Shared Transformation
Blessings
Re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your soul,
and your very flesh shall be a great poem. -- Walt Whitman
Over and over, from every conceivable angle, Kundalini has made me take stock of my life and reach new levels of
self-understanding. I've come to see that nothing has been accidental, and that negative incidents in my life
have been crucial, sometimes more so than the events that had seemed positive. For instance, in college, two teachers
left lasting impressions on me. One, a woman in her late fifties, taught an antiquated mandatory home economics
course for freshman girls. The other was a Jack Kerouac of an English lit prof -- the only teacher on campus in
1965 who wore a beard and rode a motorcycle to class. I was barely able to stay awake in home ec, which was an
indoctrination for female students in the domestic duties of a proper wife. My English prof, on the other hand,
kept me riveted. Both of these teachers assigned written papers early in the semester. For home ec we were asked
to write a paper describing our future goals; the lit prof wanted an essay on Kafka. I have no idea what I had
to say about Kafka. For the home economics assignment I vaguely recall writing some idealistic tome about wanting
to help humanity.
The lit prof read one paper aloud to the class -- mine. He held it up as exemplary -- something for the rest of the class to strive for. I blushed with embarrassment, surprise, and a muffled sense of pride. I had such high regard for the lit prof you'd think this incident would have stuck with me, but I forgot it entirely until Kundalini rattled it loose from my memory thirty years later.
My home ec paper came back with a C- grade and a red-penned comment atop the page: "I've been teaching this class for twenty years so don't think you can fool me. No freshman can write this well. If I could find the book you plagiarized this from, I'd have given you an F." That, I never forgot. Every word in my paper had been dragged out of my own skull. I didn't confront the teacher. There was no way I could have proven my innocence and it didn't seem worth a fight. But she got through to me in a way no one else could. I had rationalized that my lit professor overestimated my work -- that my opinions on the topic must have been in line with his own, which was why he liked my paper. But when I received my home ec teacher's left-handed compliment, I thought to myself, "My god, maybe I really have some talent here." Of course, being falsely accused struck a nerve; not only my writing skills, but my basic honesty had been trashed. This incident was one of many which undermined my desire to continue my formal education, while helping to set me on a course that shaped my life. Looking back, I'd still like to give the home ec prof a swift kick in the butt, but I have to admit she fired me up with more faith in myself and more determination to defy the conventional mediocrity expected of me than my radical-for-his-time lit professor. (Funny that he was the one parents thought was a threat to impressionable young minds. Complaints about his unorthodox appearance and teaching style got him kicked off the faculty the following year.)
It took me awhile to appreciate my gift as a writer because visual arts have always been my first love: painting, drawing, collages, assemblage pieces, the works. I was actively involved in these things for much of my life. I made all the stage props and many of the costumes for the troupe I worked with during my years of performance art. But life kept closing doors on my ability to continue my artwork. Money for art supplies was always short and the space to create and store my work was minuscule. Then, with Kundalini, my deteriorating health has physically limited any stand-up or even prolonged sitting down endeavor. Yet all the while, I've kept writing. I'm now far more developed as a writer than a visual artist.
My years of poverty, with its deprivations and miseries I wouldn't wish on anyone (especially if you have little children), also proved to be a darkly wrapped gift. When no one is willing to pay you, you can't very well sell out. The hard times kept me true to myself and permitted me an internal liberty I may have lost had I been successfully employed. I worked minimum wage jobs that utilized less than .01% of the alleged 5% of the brain that we use, leaving my creativity untapped and wholly available for my own purposes.
My rootless childhood years of constant moving taught me early about social disenfranchisement, loss, and heartbreak yet at the same time fostered an independence of mind and spirit that serves me to this day. It gave me an acute awareness of the temporal quality of life, so I learned not to take anything for granted, and to cherish any friends who came my way. For a long time I'd resented these and other blights and disadvantages which short-circuited my love for life. Now I consider them initiations which forced me to grown in ways I doubt I otherwise could have. Forgiveness comes more easily now for the people who hurt me, and for life itself (or God/fate/whatever-it-was that orchestrated all the events that had seemed meaninglessly, stupidly unjust or cruel).
So you might imagine that I could carry this wisdom into the present, realizing the intricate perfection of everything I'm experiencing. It seems that by now I'd trust that somewhere deep inside those black clouds, there's a silver lining. Nope. This awakening business doesn't work that elegantly with me. It's 3 steps forward and 2 steps back, which doesn't feel like I'm making a whole lot of progress.
Yet lately the idea of making progress is fading away, and the stepping forward and back seem like a strange
little ritual dance. It's usually a clumsy, absurd kind of stumble-dance that makes me laugh. And sometimes while
I'm cracking up at myself, I get a flash that coming through it all, still being capable of love and laughter,
may be the greatest blessing of all.
-- El Collie
© El Collie 1995