Tag Archives: Body

Robert Pinsky – “Samurai Song”

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I guess this is fairly well known, but I just encountered it for the first time the other day and it rang me like a bell.

Samurai Song

When I had no roof I made
Audacity my roof. When I had
No supper my eyes dined.

When I had no eyes I listened.
When I had no ears I thought.
When I had no thought I waited.

When I had no father I made
Care my father. When I had
No mother I embraced order.

When I had no friend I made
Quiet my friend. When I had no
Enemy I opposed my body.

When I had no temple I made
My voice my temple. I have
No priest, my tongue is my choir.

When I have no means fortune
Is my means. When I have
Nothing, death will be my fortune.

Need is my tactic, detachment
Is my strategy. When I had
No lover I courted my sleep.

Robert Pinsky

Click here to watch a great little video of the author reciting this poem.

Overall, I think this poem is an excellent articulation of a Zennish philosophy of resiliency, self-reliance, and resourcefulness that is as practical as it is inspiring. However, I find the language about opposing the body and relating to it as an enemy problematic, to say the least, especially for those of us who were inculcated from childhood onward in the “no pain, no gain” approach to masculinity and living in a male body. As I’ve written previously:

I’d been treating my body like a mechanism for most of my life, a strange and mysterious other that felt external and separate from what I thought of as myself, an unreliable machine that suffered from all sorts of inconvenient problems and breakdowns that no doctor I’d seen could explain. I know now that this sort of separation and dissociation from the body is very common among men and boys in my culture.

I’d like to suggest that readers observe their own reactions to that passage of the poem (“When I had no Enemy I opposed my body.”) as they read it, and consider how it might conflict or correspond with their own assumptions, and with what their own experiences tell them, about how a man can relate most effectively to his body.

D.H. Lawrence – “Healing”

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I’ve experienced three major health crises in the last six years: a ruptured appendix that nearly killed me in the fall of 2004, a serious back injury that sidelined me for a month in the fall of 2006, and a broken wrist and shoulder sustained seven weeks ago, from which I am still working hard daily to recover.

Two of these three events (ruptured appendix and broken wrist/shoulder) required major surgeries and nearly a week of hospitalization each. In all three cases, I found myself temporarily helpless, vulnerable, and completely dependent on the kindness, mercy, and generosity of others for my daily survival for extended periods of time. And in all three cases, I was deeply and profoundly reminded that injury and illness, rehabilitation and recovery, and health itself are never purely physical in nature, as so brilliantly expressed in the following poem by D.H. Lawrence.

Healing

I am not a mechanism, an assembly of various sections.
And it is not because the mechanism is working wrongly, that I am ill.
I am ill because of wounds to the soul, to the deep emotional self
and the wounds to the soul take a long, long time, only time can help
and patience, and a certain difficult repentance
long, difficult repentance, realization of life’s mistake, and the freeing oneself
from the endless repetition of the mistake
which mankind at large has chosen to sanctify.

D.H. Lawrence

I hope to write more about the emotional and psychological aspects of my current experience in injury, incapacity, and recovery in a future post.

Kellevision – a great resource for survivors

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I was doing some research on the web this morning on the subject of scapegoating and the role of the scapegoat in dysfunctional family systems when I stumbled upon a great blog called Kellevision, which is described as “musings on mental health issues by a licensed therapist.” In addition to several useful posts about the scapegoat role, I also found numerous helpful posts on other topics relevant to psychological healing and wellness, among them:

* The Body – Thoughts – Feelings Connection

* Depressive Realism

* Self Care

The Kellevision blog has been up for a little over a year. It contains a wealth of perceptive, practical information about psychological health and self care, and is updated regularly. I plan to revisit it often to explore the archives as well as to keep up with the latest posts. Highly recommended.

note to self

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treat your body like a pet
not a workhorse.

treat your body like a poet
not a whorehouse.

treat your body like a park
not a war zone.

(PDF version)

“body memory” at Carnival Against Child Abuse

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My previous post “body memory”, an excerpt from my book Iron Man Family Outing, is one of many posts featured in the May 2009 edition of the Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse, which is hosted this month by Marj aka Thriver at the Survivors Can Thrive! blog.

half-life

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I try and try but I can't always get it
	what does he want from me anyway?
I'll drive anywhere pay anything
	do anything to get that guy
	off my back for an hour or two.

what's the half-life of a lousy childhood?
stranglehold tentacles
	come out of a house where
	nobody I know lives anymore
body and soul clench like a fist
	when that hairy hand tries to pull me down
I need lights
I need noise
	I need naked female flesh all around
else I implode.

how do I give up what I don't understand?
this home isn't broken it's blown to hell.

now here's a place where I can be unhappy in peace
totally safe and unbelievable
a crime against everything I was brought up to be
a slap in the face to that guy who thinks
	he knows how it's supposed to be done
a tight connection to all those old friends
	I thought I'd left behind
whores just like me
who knows what they sell themselves for?

last chance for ro-mance
take care of these ladies and they'll take care of you
	why do I need this?

the weird thing is I don't even see
	most of these women anymore
		not even as objects.

can't buy a thrill?
sometimes I can sometimes I can't but
	I don't need a thrill
	I need a break.

(PDF version | Video version)

body memory

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my elbow remembers
	riding my rocking horse off the front porch
my skin remembers
	slap of the flyswatter metal wire handle
my tongue remembers
	bar of soap shoved in my mouth
my hand remembers
	spilled milk on the first day of first grade
my stomach remembers
	crying in front of everyone 'cause I lost the fight
my knee remembers
	wait for me daddy before I fell + broke my leg
my feet remember
	please teach ricky how to skip 
	pinned to my kindergarten shirt
my chin remembers
	falling out of bed into a 
	daddy's mad again hot sunday night
my nose remembers
	can't breathe comic books in ragweed darkness
my fingers remember
	building model rockets in a cool summer basement
my neck remembers
	father's hands closing tight around my throat
my ears remember
	mother screaming stop it dick stop it.

time passes but nothing is lost
I can't fool myself
my body remembers everything.

(PDF version | Video version)

Odds and Ends, Here and There

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A couple of my previous posts have recently been republished on other sites. An edited version of “the forty day prayer” has been posted at SelfGrowth.com and “the body is the gateway” has been posted at both tokoni and Spiritual New Age Wisdom.

charley horse

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leg hurting tonight reminds me of how my dad + I used to
	run across each other in the dark
	when I was little + my leg would hurt.

he had a lot of leg cramps at night
he called that a goddam charley horse
I used to wake up with intense pain in my leg
	the leg I broke
	trying to catch up with him
when I was first learning to walk.

sometimes we'd both wake up at the same time
	on the same night
I liked this because I got to spend some quiet time
	alone with him.

I never wanted to go back to bed on those nights
we'd sit in the living room or the kitchen
	in the dark or with a dim light on
he seemed more open in those moments
I didn't feel like he hated me then
maybe it was because he was sleepy
	or in pain.

those were special occasions for me
	nothing to accomplish or be judged on
we each had our own pain
	similar but not the same
he was empathetic
I felt connected to him.

in those brief moments
I always felt that I was just like him
	just like I always wanted to be.

(PDF version | Video version)

child

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I'm a physical child who grows up
being told + shown that
	my body is an unreliable unpredictable
	source of trouble.

I'm a spiritual child who grows up
being told + shown that
	god is just a sunday morning pain in the ass
	waiting for me to screw up
	so he can rip my life to shreds.

I'm a passionate child who grows up
being told + shown that
	feelings are unacceptable + dangerous
	to myself + others.

I'm a creative child who grows up
being told + shown that
	adults don't have time to be creative.

I'm an honest child who grows up
being told + shown that
	I'm always supposed to tell the truth but
	it's usually safer + more acceptable to lie.

I'm an independent child who grows up
being told + shown that
	going my own way leads to rejection + disaster.

I'm an intuitive child who grows up
being told + shown that
	I need a logical justification for
	everything I do say + feel.

I'm a smiling child who grows up
being told + shown that
	laughter is the best medicine but
	happy people usually get punished somehow.

I'm an energetic child who grows up
being told + shown that
	I'm not doing enough because I'm lazy.

I'm a gifted child who grows up
being told + shown that
	my contributions aren't very important in this world.
 
I'm a curious child who grows up
being told + shown that
	self-awareness endangers the family
	so I'd better not question things too much.

I'm a patient child who grows up
being told + shown that
	there's not enough time
	I'm going too slow
	everyone's tired of waiting for me.

I'm a bright child who grows up
being told + shown that
	the brain is where it's at but
	people who make a living with their brains
	are lazy bastards.

I'm a trusting child who grows up
being told + shown that
	I don't deserve to be trusted + trust
	opens the door to abuse.

I'm a hopeful child who grows up
being told + shown that
	life is a series of unhappy events + disasters
	so don't expect too much.

I'm an innocent child who grows up
being told + shown that
	I'm a bad boy + I oughta be ashamed of myself.

I'm an open-hearted child who grows up
being told + shown that
	I'll never be good enough
	I'll never be loved enough
	I'll never be man enough.

I'm a sad frightened
	lonely needy
	raging hurting child.

(PDF version)