(Tomorrow some editing - now I'm too tired to do so...)

Sometimes I go about pitying myself, and all the time I am being carried on great winds across the sky. -- Chippewa, translated by Robert Bly

What is it about listening that is so amazingly difficult?
Listening to my heart - that place where many feelings reside - can be amazingly difficult, especially if it's sound is not to my liking. Exploring what I feel today I notice that often time it feels like there is a restriction around my heart, something that tightens it up and makes my breathing a bit more shallow as if not to feel it.
But that doesn't help.
It reminded me of the thorns around the heart that you see so often in Christian icons. You wouldn't want that heart to expand into the thorns, would you?
But exactly that is needed. As sordid as I find a religion who's main character is depicted as dying on a cross in its temples of worship (especially since the message is that "He is risen"and not "He has suffered and is dead"), the truth I find when giving in to the pain and difficulties - feeling whatever it is that comes up in this situation now - can lead into a greater flow of life; a feeling of being saved and held by some greater Grace that I cannot understand.

Actually when I'm not in this incredible flow that was so prominent yesterday, and still somewhat touches this day, especially during sharing what's truly on my heart and mind... when I'm not in that expansive flow then very often there is this more or less subtle constriction in my heart area, or the more or less tight knot in the stomach and all the other phenomena that I've dived into these last two weeks.

Clearly, as I stated yesterday, I find that there is no unconditional this, that or the other. So what about the basic premise of this experiment that I want to be with my feelings unconditionally? Am I willing to admit that I failed? Have I failed?
I can't say, certainly, because the experiment isn't over yet - I promised myself to keep it up at least 3 weeks (creating new habits, it is said, takes 3 weeks to take a hold). But I found something that is a bit closer to what feels true: Unrestricted feeling (not in the expression but in the feeling of) is a necessary basis of all truly human connection.

To know about my connectedness with you I need to feel you in the field, and I also need to feel my e-motions, those motions inside of me - I need to be with the feeling-field as much as with the knowing-field, and probably even more so.
Wilhelm Reich, the 'father of bioenergetics', and one of the deemed infamous students of Freud, coined the term "Charakterpanzer", character-armor, which, according to him was bodyparts hardening and storing the traumas that we experience in life. I'm not a fan of bioenergetics, but I feel now much more what is meant by Charakterpanzer (pronounce kuructarpuntsur - "u" as in understand). And I actually feel it as pain, constriction, suffocation, separation, denial and all its many subtle and complex modifications.

What I want, no, what I absolutely need in relationship is an unrestricted feeling-flow. In relationship with myself, with my partner, with the people that are dear to me, and actually with everybody.
The Western imagery of pointing out the heart as the center of our feelings seems to be very fitting, although the body-feeling-field is much larger and would, in my experience take in everything in between my guts and up to my throat (my sexual organs being a 'special case' in that is is much more a sense-organ than an area of what I've called feeling in these communications about the experiment). In speaking about the feeling-center I don't mean the heart-chakra; I've felt it shine and feel it sometimes still, but that's of a different dimension or level, not as closely connected to the affairs of life as what I'm working with and working through these days. When the flow is there it seems that my heart is at the very center of this flow...

So today I've been with the restrictions or constrictions of the heart when they appeared. And I found what is my basic practise: I would call it "unrestricting myself" so that I can be with the feeings, my own and those of the people I'm with. Not stop or restrict them; not even by going with "O, I know what you mean" because really, I don't - often. If I give myself time instead of restriction, if I give the other time... flow is a natural consequence.
So unrestricting myself again and again and again, or being with the feeling dimension of every and any occasion, has come up to be the most wonderful practise - something you might want to try..

By accepting one's own shadow one gives unconditional love to all beings. -- Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan; Alchemical Wisdom

Yesterday I didn't come to write my daily 'report' on how things are going with the experiment because I had my son and grandson visit us for the day and right after I went out with two old friends of mine and we had an amazing evening. Coming home at 2 o'clock in the morning I wasn't really able to write anything anymore :-)

Playing with my 2 year old grandson is a total delight of unrestricted feeling - so much so that when we were playing "We're getting a fit together" the feeling wave crested so strongly that Monay, that's the little guy's name, needed to hide and re-assemble in his fathers arms. Not that he was scared, I'd say, more like the ecstasy was a little overwhelming... and for me it was interesting to "having a fit" on his level.
Singing songs or better, getting into rhythmic word-singing, for instance me, "Schuhe" (German for shoe), than he, "shooe", me "schuhe, schuhe", he, "shoooe, oooe," me picking it up "ooooe, schuhe,"...
Hanging out with Monay is a wonderful delight of 'unrestrictedness'.

In a way you could say that I don't really treat him like a 2 year old is usually treated; I just feel into what goes on with both of us, and quite naturally everything turns into little games full of pleasure - we're equals, in a very special way. Yes, I'm grown up and have gone through 55 years of life already, and maybe I gained some length, weight and wisdom, but when truly meeting anybody this doesn't play a role. What does is, "Can I be with this?" feeling whatever is flowing between here and there unrestrictedly.

With a little guy like my grandson this isn't difficult. He doesn't hide anything, and the "bad feelings" just come out like the good feelings. Nothing held back, all is bare and clear. And there is a lot of energy in me afterward. I don't feel tired, rather I feel inspired.
There is a quality here that gets so easily lost when we're hanging out or working with grown-ups. But it needn't be. The challenge that I face is just a bit bigger than with my grandson (or children in general): One has to be wise in what and how to express oneself; but allowing oneself to feel the field (me, you the surround) without restricting it is key. And the half day with my grandson is a wonderful confirmation of the deeply resonating rightness of that.

----

In the evening on to meeting old friends and after having dinner together some serious drinking and not so serious talking. We haven't seen each other for quite some time - used to hang out in the "ashrams" of my teacher together, do some serious drinking and have serious fun, even went into philosophy!

There is a drunken beauty to life that comes out when one is doing the rounds like this. It is taxing the body, though. Today, when I needed to get up early, I felt drowsy and not so clear, to say the least. So I took the opportunity to study that particular feeling world of being 'pooped', of recuperating from being in lots and lots of smoke - because there is still some places in Berlin where people can smoke unashamedly (I'm a non-smoker, 96% of the time; only on occasions like this I smoke 1 or 2). Some would say today, the day after, is detoxifying day. And they are right. But it really doesn't matter what makes me feel whatever it is I feel, it opens up a possibility to continue with my experiment.

When a bit drunken (I could still talk and walk an almost straight line) I noticed: the feelings don't flow that easily and unrestricted as when sober. That's amazing because I remember that in the past (I think I was last drunkenly doing the rounds a couple of years ago) this used to be quite different; I felt that I could really let it out, be a nuisance maybe, and all of that.
And also when drunken feeling doesn't run that deep - or maybe my consciousness isn't able to run with the deeper aspects of feeling. Everything is mainly 'loud and noisy', and frankly, when drunk like yesterday, I couldn't care less of how I feel (and nevertheless when I noticed that I tuned into the couldn't-care-less a bit)... I think that the carelessness I felt was a much appreciated characteristic of drunkenness in the past.

So as I said, some of that spilled over into today, and it is only at around noon that I feel the depth and multidimensionality of the feeling-field reappearing. What I find, at first internal glance in the morning, is a kind of shallowness that is impenetrable almost; and turning up the volume of this sense of shallowness, the feeling is, "something's missing." An amazing feeling in itself, "There is something missing but I don't know what it is." Yet, it also is a feeling I forget again to really enter into as I keep fading out, fading away into shallow daydreams (I couldn't give you an example, because I forget) of no consequence at all.

Yet, within all this there is an easily activated sense of sympathy with the people I meet even if only passing them by. Seems like the same shallowness that doesn't allow me to enter anything deeply allows me to like people very easily. Shallow, nice and liking seem to be a family of feelings. Reflecting on that right now I think being sentimental is the deepest member of that little family. Yet it's very clear that I don't feel with the people, I feel about them.
This seems to be the social glue, the kin of feeling that is acceptables, easily ignorable - so we can get on with our own little thing, whatever that might be. I would have said, before I started this experiment, "You can't have deep feelings all of the time." Now, I'm not so sure about that.

We must be true inside, true to ourselves, before we can know a truth that is outside us. But we make ourselves true inside by manifesting the truth as we see it. -- Thomas Merton

Whenever I have the opportunity these days - when designing a screen, maybe, or creating imaginary people for demos; things that don't require great specific concentration - I'm listening to classical music, a lot of Brahms, but also Dvorak, Beethoven maybe and this afternoon Fauré: Requiem Op. 48
I like pop very much, rock, rap, funk, shoegazer and whatever else it is called; but classical music often goes much deeper on a feeling level for me. You might call me a feeling-depth junkie! There is so much soul-food in the deep regions of emotion!

Visited a very good friend last night. I notice that we get much more candid now and really talk about those sides of us that are a bit more difficult. Not in a finding-solutions mode but in a listening, "Ahhh, that's how you feel and think" - mode. And, of course, we get into a bit of theory of how these things work: we're men after all, and we like to take things apart to put them back together afterwards.
I noticed when we went too far into the theoretical or mental side of things that I lost this juicy connection that I've come to appreciate so much in the course of this experiment so far. Or maybe it's simply too theoretical for me when I loose the juicy connectedness. Whichever way it is.

As I'm moving 'outward' more with my tendrils I notice that now I can actually quite easily see where people are at; not precisely but I definitely get the feeling. I ask if my impression is correct, for sure, but so far it seems to be spot on. And I now see what one of the main reasons for the activity of "feeling-restriction" is: Uncertainty.
"Touching" whoever I open to in this way I cannot respond automatically, that is, I don't know what the correct response is. I have to take it all in for a moment and let my "unconscious" or "feeling self" process what I experience and come up with a suggestion/impression. This makes every meeting somewhat unpredictable. Intensity is made of this. And intensity can be stressful, actually it is stressful unless I'm relaxed, unless I 'hang loose' in my reality.

Another "reason" for not moving into the feeling-field with another person is the fear of being seen, touched, moved and losing control over the situation. And also you might feel that you are trespassing into their comfort-zone, and people do get irritated when you do that. I'm happy that all of this emotional ecology and the feeling-field is only now becoming available to me in this strong manner. That enables me to tread slowly and to 'keep it for me' if I'm not invited to enter.
Mind you, that doesn't mean that I'll restrict myself and stop feeling my feelings, or, alternatively that it would irritate me. Non of that, I'll keep looking, opening and 'derestricting' myself in experiencing the situation. But I will not enter into the stream directly, or only in as much as I can with total respect for the other persons' preferences (in as far as I can perceive them).

This is a thin line, in a way, but I'm more obliged to the principle of honesty then to protecting 'you' against my perceptions and experiences. So I will, gently, respond from the deep that I'm in anyway, and this has shown to be an interesting way of contacting people I know and also those I don't know. It has some as yet indescribable quality to it that I love and thoroughly enjoy.

There is magic to all meetings, I'm sure. And it feels amazingly beautiful if you are open and the other is as well. Then the being between us can awaken, the soul-flow-dynamics, if you will, that is the 'stuff' that beauty and joy of the interpersonal and sometimes positively transpersonal is made of.

You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can decide how you're going to live now. -- Joan Baez

Had an interesting encounter with my old friend jealousy - Madame J. -  today. Interesting, because when I expected her to come and burn up my heart-solar plexus area, give me a belly-ache and a tearing at my guts, all she did was to give me some sadness and a sentiment of constriction around the heart.
Maybe I don't need that gut-rattling anymore. Maybe the in depth work-out with my feelings has flexed my feeling-body so that it now doesn't hit me that hard anymore. Maybe I breath deeper most of the time. Maybe the avalanche is just waiting to hit me some time later, today or tomorrow. Maybe...
I don't know. This is just happening.

There is a shaky sense of uncertainty often during the day, but - apart from the jealousy in it's soft version - I don't think there has been any headline in my mind coming up to explain it. So I reckon it to be part of the new form of jealousy I'm confronted with now...
But actually it sounds too strange to put the slightly shaky uncertainty in one pot with Madame J. Shouldn't I reserve that feeling for the more dramatic moments in my life? Maybe Madam J.; I just think, is the dramatic appearance and make-up of Miss Uncertainty? There seems to be a ring of truth to that, at least I've got this gut-feeling that tells me, "Hey Mushin, this does make sense." Whatever the case may be, I guess as time progresses - and it always does; except for photons that know no time - I'll see what this morphs into.

In a work related online meeting that went on for 2+ hours (on reflection later) I noticed that not once did I feel under attack when suggestions and proposals I had spent quite some time considering and preparing were not taken up, and one time the word 'pedantic' was used in connection with a wish for changing some terms we use... and not even then did I take this as something that was saying anything about me personally. I didn't tell myself, "Don't take this personal." I didn't tell myself anything, I just was attending to what appeared on my radar mentally, emotionally and whateverly.
I didn't notice at the time that this was going on and my "Don't say anything I don't want to hear about my stuff because I take it personally" wasn't on the alert in the background, but when reflecting on it this is amazing! And what's most astonishing is that enriched with this experience I can now look back in my past and see how personal everything used to be! A remark that surely only related to some tiny aspect of my work or something I had done was often a cause for elaborate defenses, irritation or feeling really hurt.
Not wanting to go into rose-cloud-mode with this I'm not going to overvalue this happening, and I'll tell myself that this is not caused by the practice I arrived at with this experiment- but it is encouraging nevertheless.

--- I just heard the wonderful news that one of my heart's brothers has become father. And seeing the pictures of the lovely new one, the mother and him the frail and robust beauty of our human condition touches my heart as well as remembering all the feelings that came my way in the time of my girlfriends pregnancy, during the birth and during the first days and weeks.
There, for a very short time, unrestricted feelings abounded...

Providence has hidden a charm in difficult undertakings which is appreciated only by those who dare to grapple with them. -- Anne-Sophie Swetchine; The Writings of Madame Swetchine

The day has only just begun and Madam J. dropped by much more forcefully than she did yesterday. Only now, given the right circumstance for this investigation, I could uncover again the deep, and in a way soft sadness that's underneath Madam J's trappings. I don't know where this somewhat paralyzing feeling comes from. It is connected with a feeling of being forlorn and seems to want to be beyond consolation.
Do I need to go through this again and again and again?
I would so much love to be in my generous heart, and in my sadness I also know, that this cannot be 'done'. I remember the change I wrote about yesterday, and keep reminding myself of it. And looking out of my window across the street to the houses on the other side of the street I know that behind those windows there are all kinds of people with a multitude of feelings, some maybe even with the type of sad feelings I'm having. All of us are casted in roles and a play that we have both chosen and not chosen, moved or at least effected by the feelings that go with that. And then I think if I should choose a very different course than the one I'm taking now, "Would that make a real difference?"

Reflecting on my life and its different periods, full of all kinds of searches and journeys towards change, toward exploration, towards an enlightened life. And I see now that I've always moved, even in the times that were very much enlightened, with my general feeling. Never mind the period of my life, there were always irritating, challenging and even desperate times. Surely there seems to be an overall movement into more encompassing levels of being with and in this world we all share, but that doesn't seem to effect the feelings other than allowing me to feel more intensely, more fine-grained and more unrestrictedly.
"No salvation from feeling," I think. But then, would I want to be in a place where there are no feelings at all? No bodies that are prerequisite to feeling? (Not that I remember how it was without a body, but I seem to be convinced that feeling needs a warm-blooded vessel, at least the kind that I'm looking at now - including the extatic and blissfull ones.)
Thinking of the people that I've hung out with more or less intensely that are deemed to be 'enlightened', they also where feeling everything, and, come to think of it, some were quite unconscious about what they were feeling and how it influenced their behavior. Actually in their teaching and in what they expressed it was clear that they regarded themselves as having transcended this. But from where I stand now I would say that transcending this is not an option. From my perspective, enlightenment as I've seen it manifested is just the most sophisticated denial of the fires of the living available for us.

So would I exchange what I'm going through in this situation for another one? If I could pick and choose from the shelves of destiny like it were a super-market, yes certainly, I would. Real life is different though, and there is - apart from miracles that are just that, miraculous - real limits to what is possible.
I've chosen to not do the classical things, separate, create pressure, sulk, etc. But even if I would go, there would always be "negative feelings" and the challenge that comes with that. So really, the only true choice is between being fully alive with feeling and opening up to unforeseen possibilities that come out of the feelings themselves...

When the larger waves of sadness crash on me, what I said above doesn't come to mind, that's obvious of course. What comes to mind is headlines and scenes that reinforce me feeling sad. And "unrestricting myelf", being with my feeling, also means to simply not take the easy ways out what most of these headlines and scenes offer - "Close down", "Create more distance", "Get angry and take revenge", "At least change the topic", etc.. So sadness remains, even if I really have no idea where it comes from, what it does mean beyond the obvious phrases that can be used in such a situation - and which actually are used by some friends if I don't stop them from consoling me, offering help, advise or righteous anger.
The sadness makes me tired, is incapacitating me. So in the course of the day a slight tinge of anger, a kind of "leave me alone!" vibration, has helped to keep me going, though. If I were to boldly exaggerate I'd say that the sadness makes me want to lie down and fade away whereas the anger channels enough energy to me to keep on going.

In all of this there is also the notion that even though 'challenging' feelings might be specific to the state I'm in, feelings of bliss are also state-specific - they come, for instance, in times when my whole soul expands to embrace all existence and non-spacetime as well. So feelings are state-specific, and the states to which these feelings belong exist independent of the developmental level I'm generally on. They can be likened to parts of our body that remain more or less the same, regardless of our development: Just as a hand so is the pain of a baby the same hand and pain that an old, wise man might feel, and the joy of a little kid is the same a wise old lady feels.
If this is more than a notion and holds true - and right now I can't remember situations in my own life where it hasn't - then as much as inner growth and maturation is beautiful, the basic challenges remain, at least if one goes for being "aware and feelingly presenct;" this being shorthand for the continual practice of 'unrestricting' myself, reality-dialoging my hunches, ideas and yes also what the feelings tell me. By reality-dialoging I mean, if a person is involved asking them, if this or that feeling is correct,  or telling them what touches or moves my heart right now. Even if that is in itself something that makes me feel "ashamed to ask"...

Any kind of expectation creates a problem. We should accept, but not expect. Whatever comes, accept it. Whatever goes, accept it. The immediate benefit is that your mind is always peaceful. -- Sri Swami Satchidananda

I've started to have a quote with these posts every day for some time now, and previously I selected them because they somehow fitted with what went on that day. But I chose this one today because it so beautifully illustrates the way I used to avoid the more challenging feelings in my breast, belly and guts.

"Whatever comes, accept it." What a nice statement, you'd say, wouldn't you? But what, if a lot of life is about what we cannot, and maybe even should not accept? For instance, violence against ourselves and others, should we accept that?
What this injunction leads to is a superficial acceptance. Especially in the should and shouldn't context it entices one  to produce what could be called "strategic acceptance", an acceptance that feels like 'real thing' - doing what we should be doing according to wise men - but we didn't, because in the 'real thing' you accept whatever, period. And the quote also suggests, that by mere acceptance the things we don't like go away faster.
But have you ever experienced being in a difficult space, like feeling deep sadness maybe or even desperation, and someone tried to console you with the fact that this also is just passing by, "Whatever comes, accept it. Whatever goes, accept it." Has anybody ever gained a peaceful heart by such admonishment?
If so, I've never met him or her.

Peaceful mind, yes, no problem - when I was still so mental that I still believed that I could control what I felt by means of my mind, gaining 'peace of mind' was easily possible; I meditatively fade the difficulties out by re-loading the understanding that they are impermanent, following that I'm reaching out for and then owning the "great spaciousness" that is ever-present inside; by really going into and believing that everything is impermanent, that it is intrinsically empty and void of substantial meaning... by remembering the "Buddha Space" and "dropping everything", I certainly and reliably arrive at: a peaceful mind.

Yet, that is not a peace I value anymore - it's mental peace; a tricky peace because it has no real base in life.
Because there is a peace of the heart that rests within the dynamics of life, which self-manifests seemingly spontaneously at times. I guess peace of heart is also a state of consciousness, which means it can be experienced on every level of development. I hope that there is a developmental level of which this wholesome peace that I've now had a few close encounters with is an intrinsic part. Thinking that this level might actually exist inspires me right now, when I'm in sore need of an inspiration like that.

These last 48 hours have been increasingly difficult for me, starting out very much in anguish about my relationship's situation, passing through an hour or two of incredible, miraculous peace - a peace of heart and of intersubjective flowing. Only to end in a leaden time, a feeling atmosphere that makes cold autumn-rain a nice experience in comparison.
It's the uncertainty, coupled with the impossibility to do or say anything that helps - a stew of utter powerlessness with a sniff of self-loathing that increased some over the day. Aaarrrgh! Self-loathing is about as awful as it can get; remembering when there were similar pain-filled situations in my life I am reminded of suicidal thoughts that have indeed been present in my life at periods of great despair.
Self-loathing is a tightening ring of iron around my belly just below the navel. And it is a great companion of my "I'm-not-good-(enough)" feeling, that I know so incredibly well. I'm pretty perfect when it comes to pulling myself down. That's one game I'm hard to beat :-)

Maybe all of this needs to be experienced and acknowledged to come to places where peace of heart is part of the landscape. From a deep valley in one jump to the top - one moment you're pretty desperate, there is nothing left to do or not do to bend reality to your wishes, you've surrendered: There's been two kinds of hell offered to you and you chose the apparently less hellish one and accepted it. Out of the blue sky the situation changes; the whole outlooks turns from bleak black & white into full color as life/hope returns.
This truly is amazing: After a long time trying to accept a situation you finally decide, "My soul as a whole does not want to bear this any longer, I go willingly into this other potential hell, and either the situation bends or I break - and now truly I'm willing to break, if life so decides."
To come to this place is an alchemical journey and excruciating: refining and transmuting lead into gold has always been very, very risky business... and it is an ongoing process, but the first nuggets will always be the most beautiful ones, because, after all, they come as a complete surprise.

So the quote I started this day with is both true and superficial, true in that acceptance is beautiful - if you can do it with your whole heart. Wether we should or shouldn't expect anything, is not very relevant to real life, as its processes by their very nature will strip you again and again of all hope and with that of expectation. And what comes then, from a space that is bigger than us, encompassing our space, is unexpectated, maybe even unwanted... but possibly something that will enlarge our heart, gut, mind, and spirit.

I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars. -- Og Mandino

In the beginning of this experiment I didn't know how long it would take. Than, in the course of delving deeper into my feeling nature - forced, in a way by circumstances that triggered my whole inner drama, but then as I was getting the hang of it, going deeper and further guided by my own experiences, needs and wants - a practice developed that is invading my life now more and more, the practice that can be indicated by "de-restricting my feeling", or to put it more positively "remaining connected on the feeling-field level".
This is far from being automatic and needs continual attention and encouragement; nevertheless as a result of the experiment often now in a conversation or a situation I am confronted with an 'inner query' asking, "Avoiding feeling this?" Or also, "What is it right now that I feel?". So until this becomes a habit - meaning a doing that doesn't require an extra effort to do it; on the contrary, that would require an extra effort to stop doing - until it becomes a habit I need to feed it with practice.

Far from reading through the posts on this experiment and looking for patterns and such, which eventually I will do here one of these days, I'm now in a stage where I look back on the landscape of ground signatures of my feeling-field intuitively - without consulting with recorded realities - and I see something that gives me satisfaction: My ability to "stay tuned" has grown tremendously, and so has my wish to do so even in challenging times. This doesn't mean I unconditionally accept the very difficult feelings in their full bloom, like jealousy or self-loathing, for instance, I don't think I can accept them without any condition whatsoever. I wouldn't even know what it means. But remembering to let go of my restriction to being with feeling right now, this is possible, always possible.

This day has been challenging and beautiful; challenging in that it's extremely hard to wait on a decision that is going to effect my life on a very deep level. Beautiful in that I'm learning to make "bad decisions". A "bad decision" is one that proceeds from knowing and understanding my limits, limits I "mentally" do not really agree with, limits that I thought/think I should transcend or not have at all - a "bad decision" is one based on those very limits, and also is a capitulation facing the greater force of my feeling-body.
The beauty is in starting to understand a terrible fact of life, that I need to limit other's freedom at times to create the surround/atmosphere or time-window that I personally need to be well. The beauty is in learning that just as I need to bend at times to the will of another, I too need to make my will known so that others can bend. Feelings, having their very own logic which is not always open to understanding with the mental models of reality that I know, are much, much more an important factor in our decisions than I thought - only we can so easily rationalize something that intrinsically is not.

I'm reminded of having to tell my son all kinds of stories, stories he could understand, so as to make him cooperate in behavior that is necessary in our world. You can often see parents talk to their disgruntled kids in hushed but passionate voices in public places like restaurants, for instance, trying to make them understand this, that or the other. Maybe the skillfulness of parents in the discipline of explaining, making understand, reasoning with their kids - and when exactly they resort to good old-fashioned force - determines very much how later we deal with our disgruntled feelings (disgruntled because they haven't been listened to).
Maybe one of the main evolutionary drives behind understanding is the taming of "wild feelings" and untamed sentiments that might otherwise turn people in close quarters - like a modern city - into unpredictable and egotistical maniacs? Whether this is the case or not, when encountering and dealing with feelings, understanding is way overrated and loving, open wisdom is very much underrated.

Understanding can "kill" feelings. Explanation, analysis and close looks can and often does change the "basic vibration" of feelings significantly. Some feelings can only thrive in semi-conscious states: certain types of aggression that I feel immediately turn to sadness and powerlessness upon closer inspection so that to investigate those feelings I would have to find a way to somehow look away while having these feelings in such a way that I could gain insight into the immediate side-effects and deduce from there.
Jealousy, on the other hand, can handle close inspection easily - actually most of the times it is nourished by any kind of awareness. So what I found within the bearable realm of jealousy was sadness, forlornness, all kinds of fears, anger, a burning heart-area, solar-plexus and even guts: putting awareness there the best one can hope for is to move to the realm of deep sadness because of loss. Coming close to the unbearable realm of jealousy seemingly irrevocable decisions are made to self-protect, even at the cost of great suffering as a consequence.
"Revenge is a meal best served cold", the saying goes; well, jealousy getting cold turns into desires for revenge, and when this comes up the deep understanding that revenge never satisfies actually pulls the plug into a deep cold water of despair.

So given what I know about the interaction between understanding and feeling, what can I do? I always start somewhere in between and get my education from experience. And I'm sure that in my case that's exactly how it's supposed to be...

If you would ask me how I feel now I would say, "I am a mystery. And during this experiment I have learned the deep value I give to accepting the mystery of my character that is partly rational, partly irrational, very emotional, a times deeply spiritual, partly out of control and partly under control."

So if you want me, you get me in one piece, as a whole. That is the only way.
And that is the way I want you.

I think I finally know what the basic vibration of jealousy is: It's fear, the fear of separation of the one you love most. It's an utterly irrational fear fed by the demon of distrust, a mind that can easily imagine bleak futures, and - if it's not pure paranoia because there is no other lover - supporting circumstances. So maybe saying that it's utterly irrational is not true, since there is a significant connection to reality. It is this fear, this jealousy, that has me confess that for an important part I must declare the experiment a failure. I do not want to allow this fear to "be my guest". And maybe my resistance, my focus and awareness that went into "being with it" has made it as big as it is now. It's now easy for me, almost autonomously, to imagine all kinds of disastrous futures in which everything failed and I'm all on my own again. It is somehow much harder, to find the trust to imagine a bright future.

You could say that imagining anything is the real disease, imagining a future even worse. But wouldn't you then also say that hope is the real disease? Because hope imagines a future, or is the manifestation of the faith in a bright future.  Is despair - hope reversed - that comes from images of a bleak, pain-filled future the consequence of a hope gone sour? Maybe so. What I do know is that I cannot stop my imagination from imagining, just as much as I cannot stop my heart from feeling hope or despair, fear or joy, love and beauty. So what can stop me from replacing the images of 2 hells - the fork of choices that I'm facing - with 2 possible bright futures, where both options let me become a more loving, beautiful, joyful, authentic, rich and deep human?

I now see, and it is late at night and I got up to write my blog for this day, I now see that on top of the practice of "unrestricted feeling" I have to practice also "imagining light and bright futures" with all the people that are also in my "despairing visions".
I now also see how big a part my imagination played in co-creating the utterly challenging situation I find myself in. Never mind how real the base of my imaginations, more and more it served in an escalation of catastrophic feeling. So much so that opening up intimately became more and more difficult. The only possibility in such a situation being the forking of the way, the choice between 2 hells.

Should I respect my limits that have become apparent in a situation that I feel I have been forced into? Even if I have co-created it by imagining 2 hells where I could imagine 2 brighter futures, it feels right to do so. The basic question is, "What are the minimum needs, what are - right or wrong - the basic conditions that are needed so that a much deeper level of relationship is a realistic possibility? And what, if anything, can I do or not do to lift my bit of the weight that needs shifting?"

I've, feebly but truly, started to imagine a brighter future instead of 2 hells tonight. At first glance its clear that accompanying the fear of separation is the fear of imagining that as beautiful, for I might make it happen that way, and then (imagining that as bright) I might not have enough energy to not totally break down if it becomes real. And there is the fear of imagining a bright future for the relationship because it might hurt so much more if it doesn't get a real chance.

Yesterday, for some time, quite some time, I was full of hope - today despair, which I'm responsible for myself by inviting it in around noon letting my fears move me to ask questions that reflected distrust and fear and fueled visions of a dark future. So it's about time I invite trust, and beauty and brightness to come and visit this guesthouse more frequently!

Addendum: I find that if I set myself out to use my imagination in this way, I can. And the brightest future I can imagine is the one where I say, "I'm so thankful, happy and once more: thankful for you to have gone into the depth of intimate living with me and that we mastered all the challenges on our path together to have this rich, true and peacefully satisfying life."
I will carry this image into my sleep now..

It may be that when we no longer know which way to go, we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings. -- Wendell Berry; Collected Poems

Today I'm in the frail kingdom, the space where you feel raw, as if your soul's skin is all raw and anything and everything has the tendency to "hurt a little bit". You're looking for signs that would indicate which way the wind blows. After all, you went through a co-created hell where the heat was provided by the voluminous breath of your own fear of separation. You couldn't see anything much, except the dark smoke coming from the cinders of your hopes.
You can see, now that some of the smoke is lifting, that drawing lines can be done without the fire and the brimstone. You accept your own limitations - the pattern of behavior and thinking and feeling that forms your character is now finally more or less OK with you. You come to accept that you're far from perfect but that, if you keep on adapting to your deeper self, you'll be as open as you need to be to flow with life, and as clear as needs to be to accept your limitations.

You can't, no, you would never want to deny again your trans-and-ir-rational nature, your malleable and stubborn character. You have found some center, frail and promising, a space from where you can live an openness that before you had no idea of.
The chaos of your imagination's darker regions need the balancing force of a brighter imagination to become acceptable in the constellation of what it means to be me,

And then there is the other One. And there is the dynamics between, the uncontrollable and utterly free forces that choose their own path - this is the kernel of vulnerability: that you don't know what is going to happen. Life-changing forces are afoot and depending on where you are in this constellation, you can open to the other participants in the constellation.
In Hellinger's vocabulary one of the primary forces in our life and character is the "Hinbewegung", the "movement towards"; and what troubles us in these constellations is a "Movement toward" that is "broken" - the "unterbrochene Hinbewegung."

To be vulnerable is to be aware of many of these "movements toward". In the course of this experiment I have come to be in resonance with many, many of these "unterbrochene Hinbewegungen." Maybe I'm still a romantic after all (I thought, I wasn't), but I believe that in close and intimate relationship this one-on-one relationship itself is a "movement toward." Maybe what I got a taste of recently is the promise of just such a possibility in my life. But the "Hinbewegung" is an utterly free movement - which doesn't mean that it is not bound to circumstances, but rather that it is free to go with it, be neutral or go against it, but "it" is beyond control.

All day I feel vulnerable.
And I'm moving my attention from going in too deep.
Let me, vulnerable, stay near the surface.

I'm a hero and a coward
While I courageously go, I shiver inside considering possible consequences.
The longing for that space of intimacy with you, with life, with destiny is strong.
I accept that longing.

This longing makes me vulnerable.
Living vulnerable is part of me
Part of the whole.

All day I feel vulnerable.

The future is not some place we are going, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made. And the activity of making them changes both the maker and their destination. -- John Schaar

There is a healing quality to bitter tears. When we're moved into the depths of our despair there is a space for the traumas of the past to surface. One of these has surfaced yesterday.

Like every child under a certain age experiences the parents break up; I felt when my parents did separate that it was all my fault. My parents behavior towards me didn't convince me otherwise. You could say they left me to believe there was something utterly wrong with me. Parents have to go out of their way to make a child accept his or her innocence. Mine didn't.

Doing a lot of Hellinger-type family constellations I learned that children will often want to prove that their parents were right. From my present perspective I see that I proved my parents to be right by recreating difficulties, or by enacting what I think I inherted from my father, who in turn inherted it from his father - and who knows how many more generations.
When situations became too emotional he either turned cynic, sarcastic, aggressive or he withdrew in an inpenetrable castle of arrogance. There is a lot to my dealings with highly emotional situations that I seem to have inherited. 

Coming from another perspective one can say that my father, by leaving, was the "doer" in my parents divorce, and that out of misinterpreting the reasons for that divorce I started to manifest behaviour in line with the larger pattern of the masculine family line.
But whichever way I have come into following a destructive tendency at important junctions of my life not only I but others as well have reaped the consequences. I needed to go to deep despair to come to realize this. I am not guilty of my behavior, nevertheless the consequences are here, and I accept needing to respond with the expanded life I now live.

Accepting this freely and willingly is obviously the most "reasonable" thing to do. Having come to be the way I am now, through now almost 55 years of intense living and experiencing a character has formed. Denying and avoiding feelings, repeating the ancient stories from my family album doesn't seem like what I'd want to be doing.

By the grace of the experiment so far, which is turning into a practise,  both an understanding and an expansion into what I call feeling-field have occured. This is far from stable and it needs continual care so I can establish a new type of relating. Being feelingly open and at the same time authentic. Part of that is being open to the consequencesof all of my behavior and manifestation, knowing that I'm not guilty but responsible.

This enables me in a more compassionate and maybe also powerful way to participate in life more fully; regaining trust based on deeper and more naked realities about myself and others. Participation, trust and surrender, as much as clarity, penetration and courage have been the qualities that have carried me through an eternity these last weeks - for as much as I have been destructive, a nuisance to myself and others, for as painful and horrible all of this has been, the qualities I mention above are probably those that played a role in getting me this far; the alchemical essences that started a transformation on a level I have no control over, whatsoever.

And having told so much about myself you might ask, "But what about those people around you? What about your partner?" I can only express my deepest gratitude for when it really, really mattered she and my friends have given me the support I needed to be able to come this far. 
And I want to thank those who've commented showing their own heart and soul. This is the world I want to live in. To see and be seen on that level is wonderful, it nourishes the soul.

Your life is always working, whether you know it or not. Sometimes it works to bring you what you want, and sometimes it works to keep you from what you think you want. -- Neale Donald Walsch; Tomorrow's God

This is the last entry I'll be writing within the framework of the Experiment - because it's finished, and it's turned up enough of a practice for me to let go of, satisfied that it has carried me this far, and that it has been a teacher beyond anything I thought was possible.

An important lesson came to me yesterday on my birthday. Thinking about being 55 and what that means it became clear that now I'm ready to accept my destiny as it is. All of the life that I've lived so far - leaving traces that co-determine what the present is for me and those around me.
Today learning that some of my family believe that my father is very close to the end, I think this is the one 'thing' I can give both my parents. And I'm thankful that they're still around to be able to have me give it to them. If I were to formulate what the essence is of what I have to say, it would be this, "Thank you for giving me life and doing what you could to raise me. What you might consider your failings have influenced me making choices in my life that were not always in the best interest of everybody involved. I have hurt others and myself out of lessons from my childhood were I misunderstood what went on.
Where I stand now - at the beginning of the middle of my life - and where you are - drawing closer to an end - I need you to know, that even though I have behaved far from perfect I have been blessed by gaining an enormous richness of experience. I cannot know what would have been possible without you and what you co-created my life to be in the first 16 years of my life.
Whatever may be the case - and there are also movements that are very much beyond me - I have accepted this destiny and I pledge myself to live according to the deepest love, joy and beauty that is in me. You have co-created this moment in my life, thank you. Thank you."

When I think about how I would call my practise then it's Intentional Vulnerability. The vulnerability is a fact of life. To 'plug in' to the feeling-field I need to be vulnerable. I can either be vulnerable or I miss that whole area of unfolding life and not feel vulnerable. The strange logic I now have makes me see that vulnerability is a fact of life, as I said above, and it doesn't care whether I feel it or not. Derestricting myself on the feeling level, the practice that evolved during the Experiment, I plug in to the feeling-field and am connected on the non-rational plane. Many, if not most, of life's flow is happening on that level (today I found out that there is actually a tribe that lives within that 'region of existence' by the grace of their language), and being vulnerable, I am connected. This actually is not a choice, it comes with accepting your particular destiny as it unfolds.

When intentionally vulnerable I hold the space that all emotions need to unfold. Holding the space I do set a limit; the perimeter of the 'sacred space' in which I can hold space, where I actually am open to what unfolds in the inner and outer between-us', where I can be with whatever comes as the host, the caretaker of the guesthouse.
So what about all the guests that visited me during the last month of this Experiment?
They have indeed "cleared me out", and in a way "for some great delight" - not an ecstatic delight, more of a deep "This is indeed the way it is. And it is good."

I might still analyze the blogposts that went before, but I do not feel that it is needed to come to a proper conclusion and rounding of the Experiment. I think the basic lessons are recorded; whatever else I might glean from the former posts, it is what moves me in the present and almost naturally that truly counts.

With the fire is gold tested. -- Alchemical saying

Looks like I'm asked to look at the next steps in this destiny that I find myself in. There has been today a tinge of desperation. I talked to my father who was just returning from hospital. Important people in my family believe that he doesn't stay with us for very long and I should go make my peace with him.
Talking with him he said, he wouldn't have minded dying. I said, I understand this but that I want to come visit him early next year and that he has to stick around for that. "Can you manage to do that for me?" I asked. And he said that he would do his best.

I'm asking myself if I can bear this now at this time. Just having gone through a very intense period of which the Experiment was an important and enabling part, I felt that some rest would do me good. So I'm asking my father to just hang in there a little longer. Because I need to tell him that I've made peace with my destiny and that he can go knowing this to be so.

No wonder, kids tell me that they don't want to grow up. We all will arrive at a point were we'll have to face our character. This basic pattern that navigates our destiny and how it apperas to us at the time. For at what stage of development we are determines for a large part how we face our destiny - that part of life that is given through our habits and the behavior we expressed in the past.

Intimate relationship and life and death.
My father is going to go for good in the next months, if I am to believe my family's expectations. And the relationship in which I am embedded will go through this with me. I am blessed, and also I have to take care of my strengths, to keep them awake but not under stress. Destiny is giving me a chance to prepare, and my partner's love helps me move on the soul's level.

Presently I'm reading "The Reflexive Universe" by Arthur Young that portraits and demonstrates a developmental physics/evolution/life science which interestingly has a U-shape; it's a process of light losing its freedom and "falling" through 3 stages and turning on the 4th, the molecular level to start what we call "life": plants, animal, men?; each level up the second half of the U having more freedom again.
What I have understood so far is inspiring - and most inspiring I find Young's ideas about the animal "group-soul", and then that with man the evolutionary jump to an individual soul is made.

Group-souls being on the second level up the 2nd half of the U are resonating with the first stage of the "fall" of light into "matter" as particles: photons, electrons that on the next stage, where atoms form the 3rd kingdom (light being the first realm or kingdom, particles the 2nd, atoms the 3rd, molecules the 4th, plants - 1 level up te U on the 5th, animals on the 6th and man on the 7th). Particles are in space but not in time. they are eternal, as eternak as are the group-souls on the opposite side of the U.

Individual souls in this cosmology are eternal; they interact with matter by what can be described as a non-vsible force-field - creativity being a matter of the right timing of the soul. I was gladly living with the possibility that after death - nothing. Life being forever the place for the living.
John Heron's experiences and now what Young writes makes me change my perspective. This book falling into my hands, making such a convincing case for an eternal individual soul (as an evolutionary development!), and at the same time learning of my father's health...

Looks like alchemy has a point when it talks about refining the matters that go into the laboratory. Life, as it unfolds and flows, is the labratory and my feelings and intelligence, my experiences are the "matter" that is being refined.
And sometimes you have to let the Work rest...

We need to recall the angel aspect of the word, recognizing words as independent carriers of soul between people. We need to recall that we do not just make words up or learn them in school, or ever have them fully under control. Words, like angels, are powers which have invisible power over us. They are personal presences which have whole mythologies: genders, genealogies (etymologies concerning origins and creations), histories, and vogues; and their own guarding, blaspheming, creating, and annihilating effects. For words are persons. This aspect of the word transcends their nominalistic definitions and contexts and evokes in our soul a universal resonance. -- “A Blue Fire” by James Hillman

What, if we own every feeling?

Standing on my balcony this evening I was feeling this slight tinge of irritation creep up on me. As I realized that I own this feeling, that this is indeed my feeling, a deep breath happened upon me. I stood upright. "This too is me, this is mine," I thought.

Looking a few inches deeper the idea of possession became strange. What could I possibly own? Where could I store what I own? Do I own a memory? Is this memory about the day of today my memory?
We say these things but more often than not, when my mind can freewheel, they lose a lot of sense just a few inches below the surface. Nevertheless, owning that feeling of irritation I was nourished and strengthened. Making this feeling mine made me stand tall. So the idea of ownership my be strange a few inches deep into the realm of the soul, the process of owning makes very good sense.

What reveals itself in thinking about the relationship between me and what I own is static thinking. As if I was something permanent that could have a relationship to something else, that is permanent, and that relationship is a one-way street in which I own whatever-it-is. When my thinking goes a bit deeper still the flow of "I" and "it" is more apparent, and from that view "owning my irritation" is as if I would take in something of myself that was externalized.
I differentiated myself from the irritation - which is a good move for a child needing to come to express predictable and reliable behavior. I externalized my irritation and placed it with the cause. Now "it", whatever "it" is, irritates me; it is irritating me - I become the recipient of irritation, its victim.

Growing up, being 'adult', over time "I" was insulating myself from my feelings and impressions, and finally also concepts, ideas, whatever it was - I was not that. I was the "eternal witness" disengaged from life in many ways (even though often enough not really, because I behaved like many other men in situations with a strong emotional load), or I at least aimed for being/living That.
Going through periods of softening up to the other(s), discovering we-fullness and the amazing energies and being that can unfold and come into being between us, in critical times a critical ripening happened.

Coming back to re-internalizing what I have externalized over the last 50 years or so might take a while :-) But it is maybe not so much a goal as an orientation. Owning my feelings is a practice, not a goal; it is something that becomes part of the way I live.

Static think believes in things, and relationships between beings and other beings and beings and things. In this constellation of people and things there is more or less rigid limits between everybody and everything. In this scenario you can make me feel things, you are the cause of what happens to me. Or also things and situations are the causes of how I feel, and think and last but not least behave.

More fluid thinking probably out of the practice of owning what it feels and sees and hears leads to much more respect towards others and things and situations. O yes, feelings and thoughts and behavior can still be triggered, but the triggering event itself or the feelings triggered are a much more fluid affair. What happens is much more happening within processes which do have a mysterious end; this end does have a name but in itself is another process: living.

The irritation that the child externalizes is not the same irritation that I re-internalize, or own. Both the irritation and I have been passing through a great number of processes - and yet we both are still recognizable. Re-internalized irritation is - most likely - a driving energy behind this investigation that turned into a blog post.

Woman is a masculine apocalypse, or can be - actually, she really is.

Once I started to open up to the area of feeling into the world as it is - which obviously means, as I feel it to be - I find that women, and my beloved is the closest woman nearby, know this 'terrain' much better. Actually it is almost their home ground. From the very beginning they're into the games of relationship and seem, in my eyes, much smarter at playing that game: and if it is playing that game to win, woman wins, hands down.

"Anima" - the term C.G. Jung used to designate what I would call soul, or the innermost being - is a female word, it is what animates us, makes us move and be the way we are in the rivers of life.
The first woman a man meets, the first woman I met was Mother, the source of all life - but as a baby I didn't care about life, I cared about food and kisses and stroking and cuddling and all that. Mother was the source. That is a broken relationship for most of us, because as all women, my mother was limited by, well, her own limits.

Woman is the giver of all good feelings. No, not all - the blessing for a  man is to find a whole realm that is not really women's territory; it's a man's world. And I don't mean soccer, beer and lusting. I mean measuring up occasions, accessing one's own strengths and courage, and deciding: "I will conquer this."
I know, conquering is really "out" these days, laying a claim to this, that and the other is really spiritually or philosophically incorrect, using one's power and might to get what you want is totally out of whack, but it is part of being a man, as is pulling things apart and putting them back together, and being proud of being able to do so.

Crossing over in women's terrain is dangerous, and really, I wouldn't advise anyone to do so unless his "anima" forces him, and there is really no choice. It is dangerous because, since winning and losing is an important happening for a man, you're going to lose most of the time. If a man's mastery is playing the game of heroics in some form or another good enough to be proud of himself, than a woman's mastery is playing the relationship game in such a way that she ends up in the center of a relational vortex, where being close to her is the prize.

To put it rather bluntly (a masculine 'thing' I guess), a women's game is for closeness to her, and a man's game is to being the top of the heap. Both places offer a sense of great security.
Ooops. I'm sorry, if I tread on some toes here. Being paradoxical, crying out of nowhere, almost dying because of the feeling's strength that one encounters, being shaken by a scene on the street, endlessly mulling over how this relates to that... that's become a major "new" part of me and all of these seem 'female'. And I'm just beginning to study this first hand (including the f...ing feelings). Doing so I find that the women around me are expertly wielding the little knives and chisels, are in possession of all the tricks and arts that are so very necessary when conflicts arise - and arise they must. So, again, why is it dangerous 'here'? That's easy: woman has all the weapons in a conflict, and you don't (if you don't want to take back on your male armour etc.)

Well, why I write all this?
I just lost another battle - and in the end got an honorable settlement in which I could put out some claims and be heard. It's not that women fight better or worse than men, it's that they fight using different means. And if you have started to develop opening up on feeling levels, which means you cannot really hit the table with a fist any more and play the conflict in the way you know best (loudness, restrained violence, mental fitness, maybe)... you lose.Which means that it's now up to her to 'make up', because that's what the winner does; eitrher 'take the cup' and shit on the loser or draw the loser in and make him/her part of the reconciliation.

Apocalypse means revelation. The revelation is, woman is expert in feeling-field, or the feeling connection to relationship and life. Woman is expert in 'being the womb', in 'holding the space'  in 

So, being a man, this is what I do: I turn a lost battle into a great lesson that then I write about. There is, of course, an interesting feeling dimension to this - a dimension that is typically overrated by woman and underestimated by man. The soul is an apocalyptic teacher, to a man like me...