Spring 1982

 

October 22, 2022

It was one of those glorious early spring days, the sun was warm but, the wind was sharp and reminded you in no uncertain terms that winter was not done with you yet. My best friend and I were walking home from school, and we had stopped in the lee of the community centre to have a smoke. All day he had seemed edgier, excited, really eager to talk about something. I had known him since I was 8 years old, and to that point in our young lives, there was nothing that we had/could not talk to each other about. We were stood there bullshitting about the girls at school, about that brother and sister who went through the whole of everyday at school holding hands and standing way too close to each other, and close talking the way you do with someone that you have had sex with. They had the whole school wondering exactly what was going on there.

As I was blabbering on about them he turns to me and focuses his giant dinner plate sized blue eyes on me, and I all of a sudden realize that he is now taller than me, he was still too skinny and now too tall. I was afraid that if he turned completely sideways he would disappear. He was trying to grow his hair out, it was not going to help, he would still have a Brillo pad on his head. His features wee too long, too sharp, he was quite frankly, funny looking. And he was bullied for it, but he was my best friend. He was the kindest, sweetest, smartest person I have ever known. He had wicked quick intelligence and a wild sense of humour. If you would let him, he would have you pissing yourself with laughter, or he would blow your mind with his mental gymnastics. He was just a beautiful beautiful person, and I thought of him as my brother.

So he turns to me and says, “There's this girl at church, and I get hard just looking at her!”. I was a bit taken aback. I knew his Mom had started attending church, but he had never said that he had started going too. Not that it mattered to me, I was struggling with my own lack of any type of spiritualism, so I was pleased that he had found something. During the course of that discussion which lasted several days, he eventually got around to inviting me to this church to both see if I liked it, and he wanted me to check this girl out. Not too many Sundays later I hauled my hung over ass out of bed, slipped into my cleanest jeans and a collared shirt, forsook my steel toed Kodiak boots for my cowboy boots in lieu of dress shoes that I did not own – nor a suit, and went to church for the first time since I was seven years old. I was pretty under dressed by comparison to the rest of the congregation, and by the looks I was getting, they were all disgusted by my appearance, my long hair just below my shoulders, my jeans worn and faded, my boots well worn and broken in. I even dropped a $10.00 bill into the collection tray, which was not near enough according to the judgmental looks I got. And God forbid, I was there without my parents too! I mean imagine the gall of this kid who was clearly deeply troubled, he was taking independent action with his own spirituality, the shame of it!

So that was the congregations and mine first impression of the other, needless to say it was not good. My attitude towards them was the same as it was towards all adults, you have 3 seconds to respect me and if not, go fuck yourself. Most of that congregation was fucking themselves. Not too long after I actually got to meet this youth group, and this girl that my bud was so hept up on. Nice girl but clearly not interested in my bud. She was hooked on this guy with whom she had grown up with while in this youth group. They eventually got married and moved out to B.C. This hurt my bud, they had been of similar build, she was long and lanky, and pretty enough. I used to tease him, if they got married and had kids, the kids would come out as stick people.

  It was an interesting dynamic with those dozen kids, most of who were trying to be good Christians while being teenagers, not an easy balancing act. I was neither accepted nor rejected by the group, overwhelmingly though what I felt like was an outsider, clearly my upbringing had been very different from theirs. For most of us the ethics that we learn are based in whatever religious teachings our families receive, for most of us those lessons as to what acceptable behaviour is, is hammered into us in the school yard, a type of collective well that's okay. In the environs of that congregation I became concerned for the welfare of two of the younger girls, their mother was a severe looking woman, with a harsh take on Christianity. She was raising those girls right out of the Old Testament, an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth, and took pains to discipline her girls publicly so. As these two girls were humiliated in public, none of the congregation including the Minister, would intervene on their behalf. If they received that level of violence in public, we do not want to know what was happening to them at home.

I could understand the church's reaction perhaps if this behaviour had been a one time thing, but according to lanky girl and married guy, this had been going on for as long as the mother and daughters had been attending- some years at that point. In those years though, schools and churches and other organizations did not involve themselves in children's lives, what happened to you happened and too bad. As I engaged in some fairly serious Bible study with Married guy, I found that the church really had nothing for me, I had gone into it with a twofold purpose. Firstly I had been searching for some respite from the horrors at home, and secondly I had been hoping to find some way of reconnecting with the Holy Grail. The church was where my father had found Capon, and Capon had introduced us to the Grail, so I assumed that Capon's knowledge was fairly widespread.

Overall I found the church experience to be overwhelmingly disappointing, I had wanted to find something in the Bible to help both my brother's and mine plight at home, I figured that out of the Bible's 31,102 verses, there had to be something that could help. Out of all that gobbly gook there was just 18 verses that had anything to do with caring for children. It struck me then though I knew not

why, that the information about slavery roughly doubled that of child care, there are 32 verses about slavery. And it is fairly detailed information, whereas the child care stuff is a bit mealy mouthed. Then the question became, why were slaves more important than children? That was followed by a host of questions like, why are there so few stories about children in the Bible? Then those stories about children go from the kid being a baby to an adult almost instantaneously? Then the Bible's main character Jesus Christ, why is his life not detailed from childhood on, you know how as an angry 1 year old he gets mad and levitates mom or someone?  

Or maybe while he was babysitting his brother James and his sisters, and James and everyone barfs all over him? Maybe you know, have him perform an early miracle and have him stop everyone barfing? This of course was not going to happen, they were royalty and nannies would have seen to such, but as the church presents him, as a working class carpenter, a regular guy, why are we not given the early details of his life? The reason for this is of course, if they told the truth of his childhood, they would have to acknowledge their lie about him, and therefore acknowledge his true Grail heritage. But back then in 1982 I had no real idea of what the Grail was about, I only knew that what the church said the Bible said did not add up. It would be nearly 15 years again until I figured out why the information about slavery is so concentrated and why the child rearing stuff is so limited. Those discoveries changed the context of the Bible, changed who and why god was. Gave real context to the most ambiguous verse in the Bible, Haggai 2:8 where God says the Gold and Silver is mine.

My best friend still attends that same church, and still has the church's crap bird fed to him Sundays. He is now unwell, and I guess tries to find comfort in the church, I feel for him and want to offer more, but the bottom line for all of is, whatever the truth of the afterlife, we will only really find out when we get there. There is no doubt about the truths we have discovered herein these pages, as we go forward the church and its lies will continue to be exposed, and we will better understand our sacred journey's purpose. When my bud figures out the truth he will bitch slap me hard and want to know why I did not tell him what I think, and I will look him in the eye and tell him the truth, that each of us has our own journey. He is really fucking smart and will figure it out.

Incremental Change

 December 12, 2021

24 Hour Sober Medallion. My sobriety date is July 27, 1999. This maybe 2 or 3 months after I'd moved from Toronto, to London in search of happiness. I was offered a medallion at my first meeting. I refused it, I was very full of myself, believing that I didn't need tokens to lean on. Plus I wasn't convinced that I was an addict. Yes absolutely I had been brought up in an out of control addicts home, yes clearly my thinking differed wildly from others. Yes I'd come home from work and sometimes stay drunk from the moment I got home to, eight hours before I had to go back to work. But my behaviour varied widely, that was the exception, not the norm. This though more than anything defined me, I was scared stupid that every drink, every toke, would hook me, and turn me into a carbon copy of either of my parents.

So there I was, sitting in an AA meeting, watching this pretty blonde receive her umpteenth 24-hour sober medallion.   

I had been going to meetings for a couple of months at that point and was only beginning to get it. She was frustrated with herself and was begging God for help to stay sober. I giggled to myself about that—God? He didn’t exist. And if he did, I thought, he was a complete ass.

After the meeting, I went for coffee with a guy who had been an MP with the RCAF (Royal Canadian Armed Forces), and from this fella, I learned a new definition of God.

I unloaded on him about my feelings toward God and how I was really struggling with the idea of God as a higher power. He looked me straight in the eye—and kind of pissed me off. His comments, though not unkind, blew the lid off something I had been struggling with for more than a dozen years.

When I was around ten or eleven, a neighborhood kid—who had a reputation as a clean-cut, do-what-he’s-told type—once said about both my brother and me that we were out of control and had no discipline. At the time, that statement was meaningless to us. What right did he—or anyone, for that matter—have to sit in judgment about how we lived our lives?

In retrospect, though, our entire family had been out of control, and the whole neighborhood had noticed.

Not surprisingly, this behavior in me had been easily spotted by the former military cop. He said to me, in no uncertain terms, that I needed to start living my life with G.O.D.—Good Ordered Discipline.

My immediate reaction should have been to tell him to go fuck himself. But the thing of it was—I knew he was right. And that pissed me off even more.

I owe that guy a great deal of gratitude. By learning about this serious shortcoming in my behavior, all of a sudden AA’s program—and its Twelve Steps—made a whole lot more sense to me.

It was at this point that I began to understand I had spent the previous 25 years in survival mode, and that, out of necessity, anything went. Under “normal” circumstances, there should have been absolutely no reason for a 13-year-old kid to be 50 or more kilometers from home on his bike—simply to avoid any chance of running into the kids, or my brother, who bullied me.

During the winter, I would cut class and ride the subway until it closed, then take the all-night buses just to avoid being at home. A lot of the trouble I got into during these adventures was a direct result of the rage I was filled with because of what took place at home. I lashed out at every opportunity. I had opportunities to join gangs, but I thought they were bullshit—and the people who joined them were weaklings, without an ounce of self-respect or the balls to say no.

The following 9 points describe what it’s like to live in survival mode:

1. You are doing everything you can just to get through the day.

2. You focus all your energy on the next 24 hours—you can’t even think about tomorrow, let alone next week.

3. You can only consider one task at a time. Everything feels urgent.

4. You feel utterly alone and helpless. You’re convinced that only you can do the job right—and that you must.

5. You push others away without thinking, because you don’t have the time or energy to deal with them.

6. You don’t eat properly, sleep is a foreign concept, and your stress level feels like it could snap at any moment.

7. You rush around like crazy but never feel caught up.

8. You can’t remember the last time you laughed or enjoyed a day.

9. All you can do is react to whatever arises.

The following can help enormously:

Be willing to let go. Pare life down to the basics. Remind yourself: We survived, and at that time, that was the goal. Start with what you can do right now. When things begin to come together, slowly add to it—one step at a time.

Put succinctly, survival mode involves adaptive physiological changes in the body that help us respond to stressors. When we experience stress, a cascade of hormonal and physiological responses prepares us to fight, flee, or freeze (Harvard Health Publishing, 2018).

But when we’re “surviving” too long, the effects become clear. Research shows that chronic stress and continuous exposure to stress hormones can be harmful (Hormone Health Network, 2018). Sometimes, our body overreacts to everyday stressors—treating a “rabbit” as if it’s a “bear.”

Frequent stress responses and chronic exposure to these hormones can take a toll on the body, affect our emotional health, strain relationships, lead to medical issues, and increase the risk of anxiety and depression (Harvard, 2018; Hormone Health Network, 2018). So what does this mean, and how do we cope better—how do we move from surviving to truly living?

When under stress, it can be tempting to stay in survival mode—riding the waves like a roller coaster and white-knuckling our way through. But there are ways to help ourselves:

THE BASICS

1. Connect with yourself
   Survival mode often involves disconnection—even dissociation. Reconnecting is key. Ask yourself: “What do I need?” When we’re in survival mode, we often overlook our basic needs. What is your body telling you? Are you tired? Hungry? What are your emotions saying—are you scared, angry, sad? Take a moment to check in so that you can respond intentionally rather than automatically.

2. Connect with others
   Seek support from friends, loved ones, a therapist, or safe people who can help you reconnect—with yourself and others. These relationships help us gain perspective, find stability, and shift from surviving to living.

3. Exercise
   Cardiovascular exercise is a well-known way to help the body manage stress and regulate the hormones involved in stress responses.

4. Be kind to yourself
   Don’t shame yourself. You didn’t ask to be stuck in survival mode. Our bodies are adaptive machines—and sometimes they adapt to unhealthy environments when they have no better options. Breaking the cycle takes time and patience.

It’s important to understand that for some—especially those with histories of complex trauma—survival mode becomes an automatic response. It may feel like the only way to be. While there’s beauty in our bodies’ ability to adapt, chronic stress or trauma can rewire the nervous system to make that stress response our “normal.”

Rewiring and healing take time, especially if survival mode began in childhood. Regardless of what put us in this state—or how long we’ve been stuck in it—we can learn to help our bodies and minds distinguish the “bears” from the “rabbits” and, over time, learn how to live again, instead of merely survive.

Consciousness in the cradle: on the emergence of infant experience (Part 5)

 April 20, 2026

pave the way for high density multichannel MEG recordings tailored toward the head size of in- fants using 3D-printed helmets [105]. Besides the recording technologies themselves, innovative new experiments and analyses will also be needed. The development of techniques for using fMRI to study awake infants is already yielding dividends and the prospect of making PCI ap- proaches infant-friendly by substituting sensory stimulation for TMS may deliver even richer re- wards [75].

Although progress in understanding the origins of consciousness will likely be advanced by a bet- ter understanding of brain development, understanding the implications of developmental data for accounts of the emergence of consciousness will also require a better understanding of the neural and functional basis of consciousness. This review has taken a theory-neutral approach to infant consciousness, but it is likely that a full understanding of the emergence of experience will require the development of a complete and widely accepted theory of consciousness.

Acknowledgments We acknowledge support from the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) to T.B. ; an ERC advanced grant 2017 FOUNDCOG 787981 to R.C.; the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), project number 493345456, to J.M.; and a L’Oreal for Women In Science International Rising Talent Award and the Welcome Trust Institu- tional Strategic Support Fund to L.N. T.B. and J.F. gratefully acknowledge the support of funding from Monash University’s Arts Faculty which facilitated this collaboration. We are also indebted to Ghislaine Dehaene, Stan Dehaene, Lauren Emberson, Marcello Massimini, Pedro Mediano, Liad Mudrik, Anil Seth, Giulio Tononi, Janet Werker, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on this material.

Declaration of interests

The authors have no interests to declare.

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