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Ancient Secrets of Wellness
Mamchur, C. (2018) Ancient Secrets of Wellness. Journal of education and human development, Vo. 7, No. 4,
By Carolyn Mamchur
This article examines a cross section of literature that explores non - medical approaches to healing, methods available to us in every day life, methods that spring from the well of full and attentive living. The desire to seek out this literature seized me without my fully realizing it. I was in the library, searching for yet another way to give my student teachers a source of personal strength and confidence, when I saw Animals as teachers and healers: true stories and reflections. I began to read. I could not stop. I virtually took up residence in this section of the library. Why? What was motivating my need to understand, to learn more, and then to share the lessons these books were teaching? What inner voice was guiding my learning?
Prologue
He was dying. Hailey, the cocker spaniel I had somehow come to feel as if he were my grandchild, was dying. My daughter and friends and I returned from an outdoor concert to find the floor covered in pale red blood. A strange immune disease was stealing all his blood cells, turning them to water.
An agonized hospital stay where it was a day to day battle against the odds. “As soon as you think he doesn’t have at least 30% chance, tell me”. “As soon as his suffering is more than he can bear, tell me.”
The hospital an acute care unit just north of Seattle was the best I’d ever seen. The doctors, recognizing the connection between Hailey and myself, put aside the rules and let me stay there lying next to his cage, lying there, amidst all the tubes and machines, next to my beloved.
They gave him the deepest respect, the most generous love, and the best medical attention I had ever witnessed. He had turned orange from the medication and they affectionately called him ‘pumpkin’.
I left him only for a few hours a day, either to sleep or eat. The rest of the time I held him, softly talking, encouraging, soothing, asking him what he wanted to do.
Named after the comet, Hailey had come into my life and I knew would not come again in this lifetime. I would do anything to save him. My desire was not bound in reason, it was bound in love. The doctors honestly told me about the risks, the costs. They ordered medicine from New York. They located a helicopter and a hospital if he had become strong enough to be moved and could receive dialysis. They had corrected the blood issue, but the drugs, much like chemotherapy had damaged the kidneys. It was the kidneys that were failing.
All of my energies went to making him well. All my thoughts. I was haunted by those awful pangs of guilt, the remembered words of veterinarians telling me that if I fed him too much meat it would be hard on his kidneys, and I thought of all the bits of steak, of chicken, of roast beef, of spareribs, of hamburger, that I had passed to him. I tried to push them away. No room for self-pity. No room for procrastinations. I had to think positively. Only good feelings could help my baby.
But all the good feelings, all the prayers, all the brilliance of the doctors, all the money I was ready to spend did not do its job. Hailey was failing. We were watching, trying to decide what to do. Could he travel? Could he make it to the dialysis machine? I offered to buy one for the hospital, to mortgage my house and buy one. They didn’t have the people who could run it. They knew how desperate I was. They didn’t want me to mortgage my house. I have, since then, put in my will that upon my death, a dialysis machine would be purchased for the hospital in Hailey’s name.
But the horrid decision of that moment was, of course - should we put him to sleep? I could not make up my mind. He would fail, and then rally again. I put my arms around him, trying to feel the answer. My dear friend, Alice, had told me that in her Buddhist studies she had learned a technique of absorbing the pain of a loved one. I tried to absorb Hailey’s pain.
I have been present at the bedside of many people I love as the lay dying, my mother, my stepfather, my best friend. I have held them in moments of death. I have anguished over the loss. I come from a family that does not let go easily. But nothing, nothing, anguished me like this death. It was the fact that I had to decide. I had to decide to stop his suffering and let him go; but what, what if he wasn’t ready? What if one more day might make him strong enough to get the treatment he needed?
I was almost crazy with lack of sleep and grief. The doctors thought it was over. They told me, though, that we could hang on a few more days if I needed it. They were waiting for me now, not Hailey. It was time to let go.
As the life slowly left Hailey’s body, I panicked. A real panic attack. I begged them to bring him back. I fainted. I couldn’t breathe. I wet myself. Had I made a mistake?
And then it hit me. The most awful feeling of sickness I have ever experienced. Total sickness. I fell to the floor. Everything about me hurt. My stomach, my feet, my ears, my eyes. Everything. My bones ached. My head ached. I was so sick.
And in a flash, I remembered that the doctors had described Hailey’s illness as not so much severe pain, but feeling sick all over, like a terrible flu.
I had absorbed the illness from Hailey. I just hadn’t been open to feeling it. And then it came, when I needed it most. It came to show me how Hailey had been feeling. It had been time to go.
The sickness lasted about four hours. By the time they had prepared the body and we had checked out of the hotel, I was able to walk, to thank the doctors, to take the body home with me for burial. I couldn’t leave him there. I had to wait until his spirit had totally left the body. I knew it would take a few days.
This may sound like madness to you. The deep feelings of the soul often do feel like madness. Love feels like madness. Inspiration can feel like madness. When we don’t understand the language of the soul, we often call it madness. We used to burn witches at the stake, we used to put creative people in asylums. Now, we often medicate them.
Lesson one: Be with animals
What did this wonderful creature teach me? He taught me to pay attention to the inner workings, for always, always, the answer lies within, if only we will listen. This paper is an examination of a selected collection of books and articles that investigate the link between wellness and the divine, the soul, the archetype, the symbol, the myth. It doesn’t really matter which word is most comfortable for the reader. It is pretty much the same thing, that connection between inner and outer, body and soul.
“Humans and animals are capable of a deep and healing intimacy with one another” (Russack, p. 31). In his book, Animal Guides, Russack poses the theory that animals bring vitality to the human. (p. 31). I, myself, have never lived without a dog. I can’t imagine it.
“The body is the original animal condition; we are all animals in the body, and so we should have animal psychology in order to be able to live in it . . . when the chain between man and animal has grown so long that we lose sight of the animal anything can happen in between, the chain will snarl up somewhere” (Nietzsche p. 967f).
Russack speaks of the ability of animals to heal, simply by their presence:
Animals are gates through which we shift our consciousness. Coming upon a deer in the woods, a water bird on shore, I feel its living presence. My body becomes alert, I stand poised. If I am quiet inside, the animal doesn’t move. We can just be, the animal and me, in our living stillness. Then I feel whole again, no matter what difficulties have befallen me in the work-a-day world. Touched in this deeper way, I neither want to leave nor want the animal to leave (p. 34).
The power of animals to heal has been with us for a long time. Recently, there has been an upsurge of recognition of the importance of the heart-centered partnership between horses and humans. Such organizations such as the Equine Facilitated Mental Health Association exist to find a place for horses to act as therapists. Patricia Broersma (2007) has written of her personal experiences in transformational adventures with the horse and their ability to “take us into an ancient world and there reveal to us our authentic selves” (back cover).
A powerful book, just released as a motion picture, The horse boy, describes a father’s quest to heal his autistic son via a pilgrimage to Magnolia, birthplace of the horse, and holy ground for many Shamans. Both the horses and the magic of the Shaman work their miracles.
Lesson two: Be real, face truth, don’t hide and mask
Illness, whether a child’s, a pet’s or one’s own, is often a starting point to important inner work. Albert Kreinheder has written the most readable and personal story describing his own journey as a Jungian analyst and as a man stricken by illness. His journey, Body and soul: The other side of illness, illustrates through living example after living example, how the inner life affects the outer life, and how accessing the inner life truthfully, we can heal, and if not, embrace death with dignity.
There is one guideline that is more important than any other, and that is truth. We have to be totally and completely truthful with ourselves. So-called positive thinking is a pale, sentimental sort of thing if it is just a covering over of reality. The soul does not thrive on deceit. Truth is the elixir. Truth is the panacea. Truth is the most precious of psychic ingredients, and it is almost a synonym for God (p. 56).
Kreinheder makes the unique and interesting observation from his own research that it wasn’t until he embraced his pain as a friend, did he begin to heal. During active imagination with his pain, he came to terms with it. “The paradox is that the wound, the illness, is also the treasure. The physical misery gets your attention. But then you go deeper into it, there is much more to do, memories and imagination and worries of what will come….The symptoms open you up. They literally tear you open so that the things you need can flow in” (p.48).
A Jungian, Kreinheder promises us that as we go deeper into darkness, whatever it is, anxiety will turn to joy (p.61). Jung has cautioned the same thing: “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious” (Jung, 1983, p. 265).
In the Western world, the connection between mind and spirit and body has been well understood by those who practice yoga. Active imagination is also attached to this process where transformation is gleaned through concentration of the imagination.
Lesson three: Use the body to heal
Judith Harris (2001) in her seminal work on Jung and Yoga gives a clear and revealing description of the breathing attached to yoga as “an instrument for the realization of the self” (p. 59). She cautions that one must remain free of judgment, simply observing what is happening with the body and the breath. “It is here that consciousness begins. With only the simple act of observation, the breath is able to change, to transform into a breath that not only quietens but also can go deeper, gradually penetrating the cells of the body where healing can take place” (p. 60).
Stillness, concentration is so essential to the practice of yoga. ‘The tendency toward ‘unification’ and ‘totalization’ is a feature of all yogic techniques. (Eliade, p. 54).
Harris further explores the relationship between yoga and health in respect to the ability to connect to the floor, the feet, to bring energy up in breath and posture. “Today it seems that we are without roots, without a genuine connection to where we have come from, to where we are in the moment, and to where we are headed in the future. Allowing ourselves to connect to the deep-seated origins that existed thousands of years before us brings healing at a profound mystical level” (p. 76).
When the body is part of healing, as in yoga and massage and various forms of body work, we recognize the importance of touch to the process of healing. A significant example of the importance of touch appears when one considers the scapegoat complex and its feelings of victimization and guilt. Stoltz (1997) in his seminal work on improving mental and physical health have isolated several factors which contribute significantly to the ability to turn adversity into opportunity. One factor the 02 factor, is typical of those folks suffering from scapegoat complex. The O2 consists of Origin (who or what was the origin of the adversity) and Ownership (to what degree can one own the outcomes of the adversity). It is unhealthy to take on all of the blame and equally unhealthy to disown the problem.
Lesson Four: Do things that let you ‘sprout feathers’
Perera (1998) explores the complex nature of scape-goating which causes one to feel both victimized by unfair blame and at the same time responsible for causing pain in a family or community. As a result, the individual builds a wall around himself to ward off pain and to protect others from his “leprosy” (p. 45).
The result of this “wall building” is a disconnect and an inability to deal realistically with discomfort of any kind. Stoltz has data to demonstrate that this inability affects hardiness and resiliency which in turn affect emotional and physical health.
“The capacity to endure discomfort seems to be related to the early experience of touch, to being held intimately and with respect, both in attentive regard and in protecting and containing arms” (Perera, p. 43). If this is true, then bringing touch into ones life becomes ironically both imperative and almost impossible. “In the absence of maternal and collective embrace, this armor combines with the personal to hold together the individual’s fragmented parts. Inevitably, therefore, some body work is necessary in order to restore a sense of body-Self”(Ibid. p. 45).
Pearson suggests that a path to forming resiliency, to be able to acknowledge that pain and the shadow are part of life, and that we are able to deal with it, demands that we re-visit early archetypes, inviting both the Innocent and the Orphan back into our lives. The Innocent will give us optimism and the Orphan will give us the access to reality needed. Film, art, imagery, literature, ritual, all provide ways to access these archetypes and restructure how we relate to the world in which we live.
The belief in one’s mastery over your life and one’s ability to meet challenges as they arise is what psychologists call self-efficacy – it’s yourself being effective. According to Bandura (1997), self-efficacy is related to perceived capability. This results in numerous positive effects on mind and body. For example, a sense of self-efficacy helps one recover from failures, their approach to things comes from a questioning standpoint: how can I handle them rather than worrying about what can go wrong. These patterns are subconscious, and therefore, operate outside your awareness. As psychologists have convincingly claimed, childhood experiences affect efficacy and these patterns, if unchecked, remain consistent over a life time and compromise one’s immune system.
Yoga, attaching ourselves to ancient rituals and the core of our beings is a path to gaining power, to attaching ourselves to the divine, connecting body to mind. Kreinheder (1991) brings another perspective to the need for a feeling of personal power. He says that since his brush with death he has insisted on surrounding himself only with events and people who give him power. He asks himself, “Why waste any moment of my short remaining life on anything other than the power now that I have discovered it?” It permits him to be clear about what is essential and what is not (p.63). Power, here, of course, is the power of the essential being, the life force, those things that make us sense the sprouting of “feathers”, which are essentially ‘goose bumps”. It was Plato who suggested that whenever one experienced original beauty, it caused the soul, a feathered creature, to have the person sprout feathers.
Lesson Five: Re-establish a connection to myth and archetype
James Hollis, in his study of myth in modern times, remind us that historically we have turned to drugs to try to welcome the “divine”. Christians take the wine-blood of Christ, New Mexicans, the peyote, the Romantics, opium. Today, we try to dull the pain of separation from self and others through food, drugs, tobacco, and alcohol. “The more a culture loses its mythic moorings, the more prone it is to substance abuse. Such substances provide momentary surcease from spiritual pain, a hedge against the harshness of the journey, but the price paid is the level of consciousness necessary for growth (Hollis, 1995, p. 113).
If the loss of myth leads to this abuse, it is reassuring to know that bringing myth back into our lives will bring us back to a sense of wholeness and good health. Myth is the common story of man, the archetypal symbol that links us to our inner worlds and the worlds of all peoples everywhere. Myth permits us to look at the deepest meaning of life. Admiral Byrd, freezing to death in the South Pole, wrote: “If you were alone, a thousand miles from any other person, fifty degrees below zero, and you were dying, what would have had to have happened to you to allow you to die with integrity and a sense of completion?” (in Hollis, 1995, p. 149).
Jung has stated the importance of such thinking:
You must believe in the world, make roots, do the best you can…but you have to believe in it, have to make it almost a religious conviction, merely for the purpose of putting your signature under the treaty, so that a trace is left of you. For you should leave some trace in the world which notifies that you have been here” (Jung, 1996, p. 29).
The study of image, myth, and archetype are not foreign to those who undertake to understand the mysterious zone of health and healing. Though physicians would prefer to attach themselves to ‘pure’ science, they cannot ignore the power of the mind, of perception, of the soul on the process of healing and recovery.
Dr. Baur, (1982) in her study of alcoholism, examines the history of how women experience alcoholism and documents the differences between male and female addiction to alcohol. Her research has supported the notion that women demonstrate different responses, tending to hide their drinking more then men and tending to almost become devotees of alcohol.
She makes a compelling case that in archetypal terms, alcoholism represents a struggle between the Apollonian masculine archetype of strength and intellectual determination and excellence and the Dionysian archetype of ecstasy, god of joy, but also god of madness and extremes.
Women, turning to the Apollonian masculine, but not really able to access it, are seduced by Dionysus. At first, it works for them, giving them the escape and vitality they want. But as they become addicted, they become slaves to Dionysus and end up wretched.
AA provides a return to Apollo and many women do manage to give up drinking, but are not always satisfied, still craving the joy Dionysus brings.
Baur suggests that women alcoholics would do well to embrace the female archetypal pattern found in the goddess Athena. Athena, “sprung from the head of Zeus, she stands next to him and is second to him, even before Apollo. She becomes the goddess of wisdom, of war, of handicrafts. She is the protector of heroes and would offer women the strength they seek in a female rather then a male archetype which is easier for women to access.
Baur recommends that AA find a way to embrace Athenian as well as Apollonian characteristics to better represent and serve woman alcoholics. Until that happens, women, on their own, could turn to this archetype for inspiration and strength.
A similar recommendation comes from Cara Barker (2001) when she suggests that world weary women, over-achievers who feel overwhelmed by responsibility, out of touch with their inner worlds, turn away from a focus on Ra with his need for rules and order and embrace Osiris who must suffer in the underworld. In the first half of life, the world weary woman has done what she can to follow the rules of Ra but now, it is her task to “bring her unique consciousness back through the development of personality, which can only happen through reconnection with her body wisdom via her struggle in the underground” (p. 138).
When we consciously call upon the energy of Athena or Osiris in such things as active imagination and in yoga we access two sources of inner strength. Through specific breathing and posture energies of Kundalini yoga, we consciously bring “the focus of awareness inward, allowing all and everything to be gathered and worked on within the alchemical vessel of our body” (Harris, p. 125).
Lesson six: Engage in the arts
There are many ways of healing suggested by Jungians from active imagination, dreams, yoga, god, writing, embracing the archetype, entering the myth, to “stealing fire from the gods”. Another time - honored method is art therapy.
Gregg Furth offers a guide for therapists or persons wanting to explore their own work to enter and interpret The secret world of drawings. A fine study and a practical tool, the book suggests that “the symbol unlocks unconscious psychic energy and allows it to flow toward a natural level, where a transforming effect occurs (p. 10). He goes on to ask how a person might activate the healing power of the symbol? “First of all, we need to bring into consciousness and to allow its connected energy to flow. Spending time with a symbol invests energy into its flow. Drawing it, writing about it in a journal, or bringing its associations and amplifications to consciousness are means of accomplishing this” (2002, p.11).
A caution to those who feel they can be casual about this - it must be a focused time where concentrated activity is essential. This is true of all the techniques offered by all of the books I have examined on the subject. It is no casual affair. It is serious business, this business of the soul. Jung has said that such developmental work requires “insight, endurance and action.” (1973, p. 375). But consciousness is not forced, it is not ‘willed’ into being. Instead, we must “accompany the unconscious along its path” (p.130).
It was interesting to move from reading how one must employ insight, endurance and action and then move to Cara Barker’s book entitled, World weary woman: Her wound and transformation. This book is based on a ten year study “aimed to discover what it means for a particular kind of woman to be human” (2001, p. 15). She describes women (36) who experienced a common syndrome where demands of the world were too much, left them feeling suffocated, and “cut off from their own creative spirit, a spirit requiring that what has grown dry find moisture once more” (p. 15).
The finding of moisture is not easy, but it lifts the weariness. Barker suggests it is done through creativity. Creativity comes in many shapes. We are familiar with use of writing, art, dance. What we may often miss is the imaginative act of reading a narrative. Margaret Meredith discusses reading as a path to individuation demonstrating her thesis with The Secret Garden. “The story to which one feels a particular attraction is an invitation to the imagination….This is because the imagination responds to the symbol which participates in both the spiritual and material realms” (2005, p. 58).
Meredith further explains that imagination liberates and renews a person with its connections to past, present and future, valuing all of these and enliven the soul. She quotes Rabbi Steinsaltz who says ‘the soul lies not in its abstractness, its remoteness from the physical world, but precisely in the world of loving creatures, in its contact with matter’ (p. 76 in Meredith, p. 59).
Stories link us with this physical world, appealing to our senses. Stories do not exist in the abstract, but in the concrete, in the real world that connects the reader to the writer’s truth (Mamchur & Apps, 2009).
Stories, suggests Meredith, permits the ego no longer to be at the center. “Consciousness has its roots not in the ego and its functions (thinking, feeling, sensing and intuition) but in another region of the psyche altogether, ‘a dimension which can only be created by the world of imagination’” (von Franz, p.142f in Meredith, p. 64) Meredith speaks eloquently about the importance of symbols in narratives, and especially in the story she uses as illustration, The secret garden. Writers have long recognized this fact and have expressed it with poetic beauty.
A complex of emotional experience is a symbol. And the power of the symbol is to arouse the deep emotional self, and the dynamic self, beyond comprehension. Many ages of accumulated experience still throb within a symbol. And we throb in response. (Lawrence, p. 49).
Lesson seven: Be aware of subliminal messages in daily things
Less poetic, but very powerful, is the symbolism found in food. Eve Jackson in Food and transformation: Imagery and symbolism of eating, speaks only indirectly to food and wellness as it relates to diet and eating disorders. Instead, she discusses food and eating and how its symbols and links to the past affect how we feel about food, moving between our conscious and unconscious associations.
Eating disorders, difficulty with weight, health related to eating, are linked to this association. As the person gets a friendlier relationship with the self, the inner self, “a friendlier relationship with the physical body can emerge” (p. 116).
Jackson makes some interesting connections between food and life. There are the more obvious ones such as grain and culture, the fruit of paradise, the mouth as a way in, saliva and anticipation, shit and shadow, chewing and deliberation. She unravels the symbols behind food and eating as they relate to assimilation are the most interesting.
In the process of assimilation, she tells us, ‘all haste is of the devil,’ as the alchemists said. Good digestion requires a state of relative tranquility. In anxiety states, when the ‘flight-or-fight’ mechanisms are stimulated, blood flows to the muscles of the back, arms and legs, while digestive processes are suppressed, hence the familiar association between anxiety and digestive problems. It has been shown that the taking in of information is inhibited during states of arousal as measures by the heart rate…..so it is with the assimilative process of learning. We take in facts and ideas which maybe more or less digestible. It takes time to assimilate, it can cause anxiety. Learning also requires a state of relative tranquility (p.95).
Jackson invites the reader to use the symbols so readily available in food and apply them to the complex world of transformation thereby making it more accessible, more easily understood.
Lesson eight: Practice active imagination to realize you have the answers to important questions
Active imagination is a strategy recommended by almost all of the authors cited in this paper. Essentially, active imagination is “the practice of establishing a conscious dialogue with images that arise from the unconscious” (Meredith, p. 64).
These images can come from dreams, stories, myths, archetypes, fairy tales, art work, nature, many symbolic representations of the inner world of the unconscious. What we do in active imagination is to pay attention to this image, using it as ‘a way to get into touch with the unconscious, and that entails giving it an opportunity to express itself in one way or other’” (Hannah, p. 17 in Meredith, p. 64).
Though difficult work, demanding attention to those aspects of life we have almost lost touch with can be harnessed in such a variety of ways that it amazes one that we are not more in touch with these ancient and powerful myths and spiritual guides.
I was teaching active imagination to a group of high functioning, over-worked financial leaders in a huge organization. I had counseled them to think of a personal decision they were struggling with, and were having difficulty making. I assured them that they themselves knew the answer, if only they would listen to their minds and bodies.
As I guided them through the exercise, I invited the participants to walk through a field, attending to the now of their lives. I asked them to walk and notice what they saw as they walked. An object appeared in my own mind as I talked. It was a chrome chair, in the middle of a field of wild flowers. I tired to concentrate on the people I was working with, but the chair would not go away. I instructed them to let the object speak to them, without forcing a response. And the chair told me to “sit down”.
It was not only the financiers who were over-working themselves. I was burning the candle at beyond both ends. A full time professor, testing my theories and doing consulting in the business world, producing screen-plays as well as my academic writing, creating a three acre botanical garden and supporting a child with Turner’s Syndrome who needed as much attention and love as any suffering child requires, I was stretching it too far. The chair told me to “sit down”.
The answer to the question I had been considering, “Should I take on more consulting work – an offer had come my way and would give me a good chunk of money and opportunity to do more research” – was answered. “No.” I had to take time to “sit down and enjoy the beautiful garden I had been creating.
In this brief article alone, I have mentioned active imagination, music, art, writing, gardening, living with animals, yoga, surrounding ourselves with mythic images, having dialogue with archetypal figures, avoiding those people who do not make us feel energized.
Cultures with vital mythic images support the individual in attaining a sense of self, facilitate maturation and guide social interaction. A culture that has lost its mythic center, or whose mythologies are too fragmented and diverse, creates frightened and lost people who drift from cult to cult, ideology to ideology. Loving symbols, however, can initiate us into the mysteries of our own souls (Jung, 1996, p. 17).
Lesson ten: Walk with nature
Meredith ends her book with a comment that really resonated with me: “From the beginning to end the garden is both container and destination. It is a companion for the journey, feeding the hungry soul with the light of nature” p. 147).
I feel an ache of longing to share in this embrace, to be united and absorbed. A longing like carnal desire, but directed towards earth, water, sky, and returned by the whispers of the trees, the fragrance of the soil; the caresses of the wind, the embrace of water and light (Hammarskjold, 1966, p.77).
For the past ten years, one of my greatest joys and ways of individuating, giving a new sense of energy to my life through my inferior function of sensation, I have created a three - acre botanical garden in the rain forests of Washington. I speak with it often. It speaks back.
Epilogue
The bulldozer has already done its work. A huge truck is loading up cedar logs too big around to hold in your arms. I stand, in the rain, and watch. I stand, in the rain, and see everything my neighbor owns, every car, every truck, every boat, every shed. All exposed.
But worse, I see the depth of my forest gone. My few remaining trees stand tall and vulnerable, no longer a forest, now a row of big trees.
I weep. This time I don’t think about weeping. I weep. This time there is no anger, just tears. Heart wrenching sobs. Hailey, my pup, jumps up on me, wondering what is wrong. I can’t tell him. I can’t speak. He slips down, his body alert. He smells the air. He gives a low frightened growl.
I try to focus, to wipe my eyes clear. A doe tip-toes out of what just the day before had been her home, searching, walking with such timidity, such uncertainty, as if she doesn’t know where to set her feet. She stops, hoof raised, head alert, listening, watching. She sees me, sees the dog. We all stand for a moment, still. It is as if she is looking into my eyes, wanting answers I can’t give.
She enters my property, walks across the lawn. I hold Hailey close to me. The doe walks past the cabin, across the road. She enters the yard across the road, and then returns, as if unable to believe what is happening, searching, wondering. Several rabbits come out next. The bulldozer is clearing the stumps. The truck continues to load the huge logs, some five feet across, a huge fire of branches flares into the wet sky. The sky fills with orange smoke.
She enters my property, walks across the lawn. I hold Hailey close to me. The doe walks past the cabin, across the road. She enters the yard across the road, and then returns, as if unable to believe what is happening, searching, wondering. Several rabbits come out next. The bulldozer is clearing the stumps. The truck continues to load the huge logs, some five feet across, a huge fire of branches flares into the wet sky. The sky fills with orange smoke.
Five emerald green hummingbirds come toward me. I have never seen them before. Indeed, I have never, in my life, seen more than one hummingbird at a time. I cannot imagine a flock. And yet, I have just seen it.
The doe stands, not far behind me and watches with me, just for a moment. I feel her watching me, again. I feel a one-ness with her, close to her, a sister. Understood. When I turn, she is gone. I don’t know where she went. I don’t think I’ll ever see her again. I worry about roads. Cars. No place to hide.
I know in time I will muster the courage that will allow me to see the benefits. I know that in time I will see the advantage of more sun, the possibility of various beautiful screens. I know the red horse chestnut will now be able to bloom and, the next year, with the sun, it does. But now, this day, in the rain, with the doe, I feel the blows, hear the tap, tap, tapping of the chisel chipping away at paradise.
I will have to wait, to heal, and my garden will, and does, help me.
- Nature, the gentlest mother
- Impatient of no child
- the feeblest or the waywardest
Her admonition mild. ….
With infinite affection
And infinite care,
Her golden finger on her lip,
Wills silence everywhere. - Emily Dickinson
References
Bandura, A. (1997). Self Efficacy. The exercise of control. New York: W.H. Freeman & Co.
Barker, C. (2001) World weary woman: Her wound and transformation. Inner City Books: Toronto, Ont.
Bauer, J. (1982), Alcoholism and Women. Inner City Books: Toronto, Ont.
Broersma, P. (2007) Riding into your mythic life. New World Library: Novato, Ca.
Dickinson, E. (1924) “Part Two: Nature” in The complete poems of Emily Dickinson. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.
Eliade, M. (1978) The forge and the crucible: The origins and structures of alchemy. University of Chicago Press: Chicago, Illinois.
Furth, G. (2002) The secret world of drawings: A Jungian approach to healing through art. Inner City Books: Toronto, Ont.
Hammarskjold, Dag. (1966) Markings. New York, New York: Alfred, A. Knopf, Inc.
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