the golden west volume 6 part 2 - 1996 june

work & days: a lifetime journal project

Vancouver 8th June 1996 Yes I like the light. There was a door from winter directly into summer. When I was at the herb garden last evening with five young women filmmakers there was a girl I didn't know who said, This is the most romantic thing I've ever seen. Roses and paeonies are not satisfying. They don't help this hungriness under the breastbone, though their fullness looks like satisfaction. Is he my man     YES Husband     What does that mean     betrayal Please explain     established strength comes through anger and competition There is established strength?     It is coming through     YES Do you mean the dream of betrayal is over     YES Do you mean he has resolved     YES He has decided he wants to be with me     YES He has decided to stop boozing     YES Is it a deep decision     YES Talk to me     temperance My heart hurts     separation is over I don't believe you     come through   Heart opened up     Now what     let go of valor Can I feel it in my muscles     Head muscles     Did I release it     no Drifted away     That place between the eyes     It's in the sense of I     I'm supposed to offer up Tom and me     I'm supposed to offer up the doctorate     I'm supposed to offer up my sense of myself     I'm willing to do that     That's faith     YES Now what     prosperity Do you want to say more     mourning What about it     is a lie Some particular mourning     all mourning All pain of loss     And what is the truth     quest Prosperity of what kind     slow growth Does offering them up mean nonattachment     no, seeing they are illusions In what sense     delusion What next     slow growth 9 I keep needing to say to myself that nothing is happening. Here is one thing that isn't happening - no one has said anything about the papers I've spread around to Bjorn, Ray, Karen, Sam. Or about the piece in Front magazine. I want to say to myself: one day there will be things happening you don't imagine now. There will be something new. I know this state is memory. Remember it. Was there a book? Yes there were books. I sat in my bed with a tray on a bed table. It was a high bed with bars. I looked to the right toward a window where I could see light. Now I am able to go out and speak to people but I feel it as irrelevant. I have no one but there is someone I miss, I say. I am disoriented. I am paralyzed and confined. I am dreaming of going home. Hello     success, fight for it Do you mean some particular kind     with the uncon I have very little emotional energy     Is that because I've given up on Tom     YES Will you comment     it's part of the work I'm supposed to fight without energy     YES How is fighting done without energy     by fighting Fighting to reconnect     YES Without pain I don't know where to work, where to come through I'm clueless     you're withdrawn Yesterday moving energy to the top of the head, was that something     YES It's supposed to open up altogether     Will you give me a sentence to tell me where I am in this struggle     shattering the structure of inner duality to become harmonious What was the duality     control and love woman It was necessary for her to love Tom     And for him to love her     We did that, what is the next step     do it inside yourself What you said yesterday about husband, you didn't mean the real Tom     You meant I married something in me     Is that like Euridice marrying Pluto     If I'm married why aren't I happy     because your husband is lost "Everything you've never been"     YES I'm supposed to merge with dope and booze and cigarettes and violence and lying and rock music     What does that mean     it's already there My consciousness will get wilder     YES To what end     end of heartbreak Should I actually do drugs     NO Then how am I going to get wilder     by getting smarter Please explain     adventure What about me and Tom     you and love woman I can be what I was with him, without him     better This wildness is security of consciousness     no, not withdrawn Tell me about this wildness     contact with the world The way I did when I was making the herb garden     no, graduated How would that be different     not angry How do I let it come through     be Ellie   More?     turn for the better In what way     lovers Inner harmony     real Tom I'm more balanced     YES, waiting over, acting against illusion He is     Please speak to me     he is doing the work Should I act as if he's going to come through     YES Does this mean I'm moving to California     YES Please say more     come through You mean what you're telling me is a fantasy     Notice what happens to me in the fantasy     It's like coming alive     YES Something you want me to do?     believe something that's in you can be improvement I don't feel better     YES I have no way to notice improvement     I was happy with him, that seemed improvement     So are you going to tell me how I can notice improvement     you act to integrate processing and winning I'm not doing that     no you are I should have that coming alive for my own projects     YES Okay to stop     no I want to talk about betrayal Is this about whether he betrayed me     You want me to see something     neither of you betrayed the other He lied     that doesn't hurt you What am I supposed to be getting from this     betrayal Betrayal is what I want to get?!     I want this dull lonely state     no What is betrayal     when something ends That's how I feel it     He stopped but it wasn't a betrayal     It was a failure not a betrayal     no just an instability My betrayal structure was very triggered, that's what you're saying     I was trying to undo betrayal       I feel directionless     no I feel the one direction I have is not good     So I have to wait for something else to fill my sails     not a good analogy But this is the doldrums     You mean I'm supposed to row     act I don't have a basis for action     no Was it that I used to have my sails filled from the unconscious     So I have to learn to act in a different way     Without impulse     YES But how will I know what to do     act blindly Do you mean do what you tell me     no Then which act     something you don't know yet 10 8:30 Tuesday morning a burst of feeling as if he has just got my letter. It's a burst of certainty. We are two people with holes in us; we will be together again. It's Manfred Clynes, Sentics - the characteristic oscillation of music - our last morning in Leucadia - that we had both found that book, among all the world of people who didn't understand it. Does this burst of feeling mean something     there is something you should do with it - shatter the structure What does that mean     love woman Shatter her wish for Tom     Okay tell me how to proceed     shatter a fantasy Love woman's fantasy     that she is responsible for childhood exclusion and humiliation That it's because of feeling for my father     YES Should I talk to her       Love woman is this you     yes I'm very happy to feel you     YES You welled up in me     no You came into me     YES Do you want to talk to me     YES Is there something you want to say     a loss of me happened in the process of childhood exclusion I lost parts of you     YES Would all of you like to come back     YES Please will all of you come back     YES I so much want to live with you     YES Did you love Tom because he was nicer to you than I am     YES Do you think it is your fault you get sent away     yes Will you tell me what you think is bad about you     yes, rest competes with integration of early love There is something about you that disturbs early love     yes Will you explain to me     YES The rest of you     YES Let's take a chance and get it all back     no Are you afraid     YES Are you afraid I'll send you away again     yes My dear dear one I want all of you, I need all of you     no Do you feel how much I love you?     yes All the parts of you are love     YES They didn't understand that all the parts of you are love     YES They don't understand that all the parts of them are love     yes I have been working hard to learn to understand that about you     yes Will you help me by being all the parts of you     yes Will you show me all your parts     NO Will you tell me about them     yes Are there many parts you are afraid to show     yes Will you tell me about one     I am alone finished with responsibility for my father   Is this true     YES   You feel I don't want to know this     yes You don't want to be responsible     I am not responsible But I am     yes You want to love your father again     YES That is part of you     YES You think I don't want that part     YES You're right that I haven't wanted that part but I want all of you now     yes Will you be that again     yes I want you to     YES   Larger one is it true that his meanness is love     yes   Did you hear that     YES He is nasty but his nastiness is love     yes Then we don't have to be afraid to love him     no Are you afraid     yes Then we will have to learn to see that it is love - let's do that     no We could do it with Tom, remember?     yes I haven't wanted to love my father but I am willing to do it for you     YES Will you give me that love     yes Then we'll be together     yes   Is this giving up being right     yes   Will you tell me about another thing you are afraid to be     [something about decision, this work, a fair man] You're afraid this work will bring a decision about a fair man     yes Do you mean Rob     yes Which decision     delay Do you want to be with Rob     YES Do you mean sexually     YES Do you want to be married to Rob     NO To Tom     no Do you want to live in love and sex with a man     YES Rob is not the right man but you want sex     YES You're afraid this work means you'll never have sex     yes   Large one does it mean that     not necessarily Is one of the goals of this work to be able to live in love and trust with a man     YES   Is there a part of you that wants the work     YES You're afraid there are parts of you that will make love and trust with a man impossible     yes afraid the work will release revenge You have been in a quandary about sex     YES Because you are mad at men     yes You're afraid that as you become more complete the desire for revenge will be more complete     YES   Large one do you have an answer for that     the revenge is about childhood abandonment What is the remedy     the remedy is to love the father, and then the threat of revenge will dissolve   Do you see the connection     yes We should love him the way Buddhists do     Should I stop for now     Will you comment     balance in the midst of change At that moment I went to talk to the surge at the heart, that was spreading up my back. Her illusion that some of what she is, is wrong. I say, all the parts of you are love. What are you afraid I'll banish you for? For wanting sex with Rob, for revenge that would make sex hard to get, for wanting to love my father. I am trying to persuade my beloved to come out with me. When I take her into my arms she is my own body as I have felt it rarely - my ribs and sharp tits and satin skin and big thigh and brown sheen and animal presence. - I read the bookwork and summarize. I'm interested. But then there is this disoriented sensation - that story I am somehow generating and that seems to make more sense after a while, but that as I am generating it often frustrates me - I am working every day but I don't know and can't know whether I am doing anything - it is the most intangible work possible - isn't it? 11 Imagining I'm living in a small house in Ocean Beach -imagining I'm saying to Tom, I'm your friend - this while trying to understand delay-tuned neural response in brown bats - it's 8'30 in the morning - what is it? Here's a possibility. I'm everyday imagining flying to him because I'm picking up that he is going to fly here. Talk to me     slow growth Do you mean mine     his Okay     he wants to come and finish it Please say more     improvement He'll want me to show friendship     Instead of lust     Instead of romance     True clarity     That will be my challenge     YES If he offers too much, say You don't have to do that     If he lies, say You are being hard on yourself If he doesn't do what he says, say, What does your better part want If he zonks say What pain are you zonking Don't sleep with him     no Don't make love     Is this a fantasy     a fantasy and true Is this joy the right attitude     no What would be     death If he showed up it would be a deep change     For both     Addiction and lying     There will be lying while there is addiction     There will be addiction while there is lying     If he comes I will have to refuse him     no, support him Lying is unbearable to me     NO only if you're implicated He thinks he can sweep me away again     If he came I'd have to treat him as a moral cripple     Does he know that     no he thinks he can charm you You're saying it would be very hard     Skill would be to accept him and yet not engage     Above all no kissing     no kissing but not above all Please comment     the work above all At this very moment I'm zonking     I should put the energy into fighting for freedom that I put into thinking about romance     This is important     the work will do it Love woman is saying he's coming, work woman is saying he isn't coming, love woman has energy, work woman can work - who is it that's capable of having correct friendship for him?     early love Love from before the catastrophe     Tell me about that love     the work will give it, the correct reserve as opposed to the incorrect What I'm searching for is my own love     YES Will you give me a sentence about what I'll be like when I have it     slow growth of a structure of skill with obsession No miracle     no Will you give me a sentence about how close I am to finding it     you are persisting in the struggle to change your judgment Please describe my real state of love     it acts against your bondage to your father Is that what this is     By reuniting her with her mother     Being reunited with the mother is being reunited with security     Would I still be attracted to Tom     But he couldn't hurt me     I fail with men when I don't have the mother securely in me     YES What is my bondage to my father     lacking the energy of original trust you used sex for energy Is there something I can do right now     marry Tom and Ellie by means of a struggle The real Tom and Ellie     YES, begin to recover by changing the place of early love What is the right place of early love     generosity What is the wrong place of early love     identifying it with Tom Wanting to give is early love     I am toward him as if he is early love     That is away from me     YES Do you want to say more     you take separation as childhood exclusion, changed relation to loss would improve your relation to Tom What would be a better relation to loss     less anguish Without cutting off     cutting off if necessary What do you mean join Tom and Ellie     come through I will if I can     YES - What to make of this: I come back from the garden and am on the bathroom floor putting roses into jars in the bathtub. The phone rings. I answer it without thinking. "Hey" says a voice I am not very happy to hear. He starts telling me about the triumph of getting Joe fired and being number one in the hotel. He's calling to say he isn't coming Sunday. They need him in the hotel. He's swimming. His legs are good. He's workin' on his tan. He's got a lot of clippings and music for me. Oh and just because he feels like it he hasn't had a drink or smoked a joint in three weeks, but if he wants to he will. We have to talk. How am I doin'? I can't say on the phone, I say. Why was I missing this guy, I'm thinking. How did you know he was coming     shape of the struggle I was suspicious     no, hostile I didn't like him     no I feel so cynical     no Disappointed     no I feel I was missing him for nothing     YES Is it true     no What is the truth     you missed him 13 Today I feel the bubbles begin to rise. That's the other end of the swing. I'm closed and then I'm froth. What am I dreaming today. He'll meet Luke. Should I take him to my folks. We could get in the car and go to Alberta. I'll clean my house. I'll do exercises for my bum. The other kind of plan too, I'll stay safe by not kissing him or fucking. We'll court. Eventually we'll be ready and we'll get married really. I'll be really sober, I won't get carried away. He'll want to learn and we'll grow into a wonderful journey together. Do both these states have the same cure? The first state doesn't see him, the second state doesn't see him. The second state is addictive. It is a reaction to the first. The first cuts off energy. The second whips it up from another source. It's important to see the sequence is the opposite of what I thought. The first state thinks he is cut off because it is. Is it cutting off anything in particular? Many things.   Now are you going to talk about Tom     your bondage: you are feeling brilliant and courageous in relation to betrayal structure Is that mistaken     YES What would be correct     temperance Yesterday I felt it would be only work, is that incorrect     What should I do with the bubble     don't withdraw Pleasant fantasies     YES Very dangerous     not really Something I'm supposed to do with them?     stop deciding between being carried away with them and being in conflict with them Treat them as guests     YES Make them at home     Ask them how they are     Anything else     find the loss in them Find what they want     No romantic fantasy     We're miles from being able to do that     Tell him I want the real thing     no tell him you want to fix yourself Don't instruct him     no show him what I said The whole sequence on alcohol     You want to use me for his growth and starve the sexual part of me     no Is the sexual part of me useless     no Is it bad     It is a real [?] of great joy     no I have a bad reason for imposing this     And a correct reason     Will our bodies be helped just by physical contact     Tell me why you say my sexual part is bad     because liberation is better Liberation is a realm of great joy     YES You do want to starve the sexual part of me     starve is the wrong word - fight This is so religious!     no it's research Fight the sexual part of me to what end     generosity If I'm sexual I'm disabled and can't be generous     Our bodies can transfuse without sex     Will he look wrecked when he gets here     Say it's a courtship     We're not ready for merging       Is the exercise to see love in everything he is?     YES 14 This morning the thought arrives that the men of the hotel are what matter to him. I work toward a rage that wants to get even and get free. Here is something about the anger - at first it's mobile and then it starts to get hard. When it is mobile it is toward him and now that it's harder it is as if toward my pink self. The next step after anger is frustration. I'm not viable. Froth is what feels good but it's illusion. I'll go on wanting to let go into that but I'm supposed to do something else. I'm supposed to work to get free, that's what I'm supposed to want. That makes me cry as if someone is suppressing me. There's something I'm confusing. I feel the foamy state IS freedom and denying it is tyranny. There's a way that's true. Suppressing it is what the book calls control. But control does not know how to emerge from addiction, it says. Love woman has to love the tyrant, the tyrant has to love love woman. What is the place of a woman in the life of a man's man     guess She's his toilet     [silence] He uses her to keep himself going emotionally     Because men together are a bullshit club     I get roped into that service because I crave his body     Please comment     do the work I'm bitter     you're struggling with betrayal in the construction of generosity Do you mean just original betrayal     Women are actually not important to men     YES They see us as weak     no, powerless I have power     no More than he does     He needs a woman for emotional connection but he is not in a good position in relation to her     I am part of his pretension     He doesn't deserve to be with me     no You want me to be generous to this man     Why?     for reasons of telepathy What do you mean     something about fighting Can I love him without being swayed     YES I'm angry about my woman's position with him     You have in mind purely moral work     Fighting what     clearing love woman's clairvoyance Because that's where women's power is     YES He is a moral exercise for me     YES Only that     YES Everything else is fantasy     Is that all I'm going to have for the rest of my life? (crying)     no Please say     moral exercise is not tyranny You're saying my sexuality is no good     You're saying my physical ecstasy is no good     You're saying my joy is no good     That is how the tyrant talks     NO, the tyrant uses them to exploit you The tyrant flatters them     Is the right kind of love good for the body     no Unconditional love eats the body     YES Sexual love restores the body     So you are instructing me to sacrifice the body     Why     for the work What is the good of work that makes me sick     something about losses Will you explain     sacrifice the body temporarily For the sake of recovery     I haven't wanted to know the true facts of Tom's relation to women     I'm angry     YES At his whole game     YES He's a total sleaze     YES Where did this anger come from     understanding Understanding how unimportant I am to him     YES Understanding that he controls me by means of my addictions     If I deny myself addiction I get rage     YES I was keeping down the rage because I needed sex     YES I like this rage - should I like it     If I feel betrayed I don't have to be in conflict     Is that the energy     The escape is from conflict     Pink dreams are that too     Is the rage really about him     no The anger is nice but the hardening of it isn't     You're telling me I'm supposed to ditch him     no, showing you the conflict That I want to keep the pink fuzz     The rage is at being denied in it     If pink fuzz doesn't work, to hell with you     I don't know what to want    the end of exclusion This visit is irrelevant to that     not exactly - you can use it   I am so annoyed with myself for going into pink dreams (crying) I'm so annoyed with myself for wanting what I can't have (crying) The world is so barren (crying) I am so sad that my joyful energy is illusion What am I going to do How am I going to live I have opened up this great desire only to find it is hopeless The world is grim and hopeless   You have been leading me into pink dreams     no Now I'm wilted     you are excluded Do you mean this is reactivation     YES What's next     end of anxiety The anxiety was about reactivation     Now I'm like a child who has cried myself to sleep     Something I'm supposed to do?     connect it to him It's not about him     Sorry Tom     this is the structure of waiting   Now what     I want to talk about creation. Childhood exclusion / crisis / the work / shared pleasure That was the shape of the sequence     Is this an instruction?     I am supposed to create out of this work     Create in what medium     in the medium of tyranny Being right is about containing reactivation     YES Always     YES When I see tyranny in him it's that     Seeing it as that is unconditional love     YES Is that it for today     no, something about indecision: tyranny doesn't know how to graduate from compulsion/addiction This is related to indecision     indecision about happiness Addiction contains reactivation     Tyranny is about containing reactivation     So tyranny is in alliance with addiction     Then consciousness in reactivation is the way to happiness       I'm very sore     you're not betrayed I will be     no He'll be here and I'll fall for him again     And then he'll leave and I'll be in pain again     Will you comment     don't withdraw Now I'm not in a controlled state     YES Do you have a name for this state     abandonment fear Is pink froth an avoidance of this state     Is control     It isn't betrayal but it hurts as if it were     YES Please talk to me     you'll recover Everything is impossible     you're processing Is there somewhere I'm supposed to go with this     early love Remember it as that     move to it I went through this with my mother     Before the second time     no the whole time I was feeling this but it was unconscious     Abandonment fear is always in me     I cannot afford to be attached     no That's why leaving people is a relief     YES I can afford to be attached?     slowly beginning It has been an unbearable tension     no tension made bearable by evasion Does he have this same tension     no his abandonment was much later and more implicated with guilt So I shouldn't decide about attachment to the real Tom     no you should decide that you are an excluded child Who cannot endure attachment     no he is your husband Tom is?     YES Do you mean when I'm ready     Do you mean this symbolically     no Will you comment     completion You don't mean we'll go on together     YES You mean working with him completes me     NO In what sense is he my husband     unconscious Are you talking about a structure in me     NO My unconscious takes him as that     YES Because he seduced it     YES He was extremely unscrupulous     YES Major mindfuck     YES He didn't intend to do it     He was seduced by his own program     I didn't realize he could enlist my unconscious     He did what he could to attach me     YES So I am attached     In a way that control can't reach     YES So is he coming to try to reestablish it     YES This is important     YES Please comment     fight! Fight him Does he know he did that     YES 15 It's the first morning I have got up and taken my tea to the armchair outside. Live air, birds. It is early. There is a tissue of haze high up holding onto the light and sending it down ivory-colored and diffuse as if from a fluorescent panel. The shadows are not strong. They are the color of this pencil lead. I am with Tom in my house because he'll be here. He'll sit in this chair though not in early morning air. I'm thinking about meals and trips. There are things I want to forestall. I was crying last night thinking he'll get me to fall for him again and then he'll leave again and then I'll be in agony again. That one's a structure. But maybe there is real getting-ready. I'm trying to be ready to fight well. Every inch. Without shutting down. I realized that I think conscious reserve of judgment protects me from his promises and declarations but in fact an unconscious part of me is enlisted by them. To protect myself from seduction I have to do more than take note, I have to act. I have to get him to unsay, re-say. I have to name it to him. I'm saying: are you willing to learn to listen to me and answer? You can't see me unless you're willing to be me. You can see me only to the extent that you are willing to be me. We are opposites. That means we are afraid of dying of seeing each other. That's exciting. We are each other, so it means the more we are afraid the more of ourselves we stand to find. But it has to be two-way, otherwise you will become the tyrant I am as well as the tyrant you are, and I will suffer of both. Here I am again seeing how close together are the things I am in the process of discerning. Today I'm ready for you. I'm happy and I'm working and I am quiet enough to see the day. This morning in the quiet before my neighbours are awake there was an explosion like a gun fired in the alley. It shook the neighbourhood enough to set off car alarms. People with rumpled faces came to their doors and could see nothing. Later someone noticed a dead squirrel, the same black squirrel, I think, that I noticed running well-fed on the telephone cable earlier. It had shorted the power lines. Near the same time I saw a black man in the space between the neighbour's house and Roberta's. He was very black, like an Australian aboriginal, and had a squashed face. Roberta told me later that her place had been broken into. - With Sharif to see bridge timbers, Terminal Avenue overpass. Summer all the way to the mountains, a dry plain. In the lumberyard I meet the man who built the beautiful heavy timber garage in Muggs's alley. He is a wonder. He's there amidst his sorted piles of yellow cedar 10x10's, hem-fir t&g, doug fir, red cedar planking, and he is so male he's over the top. GI Joe. Massive blocky head with short beige hair so thick and rough it's like carpet or dog fur. A natural. The way his head was overscale among the beams. Otherwise not an exceptionally big person. There was one moment when a big voice broke out of him. Mostly he was toning himself down. I was looking at him the way I would look at a martian. A gender martian, with a face evolved along the same lines as mine or Sharif's, but on a different scale and with a different emphasis. He looked as if he were made to lead marines. He could tell I liked him. Meeting him was an event. Now there are those blinding slow-boiling hard-edged cumulus. "Marriage is not a love affair, it is an ordeal, and the ordeal is sacrifice of the ego." I sailed into fantasy again yesterday     Is the feeling I have for men's bodies completely useless     it's useless to the world Is my physical liking for him completely useless     But our physical connection transformed us, it made us beautiful     but something about integration, it is early love and isn't integrated What happened after that proved it     Is there another way to that beauty     work with excluded child Is this work I haven't got to yet     I am afraid the work will make me sexless     sex is an enslavement Please talk to me     talk to love woman   Do you feel I don't talk to you     yes I feel as if you're part of me and I don't need to talk to you     that's not what you feel Will you tell me what you think     I feel something about losses, crisis about losses   Are my complaints to Tom always her complaints to me     no sometimes Is there a way to tell the difference     listen   You feel I don't want to know     YES Is there something you want to tell me now     yes, your husband/addiction is a withdrawal from happiness I feel it as a way to be with you, to be you     responsibility is that Is there something you'd like me to be responsible in now     search for a way to come through separation and heartbreak I am searching for a way to come through separation and heartbreak     I want you to do more Do you know what you would like     for the work to result in love and inspiration   Is this a correct want     no The way she wants it is wrong     Can you explain it     the way she thinks of love is wrong. Love woman will be deeply changed as a result of slow growth. What would be the correct thing to want     to be not withdrawn It's true that I want the work to result in happy romance     YES Is there something I can do     processing improves and recovers from foolishness Am I supposed to mediate this with her     Ask her if she's willing to give up wanting only that       Are you wanting me to give up being preoccupied with Tom so I can find somebody else     YES You feel I'm not letting you do your thing     YES Give up on Tom because he's not here     We could be fucking and kissing and laughing     That would make us beautiful and healthy     And highspirited and smart     For instance with Rob     somebody better How do you feel about my idea of not sleeping with anyone for a while     you could change your mind   Large one please advise     complete this Explain the work to her       Beautiful one I love it when you're with me     yes There's something about the way we've been doing romance that doesn't work     yes There's something about the way I've been doing work that has cut you off     yes   The truth is that the work wants her to die     deal with her sadness You want control to die     YES You want love woman to die     YES Love woman is a form of control     YES She came in adolescence     she came out in adolescence Am I supposed to kill her     She is an unconscious structure, is it possible to kill an unconscious structure     How     by responsibility Responsibility in what     taking charge Killing her means killing her as a defense     no, killing her ability to affect your judgment There is so much work!     slow growth So how should I complete this     deal with her distress In what tone     see it as exclusion Can you tell me what it is that's confusing me     shattering the structure of sex seems like aggression against love Which is my true foundation     YES Say to her she'll be reborn in her true form     What is her true form     crisis The way Tom's protestations are that     But in the midst of that false self the true self comes     Should I leave it for now     can 17 What happened yesterday. I was sparky with Louie - Can we go sit by the ocean - until she got vehement about Tom. I didn't understand her tone. I know not to take her advice about him, but she was pushing. I was alright until she broke into emotion about how she used to feel when I would overwhelm her with explanation. Then I suddenly crashed. I was staring at a log floating in yellow light amid all the moving color of the water. Was going catatonic. She pretended to go into the book but I could tell it was small fear talking. I would have liked her to switch because I was in the fear zone and could have been led somewhere. But I could tell she wouldn't take responsibility because she had something at stake in the defense I was suspending. I felt something about what Joyce had said about giving up being right and its relation to how hard I work trying to balance myself in relation to Tom. I was frightened but I didn't know exactly of what, except that I felt that if I give up figuring out and getting ahead of him I won't be able to be with him at all. The same way as, if I don't stay ahead of her, I can't be with my mother. Having a defense means I can be with somebody somehow, not nobody at all. I was feeling I had no leg to stand on. Fear of confusion. Today pain at the heart feeling I don't know what to do, I don't know which of all the positions I've felt, I can trust. Is all my effort with this work an effort to be right     An effort to control reactivation     The feeling is, I'm deeply wrong     I stop doing that work with connections I've controlled in other ways     YES Tom is my one hole in the ice     When Joyce says stop doing that work I feel like she's saying let everything freeze over     stop trying to understand And do what     be shamed Is that what's being contained     Is shame the best word     YES I'm ashamed that I got dropped     Be ashamed of something in particular     be ashamed that you were lied to That I believed lies     YES Do you mean then     ever I need to get ahead of people so they can't do that     YES Because if I have no defense against their lies I have to leave them     Feel what I was feeling when I looked at the water     YES Fear     That I won't be able to handle it     Should I ask what that would be like     Everybody would be gone     YES Will you tell me what I'm afraid of     pleasure I'm stuck     keep going That pleasure is a lie     That pleasure will be followed by betrayal     YES The pleasure of trust       I'm in the heart of my realm of great confusion     He requires unconditional love     He can't see me He can't really give me anything That isn't the marriage I want But it is the exercise I want It's very painful     no, challenging I have to give up sex I have to give up being loved And additionally I have to give up being right! I have to let him hurt me That sounds very miserable     no Then what     conflict I have to give up everything that makes it worth doing     And I have to do it     you don't have to Please comment     you're enslaved   Hello     understand (Qs) You want me to understand what's wrong with intelligence     YES Are you saying the best thing about me is no good     no Sore heart today     it's a completion Will you explain what's wrong with it     it stops the completion of the arrival of early love's intelligence It forestalls something     YES Forestalls the completion of an early stage of intelligence     The way I use intelligence short-circuits it     Do you mean just in relation to emotional stuff     YES I get theory instead of change     Reactivation is supposed to happen     I'm supposed to put myself entirely in the hands of the process     no Can you tell me what I'm supposed to do     YES be a loving wife to Tom and mother to Rowen Do you mean this     This is the way to do emotional work     integrate fear of betrayal and decision not to dominate I'm so afraid he'll betray me     YES And he will     And I'll have no defense     no What will be my defense     shattering the structure Years of agony     no There have been five months of agony     YES I'm terrified he'll ride roughshod over me     Disregard me     Take away my confidence     Seduce me     Try to get me to bear all his pain     YES But when I love him I'm full of confidence     It isn't love that's pain     But love's opening is an opening for pain     Will you tell me what difference it will make if I do     that you'll work with compulsion, evasion and conflict Will it be endless     no More you want to say     finish about intelligence Instead of emotional theory, emotional work     Is there another way to do it     no When Tom comes just love him     and finish with him Didn't you say I'm supposed to be a good wife to him     YES Is this a contradiction     no Explain     you must lose him and be disillusioned with him and that's what being a good wife to him is Do you mean the alcohol thing, hold the line?     If he finds his way through he can reapply     YES   part 3 the golden west volume 6: 1996 april-july work & days: a lifetime journal project