the blessing of nothingness, a meditation...

four years she has been coming to therapy...and over that time i have seen a remarkable, yet slow process of change...she's certainly not flashy with drama or exuberance, but, always consistent...

today she says, " i want to talk about what i believe...like i am not sure anymore...i am not even sure i believe in god, or what i used to think was god, anyway"...

so, i think, what now? where, oh where is she going?

years back she had met a guy who promised he knew god...personally...and he would show her how to live, how to pray, what to believe...and god told him she should marry him and they should move out to oregon and live there...she believed him...they moved and the voices he heard became dangerous...he imprisoned her in this oppressive, poverty-stricken, god-fearing life...she, never strong in her life in knowing how to make healthy decisions about school or partners or friends or thinking for herself, fell apart...a long-standing, never diagnosed mental illness exploded and she almost died...was hospitalized, thank god...and found her way back to wyoming, big sky country, to get some help, to heal...

shy, so shy she was, unbelievably shy...and medicated, lethargic, not much energy to even speak...yet, she did speak, slowly, slowly, ever slowly...putting her therapist to sleep sometimes, but always there, always, slowly unraveling her story...she got different meds, began to think more clearly, began to smile sometimes, tease a bit, said no to a job that didn't fit, began to actually speak to her neighbors...even began to challenge some folks about their intrusions into her and her neighbor's lives...

she joined my dream work and spirituality group, was there for a couple of years, then dropped out...too shy, i think, too intrusive in her tender mind...but she kept unfolding in her own quiet way...then, she commented one day, "you remember when you did the meditations in our dream group? when you said, 'imagine, if you are able to believe in god, that god just wants to be with you, to just be with you, to not ask for anything or to want to talk or to want to change you or to pray or to do anything...', do you remember that?" yes, i said..."well, i liked that...i felt peaceful, comforted...and now when i watch those TV preachers, i don't believe them anymore, not like i used to..."

so we explored, slowly, this new place of faith/no faith...of how she is comfortable today in the not knowing...how not knowing is not a place of fear, but a place to explore...a place to find her own knowing, to live with her questions, and answers, if she can find any...a safe, secure place of not knowing...

she peacefully smiles and then leaves...

cry wolf! (exploring a night-time dream)

so, what is it you need to explore, to talk about today? i ask as we both settle in over tea in my consulting room...she seems blunt, almost angry, eyes fierce...at me? i insecurely wonder, silently to myself, of course, hiding behind my doctor's degree...it couldn't be about me, could it? i am the therapist, sorta good, sometimes, i think, i hope...a client angry at me? anchor yourself, i say to me in my head...oh yeah, it is her session, i silently remember...she's offering a sacred projection...

then she blurts out: i want to be able to live without always having to have a man in my life!...oh my, it is about me, sorta, cause i am a man and she hired me, a man, to help her live without a man! oh, the necessary twists and turns of deep psychotherapy...she's brave to say this, certainly desperate...and angry, very angry, which she needs to be for the battle to save her soul...we reflect on previous sessions...how this has been her major theme, her goal...

you want to be able to live without always needing a man? especially the kind of man that you have often had...who end up being losers ( i am kinda blunt, too)...and you end up hurting and disappointed...yes, she firmly states...and we are silent for a while...

somehow, somewhere in this space of wondering...i ask if she has remembered any dreams...well, yes, just the other night i had one...it was stupid and weird...i was with my nephew (she deeply loves her troubled teenage nephew and often is the only adult in his life who truly "sees" him)...and we were in this house and we were looking out the window and we see a wolf running across the pasture toward our house and it kills our dog, rips it, and then it just runs off, back across the pasture...then my nephew and i are suddenly in a camper somewhere, camping in the mountains...we are with a person from work, a friend of mine who is always funny...and my nephew and i are getting ready to go to denver to the airport to take a trip...and that's it...that's the dream!

is this one dream? i wonder, or, as often happens, as dreams get jumbled together in our waking world, is this two separate dreams? no, it is the same dream, she says firmly and with a smile...h-h-h-m-m-m, weird, i agree...

i reflect and project...sometimes wild animals in dreams are about our wild untamed side...and domestic animals are about, well, our domestic side (i'm so brilliantly obvious)...do you dream about wolves often, about animals? no, never...see how weird it was, she says...and this wolf just rips, kills your dog?...and just runs off? yep...

i'm thinking/projecting/wondering...and the camper in the mountains... and going on a trip...this dream is so seemingly disconnected...and yet it has come to you to help you...wild...angry...killing...domestic...camping...do you go camping in waking life? no, never...well, i would sometimes if i was involved with a man and he wanted to...

ohhh, if he wanted to...

we keep reflecting... the word "adventure" comes to me in a kind of weird, pre-concsious way... why?... and what is it about this seemingly cruel wolf killing her dog and just running off? why would a wolf kill a dog?...

how do you have adventure, you know, have fun? well, i don't...i just work and go home, sometimes i go out with my girl friends, never go out alone...i'd go on some trips if the man i was with wanted to, but i'd never go alone...

wow! you never would go on a trip alone? without a man?

no.

so, you want to live your life without always needing a man? and this untamed wild, independent wolf side of you comes and kills your tame, dependent domestic side?

and, when the domestic, dependent side is killed, you are suddenly on a camping adventure with people you love and admire...you are free to take a trip, to fly away...without a man...

h-h-m-mm, nuff said.

button, button, who's got the button?

she's quite and gentle, almost unassuming, as she slowly describes moments of her early childhood...she silently weeps as she remembers the loneliness of being youngest child in a large family...living on a dairy farm in a region of the country that is not known for its dairy farms, an oddity in itself...but the little farm made it, day after day, gallon after gallon...and she, along with her sisters and mom and dad worked hard as only dairy folks know...the farm wasn't her family's, it was rented...her family living on this land, working the cattle, struggling to make any profit for the owner and for her family was difficult... poverty, always just one sick cow away...but, what she remembers most is not the hard work or the hot summer days or the 4am milking in the dead of winter...she remembers being so lonely...the family rules, you know...the unwritten, unspoken rules in the air we breathe...more powerful than any stone-carved commandment...thou shalt not reveal deep feelings of your soul...keep quiet, thou shalt not weep...never let anyone see your pain...do not be real...you will be humiliated by your sisters, criticized, tormented...and scolded by your mother...lonely, normal, secret pain...except, her father...not there very often, always working somewhere...but, he delighted in her, his youngest child...always giving her a tiny bit of special attention...a smile, a private moment, a bit of protection from the harsh elements of the air around her, from the constant ridicule of her older ones...she misses him most...and in the world of unspoken rules, she could never tell him and he could never ask why this little quiet one was so quiet...

she remembers being so little and curious...poverty meant few clothes, fewer toys...isolation...so, she found ways to play...so curious and inventive...that old jar of buttons mom always kept to use to do the obvious repair of third-hand clothing...her tiny hands lifting the large jar, spilling out the buttons on the floor...gazing, studying, touching, spreading the buttons...making a world of friends, button friends...and they visited with each other...the red ones, the grey ones, the white ones...they looked like families, some all alike, some big, some little...some broken, some chipped...so fun!...buttons to swirl and spin...and to talk to...yes, to talk to...like friends, family, secret family...and there was one...one button...a different kind of button than all the rest...an odd shaped button...like me, she thought...and odd button...feeling different, out of place, set apart, alone, odd...holding the odd-shaped button, fingering its shape, grasping, knowing what it feels...

can odd be re-formed into lovely? can odd be trans-formed into unique? can different be admired? can a button be a mirror of a soul?

button, button, who's got the button...?