What I see in this drawing is an expression of the tension between expansion and contraction in the context of the ongoing struggle of the inner impulse to open against the ever-enclosing force of external constraints. In the moment captured by this image, that impulse to open, to grow from the inside out, seems to be more powerful than the external forces pressing inward toward the center, as the energy radiating outward from within shatters an outer shell that is no longer large enough or strong enough to contain it.

I am the one who
calls bullshit on bullshit
I am the one who
demands to be free
I am the one who makes trouble.

I won’t play it safe
or be someone else
I am the poet
I am the artist
the one who goes over the wall.

I am the one who knows
that a failure to accommodate yourself
to a system that strips you of your dignity
and violates the very essence of who you are
is not a failure at all.

I am an energy that cannot be suppressed
forgotten
bought off
or repressed.

I am the child
I am the elder
I am eternal.

I have no price
I kick and scream
I smash the clocks
I rock the boat
I am the force of life.

(PDF version)

“I’m aware of my songs. I’m aware of them because they’re about true emotions, true feelings, things that matter. And you don’t ever forget grief or joy, do you? They’re the constant companions of a human being. If you can coin them accurately enough, they will always be there.”

- John Lydon from A.V. Club interview, April 6, 2010

Beautifully expressed, and so very true.

Is My Soul Asleep?

Is my soul asleep?
Have those beehives that work
in the night stopped? And the water-
wheel of thought, is it
going around now, cups
empty, carrying only shadows?

No, my soul is not asleep.
It is awake, wide awake.
It neither sleeps nor dreams, but watches,
its eyes wide open
far-off things, and listens
at the shores of the great silence.

Antonio Machado

These periods when I am not writing, when I seem to be unable to write, are always difficult for me, and I do feel at times as if my soul is asleep, or has left me somehow. Those angels with whom I was wrestling not so long ago seem very far away from me now, and I miss them.

We think there is a soul
We don’t know
That soul is hard to find …

- Joe Strummer, “Johnny Appleseed”

In the course of my lifetime, I’ve yet to encounter any external definition of spirituality that is adequate to encompass the depth and breadth, the totality, of my own personal experience. I was raised Catholic, but even as a child, much of what I was being taught conflicted with my own inner sense of what was truly spiritual, ethical, and rational (see “god at eleven” and “standing in line for confession”) and by age fourteen I knew I was done with it.

During my 20s and early 30s, my search for a personal spiritual path led me to read and learn about Zen Buddhism. I gained a lot from exploring and considering that perspective, and in some ways it seemed to suit me, but there was also a certain coldness about it that kept me from moving farther in that direction. It does, however, continue to influence both my thinking and my writing (“arrow”).

During my mid 30s to mid 40s, I explored several aspects of what is commonly referred to as New Age thought, philosophy, and practice. As before, I gained a lot of useful knowledge and experience, but once again it was a period of transition in my thinking rather than a destination. In many ways, my experience with New Age thought and teachings was ultimately very similar to my experience with Catholicism as a child, because once again I found myself expected to accept and believe all sorts of things as a matter of faith that were not consistent with my own sense and personal experience. (An article by Cat Saunders entitled “New Age Fundamentalism” provides an excellent summary of some of the issues I found the most personally problematic.)

Probably my greatest gains from my New Age period resulted from a twice-daily meditation practice that I maintained for over five years. Learning to meditate, the essence of which was learning to be with and observe myself, really elevated my ability to deal with all kinds of difficult feelings and situations, and my meditation experience continues to provide benefits to me daily even though I haven’t meditated regularly for many years.

At this point in my life, I no longer expect to find an externally defined spiritual model that suits my needs, and I’m no longer looking for one, nor do I feel I need one. I have no belief in any deity or deities, and haven’t for a long time, but I’ve always believed and still believe that there is a transcendent aspect (some would call it divinity) in all life. If I believe in anything now, it’s that life is fundamentally mysterious, that the true nature of the human experience is ultimately and innately unknowable, and that any supposedly all-encompassing explanation for it that anyone can offer is bound to come up short.

I continue to have plenty of deep personal spiritual experiences that I think it would be fair to describe as mystical but I tend to approach them on their own terms rather than trying to apply an explanation of someone else’s experience to them. My spirituality may be a “spirituality without gods” but it’s also as deeply authentic and as vibrant as it’s ever been.

However, having said all of that, I do think that there’s a great deal of potential consciousness-transforming power available to us in universal spiritual archetypes; whether one believes in their literal existence or not, these patterns embody and express energies and forces that are ancient and deeply authentic in the human psyche. I would also say that, regardless of our spiritual belief systems as adults, it’s still important to explore and come to terms with whatever religious model(s) we experienced as a child, because the associated symbols and conditioning are such a foundational aspect of the vocabulary and landscape of our psyche. I still have a crucifix on the wall of my bedroom for reasons that have nothing to do with Catholicism at this point in my life and everything to do with remembering and acknowledging various aspects of my personal history as a child. That same symbolism has also expressed itself in the title of my recently-completed second book, Scapegoat’s Cross, which again is not an expression of theology but of metaphor, personal experience, and universal archetype.

Much of my own motivation for developing an approach to spirituality that is true and authentic for me has been rooted in my need to come to terms with the events and environment of my childhood, and how those factors and issues have affected and directed my life as an adult. I think that, in so many ways, healing from abuse and trauma, whatever its source, is about searching for and finding one’s own soul, that psychospiritual whole that is somehow greater than the sum of all of its parts, that mysterious, uniquely personal link to eternity and to our individual and shared humanity.

Finding one’s soul is, in my experience, not a singular, discrete event, but a long process of many iterations that takes place over time. It requires one to learn new skills and to re-examine beliefs, conditioning, and perceptions. It is a process of collecting fragments of the self that were broken off and expelled here and there along the path of years, people, and places, a process of retrieving the lost and unclaimed pieces of who one is, and used to be, that may have become hidden and nearly invisible in the terrain change that comes with time. Finding the soul is about finding and embracing the gain that comes with every loss.

I’ve been helped the most in my own process of finding the soul by therapists and counselors who encouraged and facilitated my innate (but forgotten) ability to access, express, and own my emotional energy, which I learned to control, dismiss, and repress as a child for survival purposes. I’ve attended several men’s therapy groups over the years and grown enormously as a result, not only in terms of my relationship with myself, but also in the depth of my understanding of others. I’ve consciously cultivated a relationship with my inner self by working with my dreams, journaling, giving myself outlets for creative expression, and as I said earlier, learning to meditate.

I’ve also found it extremely important to reconnect and re-establish an ongoing relationship with my own body, which is such a valuable source of information about my feelings, my history, and my present. Bodywork (various forms of therapeutic massage) has been a critical aspect of that process for many years now. I’ve written previously about the importance and the process of listening to and working with the body in a piece called “the body is the gateway”.

I’ve been on this soul finding journey for over twenty years now and I know that I’ve experienced tremendous growth, healing, and regeneration within myself. But I still sometimes feel like a hamster on a wheel because, for reasons I have yet to understand fully, the external circumstances of my life have so far not reflected these very positive inner changes. I still sit in a little gray cubicle five days a week “doing someone else’s work … living someone else’s life” just as I was doing 21 years ago when I first wrote those words. And I still spend most of my days and my hours alone.

This is not what I expected when I began. I really believed that by doing my work, by confronting my past and my issues and becoming a more complete human being, I would transform my life. And it’s true, beyond any doubt, that I’ve transformed my inner life and my relationship with myself in ways too various and profound to describe in a few words. Yet my outer life, the life in which I spend most of my waking hours, remains just as dull, cold, gray, and unfulfilling as it was when I began.

I’m still glad I made the decision to do the work and make healing a priority in my life. I can’t imagine living any other way. But it remains frustrating and incomprehensible to me that I could work through so many of the issues and wounds that seemed to be blocking my progress in life and still see the most significant outer circumstances of my life unchanged. And I wonder, especially now as I’m getting older and facing all the hard realities that come with aging, if my inner and outer realities will remain forever out of sync.

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.

Hello,
I’m writing to offer you a complimentary copy of my book, Iron Man Family Outing. I believe this book may be of interest to you. I would be very happy to provide you with a copy at no cost to you, shipping and handling included.

There’s no catch here and no hidden agenda. The simple fact is that I printed more copies than I’ve been able to sell, and I don’t want the remaining copies to go to waste.

Over the years, I’ve received many positive, enthusiastic responses from folks who’ve read and enjoyed this book. I’ve also discovered just how difficult it is to promote and distribute work of this nature. My primary interest now is to get the remaining copies of my book to people who would find it personally meaningful.

I’m enclosing some introductory information about the book, including a brief excerpt. Please contact me if you would like to receive a copy or if you need any additional information.

Regards,

Rick Belden
Author, Iron Man Family Outing

With that, Iron Man Family Outing, published in the fall of 1990 and then forgotten and presumed dead for the next seventeen years, was reborn.

I didn’t have a website two years ago today. I didn’t have a blog. I didn’t have even one reader review for Iron Man Family Outing at Amazon, or anywhere else on the web for that matter. All I had was a closetful of unsold books and a renewed conviction that it was important that I get them out to people who could make use of them.

In the two years since that day, I’ve contacted over 1800 individuals and organizations around the world, and sent out nearly 900 copies of Iron Man Family Outing to recipients in the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. It’s now being used worldwide by therapists, counselors, men’s groups, and organizations that work with men as an aid in the exploration of masculine psychology and men’s issues, and as a resource for men who grew up in dysfunctional, abusive, or neglectful family systems. It’s been ranked in the top 20 poetry books and the top 35 books on father-son relationships at Amazon.com, based on reader reviews. I’ve made new friends and allies all around the world who are working to help men grow and heal. And I have the most unexpected result of all, the completed manuscript for a brand-new book: Scapegoat’s Cross, my first new work in nearly twenty years.

It’s clear to me now, in retrospect, that events in my life had been leading me back to my unfinished business with the Iron Man Family Outing project since 2004, but I didn’t know that two years ago today. All I knew was that I woke up on a Sunday morning with a letter in my mind and an undeniable imperative to finish what I’d started all those years ago, to see my original vision for the book through to its completion, even if I had to give away every copy I had to do it.

I don’t know where this process will lead me in the future. Two years ago, I never expected to be where I am with this work today. I hadn’t written a line of poetry in over fifteen years. I was haunted by my failure to find an audience for Iron Man Family Outing and considered myself dead as a writer. Fortunately, things have changed.

Well, not everything has changed. I’m still fighting the battle of “soul versus survival” daily. Some days are harder than others. As I wrote almost a year ago in a blog entry entitled “go crazy or starve”:

Every morning when I wake up and don’t have time to write because some meaningless job is demanding its daily pound of flesh in exchange for a little more survival time, I feel like I’m terminating a pregnancy. It’s absolutely wrenching. I start the day sad, furious, and hopeless.

It’s still happening. It happened yesterday. I could feel something coming and I made some notes, but there was no time to allow it to develop or complete. It may come back to me. It may not.

But I’m fighting to keep the channel open, even if it means suffering the pain of losing all those things I never get to finish, because the last two years have shown me that it matters that I keep trying and do what I can, and because two years ago today I began to remember, for the first time in over fifteen years, who I am and what my life is about.

A meaningless job is going to eat my morning again today, but I woke up about two hours ago at 4 AM, after a couple of hours of restless semi-sleep, and realized I couldn’t let this anniversary go by without observing it in some way. This is my life now. The work drives me, it nags at me, it makes me miserable and keeps me awake until I tend to it.

It’s hard, it’s demanding, it’s draining, it doesn’t leave me much time for anything else, and sometimes it feels like it’s just too much for me. It also keeps me alive. And I’m okay with that.

I’ve posted some preview material on my web site at rickbelden.com/new_book, including an excerpt from the introduction and some of the poems that appear in the book.

I’m also making preview copies of the complete manuscript available to those who’d like an early look. Please see rickbelden.com/new_book for information about getting a preview copy.

today I don’t poison myself for a pension
today I don’t soil my spirit
today I don’t split my soul.

yesterday I was
lightning in a bottle
a watermelon on the vine
a rocket on the pad.

today I’m a rusty old pile of railroad spikes
tossed together in a heap by the tracks
wondering why the trains don’t come anymore.

today I’m quiet
today I don’t speak
today I listen.

today I walk the circle
that leads to the center
from the outside
to the inside
and back again.

today I know that I’m only a sparkle of sunlight
shimmering on the surface of an ageless sea
today I hear the blade cutter in the distance
but I know it’s not for me
today I know the scariest thing I’ve ever known
that I can’t make my life
the life I thought it would be
not today
maybe tomorrow
but not today.

(PDF version)

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)

my mum (say a little prayer for her) is 90

My mother is a crumbling building.

My mother is a rusted out car up on blocks
in the front yard whose engine is sound
and who longs for the thrill of the highway.

My mother is a story that doesn’t know how to
be told, and doesn’t know how to end, and
doesn’t even know what the superheroes could
do to help save her.

My mother is a boat on its way to Europe
in a thunderstorm.

My mother is a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie.

My mother is an Angel Food cake.

My mother is a nature lover, a fresh air lover,
a flower lover, a great view lover, a sunset lover,
a people lover, a very gentle soul.

When she thinks about herself my mother’s
brain is a wasp nest, her nerves are an
electrical fire, she feels like a racehorse
locked inside a burning barn.

My mother never meant anyone harm.

My mother is a caterpillar that is restless
in the cocoon and wants to be a butterfly.

David Jewell

David’s fine spoken word piece “grandfather” is a great companion to the above poem.

If I Stopped

If I stopped for a year
to read the classics
what would happen?
If I stopped for a year
to visit art galleries and museums
would I ever work again?
If I stopped for a year
to dance and climb mountains
would the boardroom bell
not sound for me?
If I stopped for a year
would I learn who I am
in the angry eyes of our tender youth?
If I stopped for a year
could I feel the seasons change
and hear ants talk?
If I stopped for a year
would I learn how to breathe
and wake up the senses
I have long since forgotten?
If I stopped for a year
could I remember the birth canal
and the bright, white light called life?
If I stopped…

Sean Casey LeClaire

Sean is one of the facilitators of the upcoming 2nd Annual Arjuna Men’s Conference, which will take place June 5-7, 2009 in western Massachusetts. Sean’s work is practical, vibrant, and deeply necessary, and I’m sure the conference will be beneficial, encouraging, and inspiring for all who attend.

I encountered the seed of this process in a magazine article (now long lost) many years ago. I took what I saw and developed it into a practice that I used and found helpful for several years. My belief system has since shifted in such a way that this process no longer feels like a good fit for me, but there may be others who are in the right place to gain something from using it.

I’ll say up front that I have no belief in any deity or deities, and haven’t for a long time, but I’ve always believed and still believe that there is divinity in all things. This sort of thinking would probably attract scorn from theologians and atheologians alike. So it goes.

Given that context, I’ve always seen the process I’m about to describe more as a meditative exercise in building focus and awareness than as an appeal to any sort of supernatural force, although I can’t completely rule out the possibility of ripple effects in this big pool of energy in which we’re all swimming, or even the hidden hand of some bigger fish (do fish have hands?).

From my perspective, prayer works primarily as a meditative and psychological conditioning process. It can be used to explore existing patterns of thought and perception, as well as to reinforce, shift, or replace them. I don’t see anything inherently magical or supernatural about it. I also thought, and still think, that there’s a good deal of potential consciousness-transforming power available to us in universal spiritual archetypes; whether one believes in their literal existence or not, these patterns embody and express energies and forces that are ancient and deeply authentic in the human psyche.

I’m presenting this information informally, more or less as I wrote it up for a friend several years ago. This was the process I used; adapt as needed to make it yours. And remember: this is not magic, it’s not magical thinking, and it’s not that heinous mass marketing mindscrew known as “The Secret”. This process may help you get a result you want or need; it may not. But if you pay attention as the forty day cycle unfolds, you may find that getting what you thought you wanted or needed was never the real point anyway.

As with many meditation practices, the core of the Forty Day Prayer practice is very simple. But there are some things you’ll need to know in order to get it right. I’m also going to include some info from my personal experience that may be helpful. So here goes …

The basic template for the Forty Day Prayer, as I’ve practiced it, is:

“In the name of Jesus the Christ, thank you that ________________, if it be Thy will.”

The phrasing used has three important components and all must be present:

1) “In the name of Jesus the Christ, …”

This is your call to Spirit, higher forces (internal or external), what have you, in whatever form you find appropriate for yourself. I’ve used this phrasing, even though I’m not a Christian, with something along the lines of the ideal frequently labeled as Christ Consciousness in mind. I can imagine that other folks might invoke the Great Spirit, Higher Power, or some other beneficent spiritual entity if that is more suited to their beliefs.

2) “… thank you that ________________, …”

Fill in the blank with a core phrase that expresses what you hope to create, resolve, or receive in your life during the next forty days. It’s very important that you state it in the present tense, as if you already have it and are expressing your gratitude for having it. This helps condition your mind to receive it, and perhaps more importantly, activates your creative power to manifest it.

3) “… if it be Thy will.”

Not everything our conscious mind desires is in our best interest at the soul level. This last bit acknowledges that we are not always the best and final judges of what life should bring us. Sometimes there is something else at work in life that takes precedence over what appears to us to be our most obvious need at the time.

In order to begin the process, you first have to identify the core phrase that goes in the blank. For example, if you were having a problem with your stomach, you might use something like:

“In the name of Jesus the Christ, thank you that my stomach is healthy and clear of any dysfunction, if it be Thy will.”

Another more general possibility might be:

“In the name of Jesus the Christ, thank you that I have all the help I need to heal my stomach issues, if it be Thy will”

How you arrive at the core phrase you’re going to use is up to you. In my case, it often just comes to me while I’m walking. I typically don’t make changes to my core phrase once I’ve started the forty day cycle, unless something compelling comes up. Even then, it’s usually only the addition or the rearrangement of a word or two. Best to pick something concise that you’re comfortable saying, ’cause you’re going to say it 240 times over the next forty days: three times every morning and three times every night.

Once I have my prayer in mind, I write it down on a small piece of notebook paper that I can tuck under my pillow. Each morning when I wake up I say it three times before I get out of bed. Each evening I say it three times just before I go to sleep. I keep track by marking off the days (one through forty) on the back of the piece of paper that has the prayer written on it.

It’s probably best if you can focus on the words as you say them (visualize, etc.), but a lot of the time all I can manage to do is recite the words without a lot of thought behind it. This doesn’t seem to hurt the process, in my experience. To the contrary, I think this is part of the process. It’s a very interesting exercise in self-observation to notice, over the course of forty days and forty nights, the different mental states in which I find myself when I recite the prayer … at times feeling very connected to the words, at times not. Because the words don’t change, it tends to draw my attention to what does change from day to day: my emotional and mental states and how those states affect my relationship to the words.

All of this sounds easy, right? Well, here’s the only tricky part:

If you miss a morning or an evening, you have to start the whole cycle all over again, from day one.

This is why I put the piece of paper with the prayer on it under my pillow. I’m most likely to forget to do the prayer in the morning (and I have), but since I make my bed every morning, I always find the prayer right under my pillow when I make the bed if I’ve forgotten and I don’t miss a day.

You’ll have to find your own best way to remind yourself, but I suggest you choose a strategy up front, because I can almost guarantee that something (your mind or your life) will intrude at some point and make you forgetful. And who wants to start over on day 39? Not me!

Once you’ve begun the forty day cycle, try to observe things in kind of a neutral way as you go along and see if anything begins to change around the issue you’ve chosen. Things may improve or they may seem to get worse. Maybe it will appear that nothing at all is happening. But no matter what happens, finish the cycle. Keep your commitment to yourself, to the issue, and to the process. You may notice a real difference by the end of the cycle. Something surprising may have happened. Or it may appear that nothing has happened, and you may not realize the effects until you can look back on it later in a fuller context.

I believe this practice works. I was very skeptical at first (as I tend to be with most things of this nature) but my overall experience, having used this about two dozen times in the last 5-6 years, is that it works, in some cases quite dynamically and in others very subtly.

Here’s a quick review of the practice:

1) Design your prayer using the template, with all three parts as described above.
2) Develop a memory aid (such as putting the prayer under your pillow) to remind you if you forget to say your prayer.
3) Recite the prayer three times each morning before rising and three times each evening prior to sleep for forty days.
4) Observe any changes that might relate to the issue, but finish the whole forty day cycle, no matter what (even if the problem seems to be resolved).
5) If you miss a morning or an evening, start over from day one.

I hope I haven’t made this sound too complicated or like too much work, because it is neither, especially considering the potential benefits. But you do have to be consistent and pay attention if you want to get something out of it.

I’m in a wild place
squatting naked next to a lake
no other people around
maybe an animal or two
it’s peaceful here
I see my reflection in the water
the face looks cro-magnon
or perhaps neanderthal
but I feel fully conscious
it’s an experience of
wholeness and awe
wonder and peace
maybe my first visit to earth
in a human-like body.

priest

pre-columbian central america
I lead and perform religious rituals
human sacrifice
vivisections
I inflict terrible agonizing physical pain on others
I perform these cruel acts without malice
but also without compassion
motivated by a religious conviction so deep
that it completely disconnects me
from the reality of the suffering I cause.

heretic

europe
middle ages
my head is being held underwater
some religious authority
is attempting to force me to admit something
or perhaps recant or repent some blasphemy
next
I’m in the woods
hung upside down from a tree by my left foot
as punishment
for contradicting the established order
it’s a form of crucifixion.

zealot

europe
1600s
I’m a member of a religious sect that practices self-injury
I drip hot candle wax on my back
I cut myself because the pain “brings me closer to god”
I shove hot pepper up my nose
to make myself sneeze
“to get the devil out”
I allow myself to be mock crucified
when I’m 24 I hang myself “to be with god”
I’m found hanging
from a wooden beam in one of the rooms of the monastery
I am dead
the walls and floors are made of stone.

simpleton

colonial new england
I’m mentally impaired
my neck and hands have been locked in wooden stocks
as punishment for looking at a pretty young girl
my consciousness is primitive
I feel bewildered most of the time
but I find comfort and solace
in a direct experience of nature
standing in a meadow
awes me
calms me
fills me with peace
I have no concept of why I’m being punished
but I have no ill feeling toward anyone about it either.

diplomat

japan
late 1800s
I’m a japanese diplomat
working to open my country to contact with the west
I want to bring the two halves
east and west
together
I want to build a bridge between
old ways and new ways
I hope to be
an ambassador to the future.

assassin

chicago
1920s
a dark alley at night
I’m an enforcer for the mob
a tough guy
a hit man
but this time
someone’s put a hit on me
the nose of a revolver
kisses the skin behind my left ear
someone pulls the trigger
bye bye.

(PDF version)

sometimes I wanna blow my brains out with a dictionary
pull the trigger
and let the words flow out of me
like blood
until they’re all out there
in a big messy puddle
once and for all.

every day it’s the same
creativity versus the clock
human time versus machine time
feelings versus schedule
dreams versus work
soul versus survival
how can I win.

(PDF version)