EXCERPTS FROM RAMBLINGS FROM THE EDGE:
BODY AND SOUL

     The following nine short pieces are excerpts from Eugene's inspiring book, Ramblings from the Edge. They offer insight into the wondrous connection between body and soul
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BARKING DOGS

     Sometimes there's a reason for a dog to be barking. Burglars are in the house. The house is on fire. The fox is in the hen house. Most of the time, however, when dogs are barking, there is nothing in the outer world to warrant it. Why are they barking then? Often, dogs reflect their owners and their owners' feelings. I remember Don Juan and Carlos hearing a dog barking far away in the night and Don Juan saying that in the dog's barking could be heard all the loneliness of its owner.
     For years now, every Sunday morning, wherever I am, the dogs are barking. I've always wondered why their owners don't tell their dogs to shut up. Over time, I've come to realize that these owners aren't even home, are off in their Christian churches, where they are being taught that denial of the body is the way to God.
     So the dogs wake me up every Sunday to the fact that my Christian neighbors are being taught again that all things of the body are evil. Hearing this, they become afraid of their bodies, and, because of this fear, ignore their bodies - and their dogs too.
     On some level, these folks understand. That's why they have their dogs in the first place. They miss the animal and want to connect to it in some way. But their Christian conditioning is too intense and pervasive. They ignore their dogs and their bodies, leaving them at home when they go to church. They never think that they might find God out in the woods some Sunday morning, running with their dogs. This is where God really is. As the old Rabbis used to say, "God never comes into the city."
     These folks should listen to their dogs, always barking because they are bored and ignored and wanting to run free. Each of these dog owners has a body too, one that is always tired because it is being ignored, always sick as it tries to be heard, and always frightened and angry as it watches life pass it by.

OUR BODIES AND THE MOON

     I am always aware and wary of the new moon. It is a difficult time for me, for most of us probably. I am edgy then and not very clear. I am more closed off and grumpier than usual. I usually want to be alone. I have trouble staying focused.
     New moon is like PMS for all of us all at once. It's the death time of the month, the time before the rebirth. It's the dark time of the moon, when her light is hidden from us and when we are physically weaker and lost in darkness and emotional confusion.
     Our physical energy varies with the moon's cycle. It is lowest at the new moon. At this time, we can easily overdo it and become sick. We can easily become depressed and angry. It is the opposite of the time of the full moon, when most of us have an abundance of energy. If the werewolf symbolizes that abundance of wild animal energy that most of us feel at full moon, the hermit crab symbolizes the reclusive and backwards, or crabby, nature of the energy that we feel at new moon.
     Living out of doors in the early 70's, I began to notice the cycles of the moon and the seasons of the year. I would lie out at night, watching the moon and the stars course the night skies. Living my simple life as a wandering medicine man, I could see the effects of the moon upon myself and others. I would notice this effect most whenever I was doing medicine. On the full moon, I would be in my body and would be wild and passionate. On the new moon, however, I would be physically quiet the whole time, wandering alone down darker paths.
     In the summer, it's not so easy to notice this energy difference and probably not so important for our physical and emotional well being. But during the late fall and winter, the new moon is potent and dangerous in its dark and negative way. New moon then is a time to be slow, physically lazy, and always aware of the potential for negativity in ourselves and others.

BEING IN MY BODY

     When I was younger, I had hay fever all the time. I had trouble falling asleep. I had headaches almost daily. I had pneumonia several times a year with bronchitis in between. I thought that this was just the way it was. I took my hay fever pills and my decongestants and my painkillers and lived with it.
     Now I sneeze only when something gets into my nose. I rarely have bronchitis or pneumonia. My head seldom aches. When it does, it's letting me know that I'm dehydrated or have eaten too late at night.
     Jungian analysis helped me back into my body. It helped me to deal with my unexamined but strongly held belief that the doctors had mutilated my dying seven-year-old body when they had operated upon it. Analysis also helped me to develop a more positive image of my sexuality. Previously I had seen it as something outside of myself that was trying to take me over.
     Meditation also helped. It helped me get out of my head and instead place my awareness throughout my entire body. This allowed me to feel myself as body for the first time since I was that young boy. From meditation, I slowly became body from the inside out.
     LSD helped the most. I began to notice that my body, without my ordinary, everyday ego in the way, was far different than I had ever thought. I remember once. I was tripping at a friend's house, and I began shooting baskets. After shooting for an hour or so, all sorts of wild shots, without being in my head at all, I realized that I hadn't missed even one. More and more, as I began taking my body seriously - after having been stuck in my head ever since I'd been that dying little boy - I realized that all my old illnesses had just been my body trying to get my attention.
     Anyone who learns their true nature and is able to become slow and centered in body can be a world class body. Also, if we wish to be immortal in the Taoist sense, we can only create our diamond body if we are first of all firmly in our physical body.

IT'S ALL ABOUT BODY

     Don Juan tells Carlos, "the reason you keep on coming to see me is very simple - every time you have seen me your body has learned certain things, even against your desire. And finally your body now needs to come back to me to learn more. Let's say that your body knows that it is going to die, even though you never think about it. So I've been telling your body that I too am going to die and before I do I would like to show your body certain things, things which you cannot give to your body yourself." (Castaneda, Journey to Ixtland, p. 216.)
     I was on the Oregon coast years ago, after picking apples in Washington, when this book came out. Reading it one day, while camped along the beach, I came upon the above quoted passage. Something powerful woke in me then and I felt a great exultation. I leapt up and ran and danced over the dunes and down to the water. My body was truly alive for the first time ever. It was celebrating. It had finally been recognized. It was all about body.
     I've been body from that moment on. I've been body with a mind. I've stopped saying 'my body.' I am no longer some entity separate from my body. I am body.
     I have come to realize that those religions are dead wrong and quite destructive that preach that we should transcend body - that this life of the body is an illusion or a trial and that life after death is the only true life. They would have us deny the life we have here as bodies in favor of some sort of afterlife of the soul.
     The truth is that while we are here in this life, Spirit resides in body. If we seek Spirit, we must look within to the mystery of body. All my spiritual life has been spent exploring body. This is why I was sick and almost died as a young boy, so that I might focus upon and come to appreciate body. This is why I use medicine. It centers me in body. And my body knows it is going to die. My body knows that death will come soon enough. But, for now it is alive, truly alive in a wondrous universe.

MEDITATION

     I began meditating while doing yoga in the late 60's. In the classes, I was taught to systematically relax my entire body by focusing my awareness upon and relaxing in turn each body part until I had gone through my entire body. I found that, once my awareness was spread throughout my body, my mind with its many thoughts had quieted and I was in fact meditating.
     Later, after reading The Secret of the Golden Flower (translated from the Chinese by Richard Wilhelm, the translator also of the I Ching), I realized another important aspect of meditation. The Taoists, in this illuminating text, speak of the circulation of the light - light being awareness. They say that one should move the energy of awareness between the two primary poles of the body - the "Heavenly Heart," which is the point midway between the eyes, and the "place of power," which is located at the solar plexus. I found that when I did this, I would profoundly deepen my meditation.
     When I began my work as a psychotherapist, I found people arguing as to which was best, meditation or psychotherapy. They are different, true, and they each do produce different results. Meditation can produce calmness and centeredness without necessarily increasing awareness or understanding. Psychotherapy, on the other hand, can produce increased understanding of self but often without ever leading to a calm and peaceful center.
     Eventually, I came to use both meditation and psychotherapy in my own healing work. I would begin each healing session, either individual or group, with a meditation. This brief meditation centered my clients and me in the here and now and gave us a chance to slow down and see what was most important to work upon during our time together. It also led to greater empathy and awareness on everyone's part.

ROLFING

     In addition to the Rolfing I received while a student in training, I have also been Rolfed professionally. Since then I have never had a sore back or neck. Rolfing is one of the best things I have ever done for my body.
     I have been Rolfed several times since then too, mostly to finish the development that began in the ten-week series. My body loves it - but not just my body. My awareness has also grown with each session. I remember back when I was still in the Rolfing class and one of the other students was working on my psoas muscle. As soon as he touched me there, I began screaming. At first I thought I was screaming from the pain, but then I had an image of myself as a little boy standing at the back door of our old house. I was naked, with my clothes in my hands, and my mother was angry and yelling at me. The screaming that I was doing in the class was the anger I had felt at my mother then but had been too afraid to express. It had been held in my psoas muscle ever since.
     The last time I went to a Rolfer, I wanted help with the leftover trauma from the sciatica I'd had when my father died. Although the pain was long gone, I still felt some discomfort. My leg felt as if it had been twisted, probably by me trying to avoid the pain. Also, my big toe was still numb. My Rolfer worked on me then for four or five more sessions. There was more to it than my leg and big toe. I had compensated for the pain by twisting my entire body. He had to begin the healing process from my center.
     At first I didn't feel any major improvement, but one day, several months later, I realized that my toe hadn't been numb or sore for awhile. I didn't know exactly when it had gotten better. It had happened slowly over time. Today I can stand solidly on my own two feet again. Today I feel balanced and whole in my body.
     Rolfing, like LSD, works directly on body, works indirectly on consciousness too. Healing the one-sidedness of my body has also helped heal the one-sidedness of my consciousness.

LOVE AND THE HEART

     Once while living in Oregon, I went alone into the high mountains on a vision quest. I had been edgy and irritable in the city before leaving and had hurt my kids' feelings. In camp, when I had slowed down and became centered, I realized just how much I had hurt them. I felt terrible. My heart felt cold and constricted. Spirit said to me then, "turn the pain into love, Eugene." I did so. My heart warmed and opened, and I felt so much love pour out of me. All that pain and the anguish at hurting my kids turned into that much love for them. I knew they felt it back home too.
     Around that time, I was working with a woman. Her husband didn't love her, and she was trying to find her own way through life. In the middle of our work, her husband had a heart attack and asked to talk with me. Surprisingly, he opened up to me, told me that he had never loved, that he had always felt closed off and isolated from everybody. He told me that this was why he had had his heart attack.
     When we feel love, our hearts open wide and feel warm. When we lose love through fear or hurt or anger or sorrow, our hearts constrict and become cold. If they stay closed, as my friend's did, they become permanently constricted, and eventually falter, often fail. Some of us would rather die than open our hearts to love. Many of us do. Not me. I got the message up there in the mountains that day in Oregon. Sometimes I forget, but if I do, I have my mantra to help me open my heart again - "turn the pain into love, Eugene."
     No wonder so many folks in our culture are having heart attacks. They have so little love in their hearts, certainly not enough to keep them open and warm. I hope that everyone learns this, as my friend in Oregon finally did. Carl Jung once said that power is the absence of love. Too many of us are into power, into having our way or else getting angry. "Turn the pain in love, everybody." We need more love in this world.

OUR TOTEM ANIMALS

     Since my late thirties, I have identified with several different animals. Before that time, I was a head person and not enough into my own body to identify with any particular animal.
     When I was married to Ariana's mother, Karen, our totem animal was the Wolf. We had a Malamute female then who was part wolf. We would all howl at the moon together while camping in the Sierras. For years, we used Howlingwolf as our last name.
     I traveled a lot in those days. I remember driving through towns in the night, seeing all the little houses with their lights on and everyone inside warn and cozy. I was a Wild Wolf then, the outsider sliding through town while all the dogs were inside, lying by the fires. I missed the warmth, but I loved the freedom more.
     When I married Deborah, years later, I wasn't at all sure what my totem animal was. I wasn't very much in my body at that time. Once though, while backpacking in Southern Oregon, she and I saw these seagulls flying up the river from the ocean. I felt then that we were Seagulls, flying free of the earth. It fit, both of us being Geminis and creatures of the air.
     When I married Aspen, it was immediately obvious that we were two great big loving Tigers. We still are. We're both strong and sensuous and loving. Aspen is just like the female Tiger too, the strength of our relationship. I am more like the typical lazy male Tiger, content to just lie around and play all day.
     However, through all these times and separate from what was going on in any of my relationships, I have always identified with Coyote, with that wild and wily trickster. I have always respected him the most. He is the wisest of the animals, surviving and even increasing in spite of the European culture's rape of this land.
     It has always been easy being Tiger in the city - just a big lazy apartment cat - but Coyote is strong in my blood and is always calling me out into the wilds, out into adventure and play and new directions home. I will always follow him and his song.

Eugene Marks