In my last
post, I described a process for approaching waking life as though it
were a dream developed by Robert Moss that I decided to experiment with
on a birthday trip to Eureka Springs, Arkansas with my partner Sara.
The question that I took with me into this exercise was the one I have
been exploring in this series of posts: “How can I more effectively
deal with those who feel threatened by my words, or my actions, or
simply feel some need to oppose me for whatever reason?”
My first clue – in possible response to this question – came on our way
out, before we had made it to the main road. By “coincidence,” we
happened to run into an old friend of mine – one who in times past had
also often been an adversary with whom I butted heads, but a man I
admired nonetheless for his integrity, his courageous political zeal,
and his willingness to fight for various environmental causes,
sometimes at great personal expense. Had he had more of a spiritual
practice, or one I didn’t know about, he would have been a great sacred
activist of the kind Andrew Harvey wanted to train. As it was, time
had taken its toll on his body, if not his spirit, though he was still
fighting the good fight, as far as I could tell.
After we had exchanged a few pleasantries and went our separate ways,
Sara said to me, “Did you notice, T___ had no teeth?” I hadn’t, but
the question immediately put me in mind of our exercise, since it was
the kind of thing that might have happened in a dream, and T___ being
who he was, our encounter seemed somehow synchronistic.
After allowing myself to simply be with the “symbolism” of T’s missing
teeth all weekend, without immediately grasping for an interpretation,
it suddenly occurred to me that the message was about the
counter-intuitive, but deliberate decision to disarm before going into
battle. “Don’t go into battle,” the essence of this message became,
“without taking out your teeth.”
I actually remembered doing this once before. When I turned 21, my
college friends took me bar hopping. We walked into one bar, just as
some hulking fellow wheeled around on his bar stool, obviously drunk,
and barked, “I want to fight someone, anyone.” Then locking eyes with
me – just as I happened unluckily within his field of sight – he said,
“You!” and started lunging forward.
Instinctively,
I put my hands in my pocket, and said, “Why do you want to fight me?
You don’t even know me? Why don’t you let me buy you a drink, and we
can talk about it?” He thought about this for a moment, grunted, and
waddled back to his bar stool. I went with him, bought him a drink,
and spent the next hour listening to his sad story – how he had just
lost his job, how his wife had left him, how his kids didn’t understand
him, and so on. By the time he had finished, his anger had momentarily
diffused, and I took advantage of the respite to take my leave. As I
stepped back out into the street with my astonished friends, I heard a
voice behind me saying, “If want to fight someone, anyone….” I kept
going and didn’t look back.
Obviously,
nothing had really shifted for this man, but I had at least managed to
sidestep becoming his victim. More recently, in at least some of the
close encounters mentioned during my last Mars-Pluto cycle, I had also
instinctively kept my hands in my pockets, and took out my teeth before
battle, and gotten more mileage out of this strategy than I would have
had I geared up to fight.
During
one incident mentioned under the waning sextile, for example, this
strategy seemed to help. During this period, I was compelled to
confront a logger about working on land cooperative land in the rain,
after we had asked him not to. When I reminded him of our agreement,
he became surly and scowled at me. “I was just quitting,” he snarled,
even though it was quite clear to me that if I had not confronted him,
he would have kept working as long as he could. I do think, had I said
the wrong thing, this confrontation might actually have led to
violence, as this man obviously did not take kindly to my reminder,
however diplomatically I presented it.
Somehow,
however, I was able to take out my teeth and disarm both myself and my
potential opponent. “Look,” I said, “I know what it is like to have to
quit when it rains. I had a painting business for many years, and every
time it rained, I had to quit, I hated it, and I’m sure you do, too.
But that’s just the reality of the kind of businesses we have chosen to
be in.” He seemed to understand. He remained silent for a few
seconds, then said, “Well, ok then. I guess I’ll see you around.” And
that was that.
Except
that over the course of the next few weeks, I made it a point to check
on these loggers every few days or so, and usually struck up a
conversation of some kind. One day I showed up with my chain saw
goggles perched on my hat and my ear protectors around my neck, covered
from head to toe in wood chips, obviously fresh from a session with my
own chain saw. They gradually began to see that I was, if not one of
them, at least not “the enemy.” We had something in common, and over
time we developed a respect for each other. I began to understand more
about what compelled them to work in the rain, and they became
increasingly curious about who I was, what I was trying to do on my own
land, and why what they were doing on the cooperative’s common land
mattered so much to me.
Now if I have a concern, I can approach them and they will listen without being threatened. I understand, and they understand that I understand that there is a line there, and a limit to how much we can ask of each other. But moving back and forth across that line is not the potential powder keg it once was, and I think that is progress. I had taken out my teeth and the snapping and snarling subsided.
As Andrew Harvey pointed out in his workshop, you cannot deal effectively with anyone on the opposite side of an issue, as long as you are angry toward them, afraid of them, or projecting your own shadow stuff onto them. If any of these emotions cloud your interaction with them, you will enter that interaction baring your teeth, your adversary will bare theirs, you will fight, and one or both of you will lose. Thus the concept of “taking out your teeth before battle” means looking to see when and where your teeth are bared in reflex reaction, and working internally to disarm your own triggers to a violent or potentially violent response.
I know when I am armed to the teeth when there is agitating dialogue before and/or after an interaction with another. I am gradually learning to back off when that happens, and work to calm myself, to understand how and why I have been triggered, and to take responsibility for my own discomfort, whatever form it might take. It is not always possible to do this, especially when something happens fast. I am usually not very good at thinking or responding on my feet. But as one of Andrew Harvey’s co-teachers taught us on the closing day, you have to develop a set of habits that are rooted in your body, not your mind, so that when you are in a situation that requires immediate response, you don’t have to think about it. Your body simply knows what to do.
Beyond taking out my teeth before battle, then, it seems to me that the task before me – at least in dealing with my own Mars-Pluto capacity for attracting conflict and potential violence – is to learn how to live without teeth, that is to say, without anger, fear or the need to project. Is this possible? I don’t know. I think we all need to stand up to the bullies of the world – the takers who would leave this world we share violated, damaged and abused. But somehow, we need to learn how to do this without marking them as the enemy. They are not the enemy. Or as the main character of World War II cartoonist, Walt Kelly’s comic strip – Pogo – once said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
This is the seventh in a series of ten blog postings that include the following installments:
- Taking Out Your Teeth Before Going Into Battle (this post)
- From Violence to Compassionate Strength
