The Terminal Diagnosis Meets the Fearless Toddler
I woke up afraid. I recalled a dream in which I saw myself acting in a way that could be labeled “hysterical.” I woke up feeling ashamed and humiliated, afraid of being labeled overemotional, dramatic, maudlin.
Of course I’m afraid of that. It is rare in this culture that the full expression of grief is acceptable. As a child my expressions of discontent were labeled, and then disregarded as “whining.” So this morning I wake and notice I still carry underlying, often unacknowledged fears of being dismissed, labeled hysterical, and feeling ashamed and out of control if I express my feelings.
As I sit with the fear I realize there is more. I’m afraid as I contemplate my inbox. There are too many items in it: too many things to respond to; questions I don’t know the answers to; needs I have no way of knowing how to fill; tour details I’ve forgotten to nail down; supporters who deserve at least a thank you; questions about licenses and future screenings and promotional materials.
At this moment, though, it feels great to sit in the sun on the Maine coast, to drink coffee in the early morning hours, and to write. It feels great. In spite of the incessant highway traffic noise that scars the gentle morning sounds of the yard of this little motel, I feel some peace. I need to insist that I get coffee and time to write more mornings than not. It is a time for me to feel safe and free. I write whatever I want. There are no demands or expectations when I write in my journal. I don’t monitor my thoughts or my words. They tumble out of me. I have free expression with no shame.
I’m watching a little girl, probably 18-20 months old. She’s walking, then running with a highly unsteady gait but palpable joy in her growing ability to navigate uneven ground, to prove herself against the gravity challenge.
I long for that kind of palpable joy as I engage, unprepared, in this business of being the producer of a no-holds barred documentary movie. I’d love a little unbounded joy as I stumble my way into it and face the challenges of it as this young child I’m watching faces the insistence of gravity. How different I’d feel if I could approach everything I do with her full-on abandon and lack of self-consciousness, no need to do it perfectly or gracefully, not knowing if the next step will entail an unexpected tumble to the ground or a spontaneous pirouette!
These are times that require that I step into challenges I do not feel prepared for. I know others are struggling with this issue as well. We live in extraordinary times. We are being called to extraordinary ways of being.
I consulted with a beautiful, intelligent, talented woman I’ve known for years who finished medical school and family practice residency, gave birth to two beautiful children and passed her board certification exams, in the past several years. She questions if she is qualified to be engaged as a healing practitioner. Maybe she needs more training, she wonders. I told her to step into it. It’s time.
The Hopi Elder counsels: “We are the one’s we’ve been waiting for.”
We can’t wait for someone else to do the work. We can’t wait until we are more trained, more experienced, more qualified. It’s time to approach our work in the world as enthusiastic toddlers and unselfconsciously throw ourselves into the task.
Another analogy comes to mind. We humans, individually and collectively, are in the midst of adolescent initiation rites. Follow this analogy and the stakes are higher than if we follow the analogy of engagement in life with the shameless abandon of a young child.
In many traditional adolescent initiation rites, some of the youth never return from the ordeal. According to the stories, they get lost in another realm, or fall ill and weak and do not to return. Or some take their chances on their own and leave the tribe. In any case, there is no shame in the work of initiation. There is no shame, but there is huge investment: all of oneself.
Inititation is the proving ground of maturation. What is the final outcome of initiation rites? We don’t know. That’s what makes such rites profound passages. If everyone made it there would be no honor in it.
Here’s the story: We are a species engaged in serious initiation rites. There is no guarantee all of us or any of us will come through it alive.
This idea is a powerful one. I feel the power of this story when I personally step into it. I am part of humanity’s initiation into full adulthood. If you choose to step into that story, you are a part of the initiation as well. We face an incredible task and ordeal. We may not survive the rite.
Had I been raised in a culture that applauded effort and heart instead of accomplishment and control, I would approach my life, every aspect of it, with the openness of a child. I would be excited about the task of learning and experiencing and mastery at every age and season. If our culture granted honor and esteem for the effort and heart we displayed from the time we were tiny, as adolescents we would approach everything, even the trials of initiation, with excitement rather than with the fear of being inept or messy.
There’s another analogy: that of receiving the terminal diagnosis. When diagnosed with a serious and potentially terminal illness, there are no guarantees. Faced with such a diagnosis some people just shut down in denial or bitterness. They lack the muster to face an uncertain outcome with curiosity, knowing that every situation represents an opportunity to learn and expand. Even one’s own end.
In this culture we fear not looking good, of being messy and out of control. There has been shame in those things since we were young. The captains of industry and politics all appear to be in control. They wear dark blue suits and red ties and scarves, shiny black shoes and heels. They look very good and very in control. They are, however, mostly scared little boys and girls who were shamed and humiliated and at some point vowed never to look foolish again.
That’s the old story. That’s the old paradigm, the paradigm of domination and control. There’s a new story. We’re in the midst of an inititation. This time requires not control but whole-heartedness. It necessitates not certainty, accomplishment, or looking good. Instead this time of initiation requires that we pick up the work unselfconsciously and throw ourselves into the task whether we feel prepared for it or not.
What does it feel like when I throw myself into life, into my role as “producer,” into my larger and more poignant role as a member of a species undergoing a life or death intiation rite?
What happens if I step out of all fear of the clumsy act, or inept response, or even of utter failure? What happens if instead I embrace awkwardness and and a steep learning curve as part of the process? What happens, at least in my imagination, is that I experience great freedom. My chest opens. My heart expands. My gut loosens. I like this feeling.
I’m tired of the old story. I’m tired of feeling ashamed or afraid when I’m inept or messy or out of control. I like the story that I/we are in the midst of a huge and unknown, unknowable task, an inititation, out of adolescence and into full maturity.
We are going to have to make it up as we go into these unknown and often terrifying times. At the very least, let’s drop the shame. Let’s step into the noble story that at dawn we awakened, confronted with this profound proving ground of unexpected challenges. None of us feels really prepared for it. And yet we have no choice but to step up to the challenge and to put one foot in front of the other.
I want to return to the image of the toddler. I witnessed her this morning, careening into life, destined to fall, but also destined to find her way, to master those leg and feet and toe muscles, and to gain stability and agility. She’s built for it. It’s inevitable that given time, and lacking shame, she will master the ability to walk and run gracefully. And if no one shames her, if instead she’s gifted with the encouragement to experience music and rhythm, she will likewise learn to dance with grace and abandon and beauty.
It’s time to drop the shame that we feel ill prepared for the tasks ahead of us. It is time to step into a huge story of initiation. We are either built for this or not. But either way, it is time to reclaim our birthright to explore our undeveloped abilities with joy and abandon. There is no guarantee that we will come through it alive. But if we approach this time whole-heartedly, if we careen with abandon into learning all we can and doing our best, then there will be no shame, regardless of the outcome.
What a way to go.
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August 26th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Sally, you always make me think! Yes, shame is one of those things we learn at a very early age — it’s part of our “initiation” into a controlled, heirarchical society. It’s probably the most destructive feelings we experience and yet we continue to harbor it throughout our lives. It doesn’t have to be this way…. but, unlearning shame isn’t easy either, at least not in the current cultural climate.
I’m pondering the life of Aaron Russo since he passed away recently. I’m wondering if his battle with cancer actually opened doors to a deeper need to find truth, and hence his film “America: Freedom to Fascism.” Perhaps this was his swan song — his own initiation into adulthood?
Thanks for these words and continued food for thought as we move forward into the unknown. Best wishes for the rest of your tour!
August 26th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Well, It’s a struggle to continue to to know that I am sane when everything in the insane culture says that I am wrong and it is right - and I am insane for thinking the way I’m thinking. Things get confused easily and I start to doubt myself. I have to hold on to what I know is true in the midst of continuous contradiction and even hostility. And then, of course, one does have to live in this insane culture and make a living and so forth. So, here’s what we’d better do: stay grounded in the community of people who know what the hell is actually going on, who look at the situation squarely as it factually is. Stay in touch. Support each other. Care about each other.
You guys are really courageous. I started talking to people about the oil situation 2 years ago. I was ridiculed and put down, really had a hard time. So, you’re sort of doing that X10 with this movie. Oh shit - Climate change, Peak Oil, species loss and - ta da - the really big bomb: over population - ALL AT ONCE. So, I’ve really got to hand it to you. It really is a courageous act. It’s something like being Cassandra, an old testament prophet and, a “bearer of bad news” wrapped into one. It’s going to be tough, but I do think about you two every week and send you love. “Solidarity”, as the old union organizers used to say. Bob
August 26th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Wow. Good sentiments indeed!
August 26th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Thank you for the mornings dose of inspiration!
Good Luck on your tour! Hope to see you on the Seattle leg!
Warmly,
Marna
August 26th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Thanks Sally, for taking the time to compose another of your thought provoking posts. I’ve missed them. The timing and them as always seems to be so relevant for what is unfolding in my world.
I just spent the day giving my first workshop on Coming Home to Earth Community. All about moving from Empire/Industrial Growth society to Life Sustaining Society. I’ve done series of classes before, on expressing creativity and life story writing and more recently on the environment but this one this one scared me. I was going to ground people in Joanna Macy’s teaching on The Great Turning show them the evils of empire in your film What a Way to Go, take them through a Truth mandala exercise to allow expression of our pain for our world and then look at our choices in Going/Growing Forth with the Hopi Prophecy. In the prep work leading up to today I realize how paralyzed I’ve been by feeling it has to be perfect and how much fear I have of telling it like it is. I’ve known deep in my bones the ills of Empire I believe since I was a toddler aware of more than just my own needs and yet speaking with courage & authority on what I know to be true feels dangerous & subversive. I can only imagine how much courage and resolve it takes for you & Tim to take the message out there night after night, city after city. I’m in deep gratitude that you are doing it because you have given me the tools & the courage to do my part in this work and hopefully today we have inspired some more people to go out and tell the true story of our shared humanity.
The seeds and the ripples are going out in ever larger circles with everyday that passes. All it takes is to get over the personal fear of our own ego’s embarassment and to not let our own personal fear of failure stand in the way of speaking our truth and healing our world and ourselves with relationship one conversation at a time.
Blessings & Courage to us all and in the words of the Hopi Prophecy “It’s time to speak your truth”
August 27th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Sally,
Thanks for the heartfelt post and the reminder to do what the present calls for, and to let go of the need to look good.
I can’t wait to see you and Tim here on Orcas Island on October 14.
Phil
August 27th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Sally,
I haven’t read your blog above yet. But I’ve copied it so I can read it at home this evening. So this may be a non sequitur, but I want to pass it on right away. In the current issue of AdBusters magazine there is a copy of a speach that Martin Heidegger wrote in 1955. His point is that to save what is essentially human we have to use not only calculatitive thought (the basis for science and technology) but also meditative thought (the only way to ponder and consider what calculative thought is doing to us and for us). I ended up feeling that while science and technology will continue to evolve (not to say, advance) - Heidegger says science and technology aren’t and can’t be in human control - the main thing we need to do is what we’ve so sadly neglected - think meditatively about what we’ve done, are doing and might do. And do that _befpre_ we move on to additional calculative thought and more projects. Which is _exactly_ what you are inviting us to do. So often we have the impulse, “If the situation is dire, let’s stop talking and get started working already!” But Heidegger says (and much more eloquently that I do) that if we’ve made a mess by overdoing calculative thought and neglecting meditative thought, then the last thing we need is a crash program based on more calculative thought.
And now that I’ve written all this, I can see that this is what you’ve been saying all along - with maybe a little extra underpinning courtesy of MH, most of which I’ve left out. Oh well, we have to keep re-discovering the truth until we know it in our marrow bone. Two or three hundred more “realizations” and I’ll have it.
Paul
August 28th, 2007 at 9:07 am
Paul,
I think your re-realization about how we need to bring contemplative thought to our situation stands to be said over and over. There is such a barrage of opposite think out there, telling us to think our way out of this mess. I don’t think we can hear too many messages that say the reverse, contemplate it from our heart mind.
My last viewing of “What a Way to Go.” It really struck me again, for the first time, how so much focus right now is on the “what to do?”, side of things and we barely understand how deeply mired in denial we are. Sitting with the realization of our mass trance and holding hands while we awaken out of it seems like a really good place to go before the premature question of “what do we do about it?”
Vivien, Ladner, B.C.
August 29th, 2007 at 11:02 am
Sally,
John Michael Greer over at has an interesting essay today that underscores a big part of what you and Tim are saying with the doc. He writes eloquently of our cultural story of “The 11th Hour” when someone arrives at the last possible moment to save the day. He then points out that the makes the case that at least 20 years lead time is needed to ‘mitigate’ the effects of peak oil. Now, as you know, I don’t think there is any real mitigating, but even if there were, given that peak has likely already occurred, the 11th hour was 20 years ago. We’re now at the 12th hour, which doesn’t make for such a marketable story. Instead, it calls for, as you point out, stepping into a new, much more meditative story. Or as Greer says it: “I’ve come to think that one of the things we most need just now, in the Peak Oil scene and in modern industrial civilization as a whole, is that time of reflection in the silence that follows when the eleventh hour has come and gone, and the last hope of avoiding the consequences of our actions has vanished down the track into the land of might-have-beens. It’s been pointed out more than once that the process of coming to terms with Peak Oil has more than a little in common with the five stages of grief…”
I hope I’ve made the links accessible. His article is well worth a read.
Best to all,
Dan
August 29th, 2007 at 11:03 am
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/
http://www.mnforsustain.org/oil_peaking_of_world_oil_production_study_hirsch.htm
August 31st, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Sally,
My children attend a small, parent-run elementary school. As such, we parents can, if we choose, have a big impact on the shape of our children’s education inside the classroom. One question I’ve been pondering is how to convey the state of the world to this community. Many of the parents are socially aware, but we live in a relatively affluent region, and I fear that the children are heading into the future with all our consumer-culture myths in place.
So I’m wondering what kinds of stories and myths should we be teaching our children instead. I know what the themes of these stories should be: courage, adaptability, self-reliance. But I don’t know the stories themselves or how to transmit them to another generation. Fear seems to be the biggest obstacle — how to prepare them for change without filling their lives with worry?
Anyway, I’m just rambling. Thank you and Tim so much for your eloquent film. I wish there was a children’s version.
September 6th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
Thank you for an inspiring article. Unfortunately, I am suffering from the “bitterness and denial”. Not of Peak Oil, but of the despicable state of humanity, especially America. As in the early 1800’s, when there was more concern for the welfare of ‘property’ (slaves) than for the wage laborers in the northern city streets, our leaders are more concerned with our material wealth (oil supply = material wealth) than with the family units and individuals who give up natural freedom to be willing participants in a society.
You suggest that it is our time to become adults and take the situation in hand and solve the problems. When Jefferson, Franklin, Madison et al reached this point, they took up arms and risked fortunes and lives to fight the corporate control of corrupt government.
The internet allows us all to become pamphleteers, but who among us is willing to take aim? Who is willing to put aside the things of childhood (television, Starbucks, automobiles, computers, air conditioning, sports stadiums) and Spectacle in order to set the examples, to fight the real fight, to defend the natural right of the individual and to punish our System of Systems for breaking the social contract?
Charles Reich covered this well in “The Greening of America” back in the ’70’s. As complacency and comfort kept people from thinking too much then(not to mention Disco), we are in the same position now, only it is even more dire to contemplate how many of us will die in the class and resource battles to come, whether we pick up arms or not.
The Democrats aren’t going to save anyone except themselves and their bribes. The Republicans make no pretense of protecting people over property rights. The Republic has died and we are still beating dead petroleum and automobile ‘horses’ to take us to places we don’t need to go as a species.
Until we hang up the phones, shut of the TVs, unplug the internet, and stay home from the J-O-B, we will find reasons to rationalize our country’s empirical behavior.
I am desperate and bitter because I have all these things, too, and there is little hope to live without them unless you have a place where you belong. I cannot find that place among the mindless hordes of consumers in this country. I am tired of trying to educate them about their ignorance, and I am tired of being nice to moronic people who are killing my children’s futures.