Dining Blind

October 15, 2013 — 3 Comments

Last week in San Francisco my friends and I attended Blind Cafe, an enlightening evening in the dark. This is a show that travels around the country, gathering local volunteers and donations in each city in order to put on the production.  None of us knew what to expect, other than a blind tasting and some music.  It turned out to be amazing on many levels.  Happy hour was in dim light with the guests drinking wine and meeting each other as well as the visiting puppies in training and their guardian/trainers.  The two darling golden retriever mix pups were loving and enthusiastic about partying with everyone.  Our tickets were arranged in tables with seating numbers so when the time came for us to go into the darkness we lined up with a hand on the shoulder in front of us to be guided to our places.  Our group of three briefly met some of our table mates while we were in line.

The room was pitch black and very loud.  It seems that when we have no sight we begin to turn up the volume in order to stay in touch.  The plate of delicious vegetarian food was set in front of each chair, but the table also was full of other items in the center that could only be discovered by feeling.  We were given plastic forks, but they did not last very long for most of us. I was happy to find water bottles in the center, and friends passed me some exquisite bites from other places in the table.  Most of the talk was about the food and how to find it, but somehow the person across the table from me started talking about his ultra special diet.  Before you could say gluten intolerant I was involved in a heated argument with this stranger in the dark.  We were already in an organic vegetarian situation, so I did not want to hear that eating one of the goat cheese roll ups would cause him to become bipolar.  Quickly I determined that he took bipolar drugs as well as LSD and copious amounts of alcohol, but that was not enough.  He explained that he had a masters’ degree in interpersonal shamanism and was therefore totally aware of the incongruities he presented.  He said he agreed that LSD might make him think he is bipolar/bisexual.  My friend seated next to me asked me why I was freaking out at this man, and I asked myself the same question.  Luckily it was time for us to all do active listening during the comedy and music entertainment, so we had to end the fight.  I have wondered why this bipolar/bisexual LSD person was there for me, and what archetypes we both represented in the food fight.  I maintained that orthorexia is damaging, and he maintained that goat cheese can potentially cause in his life temporary states of mental breakdown.  I will not know his name, and I was careful when we left not to look to see his face.  He is a mystery shadow that completely engaged my shadow, but in the dark!!!  Who was that????

If you go I doubt that you will encounter any transpersonal analysis sitting across the dinner table from you.  This had to be some special San Francisco thing that could not happen again.  The food and the fun were beyond compare; Who knew it came with an archetypal lesson?