Buried Alive: Clawing Our Way Out Of The Abyss

I'm watching the rescue of the Chilean miners. They are discussing the depth at which the Chilean miners were trapped underground. Of course, we all knew they were deep underground. I don't know about you, but I hadn't given much thought to how deep underground they were. I just knew they were deep enough to be trapped and to make it very difficult to get out alive.


It has always been difficult for me to process just how huge the earth really is. Perhaps it goes back to when I was a child and my neighbor, Scotty, warned me that digging in the dirt with my kitchen spoon past the red clay would allow the devil (who, in my mind, looked like Super Nut, the cute little guy with the cape on the package of Goobers, circa 1973) to come out and "get me". That just made me want to dig more, so I could see the cute little devil goober in person!


So, when I heard them say that the miners were at a depth far deeper than the Empire State Building, it really struck me how amazing it is that these guys are surviving the whole ordeal and finally being brought to the surface.


There is so much symbolism for me in the whole scenario of being trapped underground, then brought to the surface. I have always been both fascinated and terrified by the idea of being "buried alive".


The Vanishing, with Jeff Bridges (a favorite) and Sandra Bullock (another favorite), was a haunting tale of a disturbed man who buries a stranger alive. He does this just so he can prove to himself that he is capable of being a good person, since in his mind, only someone capable of evil is also capable of making a choice to be good. (Not sure I understand that logic, but whatever.) Sometimes I think the people who write these things are more disturbed than any psycho killer!


In the movie "Kill Bill 2", Uma Thurman's character is buried alive and, impossibly, manages to escape. It is such a dramatic scene, and she plays the role so well. One can feel the character's terror and panic, the hopelessness, the doom. And yet, she is inspired by her training with Pei Mai to use her skills to defy the odds and, quite literally, arise from the grave.


When KB2 was in theaters in 2004, I must have seen it more than a dozen times in the theater for that scene alone. I was so inspired by it that, for my birthday that year, I got a few friends and co-workers together and had myself buried alive (pine box and all) for 15 minutes. I must say that it was extremely liberating to face such a fear by embracing the object of it in such a way, and then to enjoy the pseudo-rebirth upon resurfacing. (Not even the fact that I ended up fracturing my collarbone and spraining my ankle after tripping afterwards could put a damper on the experience.)


A few weeks later, there was a magazine in the U.K. (Bizarre Magazine) that interviewed me about the experience after reading about it on my blog. The story never made it to print, and I'm guessing it's because, even though she asked me about 20 different ways if I got turned on sexually by the experience, the answer was always "no". It was more of an intellectual thrill for me, which doesn't make for an interesting story to readers of a fetish magazine.


I didn't realize it then, but I can clearly see now that part of my desire to be buried and then brought back to the surface was about wanting to kill my afflictions (O.C.D., anxiety) and reclaim my essence (creativity, expression).


I had lost so much of myself over the past couple of decades that there didn't seem to be much of me left for a while. I sometimes feel as though life has whittled away at me from the beginning, so that I've never actually had the chance to grow upward, always having to grow more substance to replace what was cut away.


I've had a rough summer, and so have many others I know. That being said, few of us have had the kind of harrowing experience that the Chilean miners have had.


When I was in prison, the only way I could think of to adequately explain to someone what it was like to be isolated from the rest of the world for two years was to tell them to "Ponder everything you have done over the past two years. Every meal you have eaten, every night you have slept, everywhere you have gone, all of the people with whom you have interacted. Now, imagine all of that never happened and the whole time you were sitting in jail." It's a huge loss of life. It's not a loss of your entire life, but it is a significant part of your life, and it affects the rest of your life in many ways. The fact that you were put there for allegedly having done something wrong in no way makes the post traumatic stress disorder many people struggle with upon release any easier to deal with. If only that were so!


And yet, as difficult as that was, I can only imagine that it must have been far worse for the miners in Chile. They didn't know for sure that they would make it out alive. They were deep in the bowels of the earth, unable to shower, unable to receive emergency medical care, unable to receive mail or make phone calls...


Think about everything you have done since August 5. Vacations, weddings, work days, weekends, meals, movies, places you've gone, people you've seen. During that time, the miners were trapped underground and unable to do anything but stare at the same underground tomb and the same co-workers. Their world was extremely limited. Their lives were on hold.


The abstract idea of being trapped underground for 69 days is bad enough, but when you put it into real terms of your daily life and then contrast the two, it really puts it all in perspective.


The fact that these people have survived is extremely inspiring to me, as is the outpouring of love and concern on a global level. It's just what I needed to help get me out of my funk.


Thankfully, most of us will never experience something so terrible. However, it is worth noting that many people are experiencing their own difficulties, things which are difficult in their own ways and for which there is no public outpouring of support.


Deaths, debt, depression, divorce, illness, unemployment, even the frustrations of daily life, can weigh us down to the point where we feel overwhelmed and "buried alive". What good is the ability to walk freely on the surface of the earth if we feel as though we are smothering under the overwhelming pressures of daily life?


I have learned that, much like Uma Thurman's character in KB2, if we are to survive we must draw on whatever resources we have at our disposal and summon the courage and determination to use them in whatever way necessary to climb out of our (often self-imposed) tombs.


For me, I find strength in discovering what inspires others. Their words and actions can move me to believe that I can, once again, overcome life's assaults.


On some level, I believe that we all dwell within the confines of our own inner abyss. The key is finding ways to rise out of that abyss, using its dark energy to propel us towards the light of determination and accomplishment.


Recently, I read a couple of quotes from Twitter buddies that made me feel as though someone had inserted oxygen directly into my lungs.


The first I found under @WordWhispers: "Take your tears of grief outside, where the sun will paint wee rainbows between each drop."


Wow.


@NatashaBadhwar is one of the godesses of Twitter. Anything she writes is profound in one way or another and I have been honored (!) to have her read and comment on my blog posts in the past. I recently discovered at one of her links the following:


"As you find the courage to name what you may have lost on the way, you also find a way to reclaim it."


Regardless of whether these quotes are original to these two, or whether they found them inspiring and quoted them, the fact that they share them says much about who they are.


I highly recommend checking out their Tweets, and welcome any comments from you, dear readers, about what inspires you to keep breathing each day. After all, everyone can use some "mind-oxygen" on occasion.


Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some things I've lost on the way to name and reclaim.


A.