Journal Entries—Sherborne Memoir

The following journal entries are part of my memoir, Real People, about the inner journey of discovery I went on during J.G. Bennett’s Second Basic Course at Sherborne House when I was in my early 20s.

Journal Entry December 2, 1972—

Something in me is percolating. Like air bubbling up through the muck

of a riverbed. It actually tickles. At inexplicable moments I suddenly want

to giggle. I don’t mind at all. It feels like there’s something new, what I

want to call a “Ridiculous I,” growing in me. An “I” that can be silly.

What a relief!

There’s an old Zen koan, something about a goose inside a bottle.

I wonder—am I the goose, or am I the bottle? Either way, how does the

goose get out?

Journal Entry December 4—

The pace of the course is quickening, moving faster, as if

there’s something inside me like yeast in bread. It’s becoming difficult to

write in my journal. When I read my written words all I hear is the ring of

false personality ricocheting off the page. How do I capture what is real?

Maybe what’s real is the fact that I am not.

Sometimes when I speak, my voice sounds hollow, like it’s coming from

inside an old, dead tree. It’s getting hard to stand myself. I’m more and more

aware of how self-centered I am, and I see that I don’t see. It feels like things

are shifting, heating up. As if Sherborne House is a cauldron that is starting

to simmer.

Journal Entry January 20—

Passing Fa

 i thought i’d learned it all

Fourteen Days in Bed

revelations by the score

my Body no good

Ego tripping to trip me up

it goes so well, it

keeps me right asleep

Yet there’s no time

to rest

to contemplate

the rest to learn

I learned

All the devils in me

are false personality

“i’s”

I learned a charm

to keep me safe

I learned

it doesn’t work

Couldn’t write then

it’s all lost now

swimming somewhere

inside my head

I’m torn apart, battered and bashed

quashed, succumbed.

Hurting Sore and Troubled

midpoint on the scale

this Enneagram circles

while I am stuck in the long dark

passage,

the Harnel-Aoot of the soul

with the hangnail of ego still,

just there

Rip it Out!

Oh,

“You think you’re an Enlightened Idiot?”

idiot

Idiot

IDIOT

Fool

Journal Entry January 26—

Last night in the bathroom, as I lay my worn toothbrush down

on the edge of the sink, I looked up and froze. Gazing back at me from the

rectangle of glass was a face I didn’t recognize—an animal, evil thing.

I stared back, not through round, blue eyes but small, calculating ones.

No cute little nose, but one that sniffs out self-interest. Not ordinary

ears but those that hear only what they want. The grin was that of a

wolf with set jaw. No heart-shaped, innocent face here but a calculating,

judgmental, self-interested one.

Horrible Creature! Was this the me behind the mask of false personality?

A sentence comes—Ordinary man does not see himself in the glass,

but the reflection of his self-love and vanity.

Journal Entry January 28—

So how do I get this goose out of its bottle?

— There, it’s out!