A Peace with Trauma

Whether based on genetic, familial, racial, historical, chemical, occupational, or age variable, the traumas realized by 100% of human life forms, in it's formative consequential effects, seem to find resolution in perhaps, a similar fashion to our varied immunity response to virus. 

All peoples from birth are at some moment shaken in our core by sudden change. Change in understanding our wholely unique internal status quo. Like sickness, an infant nightmare, a sudden fall, a break, an unreasonable challenge, temperature, hunger, thirst, or violence, trauma can effect us in so many infinitely personal ways, some unfortunately devestating. Yet as with viral microscopic attacks to our physical being, we each bare varying abilities for immune survival response and an avenue toward better understanding our internal response to traumatic events. 

Beat it, Bury it or Befriend it, at all cost, though each have a price and hopefully payoff. 

Opening to your own self discovery is the cost. The cost for building immunity and the sometimes monumentally important, potentially painful adventure to recovery or at the least tolerance.

Either to another's holy trust or out to the universe by a lonely fire or screaming to the howling winds, you must open the obstructions to free your psychological pipes.

There are steps it seems for resolution to both simple and complex trauma. I leave those complex methods to far better educated and well paid resources than I. 

My own observation and ultimately peace with my own disquieting events have now turned 58 years old. 

I have had many things about myself to discover over time. I have found tools to weaken those traumatic footholds to the many levels of my doubt and fear. Some obvious and others long held and well hidden. 

Some useful methods for taking trauma to task, I have found particularly useful. 

Love yourself enough to forgive. 

Forgive yourself most of all and escape what cycled through your past. 

Forgive others for the cycles they road over and through you. 

Connect to internal and/or external higher power for release and relief. 

Get physical. Eat better, sleep better, work and work out. 

Get outside and build up your inventory of positive moments. 

Don't over do self pity, but Do something! Find your vent. I promise change will follow.  

Support each other. Not with blind approval of every action but like a sports fan who wants their team to win with complete acceptance of each individuals incremental efforts forward.

Faith and positive regard have no negative effect on recovery, that I have ever seen. Have some faith. Faith in yourself and faith in others that, over what time is needed, each of us will navigate to ever calmer seas. 

I have written this for the many I know still looking for relief and the many more for their apparent healthy progress. I am a fan. You are loved. Carry on.

-Hermit King-

Gethsemane

Verily, I have sought to shroud my soul in the mists of seers and scribes, but this eve, I feel the urge to cast aside such gauze and speak with forthright honesty, my soul laid bare.

It has been a harsh lesson that my own arrogance and wrath have cast me in a cage of my own making. I have forsaken a life I cherished, a life I fled for fear of living.

I have razed bridges and abandoned those who trusted me, leaving them to fill the void in the wake of my broken promises.

I strayed from my path and tumbled into a despair that threatened to rob me of all meaning and leave me a shame upon those I held dear.

I wielded the lance inwards, thinking only of my own pain and ignoring the hurt of others.

I offered counsel to the suffering, yet in that moment of clarity, I vowed to take my own advice, to give it one more day, to fight on.

And then love came, like a beacon in the night, as children reminded me of the greater purpose of life, not just the mere act of existing.

In that fateful moment, I awoke, and I saw how richly blessed I truly am, even in the face of poverty and fear.

For hundreds of thousands risk all for a chance at the hope that I take for granted, while millions more suffer beyond the reach of salvation.

If I were to lose all this night, I would still have known more than most, for I have a roof, fresh water, a bed, food, and most of all, the love and care of those near and far.

I am made whole and renewed by this love, purged of all disappointment, and ready to take my stand in a world that seems torn asunder.

The night winds sing me to the sunrise, guiding me to a destiny held in the hands of my people.

And so I say, all shall be well, for the lance is down, and the dawning of a new day beckons.

-Hermit King-

https://open.spotify.com/track/1N0HmlJP6dRLXGE71Kgc8m?si=_bM16AMCSjaCZP0XHDEKjw

Gender Open

Without diving too deeply into the myriad of freshly identified and ever expanding tidal pool of human gender deliniations filling the cups of scientific journals and dictionaries these past several years, I am most firmly convinced my golf game is completely genderless.

But for the extra body hair, sperm count, and XY chromasome chaser, gender neutral seems presently, the perfect slot for my confusing golfing game. No one more than my, very manly, full on XY, macho savage, long ball hitter son, gives me more reason to suspect my golf games likely gender fluidity.

My catlike ability to attack the green, with all hardware from the Driver to the putter is my calling card (literally, have you seen the flayling paws of a kitten attempt to even try to properly hold a pitching wedge), likely why the muffled background noises catching the breeze in a snickering fade upon result of my swing seem to reference the metaphor (*pussssaaaayyyyy)

The larger scraps of fairway tossed or timid nibbling at a clubstrikes requirement is too often, in footage, equaled by a stunningly similar forward projection in spectacular inches. I see in those dire strikes a form of humiliating links homage to the millimeter metric system of this lovely sports damp Scottish home.

I realize now that I am not a fully male golfer. Not to say those of alternate chromasome cant wack the shite out of balls correctly (from the ladies tee of course) but my game can not any more identify as being manly. I have joined the golf swing genderless. I dont seem to sport enough testosterone to turn compressed man rage into a spinning Krakatoa sand blast or enough of that controlled estrogen laser focused tidal fury to slap n tap that white, pink or blue ball to where "I Must Have It Go!"

I can only now identify as a Caddie! I can no longer drive the cart without confusion and shame. I must walk the course marshalling alone or except whatever (unique/eunic), handsome, course drink vendor, destiny awaits me, should I continue connection to the holy green. My clubs are now literally "they" and "them", I am a Siswedging Pandriver? Lost, yes lost across the green and swimming once more. Topped it again, Dammit!

-Hermit King-

Modesty

Men, first of all trying to control what a woman wears is like trying to control how much it rains. I for one and among many men think beautiful woman in any state of clothed, or barely such, are simply a testament to the good judgement of a truly divine intelligence. Leaving the whole man woman thing simply up to pheromones, I suggest mankind would still be working it’s way out of the Sudan. The secret to being a good man isn’t complete ignorance of the fine physical attributes of what is truly beautiful, it’s controlling your mind not to overzealously dwell on that which potentially knocks your socks off. Angelina Jolie is a strikingly attractive human being, but I don’t spend any amount of time fantasizing about being with her. Primarily because she is completely unattainable but secondarily it does my soul no good to waste precious time demeaning her with sexually charged thoughts when in reality I simply demean myself. If men were perfect in this (and weather permitted), women could walk the whole wide world wearing nothing but skin. Sadly on the whole we men are not perfect so anything you ladies can do to help keep us on track just benefits society at large. I’m not talking burka, but it’s good to keep us guessing as well as keep us interested. Ladies never stop being women just because some lads can’t handle being men

Toddler to Teen Tips

Its not about keeping them safe in all possible ways more than helping them learn how to negotiate the unsafe in as many ways possible.

Unless its a predetermined immediate danger, the word (Now!) should find scarcer use if always prefaced by a patient timer in agreement of expectation, having appropriate consequence and follow through.

(No!) Can be desensitizing if over abused, reserved for true danger, and explained with age aware understanding, it can truly save lives.

Project more questions and options for the unknowns in them rather than the often too ready answers known in you.

Praise personal pride of performance over preaching projected perfection. Excellence is a big bang expansion of a singularity in the soul. It cannot be injected and expected, just promoted and appreciated.

Always reserve a ready eye to teach with story, play and song. Texts and tweets can more often wait than missed opportunity to grow greatness, intelligence and bond.

I find the passive physical is loves best instructor. They will learn less to fear of life, if touch is left to the calm of need and choice.
The active and engaged mental is disciplines best. They will love much more of word and wisdom, if your wisdom is built on deeply having heard the meaning of every said and unsaid word.

-Hermit King-

The Barber of Leavinworth

I met the Devil this Memorial Day. The Devil’s real name is Gator. At the bottom of an intersection to the high road trails of Sawyer Park, above the beautiful Deschutes River in Bend, Oregon.

I had just come down from the silent rises above one of the hidden gems in a string of this exquisite river’s brilliantly twisting vista parkway trails. Gator is striking. He has the abrupt visual of Liam Neeson, if Liam were 71, homeless, had spent over 40 years imprisoned, murdered his own father, served in Vietnam, fatalistically accepted his MS, barely supported two prominent bottom fangs, and was bucket-list marching to Coos Bay, OR, from Detroit, MI, along the Veterans Highway.

I asked Gator—no, told Gator—I felt I needed to speak to him. With one eye flashing and the other glaring into the void behind a very black knit patch, Gator invited me in.
I took a photo of him (with permission) and a photo of his mesmerizing cane. Gator’s very light cane, which he offered to me, was capped by a hardened, polished sculpture of a grizzly bear. Below that was a silver dream catcher, bear footprints, two hanging bangles of significance only to him, and a final silver placard dedicated to his former slave master, Jack Daniels.

Gator had barbered in three prisons during his very long, perceptionally distinguished career: Marionville, Leavenworth, and retired with perceived distinction from Colorado’s Supermax. Gator fearlessly called the Teflon Don “a little fuckin’ wop” because John Gotti liked the way Gator shaped his cut.

Gator’s next brush with horrific celebrity was a long-time customer who regaled Gator with untold memories of his madness and sanguine glory days. Gator proudly gave this customer, Ted Bundy, his final buzz cut prior to the ending of his last appeal with the reaper and a striking veiled woman in red, whom Gator swears pushed the button releasing Bundy to hell.
Gator’s only words were “Good riddance.” Gator had no use for those who took the innocent.

Gator was brutal in his recounting of one customer, and by the way he spoke, perhaps physically as well. Timothy McVeigh was an idiot little brother whose hero-worship of his older brother’s politics led “that retard” into parking a van out front of a daycare, proximal to a federal target, rather than the heart of the also-devastated Murrah FBI building. Gator is a huge Jesse James fan but likened McVeigh’s useless destruction to “that punk Billy Bonnie,” a lesser god in Gator’s twisted pantheon of brutality’s hierarchy.
Gator never gave “that pissant” McVeigh a good cut until the end. Not sure what he meant by that, but Gator’s venom knows a special, fearsome resolve for the injurious murderers of children.

Gator’s most derelict antihero was a con he just called Rick. Rick’s insistent need for respect, as he interpreted it, became the foreshadowing of Rick’s dispute with a guard. Gator soft-cackled, “Rick hated that asshole.” With the solemnity and honesty of a true psychopath, Rick found a way to behead said guard and plop the grizzly, bagged gift onto the warden’s desk. It took a dozen guards to walk Rick into solitary. Rick may still be there. Gator cackled loud, “Gotti, Bundy, McVeigh were all pussies—Rick was a Max God.” Gator swears he was asked to close the door when the guards brought Rick to the solitary cellblock. None of the guards had the stones. Not certain if Gator’s given name was or was not Rick. By the way he barked this delightful recollection, it appeared to be a more personal memory.

Gator doesn’t believe in God but is thoroughly convinced the devil is a woman. Gator believes this more because Jesus had to have an opposite angel fallen to earth. A yin-yang deity to buffer the biblical Jehovah. Gator’s not religious, though. After all, Gator doesn’t believe in God.
He does believe in visitors from the cosmos. He feels the ancient gods were very real and have kept pace with humanity from the very start. Gator received a master’s in psychology while in prison. Who am I to say what may or may not be history? According to Gator, the greatest discoveries of mankind (assisted by aliens) have yet to be realized. Gator is a very deep and intellectual man.

Several civilized members of the local jogging and dog-walking community timidly passed by our park bench, where two hard-looking older men had let down their guard and found a bond devoid of similarity in each other’s company. A yin-yang moment of random happenstance at the base of the high trail to the Deschutes River.

I felt I had truly met a witness to history, a man devoid of the need to lie (though not above embellishment), and a servant to a brutal life I could only glimpse from a distance, through the serious singular eye of a devil named Gator. The barber of Leavenworth. A man.

—Hermit King--

https://open.spotify.com/track/5Yql4ooghbDqwXIvCGXsdx?si=fg63E_DJSEa2EZIqqKE1QQ

I Pod Child

Sometimes we are gifted only moments to retask the dials of behavior on the beautiful task that is our child and charge.

Tuning correctly requires the deepest attempts at concentration and the wisest touch. 

Like teaching a lion to bark, a parrot to play soccer, or pitbull to surf it's all about our patience to discover the fantastical medicinal joy of our childs proper higher frequency.

Then, having earned the right of an open, frightened human mammal to, with gentle hand and word, move the dial and retune.

We must be confident the stations we seek to bring into better focus are truly valid avenues to our childs pause, rise, and track to gain. 

Finally, when we think my child, my child is each one beside me and sometimes we are gifted only moments.

-Hermit King-