A young and rather dapper looking Tony Blair has taken over running the Project Group.
The Project Group itself seems to have assumed a more grandiose, and perhaps slightly sinister, air -- as if its unpretentious name is designed to conceal some bolder intention to subvert the state or Brexit or heaven knows what. We are gathered in a large and comfortable sitting room, lying round on sofas, when Tony announces that we are not going to walk up the nearby hill but that we are going to be driven to the top of the mountains in an army lorry and that we will then fan out and work our way back down the mountainside without being seen by the local population. It is the main group exercise of the weekend. Mary Booker is uneasy. I realise that I have not brought a rucksack or any of my camouflage gear or even a waterproof jacket, so I set off to walk the mile or two back to the house. I am not concerned because it will take Tony ages to sort out the lorry (it always does) and we will just be faffing around. However, on my way I stop in for coffee with an old friend who is delighted that I have brought salted peanuts, which she puts in a bowl for us to eat. Because my teeth no longer meet in a satisfactory way anywhere except at the front of my mouth, I am obliged to scissor each nut repeatedly and laboriously with my front teeth, which takes hours. Eventually I rush off, rather ashamed, and learn from staff at the 'centre' that the lorry left long ago and I am left to consider how my old habits -- trying to look cool and unconcerned, not taking things too seriously, lack of forethought and preparation, failure to look after my teeth, liking for peanuts and tendency to call in on lady friends -- have come home to roost, leading to my missing out on the whole exercise, wasting money, wasting the others' time and probably leading to them all hating me. Can it be helpful to me or others to name the abuses that I have committed? Just to name myself as abusive? As an abuser? Can it help me and others recognise how I (and they) abuse other people and the planet?
If I can set aside my shame, can I begin something by coming out as an abuser? Or, in naming and shaming myself, am I simply continuing the self-whipping that I am trying to escape? Stung by the observation that I reveal very little about myself (even though I think I reveal a lot), I decide that I'll make this website public. But I realise that, in fact, it doesn't reveal much about me. It just unmasks a thought process. I am not very interested in submitting. It seems rather tiresome. I just have to wait to see what will happen.
I do not have any say in what will happen. I am much more interested in the other submitting. Because then I suddenly have to decide what to do. I can do anything. I can be cruel or kind or redemptive or imaginative. I can seek to frustrate or satisfy the other. What will I choose and will I think of myself for having chosen that way? In Amsterdam once I went to an art exhibition in a church (het Koninklijkvrijekerkkunstencentrum or something). One of the artists announced a project to be a slave for a month and invited visitors who wanted a slave to leave their details. A name would be drawn from the hat of these replies. I was really delighted by this idea. Of course, for the first ten minutes I imagined that I would have a sex slave, but then I started to imagine the process. What would I do? I would be responsible for this slave. How could I use a slave in a way that would be challenging and beneficial for her and for me? How could I construct the time so that it would be the best thing that either of us had ever done? How could I do that without becoming her slave in the process? Should I free her immediately, even if that was the dullest possible outcome? How could I invest the slave with some authority and responsibility so that I was not burdened with all the weight of ensuring that the slave.month went well? Simon, whose principal relationship has ended, is becoming interested in purpose, meaning and identity.
I'm sure he is also dull and grey and tiresome sometimes, but he is interested in all these other things and that seems wonderful. It's as if daily life and relationship and work and the vegetable garden can get in the way of checking on meaning, purpose and identity. We shouldn't have to get divorced to bring these things to mind. And then again, his feeling sometimes is that his interest in purpose, meaning and identity is completely pointless. No better than doing the crossword or rearing a cabbage. Can anything have any more point than growing a cabbage? "In those moments when we are held, our nervous systems down-regulate, our minds soften, our hearts open, and we come into an ancient sort of rest. That rest that we've been longing for....
While our true nature as open, luminous awareness is the ultimate holding environment, as tender human beings we are wired to rest within a relational matrix. To enter into this field with another... is one of the great mysteries of the embodied world. Held by another, held within by our own hearts, or held by a star - despite the pain and confusion and hopelessness and doubt - somehow we are already held. It's not something we must earn or deserve or frantically search for. Held by the morning light as it comes into a room, by the song of the birds, by the imaginal world. Somehow. Already held." [this comes from here] I recognise this value in being held - it is perhaps the soothing that we seek to replace with self-soothing when the relational soothing is unavailable or unacceptable. I recognise a desire for this being held. And I am wondering what happens to desire when we are held. At first sight it subsides. But maybe it is only objectified desire (the desire for things and experiences) that subsides. Maybe the desire for life can then expand to fill the space. I am interested in things that frighten and excite.
Jo says this is unpleasant arousal. I think I have spent most of my life thinking that any arousal was better than none. I still make that mistake. Desire can simply be a desire for arousal. Any old arousal. That's not great. |