The Enemy
We have this odd assumption that we will
fall in love with ourselves only when we have
become totally efficient organized beings,
and left all our bumbling ineptness behind.
Yet, the opposite is true; in our
vulnerability, our awkwardness of not
knowing, of not being in charge. In
vulnerability we are open to the world.
David Whyte
I would say that he has a rather limited and
uncreative way of looking at the
situation. Don Juan DeMarco (Johnny
Depp's character to Marlin Brando's
character)
"Yes sir!"
One hour later, the lieutenant returned with news, "The enemy is to the north of us sir. The enemy is to the south of us sir. The enemy is to the east of us sir. The enemy is to the west of us sir. That's good news sir!"
"Good news?"
"Yes sir. They can't get away from us now, sir."
We all have Enemies.
There are two images that come to mind.
There are the enemies we need to create. In the play WICKED, the Wizard of Oz concedes, "in order to come together, we need a common enemy." (In this case, the enemy - the Wicked Witch of the West.) Ah yes, self-righteousness is a great aphrodisiac. We feel powerful. And we have someone, or something to hate.
Therefore we are different.
Therefore we are better.
Today I watched a TV show, with political pundits (on both sides) shouting; their faces puffy and red, and I wondered, why is it that we need to loathe the "other" so completely in order to feel important?
There are other kinds of enemies. There are those things in life that bring us down. Things that beleaguer and besiege and harass us.
I know this for certain: All of us fall apart some time in our life. And we wonder how we are going to put the pieces back together.
Our "enemies" have different faces. Hurry, urgency, uncertainty (or more specifically, the need for certainty, or some need for closure), preoccupation (carrying an insane burden of 200 things we cannot do, or are not even our responsibility to do), public opinion, self-doubt or fear.
And we want someone to take these enemies away.
As one friend asked me this week, "I'm torn about something. How do I get rid of this feeling of uncertainty?"
In the end, we have an odd yardstick for the measure of life.
So here's the deal: the real enemy is Perfectionism. "Perfectionism will keep you cramped and insane your whole life," writes Anne Lamott. "It will block inventiveness and playfulness and life force. It will keep us standing back, or backing away from life, from experiencing life in a naked and immediate way. Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism; while messes are the artist's true friend. What people somehow forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here."
Steven Allen is a well-know builder of dry-stone-walls in England. Well-built stone walls can settle, move and adapt to temperature. In the Cotswolds, many date to well over 400 years. "Cement walls do not reach old age," Allen says, "Cement walls do not move. They crack, and then they fall. Cement is a sin."
What is so seductive about resolution and tidiness?
What is so seductive about cement?
Is it comfort? That sounds familiar to me. I know that as long as comfort (or perfectionism) is the goal in my life, I run from everything that is unpleasant or untidy or disorganized or confused. I assume that my life must be managed and not lived.
Earlier this week I was sad.
However, this week, I chose not to run from my sadness.
I worked in my garden all week. I have been on the road for a long time. And I needed to get my hands dirty. My garden is lovely, but in disarray. There are weeds and overgrown plants. And a part of me just wanted the garden tidy again.
While resting on my back patio (wishing I were further along on my to-do list), a juvenile Sharp-shinned hawk decided to pay a visit to our stream. Who knows if he was lost, or just exploring, or wanted to play in the water, but I had never been honored to see one this close. And I felt lucky. And a little giddy. And realized that tidy gardens are not all they are cracked up to be.
When I paid attention, I found healing and beauty even in the imperfect.
I was raised in a religious environment that taught me to eradicate my messiness (to eliminate my enemies, to doubt my untidiness).
I now believe differently.
I know that we find and express acceptance, love and grace (we can be fully human), in our messy, imperfect, and fully thorny selves. In other words: We can embrace this life - without any need to photoshop it.
This is know: To be human is to be vulnerable.
I am capable of being wounded and cut.
Which also means that I am capable of being kind and generous and present. And filled with wonder.
Tonight I enjoyed the movie Don Juan DeMarco. About a well-respected psychiatrist (Marlin Brando), who has a run-in with a young man who thinks he is Don Juan (Johnny Depp). Don Juan becomes his patient, and as the days pass, the psychiatrist begins to see that perhaps, just because each person has his/her own reality, it does not mean they are crazy. Through his story telling, Don Juan instills the psychiatrist Dr. Mickler (Don Octavio de Flores) with a new fire for life and love, changing his life forever.
"I see beyond what is visible to the eye. Now there are those, of course, who do not share my perceptions, it's true. When I say that all my woman are dazzling beauties, they object. But I see these women for how they truly are... glorious, radiant, spectacular, and perfect, because, I am not limited by my eyesight. Women react to me the way that they do, Don Octavio, because they sense that I search out the beauty that dwells within until it overwhelms everything else. And then they cannot avoid their desire, to release that beauty and envelope me in it." Don Juan
"We, as artists, in choosing to tap honestly into the creative fount within and to allow our responses to flow freely onto page or canvas, allow those who view our work to see that it is possible to do that; that it is possible to go into the depths, to make messes, to be imperfect and honest and open and to emerge safely, even to emerge enlightened. We take that journey, engage with that spirit, and risk those failures, on behalf of all mankind, in much the same way that monastics live and pray on behalf of all mankind." Thomas Merton
Fireflies
And these are my vices:
impatience, bad temper, wine,
the more than occasional cigarette,
an almost unquenchable thirst to be kissed,
a hunger that isn't hunger
but something like fear, a staunching of dread
and a taste for bitter gossip
of those who've wronged me-for bitterness-
and flirting with strangers and saying sweetheart
to children whose names I don't even know
and driving too fast and not being Buddhist
enough to let insects live in my house
or those cute little toylike mice
whose soft grey bodies in sticky traps
I carry, lifeless, out to the trash
and that I sometimes prefer the company of a book
to a human being, and humming
and living inside my head
and how as a girl I trailed a slow-hipped aunt
at twilight across the lawn
and learned to catch fireflies in my hands,
to smear their sticky, still-pulsing flickering
onto my fingers and earlobes like jewels.
Cecilia Woloch, from Carpathia. © BOA Editions, Ltd.
god
help us
if our world should grow dark
and there is no way of seeing or knowing.
grant us courage and trust
to touch and be touched
to find our way onward
by feeling.
amen.
michael leunig
New pictures of Terry's garden
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This fun YouTube video features a 1980s pop classic. The rock band Toto scored their biggest hit with Africa in 1982. The song is instantly recognizable. But it has been reinvented. Perpetuum Jazzile is an a cappella jazz choir from Slovenia. It's hard to think of something further from an '80s rock band. But their version of Africa may best the original. The group has amazing voices. But the beginning of this video is really striking. Group members simulate an African thunderstorm with their hands.
videos.komando.com/african
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