Barry Garden Path

A reflection on the childish behavior of some adults.

Childhood is always imperfect. I don’t think any of us had a perfect childhood. The notion of a perfect childhood is a myth. We go through life attempting to recover from what we experienced as children. There are no exceptions, but the degree of imperfection is highly variable.

For some, childhood could be marred by a lack of food, shelter or affection . We never recover the connection with the world we felt when we were born. For others, the experience of childhood imperfection is much more dramatic. Many childhoods are scarred by blatant abuse. Physical abuse, includig sexual abuse, is a common experience in childhood. Trauma comes in many forms.

Many people never recover from the trauma of childhood. They carry with them the experience of an imperfect childhood and often continue to live it out. Sometimes they inflict on others what they have learned. Sometimes they simply react to situations the way a two-years old might have a tantrum. Some never grow into sexual maturity and, as an adult, relate to children the way they would as a child, spreading abuse in their wake.

Fortunately, many people have the insight to recognize the imperfection of their past and choose to craft what they have not experienced. They choose to make what has been missing. It is a choice to plunge into the unknown and untested. Rising out of an imperfect childhood can be difficult, but it is also a choice. Many spend their lives learning what it means to be a human being. They make choices to learn what it means for them to be a human being. They choose to shed the imperfections of their childhood.

Many of us experience guides and aids along the way. When we are fortunate and observant, we learn how to abandon an obsessive clinging to the imperfections of our childhood. The help sometimes comes in the form of other humans. Sometimes, it is simply the dramatic and abundant world around us. We are often given chances to recover, but we must be observant and choose.

I sometimes become aware of the imperfections of my childhood. I also remind my kids that they did not have perfect parents. But I also tell my kids, as I tell myself, it is not sufficient to be aware of the shortcomings of childhood. To observe the shortcomings of my past is the beginning of a healing and growth. I may never achieve the perfection of my human essence, but this is a good time to move in that direction. I choose not to be limited by my past experience of imperfection.

I have an occasional practice of redeeming words that have a slightly unsavory aspect. I wash them up a bit and then embrace them in my common vocabulary. “Seduction” has been a recent word that I have burnished a bit and then claimed it as an attribute of mine. This morning, I have chosen to see myself as incorrigible. It was perhaps applied to me in jest. But I see it as insightful and accurate. I am incorrigible.

I recognize that I truly am a follower of patterns and rules. I yield and accommodate most social norms. But I also push back at boundaries. I sometimes find new meanings in old expressions and make them my own. I love following a path through the woods, but occasionally I wander off into areas that appear untouched by human trafficking.

Long ago, I was chosen in a seminar to play the role of trickster. It happened by lot, by blindly drawing cards out of a cloth bag. I never thought much of it at the time and I dutifully played the role of trickster in the group. Looking back, I realize that the name I pulled out of the cloth bag was truly my own. I am a trickster. I can be quite conventional and at the same time I can see situations with an awareness that is not at all common or conventional. I choose my vision over that of many others. I may go where no one else is choosing to go.

Perhaps this is simply one of the gifts of being on the autism spectrum. I see many things in non typical ways. I choose to make situations make sense, but I do it in a way that makes sense to me. I choose my own way, I choose my own path. That path goes beyond, or at least pushes up against, the boundaries that others see. I abandon or at least push against what is typically seen as normal.

I am aware that I push against the normal with confidence and conviction. For me, it is a normal thing to do. Being a bit of a trickster is simply who I am, and I wear that label with a deep sense of personal identity. A trickster does not hesitate to walk outside of what others see as norms. For me, that is about the same as being incorrigible.

I am not about to change. I embrace who I am, and the norms I see are the ones I follow. It is my vision of things, and I am compelled to follow the vision that I trust. I resist any attempt by others or institutions to impose norms on me. I resist control, especially if that control attempt to impose a norm on me that is not my own. I am comfortable being abnormal. I guess I am truly incorrigible.

I haven’t always known it. For a long time, I think that I have wanted to be a mystic. It has been more of a longing than an intention or decision. I have wanted to fall into the dark and infinite mind of the universe . But I was only slightly aware that becoming something like a mystic may have been my heart’s desire.

Even now, I am not really sure just what it means to be a mystic. I just know that I want to swim in the limitless, loving amniotic waves of the endless void. I want to routinely embrace the darkness of each endless fall. That is what I imagine the classic mystics experienced, even though they expressed it in an assortment of different ways. More exactly, those who recorded the activities of the mystics, wrote about mystics in a way that made sense to them.

Now, I’m not even sure that my experience makes sense to me. I just know that there is a deep sense of nothingness. I briefly experience falls into an absence of all that I know, and I feel that I am entering an intelligence that is beyond my grasp. I just am aware that it is an intelligence that is warm, welcoming and loving. I allow myself to get swept up by that loving surge of energy and formless awareness. It carries me into whoever or whatever is around me. My whole body and mind radiate an awareness that seems part of a universal mind, a universal awareness.

There is no way of knowing exactly what the mystics experienced. Giving their experience any description is an attempt to do what language is incapable of accomplishing. My own adventuring into emptiness is something of what I imagine mystcism is like. What I am experiencing is a form of intimacy with the universe that has been my longing for sixty years. There is no other way to describe it except to say that it is the path of a mystic. It is a path I joyfully embrace, mystical or not.

Seduction mostly has a bad name. That bad rap was even continued by Garrison last week. Thursday was Rilke’s birthday, and to mark the occasion Garrison Keillor wrote about how Rilke traveled around Europe and seduced rich noblewomen. The way Garrison presented it, it was not a compliment. To me, Garrison protrayed his own misogyny and notion of male dominance over women. It was a distorted and narrow notion of seduction.

True, there are times when seduction is coupled with manipulation. Someone may seduce another in a way that involves deception or control. If someone has power over another, seduction can be manipulative. The power could be out of many things including wealth, station, custom or relationship. Sometimes seduction is related to deception when someone is not who they pretend to be. Unfortunately, there can be many corruptions of seduction.

For me, seduction can be a deep invitation to an intimacy that is freely offered and freely exchanged. Seduction is a free giving and a free response. There is no element of control or manipulation. Seduction into intimacy is a choice that invites a choice between free individuals.

I recognize this kind of seduction when I acknowledge that the beauty of a garden seduces me to enter into in and actively pleasure in its presence. I am invited by the forest to give my full presence to its velvety and inviting presence. The sound of music filling my home seduces me to yield to an open acceptance of its beauty and excitation. The snow falling outside my window seduces me to a deep appreciation and engagement with the mysterious wonders of winter.

When I pass someone in an open space, our eyes meet and the smiles we exchange convey a seductive acknowledgment that mutually affirms our presence. I know when I speak to someone, it is a seductive invitation to respond. If we choose, we can begin an exchange that is more than simple words. There can be times that we choose to feel the presence of one another. The seduction begins with exchanged words, but it can go deeper into a mutually felt presence. If we choose.

Perhaps I am simply revealing my acknowledgment that I am a seducer. As I go through my day, I routinely seduce many people around me. And I am often seduced by then as we enter into many pacts of intimacy. For me, seduction is a common experience as I am seduced by the world around me and people who willingly open to me.

I am aware that not everyone who has attempted to seduce me has been successful. I have many times chosen not to be seduced. Or I have set limits to the degree that I am willing to be seduced. It has been my choice, just as I freely offer that choice to anyone that I gesture a seductive invitation. While I know my chosen limits, I think that my default presence is to be seductive. I want to be intimate with the world, and I offer that invitation to join me in intimacy often and freely.

Sometimes, I think that the fear of genuine intimacy has caused seduction to acquire a bad name. An inability to be intimate has stirred fear in the closed hearts of many. The only kind of seduction they can imagine is one that is manipulative, absent of intimacy. I choose to see a kind of seduction that is freely given and invites a freely chosen presence. I offer an engagement that is without deceit and without control. I invite an experienced presence equal to mine.

Sadly, the way that Garrison protrayed Rilke’s seductions does not encourage a view of free exchanges. I think that Rilke had a lot to offer because I read his poetry. How much that entered into his seductive behavior I can only guess. It is enough for me is that I am seduced to enter into his world daily . And I guess that many others may have freely entered into that same world, each in their own chosen way.

Solitude has been puzzling to me. For me it has been a tricky affair. I value my ability to descend into a region of solitude. But the absolute immersion of Anchorites in solitude has actually seemed quite distant from the human condition. We are by nature connected, and a denial of that connection in total solitude seems misguided.

Solitude for me offers me an experience of having no distractions. I cultivate the ability to let go of all sensory experiences and, free of of engaging thoughts, descend into the darkness of an endless fall. I take this brief plunge into solitude many times a day. I relish this quick experience of solitude. In a strange way, it opens me to experience an immense realm of connection.

Tuesday, I found myself standing on the light rail platform at fifth and Nicollet, waiting for the train. I was typically alone in isolation. I notice an older couple standing quietly not far from me with their hands on green luggage. They are likely waiting for the blue line to take them to the airport. I decide to break our solutude that we stand in and soon, for several minutes, we are sharing thoughts about going to school for free when you are older. The train arrives, and I am aware that we remain somehow connected as they head off to the airport.

I know that I dwell in my own solitude. But I also know that we have always been connected, being part of this vast intertweined universe, even while we stand apart on the LRT platform on a cold December day. For a few minutes, we allowed ourselves to eperience that connectedness. We allowed ourselves to fall into part of the loving energy we each carry in our apparent solitude.

That we are alone is a great deception. I defy the belief that we are alone every time I hug someone. I am not alone, you are not alone. None of us lives in a solitude that must remain impenetrable. Still I am convinced that my being comfortable in solitude opens me up to a generous invitation for others to experience connection with me.

I am not afraid when I lose myself in the solitude of nothingness. Losing myself in a loving connection on the LRT platform or a lingering hug is both appealing and natural for me.

In a strange paradox, being able to enter solitude with ease allows me to enter connection with an equal degree of ease. It is my familiar notion of “both / and” that colors so many of my experiences. I think the Anchorites only practiced living part of the paradox. They practiced how to look inside the window, but not outside it.

I like and embrace my solitude. And I have the same zeal about experiencing deep connection.

I want to be more than aware of the world. I want my every attentive look to be an invitation for someone or some aspect of the world to enter into cascading darkness, into the swirling dynamics of the universe, into the deep embrace of intimacy.

Every experience of mine is also an invitation to engagement. It is not only about me. It is also about the object of my open attention. I not only reach out, I also invite in.

I want my life to be more than my reaching out to connect with the world. I want to be an invitation for others to enter into the farthest reaches of reality through me. I am a live conduit. My openness is not for me alone but also for anyone or anything I encounter. I want to be a welcome sign for the wonders of the universe.

I am an invitation for anyone open enough to see. I want to be an open invitation for anyone willing to enter.

I am present in a vast pool of possible experience. I know that my experience is not absolutely unique to me. The universe is filled with vast, surging energy. It is also formed by an intellignece that permeates and shapes everything that has existence. It is not a chaotic or random universe, but a universe pulsing with intelligence. I exist in that vast pool of intelligence, and my experience is guided by it. And I have a role in how I participate.

My participation in this vast pool of intelligence is not at all random. My involvement and alignment is guided by my decisions and actions. So too do all my associations guide how I make my way into this pool of experience. My participation in the universe was highly conditioned from the moment I had awareness.

For me, the obvious impact of my culture has shaped how I experience the world, how I make my way through the pool of world intelligence. I am aware how my culture is ever ready to impose dogma on me, tell me how to choose to act, shape how I experience the world. In many ways, this has allowed me to participate in the world in a useful, even meaningful way. It has also been on the ready to limit how I am present in the vast pool of universe intelligence.

My parents and all my ancestors have had a significant role in shaping my experience. Like the culture, they have been standing around me telling me what to see, what to feel, how to interpret the world. Especially for the early part of my life that was very useful. Then I learned to say “no”, and I began to shape my own movement through the pool of experience.

My own degree of openness to that vast array of potential experience has been influenced by how I have been open to the energy, the love of the universe. My own innate desire and deliverate decision for intimacy has allowed me to be shaped and guided by a multitude of individuals and events. I am a product of the many individuals and parts of the world that I have allowed to stand beside and penetrate me.

How much I have been shaped and formed by the world around me has to a large degree by what I allowed in. It has been very important that many aspects of the world and individuals have chosen to be close beside me. It has also been important how maleable I have allowed myself to be. Being open to all the experience that has presented has been a practice I have spent much of my life learning.

I am grateful for all aspects of the world which have been present to me. I am grateful for all those individuals and entities who have presented themselves to me. I am also grateful for my learning to be maleable and open to the wonders of the universe. It is a process that continues as I plunge deeper and deeper into the pool of experience. I continue to learn how to open to the intimacies of the world. I fall ever more deeply in the love of the universe.

I am curious about the level of resolve that enters into most of my days. From the time that I wake, I dip into a well of determination and begin a process of engagement that is guided by what I want to do, by what I choose to do. Some if it is predetermined by what I have chosen to do in the past. Some of it is recently preplanned by what I intend to do on that day.

It almost feels like a ritual that I have created to shape my day. But there is also a flexibility in it all that allows deviation from that ritualized pattern. My day progresses, guided by an evolving feeling of resolve. It may appear to many that I am inflexible, guided as I am by such a resolve. Perhaps I am both the beneficiary and the servant of my resolve.

It is curous to me because I know that meeting the expectations of others has been such a part of my life. I have always wanted to excel in ways others find acceptable. I have learned to perform, and perform well. But I also know that I have usually wanted to do it my way. I could comply, but I would do it in a way that tapped my own internal resolve. My own creativity fed my resolve, and I could still comply with the expections of others, but in a way that made sense to me.

This may have simply been a result of my being on the autism spectrum. I have wanted to live in the world of neurotypicals and get along with them. But I have wanted to do it in a way that made sense to me. I have wanted to do it my way. I have often been able to put a new, personal twist on whatever I have been doing. It would be close, but not exactly what the typial world expected.

My sense of resolve has given me a good dose of fortitude and resilience. Being able to do things my way has allowed me to be both compliant and non-compliant. I could put my own inner energy into whatever I have done, as long as I could do it my way. That inner energy has been a source of fortitude. I have confidence. I get things done, but in my own time and in my own way.

That experiece of fortitude has scarcely ever happened without the support of friends. I have often been surrounded by friends who have supported me and even valued me in how I did things my way. Because of others I have been able to live many of my days with resolve. I have been able to do things my way.

I remember very well when I decided to be close. I was twenty years old, and I recognized that I had been living in a way that did not include being close. I don’t think I understood just what that meant, but I knew I was missing something that I wanted. I have spent over sixty years exploring what that all means, and the unfolding continues.

I recognize that, for me, a number of things are involved in being close. My own transparency is a huge part of my being open to closeness and inviting others and the whole world into closeness. I have noticed that as I have become more comfortable with who I am and relaxed in sharing all aspects of me, the easier it is for me to be close. Perhaps it has something to do with being in my eighties, but I care less and less what others think and how they regard me. I will live the way I choose. I like being me, and I don’t need to put on pretense. I am at ease with being close and not worrying about how I will be seen.

Also, I have always liked my sense of touch, but that is more evident now than ever before. I like touching things. I especially like touching other people. It is not simply a sensory eperience, but it is an open door to deep awareness. I can in an instant, become aware of the presence of others, whether that be a plant in my garden or someone I know.

Touching means that I have become much more of a hugger. I hug men and women alike. Not a quick and release hug, but a lingering hug that allows me to be deeply aware of the other person. Someone recently said to me, “We all need a lot of hugs” I totally agree, as a giver and as a receiver. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because I know how comfortable, even assertive I am about hugging. I sometimes wonder just how others are feeling about hugging. Most people seem to be a deep part of hugging and repeatedly hug me. But I want to feel assured that it is truly what they want.

I guess I think that hugging and, by extension, closeness is part of being human. While closeness is not unique to our species, humans have a deep engagement with being close. It has, in my mind, been one of the reasons we have prospered as a species. The experience of being close has been a huge part of why we have been successful. Even Neanderthals, I am convinced, valued and practiced what it means to be close. The presence of flowers in Neanderthal graves of individuals has been seen as evidence of abstract thinking, even some kind of religion. I think Neantherdals buried their companions with flowers because they were close to them, had a deep feeling of closeness with the dead individual.

In our culture, women seem to be more adept at hugging and all forms of closeness than men. I thnk that our culture has visited a curse on manhood saying that men should remain distant and aloof. I want to join what women seem to find and enjoy. Being close is a dramatic and central feature of being human. Regardness, I am choosing to be close. My resolve has not wavered since, at twenty years old, I set my sights on being close. It is who I am.

I continue to stroll through evolving notions of what it means for me to be open to the world. I constantly explore what it means for me to fall in love with the world. It takes on many aspects and it is a constantly changing of experience.

Most fundamental, it has involved my sense of touch. It has meant for me to become aware of how I was aware of what I was touching. It was an open awareness and an awakening of how I was aware of what my body experienced. I noticed how I felt when I sat down from a standing position, I paid attention to what it felt like to breathe, I deliberately touched things and people and noticed how I sensed their presence. Many sensory experiences became an open door to feel the presence of the world. My sense of touch became my opening to the world around me.

Being open in this way caused me to lose a sense of self. I became connected in a way that dissolved my protective carapace. I moved outside my protective, defining sense of self. I felt the deep connection with whatever or whomever I was touching. In an instant, my “world” became less defined and unbelievably expansive.

By becoming open, I have learned what it means to experience the “darkness of each endless fall.” My openness often loses its own definition and I have an sense of limitless space and an immense realm of emptiness. I become open because of a body sensation like breath or touch.

For me, this becoming open is a decision. I know I have agency. I become open deliberately. If this is free will, then I embrace it.

My deciding to be open is more of a decision to remove barriers that keep me from being open. It is almost a natural response, and it is an experience of great joy. By being open, I do what brings me joy. I fall in love with many people and with all sorts of things. It is not adequate to consider how many people I have fallen in love with. Falling in love, being in love has become more a state of existence for me. I routinely sweep many aspects of the world into my loving open arms., into my open presence.

I am grateful for every additional day I wakeup to. Each day, I am learning more and more how to become even more open. I understand it in new and different ways with each open experience. I reflect on my experience, I learn, and I open some more.