Monday, May 23, 2011

Unusual Encounters – CREDO CXLI


Recent cyber communications have mentioned Thomas Mann, Freud, and Adler, and I suppose I should mention my surprising brief connecting with all three in meaningful ways.

In the summer of 1939, my parents and I – then 16 – spent the summer at the seaside Huis ter Duin hotel in Noordwijk, Holland. I was living one of the most exciting times of my life: tennis, riding, dancing, swimming, falling in love, being a naïve teenager, yet at the same time, writing poems that were being published in the Paris Herald Tribune that contradicted my outward persona. Thomas Mann and his wife and daughter Erika (who later married W. H. Auden) were also guests. Apparently Mann was intrigued by the contrast of my persona and my poetry, and he asked my father permission to talk to me. That given, he invited me to sit with him in one of those hooded basket chairs on the terrace overlooking the sea. Mind you, I had no idea of who he was. I saw a slight middle-aged gentleman with a grey moustache.

He began by telling me he had read my poetry and was curious to know if I wanted to be a writer? When I answered yes, he said that he was one himself and saw true potential in my gifts. Then he proceeded with some serious advice: Get up an hour earlier, start writing anything – just write at least 600 words – and make this a habit. This was something he did himself daily and with positive results. Discipline was the key! He said that if I followed this rule, I would have a career and contribute something to the world. I followed his advice until I went back to boarding school in Switzerland. In the meantime WWII broke out! My career was interrupted, but the Muse hovered for some time until I married in 1945 and she then fled 20 years!

Previous to this, in 1937, I had been utterly miserable in a boarding school in Providence, RI. A total misfit now again in uniform, I had traveled in Europe and North Africa with my parents, never ever more than three months in one place, and those were spent in European boarding schools. I was in the care of my wealthy “proper Bostonian” Uncle George Foote and Aunt Doris living on Beacon Hill. My parents continued traveling as my father’s job selling Mergenthaler Linotypes to print newspapers required this. He was now their Vice-president for Overseas. I was headed for “coming out” as a debutante. My reaction was troubling to say the least, and my Aunt Doris decided I needed therapy. The answer was Dr. Ruth Adler, daughter of the famous psychiatrist Kurt Adler. She was then a plump friendly woman with a short man’s haircut.

I liked her immediately because she understood the dichotomy I felt. I decided that the study of the psyche was right up my alley! One afternoon, we interrupted analysis and turned on the radio to hear King Edward the Seventh of England abdicate his throne in order to marry the divorced commoner Wallis!

The time I spent with Dr, Adler was validating and comforting. I will always be grateful to her!

I met Sigmund Freud’s granddaughter, many years later in Bath, England, when she attended a seminar I was giving in the 1970s in the actual building of the Baths. She regaled us with wonderful descriptions of Onkel Ziggy who secretly supplied her with lemon drops he kept hidden in his jacket pocket. She adored him.

My weekend workshop was given in the magnificent Regency building surrounding the mineral baths prized and built by the ancient Romans during their occupation. Their structure of the large rectangular pool is still surrounded by Roman artifacts. Above it stands the magnificent Regency building, which houses drinking fountains, comfortable rooms, and historic displays. My group met in a downstairs room, and close by was the W.C. used by Her Majesty the Queen. I was informed that Her Majesty travels with her own toilet seat that is installed for her when she visits the small mahogany-lined cubicle we were now free to use, as I remember. At teatime, we were treated to the delicious Bath buns that melt in your mouth.

I discovered the meaning of “to toast” at that time. Apparently Beau Brummell celebrated a yearly event when the Baths were reserved for the exclusive use of a number of naked “ladies” who swam in the nude to the delight of a select group of gentlemen. Beau thought their heads bobbing in the water reminded him of the toast cubes decorating a syllabub bowl filled with that custardy alcoholic beverage served at Christmas. So he raised his glass to the “Toast of the Town!” See what etymology can reveal!

Another association with Freud occurred during WWII when we were escaping in a caravan of two buses, as a group of Americans, from Switzerland to Portugal. The long hot trip through France was hindered by hundreds of refugees on foot or in cars loaded with mattresses escaping the Germans that summer of 1940. We were delayed at the customs at the Spanish border because when we were all strip-searched, a fat lady had placed a German Swiss newspaper between her bottom and the hot leather seat in the bus. The German typescript had offset on her behind! The officials thought it might be code, so we had to spend the night. Fortunately, a kind peasant couple invited us to sleep in their home. The three of us slept on their double bed surrounded by hanging garlands of onions.

Finally, we were able to board a train, but when we arrived in Madrid, we were in every sense looking like tramps. My father was tieless and his face covered by black stubble, as we entered the Ritz Hotel! Fortunately, our American Ambassador Weddell recognized my father and vouched for us. He was the one who had just engineered the escape of Sigmund Freud from Vienna to England. I remember the first thing my mother and I did was taking turns in a bathtub of cold water. The temperature was 110 degrees. We also stopped in bullet-damaged Barcelona, still recovering from civil war. We attended a bullfight. When we reached the border to Portugal, we encountered a Jewish refugee family: grandfather, father, son, all rabbis, two wives, and a small pale four-year old little boy. We gave them the last bits of chocolate and powdered coffee we had. The last we saw of them was at the dock in Lisbon, headed for North Africa.

We sailed home on the S.S. Excambion. We had a cabin, but the lounge had people sleeping side by side like sardines, among them the publisher of Time, and Salvador Dali and wife, who were very low-key and became friends, as did the governess and baby girl who ended up at the Ritz and inspired the character in the book about her: Eloise. I met them by chance later in Central Park. They were still there!

lovingly,
ao

Friday, May 13, 2011

Depression Cure – CREDO CXL


With all the really bad news out there, both geological and political, it is not surprising that some of us sometimes give in to depression! And I include myself.

This early morning, in meditation, a remarkable nutty vision came to me. It was as if the entire Solar System were enclosed in a bubble, and beyond the bubble, the stars were all serenely in their place, and the words came to me, in Scots, “Dinna fash’ yersel, lass, the universe is still running on time!

That notion rings true and should give us all – no matter how terrible things are – another perspective. At 88½, obviously I realize that my entire life is about to be encapsulated and blown away, and I realize that all that remains is that which I have given away: life to four children resulting in further generations, words, spoken and written, and, throughout, the theme of love needed and received yet poured out in various forms. What about hate? Mysteriously, I can honestly say I hate no other. My Teacher M explained to me that after many lives, I had finally dissolved any hatred of people by having compassion on the future karma that they would have to endure. As I have suffered a lot of emotional pain in my life, I can view the lessons learned, but hating just never has been a problem. The evildoers in this world are destined for enormous karmic debt, and this should evoke compassion. “Hell” is living with extended negative consequences to negative actions. The difference is ignorance or conscious evil intent. A mistake is a loop in consciousness made to expose a greater surface to experience.

In my book The Dove in the Stone I recount the story of a conversation with my Teacher M in which he likens consciousness to a tree. Trees do not grow like poles alone. They have branches which go out at an angle from the trunk. The branches have twigs that bear leaves which are open to the sun’s rays and enable them to grow. And each leaf on the Tree of Life is an AHA! And that tree in Genesis is an apple tree. It blooms. And after time, bears apples. The apples fall from the tree and are its gift to the future.

My hates are connected to my own love of perfection – Moon in Virgo – and I hate making mistakes of any kind. So I am grateful for this: “Forgive them, they know not what they do.” Forgiving myself is another matter entirely Sigh.

Here is a poem that expresses my view:

The Poles of Eden

Do not let me mock you, dear
  do not let me hope
  do not let me gather
    a mother and a father
    nor ask them why
  after the release of gold
  after the silver of their peace
  after the sadness and the sleep
    they gave up, turned inward
    each to each his leaden dream
  and left you weeping in their deep
      crying
        screaming
          shuddering
  for comfort and for love to keep.

  Godself has a great pair of pincers
      half a woman
      half a man
  and where they close, where one and One
  in pulsing pinch of promise
      life begins and love began.

  Oh, constant Adam, taste your apple
  roll your tongue about those pips
  and kiss sweet knowing Eve
  upon her musing lips
sons and pentacles and steer
      her womb will render
      and chattel is what those sons
      will hold most dear-
  spliced and sliced out of spit and soil, and split
    One into desperate two
  you seek through sweat and shame
  and serpent dream, and do-
    and you, poor Eve, aborted all that pain
    that Self might gain in Abel and in Cain
      and Adam called you keening
      back to rest - you were his soul
      his hope, your breast
      and Seth he rendered second
          unto death.
  Tell me, son, still young
  and brown, and marked, and hairy
  do you range the desert?
  are you lonely?
  do you range
  where stone and spirit
  make exchange?

      if you quest and thirst and rave
      for answer, seek the mountain
      seek the fountain
      in that initiating cave -
  there you'll find a tomb will mouth
  your prick of conscience
  and swallow continents and questions
  the pestilence of thinking
  deeds and fears
      you'll pass through such a death of seed to peace
      where one in beauty bends to save
      to lead you up bright steps
      by night-webbed gossamer
        to what you crave
  and at that inner height
  you'll find from apple's pride and root
  from knowledge and apple tomb absolved
      grown
  now luminous, now numinous
  your flowering Tree of Light
  your sanctifying Fruit of Life -

  Godself holds a branch of annulating fire
  and flails his grain
  with time and with desire

        and when all and ever
        will be spent
        retted and rent
  He'll gather from the chaff and ash, the spark
  and spin it starwards up
  to spiral out to shimmer in the dark
        then rest and smile
        know and be charmed by love
        filled and fulfilled
  for this
      ah, yes
        is Wisdom.
This is what She meant.

lovingly,
ao