There is a wonderful paradox in going on a fishing trip with a group of men. So much energy goes into fishing which is symbolic of delving into the unconconcious. Yet so much resistance to actually learning anything. The alcoholic drowning that takes place seems an attempt to shut feelings down suggesting that there is a tremendous amount of energy that is captured during sobriety that has no outlet. There is no learning that goes on when drinking suggesting the only learning can come from keeping the opposites in tension and not releasing the tension artifically through drinking. So the fishing for "unconscious material" is in the ritual of casting into the water but there is no preparation for the ritual so the ritual becomes meaningless.
There is also the risk of violence particularly as men drink. The violence is emotional rather than physical but can turn physical. This is all in the absence of the mother as if in protest to the mother. We act like dogs more domesticated at home and wild when our wives aren't around. There is the odor of destruction with all the drinking and smoking and farting as if the mortificatio is serving some purpose. Maybe there is a misguided attempt to move to a feeling level but there is no mechanism for it and alcohol interfers with this movement rather than facilitating it. Perhaps we feel dead in the day to day workings of our lives, our domestic lives and we need to smoke and drink and fart to know we are alive.
I found myself, in the middle of this testosterone bath baking bread for several hours as in a frenzy. There seems to be some compensation there. The bread making is both feminine in nature and alchemical. It is time contained. You cannot rush through the process and there are no shortcuts. Perhaps the shortcut in drinking alcohol brings us to bliss but not by way of meditation. The breadmaking is feminine also because it is maternal, it comes from the mother realm, the realm of feeding and nourishment. The bread expands as in pregnancy. In alchemy it is both the process of sublimatio (expansion of air and "rising") and coagulatio becuase it is very earthbound. Earthbound and airbound at the same time. paradoxical. Fishing is time bound and requires patience. No shortcuts there either. Have to put in the time. Cardplaying is very intellectual. So we have gone from drinking solutio to breadmaking coagulatio and sublimatio to cardplaying which is sublimatio and trickster energy. Where is the fire? Ah the fire was there in the pit and was very high and seemed to be required as part of the experience. We have all four elements: fire, water, earth and air.
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Interesting insights. I have similarly been sorting out my own observations and feelings about the trip.
ReplyDeleteI came determined not to damage myself with overindulgence. I decided that I was not coming to drink and eat too much, but rather I was coming for a sense of connection to other men, some of whom I am closer to than any others.
Every time I saw someone damaging himself, I made a conscious choice to tend to myself. Sometimes I made a cup of tea. Once I even threw on workout clothes and exercised for an hour. Like your breadmaking, I was finding ways to counterbalance the self-destruction.
It is painful to watch guys drinking to numbness and confusion, then drinking again the next morning without time to recover. I kept asking myself "Why? What is it that they don't want to feel?"
Clearly, when you allow yourself to be aware, there is something sacred and meaningful taking place in the ritual of men coming together. There were a thousand moments of care and respect and acknowledgement and love, if you want to look for them and at them.
I ate a once-in-a-lifetime sandwich made from one uncle's bread, another uncle's venison meatballs, and my father's giardiniera. It occurred to me as I ate it that the three ingredients somehow perfectly represented what each man brings to the proverbial table. Each was in a way part of who I am as a man.
Of course, as men, we cannot call out these moments. Part of the game is hiding vulnerability, acting as if our feelings are within a fortress. But I am starting to notice–especially with the older men–that these fortress walls are coming down somewhat. It is easier for them to take a moment and show care or say a kind word. And perhaps for some, the drinking makes this easier, but it would seem at quite a cost.
There was a moment when your bread was in the oven, and the cabin smelled amazing. And one of the guys waltzed through and farted proudly. I said "Dan's breaking bread. Go outside, you asshole." Now which man was more in violation of the sacred ritual? The asshole who farted, or the asshole who aspires to something more meaningful?
Good question. Perhaps neither or both. Perhaps the sacred and the profane must coexist for the tension. I am thinking the fisher king's woundedness is cause for drinking. It numbs the pain. Just as the fisher king must fish to find any respite from his suffering so our men must drink. But in the midst of that there is some healing with the tea and the bread and the potatoes and the venison and the giardiniera. And the kindnesses that abound.
ReplyDeleteApparently Steve Hearly lost a 40 inch muskie last night. He brought it to the boat three times and couldn't land it until finally it broke water and cut the line. Best we let that beast go and not try to capture it. Respect its power and keep it where it resides. It does not belong in this realm. That is where men get in trouble. Not knowing how to contain it or how to keep it where it belongs and work from its energy.
A thought on casting into the waters of the subconscious... We cannot know what goes on under the water. Yet there is constant speculation about it. I was endlessly amused by guys claiming to know how the fish were behaving and why. It's Schrödinger's cat. The fish are simultaneous eating and not eating, resting and moving, many and few, because we really cannot know what is happening under the waters. It seems folly to aspire to know. The wiser man accepts it is a mysterious journey into the unknown.
ReplyDeleteThe speculation seems like active imagination. Since we cannot know, we must be projecting our inner realm upon this seascape. Muskie lurking in the weeds, walleye suspended in the deep, bass in the lilly pads on the east side in the morning and the west at end of day. The waiting to spring onto a lure as if something is in the darkness waiting to connect with us and not let go like an anxiety disorder or acute depression, something that has as much control over us as we have over it. Or do we? It is like a complex in which the archetypal world and literal world snap into corporeality and we go for a ride, become temporarily insane, and our body shakes and we are touched so deeply it registers first in the ancient parts of our psyche and we are left with a very primitive, very dank and slimy taste and smell- something like orgasm.
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