2005/6

I HOPE 2006 IS BETTER THAN 2005! Not just for me, but for several other people I know. What a year!

Klang-a-Laing

My last post got my thinking about my former interest in RD Laing. I think I originally got into him due to a namecheck of Knots on Siouxsie and the Banshees' The Scream (on Jigsaw Feeling*)(yup, I briefly had a Munch picture on my wall as well). I can also recommend The Divided Self. Oh, and Sanity, Madness and the Family is good too. All this led me to eventually conclude that therapy was rubbish and we should concentrate on changing society instead. It's funny that I'm in quite intensive therapy now myself...

Anyway, I was looking around on the internet and found this website about one of the organisations he set up. I currently live rather near Kingsley Hall (although it's just a community centre nowadays) which they describe as:
"a melting pot, a crucible in which many, assumptions about normal-abnormal, conformist-deviant, sane-crazy experience and behaviour were dissolved. No person gave another tranquilisers or sedatives. Behaviour was feasible which would have been intolerable elsewhere. It was a place where people could be together and let each other be".
According to the website, they also have launched a fundraising appeal so ... why not support them...


* Jigsaw Feeling:
Send me forwards-say my feelings
But all the signals-send me reeling
Jigsaw Feeling

One day I'm feeling total
the next I'm split in two
My eyes are doing somersaults
staring at my shoe

My brain is out of my hand
there's nothing to prevent
The impulse is quite meaningless
in a cerebral non-event

Five fingers do my walking
ten toes unravel 'Knots'
Amorphous jigsaw pieces
falling into slots

So I just sit in reverie
getting on my nerves
The intangible bonds that keep me
sitting on the verge...
of a breakdown
of a reaction
of a result
(defeat me...)..Complete me...maybe...defeat me
(Jigsaw feeling)

Lyric: Severin Music: Severin/McKay

Books books books

I was sorting out some of my old books today, wondering whether to try and flog the ones I don't want anymore on amazon. I found a couple that meant a lot to me in my mid-teens. I think they had a big influence on me, definitely so in the earlier years. I used to read this kind of thing for fun!

They are playing a game. They are playing at not
playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I
shall break the rules and they will punish me.
I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game
from Knots

The other book was this. I always thought that if I had kids I'd send them to Summerhill!

I also keep thinking about Engels' book on the family which I can't remember ever owning, but I think I must have read it for A-level and found in it just what I was looking for to fuel my anti-family rants!

Although I think (maybe even hope!) I've mellowed quite a bit in my thinking since then!

The Bish rides again

The Bishop of Durham (by this I mean, the one from about 20 years ago!) was always a big hero when I was at school, especially due to his support for the miners (did he really call Ian Mcgregor an 'elderly American'? - I've been trying to find it quoted on the web but to no avail) and his comments around the 'virgin' birth, the resurrection, etc. Also, York Minster getting stuck by lightning made us all laugh (oh I know, just a coincidence!).

Anyway, I open the newspaper today and it looks like he's back to his old form:

Church crisis as gay vicar ties the knot

The Bishop of Durham was last night taking advice on what to do after a homosexual vicar had his gay marriage blessed at a church service - flouting Church of England guidelines.

The Reverend Christopher Wardale, 59, and retired Northumbria University lecturer Malcolm Macourt, 58, tied the knot at a civil ceremony in Newcastle yesterday.

The couple later held a thanksgiving service at a local church, attended by former Bishop of Durham, Dr David Jenkins.
....

But Dr Jenkins, who gave a sermon at St Thomas the Martyr church after the civil ceremony between Mr Wardale and Mr Macourt, made it clear that it was as much a service of defiance as of celebration.

He said: "I will confess to find myself both agitated and depressed by the ways in which official church bodies - not least the Roman Catholic ones and currently Anglican ones - handle matters of sexuality with unfeeling dogmatism and insensitive regulation.

Hear hear!

Can't believe he's 81. This is also a good read!

Couching...down....

A bit shocked that it's been a month. I thought about keeping a diary, but kept forgetting. So... here are a few snippets of what I did manage to jot down.

Ooh, it was really good! Found it very easy just to lie there and say nothing! (which I did for ages). Then I said, "Er, should I be saying something?" "To please me?" … Decided it's the 'being bold' bit in between doing something and doing nothing that I find hard. I was very surprised how hard it was to actually speak - I'd have something on my mind but it was hard to get it out there. My stomach was making the most peculiar noises!

A difficult session... Why do i talk about the past not the present? Is it difficult because she doesn't tell me how she feels? Are my thoughts too difficult to articulate? Am I scared she'll ill-treat me? Answer: I really don't know! I no longer even know what on earth I should say, even vaguely what realm my thoughts/words should be from. (“Do you feel you're expected to say something in particular?” arrgghh)

Quite interesting, she noted that we'd got into the habit of me waiting for her to break the silence! Went on about my past therapy and why now I've pushed my problems away from my mind. Talked quite a lot, but she still thinks I think it's all “bizarre” and am cynical.

She's bloody obsessed with me missing the next session. I thought I was doing well as I was talking about the stuff continued over from yesterday, then she asked me if the reason I wasn't focussing (but I thought I was!!) was because I didn't want to start anything due to missing the next session. Also, maybe when I laugh it's to hide the negative thoughts I have about her. Huh?? Maybe I just go along with what she's saying and by missing the next session it's my way of saying “sod you”... Apparently yesterday I seemed shocked when the session came to an end.

I mainly just went on about playing the violin - she didn't seem very interested. Although, she was by my being riled by the pensions adviser for calling me “cautious”! Why do I fear people seeing me as cautious? Do I fear her seeing me as vulnerable? (maybe). Do I feel I'm missing out on things if people think I'm cautious? (yup). She seemed rather miserable yesterday and today when she opened the door - she usually beams at me. At last a sign of life in her house - could smell toast!!