Merlin Under the Oaks

In the forest under the oaks, Merlin lived in his old age. According to the legend, the only people who stayed in the forest with him were his sister, the bard Taliesin, and a mad man. There was a magic spring in the forest, whose water cured those who drank from it. This water of life came up from the depths of the earth and joyously gave of itself. Containing all the mysteries of life, it sustained Merlin and his companions. After drinking from the spring those who were out of balance, those we call “mad”, could recover their balance. When the masculine and the feminine, the light and the dark, are integrated, the crazy are cured. Merlin sent the cured “mad” man back into the community, telling him to make up for his lost years by doing good for others. That’s the way the story is told according to legend.

I wonder how it was experienced by Merlin, by the wizard? Living under the oaks means there would be a lot of shadows. Interpreted psychologically that means there would be a lot of repressed feelings and unconscious patterns round about. These might be projected onto the wizard by his visitors and, just as likely, by the wizard onto them. Of course the old man is supposed to be an adept, and that means he’s supposed to have more experience with patterns and their unconscious ways than his visitors.

When I am living as the wizard, I feel as though I understand what Merlin was doing. People come to my cottage for shelter. They often share their dreams, wondering what they mean and what to do about them. Usually my answer is “express them, give the images form and contain them in a journal, a painting, or some other creative modality.” The images get explored while we are sharing some kind of nourishment, usually some kind of Greek food my wife taught me to cook. And like Socrates I ask a lot of questions and talk a lot. I try to evoke some wonder about the associations the dreamer has about the images. Often the dreams tell me how to proceed with the relationship, as well as what is wrong with the person’s relationship to his or her psyche. This is an ongoing process, and my visitors stay in relationship with me for an extended period of time. They might live with me, come visit, or write letters as they continue to explore their unconscious process, their relationship with their inner world.

This sounds great until I start to notice a recurrent pattern. When a certain type of person shows up time after time, I have to ask myself, why is this happening? Several of my intimate friendships over the past few years began with a mutual attraction which was amazing, what people call “chemistry” (probably more like alchemy than we care to admit). This magical experience was immediately intimate. Quickly we became fused emotionally. Often the sexual overtones created wildly intense relatedness and desire to spend as much time as possible together. Yet the most outstanding aspect of these important relationships has been their surprisingly abrupt termination.

One moment we are having breakfast together and by the afternoon my friend disappears, leaves town with no trace. There is no hope for resolution, no way to understand the triggers which lead to the flight. Whatever is going on in the other’s mind remains a mystery. In the modern world this is called being “unfriended” on Facebook. They “poof” and are never seen nor heard from again. Usually they disappear, but occasionally they might be able to express the need for “space”, which means they are theoretically somewhere in the environment, but out of my reach. This is especially disturbing since they won’t engage in dialogue. For some reason they either can’t talk about the past or don’t want to be upset by revisiting the source of the trauma.

These problems are unique to the old Celtic paradigm in which I dwell. In Merlin’s time psychotherapy hadn’t been invented. Freud was the guy who discovered this ingenious way of protecting the wizard by tieing down the client with commitment to stay in the relationship. When the client begins to experience resistance, we can tell them it is because the truth is coming to the surface and they need to sit still and feel the heat. Therapy is an excellent rope and it often works very effectively. The client will entertain the possibility that she is resisting the therapeutic (healing) process because she feels like running away. Talking about this aspect of the process in advance can make dealing with its occurrence somewhat easier. And often the client will sit still and allow the wizard to prod her soul to discover hidden motives and agendas. This forces both of them to deal with what is coming up in the space. When the client is projecting her feelings for her abusive father onto the wizard, they can sit and talk about it. Often the client can see how she is experiencing the wizard as her father and with time the projection falls. When she accepts the abusive, critical father imago as part of her psyche, the shadows become less intense. She has been paying the wizard for her insights and psychological growth.

The same processes are occurring in our daily life. The only difference is that we have no accepted arena like the therapist and client do. They have agreed to work on the patterns, usually at great monetary expense for the client in compensation for the emotional expense for the therapist. When we are living our lives in relationship with others, patterns are always occurring. They are unconsciously running our lives. We become aware of their existence through their recurrence. If we pay attention to the quality of our lives, we begin to notice that certain new relationships remind us of old ones. Intense, emotionally fused friendships which tend to become sexual, exciting, and filled with promise end abruptly. There is no more dialogue, no discussion, just silence, painful solitude.

During the last five years I became aware of the Asperger’s end of the autism continuum. It seemed that I was attracting young men with Asperger’s symptoms who were unable to function socially, who couldn’t empathize properly. They would just get up and walk away when they felt uncomfortable. With the help of cars, trains and airplanes, they would take very big steps and stop running when they felt safe. This was often when they arrived in a different state or country. No letters, no phone calls, no communication of any kind was crossing the gap they created. It felt like a death. The relationship had fallen into a chasm. After the fifth such relationship in five years, I had to find the source. Usually these things are right under our noses and hence very hard to see. Why this pattern and what does it mean? What have I been avoiding so intensely that the universe keeps reminding me of it?

And then it hit me. Twenty years ago, when all of our blood relations were dead, my only brother ended our relationship with a brief note. He told me that I had always been able to make him feel bad about himself and that he was never going to let that happen again. I was never to communicate with him directly, only through his daughter, and then only if it were an emergency. I was astounded. The letter came out of the blue (a birthday gift to himself no less) with no warning and no hope of explanation. What had I done to deserve this? We had very little communication anyway, so why the intense rejection? I have never been able to find out why. I have been working on this problem for twenty years. He has spoken to me for a few minutes by phone, perhaps three or four times. And I did speak with his new wife a couple of times. She told me that he is a very private person and she respects his wishes. She promised to tell him of my desire to talk, so that I could understand why he has rejected me and abandoned the relationship. He has never made any attempt to contact me.

But after five relationships with people like my brother, I realized what I have been doing to myself. I had assumed that there was something I had done, which, when talked about, would bring clarity for me and perhaps a renewal of a much desired relationship. This is a foolish desire if he shares the Asperger syndrome with all the other guys who have abandoned me. Creator made them that way. They really don’t get it, what social relationships are all about. It is as though there is no social gene in their DNA, so expecting them to behave like a “normal” person is going to frustrate the hell out of them. Often they have learned that they are to tell stories about themselves and then listen to others while they talk. Since they have superior intellects, they are excellent at what interests them. They are knowledgeable about their areas of expertise, usually at the top of their field. But socially they are inept, feel isolated and lonely, misunderstood and confused about why others have more relationships than they do. Often they report very few or no friends. Trying to teach them social skills is partially successful, if begun early in life and with a great deal of one on one attention. But when they have been traumatized and abused, this approach is often too demanding for caregivers, who usually are the abusers anyway, so isolation becomes their lot. As adults they can become very clever at isolating and the result is intense sadness, sometimes self-medication and substance dependency, occasionally suicide attempts and hospitalization. That is what I have come to know from my personal experience. And I have had to accept my inability to make a difference in their lives unless they choose to let me in.

If my brother won’t let me in, for whatever the reason, I have to accept it. If Creator made him that way and me the way I am, then we are who we are. There isn’t anything to do about it. He isn’t likely to tell me anything other than he did. He didn’t like feeling the way he felt when I was in relationship with him. Since he couldn’t imagine any other way to deal with the situation, he terminated it, pushed the “delete” button and went about his life. If I have learned anything from this process, it is to “live and let live”.

My guys are like runaway horses. If they are mine they will return. Running after them just makes them run faster and further away. It’s hard because I love them. I miss hanging out together under the oaks. But I still have my spirit sister and the bard. We have breakfast together and long conversations. We can share our lives for as long as Creator sees fit to keep me on the planet. Who knows how long that will be? Is that a whinny I hear? Or is it the wind? I’ll have to wait and see.