Holding My Breath - A Private Garden Within (Act 2)

I take a deep breath through the nostrils. Inhale. Exhale. I turn inward, letting my mind and heart meld into equilibrium. I knock on the front door of the gate guarding the chambers of my Self. It opens, and somehow the equilibrium acts as a key to entry. Stairs descend and curve like a corkscrew deep into darkness. A thousand-mile trek only to arrive at a lush garden, illuminated by Splendor, and located far beneath even the longings inside me.

A gardener greets me, tilling the soil with a plowshare. "Ahhh, it is so good to see you Ryan...welcome to the Garden. Come and make yourself at home. After all, this is your home. As we have collaborated over the years, look how much progress we have made! The toil has been sweet wouldn't you say?"

I spend about 2 minutes taking it all in before responding "It is good to be here. It has been a long time. Sojourning is exhausting—the soul can experience hunger and thirst, blisters and frostbite, cacti and barbed wire...solitude and loneliness" I reply. "Fatigue has carried me home, however, this is where I belong during the harsh season—I need Shelter. I need connection to myself. I need restoration inward, for any hope of embodiment outward..." I raise my head to look the gardener in the eyes, "time in this lush space is exactly what I need to cultivate myself."

"Well then, we are glad to have you here. Spend some time and take it all in, my friend. Since you last visited, there is much to explore: The Table has been built, The Wellspring is now working, and The Cabin has finally been finished. I can take you on a tour if you would like. How is it with your soul?" the gardener asks with concern and care.

"I am burdened. The outer world I see above is deeply afflicted. Contagion spreads every moment—the neural pathways of our Western world seem ravaged by something. An unfolding has been happening—one can only hope an artist's hand is guiding the paintbrush, however inconspicuously and cloaked in Mystery it may be. It is ominous outside. Real Feeling is poverty-stricken nowadays—it has desiccated; our culture is a swamp and real Feeling cannot take root. Anger and sentiment obscure the pathway to Feeling, rendering Fatherness blind and Motherness disembodied." The gardener has an inquisitive expression, debating whether or not to ask a question.

"Tell me, how did you find this place? It has been almost 15 years since we last saw you. What led you here?" asked the gardener.

"This will sound mysterious, but some kind of feeling brought me here. Not emotion, something much more potent—much deeper—than mere emotion. I can only answer in imprecise language. It was Feminine energy that brought me here somehow. I cannot explain it. It somehow seems that the feminine side of a man is to connect him within the depths of his inner being and to make a bridge to his deepest self." The gardener listens intently. A wry smile forms on its face.

Suddenly, I remembered the gardener's offer, "About your offer for a tour, yes, that would be nice! Let me rest on that bench over there for a bit. I need to take in and absorb all the beauty down here. I had forgotten this Private Garden even existed, and I have never managed to enter into this place—it has always been blocked. Who cleared the entrance?" The gardener does not reply, but only points at the bench and says "Please, sit."

I finally collapse onto the bench and look around for a bit. It is quite beautiful down here but I have no recollection of actually entering the garden. The lower entrance—at the bottom of the corkscrewed stairs a thousand miles deep—has been impenetrable, or so I thought. I search my memories looking for some clue or pattern—a pre-existing condition that brought me to this place of inwardness. The common thread seemed to be the experience of suffering. Yes, it was suffering—or rather the desperation associated with suffering—that compelled me to descend the winding stairway...getting lost along the way—the darkness! Oh, the thick darkness! Every time I would make the trek, there seemed to be some kind of Handless Maiden inside me guiding the way. Her presence would inexplicably direct through a tug, a beckoning, a whisper. This Feminine entity performed some kind of function. I could feel her prodding. Each time I managed to reach the bottom of the stairs—so far down—the entrance of the Garden was always covered by thorns, briars, and Machineel which blocked me. I tried to clear it away but always ended up pricking myself and bleeding profusely. Over time, that became its function to me: I am positively certain that I have used this garden to bleed which in turn would evoke Feeling within me, however unpleasant—yes, I remember now: it functioned as Feeling for me. ‘How did these thistles and thornbushes get cleared?’ I wondered to myself, sitting on the bench.

"We cleared them together." said the gardener. Dumbfounded, I look its way, puzzled. Was I talking to myself or...how did the gardener know what I was thinking just now? "Well, you cleared them. I just directed you from afar. I was on the other side, in here, but we learned how to cooperate. It was that very same feminine that brokered communication between us. Most men that come down here have no resonance with their disowned Feminine. She has been banished and cut off by the sword. The swamp above...a cultural Thing roams about, culling and ravaging anybody planting roots. Virtually nothing takes hold anymore. A Divine Breath of the feminine is desperately needed up top, as the function of feeling needs resuscitation. But we are getting ahead of ourselves..." the gardener says.

I reflect on the gardener's words for a while. I can't tell if thinking is talking or talking is thinking in this mysterious place. This time I most certainly talk out loud as I want to know more about this Handless Maiden called The Feminine. "That is interesting in fact. There is a lot to unpack in what you said. Come to think of it, I have always been sensitive to Life. Perhaps my experience of Mutilation was a blessing in some mysterious way, however insane that sounds. I have often wondered to myself 'Where does all my empathy come from? Is it nature or nurture? A personality trait?' That doesn't seem right. It was only recently that I concluded it must have come from my Horror experience along with that Sacred Tear deposited by The Eyeless. However, maybe it was the unforgettable shriek of The Mother? The Banshee's Voice! Yes, perhaps that, in actuality, was my first experience of this symbolic thing we refer to as the Feminine—the feeling function—which I experienced without knowing. I heard it with my ears as I witnessed with my eyes." I finally stopped, a sense of wonder had come over me. Have I made a connection with my Self?

The gardener has one hand on the chin with the other hand acting as a prop beneath the elbow. A contemplative expression is etched into the gardener's face. "This topic is of great interest to me. Let us start our tour, shall we?" The gardener beckons me to follow. I stand up to stretch. I need to gather myself. Something about the gardener radiates wisdom and life. I need to pay attention and Feel its words. It speaks in a different language almost—a transition from words to symbols perhaps?

"Over there is the Wellspring. It descends another thousand miles beneath even this place and accesses the essence of who you are: where Spirit and Soul converge. To drink from it is to drink the nectar of death: The Midnight Hymn" says the gardener.

Puzzled and guarded, I ask something between suspicion and curiosity, "Why would anybody do that? What kind of alchemy produces such a thing? What does it actually do to a person?"

"Expansiveness. One drinks deeply in order to expand. It facilitates a transformation in how you relate, feel, and connect with others. The boundary of 'you' and 'not you' changes. 'You' expands while 'not you' contracts. Said another way, it shrinks 'them or it' by expanding your ability to partake in the humanity of others. Your capacity to love changes. The purest, most unvarnished form of love…the kind that enables you to look at another person and see God in their eyes. The lens by which one sees Beauty becomes clearer, sharper, and more focused. Repulsiveness and plainness dissolve and make room for something new…" the gardener says while beckoning me to come closer to The Wellspring.

"Most interesting. I want that. I need that." It was at this moment that I started turning the winch of The Wellspring for what seemed like hours. Finally, an old dingy bucket emerged from deep below. A black, gooey, liquid fills the voluminous container.

"Go ahead, drink!" says the gardener. "It looks disgusting!" I shout as fear starts enveloping me.

"Disgust, yes, you are right about that. It transforms disgust and makes the mouth agape so that it can swallow Value. Drink. Drink deep into your soul. Drink from The Midnight Hymn. Beauty will prevail" says the gardener. "The alchemical process is known as eucontamination, a word that the outer world only recently coined—by brother and sister, stranger and kin, hoarded by the Hoards but finally released into the universe. It decontaminates." The gardener's words pierce me. Something about the way the gardener is speaking: not at me, but rather into me. "Love is the eucontaminent—it inverts the logic of disgust and contamination." **

I drink. Every. Last. Drop. It takes only 30 seconds for my vision to change. I can see differently. Vibrancy. Sharpness. As if Beauty has been recalibrated in some way. I see...no that is not right, I can feel value all around me. It is almost as if I now have two sets of eyes. Physical, which only operates through subject/object duality. Then Spirit, which only operates through Feel but actually 'sees' Value—it cannot see things, rather it can only see Verbs. Actions. Movement. The hidden part of the soul behind an action. Invisible longings. The gardener finally speaks, "Shall we move on? I am glad you dared to drink from the Wellspring. Most do not. Disgust can be a difficult thing to overcome. The emotion of disgust is quite powerful." says the gardener.

"I do have one more question...", I intervene, "How does the bucket get filled with new substance? And where does it come from?" The gardener looks down as if debating whether or not to answer. After careful consideration, the gardener speaks "It is through your suffering—and that of The Suffering Servant. The Wellspring is filled when you contend with suffering, sorrow, grief, and joy. Any wanting inside a person will, by necessity, lead to contention with suffering, sorrow, grief, and joy." The gardener watches my glazed face as I ponder these words and start talking to myself, "It seems all of life is—at the end of the day—really just about how we contend with these four experiences: suffering, sorrow, grief, and joy. The sculpting of one's internal face is somehow chiseled, formed, refined, and illuminated by one's contentions. I wonder how…" Just when I realize I am lost in a trance, the gardener speaks.

"Let us sit at The Table next. Come, follow." The gardener places an arm around me with anticipation on its face. We move as two chums on a slow walk through a park, taking in the beauty, only to arrive at a glossy, wooden, table. It seats twelve. Surrounding the table are flowers of all different colors, shapes, and sizes.

"Have a seat and let us enjoy each other's company. This is a place of Hospitality. Guests that feast here will bring much-needed hospitality back to the outer world." says the gardener. "I know your sojourning has brought great conflict to your soul. The contagion above vexes you. Only hospitality can bring the sustenance your soul needs. The Table we are sitting at does not differentiate friend from foe. It welcomes even the strangest of strangers, the most other of others, the most foreign of foreigners. It nourishes the malnourished and connects the disconnected. Hospitality feeds the soul.” The gardener pauses for a long while as if pondering whether or not to continue.

“How does this relate to the contagion up above? What does feasting here actually do up there in the outer?” I ask leaning in, listening intently.

”What I am about to say will sound esoteric. Feasting at the Table brings attunement—it connects Self with Source…the primal of life itself. Language becomes inadequate to convey what transpires inside the hungry who feast at the Table. It brings an awareness of Encounter up above. Subject-to-subject encounter. Your feeling function will trigger resonance inside you when you encounter Encounter itself. The contagion which has been metastasizing above—for hundreds of years now—is the woundedness embedded in Western individualism. It is disconnection with Self. It is mechanical IT-ness and breeds only subject-to-object experience. Encounter rarely grows anymore in the swamp of Things. Only utility and instrumentality take root there—and with that, the cancer of the soul begins—the effacement of the feeling function. The negation of Value and an inability to find joy, worth, and meaning in life. The ineffable—love, kindness, friendship, generosity, and beauty all lose their Lustre."

The gardener finally finishes and looks down silently—solemnity painting its face—as it begins to weep. The tears appear as blood, somehow transforming instantaneously into salty wetness whenever I blink. Am I seeing things? What just happened? I notice a large red blood stain on the side of the gardener—whether it is a wound or a symbol, perhaps both, I cannot tell—but some kind of piercing must have taken place. Once again I blink and the crimson red vanishes only to be transformed into wetness.

The gardener unfolds a napkin and blots the tears bedewing cheeks that glow. "Are you hungry or thirsty? There is much in the way of sustenance at The Table. Let us feast together. Simply imagine and it will appear. Let us feed the souls of the poverty-stricken and oppressed. Feasting here brings Encounter out there, which will now become discernable through your experience right here at the Table.”

I imagine platters of delectable food and drink—side dishes, cheeses, fruits, and wine grace the table. The gardener and I dine for many hours together. We laugh, tell stories, and delight to be in the presence of one another. I begin to realize what is going on: This is attunement taking place. The vibrations moving inside me are indeed discernable. Recognizable. This is Encounter happening. This is resonance. I take inventory of the sensation deep inside my soul. A mysterious place where Spirit and Body converge. I notice that stillness, presence, and awareness are necessary to discern Encounter swirling and begging to be birthed into actuality.

The gardener places the fork and knife down and looks directly into my eyes, “This is the resonance required to dispense Life. Equilibrium of body, soul, and spirit. A reclamation of your feminine and masculine disowned parts. As you become more conscious, your connection with all forms of matter changes—nature, people, and life itself. What we might call 'The Hospitableness of Life.'" The gardener stops talking. I can tell there is concern the dialogue we are having may be too much for me to understand.

"I think I see what you are saying. I have much to learn—no, not learn—experience. No, not even that word is adequate. I need to sit with this. I don't want to think. I must feel." A large grin begins to form on the gardener's face.

"It is time I bid you farewell, Ryan. I'll give you directions to The Cabin, but it is your journey to embark on. Head down that path a little way, and turn Left. You will cross a drawbridge—follow the path to find your abode. Before you go I have something to give you."

"Now you have me curious," I say, perplexed. The gardener hands me three envelopes. Two are white with a black lacquer seal. One is black with a white lacquer seal.

"The memories of your pain and your longings. Consider the thorns, thistles, and Machineel blocking the garden entrance years ago. I have been waiting for this visit for a long time. Sometimes it is in death that beauty prevails. I bid you farewell, Ryan. Rest in presence. Once you are ready to leave, you will return to the outer. Come back anytime, and I will be here to welcome you. May we forever collaborate—you in the outer and I in the inner.”

I put the three envelopes in my side pocket and embrace the gardener with a long, tender hug. “Peace be with you friend”. The gardener smiles before replying, “And also with you.” I turn away and begin walking about 1 mile, before turning Left. I follow the path, just as instructed by the gardener, only to cross a small bridge overlooking a lush stream. I stop to breathe in the fresh air and watch the unfolding—the rhythm of Life all around me. The movement of water, the exhaling of flower’s scent, the hearing of the trees. The Legless, The Mouthless, and The Earless are all present in simultaneity. After what seemed like an eternity, I turned to resume my journey toward The Cabin.

It took about twenty minutes of slow walking to finally reach a small enclave forged between two large boulders covered in green moss. I slip through and find a sprawling field with lush green grass. In the middle is a small cabin built from what appears to be cedar and Ipe wood. I scan the field and take in the surroundings before walking about a hundred yards to The Cabin entrance—a shaded area with an oak door. This is a place of comfort and safety. There is no need to knock, this is my Cabin after all.

I enter the abode and immediately sense a miraculous form of wholeness. It is my first time entering this seemingly tranquil place. The single room of the Cabin looks eerily similar to my place in the outer 15 years ago—a place in complete disarray—my living quarters in 2007. The room somehow represents the disowned parts of Self from many years ago. A disheveled bed that has not been made in years with soft bamboo sheets beckoning me to lie down and rest. I notice books scattered across the floor, pages ripped out, and wrinkled clothes spread everywhere. Pots and pans litter the kitchen with mold and algae surrounding the perimeter where water touches iron. The room is dank. I move debris off a small sofa making room for me to sit down. Exhausted, I start to doze off and fall into a deep sleep. A vivid dream emerges from my unconscious, some kind of memory encoded in symbols, a puzzle beckoning me to hear, see, and decrypt:

An image of a White Straitjacket emerges with a large cross scribed in what appears to be ashen charcoal on the front. On the back side of the Straitjacket is the word 'REFORMED' written in bold letters. In italics beneath are three small phrases written in cursive: Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia. The image dissipates after presenting itself in such vividity. I start to feel nauseous. Another memory flashes before me, accompanied by a deep wincing—an ulcer of the soul. There is an image of a beating heart impaled on a large pike surrounded by picket signs sticking out of the ground all with different words written on each: "OBEY!" "HE WHO BEGAN A GOOD WORK..." "ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER..." "DEPRAVITY!" "TEAR ASUNDER" "YOUR LOVE IS VILE". Suddenly, I witness a frenzied man in his 30s standing in front of the pike beating on the impaled heart with his fists fiercely. His knuckles no longer have skin. The heart is still beating, but just barely. Its heart rate is precisely 33 beats per minute, the exact age of the young man expressing his rage—at himself. I glimpse his face only to realize it is my Self, beating my heart with pugilistic fury.

“Oh. My. God. I haven’t thought about this young man in 15 years.” I say to myself in the dream. Somehow my current Self is present, watching the 33-year-old me ruthlessly pummel his organ suspended on a pike. This broken man needs to know he is not alone. He needs Hope, desperately. I decide to walk up behind him as he pummels a vital part of himself. I lay my right arm on his right shoulder, and my left arm on his left shoulder. Gently I squeeze. "Ryan, you can stop now. You are crucifying yourself. You can continue, or you can turn around and face me. Face yourself. Face your face. There is beauty inside you that you cannot see." The young man turns, but his eyes have been blinded by weeping, puffed from the fangs of suffering refusing to release their hold—the Adder with its Machineel fruit. My—no his—eyes are bulged and bruised, puss dripping from underneath the lids. His forehead has the letters "S.O.S" carved into the flesh. The right eyelid is stapled shut and tattooed with the letters "Ululation". It emits tears of blood. The left eyelid is sewn and has "Desperation" seared upside down from right to left. It emits a milky white puss. The blinded derelict snarls….

“Who are you and what do you want!?!? Stay away from me! I am anathema. A Leper. Are you another Succubus? A WOE-MAN! I will never…NEVER allow another longing to bubble its oxygen into my drowning nostrils! I will never be another specimen, seduced by the Widow's Kiss. Aren’t you the one that pursued me before? Knocked on my door and told me that I was ‘special’? Boundary-less you came to me and never again will I not say NO! I say it now: NOOOO! Whatever you bring me I don't want it!!!! Who are you?….get the hell away from me! NO!!! I don't want what you have to offer you manipulative Siren!!!”

Like a dog defenseless and terrified, the younger me quivers in a corner, conscious that his life has been forever altered….

“Ryan, it is me. I bring you good tidings. I wish to give you a portion of your own compassion. You cannot see it yet, but open your eyes and look at me. You will never believe what you see...it is I, or rather it is you” the current me says tenderly to my younger Self.

“My eyelids are sewn shut and stapled off. I cannot see you nor will I ever be able to see you. You are hidden from me. You are a Tease that is allured by my scent. How did you find me? Did you sniff me out? Your eyes are likely stapled shut as well—if you are who you say you are” he says.

I notice a pulsating glow illuminating from his eye sockets. There is something hidden. A Splendor that has yet to be revealed...what is behind those eyelids waiting to be seen?

Suddenly I wake from the dream, sweating profusely. The cabin is so messy it looks like a crime scene—as if somebody has rummaged through it—but more than likely it has just been unkempt through years of self-neglect. I shift on the couch to get more comfortable and feel the envelopes in my side pocket constricting my movement. I pull all three out and toss them onto a coffee table before reclining and propping my legs up onto it. The dream haunts me, but there is something tranquil about this place, despite its appearance. I try to think about the gardener and all the things that were said to me outside The Cabin—the dialogue from The Wellspring and The Table. The two white envelopes with black lacquer seals catch my attention. Something I didn't notice at first. Each seal has a word scribed in gothic font, almost indiscernible. One envelope has the word ‘Desperation’ written across it with a date scribed beneath showing 03/17/2007. The second has ‘Ululation’ written but with a different date of 05/04/2007. These dates stir memories of my 33-year-old Self—dark memories of dark times. Strangely, a flash of musicians from Australia cross my mind, a visitation in my abode right around this time. Guido from Life is Beautiful appears momentarily. My attention moves toward curiosity and I decide to open the 'Desperation' envelope first as it is dated earlier. I pick it up and break the black lacquer seal and pull out a letter written from me and to...

Right as I open the envelope I notice the title corresponds with the word tattooed onto the swollen left eyelid of the 33-year-old me. As soon as the realization hits, my left eye starts to twitch profusely for 33 seconds and then stops. I open the letter and begin to read it:

Desperation

Lord as I sit here and think, you are on my mind.  Oh the fear that weaves itself into my soul!  This fear bubbles out of my lips thusly "Art thou with me?"  How could I ask such a question?  The damage caused seems so extensive.  My persistence of being in a relationship with my….. Is that stubbornness?  And if it is, how patient are you with me—a stiffnecked Hebrew?  Oh lord, have mercy on me!  I have lost everything it seems.  The fabric of my life is unwoven.  I am named a nomad in the desert.  I call out to you in my heart lord.  I have always had it in my heart to know you and declare you as God—the I AM.  You know as well as I those times in my youth that I acknowledged you—NO! Rather, when you acknowledged me.  That flame has been so dissipated.  How is it not gone as a result of my waywardness?  Yahweh!!!!  Hear my disjointed cries.  I am a torn man, a schism, a Raskolnikov.  Might you make me whole?  Only you can shed light; expose; heal.  Lord how do I explain walking down a dismal path such as this—amid your 'supposed' people yet so damaged and having exacted such damage in others?  You have given me over to my ways and let me drink a measure of my cup.  Oh how I long to vomit it out and not drink; yet drink it I must!  May the cries of this reprobate rise through the atmosphere and make their way into your chambers and temple—even penetrate your Ark!  May you sniff me out Lord and breathe upon me a fresh air.  Bandage my feet Lord; grease my joints and direct my ways!  Let this engine I call "my choice" move toward you—wholeness

At exactly the moment I finished the letter—the image of the 33-year-old Me flashes through my mind with the left eye now opened and Splendor bursting forth in radiance. The white milky puss of self-oppression has been lifted, or rather, my consciousness has now been expanded to realize the cry of my heart has somehow, in some way, been honored. I refuse to let my private monologue convince me that 'my prayer has been answered' rather I sit in a state of gratitude that this letter has been honored—personally and cosmically.

I reflect for a moment about how I no longer pray in the manner many are accustomed to. No private dialogue of the mind or spoken word with the lips. Rather, it is something primal waiting to be released: through writing, music, or art...and now accompanied by a connection with Self. Each season acting as a Reclamation of Lost Humanity. Integration. A movement toward wholeness, however incomplete in this lifetime.

I snap out of my private reflection and pick up the other white envelope corresponding to the right eye of the younger Me. I pull it out, unfold the letter, and begin to read:

Ululations of the heart

My God, as I sit and I write this, I am terrified.  Fear encompasses me and walls me in.  Dread and angst speak to me, whispering their names.  Why do I fear you?  Why do I fear more the absence of you?  Hope itself has dripped from the pores of my skin, like blood leaking from an old wound.  Why do I murder hope?  Why do I strangle love?  Why am I hardened to faith?

I don't come to you with questions Lord.  You are not obligated to answer me.  Indeed, You are the Questioner.  You question me, not the other way around.  My heart is far from you Lord.  I want to pursue that which I feel will 'make me happy', however far I flee from You.  I feel more in control that way.  Faith—trusting in you—is so antithetical to my nature.  It seems so impossible.  Walking in the dark, with narry a light to see.  Dying.  Always dying.  Somehow the secret of life is in dying to one's self, or at least the thought has occurred to me. A special kind of rot.

I can't find anything to solve my woes Lord, if I could erect an idol and bow down to it I would.  I have nowhere else to go lord, for every time I flee to something else you seem to come in and afflict me over time.  You let me persist in my hardness for seasons—weeks, months, years—and then you tease me Lord.  You are like a great Tease.  You peek your head from around the corner and whisper my name and beckon me, then you vanish and I am left standing in a dark hall with nothing in sight, no light to guide my way.  Emptiness and silence fill the hall and I am left blinded.  Dead in my tracks.  I can't move forward, nor can I move backward.  WHAT AM I TO DO LORD?  I cannot sit here on my couch each night, contemplating my condition, I will go crazy.  To isolate myself is to die a painful death.  It is a form of rotting.  After all, why is solitary confinement in prison the ultimate form of punishment?  We were made to relate to people.  You put that relational craving in each of us.  So why then should I hide and persist in isolation?  To what end or purpose does it serve?  I won't harm others that way, fine.  But I won't live in any capacity either.

Faith, Hope, and Love.  Can I hope in you Lord?  Might I put my faith in you?  Faith for what?  Faith that you would somehow, someday, love your creation through me, as you see fit and in your good timing.  On my own, and apart from you, I can do nothing.  Nothing which lasts at least. Faith. Hope. Love.  Uncage me Lord, in your good timing.  I'm holding on Lord, but just barely.  Strengthen these wobbly knees, these enfeebled arms of mine.  Mend this broken heart and my broken ways.  Restore this mind to health and use it for your purposes.  Teach me to love others and see them as precious and not look at them for what they can or cannot provide me. Protect me from the enemy: cursed certainty and wretched credulousness!  Shine down your light and expose.  Persevere in me.

Again, the image of the 33-year-old Me flashes through my mind, and now the right eye has opened with Splendor bursting forth in radiance. The Hemolacria of self-punishment has somehow been lifted, and with it my consciousness expanded again. How on earth did I write these groanings? This letter also has somehow been honored, for I have been Uncaged. Boundaries are now enforced. The Gordian Knot of the White Straitjacket has loosened and unraveled itself. My limbs can move again. Relationality with self and others—Truth is relational like that—now unfolds with lucidity and awareness.

I sit on the couch for a long time, experiencing Wonder and Awe, wrapped in the blankets of Gratitude and Grief. The Beauty of the moment. Somehow, no suffering is more unendurable than the presence of Beauty that one cannot see or accept—distortedness disfiguring the prism by which we see. There is a wanting inside me. It is palpable. At last I looked down and saw the final remaining envelope. It was ebony black and had a white lacquer seal. The code "S.O.S" is scribed on the seal along with the date 01/13/2007.

Stunned, I now remember this period vividly. I had just moved into an apartment, separated in a marriage doomed to fail. A decision so misguided and reckless that it would haunt me for many years to come. A spiritual spider web of my own making bound me in naivete and credulousness—the calculus for how I'd make major life decisions was akin to a wounded duckling crossing a busy highway. My own spiritual bypassing—both a cause and an effect—beckoned me into the realm of the irrational...it would take me many years to escape.

It was with great hesitation that I picked up the black envelope. An ominous foreboding told me this was going to be painful. Something hinted that I would Witness the 33-year-old me in wincing memory. I sat for almost 2 hours debating whether or not I wanted to break the seal. I thought "How on earth could this be tied to the white envelope letters I read hours ago? Those came after 01/13/2007." I needed to trace things back to a source. I remember the gardener's words "The memories of your pain and your longings. Consider the thorns, thistles, and Machineel blocking the garden years ago." Finally, it clicked, my longings were expressed in the two white envelopes. This black envelope must be the pain. I decide to open it and drink from the Midnight Hymn.

My Lamentation

"Why?  Why all this pain?  I have given up on God.  He is a capricious bastard.  I fucking give up the one person I truly love, my inamorata, to try to “do the right thing and reconcile” compelled by 'obedience'.  Only to wound and mar in the process.  I let myself get fucking controlled by coercive religious BULLSHIT.  I want to destroy my longings.  I want to strangle my masculinity by the throat. I want to carve out my heart and put it on a pike and BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF IT.   I’ve never wanted to love somebody as much as I’ve wanted to love you, inamorata.  If it wasn’t for this FUCKING BULLSHIT self-imposed oppressive FUCKING BULLSHIT system I have erected and clung to in my life.  It has betrayed me.  I condemn it, I curse it, and fucking spit on it.  How could I have been so stupid?  I get a taste of something good, and then I hope, and I trust, and then I get it ripped away from me in the name of 'obedience'.  AND THE WORST FUCKING PART IS THAT I HAVE NOBODY TO BLAME BUT ME.  *I* have caused all of this.  FUCKING ME.  FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKK.  Woe is me.  WOE IS ME.

I sit in this apartment and I weep.  I mourn.  I grieve.  This loss is unbearable.  I’m going to die.  How do I obtain relief from this affliction?  “Let go of the dream”, how? HOW?  HOW? As long as I am in bondage to this FUCKING HIDEOUS form of religious crap, I am a viper that is incapable of anything but venom.  I could only produce wounds, not bind wounds.  I could only deliver harm and not protection.  I have to leave this putrid cage."

Finally, it ends. A vivid image of the S.O.S carved into the forehead of 33-year-old me vanishes and is replaced with a white circle—a Eucharist almost—against the backdrop of a black ashen aura. "Purity juxtaposed with Darkness." I think to myself.

I decided to close my eyes while Inhaling deeply to begin the process of Holding. What is it that I am inhaling? My chest stings. It is the strong vapors of Muriatic Acid.

The Holding

I transport myself back in time. Current me enters the dank apartment of 33-year-old me. I open the door and began talking in a loud voice, "Ryan, it is me again. Come out and see yourself! You have much to be hopeful for! The Mutilated Man has visited and we have been uncaged! The entrance to the Private Garden within has been cleared, leave everything and follow me!" All the rooms are empty, nobody is there. In the small kitchen, pinned onto the refrigerator door is a folded note labeled: TO MY PURSUER. I lift the magnet and unfold the piece of paper. It reads:

"I am not sure who you are or why you are looking for me, you mysterious Pursuer. I have decided that it is finally time to choose for the first time in my life. And to own that choice. There is an infinite chasm between 'obey' and 'follow'. The former is susceptible to self-coercion, the latter to self-deceit. There is something about your presence, even if I can't see it...I sense something beautiful...a longing that is safe to hold. Something that isn't transactional. Something devoid of instrumentality. I want to see myself one day—clearly, or rather clearer. To see my face one day. If you are reading this note, then you most likely know how the story plays out. I am taking the Leap into the Abyss—it is either some kind of absurd faith or a form of internal suicide...reckless abandon. I have come to a point where I must apostatize in order to actualize, making metanoia possible. I must drink my cup, and drink it I will! Weep for me, you who are reading this. I can no longer shackle myself to the jail masquerading as 'freedom'. It is time to leave the cage of rotten wood. And stumble forth I will...."

The Exhalation

Sitting back in The Cabin, I notice a movement far away in the corner of my eye. I walk up to the window and look out beyond the field. There is a large wooden cage with the gardener next to it. Inside this cage is a small young lamb, barely able to stand. It is isolated and alone. The gardener opens the cage releasing the lamb into the lush garden. It bursts forth wanting to play, for it is finally free. The gardener crouched down, on bended knee, opening both arms to welcome the lamb. The little lamb hesitated for 33 minutes then walked up and began bunting the gardener ecstatically. I turned away from the window only to find The Cabin completely clean and orderly. The bed was made, the kitchen cleaned, and the living room well-kempt and tidy. I went immediately to the bedroom, climbed in the sheets, fell into a deep sleep, and returned to the outer world, replenished and restored....a Reclamation had taken place. One more step toward wholeness and healing.

(This piece is my way of befriending, claiming, and integrating my current Self with my 33-year-old Self. My previous piece, Act 1 of my 'Reclamation of Lost Humanity' series, focused on the integration of my 5-year-old Self with my 33-year-old Self and the narrative I used to construct meaning from experience. My focus with this piece is on exploring the feminine side of masculinity and the ways we can look inward to restore Western Individualism's fatal wound—the dissolved feeling function and the subconscious tendency we have to treat others as mere objects of instrumentality and utility.

It was recently that I was rummaging through my old emails looking for something and, strangely, I found each of the three 'letters' I had written back in 2007 in emails. I had an internal reaction reading them which I needed to explore. I felt something very real inside me and I needed to sit with it and hold it. This blog entry serves the function of exhaling and emitting a part of myself into the world. I am so much more than this blog…and certainly not less than)

With warm regards,

Ryan

** For further reading on the concept of eucontamination along with the logic of disgust; see Billie and Paul Hoard's published journal titled 'Eucontamination: A Christian Study in the Logic of Disgust and Contamination'