To: K-list
Recieved: 2000/06/20 11:56
Subject: Re: [K-list] energy
From: Divine Goddess
On 2000/06/20 11:56, Divine Goddess posted thus to the K-list:
Hi Paul,
You just tickle me, do you know that? :D
> We used to get people worked up in a frenzy
> beat on tables (make lotsa noise like wild uncivilized people) and
> play VERY LOUD military japanese drum music. Whew, the energy was
> thick.
Paul writes:
The spotlight makes the studs on her leather jacket glow as bright as
her purple hair.
Susan responds:
Hey, it's burgundy these days but looking pretty spiky. Just got it
cut real short.
> and the audience shouts back, "Yeah! we want to know what makes you
> mad! Then the person says, "Do you really want to know what makes me
> mad?" The audience reponds, "yeah! we really want to know what makes
> you mad!!!"
Her guitar player plugs in and cranks it up... and he's ready to raise
hell!!!
> And for a third time, the person would yell at the top of their
> lungs, "DO YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW WHAT MAKES ME MAD!!!?!!!!" And
the
> audience would scream back at them, "YEAH, WE REALLY WANT TO KNOW
> WHAT MAKES YOU MAD!!!!!!"
>
> The person responds, "WHAT REALLY MAKES ME MAD
IS..............!!!!"
>
> And out would come the most amazing stuff for about 30 seconds. I
> never really heard what people said, they were screaming so hard.
Paul writes:
And on the seventh day, Punk Rock was created and the Creator saw Her
children and said, 'Yes, this, too, is good.
Susan responds:
Paul, I love this. I never really saw the connection for this before.
I shoulda been a punker. I love Debra Harry and Wendy O. Williams.
> I screamed about never having a voice for my
> anger. I screamed about not knowing I had the right to be angry. I
> screamed about how no one listened to me, how no one cared.
Susan, Divine Goddess, you rock!
> An hour after that exercise I walked past a mirror and was startled
> at my reflection. My eyes were two clear crystal pools looking back
> at me. I saw my soul. The structure of my face had changed. It was
> more open. I was transformed on a deep physical level. A layer of
> crap over my essential self had burned away.
Paul writes:
And as the years went by and music faded away, not every eye was
clear. When you hand people pure energy, it's up to them as to what
they do with it.Some kids really benefited and some got in trouble.
Susan responds:
Paul, you are the best.
Yes, pure energy. But ya gotta leave it up to the receiver what they
do with the energy. Gotta trust em to do what's right for themselves.
> I watched hundreds of people with hundreds of reactions. .........
go sit> in the front row,
> only inches from the screaming contorted tortured looking faces and
> deeply immerse myself in the experience. Ever been in a room with
> over 50 people screaming in anger at the top of their lungs.......
> Its very frightening, terrifying to the unititiated.
>
> .........
> It's way more intimate than sex. Anybody can have sex, how many can
> have anger? Anger is our last taboo.
> .............
>
> We created a place of
> absolute safety because what most people don't know is that safety
> comes from inside their heart not from outside boundaries.
Paul writes:
Much can be discussed here regarding boundaries in the tension of an
urban environment. Even through you're talking about a therapy group,
a lot a parallels can be found in rock 'n roll and sports clubs.
Also, folks who get into mock Medieval battles, swords, weapons etc.,
go through a similar process, yes?
Susan reponds:
Yes. I loved the movie, "Gladiator", which might surprise people. I
didn't see any difference between that battle and soccer or football,
just the absence of ravenous tigers and opponents with axes, swords,
and chain mail. The energy was pretty similiar, very cathartic. That
wasn't the only reason I loved the movie.
> Next, no throwing of the sticks or hurting anyone or yourself. You
> can bounce and jump and scream as loud and curse as obscenely as you
> want, but no moving from your mark.
Paul writes:
When I talk about punk, I'm referring to the old school 1977 brand.
Back then the dancing was called "pogo, " kind of a loose, wild up
and down thing. There was occasional contact, but there was also an
unspoken rule not to hurt each other. Later, in the 80's, "slam
dancing" (vertical instead of horizontal action) became the rage and
was the cause of many a bloody nose and out of control brawl. By then
it was a whole different thing and a new crop of kids, and I was
miles removed from it. One thing I noticed is that the new slam kids
were almost entirely male. Very few bands had female members (unlike
the old days when it was about half and half.) It became like a
football, skin head, muscle jock scene. By the time the 90's came, so
many different styles and mind-sets had come and gone. Some faded
away and some had influenced popular culture for the long hall, but I
have nothing but fond memories of the 70's punk daze. You could be as
weird, crazy, angry and insane as humanly possible and then look
around you and find out that you have a whole bunch of new, trusted
friends. Like Susan implied, it's something that has to be
experienced first hand. An initiation, you might say.
Susan responds:
Wendy O. Williams of the Plasmatics was pretty violent. That
shaved head with bleached blond mohawk, electrical tape on her
nipples, the dracula mascara, and spreading cream all over her naked
upper body during concerts was pretty intense, like her music. She
gave heavy metal head banger bands stiff competition. Courtney Love
and her Hole band seem to be right up there with the guys. So whether
it is sad or good, grrl bands, at least some of them kept pace with
the anger. I know they weren't 70s bands but it did showcase angry
women.
Have you ever listened to the Lords of Acid and their lead female
singer? 'Drink my honey' and 'voodoo you'... wow...female sexuality
at it's most explicit.
> ......... We just didnt watch we participated. We would
> never ask a student to do anything that we werent willing to do
> ourselves.
Paul writes:
And this is why the original punks were not into the "rock star"
thing. The division between the band and the audience had to be
broken down. There was no "them up there" and "us down here," All
walls had to go before the energy vortex could swirl.
Susan responds:
Do you think raving has taken the place of this in a later evolution?
> Anger is emotion, only energy. Positive, negative spin on it? Nope,
> just energy like excitement, like fear, like passion, like.....
> What is your perception? It is only energy.
Paul writes:
I see "anger" as a type of energy with a human element. Anger happens
when somebody feels like they've been wronged or somebody else has
done something wrong to some one or something they love. There are so
many things that can influence anger to have either a creative or
destructive out come.
Susan resonds:
I do want to make myself clear. I was talking about learning to
express anger. Rage is something different. Rage causes the riots and
the violence we hear about. If people learned to express anger
positively, we wouldnt feel the affects of suppressed anger which is
rage.
Paul writes:
A few years ago my city had a riot. What started as positive anger
born of police brutality, racial and political injustice, soon
disintegrated into a free-for-all in the street that left over forty
people dead.
Susan responds:
Yes, definately. Anger, if not learned how to express in healthy way,
is just a fuse for the rage that lays hidden under the surface. I saw
a lot of rage in my seminar days, therefore, the rules we made for
safety.
Someday the anger will burn out all the rage. I still have some rage
left and I was doing constant anger practice for years.
Snip....
Paul writes.
My point is: Anger is born of a problem. And a great deal of senseless
death and tragedy can be born from the anger. Releasing anger is a
good thing (punk and therapy groups). Problem anger itself is not a
good thing. It can be a very, very bad vibe. We have to find the root
of the problem and do something to change it.
Susan responds:
True, we can try and find the root and we may not always be
successful in treating the cause. This may be why anger management
classes are in vogue these days for criminal offenders. If you can't
fix the problem at least let people know and understand that they can
choose to respond differently rather than violently.
> Anger transforms like quick brush fire, it comes and goes, it's
gone.> Renewal arises for new growth, new discoveries, a new freedom.
Paul writes:
Yes, it transforms like fire... like the one that destroyed part of
the historical district that my mother grew up in when some ass hole
tossed a Molotov cocktail into the corner liquor store. Yes, there's
new buildings in that neighborhood now, but I haven't heard anything
about new freedoms. The poor old lady saw her memories go up in
flames on the news. At that point, for her and a lot of other people,
the riot was no longer a noble rebellion against racial injustice.
No, it had turned into a stupid, creepy wave of deadly, human mob
mentality.
Susan responds:
This is why it is important to make distinctions between anger and
rage. For me anger is a fundamental human emotion like fear and joy.
We are hardwired to express that emotion. I think anything else we
feel is just variations on the theme of three emotions...anger, fear,
and joy. Some say there is only two primal emotions, fear and joy for
anger comes from fear.
Thinking anger and rage are the same is to keep oneself in a prison
of no escape. In rage there is no creation, just violence to self and
others. Anger is a healthy human emotion, promotes growth, keeps the
crap out over one's soul. Anger leads to passion, wanting to right
injustices, make the world a better place for all and yourself. Rage
just wants to destroy. People don't feel better about themselves
after a rage attack because there is no movement forward. Just a
short term relief that doesnt fix a long term problem.
> You know what I do sometimes still? Particularly, when my life feels
> stagnant. I roll up two sheets of newpaper (long way) and start
> beating a table to death, making as much noise as I can screaming at
> the top of my lungs, expressing my anger to the universe.
Paul writes:
I wish I could do the above, but in my twenty unit building I'd soon
hear from a lot of irritated tenants. They would get angry and most
wouldn't understand my suggestion that they should release that
feeling by doing the same. Then a rather large gentleman would
approach me and shout at the top of his lungs, "I'm dealing with my
inner anger right now by telling you to shut the f#%ck up!!!" And
around and around we would go. What I do instead is put the
headphones on and crack up an old Clash or Sex
Pistols record. X-Ray Specks, The Avengers, X, The Germs, da
Ramones...works every time for me.
Susan responds:
You have made a critcal distinction between rage and anger. Anger can
discriminate, makes value judgements on appropriateness. Rage can't.
> Blissings,
> Susan
>
Paul writes:
And blessings to you, Susan. My apologies for using your post to
express my anger against anger of the public violent kind. I know you
were talking about the inner kind.The anger I expressed above is much
like Percyval's. We don't care much for the "everything's sunshine
and teddy bears and if you don't see it this way, something's wrong
with you" new age mind set.
Susan responds:
No need to apologize and I was talking about inner and outer anger.
But more importantly I was talking about how people can feel safe
enough to express how they feel in the moment without fear of censure.
The only reason people don't like to see legitimate anger is because
it makes them feel uncomfortable and bad. It pushes some painful
button inside of them that says, 'please stop, your pain hurts me'.
It takes awhile to separate your own pain from the pain of others.
This too takes practice cause sometimes just everything hurts,
particularly the k sensitive.
I discovered that feeling the pain of others was easier than feeling
my own, in my own experience. When I learned to feel my own pain and
feel it deeply, I didnt suffer so much from the pain of others.
But ya can't stuff your pain cause it kills you. So what's a
responsible person to do???
You can't stuff your pain cause it makes other people feel bad. I
think a person can share how they feel in the moment without
broadcasting 'poor me'. I think we have seen some good examples of
that. But...feeling another's sufferring without the victim song in
it can still be painful for others. My feeling about this is "thank
God I can feel pain. I step into the pain and let it teach me."
Sure it hurts and its uncomfortable but it will bring its own awards
of self awareness. And when I hear rage, I will still just listen.
That's really what rage wants...to be heard, to be understood even if
it can be painful for me. It is a delicate dance.
What is wrong with sharing, "when I read your story, it made me cry,
or it made me mad, or it made my body hurt. I wish there was
something I can do to ease your pain, but I can't and that makes me
feel so helpless. And when I feel helpless I feel angry, impotent
or..." not the 'hugga teddy bear' stuff. Sharing and responding to
people who share involves being real/authentic/genuine in the
moment...not about pointing fingers or doing a fixer upper.
I think I have said this before but new agers tend to shoot their own
wounded and then make the person who is shot feel guilty for us
having to shoot them. :D Been there, done that, got the tshirt.
Love,
Susan
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