Using the Buffalo

I have a handout from a graduate school history class that listed everything a Plains Indian made from a single buffalo. Not any part was wasted. It wasn't the first time I had heard about this, but probably the most recent. After an analysis session last week, I decided I was trying to be like a Plains Indian, too. There were many things I was trying to be like, and with this one, the buffalo was my past, and I was trying to use every bit of it.

I was trying to use what I learned in college and grad school. I was trying to use what I learned driving around Pennsylvania and reading books about the region. I was trying to use what I learned in my volunteer work for Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve and the Tree Tenders and a former Scout and Macalester alumni. I was trying to use my "life experience" as a teaching assistant and instructor, temporary employee, and counseling, therapy, and analysis client. I was trying the use my experiences as the son who came back to clean up his parents' house and figure out a way to feel okay about life, the universe, and himself while becoming financially and emotionally independent.

This all became apparent in the geography class I was teaching over the last month. I was trying to describe the history of Native American inhabitants in the region, and my ability to articulate thoughts was working hard to keep up with a mind that was remembering something from a college class, from childhood, from a recent trip through the region, from a distant trip through the region, from grad school, and from last week, when I spent all day reading internet histories of the tribes. As this was going on, I was simultaneously trying to coordinate the ideas I wanted to convey with the power point slides I had spent the rest of the day creating. Being so scattered used to seem kind of fun and daring. Herding the thoughts seemed like an expression of skill. But it all seems a little child-like in a way that maybe needs to be adult first. It also kind of like walking a dog you can't control - or maybe taking a sugar-hyped kid to the mall after he's been watching cartoons and advertisements all morning. Sooner or later, it gets into something that causes you embarrassment or trouble. Or at least feels like it did.

I've been mulling over the alternative to being so "anything goes" with my hard work and passion. What's been formulating along these lines is a new way of looking at commitment. I guess I've approached commitment as throwing myself at something until I broke through whatever barrier I needed to, reached whatever goal line was ahead, and I didn't really care about the consequences to others or the pleasure sharing the experience, except as it supported me and accomplished what the "important people" said I had to do. Needless to say, this was not (and still is not) a satisfying or pleasurable way to live life, though I give myself some allowances for old habits being hard to break.

What changes me in the way I approach commitment? There was one point last spring during the first census project, when I was with a my team copying information onto census forms in a nursing home, that I decided to respond to a question asked by one of my coworkers differently than I would have if I hadn't thought about how I was going to respond. I don't remember what question it was, but I hadn't been taking the work too seriously. (I should add that I nevertheless was simultaneously very anxious about doing a good job, the correct job, which was obviously what was expected in this kind of work.)

In any case, I decided to respond to the question as if what I did, no matter how simple or mundane it was, was worth responding to with a measure of self-respect and simple humility. This was how some of my co-workers seemed to be responding, and it seemed like not that bad of a thing to decide that, despite my doctoral degree and my vast interests and competencies in lots of high-falutin' stuff, it was worth treating this mundane task with a measure of respect. (I should point out that quite of few of us had advanced degrees and it made for interesting conversation while filling out those forms).

The change in attitude was quite simple and for me at least, revolutionary. I mentioned it as an aside in an analysis session later that week and didn't think much of it until a few months later, when something happened that made me think of it again, and I realized that the moment was a seed of self-respect that had been planted and was beginning to germinate, sending out roots and a few exploratory leaves.

I had articulated the idea a few months earlier - grasping it in terms of a "healthy sense of responsibility," and I think this was a conscious application of the concept I was struggling to "wrap my mind around." (It's fascinating to note that the part of the brain in humans used to "grasp" abstract concepts is the same part that other primates use to grasp things with their hands. The metaphors obviously seem to reflect a subconscious awareness of evolutionary history.)

I used to think Frank Sinatra's song "My Way" was an egregious, if somewhat sophisticated, ode of self-inflated ego. I was very surprised to see it mentioned by one of my astrology friends as a good example of a healthy understanding of the self, which was a necessary precursor to healthy relationships and effective work. Having some self-respect must be the first step to carrying forward in life on your own path without becoming a pompous, self-important ass - or a pathetic buffoon.

I think I'm used to being the lone, star performer. It's an ideal I wanted to emulate - the magician who could do it all with flash and pizazz and become well-liked and respected because of it. I can say that my early childhood career as a magician ended badly at one of my own birthday parties, when a neighborhood friend exposed my trick and ruined the performance. Another relevant memory is the part I played in an elementary school play. I was to be the north wind - I donned a thin blanket we had around the house as my cape and tried my best to be full of big air, but my lungs didn't have the heart for it. I was applauded nonetheless, and didn't do a bad job. It just felt like I was trying too hard at something I didn't believe I could do in the first place. Kind of the same way I felt after graduating college or deciding to teach a class. It takes patience and a subtle touch to work through these feelings. The right thing has to be supported, while other things have to be taken down a notch, or dismantled completely. Knowing which is which can be very confusing, especially if you take a holiday from working on it.

Astrologically, I think of my natal North Node in Gemini (rules the lungs, arms, and nervous system), a twelfth house Sun (takes work and self-understanding to shine), and Jupiter (expansion and faith) being the ruler of the south node (an old way of doing things) and also in Gemini (lungs, arms, and nervous system again), in the fifth house (the natural house of the sun - personality and creativity). Jupiter is in detriment in Gemini, and I once read (in Kevin Burke's basic astrology text) that planets in detriment (that is, a planet in a sign opposite the one it normally likes working in) often express themselves with a degree of worry over how that energy is expressed. I actually do always seem to be worrying whether I'm overstepping my bounds when I express myself.

So, self-respect tones down some of the need to be important and admired. It inspires a quiet faith in my direction in life, and in the process of getting to where I'm going, even when I stumble and bumble along the way. And as that faith becomes stronger and I act on it more confidently, I start to see some positive results and it becomes a little bit easier to align myself with the way of doing things that seems right for me. If I start singing the Frank Sinatra tune loudly, though, I'm probably headed down the old path. Maybe some day.

With the quieter confidence comes some greater willingness to commit to "being there" and to respecting whatever work one is doing. I was trying to explain my new understanding of commitment to a psychologist the other day and I couldn't get the feeling across in words, perhaps because I hadn't talked about it in conversation before. So I worked over it on the drive home and decided the proper metaphor was a ship putting down anchor. Instead of using up the whole night trying to find the best place to anchor, because "only this will do" or "only that is worthy," I think commitment is about making a reasonable choice at a reasonable hour (unless you decide you need to keep looking) and casting anchor.

As long as the anchor is cast, you experience what is there and use it to add to your knowledge. You agree to "being there," whether "there" is a calm port with good fishing and welcoming natives, or a nursing home filling out census forms. It doesn't mean you're stuck there forever or that you'll do things skillfully the whole time. You'll weigh anchor and go to other places, do other things; you'll make mistakes and have to work things out - but while you're there, you keep the anchor in the sediment at the bottom of the harbor and let go of the winch.

Juno is the asteroid that deals specifically with commitment and in my natal chart, Juno is in Pisces, a water sign known for its mutability - the shape-shifting fog, the variable conditions of the sea. Saturn, the planet of work, restriction, and boundaries - as well as respect and authority - is also in Pisces in my natal chart. The metaphor of a boat on the water is a good one for a person with these things in Pisces.

The title of this piece is Using the Buffalo. I think I've been afraid to use less than every bit of the buffalo - the buffalo being my life and the expectations others have had for it. I'm afraid that I would be less than perfect - and worse than that - if I failed to live up to the admirable, but rather arbitrary expectation of living in the spirit of a good Plains Indian. He (or she) is one of a horde of "them's" that I think I've been aspiring to be like. If there were a reason to live this way, a community where such a feat or lifestyle was valued, perhaps then it would be a worthwhile endeavor, but it seems too much like skipping around on the lake without setting anchor.

Juno in my natal chart forms an exact square (less than one minute past exact) to my natal lunar Nodes, which dictate the path a person walks in life from the old and overly familiar (South Node) to the new and satisfying stage of development (North Node). Flitting from one new idea to the next while trying to be like "them" seems to me like the square between Juno and the South Node, while setting anchor, "being there," for the time you're there, feels like the productive square between Juno and the North Node. It doesn't have to be the right square or the right answer (that's so Sagittarian, anyway). It's just important to remember there is an alternative when one gets stuck doing the same, unproductive thing over and over again. Chiron just transited my natal Juno, which means it also just completed a square to the Nodes. Maybe this new idea is Chiron's gift to the process of personal evolution. I'm not sure I've been successful in tying together all these ideas. I'd like to hear from others if they have any ideas about this topic or making the writing more coherent. There's always a first step and an honest effort, and I want to try to do both with the respect for the effort they deserve.