Yesterday, I happened to glance through and read a little bit of Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America, which a dear friend was reading a selection of for class. The website is an accompaniment to the book.
Last night, I dreamed of being at a lynching. I don't remember much of the dream, fortunately. The snick of scissors against lifeless flesh. The flesh was white, bloodless.
Since Dathun, I've been remembering a lot of when I was 10 years old, reliving it viscerally, returning to places in my experience filled with ...well, a lot of unpleasantness I'd rather not recount at the moment, no more than I'd like to find myself re-experiencing it in any given moment. But there it is, inescapable and therefore available to the mindful eye.
On this particular date, 22 years ago, a teacher wheeled a television into our classroom, plugged it in and turned it on, tuning into news coverage of the Challenger Disaster, marking what would be a worldview-changing event for myself and my cohort. At the moment, the most remarkable piece is that it feels so very long ago in memory, in my sense of time and the events that fill in a life day-to-day, and yet in my body the stunned feeling, a stinging numbness, still lives and is felt in the space between heartbeats, as if waiting to lurch suddenly beyond an unexpected pause into a fluttering that shakes my bones.
This time of the year, the last ten days before the Losar, the lunar new year, is known in Tibetan culture as the döns -- a time when the döns themselves are running rampant, bringing with them all manner of unpleasantness. My buddysatva Brenda related the perspective from the Sakyong that this time of year is when the entire past year's worth of accumulated karmic tendencies are experienced in a concentrated way. She said that it's a time when we can review our activities of the past year, our quality of engagement, our intention, and so forth, and decide what we wish to continue and carry forward into the new year, and what we would like to discontinue.
For the döns and any time of year, when negative experience comes pouring in, the basic instruction is to welcome it like a beloved guest. For myself, when looking at old shame, anger and frustration welling up from memory and from within my body like a suppurating wound, "welcoming the experience like a treasured friend" doesn't even rank last on the list of my preferred approaches. My usual response, residing alongside these flesh-bound memories, is to numb out, shut down, disconnect, dissociate. My preference is that whatever unpleasantry cease immediately and never reappear.
From the somewhat pop-psychological perspective, the inner child needs the outer adult to take care of her now in ways she wasn't able to when the pattern and energy became somatically ingrained. So, whether it's welcoming the unwelcome guest, or comforting the inner child, or making offerings to the döns, the nonviolent approach is the way through the negativity and confusion. Somehow, I have to welcome with gentleness what arises in my experience, whether that's somatic memory, storylines, people, conflict, illness, etc.
I believe, however, that one shouldn't be too loose with gentleness--there's always a need for precision. How can I be gentle with myself in those same moments when looking at where I have really erred during this past year? How can I both hold myself accountable and firmly plant the intention to do no such harm again, while also avoiding swaddling myself up in blame, immobilized in guilt? How can I come back out of the downward-spiraling numbness of dissociation and re-engage the tender edge of my experience.
With the bitumen taste of irony at the back of my throat, I recognize that faith remains a crux of my spiritual life, despite all attempts to move past and beyond what I learned in my Catholic upbringing. That faith sometimes still says "I believe in..." but it is also hope, trusting that whatever may occur is somehow part of the journey, fuel for the fire, and so on. I don't believe in a god or gods or g-d, but I still operate with some sense of that placeholder for a highest signifier. I try to remember that the only thing I might coherently conceptualize and hold in that highest place is love. Remembering that, just in the tiniest bit, even just conceptually, brings to heart the courage to step forward, again. And again. And again. Perhaps with a fluttering heart and shaky bones, but stepping forward into an unknown.
I remember also that in 1986 the movie Space Camp came out. When I went to Purdue University, I met so many peers who felt inspired by that movie that they chose to study engineering and other sciences at Purdue with intent to to become astronauts and/or engineers at NASA. What happened to the Challenger did not dissuade them, but perhaps instead gave them a sense that there's room for improvement and growth that they personally can participate in. In that memory of disaster and a finding of brilliant aspiration, there is some sense of faith. Faith can, I believe, be a trust in that which is as incontrovertable as basic principles of physics as much as a trust in the unknown.
For myself, I hope that the many disasters and misdeeds of my past year are activities I will not re-engage in. I want to learn well from my follies, mistakes, blunders, and outright failures. I also hope that the many kindnesses I expressed, the gentleness I embodied, the love that I gave, will be growing capacities for the same. I hope that others may forgive me. I hope that I may forgive myself. I hope that I may engage in all activities with more mindfulness than I have previously, whether the previous year or the previous moment. I hope that I might remember love in each breath.
Happy Roe v. Wade day! Here are 10 Reasons to Support Reproductive Justice on Roe v. Wade day:
10. Abortion is already inaccessible and out of reach for many women.
9. If abortion is illegal, then women and doctors will be criminals.
8. Anti-choicers care about controlling your sex life, not saving babies.
7. They’re going after your birth control, too.
6. Illegal abortion kills women.
5. Legal abortion is good for women, men and families.
4. Poor women and women of color are disproportionately impacted by anti-choice policies.
3. Choice isn’t just about not giving birth — it’s about your right to have children.
2. Anti-choicers are also going after the rights of women around the world.
1. Reproductive justice is about you.
It’s about your rights and your family and your body. All of us make reproductive choices — to have kids or not, to use birth control or not, to have sex or not, to continue a pregnancy or not. Reproductive health care impacts all of our lives. In a pro-choice country, children are wanted and cared for, pregnancy is voluntary and families are healthy. Women and men have a full range of rights, and the liberty to act as individuals instead of squeezing themselves into narrow gender roles. Sex is both a pleasure and a responsibility, not a guilt-ridden exercise intended only for reproduction in the context of a male-headed heterosexual marriage. One’s character and morality are squarely centered in their heart and their head, not between their legs. Health care is available for everyone who needs it, without judgment or impediment. And lives are actually valued — even mine and even yours.
Linkology:
- Reproductive Justice @ MoJones
- Reproductive Justice is Every Woman's Right @ NOW
- Articles tagged Reproductive Jusice @ AlterNet
With nieces Nicci & Nora
Tieday saturday, off to visit family
When getting a first tattoo, why start small?
Merely in transfer and pen here.
Implements of integumentary inspiration
In most of the self-portrait pictures I took all month long, I looked profoundly sleepy. I often was.
I sat. I walked. I sat. I ate oryoki. I sat. I angsted. I sat. I ate oryoki. I sat. I walked. I sat. I ate oryoki. Here and there, some chanting.
Profound connection to some, deeper connection to myself, irritatingly frequent appearance of my own neurosis. And I fell in love with the dharma all over again, and learned a new patience with the unvoiced parts of myself.
I breathe in a new and lasting innocence.
And I'm so glad to be home.
