Actualism notes
DIARY 12940
4/27/78
ACTUALISM: THYMUS SURGERY
Just as we sit down Winston's bird (don't I wish his UCCELLO?!) flies out of his cage and patters across the floor, and he sprinkles birdseed over there to keep him away. He asks how my week is, and I find myself getting choked with emotion when I say that it's so nice to get an index finished just on time, get down to the subway a little late and find it just rolling in, and getting here just in time. I think it must be some sort of self-contented happiness that I feel I must suppress or else the world will attack me. I say I have three indexes to finish because I'm going to Venice next week, and that this week has been highly activating because it gets to the core of everything I find concern about: I want to do everything and don't have enough time, and he says "You take so many vacations no WONDER you don't have any time." I tell him that PART of my judgmentalism is deciding WHAT I don't and do do with my time, since I CAN'T do everything, and I HAVE to decide that I like this and don't like that, though I tend to make my predictions come true and used to like grass because it just lowered the judgmentalism all the way and I could mindlessly enjoy whatever was put before me. He said "Yeah," laconically and said that I WAS intelligent and probably DID judge accurately most of the time, so I shouldn't be putting myself DOWN so much, and I again feel the emotion welling up inside me: He's ACCEPTING me, he LIKES the way I do things, I AM OK! Then he gets me into the session, and as he leisurely forms hierarchy I say again that I'm feeling emotional, so I reach for a tissue and wipe the tears from my beard, and I debate going into the feeling of joy that produces tears, but that seems to be an image, so I focus in the thymus with the Radiant Warrior expanded to fill the field, and then sit and wait, not even thinking. I look at the idea of self-acceptance, and find that it has to do with LOVE of self, and I say that I seem to be getting down even more into self-acceptance, which stems from not having any judgments, and it seems to bring up sadness, I can't figure out why. For once, he doesn't respond. Then the bird comes over and begins nibbling my toes, and THAT affects me: even the BIRD accepts me and I can't accept myself. Say to myself, and to him at the end, that I learn more about the Pink: whether it's called Love or the Energy of Perfection, than I did when I was working on it, and think about Dennis, again, in love, and think that we don't have enough AFFECTION recently, and think that probably I HAVE been pushing him but that probably he NEEDS a bit of pushing, and the rest of the session is rather thought-free, and he again says at the end that this may be some kind of breakthrough for me. I hope so.
DIARY 12944
4/27/78
MEN'S SESSION WITH 15
STEVE FLAM is cute, worried about "his masculine image" in tight jeans and "The Athlete's Foot" T-shirt, and he seems totally enamored of Winston and Dennis.
BRUCE LIEBER talks of heavy activations and pains, so nothing new there.
ABE WHOEVER worries about not performing, has very specific pains in pelvis.
MICHAEL BLACKBURN worries about touching too intimately with his hands, anyone.
ELLIOTT GRUMER has physical effects, startlingly, brought up pathology of genitalia.
RICHARD ILTIS brought up the lovely "Stick up glass rod and break the glass" image.
JIM BLOND is going along, likes my beard, had lots of unconsciousness throughout.
GEORGE PIERSON worries about being verbally inappropriate, could it be cruising?
SYDNEY SUDBURY is incredible with "everyone out there is obsessed with sex" and "when can we expect to see 42nd Street vanish," and I guess everyone cruises HIM!
NEIL SENDAR belches, comes up with resentment and anger and rage, and seems to love it.
BZ reports a "too high" kidney-right response on lighting left kidney, and then a "just right" forward motion of both kidneys when the group power was turned on, but little thoughts and very few images for what seemed to be a productive session.
DENNIS DONLON was another new one, pudgy but narrow-hipped and large-legged and crotchy and PARTICULARLY chesty in a heavy sweater, being unconscious a lot.
MICHAEL MOLTHEN got all kinds of ecstatic feelings throughout his newly vitalized body.
MALCOLM GROOME seemed worried about meeting someone who'd accept his limitations, and I'd love to do it, taking him as near the top of the 7 I'd have, opposing the 7 I'd not.
BOB HOBERMAN made some gray statement, except he seemed to like it, and Winston loved us.
We just did the normal circuits, slowly at first so I spaced out, then quicker and I seemed to follow in detail, getting good work done, with the Wisdom light, which is inverted into fears that he asked us to share at the start, and I came up with "doing it 3 times with ease earlier and saying "Not now" when someone wanted it twice in a day," and then with the nice thought of prostate cancer, saying "It's not in a lifebelt," and then being TERRIBLY activated because I thought someone may have had it, but I COULDN'T apologize and draw attention to it, so I stumbled and stuttered and let everyone see how vulnerable and naked I could be when I was confused. But Winston seemed to be pleased with where the group was going, combating ordinary macho images of masculinity and trying to balance it with super-shots of every energy.
DIARY 12959
5/1/78
ACTUALISM: FIRST ADVANCED #32
In just a few minutes late and Rebekah's rather on edge, saying "You can take it that way but I didn't mean it that way" when I joked about my going to Venice when she talked about directing efforts. Then into the bedroom where he had to put out the cat (don't know what happened to the bird), and he introduced the Light Violet Power Ray, which changed into the Amethyst while deepening in color, but he insisted it wasn't important. He said that I could now keep the "Ring-Pass-Not" in force throughout the flight so that it kept all troubles far away, and he was sure everything would be all right. I sort of spaced out after the 5th Dimension and he went up the Converging Way already being set up (I guess he was referring to the Rainbow Bridge), and missed any specific reference to the 6th, but suddenly we were in the sun and anchoring it and bringing it down. Had a GREAT revelation during the formation of Hierarchy that it was CREATURE BODY that was fearful of losing its identity, and he seemed pleased that I realized it was only PART of me that was fearful, and he said I had to be careful not to HIDE fear when my body was actually quaking from it. Then it anchored nicely on the way down: in the brain making a SPECIFIC point about keeping away Fear (and somewhere ELSE he DID say "Anywhere you go," which he doesn't usually say), and in the Creativity to "keep a double-acting flow merged into one," so that Creativity isn't scattered AGAIN, and I seemed to be taking this all to heart. I scratched and moved to show I was awake, and at one time I was SURE I felt someone pecking on my toes. He finished and left me to assimilate and then brushed me down immediately, and we chatted about how nice it felt and I was finished about 12:15, quite early, and had more time to fritter away on the rest of the day. He asked if I'd be back for the next session and I said I would, and he wished me a good trip. His brushdown was quite forceful and close-in, and he didn't seem to mind getting down on his knees and doing things pretty thoroughly around the feet and the floor, which Rebekah seemed to slough off, and he smiled a lot and we both seemed to think that we'd passed through the worst of it for me.
DIARY 12984
5/11/78
ACTUALISM FIRST ADVANCED #33
Everyone's in, many asking about my trip, Winston saying the worst thing we can say is "I don't know, but I think ... " and then we get into the session with Barbara constantly burping beside me and me fighting to keep awake during the first part of it, and then don't hear ANYTHING about the pineal and about the lengthy (from what everyone said) working with the yoke at the end. He kept calling on Michael to wake up, and I could feel myself nodding through the beginning, but I'd open my eyes and move around and it'd be OK, but then at the end I just MISSED it and don't even think I was sleeping. When I reported this, Winston asked, "And what does that indicate to you?" and I could only flounder and say that it occurred to me that I was either constantly doing something against myself that stopped me from relaxing, or, when he seemed somewhat irritated, quickly added that I might NOT be doing something that I SHOULD be doing. He let it go at that, and continued around the room to get a remarkable variety of responses, and they were turning into as much a part of the lesson as the other things. I remember Malcolm in particular coming up with something marvelous, which I've since forgotten, but it seemed to have to do with just LETTING things happen without THINKING about them so much, and I couldn't agree more. Barbara reported all sorts of positive results for HER brain mind (and Winston said "You only COULD find out for yourself," and she repeated that she DID find out for herself, so something wasn't clicking there either). Richard went into a long-winded thing at the end, and Winston almost cut him off. Janet was looking better than ever: hair thrown back, smiling face, and Michael said that he'd gotten very nervous each time before he reported, and now he just let it come out. Elliott said he'd attacked everything through the week even to the point of meeting people he didn't usually like to see. And when Meg talked about the Field having organs, Winston gave his fabulous: the Field doesn't have organs, exactly, but the organs DO have fields, and I was once again amazed by his clarity of response. I signed up for a neck-hip-spine training on June 11 with Malcolm and a few others, assuming I could do it without first having had the regular body training, as it didn't say.
DIARY 13000
5/18/78
ACTUALISM FIRST ADVANCED #34
[Note in margin: Alice Sterns, Associate Staff Director; Lea Terhune] Everyone's there but Barbara, and Winston seems to realize we've all been hyperactivated because he says he's going to give us an emergency starting procedure, but how has the week been. Others say that they've felt hyperactive and protected, but I contribute that I've felt isolated from FRIENDS and felt exhausted, and he bows his head and goes on to the next person. Then he turns on the power ray and starts to SPIN it, and before my mind can say "Nothing's happening," I can feel a slight tingle through my body which seems in DIRECT response to the spinning of the power ray, but then my mind steps in and stops it, so it goes away and I feel annoyed with it. He asks for reports in the middle, and it's too late to report the tingle, so I just say that I'm going in and out of it, opening my eyes, and that I'm feeling very negative and resistant. And again he just takes it. Then as he insists that we're just holding onto the tensions that keep us in blocks I begin to feel some sort of relief, and when he says to open the eyes in the middle I actually feel better with my eyes closed. Then I ask him about alpha and beta waves with eyes open and closed, and he says that it's more important to think about letting go of the tension, but Tony says that some fellow in California (not in New York, as Winston calls it, "The low-frequency crossroads of the world," and Rebekah is looking frazzled and will be leaving for La Jolla the end of July and TWO teachers will be coming out to take her place) got everyone in the class down to Alpha and then Theta and then DELTA, and before class Elliott was talking about Elizabeth Kubler-Ross who's speaking at NYU on Sunday, and she's had so many out-of-body experiences and mystical verifications of life after death that the establishment, which had formerly highly praised her objectivity, doesn't know what to do with her enthusiasm now, and THEN he says that alpha is produced automatically on closing the eyes, and he says that people who can get to the lowest states are also Transcendental Meditators, and he says that children spend most of their time in Theta, and Tony chimes in that that's why it's so hard to UNteach children what they've learned so long, and I mention "State-specific knowledge" and Elliott insists that I've been reading Charles Tart and I say no, it's been around for a long time, and there's quite a camaraderie going in the group, except that Cathy is going to England, Scotland, and Wales for three weeks and thus won't be going to Michael's on the 31st, when he said he'd have the group over for a party.
DIARY 13011
5/23/78
ACTUALISM PANCREAS SURGERY
He asks how my week's been going, and I say that it's been rough, and he brings up my "challenge" in reporting; this is the way it is, and I challenge you to do anything about it. I said that I'd been so impressed by Maureen's complete HONESTY that I wanted to try some of it, since I'd been "prettying up" my reports previously. "If it's not working for me and I don't get to continue, I want to be the first to know," and he said that I might NOT be able to continue into Second Advanced if I don't "pass" my current blockages, and he says that I HAVE all the information I need, all I have to do is EARTHE it, but he encourages me by saying that Carol Ann always says, depending on the circumstances, that it takes 6 MONTHS to earthe some realizations, and I say that I find that encouraging, since I've already been struggling with it for a month, so only 5 more months sounds GOOD rather than bad. He says that I insist on having control and in fact I DO have control: "There's nothing that I or Actualism can do to change you, YOU have to change yourself---you know what you have to do, now DO it." I tell him that I think it's an advance to be able to SAY that I feel a "tension in my attention" when there's a dog barking outside and I'm doing my session, and he says that it's NOT necessary to put something into words to consign it to the flames. Late in the session he says "Your brain is like a tickertape machine, always coming out with words, just attach a hose to your brain from the magnetic and dump everything into the fires," and I try that and it feels GOOD, and I tell him that. I say that I have a feeling I'm being pushed to a corner and HAVE to make a change: I say that it's a pattern, that the same thing happened in LSD and in other things, that I think of myself as something special (he said that I'm special, but I shouldn't put a RANK on it, and I tell him of my favorite expression: "On a scale of 1 to 10"), and that I either have to be BEST or WORST, and he quickly comments, "We call those attention-getting routines, just put those into the fire." I say that I'd found some good in the struggle, and he just said "Throw that into the fires also." Then I said I asked myself "Where am I?" and had to look around to make sure where Hierarchy was, and he said "Hierarchy was THERE in the pancreas, don't worry about that, the energies work," and I said that I'd been playing BACK when he'd said that in class, and he seemed a little to lose patience with me. I also said "Why should I get more sensitivity in my body and hearing when I can ALREADY hear everything around me too clearly?" and he recommended that THAT be put into the fires, too. "It's standing there, confronting you, saying "I won't change," and all you have to do is relax and throw it into the fires and you'll change," he said with a bit of exasperation, and I came back with the feeling of frustration and lack of progress that I feel, even though I consider it better than NO feeling at all (that goes into the fires, too), and something will HAVE to change soon. He said that my refusal to admit that there might be tensions and things wrong with my body was a picture that I had to give up, too, but I had to still fight that, since it would mean that my past investment in my own evaluation of my own health would have been wrong, and I don't know WHAT to do with that, though I resolved to take more body sessions to try to get more barriers removed. He SAYS I said "RW is FICKLE," which I say I DIDN'T, but he said it came from SOME level, AS my "DENSE" to Dennis. He said that my brain had connections to EVERYTHING, and so whenever some GLAND or ORGAN processed something, the link to the brain was activated and the brain started pouring out strings of thoughts and images and words about it: "I'm not saying the brain is BAD, I'm just saying that it operates sometimes when it's not appropriate," he said. I liked the session, thought a lot was done, and thought I had a lot to work with in the future, and he still seemed to hold out the chance that I could get through my current hang-up: "You ARE in control," and I told him to the feelings of great emotion that welled up inside when I felt "COULD it be? COULD it be?" and felt the same welling as in romantic climaxes of music drummed in with LSD, with euphoric states made transitional with grass, in sex, and felt that "swelling up only to be disappointing afterward" was a pattern that I had to break through, and I said that I HAVE stopped thinking during sex, for the most part, and found value THERE, so things CAN spread to different areas, and he said something nice at the end like "You'll make it---if you WANT to." But there's a new challenge to be faced all the time.
DIARY 13017
5/27/78
ACTUALISM: FIRST ADVANCED #35
Elliott's studying and Kathy's finished in Europe with her parents, so we start when Maureen enters, bright-red suited, and we get the Left Hand Power Ray. I'm sleepy because of less than seven hours sleep last night, and I have to open my eyes a couple of times, but I can feel something around my heart when Winston mentions that area, and that's a good sign. Then the tape comes on and it seems to go very quickly through the levels both up and down. It's getting very hot, however, but on the way down I feel a distinct lump in Center 6, right in the Higher Will Center, and anchoring the power ray seems to loosen up the lump a bit, and I'm delighted that I can sense something. Moving from the left to the right in Center 7 also produces some sort of sensation, and Tony, to my left, gives out with a kind of grunt, and Michael's stopped making his yummy-tasting sounds in his throat, and I suddenly notice that it's become quite cool, to the point where my hands are no longer clammy at ALL. Then I'm feeling better and better because of the progress I'm making, and in 8 there's another sensation of some sort of blockage, so I'm high during the break, when I ask Rebekah if it's OK that I have the Neck, Hip, and Spine training without the Oil and Vibrator, and she says fine, and I corner Winston and ask him at last if I gave anything away by mentioning lifebelts in the men's session, and he's dismissing, saying everyone had it. Point up my finger for the first report and he says "Doctor Zolnerzak?" and I give my report, to good sounds from everyone, and then he "doctor's" everyone, except for Nurse Janet, and SHE wants to be doctor, too. Everyone has a good report, at which point (Tony mentions a STRONG emotion in Center 7, which I thank him for after, and his brushdown is VERY warm-handed) Winston says that maybe we can start going faster, since the West Coast goes two weeks per power ray: I shout out "That's not fair," and Barbara coos that she wanted to go slower during June since an old voice teacher is now free and can only teach on Wednesday, and everyone's going away, and we'll see after Winston's vacation in Virginia next week, and he says we WON'T be finished by the July break (but maybe going faster?), and Michael hands around directions for next week's gathering at HIS place, and I have to bring a bottle of white wine, Maureen the red.
DIARY 13025
5/27/78
BODY SESSION WITH DOROTHY
The Rolfing center is empty save for us, pleasantly decorated, and she asks me what I want to do it in, and I figure I have to DIG for bodily sensations, so I say Radiant Warrior, and she tells me to rev up while she heats the liniment, then asks me if I WANT some. "If you do," and she says "Fine." It goes on body temperature, nice, and she chats about how she likes the tiny money AS MUCH as she likes doing it, which is a lot, and she'll mention my name for sharing the space for my doing some Neck, Hip and Spine after I learn, but she thinks it might be full. She gets greatly activated doing it, she says; she appreciates it being done on HER more now; and figures I'll learn a lot from it. She pushed harder at the first than at the end, forgets the top of my right hand until I tell her, and makes me cough both front and back, and I say "Yoga had Kath, this has the Cough center." I feel increasingly sleepy, and at the end, when she leaves the room to let me assimilate, I catch myself snoring twice, only once each, and get off the bed feeling like "I've been hit by a truck," and she volunteers some tea for me, mild Mo's 24 (and I guess it has 24 ingredients, which cancel each other out and are further cancelled by the honey I drop in) and we chat about est and Ida Rolf, who looks fabulous at 83, teaching advanced in Philadelphia, and Demmerle's her son, and Michael produced a day off that he wanted by twisting his back. I feel better and she checks on my "being earthed" before I move out, paying her the $3 that she gets for it, and I walk out feeling somewhat strung-out, and I said that I obviously needed it because it'd been so long since I had one---the last I find was Rebekah's hands on March 13 and February 5 with Joan Ann! No WONDER I still feel somewhat breathless from the encounter with the first bodywork in ages, and let's hope that it will continue the breakthroughs that I feel have been coming, especially since I have to speed up getting whatever it is I have to get before Winston will allow me to go into Second Advanced, and I'll probably get another session next week just to keep into the swing of things, and try someone ELSE who's new, too!
DIARY 13048
6/7/78
TALKING WITH JOAN ABOUT THIRD ADVANCED
She says that everyone from the middle of Second Advanced to the middle of Third advanced "so that's two years" is require to put in at LEAST 150 hours coordinating, which is in the nature of applied field work, and she can see how Linda and Rebekah will send out "lines of light and love" to people who might come in in low frequency, and she said that having been dumped on by students a number of times, she's learned how to say "Don't talk to me, I'm in low frequency" when she comes in and feels that way. Then she said she "got some news" from people who'd been to advanced class in California that there are lots of exciting things ahead, and that "going back to previous lives comes in Fourth Advanced," and she'd gotten "Bardo Thodol" but never read it. She said that at center Rebekah told her that her human answered the phone and decided to leave it on the machine or not, and she harmonized with everyone who called or entered, and then SHE saw HER Human pick up the phone and say "Cathy, I'm glad you called," and she raced to the ringing phone and said "Cathy, I'm glad you called," and Cathy didn't have the foggiest idea how she knew. She said you were supposed to pick up your own stuff from the 150 hours, but that she'd already put in about 120 and wanted to wait until 3rd to see how some of the NEW stuff would be applied. She said that Marilyn TOLD her she knew she couldn't stand her at the beginning, but "she's been a monk in so many lifetimes, she's improving how, she's actually in her body several days a week" and I said that we two extremes, SHE with her LIGHTNESS, me with my earthedness, should get together and compare experiences, and she said she thought that might be fun. I again got the feeling that SOMETHING might be available from there, and I just had to be open enough to get it when it came, and I felt good that they were speeding up the group, since I'd been getting tired (didn't I say a number of times that it was going too fast, though?) of the slow pace, and going through more bad stuff might give me a greater feeling of making progress, and I get so MUCH more out of reading than I did before that I know SOMETHING is happening. Now if I could only get WORK done, I'd be happier and more productive. At least keeping up with the DIARY! She ALSO said that, just as smoking does, drinking coffee and tea helps EARTHE the teachers who would remain off the ground if permitted, and she said to drink ANYTHING while there, which also helps in processing and elimination, and she agreed that THAT was probably why I found myself drinking at least two cups of water each time I went for a class!
DIARY 13053
6/8/78
ACTUALISM FIRST ADVANCED #36
Group's down to 10 tonight because Faye's out with Sylvan in the hospital, Tony's away this week, and then Winston announces we'll be HAVING the workshop next week and be off the following week. Winston says the emphasis is in the RELATIONSHIP lines, so of course Elliott sees a veritable mesh of lines, and I don't sense anything. He says we should link particularly with the lines to the brain, since usually it thinks it's doing everything. And lots of things happen: I feel a pain inside the right half of my head; the top of my heart feels constricted; like Malcolm I feel it's fuzzy before the gallbladder, then things clear up somewhat; I started sleepy and warm and ended rather alert and normal temperature; I misremembered going from the kidney down through the ureters, bladder, and urethra, then said "I should know this," and found we'd gone through it, and then suffered a momentary twinge when he said "Now go from the kidneys---up into the mouth for the digestive system" and I'd seen it correctly. Kept remembering fragments of Bruckner's 7th (?) with triumphant trumpet passages; but sometimes felt that I wasn't doing anything right. Like Janet I was conscious of the noises around me, planes flying over, and toward the end when the room was VERY silent I heard the LOUD ticking of a wristwatch. Thought about the ups and downs of a rollercoaster, and then wondered how you'd describe the vortex of the upside-down ones, and then I knew: the vortex. Thought about putting loose souvenir sheets into the album (not a good idea), exercising more, and heard people moving about me. Reported to Winston's delight, talked about feeling GOOD and FEELING good (see DIARY 13054) then said that "This week is going to be a good one," and he got SUCH an expression of dismissing disgust on his face I HAD to say it wrong, and I KNOW now why he did that, and NOT because, as he said "Every week is good," but that this week would probably NOT be better than the others if I DETERMINED that it would be, just as Pope said that Rhine's experiments worked when people got IMPULSES to, say, take a colored ball, but they'd work much less well when someone was sat down in front of the machine and told to produce good results. Michael gave and received an extraordinary brushdown, and he contacted me a lot during his report, as did Dorothy, and I felt close to both of them, if only from rescuing me from the ministrations of Richard, who sat next to me on the sofa.
DIARY 13070
6/13/78
ACTUALISM NECK-HIP-SPINE INTRODUCTION
Lots of women I don't know, Linda is quite competent in the extraordinary "ordinary" Actualism-teacher way, and the guys aren't a blessing: an old guy who's paired with his young woman, Bob Dukes still sexy but pairing for some reason with Neil Sendar, which leaves Bruce for me and George Wu, or Who (?) to fend for himself, reasonably well-built but sort of flabby. Bruce says that "he needs to work something out about me that's activating him," and it might be gayness or might be too much rationality or judgmentalism. Linda hands out a sheet that gives the schedule and rates, talks about some special features: accept what's given if it's too much; trades between bodyworkers are even despite rates charged; romance and bodywork don't go together; it works to increase sense of body and human, which is just what I need. We talk for an hour, then have a break and Winston comes in "You just want to see my body" and strips to a padded, very smooth back, and does the "hinge knuckle" much more freely than Joan Ann implies that it's to be done. Then to "get over the touch-me-not" feeling, she has people who haven't done bodywork do a brushdown on Winston, so I do it, feeling not much of anything. She's efficient, charming, and bright eyed, and has no trouble with my name, which is flattering. Some of the women have to introduce themselves, and some Elaine is a flashy bespangled number that Bruce Jaffe said would make a great bodyworker. Indeed. T&R sessions are done ON the teachers, and the women take off their bras. Tables are $35 or so, but delivered to only one location for the discount on quantities, so it's about $50 for the stuff (and she went around to find why we were taking it, and I said I was told "I wonder who told you," she said, I'm sure NOT knowing it was Bruce, that it would be activating, and later she said "As Bob says, it's activating," AND that this was the first I'd seen scheduled that I felt I could sign up for, but did NOT say that I'd found that bodywork WAS important to help me get a feeling of myself), $100 for the sessions, and lots of work before "making any money" from the thing, but she was happy that most seemed open to taking students into their sessions, and the T&R every 4 months is a PAIN!
DIARY 13074
6/16/78
ACTUALISM: ADRENAL SURGERY WITH WINSTON
He has to check his records to verify it's adrenals, and we sit with me facing the door (and he takes "Do not disturb" sign, for a nice change), and he asks about my week and I tell him about canceling trip and that I "should" write, and he says to just DO it, don't bother with the old pattern of "writing while I have other things still to do," just make a NEW work-habit set. Sounds good. Then into session and he says "To organizing canter of the adrenals," and I say "I get a whole area that includes the two of them, is that OK?" and he says it is, to stay there. After a long time, he asks what's happening, and I report the usual: sitting with NOTHING going on, then my brain starts thinking "nothing's going on," and I'm out of it. DON'T remember his mind-hose, which was so nice before, and DON'T remember to get BACK with IE when I'm OUT of it in my HEAD. Kick myself. Report a few other physical things: pain upside the head briefly, told how my neck ached at one point, but when I try to "pin him down" by saying "I just get this sense of MUD" when he says "Do you feel numbness, or veils, or mud?" and mud seems very appropriate, and then try to get him to SAY what he sees, if anything, desiring very strongly to CHALLENGE the whole set of Actualism "givens" of the teacher's being able to see things, these powers being visible, but can't bring myself to do it: would seem to be ingratitudinous or challenging or wanting THEM to do MY work. Start a fairly honest conversation about not feeling anything, worrying about it, yet getting the reassurance from him that things ARE happening, it's just that I'm not experiencing them, but he keeps saying to harmonize with Incarnating Ego so that I'll have the chance to see more: I'm NOT expected to move my eyes or my brain down to my adrenals, but copilot with IE to see what IT can see, which can be seen WITHOUT eyes and brain. It starts very subtly, and since I could "see" the area of the Adrenal Center, and "see" the mud, I keep telling myself that the rest will follow, and I say that I was pleased with the body session yesterday, since this seems to be aimed at giving me what I NEED, and I tell myself to get another body session, which I do on Thursday (see DIARY 13085).
DIARY 13080
6/17/78
ACTUALISM FIRST ADVANCED #37
Maureen is very solicitous, telling about her time of jumping into a pool and insisting that she was going to drive herself home to her sick mother when the cops had to take her car keys, and she tells me to see "I'm Getting My Act Together," which she calls the best thing since "Chorus Line." Winston announces the second magnetic-dynamic session and we're into it, and quickly I realize that everything's harmonizing with the RADIANT magnetic and dynamic of INCARNATING EGO, which IS different from the Field and Human and Creature, so it seems to make more sense, and I get lots of physical sensations: at one point when he's pulling on our dynamics with his magnetic, and vice versa, to increase capacity, I sort of feel a psychic pull around a VERTICAL axis, but when he pulls harder I feel my pancreas rotate around a HORIZONTAL axis, which is not something I would have expected or predicted or "thought of," so it seems I sensed SOMETHING. At one point I have a sharp pain in the head, and when he says he's withdrawing his dynamic, I feel a distinct flutter in the stomach. Not a blink of sleepiness through the evening, and the whole GROUP seemed very still, except for the incessantly-burping Barbara, who came up with the best comment of the evening. Faye was saying "It wasn't bad, it just wasn't sensational," and Barbara leaned forward to Winston and cooed "And how was it for YOU?" and everyone laughed and she smiled behind her hand for a LONG time afterward. Maureen frankly admitted her "queen of pain and tragedy" pose, which Winston kept telling her she had to get off, Elliott struck me even MORE with his sincere "goodness" and "gettingness" experiencing NEW three-dimensional qualities to the interrelationship of his magnetic and his dynamic, and it just seems PRODUCED. Malcolm went into a long explanation and got tongue-tied in the prettiest possible way, and when I asked him for a body session, he said to call him after the 4th of July, since he was going to California to find a place to live, and Maureen rumored that we might be finished with first advanced sometime in September, which would be nice, at LEAST before Christmas party, though I doubt Second Advanced could be as quick as a YEAR, so THERE'S my first Christmas party without an advancement, but Second's not such a bad place to be, I guess. Janet excused Dennis his rudeness in not recognizing her with her hat and raincoat and Winston winced when I said I was only SLIGHTLY better.
DIARY 13085
6/17/78
ACTUALISM BODYWORK WITH MARA ALPER
She's the hairy-legged slightly goony girl in the middle of the sofa, and she DID at length remember my comment about bodywork being activating. The apartment was a kind of kick, Shadow was VERY friendly, she lives with Michael Molthen who, aside from Winston, does the only Leg and Arm Pulls from his training for them in California, and I should call him sometime to schedule them. She gets more or less calls from her name being on the board, but says that most of the work comes from trades with others in the training, which sounds pretty good as a way of working on people. I said I noticed her "triple strength" pulls, and she said she got that from body sessions at the center: the first is sort of a physical adjustment, the second is the brushdown, and the third, lightly, is mostly the human hands digging deeply. Her hands get hot during the session like the others, and I decided not to talk DURING, and seemed to get a lot more out of it without chattering. Her lotion was pleasant, her touch light until I told her she could go harder, and she did, with nice effect, and she didn't forget anything and seemed quite centered on what she was doing. Finished in about an hour and had to jiggle the toilet after I took a leak, but she took everything as it was, didn't offer me anything to drink, thanked me for the $5 I gave her, and said that I should call Michael. She's in Bruce's class, didn't volunteer much about herself, thanked me rather sweetly when I said "Nice touch" after she'd adjusted, and we hugged in a sweet way as she showed me to the door. She got a call from a friend, who she said she would call back because she "was doing something now," and she said maybe she'd go out to eat or go to a movie this evening, so it doesn't sound like she's loaded with schedules. Puppets all around, sleeping and storage space hidden behind screens, the kitchen sink a rotted-out bottom with dishes in the rack next to it, and lots of acupuncture charts (didn't know they did so much in the ears, or did I?) and body charts around, but VERY few books, which almost tempted me to ask about their absence, but I didn't. Wait till she sees MY place first. Tempted to ask if she knew an apartment in the neighborhood for Dennis, but I didn't.
DIARY 13112
6/26/78
ACTUALISM: TONSIL SURGERY
Tell him about my "oughts" and he says "When's the book going to be finished?" Get into it with the Radiant Warrior and I almost immediately say that I can feel a constriction in my throat, my sinuses are beginning to drain, and my fire-breath tongue is feeling some tension, so everything is arrowing in on that area. Rather quickly harmonize with Incarnating Ego and my Brain-Mind stops throwing up anything for a long time, except to feel good that it's not interrupting all the time. Some itches and fidgets, and lots of deep sighs to try to get rid of the throat tension. Think that it might actually be working not badly, but then I find myself in my head for a long period of time thinking that "withdrawing identity" seems to me to be pictured as myself standing within a high stone tower (Central Vertical Axis, romantically speaking?) with my hands out a number of windows at the top, and "letting go" implies just dropping things from the sides of the tower, cutting away vines growing up the tower, backing away at anything that's not CENTRAL to the tower. In a way I feel this might be separative, becoming an IVORY tower of isolation, but I don't think to ask about this, just know that this is an image and drop that and go back to thoughtlessness for a bit. When he speaks of "Russell and Carol Ann and all those who join us," I remember Bruce's sense of LOTS of others joining, and get the idea this might be FUN for people on the other plane, and tears squeeze out of my eyes as I feel good about this and privileged to be doing it. Connect the hose to drain the brain a few times, laughing as I tell Winston about it, and it seems to be working nicely. Also mentioned that I had the image of Ruby Red being "squeezed dry" and will be glad to get a new energy on Wednesday, and he laughs, says it's an image, and we'll be squeezing Ruby Red for the next year. Ha ha. Bird comes and pecks at my socks a few times, making me smile, and he dives off the flying trapeze and zips in and out of the nest, every so often giving a "CHEEP" that quite brings me back to where I was. Move head and neck around, assimilate with eyes somewhat open, feeling that it was a good one, and no new ones to be scheduled!
DIARY 13129
6/30/78
ACTUALISM 1ST ADV #38
Maureen wears the bright-green blouse and announces wryly "We're having the Beige Power Ray tonight," and it's the orange, which "has been neglected" and works to ease the nerves, consolidating ALL the power rays in first advanced, energy PARTICULARLY good for getting to sleep when the mind's in a whirl and the body's tense and the tape is super: he goes clearly up through all the levels quickly and with power, gets it and comes back down, spending lots of time in the Soul level, talking specifically about Cosmic Mother and Cosmic Father as he passes through them, and I feel that I want to REMEMBER everything that he says, but then don't feel concerned because I won't be able to. The word "foolishness" strikes me very hard in Center 4, and I wonder if some of my thinking ISN'T just plain foolishness, and there's a lot of clearing of energies in Center 5, and I begin to think the whole thing is about creativity, so as to avoid the "exhaustion that comes from NOT doing what should be done." I get a pain in my heart when we get down to center 2, and it's very hot throughout the session, since Rebekah shut off the air conditioner so it wouldn't be whistling in her ears, but then in Center 9 it's as if a cool breeze came through along the level of the legs, and it wasn't bad after that. Lots of good reports, I telling about how my brain stopped for two lovely minutes on the way to the post office and I felt "lack of thought" in the session, which was good, and Maureen gave such a glowing report about losing fear of ear infections and working through pains in her eyes that Rebekah hopes for "a real turnaround" for her. Tony was hot and wet, Marilyn had the quiet one this time, Dorothy looked fine and she said I looked great, and I kidded Faye and Michael about their enormously clunky summer shoes. Rebekah still seemed vaguely neuresthenic, but her suggestions and comments seemed all right to the heart of things. Good session, though there was a bit of activation when she said we would have "a couple more" power rays---meaning we WILL be going into September in First Advanced, but it'll mean something NEW, which will be a welcome change, and I'm vaguely wondering how I've been through THIS much of it without being BORED with the same kind of thing week after week. I guess I needed all of it.
DIARY 13133
6/30/78
ACTUALISM BODYWORK WITH SUE HOLT
Her elevator is fastest yet, and she's looking rather like Rita in her yet-unformed adult womanhood, glasses, disheveled hair, tall gawkiness. She gives me water from the kitchen that smells like burnt rubber and then goes into the bedroom so I can undress, go to the john, and lie on the table by 7:15. She likes working in the orange, places the paper on my back as usual while reading, then goes into it firmly and with no nonsense about asking how the touch is. I drift off, loving it, and her rather abrupt instruction to turn my head almost wakes me up, though I wasn't asleep, just thoughtless. She moves arms up and down without saying anything, but tends to brush with the LAST the firmest, going over the feet it seems too many times, and I'm sorry to see that my just-picked heel looks rather sore, though it isn't. I'm glad to see that the light doesn't fade very fast, so it's not too late, it's warm though not too warm, and there's a hum in the air, though it's quiet, that I wouldn't like, and a demented pup whines and yelps down the hall. Then I relax for the 10 minutes, feeling good, and she comes back to let me dress, then I take more water and she comes out to say that I was VERY receptive, it was a GOOD session, and she enjoyed it very much. "How long have you been doing it?" About 2 years, and she's been in Actualism 4 years, being in the group behind Joan Ann's that's about 10-12 that's pretty much held together since the start, though they went slow because they had to "prepare the ground" for the people behind to go FASTER, so I feel quite privileged, and SHE says she LIKED going slow, but is looking forward to the new teachers, since "each bring a fresh aspect of yourself, and it's exciting to see a new wave coming in." There are only 2 men in her group, her husband, 40ish and glasses, Ben (?) Holt and George Hoeber, or someone like that, and Diane Lee and two women from Connecticut and other strays that don't seem to do anything. She says they're "about halfway through first," and we have a summer party AND a Christmas party, that she and her husband commute to Philly on Saturdays for some kind of class, and she mentioned crafts at one point, and then, at the SAME time that I looked at my watch and saw we talked from 8:40-9, she said "I don't want to ruin your session," so I picked up, we hugged, and said we'd see each other again.
DIARY 13135
7/1/78
ACTUALISM MIGHT BE A WAY
"Serpent Power" and various yoga books, including Ouspensky's chapter in "New Model of the Universe," insist that one must have a guru to practice. The Seth books seem valuable, but the lessons given in them aren't followed in my schedule because there's nothing to MAKE me follow them, so BobR's interest in a group doesn't hold interest for me, since I wouldn't have the kind of discipline Dennis does when he studies French for months himself. "Bardo Thodol" also insists that all learning must be done through a guru, and of course the teachers of Actualism are gurus without the mysticism---unless you want to get into that, as Bruce does, and then they give it to him. All the theosophy books and WESTERN books on enlightenment insist that it's a long, gradual process of strengthening, which I had never before THOUGHT of Actualism as being, but there's a sense, drawing to the end of First Advanced, OF a kind of progress, getting from the simple layers deeper into hidden layers (reinforced by Bruce's reports of the same sort of thing coming up for him in Second Advanced, only on a deeper-back layer, and THAT, it just strikes me NOW, might be a LOGICAL way of getting into previous lives: clear up the recent past in First Advanced, the distant past in Second Advanced, and that can let you go into pre-birth "clearing up" in Third and Fourth Advanced! Possibly part of my current thinking is a way to get myself out of the "almost through with First Advanced" impatience that I've been feeling since sometime in March, where I just wanted it to be OVER. But realizing more firmly than ever that it will NEVER be over, as it's not over for Russell even now, who's been into it over 20 years, or Sue, who's been in 4 years, and thinking of it in such LIFELONG terms would get me away from the "only three more lessons to go" breath-holding that seems very unproductive. Well past a year and a half now, and there's not nearly the discouragement there was with est, nor the displeasure with the people that drove me away from the earlier experiments, and since nothing yet has appeared on the horizon that seems even vaguely comparable to this in power, it seems that Actualism might be around for a good number of years.
DIARY 13147
7/8/78
NECK, HIP AND SPINE TRAINING AT ACTUALISM
Linda talks it through briefly, using the wall map which I strain to see, and then she starts on my left side with her right hands, and then poor Bruce has to start on my RIGHT side with his LEFT hands, which seems backward to me, and he's too light to start, but she says pressure only comes later, with confidence, and the AREA and TECHNIQUE is most important at first, and he manages to get through with lots of kibitzing from me and lots of corrections from her. I'm not getting much out of it, and I hope she's not expecting me to. He's thick-fingered, non-rhythmic, and flustered, and I figure I should be able to do SOMEWHAT better, surprised that he fumbles even though he's HAD the OV training and practice. He's somewhat better on the spine, though I sense that my TROUGH is on the left and I have a RIDGE on the right, and she says people are usually more bound-up on the dynamic, and AGAIN I wonder why she insists on teaching on the EASY side. But when he works just alongside her along the hip, he's pretty good, and she and I both say so, so he finishes on a rather positive note, but he says he's been activated. I lay for 5 minutes and piss and dress in pants, leaving socks and shoes and shirt inside, and then HE gets onto the table and she goes through the SAME explanations, rather mechanically, for me, and I get my hands on and go too hard at first, but seem to be getting the areas, and have clipped my nails so that I don't cause him the same pain HE caused ME with HIS. Can't feel the little neck bones, either. Can't quite identify the groove she's talking about along and above the clavicle, and he says I'm on the bone and hurting, so I ease up and ever after my pressure tends to be on the LIGHT side. Don't get the junction point for the ray down to the fingertips, either, but he says it feels OK. The spine is somewhat better, and she praises me for my "rollout" which she perfects far more than she seemed to do his, and I'm too praised, since I mess up the order of the hip pattern almost completely, rather bulling through the last few passes because I REALLY don't remember how she did them or in what order. Joke with Rebekah and her afterwards, and they seem to encourage doing the free 6 in a week or two, but I can't see my spending much time on it, even though they insist that I do it as I remember it, not taking advice from the people who just had the training, lying under my hands.
DIARY 13150
7/8/78
ACTUALISM 1AD: #39
Kathy LOVED Wales, Maureen got her hair cut and looks better, Tony has his parasites back again so he's feeling awful, and I'm feeling "all squishy" inside (see DIARY 13151). Winston gets last-arriving Tony to sit on the sofa, and then gets right into the session, but he so directs his comments to ME, as it seems, that I feel sorry for the REST of the group until it turns out that EVERYONE had been feeling exactly the same way: put upon, worried, concerned, feeble, frustrated, unsure of what to do next. I put my hand up for the report, tying with Michael, who nodded that I could go first (and I MUCH envied Malcolm for saying "Michael" for the brushdowns when I was looking for HIM to do me, and had to settle for Meg, who got "great breakthroughs in communication" that she could barely tell with her tiny, strangulated voice. I said that I was feeling awful, "all squishy," and how his comments about how awful we felt must have been TERRIBLE to the rest of the group, except that I smelled some marvelous green-tree smell after we processed our lungs, and how even the fireworks that went off in the middle of the session seemed good, since HE was so activated he got up and went to the window while I just smiled at the fireworks on the 5th of July. Others picked out identifications in what he said, and particularly noted the relief that came from his direction to connect the nerves to the brain, and he said "I had to do SOMETHING to change things around," and it may have changed around there for me TOO. Read the "Home and Garden" article and found that it said there were 15 energies, but Winston refused to comment on that, as he refused to tell Maureen whether we were speeding up "as Bob said we would" and I felt "brought in" again, nicely. Barbara seemed much improved, even Kathy's report was much lighter than before, and Maureen had another breakthrough and Marilyn could hardly get her report through her choked voice telling of the communication of parts of her creation to her stronger inner being. I signed up for another session, getting a whole PAGE of sessions to be done, so I've had 10 and there are 50 others named and spaces for 30 other special ones. WHEW! Sign up for Dennis and me for Bear Mountain.
DIARY 13163
7/14/78
ACTUALISM: ARTERY SURGERY
We're into next room, where fly almost constantly buzzes against window, and at the end I flip it open and let it collapse outside, and he sits me down and I say I've been activating with the orange, having a headache last weekend, and then we trot out the Radiant Warrior and "go to the center of the Arterial System," and he doesn't say anything more than that and sets me off, and soon I say "I got that the Center of the Arterial System is just above the heart" and he does NOT contradict me, so I merely assume that I "got" it. But then I can't spread out through the system, and he says to just harmonize brain-mind with Incarnating Ego, which is doing all the work, and I do that for a bit, but then say something about "not being able to come up with anything to report on," and he says that I'm just the copilot, and that I don't HAVE to come up with anything to report on, so I just sit there, listening to the fly, listening to him changing positions every so often, belching once in awhile, and then at the end, as I'm coming out of it, I come up with a large belch, which is rather strange since I haven't had anything to eat, and he asks for the form and fills it out and that's about all there is to it. He doesn't seem frantic about my progress, as he has been in the past, and maybe as a consequence of that I'm not anxious about anything either. Time seems to pass at different rates: when I'm not thinking for a few minutes, the method seems easy, but when my mind is racing ahead, denying, resisting, trying to sense something that I don't sense, the time seems to stretch on interminably and I feel uncomfortable in the chair, moving around, feeling too warm, bound in my trousers, moist on my arms, itchy about the beard. Otherwise I just sit there, occasionally thinking about the process, hardly ever thinking of the color or sense of the Radiant Warrior that's doing the work, every so often thinking to withdraw identity from thoughts that aren't too pleasant, and before I can even analyze which thoughts they were, just easily they go, to be replaced by others. I seem to get lots of the same things back again, but these ARE different organs, so each has their OWN load which gets filtered through the BRAIN which has the problems with denial and disbelief.
DIARY 13170
7/14/78
ACTUALISM 1AD: #40
Tony's last again, about 8:25, and Winston TELLS him not to be late so much, and Tony just doesn't seem to HEAR, saying "I must be activated" and not seeming to do anything but smile off the reproof. Barbara says that she "gets a bit of this color" with every energy so far, and Maureen seems to have trouble thinking that the dark, dark violet is related to the black of her outfit. I find myself AGAIN marveling at the ORCHESTRATION and the WIT of Actualism and its lessons: here's Winston SAYING that this will, under the shadow of the color of the low-frequency images themselves, surround whole complexes of problems, draw them in, and then suddenly consume them in a flash, and the IDEA of this sneaky, dark, Subtle Warrior is so charming that Actualism has proved itself to be full of pleasant surprises again. But I'm activated TERRIBLY during the session: fidget through the hierarchy forming, fall asleep first BACKWARD, jerking my head way back and almost automatically opening my eyes to take awakeness from the room, and then go way to the SIDE, again coming back with surprise that I'm so activated, and there are lots of awful thoughts that I don't bother to investigate, just withdraw identity from them and consign them to the fires, not visualizing much at all, and then my hands are hot, and I'm tired of sitting, and my feet are itchy, and my beard is itchy, and at some times I just feel that I DON'T want to sit still, can't wait for it to be over, and once I feel a hot spike of a momentary headache from temple to temple, and I'm amazed that there's this much coming up in a "gentle Subtle" energy. Everyone reports flowery beauty in their trips, and I say "For the other side of the coin," and Winston "suggests" that I report it as being "lots coming up that I processed," rather than saying it started off so LOUSY and ended up feeling much BETTER. I hope to remember it, but I DON'T remember the brain-drain tube for random thoughts, DON'T remember to harmonize with the immortal during the session, and DON'T remember his newest technique of throwing it all into HIS waiting magnetic so that HIS fires can burn it up, but I'll have to get more into the framework of that. He compliments the class, but hands out the surgery sheets and says we should be getting more of it (all but me and Meg, who doesn't get her sheet either, so she's done lots) and we ARE going faster now, having had only TWO with Orange!
DIARY 13172
7/14/78
ACTUALISM TALK AND BODYWORK AT GEORGE PIERSON'S
His treed apartment is cluttered but pleasant, Robert's "Ultimate Reality" that Lois Myerson said is like she's getting into in 4th advanced, about cellular faculties, and I tell him my brief history, and he's impressed by 20+ years in NYC, looked first for an apartment in Brooklyn Heights, got into Actualism 7 years ago after time spent in Mind Control, Intro at Levey's, Metzner would fly in from California every so often to give three lessons on a weekend, and he didn't think seriously enough about it to practice, but feels that his 2 years in basic was right, but every class the now-combined, still-feuding first class takes represents a breakthrough, so they feel good about their work, but says WE'RE in the forefront too, and when it gets huge in a number of years we'll look back on these times with fondness. He's been in NYC 7 years, likes walking, thanks me for coming to his island for a body session, but he's so brusque and rough and table is so small I don't think I really feel like I need to go BACK, but he's interesting to TALK to, saying there's an "AMERICAN Book of the Dead," which he can't find, and that he can SEE the body changing away from grayness as he does sections of it, and that he LIKES the bodywork for what it does for him, but he STILL seems like a nebbishy guy who's improving somewhat by getting these energies, but still hasn't progressed to someone who I'd like to get to know a lot of. Tell him that HE actually got me into bodywork through Bruce Lieber's quoting his "twice the activation, twice the rate of progress" from bodywork, and he does the NSH, too, but he still charges only $5 for sessions. He has a water filter that turns brown after 2 months' use, is freelancing after having worked for NBC, says that Dennis is "better being activated by Actualism, some people don't react at all, so they have farther to go," and is amused that I might move to California, which he says I'd like, since it's the "organizing center of new energy on the planet," so I'd fit in there with my indexing and compulsions and organizational powers. I feel limp afterwards and get a slight headache when he says "Don't you feel ENERGIZED now?" and I tell him it's always limp that I feel. He says he envies teachers for being able to do this all day, since it's like GETTING a body session when he GIVES one, and he loves it. We hug as I leave, say I'll see him, but now that my curiosity is appeased and I've seen his place and felt his session, I'm not sure whether I'll be going back soon.
DIARY 13196
7/17/78
ACTUALISM: RESULTS ON THE PHYSICAL LEVEL
Close my eyes after glancing at the watch and get a VIVID actually-seen (and not tried to imagine beforehand) field of dark, dark violet, and feel a bit of flesh crepitation that this might actually be SEEING something at last of the ACTUAL color---hard to think of it as imagination since I didn't TRY to see it, and when I tried to repeat it, it was definitely less of a sight and much less of a shock the second time. Also, there was a time during the practice when I might have been going to sleep, but I felt that I was, just for a second, nodding forward into something OF A COLOR AND FORM that was visible for a second, and I jerked my head back AS MUCH because I was afraid of getting into something that I might be too astounded at and came out of it after the first glimpse, as I did to recover myself from falling asleep---which it didn't feel like. Reminded of the last class, where I moved a considerable distance to the side and to the back before waking up, and my physical sensation of that is unusual. Then there were the headaches: the day-long one July 8, the "stab" of one during class on July 12, the slight one during bodywork with George on July 13, and slight ones after that which have now become so common that I hardly remark about them. Then there's the continuing sense of needing bodywork and feeling VERY drained after I have a session, effects that certainly seem more energetically produced than merely from the PHYSICAL activities. And I have more of a body-consciousness in general now, it seems: adjusting myself more during long typing sessions, reading sessions, or lessons; conscious of my foot going wrong and it was manifested in the blister on my next-largest toe on the right foot after Thursday which went away by Saturday; conscious of my stomach and head more often than before. Exercises seem to be easier, not so much panting now, and I feel newly energized after starting them again, though I have a touch of "squishiness" this morning, which definitely seems to connect that feeling with an imminent dentist's appointment, so that's less of a mystery now, too. Now comes the fantasy of our group catching up with Bruce's group and becoming part of the THIRD wave, rather than being the fourth.
DIARY 13212
7/29/78
ACTUALISM 1AD: #41
Up early to wash face and hands, Winston announces that this will deal mainly with dealing with feelings of worthlessness, and I think that interesting, since in my relationship with Dennis I've quickly gone from images of idealism to ideas of worthlessness. Lots of thoughts, which I feel guilty about, thinking that I'm doing it wrong, until he SAYS that this is an image, and I finally REALIZE what he'd said before: if I'm uncomfortable and activated, it's coming from the ORGAN being worked with, and it's only the BRAIN that takes it personally, just let it GO and it'll GO without any further trouble. I sign up for an X-out, since I think this may herald a new way of thinking: I don't HAVE to be non-sensing as I have been in the past, it IS an image that keeps me from sensing; I AM doing well enough, I don't have to hassle it; I CAN tolerate irritations (like Barbara's incessant burping, which made my brain so play with "vacillation between I shouldn't be upset by it and it shouldn't be HAPPENING"---it doesn't MATTER that it SHOULDN'T be happening, it IS happening, and it's up to MY POINT OF VIEW to take it personally and be irritated by it, or just LET IT GO and let it continue WITHOUT irritating me.), I don't have to CONTINUE to react in the same way. This is really a super feeling, and I report 3 positive things: 1) the sensation of color in one home session, 2) the realization that the CONTINUITY of centers 1, 2, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 is very GOOD: goes from world to me to organizing, which may bring up nervous energy which is cooled, which is warmed then by the heart, which warmth is used for the higher, whose charge is directed into creativity, directed by the brain, and then transmuted into high frequency. DIDN'T report things that I'd INTENDED to (oh, and 3), that I did lots of PROCESSing, rather than reporting lots of DISCOMFORT!): 1) that I did far more processing HERE than at HOME; 2) that my organs really didn't feel anything SPECIFIC, though I realized it was the organ trauma affecting the BRAIN, and 3) I forgot as usual to dump my junk into Winston's magnetic, and thought only LATTERLY of the brain tube. Good reports in general, good brushdown by Cathy, Meg looking crestfallen I didn't sit next to her, and Malcolm is sexy in shorts in his last meeting, but he's coming to the boat, which gratefully no one insisted on entertainment for when Winston asked about it.
DIARY 13231
8/1/78
ACTUALISM NSH WITH SUSAN LIEBER
I go into bedroom as she undresses and gets onto table, and I've moved fan out to try to lessen humidity, and shuffle the pages around and have some trouble reading the gathering without glasses, then start on the neck, which seems to go too fast, then the spine feels very good since her channel is much more pronounced than Bruce's, but then I just mess up the hip completely, not remembering the middle of the pattern at all, nor what direction the elbow moves in, but I sort of fudge it, and as I tell her later, the brain-mind was content to stay out of it most of the time, and when it came in to wonder WHAT I was doing, it was rather quickly sent back to quiescence with Higher Will, which seemed VERY good to operate with, and she said that was probably the time SHE was wondering what she was doing here and why was she submitting herself to this. For the most part she said that my session was just perfect, right in place every place, bringing up lots of stuff, and since I know for a FACT that my BODY wasn't where it should have been, I had to have new confidence in the HUMAN, which SHE kept talking about, and I could SEE how the arms lengthen down the side with the knuckle into the Clavicle-scapular junction, and my elbow seemed able to FEEL when it was in a good place and when it wasn't, and even when her muscles moved around under me and I said "Sorry," she kept saying that it was OK. Even the hip and leg movements which Bruce complained that I had trouble placing seemed to be perfectly placed for her, and I finished up about 1:10 just sitting in the chair limply, amazed that it could seem to be so effective. She got up without saying anything after 9 minutes, then we shared some fruit, which I thought was sweet of her to bring, and she smoked a couple of cigarettes, then said this was so effective and so much better than her place that she was willing to come over here Tuesday to give me a free trade with her O-V session, and gave me Amy Fleetman's name to call here in the Heights, and I felt GREAT about starting into it, feeling like I was getting in touch with parts of my human that I hadn't sensed before, and of course LOVING all the positive feedback she gave about "my" body session that was really "ours."
DIARY 13235
8/1/78
ACTUALISM NSH WITH BRUCE LIEBER
I wonder why he's so silent through the neck portion, and then he says he'd fallen asleep during it. Through the spine he has this pained expression on his face that he said came from feelings from within of not being WORTHY of things, having SINNED, which was cleared away when I hit some sort of lump in the channel of the spine on the right, and he'd SAID he felt some sort of problem coming up in his dynamic, so HE seemed to think that WE did a good session, though I got VERY confused through the hip, and he tried to direct me and got somewhat more messed up than I got. But we got into the hip hinge work and the leg-lengthening work together, and it seemed to get lots of things out for him. He fell asleep on the table afterwards, too. Still couldn't feel the transverse processes, and got no sense of the pattern on the meat of the hip, which he says scientifically is called the "tush." Working in Cosmic Mother, I'm sure, brought up lots of things that I wouldn't want to face, and I found myself sweating and smelling far more heavily working on his body than I did on Susan's. It seemed to me that I was working very lightly on both bodies---the table might be a bit high and I'm sitting on it without much contact with the floor, nor am I rocking back and forth as I should be practicing. But the neck and spine part of it seemed to fit together nicely, though my notes neglected the second beam down the arm that the complete notes had. Went over it with him later to get SOME sort of sense of the curving around, down, and then up and inside the line of the buttocks, and the progress made between even the first and second session seemed to be considerable, and he said that maybe he'd try a session on me, if I could take his sister's work and his both in the same week. His channel seemed easier to follow this time, but the neck didn't seem to hold together: his trapezium seemed very scrawny and the frowns on his face didn't help my working with him. I hardly thought of the CM through the session, and brain-mind came up somewhat more than it did with his sister, and I STILL think it's interesting that I chose the week to work that Linda's away and I don't have anyone who KNOWS to ask about the work.
DIARY 13244
8/2/78
ACTUALISM: SUSAN LIEBER WORKS O-V ON ME
When she starts with the vibrator right at the top of the neck, it dawns on me that she's following the same pattern that I learned from the NSH, and I tell her that it's really a WORLD of difference having DONE the bodywork and EXPERIENCING the bodywork, since this is the first O-V I've had since I gave her my first body session, and she's sounding pleased. She doesn't really bear down on me, but I just let it go and see if I can identify her human sinking in, which I can't, but DO feel the connection between the bodywork and the spinal channels and Kundalini yoga in the Ida and the Pingala. I'm on the chilly side, trying to stretch my human down to warm up my feet before she gets there, trying not to shiver, and her hands brushing me down are just very, very hot, so I figure I can say it was just contrast anyway. She forgets to do something and circles back to do it, taking care to keep the extension cord of the vibrator away from me, but she does it SO slowly (and she's even been TRYING to go faster, she says, and is going slower, taking about 1.5 hours to get through, and it DOES feel like a long time, since she exaggerates each motion until I think she's NEVER going to stop) that I really look forward to the time she'll stop, and my neck is sore from staying so long a time in one position. At last she rolls me over on my back (she took my head bodily and pushed it back and forth---forgot to tell her she started on the DYNAMIC, too, rather than the magnetic), and she goes rather quickly there, possibly aware that she's going to be late. She still seems highly activated by being here, saying that the table's no problem at all, arranging to come back August 8 so that I can do her again, and she says we'll just switch off, and she's pleased that Amy's coming tomorrow, and amused by how different Bruce was from her, but she says she gets a whole lot from working on her own family. She calls me to get up after about 5 minutes, but I don't care, and it's good she wants to leave early, since she's been there over 2.5 hours anyway, which is plenty long enough. I feel pretty good from it, first bodywork in three weeks, but I'll be having more than enough now since people are working on ME after I work on THEM---since Amy's doing me on FRIDAY (see DIARY 13245)!
DIARY 13245
8/2/78
ACTUALISM: I DO AMY FLEETMAN
She talks about how psychic she was during college after a hypnosis class, watching "the TV set above their heads" tell her about their past lives and present problems, and then she went into a number of businesses, got into Actualism when Bruce Lieber "gave the heavy hand" to someone WITH her and she asked from her interest, having SEEN white stars and green lights BEFORE, and liked the intro so much that Rebekah said she might become a teacher in 5 years since she was so psychic, and it would help her solve a problem in what to DO, since she's now doing psychic readings but has gone into a number of businesses, all of which had failed, and now she's living with a guy who's a lawyer and won't listen to the intro, saying SHE should keep up the good vibes around the house, and she's glad she lives in the Heights, had never told anyone else certain things before, liked me, and looks forward to exchanging sessions, and I volunteer to be her FIRST NSH body at my place at 10:30 Friday morning! Then she gets on the table and insists I put on the heater warmer, which heats ME up but she still shivers through it, and then I realize I should put out a BLANKET to help her warm, and she said she'd prefer only padding, not the whole mattress, and I might change my framework next time. She warns me she doesn't want anything HEAVY, and then I go so light she says I can do it heavier, and I mess up my notes a bit but they're PRETTY good, except that she has something in her back that she says I helped her get rid of it, but it was painful for a bit, but that when I learn to handle the human I won't have to "work so hard," and "just let it happen," but it was great, the spine felt picture perfect, and even the buttocks were just great, which is where I worried the most. She's been tense before she came and I flattened her out so well that she fell asleep so that when I asked "Amy?" she had to look up and ask where she was, so she thought it was great, loved kissing "the way the French do" and has a French friend who's waiting to learn more English before having the intro, but SHE'S into all the energies ALREADY, and a 7-year-old daughter is working halftime with Linda with the white star already, so things are really MOVING here, too, though we both laugh at Bruce Lieber's heavy-handedness with intros, and she's been to est, too, but looks forward to working with me more.
DIARY 13250
8/7/78
ACTUALISM: AMY DOES FIRST NSH SESSION ON ME
She's nervous, saying many times how much she's indebted to me for letting her work on my body, and she says the gathering very slowly, then reads sheets and braces herself and goes into my head HARD but without too much DIRECTION. Then she can't locate the trapezium very well, and even when I SAY she's on the bone she says "Oh," and continues to work on the bone when the muscle's finished. When she gets to the spine, she lays in heavily and I get the idea that her elbows are very THICK, and she at times bears down on my spinal column and I have to tell her to ease up a bit. SHE wanted the mattress off and the pads down, but I have to lay on it after Dennis and I changed it and feel my knees gradually getting sore because there's not enough foam for them to sink into without pushing the backs of my knees skyward. Then she says "If you thought I was bad on the neck and spine, I REALLY don't know the hips," and I sort of feel around for her as Bruce said I should do for him, and she gets part of it going, but BEFORE that, she taught ME something by saying that the sheet said that the SECOND side of the neck is done from the MAGNETIC, which I hadn't known before, and she ALSO said that it felt better to do the muscles joining the sides of the pelvis from the side TO the coccyx, saying she felt that in this way she was going across the muscles, and it felt right to her. I didn't say much after that, only hoped she'd get finished and not waste more time reading and leave so that I could finish the index in time. She did the final brushdowns, left me covered, and then kissed me on the forehead, saying "Thanks, you were just great," and I at LEAST had the opportunity to tell her, in truth, that she DID seem to learn a LOT between the first and second sides, and that I DID feel a difference in my body from having her work on it, and I felt the same sort of drained exhaustion I felt when I got a session from a REAL teacher, and she was pleased. She got out quickly, having some D-cell water, and said that we had each others' numbers, so we'd be getting together. Made quite a point with her that OTHER bodies would teach her more about it than MY body would a second time, but she may be back to work on me soon.
DIARY 13253
8/7/78
ACTUALISM: MY SECOND NSH ON BRUCE
He doesn't sleep during the gathering, tells me I can bear down heavier at the base of the skull, and my knuckle is beginning to tolerate it, and as I work over the trapezium (he still insists they're BOTH parts on the top, which I can't see) he says that I'm beginning to go deeper when he WANTS me to go deeper without his saying anything about it, which makes me feel skeptical but great, and then I REALLY bear down on the spine and can FEEL lumps and obstructions there, and he SAYS I can feel them, and all sorts of pictures of sadness and feelings of deprivation and loss come welling up in him, and it's good to be rid of all these things, I just keep on going, finding that my rhythm on the spine feels good to ME, too, except that my feet just don't feel right on the floor. Still have trouble locating the arrow-points on his spine-hip hinge, but he really gets into the movements and says he's feeling great in the session. I work over the buttocks and he compliments me on my newly acquired expertise, but suggests that I work in much smaller circles as I "fill in the area" on the buttocks, and that's about the worst of the critique that he had for me. He seemed to WANT a lot out of it, and I said that HE was the one who made the heavy session when he says afterward that it was a heavy session. He has orange juice and I have just water, he feels things going on in the room that I don't feel, and he again talks about various times when he's felt things being done, AND he phones est and has applications for the still-open (though over 500 packets have been mailed out) September training review. He half hugs as he goes out, and when I sit next to him on the sofa in my shorts he says abstractly that things are coming up for him. He rests on his back because he said the pads DID get to his knees at last, and it seemed that I worked LONGER on him, since he wanted such intensity, than I did on the others. Felt much better about getting things down, but I still needed guides for the other of things at the neck, for the gathering, and working in Subtle Warrior was rather quiet for brain-mind during the session, partly because I thought I was doing a good job, partly because he wanted ACTION and I seemed to be giving it.
DIARY 13271
8/9/78
ACTUALISM: SUE LIEFER'S SECOND NSH FROM ME
She says she's VERY overloaded, hadn't had anything for a couple of weeks and felt the pressures building up on her, and she's pretty quiet through most of the neck work, and again she has almost no cervical spine and no trapezium, but she's moaning through the spine work, and when I did the gathering I found she had a Kotex on, and she said, when I mentioned that MY back got sore at EVERYONE'S lower right hip-spine junction, that she came up with GREAT sexual identity things, saying that it was awful to be a woman, and she said that I should ask everyone if they have anything there, since it might NOT be the table, as I'd fantasized it was. At that point on the subway there was a whiff of menstrual fluids from her, too, and she said she thought she was getting a menstrual cramp on the table. She says I can go heavier into the back, so I lean into it, finding it not as clearly defined as I had the last time, so maybe I CAN sense if there are blockages. Worked around her legs with the fantasy of seeing my bed pads turning red from a sudden vaginal flow of blood, but nothing happened. I worked fairly fast, conscious of the time passing, and it took only about 45 minutes to do the session, though I wouldn't want to do it that fast generally, but amused that SHE was saying SHE had to do it FASTER. She said it was a VERY intense session for her, that LOTS of things came up to be resolved, and that she felt that I was VERY good and VERY precise in my working over her, much more assured that I was the first time. I felt pretty good about it, feeling only that it was a bit warm and wishing I had the fan on, and wishing I'd started a bit sooner so I didn't have to be so conscious of the rush. She did it in the red, which means that I also have a nice range of colors to have worked in: She with Higher Will and Red, Bruce with Cosmic Mother and Subtle Warrior, Amy with Radiant Warrior, and Dennis with The White Star. Feel good about the whole thing, and though she isn't QUITE as effusive as she was the last time, she's pleased, particularly since she didn't think we'd decided who was doing whom and SHE wanted to be done, and then when she was 50 minutes late it made the whole THING better, even to her paying $2 cab-part.
