straight men (ie congruent men) they're like fish in the sea, they don't see the water. And another element in this is that for men of my generation part of the limited script which was available was a perverse denial that the script existed. So for example it was very clear that small youthful looking men were regarded as insufficient yet at the same time there was denial that this was being policed and an expectation that such a man should 'man up' about his insufficiency and bear the 'shame' in silence. And so this too was to be put in a compartment. Masculinity was tightly policed. Whilst homosexuality had, in the year of my birth been partly decriminalised it remained socially taboo and for most gay men required a tight compartment to ensure safety. In this regard coming out was a process as much about generating safety as it was about internal acceptance. Finding a script wasn't easy. The dominant scripts and hierarchies of hegemonic masculinity affect everyone and whilst the toxicity of this is now much better understood it still remains muddy water for many. Incongruence seems to me to be a useful way to see any deviation from the hegemonic norm, and it becomes clear that this extends beyond physicality, gender and sexuality. In the workplace it's observable in what DC and I have previously termed 'The family guy thing'. Basically overt and covert power systems operate to ostensibly (the overt power system) provide fairness and psychological safety whilst in practice real power is covert and restricted to the congruent, all too often this group aligns heavily with congruent masculinity. But it's important here to recognise that congruence is multi-dimensional (culture, gender, race, sexuality, disability, neurodivergence, etc.) and there are intersections. The ways in which the (ostensibly) incongruent adapt to this and and become congruent, depend I suppose, much on the extent and the nature of the mismatch between forms of congruence. Authenticity and the limits of one's ability to enact or modify those forms of congruence place one inside or outside the boundary of covert power.

I can expand this to consider the modern conflict averse workplace. Again overt and covert power systems and decision making play out both internally within the employer's business and in the external relationships with clients and subcontractors in my experience. The overt systems claim to aim for openness, collaboration, group and individual safety and seek to deescalate conflict. In practice this often delays decision making, 'takes things off-line' and feeds difficult problems and processes to a covert system. In this covert system power is held by the congruent and exercised over the incongruent who as a result have their safety reduced. In this way hegemonic power systems operate through covert systems.

Incongruency can generate better leadership and safety because it often creates conditions where awareness becomes essential, but the obstacles to manifesting such leadership are the added burden of managing the congruent and the displaced work in the covert system which should be handled in the overt system. Eventually in my experience as stated above, authenticity and the limits of one's ability to enact or modify forms of congruence place one inside or outside the boundary of covert power. Whilst the covet is still operational there is a limit on the leadership the incongruent can deliver. For me this becomes an inflection point for authenticity and ultimately defines how much I'm able to operate in any system. Competency in the field of required delivery is one of the the main antidotes to covert systems because they often form a hiding place for the incompetent, but to challenge the hegemony is not without risk and a constant balancing act is usually required. Competence is often a threat to those who benefit from the covert even if they try to deny it by withholding legitimacy, whilst still utilising it by appropriating the output of the incongruent. Further, because congruence generates ease, awareness can often be lacking (as the congruent seldom see the water). And so the congruent may not be fully aware of their subjugation of the incongruent, whereas, the incongruent often lack ease and have their awareness surreptitiously purloined.  

Returning to the costs of (social) incongruency, often, hypervigilance, asynchronous development and associated non-normative experience (these two form an ongoing loop for some time), lack of social embeddedness, etc., it should be clear that the model is relevant not just to psychological development but career development too because what is at stake is access to power systems and psychological safety. Or put another way - in the presence of covert systems, legitimacy is granted by the congruent and usually to the congruent. This stifles cultural responsiveness and is why it can take so long for the incongruent to gain legitimacy.

At a personal level I would say that authenticity remains an ongoing work to integrate identity as an unfolding process within the constraints of available safety and awareness not just of (in)congruence but any frame of reference.

Desire in the beginning

A couple of evenings ago DC read out a description of 'the beginning' from one of the Vedas which noted that desire was present at the One becoming many. I've mused in past posts that the universe seems to have both the desire to make (and reabsorb) forms and through forms to know itself. And in humans through enquiry and knowledge systems, is gained understanding of the origin of the universe and in 'spiritual' practice to 'know' the unknowable. It is then, easy to associate 'the beginning' in different discourses with an historical event such as the 'big bang'. But this isn't my sense of what is being said in eastern spiritual texts. The beginning is each moment and each moment is both form and emptiness for all forms are interdependently arising and there is nothing behind them existing in time other than their is-ness in each moment. Blaha, blaha...

But another word has come to my attention recently- liminal. As part of my EMDR therapy taking a turn around the spiral of integration I came back to the liminal version of my body. Liminal in that whilst medically unremarkable it was in teens and early twenties socially salient for slightness. This generated an internal sense that I was neither medically suffering from 'something' nor socially what was expected. The degree of this salience is lost in mists of time and the psychological effect of it was doubtless amplified by both my compartmentalised sexuality and perception lag as I gradually gained mass. The liminality being a space of loose anchoring in perceived masculinity. All the while fighting an education system made to sort sheep! Blimey! And all the while each moment is the beginning, pregnant with desire to be. To be in my case, both liminal and wanting not to be so. What the moment / universe 'desires' and what each of us as selves desire don't always line up. Everything of course is liminal- being is a movement- an equipoise of change- perceived, perceiving and perceiver are One.  Blaha, blaha... And what of the felt sense of this desire and fear? If Whitman sings the body electric, I might say smooth creamy vibrant, grounded and flying, still and whiplash fast sharp and flowing gentle as good night or morning and a day full, all liminal in fullness, then fear is tight, constricted, like fragile glass, the very breath feels heavy as if to weight down the too light body where it should float the vibrant smoothness. And breathe... Tight, foothills of panic, tension, cheeks blowing, mind notes parasympathetic response... Bright mind not aligned with education system filled with I'm behind... peers moved on to university and... like Whitman's choir singing... but here stalled and waiting fear drives each slow step in twilight... cheeks blowing, mind notes parasympathetic response... Breathe... The smoke of his once-ness, in the beginningless now... this is not the liminal of fulness. And this is just the past coming into the present. The present is actually orchestral in hues of vibrant smoothness though yes, still shot with fear of broken glass. And so another turn around the spiral.

And today, a fit and healthy body of good proportions supports a mind still sharp and asking- desire...?  

Illumination

I saw in the news yesterday that the Sagrada Família in Barcelona is finished and the report showed the following picture:

It's such a beautiful image and I could feel the tears well up. It's decades since DC and I first visited the site and I was very impressed with the imaginative works. We toured the various Gaudí works in Barcelona and I loved them and the city. Then some years ago after the space shown in the above image was finished and accessible we returned. I remember the wonderful coloured light, the soring joyous space and thinking - what a place to dance this this would be if it were allowed! And what a place to pass through to then sit and meditate! For here, surely the highest in human kind is saying joy, we are here! And on seeing the above image I also recalled the image of the restored Notre Dame:

See Beauty post 30 Nov. 2024. The word illumination used in that post is again so relevant when we see what has been created at the Sagrada Família. So many skilled design, craft and trades people of all disciplines, funders and supporters have made these buildings sing in resonance with our hearts and minds. I'm reminded as I write of Walt Whitman's I sing the Body Electric.

And were it not for a telephone call last night from my mother I would be leaving this post at that, for it says enough. But, after only one night back home out of hospital she called to say she wasn't feeling right. And so I advised her to phone 999 and DC and I drove over to be with her and dad. I helped her out of bed into a dressing gown and travelled with her in the ambulance. And holding her frail body so she would feel safe and not fall I recalled how as teenager I'd done this (when she was seriously ill) and for a second I was holding him holding her. And we were tide and time as recent posts have illuminated and I thought - but how could I have ever not loved him in his fulness? But it is those times we wince at ourselves that let the light in, for everything is cracked. And yet it holds. I will go to the hospital now to see how she's doing. Bless.

The smoke or the Russian dolls

The past continues to come into the present as is to be expected at this time when I'm consciously going around the spiral again, this turn with EMDR. My last post laid out some of the dimensions of this. Details though important to me in some respects are of course but the shape of the white horses that ride the waves. The real weight is in the roll of sea, for there the waves surge towards? Ah yes, the metaphor fails, and in so doing reveals the shifting sands of tide and time. I danced with them those Russian dolls as we bobbed in the waves and rode the white horses, or they ran by us. But I've no time machine, I can't really be there to lift the weight off the shoulders of the child, the adolescent. I can't let them melt in my arms, I can only hold the smoke of their once-ness in the arms they've become. And the perfume of the smoke drifts away in the tide and time of the now-ness. And where am I? And why? And does it matter? And will the past go home? Too many metaphors, too much water. More strongly I notice the smoke of their once-ness.

Russian Dolls of Self

Recently the past has been coming into the present and I've been very much feeling the emotional landscape of several younger selves. There were some difficult times and they live on in each other and in me now like Russian dolls nested inside each other- events and developments at successive ages. Sometimes one particular doll or age seems very present and it's easy to forget how the previous ones were at different times more or less active in that one. As was true then so it is now. Ourself is a layered conditioned ongoing process. In my own case I also see this another way. There are at least three lives playing out to greater or lesser extents - the chronological life which unfolds, the life that might have been if conditions had been a little more aligned with my temperament and the life that I avoided. The life that might have been would have been easier and more fun in childhood and adolescence and might have made me an easier adult but it would likely have produced a flatter person. It's a life that lives now in grief. That grief has been unfolded; the loss of experience that wasn't, the connection with other the connection with self and at its root the cost of abandonment. There are deeper layers there too no doubt. The life I avoided is in a way the life that fear has tried to keep safe from. But sometimes that fear was too influenced by the smallest of those dolls and almost caused the thing it wanted to avoid. The avoided life is the one that died in bud, that failed in every way to flower. There were times when the clock ticked very close to that. In the tapestry of time and tide where the Russian dolls live and fill each other with their empty rattling there is stillness, spaciousness. Fear is the knowing of the empty rattling whilst we cling to the painted faces. And thank every nothing there isn't that it is so! For we only flower in our fullest in our pain and joy our depth and magnificent flash in the dark because we have some of it. At some level the smallest doll knows it's all empty but it must grow, it must flower. And so on Wednesday in ecstatic dance to jazz funk feeling into the body-mind moving as the embodiment of the dolls and the music the tapestry of time and tide... breathing... there was release and there was I now and I from then, and I from before, and held, the three of us child, adolescent and adult all in the embrace of time and tide. And in this way the stillness comes to dance and sees. And the music was flowing, and exuberant and joyous and sad and still and alive and vibrant. And there was Nina Simone singing Black is the colour of my true love's hair and the tears ran down my face and I placed my hands as if to set reverently upon the floor that which she articulated in its known unknowable and breathed. And the jazz came back and it was blue and funky... and the flower shone.

And returning home there was DC and he holds me as we continue to weave our tapestry in time and tide. And I hope in his time and tide he feels me hold him.

This thread again

Yesterday I was at Cragside and noticed how the fruit glasshouse is rotting away. The National Trust is struggling for money and volunteers across the country it seems and an internet search reveals a number of complaints. Predictably there are voices bemoaning the so called 'woke' environmental and social justice initiatives. But this is just noise. Irrespective of any questions over whether or not we 'should' save historic structures (and on that one I'm flexible but would say generally there is a debate to have here, centring largely on 'for what purpose') the real problem is a nationally systemic one I think. Across almost every sector of UK life there is a lack of investment. It seems that more than other European countries we have taken to heart and mind the neoliberal idea that private enterprise and markets will solve all ills. Some of us always regarded that as nothing short of one rule for the rich and another for the poor and it's no surprise to find evidence that it's not working.

Walking around the gardens I was struck by spring flowers in colours that I associate with Easter as they're so much part of this time of year.

These colours I thought, where else have I met them? And what came to me was those butterfly prints we'd make in primary school... Fresh and bright.

Another image came to me too; that of Notre Dame restored and splendid and I mused again at how if it were a UK project it would be beset with delays, spiralling costs and the like. See previous post here.

Something of various thoughts was in my mind, and later reading this and that, I came across a commentary on the Red Thread koan pointing out that one way of looking at this koan is 'what is the strand that runs through your life, yet is so obvious you miss it?' I find this a valuable reminder, the Red Thread can stand for so many parts of the ongoing unfolding of our lives. Musing on this question I considered what in my life this could be. Was it the inquisitive side, interest in engineering and the built environment, exploration of the 'spiritual' side of life, my intention towards authenticity, the philosophical, etc...? But nothing particularly struck me.

Then on Wednesday morning DC sent me a picture from Bristol of a monument to Isambard Kingdom Brunel with the caption 'Your hero'. Although I've always been a bit sceptical of 'heroes', certainly as a teenager I was impressed by this man and there is no doubting his contribution. As DC said, he was a dude. DC and I have an informal list of dudes- people who... well defining dude isn't so simple but you get the idea. I knew IKB died young but I couldn't remember at what age so looked it up and in so doing found the following obituary:

Brunel was the right man for the nation, but unfortunately, he was not the right man for the shareholders. They must stoop who must gather gold, and Brunel could never stoop. The history of invention records no instance of grand novelties so boldly imagined and so successfully carried out by the same individual.

I found that moving! And that points to my Red Thread.

In Bristol, a city arguably built on slavery, stands a monument to a man who through ingenuity and struggle built structures we still use. Across the UK there are wonderful historic buildings, many built on oppression and exploitation. Our politicians are either frightened to speak the truth or peddle culture wars. The National Trust (who are NOT wrong to set in context the origins of the estates which have come to their custodianship) struggle as alluded to above. There is no real debate about what is needed going forward in much of our national life. Around the world stability is weakening and is threatened by oligarchs as history plays out familiar troupes. Power is allowed to concentrate and serve the few. And yet we are capable of what IKB achieved, of what those medieval cathedral builders and modern cathedral re-builders achieved, of seeing beauty and alleviating suffering. Through our minds and bodies we can do so much that is obviously good. It is NOT appropriate to make woke mean something wrong. It is wrong to wage war, to build jingoistic narratives, to mistake unfair socioeconomic conditions for nature. What I find moving in that obituary is a tacit understanding that it's good to act beyond short-term greed. Of course there's projection in that, but I think we know that it's good to do what serves our communities.

And the Red Thread? It's in the way we see and relate.

Another recollection illuminates this. As a child in school I always disliked PE and games. I'd neither interest nor ability and could see no value in sport. In those days the 1970's, the whole set up was such that to question the value of sport and competitive games was so bazar that the argument had to be made. And make it I did. Why, must I try to engage with this pointless business when it was obviously doing me no good whatsoever? By the time I was 12 or 13 I'd actually managed to extract from my form teacher who also took PE and games a confession in my school report that he had to agree that it was 'all rather pointless'! I was sensitive, thoughtful and interested in how things worked yet I was in an education system that was very much a product of its time. It was in some ways informed by the Plowden Report which likely generated some 'child centred learning' and was likely both of benefit to my age group and may have in other ways held us back a bit where it was poorly implemented. Who knows, but it didn't result in what we would now recognise as a really diverse educational environment. And whilst I seem to recall music and movement classes in primary school (I don't recall my reaction to them) they vanished by middle school as I recall. And whereas these days as I understand it, a conversation around what PE and games options might suit with yoga, dance etc. on offer, none of that was in anyone's mind in the '70's and '80's once we'd progressed beyond primary school music and movement... PE I could get some slight point to, provided I was allowed to go at my own pace and not have to engage in some kind of competitive tedium... I wasn't averse to clambering about things it was uncontrolled relatively high energy objects such as fast moving balls or people I disliked! Games meant football, rounders, cricket and for some rugby. Under virtually no circumstance was I willing to engage with these. This generated some consternation amongst peers and teachers. What I think is interesting is not just my lack of interest and skill in these but the mindsets at work. Clearly, many people enjoy taking part in and supporting sports teams. But for me the entire endeavour is nothing but a pointless tribal pursuit; I clearly don't have the key ingredient. I understand that the cooperation within the team and competition with others and the skill and chance etc. are all what provide the stimulation for a lot of people but it's meaningless to me. What I do find meaningful is that life is full of struggle and we can if we openly explore the available information, make things better. That's what I find moving in that obituary. The Red Thread for me is in the not playing sports games, not competing for enjoyment, not conforming to narratives and values because they're held by the majority to be true. It's in the exploration of what is and how it can be engaged with to make things better including with limited resource. The not and the in do the revealing of the thread and the koan.

The winter here in the Northeast is quite long and by this time of year most of us are ready for spring. And so it is so lovely to see the flowers doing the only thing they can - flower. The rot in the fruit glasshouse is doing the only thing it can too. We shape and shift our environment with our minds and bodies but the wider forces of the universe are on a far grander scale... The Taoists would have us be in harmony with 'nature' to be ourselves without getting in our own way, our 'natural' selves before ego and fear twist us. Those fears are part of the koan and the repeating patterns part of our Red Thread. A thread made of both our true face and the faces we wear as we move thorough the not's and the in's... a dance sometimes in the light of awareness and quite often in the dark of confusion, the patterns of light and dark reflecting our threads...