Tag Archives: Identity

Movie! (Sigh)

I’m sitting in an actual movie theatre, ready to watch an actual movie.  It’s been a long time.

I’m nestled close to … my first bag of movie popcorn since probably the 1800’s.  I feel so normal!  I’m in a really big room with this rectangle of white looming ahead. And – wonder of wonders – I’m hunkered down in a black leather reclining chair.  I feel so special!

My thoughts wander to Marvel’s “Black Widow” film.  I’m pretty sure in another place and time, I would stand beside Scarlett Johansson as we superheroes dispatch the bad guys with derring do.

My fantasy life is running wild as I wait for the really big screen to light up with action.  Let’s see.  What kind of costume would I create for myself?  It would have to be red, with touches of purple, and skin tight. That way I could show off my developing u-shaped body.  Oh, and I’d definitely need a cape … a long flowing brilliantly red jobbie that would catch the wind just so.

Oh!  The screen is now alive.  Here come assorted previews and features.  Immersion, I’m ready for you!  See you after the movie.

***

Stupid film!  Shooting and exploding.  I hereby relinquish any previous superhero ambitions.

I had trouble following the action, especially since blurred car chases greeted me from the second row.  I could figure out who’s good and who’s bad, but the intricacies of the story blew by me.  Vials of a mind control drug.  A family of Russian spies secreted away in Ohio.  Scarlet swinging on a rope from a helicopter.  Daring rescues.  A mystery woman in a metal suit.

Boring

I’ve changed … into what?  Give me a good story that shows the perfections and imperfections of us all.  I’m sitting here in reaction to all this action.  And my stomach hurts from too much buttered popcorn and chocolate covered peanuts!  Time for bed.

Kenosis

I’ve been strange lately.  There’s some peaceful crumbling going on, a sense of skin cells falling off.  I don’t see any danger but there’s huge mystery.  “What’s happening to me?  Where am I?”  Sometimes I seem to be enshrouded in a fog.  I reach into it and grope around for familiar shapes, often finding none.  At times I feel in free fall, but with no worry about the landing.  Or that I’m rubbing up against something unknown, something so very soft.

I suppose this sounds pathological but I trust that it’s not.  There’s often a great feeling of space around me.  At those times, there aren’t any landmarks that I recognize but somehow I feel at home.  The solidness of “who Bruce is” is fading … expanding … and fading again.

Within my waveriness, there are sometimes losses of memory.  I sat down on my yoga mat this morning, ready to do the exercises I’ve done for months.  There are eleven of them, and for five minutes at least I couldn’t remember the first one.  Yes, there was a little blip of fear but it was soon replaced in the unknowing by a little smile.  Not remembering was not a problem.

For the last few days, I haven’t felt like writing a blog post, and so I haven’t … feeling at ease around the silence on the screen.  A couple of weeks ago, I celebrated my 1000th post on WordPress but now the number seems meaningless.  There will be writing when writing feels like emerging.

A woman I know and trust told me recently that I’m going through kenosis.  Tonight I looked up a conversation on the internet on that very topic between Patricia Albere and Debbie delaCuesta.  I made some notes and here they are.  Some of them shine a light on my recent days, in which the experiences are so different from my past ones, and yet magically not problems.

Kenosis is self-emptying.  The ways in which I’ve identified myself are merely constructs, things I’ve believed in, and they don’t define who I am.

Releasing the attachment to who you thought you were  CF.  “I’ll die if I’m not somebody”

You feel like you’re being erased and you can’t find a sense of identity

Uncharted, uncertain, ever-changing

Who I am is this kind, compassionate person [or maybe I’m far more vast than that]

Being less attached to the higher … spiritual experiences come and go

Too solid, too much of a something

Achievement and growth lose meaning

Letting things melt away

I get taken into things where I have no idea what’s going on

When people are in transition, it may be transformation and not pathology

Releasing attachment to the self that we’ve earnestly built

Oh, I’m not any of those things?  There’s something deeper and vaster that has nothing to do with any of what I’ve done, any way I’ve shined up my personality?

***

I wonder if most of you are sitting there saying “What gobbledygook!  This guy’s crazy.  Being a better me is what’s important.”  If so, fair enough.  But there’s something happening here.

 

 

Inside You

Jesus offers himself to his companions under the guise of food and urges them to eat and to be filled with his life and energy … He shows that he means to put himself literally inside the other persons, and that he wishes to nourish them.

The basic spiritual practice we do in the Evolutionary Collective offers us the possibility of throwing our consciousness out into space, having it arc upwards and then fall through the eyes of the beloved sitting across from us.  There can be an urging to go “over there” and to know it as home.

Until recently, I’ve thought of home as being inside me.  Over there was a you, with your own home.  We were separate.  We may have loved each other, and joyed in each other’s company, but there was a membrane between.

What if that’s not true?  What if we’re joined into one at the heart, while I still get to be Bruce and you get to be you?  What if, in our entering in, we feed each other the most nourishing of foods?  Salmon, kale, garlic, mussels, potatoes and blueberries pass from your fork to my mouth and from mine to yours.  The nutrients flow out to our fingertips and the flavours bring joy to our soul.

Our bodies lean towards each other.  As our foreheads touch, it’s as though there aren’t any bones.  We simply merge.  And we wonder … are there two beings here, or just one?  I can feel me, I can feel you, but most deeply I can feel us.

Inside you, there is a wonderland.  We sit together on the couch, in a room of dark wood, brightened by the glow of the fire.  We are full together, wanting for nothing, knowing we can bring the world alive.  I am inside you and there’s nowhere else to go.  No need to move our bodies apart, or to get up from the couch, or to burst out into spasms of opinion.  We simply rest in the touching, gazing in wonder at the shimmering coals.

A Partner in Divinity

Jesus asked his disciples “Who do you say I am?”  I need to look in the mirror and ask the same question.

For decades, the underlying tone of my apparent high self-esteem has been “I’m not good enough” and “I’m less than you.”  Only recently have I glimpsed what’s true about this … it’s nonsense!

I’ve spent time with some powerful leaders.  Long ago in San Francisco, I was in the same room as Werner Erhard for three days.  He’d wear a white open-necked shirt and dress pants and sit there being impossibly handsome.  Words poured like honey from his lips.  I was terrified.

Twenty years later, I was on a three-month silent meditation retreat in Massachusetts.  For six weeks of that time, I was in the same room as Joseph Goldstein, one of the pioneers who brought Buddhism to North America in the 1960’s.  He was impossibly tall and spoke with the quietness of a master.  I’d tremble when he was near me in the lunch line.

Patricia Albere is the founder of the Evolutionary Collective and has brought the transformational Mutual Awakening Practice into the world.  I’d see her in live online group sessions and have heart palpitations in the comfort of my living room.  My 1-1 interactions with her were marked by a distinct shortness of breath on my part.  She was the founder, she was famous, she was smart.  And I was not any of those things.

So there’s a rich history here of being “less than”.  Smallness seemed to suit me.  Except it didn’t!  In my better moments of mirror gazing, I’m seeing not a cowardly lion but a fierce spiritual being, not Caspar Milquetoast but a rejuvenated Clark Kent out on an evening adventure.  Enough of being itsy bitsy.  I’m a partner with you (and you and you …) in making this world work.

Who do I see looking back at me in that mirror?  Here are some quotations that move me … to action.  May they vibrate in your chest.

***

Never bend your head.  Always hold it high.  Look the world straight in the face.

Helen Keller

You could say that Helen didn’t have the eyes to see.  But within her beat a visionary heart.

Sometimes I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry.  It merely astonishes me.  How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company?  It’s beyond me.

Zora Neale Hurston

Oh, Zora, you soar above the pettiness of the narrow!

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.

The Buddha

That’s right, Mister Buddha.  I’m totally deserving of the goodness that comes my way, just like each of you is.

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.

Mark Twain

Out there, a healthy mixture of smiles and frowns comes a’calling.  In here, I get to choose.

You were born an original.  Don’t die a copy.

Unknown

In 2002 or so, a lovely teacher wrote this on the board as her “Thought for the Day”.  It hasn’t left my side since.  The words come in handy when my small voice chimes in with “You should be flamboyant like Lara” or “You should be a computer wizard like Peter.”

A healthy self-love means we have no compulsion to justify to ourselves or others why we take vacations, why we sleep late, why we buy new shoes, why we spoil ourselves from time to time.  We feel comfortable doing things which add quality and beauty to life.

Andrew Matthews

I love watching The Masters golf tournament on TV.  I love venturing into spiritual discussions with some folks who don’t seem interested.  I love singing “O Canada” in rooms where few do.  The reactions of others are simply … there, and are not a danger to me.

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive.  And then go and do that.  Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

Howard Washington Thurma

I love discussions with kids about life in all its immensity.  Perhaps the shine in my eyes touches the warmth in their heart.

Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong.  There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right.  To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I want to be a teacher in the Evolutionary Collective.  I will create what I need in order for this to happen.  And the stars will align.

***

Deficiency
Sufficiency
Abundance

Seems like a logical progression

Free

We will begin to marvel that we let ourselves build our lives around the belief that we, the real self, were identified with these various descriptions, which descriptions required so much protection, justification, grief, anger, pride and so on.  So much vital energy.  We exhaust ourselves in the support of our descriptions.

I don’t know who wrote this but I like it.

As soon as I say “I am X”, there’s the opportunity for fear, smallness, defense.  “Could it be that I’m not really X?”  And would that possibility be a problem?  If it is, I better muster lots of energy to protect the truth of my Xness.  There are enemies out there who want to prove I’m actually not X.  I tighten my fists to beat them back.

I am a real man
I am intelligent
I am kind
I am determined
I am handsome
I am mature
I am generous
I am athletic
I am creative
I am popular
I am loved

But what if, sometimes, I’m not?  What then?  If I shrug my shoulders and say “Oh well” without feeding the statement and its contradiction, what would happen in my life?  Would angst fade to the background?  Would a reservoir of energy previously invisible be revealed?

I believe the answer is “Yes”.

Perhaps I’m not a personality riding on the roller coaster of life, raising my head here, letting it slump there.  Maybe I’m a fierce spiritual being who’s vibrant with the energy that flows outwards and unconcerned with the energy coming in.  There might not be any deficit, nothing to be fixed or improved.  What’s it’s all about could simply be expression rather than reaction, giving rather than fending off, flowing rather than damming.

In my better moments …

Bruce, you’re free
Bruce, you’re simply a space vibrating with possibility
Bruce, you’re marvelously sufficient
And did I mention that you’re free?

We Are We

I look back on the last week and an image comes to mind. It feels like a recurring dream but part of my mind says that it really happened in this physical life.

There’s a huge white sheet of paper and in the middle are typed some words … unknown words. Then the mad typist in charge of things writes more words up and to the right of the first group, overlapping them. Then the process continues, overlap after overlap, until the whole page is full. And I still didn’t have a clue about the message.

Okay, clearly this is a dream. So why does my brain keep saying “This is real”? Ah, the mysteries of life.

There was another wake up call this morning (definitely a good thing!). And the voice: “The first words are ‘I am me.'” Oh. Thanks for sharing. “One step out from the centre, in all directions, is ‘You are you.'” I just lay there, waiting for the next revelation. “After that, the words are ‘We are we.’ Then the pattern repeats … endlessly.”

More lying there feeling stunned. The personal story isn’t about Bruce Kerr. A lot of it is to do with all the “you’s” who come my way. But the real message is that I am through the we. I only know Bruce through the relationships he has. I’m no island. I’m an archipelago, with flowery bridges joining us all.

I can’t wait to go to sleep tonight. I hope we all show up.

Energy In … Energy Out

Last Wednesday I was sitting in my bike shop, talking to my good friend and mechanic Sygnan.  He’s done so much marvelous work for me over the years and our conversations are rich.

What are you going to do tonight, Sygnan?

I’ll watch a movie at home.

DVD?

No, I have a box.

And so we began chatting about the wonders of an android box, through which just about every film in existence, including those still in theatres, is available  for home viewing.  Plus it’s legal.

My heart quickened.  I admit I was zeroed in on Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, but any movie?  What an orgy of delight!  I love love stories … bet I’ll be able to find a hundred great ones.  I love history stories … the whole past of the world will soon be laid out before me.  Night after night of watching the best in cinema.  Heaven.

Sygnan told me where to buy the android box and I headed there forthwith.  The salesman was knowledgeable and friendly and soon I was heading home with my treasure.  I plunked the valuable little device on my washer and knew that tomorrow I’d hook everything up.

Thursday was a busy day and that evening I just didn’t feel like figuring things out, so the box continued its sojourn with the washer.

Friday I had places to go and people to meet.  No time for reading long instruction sheets.

Saturday I glanced at the washer as I was heading out and thought “That’s odd.  I haven’t done a darn thing to make this happen.  Oh well.”

And then there’s today.  As I allowed my eyelids to part in the early hours, and as my brain started to put two and two together, it came to me:

I don’t want to watch endless movies

I lay there and thought deep about the person I’ve become.  My excitement as I drove from the bike shop to the computer store was an unconscious variety.  An old version of Bruce was gung ho for an old version of what was fun … prolonged sessions of absorbing the best in cinema.  Apart from my aberrant interest in the latest Mamma Mia, I don’t want to sit on my couch letting the energy flow into me.  I want energy to flow out of me … to my fellow human beings.  I want to participate with other voyageurs in the Evolutionary Collective Global Community.  I want to sit down and have heart-to-hearts with local folks.  I want to write these blog posts, every day if I’m up to it.

(Speaking of “Bruce’s Blog”, you’ll be happy to know that, on average, I’ve posted every day for the last 69.  Occasionally I’d miss a day, but in the spirit of anality perhaps, I’d double up the next day.)

So, for the remaining 38 years of my life (good luck on that), I intend to put things out there far more than drawing in movies, books, newspapers and TV sports.  And if I’m reading a book or watching some remarkable recently released musical, I’ll do so in the spirit of being nourished so that I may nourish others.

Who I was yesterday is not who I am today
Who I am today is not who I will be tomorrow
I wonder who that person will be

Who Is It That I Say I Am?

Who is this Bruce, anyway?

Conventional wisdom points to what I’ve done, what I’ve said … an accumulation of the past.  Sounds logical.  Perhaps, though, I can choose to move beyond reason.  Could it be that hidden beneath “unreasonable” things, the truth abides?

Maybe “Bruce” is fresh at every moment, a flow leaning into the future.  Nothing to do with my mistakes, insensitivities and misadventures – all stuff that’s dead because it’s in the past.  Beyond the reality that society honours, I could simply be a spiritual presence, moving in love.

What if a thousand people said to me “Don’t be silly.  You are your history, your body, your ideas, your joys and sorrows, your relationships, your home … the sum of your life experiences.  There is nothing else!  Grow up and march to the music.”

And what if I said:

No

I seek companions on this journey and I believe I’ve found one.  Her name is Beatrice Bruteau.

The emotional personality may feel like life to us.  The life story that is called by our name may seem to be our only way of conceptualizing our life.  That is why it seems that we would be losing our life if we were to give up identifying ourselves in these ways.

[The word “metanoia” means “a transformation of the heart”]

Metanoia is a shift in our sense of where our selfhood is located, from the dead periphery of the personality description to the living core of transcendent and creative freedom.  The metanoia is said to be like dying and being reborn.  It is a shift in our sense of real being, our sense of being alive, from the emotional personality to the transcendent spirit … By seeming to die, we release ourselves from identification with the dead, and by realizing ourselves as transcendent persons, we establish ourselves in true life and can begin to do divine things.

Airy fairy … dumb … pie in the sky … true … ridiculous … infantile … lost marbles

***

Is the pull of the past so strong that brand new things can’t enter the world?
Is the pull of collective opinion so overwhelming that anything else is rejected?
Am I strong enough to stand with Beatrice?
What could happen if I did?

 

Majestic Moments

My life, like yours, is made up of a long string of moments.  Most of them seem to escape my notice.  Too often, I’m thinking about something else or dreaming about somewhere else.  And that’s a great loss.

So what can I do about this?  Right now I’m in Mai’s Café at a tiny table for two near the front door.  I’ve written about this spot before – it’s just so cozy and cute.  I’m looking out on the shops of Wortley Road and watching folks roam by on their feet and in their cars.  Across the street, a young couple sit at a window table, looking at their menus.  So those people are momentary in my life.  Moments like this, when I’m alone, allow me to feel my environment, including the inner one.  (My tummy is delightfully full of pad thai and banana fritter!)  I can animate these solitary moments by shining a light on them, having them glow.

Even better are my times with other people.  The same environmental noticing is available but there’s something extra.  Last night I joined Louise and Jeff for supper at Chaucer’s Pub.  It’s warm and dark and quiet.  No big screen TVs showing me the wide world of sports (although I often enjoy such settings).  My back was to the fireplace and the warmth toasted me all over.

We talked of life, of music, of adventures, of community.  We talked of real people in our lives.  We talked of them with appreciation and tenderness.  Through all of this, we created a special time.  But I knew there could be more.  I’ve been studying the insights of Patricia Albere, about what’s possible when two or more people are together.  With Patricia in mind, I looked at my new friends.

Jeff and Louise are good people.  I could feel that.  As I listened to them speak, I threw my consciousness inside each one, trying to feel them from within.  And for a second or two, now and then … I did.  It wasn’t me being with them.  It was me being them.  Oh.  Completely different from other mealtime conversations I’ve had.  “Goodness.  Where does Bruce end and Louise begin?”  I didn’t know.  “Who is Jeff?”  Somehow I was part of the answer.

Our shared words continued … but there was a shift.  I was inside.  What if I could create this majesty at will?  What if another human being chose to join me in this experience of touching and being touched, of living inside each other?  The words “Heaven on Earth” come to mind.

It appears that I’m not here and not now for a fair slice of my day.  Nothing to get all grumpy about but I dream of what could be. 

Time for a grand experiment, perhaps?

Jody and The Athletic

The Athletic is a very cool website that gives me fresh insights about sports teams, especially the Toronto Maple Leafs.  The ranks of sportswriters at some daily newspapers have been decimated lately, and The Athletic has scooped up some really fine journalists.

I don’t know if I’ve ever written a letter to the editor but now I can comment on stories online whenever I want.  Except for one thing: reader comments at The Athletic are linked to any existing Facebook accounts.  I deleted Jody’s account months ago but when I pressed “Send” my words appeared under the banner “Jody A” accompanied by a lovely photo of my dear wife.  I stared at the screen in shock.

So what’s happening here?  Do I want to eliminate all remembrances of Jody from my life?  Not at all.  Do I want to be my own person, with an identity separate from being half of a couple?  Yes.

It feels like there’s a time and place for everything.  And now is not the time to be perceived as “Jody A”.  There was a time when I’d laugh at such things but not now.  Way back when, during my first marriage, I got a chuckle one day when I was digging letters out of the mailbox.  “Mr. Rita Kerr” said the envelope.  It was strange, though, the same oddness women used to experience a lot, to the tune of “Mrs. Bruce Kerr”.

After that first jolt at The Athletic, I haven’t let myself make comments on stories with Jody’s face looking at me onscreen.  Silly, I guess, but powerful.  Staff at the website worked hard to get rid of her photo, and they did it, but I still let “Jody A” stop me.

I was awake this morning at 3:00 am.  Very unusual for me.  I wasn’t tense about anything.  I had worked out on the elliptical yesterday and was quite tired.  “Oh well, guess I’ll check e-mails.”  And there was Andrew’s message: “I’ve updated your account to remove the name.”  Oh, supreme joy!  I opened The Athletic and searched for an article, any article, to comment on.  Found one comparing the progress of the Leafs to the Buffalo Sabres.  That’ll do.  The accompanying photo was striking so I talked about it.  And then the magic “Send” moment.

And what to my wondering eyes should appear … but “Bruce A”!

I am not Jody
I am not half of Jody and Bruce
I am me