Building Bridges

Believe it or not, I've been asked the question, "So where's the bridge?" by people who want to come to Block Island. I worked for years in a B &B and had to answer all the mundane questions of people who were so obsessed with the details of planning every minute of their holiday, it was obvious they were in need of a vacation. One of the best things about living on Block Island is that there is not a bridge! Islands like Jamestown, RI or Key West, islands you can drive to, are just not the same as one's you actually have to try to get to, islands that you can't get to on some days (today for example, the boats and planes are canceled due to high winds), or that you can't get off. This is a good test if you're an island person or not. If you get stuck on Block Island and are glad, you are an island person. If you fret and curse the weather, you're not, or are just not ready to be one yet. What are island people like? John Donne famously wrote "No man is an island," meaning we are not alone, that all of us are connected through our mortality. No matter where we go, we end up in the same place, a place we can't see with our physical eyesight (yet.) An island person knows one has to build bridges between people in order to survive. Many island people also have a deep propensity for solitude, a feeling that one is actually an island, separated from the rest of the world from the thousands of moods of the sea. How to live with this conundrum? I will admit this has been difficult for me. I have removed myself from mainland reality because I could not cope with the mass cultural brainwashing I saw taking place. This was not a conscious choice at first, just a natural resistance, a preservative instinct. I wanted to generate my own images, not be told what to see. After many years of connecting to myself, of exploring who I am and why I am here, of taking internal risks while playing it safe on the outside (many island people could care less about "careers." We know that what you do is often a cover up for what you're doing inside), it is time for me to build the bridge that will connect my vision to a larger reality, to be of service in whatever way I can.

In 2002, Suzi Brown, a girl who grew up on Block Island, killed herself by jumping from the Newport Bridge. Suzi jumped the day before the first anniversary of 9/11. I remember sitting on the beach that day wondering what the waves would bring, knowing that something was going to happen again. I never thought it would be something from within our community. Like most of America, I thought it was going come from outside.

In 2003, Rachel Tonner, another island girl, overdosed on heroin and died in the Port Authority in New York City. I view her death, which the whole year round community witnessed, as a slow form of suicide. Throughout the writing of Bluebell: The Apocalypse Diary, I felt deeply connected to these two. I began writing the book the week Suzi died. I knew Suzi a little bit, and Rachel was a good friend of mine who I loved. You know the saying that deaths come in threes? Well I felt all along as I wrote the book that I was the third person in this trifecta. I was aware that what I wanted to achieve was a spiritual death that would help me bridge their deaths for other people--I never wanted to physically die. I wanted to examine why they chose to die--what their souls were saying to us by making this seemingly unexplainable choice.

However, when you ask for a vision, you sometimes receive more than you bargained for. As I went through this process, I lost my way. I was scared and my fear made me confused that I would physically die too. Yes, one could say that my biochemistry was screwed up and made me go over to the dark side (I just skimmed the totally reductive Against Depression, by Peter Kramer, and disagree with his assessment of depression as simply a physical disease that can be treated like any other. Why? Because I don't believe that any disease is simply physical).

All I can say is that the intensity of the experience was what was needed to complete the book--this is what was wanted from me. This is what my soul needed. I know what my soul needs from how powerfully something grips me. When I am drawn towards something so powerfully that to resist feels like I'm dying, I know I have encountered what my soul needs, which is so often contrary to the needs of my ego, sometimes of my body itself. It doesn't matter if anyone reads Bluebell, because I embody this journey now, but I do plan to publish the book at some point in the near future so I can share my journey directly--telling the truth is important and a necessary step in healing.

Healing is a word I have had some issues with recently, since to me it implies that there is something wrong in the first place. If you believe, as I do, that everything one experiences is something one attracts because it is necessary for the soul's growth, then there is no such thing as sickness. Just an imbalance that needs to be corrected in order for the experience to be fully integrated. So I have been trying not to use this word lately, since, if you believe, as I do, that our words create our reality, that using the word healing will stop me and others realizing that we always receive what we need.

There are many bridges to build--forgiveness is a key material in the construction of them, and acceptance is a key component in the construction of forgiveness. I do my best to accept where others are in their lives and ask the universe that they do the same with me. (I ask the universe because sometimes asking actually people doesn't go over well. One has to be "on the same page" as they say sometimes in order to not be misunderstood, thus creating more anger.)

ne of the bridges I am building now is a writing workshop based on my alchemical journey. I will be teaching this workshop next April at the Block Island Poetry Project founded by my friend Lisa Starr. I will also be offering it at some point at a wonderful new bridge being built on Block Island right now. My friend and spiritual teacher Maria DeMarco has brought her non-profit Concordia, Inc., to the island. She is transforming the Beach House B & B, the home of the amazing Ccopaccatty family, into a center for health and art. I am incredibly excited about what she will bring to the community through Concordia, and am looking forward to participating in the center. The first thing I will be doing at the Beach House is a permaculture site analysis. Maria and the Ccopaccatty's want to turn the property into a permaculture site! For someone with no hope of buying property on this island, this really proves that dreams do come true, that to imagine one's life richly, as the Lakota say, will bring your dreams into fruition.