…That is until she found me…
One custom I’d picked up while MANIC is to walk around barefoot. I figured if Steve Jobs did it then there must be something to the practice. On streets and concrete is fine but when in nature I find the sensation remarkable. Our ancestors lived barefoot walking and hunting the terrain for thousands of years, for us it’s only a matter of adaptation. Tucson Arizona has a notorious desert and boasts all sort of wildlife. Instead of fences or walls the Sierra Tucson facility has open desert landscape. So if one wants to experience the Sonora, all you have to do is walk where you aren’t allowed. I found the process of “becoming one with nature” captivating and I simply didn’t care for the rules. What could they do, kick me out? So during my down time between classes I made a habit of sneaking off and exploring the desert barefoot.
With the Arizona dry sun beating down I had my shirt and shoes off to trek my daily adventure. A chance to get away and commune with the old gods of the desert. Of my thirty day stay I must have gone off twenty times. Martial arts obsessed, I always looked for a new secluded spot to practice my makeshift Thai Chi. In those moments the handful of yoga poses I knew brought me as close to God as I’ll ever be. It was great fun. I learned how loud shoes were as I could hear my occasional fellow patients stomping off to “sneak” an off-hour smoke. I could hear them from a mile away, meanwhile I was invisible. Practicing the art of my inner navy seal. Once I even snuck up on a coyote who turned tail and ran the moment he saw me. No one ever caught me and I never got in trouble, that is until she was waiting for me.
One of those later days, heading back to the spot where I stash my shoes and shirt, there was Sue. I don’t know how long she was waiting there, but she acted like I had shown up exactly on time.
A wizard is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to.
Startled, I casually greeted her. She responded by asking me my purpose in the desert. So, I told her. She then inclined to know my heritage and said she had been watching me for some time. I didn’t know if her reference to time meant days or minutes, but I wasn’t about to ask. Truth be told I didn’t know my heritage at the time, but I knew that all us southern boys have a lick of Indian in us. She then proceeded to tell me that I walk as one of the tribe, which I took as a tremendous compliment.
“Curious as to which tribe you come from?”
“Honestly, I don’t have the faintest clue.”
“Hmm…Well then did you see the tree?” she said.
“Which one?” I asked.
“The one that was walking.”
At that point I knew the girl was certifiable, but I was happy to play along. So I said,
“Let me go find it.”
Happy to escape her gaze, I calmly and carefully strode backwards without turning my back on her until enough foliage was between us. Back into the depths of the wilderness leaving her to wait on the outskirts. Using every Native American instinct I could muster I began to scan the trees. Sometimes being MANIC is like seeing vibrations in the air. If you follow them, the vibrations will take you places. Usually not good places. Following my own footsteps, I came upon the Ent. The tree had a biped humanoid form with two base trunks planted in the earth. As I had practiced, I stretched to the sun and said a quick prayer. Thanking the tree for revealing itself to me, I placed my hand on the bark to feel its spirit. As if to say hello, I felt a pulse of energy emit from the bark through my body. The sensation started at my palm and went through to my bare toes grounded in the earth. Emotionally overwhelmed, I took a leaf from its branch as proof of the encounter. Satisfied with my findings I then made my way back to Sue.
To no surprise she was still there waiting for my return.
“If a tree was walking, then it was this one” I said handing her the leaf.
Tenderly embracing the leaf in her hand she thanked me and asked of my trauma. Since the burning ceremony I knew what true trauma looked like.
“I don’t believe I have any trauma.” I quietly responded.
“We all have trauma, and I see it in you.”
Thinking for a moment, I then told her how my dad scares me sometimes. As a misbehaving child he would every so often chase me around the house screaming, he didn’t have to hit me to get the point across. Sorry sir.
“That’s trauma” she said.
“Perhaps” I replied.
I didn’t believe her then and I don’t believe her now. If that is the greatest trauma in my life so be it. We then parted ways and I don’t think I spoke to her significantly again. Just the occasional head nod to each other while walking past. As if to just say, “I see you.”
Her undeniable mystical nature still gave me the creeps but at least now I knew she liked me.
Looking back at that moment a decade later, I might have a better grasp of what that shamanistic American Indian girl saw in me. The process that led to my entail diagnosis had been traumatizing. Seeing my life slip away before my eyes was traumatizing. Breaking out of Lakeview was traumatizing. Only at the time, my maniac self just knew* the pain was temporary as I was destined* to bounce back to a better lot in life. Although I might be getting to that place now, that was not the case once I got home from this stay in treatment.
My desert walks usually happened after daily group therapy. Our group leader Sharron was pregnant with her first child and overall a good leader. Of the less than ten of us in our circle, I was the only one there admitted for bipolar. Six treatment centers since first diagnosed and I can count on one hand the amount of other bipolars I have encountered. Only one of those persons being relatable. Most people in mood groups are diagnosed with either depression or anxiety disorders. Borrrrring.
That first group was no different. Not that these people didn’t have anything to teach me, it’s just in my situation I would have required an example templet to believe something was truly wrong with me. With that said there were plenty of life lessons to be passed around. Cheating spouses, dead children, and so on.
Being around depressed people is generally depressing, but luckily my current mood was happy to relate, share, and contemplate. The world can be a cold place and that first group gave me more life experience than the average person absorbs by my age. My sharing time was refined to one specific emotion, anger. Furious at the people who halted my life and put me in here. Insanity is contagious and I had painted my parents red with its hubris. A charging bull looking for a means upon which to exact vengeance. I was going to prove them wrong by any means necessary. Starting with convincing my group there was nothing wrong with me.
On one of those days our group elected to take our allotted hour, usually reserved for circle time in a small classroom, and meet with the “therapeutic stable-hands” for equestrian therapy.
The two older women who were in charge of the horses at Sierra Tucson took a liking to me rather quickly. They gave us the whole “horses are more empathetic than humans” talk, which of course I found fascinating. The bond between man and beast runs deeper than our modern understanding postulates. If we, both horses and humans, evolved alongside together for thousands of years then of course there would be a genetic predisposition toward mutual cooperation.
“Humans are amphibians...half spirit and half animal...as spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time, means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation--the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks.”
-C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
The two women in charge of group brought out a beautiful brown mare.
It’s hard to explain to those who have not witnessed, but since a young age or as long as I can remember I’ve just been great with animals. Not that there is anything super special about that, it’s just sometimes there is. People just notice. I’ve watched a lot of the BBC’s “Planet Earth” and “Life” series (especially during my days with pot) and I love learning the specific details pertaining to the animal kingdom. We evolve based on the environment we surround ourselves in.
I’ve always preferred the more generic term “Beast Master” over “Dog whisperer.” Which is exactly what I told the therapeutic stable hands.
“I’ve never seen her react this way to someone so quickly!”
Laughing at the comment that I knew to be true.
“Yeah, these kind of things just happen sometimes.”
Stroking the mare as it then began rubbing its head on mine, I had to tell the horse to chill out. When weird things like this happen I don’t like being watched, and I just noticed that this class session had just turned into a one on one. I decided right then and there that instead of exploring the Sonora, some days I was going to sneak over to the barn to get some real one on one in the stables. Which is exactly what I did. Some of these times I did get caught by one of those old lady horse guardians. As respectfully as possible they had to kick me out, usually with sadness in their eyes. I didn’t mind, by the time they noticed I had already got the interaction I had been seeking. I’m just happy with myself because I never tried to get up and ride her bareback. Now that would have been crazy.
A beast master must recognize that the animal is pure in spirit and is without the capability of sin. After that, the connection formed is all about body language. Animals who pack up have the tendency to mirror each other while communicating. My theory is that this has something to do with watching each others back. Like I can relax if I know that I’m watching over here while looking at you, while you watch over there looking at me. The mutual agreement being that we will warn each other if a threat is spotted.
For me this works on dogs, cats, and especially horses. Other tricks include bowing, whistling, and winking. I’m willing to bet that Asian culture originally mimicked the bow from our animal kingdom. Ever have a cat walk up to you and do that “downward dog” stretch? That’s a bow. My cat Griffin gives me one of these every day upon greeting me home from work. Sure he’s just stretching after a long nap, or is he?
“Bow to your sensei.”
Both cats and dogs communicate using eye movement. It is said that the cat “slow blink” is a sign of affection, so when my cat does it I take the gesture as “I love you.” Slow blink back and throw in a wink or two and watch them react in amazement.
“Like, did this guy just learn how to speak cat?”
Next time you’re walking around outdoors by yourself and the birds are chirping, start whistling a little tune and see what happens. My go to songs are the Andy Griffith theme song and “Folsom Prison Blues” by Johnny Cash. Doing just this I’ve had quite a few of what I call “Disney Princess Encounters (DPEs)” using these techniques. I’ve had groups of geese come out of the water and sit in a circle around me while listening to me whistle. They would even start honking at me if I stopped! Birds of a feather also love to watch us and seem to appreciate the whistling as a form of communication. Throw in something shiny like a watch that reflects the sun or say a championship ring… and you can get most animals to eat out of the palm of your hand, metaphysically speaking of course. If this DPE magic is really flowing then one may see squirrels start to pop up out of there tree homes to investigate all the hubbub. Music is a language that all mammals react to.
When my day finally came for family therapy, my parents and I were placed in facing chairs in the middle of our group’s circle. A ritual for both parties to air their grievances while the group bared witness. Expecting my parents to have some newfound humility, I was ready for them to listen to my thought out and articulated argument. Adamant on hearing some admission of guilt from them, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Shame was their weapon, and its cut was deep. Every decision I had made during the past month’s episode was thrown in my face as proof of my illness. Each accusation I was ready to counter and parry back to how they were the cause of such decisions. I had changed yes, but so had they. While I had grown smarter, their minds had begun to wither with age. They simply couldn’t keep up with the new me and needed to accept that fact. At least that’s what I believed then. As they continued the shame game my anger reached a boiling point. To calm myself I practiced my newly learned mindfulness techniques, focusing my attention on finger exercises in vain.
I would have had to been handcuffed to the chair to keep me in that room. My parents flew from Atlanta to Phoenix, then drove to Tucson to see me for all of three minutes. Out of the room and clearing the building I sought refuge in the smoking hut. I vented my anger lighting up a cig with people who understood me. My parents were dead to me, and all my thoughts focused on how I would get by without them. I’ll go work for Paulie and they’ll never see me again. Of course, the root of my anger being a deep sadness. I wanted nothing more than for my parents to understand and accept me, it was only after that meeting that I realized the futility in my task.
While their methods were flawed my parents’ point was on target. It wouldn’t be until weeks later that I realized the emptiness my decisions had left me with. Depressed, looking for a job in my parents’ basement. Watching friends live their lives though social media while I stood amongst the ruins of what my life could have been. A failure that couldn’t be put back together. In my mind the only thing that had changed was the meds I was on and if they were the cause of this newfound sadness, I wasn’t going to take them.