Mind trip follow up

Rowan Sleeping

Rowan runs through her days with wild abandon 

and at night she dreams of running wildly through her days…

I'm ready to do some more psychological self-exploring.  It's been 5 months since my last trip, enough time to fully process and integrate that experience.  I'm left with a strong sense that I was releasing hurtful body memories.  

Some background on body memoire from Psychology Today 8/27/17: ...we could do therapy for years, talk all day, and if we don’t address your body not much will happen for you.  When something traumatic happens, the brain functions differently. 

Anytime that we process information, we form explicit memories and implicit memories. Explicit memories are the factual information, general knowledge, and autobiographical information. Implicit memories are the emotional responses and body sensations—this part doesn’t have to do with fact, but feeling. These two types of memories travel in different pathways in the brain and have to be integrated later to form one unified memory.

In a traumatic situation, your “fight or flight” response gets triggered. Your body senses danger and sends out red alert signals in the form of hormones. Your bloodstream is swimming with chemical messengers that tell you to “get out now!” The primary goal under these circumstances isn’t encoding the memory, but getting you to safety. This is the reason that so many trauma victims have gaps in memory: the attention was focused on getting the body to safety. The symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress, and often anxiety itself, are the same signals that the body sends when you are in danger: your heart beats fast and your breathing races to get oxygen to the muscles to run, your body shuts down extra impulses like hunger and needing to use the restroom, your palms sweat, adrenaline fuels your energy so that you can get out- sound familiar? These are normal responses to stress in the short term. The problem is when you get stuck.

When you get stuck, your amygdala—the primary culprit in the fight or flight response—gets really really sensitive...This part of your brain screams "get out" when It feels that you are in danger. Your brain stops processing and focuses all of its energy on getting you away from danger. The memory doesn’t get fully processed and is fragmented in the brain in chunks of implicit and explicit memories. This is why sometimes a smell, the way a person touches you, or even tone of voice can trigger a trauma victim.

Here’s the problem (and this is important): your body cannot tell the difference between physical and emotional danger...Your brain, the very primal part of your brain involved here, thinks that you are in physical danger, which is why you have the physical symptoms.

We need to address the physical in order to solve the problem. So the issue is twofold: we need to bring the body’s response down, calm down the hormonal messengers who are telling you that you are in danger and then we can work on the mental and emotional aspects. Otherwise, we are setting you up for failure.

So, the next time that you are struggling with healing from your trauma, remind yourself that your body is doing exactly what it is supposed to do. It is protecting you. You just need a little work on recalibrating the alarm system. 

Recalibration, understanding, feeling, clearing, letting go physically, that's what I've been doing and I sense that I've go more work to do in that way.  I've been doing yoga several times a week, meditating and tuning my mindfulness practice towards my physical & psychic body. All to good effect.  I feel better both physically & emotionally.  My range of motion in the leg that had it's knee replaced is way better and almost 100% as good as my other, uninjured knee.  The range of motion of my whole body had significantly improved.  My physical stamina too is much better.  As to my emotional wellbeing, I'm feeling quite well lately.  

Houses - Our mothers might be considered out first houses.  Beings that provided us food, shelter and protection every before we were borne.  Our minds might be considered our second and possibly our most important house, the home that we grew up in might be our third.  Later, dorms, barracks and apartments may have followed on later until finally many of us are fortunate to own our homes but in this case I've always felt that I've never owned any of my homes even the ones I've owned free and clear including one I built myself when I was in my 20s.  All those houses will probably outlive myself, going on to have lives that are completely separate from me.  The one home that I'm the closest to "owning" is that of my mind but the jury is still out at to whether it's truly 100% mine.  I'm still considering that.  My father died from complications related to Alzheimer's disease.  I watched as his very fine mind seemingly dissolved within a healthy body.  Homes, it's probably better to not become too attached to any of them.  

There was something else that happened in that last trip too, something that was something quite as subtle as a mere change perspective.  It took a wile for me to notice.   It happened in my reflections upon the original trip and when the realization finally dawned upon me it felt obvious.  One of the strange feelings that I felt leaving myself during and after that trip was a sense of unworthiness which is an odd thing for me to contemplate as I've felt a sense of self-assuredness most of my life, but there it was.  I didn't believe or credit it at first but then I realized that it was one of my main drivers most of my life.  The thought that I wasn't good enough as I was and that meeting expirations was never enough.  I had to work extra hard no mater what I was working on in order to exceed.  

Circling back to the original topic of self-exploration of my mind, I'm ready to peal back some more layers if posable and continue to explore.  To that end I'm planing on another taking another psychedelically enabled mind-walk at the earliest opportunity.  It's a tough thing to schedule in as it takes up pretty much of a full day to complete.  As my fall to-do list shortens I'll be on the lookout for that preface day...

Another Home, but for what?

Five years ago I let an acquaintance in need place her tiny house on my property.  She was was an interesting person. A classically trained cellist since age 6, teacher, professor, PhD behavioral researcher, artist, author and world traveler.  Her name was Sara and here is one of her creations:

Sara was in her eighties with failing health.  Financially strapped, she had been living with others to keep expenses down.  Sara had a tiny house built for her and placed on another of her friends property.  That didn't work out.  The tiny house was only on the property a couple of hours before the neighbors complained.  Seems there was a land covenant involved that prohibited such dwellings.  Sara put out a plea for help to all she knew, seeking a place for her little home.  That's how I came to have a tiny house land on my property.  

Sara passed last year of heart failure.  She died the way she wanted to, at home, in her own bed with care giving friend at her side.  In the 3 years that she live on my land we became close friends.  It was a rich encounter that I feel blessed to have enjoyed.  She was a remarkable woman but her house was a poor example of a tiny house.  It was poorly laid out with much wasted and awkward space.  It was also poorly made, hot in the summer, cold and hard to hear in the winter.  

When she died, Sara left her house to me.  I had no use for it the way it was and I couldn't sell it in good conscious.  So I decided to rebuild it.  I love building things and have long been fascinated by small houses.  They're usually very cleverly designed and well made.  I took it on as a challenge to rebuild poor collection of lumber with no real or concrete use in mind.  It's sort of a "field of dreams" project something that I'm delighted to indulge myself in.  To that end I tore it down to the bare trailer.

It's sort of a "field of dreams" project because I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do with it once completed.  Before tearing it down, it served as a sanctuary for a friend who stayed their 9 months while he got back on his feet and was able to put his own house in order.  It could be a rental or a guest house.  I'm also hoping to put a solar system on it in order to experiment with wintertime solar gain in the Pacific Northwest.  But for now it's a chance to tryout some building ideas that I've been thinking about such as, insulated corners & headers and single top plate/in-line framing, super insolation, fireproof siding and roof materials.  

I also like that I'm beginning the project without a clear idea of what it will become in the end.  Most buildings have a "life" outside of whatever the original builders had in mind.  This project recognizes and celebrates that aspects of homes, their own self-determination. 

Another kind of home...

Recently I built a cat tree house.  I was enchanted by the prospect of building something for another species.  I've almost always built for humans.  It turns out that cats come in two flavors; tree-dwellers & bush/cave-dwellers.  Who knew?  This cat abode is designed to satisfy both kinds of cats.  

I'm looking forward to seeing how the three young cats make use of it.  It was challenging to form the wood into the flowing shapes but worth the effort me thinks.  It was also a nice transition from my last build...

          

...a chest of draws for the master bedroom and my next, a tiny house.  It just occurred to me that the chest of draws is a kind of home too, a home the the clothing that will be stored in it's draws.  So I guess that I've just gone from one home project to another and not one more...home, it's where my heart is and it's also where socks & undies reside too.  

Trip report

Seeking to expand my perception and alter my conscious I recently took a mind trip with the help of Lucy of the diamond sky fame. I had tripped a bit as a teenager and had opened my eyes and  significantly influenced my life since the.  That was a half a century ago.  Now, as an old dude but still growing, seeking and exploring, I wandered what such a journey might go.  

The results were inconclusive and seemed mostly internal in nature.  The onset of the trip started with a general feeling of displacement.  I had trouble keeping warm despite it being a July warm day.  As it intensified it felt like most of the synapses in my nervous system were going off at the same time.  Then I started to cry quite a bit.  Next I seemed to be doing some deep grieving.  The next day, I felt completely burned out and weary.  

It was a trip like no other I’ve ever experienced. For one, I didn't hallucinate.  I would ordinarily chalk that up to a weak dose but the total effect of the experience was definitely not weak.   

I’ll be watching to see if it affected any underlying change.  Right now, I'm thinking that I'm grieving (healing) from the compound effects of divorce, knee trauma, and loss of a beloved sailboat.  Events that happened one right after another.  This work, this grieving/healing seems to be functioning on a subconscious and or body memory level, it's so visceral and deep.  It doesn't seem to be cognitive in nature, at lest not consciously so.  I've mentally come to terms with all three events and truly believe that all of them, each and every one, turned out for the best.  But still...I must need more practice in letting go.  

E - Catching up

It has been quite a while since I've posted on this blog and lots has happened since then.  I'm feeling reflective and sense that I'm on the cusp of more significant changes.  This is a very good time to look back before I go any further.  I began this blog after having retired, traveled for a year and then bought a home in Eugene Oregon.  My search for a country, region, community and home to live in was an engrossing and enriching process that continues to inform and expand my life.  When I started this blog almost 10 years ago I would never have imagined I would be still actively working on my quest to find home.

Catching up: In 2013 I drove cross the USA to visit an old friend and lover.  We'd known each other since the 80s and lived together once before but could never make our relationship work. We had kept in touch and Bev had come to Oregon recently for an extended visit.  We'd spoken about getting back together and I saw my trip back to New England as another step in that process.  I had a wonderful drive across the country and enjoyed my first visit to Glacier National Park.  After arriving at Bev's home in Connecticut and getting properly reacquainted she asked me if I wanted to get married.  It was an unexpected request that warmed and delighted my heart.  

Bev moved out to Oregon to join me in my home and we spent some wonderful times exploring the Pacific Northwest together by car, boat, bike and on foot.  

We drove down the coast and explored the Baja together.

We sailed the San Juan and Gulf Islands between Washington state and Vancouver Island aboard a friend's sailboat.

Along the way, besides sharing many adventures together, Bev saw me through two surgeries (knee & hip replacements) and a life threatening blood clot in my brain.  For that and many more things I will be eternally grateful to her.   

In 2015 we rode the White Rim Trail, a 90 mile loop around the Island in the Sky mesa of Canyonlands National Park in southern Utah.  It was something we had both wanted to do ever since we first mountain biked in Utah ten years earlier.  

We had great fun traveling together but home life was not always smooth.  After living her entire life in the same town and even on the same street in Connecticut she had difficulty making friends in Oregon.  Bev tried hard, perhaps too hard but ultimately felt frustrated and isolated.  She also missed family and life long friends on the east coast.  

Bev was restless and wanted to try something different.  She asked if we could buy a boat and go sailing someplace warm.  I had already "been there & done that before", so I suggested that we look for a property down on the coast of Oregon to enjoy when we wanted some ocean time.  Bev was not to be deterred and it doesn't take much to convince me to go sailing.  I warned her that sailboats are never a good investment and almost guarantied to lose money.  I've owned four houses and four large sail boats.  The worst I've ever done on a house investment is to break even but I've never made any money on a sailboat.  

After searching for about six months and looking at many boats we found Malo in San Fransisco bay.  We was a 26 year old, 40' racer/cruiser that needed boat loads of TLC but had great bones and a fast, solid hull shape.  We bought her and sailed her back to Oregon where we spent a year fixing her out for long distance cruising.  

Then we headed south to the Sea of Cortez.  We had a long and trying trip down but there were so many many wonderful moments that more than balanced things out.

From the redwood forest of Northern California...

...to the amazing beauty of the Channel Islands.

And the thousand mile trip down the Baja's west coast was a truly unique and amazing experience. 

We explored the Sea of Cortez, one of the most amazing bodies of water that I've ever sailed.  It is a vast, remote, raw and untamed place that boggles the mind with its juxtaposition of a thriving aquatic ecosystem bounded by a very arid desert.  

After sailing for 10 months, the hurricane season was upon us so we put the boat in dry storage. We then headed home with the intention of returning next season to continue our explorations of the Sea.  That never happened.  Bev divorced me and headed back to Connecticut and the boat was put on the market.  I was left devastated, confused but with one small shred of hope; that Bev's leaving would turn out to be a good thing.  

While I love sailing and everything about the ocean, there were some big parts of my life I was missing.  I missed my shop and building things, something that's hard to do on a sailboat and I missed my community of friends back home.  Just before I started the sailing trip, the community had won an important victory.  The city to the north of our rural farming community, Springfield Oregon, had sought to annex us with their stated intent to rezone it from "rural & residential", to "industrial" in order to increase their industrial capacity.  It was a crazy idea that was driven by greed and lack of respect for the environment.  Astonishingly and against all odds we prevailed.  We had fought hard for our place employing a variety of tactics such as, allying with local and national conservations groups, canvasing, a petition and we marched through the city with bikes, horses, tractors and pickup trucks.  We conducted sit-in & fast on the steps of the city hall and we engaged the best land use lawyer in the region.  It was a tough fight against long odds.  Fortunately for us it brought us closer together as a community, united in the fight to save itself.  

While I was away for 10 months seeing all these amazing places I was also missing my friends and neighbors back home.  So that was one good thing right off; I was back home, among good friends, an amazing place in itself.  One earmark of a good trip is returning to ones own home and seeing that same place with a new and deeper sense of appreciation.  So I had one good thing to hold on to but I was still broken inside and recovering from knee surgery.  I wasn't thinking too clearly back then but I did have sense enough to know that I needed to heal myself in order to go forward and that's what I set out to do.  

In coming home again, I sought to explore and develop a deeper presence.  I envisioned this as bringing into alignment my physical body, mind, sprit and place in such a way that encourages and supports inner peace and joy.  To that end I've been taking early morning walks in nature, practicing yoga and meditation most days.  As a part of my yoga practice, I’ve been working on recovering my squat.  When I was young I use to squat on the ground with friends as we waited, rested or just hung out chatting.  It’s beauty lay in its spartan simplicity.  One didn’t need any furniture or special place for such gatherings and it imparted a certain unity amongst us.      

Healing and restoring my body, the return to my physical self has naturally lead to the urge to return to my original self.  Meditation has helped with that return, but now I seek more, to go further back, back to who or what I was before I was Dan.  What I am now seeking is the dissolution of self, or ego death,  as a significant return home.  To go that place before or beyond “I” beckons my inner explorer, to return to an earlier state.   To that end the universe has gifted me with a means; Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.  My yoga practice gives another, slower means to that end also.  Both venues seem comparable and co-reinforcing. 

                    

Six tiny blots of impeccable pedigree that I hope will help to deepen my awareness and connection with the universe.  With acceptance and gratitude in my heart, I proceed.  

While working with unhoused folks in Eugene I had the privilege to meet Ibrahim Mubarak an unhoused, black, muslim activist from Portland.  He repeated that old saying; "home is where the heart is" and added that "while he does not have a home, he does have a heart".  That is were I shall go, home to the heart.  

                          "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." Stewart Brand, from The Last Whole Earth Catalog