Animal Instincts

It's not my idea to be up at two, four and then six a.m. each day. If I have any dreams it's for a night of uninterrupted sleep. But the creatures poking my face, playing with phone cords and using the bed as a trampoline have an agenda and an inborn taste for nocturnal activity that can't be argued with. Doors between us only make the noises worse. These early morning feline wakeups make me issue threats I'd be horrified to follow through on. They remind me of something I read recently in a New York Times Magazine article called "Pill Popping Pets":

People’s willingness to employ behavior-modifying medications stems in part from a growing desire for more convenient, obedient household animals. “Our expectations are really going up," says [pet industry analyst David] Lummis. "Owners want their pets to be more like little well-behaved children."

What compels me, then, to forgive, kiss and clasp their little bodies each morning as if hanging on for dear life?


Like the rest of nature, animals are unapologetic about what they are: of the earth in ways we humans have rejected. Animals are a bridge between the "lower" world of the seemingly inanimate - trees, rocks, ground – and the "higher" world of the self-conscious. Animals are a reminder of where we came from and what we're made of. They are the bearers of our ancestry. As much as contemporary life asks us to think and behave otherwise, deep, forgotten parts of ourselves are embodied by animals, and thus, most of us are fascinated with them.

Another of their roles in the mystery is to represent layers of the world that humans are not designed to perceive:

• Cats see ten times better in the dark than we do, and dogs hear sounds far above human range.

• Bees can see ultraviolet light, revealing yet another layer of reality beyond our own. Click on the flower names on this site to see how the world looks to them.

• Elephants and whales communicate via low-frequency sound and seismic waves that carry up to six miles. Furthermore, says one researcher, "when it rains in Angola, elephants 100 miles away in Etosha National Park start to move north in search of water. It could be that they are sensing underground vibrations generated by thunder."
  

So what are your own reminders of your origins? What in the natural world especially calls to you? Have you ever had an experience in or with nature that is unitive – i.e., made you feel connected to it at a visceral, unspoken level?

More on this in the next post.

Building Community

In the late 1990s I worked for M. Scott Peck, author of the best-selling book The Road Less Traveled. Actually, I worked for the nonprofit organization he established with the profits from his books: the strangely named Foundation for Community Encouragement. FCE's mission was to teach people the principles of community, as defined by the ability of two or more people to "communicate with authenticity, deal with difficult issues, welcome and affirm diversity, bridge differences with integrity, and relate with love and respect."

When people signed up for FCE workshops, they usually came expecting to meet new people and form bonds based on mutually enjoyable conversations or experiences. They understood the word "community" not as defined above, but as a kind of fellowship or social interaction. What they didn't yet know was that Peck's "community" was an achievable ideal agonizingly difficult to create. Sitting in a circle, anywhere from ten to forty people found out that there was no agenda for the weekend other than to start talking – about anything - and then to see what happened. The only "rule" I recall (though there were others) was that the group had to let each person speak without interruption.

I participated in a number of these circles (one of which included Seat of the Soul guru Gary Zukav), and experienced the gamut - stomach aches, anger, tears, awe, and peace, often without having to say anything. It was part of my job description to participate, and although I didn't "enjoy" the workshop, it gave me tools, insight and courage that I sorely needed in my life. I carry some of the wisdom of this process with me today, even though I cannot recommend Peck's model of community building without reservation. People sometimes quit the workshops because they weren't interested, ready, or engaged, even after being urged to stay and work through their discomfort. Some, not being familiar with the ideas behind the work, felt duped into having to pay for and endure a very difficult process without warning. (We tried to run the office with the community building principles; it was painfully tricky, and ultimately unsuccessful.) Not all who stayed through the weekend workshop gave it a thumbs up. But the majority did, and that's what made the process so interesting.

Workshop dynamics generally cycle through four distinct stages:

• The first is Pseudo-Community, characterized by polite interaction as individuals operate on the assumption that group members have few differences (and nothing unsettling to say).
  
• Soon, previously unspoken differences begin to emerge. People start to say what they're really thinking or feeling, and it isn't pretty. Most participants deal with the resulting discomfort by trying to "fix" or heal others, or by trying to convert people to their point of view. Limited listening, high emotion, and a significant level of silent or expressed frustration characterize this stage, which has been labeled chaos.

This is when things fall apart. People want to go back to being polite and friendly, but not authentic. Or they want to organize the group or the process in some other way. Neither "leads to a deep level of connection with others," said Peck.

• As you might guess, the only way out is through. Peck called this stage emptiness. This is when individuals begin to notice "what they carry within themselves that keeps them from being authentically present and fully accepting of others. As people share what is real for them—their experience of the present moment, prejudices, stories of past pain or joy, unfulfilled expectations—group members begin to come together in a new way. In this stage, a group will often feel like it is dying but, in the painful struggle to let go of the barriers to relationship, there is opportunity for something new to emerge."

In my experience, the holiest feeling that exists happens in emptiness. Particularly in a group, feeling yourself and others let go of defenses, opinions, excuses, and agendas and just sitting still with ten to forty different and accurate versions of Truth – it's liberating, comforting, and hopeful as little else is. It's a solution to the majority of our problems, really.

• The last stage is the gift of Community, characterized by deep acceptance of others and being accepted in return," observed Peck. "Individuals come to know themselves and others in new ways. Differences still exist, but they are transcended and celebrated rather than suppressed. The group is characterized by a sense of profound respect, appreciation and joy." The hope is that workshop participants will take this home with them, practice it, and spread the word, so to speak.

FCE closed its doors in 2001 after twenty years of operation. M. Scott Peck died in 2005 at the age of 69. Dozens of facilitators and many hundreds of workshop participants exist throughout the world, hopefully carrying forth what they learned about true community into our increasingly challenging world.

http://web.archive.org/web/20070202203133/www.fce-community.org/about/index.php

Quitting the Gym

When my husband and I bought our first house in 1993 we were, like most new homeowners , full of hope and excitement about making our new nest our own. It was a 1907 farmhouse in need of much TLC, and although we each brought in modest civil service wages, we figured that over the years, we could handle the basic upkeep and make some improvements. I bought a home repair manual to learn how to tackle the easy stuff, like leaky faucets and running toilets. Not long after moving in, I came across a suggested maintenance schedule in the back of the manual that made my heart sink. It became the first nail in the coffin of homeownership:

For fall, thou shalt

• clean, fix or replace window and door caulking; insulate hose bibs; check for water leaks; sweep out chimney; service furnace, sump pump and emergency generator; clean gutters; rake and dispose of leaves; kill moss buildup on decks and walkways; put up storm windows; put your right foot in and put your right foot out; love thy neighbor as thyself, etc.

And that was for just one season. I realized neither one of us would keep on top of even half that list. Instead, I focused on planting a garden, since the previous owners had nary a shrub in the yard. On the front slope I created a rockery, with a "one of everything" approach creating a naturalistic and pleasing improvement to the yard. Neighbors raved about the contribution to the street. It was beautiful, all right, but it cost me many spring, summer and fall days to water deeply, weed properly, and replant where needed. Though I never regretted the garden, I often wished I'd chosen a more thoughtful, easier to maintain design.

At the time of our house purchase, we didn't know that a new roof would cost more than five thousand dollars, or an exterior paint job twice that amount. Never mind aesthetically pleasing additions or updates; after the basics, we couldn't afford anything else. Neither one of us was particularly handy or willing to do this work ourselves. More nails in the coffin. I had my hands full with the garden, and was starting to lose interest in taking care of it. My husband was as indifferent as could be about learning maintenance. So we took out loans to have the necessary work done, and that was that.

But it wasn't. As the deck started to rot, so did my investment in the cultural model of working, living and thinking. I was heading toward a huge midlife transition, and true to the phase, the values I 'd bought into decades ago no longer made sense to me. I was being called to a deep, dark place with many questions and few answers, and I needed to make space for it. Working full time didn't feel right anymore. I resented having to work in a way I didn't believe in to keep a house we didn't like all that much, and couldn't maintain. The tail was wagging the dog and it was time to do something about it.

So after twelve years of making a go of the house, I convinced my husband that we needed to "get out from under." His and my earning predictions, and the ideas we had about traveling and "working smarter," did not bode well for keeping up our old house.

That was three years ago, and we've been renting ever since.

So what does all this have to do with the gym? The idea of regular workouts is similar to the maintenance schedule, really, another item on a "to-do" list that promises security and health if followed correctly:

• Get five servings of fruit and vegetables a day; floss your teeth; exercise at least 3 times a week for 60 minutes; lift weights to build muscle and bone strength; stay away from trans and saturated fats; drink in moderation (red wine is best); don't eat too many eggs; eat all the eggs you want; stay away from fat; eat good fats; get eight hours of sleep a night; drink eight glasses of water a day; don't slouch; keep sugar and white carbs to a minimum; limit your caffeine intake; shun fried foods; take vitamins; hormone replacement will save you; hormone replacement will kill you; etc.

Goody for you if you can manage all this. And yet, you will still drop dead at some point. Maybe sooner than you would like, despite adherence to "the list." Which changes annually, by the way. All the most recent dos and don'ts that come at us from no fewer than four media sources, with writers copying hackneyed information from each other and regurgitating the same fear-filled guidelines for saving ourselves – well, it's enough to make you eat a batch of Rice Krispy treats all by yourself.

I'm not suggesting that taking care of yourself is bad, or that exercise should be avoided. A reasonable investment in your health is important, recommended, and may actually extend your life. But at what cost? And what defines reasonable? In Mark Greif's essay "Against Exercise," he observes that "today we really can preserve ourselves for a much longer time. . . [But] the haste to live one's mortal life diminishes. The temptation toward perpetual preservation grows. We preserve [the body] in an optimal state, not that we may do something with it, but for its own good feelings of eternal fitness, confidence, and safety." Now that humankind has generally overcome the struggle for food and disease control, he says, "it might have been naïve to think the new human freedom would push us toward a society of public pursuits, like Periclean Athens, or of simple delight in what exists, as in Eden."

My decision to quit the gym can be likened to refusing to wear a watch, which I stopped doing 20 years ago. It's not that I'm against the clock. It was a symbolic rejection of our culture's busy-busy slavishness to time, the way most people are now to cell phones. I would much rather ask a passerby for the time, or poke my head in a store and engage with the world around me in the process. In the same vein, I would much rather take long exploratory walks through my neighborhood, or through a strange one. Without full body strength training, I may not have the strongest and most balanced muscles possible, but I am happy and willing to walk many hours more than I would spend inside a gym.

"'You are condemned. You are condemned. You are condemned.' This is the chant the machines make with their grinding rhythm inside the roar of the gym floor," says Greif at the end of his essay. Striving for control of the body and the future in a room full of machines does seem like a punishment of sorts. A gym workout feels great when it's done, but the process has always depressed me. It's time for me to overhaul the fear-based approach to exercise. How much more pleasant and life affirming to breathe and move outside, watching the gardens change, saying hi to the woman raking her leaves, and waving at the guys installing somebody's new roof.