tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78120978758128146352024-03-13T08:55:43.293-07:00Traumorphosis: Softening into SanctuaryJaliyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868006713291780694noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7812097875812814635.post-30412008899098144512015-06-22T12:14:00.000-07:002015-06-22T12:14:11.361-07:00Intersect: Hope and DespairEvery day a theme arises. Words appear on pages of the books I've got piled and shelved around my home; sometimes I choose a book at random, open it, and a passage will leap out, leading to other passages. Today my meander began with <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/gail-caldwell/new-life-no-instructions/">Gail Caldwell</a>, then moved on to <a href="http://www.davidwhyte.com/">David Whyte</a>, then to Dylan Thomas and on to a <a href="http://ichingquotes.blogspot.ca/2015/06/the-end-is-nigh-yay-principlehexagram.html">poem</a> I composed yesterday.<br />
<br />
Thomas' "force that through the green fuse drives the flower" surges up through each of us. Caldwell, in her book <i>New Life, No Instructions, </i>writes that "we are engineered to rise up, in every developmental sense."<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ7uKIbfE8p9WZfDyf-O6MggPsRnGhTxRR5fKha5Q9U0GlrTDEJuhdt7N0VpHN-YcFHTfEGZKRxuQLRIkj7TPtH5c7UJADhmmoz8hDS8lvDdgyYEGY4WDWd167HXdYCJTR-JIab90VhDk6/s1600/green+fuse+-+my+hands.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ7uKIbfE8p9WZfDyf-O6MggPsRnGhTxRR5fKha5Q9U0GlrTDEJuhdt7N0VpHN-YcFHTfEGZKRxuQLRIkj7TPtH5c7UJADhmmoz8hDS8lvDdgyYEGY4WDWd167HXdYCJTR-JIab90VhDk6/s400/green+fuse+-+my+hands.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
We are made to aspire, like flowers and other green lives. As babies, we raise our heads, our necks, our torsos ... and then, one miraculous day, we fumble to our feet and stand. We toddle, walk, and run. A day will come when we can cradle buttercups in our hands during an amble though a wood, as I did in this photo.<br />
<br />
Buttercups ... hope in tiny yellow bowls. Hope for spring arising through us, no matter what. Hope is a pivotal power, entwined with our vital force. Who cannot be attracted to buttercups, to the little suns that they are? To their brief perfection, to their proof of Life insisting on expression?<br />
<br />
I write of hope today because for so long, I've felt so close to being bereft of it. Every day for about the last seven months, I have vowed to stay alive despite poverty, loneliness, and long illness and injury. The last straw seemed to be the death of my most beloved cat, Vida, who died just over six weeks ago. She was my mainstay, my closest bond, my cuddler, my bedmate. I used to joke with friends, "You know that VISA ad? -- 'VISA. It's everywhere you want to be.' My take: 'VIDA. She's everywhere you don't want her to be -- on the kitchen counter, the keyboard, the top of the fridge, the edge of the balcony!" The truth: she was everywhere I wanted her to be: in my lap, on my chest and belly, my shoulder, under the covers with me. She was my primary reason for being after I was divorced five years ago. She and I kept each other alive. After three years of deepening, unrelenting illness, her time to be freed of pain and suffering arrived. I had to make the agonizing decision to reqlinquish her, and I howled at Life: "How will I go on?"<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjuPSY21ITmsX1ON2KFiM9t3wUeIRimBj9nFNkK02BJgJJg4Mw2FF0Q_zEQZfaee18uZLRJCtCaoZTz7L5hjXjjMYBlGaExm5KC61vS7QdG4TOYjzjJOjxZo2XCOcUw8ZLR-E3Gf7O_VBT/s1600/Vida+sprawled.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjuPSY21ITmsX1ON2KFiM9t3wUeIRimBj9nFNkK02BJgJJg4Mw2FF0Q_zEQZfaee18uZLRJCtCaoZTz7L5hjXjjMYBlGaExm5KC61vS7QdG4TOYjzjJOjxZo2XCOcUw8ZLR-E3Gf7O_VBT/s400/Vida+sprawled.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I write to stay alive. I vow to stay alive because of how David Whyte understands despair. His book, <i>Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words, </i>arrived by surprise in my mailbox last week, gifted to me by a dear friend who understands the sustaining power of the written word, and how it tethers me to life.<br />
<br />
Whyte's thoughts on despair are unique; he uses the word "beautiful" three times in his meditation on despair. <i>Beautiful?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
He begins: "Despair takes us in when we have nowhere else to go; when we feel the heart cannot break anymore, when our world or our loved ones disappear, when we feel we cannot be loved or do not deserve to be loved ... Despair is a last protection ... a necessary and seasonal state of repair." <i>A state of repair?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
We experience despair as the musty, cob-webbed cellar of our soul, a dead zone of psychic winter, a winter that we perpetuate when we refuse to admit any warmth to our lives, when we refuse to recognize that spring, like winter, is inevitable. Despair, writes Whyte, stagnates in us when we decide "that the seaons have stopped and can never turn again." We can chain ourselves in that existential cellar with a single thought, by abstracting reality into morbid fantasy, by freezing our bodies and breath, by refusing relation. Yet we are webbed and wedded into relation, even as we deny its truth. Even in despair we bond, even as we believe we cannot, when our eyes are cast only into the unlit distances of cellar-thinking, unable to see beyond the cage we have latched ourselves into.<br />
<br />
"Despair is a difficult, a beautiful necessary, a binding understanding between human beings caught in a fierce and difficult world where half of our experience is mediated by loss, but it is a season, a waveform passing through the body, not a prison surrounding us."<br />
<br />
Where's the key to the cage? It's in awareness ... and in one breath. Another breath. Every breath admits spring to the soul. Oxygen: the force that drives the pulsing fuse of the brain. One breath at a time allows us to pay "a profound and courageous attention ... independent of our imprisoning thoughts and stories, even strangely, in paying attention to despair itself, and the way we hold it ..."<br />
<br />
Can we hold our despair like we might cradle a buttercup?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJVWufHP_O370ixNE3OjZJ4kqWb29FoMY15JpuIuKNMiEJoxSyhlSwlNveCH2aPC7DHz6Q86wAidMZcU63OGUROmjjHArH6DDDl2X3uAKHREnFhRMK5nFD3U9mCSC7ib9K1nBBxFrezsmH/s1600/313733_539222112765400_886235336_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJVWufHP_O370ixNE3OjZJ4kqWb29FoMY15JpuIuKNMiEJoxSyhlSwlNveCH2aPC7DHz6Q86wAidMZcU63OGUROmjjHArH6DDDl2X3uAKHREnFhRMK5nFD3U9mCSC7ib9K1nBBxFrezsmH/s400/313733_539222112765400_886235336_n.jpg" width="350" /></a></div>
<br />
<i>The best is yet to come? How about "The rest is yet to come?" -- </i>The <i>rest </i>being one of two possibilities: <i>rest </i>as in succor, retreat, quiet. David Whyte writes that "Despair needs a certain tending ... the body left to itself will breathe, the ears will hear the first birdsong of morning or catch the leaves being touched by the wind in the trees ..."<br />
<br />
The <i>rest </i>is also simply the next. What will the next moment, the next instant, bring? We cannot know ... but we can guide ourselves into possibiities. What will they be?<br />
<br />
Every morning, I tune my ears to birdsong, and one of my favourite sensations is a breeze meeting my skin ... the breath of the world greeting the gift of sensation. At dusk, I tune in again to the birds' nesting songs, their lullabies ...<br />
<br />
Despair has a lifespan, as White says: "A season left to itself will always move, however slowly, under its own patience, power and volition."<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigm7BeT7biRpOe9wuvoVTM53tVXD4HoXHJ82lrXBdi6j-8o_uGcgYVCp4i9BxZ4XdRg9VgYUr10NmapKDb5jOWTT2RmnRHeOYCItChw5rGyF-X6MFo1B0GyhzlP22ip_gPlLui090ugT_1/s1600/momentum_t.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigm7BeT7biRpOe9wuvoVTM53tVXD4HoXHJ82lrXBdi6j-8o_uGcgYVCp4i9BxZ4XdRg9VgYUr10NmapKDb5jOWTT2RmnRHeOYCItChw5rGyF-X6MFo1B0GyhzlP22ip_gPlLui090ugT_1/s400/momentum_t.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<i>Volition! Momentum. </i>One breath, one word, one aspirational thought at a time. This is where Gail Caldwell's words arrive as more sustenance:<br />
<br />
"I wanted to say something about hope and the absence of it, and how we keep going anyway. About second chances, and how they're sometimes buried amid the dross, even when you're poised for the downhill grade. The narrative can always turn out to be a different story from what you expected."<br />
<br />
<i>Always. </i>It's a word we often nag at, telling ourselves and others not to generalize, globalize, concoct catastrophe. But here ... <i>always </i>is a word of hope, of possibility.<br />
<br />
"... if momentum is a physical version of hope, well, I've got that ... my body heaves in an absolute sense of going forward, with a kind of determination that feels like rushing water; it is the way that one throws off despair ... sometimes force is all you have, and that has to be enough. Because with just that force, according to Newton, eventually you get to someplace else. A calculus of hope and motion."<br />
<br />
That green fuse again ...<br />
<br />
A person whose brain and being have been mired in depression and trauma's aftermath often experiences what I call <i>volitional paralysis. </i>Frozen by terror, quicksanded by despair, how are we to inch our way back to vitality?<br />
<br />
Poetry helps me. C.S. Lewis wrote that "When we read, we know we are not alone." I know that I am not alone when I read this passage from James Wright:<br />
<br />
Suddenly I realize<br />
That if I stepped out of my body I would break<br />
Into blossom.<br />
<br />
<i>Break into blossom ... like a buttercup.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqHDZ5ctKXUjreo-BSjHTEZGPqu3MGt_IvPkqHmSokZ6o6cpLyUPbr8yfvjR9_XEVzH74cFSGiU59hxli7JcuR4OQiJ4bLKiW5XT9zFaeErpyK6SPkjaj9-UL692hftvr6D8yTLBW6JClt/s1600/buttercup.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqHDZ5ctKXUjreo-BSjHTEZGPqu3MGt_IvPkqHmSokZ6o6cpLyUPbr8yfvjR9_XEVzH74cFSGiU59hxli7JcuR4OQiJ4bLKiW5XT9zFaeErpyK6SPkjaj9-UL692hftvr6D8yTLBW6JClt/s320/buttercup.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<i><br /></i>
<i>A buttercup among buttercups. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>You who read these words: dear buttercup, you are not alone. </i>Jaliyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868006713291780694noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7812097875812814635.post-60370192189887041852015-06-20T18:18:00.000-07:002015-06-20T18:18:14.959-07:00Charleston: my confession<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8I5EymaSbIWAA17xUhW4y_QZGW0m3AaqNdwqgPLsUJvfJqCjXEdUXnleUxloU8sR5ud3T58KVdw18HYqHpiHPdqIraR-6pVGJhg4a7_eTJbE7JcJ3MtfGnjhrTkR-u_lnkh7MTyRpAJdP/s1600/10014900_1714571335453924_3748372953969536748_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8I5EymaSbIWAA17xUhW4y_QZGW0m3AaqNdwqgPLsUJvfJqCjXEdUXnleUxloU8sR5ud3T58KVdw18HYqHpiHPdqIraR-6pVGJhg4a7_eTJbE7JcJ3MtfGnjhrTkR-u_lnkh7MTyRpAJdP/s320/10014900_1714571335453924_3748372953969536748_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>In memoriam</b></div>
<br />
Three days ago: nine shades of human, wiped forever off the palette.<br />
<br />
Around the rest of the globe: how many others?<br />
<br />
Nine people singled out in a church ... Nine people, among others, who welcomed a young man into their midst, who sat with him in a circle for a Bible study. I wonder what verse they were pondering and discussing when he drew his gun.<br />
<br />
He spared one woman, apparently, telling her to remember what he had done.<br />
<br />
We will all remember. We are all saturated with memories of people who have drawn guns, knives, and other weapons against other people. We're all overloaded with the images, the sounds, the bloodshed. We all wonder who is next.<br />
<br />
Around the world, we wonder.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the voices rise. "He's mentally ill," say some. "He's a racist thug, a terrorist," say others. "He's a gun nut like his father, who gave him a gun for his birthday," say more. He's barely out of boyhood and he's come to hate his fellow human beings who have varying shades of cocoa-coloured skin.<br />
<br />
He was immersed through his life in a culture of hate. Who taught him to hate? I can't name any one person in his case ... but I can in my own. In the wake of this killing, I recall my own immersion.<br />
<br />
I'm white. More a pinky-beige, but my ancestry is known as white. Mostly WASP, with some Western European and Pennsylvania Dutch thrown in. I'm a mutt. Right there, my skin tone sets me against what we perceive as its opposite: black. Right there, we drive a wall into the ground of being by calling one person "white" and another "black."<br />
<br />
The truth is, there's one theme: skin tone. Its variations number in the billions. Skin tone is as unique as a fingerprint. Whose skin truly is white; whose truly is black? There are a few of us, relative to the billions, whose albino skin comes close to the white of this page. There are a few whose skin tinge is authentic black. All of us ... variations on the theme of <i>human.</i><br />
<br />
We tend to stick with our kind. Our familiars. One could say that we are pack animals in our way. The question is, Do we become communal pack animals, or contrary pack animals? Are the circles of our relations permeable -- will we open our arms to others, or will we close ranks and tighten our grip on who and what we know, refusing to admit others as potential kin?<br />
<br />
I learned early in life to tighten my grip, even as my essential nature was attracted to kinship outside my family. I was contrary in that respect. A familial belief that I heard again and again was, "You can't trust anyone outside the family!" My parents had money enough to hire other people to tend their home and children; these people came from all kinds of backgrounds foreign to mine. Women and men from Finland, England, Ireland, the Caribbean, Yugoslavia, and other countries cleaned our home, cooked for us, sometimes tucked me and my siblings into bed. Most of them radiated kindness and care; one of them has adopted me, in her heart, as her other daughter. She is the mother of my soul, and was my father's most faithful friend for the last ten years of his life. <br />
<br />
I heard the "n" word spoken when our Caribbean helpers weren't around. I heard other words that insulted people whose racial origins were different from mine. Every such word came from my father's mouth. From whom did he learn those words? I don't know.<br />
<br />
Until I was about ten, when I'd been thoroughly immersed in my father's imperative of racism, I was baffled: How could my father love me and our family, but appear to hate so many other people? How could he call our domestic helpers by name, sometimes with affection and what I sensed as respect, but refer to some of them with epithets when they weren't around? I came to believe without comprehension what I'd been told I was, even as I often felt like an alien in my own home. Somehow, I was deemed superior because of my skin tone. Somehow, my pale skin made me more human.<br />
<br />
When I was eleven, I was invited for a sleepover at my best friend's house. My friend -- I'll call her Olive, after the tone of her skin -- and I formed a club whose members numbered two: us. We called it "Pick-a-Pants." We drew cartoon faces on an easel draped with big white sheets of paper. The faces were classmates we didn't like. If I recall correctly, we shot spitballs from thick straws at those faces. The girls in question we judged as stupid, fat, ugly. We spit-balled and thought ourselves superior. We doubled over laughing at our classmates' faults. Then we went to bed. Olive's bed was draped with a duvet of down; it was big enough for two, and there we lay, nattering away with secrets and schemes.<br />
<br />
A moment arrived of argument. I don't recall what we clashed about; I only know that as my ire arose, a word shot out of my mouth, right into Olive's ear.<br />
<br />
<i>Nigger!</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Olive turned to ice; she rolled away from me. Her stony back became a wall. Her ice became my tar. Shame. Panic. Death in a bed. I'd shot her with a word, and the shrapnel deflected off her back and sheared me through and through.<br />
<br />
The next morning: stone in a bowl for breakfast. I could barely choke down the cereal that her mother laid before me. Olive's eyes refused to meet my own. She tore ahead of me down the driveway to the bus, and sat herself down with the first familiar face she found. I sat alone. Later, in gym class, she sat beside another girl; I was again alone. She <i>did </i>look at me then, once. Hatred; purest hate. She would not speak with me again.<br />
<br />
I never learned of her ancestry. I did learn what one word could do to a bond, to a soul. To two souls.<br />
<br />
I never used that word again ... out loud. Beneath the shame that curtailed my mouth for life, <i>nigger </i>and its vile cousins spun about through my adolescence, lashing at my throat, taunting for release. Those words can still rebel against my native curiosity and fascination with other cultures, other peoples. They still pop up, in rare moments, to the front of my mind when I meet someone whose heritage bespeaks profound, seeming difference. There's even a pair of words that erupt against other "whites" from whom my background differs: "White trash!"<br />
<br />
That phrase made a brief appearance yesterday when I saw the image of the young man who shot those nine people in Charleston. I shook my head against it, as I always do when one of those despicable words erupts. <i>Human, human, human, </i>I decree. I also tell myself, as Viktor Frankl believed, that there are only two human races: the decent, and the indecent. I sometimes think that another pairing of similar contrast is human ... and humane.<br />
<br />
We're all human. Do we choose to be humane? -- Already, several <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2015/06/families-charleston-shooting-victims-we-forgive-you">relatives</a> of the nine people killled in Charleston have expressed forgiveness towards the young man who shot them. Here is decency and humanity of the highest order: what I call <i>humane-ity.</i><br />
<br />
One loathsome word, spat at a friend when I was a child, stopped me cold from ever spewing such a one again. I admit the immersion, and my lifelong vigilance against allowing a racial slur to move from old habituated thought to speech. I <i>was </i>infected, early in life, as was my father ... and I apply the medicines of awareness, silence, and humane seeing if the old insults bait my throat, wanting out. I want to know my fellow humans by name, by story, by culture ... by music, dance, cuisine. Curiosity cures the caustic, mutes the fiend in me, the fiend who was just a child immersed. (Unlearning can take a lifetime.) I want to be a friend; I want to learn. The world is full of wonders ... and countless colours, costumes, cultures.<br />
<br />
Never again a spittled word of hate. Never will I draw a word, or a gun, against another being. I've never even held a gun, and I pray I never will. Instead, I hold my hands against my heart and murmur, <i>Mercy.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvVZG_2h6ysPaNsqnBHNO8v4xussJgzWTFFFZpBAS0Cy2ckCv45b4vk0VhVYtJ8-AEMcvCxBKmeCkqNO7belXUWVgNZTE38cwwtcmKfcz6BOLUIIme0dDoG_Q6gxGo8cfDMnfi5fJN7fSA/s1600/nelson-mandela-love-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvVZG_2h6ysPaNsqnBHNO8v4xussJgzWTFFFZpBAS0Cy2ckCv45b4vk0VhVYtJ8-AEMcvCxBKmeCkqNO7belXUWVgNZTE38cwwtcmKfcz6BOLUIIme0dDoG_Q6gxGo8cfDMnfi5fJN7fSA/s400/nelson-mandela-love-3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><br /></i>
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span>Jaliyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868006713291780694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7812097875812814635.post-88777241724611300722015-05-06T17:27:00.000-07:002015-05-06T17:27:49.654-07:00In response to fear: A Prayer for the Taking (along the road to Emmaus)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1B1y0NEd4QUOQ9IriCGa-LUCLMlum_OUCqSdBvrPhUlK_gWiSSBK-gi2X_6NPKYJ7iPbV5DwU4hWONaMvdoT6_P8FJWct0XNUVkzaGUGP78znpEBbkXa5-ZlJ9NyJqDOLFIw6BGgSi1dc/s1600/road-to-emmaus-e1311738653188.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1B1y0NEd4QUOQ9IriCGa-LUCLMlum_OUCqSdBvrPhUlK_gWiSSBK-gi2X_6NPKYJ7iPbV5DwU4hWONaMvdoT6_P8FJWct0XNUVkzaGUGP78znpEBbkXa5-ZlJ9NyJqDOLFIw6BGgSi1dc/s1600/road-to-emmaus-e1311738653188.jpg" height="156" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
God,<br />
take me<br />
by the scruff<br />
of my tremulous neck,<br />
by the stuff<br />
of this flawless soul<br />
I am blind to,<br />
and lay my withering feet<br />
on the road.<br />
Give me the bread<br />
to break; make of me<br />
the bread. Break me<br />
of fear.<br />
Lay me open<br />
to the sight<br />
of my own astonishment.<br />
Give me my wings.<br />
My <i>power.</i><br />
Unbind my eyes<br />
to the living,<br />
here in the lens<br />
of all the death<br />
that I see; the death<br />
I believe my life<br />
has become.<br />
Shed me; rid me<br />
of fear. It shatters<br />
my bones; crumples<br />
my spine. Raise me<br />
up to my true height.<br />
Pivot my eyes<br />
to the glory<br />
of May bursting<br />
open with green.<br />
<i>Here, </i>you say,<br />
is Life.<br />
<i>Here, </i>you say,<br />
is Me.<br />
<i>Here, </i>you say<br />
as you settle my stance<br />
on the Emmaus road,<br />
is <i>you. </i>Jaliyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868006713291780694noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7812097875812814635.post-53659439752979659042015-02-04T16:41:00.000-08:002015-02-04T16:41:34.302-08:00Sometimes I wonder ... ... if what we call "depression" is a lifelong coagulation of grief, of losses and their effects, traumas and their aftermaths ... and a deprivation of loving touch.<br />
<br />
I wonder if we're mistaken in our culture's emphasis on the tip of the iceberg -- the tip of the <i>brainberg -- </i>in our insistence on treating, primarily, the cortical and cognitive expressions of depression and trauma. Are we missing something? I think so. The label "mental illness" -- at least insofar as depression and trauma are concerned -- will get us nowhere because "mental" <i>is </i>nowhere. What we call "mind" or refer to as "mental" is a process, not a product. We can't lay our hand on the mind or its movements like we can lay a hand on a table, a cat, or our own skin ...<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>And it's there, on our skin, where the magic can happen. <i>The magic? </i>Yes. </b></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnisp42HyaAQ5MHQtJNBRyNJ_7iqwuQf5ubDnYNejLqaYZnEmCaZkbu0XDiEZk-N1kEpttKwat3HOn29AeBenoovcyBrZMn7AZt465bLgYitXRsAKtbXUjJfNmqnGCZVUQ63vZnRrZm_85/s1600/267237-father-hugging-children.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnisp42HyaAQ5MHQtJNBRyNJ_7iqwuQf5ubDnYNejLqaYZnEmCaZkbu0XDiEZk-N1kEpttKwat3HOn29AeBenoovcyBrZMn7AZt465bLgYitXRsAKtbXUjJfNmqnGCZVUQ63vZnRrZm_85/s1600/267237-father-hugging-children.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Touch is our touchstone, our built-in miracle, our best medicine, and the one we're least likely to use.</b></div>
<br />
A few days ago, one of my dear friends came to visit. We've known one another for over 26 years; we've witnessed one another's deepest shadows. She's gentle and kind and she insists on my goodness, as I do hers. I trust her enough to ask her to touch me.<br />
<br />
During our visit, I asked her to lay down in my bed with me to share a "spoon." She lay down beside me and rounded her body to mine. We were quiet ... and eventually both of us dozed off. We lay for maybe an hour, and when I awoke, I felt it: the warming, the full-body sense that everything in me was touched. Boundered. Contained and present. Expanded within. Softened. I felt <i>whole. </i>The all-through-me warmth lasted throughout the rest of the evening, and I curled around myself at bedtime, remembering. I thought, "I slept with my friend." What a gift.<br />
<br />
"I slept with someone." -- What error usually lies in those words! "I slept with somone" usually means, "I had sex with someone." That's about as sleepless as it gets! How'd we come to equate the acrobatics of sex with sleeping?<br />
<br />
There are people in the world who are practicing what's known as <a href="http://www.cuddlegroup.com/index.html">"cuddle therapy."</a> They're <a href="http://www.rewireme.com/journeys/hug-therapy-high-touch-healing-high-tech-world/">on to something</a>. We are immersed in touch during our gestation ... and we scream for that heat, that pulse, that purest of presence as soon as we're born.<br />
<br />
Freud, too, was on to something when he mused that we all want to return to our mother's womb. We can't, of course ... but we yearn for that containment for the rest of our lives ... for that feeling of being completely embraced, warmed, rhythmed in sync with a beloved pulse.<br />
<br />
A popular saying goes like this: "We need four hugs per day for survival; eight hugs for maintenance, and twelve to thrive."<br />
<br />
Popular science points us to what occurs when we are deprived of touch. I'll never forget learning about Harry Harlow's rhesus monkeys: infants taken from their mothers and caged in metal wire with only a tower of more wire to cling to. The luckier monkeys got a tower encased by a towel ... and they fared a little better than the ones who only had wire. Cold metal, harsh edges. The babies with only metal to touch became utterly lost, despondent, broken in being. We could call them psychotic -- out of touch with reality.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimQWustiieydo15kqXvju2PACvD1eGIivi7weW_7cJ5fgzf0gSK8ni4RODLYjiiNBcPPPuZY_yyWBkoNl6WTdO-uP7_wbWdP5HVUgOOOlcmYEpF0doI17igP6IEad2V-7XmKQdFg5i8lsZ/s1600/harry-harlow-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimQWustiieydo15kqXvju2PACvD1eGIivi7weW_7cJ5fgzf0gSK8ni4RODLYjiiNBcPPPuZY_yyWBkoNl6WTdO-uP7_wbWdP5HVUgOOOlcmYEpF0doI17igP6IEad2V-7XmKQdFg5i8lsZ/s1600/harry-harlow-2.jpg" height="265" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<i>Out of touch with reality. </i>Our first, our most formative reality, is touch. We know that we exist, that we matter -- that we <i>are </i>matter -- when we touch and are touched in safe sanctuary. the word <i>matter </i>actually derives from <i>mater, </i>which is Latin for <i>mother. </i>There's no bonding agent like our own skin moulded to another's. No other medicine, no other intervention, can calm our autonomic nervous system like this. Our presence rebounds ... our brains become quiet ... our jittering slows, then comes to rest.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZhJgDCwqY3q2rT9Gvs7d5n1xEMctidO_X3_gmoODS2pVKR_3-3ISNPq9Rv5Gmk8Dy5JbYknRC3AQFmkyGVmxoJJG9G2dY0JyyhyD67W3a6vvfNdWqX3QLMk0zvg7JAizaR7Twrz5qWw0L/s1600/hugs_500-490x326.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZhJgDCwqY3q2rT9Gvs7d5n1xEMctidO_X3_gmoODS2pVKR_3-3ISNPq9Rv5Gmk8Dy5JbYknRC3AQFmkyGVmxoJJG9G2dY0JyyhyD67W3a6vvfNdWqX3QLMk0zvg7JAizaR7Twrz5qWw0L/s1600/hugs_500-490x326.jpg" height="265" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>No pill can calm us like this; no cognitive practices; no talk. We don't need to talk when we touch. We need only to breathe and receive ... the reciprocation is natural. The brain signals <i>safe ... </i>and we melt.</b></div>
<br />
I have a friend whose primary devotional path is Tibetan Buddhism. He once told me, during a meal we were sharing, that "we have all been one another's mothers." I froze. What he said struck me to the marrow as <i>right. </i>My first thought in response was, "...then we have all been one another's children." Imagine what our world, our societies, our relations might be like if we all understood this. <i>We are all one another's mothers and children. </i>How might our attitude about touch shift if this were so? Might we be more open to hugs, to soothing hands laid across our shoulders, to sitting close enough to one another so that the outsides of our thighs nestled together? How many more twosomes of all kinds might we see holding hands or linking arms as they walk along? How easy might it be for us to ask someone we love, someone we feel viscerally safe with, for a cuddle? How might our practices of medicine and psychotherapy change if practitioners could initiate more than only diagnostic touches? <a href="http://www.psychotherapy.net/interview/bessel-van-der-kolk-trauma">Bessel van der Kolk</a>, one of our world's great trauma sages, wrote in his recent book, <i>The Body Keeps the Score, </i>that "the most natural way that we humans calm down our distress is by being touched, hugged, and rocked. This helps with excessive arousal and makes us feel intact, safe, protected, and in charge. Touch [is] the most elementary tool that we have to calm down..."<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span>
I mention mothers and children ... and I include men in the mix. Men can be mothering. It's all in the approach, the intention, the heart that wants to nourish another.<br />
<br />
I had a friend who lived out of town. He'd come to stay with me for a weekend, and he'd wear my pink flannel jammies to bed. We'd tuck in together and spoon. We'd giggle; we'd wiggle. We both felt utterly safe. Kids on a sleepover.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQivqynsNHIkqEfNVuqwXPuHbRmY2laDRQ_5NxjYYDaImTetCGDwsBUBksAC-p7RsNTrdwtM4x0kEOn4RE_nPkQAtre2r7eKPJFhfNRPKaQIq81Vqy_5DIDU1JEXmab8gjpAhf4WjH7D8C/s1600/Cuddling-Kittens-013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQivqynsNHIkqEfNVuqwXPuHbRmY2laDRQ_5NxjYYDaImTetCGDwsBUBksAC-p7RsNTrdwtM4x0kEOn4RE_nPkQAtre2r7eKPJFhfNRPKaQIq81Vqy_5DIDU1JEXmab8gjpAhf4WjH7D8C/s1600/Cuddling-Kittens-013.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
He's gone now ... been dead for over seven years. As I mourned him, I'd lean over myself and curl into the memory of his lean little body moulded with mine. I'd keen for him. There are days now when I keen for the ones I love who are still in the world, for my cuddle-companions. Three come to mind ... all women who are single, as I am. I've bedded down with each of them -- for cuddles. We've held on, belly to backside, under duvets and blankets; we've melted into deep rest, our breaths and pulses slowing and merging. We hold one another sometimes, like mothers hold their children.<br />
<br />
I admit that I could pass much of each day in this sanctuary. I was born two months premature in the late 1950s, when mothers and preemies were not allowed to touch, to bond. There were no "kangaroo holds" back then. I was gravely distressed at birth, not breathing, and went into cardiac arrest three times in my first three days. I was incubated in isolation for three months. Every hand that touched me was paradoxically both invasive and life-saving. Tubes, needles, procedures, interventions. No cuddles; no breast to smoosh into; no skin to meld with. I've hungered my whole life for deep, quiet touch. I trained as a somatic psychotherapist; I touched the people who came to me for care. My dearest mentors touched me, contained me, molded my body to theirs and held on. Two held me through storms of rage; one would press her palms to my temples when I felt myself dissociating from presence. Another wrapped her body around mine when I cried like that bereft infant I once was.<br />
<br />
I once had a mate -- a husband. We touched constantly, with deep affection. We cuddled; we spooned. We'd lay in a tangle of limbs and blankets, often with a cat (or two or three) mushed into the mix. Sometimes one of us woud say to the other, "Let's go to bed" ... and we meant simply that. <i>Let's go to bed and nestle in. Let's snooze; let's warm one another to the core.</i> We'd fall into sleep ... all boundaries softened into purest ease and trust. We once held each other while showering, belly to belly, in quietude under the warm water, utterly still and simply breathing ... and the sense of cherishment I felt nearly buckled my knees.<br />
<br />
It's so easy to reach out and touch another ... and it's what we tend to fear the most. What might it mean if I lay a hand on your arm, your back, your leg, your face? What might I want? What might you? Our bodies respond in totality to touch ... Sometimes, erotic and sexual feelings arise. They're simply part of the whole. It's what we do with those feelings that matters. We can breathe into those sensations, and disperse them into an expanded warmth. We don't have to do anything with them, or about them.<br />
<br />
I sustain myself on the alone-days with memories of those I've melded with, melted into, held and been held by. Sometimes I lie down in my bed and lay a hand over my heart, and I reach deep for the solace of skin-to-skin recall. If I'm in bed, one of my cats crawls under the covers with me, and the other likes to lie on my chest, kneading my neck, gazing into my eyes and purring up a storm right into my heart. I read somewhere that humans, in contact with beloved animals, release <i>twice </i>the amount of oxytocin, "the love chemical," throughout the body than we do if we're in touch with a beloved human. I know this for sure: my cats keep me alive.<br />
<br />
I admit to this bone-deep loneliness because I sense that we all share it to some degree. If you live with beloved humans, and especially someone you can cuddle with, you are blessed beyond measure. On every night that you can bed down with someone you are deeply bonded with, you are given Life's supreme gift.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihBwax48fyi6guIqg1lSM91lec67ksfLI_UVKSLpk9yq2F4c7sScZw2CoQA1XlBnfd6XBo2qCZtlWW7CXAYNg5hRk7ZSxxEFsoGk7YEv_ISQCZ8P35bRDKMSWUKR0XYyOSF-v82VeA797d/s1600/quote-tis-the-human_16977-5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihBwax48fyi6guIqg1lSM91lec67ksfLI_UVKSLpk9yq2F4c7sScZw2CoQA1XlBnfd6XBo2qCZtlWW7CXAYNg5hRk7ZSxxEFsoGk7YEv_ISQCZ8P35bRDKMSWUKR0XYyOSF-v82VeA797d/s1600/quote-tis-the-human_16977-5.png" height="400" width="368" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />Jaliyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868006713291780694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7812097875812814635.post-15358509472011673722015-01-08T10:47:00.000-08:002015-01-08T17:20:27.821-08:00How to STAY when you desperately want to leave. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX1cv9AMz_AZdF1Wfj7ztboJxnXqEtGM1YO5_3l-P8VU-XjjWhktVrqkxZ8Aw3k39_GNvlnNfJjHBAnohh4gY_x-e80dWuUDjqynEQxK9Fx3cTrHU3-r-2HJd_JVoCcyEathDxLoj3voS6/s1600/stay_391_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX1cv9AMz_AZdF1Wfj7ztboJxnXqEtGM1YO5_3l-P8VU-XjjWhktVrqkxZ8Aw3k39_GNvlnNfJjHBAnohh4gY_x-e80dWuUDjqynEQxK9Fx3cTrHU3-r-2HJd_JVoCcyEathDxLoj3voS6/s1600/stay_391_1.jpg" height="400" width="258" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
January can be one bloody ugly month in northern climes. Christmas has come and gone; your New Year's resolutions are probably dead in the slush; the skies and everything else in your corner of the world are grey, grey, grey.<br />
<br />
So is your soul, and you find yourself waking up one morning, wanting only to go back to sleep ... permanently.<br />
<br />
Today's been such a day for me.<br />
<br />
I've felt compelled to die since I was a child. In the last eleven days or so, I've felt the chokehold of the old suicidal imperative in a way I've not experienced in over 30 years. The trigger? Being with my family for four days over Christmas -- being in a home full of loved ones, lights, dogs, food, warmth ... then coming back to being alone in an apartment that used to be the home I shared with the husband who left me over four years ago, the man whom I can't stop loving.<br />
<br />
Coming back to face, as I have faced for exactly seven years now, a spate of illness, injury, and loss that has not relented. Seven years ago today, I fell ill with a flu that lasted three weeks. I was working full-time then, and I managed to return to work for 1.5 days at the end of January. That was it. I won't detail here what had occurred to throw me out of my life as a competent, healthy, social, viable person; I only know that exactly seven years have passed, and that a quadruple whammy of major depression, complex PTSD, various autoimmune diseases, and a brain injury have just about totalled me.<br />
<br />
Today I awoke to another day alone, another day with no structure, no company, no goals, no work. I made myself some lemon water for breakfast; I ate two bananas, fed my two cats, and did it all through a rageful haze -- a ferocious urge to die on this harrowing anniversary. Seven years. Seven fucking years.<br />
<br />
I pulled on every layer of winter clothing that I have, and made myself go out for a walk. The temperature was in the -15C range, with a wind chill in the minus-mid-twenties. I noticed the buds on a magnolia bush down the street. They were intact. So was I, dammit. Upright, walking, moving against the black tide.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqmYRrR8jFQ3GLPxVvq2NojR0vVeo2H3oMu0dOfxvIZG7ZvOKGgWJYq8VbD0Oog8RBdXieuse0Z77t_c3GPLjP51qyOiD9guj9Yb5rMqLx1NH7ywTkwUK1IWXx3upLbPv1gHqhRbrKGPAN/s1600/magnolia_buds.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqmYRrR8jFQ3GLPxVvq2NojR0vVeo2H3oMu0dOfxvIZG7ZvOKGgWJYq8VbD0Oog8RBdXieuse0Z77t_c3GPLjP51qyOiD9guj9Yb5rMqLx1NH7ywTkwUK1IWXx3upLbPv1gHqhRbrKGPAN/s1600/magnolia_buds.jpg" height="273" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">(Photo: Leora Wenger)</span></div>
<br />
I started to think about writing this post. Started to think of how I've written other posts that urge people to STAY when all they want to do is check out for once and for all. Thought about the responsibility I carry, now that I've put that order out into the world. Thought about the people who responded to those posts, people who thanked me, people who took the idea and ran with it. One of my friends told me that a support group she's involved with -- and then another support group -- decided to use the STAY imperative as a practice.<br />
<br />
I thought about impermanence. Thought of a line I read in a book by Pema Chodron one day while nosing through a bookstore; how I opened a certain book and read: "Impermanence protects us." Three words that blew my mind. Three words that told me, <i>Everything is changing all the time. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Even the suicidal imperative changes. Even the suicidal imperative is impermanent, if I choose to pull myself through and beyond it. I am typing now to save my life, and possibly yours.<br />
<br />
While I was walking, I started to think of a list of STAYS. I'm going to list them here, and invite you to add to the list.<br />
<br />
Far too many good souls have checked out -- have given up -- have thrown themselves over the edge between life and death. Robin Williams, one of the sweetest, most generous souls ever to have graced this planet, took his life last August. His death was a catalyst -- a tidal change agent that has galvanized people around the world to dig into why -- <i>why -- </i>we give in to the urge to kill ourselves.<br />
<br />
I remember Robin and my previous STAY posts in this blog ... and I pound the keys in order to survive this day. Here's my list. Here's why I, and you, should STAY in the world for one more day, and then for one more day after today.<br />
<br />
Give yourself permission to not do that thing you've been resolving to do for weeks, months, years. Allow yourself to have blown your New Year's resolutions, just for today. Let yourself feel as shitty as you need to feel ... without going over the edge. Let yourself <i>feel, </i>period. Emotion is the ventilator that will release the pressure of the thunderheads in your brain.<br />
<br />
Run yourself a hot bath and climb into it. Cry your eyes out into the water. Tears heal. Tears release the pain. Tears are an opened valve on a pressure cooker.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcoU8rdgpRIKUFXx-OI5PJyiEb7cX7zt59bNehBp8Humopy7Ko01XfBIjydy1D5RBh2lfmMZtFPwbW-o7GtDpJKS1kSUnX_B9WRhbtqGJ4-645ya-RkHM0z1rMtWo___9765bIdZM6TKK-/s1600/the-cure-for-anything-is-salt-water-tears-sweat-or-the-sea-36.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcoU8rdgpRIKUFXx-OI5PJyiEb7cX7zt59bNehBp8Humopy7Ko01XfBIjydy1D5RBh2lfmMZtFPwbW-o7GtDpJKS1kSUnX_B9WRhbtqGJ4-645ya-RkHM0z1rMtWo___9765bIdZM6TKK-/s1600/the-cure-for-anything-is-salt-water-tears-sweat-or-the-sea-36.jpg" height="400" width="210" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
MOVE. Even if it's only to take one deep breath, MOVE.<br />
<br />
Tell someone how close to the brink you are. If you think that no one in your world wants to listen to you, tell yourself, <i>Bullshit. </i>Someone <i>does </i>want to hear you. Phone a friend. Phone your therapist if you have one. Phone your pastor. Phone a crisis line. Pray. Tell your dog or your cat. Tell <i>someone. </i>Ask that someone to take your hand -- literally or in imagination -- and walk you, step by step, back from the brink.<br />
<br />
Play a certain song, and keep playing it. I've created a "Stay Alive" playlist on my computer. It includes (so far) "Have No Fear" (Bird York), "Hold On" (Tom Waits), "Love" and "Love & Hard Times" (Paul Simon), "My Declaration" (Tom Baxter), "Blackbird" (Kenny Rankin), "You Are Not Alone" (Curtis Stigers), "The Gift" (Annie Lennox), and "This Is To Mother You" (Sinead O'Connor). Create your own STAY ALIVE! playlist and play it over and over.<br />
<br />
Find one thing to be grateful for. <i>One. </i>You can do it. I am grateful today that I still have a roof over my head, and heat to warm me against the winter cold. I am grateful that I have a computer, and that I can type these words. I am grateful for tea, chocolate, my cats, my friends, my grit. I am grateful that I've made it this far today. I'm grateful in advance for anyone who reads this post and decides to stay alive.<br />
<br />
Notice the surprises, the miracles. Those magnolia buds down the street from my apartment are miracles. They're withstanding a killing cold. After my walk, I logged on to a forum that I participate in for people who live with major depression and other disorders of mood. Somehow, a banner had been inserted above my name. The banner says, "Inside all of us is hope." One tiny leaf extends from the stem of the "p." I have no idea who did that, or how it got there. All I know is that it's there, and that it surprised me. Another surprise: an envelope I pulled from my mailbox from a literary journal I'd love to subscribe to if I had any money to do it with. On the envelope was a quote from poet Sharon Olds: "Between love and language I choose / love and language."<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxRCjWLIRYhbEPBtqhe6esTKqdd-vFk7X6Izjze3iOaQuQBK5q2VCdFzeuvv7U_jSSizy2GRkYS6r6cuuL-v8rDwsfNut_RUbxFznefKROkGTGdpytAZQLIoaQf4FIltJG_ojUxwmQ7X9v/s1600/hope-painting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxRCjWLIRYhbEPBtqhe6esTKqdd-vFk7X6Izjze3iOaQuQBK5q2VCdFzeuvv7U_jSSizy2GRkYS6r6cuuL-v8rDwsfNut_RUbxFznefKROkGTGdpytAZQLIoaQf4FIltJG_ojUxwmQ7X9v/s1600/hope-painting.jpg" height="249" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Remember how you've pulled your soul back from the brink before today. Think explicitly about what you did to STAY. Make a list of your STAYS. <i>Use them. Now. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Acknowledge that you're at rock bottom right now. Better that than at the brink of the existential abyss. At least if you tip yourself over at rock bottom, you won't fall far enough to die.<br />
<br />
Eat. Drink water. Your brain will ease if you nourish and hydrate it.<br />
<br />
Nestle yourself into bed with lots of blankets and pillows. If you have a teddy bear, grab it and hold on for dear life. If you have a dog or a cat, snuggle in. I have a cat who lets me kiss his belly and sweet-talk into his fur. If you have a little creature who lives with you and depends on you, think about what that creature will be left with if you die today. Then think about what that creature will be left with if you choose to live.<br />
<br />
Choose to believe that you're not alone in this. All over the world, other people are teetering on a similar brink. Tell them to STAY. Sit right where you are and make STAY your mantra, your message to the world.<br />
<br />
Read something beautiful. Grab a book you love and find your favourite lines in it. Commit them to memory right now. Read and repeat. My lines for this moment, from Rainer Maria Rilke: <i>Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. / Just keep going. No feeling is final. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
STAY. STAY. STAY.<br />
<br />
I'm pulling for you. I'm pulling for me, determined to be a phoenix who will arise from this seven-year cycle, fire from the ashes. I'm pulling for <i>us. </i>Jaliyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868006713291780694noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7812097875812814635.post-65343709688583969302014-12-21T10:55:00.000-08:002014-12-21T10:55:52.230-08:00"We can do no great things, only small things with great love." ~ A realizationMother Teresa originally spoke these words, and today I thought of them ... with a tweak.<br />
<br />
I went to church this morning, and was washed with music. "O Holy Night" performed by our worship band -- singers, a cellist, a vibraphonist, and a guitarist. Gorgeous. I stuttered to sing through the tears that were arising after our pastor's sermon -- he spoke of the 'Holy Night,' in part, as the dark night of the soul ... as the longing we can feel, especially during the Christmas season, for presence, love, mercy.<br />
<br />
After the service, my bestie asked me if I'd like to share lunch with her. I had to say no. Brain-injury wham-o. Sideswiped by all the stimulation; a nasty surprise. Dizziness, nausea, slurred speech, inability to participate in conversation and to think of responses when people spoke to me; stammering utterances and staggering balance ... and a <i>need </i>for sleep.<br />
<br />
Mother Teresa's words struck me after I got home ... and could begin to discern what was happening in my brain. The last word of her quote -- <i>love</i> -- began to change to other words: <i>Mindfulness. Awareness. Kindness. Mercy for our human condition. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
I've pretty much accepted that I can do only small things now. Sometimes I can do <i>no </i>things for a while. I need to sleep in quietude at these times; need to not read, write, be with other people, engage in any stimulating activity ... even when I want to. I need to say <i>Yes </i>only to rest.<br />
<br />
I've calmed myself with the wordplay; reminded myself that in this moment, for this while, the saying is true that <i>I can do no great things, only small things with great ... rest.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>I can do no great things, only small things with great mercy for my present human condition. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
For right now. For the next while. Until the staggering nausea and dizziness pass; until I've laid down with my cats and allowed myself some rest.<br />
<br />
For now.<br />
<br />
This, I realize, is an act of great love.<br />
<br />
I've done this one small thing ... and so to bed. With love.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB7fKt50whELUfDhFX52nL2M9wvQwPJfbYvcDQQZfcURYlu2c3tF-evoRVP7sUtzKO4RPlmWAgKevo7AkFlmkw_k6F28AxUbZT9h1VrB9WzCbC0Lh8L4oPU8l-WiMCQLigfd86-13QiQyN/s1600/we+can+do+no+great+things.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB7fKt50whELUfDhFX52nL2M9wvQwPJfbYvcDQQZfcURYlu2c3tF-evoRVP7sUtzKO4RPlmWAgKevo7AkFlmkw_k6F28AxUbZT9h1VrB9WzCbC0Lh8L4oPU8l-WiMCQLigfd86-13QiQyN/s1600/we+can+do+no+great+things.png" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Jaliyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868006713291780694noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7812097875812814635.post-58069581487794853182014-12-03T09:10:00.000-08:002014-12-03T09:10:42.255-08:00Stay steps ... one step at a time. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3t4TzA3z0zFaa-c0uXFZyVJX9xPEeBRu_R-yHgxMn-gw66xp_35eWtKH1zrg-HnjSWFI1qQm1r2s_MhfwmhO7D_VqHpNQW5DbXrvG6EUAhGVQGM7k5RgfScVYkHIVfOcc7TSub1fb1GOR/s1600/one-step.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3t4TzA3z0zFaa-c0uXFZyVJX9xPEeBRu_R-yHgxMn-gw66xp_35eWtKH1zrg-HnjSWFI1qQm1r2s_MhfwmhO7D_VqHpNQW5DbXrvG6EUAhGVQGM7k5RgfScVYkHIVfOcc7TSub1fb1GOR/s1600/one-step.jpg" height="400" width="335" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
"Step aside from it," I thought this morning. "Step aside, just a little. One step; just one step."<br />
<br />
One step away from whatever ails and hounds you. One step towards LIFE. One step is a stay. One <i>breath </i>is a stay.<br />
<br />
One step is a <i>choice. </i>So often, if we have been ill or injured for a long time, we feel stuck ... like an inverted November sky that refuses to move. But above that mass of grey is the sun; beyond the mass is clarity. Beneath the mass, inside your own body, is an open atmosphere: your breath. One breath is a step. One breath is a stay. One...breath. One...breath...and another. One breath at a time. Sometimes I lie down on my bed, laying one hand over my heart and another over my solar plexus. I breathe. Inbreath: "One..." Outbreath: "...breath." My body begins to warm, to pulse. Sometimes I do this to remind myself to stay; sometimes I do it because my body forgets to breathe. My autonomic nervous system has been kiboshed since I was born, and many of the most basic regulatory functions and systems are out of whack -- one being breathing. I have to remind myself to breathe several times a day. <i>Breathe ... Stay ... Breathe ... Stay.</i><br />
<br />
My dear physician, a few years ago, referred to the form my depression takes as "brainstem depression" (also known as <a href="http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/anaclitic+depression">anaclitic depression</a>). It's been with me since infancy ... and I have to tend to the absolute basics: body temperature, breath, appetite, movement. "One step at a time" keeps me alive. "One stay at a time" reminds -- <i>re-minds </i>-- me to <i>stay </i>alive ... one step at a time away from shutdown, from paralysis, from the terrible force within my own brain that compels me to leave.<br />
<br />
One step is a shift. One step is an act. One step is volition -- will -- moving you in another direction.<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
A single step. Sometimes a single step for me means that I wash one dish. It can mean that I run a hand along my cat's silken back, or smush my face into his belly, murmuring his name. It can mean grabbing one of my holy books and reading, for dear life, a poem whose beauty latches me to Life. Sometimes it means allowing myself to weep. It can be prayer -- simply a <i>Help ... Are you there? Touch me; move me ... please. Give me a reason to stay. </i>Often, the response from life is so simple: <i>Eat. Nuzzle your cats. Give yourself music. Pick up the phone. Skype someone. Weep. Count your blessings, one at a time, slowly. Count them again. Know you are loved! Know it ... <b>know it. </b>You are still here because you have been loved. You are still here because you have loved. Tuck yourself into bed and turn on the warming blanket that your cousin gave you last Christmas. Grab a pillow; grab the teddy bear you've had forever whose nose and one eye have been repaired and replaced by someone who's loved you. Grab on. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>We are not asked to take big steps or small steps, but we are asked</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>to make every step a step of faith.</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
(The Bible, Romans 4:12)</div>
</div>
<br />
One step ... one song. Here is one of my stay-songs:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/SK1mLpRxO3M?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
One step ... one poem:<br />
<br />
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,<br />
then walks with us silently out of the night.<br />
<br />
These are the words we dimly hear:<br />
<br />
You, sent out beyond your recall,<br />
go to the limits of your longing.<br />
Embody me.<br />
<br />
Flare up like flame<br />
and make big shadows I can move in.<br />
<br />
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.<br />
Just keep going. No feeling is final.<br />
Don't let yourself lose me.<br />
<br />
Nearby is the country they call life.<br />
You will know it by its seriousness.<br />
<br />
Give me your hand.<br />
<br />
(Rainer Maria Rilke)<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Give Life your hand. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzpdAK7CocC8L7aexMLF1-yBMDURPJeCBbfD1yqCzSE68EZ7_8m_8bBXAKsPLF9mZLkMW1AxHcLE1_d4-T7qhcprI8IUBkFuFudnSGuRLL-Zj-a4HPVmlTOiQhxTFUw27kiToYleZcYh70/s1600/holding-hands-1024x718.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzpdAK7CocC8L7aexMLF1-yBMDURPJeCBbfD1yqCzSE68EZ7_8m_8bBXAKsPLF9mZLkMW1AxHcLE1_d4-T7qhcprI8IUBkFuFudnSGuRLL-Zj-a4HPVmlTOiQhxTFUw27kiToYleZcYh70/s1600/holding-hands-1024x718.jpg" height="280" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Stay, dear heart. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />Jaliyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868006713291780694noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7812097875812814635.post-30381642386911622492014-12-01T09:47:00.000-08:002014-12-01T15:52:22.911-08:00"Do you WANT to be depressed?" -- reduxTherese Borchard, author of <i>Beyond Blue</i>, recently headed a blog post with this question, <a href="http://thereseborchardblog.com/2014/11/26/do-you-want-to-be-depressed-2/">"Do you WANT to be depressed?"</a><br />
<br />
Do <i>you, </i>dear reader? Does anyone want to be injured or ill?<br />
<br />
I wonder if major depression is the only condition that draws forth such an ignorant question. How often do we hear people ask others, "Do you want to have cancer? ... a broken leg? ... heart disease? ... ALS?' It seems to me that even people labelled with other conditions that we call "mental illness" aren't subject to that question ... "Do you want to have schizophrenia? Do you want to live in a state of panic? Do you want to have been traumatized?"<br />
<br />
Of depression, if we were to play with "Do you want to be depressed?", we might also ask, "Do you want to be depleted of vitality? Do you want to live in a state of corrosive loneliness? Do you want to despise your existence? Do you want to stand far outside every circle of relation in the world?"<br />
<br />
How would you answer these questions?<br />
<br />
Only a person deep in the mire of major depression might answer "Yes" ... but this answer is not a natural one. We are beings, creatures, of relation. We are mammals; <b>we are wired to bond.</b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN7YYUbl0x_nirMXEWfvsxDsTpKpxa0BybZlRoAkuhUXRomhViA4QEBxqPIiQPbjE6E0WQcAGfUCIg-TBptGG6yQUPLd7ypNsP7s8vio-tAaCkgGVG0pAnPFh9GPPBkVUTkg31WRvReUYb/s1600/head-hug.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN7YYUbl0x_nirMXEWfvsxDsTpKpxa0BybZlRoAkuhUXRomhViA4QEBxqPIiQPbjE6E0WQcAGfUCIg-TBptGG6yQUPLd7ypNsP7s8vio-tAaCkgGVG0pAnPFh9GPPBkVUTkg31WRvReUYb/s1600/head-hug.jpg" height="400" width="277" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
To consider the question, and to answer "Yes" to it, is a symptom of depression in itself. A more apropos question, though, would be, "Do you want to be dead?"<br />
<br />
The first article I ever read on depression -- the one that opened my eyes and began my journey to understand what I'd lived with since I was born -- was written by a psychologist named John Welwood. It was titled, <a href="http://www.windhorseguild.org/pdf/jcp/vol_4/Depression%20as%20a%20Loss%20of%20Heart.%20Vol%204.pdf">"Depression as a Loss of Heart."</a> I have no doubt that devastating heartbreak, however it comes, is one of the primary formative factors in major depression. There are as many forms of depression as there are people who suffer it. Many, many other formative factors are at play, but there is <i>something </i>common at the core of this condition that the World Health Organization has ranked the #2 cause of disease-related disability <i>worldwide -- </i>superceded only by (hmm...) heart disease.<br />
<i><br /></i>I wonder if a primary <i>something </i>is heartbreak -- a devastation of bonded, loving, reciprocal relation. Think of the injuries done by humans to other humans in the infinite number of ways that we can harm one another -- from child abuse to torture and war; from bullying in the playground to callous firings at the workplace and "entertainment" that features murder, rape, and other forms of intentional harm. Think of trauma. Think of the deaths of those we love, of all the ways we leave and are left by others, and how the losses pile up over the years. Whether we know it or not, no matter how hardened to it all we might think we are, our hearts are still battered by each blow ... and our brains, master regulators that they are, resound with the damage done, wiring the rest of our bodies to mutate into klaxons of alarm and fear. We cut ourselves off and away from relation with other people; we retract like crabs; we burrow into isolation. We fend off what we most need: engagement and relation with other human beings. We all have a limit of how much loss, how much existential injury, we can endure.<br />
<br />
In major depression, a singular element is added to heartbreak, loss, and the damage done to our brain's capacity for energy regulation: self-despising. We turn against our own goodness, our own being. Here is another core <i>something </i>that seems to be unique to major depression.<br />
<br />
Therese Borchard tells a story of how she hid the effects of a burst appendix until she needed to be rushed to a hospital. I did the same, at age ten, with an infected laceration on the top of my right foot. I'd cut it on a jagged, rusting spear of metal that was jutting off the edge of my brother's pedal car. A huge triangle of flesh hung from my foot; the injury bled like a bastard and I snuck up to my bathroom, into the bath, and then I doused the wound with rubbing alcohol and layered it with Band-Aids. I got through the next day ... but the day after that, I was sent home from school on crutches because I couldn't walk. My foot had swollen beyond the bounds of my shoe ... and shot agonizing pain up my leg. Many years later -- I was in my mid-20s -- my mother told me that my blood had been poisoned ... and that if another day had gone by, my leg would have had to be amputated below the knee.<br />
<br />
Somehow I believed that I was bad for having been injured; that I needed to hide the injury; that I deserved no help for being so stupid to cut my foot. I was terrified of being punished for having been hurt.<br />
<br />
I was already living in a state of major depression. I was a child who, at the age of five, sat at the kitchen table with a bowl of food in front of me (having been told that I had to clean my plate before I could go), thinking this thought over ... and over again: "I want to die."<br />
<br />
My soul was injured ... and bleeding. I was already gravely wounded.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://gulfcoastjewishfamilyandcommunityservices.org/refugee/2013/06/01/dr-richard-mollica%E2%80%99s-webinar/">Dr. Richard Mollica</a>, in his book <i>Healing Invisible Wounds, </i>calls trauma "the existential injury." The word "trauma" derives from the Greek for "wound" ... so a trauma could be anything from a cut foot to a direct threat on one's life -- thus "the existential injury." It could be said that major depression is an existential illness -- and a life threat -- a trauma? -- in itself. One of the mysteries we grapple with in relation to major depression is how we can threaten our own life, our own existence. We can believe that we want to die, that we are being compelled to die.<br />
<br />
But Life does not want to die. The force that fuels and sustains us does not want to die. Andrew Solomon, one of our world's leading experiential and scholarly authorities on depression, has said that <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_solomon_depression_the_secret_we_share?utm_medium=on.ted.com-twitter&utm_source=direct-on.ted.com&utm_content=awesm-publisher&awesm=on.ted.com_paEv&utm_campaign=">"depression is the flaw in love"</a> ... and perhaps depression is also a flaw in our relation with our own life force. Somehow, we believe that we should be dead ...<br />
<br />
<i>The flaw in love. </i>Major depression cleaves such a flaw in our capacity to love, to bond, to be in relation, that we not only believe we are cut off from our natural inclination to bond with others, but we also cut ourselves away. Somehow, this double-edged severing of relatedness is one of the central symptoms of depression ... and could depression be a symptom of our species' penchant to do battle, make war, sever our bonds with other people, other beings, and with Life itself? To varying degrees, we all do battle. We argue and fight with our families, friends, colleagues ... and with others whom we call strangers ... others we deem to be a threat. We scrabble to acquire, succeed, gain status; we compete and contest; we engage in countless forms of lording-it-over to arrive at the top of a heap; bloodshed and soul-shred be damned.<br />
<br />
Most of all, we tend to hack away at our own souls. Therese writes of what she calls "death thoughts" ... She eats a handful of potato chips, and on rushes the vile voice that taunts her. We all have our death-thought triggers ... and it often happens that for those of us with major depression or in the aftermath of existential trauma, we are triggered by merely <i>being. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Merely being is my primary trigger. There was a predatory person in my early life who had constant access to me, who told me I was filth, that I was bad to the bone, rotten to the core. By the time I was five and was sitting over that bowl of food, unable to eat, I believed these curses. I was infested, infected, in-formed with death thoughts, with a suicidal imperative. The natural self-centeredness of a five-year-old child guarantees that whatever she's told about her being, she'll believe to be true. If I believed that I was filth, that I was rotten to the core ... what else could I think except that I wanted to die, that I should be dead?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsCFQTm1F6z4Re4cLN5RDqBhvTQOAAmdIhuL9oBwPK2bCPZO1idDIq0o_lUE4_NL4wmCzBCXdvUF-yrcT8WeOK63qx5G9pC5q8vzQrUedBSaOiDv3q_x-_P9Cg4ZsXEipz2x0xPNdNHPA_/s1600/10645141_1585664731665494_754190031668027203_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsCFQTm1F6z4Re4cLN5RDqBhvTQOAAmdIhuL9oBwPK2bCPZO1idDIq0o_lUE4_NL4wmCzBCXdvUF-yrcT8WeOK63qx5G9pC5q8vzQrUedBSaOiDv3q_x-_P9Cg4ZsXEipz2x0xPNdNHPA_/s1600/10645141_1585664731665494_754190031668027203_n.jpg" height="400" width="298" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<i>The flaw in love. </i>I once had a husband who was the great love of my life ... and he told me again and again that I was his ... until an unrelenting bout of depression -- brought on by over two years of existential trauma and cemented into place by my history -- ruined my ability to be in relation. I was broken of my ability to bond; I <i>could not </i>reach out to my husband, nor to anyone else ... and I could not, for a long time, be reached. For as long as he could, my beloved remained by my side, tending to all aspects of both of our lives. He was so generous of heart ... until he couldn't be any more. He was tormented by the break in my ability, my capacity, to bond; he'd lost his primary relation. He did what any person would do who is shorn of relation and desperate for it -- he sought elsewhere. He left me. He had to save his own life.<br />
<br />
<i>The flaw in love. The flaw in me. </i>Talk about death thoughts.<br />
<br />
In the years since my husband left, I gradually came to understand that I left the marriage first. I did not choose to leave; trauma and depression took me. Several years later I was able to forgive the man who had been my mate ... and I still struggle to forgive myself. <i>Still. </i>I have to forgive myself for merely being, every day. I have to forgive myself, daily, for the flaw, the injury, in my capacity to love. Paradoxically, nothing matters more to me than love, and if my character has a primary virtue that I do my best to act on, it's mercy.<br />
<br />
It's been said that depression is selfish. It sure as hell is ... and I believe that this is one of the foundations of our stigma against it. How many of us are told to join this or that, to slap a smile on our face, pull up our socks and just get on with it, pick up the phone and call someone, <i>anyone</i>, to essentially pretend that we are happy, <i>happy, </i><b style="font-style: italic;">happy? </b>To stop being such a downer, such a drag?<br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
I often wonder if major depression is a symptom of something else. The essence of this condition is still largely a mystery; through history, we've attributed its presence to everything from neurochemical mayhem to inflammation to gluten intolerance to laziness to a lack of faith to a weakness of will. God knows. (Just found: <b>an excellent article</b> in the latest<i> <a href="http://www.psychotherapynetworker.org/magazine/currentissue/item/2572-the-depression-epidemic">Psychotherapy Networker</a> </i>that questions our general assumption that depression is "largely a problem of the individual." Thank you, Jonathan Rottenberg!)<br />
<br />
I do know that depression is, in part, mourning writ huge; that it can wreck our inborn, biologic mechanisms of affinity; that it does its damndest to destroy all our relations. We are <i>wired </i>to cling to our mothers, fathers, and other sustainers from the moment we're born ... and we yearn and pine and reach for love our whole lives long. We live in an overriding culture that teaches us not how to love, but how to compete and fight and do more harm than good. And in major depression, the fatal flaw is that we turn against our own goodness, our own beings, our own natural urge to be in relation.<br />
<br />
<i>The flaw in love ... The <b>flow</b> in love. </i>How to we mend this flaw, this injury, and restore our natural capacity, this supreme inborn gift?<br />
<br />
For we need love -- both to give and receive it -- like we need air, water, food, warmth, shelter. Love keeps us alive and thriving.<br />
<br />
I know that one of the essential medicines in my restoration is love. I <i>would </i>be long dead were it not for the love of people who have sustained the soul in me, who have reminded me of my goodness, who have held and tended me through my life. I know that I'm alive because all along, there has been at least one person who has loved me without fail, and whom I have loved without fail (except during that harrowing time a few years ago when the effects of trauma and depression nailed me to my bed and to the terrible interiority of existential despair and illness).<br />
<br />
We reach out. We reach in. Like breath ... in, out, in, out ... and we allow ourselves to be reached. To reach beyond ourselves, into ourselves, and to be reached ... this is essential medicine. It <i>is </i>what we live for, no matter what else we tell ourselves. We're born to blend with those we share love with. I have a saying on my bedroom wall, directly across from my bed, which is the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing I see before I go to sleep at night:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>And God said,</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>love your enemy</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>so I obeyed Him</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>and loved myself.</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">~ Kahlil Gibran</span></div>
<br />
Do we want to be depressed, to live in a state of existential despair and shearing loneliness? My answer is a resounding <b>NO</b>. We may <i>believe </i>at times, as Therese writes, that it's easier to be ill, to contract, to disappear, to hide in the mire of long illness, to give up. Depression and the aftermath of trauma can exhaust our vitality to a point where we feel "that far" from dead -- and it takes a certain amount of base vitality to engage. Sometimes we just don't have it ... the well is dry.<br />
<br />
Or is it? Again, I say NO. We're still alive; there's still a drop of fuel in the tank. If we're alive, we're still vital ... even if we can't feel the vitality. <i>It is there. This, </i>we must believe. I apply this belief in the face of all despair; I practice it like a discipline. <i>I am alive, therefore I can love. </i><br />
<i><br /></i><b><i>You are alive ... therefore you can love. </i>One drop at a time. Believe it.</b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDhSZhq7EzB8iprV-XJr6SmAjFCTPmDyqcV4KplwZeUs7x0PX6lQiTvuRXwsS7j2hlclz1bfcrOOYWtKi8Do-pwApQW1rsvvwmqVmnkErYHhjTCEJigQ6Qy92KTZ7ZRhNK8d8qkkkvvtLJ/s1600/10005849_935212799824030_7570579069970797929_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDhSZhq7EzB8iprV-XJr6SmAjFCTPmDyqcV4KplwZeUs7x0PX6lQiTvuRXwsS7j2hlclz1bfcrOOYWtKi8Do-pwApQW1rsvvwmqVmnkErYHhjTCEJigQ6Qy92KTZ7ZRhNK8d8qkkkvvtLJ/s1600/10005849_935212799824030_7570579069970797929_o.jpg" height="255" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Jaliyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868006713291780694noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7812097875812814635.post-88248410151814149882014-11-22T12:55:00.000-08:002014-11-23T12:58:11.847-08:00Writing to stay alive<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4fpebtkMGeIgHZhaaziCtNAER2SYvTx_0XSHcK2Qto4-8Rd3JOK7umq2OBUplCjhIpiR_n5o-4ZML9sBZ_jvuAHx7wpDYiL1BS72uWJ9kao5-5HRcNmgyWKO2i-ORo1JlG03yAU2TXnW6/s1600/10407145_10153516094469657_3958023986970400800_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4fpebtkMGeIgHZhaaziCtNAER2SYvTx_0XSHcK2Qto4-8Rd3JOK7umq2OBUplCjhIpiR_n5o-4ZML9sBZ_jvuAHx7wpDYiL1BS72uWJ9kao5-5HRcNmgyWKO2i-ORo1JlG03yAU2TXnW6/s1600/10407145_10153516094469657_3958023986970400800_n.jpg" height="195" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
"I love my life. I regret my life. The lines eventually blur." ~ Patrick Stewart, in the film <i>Match.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
"I never want to get out of bed again." ~ Me, this morning.<br />
<br />
Some thoughts are alarms, and that first thought catapulted me to vertical today. Three days ago, my waking thought was, "Best to die in my bed while I still have a bed."<br />
<br />
Thoughts like these are what writer<a href="http://thereseborchardblog.com/"> Therese Borchard</a>, author of <i>Beyond Blue</i>, calls "death thoughts." Somehow, in major depression, our thoughts compel us to die.<br />
<br />
I am considering thoughts, now, as symptoms. Symptoms of something gone desperately awry in the human brain. Thoughts as end results, sometimes as emergencies. Death thoughts are not natural. Every organism is driven to live, to exist. Depression drives us to die. We humans are animals who think, and it may be that this unique capacity -- to think as we do -- is what triggers the despair that compels us to believe we must die.<br />
<br />
Other animals, I am sure, despair as well ... Think of a fox with its leg snapped in the jaws of a hunting trap. Think of Harry Harlow's infant rhesus monkeys who were forced to be alone in metal cages with only metal "mothers" to cling to.<br />
<br />
Humans are the animals who can <i>articulate </i>despair.<br />
<br />
After I threw off the blankets this morning and jumped to my feet -- I did jump in reaction to that first thought -- I began to wonder. I know that curiosity is a saving grace; it leads us to questions, to the larger world beyond our own thoughts, to engagement. I knew I could stay alive by wondering. I also knew that I had to feed my cats. I've vowed to them that I will stay alive. They are the ones I live with, the ones who depend on me for their own survival. They need me to stay.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcNKupzNkBjUX6F5HK47EC-74ngcA3xry3TEftRV-xemblwXMqEF8ycwnvDOZZYNhMs2lyIuZ_8wqf_W3YMf9J5iC-1oLw8w4ZSpYkmmYdRZDz9vQBNfDldAYIoOnyLMnLRFlbNOkVebd6/s1600/10671230_10153516095534657_1364964648599662523_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcNKupzNkBjUX6F5HK47EC-74ngcA3xry3TEftRV-xemblwXMqEF8ycwnvDOZZYNhMs2lyIuZ_8wqf_W3YMf9J5iC-1oLw8w4ZSpYkmmYdRZDz9vQBNfDldAYIoOnyLMnLRFlbNOkVebd6/s1600/10671230_10153516095534657_1364964648599662523_n.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Today is International Suicide Survivors Day -- we honour the memory of people who have lost their lives to despair. Perhaps we could also call today "Stay Day." For those of us who grapple with the despair that wants to take us ... Perhaps "Stay" could be our prayer, our chant, our mantra, our call to Life.<br />
<br />
Speaking of Life ... I noticed, as I threw myself out of bed, an underlying rage to <i>be. </i>This imperative we share with every other creature on Earth. A rage that arises from the force that fires and fuels us. A rage not of anger, but of ... love. Cherishment.<br />
<br />
Cherishment ... makes me think of mother-love. Perhaps we need a new mother tongue, a new language, one resurrected from the old. A new mother tongue to lap us (as a beloved dog or cat will lap our face) out of despair. A language of love, of bonding, of beloved relation. <a href="http://andrewsolomon.com/articles/depression-is-a-disease-of-loneliness/">Andrew Solomon</a> has said that "Depression is the flaw in love ... a disease of loneliness." I think of it also as a grave injury to our capacity to love, to our capacity to be in relation, to reach out, to attach. Our culture's treatment of major depression errs on the side of cognition -- on how we think. While our habitual thoughts express as a sure "barometric reading" of our emotional state, they are only outward evidence of how the deeper structures and strata of our brain are functioning. As Thomas Lewis and his coauthors write in the magnificent <i><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/l/lewis-love.html">A General Theory of Love</a>, </i>"... the neural systems responsible for emotion and intellect are separate, creating the chasm between them in human minds and lives." Neuroscience has begun to map the mysteries of brain function and opened new avenues for understanding and healing brain disease and injury in exciting ways ... but often at the expense of our existence as a whole. In a sense, the mind is what the brain does ... and we need to consider and treat the whole person, not just the neurochemicals.<br />
<br />
It may be that we need a more "mothering" approach in how we treat depression and other conditions that shatter our ability to bond -- PTSD being one. Somatic approaches to psychotherapy, like <a href="http://www.psychotherapy.net/interview/interview-peter-levine">Peter Levine's Somatic Experiencing</a>, employ strategies that first address a person's need for relative safety and a sense of presence in the world. In short: a return of embodiment ... and of feeling, of the <i>sense </i>of being alive.<br />
<br />
Deeper than all thought runs the current of feeling ... the fuel that drives us to bond and to love. Feeling is what drove me up from and out of my bed this morning ... Feeling is what drives me to write, to communicate, to blend my voice with others.<br />
<br />
Feeling extends our desire -- our intrinsic <i>need </i>-- to reach out to others and to receive them; feeling is what saves us. Feeling drove two of my cherished friends to reach out to me today after I reached out to them; they arrived at my home with the fixings for a big pot of chicken-veggie soup. Feeling drove me to ask one of those friends if I could lie on my couch with my head in her lap; feeling brought her hand to my head, which she stroked again and again. Feeling impelled me to sob with the relief of being touched, cradled, tended to. Feeling activated my appetite, and allowed me to eat ... and allows me to write with nascent courage, to extend my own experience to yours, dear reader.<br />
<br />
How will you mother yourself today? How will you stay?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEsCwB2YO3w9mj0ElCTlgtE9BVJ875sv9rksYvP7zqZ5vlz9qVdMZf2iKN60QlDOnASJ79S-UHFaE-OPXce2HfGDV0T7gGM8kys-BRCBeOO530vEfT1M7A50kkk0WmPdZhv-qfTZd5vKdj/s1600/10801633_10153516096274657_186884052411002161_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEsCwB2YO3w9mj0ElCTlgtE9BVJ875sv9rksYvP7zqZ5vlz9qVdMZf2iKN60QlDOnASJ79S-UHFaE-OPXce2HfGDV0T7gGM8kys-BRCBeOO530vEfT1M7A50kkk0WmPdZhv-qfTZd5vKdj/s1600/10801633_10153516096274657_186884052411002161_n.jpg" height="129" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />Jaliyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868006713291780694noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7812097875812814635.post-4564598942919290912014-11-20T10:07:00.000-08:002014-11-20T10:07:29.712-08:00Out, out, out of the closet...with thanksEvery once in a while, brain farts -- those embarrassing gaps in memory that open up and stay open -- conjure up happy surprises! Such was the case this morning when I clicked on an article about depression that was posted in an online forum I participate in. Authored by Margarita Tartakovaky, who writes for PsychCentral, <a href="http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2014/11/20/what-i-wish-you-understood-about-my-depression/">"What I Wish You Understood About My Depression"</a> is helping to take our cultural dialogue about this condition to a much deeper level, to a place where we are finally beginning to understand that the world's #2 cause (after heart disease) of disease-related disability is worthy of respect and urgent attention.<br />
<br />
Sweet relief! Over the many years that I've lived with major depression, I've heard everything from "Depression is a neurological disease" (I agree) to "Join a glee club!" to "You're just lazy and irresponsible!" from people I've dared to speak with about it. Our collective judgments are beginning to evolve into curiosity, a hunger for facts and experiential expertise, and compassion. We've been jolted into wiser enquiry through the shock of Robin Williams' death by suicide -- How could one of the funniest, richest, most humane and generous people in the world have taken his own life? The articles I'm linking to give us some clues. I feel honoured to have my thoughts included amongst those of leading-edge writers, professors, and clinicians ... and will continue to raise the bar of my own thinking to match their excellence and understanding.<br />
<br />
One of my dearest friends recently told me, "In your vulnerability is your mission." I've taken her words to heart, to the keyboard, and now out to the larger world. Every voice, every story shared, is a glimmer of light and truth ... Someone will be reached; an eye will open; a mind will latch to a voice that understands ... and lives will be saved and salved.<br />
<br />
If you're reading this, no matter what you're going through -- depression or otherwise -- <i><b>You are not alone</b>. </i>Somewhere in the world, amongst the 6+ billion souls we share this planet with, other voices resonate with yours. If there's a treasure to be found in life, it's the nodding of one soul toward another: a <i>Yes </i>that will enfold you and your experience into its understanding, that will lead you to arms willing to link with yours, to walk beside you as you open yourself to learning, speaking, writing, sharing ...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOt1RAMDvZ58jZjOJlgk6LIhv8addEYQv2DPhSdWwWTjMZ_7Jy9uWFVB4vZoB7HBT9cy1ni3wI90_H-xULQOSsvX_4yvHkoQPQSFGSNZLhVfKs24cgjXkIeFLUvsM9dzeCmn3t2GFS7GWv/s1600/Humanity-pic-Internet-file-shot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOt1RAMDvZ58jZjOJlgk6LIhv8addEYQv2DPhSdWwWTjMZ_7Jy9uWFVB4vZoB7HBT9cy1ni3wI90_H-xULQOSsvX_4yvHkoQPQSFGSNZLhVfKs24cgjXkIeFLUvsM9dzeCmn3t2GFS7GWv/s1600/Humanity-pic-Internet-file-shot.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
I've dared myself to share ... and my voice is joining others. My eyes are blinking open into a vast light and into gazes of empathy. Yours can, too. Speak out, dear reader. Find one person you can trust with your story ... and begin there. Someone will hear you ... I promise.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/author/margarita/">Margarita Tartakovsky</a> and <a href="http://thereseborchardblog.com/">Therese Borchard</a>, author of <i>Beyond Blue </i>and <i>The Pocket Therapist</i>, heard me ... and they've graciously invited me to contribute my thoughts to some of their published work. Here are the other three articles that include my words:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.beliefnet.com/Health/Emotional-Health/8-Lessons-People-with-Depression-Learned-from-Their-Illness.aspx">"8 Lessons People with Depression Learned from Their Illness"</a>, by Therese Borchard<br />
<br />
<a href="http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2014/11/14/how-to-support-help-someone-with-depression/">"How to Support & Help Someone with Depression" </a>, by Margarita Tartakovsky, and<br />
<br />
<a href="http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2014/10/17/personal-experiences-of-depression/">"Personal Experiences of Depression"</a>, by Margarita Tartakovsky.<br />
<br />
As I type, my eyes are drawn to the sky outside my window. Two flocks of Canada geese soar through the huge beyond ... and I'm reminded of how they support each other in their "V" formations, riding a collective slipstream, leading and following as energy and vitality allow. Leaders lead until they need to draw back and borrow fuel from their fellows; followers, having rested a little in flight, surge to the fore, guiding the flock until the next rotation of full strength is ready to aim for home.<br />
<br />
That's how it's done ... and we're doing it. To every dear soul who has been helping me back into the slipstream of viability and resurging vitality after so many fallow years ... I bow to you with tears of gratitude slipping down my cheeks, onto the page, and into new form as proof of what's possible.<br />
<br />
Come out, come out, whoever you are. Blend your stories with ours. You are surrounded by kindred souls! <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnfA2FVr15GbTTKvdHkwlD7tYEY416s5SVpQixzqVNZ5IdPu6xW_jMbJRTdMZSH5U4tv81cKqlvX3ehN_G0fESuxqdG0CqYo06cq3xtdWG1LlveG48_nF7j7bnvwFHsu59s4czq4zH6IX1/s1600/default-ehow-images-a06-2o-86-canada-goose-migration-habits-800x800.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnfA2FVr15GbTTKvdHkwlD7tYEY416s5SVpQixzqVNZ5IdPu6xW_jMbJRTdMZSH5U4tv81cKqlvX3ehN_G0fESuxqdG0CqYo06cq3xtdWG1LlveG48_nF7j7bnvwFHsu59s4czq4zH6IX1/s1600/default-ehow-images-a06-2o-86-canada-goose-migration-habits-800x800.jpg" height="239" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Photo: Jeanette Allen, via Fotolia.com</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />Jaliyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868006713291780694noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7812097875812814635.post-5053719713303384532014-11-17T10:55:00.000-08:002014-11-17T10:55:22.813-08:00Musings on mercy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIs9_xW_Ru3O8mlMKoG4oZuxH4v8fLe3xLrtYMfRXSKJXsYS0LTXuvTmNu2zu2DMc761VKMLkl9qzmcYUaJeObL5Q62k9bTdAVcGMJuOvMJ8kXXTdNJ_AYd-dHXMLlwfSGmY9Mqs72hC_s/s1600/Mercy+and+Me.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIs9_xW_Ru3O8mlMKoG4oZuxH4v8fLe3xLrtYMfRXSKJXsYS0LTXuvTmNu2zu2DMc761VKMLkl9qzmcYUaJeObL5Q62k9bTdAVcGMJuOvMJ8kXXTdNJ_AYd-dHXMLlwfSGmY9Mqs72hC_s/s1600/Mercy+and+Me.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Art: <a href="http://www.lisaballard.com/index.html">Lisa Ballard</a>, "Mercy and Me"</span></div>
<br />
<br />
I keep arriving here: at the warm, open palm of mercy. A wise man once gave me a directive that I've not heard before or since ... one that got under my skin and into the center of my brain: "To thine own self be merciful."<br />
<br />
What a potent hit to the head of the existential nail! Is anything we can do more imperative? If we can't live in our own skin in a state of truce (at the very least), how can we live with one another?<br />
<br />
No wonder mercy can be such a visceral challenge. As a principle, mercy is often overlaid with religious overtones -- seen as a saintly state that few of us can attain for more than an instant at a time, if at all. But an instant is enough ... and it flares like a sun, warming us to and from our core. We <i>are </i>saints in that instant, in that choice. We are grains of pure goodness when we reach out or in with unabashed kindness.<br />
<br />
Is our capacity for mercy intrinsic to our makeup? Are we wired to salve, rather than to savage ourselves and other beings? (Are we wired to do both? We can fire up into fight or flight in an instant ... and then there is a state called <i>flow </i>... We do flow when we reach out in gentleness ... )<br />
<br />
Mercy makes me sweat. <i>To thine own self be merciful ... I dare you. </i>I hear this invitation, this challenge to look long and deep into every being I encounter -- and into a mirror ... Mercy calls us to look beneath apparent appearances, into the depth of a life ...<br />
<br />
Sometimes I think that mercy is the opposite of madness. Mercy is lucid ... like the noon sun without the burn. Sees all; denies nothing. Sees into, within, and through. Eyes the soul, and the pupils soften and expand. Bestows warmth; suffuses with light.<br />
<br />
I wonder about mercy in relation wtih kindness, compassion, altruism ... and I hone in on what makes mercy <i>mercy.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
It's the quietude ... that warm, open palm. Whenever I imagine and recall my own experiences of mercy, I know touch. Skin meeting skin with loving intent ... and we soften. The entire body sighs ... We are safe; we surrender.<br />
<br />
A warm, open palm ... a belly, a cheek, a shoulder ... a hug, a spoon, a palm spooning a face ... a nuzzle, a snuffle; breath warming the skin. A laying on, a gentling ... and rest.<br />
<br />
Mercy reaches and receives the core ... and warms us there.<br />
<br />
Mercy says, <i>Been there, done that, lived it -- </i>without cynicism. And then<i>, </i>with tendresse, <i>I dare you to be kind ... to yourself. Like this. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguCwzEzEYl0-InLr9199alqNUQJuuplbsuYG9uQm9AkKuzGgPJicE0egnoMyw8svmMRYruYpdiGZ853QUBR8gBHnIKT4bAEYX4XPBaoTzarv42GpySdto08pVfSghlQbjQ86rpnu6BVB_a/s1600/Whisperer+for+website.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguCwzEzEYl0-InLr9199alqNUQJuuplbsuYG9uQm9AkKuzGgPJicE0egnoMyw8svmMRYruYpdiGZ853QUBR8gBHnIKT4bAEYX4XPBaoTzarv42GpySdto08pVfSghlQbjQ86rpnu6BVB_a/s1600/Whisperer+for+website.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><br /></i>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Art: <a href="http://www.lisaballard.com/index.html">Lisa Ballard</a>, "Whisperer"</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Thank you, Lisa, for the beauty you create ... </span></div>
Jaliyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868006713291780694noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7812097875812814635.post-86302013781793491302014-10-26T17:19:00.000-07:002014-11-23T14:25:32.145-08:00Stay, dear heart. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Two days ago, I posted a sudden thought to an online forum that I participate in: "Today, I realize, is what I'm calling a 'stay day.' I just invented this term while cooking some broccoli and garlic. Made myself arise from the 'despair chair' (where I can get, and remain, stuck and sinking...). Looked at my two beloved cats and thought, 'Stay alive for them.' Then more stays arrived: 'Stay nourished ... Stay hydrated ... Stay on your feet ... Stay in the kitchen and cook ... Stay in touch with someone -- anyone ... Stay in tune with your music (James Taylor, Cat Stevens, etc.) ...' So. Today's a 'stay day.' One breath at a time."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><i>Stay here ... stay now.</i> It's a mantra that I recite when desperation urges escape. <i>Stay here ... stay now. Stay. </i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Stays are fasteners; stays bind something with something else. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">There are stays ... and there are mainstays. They're the stays that challenge us to remain in the world no matter how urgently we feel driven to leave it. I suspect that our mainstays revolve around our relations; mine certainly do. My mainstays are my cats, my cherished friends and family, the memory of my honoured ancestors and mentors ... and the young ones in my life who light up and run to me whenever we meet. I don't have children of my own, but these little ones may as well be -- It takes a village, after all, and how does my choice to stay influence their souls? How might my presence help them to stay in the world? We are irrevokably bound by every bond we create with other beings ... and eventually death will arrive in one form or another ... but our <i>choice </i>to remain alive helps to ensure that someone else will also choose to stay. Our love is a tangible force; our choice to <i>be </i>is a source of sustenance to someone -- we don't always know whom, but the force of our choice is a link in a chain, a hand reaching out, a voice urging presence, a pull toward the heart. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">There was a huge response to the "stay" post. Amazing how something so simple can galvanize other people to stay, too ... Major depression, for some reason, lures us to leave the world ... I wonder if it's the fundamental exhaustion and loss of vitality of this illness that is so deadly to our remaining present. There's a mystery at the core of major depression that began to reveal itself to me when I was sixteen and found an article written by psychologist John Welwood, called "Depression as a Loss of Heart." I'd not, up to that moment, related my own experience to depression; I just thought I was another lazy, useless teenager who was constantly being berated for being ... lazy, useless, and irresponsible; sleeping in too much and sleeping into the afternoon, sluffing through the days like so many teens do (Now we understand more about how much havoc the hormonal changes of adolescence cause to the entire person -- including that persistent need for sleep, sleep, and more sleep...).</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Now I understand the persistent loss of vitality as a chief marker of major depression. Andrew Solomon, who wrote <i>The Noonday Demon</i>, has said that "the opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality." <i>YES! -- </i>everything in me cried when I heard him speak those words. He nailed the core symptom of depression! Here's a link to his TED Talk, "Depression: The Secret We Share": </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/-eBUcBfkVCo?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Now, two days later, one of my forum-friends told me that the members of a support group for bereaved parents have adopted the stay-practice! How beautiful that one little idea, popping up from my own choice to stay for my cats, has been taken up by others. There's another stay for me ... and now, for so many more! Depression, as Andrew Solomon says, is a secret that we share ... and stays are a sacred practice that we can share too. I imagine hands reaching out and grasping one another ... taking hold ... fingers interlacing ... warmth seeping from palm to palm ... the musculature of bondedness squeezing an invitation from pulse to pulse ... </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtYWHiJSUCYW2MTVpJVKgxGIpKGMueSsz7lxy0Uqx78YSSORyPdF4KAuPUW4j5jIexQ6WOBv_nh4xnCKca2qgEwnLjTpqBsHfDsy6fkgQ3311MEpp0ReYZxKC3_ciRg5cGg3t3RDU__Kir/s1600/holding_hands-1418.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtYWHiJSUCYW2MTVpJVKgxGIpKGMueSsz7lxy0Uqx78YSSORyPdF4KAuPUW4j5jIexQ6WOBv_nh4xnCKca2qgEwnLjTpqBsHfDsy6fkgQ3311MEpp0ReYZxKC3_ciRg5cGg3t3RDU__Kir/s1600/holding_hands-1418.jpg" height="234" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The stays that my online friends shared range the gamut of goodness and relation. Here are some of them (and a few more of my own) ... </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Housecleaning (!)</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One's children and grandchildren</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Husbands, wives, beloveds</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Colour and art</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Creative acts like knitting and sewing</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Beloved animals</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kayaking and canoeing</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Being needed</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Laughter, humour, jokes</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Prayer</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Playing a musical instrument</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sunshine</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">God</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cookies (!)</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Best friends</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Siblings</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cousins</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The scents of love</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Skills and gifts shared in the world</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Helping others</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Honouring those whose pain left them so bereft that they couldn't stay</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Literature and poetry</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The knowledge of death -- being alive is so precious</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Reader ... what are your stays?</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSjcvJANd_UBlnyEtqlewg6SD3Gjea1IQsQqDdFqvxlNSwNQlvuS2Qh33MD0bu7M4j1RE8xEGsg6gUrTW6vjlka1in2gum_DPN8k_JaHZDMR7DMtRPZnAxh4YEceVnw86hlxIh8qPVzPT9/s1600/couragedearheart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSjcvJANd_UBlnyEtqlewg6SD3Gjea1IQsQqDdFqvxlNSwNQlvuS2Qh33MD0bu7M4j1RE8xEGsg6gUrTW6vjlka1in2gum_DPN8k_JaHZDMR7DMtRPZnAxh4YEceVnw86hlxIh8qPVzPT9/s1600/couragedearheart.jpg" height="250" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Stay, dear heart. Fasten to love. Hold on. </span></span></div>
Jaliyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868006713291780694noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7812097875812814635.post-72017973028409918082014-09-23T07:46:00.000-07:002014-09-23T07:46:29.404-07:00Softened Fawn (for a friend in depression)My last post was a poem, <i>Fawn in the Grass, </i>which offered a question as its coda:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>What will we do,</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>oh my hands,</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>with this dear</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>in the grass?</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
No sooner had I posted the piece when I found this photo:</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq6m3R_rda_7x9cH1-KWcZimYe-LT81yJRQL5vGbo-5nqlSlO_kjkJVlVj4jCXHRxgXAuTUFbnNHB-Fgv2v0QPatyVDyyBdzAcVPwaqp4KkAHoxqU-5bzgcFT0R9tAkJM7g9cQyFKHDk2N/s1600/15212_10152388563969023_5086598193011127490_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq6m3R_rda_7x9cH1-KWcZimYe-LT81yJRQL5vGbo-5nqlSlO_kjkJVlVj4jCXHRxgXAuTUFbnNHB-Fgv2v0QPatyVDyyBdzAcVPwaqp4KkAHoxqU-5bzgcFT0R9tAkJM7g9cQyFKHDk2N/s1600/15212_10152388563969023_5086598193011127490_n.jpg" height="286" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
"What will we do, oh my hands...?"</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
We will soften. Soften our hands, our thoughts, our hearts. We will soften ourselves into sanctuary by offering one another -- and ourselves! -- what this young woman offers the fawn: essential safety, sustenance, and mercy. Look at the fawn's throat ... It's melted into the woman's shoulder. The little creature is at ease, at rest. Eyes, ears are softly alert ... fearless.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Dear friend, you told me recently that you fear the maw of depression may be claiming you. We share this wound in common; we understand one another. I am holding you in constant presence and prayer like this woman holds the fawn. I want to tell you that Spring will return, and so will you. Your soul seems to be slipping, as on black ice, into despairing Winter, and the surprise of this has knocked you askew. I'm reaching for you, right now, and I'll keep reaching. In my mind, I'm holding you, dear fawn. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
There was a time when you and prayed together, holding hands. I felt mired in despair and loneliness; you prayed for "peace in every pore." I'm praying for you to be streamed through with peace ... flooded with Light. With Love.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
If I've learned anything about what can sustain us through depression, it's that we must hold fast to what we know sustains us ... and know that we are being held by the Spirit of Sustenance Itself. The very Force of life is holding us, breathing us, softening us. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB57uI-O1JXMIpPG5db6aRTcB8UmPm2vKX9fTdwr92vfkBnqAR6fWnKhPMEB2MS3Ms97ry2RPsSkmoKehRMHkgCPqrZTKimxHqDz13FPAcrAlpvWUpjeH5ZVqYaEbuL__vP8RsZtyTYuWo/s1600/PalmOfMyHand.16271822_std.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB57uI-O1JXMIpPG5db6aRTcB8UmPm2vKX9fTdwr92vfkBnqAR6fWnKhPMEB2MS3Ms97ry2RPsSkmoKehRMHkgCPqrZTKimxHqDz13FPAcrAlpvWUpjeH5ZVqYaEbuL__vP8RsZtyTYuWo/s1600/PalmOfMyHand.16271822_std.jpg" height="400" width="303" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Can you hold yourself ... hold your own hand? Can you lay a hand over your heart and remember that what you long for is what you have already known? Can you remember that Love is sustaining you <i>right now</i>, even if your heart feels like a black hole? You are being held: you have reminded me of this truth again and again ... and I am returning this gift to you.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
You are being held ... However you know Love, It's holding you. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">(Photo credit: unknown) </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
Jaliyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868006713291780694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7812097875812814635.post-53464246633967117512014-09-16T18:52:00.001-07:002014-09-16T18:52:55.098-07:00Fawn in the Grass<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 300; line-height: 24px;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSRgWl6p17gpYN7eMYQ3QCVtcj0Qr5-ee2Jf51dhGu0ZhbuPfKuqOjfHrwSuBkQ_BTOHbbW-cH1X4n6F8ISWsUvjZRrAzg9STaC_2GEnDo7zeCJrRJcZ55gxBPo0wrPMmgzqUUGT7WZUEZ/s1600/fawn-in-grass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSRgWl6p17gpYN7eMYQ3QCVtcj0Qr5-ee2Jf51dhGu0ZhbuPfKuqOjfHrwSuBkQ_BTOHbbW-cH1X4n6F8ISWsUvjZRrAzg9STaC_2GEnDo7zeCJrRJcZ55gxBPo0wrPMmgzqUUGT7WZUEZ/s1600/fawn-in-grass.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #7c705e; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">I have been, all my life,</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">so afraid.</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Afraid to go out,</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">to go in,</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">to stay in,</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">to be gone into.</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Frightened of people,</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">of eyes, of a gaze.</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Of a mouth</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">open toward me,</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">of teeth, of jaws,</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">of a word.</span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 300; line-height: 24px;"><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">The word is </span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Fear. I have lain here,</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">livid with fear.</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Feral, mammalian fear:</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">the deer. </span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">The dear</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">infant fawn</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">curled in the grass,</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">mother gone.</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">The dear little one</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">who waits</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">to be preyed upon</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">or prayed over.</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">What will we do,</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">oh my hands,</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">with this dear</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">in the grass?</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394; font-size: x-small;">(Photo: artist unknown.)</span></div>
</span>Jaliyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868006713291780694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7812097875812814635.post-78274617574136797492014-09-16T18:41:00.000-07:002014-09-16T18:53:29.059-07:00The Ten Thousand Things<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #7c705e; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_s2YwSQeS1jpLkpc0Xq1PDJyuOA6RG_iMOGAI6GF8K7YOQuJFdL6i7YJ3jFCPbo5NWWnDmB7e0oZGI5laKhtQ0FDQb0JTmkxgIuWNHh-KnM-MIYvQcAL53gdfSYh_uQ7lMyPNJ7Uim1K6/s1600/metta.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_s2YwSQeS1jpLkpc0Xq1PDJyuOA6RG_iMOGAI6GF8K7YOQuJFdL6i7YJ3jFCPbo5NWWnDmB7e0oZGI5laKhtQ0FDQb0JTmkxgIuWNHh-KnM-MIYvQcAL53gdfSYh_uQ7lMyPNJ7Uim1K6/s1600/metta.jpg" height="285" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #7c705e; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Oh, Lord, we tire</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">of chronicity,</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">the same old,</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">same old, our ten</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">thousand terrors. </span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">But ten thousand</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Buddhas</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">await us in the shadows</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">of fear, which are</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">light in disguise,</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">awaiting our hands</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">to wring</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">inevitable love</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">from the stones</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">we have piled</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">around our ten thousand</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">failures to love.</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">We learn again</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">the chronicity</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">of compassion,</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">the shock of our will</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">to care again,</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">to soften our hands</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">away from the stones, </span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">to reach for the faces</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">begging for light,</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">the first</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">being our own,</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">for a dusting</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">of mercy, for the alms</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">of tendresse</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">to spill </span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">from the boundless</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">bowls of our hearts.</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #7c705e; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394; font-size: x-small;">(Art: "Metta" -- artist unknown)</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #7c705e; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
Jaliyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868006713291780694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7812097875812814635.post-31886024498153662972014-09-16T17:04:00.000-07:002014-09-16T18:54:39.971-07:00Aphorisms!<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 300; line-height: 24px;"></span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 300; line-height: 24px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixZH1AOowaKBKQhhzE4kGDRDdv7ZHasa5p95ISn7O1-ynGxSqFHL1ZiApvn0p_lwfh02XuVCRfS86Ozwzl7gUoPBshEaYTEtSRF7w8-izbEL0tJlByxN_qxtw1A9EpaSRRCawMbwoDLx3_/s1600/cloud-ground-lightning13_20849_990x742.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixZH1AOowaKBKQhhzE4kGDRDdv7ZHasa5p95ISn7O1-ynGxSqFHL1ZiApvn0p_lwfh02XuVCRfS86Ozwzl7gUoPBshEaYTEtSRF7w8-izbEL0tJlByxN_qxtw1A9EpaSRRCawMbwoDLx3_/s1600/cloud-ground-lightning13_20849_990x742.jpg" height="224" width="400" /></a></span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 300; line-height: 24px;">
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
See that cloud? That’s a brain. See the lightning? That’s an aphorism. James Geary, our world’s foremost expert and collector of aphorisms, calls this “most intimate, idiosyncratic literary genre” a “Swiss army knife for the mind.” Aphorisms, he writes, “come in small portions, are exquisitely formed, and always leave you wanting more.”</div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
I’ve fallen in literary love with this form, and since my brain was bashed last summer, my thinking and memory come and go in rapid spurts. Taking in, holding onto, and pondering one aphorism at a time is one of my good medicines. In this healing journey from injury, I’ve taken this gem from Novalis to heart and mind:</div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Every specific fact is a source for a special science.</strong></div>
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 300; line-height: 24px;"><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
Science! — the cradle of curiosity. Peering into a fact, fleshing it out, turning it every which way, peering at it from as many perspectives as we can imagine. Curiosity itself is a holy fact, and I’ve forever been curious about words. Sometimes I think that every human act begins with a single word: a <em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Yes </em>or a <em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">No. </em>Mindful or not, our yays or nays tend to drive us.</div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
In the aftermath of traumatic and existential injury, <em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">No </em>often takes over. Fear tends to drive the ship, and we retract. <em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">No more! No more!, </em>we cry.</div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
But <em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Yes! </em>refuses to give up.<em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Yes </em>to the cardinal’s song, to the lilac bush that’s flinging out a scent that carpets entire neighbourhoods. <em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Yes! </em>to telling our stories because someone in the world will point to our story and say <em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Yes! </em>to their own. <em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Yes! </em>to comprehend in our marrow that</div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">To admit a common human frailty is to activate a common humane strength.</strong></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
Nearly 11 months since I was injured, I’ve noticed that certain glitches seem to have settled in for a long stay. My right leg tends to collapse, and my gait can be gimpy. My eyes can’t tolerate much light; my ears, much sound. Names and faces don’t easily blend into a coherent memory. What can I do? First of all, I can remember an aphorism that I made up as a touchstone:</div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Instead of saying “I can’t,” say, “Adapt.”</strong></div>
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 300; line-height: 24px;"><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">So I’ll take my gimpy leg out for a walk, and let my nose lead me to some lilacs. I’ll lay down on the floor and do some somatic sequences that soften the spasms in my neck. I’ll nap, or play some music that I can breathe along to … music that, if I tend to it with my breath, will ease my rhythms into an adagio tempo. I’ll look out my window to the sky, and receive the spaciousness. I’ll do this:</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Turn disability into this ability.</span></strong></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">I’ll invent some aphorisms. They do strike like lightning from a stormy brain! And even if my brain is storming with fear and panic, I can reach out and clutch to the fact that</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">There are as many factors in a situation as there are hairs on our head.</span></strong></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Somewhere in the storm, synapses of courage are firing. Synapses that insist I am so much more than injury’s effects. Synapses that remind me of every competence I’ve gained, every goodness I’ve committed, every beloved mentor and friend who has walked beside me and shed some love into my soul.</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Light, too, is inevitable.</span></strong></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Remember … remember.</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">One grace at a time.</span></strong></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">(Photo: Kara Swanson, <em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Positive Lightning, </em>via <em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">National Geographic)</em></span></div>
</span></div>
Jaliyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868006713291780694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7812097875812814635.post-68507777852726434212014-09-16T16:56:00.001-07:002014-09-16T18:55:16.242-07:00We hold to sustain (Three stories)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #0b5394; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRCziaP3NuxUNKYhkpQxhkVEmLrk4411AFtlFVJPGqpWla3aJwV_Wbb15WfMBQWw_Ce9De2m_q5WKnH_QLTcQ9BC_YrDBHF3xY3DjZ9YIEUlOdoMBHGKg72J-jrKTH2GcO16IXcYjEI_4V/s1600/hands+of+love+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRCziaP3NuxUNKYhkpQxhkVEmLrk4411AFtlFVJPGqpWla3aJwV_Wbb15WfMBQWw_Ce9De2m_q5WKnH_QLTcQ9BC_YrDBHF3xY3DjZ9YIEUlOdoMBHGKg72J-jrKTH2GcO16IXcYjEI_4V/s1600/hands+of+love+.jpg" height="256" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0b5394; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">~ I woke, in the ambulance, and there was only her. Her face above me, like a sun that eyes could stand, and she stroked my hand as she had once stroked my hand the first time I’d met her.</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">“I love you,” she said.</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">And I knew the point of love right then.</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;"><b>The point of love was to help you survive.</b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: inherit;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">The point was also to forget meaning. To stop looking and start living. The meaning was to hold the hand of someone you cared about and to live inside the present … The ever-moving, ever-changing present. And the present was fickle. It could only be caught by letting go.</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">So I let go.</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">I let go of everything in the universe.</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Everything, except her hand.</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">~ from <a href="http://www.matthaig.com/" style="-webkit-transition-delay: initial; -webkit-transition-duration: 0.2s; -webkit-transition-property: all; -webkit-transition-timing-function: ease-in-out; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;"><em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Humans, </em>by Matt Haig</span></a> … Matt who also wrote a piece called <a href="http://www.matthaig.com/reasons-to-stay-alive/" style="-webkit-transition-delay: initial; -webkit-transition-duration: 0.2s; -webkit-transition-property: all; -webkit-transition-timing-function: ease-in-out; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Reasons To Stay Alive</span></a> (We all need reminders now and then, don’t we?)</span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 300; line-height: 24px;"></span><br />
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 300; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">~ Peter A. Levine, one of the world’s sages of healing from trauma — a true artist of what I call </span><a href="http://www.traumahealing.com/somatic-experiencing/peter-levine.html" style="-webkit-transition-delay: initial; -webkit-transition-duration: 0.2s; -webkit-transition-property: all; -webkit-transition-timing-function: ease-in-out; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">traumorphosis</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;"> — writes in his book, </span><em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0b5394; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In An Unspoken Voice, </em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">of being hit by a car while he was crossing a street. In an instant, he went from strolling to a friend’s birthday celebration to being flattened on asphalt, paralyzed and unable to breathe. What was his first saving grace? A pedestrian who quietly sat down beside him and identified herself as a doctor, asking Peter (while paramedics were assessing his injuries) how she could help. </span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 300; line-height: 24px;">
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0b5394; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Please just stay with me,” Peter told her … and she held his hand and his eyes with such tender composure that he began to tremble with tears and a first shudder of release from shock. Emotion set in … presence. “Her outreach and physical touch,” he writes, “provide a source of orientation.” Her softening gaze, and the scent of her perfume, further allowed a “sense of stabilization and relief.” Most of all, Peter knew that he was not alone. </div>
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;"><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
~ <em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Please just stay with me …</em>This is so often all that we need. A few months ago, I was at a birthday party, sitting at a round table with seven friends, sharing a meal. Since my brain injury last summer, to be with more than one other person can overwhelm my capacity to track sensation with my eyes, ears, and skin. Seven folks, passing food and happily gabbing, was too much. I sensed a leave-taking: a numbing around my head and a blurring of sight. Panic, setting in. I stood up, left the table, and walked into my friend’s living room. Sat on the couch and wrapped myself in a blanket, laying a hand on my solar plexus, telling myself to breathe. </div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>"Stay here … Stay now."</b></em></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">
The host of our party, being a mother of a child who has autism, understands sensory overwhelm and how to soften it. She sat beside me, asked me what was happening, and with my permission, drew my head to her chest, right over her heart. My right ear lay over the rhythm of life; she covered my left with her hand. She tucked us both into the blanket and breathed deep. She stayed with me … and stayed until I could orient myself enough to look around, notice where I was, and begin to move again. I sat up, and two more friends joined us. Each friend held one of my hands, and one laid a presencing hand on my thigh. We shared gazes and quiet conversation — checking-in questions and simple, soothing talk. Eventually we all returned to the table, and dessert was served …</div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<b><span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We hold to sustain … to soothe and to soften … to guide one another home. </span> </b></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
(Photo: “Hands of Love” … artist unknown. My thanks to you.)</div>
</span></span>Jaliyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868006713291780694noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7812097875812814635.post-52832737841322938942014-09-16T16:19:00.000-07:002014-09-16T18:56:35.849-07:00"I can't do it!" and the birth of a blog<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #7c705e; font-weight: 300; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAIFyGj4VtwxbjoAZ6-voV3dEmI6WRvluKwn5SQxmGa6GAdUvine0-JoWdChIVoq4GSk-uwHf0WyJ-uJDy-l49MRbHZFOjdCP8Ou_whHG62o7yfiQS8K4cAVMZ-4qRl08V-Pr5kH-8_9Jv/s1600/Mercy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAIFyGj4VtwxbjoAZ6-voV3dEmI6WRvluKwn5SQxmGa6GAdUvine0-JoWdChIVoq4GSk-uwHf0WyJ-uJDy-l49MRbHZFOjdCP8Ou_whHG62o7yfiQS8K4cAVMZ-4qRl08V-Pr5kH-8_9Jv/s1600/Mercy.jpg" height="250" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #7c705e; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">“Cradle your life … and save it. Cradle your life in the hands of your heart.”</span></b></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">So said my friend, a long time ago. So said I, to myself, last night.</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">So said I, when all I could hear was “I can’t.” So said I, when I picked up the phone and dialled, and surrendered to the sound of a beloved voice. A friend whose mercy resounded in the marrow of me. </span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">This blog will be mercy for our marrow … an invitation to soften into the sanctuary of our own goodness. </span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Traumorphosis: transforming the aftermaths of traumatic injury into stories that save and salve us. Softening our way into the goodness that we are, no matter what has happened to us. </span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;"><b>Softening shame, fear, secrecy. Re-minding.</b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: inherit;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">As one of my friends recently told me, “Change the channel!” Grabbing the remote; disengaging the autopilot. Seeking what softens.</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Today, I soften “I can’t” into the knowledge that I will pass through it into <em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">can … </em>into <em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">will.</em></span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">A recent <em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">can’t </em>was about going to church. I couldn’t do it that day. I had to honour the <em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">No </em>that resounded; the <em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">no </em>to driving a car, to being in the company of several other people, to being able to absorb sight, sound, and complex stimuli. Last summer, my brain was injured in a fall, and one of its persistent effects has been to render the ordinary as overwhelming, the mere as sheer. Sometimes, to take a shower can fell me for an hour. Sometimes my ability to write by hand degenerates into illegibility, or I can’t follow the steps needed to make a meal. The sound of a ringing phone can pierce my ear like a blade, or I lose the ability to form a sentence halfway through a thought. I teeter on my feet and crash into walls, and my hands lose their ability to hold onto things. Sometimes my senses can’t absorb the simple presence of another human being.</span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;"></span></span><br />
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">One of the gentle disciplines I apply is to discern every day — sometimes from moment to moment — where my abilities lie on the <em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">can – can’t </em>continuum; is the <em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">can’t </em>rooted in fear or on a realistic assessment of what’s possible right now? What <em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">can </em>I do when a glitch appears as insurmountable opportunity? When I find myself unable to spell a word — “insurmountable” — and it takes four attempts, plus a peek at an online dictionary, to get it right?</span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<b>I can pause … and breathe … and notice. </b></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
I can act to soften the impact of panic; I can stand up, plant my feet on the good earth, and gaze out my window at the sky, which is ceaselessly open, spacious, and moving. “Movement is life,” said Moshe Feldenkrais, one of the world’s great teachers of somatic (body-based) re-education. <em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Movement is life: </em>move those feet, those hands, those eyes. Move beyond the glitch. Move the mind into curiosity, the body into mastery. Spell out that word. Take a breath … and another. Lay down the fear; pick up the mercy and apply it. Write, write, write out the word; make the opportunity surmountable. </div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
I’ve hidden in plain sight for so long … and a relentless pressure whorls within me to emerge from secrecy and shame, to make my story sacred by sharing it, by blending it with others, to add one more weave to the fabric of <em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I can. </em>The tipping point into revelation? My dear friend’s voice, reminding me that in my vulnerability is my calling … and a video I watched this morning. A brief story shared by a man who felled himself over a bridge, and lived to tell the tale. </div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Albert Camus once wrote, “In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.” Today I think of invincible Spring. My neighbourhood’s dotted with green.</div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Oliver Wendell Holmes — who was a doctor, among other things — wrote, “Expression is the one fundamental sacrament.” I added a coda: “… and love is the one fundamental expression.” If I reach, reach, reach into the wellspring of mercy that is my good heart, I locate love that softens the glitches, the terror, the panic. Words do arise.</div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<b>“Physician, heal thyself.” I will, and I do, with the one fundamental expression that never fails. Love, in a form perfectly suited to this moment. </b></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Right now, it’s these words, this story, this truth. Softening comes through this passage into invincible Spring … this refinement of every <em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">can’t </em>into a <em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">can.</em></div>
</span></span>Jaliyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868006713291780694noreply@blogger.com1