SE1, EP3 - tahini & the bee

first published in The Poetry of Yoga, 2012, Edited by Hawah Kasat

I made a lunch of lentils, quinoa, collards & sauerkraut
covered in kimchi and tahini.
The bee came curious, looking for something to make honey.
I winced a little fear of being stung, but mostly allowed him to be.
Daring a closer look, a piece of quinoa got stuck to his wing, and a drop of tahini near that place where he stings.

Immediately, I noticed the change of his focus,
He was grounded and could not fly.
Crawling around the edge of the plate,
He worked toward an escape,
By incessantly flapping his wings & hind legs which scraped the place near his stinger.

Soon the grain of quinoa flew off with little effort.
I was relieved, but not the bee,
The tahini gave too much to gravity.
The wings gave a hum, but nothin' done,
He was stuck like pulling a knife from your back.

What shall I do?
I see the tan goo.
Could I wipe it away and induce liberation?
Could he be still long enough so I could get just a touch
without triggering his instinct for protection?
If I help, and he stings, he dies.
If I do nothing and he can't fly, then he dies.

As if to ask him what shall I do,
I studied his moves, and realized
He was giving me a lesson on listening.

"There may be a time when I let you take away my burden,
So stay with me.
I might make it through, by effort and pursuit.
But you won't know unless you stay with me.”

So I placed my napkin close and he crawled on the cloth carpet,
Sensing the absorbent sheet.
Turning to my lunch, I gazed on his struggle to release,
The tahini from his hind part.

For quite awhile the battle waged on, with no indication of progress.
In fact, it was distress.
He fought valiantly, for a place he could not reach or see.
What I had not noticed was the microscopic progress,
From each stroke of his leg, releasing a molecule of ground sesame.

What to him was process,
Was a flick of the switch to me.
And all of a sudden he was close to being free.

Just a pin needle's worth left. Then it was gone!
And then the bee…
sat there.
As if to exhale and say, "Ok, let's see."

He lifted an inch in flight, the first since the stait of his plight.
I wondered, 'has a bee ever gone 30 minutes without suspending his body?'
rue nature revived, he took to the sky, with ease,

Actually
Quite
Nonchalantly.

His freedom was unexpected joy to me.
To witness the struggle, not taking it away, not risking the sting, but all the while remaining loving.

I couldn't do it for him,
But in allowing the bee's being
I gave no reason for the stinging.
No reason for my suffering, no reason for his dying.
And that sent me flying.

S1, EP2 - where the sidewalk ends

When first told of her suicide, shocked, I asked if that meant I didn’t have to go to school tomorrow. Seventh grade just began. Is your mom dying reason enough to miss school?

“Of course you’re not going to school tomorrow” sister confounded.

Stairs, two or three at a time to my room. Hands and knees, grasping hard handfuls of pale yellow shag carpet, burning my knuckles. Shel Silverstein’s “Where the Sidewalk Ends”, with an inscription to me by mom, I wrathfully pegged in a brown paper bag, to be immediately discarded. I’ll show you how angry I am. I’ll throw out the one thing that makes me feel the most connected to you.

But I can’t remember feeling that angry, really. I felt like I should be. A confusing feeling of like, I need to perform here as I’m being watched. I’m sure there was some anger, but mostly I acted as if.

Truthfully, the hardest part was my mind trying to hold on to something as I was bombarded by phantoms of energy - tubes popping off of me, like Neo - emerging from the goo of a false matrix. The sidewalk did indeed end. The end of anything I was familiar with. And beyond, a bewildering abyss. I was that dog, scraping my nails against the shag concrete, hind legs air running, dangling halfway through a hole. Am I supposed to let go? Can I?

Pema Chödrön describes “groundlessness” as the true reality of being. No real ground to stand on. Like, seeing Krishna’s true form and begging him to shut it down. The mind cannot clock the speed of stimuli - a waking defilement of worlds dissolving endlessly into other worlds - streamers of mental DNA just fire-working out of my head. Because this is a rip in the veil and you’re not ready to peer through and see the brilliant horror of liquid fire love raging infinity - with you at its center.

A piece of sky
Broke off and fell
Through the crack in the ceiling
- Shel Silverstein, Where The Sidewalk Ends, p.31

It was a death, yes, but it was also a birth. Pema too said, “New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings”. What other choice is there? They are attached to another - imply one another. This is the bedrock of Yoga. There is nothing to hold on to. Try. You can’t. The current cannot be swam against. Trying is suffering and suffering will ultimately teach letting go. What does not last is not Real. Vedanta 101. At our very best, we can allow this impermanence. But not many role models in this regard. Recovery from suicide is a kind of purgatory. I was in need of wise guides, cunning enough to actually be effective. And being felt sorry for was not very helpful. So like an infant, I’d scream until my shouting would inevitably be heard by the right, compassionate ears.

And the teaching? I’ve been at the end so many times. We all have.

Amidst the tumult, I still was able to memorize and sing my Torah portion for my Bar Mitzvah.

S1, EP1 - pilot - free association

Brown hair, shirt, pants, and - teeth.

Free association is a clinical psychotherapeutic tool to speak out freely whatever internal dialogue. It’s like turning on the faucet—doesn’t matter what comes out, but let’s get you used to vocalizing, and who knows, maybe eventually you’ll discover a clue that will help unravel why you're such a sad, worthless, dysfunctional human being—which is why you need therapy—and put you on a path to self-improvement. Just let it go, whatever comes, don’t be afraid.

I’m familiar with free association. I’ve been encouraged to free associate since I was six years old with my very own psychiatrist (you also remember your first) that I saw a few times a week. Dr. Lessor, who ended up wearing shin guards to our sessions because I liked to kick him real hard.

Moving through my teen years, I got used to the drill with numerous therapists. A short list:

Dr. Underhill: (around 9 years old for about three years) Caretaker, kind and patient, brown clothes and frumpy, Frank Lloyd Wright-esque home tucked away in the trees of Cranbrook. I’d eat endless chocolate candies wrapped in Christmas-colored foil off her tree and received extravagant gifts that my dad wouldn’t think of giving (cheapness being among the many weaponized aspects of home life). Hello, Coleco handheld football game! My siblings wanted therapists, too.

Dr. Rodriguez: (9th grade, 4x a week) Mexican, psychiatrist. He tried to warn me, but I wouldn’t listen. I needed to experience the danger myself. Like any good Freudian child psychiatrist, he wasn’t in a hurry and was happy to have me four times a week for a possible minimum of three years. My appetite for destruction was on a much shorter schedule. Smart, funny, and provided much-needed affection, which made 4x/week tolerable. I’d beg to have my back rubbed/tickled. He called me phallic—which I found confusing and extremely insulting. We smoked my dad’s weed once. Stole it from his closet. Best session I ever had! I finally cried. Hard. Just visceral, nonverbal release. How foreign and scary it was to feel safe. I wanted to do it more. He said it was oregano.

Frederick A. (at DeSisto, 15–19 years old) Worthless, truly worthless—like I was helping him to become a better therapist. His supervisor said so. If I had had a different therapist, I would have gotten out a year early. Three years instead of four. A beard that never filled in, five sole gray hairs. Smelled of mildew. If there is therapeutic value in zero chemistry, check. I wasn’t gonna dumb down my neurosis so he could feel helpful. He lived on campus, frequently overheard screaming obscenities at his wife and kids, venting his frustration from me, no doubt.

Part and parcel of a cast of characters in my life for a reason. Save Jeffrey before he gets killed or kills himself. A chosen birth out of infinite possibilities that would give me the greatest opportunity to make an association with the free.