"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one."
T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets, Little Gidding.
Time and time again throughout my life, I recall a story my father loved to recount about me. It was just after Christmas and the garbage men came by to pick up our Christmas tree And I, not yet three-years-old, grabbed the trunk of the tree and engaged in a tug-of-war so adrenalin-drenched they were no match for me!
I thought my dad, now 83, had probably forgotten this story and so I paused while writing this and called to ask. Oh, how he laughed. No, he said. It wasn't garbage men. It was a bunch of teenage boys and they were gathering up all the Christmas trees on the block and throwing them into a fire. And I fought them off, refusing to surrender my tree. He recalls watching and laughing from the front window. He didn't even come outside. And my older brother, afraid of the neighborhood bullies, disappeared around the back of the house. So much for nurturing.
Whatever. Six of one, half dozen of the other. The fact remains that over the course of my life I have fought and refought this battle over all types of 'Christmas trees;' and so recalling this story has always served to remind me that perhaps my penchant for hyper-acceleration, my foot-to-the-floorboard, helmet-be-damned propulsion into seemingly-always-solo battles with the 'powers that be.' has never served me well. In fact, some 15 odd years ago, being stamped, stigmatized and filed away under the DSM-IV-TR labels of MDD and Cluster B/C personality disorders afforded me, for a short time, some neutrino-sized relief. Ahhhh, so that explained it all.
Except it didn't. It didn't explain it at all. It wasn't but six months before my resilient spirit reared its fury against the pharmacocktails which held my inner demons at bay. The battles with my doctor, the myraid attempts over the years to cut back, cut off, drop out of the world of the super-medicated ..well, I've shared all this before. Enough already.
Over the past 15 years, my inability to mesh with the elaborately 'unembroidered' stitching of the 'dominant worldview' has yielded disaster after disaster. Jobs I've loved but quit when asked to plagiarize. Positions I've been forced out of when CEOs refused my demands for consistency in style and editorial standards. My inability to play by the rules of the game. I just never learned how to fit in, to compromise.
But I digress. Because this diary is truly about synchronicity, about the randomness of time and place and our space within both.
Monday. 1pm. Outside Whole Foods. Grabbing a shopping cart. I look up and notice a familiar face. Beautifully coiffed, elegantly dressed -- and me, in scruffy black sweats, tosseled, lightly- brushed hair, unmatched socks and an ancient scuffed pair of Earth Shoes. Two jaws drop in simultaneous recognition. It is my dear Julia Ross, the woman who worked with me for a good six months when, over 15 years ago, an unparalleled attack of sleep deprivation claimed nearly every ounce of my sanity.
We ran comprehensive blood tests. Mind you, this was back in the day when the FDA had banned tryptophan (just at the time when Prozac hit the pharmacies), so we tried melatonin and taurine, mega minerals, natural lithium. Dramatic dietary changes. Exercice. Meditation. Acupuncture. This was before Julia became famous for her model of nutritional therapy and the publication of The Diet Cure and the subsequent The Mood Cure, which successfully introduced 5HTP to hundreds of thousands with mood disequalibrizations. And sleep disorders.
She used to call me on Saturday mornings, or in the early evening after her last client. She would talk to me for hours, soothe me, discuss new research, people she was consulting about my case. But she couldn't cure me. She didn't know why and we both finally acknowledged defeat and with shared horror turned over my case to traditional Psychiatry and the 'miracle' of SSRIs.
"The internal dialogue is what grounds people in the daily world. The world is such and such or so and so, only because we talk to ourselves about its being such and such and so and so. The passageway into the world of shamans opens up after the warrior has learned to shut off his internal dialogue."
Carlos Castaneda
The term synchronicity is coined by Jung to express a concept that belongs to him. It is about acausal connection of two or more psycho-physic phenomena. This concept was inspired to him by a patient's case that was in situation of impasse in treatment. Her exaggerate rationalism (animus inflation) was holding her back from assimilating unconscious materials. One night, the patient dreamt a golden scarab - cetonia aurata. The next day, during the psychotherapy session, a real insect this time, hit against the Jung's cabinet window. Jung caught it and discovered surprisingly that it was a golden scarab; a very rare presence for that climate. link
We talk for maybe ten minutes in the doorway, each behind our empty carts, equally oblivious to the exquisitely entitled Mill Valley shoppers as they huff past us. I give her an overview; she's enroute to Germany, where her latest book is being published in German. "Can you believe it?" she says. "I may be able to retire on the royalties!"
And then we move our separate ways, her towards the fish section, Five minutes later, I'm discussing gluten-free carob brownie mixes with a cusomter service rep her voice rings out from the end of the aisle Suddenly I hear my name called. It's Julia, way down at the end of the aisle. "Cortisol," she yells as she walks up to me. "God, I was so afraid you had already."
Once again our carts gravitate towards each other. We share info on our studies into cortisol and the HPA Axis, about oxytocin and my long wait for someone to create a helmet wired to activate the malfunctioning parts of my brain. We discuss mineral infusions. Saliva tests. A doctor in Mexico who has had huge success using a highly secret infusion solution to aide patients in withdrawing from medications. "Stop by the clinic. Pick up a kit. Let's check your cortisol. Let's just start there. So much has happened in the past few years. There is so much we just didn't know before."
"Julia," I say. "I may end up being the subject of your best book yet!"
And, oh how we laugh. How we hug! Like too reunited soul mates, lost and distracted from one another over a long distance and a long time. But reunited. Was there ever a doubt?
Then there's that tingle down my spine, that kinda ice-cream freezey feeling throughout my body. Like I knew it would end up like this. I knew she would be the one to cure me, to crack open the glass and let the air back in.
I'll keep you posted. All I can say is that T.S. Eliot sure knew what he was talking about. I've been wandering and wandering and wandering, only to return to the place it all started and seeing it as if for the first time.
Carl Jung once wrote that if he had his entire life back, he would dedicate all of it to studying the I Ching. And this morning, when I threw the coins, I received Hexagram 24: (Richard Wilhelm & Cary F. Baynes translation, 1950)
24. Fu / Return (The Turning Point)
above K'UN THE RECEPTIVE, EARTH
below CHÊN THE AROUSING, THUNDER
After a time of decay comes the turning point. The powerful light that has been banished returns. There is movement, but it is not brought about by force. The upper trigram K'un is characterized by devotion; thus the movement is natural, arising spontaneously. For this reason the transformation of the old becomes easy. The old is discarded and the new is introduced. Both measures accord with the time; therefore no harm results. Societies of people sharing the same views are formed. But since these groups come together in full public knowledge and are in harmony with the time, all selfish separatist tendencies are excluded, and no mistake is
made. The idea of RETURN is based on the course of nature. The movement is cyclic, and the course completes itself. Therefore it is not necessary to hasten anything artificially. Everything comes of itself at the appointed time. This is the meaning of heaven and earth.
Talk about synchronicity!
Photocredits
Tianamen Square Tank Man by stevemazich
may the power be with you by alicepopkorn
longing for freedom ~ by alicepopkorn
mushroom by bushypark
tetrahedron 35: advancement by shaman
Return Home กลับบ้าน by iamguava
CHRONIC TONIC posts on Thursdays at 9 EST, it is a place to share stories, advice, and information and to connect with others with chronic health conditions and those who care for them. Our diarists will report on research, alternative treatments, clinical trials, and health insurance issues through personal stories. You are invited to share in comments (and note if you'd like to be a future diarist). In addition to our weekly diaries, please join us for ongoing conversations at the Kossacks Networking site.
This diary is by anonymous.