In the late autumn of 1976, I experienced one of those profound moments when you suddenly get a “now I understand it” feeling. I believe its’ implications for these times are startling and relevant to our survival. It was prefaced by my sitting in a very dark and lonely Springfield Massachusetts train station, reading Steps to an Ecology of Mind, by Gregory Bateson. I had just arrived from Boston on a train in an equally desolate but charming old anachronistic parlor car. I was meeting my friend and mentor Paul Byers who was driving up from Manhattan. We were going up north to a 100 acre plus piece of land that was formerly a 60’s commune near Brattleboro, Vermont. This once served as an anthropological dissertation for one of his friends who later with about eight others including Paul owned the land.
The day was cold and my mood was deep and pensive. It was about a month after my son Galen was born, who was tucked away with his mother in Provincetown where I was living at the time. I was uncertain of my life’s direction as I boarded the ferry to Boston early that morning. The harbor and then the Berkshires were glorious that day and the tune of James Taylor’s “Sweet Baby James” danced the background as I took in what passed through the train window. Paul was 58 years old; I remember that fact since I myself am now 58 years old. He was from Kansas, lived in Australia, an accomplished pianist, journalist, and photographer and later in life a Ph. D. anthropologist. His close friendship with Margaret Mead resulted, among many other things, in a book about “small conferences,” which they co-authored.
I met him, a year earlier, while he was on the interviewing committee at Columbia University where I had been accepted into their department of Family and Community Studies. At that time, I had just finished an intense two year work experience with a community based education project in Newark, New Jersey. Shunning the traditional application form, I replaced it with a long free verse poem about my growing up in Paterson, New Jersey. It was Paul who urged the others to accept me despite their concern that I might not be academic enough. He said, “We need people like Ken in our department” and then gave me a hug and smiled in a way that I would continue to look forward to throughout all the years that I knew him.
Paul’s specialty at Columbia was to teach about “Communication and Systems Theory” and how to do research from this perspective. He had a personal part-to-whole interconnected lens that described a multitude of worldly “contexts,” where he believed all sorts of human potential evolved. When he was active as a photographer, he would live with and participate in the dynamics of the families he would photograph. Gregory Bateson, who pioneered communication studies and was once married to Margaret Mead, said about him, that if anyone was to explain his work correctly, it would be Paul. I experienced this in-depth understanding of communication directly a few years later, when I was running an alternative high school. Paul came by for a visit and gave a talk about conflict and “double binds.” At one point, after listening to various troublesome issues, he had us hold hands and then discuss feelings about our connections. This brought a sense of harmony to all involved, many of whom pointed to that moment as the beginning of new and exciting friendships during that school year.
Paul arrived at the station nearly two hours late due to the weather. I could easily recognize his silhouette through the dimly lit station concourse. I was cold and very aware of the dampness all around me as we got into his well appreciated heated Subaru. I was half still in my train station state of mind, he had already driven several hours in the snow- we both smiled and I could feel the gradual commonality of our intent to connect as we drove amongst the snow covered branches. Paul asked me about how I felt at Galen’s birth. He then described, using different examples, how he sensed infants regulated their dynamics by adjusting their eye contact. I was engrossed by his insight and wisdom.
At Columbia, he would hook us up with biofeedback machines during his classes, slow down films to look at frame by frame movements, and have us use our non-verbal senses in new ways; all of which pointed to his well documented thesis that “we communicate through shared states.” This state sharing is like being with someone on an escalator, moving at a constant speed. When joining begins, even with a different temperament or energy, a phase locking occurs with our biological rhythms that are so powerful and meaningful. When we desire to connect this way, there is a distinct harmony (that is always available), which Paul would describe as “good vibrations.”
Another educational tool he would regularly use was a current copy of Marilyn Ferguson’s Brain Mind Bulletin. He would challenge our perceptions using brain research, holograms and perceptional distortions to motivate us and then he would relate the ensuing discussion to a favorite quote of his from Bateson regarding how all our problems can be traced to the difference between “how nature works” and “how humans think.”
We entered Brattleboro late that night and stopped to pick up some food and his ever present Merit brand cigarettes, which I am sure, played a part in his eventual demise. Paul moved as usual in his timeless relevance, never complaining, but always stopping to observe things that probably would seem to others to be mundane. The store clerk’s behavior that night caught his eye and he beautifully put it into context, narrating the dynamics of how the situation he worked in was maintained. I was fascinated by how his moving lens caught that fleeting moment and put it into an ever present stream of evolution.
Despite his clear and concise gift of narration, he had a shyness that covered his sanguine manner. Instead of lecturing he would teach through inquiry to get us to speculate about how the living world (“Creatura”) cannot be described through the material-physical non-living world (“Pleroma”). By challenging historical influence, such as that of Descartes and Newton who separated mind from body experience; Paul would point to the dangerous consequences of cause-effect (linear) and non-integrated (polarized) thinking . He would eloquently explore contemporary issues and how they were distorted through presumptions of non-integrated content and linearity.
In effect, Paul demonstrated how the “modern” Western way of knowing could rigidly eliminate “naturalistic” processes that allow for error, reversibility and novel opportunity for healing and self-correction: “the difference that makes a difference.” The latter results from an appreciation of how nature works- a respect for the earth being “more than the sum of its parts” – with unlimited potential for adjustment and rearrangement. This is described by the Greek word “Gaia,” allowing for infinite celebrations of possibility.
A narrower view, perceives change in a fashion that is reduced to external forces and causation. Consequently, man-made problems permeate political conflict and issues of global pollution, economic inequality and dualisms of right-wrong, success-failure, good-evil, and Viagra-unhappiness resolutions. On the other hand, Paul’s holistic framework of understanding our world was so refreshing because it offered a simple means of resolving problems that unfortunately is paradoxically difficult to implement. This is so, because cultural and institutional constraints that emerge from self-perpetuating systems disallow mitigating process and “natural” healing. Paul believed that nature was a continuous process of changing, self –corrective relationships.
For me, on a personal level, my relationship with him was an opportunity for “blending” –integrating the many aspects of my self experience. I could be silent, which with my Italian ethnicity was initially difficult for me, and still communicate without the pressure of “logic,” of which Paul would say “is not always an appropriate reference.” He would remind me many times that communication and learning is over ninety percent non-verbal and then gaze at me for a timeless all encompassing moment, leaving me feeling totally honest.
When we arrived at the property late that evening, there were several feet of snow on the ground. Paul quietly took the chains out from the back of his Subaru and before I knew it I was wrapping the tires on my side of the car. We traveled the mile or so through the narrow road to the A- Frame cabin on the property- it was pitch dark and cold, yet soothing. There was a feeling of comfort with all that was around us. It took almost an hour, one foot at a time, getting out and pushing, no words said, until we got to the dwelling and the wood burning stove lit up the night and there was Paul’s smile, (his face reminding me of Leonard Nimoy as Spock on Star Trek), saying “be in the beginning.”
I had read and heard the Zen-like epistemological explanations in his classes, and in books- but to be in the “repetitive yet newness of each nuance,” in his presence was another thing. It was like experiencing the landscape from the grain of that moment, a beginners mind, that fleeting but distinct second, which allowed me to see how injurious it is to miss the “part-to-whole” connections of our existence. Not seeing it; with friendships, in community, or in self serving ways produces a separation and imposed hierarchical structure that is in conflict with nature.
Late that evening, having a cup of tea, I asked Paul about my uncertain direction. He paused thoughtfully and said, “It is important that you continue to recognize the many different connecting patterns of your life.” I asked how that is possible. He answered, “Widen your lens; view the larger contexts and then feel the inner, natural ideal that shapes your feelings. This will frame solutions to support your direction.” It was then, that I “now understood” what Paul meant by “the aesthetic,” the ideal human game of joy, which is to recognize our interconnected essence; understanding it is the wisdom that sustains the natural flow of our relations.
Paul would repeat that message in different ways throughout the next several years in many conversations and silent meditations. When I finished my own dissertation about communication double binds and passed my defense, I broke down and cried from the strain of the moment. Paul without hesitation walked through the formalities and around the large table where I sat. He gave me a hug and then drove me to the train station with a warm long smile and said, “it is time to get on with your life.”
I would occasionally see him, (although not often enough,) during the following years at Columbia or at his loft in Manhattan. I was always refreshed and replenished after a visit with him. He was consistently searching, observing and sharing how we make sense of things, right up to his passing a few years ago. About a month before he died and right after 9/11, he wrote that he was glad things were well with me. He mentioned that he was “near to being recycled and not too sorry, given the present state of the world.” I wrote back about how I still believe in the inner natural ideal, the aesthetic, which will frame our eventual solution. His response, not surprising to me, was a simple “Thanks,” because he would best explain mostly without words, how the joining that is possible in each of us lies between and across the biological and cultural realms of our contexts. I learned from him that we can feel the joy each moment, and simultaneously be and connect with all its wider possibilities, which undoubtedly is the wisdom of communication.
Prologue: Ingredients and Applications of the Joy of Joining
Over the years, my personal journey with the Joy of Joining has uncovered some favorite evolving ingredients which I use every day in my practice as a psychotherapist and homeopath, all of which have beginnings from my conversations with Paul Byers, and fruitions through my family, dear friends and acquaintances that have challenged and sustained them.
Celebrate interpersonal communication
Although we can synchronize underlying biological rhythms when we join in communication; this process is usually out of our awareness. Focusing on how we “tune"into rather than “doing” things to each other is the celebration of many new possibilities forlearning and relationships that fosters harmony. The “win-win” volley of this tuning has no place for “win-lose” interactions and conflicts.
Use a systemic lens to view nature
Something that seems good in one context may not be good in a simultaneously connected wider context. DDTwas originally seen as beneficial when it killed predators of certain agricultural crops. However, within a few years, DDT entered the biological food chain where many species of insects and animals either became extinct or were threatened with extinction. Recognizing the patterns that join us, allows for an appreciation of fundamental causes that may support or sabotage interconnected relationships. The widening of our lens is the process of perspective. Once this is done, refocusing on the present but narrower context will never be the same.
Respect culture, temperament and diversity
How one feels, radiates and adapts are cues to their ways of gathering information. The natural movement towards wholeness is what Carl Jung called the “self.” We have an inherent nature that constantly moves toward collaboration. Understanding the multitude of possibilities within our species allows for conscious and unconscious dialogue that produces accessibility to symbols and intent that is the “Ah” feeling of our connections. This is what Martin Buber described as the “I-Thou” experience. Once this is understood, we can avoid being misled into an “I-It” sense of the world.