Translogical power and the viscous drive of a chimpanzee

– I am intolerant of the ways that you choke your power.

My circling teacher says. We’re in a circle of 25 people and I just slapped myself hard in the face and spoke from a raw and probably quite compelling place – to then quickly give off an all too familiar anxious laughter, as if to say:

– Don’t listen to me. It doesn’t matter.

I laugh but I’m not trying to be funny. And what I said did in fact matter to me. I feel my circling teacher’s support. He is revolted by my innermost violence.

I am a 33-year-old woman with a biology on some form of high alert. Seeing parents with their toddlers on the beaches of Costa Rica last month, I wouldn’t stop weeping – the beauty, the bond. Mesmerizing! All the small folks on the subway, I want to snatch them and take them in my arms. But I haven’t been in a real live committed relationship for nearly a decade.

– Does it have to be the top dog?

My mother says.

– Your radar is off Rósanna.

My sister says. Repeatedly. Critiquing the men I’ve loved ‘cause she can’t stand me going quiet and submissive around them. The stark contrast to the feral monkey she grew up with hurts her eyes.

– Do not give your power away to a man!

A shaman I work with says. She’s pissed. She interrogated my ex-lover like he was a criminal, because of my orientation to him. (Asking questions like: “What is consciousness?”… He handled it like a baws.)

I shrug these women off. I am a patron of sex as shrine, and of men who dare to fully embody their inner dragon. I want to feel life force moving freely through my lover, and am quite frankly aggravated by my culture’s obsession with the downsides of masculinity, breeding self flagellating pseudo-feminists who are not attractive to me. (Haha, masculine/feminine is not bound to gender etc. The downsides of masculinity are truly downsides etc. FO’ SHO! I know, I know.)

Lately though, I approach the feedback with some curiosity. My Zen teacher likes to repeat a saying:

– If one person tells you you’re a horse’s ass – forget it. If two people tell you you’re a horse’s ass – think about it. If three people tell you you’re a horse’s ass – get a saddle.

OK. I am ready to think about it.

I saw my long time ex yesterday. We watched videos we’d filmed in our shared home in Barcelona, where I am jumping around, ape on the loose – until I notice he’s there. In a heartbeat, I shrink into a starry-eyed straight-laced puppet. The dissonance between the stress I am clearly experiencing and the steamy cheer that I try to convey is mortifying to watch. This was 10 years ago.

I have evolved and blossomed into a quite fiercely self-reliant old smarty-pants. These days it’s hard to squeeze that syrup out of me. But once in a blue moon a horseman shows up and with one gulp from the fountain of youth, I am transformed – simsalabim, she is a strait-laced puppet again. This seems to be my radar. Do you have the power to break through my impervious arrogance and make me crawl?

– Oh, my airways are tight! Wait – who is this guy?

I have made him God. And now I’m not having fun anymore.

This week during a voice activation class, I laughed so hard I was squashed into a trillion particles of chuckling delirium. We were making sounds, imitating each other, and the most bizarre noises were coming out of me. When we play, we learn, as play is the art of experimentation. Allowing moves my body has not made before. It involves taking risks, something I can’t do anymore. Not next to him. Not seen by dragon supergod. One foul step and who knows what’ll happen? I’d best stick firmly to this very tight rope.

– Let go of the rope!

My diving instructor in Costa Rica said. I was holding on for dear life, water seeping through my cyclops, telling him there’s no chance in hell I’m doing it.

– It gets easier once you’re underwater.

He was right. The bottom of the ocean is jam-packed with wonders.

I am looking into love addiction as a possible rascal sabotaging my imagined intention to co-create a lasting loving relationship. At the heart of love addiction lies the tendency to make another person a higher power, says Pia Mellody (author of Facing love addiction). The road to lasting sobriety involves cultivating a relationship with an appropriate higher power, which can genuinely be a refuge through the hellfires and inertia that all people face.

Power – a prevalent notion with a thousand yummy, useful and ugly faces. Pia Mellody is speaking to what integral theory would call translogical power, a power which transcends the I. Acknowledging that we’re held and permeated by something less arbitrary and transient than the collection of sensations and mental-emotional patterns I like to call Rósanna. Discovering my deeper layers, the boundless awareness that I fundamentally am, and learning to bow is in my view inarguably essential. ‘Cause it’s a fragile situation, this bodymind and its memories. Plus, confidence without humility is a ridiculous look – guys, we’re dying… I’ll get back to this ultimate power, after a small tour of power as it shows up in the personal. Because humility without confidence is a recipe for the alluring and nasty juice of love addiction – of making another person your higher power.

When we speak of power, there’s a good chance we talk across each other, as it is contextual and dependent on the gaze, the view, the value system of the experiencer. What we see depends on where we’re enacting the world from.

Employing physics though – which would be widely applicable as any emergent worldspace transcends and includes its predecessor – the definition of power is work divided by time. When you’re involved in an activity, any activity at all, you are involved in power. The amount of work you can do in any area and the faster you can do it, the more power you have in this domain. Work/time=power.

Much like we (I’m so guilty of this) foolishly equate intelligence with cognitive capacity – reducing wild and vibrant meadows to one flower – we often equate power with brute force. This is unfortunate. The flavors of power available to us could fill a spice shop with their bounty of nuance and subtlety. Smelling the spices within and without may be a way to appreciate the range of power already operating in your life, plus identify facets of power which may have gotten splintered off in your system, and attend to that.

Who’s using the knife?

From our hunger impulse all the way up to the divine, different shapes and textures of power. Interior and exterior power. Individual and collective power. The delicious, the altruistic and the beastly – depending on your intent, more so than on the instrument. A surgeon can use a knife and a killer can. When your intention in exerting power is merely what integral theory would call monological – not genuinely tasting the interior of whatever you’re in relationship with – you are regressing to a subhuman state. Acting on my sexual drive, oblivious of the subject in front of me, that’s predatory. When this very same drive is brought into dialogue, it can be an offering.

– I felt vast with you. Like you were the star-filled space itself. But I wondered where this area was. Were you aware of it?, a woman said.

She’s pointing to her lower belly, commenting on my leadership of a circle. Familiar feedback. People wonder about my abdomen. Three people told me I’m a horse’s ass.

The first three chakras in the tantric traditions – located at the base of the spine (1), below the navel (2) and near the solar plexus (3) – are at least metaphorically where we commonly locate power. Low in the body lies the seat of our subhuman drives. The opportunistic and courageous animal, fiercely concerned with food, shelter and sex. The power to protect and to take. To kill. The power to expel (someone suggested connecting to disgust might be a doorway to my power). This is where heroic mythologies are born, as well as the bad rep of power. ‘Cause when we move exclusively from here, we move like animals.

In the triune brain we have a reptilian brain stem, a mammalian limbic system and an evolutionarily younger primate cortex – which brought us reasoning and the capacity to take a perspective on our perspective. Within our own being we have a lizard drive, a horse drive and the viscous drive of a chimpanzee. I like it when a man knows this. He could rip my face off. He wouldn’t do it of course, ‘cause his intention is unity.

Subtle power

And these monological drives can be brought into dialogue, a shift from brute force to more subtle forms of power. With development, we transcend and include the chimpanzee. Above the subhuman regions lie the heart (chakra 4), the throat (5) and the third eye (6). Growing into these dimensions adds to our power. Here we are connected to our human drives of love and belonging, achievement, individual expression and wholeness. We develop our power to reason, to voice, to convene and to integrate. A powerful speaker, a powerful community builder. Dialogical power is power in relationship. A subject engaging another subject, holding the other in a dialogical space – the I is held next to a We.

If God is not (exclusively) the man I’m hot for, what is an appropriate higher power? The 7th chakra, located at the crown of your head, is the metaphorical seat of translogical power. Of non-dual awareness, where opposites unite. Here we find the power to transform and to serve as an embodied reminder of our deepest nature – loving and free. This is the seat of the witness, always already right here, all-inclusively witnessing everything arising in the mind. Going one step further, we may identify as the all. Just this. Ultimate power is kundalini rising through all the chakras, philosopher Ken Wilber says.

Wondering about my abdomen, many have suggested I do martial arts, where the star-filled space that seems to come more naturally to me may be brought down into the gut. Filling your belly with this power, a higher power is brought down into a lower one, as opposed to taking a lower, egocentric drive and bringing it up to infect our reasoning and self-expression.

– Down Rósanna. Down, down, down.

My ex-lover says, a voice from the depth of his dragon belly. Down. Include the animal. Breathe deep into your roots. It’s a moment-to-moment practice, nurturing the full spectrum of our power. Seeing each other more deeply, caring for each other more deeply. Synthesizing our various expressions of power to make a bigger splash and form bigger loving ripples in this world.

At one point, near a roaring river in Costa Rica, I lost my ability to grasp a construct. Anything I tried to grab onto eluded me eternally. I then sensed the power of the tree trunks and the rushing river vibrating as my body, and thought, “Guacamole. This is responsibility.” I had a full-on Spider-Man moment. Great power – wicked responsibility.

I am obliged to keep waking myself up to the wholeness that I am. The power of the waters, not separate from dragon supergod – equally one with the impulses of a lizard. The feral monkey is not going away. I might as well learn to adore her. Fall in love with my abdomen and treasure the strait-laced puppet until she is squashed into a trillion particles of chuckling delirium.

New radar: Am I having fun? Is my body making moves it’s never made before? Can I be a lizard, a hound dog, a human being and a witness here? Does he love me deeper into my power? But yea, living matter – I am exploring more so than getting to a point. Telling stories. I love input, praise and pushback on my views. Thank you for reading xx