By Shakhar Pelled
"Our identity" writes Taylor
"is partly shaped by recognition or its absence, often by
the misrecognition of others, and so a person or group
of people can suffer real damage, real distortion, if the people
or society around them mirror back to them a confining or demeaning
or contemptible picture of themselves. Nonrecognition or misrecognition
can inflict harm, can be a form of oppression, imprisoning someone
in a false, distorted and reduced mode of being". (Taylor,
C. (1992). Multiculturalism and 'The Politics of Recognition".
Princeton University Press, p. 25).
When we walked into the big room with
its twenty six couples, all we could see were the identity tags:
the funny hat, the woven Yarmulke, the athletic biceps, the golden
slippers, the bushy brows, the wide-eyed gaze, the frowning countenance,
the bored indifference, or worse still, the secular, the religious,
the just-so, the just so-so, and of course, the not so so's....
Yet, once the preliminaries were over,
i.e., a short synopsis provided by Yumi, Hedy came on with an
extremely firm admonition to put it all away, put everything away,
in order to be there, just be... The first couple takes the plunge,
and Hedy is there to coach them through the straits of this new
mode of conversation. Complex analyses jostle our crania from
the inside, trying to make sense of the pattern of this relationship.
But Hedy would have none of it, no psychologizing on this work-shop.
She forces us all to frame our feedback in terms of energy. Deprived
of our heavy intellectual armaments we are forced to channel insight
into energy, and the entire audience is suddenly involved, freely
describing the energies of the couple, the push and pull, the
tow and underdrift, the upswing and down surge when content
is removed, compassion is freely available.
Now that the audience is primed, that
we have all had our first hands-on taste of the energetic fiber
of a couple's relationship, we are taken further into the theoretical
complexities of the easily contaminated space between two persons.
Yet Hedy allows no headwork, she insists on tangibility, on the
reality of live images. No dry psycho-language for her, only living
images taken from the couple. "Different languages are spoken
in Itsik-Land and Yaffa-Land" she insists, using the particular
couple before us as the point of departure. She teaches, teaches
how to listen, to really listen, then mirror what we have heard.
This is truly beautiful. This poignant
learning with a man and a woman in intense emotional conversation.
There is no detachment now. Rapt attention on all faces. This
is true learning. Hedy never lets up. She reflects everything,
every word that is spoken. She teaches by example, telling everyone
to tell it like they heard it, whatever it is, she reflects it,
complements, insights, slights too. She contaminates nothing,
she is translucent, the light goes through and is reflected back,
and somehow, in the act of reflection, a person comes to understand
himself, herself through their own words. Hedy lets no interaction
go by. She is our mentor and she WILL illuminate us. How we all
need illumination, how we all need to be educated.
A 15 minute break. We are fazed.
Then Hedy, full of regal energy, triumphant
wisdom, stalks the circle again. Imperious she delivers assurance:
"If you are unaware, if you let yourself be heedless, you
will contaminate the sacred space... no malice is necessary, mere
insensitivity or simple ignorance will suffice. "What are
you thinking of when your are thinking of love?" Hedy fires
away the options, friendship, estimation, equality, she laughs,
yes, yes, passion too. Is that hard to hear? Are you hard of hearing...
passion she says, her energy radiating over the audience in waves
as she prowls the circle with her sensitive mike, her voice impersonating
people, animals, beings in flight, in struggle, in freeze, in
submission. Rapt, we are with her, the entire audience emoting
with her, as she smoothly goes into old brain/new brain theory,
pointing out the finer points of brain evolution theory in a way
that has everybody feeling like upgraded reptiles.
Another break and the atmosphere changes
as we are swept away into a primordial place where quiet musical
strains paint the backdrop for a new kind of contemplation. In
the uterinean semi-darkness of Hedy and Yumi's hypnotic sounding
voice, we are guided through meadows to encounters with different
aspects of our personalities, embodied in father, mother, animal
and wise-man. And having met our inner images, we are swept into
another encounter as a husband quietly informs his wide-eyed wife:
"I am your mother. How does it feel to be with me?"
Pain wells up. An awful crimson flower. Tears stain my face. My
throat shuts down. "Mother gave me away" says the girl/wife
to her mother/husband, and Hedy is there, there, there, to coach,
to give sustenance, to help them through the pain to a new birth.
To the discovery that saying it helps. That crying out and having
someone not cringe, helps. We desire our parents with such blinding
passion that we can withstand all, all except their un-being.
Be anything my mother, father, be what you will, but be. Do not
go, do not leave, do not forsake. For the pain of separation is
deeper than any. So she cries, she cries the girl/wife. "Mother,
mother", she calls "you could not hear my pain, you
could not bear my desire for you, you could not see me cry, so
you went away, away, away". Her husband is breathing hard,
a true Imago mate, his soul is wrenched by the agony, his spirit
fluttering to get away, away, but Hedy is there, she teaches,
she coaches. Reflect. Talk. You are not the mother. It is not
you that she would swallow whole. It is a mother long gone. But
if you just let yourself be that clean space, that quiet place
of acceptance, if you would just let her tell it to you, you will
heal. Hedy, Hedy, how can you be so brave. How can you look so
much pain in the eye and continue to hope, to cherish, to give
energy. Tell her, she tells the husband, tell this little girl:
"I want to hug you because I love you, and you deserve a
hug for having suffered so much". And he hugs his little
girl, and an old festering wound begins to heal.
Once again, Hedy has taught. Suddenly,
we know that a man and a woman, two people, can do it. They have
the power to heal the grief, the power to bridge the gulf of loneliness.
Yumi gives us homework. We dutifully
write down our duties.
The night is short. Morning we are
back. Expectant. Yumi is there. Fatherly pedantic. And Hedy with
the bouncing energies of the healed and healing. A minor exercise
in telling something nice deepens in a major confession as a brave,
brash, bright, loudmouthed and witty man from last night's "identities"
suddenly cries out "No, no, no". "I will not yield
to this game". "I reject this entire exercise".
Indeed, when expectations are high, an inevitable crash becomes
expected, and rather than the fall, one prefers the rigid safely-known
husk of non-feeling. But Hedy will not allow us to hide. She is
firm. She will make room for his pain and he will be able to grow.
On her haunches, she supports the wife, helping her receive the
pain of her man, the hidden pain that took him away from her all
the years, that made him secretive, that made him his own-man,
not sharing, not caring, always moving, never staying. Now he
is here and his poor Imago wife is swamped by his destructive
energies. "You are angry" she reflects to him, "you
are angry, angry, angry". She is so afraid. And Hedy tells
her quietly: "take your time". "Look at him",
"gently, gently". This is the core of the listening:
The waiting. The contemplating. The not-jumping the gun. The not
hastening to react. This is the root of it all. No vested interests.
Just being. Just quiet attention. Acceptance. "I refuse"
he shouts. "No.No.NO. NO!!!" he shouts. Tears are streaming
from his eyes. My wife is crying too. Many eyes are bleary. But
his wife is transfixed by his great REFUSAL. He is a combat fighter,
an outstanding soldier raging against the night. She is struck
dumb by his big bad NO. She does not reflect the anger and the
fear. The fear of letting defenses go. Of disarming.
Where is Hedy? When will she leap to
the rescue? He is out on a limb and his wife is too scared to
give him the safe place he needs to land. She fails to reflect
his fear, the child that is within him. She sees only the struggling,
kicking man.
But Hedy is teaching us another lesson.
The deep dark lesson of even though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil... better still, more
simply put: I will fear not. She teaches us not to fear pain,
not to fear emotion, to let things run their course, to have patience.
Slowly does it. Gently does it. The cavalry does not come to the
rescue. For, she, this frightened woman, is this man's mate. She
has the powers inside her, and if she finds them, she will be
made strong and whole herself. Hedy is healing them both. Not
just the one. The one and the other. She lets them find their
own away, and then, only then, does she help the wife make the
switch and tells her: "Say to him: 'you are very angry. And
beneath the anger you are sad!" And she tell her. "Make
room. Make space for him". And I think to myself: "How
will she contain him, this woman? How will she contain this strong,
intelligent man, so full of pain. She must be made of stern stuff
this woman. Indeed, she can't take it. She is frozen. Unable to
react.
Hedy pleads with her. "Listen
to this history" she tells her, "listen. Open your heart
and listen to his story". Hedy's voice breaks with emotion,
she cries. She identifies with the strong man wounded from the
inside. He is like her. She too is strong from the outside, and
the pain is inside. She beseeches the poor woman who must now
appease both Hedy and her husband. He is crying too. Hedy is listening
to him like he would like his wife to listen to him. With compassion.
So much compassion. He has no faith in his wife and he is angry
at Hedy for giving him the illusion that he will be heard, that
there is a place where the pain can be put to rest. And poor,
poor, Leah, his wife, is crushed by these great emotions. She,
his Imago, who was always so good at taking his departures, his
leavings, his reticence, is now facing the storm of his pain.
But Hedy knows. Hedy knows. She realizes
now that Yoram is ready, ready to open up, to let go, to live
his pain and come to terms, she realizes that the problem is with
Leah, and she is now with her. She teaches her to be generous.
To love her man. To have compassion. Indeed, she is teaching Leah
to grow. For Leah has chosen him so that she will never have to
do such a thing he never threatened her with his wild ways
as he threatens her now when he needs her. This big strong man
is never more intimidating than when in sudden need.
But Hedy is now teaching Leah to breathe.
To reflect. It's easy. Do nothing. Just say the words. What words?
The words that are put into your mouth. Move yourself out of the
way, and just let the words come and go. Don't react, Don't do
nothing. Just reflect. "Make room", Hedy tells her urgently,
"Make space for him within yourself". Slowly, slowly,
Leah struggles. So brave. So brave. She says the words. She sees
her man. And he, sensing the shift, sensing the sudden appearance
of a SAFE place, brings out the very core of his agony, the fear
for his very sanity, the fear to share his innermost, most excruciating
memories. And Hedy is there with her, teaching her to take it
in, to roll with the punches and go with the flow, teaching to
listen, to hold out for her man. And she is learning, she is learning.
What has this man gone through? He
hints at terror, at deepest darkness. How can one be such a big,
brave hero of a man when one has gone through such experiences.
The inhumane is always human, all too human. And when you trust
nobody you have nothing to lose and there is bravery! But it is
bravery with a price. And Hedy is allowing this man and woman
to grow new hearts. The worst, she tells them, is that we could
not be there when it happened. But we are here now. We are here.
The workshop flows on. Our external
identities are melting. We have lost our most outspoken and manly
man to personalization. We know him now and love him. We have
lost his cool and aloof wife too, she is now an old friend, someone
we know from within. We suspect now that we are all human, for
we have seen who cried when we cried and who cried when our wife
was in tears. Everybody has somebody. But here we are all everybody's
somebodies, we are all in this together, human, human.
Hedy has taken to the circle again.
She walks, she pounces, she strides, she is a tigress out to claw
away the veils that enshroud our hearts. My wife says Hedy has
just the right jewelry for honesty. They are silver. They do not
have the false glint of gold. They reflect. She wants everything
exposed and in the light. Say YES she cries. Say YES to the children.
To thought, to action, to emotion, to sensation, to LIFE. She
is in constant touch with us, her gaze, her voice are everywhere,
she is with us and we with her, and we are laughing, laughing
our bellies into ache, laughing our heads off, laughing our sorrows
away, melting our depressions, our stick-in-the mud ways. Il principio
della streche, the Iker foon the Metikhe... Hedy is laughing us
away into insight, the 10%-90% principle who can ever be
angry again, and then she goes completely Vaudeville with that
incredible "perfect-fit" suit and we all realize that
we are all haute-couture, for our "memories are woven"
into our posture. What a posture.
Let us end, as we have began, with
Taylor: "This crucial feature of human life is its fundamentally
dialogical character. We become full human agents, capable
of understanding ourselves, and hence of defining our identity,
through our acquisition of rich human languages of expression....we
learn these modes of expression through exchange with others....
We define our identity always in dialogue with, sometimes in struggle
against, the things our significant others want to see in us.
Even after we outgrow some of these others our parents,
for instance and they disappear from our lives, the conversation
with them continues within us as long we live".
Hedy and Yumi have shown us how deep
these matters go. How deep is your love? How deep is your love?
More than sixty people in that room,
we came as strangers and departed brothers, sharing just one identity:
people.
From
Otherness