Do you find yourself staring vacantly into space after scrolling through daily headlines?
Just like ocean waters rise during an earthquake, information can dumbfound us when unconscious content is shifting, erupting, and sudden bursts of awareness surface, which is the psyche’s attempt to seek balance.
We are stirred by the rough storms of fervent feelings that emanate from the collective mind spectrum. I may feel safe from natural disasters and human brutalities shaking our planet, but am, like most people, bombarded by the alarming images that land on my laptop screen. I consider it a duty to witness what goes on around the world. But how does one face the magnified realities of injustice, suffering and death?
Those inclined to psychotic violence tend to crave emotional catharsis as a way to deal with paranoia, anger and resentment, spurred on by sensational or false reports that frequently spout blame, hypocrisy and sarcasm.
Ensuing are toxic environments that employ punishing control. A sensitive and too tenderly attuned individual may sink into a trance of inner turmoil and depression, or renounce their moral dignity and engage in violence themselves, often self-harming.
Beyond strength, it takes subtlety to stay awake, present to suffering, and centred, when the functional energy balance of the cosmic psyche wobbles.
There seems nothing useful this helpless me can do. Or is there?
My body complains when muscles cramp up with stored emotional tension, restricting its spontaneous movements, its fluid dance. So I’m forced to listen and allow offered solutions. One example is: to stomp the ground with heels, like in Indian Kathak, Spanish Flamenco, Irish or other dance moves … it’s freeing to ground and rebirth intense energy.
I appreciate the body’s wisdom, true and real in that its physical form is mortal. And I like to believe that the energy state of each of us influences the environment – near and far away. Also, thankfully, our metabolism allows sleep, where impressions are processed via dreams. My dreams are fairly wild these days.
What is your experience of trying for a balanced state of mind within these mad times?
Do share if you like.
The above image was created by Cynthia Holt, inspired by my poems.
To fill in the distorted or simply incomplete gestalt gathered from early caregivers, we find ourselves during our lifetime in families of various constellations … in groupings of friends, educational settings, teams working towards a project, callings, interest groups, animal care, subcultures, political, vocational and spiritual clusters. In these groups we slot into roles we project, or are projected onto us with qualities others are drawn to engage with, for whatever reason, often to explore a hidden part inside, mother, father, sister, brother, child, lover, hidden in the light or hidden in the dark. Much of this search now happens virtually, through screens, though it can’t replace the actual physical resonance a gestalt needs.
Family can also mean a collection of symbolically meaningful objects, toys, letters, books, art, tools, stones. I collect stones and endow them with memories. My ex-husband extended his loving father role to string instruments. (I wrote about his loss in my previous post.)
At stages in our life we fit, or are fitted, into a network of psychological potential. These are intense phases. Yet irrespective of time gone since people parted ways, families dispersed, places were lost … when a former close friend dies, insight descends, rises, arrives from the past, from the future and from spheres unknown. Memories will shift their meaning. Slowly our sense of self is re-aligned. We capture a condensation of what was symbolically exchanged, essence is revealed.
Truly witnessing the tragedies on our planet is not the same as passive looking, witnessing expands and transforms consciousness. As an individual I feel helpless, unable to solve the overwhelming problems, but by witnessing and accepting the sad truth of what is happening, and by grieving the losses, I, each of us, in a small way, can contribute towards a necessary and crucial paradigm shift.
Some scenes near the end of the film bring home powerful metaphors – like what it takes to fly. Fledglings, to lighten their weight, must empty their stomachs of everything fed to them by their parents (in this instant plastic.) Mothers, forgive yourselves. We can hardly avoid dumping stuff on your offspring, be it psychic or material. Many fledglings don’t manage, but if lucky, and if the right wind comes along, their wings will carry them across the sea towards their adult adventure.
Having succumbed to waves of nostalgia, I’m unsure what will emerge next, which is fine for now. My father’s death at 99, while sad, is also a relief. During the last two years I’ve been on tender hooks, waiting for the telephone call, and the prospect of sorting and processing a left-behind-part of my life. As anticipated, the reality of it was exhausting. There’s no financial reward, since what’s left of my father’s estate will just about cover the bills. His furniture was too damaged to be accepted at auctions, and anything else of value he had given away to people whose support he appreciated. He resented me for not living up to his ideas, and I resented him for his total lack of support. He had fun, spending a fortune on years of luxury cruises around the world with his second partner. While often justified, resentment is entirely useless. I tried my best, so I’ll drop my misgivings and wish my dad’s soul a good journey onwards. It frees up my life.
It’s ironic, because my Dad had artistic leanings resembled my own. We only occasionally clicked, for a short while, especially when he needed me, after which he retreated into his controlling paranoid mode. He may have been jealous of the self determining freedom available to my generation. I should add that his psyche was injured by the last horrific war.
My dream vanished. It’s going to be one of those weird days, I reckon, soon confirmed by a fleeting glance while passing a mirror. My morning ritual includes stretching muscles while coffee filters into the cup. I breakfast before the screen, skim through emails and various online papers, shake head at captions ranging from atrocious, futile to hilarious, the latter due to brexasparation. The scene beyond the window calms – wispy clouds, birds flitting from hedge to tree to hedge, familiar cats slouching across frosted grass, the ginger, the black & white bushy monster, the nimble black tom with white paws and white-tipped tail, much like an exclamation mark.
I deeply appreciate the dreams that provide an afterglow to the relationships in my life, be it the ones marked by kindness and love or the ones distorted by projections and a narrow reading of intentions. The insights that dreams bring help me to renew my sense self, no matter how delusional, it’s what I need to function in this world.
exasperation, when anyone uttering, ‘Calm down,’ deserves a punch.
Course of Mirrors 