swampy summer sunset dreams desires disappointments delusions discoveries

a dusk sky lit by fireflies, air thick with cicadas, crickets, and sticky wetness. an owl calls in the distance, a dog howls, and kirby and i are walking alongside a quiet road. occasionally a car whizzes by at such an incomprehensible speed in contrast to the slowness here, amplified by the molasses night. mailboxes dotting the grassy edges where the country road meets the half wild/half tamed land. being walked by a sniffing animal. finding a spot to roll and massage himself, relief all over the body. a reminder to check into mine...stiff and rigid with the tension of the day, sitting in over air-conditioned cybrary, can i soften and melt into the liquid humid air? why is my jaw tense, my shoulders frozen forward? am i remembering to breathe? i often find i am holding it. fear? 


"When traumatic events are cumulative, the pattern is engraved into our nervous systems, thus becoming the nucleus of all our strategies and compensations. Memory, encapsulated in ice, now perfectly preserved. Memory will govern from its frozen throne, particularly maintained in the entrapment of breath. After all, the message is do not move, remain invisible, the enemy is close by!" ~from Life on Land by Emilie Conrad


this habit of holding in my breath...it's young, as in old, meaning been around since i was young and now it's old, outmoded, outdated, and hard to break. keep coming back. inhale, exhale. besides the fear and intimidation in the family dynamics of childhood, a very potent memory is my mom warning me with a horror story about someone accidentally swallowing a bee that flew into their coke can and getting stung multiple times from the inside. i decided to defend myself from these deadly bee stings  by stopping, standing still, holding my breath for as long as i could so as to go undetected. those phantom stings that had me trapped in fear were much worse than any actual sting, i'm sure. still haven't been stung yet i can be very relaxed and conversant with a bee these days. 


i am so glad to stay out here on this land. the two horses are amazing. i went out to say hello, pony and horse, and the older came over, warm big body touching mine...waiting for me to climb on? or touch? or feed? or just say hello. i wanted to know and not knowing took me over in an embrace. she seemed to like it. how healing to have this 8 and 1/2 pound heart beating near mine. it calmed my anxious disappointment. sinking in, the frustration, the loneliness, letting it enter me and feed me, then overwhelm me with its lovingness. teaching Nia with that stirred up energy in me was a perfect practice, and i allowed it to shape the class focus: allowing, feeling, and expressing and releasing the emotions...but i was also moving into head space during the dance, which came out as a glitchy twitchy confused choreography that my student (only 1!) didn't notice. as long as i keep moving i guess it doesn't matter if i know the steps are technically "wrong." the ending was an elixir for the heart, sounding and squirming as if embryonic, lying on back, sides, stomach, nurturing the self. dramatizing hurt feelings with whiny wailing sounds interrupted by laughter at my ever-romantic lalaland of a life i live in my head. semi-confirmed by the enneagram. my absurd tendency to fall in love with an idea and live it out in my daydreams rather than risk the lived reality of it. relationships in my head are safer, less vulnerable than in the flesh.

i picked up this book as bedtime reading at my housesitting gig: Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery and it has me riveted. i was sure, sure from reading the book that my type is a number 4: the Individualist...until i got to the final type covered, number 1: the reformer....uh oh. i read the pages with dread...still reading.


i attended a workshop in february on the enneagram personality system and what the trainer said that day about 4 resonated but i wasn't positive. and now reading the detailed description of each type in the book i am unsure between the 4 and 1. i remember the trainer describing her experience being convinced she was a 3 for many years until realizing with great horror that she was actually an 8...i think this may what be happening. i want to be a 4 (more romantic) and it's painful to recognize so much cruelty of the one in me. a lot of my dad in me, is another way to say it. of course, there is a spectrum for all types and self-awareness brings out the healthiest aspects of each, none is all good or bad. 


the enneagram is so powerful and much more instructive than some of the other systems i've encountered because it isn't just a description of the psyche but offers insight into the subconscious drive that motivates our habits, actions, reactions and can help us become aware of unhealthy patterns that arise from core beliefs associated with our type. As the workshop blurb put it: "The Enneagram Personality System offers a map of nine personality types, their perspectives and blind spots and the direction for individual growth and transformation. Life is a journey to the divine heart and we have different paths and specific barriers depending on our personality type."  In other words, Enneagram illuminates what is hidden in us--not focusing on our preferences but the motivation behind them of which we may not be conscious.


found some info about a tritype. this offers that instead of just being 1 core type we have one dominant and 2 subtypes one from each center (heart, head, gut). in that case i could be a 1-4-_ or a 4-1-_ not sure which gut type...none of them ring true. maybe the 5.


the fact that i am expending time and energy trying to solve the mystery of me is BIG evidence that i am, indeed, a 4: 

Type 4: the Romantic (different authors use different names to categorize)
World View: Something's missing. Others have it. I'm different from them because I don't.
Basic Desire: to understand self
Basic Fear: of being defective






 and then there's

Type 1: the Reformer

World View: The world is an imperfect  place. I work toward improvements 

Basic Desire: to be right 

Basic Fear: of being condemned

here it is 4 that feels right
see: http://www.9types.com/
  


thanks for indulging in 4's self-absorption