+A LITTLE ORDER IN THE MIDST OF CHAOS SURE FEELS LIKE PEACE TO ME

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Friday, December 16, 2016.  Musing today:  What is listening?  To me it is an interaction that really cannot take place without the “feeling felt” experience being present.

I sure in no way believe it’s limited to humans interacting with humans!  That makes listening, in my “cosmological” thinking, something that directly involves spirit!

Listening.  A transmission of experience – very much in the NOW moment when it is in action – therefore it is LIFE itself – in motion.  Hence, it’s connection to emotion = energy in motion.  The life force itself being exchanged.

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I am exceedingly grateful for having been able to spend the bulk of my childhood ensconced in the wilderness upon the mountainside of our Alaskan homestead.  I had so little consciousness of anything back then due to the terrible and bizarre situation of my human family madness.  Yet I did have relationship with fundamental nature.  Looking back I understand that I was in perpetual relationship with Life Spirit.

Human relationships were forbidden to me by Mother’s unique version of psychotic madness.  No matter what was done to me while we were on the mountain, my essential self was OK – because I was essentially connected.  Although on human level I was alone, on the level of spirit I was continually near an infinite source of comfort.

During the times we were living off of the mountain my life was much more difficult.  At those times the prison she created for me was itself trapped within another prison – the one created by “civilization” – which I can simply translate as being degrees of absence from the pure spirit of nature.

Yet even then Alaska itself exuded (pre-oil boom, pre-satellites and drones….) its own force so that it permeated most people who walked upon its land, drank its water, breathed its so-sweet air.  I know this factor assisted my survival.  Survival that continues because it is directly linked to the power-of-place.

Sustaining place.  Which seems to be different for different people.  (I have a dear friend raised on a North Dakota farm who moved to Manhattan as soon as she could do so after completing her art degree – and LOVES it there.  A total mystery to me.)

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At least I look out my window here and see outlines of forest covered mountains in the near distant north.  Rolling hills surrounding this small New Mexico town I have moved to seeming to be warm and holding arms surrounding me.  Dappled light, leaves free now to turn their favorite shade of red or gold, free to travel in the light or blustering breezes.

I have hopes once I am more settled here that I will be able to travel around to see the land here, to visit the wilderness – although my definition of wilderness will always inherently mean WAY NORTH – but this area is protected, designated wilderness.  I am glad it is near to me and that I am near to it.

I feel sustained in ways that North Dakota could never afford me.  There’s an inner assurance for me that I will be OK.

On the human range?  Gradually I wander the hills of town, visiting shops, approaching people, casually chatting, trying to learn/remember names, hearing stories….

This is all tied to the organization and orientation of a person in one’s life.  Listening within to what feels comfortable, lends to senses of safety and security, of resonance that says “Where I am comes closer to mirroring to me who I essentially am that other places possibly can.”

Coming home.  Coming home to self.  Finding others to listen to as I listen to the wind, the area, the place – and being human, the stories and lived degrees of drama of others who live here – many from families who have been here for hundreds of years – I will feel more felt – hopefully lighting up places within where joy resides – rather than hides.

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The fight to survive.  To endure.

The fight to feel OK.

Then the fight to find the glimmerings of joy – and then maybe some floods of it?

And – to somehow be connected not only to the spirit of land and climate and animals – but also to someone else – even if only once in a while.

Contributions of goodness.  Acts of service to the world we are a part of.  Not always easy.  Certainly.  But along the continuum of possibilities – the art of finding ways to genuinely feel better is a really, really good ‘thing’.

One moment at a time is fine.  When we connect to any fundamental place within us so that our essential self can feel at rest (as we listen within to what this sounds/feels like) – when there is no immediate threat present that needs to be responded to by our body’s survival stress responses (not even in our thoughts at these moments) – I think we are feeling-felt by our own self-within-the-flow-of-ongoing-life – the way we are all SUPPOSED to feel it.

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Meanwhile……

All this trauma?  Not in our own lifespan – but it is coming, that time when humanity will mature greatly so that all this human-caused trauma will end everywhere on this earth.  We are all a part of humanity’s maturation process, this healing.  And sometimes — we can feel the upside right here — within us.

And when we do — I think it is important to notice!  Notice “all the way around” and within us.  There’s a context here.  Lots of important information exists in these moments of (relative) peace we can notice, listen to, experience, value, learn from.

Maybe these are moments when order has been (briefly?) established within a chaotic world.  Oh, how I know how tiring it is to have to work so hard to reach these moments!  Yet sometimes they come as gifts of grace.  I don’t want to miss noticing and cherishing them — no matter what — I am listening.

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Leave a Comment »

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Here is my first book out in ebook format as it provides an outline of the conditions of my malevolent childhood.  Click here to view or purchase–

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.  A daring book – for daring readers – about a really tough subject.

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Tags: adult attachment disordersadult reactive attachment disorderanxiety disorders,borderline motherborderline personality disorderbrain developmentchild abuse,depression,derealizationdisorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorderempathyinfant abusePosttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factorsPTSDresiliencyresiliency factorsrisk factorsshame

 

 

 

+MUSING ABOUT MUSIC – AND TAKING SOME ACTION

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Tuesday, October 28, 2015.  The north wind is roaring around here.  It’s not THAT cold out yet, although I did see a sneeze of snow flurries this morning.  In Fargo, North Dakota it’s when the sneezing turns into full blown COLD with massive COUGHING north winds that drop wind chills to deadly that people here have to worry.

So, for the time being, I can leave my sliding glass door open a crack for fresh air – and for wind music.  I can actually tune this music by changing the width of the opening I leave for the wind to sing through.  (Nope.  This will NOT be music I wish to hear by next month.)

A wind whistle.  Howling?  Sometimes sounds like an oboe.  Sometimes rather piccolo-esque.  A little sax.  A little tuba.

Reminds me of wind howling across our family’s Alaskan mountain homestead during my childhood.  Of wolf songs.  Of wild things.  Things that what might remain of the earth’s wilderness know about.  A certain primal sense of freedom.

Of music in water’s movements.  Storms.  Yet wind?  How can it make any sound at all if there is nothing for it to blow around, through and against?

Like a crack open into this room

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Speaking of music….

I picked up this book a few weeks ago in trade at the little used bookstore a mile from my apartment –

Musicians in Tune: 75 Contemporary Musicians Discuss the Creative Process (1992) by Jenny Boyd (music psychologist)

In posting the link to this book I now see that Boyd has another book out that I will be ordering –

It’s Not Only Rock ‘n’ Roll: Iconic Musicians Reveal the Source of Their Creativity (2014) by Dr. Jenny Boyd and Holly George-Warren

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I do know that Boyd’s writings will be the basis of my serious self-examination this winter about how the traumatic abuse of my childhood so damaged my musician-within.  I am after some healing here.  Serious healing.  Lots of it.

I am also going to add to my study this book so highly recommended by Boyd –

Toward a Psychology of Being (2014 edition) by Abraham H. Maslow

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I spend nearly all the time I can making things with my hands.  I am an extremely creative person.  Yet, I also know that for some very bizarre reason I do not understand my mother not only allowed me to pursue 3-D creativity, she fostered it and often even praised this aspect of my being.

This was true only for one other part of me – that I liked flowers.

Bizarre.  In her mentally ill psychotic mind – what was she THINKING?

I don’t really care.  Except that I want my musician self to BE BORN NOW!!  I want to pursue what is, to me, the invisible side of my creativity.

I want to make music.  I want to stop hearing my mother’s words about me and music.  Her hate-filled voice.

I want to end this entrenched tyranny of her over me.

Now.

I am going after this freedom.  This joy.  This right.

Now.

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  Click here to view or purchase –

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.

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Leave a Comment »

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Tags: adult attachment disordersadult reactive attachment disorderanxiety disorders,borderline motherborderline personality disorderbrain developmentchild abuse,depression,derealizationdisorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorderempathyinfant abusePosttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factorsPTSDresiliencyresiliency factorsrisk factorsshame

+LIFE: IMPETUS and CHANGE

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Saturday, June 20, 2015.  Writing.  Choosing words.  Combining words in patterns that don’t  express ideas so much as point in their general direction.

Maybe like verbal golfing (and NO, I do NOT golf!).  Whack that ball in a given direction.  According to a pattern.  A way of moving through time and space to reach a desired end.

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Seeing, I suppose, is a kind of feeling process, although we don’t especially think of it this way.  Perceptions influencing neurons sending information in patterns throughout our brain.  Giving us information in this body we get through life connected to.

Same with hearing.  Yes, detecting those slower waves.

And rhythms.  Events we detect.  Like earthquakes or wind moving past us.

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Everything about being alive involves change.  And exchanges.  We grow into how we receive, perceive, respond to and assign meaning and value to the continually shifting patterns of information that affect and involve us over the course of our lives.

In the final picture perhaps all we do is seek to keep a life-sustaining sense of balance.  AND if we are fortunate the “one” who establishes our place in all of this change – is what we might term in English – our self.

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How is this process NOT a dance?

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“Attack with a feather?”

Full Definition of IMPETUS (noun)

1a (1) :  a driving force :  impulse (2) :  incentivestimulus

b :  stimulation or encouragement resulting in increased activity

2:  the property possessed by a moving body in virtue of its mass and its motion —used of bodies moving suddenly or violently to indicate the origin and intensity of the motion

Origin of IMPETUS

Latin, assault, impetus, from impetere to attack, from in- + petere to go to, seek — more at feather

First Known Use: 1641

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  Click here to view or purchase –

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.

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Leave a Comment »

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NOTE:  I am still stuck with this new version of the blog’s posting page that I do not like and cannot get out of.  It has refused to post or include my chosen tags:

adult attachment disordersadult reactive attachment disorderanxiety disorders,borderline motherborderline personality disorderbrain developmentchild abuse,depression,derealizationdisorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorderempathyinfant abusePosttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factorsPTSDresiliencyresiliency factorsrisk factorsshame

+WHEN IT COMES TO PLACE — AND TIME

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Sunday, June 7, 2015.  During the daytime hours of most of my productive time I am attentively and intensely involved with the brain-mind-self growth and development of a very smart and active nearly 3 year old who is acquiring language and the ability to communicate with self and others at warp speed.  I counted last week and found the average is an interruption requiring ME by my grandson every 7 seconds.  One time this pattern allowed me 15 seconds to my own thoughts!

I cannot do more than note alerts to very important and fascinating research that continues to come my way.  I have created a folder in my email account to store these in –  that I named —  “Study this Later” and later is months away from now!  Otherwise these tapestry threads will disappear over the waterfall of my life to be gone forever.  Or so I fear.

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I can’t remember if I have already posted this:

Missing Link Found Between Brain, Immune System, MedicalXpress.com

Researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have determined that the brain is directly connected to the immune system by vessels previously thought not to exist.

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This comes from another site and is important to me:

Epigenetic changes in the developing brain changes behavior #SurfaceYourRealSelf

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This is another one and I believe the free-of-charge option remains available;

A message from Dr. Bessel A. van der Kolk:

Having witnessed breakthrough results in the treatment of trauma, abuse and neglect with neurofeedback, I’m asking for your help.

For so many traumatized children and adults, neurofeedback remains out of reach…

For this reason I have has created a free CE video giving an in-depth discussion of the promising way to rewire the brain — through neurofeedback.

You’ll learn what neurofeedback is, how we study it, and see the remarkable results that we’ve obtained thus far.

I’ll also tell you why right now, neurofeedback is not eligible for insurance reimbursement and what you and I, together, can do about that.

I appreciate your dedication to improving trauma treatment and committing yourself so much to the mental health profession.

Please, enjoy my free CE seminar — and share with your colleagues to help me get the word out.

Best,
Bessel van der Kolk

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This is so INCREDIBLE on the power of empathy!!

He Snarled At Everyone Who Went Near His Cage. But When THIS Woman Comes Along? UNBELIEVABLE!

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On neuro treatments for anxiety:

NETmindbody – An Explanation of NET

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Well, I am disappointed but not surprised that I do not see the links I thought I saved on the topic that MOST caught my attention – THE NEUROSCIENCE OF PLACE

I can locate information via online search for “neuroscience place” – and here are a few links to what shows up there:

Place Cells, Grid Cells, and the Brain’s Spatial Representation System

The place of human psychophysics in modern neuroscience

A Strange Place: Dissecting the Neuroscience Nobel Prize

Neuroscience: Internal compass puts flies in their place

Methods of Behavior Analysis in Neuroscience. 2nd edition.  Chapter 4 — Conditioned Place Preference

And a special topic for me:

Judging Beauty in Places, Faces

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All this to say, I can at present accomplish to more than to point out some points that send the compass of my mind into excited swirling!!  I do believe that trauma, and especially early relationship trauma, ALL childhood trauma, is somehow involved in alterations related to these topics.

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  Click here to view or purchase –

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.

++++

Leave a Comment »

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NOTE:  I am still stuck with this new version of the blog’s posting page that I do not like and cannot get out of.  It has refused to post or include my chosen tags:

adult attachment disordersadult reactive attachment disorderanxiety disorders,borderline motherborderline personality disorderbrain developmentchild abuse,depression,derealizationdisorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorderempathyinfant abusePosttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factorsPTSDresiliencyresiliency factorsrisk factorsshame

+THE COST OF NOT KNOWING

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Saturday, May 30, 2015.  How long does humanity have to put the right pieces together, to gather the right information, to make the right decisions, to take the right kind of action before we create planetary conditions that are beyond our ability to cope with them?

I was raised on a wilderness mountain homestead upon this land – in the news now for – something that grips my fears and welds them together in ways I would never have thought possible in my lifetime of nearly 64 years.  Alaska.  The land my heart has never left.

Alaska’s Spring Is Becoming More Like California’s Summer

Climate change’s new normal is causing record-breaking heat and wildfire risk.”

We can only make use of what we know to move forward at any given time through the changes that life puts us in the middle of.  I want to know, “How do we prepare our children for the world we have borne them into?”

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I have an undetermined – at present – set of moments to think and write before one of my grandsons comes to visit me sometime today.  I cannot think clearly enough or quickly enough through the kinds of thoughts that crowd upon me swarming like billowing clouds of unwelcomed gnats.

Gnawing themselves into my conscious thinking space are tangles of thought threads demanding my attention that simply begin to present themselves in the pages that appear in my online search of these terms:  “imaginative play empathy”

What I remember from my prior studies does nothing but alert me that there are things I need to know that I do not know yet.  I remember from Dr. Allan N. Schore’s writings about the pivotal early brain building processes through attachment interactions with primary infant caregivers that when these relationships fail in their purpose to build a healthy body-brain-self not only do insecure attachment disorder patterns come to rule a person’s life but so also do empathy disorders.

On the blade of that double-edged sword, we DO have one with the other – and we DO NOT have one without the other.

Yes safe and secure attachment = yes healthy empathy abilities.

No safe and secure attachment = no healthy empathy abilities.

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Here is a link to an Autism Quiz.

There is a known link that exists between Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and early detection in children that is connected not ONLY to empathy disabilities but also to a lack of the ability to engage in imaginative “pretend” play.  Autism presents varieties of serious attachment interferences related to inabilities to interact with other members of our social species emotionally – and socially.

I want to think my way through these connections.  Is there some kind of a fork in the road of development, a kind of “Y” presented in situations where safe and secure attachment is denied to a human being that fundamentally alters  the direction that development can take?

What is it about humanity AS A WHOLE right now in our evolution that has prevented us from being able to experience healthy empathy with OUR ENVIRONMENT?  What kind of DENIAL supplants truth when humans cannot or will not (refuse to) IMAGINE what the consequences are of their actions?

Someone on the spectrum (ASD) lacks the ability to comprehend how their way of being in the world is different from what is now termed “neurotypical” people.

Severe early trauma as it exists in unsafe and insecure attachment conditions often creates Trauma Altered Development in survivors who then are not “neurotypical” people, either.

What links of the ladder, what spokes of the wheel, exist that connect in a kind of overlay of realities between these three (in general) kinds of people, ways of being in this world?

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Evidently what is termed “Climate Change” has not captured the IMAGINATION of our species to the point where we can, on the whole, comprehend what is happening and is going to happen not only to life on this planet but to – dare I say of our ego-infected species – ALL OF US.

I just did a search of my own blog here, typing the word “denial” in the box at the top of this page.  MANY posts appeared!  I am certainly not going to stop to read them at this point.  I did not see any of those posts with a title about my thoughts “back then” connecting the operation of denial in human thought and action with a form of “pretend play.”

If we PRETEND something is not happening or did not happen – then – it did not happen and it is not happening now.

I did not, for example, have ANY idea that I had been abused until I sought out professional help when I was 29.  I did not have any CONCEPT for what had happened to me.  That was not due to DENIAL – was it?

The truth of what happened to me and how that impacted everything about how I am in the world continues to unfold within me.  That is a process of life.  Of MY life.

And yet the stage of imaginative, pretend play that toddlers enter and that lasts for ensuing “ages” of childhood is VITAL to the “neurotypical” development of members of our species.  When that stage does not appear in early development – most simply put – there IS something wrong.

But how do we use our human powers of imagination throughout our lifespan?  If I had time I would find a great deal of information I need to solidify my own thoughts if I studied the connection between “imagination and empathy” for a while.  As it is I now have a very strong sense that this connection is profoundly important to understand – full circle.

I will simply live with my questioning for the time being as I carefully watch my nearly-age-3 youngest grandson as he now exists in this (mentioned) stage of his development.

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There is a kind of interesting “inter-think” possible with today’s marvelous internet world.  If you do an online search for these terms – “grand forks nd air force shooting” – you will find information that in my mind is related to my undercurrent thinking presented in this post.

This young Air Force man, as you will soon see on the pages that appear with this search, walked into a Walmart store and opened fire on others and then shot himself.

Gee, not surprisingly, reactions center upon “Nobody saw this coming.”

Now – when I look at this picture of this young man I no doubt SEE something most others do not see.  Look at, focus on, stare into his eyes.  Eliminate every other thought and listen to your heart.  ESPECIALLY if you are a survivor of severe early trauma I think you will sense and then see what I do.

Am I imagining what I see?  Look again with Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in mind.  (Take a look at this site if you are not familiar with ACEs.)

Imagine the connection between the tragedy of that young man’s shooting – and the very likely possibility of his having had some SERIOUS trauma in the early years of his life that NOBODY “let” him talk about.

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Did nobody notice the inner reality of this young shooter?  Did nobody care?

These thoughts lead me to questions.  What is the connection between ignorance (not knowing) and denial?  How does ignorance interact with imagination along a continuum of “pretend play” and denial?

How does what we do not know we know hurt us?  How does not knowing what we DO know – but deny – hurt us?

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In my mother’s boxes of papers that came into my hands when she died in 2003 I found a small 2” by 3” black and white picture of myself in kindergarten before our family moved from Los Angeles to Alaska.  I cannot find that I have any digital copy of this photograph.  I have it placed along the narrow propped shelf I created to hold my music books above my keyboard.  When I sit down to play I look at this picture of my young self – and I play for HER-ME.

When I look into the eyes of that young shooter I see those same eyes in my just-turned-5-year-old self.  The same eyes.

It has taken me a long time, decades, of learning about my history of early abuse to be able to now empathize with myself.  My eyes in that picture seem to exist BEHIND the body of the young girl in the photograph.  That girl me existed within – and had always from my first breath existed within – such a world of horror, terror, pain and abuse that there is NOTHING showing through of ME – the actual real ME – in that picture.

Sure there is a small face, a small body.  I can see the crookedly chopped bangs of my hair, the wide starched white collar on a cotton plaid dress.  But in my EYES?  In my so-rare, so light sky blue eyes?

Oh so lost, so sad beyond words.  So overwhelmed by the world I was forced to live in, by what I had suffered.  The question in those eyes?  “IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE?”  I was ALL ALONE inside myself.  Inside that world.  All.  Alone.  In a terrifying, terrible world.

I made it through.

But I was NOT OK.

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Those are the eyes I see when I look at that young man’s picture.  We need to begin to let ourselves KNOW one another!  Really KNOW one another!  There is a price paid for remaining ignorant of suffering.  There is a price for creating worlds as is so often the case in mainstream American culture where people MUST pretend that all is fairytale perfect.

When it comes to the pain being inflicted by humans upon this earth and within the environment that is an extension of each of us, this earth is beginning to SCREAM back at us.  That is what, I am imagining, this young man finally did.  HE SCREAMED – and his screaming came far, far too late.

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Unbidden my thoughts this morning include my vision I experienced on the mountain when I was 15.  Consciousness of the spirit of life that exists inseparably throughout the entirety of creation in this material world.  Everything and everyone is connected.  Empathy allows us to accept accountability for our part in sustaining life.

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  Click here to view or purchase –

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.

++++

Leave a Comment »

++++

NOTE:  I am still stuck with this new version of the blog’s posting page that I do not like and cannot get out of.  It has refused to post or include my chosen tags:

adult attachment disordersadult reactive attachment disorderanxiety disorders,borderline motherborderline personality disorderbrain developmentchild abuse,depression,derealizationdisorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorderempathyinfant abusePosttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factorsPTSDresiliencyresiliency factorsrisk factorsshame

+OUTER LIMITS OF HUMAN POTENTIAL: AUTISM AND MUSICAL GENIUS

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Tuesday, May 26, 2015.  It is not the ordinary that defines the outer limits of human potential.  In the case I am highlighting here it is the mysteries of the outer extremes that affirm there is much we have yet to learn about the human brain.

You will find a link below to a video of a story about great disability paired with the great ability of genius.  It leaves me thinking about what an ability to focus could do without any impediment created by fear (including self-consciousness).

It would not be advantageous for the survival of our species to have our abilities paid for at the cost of this much loss.  Yet most of us probably do let go of degrees of what could be our own unique genius because we really are spread out so thinly as we disperse our energies by attending to so many signals of wants and needs within ourselves and others that we sacrifice dedication to focus in favor of multitasking our way through life.

Ours isn’t a wrong way to live.  But it is a choice.  Our ability to make our choices is our gift.  The man this movie is about has an entirely different kind of gift.

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I watched this movie spellbound and mesmerized.  What an incredible story!

The Musical Genius

DocuFilm (Focus 2006) Video

Derek Paravicini is autistic, blind, retarded, and yet, is a genius at the piano. He can play anything he hears just once. This report follows him to a major concert where he teams up with another genius pianist…with the same handicap.

“Born three and a half months prematurely, Derek Paravicini miraculously survived, but his twin sister did not. Technically, he died three times in the hospital and his eyesight was destroyed by an oxygen overdose. He has been left completely blind, partly autistic, can’t tell left from right and cannot count to ten, but despite his disabilities he has an incredibly acute sense of hearing, and is a musical genius.”

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Here you will find a follow up on musical savant co-star of the above movie – Another incredible story —

Rex Luther-Clark (at age 13) by “60 Minutes”

Notice in both of these shows the complications regarding emotions these musicians experience as described by other people.  Emotions.  What are they, anyway?  And where is it “written” that emotion is an integral component of music?  Does music itself exist separately from emotion?  Actually, from watching these musicians it appears yes, it does.

Yet I also notice that no specific mention is made in either documentary about rhythm and timing as they ARE essential aspects of music.  (This makes me think of prosody in languages, as well – including tone, pitch, pauses, inflections, etc.)  Is “emotion” anything more than a nuance of music itself?  Emotion – is it ALL that really matters in Beethoven’s piano sonatas, for example?

Is music primarily created of patterns (simple and complex)?  How patterned are emotions?  Is there pure music?  Are there pure emotions?  Are emotions essentially music?  Can music be deleted from emotions?  Can emotions be deleted from music?

(This line of thought could include “machine made” or “digital” so-called music – but I am not prepared here to pursue this thread.  I do know that, obviously, even in these circumstances humans are involved in these productions.)

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In Modern English:

Origin of MUSIC

Middle English musik, from Anglo-French musike, from Latin musica, from Greek mousikē any art presided over by the Muses, especially music, from feminine of mousikos of the Muses, from Mousa Muse

First Known Use: 13th century

Origin of MUSE

Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin Musa, from Greek Mousa

First Known Use: 14th century

(Muse) (In Greek and Roman mythology) each of nine goddesses, the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, who preside over the arts and sciences.

The Muses are generally listed as Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Euterpe (flute playing and lyric poetry), Terpsichore (choral dancing and song), Erato (lyre playing and lyric poetry), Melpomene (tragedy), Thalia (comedy and light verse), Polyhymnia (hymns, and later mime), and Urania (astronomy)

Origin of EMOTION

Middle French, from emouvoir to stir up, from Old French esmovoir, from Latin emovēre to remove, displace, from e- + movēre to move

First Known Use: 1579

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Certainly the discovery of music fundamentally “stirred up” both of the musicians in the above films.  Therefore, it seems to me, nothing but emotion MOVED them at the same time – simultaneously – to their discovery.  In the video about Rex his introduction to music through the gift of a keyboard on his second birthday is documented as having an immediate and PROFOUND impact on that boy!

A greater level of questioning would be to explore what listeners’ requirements are of musicians if musicians are expected to take responsibility for listeners’ emotions.

Do listeners demand a “relationship” with musicians?  Do listeners demand a “relationship” with the music?  Do  listeners demand of musicians that they reach into listeners and massage their emotions with the music they create?

If these are the conditions set for musicianship then must music itself be only a vehicle for emotional relationship communications based on “tonal” titillation of outsiders’ emotions?  If this is so, then do we demote music to the role of promoting a listener’s relationship solely with their own self?

How petty!  How demeaning of one of the greatest gifts known to humankind.

And yet, if music CAN be played without emotion is such music sterile, void and dead?

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Certainly cultures vary greatly around the globe in their tastes for music as do cultures within cultures.  My thinking takes me to tune, tunes, tunings and attunement.  Attunement is the basis of attachment in relationships as it is coupled with appropriate response to signals.

Do people tend to seek “attachment attunement” to musicians?  To themselves through the effect music has on them?  To a wider group of others also listening to the same music?  If this is true then music is a mechanism for attachment.  Because autism is considered to interfere with both emotional and social development, how is musical talent including outright musical genius affected?

Is there a subtle expectation that music somehow “save us” from being-feeling all alone?  Isn’t that the same thing that safe and secure attachment interactions do for us?  Isn’t being attuned to HOW we KNOW we are not alone?  Does music let us KNOW that we are human?

Through music are we connected to an infinite feedback loop that lets us know we are who we are (human) and we are NOT ALONE?  Isn’t that the same thing we want to know from the first moment we are born?  We are a social species.  Yet we are told that autism presents us with a variation – perhaps – of what being human MEANS.

Do we naturally seek a special kind of wisdom through our experience with music as it echoes back to us the very nature of our species as we have named ourselves?  We, the sole survivors of the genus Homo.  We, being modern humans who began to evolve 200,000 years ago.  We, being the subspecies called, Homo sapiens sapiens.  Sapiens — meaning “wise” or “sapient” ones.

Of course we would question the meaning behind being a savant – of music – or of anything else.

Origin of SAVANT

French, from Middle French, from present participle of savoir to know, from Latin sapere to be wise — more at sage

First Known Use: 1719

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Did humans invent music?  — “Did Neanderthals sing? Is there a “music gene”? Two scientists debate whether our capacity to make and enjoy songs comes from biological evolution or from the advent of civilization.”

Evolutionary musicology – Is “a subfield of biomusicology that grounds the psychological mechanisms of music perception and production in evolutionary theory. It covers vocal communication in non-human animal species, theories of the evolution of human music, and cross-cultural human universals in musical ability and processing.”

NOT to be confused with — Evolutionary music — !!!!!

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From the Centers for Disease Control site on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Data & Statistics

Prevalence

  • About 1 in 68 children have been identified with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) according to estimates from CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network. [Read summary] [Read article]
  • ASD is reported to occur in all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups. [Read summary] [Read article]
  • ASD is almost 5 times more common among boys (1 in 42) than among girls (1 in 189). [Read article]
  • Studies in Asia, Europe, and North America have identified individuals with ASD with an average prevalence of about 1%. A study in South Korea reported a prevalence of 2.6%. [Data table] [Read article]
  • About 1 in 6 children in the United States had a developmental disability in 2006-2008, ranging from mild disabilities such as speech and language impairments to serious developmental disabilities, such as intellectual disabilities, cerebral palsy, and autism. [Read summary]

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  Click here to view or purchase –

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.

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Leave a Comment »

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NOTE:  I am still stuck with this new version of the blog’s posting page that I do not like and cannot get out of.  It has refused to post or include my chosen tags:

adult attachment disordersadult reactive attachment disorderanxiety disorders,borderline motherborderline personality disorderbrain developmentchild abuse,depression,derealizationdisorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorderempathyinfant abusePosttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factorsPTSDresiliencyresiliency factorsrisk factorsshame

+IN A NUTSHELL: WHAT I WOULD DO

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Monday, May 4, 2015.  On the one hand I am thinking Poor Me!  On the other hand I recognize that having the ability to THINK the way I am this morning is a gift.  Only it doesn’t so much FEEL like a gift.  The Poor Me thinking self feels cursed to wake up on a Monday morning with no ability to sidestep the currents of CDC ACE Study-related thoughts that are streaming through my mind.

This having been said, all those words that really mean nothing and are a waste of time (and of internet space), just leave me with those same currents of thought that I seem to have little choice about what I do with them.  I write.  Here I am at this juncture of my life in time and space within the masses of billions of human beings alive on this planet….  Having something to say….

My lengthy telephone conversation yesterday afternoon with one of my sisters stirred up the pot of what I know and of what to do with what I know.

My sister lives in the country on her organic farm south of Austin, Texas.  She told me that her chiropractor in Austin has a flatscreen TV on the wall of his waiting room that does nothing but continually stream ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) study information.  She also told me that even her primary care physician is asking questions right along with increasing numbers of people (“the public”) who want to know, “What are we supposed to DO with high ACE score information?”

People are asking, “Does a high ACE score mean I am doomed?”

I hear these things and my mind does not acquiesce into any belief that all these problems are not my concern.  They are somebody else’s.

I don’t have the LUXURY of shutting of my seemingly unbidden near-torrents of thinking about how do we take the in-the-air findings of scholarly research that is confirming what to me is simply common sense:  Truly traumatic childhoods undermine well-being over the course of a lifetime.

Is there a Niagara Falls worth of complexity ahead as more and more people begin to understand what the ACE studies are showing us?  How do humans even begin to constructively counteract these patterns within a culture, society, civilization?

When it comes to influencing the impact and even the existence of ACEs — What can be done?  By whom?  How?  When?

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I do not want to be burdened with thoughts about this subject.  I seem to have no choice.  I was born into an extremely high ACE infancy and childhood.  I might as well be telling myself, “I don’t want to have blue eyes.”

A good friend of mine told me that currently most ACE-related information is online and is being discussed via blogs.  My morning torrents tell me we have to take these concerns out of the air, make them visible, and ground them into the very real material level of existence where we all reside.

How is this going to happen and who is going to do it?

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I just discovered a word I have never heard before.  It summarizes my psychotically mental ill mother’s severely abusive relationship with me – ANATHEMA.

There is a straight arrow track from the first breath I ever took as her accursed newborn to each breath I take today.  I might complain all I want about the horrors of my childhood and what they did to even change my physiological development.  I can complain all I want to about what feels like “a burden of proof” that resides within me.  I could not escape my mother or what she did to me.  I seem equally incapable of escaping what I feel now.

These two ends of the trajectory of my life are fundamentally bound together.  There I was.  Here I am.

I ask myself the same question about my own high ACE experience as I ask about the WHOLE MESS!  What is the MEANING of THIS?

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I might yet live long enough and in the right conditions to foster whatever good I am supposed to accomplish with what I know, which is the same thing as saying, with who I am.

There is a mighty reservoir of information IN EXISTENCE about this entire subject from start to finish.  I seem to hold within myself a portion of this information.

All I know at this moment is a kind of vague and nebulous image connected to answering the questions I pose in this post.

I see an hourglass.  Instead of grains of sand moving from top toward and through a narrow opening towards the bottom I see PEOPLE.

I think that if I could devise only one single kind of intervention for high ACE score people it would be tailored to create a “net” set to capture as many young people close to age 18 as could be found.

It is there I would begin the work toward resolving these kinds of high ACE concerns for the future (which is coming one breath at a time for all of us).

I would work to create a way to catch the next generation of parents exactly as they slip through that tiny hourglass hole from childhood into adulthood.

All of my thinking is, therefore, is beginning to narrowly focus on THIS!

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I am finding this hourglass image helpful as I think about the upper triangle’s base, its widest part as the circumstances in the earliest months of life (attachment interactions) as they dictate even physiological developmental patterns in body-brain.  Research NEEDS to demonstrate the high correlation between high ACE scores and insecure adult attachment.

From there movement to and thru that tiny hole in the middle — if we could catch those young people transitioning from childhood to adulthood and educate them right there about ACEs – we could change where they land on the lower pyramid levels.

We could prevent high ACE people from finding their way to the broad base of the pyramid at the bottom where the greatest lifelong difficulties from high ACEs currently resides.

It is here I would apply pressure to those great trauma wounds to minimize those traumas from being passed to the next generations, as well as to help survivors to heal ASAP.

Every step of positive change accomplished in this way will also have a “lateral” impact as the ripples of informed healing begin to increasingly move out into the wider circle of cultures to permeate a new culture of trauma healing.

In this war on trauma a strategy is needed.  A way to focus all available resources in the most effective way.  My thinking?  This is the direction it is leading me.

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  Click here to view or purchase –

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.

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Leave a Comment »

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NOTE:  I am still stuck with this new version of the blog’s posting page that I do not like and cannot get out of.  It has refused to post or include my chosen tags:

adult attachment disordersadult reactive attachment disorderanxiety disorders,borderline motherborderline personality disorderbrain developmentchild abuse,depression,derealizationdisorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorderempathyinfant abusePosttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factorsPTSDresiliencyresiliency factorsrisk factorsshame

+WHAT HAPPENS IN THE WOMB MATTERS – Link to an article

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Friday, April 10, 2015.  Nothing like a trip back in time to get the mental blood flowing.  Back to origins.  Back to the beginning of time.  OUR time.  Each and every one of us.  Succored in the matrix of our mother’s womb.  At the beginning….

Although, as readers are aware (!!), I am uncomfortable with the SINGLE word “resiliency” I am at the same time completely comfortable with the paired words “resiliency factors.”  This is because long ago in my life I found for myself that my wordview is not comfortable “splitting archetypes” in such a way that one noun becomes disinherited by another in a kind of polarity contest (to put it most simply).  This tendency to split things in half seems to be very “Western” and perhaps our doing so is our attempt to dignify our experience living in this reality which is one of relativity – and therefore of relationships between “things” including ideas.

I NEVER think of “resiliency factors” without at the same time holding in my thoughts what is to me the WHOLENESS of this working concept as it HAS to also include “risk factors.”  There is a living organic RELATIONSHIP not only between these two factors but also, of course, a relationship with the individual person (in this case) who experiences them IN CONTEXT over the course of their lifespan from conception until death.

These factors are entirely interactional, entirely relative, entirely personal.  What might be a risk factor for one person can be a powerful resiliency factor for another person.  But one factor that is completely a PLUS for every single person is life in the matrix of the womb – or we would never GET HERE!

BUT, womb life can be a risk business for some.  Even our womb life is interactional with the environment we are growing within.  How could it not be?

I know fundamentally that my mother was happy and physically healthy while she carried me.  Without those nine calm months I do not believe I would have survived the hell of her abuse of me over the next 18 years.  (Her psychotic break that led directly to her abuse of me happened while she was birthing breech-me.)

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All this – to highlight – something interesting that came through my email from the ACES CONNECTION  —

THE VULNERABLE PRENATE – Birth Psychology

From this article:

The prenate (i.e., the unborn baby) is vulnerable in a number of ways that are generally unrecognized and unarticulated. Most people think or assume that prenates are unaware, and seldom attribute to them the status of being human.”

Theory and research from the last 20 years indicates that prenatal experiences can be remembered, and have lifelong impact. The major purpose of this article is to clarify the conditions under which prenatal experiences may be lifelong and to describe the theoretical and research perspectives that are necessary to understand the effects of prenatal traumatization.

The effects of prenatal traumatization cannot be predicted without knowledge of other factors, and prenatal experiences are likely to have lifelong impact when they are followed by reinforcing conditions or interactional trauma. The term interactional trauma means that traumas interact with each other in producing their effects. In statistical analyses, interactional means that the effects of factors depend on the presence of other factors. Both of these definitions communicate the meaning of interaction as it is used in this article.”

READ MORE HERE

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  Click here to view or purchase –

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.

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Leave a Comment »

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NOTE:  I am stuck with a new version of the blog’s posting page that I do not like and cannot get out of.  It has refused to post or include my chosen tags:

adult attachment disordersadult reactive attachment disorderanxiety disorders,borderline motherborderline personality disorderbrain developmentchild abuse,depression,derealizationdisorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorderempathyinfant abusePosttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factorsPTSDresiliencyresiliency factorsrisk factorsshame

+LINK TO NOTES I JUST TRANSCRIBED FROM DR. SIEGEL’S MINDSIGHT TALK AT THE DALAI LAMA CENTER

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Saturday, February 22, 2014.  I just finished listening to a YouTube recording of Dr. Daniel Siegel Discussing Mindsight at the Dalai Lama Center in May 2011. 

Because I am entirely new to the latest information Siegel gives on mindsight and the brain I transcribed much of this talk (4000+ words) and posted it here:

*SIEGEL – MINDSIGHT VIDEO NOTES Feb. 2014

So far I am very impresssed at what I am hearing – which says a lot because I am a highly defensive reader when it comes to what might or might not help severe early neglect, abuse and trauma survivors.  Siegel knows his stuff!!

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There are many powerful points made in this talk including a more detailed description of what I posted about earlier today – There is also a description of the meditation I will try out tomorrow – I am WAY too tired tonight!!  I am also too tired to say anything intelligent here – other than this is important info and —

Please also take a look at this from Dr. Siegel’s work:

HERE is the Wheel of Awareness Practice meditation video on YouTube

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono (we are still waiting to hear that he has accomplished this job) – what a gift and thank you Ben!o Click here to view or purchase:  A STORY WITHOUT WORDS

It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!

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+WHAT WAS OUR FAMILY ALASKA HOMESTEAD FROM THE AIR – REST OF MY ALASKA VISIT PICTURES

06 2013 valley alaska homestead now 1

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Our homestead land, now subdivided.  The Red barn shaped building sits on what was our original home spot.  The large cleared field at the top was near the edge of our top boundary.

Seeing this land, the home of my heart and soul – just makes me feel sad.  My parents couldn’t find a way to hold onto the land and neither could any of their six homesteading children.

06 2013 valley alaska homestead now 3

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The following are pictures of the Eagle River Valley floor, of the lake that is the headwaters of Eagle River and of Eagle Glacier back at the end of the valley.

Eagle Glacier

06 2013 valley alaska eagle glacier ridges

Eagle Glacier – Ridges

06 2013 valley  alaska lake ER headwaters

The glacier melt feeds this lake that is the headwaters to Eagle River.

06 2013 valley alaska ER glacier view to inlet

This is a view of Eagle River Valley taken from the glacier looking toward Cook Inlet in the Anchorage direction.  (Our homestead land lies forward to the right.)

06 2013 valley alaska ER toward inlet

A view of the back of the valley the eagles could see that flew over me as a child but that I had never seen myself until the day of this flight.

06 2013 valley alaska ER valley floor

Coming back into the valley I could see from our land, at least this land is fortunately at least currently protected within the boundaries of Chugiach State Park.  This is the place where the vision I had as a teenager (see link below) left me standing as it ended.  I am so homesick!

06 2013 valley alaska Angel mt river

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Those readers of this blog who have followed my writing will have heard me refer to “the angel on the mountain” or Angel Mountain.  I took one picture of it but it was the pilot, Marc, who kindly took two I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR!!

06 2013 vallely alaska angel mt not perfect

There my childhood angel who saved my life as a so-severely abused and traumatized child up there off the right tip of the plane.

I have been blessed to have gone through several Native American healing ceremonies in the years of my adulthood.  During one I found what felt to be the essence of who I am floating in a bubble in the air in exactly this spot!!

06 2013 valley alaska ANGEL MT perfect

The pilot saw exactly what I was telling him about.  There is my angel on the mountain who changes with each tiny change in the seasons!  She was ALWAYS there for me and I talked to her and felt the love of her presence in my life ALWAYS.  As a child, I did not question.  This innocent absolute belief in this angel being there never faded.

eventually this can be cropped to include HER, but for now I am thrilled to have this picture, also.  Thank you, Marc!  And thank you to my brother for arranging this air excursion for me.

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About 30 years ago I read a quote that I have never found again, so I can only paraphrase it.  At the moment I encountered those words a shock went through me to the depths of my soul.  How could this be true?

The most pathetic human being is greater in the eyes of God than the mightiest mountain.

It’s still hard for me to accept this truth.  This is one of the great spiritual testings of my lifetime as my soul seeks the illumination of truth.  I am not of myself any kind of a fan of humans.

A great motivation for my current cleansing is because I want to live healthily long enough to be able to live again in Alaska.  This motivation is taking me back to a Native American healing woman this coming Friday.  A friend of mine has seen her and will be taking me.  I am specifically going to ask for assistance to stop smoking cigarettes.  This requires for me a spritual healing.  I cannot do it by myself.

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June 23, 2013.  It has taken me some time to even face my feelings about seeing the urban sprawl that has infected the virgin wilderness that was my home growing up.  My parents staked claim to 160 acres in 1958 when I was seven.  Back then there was only a faint rugged Jeep trail back into the Eagle River Valley that has, since I left home in 1969, grown into a 2-lane paved highway and is now back under construction.

Through the kindness of my brother and his pilot friend I was able to see the Eagle River Valley and the land that was our homestead before my parents “lost” (sold) it.  When I was a child from my point of view from the mountain there was a small bump we used to call the loaf of bread beyond which I could not see.  Finally, all these years later I saw what lies beyond it.

I have many thoughts and feelings related to the topic of this post but it is not the time for me to consider them or to write about them.  I simply present the pictures here.

 See also: 

+SOME SCENES FROM MY RECENT ALASKA VISIT

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