Be Anders Hall

Day 1573 – Day 1607

It has been some time since I’ve posted.  Just after I posted in December, I fell ill.  I figured it was the flu.  But it turns out that I had an internal infection brought on by food sensitivity.  I am beginning an elimination diet of basically almost everything that I regularly eat (except for kale, rather unfortunately).

I am hopeful that the weird symptoms that I’ve had for some time can be attributed to widespread food allergies.  I had a friend who was a brilliant mathematician, and actually, a genius.  I remember how his whole personality changed when he finally got the allergy testing that he needed.  He became completely lucid and focused where he had spent his whole life being told, by his parents, that he had the attention span of a distracted butterfly.

Food is essential for our growth.  It nourishes us, but the wrong food for our system can be poison to the body and the mind.  We can condition ourselves to stomach that poison for a very long time.

Thinking about my friend now, I wonder how long it took him to undo the conditioning of being told he was not up to snuff, by parents who were distinguished professors from a lineage of famous nobel prize winners.  I imagine his confidence was greatly improved by understanding that his failings were not character flaws, but were biologically based.  It may have been more difficult to accept that the people we love can be so lacking in self awareness that they project their fears onto us, with judgments about us or the situation, that are both wrong and damaging to our self esteem.

 

I feel much better now that I’ve begun the elimination diet.  I am confident that with proper allergy testing and lifestyle adjustment, I will be back to my old self again.  And my old self is pretty great, actually.  I’m happy to feel like she is more present these days, as I’ve come out of another dark place in my life.

I feel that 2016 was a shock of a year.  It ended with emotional trauma and I walked through 2017 like a zombie in a PTSD haze.  Just as I was beginning to recover, the trauma was perpetrated again – only in a more sinister way, the second time.  In the background, old family dynamics have been a challenge as well as the well documented difficulty most people face with trying to make repatriation a successful transition – particularly given that I’ve been away for over 20 years, I am single, I work alone but without the freedom to set my own schedule, and I live in a town where opportunity is scarce and whose culture is the opposite to my liberal mindset.  I do this, in order to spend time with my aging family.

Late last year, I started to feel like I was recovering.  Fulfilling a lifelong dream of growing my own organic food, in the tradition of my ancestors, helped.  But, forgiveness was a big part of it.  I don’t recommend forcing forgiveness before one feels willing, but when that point is reached, it can be transformative.

With forgiveness, we stop placing our focus on the other person, and letting ourselves be drained by the negative energy of the wrong that has been done to us.  We don’t necessarily condone the wrong, but we take our focus and energy away from it.  We take back our power.

Power –  including personal power – is a difficult idea for me.  It is probably one of the major lessons I have to grapple with in this lifetime.  I’m humble and I don’t know if this is an innate trait to be admired or whether it is unhelpful conditioning.  I was taught not to be proud and – as crazy as it may sound to tell a child – that I could never stand on my own two feet.  From early childhood, my conditioning has been that I will never be enough and the message continues to be repeated in my family of origin, to this day, despite all evidence to the contrary.

I saw some old friends over the holidays.  Some have been friends for nearly 30 years.  We know the arc of one another’s life story and we’ve seen our patterns re-appear.  We know what makes the other special, and where we fall down.  They all agree that although I’m not where I’d like to be in my life, they can see the powerful woman they know and love.

Her spark is returning and I’m looking forward to 2019.

Next week, a the Nordic folk band – SVER – will be performing in my city and I’ve invited my friends to join me.  I was introduced to their music last year, at the Bellingham Folk Festival.

I was a very novice percussionist at the time and while all the musicians in the band are the top of their field, I was particularly taken by the viola/fiddle player, Anders Hall.   His fiddle and viola music moves me – to dance, to swoon, and to cry.  I don’t play the fiddle, so I couldn’t attend his workshops.  But I really wanted to.  Though there is value to studying a particular style of playing or a particular instrument, there is great value in simply learning about someone we admire and how they approach their art.  (Fortunately, after writing this post, I found an interview with Anders Hall by Neil Pearlman at Trad Cafe)

I am grateful to have encountered Mr. Hall and to have the opportunity to see him perform again.   I see in him is a confidence, a virtuosity, and a playful, mischievous magnetism that radiates from within.   I know nothing about the man, or what his life has been like, but I recognize his spirit and I see a spark that I know that I also have within me.  It has nearly been extinguished, through life’s experiences and conditioning, but it is still there.

Many women who admire male performers are experiencing a form of delusional amorous projection.  There is no denying that all of the qualities I admire in him add up to a delightful attractiveness in Mr. Hall.  But he is young enough to be my son, and I am fully aware that I am projecting positive qualities onto him.  My wish is not to bed him.

I want to BE him.

I don’t mean in a “Being John Malkovich” way, and I don’t mean I want to be a virtuoso of the fiddle and viola – I haven’t the talent or the time left on this planet to achieve that.  But I do want to claim those positive traits that I so delight in, when I see them in someone else – in this case – Anders Hall.  I want to be the virtuoso of my own unique gifts and to fulfill my purpose here on this planet, with focus, joy, and confidence and to share those gifts with others of a like mind.   Having appreciation and reverence for my gifts and using them to build a meaningful life,  on my own terms, is not selfish or deluded.  I have come to believe that it if there is any reason for our time on earth, it is this.

I want to reclaim my sense of attractiveness and attraction.  Years ago, I was sexually assaulted, and the system failed me, as it fails many survivors.  The last man I loved knew about this, and he ended up projecting his sexual confusion onto me, leaving me feeling undesirable and to blame for his lies, indiscretion, and exploitation.  That’s irresponsible nonsense, but as we know, other people’s projections can be poison, as much – or usually, more – than they end up being food for thought.  Maybe I had conditioned myself to believe that I needed to feel undesirable, in order to feel ‘safe’ in this world, but I don’t need to own that idea anymore.   Personal power, not ‘playing small’ is a far healthier choice – in all areas of my life.

We can’t undo what was done to us in life, but we can choose to undo the conditioning that consciously and unconsciously controls our life.  I’m choosing to take back my power – with lightness and play.  To me, magnetism and virtuosity has nothing to do with great technical skills and being the tall, blonde, 20-something model of the advertising industry.  It has to do with being true to oneself and sharing that whole self with others, to joyfully live one’s purpose with delight and total, unwavering confidence.

Think: Queen Latifah.  Think:  Mick Jagger.  Think: Anders Hall.

I’ve done decades of work on my shadow self, to own, rather than to project it onto others.  For me, 2019 is about working with owning my positive projections.  I want to more fully and consciously accept the positive traits I cannot yet own, and which, in this moment, are still projected onto others.

In the Buddhist and Hindu traditions, working with a mantra helps to focus the mind on the soul, and to escape the pull of  ‘samskaras’ or conditioned patterns that often remain beneath conscious awareness and end up as disowned projections and karmas.  “Hai Ram” was Ghandi’s mantra, and “Hare Krishna” was the mantra of George Harrison and both men repeated their mantra as a reminder of their immortal Self, right to the moment of death, in order to break free of their karmas.

When planning our trip to see SVER perform, my friends and I talked about the musicianship of the band and about the special appeal of that mischievous and confident fiddle and viola player.  With the impish and playful reverence I seek to cultivate, my friends and I agree that for me to become re-acquainted and comfortable with my personal power, my unique virtuosity, my playful sexual energy and my magnetic charm….for 2019, there is perhaps no better personal mantra than:

“BE Anders Hall.”

 

 

For what are you most grateful, as we begin the new year?