Freedom Is in the Unknown

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My most recent book is Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia.

Below is an excerpt.

REVERSING THE MEANING OF TRAUMA

My friend Artemisia told me a story that happened to her some years back. She had just begun menstruating, and was suffering from debilitating cramps. Massive doses of ibuprofen were not relieving the distress. She went to her regular acupuncturist, Dr. Lily Ming, to get relief.

Dr. Ming had Artemisia lie down on the table and proceeded to insert 10 needles in her belly and hand and ear. Then Dr. Ming introduced a treatment that Artemisia was unfamiliar with: She lightly pounded the nail of Artemisia's left big toe with a small silver hammer for a few minutes.

"Why are you doing that?" Artemisia asked.

"It is good for the uterus," the doctor replied.

Indeed, Artemisia's cramps diminished as the doctor thumped, and in the days to come they did not recur.

After the session, as Artemisia prepared to leave, the usually taciturn Ming started up a conversation. Artemisia was surprised, but listened attentively as Dr. Ming made a series of revelations. The most unexpected was Dr. Ming's description of a traumatic event from her own childhood.

During the military occupation of her native Manchuria, a province of China, she was forced to witness Japanese soldiers torturing people she loved. Their primary atrocity was using hammers to drive bamboo shoots through their victims' big toes.

The moral of the story: Dr. Ming accomplished the heroic feat of reversing the meaning of her most traumatic imprint. She turned a symbol of pain into a symbol of healing.





SAVED BY HOPE AND FAITH AND LOVE

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history.

Therefore, we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.

—Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History





BENEVOLENT SHOCK OF THE NEW

Your old self is the fuel you will use to burn your old self to the ground. This bonfire will liberate your new self, which has been trapped in a gnarly snarl deep inside your old self.

It's only at first that you'll feel freaked out by the flames. Very quickly a sense of relief and release will predominate. Then, as the new you makes its way to freedom, escaping its cramped quarters and flexing its vital force, you will be blessed with a foreshadowing of your future.

The intoxication that follows will bring you clarity and peace of mind.





Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower — by Rainer Maria Rilke

Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.

Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?

If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.
In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.

—Rainer Maria Milke, translated by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows

From A Year with Rilke: Daily Readings From the Best of Rainer Maria Rilke