Actualism notes
DIARY 13508
10/12/78
ACTUALISM: ACTIVATION ON CHAIN LETTER
Amy asks "Did you hear about the chain letter?" I get the same flare of anger and exasperation as I did when Faye asked me about it last week after class, and I almost shouted, "I don't even want to HEAR about it." So I told Amy the same thing, and she insisted that I'd want to know about it, since I'd be hearing a lot about it: it was almost an Actualism project. "Do the teachers know about it?" I asked in scarcely disguised surprise. "Yes, I talked to Winston about it, and he said that it was my life to lead as I wanted, but his IE didn't tell him he had to buy a letter." (for $100, and you immediately sell it to two people for $50 each, but the $100 is sent to the top person on the list, and the list is 12 long, so you're really the 13th on the list (did they think of THAT?), so to MOVE to 12th you need 2 people below you who will be faithful, to MOVE to 11th, 4; 10th, 8; 9th, 16, 8th, 32; 7th, 64; 6th, 128; 5th, 256; 4th, 512; 3rd, 1024; 2nd, 2048; 1st 4096; so you need 8192 people to be FAITHFUL (but if they are, you get $819,200!!!) to get you paid. I kept telling her that if I ever had a couple of months, felt OK about ripping off people, I'd START a chain letter MYSELF; but I gave her the example of Rolf, who loved ripping people off, and he was HARDLY an example of a HAPPY person. SHE says she thought of it as a benefit to Earth Point, or the Actualism community, EVEN THOUGH she didn't see names she knew AT THE TOP, but she regrets she didn't join it in Santa Cruz, where it started, but she's WILLING to "spend $100 on a lesson," and I get so involved with her that I volunteer $10 (the amount I'm willing to pay to be part of her lesson) to go along with her, and I can BEGIN to see Winston's point: if you win, then you win, great; if you lose, you get SHOWN (and for $100 you'll REMEMBER) that it doesn't work. She says she takes responsibility for the two people below HER selling their letters, but I insist if she takes FULL responsibility, she'd be RESPONSIBLE for the 2, 4, 8, 16 ... 4 BILLION, and there aren't 8 billion people to SELL it to. Then she says she's not brain-minding it, it's just something she has to do for growth, so I support her growth, but insist that people only look at the people at the TOP of the pyramid, not the people on the BOTTOM, and without the blocks on the BOTTOM of the pyramid, the top of the pyramid isn't very high at ALL! LOTS of stuff going on, and there's a GREAT lump up about judgment and "better than you are" and RAGE!
DIARY 13509
10/13/78
ACTUALISM IMAGES OF WORTHLESSNESS
Dennis comes in and says "Sometimes you like to lounge in bed in the morning, so why don't I go downstairs so you won't have to make me breakfast; I have to change clothes and get some things downstairs anyway." "Is that why you didn't make coffee here this morning before showering?" "Yes," and I want to say "Why didn't you ask me, are you sure that's all there is to it, is there something else you don't want to tell me?" but I think that he's already DONE it, so I don't want to make HIM feel as if he did the wrong thing when he just wanted to make things BETTER for me, and I'd been lying in bed thinking WHY I felt so awful (yes, I KNOW there's a pressure on the indexes and on JOYI, but I also KNOW that enough will get done by Monday to make everything OK), and it occurred to me that I've been treated too GOOD recently: Arthur WANTING a body session from me to help him out, TEACHING me with his seemingly earthed processing of the teachers, then SAYING that I do such good work and SHOWING me that he finds me so attractive; Bruce wanting to tell me about his insights into time and information; Amy wanting to share the abundance of the chain letter with me; BobR sharing his delights with going to Paris with me; Rolf sharing his work-looking with me since he's willing to do the programming for the computer-indexing project; Jim Connolly calling, interested in indexing, telling Arthur "he has such lighted eyes, such a great pad, is such a wonderful guy"; Michael Blackburn giving me strokes endlessly about my appearance and with the Zero Posture Balancing; Dorothy Hunter SO loving with the O-V before classes; the teachers willing to bring me through my skepticism; Dennis sharing his delights and disgusts of work with me, cooking for me, liking my cooking, sharing his incredible orgasm of last night with me, then beaming at me when I say that he makes me feel privileged to be with him, then letting me lounge (with an admonitory "Get your ass into the index," since he knows that's big with me) while he goes to prepare his own breakfast to take that off me)---and I think something like "THIS IS TOO MUCH, they're treating me TOO nicely, there must be something they have AGAINST me that they're not telling me; how can I handle this, I don't deserve this, I'm worthless"---yet the indexer-seekers search me out, the bodyworker seekers flock to me, the friends phone, Paul wanting to offer dinner, Don a trip, Bruce enlightenment, Rolf money, Dennis support, and I have to LIVE with it!
DIARY 13510
10/14/78
ACTUALISM O-V FROM DOROTHY
She's sitting having soup from a bowl when I get there, talking to another woman, and I sit and look at a brochure by some Sufi organization with lots of good people at the Hilton for a conference in November, addressed to Willy Hays, and there's a good looking, big, dark-curly-haired guy looking somewhat like Elliott Could who introduces a sallow-faced Elliott to Dorothy, and then after I get introduced to Elliott I stand and say "I'm Bob," and Willy says, "I'm Willy." I talk about the brochure with Dorothy, asking, "Does Willy live here?" "No," she says. "Does anyone live here?" "Yes," she says, "I do, for the past couple of weeks." "What does that mean?" I ask after fluffing around for a few moments. "Michael and I have decided to live apart for awhile, maybe forever, maybe not, but there's a lot of things up for me: we stayed together to avoid problems of splitting up, and now that we've split up, all of the problems are right there. I don't know what to do with the freedom, and this morning I felt low, tried to do a session, then lay on the table trembling. Willy came in and put his hand on my stomach and I started crying and cried for a half-hour. Feel good now," and she beamed, and I said, "For awhile I thought I might be giving YOU a body session." "No," she said, and we got started, and she needs one NSH before her six-session T&R, but she wants to do the O-V, so I'm glad, and she goes through her usual competent job, having the gathering down practically perfect, being precise and strong and competent with the vibrator, and I tell HER that I'm feeling privileged to be with such a good group, and then kick myself because I didn't bother to add that I felt GRATITUDE toward her. Michael popped in at the start, and I looked at the acupuncture charts of the sexy man while waiting for her to get her equipment in place, and the session was the usual loving comforting one, and finished having slightly more time, Michael had gone, I had tea while she searched for her pocketbook while Willy sprawled all over talking on the phone, and we left for a cab in the mild evening, not having much to talk about, and then Michael's DETERMINED closeness to her during the evening seemed more mendacious than truthful, and she's a DYNAMITE person.
DIARY 13511
10/14/78
ACTUALISM 2AD: SECOND PREP
Ask Winston about Richard, and he says they've been trying all the phone numbers, but have gotten no answer. No one even seems to know what hospital he worked at (strange, for the other hospital people in the group, or Maureen, who was his "friend"), but Marilyn said she'd call his office to see if they knew what happened to him, and Faye unproductively said she thought something was VERY wrong. Alice asked how the week was, "Activated?" and everyone agreed that it was and I kept my mouth shut about not having had any activations but fearing that I may not have done anything. So she said she KNEW it would be difficult, but there was no reason to pre-warn us, since that would only make it harder. She said there were 5 preps, and then maybe a week off, and then into Second Advanced proper. Winston sat there, handling some of the paperwork outside with the drawn Mary Vilaboa from Sue Holt's group, and he was late after the break. I got through the whole thing with only a little sleepiness, but hate to think what would have happened had I not had a session. Maureen said she slept through the whole thing, Tony (as usual) said he was sure it was the WORST session he'd ever sat through) and even Elliott talked about the heat generated from INSIDE. I was wearing my pink pullover for the first time, and when she went into the pink energy I felt good, and Michael said something about my pink shirt, and it lifted from that point, and seemed that she DID see something there. I didn't have much to report except the activations and then, when she said to move the energies around the group, I had a strong image of an ICON being passed around the group, with people reaching above their head, as in Italy, to touch it as it went around. The group power felt good, the session seemed easy, and Michael again asked to use a lifebelt and she again insisted that we'd have to wait until we were introduced to it, so I guess it'll be a special session. She talked about moving, saying they hadn't seen anything they liked yet, and the next time I was there she said a guy kept trying to sell them a loft, but they didn't want to get into plastering and carpeting and furniture, but hoped to stay in a hotel situation where they'd have most of the work done FOR them, and then PLAN for moving to their new place for a YEAR.
DIARY 13512
10/14/78
ACTUALISM TALK WITH WINSTON ABOUT BODYWORK
Linda was on the phone for a long while, so when Winston passed by I asked him, "Can I ask you about bodywork?" and he said sure, and I told him about someone telling me to use the Sigil, and he immediately took it very seriously and asked "WHO told you?" and I said Dorothy Kent, and then he got that she said to ALWAYS use it, and I could at least say that she didn't say that, merely that it COULD be used, and then remembered I'd told Amy about it, and mentioned that to him, so he said that HE would talk with Dorothy Kent, and that I should talk to Amy, and if my talking with her didn't clear it up (it seemed to, but she said that she was VERY activated about it, so she was glad it wasn't true), she should call the teachers. Then he started berating me about how I should have called the office BEFOREHAND, why didn't I KNOW this wasn't right, and by this time Linda was off the phone and standing next to Winston, laughing most of the time, and Arthur came up with the beautiful image that the "low person" has nothing to do but support all the people with the responsibility, and she seemed to be doing that well. Then I told him about Kathy and the Red, and he couldn't seem to understand why I couldn't have handled that better: she had it, I knew she had it, so what was the problem. Then I got into Arthur and his seeming to ALWAYS want to use the red, and Winston said that that was another image, and that he shouldn't tell everyone to use red all the time, and I tried to say that it was only for HIMSELF that he made that decision, but it was getting late, the quality of laughter from Linda seemed more to lighten the occasion than anything else, and I was the only student left from the late-breaking class, so I just nodded and accepted whatever he had to tell me and left as soon as I could. Later, Bruce said that he was probably under pressures of having to move the center, learn how to teach Second Advanced, maintain a center under the hard pressures of New York City, and incorporate a new accounting system that would lead to Sidney Sudbery writing me out a receipt for my check on Saturday, so the new books went into effect between Thursday and Friday, and when Alice activated on Saturday about the chain letters, I knew that the teachers also had their work cut out for them, and Bruce was touched when someone told him that Russell was like a Bodhisattva, remaining in form to develop this system and earth it before he discarded the body and went to his deserved rewards.
DIARY 13514
10/15/78
ACTUALISM NSH ON ARTHUR AS EMERGENCY
Turns out he's NOT the person to show my page on the chain letter to (see DIARY 13508), since he agrees with everything I've said, saying that Tomasina bulldozed him into going to coffee with her and then surrounding him with a dozen est graduates who attacked him as "not wanting to invest in himself" when he didn't want part of the letter. Our talk goes on about it until I'M bored with it, and then he says that his hemorrhoids have been acting up and describes in detail how he breaks the veins and squeezes out watery matter and then a bit of blood to "clear out the excess fluid" and how he has "hemorrhoid attacks" when things "pile up on him," and I exclaim about the appropriateness of the term, find he says that mankind has tuned in on the ACTUAL design when they say things like "Get off my back/You're a pain in the neck/I don't give a shit/Fuck off," and others of that ilk. Then he says that he's had to listen to the teachers when they say he shouldn't take anything for granted as working, that he should EXPERIENCE that it's working, and I feel floored that HE has a lesson to teach me, too. He says that he wanted to borrow $500 to get his corporation going, and I start to think of excuses why I won't let him borrow $500 from me, but he doesn't ask me, so I hope he tuned in on the inner and got a "no" so that I DON'T HAVE to refuse him on the outer. He gets on the table (saying he'd come from work but he's not going back), then wanders shorted into the bathroom for something, then back on the table and I work down his body until I find the right channel is clear for a space. Mention it to him and he says "Oh, I've been lazy, let's get some loads up" and INSTANTLY the channel is obstructed. I can't believe it, wouldn't believe it if anyone else told me it happened to them, and he says it happened between him and Dorothy a number of times, where they'd produce loads for each other to process. He said "Just go down another level and come up with more junk." It sounds vaguely Old Age, just as did Alice's comment on Saturday about clearing up from past lives, but I guess I'm willing to go along with them until I can prove that something ELSE is right: they have all the scores on their side so far.
DIARY 13517
10/14/78
ACTUALISM: LIVER SURGERY WITH ALICE
She says "Let them do what they want" about the chain letter: Those who get in early will share in abundance: Tomasina has $1400 already from it --- which means it went through 12 people!? --- those who get in on the bottom will learn that you can't get something from nothing. I see your point, but I can't go around screaming "Don't do that chain letter at all," because it wouldn't work. I was very impressed by Tomasina's earthing her lesson in abundance." She kept saying she HAD to get started (despite fact she started ME late), and then said "I'll do it quickly so we can get it all done, but let it be nonverbal, and if there's time at the end you can say what you found." So she tells me to make sure to have hierarchy in Center 2, then she quickly goes through a gathering and enlightening and magnetic and dynamic handling, then lights the Radiant Warrior and settles into the Liver, talking about how that controls anger and rage, which is so often repressed because society can't deal with it, and I think of my shouting "I love you, god damn it," to my mother, when I REALLY meant "I HATE you," because I couldn't shout THAT out without alienating her completely from HER society's viewpoint. And that lots of it is stored in Old Brain, which has the animal memory of fighting for survival, and THAT sounds Old Age, but I don't question her on it. Thought of jostles in the subway where the hate and fear were right there together, then thought about xeroxing JOYI stuff and scheduling more sessions, thinking Monday's would be ideal: halfway between Star Intro on Saturday and regular classes on Wednesday, but she only has ONE Tuesday slot open for the whole rest of the month, on the 31st, so I take it and follow it on the 14th. She asks what came up, at the end, when she finishes, and I tell her about my scene with my mother, and I'd opened my eyes a bit to find her with her eyes closed and her hands stretched slightly in the direction of my liver, as if manipulating it, and I felt my breathing change a number of times, felt slight tearing in my eyes, HEARD myself shouting in memory a few times, and felt that she was doing it. A couple hard burps came up, I smelled some dreadful smells and could only think she was farting in the midst of her almost constant burping, coughing, yawning, and clearing her throat, and we hugged at the end, said to change to Warrior and not Red (for assimilation) for going out into the street (did she SEE it?), and wished her luck with the Board of Westside hotels in finding a place where they wouldn't have to start from ZERO.
DIARY 13528
10/15/78
ACTUALISM NSH ON KATHY PIEPER
I'd written down that she was coming at 12:30, but when she arrived at 2:30 she smiled and said "right day, right time," so maybe I got it wrong, She heard that I was busy so immediately volunteered for the table, saying she'd worked in red at the end of the surgery with Winston, so it was fine for the session, and I let her into the bathroom after me and got to work on her neck, on which she said I used good pressure, and then had a DREADFUL time with her left spine, not seeming to even get in the CHANNEL a lot of the time, and really activating. She asked me how her body compared with the first time, and I didn't remember, but said she'd worn socks before, and she said "That must have been someone else," and I was so embarrassed! Must have been Amy. She wanted to go to lunch with me since she hadn't eaten breakfast yet (celebrating her new freedom by going to local bars till 4 am and coming here with a light hangover which she thought was fun), but I said I'd just had lunch, and then she offered me some apples and I said I had some left over, so when I asked her if she wanted another appointment, she said she'd try Mara and some others, and that we both liked trying different people, and I couldn't blame her for not liking me for not ACCEPTING anything from her, except she took some D-cell water and we chatted about her new job, where she's working with two gay guys and has to face her own images about her own masculinism and feminism. She dropped out because her "perception was too great but her earthing wasn't taking care of it," so every session would be "a trip to the moon" but she was so "spaced-out" that she couldn't handle it, and now had to handle her images about getting back into a group and having to drop out AGAIN, or not being able to make it AGAIN, or worrying about getting attacked with images AGAIN. She talked about having dinner the other night with Bob Dukes, and I mentioned to her that I liked doing and being done by him, but that I'd tried to call and no one had answered, so I should try again. Maybe she'll say something. She likes coming here because it's convenient, will surely see me again soon, and takes off into the bright, clear, cool, windy day alone, and I get back to typing for myself.
DIARY 13533
10/19/78
ACTUALISM NSH FROM AMY
She doesn't offer me a seat even, so I say I want a drink of water, and maybe she senses that I'm in some kind of hurry to get back to watch a TV show. Then we get to the room and she finds the table too high, so I put it on its sides and she pulls a Dennis about not knowing how to handle it, so I tell her to get a hammer so we can bang in the spring clips holding the legs in place and then bang the legs up higher into the frame, and then I get onto the table just at 8:30, figuring I'll NEVER get out, having closed the window that she said she'd close but didn't because it was chilly from outside. Her new foam (and I initiate ANOTHER bodyworker's table!) is VERY firm, and it's almost uncomfortable it's so hard. She comes in and starts bearing down with her fat elbow again, and when she's working around the buttocks she's standing, I say she should be sitting, and she reminds me that she told me BEFORE that Linda said her elbow was SO sharp she had to use another angle or she'd SKEWER people. So here I think she's too BLUNT and she's told she's too SHARP. I ask her to ease up at a part of the spine, and the next Wednesday Dorothy tells me about the fact that it might be more a question of TIMING and SPEED OF ENTRY then of pressure, and I recall with most of the people I want to tell them to WAIT and let me relax before they barrel into me. She's told to go heavier on the trapezius, and she's feeling things move around and is vaguely fearful, but I say that feels good. Then she misses a couple of passes and starts condemning herself for not having looked at it before I got there, but when I said that I forgot patterns too, she quickly said "It's OK, I'm not beating myself up about it." She says my spine feels loaded and I don't even ask her the question I wanted to "Does her 'seeing' enter into the bodywork at all?" but she seems SO activated and rushed in the session (though she's not uncomfortable as she is at my place) and SO down on her technique, or lack of it, that I don't talk to her much at all. Afterwards I have another glass of spring water that she keeps in the kitchen, says she thought Adam might have been home from work by now, but he wasn't, and we'd meet soon.
DIARY 13539
10/19/78
ACTUALISM O-V FROM DOROTHY
She puts on a clean sheet for me, and I resist asking if she does that for everyone, and I'm on the table and she's in for a beautiful gathering that she's memorized, and then I ask if she minds talking and she tells me about her trip to Philly to see her 2 daughters, the 22-year-old saying "You've got to stop feeling guilty" about messing up their lives by divorcing, and she said that when SHE was 20 she knew she'd be different from her mother, but now she knows she's the same, and her daughters can only wait until THEY live another 20 years to see what life's LIKE. She had an X-out on the subject last week and it cleared up LOTS of things, and found out about a two-person surgery where the couple faces each other and the teacher helps work out conflicts between their magnetics and dynamics. We decide there are LOTS of things they don't tell us about, as I mention Bruce's "rap session" that was free that I liked so much. I want it in Cosmic Father and she thinks that's great, says that I have some loading in my spine, but not that much, that I seem relaxed, and that Linda told her that the body responds more to GENTILITY: if the session's too harsh the human will just LEAVE, and if the session is to help align the two, then it's just not working! She brings up the question of timing, I say Michael was good in that and these NSH people might not be, and I say I hope I can bring as much precision, gentility, strength, and love to my O-V when I get it as she gives, and she pshaws all over the place. Talks of her two OTHER daughters (18 and 21, the older the ONLY one married so far) in Florida, and the ones in Philly with a very RELIGIOUS family, which makes her the atheist in the group, but they like her anyway and with five kids of their own gave a supportive upbringing to their orphaned nieces. Talk about what second will be about: she thinks it'll work much more with the human, I don't volunteer anything. Talk about how good it's getting, how we'll have to go far to surpass the Full Personality Hierarchy in the Second Initiation, and how good Alice seems to be, talking a bit about pushing buttons and my conversation with Joan Ann about the purpose of first being to MIRROR the student so he can SEE what he's acting like, and Dorothy had never heard of that either, but it fit.
DIARY 13540
10/19/78
ACTUALISM: PREP 3 FOR 2ND ADV
Alice decrees this is a conversation session, a communication session I think she called it, and it turns out that on Sunday there was a Communication Session that Joan Ann was talking about where she said that time at the center should NOT be taken talking about chain letters, since it seemed to be mainly motivated by GREED, and where she played the summer gathering tape by Russell that Maureen wanted to hear, but Alice said it was given only to "the first three classes in recognition of their advanced stage" and I thought we might get it when we GOT into Second Advanced, since I said that THIS session was so good, why couldn't we have one of THESE between the 3 on, rather than having 1 off each month. She says she'd summarize First Advanced, and then asked what the Tree of Life was, and if we ever used it. Faye came out best saying that it went between Heaven and Earth, getting sustenance both from the light and the air, AND from the earth elements through the roots, and it spread out and sheltered animals and I added (to myself) that it furnished oxygen for mankind. Alice said the good thing about a tree, just look at it, it just IS, soaking up all the PRESENT, as we should do more and more as we stop fretting about the guilt and sins of the past and stop worrying about the what-might-be and trust to the Immortal more. Then she asked about the Diamond Continuity Axis, which she said was mentioned 3 times, once long before, once in Subtle Warrior, and I remembered in the LAST one, thinking that it solidified the earthing of ALL the power rays, and she said it did. At one point when she was talking about copilot, I asked if it was OK that THIS be what was EARTHING and ASSIMILATING the essence ALL the while, and she said "A+" and continued to say that AS EACH veil and block was consumed, essence was released that could be IMMEDIATELY assimilated, no need to wait for the end of the session, and we usually leave lots of essence UNassimilated anyway. Then she talked about the Good Shepherd, which we'd learned to be in First, and how we'll be "fisherman of men" in Second, and would go into that later. Then I asked about the possibility of being OTHER than a teacher, and she talked of the Field Staff and how someone from Texas is teaching businessmen courses centered around the use of good will, wisdom, and perfection/love in everyday businesses. She said that "after the second phase of Third Advanced" it would be necessary to decide which path we were taking. I asked "When will that be?" and she said that Second Advanced was about a year or a year and a half long, then the first phase of Third was about 6 months, and the second phase of Third was about a year after that, so it looks like one goes to one Christmas party in First Advanced, two Christmas parties in Second Advanced, and three Christmas parties in Third Advanced! I was thinking about relationships between the Tree of Life, the Diamond Continuity Axis, and the Good Shepherd, but never had the chance to pose the question, since others were talking about other things. Michael said he didn't want to substitute one of these talk sessions for a regular class, which he got lots more out of, and she said I'd meant in ADDITION to the other classes. I asked if it was a "great pain" for teachers to accept invitations to personal parties, and she said it was (but not from their INNER point of view) because of the terrible scheduling problems they'd have, how they had too many classes now, how the others in the work would possibly get jealous, but nothing of what processing they'd have to do once they got there. They seem now to be talking about finding a temporary place in which they'll stay for a year while searching for a PERMANENT place, though they thought things were fine here, but the hotel reluctantly asked them to leave since they could rent their rooms to others on their waiting list easily. She added, for parties, that Thursday was a day of COMPLETE detaching from their work, even on a "social" scene. She told some of Russell's witticisms about various things which I've forgotten, but emphasizing that everyone would ALWAYS have deeper layers of work to process, though she didn't seem to agree with my idea that everyone had to stay around until EVERYONE was enlightened, though Marilyn hummed when Alice mentioned Bodhisattvas. Don't get sucked in by giving an opinion on anything, just say it's not for you, or ask your teacher, but don't let them set you up by forcing you to answer a question or give anyone advice, and remember the students in basic are constantly looking up to you, in second, as examples to follow.
DIARY 13542
10/23/78
ACTUALISM NSH ON DOROTHY HUNTER
She sits in the kitchen and we chat about how much freer she feels since she had the X-out with Alice about Michael, how she really doesn't know what she's going to be doing (but it didn't seem to include the possibility of going back with Michael!), and that she's still changing and learning. I get her onto the table and again feel that sensation of not knowing exactly where everything is with her, and she seldom gives me any feedback on how the session feels, from her point of view. I'd drunk a cup of tea with her, but my stomach doesn't seem to be doing any worthwhile gurgles on her, and I begin to wonder if I haven't done too many sessions too soon, so that I've gone PAST the point of learning how to do it, and am currently involved in thinking that there's nothing I can do BETTER so I can only do worse, and put myself into misery thinking that's what I'm doing. Since I don't have to have the intense concentration of remembering what comes next, I find myself forgetting things: when I get down to her right hip and see her hand lying alongside, I say "What's THIS?" and she looks around in some distress, saying "I thought there was something hanging off me," and I laugh and say that the LAST time I'd forgotten to bring the hand up it was on MICHAEL, and didn't bother to think about the correspondences in THAT doing. She laughed, didn't seem TOO drowsy even after I called her, but then she went to sleep at 12:55 and I figured "tune into the inner and see if she's got an appointment," since she didn't have one when she'd written down this engagement on Wednesday. I seemed to "get" that she had no appointment and could probably sleep while I finished the puzzle, but then I thought "I don't WANT her to sleep around here," so without further thinking I woke her and said "It's OK to sleep, but do you have an appointment?" and she said yes, and when she dressed said she had to be at D'Adamo's at 1:30, so she DID have to get out. I said I'd walk her to the RR where she could get the B train easily, saying I was checking on Richard Iltis, but she suggested we call him, and I did, and found that he was out at lunch, so I said I'd stay home and call him later, which I did (see DIARY 13544), to my pleasure.
DIARY 13544
10/23/78
ACTUALISM: RICHARD ILTIS'S PROBLEMS
Woman hollers across for him for the second time, and I think paranoidly that he'll refuse to answer, and one of the first things he says is that Faye Levey phoned him that morning, and I said that I was willing to let him do his own thing, but some people (like Maureen and Marilyn, I finally said) thought something might be seriously wrong (and at one point I mistakenly said "I'm glad nothing WAS seriously wrong" and he hastened to assure me that HE thought his troubles with his tooth WERE seriously wrong, and I amended my statement), so I felt that I had to try to call him. He said that the office should know what was wrong with him, because he'd left word with the coordinator there that he was on antibiotics for over a month with troubles with his tooth. He'd gotten it fixed a couple of times, then got a root canal operation on it, and then the current dentist, when he STILL had trouble with it, said that it was cracked and would have to come out completely. Alice wanted to know if they could cap it, but I mentioned the root canal and she seemed to think they couldn't cap a root-canaled tooth. I'd asked if he'd gotten a couple of dental opinions and he rather depressedly remarked that he'd gotten 6-7. He wasn't able to say WHEN he'd get off the antibiotics, but thought he'd better call the office and explain his situation again, though he was sort of thinking of dropping out of the work. I didn't push him on that, but when later he said he might decide to schedule an X-out with Alice to see what that would benefit him. I said it sounded like a great idea, asking him if he'd had anything to do with her, and he said she'd sat in on that one class, and maybe he'd had something to do with her once in another case, but he sort of liked her, but wasn't too sure about what he was going to do about getting back. He said that I should tell the others in the group that he was OK (or am I romanticizing this now?) and seemed obliged to thank me for calling him, with an undercurrent that it wasn't any of my business anyway, so he felt he was thanking me more out of a sense of duty than out of any genuine gratitude. He seemed depressed and I, having done my duty, didn't want to talk with him much more.
DIARY 13548
10/23/78
ACTUALISM: FIRST STAR INTRO CLASS
This course will be made a REQUIREMENT for those in Third who want to teach!! Tom Packard in Dallas is the first on FIELD STAFF, which many may get into. Joan Ann De Mattia and George Pierson from Class #1, going into 3rd Advanced. Donna Lee, Mary Vilaboa, Maya Bryant, and Mary Stanley from #2, end of 2nd. Bruce Lieber is only one from Class #3 in 2nd, and one of us 5 of 18 guys. Me and Marilyn Gutin and Michael Blackburn are from Class #4, going into 2nd middle. Susan Lieber and Dorothy Kent and Elaine Claudio are from Class #5, end of 1st. Kate Lieber, Pat Giambalvo, Tomasina Borelli, and Arthur Ellenbogen from Class #65, and 1st Selma from Basic looks like Lily Tomlin and hasn't even gotten the HUMAN yet! Reasons for taking the class ranged from Arthur's going to India to me for self-improvement, and lots of mention of travel, hospitals, with dying, in Pittsburgh (equivalent?); with numerology, art, dance, drama, business, and many other areas, which Alice lumped vaguely under science and inventing and designing and engineering. She gave us the outline of the 6 classes, then passed out the sheets, and she suggested WE suggest one-pointed focus to people doing other meditations, and Bruce insists we all go to Elizabeth Clare Prophet afterwards, much to the disgust of Arthur. "Do not have the arrogance to think YOU will bring it all together into a SUPER system" seemed pointing to me. Gatherings given by student-lot in all classes. Supplies given include flyers for light course, Metzner's reprint, Basic Principles, BORROWING the standup boards, announcements, and Actualism brochures. As you take and finish the course, you can check in with center with questions. Notes on page one: Life-energy is now energy (light for lifting, fire for consuming and purifying) is manifested through body-mind consciousness in living. "Let" is NOT comparing, referring, analyzing, brain-minding. Do NOT give class YOUR images to stumble over. RAGES also bring up feelings of GUILT. Notes on page two: Hands on thighs permit energies to be earthed. Experiencing, not words, will DO it. Break 3:05-3:25. Stay as close to format as possible for first few sessions --- very FEW personal stories AT START. Use terms of "Earthing" to be same as "Grounding" which they'll know, and use "inner Beingness" as preferable to "Being of Light." Use TOOLS in classes after checking with teacher at your OWN level, and she seemed stymied more than a few times by Selma from Basic, frowning down on her when she was taking notes while Alice was brushing down Arthur, who had an orgasmic pleasure on his face during it. Radiant consciousness BEING STEPPED DOWN through the Upper Room. You can warn people that if they get woozy they can open their eyes and look at the floor, but don't shake them up by calling their names in the first few sessions. Just MERGE and EXPAND tool to draw off what's making THEM sleepy. Person DOING brushdown CLOSES feet, backfills, and lets overflow through HANDS. Person GETTING brushdown OPENS feet to let downpour FLOW THROUGH body. For FACE, start at FOREHEAD and CARESS face and down. Then AFTER, close feet and backfill "so they don't leak all day" as someone put it, not Alice. For each of the next five sessions, four will be chosen from the class by lottery to perform (1) Pre-intro verbal section, (2) Gathering and enlightening, (3) Actual verbal intro, and (4) Brushdown verbalizing. Alice thought it might be done in 90 minutes, but Joan Ann insisted it would take at least 2 hours, and maybe some practice to hold it down to as little as that. Alice kept saying not to answer too many questions, since many will be answered in later sessions, many will be answered after the students get into lightwork, and she was saying how exciting it was that we were getting this, and wasn't the writeup by Bruce Jaffe marvelous? I sort of thought that if THIS was the best they could do, they might be able to use my writing skills later. Fantasized being called on first and giving such a dynamite gathering that EVERYONE got it. When we went magnetic and subjective and LISTENED to her gathering, I GOT some kind of pressures between my hands, stronger than I'd ever done before, and afterwards lots of us decided that we'd cut the White Star short, but that actually it was a tremendous tool to be used even if we were ADVANCED. Alice kept talking about our differences in different levels, how we would benefit from doing this, and how she saw great changes and usefulnesses ahead for both Bruce and myself and Arthur, mainly men. But then most of the women, aside from Joan Ann and Susan, were rather wimpy.
DIARY 13550
10/23/78
ACTUALISM O-V BY ARTHUR AFTER CLASS
He's disgusted with Bruce's telling him "Don't hug me," but then telling him he should be OPEN to the other person, and he tells tales about Robie's turning off after a couple sexual encounters with Bruce because BRUCE didn't particularly care for his OWN body. Then he started telling about his past, how he lived with a VERY passive guy for about 8 years, who didn't think much of EITHER of them, who didn't care for sex either, and it was a great treat for him to be able to hug everyone he wanted to, showing his love genuinely, and glad that no one turned him away, including Winston, whom I'd always thought to be cold, whom Bruce Jaffe "promised" to Arthur, saying he'd like him. His apartment was rather bleak: john in hallway, short tub in kitchen, lots of roaches all over, slight chill after midnight on the table, which he opened from a suitcase, but I got jealous when he mentioned exchanging very high-energy body sessions with Bob Dukes, whom I've not seen in a month! I guess I had my magnetic open, because he talked and talked and talked, about how glad he was that I was there, or else he'd be at Man's Country and doing bodywork THERE instead of here, how he could meet his old lover there and not be worried that he didn't acknowledge him, how he'd processed all that. He talked about Someone Silva who sang for his body session, how beautiful he was, and he made comments about how I cruised on the way back to the subway, which I said wasn't a very dangerous place after he said how low-frequency it was. His book selection was eclectic, of which "The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus" was pretty awful, by Levi, written at the end of the 19th century, and looked through Bach's Flower Remedy book, which he gave me some of again, looked at his Uva Ursi tea (Bear's berries, which he said was related to the word "Eggs" as was the word "grapes"), and he talked of his mother disliking him, having taught him lots of things about healing, and how didn't like his father, got into lots of things, didn't care for his job or his apartment, wanted to get money though not through greedy chain letters (which Tomasina was raving to Alice that she'd gotten $2,000+ and was having more parties to push her name up higher faster), and lots of other kvetches.
DIARY 13553
10/23/78
ACTUALISM NSH ON AMY
She comes over at 3 rather than 2:45 as asked, so she COULD have come over at 2:45 instead of 2:30 as SCHEDULED. We chat about the Florida salesman (see DIARY 13554) and she does psychometry and says the contract is solid and deep, and I should study it, but I won't get burned, the flight is "high and fun," and the card more problematic, and she said she could sense his vibes in the building as she entered. Told her about the meeting tomorrow and she'll be here, looked through the indexing booklet and thought she could do it though she didn't have time to read it with all her Alexander classes at 5 today and a class tomorrow morning, and we chatted on until it was 3:45 and she had to leave at 4:35 at the latest, so she got onto the table, requesting Wisdom with a bit of a self-deprecating laugh, and when I heard the table quiet down from her mounting it, I entered, fluffed the gathering only a few times, but I still needed it there, and went quickly through her neck, beamed down one shoulder with such intensity that she said "Wow, you're really blazing away," and I said "Well, power times time equals energy, so I get the same energy if I use less time but greater power," and she said it was great and I said I'd have to be careful she didn't get addicted to the "half-hour blast." Quickly down the spine, which I felt a LOT of stuff in, VERY much at sea, and she ends by saying that I'm the GREATEST on the spine, getting RIGHT where she needs the work, so I thank her and beam and brain-mind abdicates. Quickly through the pelvis, brushdown and she gives a dynamite report, no danger of falling asleep, and quicker down the other side to finish her at 4:25, asking how much time she wants, and she says 5 minutes, gets up and dresses, phones to say she might be late, and leaves at 4:35, saying she felt that she had a complete body session, and I feel drained enough and strung-out enough to have had a complete session, too, but I wouldn't like to do it too often in the future. She's eager to work with the indexing, wants to have Adam and me over for dinner with her and Dennis (took her down to Dennis's when I got the Harper phone number and she liked it) and wants us all to get together and she'll check with Adam for my possible party on November 8.
DIARY 13558
10/24/78
ACTUALISM NSH BY PAT MANDINO
She's all bundled up, saying it's cold, in old-lady shoes and a long skirt, and I'd been thinking about "Bob's Comet" (see DIARY 13557) so I tell her about it, and she comments on my shoes, and I say they're my "thinking slippers" and she thinks it's charming and that I should write it down. She says she has to leave for an 11:15 or 11:30 interview, so I get onto the table at 10 and feel relieved that the heat came on this evening, and then she does a fairly freeform gathering and starts in on my neck with a gentility that surprises me, then says she clipped her fingernails so there's no bite in my neck, and then she has such PRECISION down my trapezius and takes such CARE with my arm-brushdown that I ask "Have you had a T&R recently?" and she says she has, and then gets to the spine with a SHARP elbow that's so MARVELOUSLY precise that I feel she's DOING something. I compliment her a number of times on her improved technique, and she says she's amazed that MY body has changed so drastically from before, and she doesn't say how. I go along with her movements, she says she's sinking her human in much more deeply now and she's much more centered (she said she used to get hugely activated doing my body, and very scattered, which meant she didn't do a very good job --- this was COMPLETELY different), and it's just a TOTAL transformation. She even goes quickly enough so that I'm finished at 10:55 and get off the table at 11:05 and compliment her again and get her out to her appointment. Now I don't think I have ANYONE to dread anymore except Susan and Bruce, and Amy's improved and Pat's completely a new person with the NSH, and she's only had her second T&R at about 11 bodies, and it's marvelous to see. She liked it better, too, knew she was doing a better job even if I didn't tell her (though she DID get a bit low or high on one or the other hip, and I thought she was going too lightly in places, but didn't want to tell her to bear down for fear of getting the blunt-elbowed leviathan that I'd dreaded seeing in the past. Next time I'm going to HER place for the first time, and she told the story about always WANTING to play piano, and now she's into it with new gratification and loves every second of it, with her roommate, a FEMALE.
DIARY 13570
10/29/78
ACTUALISM O-V FROM DOROTHY
Michael's on the phone and Dorothy comes out of the inner room, then a bright-eyed guy comes out and starts talking about indexing, and I ask if he's connected with computers and he tells me about Computer Warehouse in Boston, he's in Amherst maybe being financed to get a PDP 1133 with Pascal or Forth language, might have time, and is sexy and alert, so I slip him my name and phone number and tell him to call me if he gets the machine and wants someone to rent large blocks of time to try out computerized indexing. Hope he calls for other reasons. Dorothy, on our walk to the center, says that he's very bright, great memory, can read something and talk about it as if he's an expert in it, which she feels she can't do, can't even absorb while reading. I get onto the table and she talks about postponing her trip to Denver for the first day of the Rolfing conference, which started today, but she probably won't be at next week's session since that's the LAST day of it. She works with her usual competence, vibrator not seeming to make extraneous noises any more, and we started early at 6:20 and were finished about 7:40, which gave us enough time for me to suggest walking, which we had to speed up at end to get there on time. She's still talking about the session with Michael and Alice at center, is beginning to like her freedom, and says that I have loads but don't seem to have anything terribly difficult to work with. I'm again feeling gratitude toward her for serving me so well, and when we don't have class next week she comes out of the elevator and says to me "I'll call you about coming over for a body session," and I say "That's EXACTLY what I was thinking of," and had remembered how good I felt that there was no class right after my surgery with Alice on 10/31, which felt good, too. She likes walking, hiked up a mountain and tripped just 5 feet from the top and fell on her nose, which was just healing, and she said she was sure that the whole thing was symbolic. What a pity there's no O-V training scheduled close by so that I can get into it and have HER critique my first sessions of it, since her methods seem to perfect and exact, though the EXTRA additions of face massage, head pull, and feet tug at the end are hers alone and very good too.
DIARY 13571
10/29/78
ACTUALISM: PREP 4 FOR SECOND ADVANCED
She SAYS Faye's foot is in a cast, Elliott has already made up the class, and we're adding Margaret M-something to the class, and she's fat and teary-eyed and sort of an even exchange for Richard Iltis, who hasn't called in yet, and since Faye's not there, I get to tell the class about talking with him. She talks about forgiveness and the Cosmic Mother, and the first idea is that I don't HAVE anyone to forgive, but she insists that EVERYONE does, so I figure I'll work on Mom both ways, but she says since it clears up BOTH sides of things, I should take two, so I think of Helen for the gay thing, and then just decide to take Dad. We start, she says arbitrarily, with forgiving something DONE TO ME, and I try to poke around in Dad's not being with the family, whipping me that once, not being supportive to my masculinity, not standing up to Mom, but he just seemed so WEAK and unwilling to HURT anyone DIRECTLY that I really couldn't blame him, couldn't even tap into the emotions at Hemlock Hall when thinking about a father saying "I love you, you're a good son" to a son. Figure Mom will be better. Then when I think of what I'VE DONE TO SOMEONE (and the similarity to an est process is undeniable) I think of shouting "I love you" when I really meant "I hate you" to Mom, tried to think of her repressing me as a kid, me doing things to worry and annoy and anger her, but I can't get anything going on this, either, and the session seems quick, and I can't THINK what to report. Margaret says "I felt no hate-rage in consciousness, but I'm sure it's there unconsciously" and I identify with THAT, and then just before me Alice says we might start working in "clusters," where many things get handled at once, so I pounce on that and said that I found Mom forgiving Dad and Dad forgiving Mom in "clusters" and that I felt what Margaret said, but that I felt steady in the process, surprised there was so little emotion connected with it, was probably repressing it, and DIDN'T bother to say that I'd probably have a lot to work on this week. Marilyn waved her arms as usual, Tony reported a great session, Dorothy talks of her children, which I remember from personal exchanges, Barbara seems to be doing well, Margaret talks a lot, we agree not to have a session next week, and Maureen and I talk about the Polish pope on the way to the subway, Maybe I can make up January 3 if I miss it on a trip, and I jot down the schedule for the rest of the year.
DIARY 13573
10/29/78
ACTUALISM O-V FROM ARTHUR ELLENBOGEN
I'm breathless and sweaty and agitated, and he just folds me in his arms and holds me, saying he loves to hold me, crowing about his new boyfriend that he met when his friend didn't show up at the opera, how they've been together for two times now and Arthur's already slowing him down from "wanting to shower, eat, have sex, and get to the opera in two hours." I don't even have time to tell him about my day, have some burdock tea, which is pretty good, and then get onto the table, where he's delighted that I want to work in Cosmic Mother, but he seems to be very scattered, starting in one place and forgetting where he is, doing two brushdowns by mistake, having to backtrack when something's out of order, and fumbling with the vibrator a few times. But the sessions feels good and he says he doesn't feel any particular stress in my neck and back from having carried around 90 lbs of cards and paper just recently, and I feel that the session's taking too long a time, but let him do what he wants, and I assimilate and get up and find that it's 8:30 and Susan isn't there YET. He's not installed his Sanyo machine yet, so I give him Pope's number and they talk as Susan rings to be let in, and she's been running and has hurt her lower back by getting into it without doing the previous stretching exercises, and I don't get up to greet her because I'm assimilating, and when Arthur gets off the phone and comes over to greet her, SHE says she can't get up because of her back. It turns out they do Tarot readings for each other and don't even get to a body session since she's so scattered, so I feel that I've gotten a good deal from Arthur without his being able to get one in return, but that's fine, too. As I leave the guy across the hall started to shout and beat either his wife or the children or the dog, and they look concerned but I just leave as soon as possible to find that it's raining VERY heavily outside, and get thoroughly wet by the time I get to the station, but I'm so spaced out by the activities of the day that I just stand and dry off and don't even bother to read on the way back, so it must have been a more productive body session that I would have thought, and I DO feel physically good.
DIARY 13575
10/29/78
ACTUALISM NSH ON SUSAN
She's smoking one cigarette after another, brightens considerably when I say she can have coffee, insists on talking about all kinds of things, wants to get together to go over the class notes, starts clearing her throat early, finally gets onto the table at 10, saying it's warm and leaving off the sheet completely, and I go through her session rather quickly, since I want to be finished at 10:45 to call Stimmel again, and she groans through part of the neck work, says that my work on the spine is perfect, says I know where the point on her leg is since it HURTS so much when she moves it around, and seems to be dozing much of the time. Arthur had pointed out that the gathering mentions the CORRESPONDING areas where both will be working, and I do feel various "unexplainable" aches and pains when I'm working on people, and she wanted to work in perfection, which I don't usually think about, and that might make it activating too. I joke about "your throat's even cleared on the left side" when she says she feels so much better there, and fantasize it going away, but keep forgetting Arthur and his perception that she's just ACTIVATING and clearing things away in that way, it has nothing to do with her THROAT per se. She lies on the table as I talk to Stimmel and as Amy calls to ask why I'm resisting coming over, since she's expecting me at the dot of 11, and Susan has someone to meet, but insists on going to the john and leaving a bagful of fruit for me, eating some of it, not wanting any D-cell water, and she even seems to delay leaving until 11:10, even when SHE'S supposed to be somewhere at 11, and I don't take along the index for Amy which came in through the buzzer downstairs, causing Susan to look at me with a GREAT look of amazement, and then we marvel about how easily I seem to be getting indexes for anyone I want, and maybe I don't take it because I don't tell Susan explicitly that I'm going to Amy's, because I think she would have delayed it more, but Amy insists that that's all cleared up, so maybe it's more MY pictures of what the situation WAS rather than anything actual now. We say we have to check for future sessions, and she wants to meet for LUNCH to talk about the class, and I say no, and she says "Shit" like a frustrated kid, and I suggest she come over at 10 am tomorrow.
DIARY 13577
10/29/78
ACTUALISM NSH ON ARTHUR HERE
He almost immediately starts taking off his clothes and gets onto the table. I start working with him, feeling that his neck is particularly intractable, and as I work down the spine I feel myself getting more and more tired, until I'm reminded of something I said to him about falling asleep DOING the work, and it begins to seem possible. I blaze up the Radiant Warrior that he wants to work in (he said "Thanks for telling them about my problems in working with Ruby Red: Linda requested we do our T&R in Warrior and it was a VERY activating experience!"), and wake up a bit, but on his lower RIGHT spine I say "I hope you're not having as much difficulty staying awake as I'm having," and he says "Bring in one of the teachers," and I quickly say "OK, let's bring in Carol Ann!" Almost immediately a lot of the fogginess leaves me, and I'm so amazed about that that I start dwelling on it, forget about Carol Ann, and the sleepies come back in again. He asks if I felt any particular loads which he felt, and I usually say yes, although the MAIN time he asked I hadn't felt a thing. This time there was no clear channel down the right to work in easily to say he should call up more obstacles, but he said that he felt his spine was adequately loaded to take advantage of my marvelous bodywork. He hugged two or three times before and after, just wanting to be close, holding hands and staring deep into my eyes, laughing about how much Rolf wanted to hide from his gaze (see DIARY 13576) when he entered. I sat quietly as he chatted about some little things, but I wanted him to be gone so I sort of shut down my magnetic and finally he sensed it and left. By THAT time I was feeling quite thoroughly drained, marveling about the energy that it took to go through the past three days in a totally different way (see DIARY 13578). We didn't set up another session either, since this body session put me on OVER the number I needed for a T&R, and the office didn't call back after I left word for them to do so, but Lea remarked that she'd heard my call, and I scheduled a T&R for I THINK 11 am Wednesday, but I'll have to call and check because I seem to have misplaced (and now I search and find it in my jeans pocket!) the card I got for it.
DIARY 13580
10/29/78
ACTUALISM: SECOND STAR INTRO CLASS
Notes taken on separate sheet: Marilyn Gutin out, Joan Ann busy, down to 16. Start at 1:12, waiting for Elaine to get out of john, and Alice emphasizes that LAST week's intro is the PARTIAL intro. Full intro at Center with a GROUP is necessary to start Basic (didn't say whether these TWO classes were full intro, as it seemed). Don't ANTICIPATE their questions or they'll ASK them. Actual INNER work not MORE than one hour, the whole thing: 2 hours. Respond to questions: "We'll talk about it after the EXPERIENCE." The 49 senses have never been LISTED explicitly --- 49 of EACH mind you, was what Alice said. "If you can't even use the first FIVE, how do you use MORE?" She said that Russell often offers challenges like this to have you THINK. Once he said, for an assignment in 4th Advanced, LIST the 49 senses! Ask the Higher to come across with appropriate responses to questions in individual cases. "Russell has the cute way of using the word JOY when he wants to activate your RAGE." "You're CODING them for their sensory reactions." Break 3:10-3:25. DON'T allow them to "flick fingers or hands" after brushdowns. Segments for NEXT week: 1) Intro talk, 2) Gathering and enlightening, 3) Technique through spinning, 4) Handwork. May be DRAWN or by VOLUNTEERS, like this week, when Elaine Claudio raised quickly to get intro, more or less parroting the book in an awkward way so that everyone was impressed by her SINCERITY; Bruce giving the gathering, rather nicely, but nervously; me giving the verbal intro, FORGETTING the backfilling and hand-fanning (but Alice was great: "He did it so beautifully I didn't even miss it."), and then GEORGE PIERSON forgot about the backfilling when he demonstrated the brushdowns on Michael, and people were told brushdowns only for FRONT (and then Mrs. Lieber asked about it AGAIN) (and Tomasina KEPT ON interjecting and Mary KEPT ON asking questions and Elaine KEPT ON repeating things), and that the verbalization is something that activates people, but we're CODING their responses, which I think is a significant word, and I HAVE to get to Alice with my questions about PRODUCING the effects rather than ACTUALIZING the effects of the work, and she laughed through most of it, frowning again at poor Selma, only in lesson 18 of Basic, struggling with copious notes. And AGAIN insisting to Maya and Elaine that tools depend on LEVEL OF WORK.
DIARY 13590
11/1/78
VEIN SURGERY WITH ALICE IN ACTUALISM
I tell her "When we got the organ center and the cell center my imagination just went wild: since we have dimension zero we surely have CENTER ZERO somewhere far above center one. We have centers through 9 now, but we probably have centers 10 and 11 and 12 (though I didn't mention Kundalini), we take care of the cells but what about the Molecular and Atomic and Quark level (don't say that exactly that way, either)?" She looks steadily at me and says, "It's not that unusual that people see things early: in some of the letters people talked about their cells before getting into the preps for second advanced. We have a policy with people like you: we admit to you that you're right, but we have to tell all the students about these things in their proper order. We'd appreciate if you didn't mention any of these to anyone else because it might just activate them way ahead of time. We have to go in order. You're right, accept that and let it drop." Well, I wasn't sure I could! Then she says how important the veins are, since they're necessary to keep the body alive, and though they were worked with secondarily when we worked with the arteries, they weren't concentrated on, and now they'll be primary and the arteries will be secondary, as are the capillaries, which have just been made a required part of the vascular network system, as have the lymph nodes --- "though if he includes the lymph nodes, I don't see why he doesn't include one on the lymph DUCTS, too," and an optional session on the pacemaker action of the heart, and I think vaguely of amyl and doing it. She says she can't do all of them, can only do one a month for most students, so she signs me up with Winston for some new ones in November 28, and maybe I can sneak in an appointment with her in December after that. She says SOMETHING will be the primary focus of Second Advanced, something about sensing the body more fully, or the human more fully, and I'm sorry I forgot that. She asked me to move into various sections of the body served by veins, and I think vaguely below the heart and she says "Don't forget that includes the head and brain too!" I got up there for a bit and then realized that the heart ITSELF had veins and looked at that, then at the veins in the stomach, then told her about the gray area below the stomach --- "the greater and lesser omentum and the mesentery and places that I don't know ANYTHING about," I say, and she says that's good to get into. I mention explicit sexual impulses and visions that I had: in fact, I felt almost falling asleep and DREAMING of one of them, and she said that wasn't unusual working with the vascular system at all. I agreed. I felt it moving through the arms and legs, and reported a bit of numbness in my right arm, and she said "I'd been noticing that all along: in the shoulder and down the arm and particularly in the wrist." I said I felt it primarily in the little finger, and she said "Let's work with that on the outer." I thought she meant with body sessions, and she said she just meant to concentrate on it now, but that a hand session would be just fine to have. I talked about the eyes, and she mentioned a series of 15-16 surgeries that she'd just had on the cranial nerves, including the Vagus, and she said that the Optic Nerve session included the eye as the Otic nerve session included the ear, and she said that was a powerful new session that was just recently earthed: "I can do them," she said with a touch of pride, and she said when she'd TAKEN it she was amazed how much stuff came up, and I was rather reminded of nuclear physics: the closer the physicists look there are still levels of knowledge to be found: the farther down into the past or the depths of the unconscious Actualism seems to go, there still seems to be work to be done, and I'm reminded again that Russell has many surgeries a week, and Alice said she took two surgeries a week to get in the whole series before coming to the city, and she said that it WAS a powerful thing to do. As before, she went into the red, saying that I should get into my traveling Warrior Sigil when leaving but get back into the red at night, and when I was walking down the hall she reminded me about my energies, so I took in the red and brought out the sigil, and maybe THAT was why I felt so TOTALLY wiped out last night, pleased that Dennis went downstairs to sleep alone, yet jerking off fully and reading until 2:40. Maybe I just needed time to assimilate that the evening at Avi's didn't permit.
DIARY 13592
11/1/78
ACTUALISM NSH T&R WITH LINDA
She smiles up at me, asks for my book, and I offer her some indexing write-ups and she says I can bring it next time I come into the office, and that it doesn't matter that I may have done one extra, since this isn't a rate-change T&R. She wants to work in orange, so I get revved up, she puts the bird (SHE, since she's laid 9 infertile eggs) on the window sill on a towel so she won't peck the paint, but she nips down the towel and pecks the paint anyway! I enter and do the gathering PERFECTLY, giving myself a verbal pat on the back "I DID it!" and she smiles. I work on the neck, and she says I can get into the neck FAR more strongly, and she then asks where I feel the weakest: the neck. So we go at it again and she asks how I hold my knuckle, so I show her, and she says I should use it SIDEWAYS with a STRAIGHT wrist, scooping FROM the wrist, and it makes a WORLD of difference, and she's grand in her praise. She tells me to REALLY bear down into the cervical spine-sides, and I DO, and almost get sore thumbs into the bargain, but she says that HER neck is very tensed and it feels GREAT when I do it very hard with her. I tell her I have two sessions afterward (neither of which show up!) and she says THAT'S good! I tell her about Arthur's "corresponding areas" meaning areas in the DOER'S body as well as the one being worked on, and she says that would deflect concentration and she should talk with him. But the thumbs feel better in the neck, I can go VERY deep. First trapezius (in second pass) is ALONG the muscles 2-3 times, then ACROSS 2-3 times, then ALONG once, and I do it strongly and she says it feels good, but that I should watch for winces from the patient. In the spine she says I should lower my arm more and SQUEEGEE (evocative!) the loads out by lowering my wrist more as I PUSH them out, and it feels better. Then on the hip she says I should do crosses only ONCE on the leg muscle below the hip, that my hip work feels VERY good, and I joke that SHE should move into the spaces and she seems genuinely to have liked it. I keep complaining about how her table is lower than mine, and she says I can work things out for my own body so that I'm not using my SHOULDERS or WAIST so much, but merely relying on the weight of my body to do the work, even more heavily than before, and Bruce and Bob Dukes are the "pressure champions" who would enable me to stretch my limits.
DIARY 13597
11/5/78
ACTUALISM NSH BY SUSAN LIEBER
Her three cats are out in force, one's back mottled from brushing up against paint, and it'll have to be shaved. I start reacting, then think it's silly, and since they're not in the bedroom when she does me, I ease off and recover. She's TERRIBLY activated: left Bill's to go to MY place before realizing I was going to HER place, apologizing for being late, and I drop it after some agitation. She's coughing her nervous cough, but she's finding things she said she's never found: she always thought I was so clear, and here are all these THINGS. She apologized a couple of times for hurting me when bands of flesh rolled around under her elbow, but I kept insisting it didn't hurt, and it didn't. Didn't fear to tell her to let up a bit through the crucial portions of my back, and I didn't feel nearly so much traumatized as I had before with her, and her last T&R seems to have sharpened HER elbow much as it did Amy's, so I don't have to worry about either of them anymore. (Now Dorothy Hunter's coming over, so we'll see how SHE worked through it.) She STILL takes a long time: I'm on the table from about 10-11:30, and I have to coax her to get me onto the table, and then she walks me to the subway station just at 12, when she's supposed to be at WORK at 12, and she's not thinking of quitting there anymore, they don't seem to hassle her as much as they used to, and she's working all right. She's still activated about the Saturday series, though, and talks a lot about it. I'm losing patience with her giddiness. so I sort of cut her off earlier than I would have. She still doesn't go deeply enough into the neck, but she's better than she was before, and her work on the spine seems better for both of us: she can sense she's clearing out things and I can sense I'm not tensing up so much under her attack as I did before. Somehow, however, our old "almost lovers" feeling has evaporated, which I think is pretty good, but it leaves her with lots of extra energy she doesn't seem quite to know where to put. We make an appointment for next week for her to come here, and I can only hope she doesn't have the same trouble she has with Arthur, just not being able to make it, or being terribly late. Hope she IMPROVES.
DIARY 13598
11/5/78
ACTUALISM NSH ON PAT MANDINO
There it is in her appointment book: Thursday, though she remembers we talked about squeezing her in between my T&R and Kathy, which I have on my book at Wednesday, so I give her water and we sit and talk and say it's the same thing anyway. Make an appointment with Richard Hilty just before she tells me that SHE'S thinking of giving voice lessons, and then she talks about her chances of selling Mary K cosmetics, which she's seemed to have seen work cosmetic miracles on many people --- and so has the black woman who's trying to sell them to HER. BUT she needs to buy ALL the supplies for a "party" beforehand for about $800, and if she doesn't sell them she can only sell them back to the company for 90% of the cost! I say it smells like a pyramid scheme, but she says it seems OK because the quality of the stuff is good, though fairly expensive. There's the story of some kind of oil someone's grandfather used on his hands after fishing as the basis of the formula that they DON'T want to advertise! I just say that I'm suspicious, and then she gets onto the table, I wash my hands, do the gathering without the sheet, and she's on the table without any cover at all, and I use the new, more powerful techniques, leaving tracks over her neck and back, and she lies docilely, saying it feels just fine, and only at the juncture between the hip and the girdle bone does she jump when I push too hard. She talks about her loaded neck and I seem to feel large lumps in her neck as in Linda's, and it's beginning to seem like this is an endless process of bringing up more and more to be processed deeper and deeper. Finish at 2:50, waiting for Amy to phone at 3, which she doesn't, so that gives us a chance to get things together and her to leave, and I don't detect anything of the heavy emotion that she brings to her conversation the following morning (see DIARY 13594). I'm to go to her place on Monday, which I don't care much to do except that I've never been there before, and she's just around the corner from Bruce and Sue, so it's not far to go. She laughs a lot, as usual, says endearing things about me as usual, and we kiss perfunctorily before Pat Mizerandino (who took the misery out to become Pat Mandino) leaves having written me a check for $40 because she had no time to get to the bank and needed money for the evening.
DIARY 13602
11/5/78
ACTUALISM INTRO CLASS 3
I'm late at 1:05, but Susan comes in at 1:10, Tomasina at 1:13, and Pat at 1:15 and we get a talk about making everyone wait. Michael's drawn for the Brief Inner Work re-do, Arthur's drawn (and messes up --- doesn't even get a bit of applause) for Intro Talk, Donna volunteers for the technique, and reads most of it while we have our eyes closed, and Mary directs the handwork while Michael does it on Donna. Then I take notes: Doing lots of private intros will give the authority and experience for the series of 6. Don't HAVE to mention the 49 senses, start with the 5 is enough. Keep gathering SIMPLE, as in Lesson One, #1, not even as in BASIC, but follow structure on paper with NO forebrain, only use of Upper Room (which Michael goofed on), and use "seat" and "center" only if it's in the FORM. More emphasis on "harmonize" first. (Oh, she drew my name for the second part, saying that I must have been eager to do it --- no way! Having done it the SECOND week, I can COAST now, except that next week will see 7 doing it, which means we may ALL get a chance to do it a SECOND time!). SENSE and EXPERIENCE WITH them, observing and reporting, not just memorizing what goes on. The VERBAL is the COPILOT for the entire group's staying together. Break 3-3:15. Lesson 3: Intro talk: How to contact someone with light: someone close, someone difficult, and someone who needs healing. To deal with the sense of being separated or alienated. Closed-eye session, then break, then continue. Don't use "activating" use disturbing, unpleasant, reacting unfavorably. Then ANOTHER closed-eye session --- not reporting HERE, but get reports THERE. Assign group to repeat Interpersonal Relationship work EACH day. Next week they and WE are to bring book in an envelope AND a piece of food or beverage. Next time, people for 1) Intro talk up to intro talk 2, 2) Gather and enlighten, 3) Intro talk II through point 10, 4) point 11, 5) point 13, 6) point 15, and 7) point 17. We're finished about 4:10, then everyone makes appointments, I get a surgery date fixed with Alice, Arthur sets up dates with Susan, I ask Lea to my Thanksgiving gathering and she seems pleased, Susan asks everyone to Dennis Donlon's opening somewhere on Monday, and I take off with Arthur, vaguely activated.
DIARY 13603
11/5/78
ACTUALISM NSH ON ARTHUR
We compare dates on who did who, and thankfully he remembers all my dates on HIM and can't come up with any more of his on ME, so he agrees with me, apologizes for insisting so much that he was right, and lays back on the table. I find difficulty propping myself up on his narrow table, and he keeps falling off, too, but we manage to get through. I can't seem to muster much power along his neck, but then digging into his cervical spine I seem to plunge to new depths, which he insists don't hurt, and I find that his back is splotchy with red, and he says that's just fine with him. At one point he says "If you find I'm giving you a rough time, why don't we call in Winston or Lois," so I call in Lois, and things certainly don't get worse after that. At least there's no great sleepiness this time as there was last time. He'd had 5 people scheduled to work on him, including me on Monday, and ALL of them cancelled, leaving him in a desperate strait, so he had to have me do him this time even though he became two behind. He kept asking if I wanted anything, and I just wanted to work and leave. He moved around at my request, coming up with his smells when I got into knots of flesh, and he seemed to love it, never complaining about the pressure even though I urged him to say anything, bearing down more firmly on his spine than I had before, but I felt that it was doing both of us a lot of good, and for all the pressure I was supplying, I didn't feel much the worse for it except for the strain of keeping myself propped on a tiny corner of his narrow table. "Do you have enough room?" he asked, and I paused and could only say "Yes." He couldn't give me any MORE, I was taking all I could GET, so that HAD to be enough, even though I would have liked more. I'm sure that'll come up again when I resist going to his place to do HIM, rather than him coming here. But it figures; HIS field is doing the assimilating, so I should be left with whatever he doesn't absorb even after he LEAVES, if my structures have any need for it. He talked about how he hates rushing, goes slowly (Taurus), likes his boyfriends, liked "Bartered Bride" in standing room last night, and is meeting someone at 8 pm tonight.
DIARY 13604
11/5/78
ACTUALISM NSH BY BRUCE
He takes his shirt off after I say I want to work in Cosmic Mother, and I express some concern that it's ME who's getting the session, and he says, in jest "No, we'll BOTH get on the table and let the INNER do the work," and wonder if he might not be sexually embarrassed after that gaffe. He shakes a bit during the gathering, goes fairly lightonly (WOW!, some typo!) lightly on my neck, then increases pressure for the trapezius, asking me how I feel on the right, because HE came up with great feelings of sadness, and I said I felt nothing, but I might be blocking everything, as I confessed I was having a GREAT deal of trouble with the Cosmic Mother Forgiveness lessons. He bore down on the spine until I told him to ease up a bit in the middle, but then after a couple of passes it seemed I could take more pressure, and he bore down more heavily, but always seeming to go just a BIT fast, as if in a hurry to get away from the body, and I had to tell him to wait for a few seconds so that I could relax into his elbow. Had to keep reminding myself that I should be going magnetic, because I felt at times that I was more REPELLING his force than ACCEPTING it. Felt very localized areas of blockage, pain, and obstruction, some of which he could manage to iron out, some of which were obviously left for next time. Kept feeling that the muscles at the sides of my spine kept rising up to force his elbow out. He went at the thighs VERY deeply into the crotch area, I thought, and used VERY strong punches while circling the hip bone and making the circles in the buttocks, almost as if he were jabbing DOWN INTO the muscle rather than pushing the loads DOWNWARD in the direction of the legs to go out the feet. He was uncomfortably unyielding right around the bones, and I thought I might tell him. He had trouble finding my areas of pressure, and he didn't quite get them even with direction, but it was better there than another place. He seemed much more activated than I was, and I was glad I glanced at the clock at 9:58 so that I could get up at 10:08 while he was sleeping, dress, and say "OK, Bruce," as he laughed and said "I was just about to get you up," and then he seemed to have trouble gathering himself together in the next half-hour to leave so that Dennis and I could eat in peace. Bruce did take orange juice, at the end.
DIARY 13616
11/7/78
ACTUALISM WONDER ABOUT FORGIVENESS AND GRACE
Yesterday evening (see DIARY 13609) I had no trouble forming a solid hierarchy, but when I started pursuing forgiveness, many people (Mom, Rita, Grandma, Helen, Dennis, John, Jean-Jacques, people from IBM and grade school and high school and college and gay life, lovers and people to whom I had been attracted who wouldn't respond, and passing violent people on subways, streets, and sidewalks) came up to be considered with "Well, I certainly forgive them, for I have no hate, rage, or fear toward them --- " and then I sit and wonder where the State of GRACE is! Then look at forgiving myself for treating people badly, and THAT all seems to melt away, and I'm left with the balance of NOT having anything BAD coming up, yet not being overwhelmed with feelings of GOOD. So I decide that I can forgive myself for THAT, too, forgive myself for feeling that I might not DESERVE grace, feeling that I have to "put myself" into the state rather than being overwhelmed by it. I try turning everything over to IE and CM, and there's a bright expectancy, but nothing happens. I think that maybe I can copilot myself into a sun of grace, and though I can sort of frisson myself into seeing brighter and brighter behind my closed eyes, I soon tire of the effort and figure I can't do it myself. If I can't do it myself and it isn't done for me, then all I can do is accept what IS, and feel that maybe THIS total acceptance would LEAD to a state of grace when I can TRULY flow with everything, TRULY feel myself free of hate and rage and fear (and not merely think that I feel I OUGHT to be free of it), and THEN possibly there can be some physical sensation ABOVE the "normal" and I can EXPERIENCE a positive state rather than merely the absence of a negative state. Consider phoning Alice, but then figure this is the way it IS, and it doesn't feel BAD, so I should rely on my own perceptions (as she would probably recommend) and just relax into the feeling that I'm DOING the sessions and I shouldn't be surprised if the feedback which has generally been lacking on the sensory and emotional levels CONTINUES to be absent in this case, and it's not just a "glitch" of Cosmic Mother. Maybe it's just a means of clearing the board for the step of initiation into Second Advanced, also.
DIARY 13619
11/16/78
ACTUALISM NSH ON DOROTHY AT ROLFING CENTER
She's having oatmeal with granola and offers me some, which is quite a coincidence since DENNIS served me oatmeal for breakfast the first time this morning, and I have tea and we chat until about 1, and she's been activated and I suggest I do her now (since I owe her two) and we'll work on the higher to get us a cancellation of her 6 pm appointment today so that she can do me before class. She lays down in the hot room, in which I shut off the heater for awhile because she says the rheostat doesn't work to lower it, and I have to prop myself against the floor to keep from falling off her narrow table, and she's moving all over the place too, and it's not the easiest thing to do. I'm pushing down more strongly, but with her it just doesn't feel like I should ACTIVATE her because I DO like her doing me before the sessions, she seems to be resisting but wanting to work with me at the same time, and since she's involved in bodywork anyway, it might be a good thing for her to work out the Actualism bodywork with SOMEONE. She dozes off for a bit and we laugh about "going out" and "fogging over," and I don't have a clock to go by, so I don't know whether I do it quickly or not. Don't have any problem with the gathering, seeming to have it down firmly (except that I find I'm confusing two phrases, and I transposed the sentence about "refocusing in the upper room" with, I think, no ill effect), but it's strange to sit in the kitchen and know that I'm the only one that anyone can talk with if they come into the Rolfing Center. The strongly built blond guy comes in and we chat, getting intimations that he might be gay, but he's got such a bluff front of "perfectly adjusted" that I think it would be hard to find how to broach the subject. No one telephones, but I would guess that the answering service would pick up the phone call eventually. Read some magazines to pass the time when she was involved with something else beforehand, drinking lots of tea, and figuring that eventually I should leave off a dollar or so for the Celestial Seasonings tea which comes 20 bags for $1.40, and I'm sure I've had 20 by now, not to mention the sweetening honey. They also have Roach Hotels that seem to work, Dorothy saying she doesn't know where they come from since there's no food out in the whole place.
DIARY 13621
11/16/78
ACTUALISM: PREP 5 FOR SECOND ADVANCED
Meet Margaret who says she's not staying, and Alice announced that Tony's not coming, so the last one in is Michael, and she says we'll start at 8 promptly for the long Reunion in Consciousness next time. I'm rather taken aback when she says that this session will involve moving forward and backward in time within IE, and I don't feel anything except brain-mind uncomfortable as we move gently forward through second advanced and then, though she said we'd only go through second, through the first phase of third. It's not that I felt BAD, I just didn't feel that I was feeling any BETTER than I felt when I sat down. Nothing to report on. When we started moving BACK, however, I had to confess to a certain "feeling of less fullness" as we came back to present time, rather like a lightly deflated balloon that didn't realize it HAD been expanded fuller previously. Then we went backward through First Advanced and Basic, and she commented on the session I found so GREAT: when the energies were seated in their centers, and then back to the Intro. I was surprised to find that my eyes began fluttering back in the beginning of basic, and I recalled thinking "When are my eyes going to stop fluttering when they're closed?" when I was taking the intro, and I had to admit that there was expansion of experience THERE. I felt vaguely emptied, deflated, less "full" when I moved back to the time that I didn't have the Incarnating Ego, the Human Ego, and various parts and organs of the body to think about in such a concrete way. It felt much SIMPLER, to be sure, and rather younger, but that didn't mean that it felt BETTER: it was a draining from experience that I was just as glad I had, but felt that I might have been cheating myself of the feelings in the FUTURE direction by being so resistant to it. Figured I'd have to work on it a lot during the week (which I didn't) to get the feeling down more firmly. When she told us to leap ahead "5 years, say to 1984" I moved ahead and felt very SAD, tears trickling down my cheeks, at about "1982-1983," and wondered if I might leave Actualism for something else (or some extension of Actualism) at that time. Others reported glowing futures for "Actualism" when we looked ahead, but I saw nothing for that or for the "City of Light" that she told us to look at, and even the more enthusiastic reports said that they saw it more fully on the inner than on the outer, so it's still a "dream."
