Me and My Shadow

 

 Me and my shadow, strollin' down the avenue
--"Me and My Shadow," lyrics by Billy Rose

Shame, embarrassment, humiliation--these are the forces that divide the self into my ego--the part of myself that is recognized as self--and shadow--the part of myself that is seen as other. My ego is not consciously aware of shadow, but it sees shadow everywhere, all the time, outside myself, because my shadow is projected outward onto others. Shadow work is the development of awareness of and compassion for shadow, and eventually, the integration of shadow.

The popular fear regarding shadow is that deep inside, we're all axe murderers. It's the idea that my shadow is a dark cell imprisoning horrible monsters just waiting for the chance to leap out. But in reality, the shady prison holds sobbing children, spurned lovers, betrayed friendships.

 

All these imprisoned bits of self are guarded by complexes, habitual intense emotional reactions that defend my ego against shadow. Complexes are the real monsters, not the shadow itself. To keep from being overwhelmed and swept up by reactive emotions, meditation practice is a necessity. Simply becoming aware of complexes is a huge step. To work with shadow, I have to develop presence to the point where I can remain mindful while experiencing emotional eruptions. When a complex can be tolerated, then the pain underneath the fear and anger can be experienced.

 

Shadow work comes in many forms. Dreamwork, journaling, doing art, entering psychotherapy--these are just a few of the many ways to work with shadow. I'll look at several in the next few posts.

Sailing Past the Sirens

Ulysses and the Sirens, by H. J. Draper

Come this way, honored Odysseus, great glory of the Achaians, and stay your ship, so that you can listen here to our singing; for no one else has ever sailed past this place in his black ship until he has listened to the honey-sweet voice that issues from our lips. --The Odyssey, Book XII

Meditation can be categorized in many different ways. In my practice, I do what some would call mindfulness meditation, an umbrella term that includes focus meditation, transcendental meditation, vipassana, and open meditation. In mindfulness meditation, the meditator can focus on something, for example, a mantra, the breath, a candle flame, or a mandala. Or, the meditator can just open to the present experience. During mindfulness meditation, perceptions arise, either external, such as sounds, or internal, such as thoughts. The meditator opens to the perception and releases it. If the meditator is using a focus of meditation, the meditator returns the attention to the object of focus. Mindfulness meditation has no goal; the meditator simply experiences each moment.

When Odysseus sailed past the Sirens, he had his crew plug their ears with wax, but he had himself bound to the mast with unstopped ears, so that he could hear their singing. In mindfulness meditation, my commitment to my practice binds me to my seat, and I listen to the singing of my thoughts and emotions. The allegory breaks down when I am swept up by the inner song. But unlike Odysseus and his crew, I can swim back to my ship and try again, over and over. This continual return is the practice. There is no purpose other than to experience whatever happens.

There is nothing wrong with using other kinds of meditation for other ends. Guided meditation steers you through some scenario to achieve some purpose. Augmented meditation uses special sounds, such as binaural beats, to help you achieve some particular state of consciousness. But these other types of meditation are not a replacement for mindfulness meditation. Since mindfulness meditation is all about remaining present with whatever comes up, it develops and strengthens the ability to remain present in everyday life, when you’re not meditating.

Much has been written about meditation. Heck, I’ve even written about it—Meditation 101, Meditation and Compassion, Whole Lotta Nothing, and Greeting My Experience. In general, simpler is better. I like the way Peter Russell teaches meditation; he emphasizes simplicity and ease. Peter's writing and videos would be a good way for anyone to learn meditation.

The Practice of Compassionate Presence

This post begins a series about spiritual practice. I’ve been meditating for nearly 50 years. I’ve attended several different types of retreats and programs and have incorporated bits and pieces from many of them into my practice. I’m also a husband, father, retired IT professional, and former editor. I can speak about practice from the context of everyday life, not from the point of view of some kind of enlightened master. I don’t claim that anything I say will be new or unique, but my perspective may be different from that of a spiritual teacher.

For me, spiritual practice has two aspects: the cultivation of presence or mindfulness, and the nurturing of compassion or open-heartedness. Compassionate presence, open-hearted mindfulness—this is the essence of spiritual practice. Both aspects support each other. Presence gives clarity and awareness. Without mindfulness, I’m at the mercy of my reactive patterns and mindless habits. But presence without compassion is brutality. Without compassion, I stand naked before my inner judge, with no hope of mercy.

Open-heartedness allows me to accept the pieces of myself that I have rejected, those parts of me that embarrass or disgust me and that I project outward onto others. The good news is that these bits of me also contain lost gifts. They are the doorway to my native wisdom. Without compassion, I risk falling into tyrannical cynicism. But compassion without mindfulness is ungrounded and potentially delusional.

Meditation is essential to the cultivation of mindfulness. Meditation nurtures the ability to be present with whatever arises without being overwhelmed. Shadow work is the wellspring of compassion. The shadow is the part of myself that I cannot recognize or accept. By working to become aware of and befriend my shadow, I develop compassion for myself and others.

Open-hearted mindfulness, compassionate presence--this is the focus of my practice. I'm a work in progress, not a finished product. I don't live each moment in complete mindfulness and total open-heartedness. But that's the direction I'm headed, I hope.

My Raspberry Pi 4 Desktop System

 

A couple of months ago, I bought a 4 GB Raspberry Pi 4 and decided to see whether I could use it as a desktop system. After some trial and error, I finally have come up with what seems to me to be a usable configuration.

The first decision I made was the case. I'd read online that heat was an issue with the Pi 4. To keep the Pi from throttling from overheating, you can either use an active heat dissipation system--a fan or even a liquid cooling system--or you can use a passive system, with large heat sinks and enough surface area to shed heat. I don't want a noisy fan, so I read several online reviews and bought a case from Flirc. The Flirc case is designed to be a heat sink. It has a column that seats atop the CPU and conducts heat up into the case. The Flirc works well; my Pi 4 has never come close to throttling due to excessive heat. The idea seems to have caught on, and there are other similar cases on the market now.

Since I was aiming for a cheap desktop system, I didn't want to buy expensive, high-end peripherals. I bought an Acer KA220HQ monitor, and I tried an Amazon Basics wireless keyboard/touchpad before settling on a Logitech K400 Plus wireless keyboard/touchpad. Eventually, I replaced the keyboard/touchpad with a Logitech K380 Bluetooth keyboard and Logitech M535 Bluetooth mouse--more about the monitor and input devices later.

Since my Pi 4 was going to be a desktop system, I wanted it to be able to have adequate audio and video capability. The built-in audio on the Raspberry Pis isn't great, so I looked for a digital-to-analog converter (DAC). Because I'd already ordered the Flirc case, I decided to buy a USB DAC instead of a HAT (hardware attached on top). I picked the Sound Blaster PLAY! 3, a nice reasonably priced USB DAC. I bought Logitech S120 stereo speakers and a Cyber Acoustics ACM-51 microphone to use with the Sound Blaster. For video, I bought a Raspberry Pi camera module V2 and a Makeronics clear acrylic holder case. The ribbon cable is clunky, but it works.

Once I had all the pieces, I plugged them together and had a great little inexpensive desktop system. Well, no, not at first. The first Pi 4 I ordered, I tried several micro HDMI to HDMI cables, but I couldn't get any of them to seat properly in the micro HDMI port on the Pi 4. I contacted Canakit, the company that sold me the Pi 4. They replaced the Pi 4, and the new one worked.

I installed Pi OS (formerly Raspbian) and ran into my second hurdle. The monitor randomly blanked. I read up on display issues with Raspberry Pis--the online documentation for boot configuration options was especially helpful. It appears that the Pi 4 can't read the EDID (extended display identifcation data) from the Acer monitor. I tried downloading the EDID data into a file and editing config.txt to use the file, but that didn't work, either--the system came up in 640x480. I eventually came up with a boot-time HDMI configuration that improved the screen blanking problem, but even with that, I also have to manually set the mode and group for the display each time I booted the Pi 4. The screen still randomly blanks once in a great while--an annoyance, but I can live with it.

The Pi 4 was barely usable as a desktop system. It was slow and not very responsive. Looking around online, I found several blog and video posts that suggested that Ubuntu Mate is much snappier. I installed Ubuntu Mate on a second SD card and gave it a try. It did seem more responsive, and it also seemed to get along better with my Acer monitor--it was able to identify the Acer. My subjective impression was that Ubuntu ran a little hotter than Pi OS. The deal breaker for me was that I never could configure Ubuntu to use the camera.

Doing some more research, I came across suggestions that using an SSD (solid-state drive) instead of an SD card would greatly improve performance. I bought a 120 GB Western Digital Green SATA SSD and a Sabrent M.2 SSD to USB 3.0/SATA III enclosure. I made sure that the Sabrent enclosure could do UASP (USB attached SCSI Protocol) rather than the slower USB storage protocol. When I first got the SSD, USB booting was not in the default critical Pi OS stream, so I had to switch to the stable stream. But it worked, and the SSD really improves performance. And now, USB booting is available in the default Pi OS stream.

By this point, I had only one open USB port available for anything else I'd like to use with the Pi 4, such as a flatbed scanner or a thumb drive, so I bought an Anker 4-port USB 3.0 hub, which worked well. As I plowed through more online articles and videos, it became clear that power can be an issue with the Pi 4. I read advice to use powered USB devices, rather than ones that draw power from the USB bus on the Pi 4. I thought that power could have something to do with the screen blanking problem. So, I bought a  UGREEN SATA to USB 3.0 adapter cable and an Atolla powered USB 3.0 hub. I also got the Logitech Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, to free up another USB 2.0 port. The powered adapter cable worked fine with the Sabrent enclosure. But when I tried using the powered USB hub, it interfered with the SSD--the SSD became corrupted, and I had to reinstall. So, I ditched the powered hub and went back to the Anker.

By now, I had a usable system, but the SSD and USB DAC and the hub were taking over my desk. So, I got a Yahboom Raspberry Pi cluster case. The Pi 4 in the Flirc case sits on top--the case is too tall to fit between the shelves. The Sound Blaster DAC and the USB hub fit in the middle shelf, and the SSD sits on the bottom shelf.

I'm pretty happy with this setup. The system works reasonably well. Once in a great while, the display will blank, and I've changed my browser habits so that I have a minimum number of tabs active at any one time. But this is a usable desktop system.

Network Monitoring, Static Addresses, and WiFi Extenders

In my previous post, I wrote about turning a Raspberry Pi into a network monitor, using Nagios and arpwatch. If you want to use Nagios to monitor networked equipment, then each piece of monitored equipment needs to have a static IP address--an IP address that never changes. Most networked devices are configured by default to request an IP address via DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) from the WiFi router, and by default, WiFi routers will assign a dynamic IP address--an IP address that might be different each time the device boots up.

There are two ways to go about assigning static IP addresses. You can configure each networked node's network interface, using whatever management tools the node might have. You'd have to manually configure each device, and you'd need to keep track of the IP addresses so that you don't accidentally assign two nodes the same address. You'd also want to be sure that all the IP addresses lie outside the range of dynamic addresses that your WiFi router doles out.

 

The easier, more centrally managed solution is to use your WiFi router to assign static addresses. Most WiFi routers let you configure static addresses that the router will assign via DHCP. This is probably a writable table of MAC (media access control) addresses and their corresponding static IP addresses, as in the image above--on this router, the table is called a DHCP reservations list. The beauty of this approach is that you only need to configure your WiFi router and then reboot your networked equipment. This is the method I used.

All went well--until I added a WiFi extender to our home network. We live in a split-level home, and our WiFi router sits on a shelf in a closet on the ground floor. Signal strength is not the best on the top floor. We'd recently visited some friends, who'd asked me to configure a new WiFi extender they'd bought, a TP-Link AC750. It wasn't hard to set up, and it seemed to work fine. Back at home, I decided to buy one for the top floor. When it arrived, I configured it and reconfigured a couple pieces of equipment to use the extender. The extender worked well, except that monitored devices that used the extender no longer were visible in Nagios. A quick glance showed that they'd new IP addresses, not their static IP addresses. What had happened?

 

I logged into our WiFi router's management interface and looked at the client status. I could see that the TP-Link had changed the MAC addresses of the devices that were using the WiFi extender. The TP-Link had substituted the first three bytes of its MAC address for the first three bytes of each device's MAC address. The simple fix was to change the MAC address in the DHCP reservations list to match the new MAC address the TP-Link was using.

I don't know whether the altering of MAC addresses by the TP-Link is common to all DHCP relays, or whether this is something unique to this brand of WiFi extender. In any case, although it's annoying to have to change the DHCP reservations list every time I switch a device from the WiFi router to the extender or vice-versa, it's not a difficult work-around.

Setting Up a Raspberry Pi 3 as a Home Network Monitor

I repurposed my Raspberry Pi 3 to monitor our home network. In the picture, it's the small black box underneath the white cable modem and to the right of the cable amplifier. I followed the steps outlined in the article "How to use Raspberry Pi to monitor network? (Nagios)" by Patrick Fromaget, at his website RaspberryTips. I ran into a couple of head-scratchers when I installed Pi OS Lite. Out of the box, the OS was configured for British keyboards, and it was a little tricky choosing the right options for my cheap wireless keyboard/trackpad. The other roadblock was that wi-fi was disabled. To enable it, I had to unblock it:

rfkill unblock wlan
shutdown -r now

I'd had some experience with Nagios, so I had no problems building and installing it from source, following Fromaget's instructions. I customized Nagios to monitor the temperature of the monitoring Pi. First, I added a /usr/local/nagios/libexec/check_cputemp executable. It's a shell script:

#!/bin/bash

cpu_lo_warn=-30
cpu_lo_crit=-40
cpu_up_warn=75
cpu_up_crit=85
cpu_temp=$(</sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp)
cpu_temp=$((cpu_temp/1000))

if [ -z $cpu_temp ]; then
  echo "UNKNOWN - Undefined CPU temperature"
  exit 3
fi
if [ $cpu_lo_crit -gt $cpu_temp ]; then
  echo "CRITICAL - CPU temperature $cpu_temp too cold"
  exit 2
fi
if [ $cpu_lo_warn -gt $cpu_temp ]; then
  echo "WARNING - Low CPU temperature $cpu_temp"
  exit 1
fi
if [ $cpu_temp -gt $cpu_up_crit ]; then
  echo "CRITICAL - CPU temperature $cpu_temp too hot"
  exit 2
fi
if [ $cpu_temp -gt $cpu_up_warn ]; then
  echo "WARNING - High CPU temperature $cpu_temp"
  exit 1
fi
echo "OK - CPU temperature $cpu_temp"
exit 0

Next, I added a check_local_cputemp command, by adding these lines to /usr/local/nagios/etc/objects/commands.cfg:

define command {

    command_name    check_local_cputemp

    command_line    $USER1$/check_cputemp
}

Then I added a CPU Temperature service to localhost, by adding these lines to /usr/local/nagios/etc/objects/localhost.cfg:

define service {

    use                     local-service
    host_name               localhost
    service_description     CPU Temperature
    check_command           check_local_cputemp
}

Then I restarted Nagios. Now, the services page has a CPU Temperature service for localhost.

I also wanted to monitor new equipment that might pop up on our home network, so I installed the  arpwatch and Postfix packages. I administered  a sendmail server for quite a few years, but that would be overkill for a network monitor. For information about installing and configuring Postfix to send outgoing mail, see Tutorial - Install Postfix to allow outgoing email on Raspberry Pi, at the Ste Wright website. Basically, I did a sudo apt-get install postfix and specified the Internet site and default hostname.

I installed arpwatch with sudo apt-get install arpwatch. Then I configured arpwatch to email me whenever anything new happened on the network, by creating the file /etc/arpwatch/wlan0.iface with the single line IFACE_ARGS="-m my@email.address" (where "my@email.address" is a valid email address to receive arpwatch messages). Then I issued the commands:

sudo systemctl enable arpwatch@wlan0
sudo systemctl start arpwatch@wlan0

For more information about configuring arpwatch, see How to monitor Ethernet Activity using Arpwatch tool, at LinuxHelp.

Once I had the Pi configured, I shut it down and mounted it, headless, on my crude network equipment board. It was easy, the classic Raspberry Pi case has two holes in the base for mounting. I plugged the power supply in, and it works!

Greeting My Experience

Why do people give up on meditation? "I can't make my thoughts go away." "It's boring." "Nothing happens." "I get fidgety." These are all variations on the same theme: "When I meditate, I don't have the kind of experience I think I should have." All these reasons not to meditate miss the point of meditation. I don't meditate to have a certain kind of experience; I meditate to be more fully present with whatever experience happens while I meditate.

When I meditate, I try to have an open curiosity about whatever comes up. I don't foster an analytical curiosity, a type of curiosity that tries to identify and understand. Instead, I try to develop more of an artistic appreciation of whatever is happening, a curiosity about what this experience actually is. I don't try to resist or push away anything that arises. Instead, I try to greet everything, to welcome anything that comes up. This doesn't mean I try to like everything I experience while I sit. It's a little like wandering through a museum, or listening to a concert, or watching a movie. I may not like everything I'm seeing or hearing or feeling, but I try to appreciate everything as it is.

So, for example, if I'm having thoughts, I just recognize that I'm thinking, and I let it go. I may have the thought, "I'm thinking--I shouldn't be thinking!" Okay, I realize I had that thought, and I let it go. If I feel I've failed because I'm having thoughts, I say to myself, fine, I'm feeling failure--and then I let it go. The same applies to boredom--okay, I'm bored. No big deal, let it go, on to the next moment. If my entire meditation consists of me releasing thoughts or recognizing I'm bored, then that's what that meditation experience was. The point is to accept the truth of each moment, as it is, without resistance.

Over time, this ability to appreciate each moment begins to affect daily life. As I become less likely to react dramatically, I become better able to pause and consider what has happened, and then, I hope, to act more wisely. I become less caught up in regrets about the past and worries about the future; I become more involved with what is happening here and now.

This is the essence of meditative practice. It's not another means of controlling what is happening, it's not one more expectation to meet, it's not one more challenge that leads to either success or failure. It is simply allowing yourself to greet the present moment, whatever it is. Everything else that you might want to get from a meditation practice flows from this.

Whole Lotta Nothing

What do you need to meditate? Not much! All you really need is a little time. You can meditate almost anywhere, anytime your attention isn't being demanded. As long as you are conscious, you can meditate.

While you can meditate anywhere, it's best to have a dedicated quiet spot where you aren't going to be disturbed, especially if you're new to meditation. You should have a comfortable place to sit in a position that doesn't foster drowsiness. You can use a cushion, or a chair--you don't have to contort yourself into a pretzel. (If you want to practice walking meditation, you don't even need a place to sit!) Reclining or lying down can invite sleepiness, but if you have some kind of bodily limitation that makes it difficult to sit for long periods, then lying down is a good option.

You probably will want a timer. During meditation, your sense of time can be tricky, so especially when you're beginning a practice, it's good to time your meditation. But you can meditate without a timer--just meditate for as long as feels right. While you can spend a goodly amount on a dedicated meditation timer, it's certainly not necessary. A timer doesn't need to be anything fancy--free timer apps are available on smart phones, or you could use a kitchen timer. You can also use a clock or watch, and peek at the time when you think your meditation period is over.

Some people like to have a meditation altar. If you meditate within a religious or spiritual tradition, an altar might be a nice idea. An altar can reinforce the sense that the place you meditate is dedicated to your practice. But you don't have to have an altar to meditate. Likewise, objects like crystals, statues, pictures, incense, flags and banners might help make your meditation space feel like a special place devoted to practice. But you don't have to have any of those things to meditate, either.

You can pay an instructor and take meditation lessons. Investing a little of your money in your practice might be a good thing--it tells your subconscious that you're serious. It might make it more likely you'll maintain a practice over a long period of time. But it's not necessary. A teacher might grant you some kind of mantra (a phrase to repeat) or some kind of spiritual empowerment. Regardless of whether such things actually have any power, the sense of specialness might energize you. And being part of a student community, a community of practitioners, can only help your practice. But you can meditate without a teacher, without a special mantra, and even without a supportive community.

So if you're curious about meditation, if you have any interest at all, there is nothing stopping you from giving it a try. The only obstacles to meditation lie inside.

Meditation and Compassion

A meditation practice can be brutal. Meditation is all about being present with whatever arises. And since I've never been a saint, a perfected being right from birth, some of what arises during meditation is not pleasant. Unhappy memories, feelings of embarrassment and shame, anxieties about the future, anger, frustration--all these boil up at one time or another, along with the more mundane distractions, the shopping lists, the todo lists.

But it's not just while I'm on the cushion. Meditation has given me a small space between provocative stimuli and my habitual reactions, a gap that gives me a chance to catch myself before I react destructively. But that space also can be a harsh spotlight that shines on the uglier sides of my personality, the parts of me that want to lash out in self-righteous anger or that want to numb out with mindless entertainment or a drink or two.

Meditation provides me with a mirror, both while meditating and while going about daily life. I don't know very many people who look in a mirror and like everything they see. By itself, a meditation practice can become a harsh, tyrannical court of self-condemnation. That's why practices to develop compassion are a necessary complement to meditation practice.

In my experience, compassion means shadow work. All the parts of me that I don't own, that I project outward onto others--that's shadow. Shadow contains all those unpleasant bits of self that cause embarrassment, shame, guilt, everything I don't like. Shadow also contains treasures, hidden talents, secret passions. There are many ways to work with shadow--Jungian depth psychology, dreamwork, shamanic practice, and many types of Buddhist practice, for a few. All center around reintroducing the self to the parts that have been pushed aside.

Shadow work is self-expanding, heart-opening, empathy-developing. It's the essence of compassion. It allows me to sit with myself as I am, to embrace whatever arises, on the cushion or off. Open-hearted mindfulness, compassionate presence--this is the center of my practice. And "practice" is definitely the right word; I haven't mastered this yet, and may not ever. But sometimes, in the gap between stimulus and reaction, when I can stand there and be compassionately present, wisdom can miraculously appear. And that's when the wonderful, mysterious, healing magic happens, the magic of responding with wisdom, rather than reacting mindlessly.

That's what it's all about.

Meditation 101

I'm offering my services as a meditation mentor, so I thought I'd begin posting a few pieces about meditation. So for this inaugural meditation article, I'd like to begin with what I feel is the most essential item you need to begin a meditation practice--commitment.

You have many reasons to begin meditating. You might be seeking relief from pain, or a lower risk of heart disease, or mitigation of the effects of stress. Medical research has shown that meditation can have many benefits for your health and well-being. Or, you might be trying to improve your golf game--many top athletes and coaches practice meditation. Or you might want to achieve enlightenment, or develop the special powers mentioned in the Yoga Sutras. But your initial motivation can change or even disappear with time. Your medical condition might resolve, you may lose interest in golf, you might lose interest in your spiritual or esoteric path.

Difficult circumstances can challenge a meditation practice. It's easy to meditate when there's plenty of money, no danger of losing your apartment or home, no chance you'll miss a meal. When you have plenty of leisure time, it's not hard to spend a few minutes each day meditating. But circumstances change, you may lose your job, or you may get a new more demanding job, or you may start a family. Time may become more precious.

But there is one thing that will guide your meditation practice through the perils of shifting motivation or challenging times, and that is commitment. Commitment to a meditation practice--internal commitment, not commitment to someone else or some group--this is what will keep your practice alive.

How can a person have commitment? By realizing that a meditation practice is worthwhile in and of itself. This only happens via meditation--more meditation can develop more commitment. It cannot be put into words easily. It's an inner knowing that builds up slowly as you experience meditation over time.

An enduring, resilient meditation practice stems from meditation practice. Whatever gets you on the cushion or the chair seat at first, whatever put the idea of developing a meditation practice in your head--that will take you only so far, like the push a parent gives a child when they start learning how to ride a bike. You have to start pedaling yourself. That's when commitment will grow and your meditation practice will really start rolling.

Befriending My Demon

Some time after my parents passed away, my family gathered at my parents' home, our childhood home, to divvy up their belongings. When we were finished with the more obvious items, we combed the house for anything else one of us might want. Searching a drawer in the basement, I came across the little guy in the picture. We were all surprised; no one remembered seeing him while we were growing up. Later, a little online searching would reveal that this bronze figure is a devil or satyr fireplace damper pull--it would dangle over the fire on a chain from the damper and glow red as it heated. But at the moment we saw him, no one had any idea what he was.

When I was little, the basement was a spooky place, especially in the dark--I couldn't run up the stairs fast enough. Sometimes I'd have nightmares about little demonic beings coming up from the basement. As I grew, my dream demons were replaced by an invisible, disembodied but menacing evil presence. When I married and started a family, I no longer felt personally endangered by the demonic presence, but I'd have nightmares in which it threatened my wife and children.

I had my first lucid dream when I was about 14, and from then on, I had spontaneous lucid dreams once or twice a month. I enjoyed becoming aware in my dreams. Lucid dreams were always vivid, feeling almost more real than waking life, and sometimes, I had amazing experiences. When I was in my 50s, one night I dreamed I was in an brightly lit white attic. Suddenly, I felt the invisible evil presence gather at the opposite end of the room. This time, the presence triggered lucidity. Realizing this was a dream and nothing bad could happen to me, I decided to accept whatever would happen.

As I stood there, the presence coalesced into the form of a teenage boy, someone I'd known, a pariah, not one of the cool kids. I remained present with my sense of dread, and I consciously relaxed. He walked across the room, stood in front of me, and reached out and hugged me. As he dissolved into me, the sense of evil dissipated, and I felt almost overwhelming compassion and acceptance.

As time passed, I could tell that the dream had changed my relationship with the demonic presence. I still would dream of it occasionally, but now, it felt lonely, eager to be accepted, as if it were a puppy. I wasn't afraid of it anymore, but instead, I felt affection for it. I sensed that it had been trying to protect me, probably from very intense subconscious material. In another dream, I went down to the basement again and felt the presence. But the dark, frightening basement of my boyhood had changed into a walk-out basement, with windows and a door to the outside, filled with light. The wall opposite the exterior was lined with filing cabinet drawers. I opened one, and I knew that all the material in every cabinet was now available to me.

So, years later, when I opened the drawer in my parents' basement and came across the damper devil, I felt an immediate sense of recognition. I asked if anyone else wanted him, and when no one spoke up, he was mine. Back home, I cleaned him up a bit and placed him on the bottom shelf of my meditation altar. I feel a deep, compassionate connection with him. He's a tangible reminder of the path we're all on, the journey to recover the parts of ourselves that we've lost.

Remarks on an Unremarkable Brain

I had an MRI last week, to diagnose a partial hearing loss, nothing horrible, especially at this stage of my life. My ENT gave me a copy of the report, and I'm drawn to this sentence: "The enhanced and unenhanced MR appearance of the brain is unremarkable."

I know that were Mom still alive, she would disagree. Mom was all about the brain, and she was sure that each of her sons had a remarkable cerebrum. She raised us to be smart. I don't know how many timed math and spelling tests she gave me after school, right in the door, before homework or play time or anything else. Mom even wrote and self-published a book about how to raise scholars, Hey, Grandma, a source of much embarrassment. I was a National Merit Scholarship semifinalist--I always tested well. But a scholar, no.

Mom would be chagrined to learn that the family ear trouble has touched me. Mom's side of the family had a history of ear problems, some of which have trickled down to my sibs and me. Mom had Meniere's disease, and besides nearly total hearing loss, she suffered from balance problems and vertigo. Tough Nordic farm girl that she was, she insisted on her independence, pulling her arm away from an offered hand and weaving her way over uneven sidewalks like a drunken sailor.

While I am relieved that the MRI report tells me that "Ventricles are appropriate size" and "The orbits, sella, and vascular structures appear within normal limits," I still come back to "appearance of the brain is unremarkable." Mom would take umbrage. Sorry, Mom.

Time to Get Ready

Evidence is mounting for future catastrophic effects of climate change and resource depletion. We need to get ready for the coming changes.

To limit the change in global average temperature to 2° C, the world must rapidly reduce and eliminate fossil fuel consumption. In fact, we have waited so long to make meaningful cuts to fossil fuel use that now, the cuts we need must happen so quickly that the effect will be similar to a collapse. But the phase-out of fossil fuels by itself will not achieve the goals of the Paris Accord. We also would need to quickly develop, test and deploy some new technology to remove and sequester carbon from the atmosphere.

Neither major US political party has demonstrated the will to either cut fossil fuel use or to develop and deploy carbon-removing technology. It seems inevitable that global average temperature will shoot past 2° C. Some climate scientists have predicted a change of between 7° and 10° C, changes big enough to endanger the survival of the human race. One "optimistic" scientist has said that change will be limited to 4° C, because civilization will collapse, limiting further greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate change is only one part of the larger, more general problem of overshoot. In 1972, the Limits to Growth predicted collapse due not only to environmental problems, but also the finite availability of resources. The study was largely dismissed, but a recent look at how the predictions from the Limits to Growth have fared has shown that the world is still on track for global collapse. In fact, according to the study, we are in the early stages of collapse.

So it's time--probably past time--that we begin to ready for collapse. There are three broad issues that we should address.

First, we need to prepare to deal with refugees. Millions of people will be fleeing increasing heat in the south and flooding along the coasts. In fact, we already have absorbed Katrina refugees from Louisiana. This problem will accelerate. We need to have a plan in place.

Second, we need to plan for less and less help from outside our area. Federal, regional and even state resources will be stretched to the breaking point. We should assume that we'll be left to our own devices to cope with local problems. Already, the Federal government has proven inadequate to deal with major disasters. We should inventory our strengths, what we have locally that will help us or be available for barter with nearby communities, and we need to account for our weaknesses, needs that will be difficult to meet. Then we should plan ways to mitigate weaknesses and build on strengths. For example, we're fortunate to have a university with a pharmacy college that can synthesize drugs, at least on a small scale--that's a strength. We lack local sources of energy--that's a weakness.

Finally, we need to make plans for an orderly out-migration of the local population, should it come to that. The area may eventually be unable to support its population. We need to identify areas that could accept refugees and develop relationships and assets along potential migration routes.

Unpleasant as the topic is, we need to start talking about collapse now, the sooner, the better.

Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome and Me

Not long ago, I got a phone call from someone who read one of my blog entries.  He's a young man suffering from chronic pelvic pain syndrome, or CPPS.  Listening to his story, his frustration and grief, took me back to the point in my own life five years ago when I started experiencing CPPS symptoms, to when I received my diagnosis and was told there's no effective cure or treatment.  The isolation, the anger and shame and depression and hopelessness--it all came back to me.  I truly did experience helplessness at that time.

I muddled through the pain and the emotions, and somehow, I felt my way into a set of practices that slowly but steadily gave my life back to me.  Feeling very fortunate, I put up a couple of web pages about my experience, in hopes that it might help someone else.  So I'm very grateful to this young man, and to the handful of people who've emailed me about CPPS.  I very much appreciate your feedback.  As a result, I've revised, updated and expanded my CPPS web site--it's here.  Thank you, all of you, for your helpful comments and questions.

CPPS is isolating.  At the worst point, my CPPS kept me from traveling more than a half an hour by car.  I had trouble sitting through movies.  I didn't feel like going out.  The isolation fed into the sadness and hopelessness.  So, when I hear from anyone who has CPPS, I respond as quickly as I can.

If you're suffering from CPPS, please take a look at my CPPS web site.  I hope you find something there that helps.  At any rate, it's free, and it's the best information I have available to me at the moment, based on what works for me.  And if you have a question or just want to communicate with someone who's been there, please write me.  You should be able to find my email address on my blog.

What is the Alexander Technique?

In India, sadhus (ascetic students of yoga) sometimes practice austerities, committing themselves to difficult, long-term observances.  One example is hand raising.  A devoted sadhu may decide to raise his hand and never lower it.  We in the West look at a practice like hand raising and wonder how a person could do that.  We would never choose to deliberately contort our bodies for years at a time.

But in fact, like the hand-raising sadhus, we do practice bodily austerities.  The difference between us and the sadhus is that they consciously choose to practice mindfully.  But we develop our bodily contortions unconsciously, mindlessly, seldom realizing what we are doing to ourselves.

As young children, we are taught to sit still for long periods of time, often in chairs or desks that don't quite fit our growing bodies.  We learn to focus our minds and ignore bodily sensations.  At home, we learn how to slump on the sofa and watch TV or play video games, remaining out of touch with our bodies as we lose ourselves in the sounds and images.  We learn how to deal with tension and unwanted emotions by holding them in our bodies.  We graduate and take jobs that demand continual repetition of bodily movements, maybe on an assembly line, maybe at a desk.  If we have a career devoted to abstract mental tasks, we sit for hours at a time in poorly designed office furniture, working with our minds and ignoring our bodies. 

In our 20s and into our 30s, our youthful bodies can adapt remarkably well.  Somewhere in our late 30s, however, our bodies most likely begin to try to get our attention--a little twinge here, a small ache there.  By the time we're in our 40s, after a couple decades practicing the Western equivalent of hand-raising, our bodies raise the volume of their protests.  The aches and pains are more intense and last longer.  We might have a sleepless night once in awhile or miss a day of work now and then.  Pain relievers and sleep aids begin appearing in our medicine cabinets.  A chiropracter or massage therapist might find a place in our address books.

And then one day, our bodies finally demand our undivided and complete attention.  The pain reaches a level of intensity that cannot be appeased, and it does not go away.  We discover that the medical community has no good answer for our suffering.  We wonder how this happened, and we begin searching for a way out.

If you are as lucky as I am, you may find an Alexander Technique instructor.  The Alexander Technique has been a very important part of my way out of chronic pain.  An instructor can see unnatural patterns of muscular tension and knows how to help the student perceive them, too.  She gradually, patiently guides the student to release muscles that have been held dysfunctionally for years.  Instead of trying to teach an idea of correct or good posture, which really is just another form of bodily holding and rigidity, she instills the idea of ease of use, of the body as a dynamic, ever-moving system.

Much about the Technique seems counterintuitive or just plain wrong at first.  The Technique is a form of undoing, of unlearning, of breaking habits, of changing the way the body is felt and perceived.  When the instructor first helps the body release into an easier state, it often feels odd, or even wrong.  Many times, my instructor has had to show me in the mirror that, no, despite the sensation that I'm leaning to the left, that I'm tipping forward, that my legs are bent, in reality, I am standing more nearly upright than I have in a long time.

The Technique can be an emotional as well as a physical exploration.  The body can hold anger, fear, embarrassment, shame, guilt.  Releasing the body can be like opening a shaken bottle of emotional soda.  The emotions can bubble up, memories can gush into consciousness.  The enhanced bodily awareness I've received from the Technique also is an enhanced emotional awareness.  When I feel my left abdomen tensing, I know I'm becoming upset.  When I feel my lower back become rigid, I'm aware that I'm feeling embarrassed.

The Technique is an ongoing education.  The lessons continue out in daily life.  I learn something new about my body and emotions nearly every day.  The Alexander work has given me a sense of curiosity about my body and its relationship to my mind and the world around me.  I'm feeling a pain in my jaw?  That's interesting!  I wonder what would happen if I invite my shoulder to relax?  I'm feeling tension in my hip.  Fascinating!  Could it be related to this deadline I'm working under?  What would happen if I took a short break and breathed deeply for a few seconds?

After a couple of years of working with my Alexander instructor, I am free of the chronic pain that led me to her.  But I continue the work.  As each layer of tension, each pattern of holding, peels away, I find a new layer underneath.  Lifting away the pain reveals new possibilities of a visceral joy and ease.  I can't wait to see what I'll find tomorrow.

Mortification in 12 Items or Less

I enjoy grocery shopping.  I usually run into someone I know and have a chance to catch up with them.  The grocery store is a great place to practice mindfulness and patience.  I'm rarely in a hurry when I'm at the store.  It's a good opportunity to tune into the fact that everyone shopping is trying to feed a household, trying to make sense of the huge selection of foods, trying to balance quality and taste and budget.

Yesterday afternoon, I went down to the store to pick up a couple of items we needed for dinner.  As I made my way through the busy parking lot and entered the store, I patted myself on the back for remembering the tote bag.  I grabbed a basket and walked the aisles, patiently waiting for people, picking out the few things I was searching for--milk, bread, jelly--adding a couple things I knew we might need that weren't on the list--some granola bars, a pound of hamburger.  I rechecked the list and headed for the check-out lines.

The store was busy, and all the lines were full.  I counted the items in my basket--eight--and headed for the express line.  The express line is served by two check-out stations, each with a sign hanging overhead that reads "Express line--12 items or less."  I stopped behind a woman waiting her turn.  To my left was a girl of about 12, pushing a cart that was sort of in the nearby line, but kind of angled into the express line.  I looked at her.  She smiled and said, "I'm with my mom," and nodded at the woman ahead of me.

That is when I heard someone's voice blurting out, "That's 12 items or less?"  My voice.  The woman ahead of me turned and looked at the cart, looked at her daughter, and looked at me and said, "No, you're right, we're in the wrong line."  It seemed to me she spoke those words less than enthusiastically, with a smile that seemed a bit on the icy side as she maneuvered her daughter and the cart to the back of the nearby line.

As the cashier rang up my items, I had time to feel into what had just happened.  All kinds of thoughts flew through my head.  Despite all my midwestern nice-guy upbringing, I had corrected this mother in public, in front of her child.  Sure, I was right.  But I was in no hurry.  I could have waited a couple minutes while her groceries were checked out.  But I was right, damn it!  I hadn't been nasty about it.  But how would I have felt if someone had scolded me, even nicely, in front of my children?  I let go of the train of thought as best I could and felt into the emotions running underneath, a rich stew of embarrassment and defensiveness, and even some compassion.  Ah, mindfulness practice!  So easy to do when things are simple and going well, so hard when I manage to insert my foot deeply into my mouth.

At that moment, in this busy store, somehow, the express line emptied.  I was the only person at the express counter.  The efficient young cashier at the next express register called out to the person at the end of the next line, "Ma'am, I can help you over here."  The person at the end of the next line happened to be the woman with more than 12 items.

"Oh!" she replied loudly--very loudly--"but I have 16 items!"

"That's okay," said the cashier.  "I'll check you out."

The daughter was grinning at her mom as she wheeled the cart up to the next register.  I quickly picked up my tote bag and gallon of milk, sidled by, and headed out the door.  The bag seemed a little bit heavier, what with the extra helping of mortification the universe had tossed in at the last minute.

Joy, Ambivalence, and the Quest for Rational Household Wiring

It all started when our HD TV began misbehaving.  A couple of years ago, Di and I bought a 32-inch Westinghouse LTV32w6HD LCD HD TV.  It's a fine TV, doing exactly what we'd hope a TV would do:  reliably display TV-signal content.  Or at least it did, for quite awhile.  But last year, it began having trouble displaying a stable picture.  The problem went away on its own, but returned again this year.  At first I thought the jitters might be related to a poor cable TV signal.  But I noticed that the problem appeared immediately, while the set was warming up, and also when trying to watch DVDs from our DVD player.

So last weekend, Di and I looked at HD TVs on the web site of a big-box electronics store, found a couple we thought we might like, and drove to the local outlet.  We chose a Sony Bravia KDL40EX400.  We brought the new set home, moved the Westinghouse downstairs pending disposal, and installed the Sony in its place in the family room.  I fired up the Sony, did an autoscan, and life was good.

Or so I thought.  But on closer examination, the Sony had missed several HD cable channels that the Westinghouse had found.  And occasionally, the few HD channels it did find were as jittery as the picture on the Westinghouse.

I began to suspect our home's TV cabling.  We'd had trouble with our cabling before, when we'd had the cable company install broadband service.  Much of the cable in our home was actually outside our home, run along the foundation and up the siding, from splitters near the point where utilities entered the house.  I knew splitters were evil, so I disconnected all the exterior splitters to give the best possible signal on the cable we would use for broadband service.  The cables off the exterior splitters all went to the bedrooms on the topmost level.  Since we never watched TV in bed, this was not a sacrifice.  We still had a cable signal to the two outlets we used, one in the basement and one in the family room.

But the cable installer told us the signal at the outlets was marginal for broadband, even after he cleaned up several issues with the cable plant leading up to the house.  He was sure that there were several splitters buried inside the drywall that were causing the poor signal.  He finally installed a splitter in the utility room, right after the point where the cable entered our home, and ran a new cable from the splitter to the cable modem.  That worked.  We had Internet service, we had a cable TV signal, all was well.

But now, I knew that our cable TV signal was marginal for HD service.  I had two choices:  Rewire the house, or try a cable amplifier.  Rewiring the house seemed like an expensive, laborious process, and would probably require punching several holes in the drywall throughout the house, and then drywall patching and painting.  An amplifier seemed like a much more reasonable solution--if it worked.

A little googling led me to the Radio Shack 15-2505 Bidirectional Cable TV Amplifier.  At $32.99, it would be much cheaper and easier than rewiring.  I went down to the local Radio Shack and bought one, and bought a couple of probably overpriced patch cables and a power strip.  I drove home, went down to the utility room, plugged in the power strip and the amp, ran the patch cables, and presto!  We had HD TV on the Sony.  I did another autoscan.  The Sony picked up all the HD channels and had a great picture.  Success!

On a hunch, I plugged in the Westinghouse in the basement and turned it on.  The jitters were gone!  My best guess is that the poor signal affects the Westinghouse right at power-on, even if the input source is set to something other than the cable input.  This makes the Westinghouse extremely sensitive to signal quality.  But with a good signal, no problem.

Time to sit back, pop a cold one, and bask in contentment from a job well down.  But...  My sysadmin ethos would not let me relax.  Not yet.  Not with a rat's nest of cable and an amp and power strip sitting loose on a shelf down in the utility room.  Long had the technophile half of me dreamed of some kind of elegant structured home wiring system--a beautiful home-run phone-cable TV-data plant centered around a panel in the utility room that would house some kind of phone distribution center, an Ethernet switch, and a cable TV amplified splitter.  I'd fantasized about how to pull cable into various hard-to-get-at locations around the house, without breaking out the drywall.  I'd spent lost hours googling for equipment, staring at the structured wiring center at a home improvement store, doodling cable runs on pieces of scrap paper.  Yes--I admit it.  I am a geek.

Here was an opportunity to do something along these lines, to clean up the mess in the utility room and create some tiny beginning, some small seed, of a sensible home wiring system.  I grabbed the step ladder and a tape measure, headed downstairs to cries of "What are you up to?" from Di, took a few measurements, and headed out.  First stop:  Nagle Lumber, where I found a scrap of plywood just the right size.  I bought some other items I needed--screws and some plastic cable clips--and headed home.  Down to the basement again, and an hour or so later, I had the power strip and amplifier mounted on screws from the plywood bolted to the wall.

The patch cables hung from plastic clips.

Beautiful!

At last!  Time to sit back and enjoy the fruits.  But a couple things about this adventure diminished my contentment.  For one thing, I like to spend money at locally owned businesses, but for various reasons, Di and I had bought our Sony at a big-box store--we hadn't even looked at a local appliance store.  Slager's is the only one that comes to mind.  I did go to Nagle's, a locally owned home improvement store.  But that was depressing--it sure looks like Nagle's is not getting much traffic.

I'd tried placing the cable amp near the TV, in hopes that if it worked, I could put the power brick for the amp on the power strip for our home entertainment center.  We like to turn the power strip off when no one is using any of the audio/video equipment, to eliminate phantom loads.  The amp doesn't need to draw current when no one is watching TV.  But putting the amp near the TV did not produce a usable signal.  For the best signal, the amp needs to be placed before the splitters.  This means the amp will be on all the time, even when the TVs are off.

Finally, all my effort produced a better TV signal.  But is that necessarily a good thing?  Now all the reality TV shows, the political mud fests, the stupid pet tricks--all that is now available to me in HD.  Great.  Okay, I do get a beautiful HD picture on our PBS channels, too.

I'm reminded of a passage from Shikasta, by Doris Lessing.  She describes a typical middle-class mother in a developed country going about her daily routine, shopping for groceries and making a meal--but unlike mothers in ages past, her satisfaction in providing for her family is tinged with doubt and anxiety.  She knows that maybe the food she's serving her family really isn't all that good for them, maybe it's laden with pesticides, maybe it's tainted, maybe it was produced in a manner that contributes to the destruction of the ecosystem.

Oh, but, hey!  Look at that!  Madonna is on The Marriage Ref!  Honey, could you get me another brewski?

Transparency

The folks at the Sunlight Foundation aren't putting virtual logos of contributors on speakers at the health care summit, but they have the right idea.  As each person speaks, a list of their top contributors appears beside the window.  Great idea!

Claire Davies Saves My Life--Again!

What one book would I want with me if I were stranded on a desert island? Right now, that book would have to be The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook, by Claire Davies.  I've been working with a chronic pain condition for the past four years.  Self-administered trigger point massage is one of my primary tools.  It's relieved my pain and given me back my mobility.  Without it, I'd probably still be standing when I ride the bus, unable to drive for more than a few miles at a time, and swallowing handfuls of ibuprofen throughout the day.

And I wouldn't have healed enough to get back out on my bike last summer.  My wife loves to bike, and she's missed me for the past couple of years.  But last summer, I finally felt whole enough to dust off my bike helmet, pump up the tires on my Trek, and pedal.  We had a great time riding around Iowa City on weekends.

On Labor Day, we were flying downhill on Dubuque Street toward Waterworks Prairie Park, when the lip of the pavement caught my front wheel.  I crashed down onto my left shoulder and skidded along several yards of concrete.  Di said I was going about 30 when it happened.  I left a lot of knee and elbow on the road and had a lovely bruise on my left hip for quite awhile, but I didn't break anything.  And my bike was fine!  I had a little stiffness and pain in my left shoulder, which I figured would improve with time.  But gradually, the pain has worsened, and my range of motion has become more limited.

My theory about my pain condition is that it's primarily a mental disease.  The problem stems from the idea that the mind is primary and is the master of the body, that will alone can whip the body into line.  When pain flares up, the mind goes to work, trying to solve this problem, trying to diagnose and cure, trying to fix things.  But this approach almost never works with my chronic pain condition, and in fact, it can lead to worse pain and more limited motion.

After I'd been using trigger point massage awhile and had reduced chronic pain to a manageable level, I began seeing an ease of movement therapist.  She's helped me unlearn some of the body patterns that contributed to my pain condition, which has improved my life considerably.  With her help, I came to see that I'd been stretching incorrectly, tensing instead of relaxing into the stretch.  I've had great success with stretching the way she has taught me; I'm probably more limber now than I was before the pain condition developed.

So as the pain in my shoulder grew and my range of motion decreased, I decided to try to stretch my way back to wholeness.  I made what I thought to be an educated guess as to which muscles might be causing the problem and began stretching.  I should have known better.  This was my old mental pattern sneaking up on me again, convincing me that I could diagnose and fix myself.  In fact, I was most likely making things worse.  The pain continued to worsen, and I was having trouble putting on my coat or reaching for dishes in the cupboards.

Yesterday, I was on the road for four hours.  As I got ready for bed last night, I knew I'd be up again in the dark, knocking back some ibuprofen and sitting down with the heating pad.  And I was right.  As I sat on the sofa and waited for the heat and the pills to kick in, I dug out my Claire Davies and flipped through the section on shoulders.  For some reason, I spent some time with the section on the subscapularis.  And there were all my symptoms--why hadn't I seen this before?

I looked at the treatment diagrams and worked my fingers into my armpit.  A flash of excruciating it-hurts-so-good-I-can't-stand-it pain, and I knew I was onto something.  After I'd worked on my subscapularis for a few minutes, the pain was gone.  Remarkable!

So, of course, I've diagnosed and fixed my problem, right?  Wrong!  The tricky thing about trigger points is that the referred pain can create trigger points in other muscles, creating a complicated web of tension and pain.  The pain and limited motion affect the way I hold and move my body, which can overwork other muscles and lead to more problems--which can feed back into the original painful area.  I've learned from hard experience that searching for a single cause and a single fix is pointless and can in fact worsen the situation.  What works much better is a sense of curiosity and exploration, a sense of acceptance of the body as it is in the present moment and a willingness to work with it just as it is.

Right now, I'm typing this blog relatively pain-free.  My shoulder feels great!  I'll continue working with the subscapularis.  But I know I also need to continue massaging my other shoulder muscles, continue exploratory and tension-free passive stretching, continue checking in with how I'm using my body, with how my thoughts and emotions are interacting with my muscles.  It's a way of life, not a quick fix, like a pill, but a very interesting and remarkable journey.

But Claire Davies, you have saved my life again!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Bye-bye, Brugh

Last December, Brugh Joy passed away.  Brugh originally had been a doctor.  He'd interned at Johns Hopkins and finished his training at the Mayo Clinic.  He was a practicing physician until a bout of pancreatitis steered him toward alternative medicine.  Brugh dove into energy healing, Jungian work, and dreams.  He left his medical career and began leading self-development workshops.  Michael Crichton wrote about his experience at one of Brugh's seminars in his book Travels.

My wife and I do dreamwork once a month with a couple of friends who are students of Brugh's.  In 2008, they got me into one of his weekend workshops, in Chicago.  It was an amazing experience!  At the first meeting, he led a heart-centered ritual that inducted everyone into the work for the weekend.  I was amazed at how this one 80-something man could work with all 25 of us, taking each of us deep into the work.

In the evening, after the last session of the day, Brugh was chatting with me, when he casually put his right hand on my chest and his left on my back.  I felt intense energy flow through my chest, blowing my heart open.  Every morning, we'd do dreamwork.  He'd call for dreams, and he'd go around the circle and got right into the meat of each dream immediately.  And the dreams I had while I was there were very big, very vivid, as if Brugh's presence had evoked powerful forces from my subconscious.

This turned out to be my only chance to work with Brugh in person.  Brugh had had pancreatic cancer sometime in the 1990s and had fully recovered.  He was in such good health that he went on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash in Tibet a couple of years ago.  But in 2009, he was diagnosed with a recurrence of his pancreatic cancer, his third experience with pancreatic health issues.  This time, there was no recovery.

The way Brugh worked with treatment for his cancer, and the way he approached his death, was a lesson in itself.  He treated chemotherapy as if it were a holy sacrament.  He was totally open to whatever happened, and he met his own death with a sense of wonder and curiosity.

Most of the people in the Chicago group had known Brugh for several years, some for a couple of decades, so I was surprised and grateful when I received email inviting me to a celebration of Brugh's life with the rest of the group.  I went with my friends to Chicago last Sunday, and we all gathered again.  We sat in a circle, conducted a Brugh heart ritual, and shared stories.  Brugh was certainly there in spirit.

I'm grateful to have had the chance to work with Brugh.  He helped me come to terms with my chronic pain condition.  He showed me that working with the physical body is a valid spiritual path.  His advice to find some type of body movement practice, such as dance or martial arts, led me to tai chi, which has been very good for me on a number of levels.  So even though I knew Brugh for just a little while, I'm going to miss him.