Perpetual Growth:

The Story of Our Beginning:

We just wanted to take a moment to say.... THANKS and... STORYTIME!

Several years ago, in a land far, FAR away, where Emotions were Skills to be mastered, it came to pass that over the course of a few days, several Josephine County Residents brought to my attention that they were looking for a means of proving their efforts to a certain Court of Law as to having waged Battle with one particularly disruptive emotion: Anger!  I could understand why they came to me; I had been facilitating a community-based DBT group for quite some time already, but as this particular group did not meet the court's criteria, I had to turn down each in turn.  When the last of these BEGGED for my signature, I began to pay attention.  After all, nobody had ever asked that I sign anything related to my group before, and now to hear the denial met with such fervor!  Whatever was going on here, it was... Sus.  I began sleuthing about, and soon came to understand the reason for the panic in their voices: without the opportunity to complete a Certified Anger Management Program, they were destined for the Land of Ten By Ten, replete with its transparent walls of evenly spaced and vertical steel rods (not a way to spend your Summer).  Devastated by their plight and frustrated with the lack of needed services in our county, I sent couriers in every direction and to the far corners of the land in search of a suitable (any!) program.  It was many moons before one finally returned with a Discovery: such a Program existed!  But alas, it was hundreds of miles hence, and our fair citizens' mode of transportation was limited to the degree that their shoes remained on their feet.  With careful coordination and a slow nod from God above, I was able to arrange for their compliance, and all but one was spared the fate that had been levied (this last one had lost their battle waged, overspilling their cup of animosity in public and attracting the attention of a by-now all-too-weary G-Man; for them, unfortunately, there was nothing to be done in this moment).  And naturally, all of this had me questioning their plight.  Was it suitable to me that the Citizenry be tasked with weaving a rope, the fibrous strands for which still lay unharvested in the bark of trees some 3 days' journey on?  Would they have opportunity for not only access, but also learnedness and application, and be given legitimate opportunity to prove their own worth/ineptitude?  With my own life at that juncture being drowned in the wealth of knowledge that poured from the fountain of Formal Education, I resigned myself to the agonizing sensicality of first finishing the education I started, especially as my successful imbibement in those heavy waters would one day yield the very proficiencies I sought (and humbly, now possess).  And so, Fair Citizen, never you mind that the threads of Empathy are as gossamer, for we will both take them up, and together weave a blanket with such amplitude of tensile strength and softness, that when draped over the head of Anger, he would soon be astounded at the fruitlessness of his thrashings, and bring it to his shoulders to marvel its craftsmanship.  He will be taken up by the beauty of its sheen, left in awe of its weightlessness, and eventually sit in appreciative stillness for the tranquility it bestowed.  In our future together, Fair Citizen, we will learn to let flow the serenity that Empathy elicits in ourselves, learn to apply it in ways that will deepen our patience and understanding of others, and ultimately learn that when we allow Empathy to engulf us, we no longer have need, use, or space for our Anger as we once did, and release it.  Namaste.