ONE FIFTY AND COUNTING
In the dream
Hal and I are sitting on the curb
at the corner of Time and Wisdom
In the dream having a nice long chat
It is one of many dreams
with Hal and Sidra in starring roles
If they were to charge us for this time
(as they sometimes threaten to do)
I mean even at their standard rates
never mind 2.5 for nights and weekends
how many many thousands we would owe
If they charged for the wisdom
the national debt would seem low
150TH BIRTHDAY LIMERICK
The Event
In October 2007 a number of Voice Dialogue teachers and friends gathered in Boulder to celebrate Hal’s 80th birthday and Sidra’s 70th birthday. I was honoured to be asked to write a theme poem, then Larry said, “But not a Limerick”.
The Limerick
There were two therapists from Thera
Who were so wise they would scare ya
The were so darned smart
They could take you apart
And you couldn’t hide hide nor hair a ya
NEW TRIBES
From the old tribe of Isaac
and the old tribe of Ishmael
Israeli and Palestinian
couples and their children
come together by the sea and share
We are teaching the skills of listening
the skills of sharing and skills of hearing
The rules are simple
tell your truth as your truth only
Assume as you listen
that the person makes sense
If they do not seem to make sense
assume you need more information,
By the end of the weekend
the eight year olds are sleeping over
teenage walk on the beach till dawn
A new tribe being formed
THE INNER CRITIC
Poor little Keystone Cop
(although often not so funny)
Leaping from shoulder to shoulder
trying so hard to keep us safe
yelling or whispering in each ear
the old rules based on fear
Telling us what we should have done
and what we should never do
Enforcing rules learned long ago
that may no longer be true
The voice of your mother, still
nags when your room’s not neat
The voice of your father
still wants you up at dawn
Your teacher and your coach
Your country and your culture
Your parents and your younger selves
with messages to keep you safe
The cop only knows what he used to know
and still does what he was told to do
You don’t have to destroy him
or shove him out the door
Just put your arm around him
and tell him you’re no longer four
WHO’S DRIVING YOUR CAR
The Siamese twins
had to move to England
so the other one could drive
The part of you that drives to the office
is not the one who arrives at the beach
The one who bought the purple dress
is not the one who won’t let you wear it
The one who got the license first
always wants to drive
While everyone else in your psychic car
the ones that can think
and the ones that can feel
all fight for their turn at the wheel
While it so often seems that the you
that includes and is more than them all
Is back in the boot, or trunk if you like
bound and gagged and tied up inside
just going along for the ride
THE WALL
Walls are for wailing
and also for tumbling down
Unconscious fears rise in concrete form
conscious choices less visible rise with it
Inside and out of the builders and the wailers
there are a million voices
starting to hum that old Jericho tune
THE THERAPIST PRACTICES HER ART
Dorsey paints with people
dips into their hearts
where all colors
have merged
to mud
***
Gently
lays them out
ultraviolet to infrared
spaces between clearly seen
and hands them back the brush
VOICE DIALOGUE
The facility of the facilitator to facilitate
depends on the faces of the facilitator
the facilitator has the facility to face
COFFEE HOUSE HOUSTON
Sitting outside around the round table
Dallas and Buda and the boys
coffee cigarettes and stories
Inside of each, tables within tables
other Budas, other Dallases
votes being taken and taken again
A clear enough majority
though far from unanimous
Texas sunshine helped the swing
Fine then, another cigarette
another coffee – one more story
nobody’s in a hurry ‘round here
PROLOGUE
November 22, 2001
U.S. Thanksgiving – Houston, Texas
Having decided to fast instead of gorge, and looking back in gratitude and awe at the last year, I have decided to prepare for you a small meal of impressions
Dorsey, ever a source of inspiration and joy, is tapping out changes to a new manual in the next room. Feel good to know that her gifts are for others as well as myself.
Probably go to Galveston Beach tomorrow, where she walked on September tenth.
Profoundly, and as it turns out, prophetically touched by a feeling of the end of summer and an end of innocence
I was in Canada at the time and remained T.V. free; A week helping my brother re-floor his cabin at Candle Lake in Saskatchewan, and then joining some wonderful old friends and new for Canadian Thanksgiving at an Alberta Rocky Mountain retreat.
Can’t help but think that we are indeed in ‘speed up’ and on the teetering edge of something profound here. I still remember a Tibetan, Rimpoche, at Esalen teaching us about having compassion for all beings in the universe. The problem, he said, was that we had no idea how to do that, or where to start. He suggested that we should sit in silence and think of one person whose pain would be as our own. A child, parent, lover, or whoever. To really feel that pain, and to then add people one at a time as long as we could maintain that feeling. When we were unable to do this we should stop, and try again later. We have up to now been unable to get our heads and hearts around the thousands of deaths from war and natural disasters around the world. September the 11th cracked that open to a point where 6,000 people got into our hearts at one time. There is evidence that this is spreading to our concern for the citizens of Afghanistan and other parts of the world. I pray that it is true.
Part of the ‘speed up’ is in the learning curve. In the last year we have been in five Canadian Provinces, and sixteen U.S. States (seven of them new to me), as well as Holland, Greece and France. Learning lots, and passing some of it along at workshops and readings.
Want to express deep gratitude to two of our principal teachers, Drs. Hal and Sidra Stone, originators of the Psychology of the Selves , or Voice Dialogue work. The timeliness of their vision of how each of us as persons, as well as all nations contain a multitude of selves, covering the whole spectrum from saint to terrorist; some owned, and some disowned, and how different our choices and actions can be when we embrace all of them, hold the tension of the opposites and act from a place of awareness.
On the following page is a story off of the internet that I would like to share
Would also like to say that I remain excited and hopeful that maybe the world is indeed unfolding as it should, and that in any case I do not really have enough information to be a pessimist.
Love and happy thanksgiving to all,
Neil