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Norman
Allan : the story
book two: secrets |
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| Chapter
1: Maybe Cynthia Chapter
6: the substance of life and painting the city Chapter 2: Past Lifes Chapter 7: Three Portraits of Lucky Chapter 3: Stoner Chapter 8: Creep Chapter:4: the Sacred Chapter 9:The Psychic Lover Chapter 5: Spring 2015 Chapter: 10: the Devil's Story |
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Chapter 2: the past life story (1)
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| In
the last chapter,
when we released the constriction in Maybe Cynthia's gut, that was cranio
sacral stuff, and cranial 's part of my "past life" tale
too. Craniosacral? I first heard of the term at the interdisciplinary seminars a Doctor Brian (2) organised once a month, in the Croft Meeting House! This would be some time in the second half of the nineteen eighties. |
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The Croft had been the chemistry lab at the UofT, and the roof was conical so that if an explosion occurred in the lab the roof would simply be blown off (allowing the blast to vent) - and it worked! The roof was blown off twice! |
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At
one of these interdisciplinary gathering… of
course, I was there because of Pomeranz… I heard a nurse (or
physio?) describing how, with a patient who has suffered neck trauma/whiplash,
holding the patient's head, you might "follow" the spontaneous
movements in their neck allowing the body to unwind and release the "energies"
trapped in the tissues… (tell you more later) In
the early 1990s I was drawn to cranio work and I dove in deep. The last
module (of four, back then), the Advanced, was with John Upledger himself.
Very intense, the work, and John. All day long - the work. At the end of the second long intense day, Upledger said that he was curious, having noticed that I was often holding my hand in front of my mouth as I spoke. What was that about? "I think we should do a past life regression with you tomorrow and find out." Trepidation. What would we find? I feared that "in another life" I may have said things, spilt secrets, with dire consequences for some… Ah, but do I even believe in this stuff and… I'm not a great believer in past lives, but I can suspend disbelief. Indeed, much of CranioSacral for me, with it's subtle movements and "energies", is an exercise in riding the waves of intuition in such a suspension… but I'm a skeptic too. Yeah, let me tell you the story of the T.A. (training assistant) from Dallas in the prior module, the third Cranio module: they called that "SomatoEmotional Release", Upledger's term for the unwinding release described (above). At the SER module were there 50 (or a 100) students, 10 (or 20) T.A.s? Each day we were put into groups of five students, and assigned a trainer. One of the training assistants, a lady from Dallas - let's call her Dalla - was very enthusiastic about "rebirthing". She and her group were frequently sliding their "patient" from the table and guiding them to the floor to reenact the birth experience! It can be therapeutic, they say. But… |
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But
the trick with couselling, with psychoanalysis, with CranioSacral, with
all these sorts of therapy is for the facilitator to "project"
as little of their own agenda onto the proceedings as possible, to leave
all one can in the hands of the patient and their subconscious. (One
can't completely avoid "projecting". I do my best, and try
to bring our attention to that phenomenon, projection, when I'm aware
it may be in the offing (3) |
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| "It's
out here," I said, "sort of," indicating the space before
and above me. "Where is it in your body? Feeling are in the body." "It's out…" "Look! It's somewhere in your body!" Dalla insisted. I took myself away from Dalla, as it were. Indeed, brought myself inside myself, and sighed, "Om nama Shivia." (I was into a Hindu guru at this time.) |
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 With
this, Phil, our assigned T.A., who was at my feet, holding a foot, asked,
"Do you know Babaji?""Yes," I said. Now I was thinking of crazy Haidakhan Baba, while Phil, I learned later, was referring to Baba Hari Dar (who would later be a dear, if not close, teacher of mine), but this was of no consequence. |
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 "Go
to Baba," Phil counselled. And, by God, I did. As it were, my crown
chakra opened. I was flooded by a blinding light. And I was elated. I
sat up, abruptly, beaming. I felt as though I was a third again as large
as my body. (I didn't fit in it. I was expanded beyond it.) And I walked
from the hall to the beach (the seminar was at a
Hotel, in Jupiter, near the Institute), took off my socks, and
stood in the Atlantic under a warm Florida winter's clear night sky.And what does this tell us? Little more then that ecstasy is possible. Oh, and beware of bossy fascilitators. |
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Past life. I remember the "past life" fragments clearly, but not the "regression" procedure, though I'm going to pretend I do. Did Upledger do the guiding? "Imagine yourself as you were at twenty years old." A short pause to allow this, but not too long so as to wander. "At ten years old." At seven, at five… in the womb at term, at five months. At conception. And in the dark, before conception. And there left hanging. |
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| We
were escorting Jews through and out of a small Czech town. A muddy road.
The parade, the march of Jews we herded, what five six abreast. A bit
of a straggle. A round little man in tatty clothes, to my left - I was
to the right of this herd, rifle in hand - was trying to get my attention
in his pigeon German (Yiddish) - his wife was suffering, finding it hard…
With a brisk jab of butt of my rifle, I struck him! (head? shoulder?) And I was horrified with myself. (I was young. Early twenties.) The scene changes abruptly. I was in a dug-out earth work. A large room. I, Norman, knew that he, me… (I don't actually know his name. I sometimes think of him as Hans. I believe he, I, came from a military family. Prussian?) I, he had deserted the Wehrmacht. I had joined the resistance. Yes, there was a German resistance. I had been caught, somewhere in Poland, and I was being tortured. They had just put out one of my eyes, with a bayonet. I laughed. How stupid they were to think I would give them what the wanted after that. And I think I spoke all this aloud, described it to the group, in Florida. And it felt to me like I was inventing, just telling a story. Though I could see the folk in Czechoslovakia, though I was in the dim lit dug-out room in Poland, it felt like I was contriving a story. "It's often like," said Upledger. |
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Do I think
that this "past life" was real? that in my last lifetime I
was this soldier? I have no way of knowing. It could more easily be
explained as a fantasy I've generated to rationalise why I find it so
costly to keep secrets. Secrets like Jillian Jones, at University with
me back in the early sixties, who confessed that she liked to be on
top in sex, in control. (5)
That was a big dark secret for her, back then, and I held it sacred,
for decades, till it didn't matter. Oh, and patients of mine, their
confidences are sacred. But if it doesn't need keeping… |
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| I
should mention that I'm not a follower of Nityananda, knowledgeable and
powerful though he is. I'm turned off by what I judge to be his narcissism.
My Buddhist teacher, Philip, was/is humble. Oh, there was a personality
there (sometimes a little gauche), but very little "ego". And
our biblical Jesus had simplicity as well as prowess: "Oh what a
friend…" as they says. I went to a grand meeting, with Teresa, when the satguru visited here in Toronto, a decade back. I don't remember it well. But yes, Nityananda, Swamiji, had an aura of power, of energy, charisma, like Mick Jagger I thought. And I went with Teresa another time to meeting with one of Swamiji's lieutenants. At the end of the meeting there was a long line up to receive a "blessing." "Why not?" The subguru put his thumb against my "third eye": and I was transported. It was bliss, but it wasn't somehow mine. And I've not pursued this sect. Hmm? Is that a self denial? Jealousy? Maybe. I think I just can't hack his style. Ah, but there is a least one jewel I've garnered from Nityananda.. Teresa lent me one of Nityananda's many books. On the second page he speaks of the word, the term, "ananda". Oh but first, I'd like to give this a particular context. Philip Starkman told how, early in his seeking, he had spent 18 months in bliss, in ecstasy, and that ecstasy was an agitation. It was exhausting. Beyond bliss, the Buddhists say, is tranquil abiding. Nityananda explains that the word ananda literally means "that which cannot be lost or divided." And that is tranquil abiding, which is the ground of consciousness, the substance of the divine. |
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| Long
ago, early nineteen nineties, crazy Françoise, (8)
out of the blue said, "Do you remember how you used to sell water,
in the desert, in Morocco. And how, and how the buttons used to shine
on your coat." I took that to be a separate "vision" -
I felt she was referring to a European soldier's greatcoat. (9)
This conversation predates the Wehrmacht past-life regression experience.
But it might have primed it? seeded the "fantasy". This last summer I was walking in the Annex with Ezra, and we passed by Françoise twenty years on now panhandling. I gave her a "toonie". I'm usually rather "tight fisted": worried about money, but being with Ezra, whio is so generous… I offered the two dollar coin. Françoise is round, rolly-polly, swathed in many layers of cloth, jumper above whatever and whatever (even in the summer), weathered brown skin. "Is this all for me," she said beaming, childlike. It was touching. Oh, and there's another poem with Françoise, but again for the footnotes. (10) |
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| A
few years back Ezra and I were standing stoned on the Danforth one day,
and Ezra said, "I wouldn't go to see you as a Chiropractor. You don't
look healthy. You should do yogo. I'll teach you." My fee was to
bring him a spliff for each lesson. And Ez encouraged me to get high with
him for our classes - and the greatest part of those classes was "philosophy".
Our Ez is quite a philosopher. One memorable class, in his kitchen, possibly, was, "Repeat after me, "I Norman"…" "I Norman." "I am the Light. I am Shiva." .... And I'll buy that. We are the little lights of God. Extensions of the Source. (We are not "alpha and omega", the All and Everything (which is the Source and all it's extensions). Consciousness is like water (one water on the planet - one Being, one consciousness in the creation, sometimes in this vessel, sometimes in that. Sat Chit Ananda). So in this class, or another, Ez went on to say, picking up on my fear… one of my default states… I sometimes say, how if your childhood in unhappy, your default state is unhappy; and with me, too, there seems to be quiet a lot of fear. So Ez was saying, "There really is nothing to fear. We are eternal. And we have already endured and survived the worse things we could possibly image. And as he said this, I flashed back to the Wehrmacht, outside that Czech village, my body arching (where I sat), my eyes opening in awe as I "flew" there. And Ez, seeing me vanish, as it were, jumped up and grabbed me. "Come back! I'm not losing you, for God's sake!" |
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| Ezra's
philosophy is mostly very positive. Ez's God is Love, and they (should
that be capitalised "T/they") talk together every day. So I
was a little surprised, last summer, on the veranda, I was speaking of
my shame at spiking that Jew with the butt of my rifle… "Not to worry," Ezra responded. "He probably had it coming to him." Hmm? |
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| I
think that that's all I have to say about "past lives" here.
And present life? "What's happening," some might ask, "You
started Norman Allan: the story, for Ezra with TAiS:tm. (Ted
Allan in Spain: the movie) What's happening with that?" Mark, my illustrator, illuminator, is, one, taking his time, but assuring me that timing is/will be perfect, and, two, Mark is a stickler for detail and authenticity, and that takes time. For instance, TAiS:tm opens at the offices of the Daily Clarion, the Canadian communist newspaper (11) with  Ted
expecting to go to Spain as the Clarion's war correspondent, so Mark needed
(12)
to find the Daily Clarions "bannerhead", and this was
quite a quest. Finally he found that there were copies of the Clarion
in the Reference Library's archives. Would I like to go with him?"
(13)The Reference Library is so spacious. I've heard a grumbler complain about the waste of space. But it's a cathedral to literature! The archives are in the basement. And the Clarion was on microfiche! And we, Mark and I, were like excitable rowdy teenagers. Shushed twice! And the second front page that we looked at, there was Ted's bye-line! Wow. |
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TAiS:tm, the promo-package (for publishing houses: we'll canvas houses that specialise in "graphic novels", and publishing houses in Madrid and Barcelona.) is almost there, almost ready, Mark says. I've posted a trailer for the "trailer" on my website. |
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Finally I'm
ready to let go of chapter two with two poems, and with an apology that
I can't tell you more about past lives.
I remember
the journey to slaughter Ba ba black Now I'm lamb chops
ashes ten thousand
tears |
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| oh, and do visit normanallan.com : the website | |||
