Healing America’s Narratives: I Am Going To Die

Posted on April 13, 2023 by Reggie Marra

[Part of a series, this essay explores a subheading from Chapter Eleven of Healing America’s Narratives: The Feminine, the Masculine, & Our Collective National Shadow. Now available.]

Photo ©by Philippa Rose-Tite on Unsplash

We’re returning to Chapter Eleven of Healing America’s Narratives after our departures in the previous two posts — the inevitability of the current state of the country and the apparent belief, shared by both Democratic and Republican leadership, that they need never-ending millions of advertising dollars in order to win elections and defeat each other (for the good of the country).

“I am going to die” is the fifth of six statements and questions that frame Chapter Eleven, which explores some approaches to manifesting the book’s title — Healing America’s Narratives. The statement is ‘simply’ an acknowledgment of what is — what’s true — that given enough time, we all die. No one knows how, when, or where, but with each breath we take, we get closer to our final breath.

Our responses to the some of the earlier questions and statements from Chapter Eleven inform how we might respond to this acknowledgment of our mortality. If who we think we are is simply an assembly of flesh, bone, instinct, thought, and mood — nothing but separate animated objects with a few shared traits and some noticeable differences — then the horrors of the histories of women, Native Americans, African Americans, the Vietnam War, the post-9/11 war on terror, and other significant histories, while still horrific, make sense in an ignorant, arrogant, fearful, bigoted, violent kind of way.

If, however, we all share an origin, a common ancestry — whether through a religious or a scientific story — and if we each have a unique ecological niche — our ultimate place in the world, our Soul, expressed through mythopoetic identity as a one-time-only manifestation of Spirit, All That Is, God, Source, Ground of Being — then it becomes a tad more difficult — it makes no sense at all — to proclaim the supremacy of any race, to declare you’re either with us or you’re with the enemy, or to in any way dehumanize others. The stories we choose about who we are, really, make a difference.

Each of us has our own dying and death stories. If we’re lucky we get to bury our parents and older siblings, our grandparents, aunts and uncles, and others from the generations that precede us. Some of these deaths, while sad, are expected and feel natural; sometimes they are unexpected and feel tragic. What is the story each of us tells, what is the story that you choose to tell, about the inevitability of death? As Mary Catherine Bateson told us, “The choice you make affects what you can do next.”¹

The late surgeon and author, Sherwin Nuland, wrote that death results “all too frequently [from] a series of destructive events that involve…the disintegration of the dying person’s humanity,” and that he had not “seen much dignity in the process by which we die.” Nuland, however, complemented his surgeon’s intimacy with the sterility, knowledge, precision, life, and death of the operating room with his philosopher’s view and his poet’s heart. “The greatest dignity to be found in death is the dignity of the life that preceded it,” he told us.²

If you want a dignified death, your best bet is to live a dignified life. If you want a dignified country, your best bet is live, and help others live, a dignified life by coming to terms with things as they are, being the change you want to see in the world, and at the very least, doing more good than harm through your words and actions.

_____

Mary Catherine Bateson, “Composing a Life,” Sacred Stories: A Celebration of the Power of Stories to Transform and Heal. Eds. Charles & Anne Simpkinson, (HarperSanFrancisco, 1993), 42–43.
Sherwin B. Nuland, How We Die, (Knopf, 1993), “all too frequently…,” xvii; “The greatest dignity…,” 242.

Healing

America

Narrative

Healing America’s Narratives: Who Are My People?

Posted on March 23, 2023 by Reggie Marra

Part of a series, this essay explores a subheading from Chapter Eleven of Healing America’s Narratives: The Feminine, the Masculine, & Our Collective National Shadow. Now available.

Who Are My People?

In the perfectly integrated, comprehensive, inclusive, and balanced universe in which most of us do not (think we) live, we can hear the mystical cheerleaders’ rhythmic, enthusiastic, and obvious response echoing around the arena: EV-ree-one! Where most of us do think we live, it can be helpful to have a sense of who our people are — not in the unhealthy us-against-the-others sense that governs most finite games, but in the sense of realistically assessing how and with whom I might do the most good in the world as it is, with what I have to offer, without harming others, to the benefit of the whole shebang. Taking care of my, or our, little niche is often the best way to serve the greater good.

Often, the answer to this question lies not in some definitive choice we make but in our authentic attention to the intersections of who we think we are, the stories we choose, the impacts we both have and receive, and what we are able to uncover and own that we previously had not seen. While “my people” may be superficially identified, or at least narrowed down, through blood, geography, and chronology, they are inevitably found and known through experience, belief, and worldview. They include those I learn from and learn with and those who learn from me — whether the learning emerges in the classroom, on the street, at the checkout counter, in the healthcare office, at work, or at the kitchen table. Consider the words of Ta-Nehisi Coates, as his writing led him into “contact with more human beings”:

“I had editors — more teachers — and these were the first white people I’d ever really known on any personal level. They defied my presumptions — they were afraid neither for me nor of me. Instead they saw in my unruly curiosity and softness something that was to be treasured and harnessed.”¹

The friends we choose and who choose us in childhood and adolescence, the groups we align with when we choose a craft, profession, or area of study (or one chooses us), and the individuals in our chosen craft, profession, or discipline towards whom we gravitate may provide insight and evidence about, but don’t necessarily define, “our people.” Many folks will come, stay for a while and go; others will come and stay. We begin to recognize some who stay, and even some who go, as our people.

As tempting as it can be to espouse an all-of-us perspective and claim everyone as our people (as those mystical cheerleaders did above), if we’re operating primarily from a Body-Mind identity, it is difficult to embody and live up to that claim — despite its value and attractiveness. Better to live in a healthy embodiment of who our people truly are right now, than to delude ourselves with an espoused, but not yet embodied and lived, self-aggrandizing claim.

Still, part of our intentional practice might be to “act as if” all humans are our people and to see how such practice impacts our sense of self, our beliefs about others, and our behavior.

_____

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me, (One World-
Random House, 2015), 62.

Healing America’s Narratives: What Am I Not Seeing?

Posted on March 16, 2023 by Reggie Marra

Part of a series, this essay explores a subheading from Chapter Eleven of Healing America’s Narratives: The Feminine, the Masculine, & Our Collective National Shadow. Now available.

In our previous three inquiries into subheaders from Chapter Eleven, “So, Now What?” we explored identity, story, and impact. Here we’ll consider what any one of us — or millions of us — might be missing with regard to our own lives and/or our country. “Shadow,” as it’s referred to throughout the book, is one reason, among others, an individual or a collective might not be seeing something.

There are various ways to work with Shadow.¹ One hint that an element of Shadow may be clamoring for our attention is if we notice a disproportionate emotional response to someone or something — especially if that response recurs. So, a recurrent, disproportionate, emotional response to someone or something we experience as being angry or lacking in compassion may be inviting us to explore our own anger or lack of compassion. Likewise, if we have such a response to someone or something we experience as exceptionally creative, generous, or successful, we may want to explore our own as-yet disowned creativity, generosity, or success.

Whether what we’re not seeing is considered positive or negative, recognizing, owning, and integrating it into our sense of self leads to a more integrated, “wholer,” fully human being.

Questions such as these may begin to uncover what might be repressed, denied, and projected:

1. What is it about this situation, person, event, issue, idea, emotion, or dream, such that I respond as I do?

2. What is it about me, such that I respond to this situation, person, event, issue, idea, emotion, or dream as I do?

3. To what extent do my reactions or responses feel disproportionate?

4. What might I be projecting onto this situation, person, event, issue, idea, emotion, or dream that I need to explore in myself?

The first question engages through an external locus of control. It helps begin to identify the source of the disproportionate response by looking toward something out there. Getting clearer about what that something is moves us closer to identifying Shadow — what we don’t yet see or know about ourselves.

The second question engages through an internal locus of control and is more challenging. It implicates us. What is it about me such that I respond as I do? Ooh, is my discomfort with his ease in expressing anger related to my unowned anger? Is my admiration for her success in the art world the result of my own as-yet-unrealized creative potential? What is it, exactly, that brings up my disproportionate response? Now, I’m curious. Repressing and projecting parts of ourselves requires energy. Owning and integrating what we repress and project frees up our energy for other aspects of life.

The third question invites us to authentically consider the extent to which our response is disproportionate to the reality of the situation, person, or thing. Honest, challenging, trusted friends may be helpful here.

The fourth question explores the quality, emotion, trait, or characteristic that may be repressed, denied, and projected. Sometimes we recognize it immediately, and perhaps experience a mix of relief, guilt, or simply, oh, THAT! Sometimes it may be slower to emerge — harder to see and even harder to own and integrate. Oh. That. Me? Lacking compassion? Nah. No way. For that one particular colleague/friend/sibling…? Um, perhaps, yes.

Working with Shadow can be discomfiting. Be kind to yourself.

Among many, see Bill Plotkin’s Wild Mind (207–34) and Soulcraft (267–80); and Connie Zweig and Jeremiah Abrams, eds. Meeting the Shadow (65 essays from a variety of authors).

Healing America’s Narratives: An Overview

Posted on February 16, 2023 by Reggie Marra

[Part of a series, this essay breaks from those that precede it and offers a “one-stop” overview of Healing America’s Narratives: The Feminine, the Masculine, & Our Collective National Shadow. Now Available]

Healing America’s Narratives presents the case that the mood of the United States of America in the third decade of the 21st century is inevitable when considered through the intersection of the lenses of history, developmental psychology, politics, and spirituality. Our current dysfunction, while worrisome, is not surprising.

More to the point, the nation is cursed and blessed with competing (not just different) narratives that, even at their most oppositional, share aspects of a collective Shadow — that which is denied, repressed, unknown, or unacknowledged, and projected onto others. America’s specific Shadow elements include ignorance, arrogance, fear, bigotry, bullying, violence, greed, excess, and untrustworthiness — each of which is present in varying degrees throughout history, amid current events, and across the political spectrum. These elements arise historically and currently through an unhealthy manifestation of masculine energy and a virtual absence of healthy feminine energy.

The book’s title and subtitle posit that in order to heal these narratives, Americans will have to recognize, own, and integrate our individual and collective Shadows. To heal, as used here, means coming to terms with things as they are — that is, accepting what is true, even if we don’t like it or we disagree with it. Healing begins when I accept that I just broke my arm (rather than railing against how it happened); curing or fixing commonly takes place with the help of an orthopedic surgeon. Each has its place.

In order to authentically heal it’s important that each of us comes to terms with our cultural givens and the extent to which we have accepted, revised, discarded, or developed beyond them. “Cultural givens” refers to the view of the world given to us during our earliest years by family, community, schooling, and religion, or lack thereof — all within the context of the time and place of our birth. In order to become healthy adults, it’s necessary to question what we’re given as kids, and then choose to accept, revise, or discard it based on our own direct experience of the world.

This questioning can be exhilarating at best and terrifying at worst. Paying attention to several qualities can help us as we question. Briefly:

Skillful means invites the mechanic to tighten the bolt just enough without stripping the threads, and the surgeon to make the incision just deep and long enough (and on the correct patient). It requires us to interact with children in developmentally and chronologically appropriate ways.
Development, as used here, reminds us that how we view the world impacts what we see and how we see it. Here’s some developmental shorthand: it’s all about me; it’s all about my group(s); it’s all about all of us (humans); it’s all about all that it is (the planet and beyond). To make this even more fun, each of those four ways of seeing can manifest in healthy or unhealthy iterations.¹ Each successive view interprets a given event from an increasingly inclusive, comprehensive, and complex perspective.
Intentional practice reminds us that habitual thoughts and behaviors impact who and how we are. It makes sense to intentionally practice who and how we want to be.
Seek the broadest, deepest view available in any given set of circumstances (or at least when it makes sense to do so). Why would you choose to be narrow and shallow in your perspective?²
Honor the power and paradox of silence. Silencing the voices of others is a time-tested tool of oppression; intentionally practicing silence for oneself is often at the heart of insight, growth, and transformation.
Truth, in a given moment, is fact- and evidence-based and separate from opinion and how evidence is interpreted. In the words of Parker J. Palmer, over time, “Truth is an eternal conversation about things that matter conducted with passion and discipline.”³
Love is perhaps the most powerful energy we know. In the book, love has the following traits: “the joyful acceptance of belonging”; “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth”; and the absence of fear.⁴

Evidence of America’s Shadow elements is provided in chapters three through ten of the book. Deciding which evidence and how much of it to present was a challenge. Chapters three through seven, respectively, provide very brief, selective histories of women; Native Americans; African Americans; the war in Vietnam; and the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — each of which deserves (and gets elsewhere) more attention than it gets. The rationale for these choices is provided in the book. Chapter Eight provides additional examples of Shadow, every one of which also deserves more attention than it gets. Chapter Nine brings Shadow into our current century in an exploration of polarized, woke, and cancel cultures, and Chapter Ten argues that the 45th president of the United States personally embodies all nine Shadow elements.

Chapters eleven and twelve begin the process of exploring ways out of our current mess, and will be sampled in more detail in forthcoming essays.

So, the book explores nine elements of America’s collective Shadow through selected historical and developmental perspectives on the nation’s 246 years of existence. The exploration is presented through the author’s (my) particular worldview, which is made clear in chapters one, eleven, and twelve. It is not (obviously) an exhaustive history of the country or a final word on any of the narratives it explores; it is an evidence-based exposition of America’s competing narratives and collective Shadow and a guidebook for those interested in healing the narratives and integrating the Shadow.

It’s definitely not for the closedminded and probably not for the faint of heart.

_____

¹The “developmental shorthand” (me; my group(s); all of us (humans); and all that it is (the planet and beyond) are explored more deeply in the text and the endnotes. Regarding healthy or unhealthy manifestations, none of these views is right or wrong; rather, when healthy, they are increasingly inclusive, balanced, and complex. These four are significant reductions of what’s available to humans.

²Also developed further in the text and endnotes, this broadest, deepest view is based in Ken Wilber’s work, and includes considering individual values, beliefs, and behaviors; collective (relational/cultural) values and beliefs; and the natural and human-made environments, systems, and infrastructures within which we live and upon which we have impact.

³Parker J. Palmer, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life, (Jossey-Bass, 1998), 104.

⁴ “the joyful acceptance of belonging,” Br. David Steindl-Rast, Gratefulness: the Heart of Prayer, (Paulist, 1984), 167; “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth,” M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled, (Simon & Schuster, 1978), 81; and “the absence of fear,” based on Marianne Williamson’s reflections on A Course in Miracles, in her A Return to Love, (HarperPaperbacks, 1993).

Grave & Goofy Poems: Narrative Healing in Uncertain Times – Episode 5

Posted on April 26, 2020 by Reggie Marra

Welcome back!

In this 20-minute episode we’ll explore metaphor and simile – using comparison to explore one thing in terms of another. Toward that end, we’ll take a look at poems by Billy Collins and Jack Gilbert.

Grave & Goofy Poems – Narrative Healing in Uncertain Times – Episode 5: Comparision 4.22.20 from Reggie Marra on Vimeo.

Grave & Goofy Poems: Narrative Healing in Uncertain Times – Episode 2

Posted on April 1, 2020 by Reggie Marra

Welcome back!

In this 12-minute video, we’ll work with imagery – using sensory, concrete language that appeals to the senses.

If you’d like a brief overview of what we’re doing here, please check out Episode 1, March 25, 2020.

Enjoy!

Grave and Goofy Poems: Narrative Healing in Uncertain Times – Episode 2 / Imagery 4.1.20 from Reggie Marra on Vimeo.

Grave & Goofy Poems – Narrative Healing in Uncertain Times

Posted on March 25, 2020 by Reggie Marra

This is the first in a series of brief writing prompts designed to help you get your feelings and thoughts onto the page.

No previous writing experience required.

Continue reading below the video for more information.

Grave and Goofy Poems: Narrative Healing in Uncertain Times – Episode 1 from Reggie Marra on Vimeo.

Appropriate (fun and easy) for parents who are home now with their kids.
Each episode will present one way to begin writing – a writing “prompt” and anyone who actually does the prompt, i.e. writes for a couple of minutes (as opposed to just listening to it and not writing) will leave the session with at least one poem beginning, which you can then work and play with.
Prompts can be easily adapted for younger children, young adults, adults, seniors (anyone – really).
Some episodes will include, in addition to the prompt, a brief overview of / introduction to a poetic / literary device / tool – like image, metaphor, simile, voice, conflict, theme, line, diction, punctuation, texture, completion…
This is intended as an introduction especially for:
- anyone who has never written a poem before, or who thinks he or she cannot
- folks who have not written poetry or prose as a way to understand themselves and their world before
- parents who are at home with their kids
- teachers who have little or no experience teaching poetry writing
- anyone else who’s willing to explore the power of poetry / the written word to heal
Each episode will provide a resource or two for further exploration.

Fillet of Soul With a Dark Night Glaze

Posted on May 23, 2017 by Reggie Marra

This video, from Wainwright House in Rye, NY, is a recent presentation of the poem, preceded by about 4 minutes of the story behind the poem.

If you’d like to read the poem on the page, the best way (for both of us) is for you to purchase a copy of And Now, Still: Grave and Goofy Poems, which is available on Amazon, and also available here, at a 30% discount if you use this code when you check out: ADXSKKVR.

Buy the book and you’ll get 44 additional poems and help feed me. Great deal!

Enjoy!

If, of course, you’d like to read the poem without supporting the arts by buying a book that helps feed a poet, you can click on the right sidebar photo of me dressed in black and talking with my hands. A PDF will appear. And I’ll still need to be fed.

Narrative Tradecraft #1 – Perspective

Posted on January 4, 2016 by Reggie Marra

This post originally appeared at http://www.teleosis.org.

Perspective, or point of view – which I’ll use synonymously here, colors how we experience everything, and in many ways is the foundational element with which we work in our Living Poems, Writing Lives course. We engage various “tools” as both literary devices and as strategies for living our healing narratives in an intentional way. These devices include, and are not limited to, point of view/perspective, imagery, metaphor, diction, ‘music’, drama/conflict, theme, texture, revision and completion.

The point of view through which any one of us experiences and assesses his or her life emerges through a variety of factors that includes development within specific intelligences or developmental lines (e.g. cognitive, moral, spiritual, kinesthetic, emotional), personality, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, childhood (and adult) experiences, religious affiliation or lack thereof, health – in the broadest meaning of the word, and political affiliation – just to name a few, and also what we might call the center of gravity or general worldview that is the cumulative effect of these factors. Trusting, for the sake of argument, that there are objective events in the world – the tree falls, the car starts, he drops the glass, the heart skips a beat, the train is late, the flower blooms – it is our point of view, the perspective through which we experience the event, that determines what meaning we give it and how we respond.