To have to bear the unbearable
how do I do this?
let alone teach my patients?
the tragedy that is of this world alone
this suffering life
this particular patient in extremis;
facing the pain of others
the failure of self
the pain of mere existence
of harms done to others
to even those I have loved
especially to my children
to the Self
a gnawing aching pain like the second one reels in one's
toe from a too hot bath
there follows a deeper slower agonizing pain- that oneknowing
this without worry of sentimentality
like when listening to Bach and suddenly the tears flow
uncontrollably without explanation as if he had unlocked
the mystery of the suffering world in one chord sequence.
and I know how true it is despite the distance over time the
secret remains alive...
but no one taught me how to bear it.
Why me?
Why my shoulders?
Nana had always said "he carries the world on his
shoulders" when I was three
A cry baby to my Dad who often was triggered by this little
sissy boy
who cried too easily for everything and anything
triggering his rage as to what this so-called son was
turning in to.
Yet I still cry when making love, unable to hold back the
pain
as if in the climax there is a secret being released into the
world from a mysterious place through the lovers
and we are powerless to resist this like the very act of love
itself
and are forced to transmit this crie-du-chat
despite ourselves
we are as mere porters.
and this sense pervades all my experience
nothing is free of its taint...
especially the sunsets over the lake
and landscapes in changing seasons
as if nothing is eternal
all must die and rebirth
all must leave and dissolve
and I cannot bear it nor hold back the tears.
But for me the joy was always intimately bound to not only
love but also death and the tragic poisoned all happiness
with the perilous concoction of ecstasy and torment.
And discovering the sacred was no refuge, for here too I
found the hierosgamos-that sacred union of good and bad,
light and dark sides, angels and demons, overseen by the
Almight Oneness the Presence where all is made clearmade
plain in one glance (skira) the whole of history, of
human suffering, of nature and survival, of violence and
animal behavior, human striving throught the lens of this
tragic focus.
This consciessness we called God once, forced me into
an even more unbearable awareness of the cosmic
suffering and divine pain which only raised the stakes
even higher seeing things from his perspective lightened
nothing comforted no one. And of sacred texts the longing
and yearning heightened the feeling that there were a few
prophets with the same sense.
The relief comes only in fleeting moments, a Scotch, the
climax, the music, the needle in the spine which demands
my total focus and concentration, aware of nothing but the
technique and watching that X-ray screen for my nonbiological
steel needle penetrating the vulnerable flesh as
it passes skin, fascia, muscle and dura to deliver the
sacred remedy.
And in most unexpected places it surfaces; triggered by
haunting memories a sequence of music, a word spoken
soflty in a movie, a patient's knowing look of anguish, my
sibling abused, ageing relatives after a time gap,
Above all-no one taught me how to carry all this.
