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Dark Night of the Soul: In Memory of Boots: April, 1999-May 24, 2013

June 2, 2013 by Gopita Katharine Manning

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I am experiencing what I call my own Dark Night of the Soul.

Last week I was carried away by unimaginable joy as I re-connected with my teacher through one of her Swamis, a monk who called me, as they say “out of the blue” (a metaphor for heaven, have you noticed?) to say my beloved Guru was saying “hello.”  This contact, by email and telephone, was completely unexpected and so serendipitous as to leave me barely breathing and ecstatic for the entire day.

The very same night, the night of the full moon last week, my beloved cat, Boots, was killed by a coyote right in front of me.  The last and powerful image I have of my 14 year old cat is his limp body being taken down my driveway in the coyote’s strong jaws.  It is a horrendous image, etched forever on my retina.

The sustaining force of having a teacher through the many years since my powerful awakening in 1989 has guided and fed me; kept me going, and I am stunned at the power of my emotional response to this event and to my mind in the last week.  Boots’ tragic death followed closely on the heels of my little dog’s almost certain demise in the jaws of a neighbor’s dog three weeks ago. 

For the past three weeks I have felt as if I have barely survived as I have nursed my small dog back to health, reasonably certain I would be euthanizing my small and wonderful “baby.”  But Lucky Girl, blind and deaf and 16 years of age, has made it, while Boots is gone.

I sometimes wonder why I put one foot in front of another day in and day out.  Of what use are we to one another in this strange and marvelous and horrible sojourn we call “life?”  Certainly I get to complain – who is there for me as I take care of client after client, patient after patient, day in and day out, suffering the outrageous projections of men and women who blame and curse, blame and curse, then return to praise and idealize, day in and day out, day in and day out?  Sometimes I am so tired and ill I do not want to carry on.  Sometimes I want to scream:  why do I have to be the healer? Why me?  What about me?  Why me?  What about me?

As I cried and cried and hurt and my head felt like it would explode again, I noticed I still  managed to see my clients and patients, make dog food, take care of my animals, do my paperwork, write chapters in my book, and take care of the daily business we call “living.”

St. John of the Cross did not pray for his enlightenment.  Christ exploded in his mind when the pain of his imprisonment became unendurable.  Julian of Norwich apparently had a slower awakening, the gift of everyday awareness becoming stabilized in Christ-vision and awareness. 

Turn the same face to praise and to blame, said my teacher.  Learn to cultivate equanimity, that amazing quality of spiritually advanced adepts who manage to treat all life experiences the same.

So, as I attempted to berate myself for my irritability today – tired and sad and filled with a huge grief, I saw equally how I had been successful in my therapy and healing practice, how my animals had been cared for, how I had reached out to my daughter and to my brother, how I had performed my daily chores with a decent attitude; acting better than I felt, always acting better than I felt.

We continue on, I think, because something in us does it for us.  The dream dreams us.  We see our original face, and it is so astonishingly beautiful we search out another mirror, then another, then another.  We call these mirrors the “other.”  And somehow, along the way, as the kindness of the God of our understanding sinks deeper into our brains and bloodstream, many of us are finally struck with the profound realization that we are simply not the doer, we are the done.  We are not the thinker, we are the thought.  We get out of the way and finally begin to understand that even grief is part of the entire plan.  When I lay this tired mind down tonight, I will be with Boots, with every animal and person I have loved, whether actually “here” or not.

This Dark Night of the Soul….it is painful.  It is agonizing.  It is exquisite. 

I miss my Boots.  I miss my kitty cat who was such a love bunny – who let Julie, Chrissy and Lisa dress him up and carry him around in a doll carriage without moving a muscle.  Who equally would go out on the back fence in South Pasadena on every full moon and beat the shit out of the other guy so fully that Thomas and I would have to take him to the emergency vet each time he acted out in those years of his masculine mayhem.  It was so ridiculous that we began to keep antiseptics like Betadine in our bathroom to clean him up each month on his nightly fight- jaunts.

I miss my Boots.  I miss the guy who I let in each night after calling him; his enormous weight causing a bloop – bloop – bloop as he ran to the front door, the pink bell around his neck jingling; my Boots totally unaware and uncaring of the metro sexual collar around his neck, so assured was he of his identity as a cat – only a cat – not a male or female – just a good, good cat.  My cat.  My Boots.  My loving, sweet, sweet cat.

My cat would look up at me as he came in the front door each evening and make a soundless meow.   I would hoist him over my shoulder and carry him around until we could settle for our “scritch-scratch” time.  He liked it hard.  He liked to be combed within an inch of his life, and if I stopped brushing and combing him too soon, I got a little reminder bite on my ankle or hand to let me know there was more grooming work to do.  And this was every night.  Then he got into my bed, and into my arms.  His head fell back and his mouth opened, his pink tongue hanging out, as he slept, content in my arms, each and every night of his life. 

I miss my Boots.  I miss my Boots. I miss my hairy bedfellow.  I miss hot tuna breath in the morning.

Homer snores next to me as I write this.  Lucky Girl’s nose is horrid-sounding, having been broken by the dog next door who bit her within an inch of her life three weeks ago.  They know.  They comfort me as I miss the third musketeer in bed.

I miss my Boots.

This Dark Night of the Soul will pass.  Everything passes away.  I have no idea where it goes, if it goes anywhere at all.  And I have no idea what I just said because I have no idea what all that means.

I miss my Boots.  Wherever he is, whoever he is with, my sweet sweet boy, my darling cat, my wonderful flop cat, my Sunday morning heartbanger.

And the Dark Night becomes the Light Day, and the Light Day becomes the Dark Night, and the Light Night becomes the Dark Day, and the desire for the day is faithfulness to the night.

Everything passes, and nothing moves.  Everything moves and nothing passes.  And the eventual desire for another cat will become a tribute to the memory of my beautiful Boots. 

May 31, 2013

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December 5, 2012 by Gopita Katharine Manning

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The Yellow Dog is Older Now

April 8, 2012 by Gopita Katharine Manning

  The Yellow Dog is older now. 

His gait is unsteady; his head hangs a little lower, swings a little more slowly than it did before.  The doctor says there are signs of a neurological disorder. 

The yellow dog was “sent” to me as a sign, I said, being whelped the day the retriever died. 

I was so lonely, craving a dog again, the companionship of the disciple and master rolled into one.

 So Homer came to me.  They said he had been hurt.  His body was crippled, and they told me he should sleep with me.  

We put the futon on the floor of my office, and the gangly, bony, yellow dog slept on top of my body to heal his own. 

The bone doctor said the yellow dog should not have healed the terrible problem that the other vets said should have killed him.  But this doctor said he was “different.”  “He has an indomitable spirit.  I will operate on him,” the doctor said.  

So Homer Hanuman Ram Dog walked out of a 7 hour operation on his legs and hips and never looked back.  He was 9 months old. 

And as the old dog snores softly next to me on a different bed, in a different place now, I weep with gratitude that this companion has seen me through these times.  I weep with gratitude that I have the honor to see him through his time, now. 

His long, sad face looks back at me, as if to say that he, too, remembers the time our eyes met and we became lovers so long ago.  I think he is thanking me.  I think he is remembering all down the length of his bent body how he is grateful for the walks in the mountains, the swims in the oceans, the fights with his “sisters,” the loving care he took of the children when that was his job, the daily baths he gave to Boots, the cat, who welcomed his slurps joyfully, and especially for the naps by the fire, his belly full with the food I cooked for him, the food which has helped heal that sad and sick body of his. Now I am given the opportunity to care for him again, to see my Homer move toward the end of his devoted life. 

I have “put down” six animals now.  Each time I wondered if I could handle it, or if the time would be right, or what if they suffered?  What if I didn’t make it in time?  Each time serendipity and grace took care of details and it happened perfectly, in God’s time. 

Homer is telling me not to worry.  He will signal me, as he has told me again and again how to do things, to relax, that all will be well. 

So, if we have two days, two weeks, two months or two years together, this yellow dog and me, well, we have had the very best of all of it, the very worst of all of it, and I sing praises to my belovedHomer Hanuman Ram Dog, my second yellow dog, my sweetest yellow dog.  

It was my first yellow dog who taught me about God, so many years ago, by the fireplace.  His name was Shiva.  His brown eyes were gazing up at me as he lay at my feet.  His golden coat looked silken and translucent in the light of the fire.  It became surreally clear to me that he seemed only to want one thing in life:  to serve me and obey my every command.  His devotion, like the monkey god, Hanuman, in the epic poem of India, the Mahabharata, was his modus operandi, his way and his life and his means.  He wanted only to do what Hanuman did for his beloved Sita – retrieving her ring again and again in the underworld as she threw it down, timeless in the action of surrender and devotion – happy only to retrieve the ring, never asking why the idiotic Sita threw it away again and again and again.  Hanuman’s task embodied only his fierce love and capacity to obey.  He loved his mistress, and indeed, would have been happy to die into this love for her as he went down to the underworld, again and again and again, never asking why, just doing what he was born to do. 

Shiva waited for me to tell him what to do.  He cowered if I was angry, upset when I was upset, at my side if and when I became ill, refusing food himself, so tuned in to me that he was becoming adept at anticipating my next command.  He would get up and go to the kitchen several beats before my thoughts to do so had registered.  He waited by my office door if I could not invite him in with my next client.  He lay under my healing table in the courtyard, and “told” me when a session had finished.  He would always align himself north to south, as if to say, “All is well; there is completion here.”

So, I was struck silent and filled with awe the night I understood, for the first time, the relationship between the Master and the Disciple.

God is just like me, I thought, and I am just like Shiva.  I am the Disciple, and Shiva is the Master.  Or I am the Master, and Shiva is my Disciple.  As a disciple, I found the only peace I had ever known when I knew I was performing my life’s purpose:  that of obeying the Will of God.  It was always so effortless, this understanding of my purpose.  Any resistance to What Was caused enormous conflict and pain in my being.  But when I simply stopped, waited, and refused to act until I knew the next action, I was in the flow of my life’s purpose, the purported Will of God.  I knew it as surely as Shiva knew it.  I had been living this purpose for years, twisting in agony when I went against what I knew.

 Looking into my dog’s eyes that night, I could not help but laugh when I thought of the childish mumblings “dog is god spelled backwards.” 

The Native Americans call our dogs our “familiars.”  It is as if they come to us knowing who we are better than we could ever know ourselves.  And they lead us away from danger, they protect us, they sleep with us, and they forgive us.  There is no psychological nonsense in a dog’s personality structure.  They just are.  They just forgive.  They continue to move forward, apparently harboring no resentment for whatever happened in the apparent past.   

Shiva died in 2003, to be replaced by Homer Hanuman Ram Dog.  Homer is the same way, a true incarnation of Shiva.  He is a yellow lab, and he is now lying next to me, curled up and happy, pressing his spine into my leg from time to time, letting me know he is there. 

I want to be like Shiva and Homer.  I want only to lie at my Master’s feet, to wait for the next command, to be happy to die for my Beloved.  I am absolutely still in the perfection of the ancient scripture’s sutra:  “only one who obeys can command.” 

The Yellow Dog rouses now, yawns, circles, and then slams down against me as if he is sure he can be absorbed into my body.  He hits my side so hard with his bony spine I am wondering if either of us is injured.  I remember how he slept with me as a pup in order to heal this bone condition which so cripples him again now.  

He opens one eye and looks at me.  That look is what I never want to forget.  It is the look of such profound love and devotion it causes my heart to ache and hurt and swell, and I am once again brought to my knees in humility and gratitude for the grace I am given in being allowed to care for my dog in his advancing years. 

Only one who obeys can command.  We go to sleep, our spines pressed against one another’s, hopefully to wake together again and praise away another day.  The Yellow Dogs have taught me about God.   I want to serve the old Yellow Dog until he is no more, and then serve until I am no more. 

OMNAMAH SHIVAYA

Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A Boy Named Sean, A Dog Named Homer

November 28, 2011 by Gopita Katharine Manning

This little story (a true one) is composed by Homer’s Mom, who will be referred to in the third person mostly as “ HM.”

When HM first saw Homer (obviously, an unnamed yellow lab in a cage), she ‘fell in love.”  He had the most beautiful head and face she had ever seen.  She was missing her golden retriever who had died three months previous, and, though she had promised herself she could never replace the mighty Shiva, her retriever, there was something about this little doggie with the sad eyes and  beautiful nose….Something made her return to the breeder again and again….

When she found out from the breeder that this little pup had been whelped the same day Shiva had died, well, it was too great a coincidence, and she made the arrangements, and one day, carried the little ten week old pup into her backyard to meet her family.

Within six months it became clear to everyone that Homer, now called Homer Hanuman Ram Dog, was very sick.  He had already been hospitalized for severe digestive problems for over two weeks of his short life, but now, his back legs looked like they were…disappearing.  He was in severe pain.  He was listless.  He barely ate.

It was soon revealed that he was a “puppy mill” dog.  He was the result of a greedy breeder, keeping a bitch pregnant again and again, running the dogs down, having very sick pups, knowing that most people would just allow their puppies to die rather than spend money on getting them well.  Homer’s hips were non-existent.  He had literally no hip sockets.  Bone was rubbing on bone.  Three vets all agreed that the little nine-month old puppy, who had stolen HM’s heart, and the hearts of her family, would have to be put down.

HM was desolate.  One day HM was meditating on the floor, trying to accept the inevitable, when Homer’s big nose rested suddenly on her shoulder.  He made a “hhhhmmmmmm…” sound.  This sound was the sound HM had heard somewhere before, deep in meditation.  She was led to get up from meditation and go to instantly to her computer, where she was led to a site for an orthopedic vet who could perform a tricky operation for dogs such as Homer.

Very soon Homer was to receive an operation called a “Femoral Osteoechtomy”, which pretty much cut off the rest of his leg and hip bones, stuffed gluteal muscle into his hips and was used to make legs out of what had been shoddy bone, and HM and her family were told that he had a very slim chance of recovery.  This operation, seven hours in procedure, was only performed on very small dogs.  But the vet had taken a look at Homer and said that he had an “amazing spirit.”

Homer pranced out of a 7- hour surgery and yanked off his morphine patch, never to look back.  He needed virtually no rehabilitation.  He has been a marvelous, indomitable, spirited dog ever since.  He is alive and well, seven years later.  He was given a 50-50 chance of living to the age of 3.  At this writing he is 8 years old.

Now, you may wonder why this little story has so far been about a dog named Homer, but has not mentioned a boy named Sean.

That is because, it was not until Homer was well into his second year of recovery (or maybe it was his third year) that he met Sean.  It was this meeting that would provide Homer with his purpose in life.  To the boy named Sean, who was perhaps only 7 or 8 years old at the first real meeting, Homer was simply another friend, a litter- mate, so to speak.  But Homer had found his raison d-etre, his reason and purpose and meaning in life.  There was no turning back for Homer.

Sean was quite an exceptional boy.  He was “all boy.”  He loved to tustle and roughhouse and play and play hard!  This suited Homer very well.  Anything Sean did suited Homer very well.  Sean was just one of those boys.  Everyone loved him.  He was adorable, freckled, funny, had a wonderful family, and a very charmed life.  He was someone who was to develop intense focus on what he loved.  He had not quite developed this trait at his younger age, but this trait was to suit Homer very well.  Because, you see, bonding is about identifying with your loved one.  Homer was to bond so completely with Sean that he was to become his guardian angel, his protector.  It was why Homer lived through his trials and tribulations, it seemed.  And Sean was certainly an exceptional and special person.  He was well worth it.
The intense focus on Sean began for Homer when Sean, Homer, Sean’s Mom, and HM went to the Huntington Dog Beach when Sean was 8 and Homer was 3.  Homer had been to the beach only once or twice before, and he had been totally smashed down by waves, but he had shown enormous bravery and gone back into deep and salty waters again and again.  HM’s husband, Homer’s Daddy, and his entire family had marveled at Homer’s bravery.  What a trouper this little doggie was!

But nothing was to prepare us for what Homer was to do with Sean at the beach.  Imagine peanut butter!   Imagine crazy glue!  Imagine Velcro!   Homer and Sean, Sean and Homer.  And that was that.  Homer was never going to let go of the boy named Sean.   In the waves Sean splashed.  In the waves Homer splashed.  In the waves Sean crashed.  In the waves Homer crashed.  Sean built a sand castle.  Homer destroyed the sand castle.  Sean ate a sandwich.  Homer ate a sandwich.  Sean slept.  Homer slept.

Now, we are in present time, five years later.   HM, Sean’s Mom, Sean’s sister, and a few friends, return to the dog beach.  Sean is a young man now.  He has no time for any nonsense.  His voice has deepened, he has fur on his own face (Homer has noticed), and now, he has a dog of his own!  Harley, Homer’s nemesis!  Harley is a yellow lab, just like Homer.  Harley and Homer play and play and romp and romp.  It is Harley’s first dog beach visit.

And, oh, how they love it!  The two labs run down to the ocean and – splash bam crash – into the waves they go!!!  But wait!  Suddenly, Homer is swimming frantically toward three boys on surfboards, making a wheedling noise deep in his throat.  He thinks one of the boys is Sean!  He circles them and sees Sean is not there.  He turns in the deep water, a wave crashes him, he goes under,  re-surfaces and goes out farther and farther!  Where is Sean?  Where is Sean?  HM calls out to Sean.  He is way out.  Homer paddles frantically, way out in the ocean to Sean.  HM has to go out into the deep ocean waves to “rescue” the Labrador retriever! Homer has completely taken on the role, once again, five years later, of Sean’s protector.

Yesterday HM, Sean, Homer and Harley went for a walk.  Homer was unusually difficult on his leash, pulling and yanking HM’s arm.  Sean, who was walking Harley a few steps in front of HM and Homer, looked around and simply said “Here, give me the leash.  Homer needs to be with me.”

It was true.  Once Sean took Homer’s leash, Homer lowered his head respectfully as he walked slowly to the right of Sean, Harley on Sean’s left.  Both leashes were slack, as both dogs were grateful to walk with their beloved boy.

But the dog on the right, Homer, was absolutely perfect, his eyes on the road ahead, every now and then glancing to the left, his head swinging low but steady, his leash slack.  His job was assured, because he knew who he was and what he had to do.  He was happy and perfect. He was safe and content in his life’s purpose.   He was simply Homer Hanuman Ram Dog, and he was doing his job, walking with the boy he loved with all his heart.

 

-The End

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The Nadis, the Gunas, and the Vivaxis: Interrelated Theories of Energy Arising

November 28, 2011 by Gopita Katharine Manning

(Updated and corrected, May, 2012)

 

In the Tantric model of Kundalini arising, it is said that energy is activated in the root chakra (the muladhara) and rises through the Sushumna Nadi, or the Conception Vessel meridian.  On either side of this meridian lie two channels, one to the right, and one to the left.  The channel to the right is a warming channel, the Pinagala Nadi.  It is yang in nature.  To the left of the Conception Vessel lies the Ida Nadi, the cooling channel.  It is yin in nature.  These two nadis intertwine the Sushumna, forming the traditional Caduceus of modern medicine.

 

According to this theory, when energy is activated in this way, it is the ultimate marriage of Shiva (yang) and Shakti (yin).  Once all the 72,000 peripheral nadis are pierced by the union of the mighty Hindu god Shiva and his bride, Shakti, fusion and merging occur in the crown chakra, the Sahasrara, and enlightenment is inevitable.

 

In another branch of Sanskrit philosophy, called Samkhya, three fundamental energies of prakriti (universal nature) are discussed.  These energies are called the gunas.  “Guna” is a Sanskrit word meaning “string”, but in a more abstract or metaphysical sense, it means an “operational principle or tendency.” The three gunas usually considered as principles of all creation, evolution and destruction are:  rajas, sattva, and tamas.   Rajas, translated loosely, means “fire.”  Sattva, “purity” and tamas, “inertia.”   In Ayurveda, as well as certain Vedic schools of thought, it is sometimes said that, before a soul decides to take birth, this soul decides the guna in which to incarnate.  For example, should a soul wish to come into life with a mission, that soul would choose, even pre-conception, a rajasic guna.  Should a person be confused as to the particular lifetime in which they are incarnating, they may enter with a tamasic guna.  And a few souls, usually those who are destined to become teachers and masters, come into realization with a sattvic guna.

 

Vivaxis is a term coined by Frances Nixon, a Canadian woman who discovered a unique energy flow that connects an individual’s energy field, or etheric body, with that of the earth’s magnetic field at the time of their birth.  She claimed that this field held one of the prime keys to understanding one’s individual life.  The link functioned, Nixon claimed, as a two-way connection between the individual and their place of birth. Nixon claimed that the direct magnetic connection to earth’s energies began when the individual’s mother’s labor began based on the actual way she was facing when her contractions began.  Furthermore, the connection remained even as the individual grew and moved and traveled as an adult.  Claiming that each individual had a unique frequency developed along earth’s axis, Nixon worked for over thirty years in helping restore the vivaxis connection, which she found might be distorted by chemicals, electromagnetic fields or even climactic changes like solar flares or lightning.  In theory, by reconnecting with these energies, one might once again find the harmony, health and grounding which were, quite literally, one’s birthright.

 

Donna Eden has coined a phrase and an energy protocol called “Vivaxin Syndrome.”  She has found that one may develop sensitivity – and indeed a problem – with certain directions, based on an incomplete magnetic “paving over,” so to speak, of the magnetic field in this direction of the vivaxis, or the birth field.  In other words, rather than the vivaxis remaining a direction of power for the person, Donna has found it to be for some people like a magnetic tape which needs de-magnetization –  it is too gunked up by the many electromagnetic “bombs” thrown at it by the vicissitudes of modern life.  She has developed a protocol for cleaning this symbolic tape and strengthening the auric field so that the original vivaxis remains strong.  Through the use of kinesiology and energy testing to ascertain the direction of dis-empowerment, Donna has been able to ascertain the weakened direction of the vivaxis, and using magnets twirled at the ends of the meridian while the individual then faces this direction, she has strengthened the integrity of the electromagnetic field/vivaxis.  The results for most have been remarkable.

 

In my own practice I have found that strengthening the vivaxis has been of particular benefit to those clients who claim they have ‘incarnated with the guna of “tamas.”  These are people who maintain a certain ambivalence to life; an inertia, or energetic uncertainty, and are the ones most likely to have this Vivaxin Syndrome.  In other words, those who have a sensitivity to a certain direction (East, West, South, North) so strong that it affects their health, are perhaps the very souls who have struggled to get here, and who may or may not have truly decided to stay.   Those with a tamasic guna coupled with a strong Vivaxin Syndrome, may have the most troubles in life with depression, autoimmune illness, and other problems of a weakened energy field.  I have found the similarities in these two theories of marked importance.

It is said that some indigenous tribes do not name their children for three months after birth. According to some theories, this is because some children ‘return’ before they have reached earth- age of three months.  In Bali, it is said that a child’s feet do not touch the ground for the first three months of life.  It has been of some note – and certainly not coincidental – that the clients I have asked to “just spontaneously, now, off the top of your head, tell me what energy you came in with – tamasic, rajasic, or sattvic” – (this is after correcting a weakened vivaxis and after relaxing the client and doing a considerable balancing and of course, explaining the theory of the gunas) – these clients almost always tell me, “well, tamasic, of course!”  They have spent a lifetime of inertia, uncertainty, ambivalence.  They seem to have little or no certainty about goals, relationships, and their health.  It is with these clients that I spend a good deal of time strengthening the yang energies.  But it is in the explanation of the theory of the gunas which has seemed to help my clients achieve the most congruency in their lives.

 

And it is then that the theories of the nadis come into play.  Clients who express the energy of tamas, of inertia, achieve great benefit when working with the Ida nadi, the yin channel.  The nadis, in general, prove to be of great benefit to these clients.  Indeed, for those with this particular construct, there is great hope in working with Kundalini and spiritual practice. I know of no better practice than meditation and chanting.  Since chanting is an essay in itself, I will speak briefly of meditations’ capacity to affect the nadi system and the sushumna nadi, in particular.

 

Meditation is a wonderful adjunct to a practice of Energy Medicine.  “Spiritual” practices help prepare the body and brain for higher states of consciousness, and they equally prepare the body and brain for the reception of depth charges during sessions of regression, chakra, and grid work.

To begin a meditation practice, that is, a sitting practice, alternate nostril breathing is particularly beneficial.  This activates not only the Ida and Pingala alongside the sushumna nadi, but it also helps crossover patterns along the corpus collosam, the great lobe of the brain.  Furthermore, anyone who has trouble with the ajna Chakra  – the “3rd eye”, or 6th Chakra –  will often see this trouble begin to melt with a daily practice of alternate nostril breathing.  There are a myriad of benefits to this particular pranayama (breathing exercise).  It is particularly beneficial for the pineal gland on the top of the head, which figures substantially in Fran Nixon’s work on the vivaxis.

 

Sitting with the back erect, the chin level, the hands folded comfortably in the lap – or in chin mudra – the thumbs and forefingers touching – and after doing a series of alternate nostril breaths, meditation often seems ‘to happen by itself.’  Sometimes after a period of some restlessness, as the nervous system fights the newfound peace it is experiencing (a triple warmer phenomenon, surely!) one may begin focusing on the space between the eyebrows. As this area is focused on for awhile, one may experience a feeling of something being ‘pierced.’  This is not uncommon.  The 3rd eye, or 6th chakra, literally opens, and a flood of endorphins swells the being.  Meditation is well underway.

 

But do not quit before the miracle!  If this practice is performed daily, for 15-20 minutes, hopefully for the rest of one’s life, what had previously become a most unsatisfying humdrum existence, one in which one seemed doomed to inertia, restlessness, unhappy autoimmune illnesses of minor symptoms but of annoying frequency, may seem to remit rather suddenly, never to return.  The trick to meditation, or any spiritual practice for that matter, is not to quit.  We must avoid falling into a stupor.  It is essential to continue to practice, to raise our tolerance so that we do not become bliss ninnies each time we plummet deeper into depth charges availed us by a spiritual practice coupled with a daily energy routine.

 

As an Energy Medicine Practitioner, I feel strongly that one of my greatest responsibilities to my clients is to maintain the rigors of my daily meditation practice.  For me it has become imperative to recognize, sustain and deepen the charges in my body, mind and spirit in order to facilitate the same available states in my clients.  But “faith without works” is hollow indeed, so an explanation of the various theories of the nadis, the gunas and Kundalini have worked wonders with my clients, all of whom have brought me an understanding of my own self and my own spiritual , nature larger than I could ever have imagined.  Furthermore, this self-awareness, the theory of vivaxis,  the theory of the gunas, with the help of an understanding of the nadis, has also helped some of my clients re-frame early experiences of childhood victimization to ones of empowerment, as they see they may ultimately choose the energy system in which to be born.  Furthermore, it can be quite empowering to see that everything one does in one’s life may indeed be part of a purifying practice of Kundalini arising and the piercing of the 72,000 nadis.

 

These are amazing theories of energy arising, easy for most to understand, helpful for most to frame contextually within the boundaries of a session in Energy Medicine.  I have found that almost everyone I work with is yearning for things to be framed in a spiritual context.  Working with the theories discussed above has proven a rich ground for me in helping my clients move from what Carl Jung has called uneigentilich leiden (inauthentic suffering) into a perspective of compassion and mercy for the common bond we all share.

 

I am proud to be an Energy Medicine Practitioner, and even happier and prouder to be a daily meditator.  They are, at least in my mind, often one and the same.

Posted in Energy Medicine | 3 Comments »

Schadenfreude, Part III

November 27, 2011 by Gopita Katharine Manning

December 15, 2010

 

 

I was ready to roll…I was ready to play the game, the mean, dark game of my protagonists, Chris, Norma, Judy and Cerrie.  I had just never wanted to stoop so low before.  I had never realized I had acted arrogantly by believing I was better than them and had more scruples.  It was truth time.

 

Melanie Klein was a psychoanalyst in Germany in the early 1900’s.  Melanie Klein taught a school of psychology called “Object Relations” – very basically, the way we relate to our first objects; our first caretakers.  I remember being intrigued in school about Klein’s comments about possession, how sick people could become malevolent puppeteers in the background and have malignant thoughts and take evil and mean-spirited actions.  Klein said these sick people would often do anything to destroy others.  The masochist would become the sadist.  Again and again and again.

 

Well, I am not a masochist or a sadist, but in order to survive in my small town, I had to do something.  I am a reasonably good psychologist, and I am an excellent lawyer.  Both require an understanding of science and an ability to employ scientific techniques, but both careers most often require an ability to employ acting skills.  I was getting ready to become the thespian of my life.

 

First object to relate to:  Judy O’Hare.  First emotion with which to work:  Guilt.  First principle with which to work:  Ten Commandments.  What to call out in the other:  Shame.

 

Got it.  Now go!

 

I often went to Saint Martin’s in the Field, a Catholic Church Judy attended on Sundays.  Father Dennis O’Dennehey was our Priest, and he and Judy were very tight.  It took very little effort to arrange myself between them at the Sunday afternoon tea, and to bring up the topic of atonement, and Father O’Dennehey’s opinion about sin, lying, and hell.  I got him to wax poetical about gossip and slander.   Judy’s face became tighter and whiter and her lips became so pinched I feared her mouth would disappear into her cheeks, but I persevered, and just as I thought, Judy was too mannered and courteous to excuse herself from the conversation.  She was probably too afraid of the discussion behind her back which we were likely to continue. She was very afraid of going to hell.  I counted on this.

 

It worked like a charm.  When I finally excused myself, I had Father O’Dennehey so intoxicated from the brandy in the flask I had in my purse which I had bountifully poured into his coffee cup, which in turn loosened his lips and forced him to become so dark and negative and terrifying, that I think Judy would have done anything to beg forgiveness for her terrible sins of gossip and slander against me that she played into my hands like melted butter.  She whined that she had to talk to me and needed “to do so as soon as possible”.    I felt terrible for about a minute.

 

But then I was on to Cerrie again.

 

Her codependent need to rescue pathetic dogs and cats made it easy to get into her good side (not that she had a good side), and she was easy to play.  More about her later.

 

Chris and Norma were the ones I had to figure out.  But once I went into the nastiness, they were easier than pie.  Because they were fat, so pie was where it was at.  Food, food and more food.  I was going to get to them through their pie holes, as the raunchier natives were wont to say. What better than a big Mexican picnic given in the town square in July during the 4th of July festivities?  The irony would be lost on the dumb cows.  There was one Mexican person in Rigdon.  Chris.  Norma’s ethnicity was difficult to know.  She was flat of face, thick of neck, whiney of voice, dyed of hair, and big and thick of body.  She was simply hideous looking.  No one knew her last name.  She stuck to Chris, who was bigger than a house, like peanut butter.  So where Chris went, Norma followed.

 

And to maintain these enormous bodies, food was required.  And could I give it to them!  Burritos, tortillas, sour cream, the whole enchilada!!!  I was going to fatten up the fatted calves until these greasy mamas screamed for mercy!

 

One problem occurred, but one at which I excelled:  I had to delay gratification.  We were in the month of April, ‘mud time’ in New England, spring in the rest of the country.  I was forced to wait three months for the delight of hopefully seeing these enormous women get their comeuppance in the ways they deserved; run out of town on their big butts;  Rigdon finally and ultimately returned to its’ uppity-blue-blooded-Yankee ways.

 

Why these women projected their unfinished business on me remained to be seen, but I had long ago given up figuring out why.  I had been told to utilize, not analyze.

 

Cerrie Hartley, the hard-hearted bitch from hell, had told me a bit, but I had turned a deaf ear to most of her meanderings.  The gist of her rambling had been this:  I had been too successful, too ‘ethical’ too rigid in insisting that the group follow the traditions and rules of the long-standing Policies and Procedures; but mostly, I had been self-deprecating, and no one could stomach this.  This had long been one of my glaring character defects.  I constantly played down my abilities.  It was bad enough that I had success and glory, but no one could stand that I then pretended not to be who I was.  Nothing stinks like this kind of phoniness, broadcasted.  I would have hated me too.  It was the worst and smarmiest of people-pleasing narcissism.  I could not blame them for their rage.  But it was the extent of their acting-out which I found puzzling and very troubling.

 

I do not know what act of divine intervention or grace stopped me here in my tracks.  I do know I did not deserve it.  I had gone so far down the rabbit hole of vitriol and revenge and plans of retribution as to be unrecognizable, even to myself, but some thought, from a distant past, some lost shred of decency, or kindness, or character, reared its tired head and whispered to me, and I lost all desire and energy toward my agenda of attack.

 

I simply stopped.  I stopped, and I drooped.  My shoulders slumped, my head fell forward, and I felt a fatigue mingled with a relief and a – what? – Something I had not felt or recognized in some time – what was it? – humor ? laughter? A great rumbling of laughter came erupting from my belly and my lips as if from some molten underground.  Surely it did not come from me!

 

I was collapsing with laughter!  The irony of this all!  This plan!  This ridiculous plan of retribution and revenge, this silliness, this stupidity, when all that was needed was – nothing?

 

Had I ever listened to myself?  Why had I started the “spiritual group” in the first place?  To listen?  To speak?  Oh my God!!!

 

I was worse than they were!  I was being punished for my reverse-ego nastiness!  No one liked a phony!  At least these three mean-spirited cows were true to form!  They were the Saints here, certainly not I!  And with this realization of humility came a fatigue so delicious, so profound, so, well, –  surrendered –  that I was able to stop in my tracks.  This, I believe, this phrase, “to stop in one’s tracks”, is a hunting phrase.  I simply stopped in my tracks.  I stopped hunting.  And once I stopped, all anger, all vitriol, all nastiness, and my perception, my perception of these women, ceased to have any power over me whatsoever.

 

No one knew what happened, because no one knew that anything HAD happened.  And this is the power of the demented mind.  The delusional mind, shared only, it seems, by me, had been split.  My own mind, so lost in its own narcissism, pretending to be something I was not, had split itself in two, and I was forever in pretense, one part of me protecting the other, in some lost guilt and defensiveness I had surely worked through years’ before.  Everything my mind had set in motion simply stopped, and I was awed to see that nothing was going to happen, because nothing was occurring except in my delusion…..

 

To be continued….

Posted in Humor | 1 Comment »

Chrissy, Sushi, and Easter – and, of Course, God

May 29, 2011 by Gopita Katharine Manning

Time cannot intrude into eternity.  The moments experienced as “time standing still” are moments outside of time, outside the realm of temporality, outside the realm of what we call human experience.

I saw her lips moving.  I saw her eyes blazing forth with light.  I refer often to her eyes as “snapping”.  They were snapping eyes, sharp and bright, snapping like a turtle, bright and intense and shiny, snapping shut and opening like a box of treasure.  I could see the aura and spectrum of light around her head, just like when she was a baby, snuffling and snarfling next to me in her papoose, the  swaddling clothes taught me by the nurse at Lenox Hill Hospital when they dressed my daughter for the taxi ride home.

I could not speak.  I deliberately allowed what some could call the ‘mind’ to close against the experience so that I was only Heart.  The center of my chest began to grow warm and to swell.  I experienced a warmth in my throat which grew steadily from my chest through my throat to my face and through the top of my head, all the while aware that I experienced No Mind, No Body, No Being.

She was speaking.  She was speaking rapidly, her mouth forming sounds and her eyes snapping.  How could she not see or experience the waves and swells of indigo and blue and green coming toward “her” from “me?”

I have had this kind of experience several times. Once I knew that if I allowed the experience to continue I could cause what I called “myself” to combust – to burst into flames.  The other time I had the experience James Wright speaks of in his poem “A Blessing”.  He says:  “Suddenly I realized, if I stepped out of my body, I would break into blossom.”  This time, I was carried away on a wave of inexorable love which lasted beyond what we call “time.”

So, I just sat.  I sat for one lifetime – or was it two? – Or twelve? – And listened.  I listened with all my being.  I listened with all my love.  I swelled with love until I burst open and the flame that was my heart consumed us both and I heard the words without hearing one word at all.  And I saw the eyes snapping open and shut, without moving at all.  I saw the aura around her head fill the entire room while she kept completely still, unaware of her own magnificence.

I knew – and have known – that the nature of God – of all of us, is Love.  Love extends. It extends and extends and extends and then extends some more.

I am very grateful to have been given this experience, unbidden, in a Sushi restaurant in Los Angeles, on Easter Sunday, with my 22 year old daughter.  I am filled with gratitude beyond reckoning.  We carry on in the dream because, I think, we do get these experiences, sometimes vast, sometimes tiny, and we are never sure when and if they will come.  All of it, all of the disappointments, the tiny troubles, the so called ‘problems’, are consumed and swallowed in this moment in eternity, when all is well, and when all is known.

In the wholeness of the experience described above, everyone was present whom I have ever loved – not as bodies, not as separate beings, but in my awareness as perfect oneness.  Nothing and no one was left out.  My parents, my friends, every relative, ‘enemy’, lover, every animal I had ever cared for and loved, were all there, for we were one.

I truly understand that love extends through eternity.  It is totally unlimited, and the joy of this recognition exceeds every expectation I have had in the past.  In the all-encompassing wonder of God there is never a need to think, only to be love, only to be what one really is.

After this timeless experience, I was once again sitting on the banquette in the restaurant, seemingly as a body, sated with food.  And each day that has passed since Easter has been more than a resurrection of Spirit, it has been recognition of this Love, this ease and serenity and heart swelling, this ability to forgive and melt all karmas in the dream.

It has been a Homecoming.

Posted in Spiritual Stuff 'n All | 1 Comment »

Schadenfreude

December 15, 2010 by Gopita Katharine Manning

The problem started when women like Chris and Norma were allowed ‘in.’ No one had ever come to Rigdon like Chris and Norma in the first place; and certainly no one had come to this patrician New England town who looked like they did.

Built like huge pieces of timber, one a solid round and the other a solid square, they were homely women; nay, downright ugly, and they stood out like infected toes on an otherwise perfectly pedicured foot in this town of blonde, long-limbed, old money men and women.

Chris, nee Christina, was first generation Mexican, and mad as hell, it seemed, at all gringas everywhere.  She attempted to hide her origin by giving herself an English last name, but her predilection for obesity and greasy foods (which she ate with abandon in our meetings) sadly bore the telltale signs of her heritage.  She was madder than a hatter, and her pie shaped face was red in fury, her eyes bulging from their sockets as if to escape, and her lips were chronically pursed in a “tsk-tsk” way, giving them a sad resemblance to an anus.

Norma, her friend, looked like she had been hit in the face with a two- by -four, her features never having re-emerged.  She had no neck, her shoulders coming even to her chin, her enormous arms held to the sides, forced there by her size.  But the most unforgiving characteristic of Norma was her voice – a most unfortunate nasal whine which set one’s teeth on edge.

Norma felt it her duty to talk no matter what the topic and being forced to endure this terribly odious face along with the voice – well, it became too much for most of us, and we found we were avoiding the very group we had started in our meeting hall on Wednesday nights.

I felt particularly responsible for these problems, having started our women’s group.  I am a psychologist, and I offered to facilitate a group for like-minded people of the feminine persuasion to meet and speak about whatever they wished.  This was really just a way for women who could not qualify for the Junior League or the seriously ensconced chapter of the Rigdon DAR to feel as if they belonged in this small town.  I was proud of my efforts, which, until this point, had remained minimal.

But women like Chris and Norma did not move to Rigdon.  They did not come to these meetings.  And suddenly we were all confronted with our bigotry, our racism, and our serious contempt and dislike for these women, who did nothing to try and change our minds.

Bitsy Mullins spoke up first, and she spoke pointedly:  “How on earth did women like those two afford a house in Rigdon?”

It was a serious question, and one not to take lightly.  Each home in Rigdon, zoned within a tiny margin of historic collective, was a New England clapboard home, built before 1800, and maintained according to strict covenants and guidelines.  Most homes were not for sale.  Only a few were rentals, and these rentals were strictly supervised.

So it shocked us to learn that Chris had inherited a home from her former employer, as she had been a housekeeper to this woman, a woman we all knew well until she had become ill and disappeared into her illness, and Norma – God, we shuddered to think or say it – was her lesbian lover!

The home, at 3241 Cranberry Lane, had been willed to Chris, and rather than sell it, Chris had decided to live in it, and bring her hideous lover with her, to boot.  Our aquiline noses were to be rubbed in this fact again and again, and we had little recourse except to examine our hypocrisy, something the women of Rigdon knew little about.  It was not as if we were incapable of self-examination; we were incapable of understanding why anyone would put themselves in a situation such as Chris and Norma had done, thus forcing upon people like us the need to examine it.  Nothing made sense.  If these unseemly two were out to make a point there were far better ways to make it, such as voicing opinions at town hall meetings, refusing to vote in agreement regarding covenants and restrictions regarding property ownership, etc.

But to simply show up at a so-called “spiritual” group and sit there, week after week, pusses as sour as rotting ground- grapes, well….it just was weird and uncomfortable, and highly unusual.

Our husbands were no help.  The “good ‘ol boy” of the Yankee variety, these men spent weekends only in Rigdon, preferring their leather chairs at their clubs in the city, their Pratesi sheets turned down just so by the housekeepers in the pied a terres we all maintained in the East 70’s or 80’s in Manhattan, their aging bodies buffed and polished by the Russian and Swedish professionals at the approved health clubs on 53rd Street.

So we women were alone with our dilemma.  Chris and Norma were firmly planted in our Wednesday group, their faces uglier and more sternly resolute with each passing week.  Try as I might to sweet- talk them; nay, try honestly to get to know them, they planted their unkind refusals and mannerisms like donkey-stalls, and I found myself hating myself even more for trying.  There was simply no getting around the fact:  we had to do something about these outsiders, and it was up to me, as the de facto leader, to decide Chris and Norma’s fate.

At about that time, Betsey Morrisey fell on the ice and broke her ankle.  Not only did she break her ankle, she broke it so badly she was unable to put any weight on it at all for six weeks, thus preventing her from attending or chairing her favorite annual event:  the New York Ballet held at the  Metropolitan Museum of Art.  It was her favorite charity, and she was known for it.  It was because of this terrible news I found out the key to unlocking a way in to rid our group of the Chris/Norma vermin:  these miserable two celebrated misfortune.  They epitomized schadenfreude.

Imagine, if you will, leprechauns and sprites dancing a jig with glee, kicking their heels together.  Now, put in place of the spry and agile leprechauns, two huge and homely dykes, clumsily dancing and clicking their army boots together, and you will have a semblance of what happened when Chris and Norma found out about Betsey Morrisey’s accident.  Try as they might, they could not contain their smug pleasure and downright joy at Betsey’s plight.

My understanding of schadenfreud encompasses the wonder of mental illness at its’ neurotic best:  the mind eclipsing the natural ability of the heart to find pleasure in the misfortune of others.  Chris especially, her globe-like face pursed and smug, actually made sideways comments about Betsey’s ‘clumsiness’ and seeming predilection to hurt herself.  It could have been comical, so unenlightened was she, so without psychological insight of any kind, but it came from a heart so black, so unkind, that even off-the-cuff comments made by this Mexican maid stung and stuck and made one do an auditory double-take.

We were lost.  We were mad.  We were unusually inarticulate.  We simply did not know what to do.

One by one, the women abandoned our group.  One by one, they made half-hearted and weak comments on my voice mail, carefully constructed to be left when they knew I was in session with a patient.  I became agitated and frustrated, walking around talking to myself and what I would say had I the opportunity to address the issue with them.  My calls went unreturned.  I was a ship, left to roil and sink in strange waters.  I was alone.

But I reconnoitered and did what I do best:  I decided to confront them.  Now, with someone who was mentally balanced, this might have been somewhat workable.  But my fatal mistake was in not taking into consideration that I was preparing to talk to people who were sick, who were dark and negative and hurtful.  Hurt people hurt people.  And they were preparing to strike back in a way unimaginable and in ways in which one could never prepare.

I decided to get to Norma first.  She was the more passive of the lesbian duo.  She was also the more unpleasant looking, but she scared me the least.  I ‘accidentally’ bumped into her coming out of the main store on Front Street one afternoon, having staked out her habits like a Private Eye.

I made small talk for a moment or two, then swallowed hard, and asked her to have a cup of tea with me.  She cocked her head, and at that moment the sun hit her head and ears at a particular slant.  I noticed with horror that her ears had black hair coming out of them in huge tufts, which belied the fact that she had blonde hair.  She looked like a werewolf, and in that same moment I noticed coarse black hair on her neck.  I may have shuddered, I may have made a slight grimace, but whatever happened, I so ruined the possibility of authenticity in that moment that even she, someone I considered dumber than a box of rocks, picked up on my distaste, and refused the invitation.

But I persevered.  I made small talk with her as she started to inch her way towards her car.  I had no idea in that moment what I was going to say.  But she seized the moment and did something no one has ever done, before or since:  She proclaimed, loudly, in that hideous whine:

“We despise you, Nellie.  You epitomize everything people like Chris and I hate.  We came here to make sure people like don’t continue to thrive.”

As God is my witness, these were the words spoken to me on that September day of 2009 in Rigdon, Connecticut.  I, the daughter of the governor of Maine, first family of many Yankee socialites, social register New England, registered family from the Mayflower, heard this hideous dyke proclaim words one dared not speak, much less think.  And for no apparent reason other than that of hatred, pure and icy and dripping and evil.  And I, with a PhD in psychology and a law degree, was struck speechless for the very first time in my life.

Part II

I left the sidewalk that day, and I never spoke a word of what was said to me.  As the weeks went on, and the months turned into a year, I figured Chris and Norma would live their lives, the group would remain disbanded, and no one would hear ‘boo’ from them again.  Besides, I was busy with my children, my husband,  and my campaign for Mayor of Rigdon.

It was this attempt at my first political run which drummed up the beasts again.  And they came at me in another way, a way dreadful and unimagined:  Judy O’Hare.

Judy was an elegant first-family patrician woman in her 70’s, and we had always been friends.  She epitomized finesse and old-fashioned values, a firm Catholic, a spinster, a whispered virgin, someone one wanted on one’s side.  She got things done.  She was vocal at town hall meetings.  She owned property.  She had taste.  She had a command of language.

So, when it was discovered that Judy had joined the Chris/Norma camp, I met the information with shock and disbelief.  Now what?  What on earth was going on?

The gossip and slander being perpetrated among people I considered my friends was what hurt the most, and what puzzled the most.  People who had long been my advocates and friends began to avoid me.  They said things to me which could not possibly have come from anyone other than an enemy, things which had enough truth to be from someone who knew me, but had enough falsehood to be known as gossip and slander.

Long had I known that people on a journey of success are susceptible to attack, but I had thought I would be the target of natural competition in the form of contenders in the mayoral race or silly jealousies from the past; Mark’s girlfriends who would say anything to get him back.  But these ugly and cruel women were relentless.  They were unstoppable.  And the strangest of all….

….they became successful.

The rot and erosion of gossip and lies have an unfortunate morphic resonance:  if said often and long enough, even the most appalling lies becomes the ‘truth.’  I was astonished to find that even people who formerly had loved me turned away, claiming they ‘did not know what to believe.’  The poison was pervasive.  The poison was successful.  Chris and Norma were the anti-Christs.  They had come to hurt me, and hurt me they were.

The Judy O’Hare betrayal was what made Chris and Norma believable.  There was something here, but what was it?  I was becoming too afraid to venture down Front Street.  I was keeping the famous, or infamous, ‘low profile.’

Then Cerrie came into the picture….

Cerrie was a contender.  Cerrie could beat Jesus at his own game, she liked to say.  Cerrie was so contrary, so contentious, so “Missouri Trailer-Trash” (her own words), she carved a swath of avoidance as she Hitler -marched down Main street spouting and spewing orders and criticism like a dyed in the wool old whore.

Cerrie Hartley was 63 years old and looked every minute of it.  Her face was lined and hard.  Her honey-blonde hair was thin and shoulder length, her hazel eyes her only pretty feature, although she kept then focused and hard, often narrowed as one tried unsuccessfully to avoid her glare.

As a politician in a small town, I well knew I needed Cerrie’s support.  I was loathe to coax it however, as she was an odious person, and I was very afraid of her volatility and her anger.  But I knew her soft spot.

She loved animals.

And I loved animals.

So, I invited Cerrie to walk her dog with me, and the story changed.

I expected to have to have to tell Cerrie about Chris and Norma, but Cerrie told me the story, from soup to nuts.  She told it in the unkindest way possible, telling me in no uncertain terms how I deserved the gossip and slander heaped upon me.  It was painful and difficult to hear, but I remembered my motive, and I simply listened, focusing on my Labradors ears, for some strange reason.  He walked ahead of me in a straight line, off-leash, as if understanding the need for a focal point.  I was in pain, psychic pain, and he knew it.  He was my focal point while I labored.  I knew – I surely and absolutely knew – if I took my eye off the ball for one moment by thinking about the absurdity of it all – these marginal and mean people getting their rocks off by putting me down and having me enable them by listening, I would lose my mind, kick their teeth in, and end up drooling on Thorazine somewhere, never sure of the why or wherefore this had happened.

So I disciplined myself.  I knew I had discipline.

I focused and I listened.  And I simply understood that I was the subject of pathetically childish jealousy, and that my group, my “friends”, had been led astray, and they had no backbone anyway, the typically “we don’t want to get our hands dirty type.”  Like the ethically troubled warrior Arjuna in the Bhagavad-Gita, who was led by the Lord across the battlefield to kill his own family, who got clearly that he had to just ‘do it,’ that it was already done, and surrendered to the great understanding that he was not the doer, but the done. I was ready to roll.

I was being asked to take a high road not even understood by me.  I could do this.  I would play the game.  The way I had acted, with scruples and ethics, clearly was not working in this dark time, and I would and could come down to Chris’ and Norma’s level, and I could even outsmart Cerrie at her mean game.  I could outsmart Jesus if I had to.  I could definitely go for Judy O’Hare’s jugular:  her enormous Catholic guilt.

I got it.  I went for it.

It went something like this:

Part II:

To be continued….

Posted in Humor | 1 Comment »

From Southern Fried Spirituality

February 12, 2010 by Gopita Katharine Manning

Wall-Eyed Miss Green 

Rennie and I went to our first “public” school in Orange Park, Florida for junior and senior years of high school.   Our two-room schoolhouse on Wadmalaw Island for grades 4 – 7 was public, yet it was the strictest, most pristine and most academic of all the varied learning experiences in my career.   One dared not screw up.  Miss Merle or Miss Mary’s wrath was not to be ignited, nor were the many tomes of literature, mathematics, mythology, Greek or Latin through which we were forced to plunder, ignored.   Johnny Whaley, Punky Seabrook, Chrystal Epps, Rennie and me comprised fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh grades.  My Mom cooked hot lunches, I set the tables, and at recess we adjourned under the oak tree with the tire swing and watched Johnny fart on his hand and smell it.

 

Anyway, more about Miss Merle and Miss Mary later.  This is about Miss Green, the dean of Students at Orange Park High School, where Rennie and I were fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to be expelled our Senior year, for the unpleasant crime of cutting the testicles off our formaldehyde- preserved cat in biology lab and placing these jewels in the top drawer of our English teacher’s desk.  She subsequently screamed, had a heart attack, and ended up –  not dead –  where she deserved to be (so hideous was her language and grammar in this tacky, uncredentialed latrinae which tried to pass for a hall of academia); but she left the school, and good ole OP was sans an English teacher, and for that, we were expelled.

 

And the funniest part was not that Miss Green, whose right eye often faced the right wall with such tenacity that one could glimpse only a small whitish orb of what may have been left of a full brownish, blue or greenish pupil, but her left eye faced the left wall with the same grasping.  This left the unfortunate persons in her presence clamping down hard on their lips and anus when forced to be face to face with this gargoyle.  The laughter which invariably erupted at some point was going to be not only thunderous – it could also become gaseous.  Because when one twin tooted, the other twin’s toot wasn’t far behind.  And remember, we called them rootie toot toots in my family.  And rootie toot toots are not an average fart.  They are well – rootie toot toots.

 

When Miss Green sat Mothuh down in that way she had, we knew we were in for it.  Mothuh knew nothing about the wall-eyed bit, so Rennie and I waited primly, hands in our laps, legs crossed at the ankles, me to the right of our matriarch, Rennie somewhat behind the Green Lady. We waited for those eyeballs to begin traveling.

 

When Miss Green got going – parlance-wise, that is –  describing what we had done, forgetting that I had been the only student in the biology lab’s history to extract the brain  in one piece as we dissected these cats, Helen pursed her lips and started in on “Well, I told you not to put the twins together, especially as lab partners, blah blah blah,…” but suddenly, Miss Green’s left eye traveled in its socket a complete half-orbit.  We heard Helen gasp.  Then she swallowed.  Then she bit down hard on her bottom lip.  Rennie used this opportunity to titter.  This got Helen started somewhat.

 

I was always more serious, so I did not titter at this point.  I was to titter and guffaw a little later, because Rennie, once Miss Green’s right eye began its wandering also, started to mock-scoop God knows what from her vagina and into her mouth, eyeing our mother and trying, very successfully, to get her to laugh.

 

Mothuh, the great Helen, started to laugh.  She tried to stop, but the more she tried, the worse Rennie got.  Now Rennie started to mutter “panty puddin’” under her breath and scooped imaginary detritus with even broader strokes.  And this is when she let loose a rootie toot toot to rival the greatest rootie toot toot of all time.  She let loose a rip roaring fart unlike any I have heard now or since.  And we all lost it.  Miss Green had no eyeballs now.  Her eyes were rolled sideways into her head, and she was huffing and gasping and making astonished noises while we continued our ways.

 

What I do remember is that Mothuh asked, trying sincerely to stop laughing, that Miss Green NOT, whatever punishment she handed down to us bad, bad girls, NOT SEND US HOME.  ‘PLEASE, PLEASE, MISS GREEN, WHATEVER YOU DECIDE, DO NOT SEND THE GIRLS HOME.  HAVE THEM STAY AT SCHOOL AND DO DETENTION, OR SOMETHING.  PLEASE, DO NOT SEND THEM HOME.”

 

But, home we went, and we did not literally graduate from High School.  However, we both had already been accepted to colleges, both got graduate degrees, and both continued to mock -scoop panty puddin’ from our crotches and rip many rootie toot toots at inopportune, or opportune moments.

 

And Rennie and I both, I think, garnered extreme respect for our mother after that. 

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Musings About Love: February 9, 2010

February 9, 2010 by Gopita Katharine Manning

I am a fool for love.  I have been in love with God for a long, long time.  This is a most mixed and confusing blessing, it seems.

I don’t recommend this love.  It is coupled with a grief quite profound.  If truly examined, who in their right mind would want the Divine?   No one would want to go the distance, never knowing what the “distance” meant.  It would be insane to want to be the Beloved.   It could mean we would have to give up our right to whine.   It might also mean we might have to give up our cherished right to play the victim.  Another traitor to collective misery. 

I am told I burn through everyone’s “story” and defenses and for that, I am hated.  After all, who likes to be called out?  Who likes to be, as they indelicately say, “called on their shit?”  And I am certainly not one who does this on purpose, but I am one who detests dishonesty.  I also detest phoniness and people pleasing.  Who has the time for it? 

To find a clear ‘yes’ and a clear ‘no’ is the very definition of integrity.  How few have this integrity!  It is not conditional.  It is not negotiable.  It is not for sale.  And it makes our friends and family feel very safe since they know where they begin and where we end.  They know who we are and where they stand with us.  And if they have the capacity to be honest, they know they are loved.   And we are free to express the essence of Who We Are, which is Love.

It is never enough to put together a few days of facile forgiveness, where the heart sails high and the breath comes effortlessly like the breeze.  But couple the days with a string of open days, vulnerable moments and hours, when the very mystery of life leaves one speechless and dumbfounded in its wonder, unable to conjure in pictures or words the awe inspiring enlivenment of one breath breathed in this way….These moments transform and alchemize; they are the face of Love.

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