By SAVAS ABADSIDIS
It was my birthday and I decided to see my shrink. I hadn’t seen him in a while and I realized it was probably a good time to restart therapy and maybe address a few things that had been rattling around in my head.
After arriving at his downtown Manhattan office, Carol the receptionist called me into one of the examination rooms to tell me I had an outstanding balance from my previous visit for $340.00. It had been denied by my insurance — she quietly — as not to embarrass me in front of the other patients informed me that the doctor was not going to be able to see me or write me my anti-depressant and benzodiazepines prescriptions unless the bill was taken care of…. I was in complete shock and felt a surge of anger for a moment.
Firstly because I had no idea that I had a bill due, secondly wondering why my insurance had not paid the bill, and thirdly because I couldn’t believe that this doctor who I had been seeing on and off for over 10 years was denying to see me over one bill.
She quickly apologized and explained that so many people had been coming in with canceled insurance and not making payments over the last year that they could not afford to see patients with outstanding bills anymore. After looking at the insurance information, I realized that it was outdated and that I had not provided my new information. I explained this to Carol, but didn’t have the new card on me. She left the examination room to talk to the doctor and returned saying that he would agree to see me if I paid half the bill on the spot. Again I was in shock; there was something dirty about this explicit exchange of money in return for services that I had never experienced at the doctor before. I had already over the past few years been turned off at the idea of having to hand over your co-pay upfront before your visit. Certainly this exchange of money for services not yet rendered was a far cry from the Hippocratic oath. I happened to have $100 on me and she ran back to ask the doctor again and he finally agreed to see me. Needless to say, it was not a very productive session and if I hadn’t been out of my meds I probably would have walked out.
I bring this story up for a number of reasons. One is that since being laid off from my full time job a year ago, I pay almost $400/month in COBRA coverage, which can be revoked by simply missing one payment; a situation which I have come close to many times. In the meantime I freelance and as the recession continues. My payments come later and later, my credit cards are often maxed out. I spend a day or two a week feeling like a billing department tracking down unpaid invoices and feel a generalized anxiety that is endemic to many of my generation.В Having primarily worked in publishing and watching as the entire industry circles the drain, I have been mulling many different options: Law school? Going to graduate school? Getting certified to teach? Something “stable” as my mother insanely insists on a day-to-day basis.
The second reason is that this occurred while we are once again mired in a contentious healthcare debate in this country. Prior to my recent circumstances I had never really worried about this since I was lucky enough to have had a series of job that provided me with excellent healthcare as an adult. Anecdotally, there were instances that had me vaguely concerned as I watched one friend after the other over the years, either lose healthcare due to job loss or the increasing number of “full-time” freelance jobs that provided no healthcare or any other safety nets. This struck me as particularly problematic because amongst my friends at least half were Ivy league grads, and or had some level of graduate or professional studies, I imagined if it was this bad for us what was it like for the rest of the country. It was ironic to me that my sister who has no formal education and works as a correctional officer would often boast about what a waste going to college was and has better health care than some of my friends who graduated from Harvard and work for Viacom.
What makes the debate going on particularly jarring, is the disturbing numbers involved—the current plan would tax the top 1% wage earners significantly more than the rest of the population—something I don’t have a problem with—yet the recent recession has hit the top wage earners much harder than recent recessions according to the CBO (Congressional Budget Office). Normally something like a recession would lead to a healthy correction. This time around, the enduring nature of this recession has led me to question some of my fundamental beliefs. Conventional wisdom usually presumes that if the rich and near rich gets less, someone else will get more. Redistribution achieves a better social balance. Sometimes that happens. But sometimes when the rich get less, no one gets more. Regardless of how the “rich” earned their money—trading bonds, performing surgery, starting new business ventures or providing legal services—it’s no longer so lucrative. The rich get poorer, but no one else gets richer. Society is worse off. This is not to say that I like “trickle down” economics, as a matter of fact I despise the very notion, but we are seeing some scary outcomes due to this enduring economic dip.
Despite the comforting presence and voice of actor Dennis Haysbert in the new Allstate commercials (who incidentally played the nations first black president in Fox’s 24), the insurance giant that has taken the lead in spinning the recession as an opportunity to talk about the wonders of living on less while shilling insurance we probably don’t need, is the sheer level of unhinged, even violent irrationality that is being witnessed at the grassroots. Whether it’s been a rise in anti-gay violence (witness the gay bar that was raided on Pride in Ft. Worth, Texas), the rash of suicides by kids as young as 10 who have been bullied for being gay, or the not-so-subtle race baiting and ignorant discussions about affirmative action witnessed during the Sotomayor hearings, there is an alarming trend underway.
In postwar America, a panicky, violence-prone underbrush has always been revealed in moments of liberal ascendancy. Under the Kennedy administration there was the right-wing militia known as the Minutemen armed for what they believed was an imminent Russian takeover. Under Carter it was the Identity Christians who formed the Posse Comitatus and other paramilitary racist groups; Clinton’s rise saw six anti-abortion murders, and the Oklahoma City bombings. Each time the conservative mainstream has been able to adroitly shake off the association of these embarrassing fringe groups while laying claim to some of the anger and channeling it in ways that were palatable to the masses. The Obama administration has seen a steeper curve into lunacy; not just in real crimes, but also by a somewhat nihilistic generation who have been convinced by the History Channel that world is ending in 2012 and an ascendancy of a Republican party that is no longer figure-headed by anyone who seems even vaguely reasonable (see Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, et al).
As I write this I have just learned that Walter Cronkite has died at 92. Nothing could put the coda on what’s been going on and our increasingly fractured social mores than the man who could once convincingly tell us, “That’s the way it is.”
I firmly believe in the notion of progress. I also believe that we as individuals can set our own agendas and take individual responsibility as President Obama so eloquently elucidated in his stirring speech to the NAACP to commemorate their 100th Anniversary.В Our agendas must be of hope and resistance against our complicity in the daily degeneration of societal mores that occurs everyday. I love Obama and the message he conveys, but I also am aware of how his often professorial stance could engender anger, when he calls for black folks to be more responsible, or any of us to do better, I can see how someone can mistake his call for us to listen to our better angels can some across as a smug judgmental arrogance about how we live our lives. I know all this and I resist the temptation to give in to my baser instincts.
But then I also remember how angry I was in the doctor’s office that day, and then I imagine the person who has far less than I do and how appealing the idea of giving into those base instincts must be; and I often wonder, how do we counter that?
carecare:
Everything you’ve said and what you and your family have endured and shared is absolutely priceless. This continues to be a spiritual test disguised as an economic crisis.
Wow. My experiences have been a bit different but then, I had long ago shifted toward a much lower consumption level and have never been much for the competitive and extreme individualism that is entrenched in American idealism.
Some thoughts and observations for this eclipse day:
Lately, I have been experiencing (for the first time and as an Army Brat and Third Culture kid it really might BE the first time) tentative buddings of friendship between me and other women. I have met two women in the past year (one in the past few months) that seem attuned to the awareness I have lived with all my life. I am a Pluto in Virgo person (Like Obama, our first Pluto in Virgo pres.) and all these women friends are younger than I am. They have learned from me but best of all, I have learned from them!
In the past, I seemed to always attract needy people that either resented my awareness (I like to call it “Clear Vision TM) or sucked me dry like vampires till I had to disconnect and walk away in order not to be exhausted. These two women (and a shy third seems to be hovering) have done neither. They seem to like me for myself, seem to have awareness, seem to have something to teach me (I have always been open to learning from others) and they are “light-workers” if you want to call them that. Not the self-involved, almost mystical-guru type of light workers but the married, with kids, roll-up-your-sleeves and do things kind of light workers. They seem to have a firm attachment to the world and people in it, unlike the light workers I that I have met in the past that are so prevalent and so
detatched from the world. Theirs is not the “all eace and love” kind, theirs is the realistic (earth sign) type that sees the ills and the mess and the pain and want to facilitate people in their desire and move toward change. These ladies are practical, down to earth, and very much joy-givers instead of joy-takers.
Third culture kids (TCK’s like Obama and military brats and missionary kids or diplomat’s kids) are only now coming to terms with the huge well of pent up and hidden grief they have had that was NEVER acknowledged. No one ever thought of how it affected TCK’s to be uprooted time and time again and forced to be representatives of a country many might have been born in or to but have not lived in or understood. TCK’s were just expected to cope with the feeling of never knowing or feeling what was home, of never, NEVER belonging ANYWHERE, of knowing more about different people and cultures and having experience and
bone-deep knowledge that diversity is GOOD. TCK’s are banding together, using the Internet to find one another, and their non-judgemental voices are growing louder and stronger. Look for them….from Obama to your neighbor and you will find them. They don’t know how to make or even BE friends, but they know compassion, tolerance, acceptance, forgiveness, kindness and they can switch gears and “go native” lightening fast. Their rise is a GOOD thing and maybe this eclipse will be a part of that.
Obama’s message to “help ourselves,” unlike the “every-man-for-himself of the Reagan era and the past eight years resonates with me and people younger, too.
The financial crash actually affected us (my husband and I and our kids) a full four years earlier than everyone else because in 2004, my husband had his first of a string of (seven in all) job losses in three years. This string depleted what little resources we had (mostly credit) and made us move four times in three years, dragging our kids through the whole mess all the while. While we worried about how to feed and clothe them and keep them from being homeless and struggled with depression, anxiety and pain, we also worried about how this upheaval would affect the kids. We now believe it was a painful but amazingly needed experience because now they value people over things, cooperation over competition, sharing and caring over aquisition. No amount of parental telling (and we were telling them that all the time) could have exposed them to that; experience is often the BEST teacher.
Their peers are only just now feeling the pinch they felt for the past four years and my kids now want to help those same peers cope because they are in a position to do so because of our early experiences. Instead of looking down on the less fortunate and believing they are less fortunate because they didn’t work hard enough, my kids know that is a fallacy pushed on us by the corporate interests that want to keep us competitive and working to death. The planet-destroying powers that want to remain in power benefit when we are too busy just thinking about our OWN survival and having no time or thought for anyone else’s. Now kids like ours can and will change things because they experienced this painful time.
This change has and is painful for so many, but the spirituality it brings and the change of focus from competition to cooperation is a chironic kind of shot in the ass that clears up the horrific infection of affluenza, consumption, and selfishness we have been sick with for too long.
This is how I feel the eclipse and I am not afraid; I am hopeful that it is a harbinger of even better things to come for all of humanity and the planet.
Mystes said, “we’re not even in the home stretch (that starts tonight around 10)”
Eclipse 7:35 PDT, 9:35 Texas time(?); is something else going down after 10???
xxxa
Bk, Exactly right. We are headed into new territory – a new paradigm. Most of the people writing in here are over 50 and full of painful memories that they work through on this website. It is time to let it go. We are saying goodbye to the bad old days this week, and looking at a rather brilliant future.
If you meet someone who is full of hate, you have it in your ability to change it to self love. No man can love another if he hates himself.
DK’s eh? Same page? Are we talkin’ Kennedy’s? ‘Cause hell yeah! Plus, the only native american blood I’ve got flowin’ through me is Blackfoot! My mom’s side has been in this land (poor as fuck) for centuries, but I picked up some cool blood! They used to groove the hootenanny’s! Music on the side of the road… wherever that road may be…
Of course it’s not just the “fuckers” that’ll get me! I’m aware of my surroundings, enough to know that we have to keep at least one eye open. (Sucks for the dude in glasses, but, all’s part of the flow!)
We’ll make it.
Fe, blood pressure? I know astragalus well, I used the herb for several years, along with goldenseal (I don’t recommend for pressure),…
Eleuthero, Siberian ginseng,… ? Definitely a decision factor, if you want to seal the deal… ginseng is always (if not looked at as a second course factor) one of the substances that facilitates health.
Your mushrooms, I’m at a loss with,.. I don’t know them, but, mushrooms have always been good to me.
Yes Myst, vegan for 15 years, I do have my shit in order. I just still like to fuck around!
Still on the herb trip…
Jere
Nance:
In a nutshell, you’ve got the deep scoop on what’s happening. I think everyone is aware of the “shift”, like an earthquake with aftershocks and rumblings that continue long past the main event. Only there is no stopping, but more continued events–shocks to the system.
Some people run and hide, others are surfing the changes. Its an amazing ride.
Mystiloa:
Yep, loving that Rhodiola. And astragalus is for immunity boosting and metabolism improvement. But the best of the lot is the cordyceps. Very powerful little mushroom.
Sorry to interrupt the cool exchange on herbs. I will look for both species of Rhodiola today, they sound powerful.
i love this article. listening to this mind write out all its myriad thoughts. so complicated and intertwined. so many levels, so many places to stop but they dont because it is interconnected and keeps flowing to the next connection. trickle down.
There is a deep spiritual crisis in the guise of an economic one as Fe points out.
I’m feeling that this eclipse may bring up awareness around the spiritual crisis and the issue of tolerance. It seems like it is about letting go of the collective preoccupation with our physical manifestations (class, race, gender, sexual preference…) and new awareness around each of us as spirit, and our ability to connect with one another from that place of spiritual awareness.
The word Namaste keeps coming up.
Namaste – The divine in me honors the divine in you.
When I connect with someone, anyone, from my heart and my divine spirit, frequently the other person becomes aware that I really ‘see’ them. Children respond more quickly than a gas station attendant, but I almost always feel a shift in awareness. And a deeper connection. It takes practice. Sometimes, it feels like no one is home. Some days, I’m not able to do this with the people I love, much less the grocery checker. On those days, I practice self-forgiveness.
Seems like there’s a bunch of people out there right now trying to sell hate.
If there’s a bunch of people who go out and give away love, who’s going to buy hate?
Fe’ness… You found the Rho!! excellent! I started tincturing and moving Rhodiola (a combo of rosea and sacra) around my circles about 3 years ago, mostly for its antidepressant and estrogenating effects. I have a source in China (that is, Tibet) – a personal friend who actually digs the R. sacra for me. Buddha in a bottle, sweetie.
Astralagus? for the immunomodulation? or something else?
jlo:
The recipe is as follows:
Astralagus
Rhodiola Rosea
Cordyceps (absolutely critical)
Eleuthero
The behavior is:
-8-9 hours of sleep each night (still workin on it, though I am getting 8 on average instead of 5)
-5 small meal(s) snacks during the day
-lots of water
-ex the caffeine, red meats (pretty easy)
-keep self from getting triggered emotionally
-meditation or mindfulness
-gentle exercise
The last one is the hardest because I get an adrenal rush from my favorite form of exercise which is dancing. But I’m dovetailing a gentler form of dancing with 30 minutes of walking during the day. It all helps.
Fe… Glad to hear that the downshifting feels more natural. All of my Type A – loves are experiencing an irresistible ‘Easy Does It’ on many levels. And with your Sun (my Moon) moving waaaay over to the other side of the sky, this encourages the restoration cycle as well.
We have gotten through that dull, soporific energy that was being rolled out about 2 weeks ago. The E will take care of the rest of it.
Jlo… glad to hear you are studying Herb Lore beyond the psychotropics! We’ll need you! Might want to look for Tierona Low Dog. She is a Sioux, Blackfoot I think, MD who uses an interesting blend of modalities: shamanic, herbal, allopathic mixed. And she belongs to our cohort, the DKS. (Well, it ain’t Poets)
Be… Yep. It’s all rolling – and Madame, bigger than I have *ever* ever *ever* seen before. It’s all “Break Out Your Handkerchiefs” around here right now. And we’re not even in the home stretch (that starts tonight around 10). Woot.
More on the way. . .
M
Hey Fe, you mind my asking what herbs? Honestly, I’ve been so invested in me, it’s been difficult to see others and their bodies, I honestly have no clue as to where others are at. I do possess some knowledge concerning herbs, I always love a good herbal discussion, and I’m aware enough too know this is going big! People will wake up. We Will engage, no choice really. But,! What of mother nature’s bounty are you partaking of, and how? Do you mind my focal energy? Intake of matter is like frontal lobe to me so, It’s all digestion. It’s what creates the physical structures, the forms we actually perform through.
If you’re up for sharing herbage… (Yes, that is laughter) I’m interested in your findings!.
J
jlo. .skip back in here; mystes is trying to point out the ramifications of this eclipse now upon us. It ain’t never gonna be the same my friends. You’re right we must take responsibility for our well being and a lot more. Learning to shed the past responses and finding new (creative) ways to deal with new (and old) problems will take some (more) awareness. Get it here folks, while you still can.
We know the symbol for the eclipse point is Daughter of the American Revolution (preserving traditional values, suppress new forms of revolution, glorification of the past, etc.) but have we looked at the symbol for the south node right next to it? One degree Leo is “Blood rushes to a man’s head as his vital energies are mobilized under the spur of ambition”, about which Rudhyar says “the energies of the biological drives as they irrupt, more or less forcefully into the field of consciousness.”
If the south node describes what we should let go of and an eclipse is a time for pattern setting, listen to what Jeff Jawer says in Mountain Astrologer (June/July): ” We may be unlearning old habits and emotional responses, which can leave many people feeling alienated and lost. Yet, the continuing triple conjunction of Jupiter, Neptune and Chiron in Aquarius (not to mention the north node . .my words) is an open invitation to create the future as part of the greater human family.”
We have read/heard and/or experienced the pain of the changing times, but not much of the joy of change. Not yet. We each have to contribute to the betterment of the new times and gaining a wider perspective is a must. Isn’t this a lovely place to start?
Savas,
About medical ethics and your prescriptions: To suddenly go from a full script of benzodiazepines and anti-depressants to nothing can make one very very ill. Ill enough to lose a job or hinder academic progress or worse…when I found out that this is how it worked, I was shocked too.
jlo:
A month ago, I started up a regimen of four adaptogen herbs to regulate the adrenal system, along with enough sleep and an anti-inflammatory diet.
This is an about-face from an over-active, highly excitement driven work ethic (yes, Type A) in an adrenaline-junkie environment – (construction contracting). I know I can no longer look at my care providers who recommend “REST” with a tilted head and a “Huh?” look on my face.
Hey, how many cats out there take herbs in one capacity or another? How responsible, and aware of your own body… let alone healthcare, are you?
Pluto in Cap., these are times to readjust. It will come down to everyone taking a look, assessing their inner mojo, and functioning it out as if they honestly believed what they were doing was cool.
That will come through in numbers of ways but, one way will be by the way society integrates this principle. Responsibility will lead toward homeopathic (terms and connotations bug me but,…) methods of nourishment. Responsibility will be a commonly discussed thematic of “personal healthcare”, along with explorations into the daily living cycles that each person will personally explore.
As far as I can go now.. brain has skipped out.. . .. .
How to Use this Eclipse (you, too, Upyonder… reach out, honey, we got ya…)
“Walk away in anger, walk away in pain
Walk away from life itself, walk into the rain
All this wandering has led me to this place
Inside the well of my memory, sweet rain of forgiveness
I’m just hanging here in space
The shadows fall
Around my bed
When the hand of an angel,
The hand of an angel is reaching down above my head”
(Sting- “Dead Man’s Rope”)
More soon, loves…
M
“I love Obama and the message he conveys.” The Pres. “message” lies in populating the whole government with ex-Goldmen and their Morgan brethren, and it has the strange effect of psychiatrits demanding payment. That is the trickle down effect, quite simplified.
Kallimera, Savas:
“And then I imagine the person who has far less than I do and how appealing the idea of giving into those base instincts must be; and I often wonder, how do we counter that?”
Boy, my gut mind says you have hit that one right out the ballpark – the essence of the spiritual (guised as economic) crisis we’re facing right now.
Savas – reading this piece and the way it was written – it all just sneaks up on you in a very real and personal way with the personal as political.
Beautifully done, my brother.
Savas (the Palindromal Mind among us) writes: “And then I imagine the person who has far less than I do and how appealing the idea of giving into those base instincts must be; and I often wonder, how do we counter that?”
Hooooolldd that thought, Fineheart. There’s a toilet brush called the Solar Eclipse a-comin’ and a few ‘base’ qualities are about to get the flush.
More on this later today.
Con carino,
M