the golden west volume 6 part 3 - 1996 june-july

work & days: a lifetime journal project

18th June 1996 I want to tell Joyce that now I understand what inferior function means. I thought she was saying I didn't feel and that obviously wasn't true. But it means I'm muddled in it, the way David is muddled in thinking. I'm incoherent in feeling - unstable, patchy, inaccurate. I labour at figuring out what other people just feel. It's a work-around. I'm incoherent mainly around attachment. Inferior function also means dependent and suggestible, seducible. Here is one of my confusions: it says and she sez there is a state of love that is radical and knows what to do. I think I have found my way into it. But there is another state that feels radical to me but that it and she say is pink froth and addiction. What I don't know about disappearance but I can guess. Something feels it. She disappeared. I did. Everything. I/she was love that didn't know it could be anything else, safe love, confidence. One day it was gone. I was pain fear confinement paralysis waiting bewilderment. I was almost nowhere, because there was nothing around me that I had learned to see. They brought me food. Put books in my lap. When someone leaves me I go back into that state of confinement. The colored world disappears. Attachment has been dangerous because I die back almost to the ground. I try to make writing a presence in that absence. It is illusion. It is food like cellulose. I don't go hunting because I feel full. When there's a chance for real food I grab fruit because it is vivid - but it's vividness I'm eating. It is a desperate life of starvation, self-neglect, cramming, illness. When it really disappears you don't know it's gone. Dissolving: it's there but you can't see it. You can precipitate it if you do the right thing. An unconscious structure could be like something dissolved. It's there in the spaces. Like a ghost, spirit, haunting. You don't know it's gone, you don't know it's not gone. Hiding in plain sight: because of the way sight works. We only see what we can see. Something can be hidden next to us. Something can be in us and hidden because we don't have sensing structure for it. The structure by which we see is not made for seeing itself. 19 It's Wednesday. Joyce yesterday said, You've done a lot of work. Louie and I as we were going to bed laughing. That was after we worked out what happened on Sunday. Hertha's dad made the tea fireplace today. Feeling around, patting around in myself to see whether it's true that I'm not stressed about Tom. Wanting to do nothing but lie in bed watching TV or listening to CFUN. Not wanting to write here and not wanting to do book work. Wanting to eat. Looking with pleasure at the light in the corridor. Something like contented. Wondering whether I should push work. No, I say - I want to lie here. I'm betting on doing nothing though I don't know why. 20 Walking with someone emerging on a boardwalk that looks west at twilight onto what I took to be a beach. Single black figures here and there against a red dusk. Some of the figures seem to be swimming rather than walking, and the space goes on and on. It is more like a sea than like a beach, but it isn't water. From this space Louie brings a man who is interested in me. He's a man in film. I am feeling it out. At the same time talking to Louie about the space she called him from. I'm interested in what he was doing there. She says she has been there too. It's as if a spaced-out state. Hello     leftover betrayal makes foolish judgment So deal with betrayal every shred     What is betrayal in your case     that event Trauma     YES Is always physical, did something to my brain     YES Can you explain what     extreme inability to come through into honesty Is there a better word than disruption     improvement I mean is disruption the best word for what happens     YES Was Tom already a liar before his mom died     no just smart and highspirited Did I lie when I was a kid     My lie was that I was fine     YES Was his lie that he was fine     no he knew he wasn't fine When you say betrayal do you generally mean abandonment     If we're sensitive to abandonment it means we're regressed     YES So my lies about abandonment are either that I am or that I'm not     YES I can't tell     So this is basic work     YES   Was that beach image the unconscious     YES The man is an inner man     YES Love woman gets him     YES And I'm afraid she'll capture him     YES The way my romance structure captures so much of my creativity     YES Will you tell me where my creativity should be working     slow growth of love woman's coming through into responsibility Responsibility in what     not withdrawing Love woman staying in consciousness     Love woman will stop being an illusion     Is her developed state still a connection to creation     YES Love woman in consciousness is a connection to pre-traumatic mother     YES A well-being I haven't experienced yet     YES Do you want to say more about lies and illusions     they keep you from zooming ahead Do you want to talk about anything else     indecision Okay     lies control the graduation of early love Preserve it in its original state     YES Is that what they're for     YES We want to keep early love intact because it's a wellspring     YES So it's good to have it intact     YES The lie about god does that     YES Is there another way to keep it intact     YES Will you teach us that     no Explain     I'm teaching you about exclusion Early love is excluded     YES It's about release not repression     YES We get confused because some of the instructions seem the same     YES   What does Tom want from this visit     to recover his strength Does he want to recover his strength at my expense     if necessary So do you have any suggestions     innocence and responsibility What does that mean     feel excluded child's love of recovery The responsibility is to feel the innocent     YES If I feel a blast of joy know it's the child     If I feel wilting pain know it's the child     The child will feel she has her daddy back     And mummy     Love woman will feel she has her husband back     All of these are lies     no, love woman will have her husband back Being an illusion, she has chosen an unsuitable husband     no She is an illusion     no a deluded structure Being a deluded structure she has chosen an unsuitable husband     YES Work woman will be thinking, who is this jerk     And me I am my kid's mom     Are you saying love woman is a delusion but the marriage is not     The real Tom and the real Ellie are on the road together     I am supposed to consider the marriage real     no, that it is going to become real Though it has a root in delusion     Should I start translating (Qc) as feeling     YES, romantic feeling - Sometimes I'd like to write a line out - out - out - where to - what do I see - the way Louie does - really fiction - really creation - nothing psychological. Think of this: an empty day, an outright empty day I have to feel as empty. The days when I was in anguish struggling all day were as empty but I felt I was doing something. Not much fuss but here is a question I'm noticing asking itself. It's hardly more than a tint but it's there among the lecturing-him speaking-firmly fantasies. What would I do with a marriable reliable steady man? I don't want to live with a man, I want to be amused puzzled enlivened stretched shocked flattered moved charmed - interested - and more equal to it. Lying isn't negotiable though. It's a dull badness. There's better badness. I'm saying - for a while I wanted to be married - for some reason - but now I don't want it - and then tears come. What is that? I don't have to ask again. Now I know what it means when I say married. I wonder what follows. I found the wish. Louie gave me it. Now I'm crying more. Six years she hung on. What follows might be that now I do it for another. It's the one day in three weeks I get into a fresh bed and see the floor washed. Roses on windowsills. Cleaned the herb garden tank today. A new shirt very strong blue. Janeen phoned, it was her 52nd birthday. The crew was path-fixing. Yesterday Jan-Marie told me a story about a voice she hears that is brutally critical of her. Tonight there were small unusual clouds and a bright new moon. I wonder if it is alright to say you. I wonder whether it is alright if it is at the heart and doesn't want anything for myself. If I say, You can get as far as feeling what I want, though you can't get as far as giving it to me. The wrong kind of feeling him is close to the right kind and I am not sure of being able to tell the difference or to pick them into action. Louie hung on in the wrong way too, but it worked. 21st It is high summer - before six in splendour - three wires across the blue are gold thread, more than gold - there is a lot of color in the clouds - the birds are not silent but quiet. You're going to get here and be bluffing and shocked and trying to snow yourself and me, and I will be fragile and closed down and unstable and confused. I will have to try to look after you because you won't have a clue how to look after me. I will want to open you up so you'll open me up, but I am already so rebuffed - rebuffed in so many ways - so checked in my generosity - that I'm giving up ahead of time. You don't know anything about me. You won't tell me anything I want to know, you won't give me anything, you won't see me, you won't enjoy me, you won't confide in me you won't make me laugh you'll be nothing but demand, you'll bore me with formulas, this won't be good. 22 You set me up, then you rebuffed me. That's the complaint. I saw I'm mesmerized by it.   Another time, I say We are living in different parts of the world but we could come home at night and find each other in a room. We wouldn't have to talk. It could be joy of soul rightness just to be beside you in a car. I say, Lying is not negotiable. But then I say, There are other kinds of lying you do less than I.   All the love has gone out of me     look for it That love in him was faith     That love in me was faith     This is like collapse     When I had faith in the love I had faith in the work     This is almost complete collapse     Is this the collapse he pumps to stay out of     And his father before him     It says, he abandoned me, and that makes me stop loving     Then it says, he can't help it, and that makes me stop protesting     I'm shut down, it's impossible     Okay     temperance Will you lead me     process it Is this a collapse I avoided then     Am I supposed to just stay collapsed       Little one, how are you doing     sad No one is responsible for you     yes Will you tell me what would make you happy     someone to take charge of heartbreak so the rest of me could be happy   Do you know what this means     YES Is it a request for something that can be done     Can I do it     YES, be responsible for betrayal by establishing strength where there is heartbreak What is strength where there is heartbreak     coming through betrayal to recover consciousness   Unconscious structure acts without being conscious Is reactivation Is regression There is unconscious reactivation too Ego is a front man Self is larger one   To recover child into consciousness     Does strength mean ego strength     Do you have any comment     obsession shows persistence of loss Take obsession as confirmation     YES And find the loss     Take heartbreak into consciousness     YES I've begun, is there finishing     25 Something you want to talk about?     unconscious missing What about it     what it did to your childhood, a bondage What wasn't I free for     to feel your losses All my losses     no Which     the way you were withdrawn I lost action, leadership, contact     That wasn't exclusion, that was unconscious missing     Is the way I am with my parents and relatives that     YES Is unconscious missing what conscious missing would be     except unconscious     I hardly know what missing feels like     Whatever you are unconsciously you'll set up a situation to make you be it consciously     When any part is unconscious it's like you're not all there       Anything else you want to talk about     betrayal It's unconscious because I don't want to miss people who betrayed me     YES I spent my childhood in unconscious grief     And in adolescence I skipped into love woman     YES Where I couldn't be on top of it I was melancholy     YES So love woman was a way of getting on top of it in public     It is the unconscious missing I have to get on top of     I put myself into situations where there is someone I miss     So Tom being elsewhere is perfect       So is there something I should do     let Tom complete feeling conflict Between missing and staying on top     YES I have been doing that     do it more Feeling conflict is the way the join is made     no, when the join is made you feel conflict Did he also want someone who is away     YES The male thing is his way of getting on top     Something else?     you're coming through   Something you want me to notice?     that defeat needs to be restructured What follows?     coming through turns on family and child In all cases     no in this one How should I work with family exclusion     constructive search for betrayal's structure Constructive in what sense     not destructive Will you specify     anger Is constructive?     As opposed to     bondage Anger of what sort     undeluded With them     with anyone Is there something about this I don't understand     the skill of shared mourning in coming through Anger is shared mourning     YES Anger is the true energy of shared mourning     YES So this is an instruction to share mourning     YES With Tom     mm My mother     YES Father     no Mainly my mother     YES Are you still saying I should take her to Joyce     YES But next session we should talk about Tom     occult creation, subtle intelligence, conventionality, calamity/shatteredness Is it a list     Of what's confusing about him     Undeveloped occult talent     Both sender and receiver       Anything else     your unconsciousness Now?!     YES work with early love to come through losses Do you mean my fantasies about him coming     The fantasies that showed up on this page     A kind of glamour about him     YES [list of fantasies] All of these are about early love     the feeling about them is A thrill     YES So is there something I should do or not     not be unconscious Can you explain how I can tell it's unconscious structure     it's a fantasy of liberation and creation without anger and slow growth It forgets his betrayals     YES It belongs to a time before anything bad had happened     YES That's what it is in him when he does that     Is that it for now     Thank you     no you did the work 26 Pictographic function in dreams: The ways dreams tell, and/or are read. A soul's story is always invisible though material, so it has no referents. It is material because it is the forming of the body. It is invisible because it is too near. It is a forming always present, always presence. Because it has no referents it is told by metaphoric referents: figures. You don't take the story literally: you take it figuratively - you take the figures as names of soul facts. If I dream about Louie I should take her as a name - as if a name. A figure in a dream isn't a presence, it's a name of something but not something I already know - something about me - something about the organization of the means by which I am me. Dream reading: you tell the dream and then read it. I can find names to substitute for these as-if names: for Louie I can substitute love woman. Assume metaphor is a standing-together: constellation. Any naming is a standing-together. When I use these names what do I mean? = what do I constellate. What is the relation of waking experience of that person and that figure-function? It is as if there is somewhere a structuring shifter that says, certain things about this experience are irrelevant. Only its figure-value is relevant. In people who feel something about the symbolism of real situations, [there is] as if inappropriate shifting. Magician's/poet's skill in using that error of the shifter is exploitation. The question about dream-making. 'The unconscious' might take experience that way, might be taking it that way all along - poetically - so day's events talk to it in the figuring way. They talk about soul as that vulnerability to figurative meanings - something registering day experience as if it were a dream about itself. And at night telling us how it is by the same means. At times I'm hungry for this sort of contact, whatever it is - so hungry. 27 In the building that used to be Grandpa Epp's house and now is the house of artists, I am passing through an atrium when I hear a very tall woman say something about Ellie. I catch up to her and ask what T and R go around saying about me. She tells me dispassionately. (It was quite a good list I don't remember now, except for the word 'sick.') I look up at her. She is about ten feet tall. She lives in the next room. This time I am on the ground floor where I find people in their rooms, which open off each other. I am looking for a man called Harris who I suspect of having an affair with Rob's Sue. On a bike in a part of town I don't know. I'm in the outside lane moving fast. There are other bikes, faster and slower. I'm thinking I am going faster than I can handle if something comes up. I'm getting toward the edge of town. It's quite European. There are the beginnings of fields, a castle maybe. There was a young woman traveling with a young man. I don't know where the young man is but the young woman is as if riding with me. I'm looking for a place to make money. She points to a tall building full of people, some sort of gambling place. I am singing to her. We're still on the bike. I get into singing, hold out my arms as we ride further into the country. We'll have to go back because there aren't jobs out here. Is it significant that the ground floor has artists in it now     Is it better     YES Is it correct to call that building the house of art     I have looked into the pit in the bathroom     no still haven't That is still to come?!     no the pit is closed up Is that good     The very tall woman is overview     YES She gives me the artist's summary of me     My weaknesses and strengths as an artist     Character weakness     YES Would it be better if I remembered what they were     no, in place of the pit you have the summary and you accept it There is a rather cynical man on the ground floor     Harris - heresy?     YES Is he external to me     An introject     YES A lot of books     He is heretical in relation to what     arrival A secret affair with love woman     What is the religion he is heretical about     your work with exclusion You mean what I said last night     YES It is love woman who is calling therapy junk     YES She wants the fantasy     So I take her for a ride in the country     YES The singing is free feeling     YES Natural feeling     YES I'm saying there is more feeling in the country than with that cynical guy     YES Romance is not natural     YES Whenever I dream a city I am dreaming about culture     Anything else     something about study, come through change in relation to unconsciousness before you do your papers So is there something you want me to be doing now     work with illusion Don't read this stuff     read it responsibly Meaning with you     YES Otherwise I'm in the study of the cynical guy     YES   Tom, how're you doing     thinking about responsibility Will you tell me what you're thinking     that I want to balance coming through into the truth with priest's vocation Were you called to be a priest     yes Did you want celibacy     no Do you still need to be a priest     need to come to terms with having wanted it Is there something you're afraid of     (silence) Don't like the word afraid     yes You think if you submit yourself to the truth you'll find out something you don't want to know     yes Will you tell me what it is that responsibility would act against     the maturation of imagination You thought as a priest you could have responsibility and imagination     YES   Does he mean anima     YES   Do you mean responsibility to the real world     yes You didn't want to be heavy     yes Does this have to do with writing     YES There's something you want for imagining, will you tell me what it is     creation You want to work with it     yes   Does he mean vision     YES Is that what poetry means to him       Giving up booze and drugs means that to you, a world without poetry     YES   What is the answer     a decision A decision to have both     Is imagining related to early love     YES Mobility of consciousness     YES Is he my love of drugs     That's why this is the only kind of man I could want to marry       I don't want you to be without poetry     (silence) You think I do     yes You think I want you to do without poetry so I can feel safe     YES What I want is for you to have poetry instead of fantasies of poetry     no   Is that what I want     Poetry is imagining in tension with reality       You don't trust yourself in that tension     mm   Am I on the right track       You think reality will win     yes Because it did win     yes   When his mom died     YES That was a defeat of imagination       My dear, imagining is strengthened by wrestling with reality     reality will control imagining Do you mean the way men control women     yeah Is there anything you want to say before I go     no I'm so interested in you     no I wouldn't be interested if I really knew     YES Are you willing to take a chance on finding out     no You think your image is the only interesting part of you     yes   Is it okay to be interested in the relation of the image and the real self     YES   Did you hear that     YES Do you feel like I'm backing you into a corner     yes You feel like I'm a rapacious curiosity     yes Do you also want me to keep coming     yes I'm sorry for my rapacity, I know there are good things and bad things about it     yes I know I'm overbearing     YES   Is there a balance I have to learn     yes Between what and what     intimacy and instruction I am supposed to instruct him     But within a context of intimacy     Will you teach me     It is a kind of eagerness to be with him     Mixed with need to control     YES   Tom I'm so willing to learn     yes Do you want to say anything else     you're trying to control the way we come through Do you want to control it     no allow it Something else     be impeccable   Are these conversations real     no they're models   You too boy     I'm growing slowly Bye for now     yeah   Like Teillard de Chardin     Parish priest     Celibate     Does he know this     And then his mother died     Did he have a good reason for wanting to be a priest     he wanted to be close to god He still does. He didn't want to be a writer, he wanted to be a shepherd. He wanted to love people the way he does. He wanted to be a man of love. 28 Hey Joyce - are you sure this is a good thing to do? I'm so disintegrated and projected I don't know how I will talk to this strange guy. I think I'll say - I want to say - it's you - oh it's you. I'll say, What happened to you? Why didn't you keep in touch? I'm really mad at you. It's been so bad - so bad - why did you do that to me? Will you put your arms around me? Will you make it safe for me to love you again, will you know how to do that? Will you look after me now? You have no idea what you've been doing to me. And then it is as if I have to say to this little kid - no, it's a mistake, you're making a mistake, he hasn't come for you, it's someone else. And then I have to try to be this whole superstructure of levered transcendence - remember what the book tells me - remember to stay bigger than him - remember he's not the one - remember I'm mistaken though my feeling says I'm sure - be ready - correct myself - don't be simple - don't adore him - don't let him confuse me - see his confusion - stay bigger than him - stay much bigger than myself because I'm wrong. Feel depressed and then something else     come through Is there coming through     in feeling Do you mean body work     Physical bridges out of depression     In confinement I'm supposed to go into the body     Is this a relation to energy     finding where it is controlled In depression it is anger that is controlled     YES   Give up illusion you get depression Give up depression you get anger Give up anger you get love   And that's the energy you wanted YES Fantasy love is a short circuit and isn't wise     Original love is wise     YES Is this everybody's structure     YES This is the heart of your teaching     YES   I came through     What's next     come through more Okay lead me     duality What and what     priest and the work Do the work and teach it     NO do the work not teach it! I immediately start teaching it in fantasy     Is the priest completely wrong     YES Raving animus     YES   Christianity doesn't get to original love because it forbids anger     But Jesus had anger     You just wanted to tell me that     no discuss it, end of delusion. Teaching is a delusion of sharing. Tell me about delusion of sharing     it's a way of coming through feeling energy conflict This is internal     Energy conflict of what and what     loss and obsession The way I lecture my mother     I mean something else Is energy conflict the only kind of conflict there is     Different motive systems active at the same time     By the energy of loss do you mean grief etc     Obsession, you mean energy of addiction     YES Addictions are illusory grief-escape mechanisms     We want the energy of grief     We want the energies of addictive release     Delusion of sharing with another person     Delusion of being with another person     YES Conflict of grief and euphoria is somehow mediated by delusion of being with another person     YES Think of them as being the grief       Can you explain what it is I'm not getting     YES the conflict is unconscious Both energies are unconscious     Talking discharges without resolving     YES So if you don't talk you heat up the unconscious conflict     Then what     you don't have the illusion of coming through This conflict comes about when we reactivate     YES Is my work with you that delusion of sharing     YES If I stopped talking would the conflict resolve itself     no still needs to be resolved by other means How does the unconscious conflict manifest itself     by sense of struggle Men handle unconscious conflict in a different way     Equally delusional     By bossing someone     no by trying to fix something That accounts for mechanical ability etc     So gender specializations are specializations of defense     YES So the Mars-Venus thing exploits delusion       Is this the basic human conflict     YES Energy of grief and euphoria of escape     YES Is radical unification possible     YES That's what this work is about     It's important to notice that grief is an energy     YES Desirable as such     YES How would radical unification manifest itself     integrity Do you want to say something else     understand your illusions by processing Am I doing that     no I'm leaving out feeling you mean     Feel the desire and what counterindicates it     29 What is it to be a deeply traumatized person, the way we both are. Injury to the body caused by shock, violence, etc. A traumatized person is structurally disrupted, not seamless. One of the things it is in me is that I feel you are it, I feel it of myself by feeling it of you. I see it in you. How does it look. The way your eyes were. I love myself as you, I dream of fixing myself as you. I say that because when I talk about trauma I want to talk about you. You are beautiful and you show me a hurt like a slash down your chest. I can hear it in the way you insist you aren't hurt. You are the traumatized one and then you are the remedy too, your arms. What am I in relation to the hurt one? I'm love eyes pouring myself into you. Oh you dear one. I put my hand on your heart. I say, You don't have to snow me with promises, you don't have to be a hero, I will love you because you're me. What am I in relation to the warm arms? Hesitant. Are you going to drop me? You have a power to fix me, will you refuse? Are you careless? Being the traumatized person instead of seeing him, is this hesitancy. I have to refuse - I probably should refuse - what would fix me. Because if I trust you I'll wish I hadn't. - I go to sleep and wake and say, I'm full of beautiful things that aren't mine until they are shared. I'm tense with them until I give them. I want to give them to you, because you are the one with arms. You don't want them. You can't make them beautiful in you. How does that feel? It feels checked. Here I am next to happiness and you won't let me by. If you can't use the beautiful things I have, what can I find to give you instead. And what will I do with my beautiful things you don't want. You have things you want to give me too. A different kind. You want to give me your taking-charge. Your sentences. Your fighting. Your style. Your places. Your manliness, which has cost you a lot of trouble to make and keep. Your music. Maybe it's the same with you, that I say I can't use the things you want to give me. Then you're baffled and try to give me things you haven't got. You give me the names of them, that's the best you can do. Maybe there's something simpler. Is it that we're wrong about the things we try to give? Is there one real thing I want to give that is good for him to have? That he wants to give and is good for me to have? Is this a key? Can you say it in one word?     YES, uncontrol. Look for the subtle agony in this understanding. Control of what?     Of heartbreak. It means we'd have to be broken-hearted together, go for broke. We try to give each other our illusions of completeness. We refuse to accept these gifts with good instinct. These refusals are good gifts. When he's here be emotionally naked if I can.     YES That's good for me and good for him. I don't have to be larger than him. - Because I'm Athena and you're my pet Because I'm Penelope and I'm waiting for you at home Because I'm a tiny girl crying for you to spring me from this jail Because I'm a houri whose delicious pussy is aching for you in the afterlife Because I'm a scholar studying your remains Because I'm your stern angel Because you gave me a tarantula in an aspirin bottle when you were twelve and lived in a trailer park in Mesa Because your name was Dewey Stickney and you had snappy eyes Because your name was Al Morrison and your father was dead Because you're Irish and I'm not, but I come from the country Oh Ellie dreaming. The real man is thinking about his tan, his money, his pot belly, his standing in a skid row hotel. Whether he'll wear a baseball cap. He's thinking he won't jump into the sack right away. He's harsh and speedy. He's not listening. Hasn't had a drink but he's not doing fuckin' AA. Pilgrim wants to come up with his new truck, pull up stakes around Christmas time. What's my best relation to that harsh speedy man? Feel it as self oppression and love the self who is being oppressed 2 July Turn the radio up / Let the windows down / There's a moon tonight / And a road to burn / Let's get reckless Tom is a bad man     Adulterous, stole, alcoholic, a liar, inconsiderate, doesn't listen, not a quality human being     Will you comment     betrayal is talking He has a very poor character     no He's a very poor risk     Comment?     feeling can bring him through to happiness and completion Are you sure     YES Is character irrelevant in your scheme     Pain: What makes art good?     relation to the uncon What does the uncon want it to be?     shared pleasure   Pain is the pleasure they share. It's a sign they are in touch rather than split. Pain in the maker is a sign. Skill is built in the conflict. A tension endlessly fruitful. People's quality depends on how much of the conflict they take on. Pain is love being checked. False hope is inefficiency, it cheats creation. Magician, self design. Mysticism an immaterial art.   You saw the guide who could take you into the black fog. Yes. It was you. Yes it was me. We can try again. That was good.     volume 7 the golden west volume 6: 1996 april-july work & days: a lifetime journal project