A Lay of Yuletide (Sketch)

O Tree of Wisdom, Tree of Light,
O Great Tree Yggdrasil
Tree of Life

Whose leaves the heavens graze
Whose trunk's the world embraced
And roots the deepest stones
Of Neifelheim

Perch of the Old One's yielding
Himself to Himself
The mysteries receiving
Carved in the shaft

And the cauldron at thy feet
The clarion waters
Of Lady Cerridwen
Vessel of all knowing
Past and Future

And whose fingers dare touch the waters
Save those of Gwydion the Fool
In whom our madness lingers

And blessed Son of Odin
The shining day-star
of Baldur's rays

Whose sacrifice shall bring
The end of days

The Treasures of the Dead

What follows is an original translation of the first three verses of Preiddu Annwfn (Commonly translated as The Spoils of Annwn), a 6th century Welsh poem from the Book of Taliesin.  There is much scholarly work on this poem, including that of R.S. Loomis, Robert Graves, Marged Haycock, and John Koch.  The aforementioned works set out to be scholarly, objective, and as technically precise as possible with regard to the extremely obscure language and phrasing of the original, but in so striving they have sacrificed poetic fluidity and coherence.  The present effort aims at incorporating past scholarly work as a guide, while preserving poetic structures of the original, including rhyme scheme, internal rhyme, alliteration, and meter.  There is also an intention to preserve a particular interpretation, placing the value of coherence somewhat above technical or scholarly concerns.  The interpretation adopted is that of the hero's journey to the underworld as understood by C.G. Jung and Joseph Campbell, within the mythic framework of the Arthurian Cycle as preserved in Welsh and French medieval literature, and in the English work of Thomas Mallory.  I hope to address the remaining verses in sequence.





I.

Homage to the ruler,
The King of all the land

O'er the wide strand of the world

His sovereignty extends.

Complete the captivity of Gwair
In the Keep of the dread Elven

In the book of Pwyll and Pryderi
Is recorded this legend

Before him there was no man
That ever entered in.

The steadfast youth was bound there
In dark and daunting chain

Before the treasures of the Land of the Dead
He wept and did lament

And thenceforth till the day of doom
A bard he shall be kenned.

Thrice the crew of Prydwen were we

When we entered in

Seven, no more, returned to our shore

From the Keep of the dread Elven.

II.

Honor be and praises

For the song it could be heard

In the Keep of Four Towers

Four times it turned

Came forth from in the cauldron

The first poetic word

By the breath of maidens nine

its fire began to burn

The Chieftain of the Land of Shades

How was his cauldron turned?

A dark rim around it

And in the rim are pearls

To cook the food of daunted men

'Tis not destined to serve

The falchion of fair Lleawch

Has flashed before the urn

And it was fetched by Lleminawch

In his hand it returned

Before that dread portal
Eternal lamplight burned

When we went in with Arthur

Our hands hard honors earned

Seven, no more, returned to the shore

From the Keep of Drink-rapture

III.

Honor be and praises
This song is heard of yore

At the Keep of Four Pinnacles
In the Isle of the Steadfast Door

Edge of day and edge of night
They blend in tincture pure

Effulgent wine their wassail
The winsome host before

Thrice the crew of Prydwen

The wide sea ventured o'er

Seven, no more, returned to the shore

From Keep Rigor.

Forgiveness

I am questioning the notion of forgiveness. It is “the attribute of the strong,” says Gandhi, it is the necessary condition for love, says Martin Luther King, it is pervasive in the teachings of Jesus and the prophets. But I am beginning to feel that it is an empty concept. What does it mean to forgive? Forgiveness assumes that there has been a wrong, a betrayal. It assumes that we have been hurt by another. It is said that we forgive in order to escape the bonds of victimization, and that we must forgive ourselves as well as others.

Forgiveness implies that we are changing our relationship to victimization, to perpetration, and to our own pain that arises from betrayal. In some cases, this something that I must do apart from the perpetrator, apart from the perpetuation that may be ongoing. Because that other who perpetuates harm is beyond my reach, outside of any possibility of influence or interaction.

Do I forgive you? I say neither yes nor no. I say forgiveness has no meaning for me. I choose to come into a constructive relationship with my pain. I choose not to perpetuate victimization, neither in the role of perpetrator, nor victim. I am not your victim. You are your own victim, and your own perpetrator, as long as you choose to perpetuate those roles.

I choose instead to forsake those roles, to incorporate my pain into my authentic being, to manifest myself in loving compassion with myself, my family, my community, my work, and my world. Is this forgiveness? Is this the light that drives out darkness (yet, how can it be, for the darkness remains)? Call it what name suits it, but I choose to live in fullness and in love.

A Dream of Incarnation

A Dream of Incarnation

In this dream I become interested in following the path of the Buddha in New England. I am thinking of how Trungpa Rinpoche came to Newfoundland, Connecticut and New York, and how many other Buddhists came in exile and diaspora to New England, creating there a new dharma, with its own language and sutras.

Why did Bodhidharma make the journey to the East Coast?

I think of making a pilgrimage to all of the towns, the shrines and sangas where this new Buddha came to Plymouth Rock. In the dream, there is a new word for “pilgrimage,” but I cannot now remember what it was.

The words of a poem begin to float across the limitless blue sky, written in broad white letters. I read with an “Oh!” I try to remember the words of the poem.

I spend the rest of the dream seeking ways to remember a single verse of the poem. I keep thinking I am waking up, having successfully remembered, but then find I have only awoken to another level of the dream. At one point, I am in a park with an apple. I try to bite the words of the poem into the skin of the apple so that I will be able to read it after I wake up.

At another dream level, I am wandering in a large park, and I see an elderly woman sitting cross-legged, writing poetry. She is surrounded by baskets full of notebooks, paper, pens, pencils, paint and crayons. She says she is there to encourage children to wrote poetry. I am thankful to have found her, and sift through the notebooks, looking for a blank page. I finally find paper and pen and begin to write. I am immensely relieved. But this is only another level of the dream.

I finally manage to bring myself fully awake. I find I still remember most of the verse. I move downstairs, find blank paper and a purple pen. Touching the pen and paper is delicious. I write the verse. It is 2:30 AM.

To wander in this world

Requires physical presence

A close, sheltering sky

Until even that is unremembered.

The bold words are the ones of which I am absolutely certain. Of the others, I have certainty about their sense, but the words may be inexact.

Interpretation

This dream, like others I have had (“This is how you are all the time”) are about incarnating. They speak of a vast, euphoric existence in another type of reality... the dream state. They bring a message, and this message is that we have a fuller and richer existence than that which seems to surround us in the waking world, the material and conscious world. These dreams seek to convey a message of grave import, but one which is extremely difficult to retain and bring into the conscious world. The message is simply the existence of that world, and our nature in and relationship to it. Our material incarnation is a voluntary and restrictive delimitation of that broader existence. The purpose for which we undertake this project of incarnation is that described in the verse of the poem: To be wanderers, tourists in a material world, to experience self, other, relationship, growth, and understanding; to express love, feeling, thought, physicality, and divinity in it. A condition of this incarnation is an inability to remember that we come from someplace vaster and brighter. Among the consequences of this unremembering are agency and autonomy, but also fear and hopelessness; so sometimes our dream-spirit being sends us this message to reassure us.

Is it part of that need and intention of incarnation to be in a condition of exile, of diaspora?

• From Africa
• From Egypt
• From India (“Why did Bodhidharma come from the West?”)
• From Europe

And weren't even the First Peoples of the Americas in diaspora from Siberia?

Dreams and Transpersonal Psychology (draft notes)

The psychoanalytic theories of Freud and Jung were the first to view dreams as conveyors of meaningful content. Their analytic frameworks were primarily restricted to the structures and processes of the personal psyche, although Jung anticipated the work of transpersonal psychology in his recognition of a collective aspect to the personality: the collective unconscious. It remained for him apart from conscious content, but connected to mythology and catharsis, the domain of the veiled and autochthonous archetypes.

Transpersonal psychology recognizes elements of the psyche that go beyond the personal to include the transegoic, that which extends beyond the boundaries of the individual and touches the collective, not merely of the unconsiousness of humanity, but of the collective anima and the soul of the world. Completing and complementing the Jungian collective unconscious, Janet Adler added collective consciousness. Here, collectivity is not only mythic, but also immediate and transcendental.

But transpersonal psychology has had little to say about dreams. The work of Carlos Castaneda is one effort that seems to bring a transpersonal approach to dream theory. Is it in the Travistock Lectures that Jung speaks of the dream of the world-clock? That is a dream interpretation that borders on the transpersonal. But there is certainly room for further development. How shall we write of this daily process of re-incarnation? This is about connecting to a dis-incarnated state; there is no “pre-trans fallacy” because in that dis-incaranted world, there is neither “pre” nor “trans” – neither before nor after, above nor below, within nor without.

The Upanishads speak of the three states of being – waking, dreaming, and dreamless sleep. They say that the state of dreamless sleep is the same as the state of death. Is that also in the Baghavad Gita?

It is Robyn Hitchcock who writes of it most clearly and explicitly:

I'm going back into my body
While it's in my control
Back into my body
Playing a role
I'm going back into my body
Back out of my dream
Back into my creature
Where have I been? What did I see?
I've been on the etheric plane
Above all pleasure and all pain
And it feels so bizarre looking down on where you are
I think I'm going back again
I'm going back into my body
Back into my heart
Back into my lifeline
Playing a part that I call me
I've been on the etheric plane
Where there's no dog and there's no chain
And it feels so bizarre looking down on where you are
I think I'm going back again

The Voice from the Megaphone Falters

The Voice from the Megaphone is brash, relentless, and drowns out the sounds of all living things.

“We are the producers of the food that starves you, the water that makes you thirsty, the medicine that makes you sick, the wealth that impoverishes you, the homes that kick you out into the street, the clothing that humiliates you, the knowledge that hides the truth, the security that threatens you, and the freedom that keeps you in prison.

“You will keep no god before us, and you will assimilate your body to our machines, your will to our machines, your mind to our machines, your spirit to our machines, and you will give your children to our machines.”

The voice from the megaphone falters, only for an instant, barely perceptible. The quaver of the megaphone is just enough to betray a well of fear.

A distant voice is heard, becoming louder, becoming more, becoming many, increasing.

“We reject you. We reject you. We reject you. We reject you from our bodies, we reject you from our minds, we reject you from our hearts, we reject you from our homes, we reject you from our relationships, we reject you from our families, we reject you from our spirits.

“We are the producers of the food that nourishes, the water that soothes, the medicine that heals, the wealth that enriches, the homes that shelter, the clothing that protects, the knowledge that illuminates the truth, the security that banishes fear, and the freedom that liberates body, mind, and spirit.

“We will heal ourselves, and then we will heal you.”

Tribe: A glimpse into the inner world of cats

When I first moved to Serafina, NM, 20 odd years ago, it was a place of raw magic. Coyotes, foxes, bobcats and mountain lions carried on their business as they had for millennia, and eagles and hawks shared the skies with ravens and crows. The ghosts of history crowded the night shadows: the priests and weavers of the ancient Pecos pueblo, the settlers backed into a desperate siege atop Starvation Peak, the desperadoes escaping the laws of the Royal Spanish Crown or the United States marshals... all was whipped by a relentless Westerly wind into an electromagnetic haze of magical aura that radiated up through the hard red clay and tenacious prairie grasses.

That's what it was like when I bought an old stone house built in 1918 by legendary stoneworker Miguel Ortiz, and his now-famous musician son, Cleofiz, together with the St. Claire family, settlers from the East who did not last a generation in the harsh environment, the family scattering after the father was killed by a fall from a horse. I met descendants of both families in the area, where history just hung about like a cloud that thickened, never dispersing.

The house had been abandoned for over a decade, and not terribly well tended for a decade before that, and was in an advanced state of disrepair. The story of transforming that forlorn and abandoned place into a warm and gentle home has formed a great chapter of my life, and one that I shared with my family. But this is not that story.

When I first spent a night in the house, it became immediately clear that rodent control was the problem in need of most immediate attention. Traps, live or otherwise, require tending, and the magnitude of the infestation was beyond management. Poison was out of the question... both on grounds of introducing an unnecessary toxin into the environment, and the problem that mice who have eaten poison tend to die in inaccessible locations, from which they will broadcast the shame of their assassination with relentless olfactory assaults.

I felt the best solution was to begin acquiring cats.

I went to an animal shelter and adopted a tabby and a big furry dark-haired cat that resembled a Norwegian forest cat. I had been reading the marvelous Skywater, by Melinda Worth Popham, about a clan of coyotes living in the Southwest. The elderly couple in this wonderful novel give whimsical names to their coyote friends that come from brand names they see on litter that blows through their Sonoran desert home: Kodak, Doublemint, Brand X. Inspired by the book and my frequent lengthy sojourns down the endless New Mexico highways, I decided to begin naming my cats after the state mottoes on license plates. So my first cat, the Norwegian, was named First in Flight, after the Nebraska plate, or “Firsty” for short. The tabby, with a brick-red nose, I named Famous Potatoes.

For several weeks, Firsty and Potatoes were in cat-heaven, spending every night hunting mice and gophers, and I endured the sounds of crunching bones late into the night. Although both were indefatigable hunters, it became clear that they would need help. In Santa Fe, I adopted a long-haired gray mother with her kittens, a few weeks old and still nursing. I named the mother Constitution State (Consty), the female kitten Vacationland (Vacey), and the boys Ten Thousand Lakes (Tenny) and Great Lake State (Grady; after my home state). I brought them home, but was dismayed that Firsty and Potatoes were extremely unhappy about having a new mother in their home. They were very tolerant of the kittens, but Potatoes ruthlessly terrorized the mother, who spent her days hiding in the basement, but came up nights to nurse her kittens.

In those days, I believed that a short, free life was better than a long, captive one, so I let the cats in and out at will, even though I knew the surrounding areas were filled with wild dangers for a domestic animal. It was Consty who first chose that path. She waited until her kittens were fully weaned, then headed out into the wilderness, and I never saw her again. Some time later, Firsty followed suit, and Potatoes and Consty's young offspring had the run of the house. By this time, Vacey, Tenny, and Grady had grown into feisty young hunters in their own right, and the rodent population of the immediate environs of the house had dwindled to endangered status, for which I was not sorry.

When the young siblings were just over a year old, I began to plan to have them spayed and neutered. Serafina already has a terrible problem with abandoned pets, and I certainly did not want to contribute to that epidemic. But some muse of nature whispered in my ear: “don't spay the female just yet. Let her have one litter, and raise them all here together.” I followed that muse, and did not have to wait for Vacey's second birthday before she was sauntering around the house with a belly full of growing kittens. There is no mistaking the pride in her walk and the pleasure and satisfaction that she felt, basking in the sun, feeling the young lives wiggling around inside her. She loved to show off her belly, and enjoyed inviting me to feel the life within her. When she was ready to give birth, she climbed right on top of my bed in the morning, and I considered the price I would have to pay for new blankets, and decided it would be worth it. Vacey gave birth to five kittens right there on my bed. Each was a tremendous, helpless, messy miracle that sat bewildered, then unerringly dragged itself toward mother's breast. The last came out and did not start breathing. I had been braced for tragedy, and held my breath along with the motionless kitten. Then with a start and a sigh, the last kitten begin a labored respiration, and crawled with the others toward her mother's breast. Four girls: The Natural State (Natchy). The Garden State (Gardy, but later changed to Zsa-zsa for her poofy white hair and vanity). The Land of Lincoln (Linky). And the one whose state-name I have forgotten, because her later antics led me to begin calling her (for reasons difficult to explain) “Splodgy.” Then there was the boy: The Show-Me State (Shomes).

The kittens grew up with their mother, their two uncles, Potatoes (who only just tolerated the invaders, but knew that she was outnumbered), and me. It was the presence of this extended family of cats who all grew up together, along with my personal solitude at that time of my life, that afforded me a unique window into the inner world of cats. Their family dynamics revealed an incredible complexity and range of emotion and relationship. I am forever grateful for what I learned from having the chance to watch them grow up together, and grew quite a bit myself through them.

As the cats grew, they explored and became comfortable with the vast and wild semi-arid world around them. The older generation were the uncles Grady and Tenny, and of course Vacey the mom, all of whom were very close in appearance to their mother: long-haired dark gray cats, though Tenny sported a tiny splash of white on his chest. Of the younger generation Linky, Zsa-zsa, and Natchy shared their mother's long hair, and Shomes and Splodgy took their mother's uniformly gray coat. But another genetic influence was clearly at work: Zsa-zsa and Natchy were gray and white, Linky was black and white, and Shomes and Splodgy both had short hair.

I was surprised at how far from home these cats would wander. I would often spy Potatoes off hunting, not alone, but with the neighbor's cat, Sox. Because of the absence of shrubbery or tall grass, I could see Potatoes and Sox hunting together a good half mile away, up on a small rise. Potatoes and Sox had become inseparable friends, but Sox would never come over to my house. Rather, Potatoes would spend her lazy days loafing around my house, but when she felt adventurous, would go over to the neighbors' and, according to the reports of the neighbor, loudly announce her presence until Sox came out. Then the two of them would head off to their favorite hunting ground together, not coming home until late evening.

I would often go for walks on the hot dry days, meandering over the surrounding fields, not worrying about the local ranchers who owned them, since they were seldom about. I would explore the deep arroyos that channeled dozens of yards deep into the otherwise flat plain beneath the mesa. They were an endless maze of high red-clay walls with sandy bottoms, lined with stunted Juniper trees and Pinones. Tenny, now a mature and confident hunter, loved to follow me on these walks. At first I was very concerned. He would follow me well over a mile from the house. He would become obviously thirsty and tired, resting and panting often under juniper trees.  I would carefully plan my path to skirt by areas where I knew there would be surface water, since I worried about my long-haired companion becoming dehydrated under the hot sun. But he displayed no interest in the water, and only wanted to follow me wherever I went. I found this attachment deeply touching, and felt very connected to my devoted little friend.

As the cats matured together I was witness to several events that elucidated a rich world of family dynamics that I had never known existed among cats. One of the first such events was when I saw Tenny teaching his nephew and nieces about the art of hunting. I was sitting in the house near a large window, and happened to notice all the young ones outside in a circle around Tenny, who was the center of their riveted attention. I saw that Tenny had a mouse, and as I watched, he tossed the mouse up into the air, caught it in his claws, and bit the back of its neck. He did this several times, all the while conscientiously making eye contact with each of the young ones who were watching.

When a cat catches a mouse to share with the clan, the victorious hunter brings the mouse to the feeding area, calls out loudly in a distinctive voice that brings everyone running, then brags, and eats his or her favorite parts (each cat had a favorite part of the kill – for which reason Zsa-zsa also carried the nick-name “head-eater”) while selfishly guarding the kill from everyone else with aggressive, full-mouthed growls. But after this brief bragging session, the hunter shares with everyone. Even Potatoes, the out-clan, was welcome to a share.

But the session I was watching through the window was different. There was no dinner-call, no bragging, not even any eating. It was a demonstration. Tenny was teaching. Like a good teacher, he held center stage and modeled the lesson, all the while making sure all the pupils were paying attention. There was no mistaking what was going on. I feel very privileged to have witnessed what I think few have seen: A domestic cat deliberately teaching a learned skill to the next generation.

The youths of the clan were quick studies. Within a few months, there was not a rodent to be found within a mile of the house. Working in teams, the cats also killed gophers, which are a tough adversary. I once saw two of the cats corner a gopher, and were in the process of killing it, and I took pity on the wounded gopher and decided to rescue it. Confronted by two adult cats, the gopher was bleeding from the face, but otherwise strong, and ready to fight to the finish. I got a shoebox and put on some welding gloves, and moved in to rescue the prey. Far from grateful, or even intimidated by my much greater size, the gopher went into full attack mode and tried to bite my hand off! I was most impressed by his strength, quickness, and ruthlessness, and grateful that I had thought in advance to put on the thick gloves. I took the gopher to the shelter of a woodpile, but I never knew if he survived the night. In later years, when I took to keeping the cats indoors, I came to realize how great a role my cats had been playing in gopher-control, and how much damage a family of gophers can do to a delicate landscape.

But for all their skills, the youth were still inexperienced and given to excess of excitement. One of the most stunning displays of coordinated hunting I have ever seen took place outside my northern window, around a pool of water in the driveway. The summer rains had brought a small bird to bathe and drink in a pool that still persisted in the afternoon sun, and the little bird felt confident of his safety in the open area that provided no cover for predators for several yards around the pool. Any attacker would give ample warning for the bird to simply fly up into nearby trees. But this little bird was unprepared for the intelligence and cunning of the talented Vacey and her daughter, Linky. As the bird bathed, I noticed the two of them closing in from downwind, from paths at right angles to one another. Their coordination was marvelous. When the bird nervously looked in Linky's direction, Linky froze and Vacey took a step forward. Seeing nothing moving, the bird would resume bathing, glancing in Vacey's direction. then Vacey would freeze, and Linky would advance a single step. They proceded in this way for a good fifteen minutes, until both cats were, amazingly, within two feet of the bird, on completely open ground with no cover, in broad daylight, the bird entirely unaware of their presence (though I must say, acting a bit nervous). It was then that youthful exuberance overcame the patience of the master hunter. Young Linky could no longer stand the tension. She pounced suddenly at the bird. But the distance was still too great, and the bird escaped Linky's grasp, flying unharmed, but shaken, into the tree.

Although the prowess and teamwork displayed by this hunting duo was astounding, I was even more amazed by what transpired next. Young Linky, having enjoyed the hunt despite her failure, trotted up happily to her mom for a kiss. Instead, Vacey smacked Linky on the head and turned her back and walked away. Linky sat morose for a little while, then walked off on her own way. The humanity of this interaction was captivating. Having worked hard as a team, Young Linky had blown the hunt at the last minute, and gotten a swat and a scolding from mom. The mom's anger, the daughter's sadness at the reproach... these were not mere anthropomorphism, this was a view of a complex interaction not just at the core of being human, but at the core of being alive in this world of challenges, victories, and woes. It was scene that could have transpired in any home anywhere.

These were events that reflected relationships and a shared culture, but more than that, there were relationships that evolved and deepened over time. Some were simple: Linky loved her Uncle Tenny more than anything. She would follow him around, and wherever he would plop down for a nap, Linky would plop right down next to, or on top of, her favorite uncle. But this affection did not entirely go both ways. Tenny, the champion hunter and master of his domain, preferred to nap alone, or on my chest. So as soon as Linky settled down next to or on top of him, Tenny would get up and find some other lonely spot to relax. But Linky would just get up and follow him, and this slow-motion chase would continue all day long, until Tenny finally tired of moving around and suffered his niece to lie next to him. Finally they would both fall asleep, and seldom would I find Tenny asleep without his devoted tag-along right there next to him.

The most complicated relationship was with Dad. Dad hadn't abandoned his family once the kittens were born. I often would see a huge tomcat hanging around – not too near the house, he wasn't very domestic – whose short, black and white hair precisely matched the genetic variation of Vacey's litter. I learned from neighbors that the tomcat was well-known in the neighborhood as a vagabond and opportunist, taking meals and shelter where it pleased him, and, as I later learned, maintaining his territory against all intruders with incomparable tenacity. I also learned that he had been given a name by the locals, and his name was Pete. Pete the Jazzman.

I always knew when Pete paid his occasional nocturnal visits to the house. Every cat in the family had a distinct relationship with Pete, and his presence changed the dynamics entirely. Tenny despised Pete as a rival male and as his sister's paramour, and sometimes quarreled with him. but Tenny knew a losing game when he saw one, and seldom endured more than a few light scratches before throwing in the towel and beating a noble retreat. Shomes, however, had serious issues with Poppa. As the only male child in the family, and the largest cat in our clan, perhaps it was inevitable that Shomes should be destined to be locked in a lifelong Oedipal rivalry with his father, the undisputed lord of his dominion. Like Tenny, Shomes was no match for Pete, and could do little to defend himself against the huge aggressive tom. But unlike Tenny, Shomes was unable to relinquish the confrontation. Again and again he would go up against his father, as if he were Luke Skywalker and Pete were his Vader, and the howls and curses could be heard for miles. On the morning of every night that Pete visited, poor Shomes would have torn up ears and a bruised and bloodied face that often required medical attention.

Vacey's relationship with Pete was less competitive, but no less passionate. It was through Vacey that I always first became aware that Pete was in town. By a sixth sense, she detected his presence, and was out the door like a shot. Soon the pandemonium of repressed rivalries and passions would erupt across the whole clan, and after the fighting and the caterwauling died down, would come the lovemaking. And oh, such lovemaking! The passion of Vacey (who was a tiny cat all her life) and Pete could be heard well into the next county, and they would be at it all night long. In the morning, an exhausted, but somehow calmer and happier Vacey, would laze around the house, looking wistful and a little cross-eyed, her hair a mess and not a care in her soul for food, mice, or anyone or anything. I never saw what happened between the two of them, but whatever it was, it took a lot out of her, and gave a lot back to her as well. I knew it must have been on such a night, now years ago, that the younger generation had been conceived, and the result of such a night that had led Vacey to proudly parade about the house with her bulging belly, and leave five tiny gifts in my bed.

But the member of the clan with the healthiest relationship with her father was Natchy. After all the fighting and lovemaking and crying and bravado, if I would wake up late in the night and steal a look out the window on the night of Pete's visit, I would infallibly see Pete and Natchy sitting together on the porch. They would always sit together like that, silently, right next to each other, just touching, and gazing over the moonlit fields. What feelings they shared we can only imagine, but it was plain to see that they enjoyed being close together, being quiet together, and never an aggressive look or sound passed between them.

One of my neighbors killed Pete the Jazzman. She boasted of it to me, not knowing that he was the father of my kittens and a dynamo in my clan. I never told her, either. The neighbor said that she had seen Pete out in the yard, murdering her kittens. She said he had already murdered others of her kittens, and now she had caught him in the act, and captured him alive, and taken him to Starvation Peak and abandoned him there. It was a cruel and cowardly act. But I could not deny that Pete was capable of such atrocity, and had no reason to believe the neighbor was lying. She was very upset about the murders, and I did not want to complicate matters – and wasn't even sure I understood the matter. It was too much for me, and I was silent. The neighbor said that by abandoning him, she had given him a chance to live and create a new life for himself somewhere else. But he was never seen again, and I knew that dumping Pete in a strange land, where he did not know where the water was, where the food and shelter were, what were the habits of the predators, and whose territory was whose, was a death sentence. She knew it, too.

Can I blame her? Can I blame him? Pete beat up his son, intimidated his brothers-in-law, had a love-hate relationship with Vacey. He murdered kittens, who were probably offspring of his rivals, just as male lions do. I don't think he was an abusive father or a draconian tyrant. He was cat father, and a ruler of a feline territory. I judge neither Pete, who was defending his own line, nor the neighbor, who was protecting her own kittens.

A few years after Pete's death, we came to understand how hard he must have fought, and against what adversaries, to maintain his territory. During the Reign of Pete the Jazzman, we never saw a stray cat anywhere near our house. After his death, strangers began to haunt the area – big, tough feral males with gigantic heads and barrel chests. These were the rivals he had kept at bay. But for all their ferocious appearance, we found these strays to be unagressive. They had no romantic interest in our ladies, and did not fight with our lads. But they would sometimes come in the house and help themselves to the food bowl. By then my family lived with me in the Serafina house, and we named the newcomers, who had become fond occasional visitors: Roberto and Buster.

One year a feline plague broke out across our area. Many cats died, and many of ours disappeared. Also, heavy rains brought an abundance of rabbits and roadrunners, and these brought a population boom among predators: coyotes and mountain lions who boldly marched into the domesticated world. We began to see the wisdom of keeping our cats confined indoors for their protection. To our surprise, they did not protest much. Most of these cats lived fifteen or sixteen years, and the oldest, Natchy, we brought with us when we left New Mexico and came to the Northeast. She spent her last days in our apartment there, and quietly passed away under a bookcase.

So now the clan headed by the matriarch Consty, that learned so much and endured so much together, are only a memory for us who survive them. And the raw magic that once held sway over the land of Serafina is diluted a little. But the glimpse these creatures offered, into a complex world of rivalry, devotion, passion, contentment, joy, and family dynamics remains a cornerstone of my human experience. They are always part of me, and I hope to offer others a view into the tribal world of cats.

Constructing the Black Sheep

In the Family, One may begin to occupy the position of the Black Sheep by degrees. It may begin with a slight and subtle distinction: One is envied by siblings; One is slightly favored by the Mother; One is mildly rejected by the Father; One manifests a recessive family trait in the body or in the psyche. One may also occupy the position of the Black Sheep immediately, born a second sibling and Biblically rejected by the elder, or born an unwanted child whose very existence is a reminder of violence, folly, or regret. The initial impulse of rejection originates in the Family, since One's innate need is for acceptance.

This impulse first being felt, One's natural inclination is to reject the condition of rejection, and to insist upon the natural condition, which is acceptance. This second rejection may be felt by the Family as One's rejection of the Family. Rejection has now compounded upon rejection, displacing the natural condition of acceptance. Now rejection becomes the dominant pattern of the family relationship, and the condition of acceptance is lost, becoming only an unfulfilled longing, a nameless ghost that haunts One's image of the Family. Despite its unnaturalness, rejection becomes the only pattern that One knows. One has accepted the condition of rejection.

Once accepting the condition of rejection, One begins to act in the role of the rejected. One may, consciously or unconsciously, adopt stances and mannerisms that contradict the norms of the Family. In a working class family, One may adopt a stance of affected erudition. In an intellectual family, One may become averse to school and learning. In an abstinent family, One may carry out hedonistic indulgences. In a family rife with addictions, one may become vehemently abstinent. The particulars of opposition don't matter. They may, in an immediate sense, be damaging or beneficial, but the deepest act of self-harm was already present: It is the acceptance of the condition of rejection.

As One acts in the role of the rejected, One begins to give concrete form to rejection. The Family can use the acts of opposition to justify its rejection. The Family can now claim that the rejection originated in the rejected, and can relieve itself of the responsibility for the rejection. The Family devolves responsibility onto the rejected. One is blamed for One's own rejection.

As rejection and blame compound upon themselves, the Family may enter a condition wherein One becomes so rejected and blamed, and has become a repository of so much negative judgment, and has undertaken such powerful acts of opposition, that One becomes the alien other. The alien other is so completely rejected and detached from the Family that it is not even conceived of as human, let alone as a member of the Family. In the condition of the alien other, One becomes a receptacle of projection for the dark matter of the Family. In whatever way the Family has defined itself, the alien other is defined as the opposite. A family that creates for itself a strong mythic identity must, in the process, reject whatever is outside that identity. This rejected material becomes incorporated as the Family Shadow. Values, religion, politics, philosophy, language, all find their opposites embodied in the alien other. As One has accepted the role of the rejected, One becomes complicit in One's own construction as the alien other, accepting the projections and judgments of the Family. One has become the incarnation of the Shadow of the Family. One has become the avatar of the Devil.

The identity of a family is crafted in story. At gatherings, the Family retells old stories that are well known to all members, in an act that does not convey information, but affirms identity. Stories both reflect and construct the characters of the Family members. As One evolves from the rejected family member to the alien other, and One becomes the recipient of the shadow material of the Family, the stories surrounding One begin to reinforce that image. In the mythology of the Family, One has become the archetype of the Family Shadow: The Black Sheep.

Like all mythological images, the Black Sheep is charged with meaning at multiple levels. Superficially, it stands for a member of an otherwise strongly homogeneous group that nevertheless stands apart from the group. There are well-known psychological studies that explore the Black Sheep as a metaphor for group identity, and the threat posed to group identity by an insider who rejects the group identity –  a threat that is greater even than that of  outsiders who reject the group identity. At other mythological levels, the sheep is Black because it is the recipient of the Shadow; It is the obscure, unknown, and incomprehensible alien other. It is a Sheep because it is a Sacrifice.

The Sacrifice of the Black Sheep is the next phase in One's development within the Family. One is cut off, One is sent away or moves away, One is unwelcome, One is disinherited and disowned. The Sacrifice of the Black Sheep is, initially and superficially, gratifying to the Family. Having become the recipient of all of the Family's negative energy and judgments, the Sheep is burned, and the Family is thereby cleansed and purified. But this satisfaction is not naturally enduring, because the negative contents of the Family were not really disposed of through the mechanism of projection and sacrifice. The negative contents originated in the Family, and continue to reside there. They will emerge again. But it is possible for the Family to remain in a state of contentment after the Sacrifice of the Black Sheep, if the Family can maintain a sufficient barrier of denial to reinforce its mythic identity. However, such a family is prevented, by that very barrier of denial, from healthy and meaningful growth. The Sacrifice is comforting, but also crippling.

The Sacrifice of the Black Sheep is a loss to the Family as well as to the Black Sheep. The Black Sheep loses its natural connection to the Family, and lives isolated except to the extent that One can create a new family of One's own and strive to interrupt the cycles of rejection and alienation that have characterized One's birth family. But the Family has lost more than a member. For in the Shadow resides content that is invaluable to the growth and depth of the Family. Without it, the Family cannot grow, and is ensnared in a condition of arrested development. For this reason, Jung teaches that in the cave of the Shadow, there is a terrible dragon, but also a treasure of great value. Among the qualities rejected by the Family as it defined its identity are those that are necessary for growth and development. For what is growth but to become what one was not? Growth requires acceptance of what has been formerly rejected. A family that has highly conservative values may find itself bound and restricted by its own conservatism, and may be unable to progress to an improved situation without the ability to tolerate difference. A family that has extremely tolerant values may find itself persistently harmed because, without some level of discrimination, it accepts the unacceptable. Where will the conservative family find the tolerance it needs to grow, and where will the tolerant family find the rigidity it needs to protect itself? Where has that gone that the Family decided not to be then, but that it needs to become what it needs to be now? It has been projected into the shadow. If the Family has committed the Sacrifice of the Black Sheep, it is burned and gone forever. The Family is bound like a tree with its branches in the earth.

The alternative to the Sacrifice of the Black Sheep is the discipline of acceptance. As a human being needs to embrace the shadow in order to grow, and in order to avoid being ruled by its distorted manifestations, so must a family. Acceptance, tolerance, love, and forgiveness are the attitudes we need to embrace the Shadow in ourselves and in our families. For This One or That One, the time may be too late – the alienation too complete, the Sacrifice already made. In that case, One can only proceed with diligence to interrupt, rather than perpetuate, the generational cycles of rejection. One can also pronounce and name the Sacrifice within One's birth family – a pronouncement that, by the same mechanisms that gave rise to the Black Sheep in the first place, is almost certain to be rejected – but which nevertheless at least allows One the authentic completion that comes with speaking the truth.

In the best of circumstances, we may recognize the process before it runs away with a member of the Family. We may change rejection to acceptance, blame to forgiveness, wounding to healing. But do we have the strength, the courage, and the discipline to embrace our Shadow and change the course of our lives? The dragon is fierce, but the treasure is of great value.