walkthisway .. walkthisway .. walkthisway ..

We know the medical walk, the institutional walk, the shrink walk and the psychosocial walk - and most certainly, again and again, the social death walk; but talk about walking the beauty path of mental illness, though it happens, happens almost silently, and in soft voices and chuckles, and without a name, and splashed in wordless color and music and unseen and unrecognized by the outsiders, the normies all around us. We hide it with our slave language, our secret looks, words, signs, laughter.

We are awash in confusions of language caused by the persistent misuse and redefinition of words by funding and control sources. These obfuscations are used to mask the truth that the "new" program - whatever it is - is another top-down, power-over control proposal that denies mental health clients the right to understand themselves and their lives in their own terms. This is cultural annihilation as well as social death. If we absorb the outsiders myth of who we are (un-rational people who are violent, unpredictable, dangerous, evil, inadequate, unwholesome and lacking in insight) our creative, generous, wise, romantic, ethereal and spiritual qualities will shrivel - our beauty path will be obscured.

May you live in interesting times - an old Chinese curse, it is said. And we DO live in interesting times. Like it or not, we are all being dragged down a path of chaos, instability, violence and catastrophe - and we must live our part of it. In beauty we will walk our life path - or not. We don't have a choice about times being interesting, but we do have to choose beauty, or that path may fade. Interesting times, times of challenge and catastrophe, times that require audacity and creativity and grit to survive - this is our fate, how will we face it?

And we are interesting people. We are people who have confronted catastrophe and challenge in our personal lives. We have discovered that our lives are based on falsehood, or our expectations are as the mist, or our trust is shattered, or our belief in our dream is mocked, our families deceive us, our communities scorn us, our therapists lie to us. And out of this we prevail. We learn, change, suffer our way to better faith, sounder trust, new expectations, new community. This is not recovery. This is growth, maturity, self-actualization, critical thinking, spiritual rebirth, meaningful living.

No, we do not recover and become again the "normal" person we were or were supposed to be. No longer defined by common and thoughtless standards and morals - for those are what have bowled us over - we define our own ethics, we seek our own more powerful and true meanings for who we are.

With our wealth of experience in re-creating ourselves and prevailing, we are the citizens who can help this nation understand how to survive interesting times. We can help to transform the disconnect and dysfunction of a structure that has come to value jailing its citizens as a more worthy task than educating them, that values children by ignoring their educational and nutrition needs, elders by letting them choose between food or medicine, its workers by outsourcing jobs and downsizing careers, its ancient redwoods by cutting them down as fast as possible, its poor by taxing them at a higher rate than the rich are taxed. In place of this irrationality that is presented as sane social policy, we can offer a way that is crazy enough to put people before profits and care before counting the statistics. We can demonstrate how care will heal where trauma does not.

We know that trauma causes illness, both physical and mental. We know that violence causes trauma, whether you call it a spouse's right, a religious imperative, a political necessity, a heroic act, a medical necessity, a surgical strike, behavior modification, a terrorist incursion, involuntary treatment, tough love, protecting democracy, shock and awe, ethnic cleansing collateral damage or police protection.

If we walk our own beauty path, the beauty path of mental illness, we will see that our psychic adventures, our psychological discoveries, our difference has enriched our lives, saved our lives, re-directed our lives into paths of greater meaning and significance.

Are there common understandings with which we can nourish each other? Skills and arts to learn from one another? Protection and solace we can offer to each other in community? Are our spiritual learnings similar or different? If we can fist share our paths and conversations with each other, the strength we gain by joining and pooling our wisdom could lead to discovery of powerful new and liberating messages of inspiration for our community and others.

We do have power, we have skills and knowledge and we want to be part of healthy developments and change in the world. We want the chance to contribute our beauty for the benefit of all.

We want to be respected and acknowledged as something other than a burden to society, a bother and disturbance of family and neighborhood peace. We want to walk in dignity and with the knowledge that we add value to society.

We need to free ourselves from the domination of top down control and power over mythologies of social order and psychological management that are so intolerant of diversity. To do this, we need to disentangle ourselves from the acculturation to institutions, from learned helplessness, from other groups who want to define us their way, and honor our own understanding and knowledge, our difference and diversity. For it is in that very diversity and learning that we find our strength, beauty, understanding, creativity and so much else that contributes to a better, more joyful and meaningful way of living.

I hope we can all walk our paths here and share what we know. I can speak only of my own journey and understanding. Are you willing to explore and explain your beauty path? If each of us speaks our truth here, what will we all learn?

Through the pain of being "different", of not understanding what "everybody" knew, of marching to a different drummer, of hearing a different tune, I learned:

• That simple living is respectful of the earth, respectful of communities and healthy for individuals.
• That we all have things to teach one another, we all have things to learn.
• That befriending a person makes them unique in the world, and therefore so precious.
• There is more joy in doing something meaningful than in going for the glory.
• That meaningful relationships and bringing beauty to the world have more value than any amount of money.
• That valuing every life is heartwarming; that corporations value every dollar - but not every life.
• That the dominators are the real losers in life.
• That those who fail have time to be human, to see the path and to grapple with the tentacles of pride.
• That making friends will end terrorism, but domination will not.
• That violence may achieve obedience, but it will not bring peace.

And that's the truth.

What's your truth?