When I was in grade school I was tested for being "gifted". I apparently failed the test because I was not eligible for the program. My father believed they got it wrong. But doesn't every father believe his kid is gifted?
Mrs. Osborne, a middle-aged Asian woman who lived down the street from us was the teacher of the gifted students. I remember the spruce trees on her front lawn and her white Lincoln parked in the driveway. Always I would pass that sprawling ranch house with its big picture window and the sprawling white car and the spruces and feel the dregs of my ineptitude.
I had befriended Eve Smarz; our mothers met at Lake Morskioko watching our younger sisters play in the sand. Eve was in the gifted program and I regarded her as a special friend. I don't mean that in any derogatory, sarcastic sense; I truly believed there was something exceptional about her and I longed to be near this thing. Eve was imaginative and her imagination suited mine; we created boyfriends for ourselves, BJ from BJ and the Bear for me and Ponch from Chips for her. We dreamed up romantic scenarios where BJ and Ponch rescued us from kidnappers. We wrote detailed scripts of who would say what to whom and when to execute the much anticipated kiss. Eve had long blond hair and a flat, round face. When she ran, she was the mythical Atalanta, her head kept neatly to one plane, as if her strides were impeccably smooth. Once I asked her what they did in the gifted class and she said they sat under their desks and pretended they were in space. "Well that's dumb," I said.
I recently did some research on depression and creativity and ultimately found the article "Existential Depression in Gifted Individuals". I read it and quickly recognized the symptoms. The article had put a name to the vague, disconcerting thoughts and feelings I have felt more than once in my life. The essay, written by someone by the name of James T. Webb, pinpointed existential concerns, specifically death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness, how death is "an inevitable occurrence", freedom brings insecurity due to "a lack of external structuring", isolation is experienced by everyone because "no matter how close we become to another person, a gap always remains and we are nonetheless alone". Contemplation of the first three by an intuitive, pensive individual, especially one grappling with profound disappointment, ultimately results in the belief that life is meaningless and it's all downhill from there.
Most of us feel this way at some point in our lives, but the gifted feel it early on, in childhood and young adulthood and they feel it acutely. Because they are astute, they see what life could be; because they are perceptive, they perceive how the world falls short. The blend of idealism and a keen awareness of the deficiencies of life brings about frustration and disappointment. Their anger is "directed at fate" and is therefore powerless. This powerlessness brings upon depression, a less-than-concrete depression that is especially alienating. Webb explains that gifted individuals quickly "discover that others, particularly of their age, do not share <existential> concerns, but instead are focused on more concrete issues and on fitting in with others' expectations."
Webb talks about the use of touch to establish a "physical connection"; this brings a thoughtful person out of her head and into the realm of physicality. Often a gifted individual is prescribed "hugs" from friends and family. In my early twenties I figured this out on my own. I used sensuality as a drug for angst; it's an immediate fix but it can lead to heartache. Eventually, with the right partner, you learn how to use it wisely.
Webb cites "bibliotherapy", or the research of other talented individuals and how they found success and meaning by creating structure in their lives. Bibliotherapy is a means to understand "that choices are merely forks in the road of life, each of which can lead <the gifted> to their own sense of fulfillment and accomplishment". Most recently I watched the movie Eat, Pray, Love, based on Elizabeth Gilbert's best selling memoir on her transcendence from depression and anxiety to spiritual enlightenment. I had seen the movie before, but this time it made a deeper impression. I recognized my anxious, adventurous, epicurean and spiritual sides in Ms. Gilbert and I took heart. To me it said, "Keep tasting life; keep meditating; keep writing and you will be well."
Who exactly are "the gifted"? They are not only the people with aptitude; they are the intuitive, the perceptive; their hallmark is one of sensibility rather than sense. They are vulnerable. They are creative. And it is imperative that these individuals "adopt the message of hope" and trust their creative powers to transcend existential depression and bring meaning to their lives. Webb includes Langston Hughes poem on dreams:
Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die,
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams.
For if dreams go,
Life is a barren field
Covered in snow.
"Lotus Opening" by L. Folk
Friday, August 30, 2013
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Prajna and Shenpa
I recently read an article by Pema Chodrin titled "How We Get Hooked". In it she talks about shenpa, that unease and insecurity related to living in an unpredictable world. We get hooked on shenpa, obsess about it, try to dissect it, control it, or we attempt to alleviate it by distracting ourselves with alcohol, drugs, food, sex. Chodrin says "it helps to remember that we may experience two billion kinds of itches and seven quadrillion types of scratching, but there is really only one root shenpa - ego clinging. We experience it as tightening and self absorption."
Being a mother means engaging in a completely selfless act; the ego is virtually ignored. It doesn't like to be ignored, so it will make itself known through shenpa. This shenpa comes in two parts, fear of losing oneself and fear of being a failure as a parent. It's important to acknowledge when the mind, high on shenpa, indulges in exaggeration, because it is precisely this exaggeration that causes depression and anxiety.
I've looked at depression though a literary/artistic lens and now I am looking at it through a mindful/psychoanalytic lens.
In meditation, we learn to sit with shenpa, be with it and breathe. Sometimes this isn't easy, especially if the shenpa is relatively new and intense. But with time, it will soften enough so that one can deal with it. When this happens, prajna kicks in. Chodrin says, "Prajna isn't ego-involved. It's wisdom found in basic goodness, openness, equanimity - which cuts through self absorption." I have witnessed this prajna; it is a deeper voice than the haggard ramblings of shenpa, almost like an underground spring. It is honest and soothing, as if a grandmother were whispering wisdom in your ear. At one point during this depression when I was feeling especially anxious about socializing and preoccupied by uncomfortable feelings, crediting them with being insurmountable, my prajna-grandmother whispered "you're just out of practice, that's all." That made a lot of sense to me; I'm home with the kids most of the time and I am definitely out of practice. "So practice," prajna-grandmother said, and I did.
In meditation we learn that striving will bring on expectation, which is another type of shenpa. In the article, Chodrin talks about how we think we have a good meditation practice when we are open and thoughts come and go, shift and transform like clouds; we compliment ourselves on remaining unattached and open and feel that we "did it right". Afterwards, we compare every meditation practice to this one, judging if it is wrong or right and expecting it to be right and comfortable. This is shenpa, as well, being attached to an outcome. Prajna says, "it is good enough" no matter what the experience is. This takes the pressure off.
When I was a child, I felt as if I moved through shenpas a bit more swiftly and easily than I do now. Perhaps there was less drama surrounding them. Perhaps my mind was more malleable back then because it was less jaded. If someone were to ask me what I want most in this life, for myself, it would be to get back to that mindset.
Being a mother means engaging in a completely selfless act; the ego is virtually ignored. It doesn't like to be ignored, so it will make itself known through shenpa. This shenpa comes in two parts, fear of losing oneself and fear of being a failure as a parent. It's important to acknowledge when the mind, high on shenpa, indulges in exaggeration, because it is precisely this exaggeration that causes depression and anxiety.
I've looked at depression though a literary/artistic lens and now I am looking at it through a mindful/psychoanalytic lens.
In meditation, we learn to sit with shenpa, be with it and breathe. Sometimes this isn't easy, especially if the shenpa is relatively new and intense. But with time, it will soften enough so that one can deal with it. When this happens, prajna kicks in. Chodrin says, "Prajna isn't ego-involved. It's wisdom found in basic goodness, openness, equanimity - which cuts through self absorption." I have witnessed this prajna; it is a deeper voice than the haggard ramblings of shenpa, almost like an underground spring. It is honest and soothing, as if a grandmother were whispering wisdom in your ear. At one point during this depression when I was feeling especially anxious about socializing and preoccupied by uncomfortable feelings, crediting them with being insurmountable, my prajna-grandmother whispered "you're just out of practice, that's all." That made a lot of sense to me; I'm home with the kids most of the time and I am definitely out of practice. "So practice," prajna-grandmother said, and I did.
In meditation we learn that striving will bring on expectation, which is another type of shenpa. In the article, Chodrin talks about how we think we have a good meditation practice when we are open and thoughts come and go, shift and transform like clouds; we compliment ourselves on remaining unattached and open and feel that we "did it right". Afterwards, we compare every meditation practice to this one, judging if it is wrong or right and expecting it to be right and comfortable. This is shenpa, as well, being attached to an outcome. Prajna says, "it is good enough" no matter what the experience is. This takes the pressure off.
When I was a child, I felt as if I moved through shenpas a bit more swiftly and easily than I do now. Perhaps there was less drama surrounding them. Perhaps my mind was more malleable back then because it was less jaded. If someone were to ask me what I want most in this life, for myself, it would be to get back to that mindset.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
A Creativity Perverse
To continue this discussion on depression, I feel altered, as if someone re-coded the software of my thoughts, or no, gave them a virus that inserts distortion, angst, and fear into perfectly good thinking. I literally try joyous thoughts on for size; they perch a moment like a sparrow on a pine branch, then they scamper away. I try and take the Buddhist approach, to be curious. Why this state of mind? What is the impetus? Boredom? Failure? Insecurity? Lack of independence? I am curled up in the corner of my own mind, as a person would be if a snake slithered into the room. When people talk to me, the viral software of my thoughts spits and churns and I am distracted. I unscramble, uncurl from my corner, take a broom, wave it at the snake. I am myself for a moment. I choose me. I say something relevant, not brilliant, but relevant. I manage. I cheer myself on.
You know it's depression when you can't wave the snake out of the house and into the garden. You wave at it, but it only slithers under the table or the couch. It's still there. You make love to your husband, you can follow through with sensation and orgasm, but afterward, you lie in bed and the snake is wrapped around your ankle.
But what if the snake is a garter snake, my therapist says. Indeed. The snake, in reality, is a garter snake, benign and trite to everyone else. But in my mind, the mind of the oppressed novelist, the snake is a cobra.
Virginia Woolf writes in A Room of One's Own:
When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even of a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet, of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen, some Emily Bronte who dashed her brains out on the moor or mopped and mowed about the highways crazed with the torture that her gift had put her to.
The gift, in this case, is creativity. When a creative person is put in a situation hostile to creativity, the creativity becomes perverse. This perverse creativity is depression.
I chastise myself for this depression. Now, I tell myself, is not the time to write. But the mind knows nothing about time, when it is time for this and when it is time for that. The mind is and the mind will be whatever it wants. You can't file it away under a label marked "Years devoted to child rearing", or "time devoted to making money". It wants out, to be free, to think, be inspired and imagine constructively and if it can't do that, it will be destructive. I remember what my dog Ralphie did to his paws when I was away all day at work; he licked the fur off of them. He was a high energy dog who needed to run and my being away all day forced him to turn on himself. I feel the same way now; the energy of my mind previously used to imagine plot and character and scene has turned on me; I spiral in somber moods. I am fatalistic. Obsessive. I hide my internal life, covet it as I would a malicious sin.
This is utterly taboo to write such things. But I believe it is better to write them than not to write them, for obvious reasons.
You know it's depression when you can't wave the snake out of the house and into the garden. You wave at it, but it only slithers under the table or the couch. It's still there. You make love to your husband, you can follow through with sensation and orgasm, but afterward, you lie in bed and the snake is wrapped around your ankle.
But what if the snake is a garter snake, my therapist says. Indeed. The snake, in reality, is a garter snake, benign and trite to everyone else. But in my mind, the mind of the oppressed novelist, the snake is a cobra.
Virginia Woolf writes in A Room of One's Own:
When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even of a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet, of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen, some Emily Bronte who dashed her brains out on the moor or mopped and mowed about the highways crazed with the torture that her gift had put her to.
The gift, in this case, is creativity. When a creative person is put in a situation hostile to creativity, the creativity becomes perverse. This perverse creativity is depression.
I chastise myself for this depression. Now, I tell myself, is not the time to write. But the mind knows nothing about time, when it is time for this and when it is time for that. The mind is and the mind will be whatever it wants. You can't file it away under a label marked "Years devoted to child rearing", or "time devoted to making money". It wants out, to be free, to think, be inspired and imagine constructively and if it can't do that, it will be destructive. I remember what my dog Ralphie did to his paws when I was away all day at work; he licked the fur off of them. He was a high energy dog who needed to run and my being away all day forced him to turn on himself. I feel the same way now; the energy of my mind previously used to imagine plot and character and scene has turned on me; I spiral in somber moods. I am fatalistic. Obsessive. I hide my internal life, covet it as I would a malicious sin.
This is utterly taboo to write such things. But I believe it is better to write them than not to write them, for obvious reasons.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Thoughts on Depression
I have been reading Stoner by John Williams. The book is written with such heart, such honesty, I find myself gasping at times. I found this one paragraph that seemed to reach me, especially now, as I deal with a bout of depression:
During that year, and especially in the winter months, he found himself returning more and more frequently to such a state of unreality; at will, he seemed able to remove his consciousness from the body that contained it, and he observed himself as if he were an oddly familiar stranger doing the oddly familiar things that he had to do. It was a dissociation that he had never felt before; he knew that he ought to be troubled by it, but he was numb, and he could not convince himself that it mattered. He was forty-two years old, and he could see nothing before him that he wished to enjoy and little behind him that he cared to remember.
I have felt this sort of dissociation and it has terrified me. I wrote about it in one of my novels:
-->An eye a few inches above my head monitors my existence, the large white blocks of the classroom wall, small patches of writing, names, phone numbers, craggy hearts and penises, the blemish in the scalp of Patrick Nealy's too short hair. The eye spies white underwear against the metal lockers, and the fluorescent light flickering above the bodies. There was once a curiosity of who's got what, big boobs, birthmarks, a patch of unruly pubic hair but even this has become ordinary. The eye follows the dirtied snow on the side of the road, flecks of sand caught in ice and spots the dead squirrel curled in the debris of candy bar wrappers, Coke can tabs, chrome shards. Decay marks time passed; a once fleshy thing becomes a mass of fur and white bone picked clean.
Where does this dissociation come from? I think when you are depressed, you are exceptionally inward. You send out a periscope from inside yourself to check out the world. You can view yourself from this periscope, this eye, and it is a surreal experience.
I'm not particularly sure I should be writing about depression. I don't want to delve into it if that's going to put me in deeper; it's weird and scary enough. But writing has always been a way of exploring and exploring is a way to learn. If you can debunk something by writing about it, you are less afraid of it. Knowledge is power.
One night, in that half way house between sleep and consciousness, I wrote this:
This is what boredom and depression do to the mind; it ostracizes itself. Thoughts are irrational and negative; they are feverish exaggerations to keep oneself occupied during the day. I want to be a part of the human race, not an anomaly, as my mind tells me I am. I take care of the babies, I float, I spin in high anxiety. I listen to other people talk about their lives and become jealous. I knock myself, feel pangs of ineptitude. I am overly self conscious. The garbage of the mind, irrational fears, has a putrid stench. It sours my gut. Do something for others, says a voice. Distract that inner child from her fears. You could go back to school. You could study for a PhD and become an important person. School has always given you a focus and has eradicated some of the anxiety and existential angst. Here little kiddie, kiddie, go get a degree. Amuse yourself with that for awhile. I pick through my negative thoughts, reprimand myself for having them, hold them closely to the light and berate myself for doing this as well.
And I contained that irrational, negative thought in my mind in a small cage as if it were a viper I had to protect myself from and had to watch intently for fear of its escape. And the thought was of fear and I how I feared the fear and this put a tightness in my throat that I could not rid myself of. And this tightness was terrifying and titillating because at any moment I could panic, but I didn't. I told myself before I went to my therapy session, if she tells me this is no big deal, that this is the greatest complaint of people with anxiety- fear of the fear of the fear of the- , how fear and thought bring about sensation and it is normal, then I would not be the anomaly that I am. I would be just as other humans are, vulnerable to their minds. And this is just what she did and I felt better. Now I must find a way to continue to believe her.
The problem is, I don't think that a depression can be debunked. You can't think it away. You can't reason with it; most of it is unfounded and irrational. You just have to live it away, if that makes any sense. Yes, take medication, talk therapy, blah, blah, but I think to truly do away with it, you must want to be engaged, wholly engaged in your life. I can't say that I am right now. There is a lot of busy work in taking care of babies; there are moments of pure tenderness, but there is a lot of space for the mind to play with while the rest of me caters to their every need. This gets me into trouble.
I told my therapist I saw the depression inside me, when I was out for a run. It was a fat, Buddha-like demon that was laughing at me. Laughing, because everything it says is a trick and I fall for it all, take it all so seriously.
When I should be laughing too.
During that year, and especially in the winter months, he found himself returning more and more frequently to such a state of unreality; at will, he seemed able to remove his consciousness from the body that contained it, and he observed himself as if he were an oddly familiar stranger doing the oddly familiar things that he had to do. It was a dissociation that he had never felt before; he knew that he ought to be troubled by it, but he was numb, and he could not convince himself that it mattered. He was forty-two years old, and he could see nothing before him that he wished to enjoy and little behind him that he cared to remember.
I have felt this sort of dissociation and it has terrified me. I wrote about it in one of my novels:
-->An eye a few inches above my head monitors my existence, the large white blocks of the classroom wall, small patches of writing, names, phone numbers, craggy hearts and penises, the blemish in the scalp of Patrick Nealy's too short hair. The eye spies white underwear against the metal lockers, and the fluorescent light flickering above the bodies. There was once a curiosity of who's got what, big boobs, birthmarks, a patch of unruly pubic hair but even this has become ordinary. The eye follows the dirtied snow on the side of the road, flecks of sand caught in ice and spots the dead squirrel curled in the debris of candy bar wrappers, Coke can tabs, chrome shards. Decay marks time passed; a once fleshy thing becomes a mass of fur and white bone picked clean.
Where does this dissociation come from? I think when you are depressed, you are exceptionally inward. You send out a periscope from inside yourself to check out the world. You can view yourself from this periscope, this eye, and it is a surreal experience.
I'm not particularly sure I should be writing about depression. I don't want to delve into it if that's going to put me in deeper; it's weird and scary enough. But writing has always been a way of exploring and exploring is a way to learn. If you can debunk something by writing about it, you are less afraid of it. Knowledge is power.
One night, in that half way house between sleep and consciousness, I wrote this:
This is what boredom and depression do to the mind; it ostracizes itself. Thoughts are irrational and negative; they are feverish exaggerations to keep oneself occupied during the day. I want to be a part of the human race, not an anomaly, as my mind tells me I am. I take care of the babies, I float, I spin in high anxiety. I listen to other people talk about their lives and become jealous. I knock myself, feel pangs of ineptitude. I am overly self conscious. The garbage of the mind, irrational fears, has a putrid stench. It sours my gut. Do something for others, says a voice. Distract that inner child from her fears. You could go back to school. You could study for a PhD and become an important person. School has always given you a focus and has eradicated some of the anxiety and existential angst. Here little kiddie, kiddie, go get a degree. Amuse yourself with that for awhile. I pick through my negative thoughts, reprimand myself for having them, hold them closely to the light and berate myself for doing this as well.
And I contained that irrational, negative thought in my mind in a small cage as if it were a viper I had to protect myself from and had to watch intently for fear of its escape. And the thought was of fear and I how I feared the fear and this put a tightness in my throat that I could not rid myself of. And this tightness was terrifying and titillating because at any moment I could panic, but I didn't. I told myself before I went to my therapy session, if she tells me this is no big deal, that this is the greatest complaint of people with anxiety- fear of the fear of the fear of the- , how fear and thought bring about sensation and it is normal, then I would not be the anomaly that I am. I would be just as other humans are, vulnerable to their minds. And this is just what she did and I felt better. Now I must find a way to continue to believe her.
The problem is, I don't think that a depression can be debunked. You can't think it away. You can't reason with it; most of it is unfounded and irrational. You just have to live it away, if that makes any sense. Yes, take medication, talk therapy, blah, blah, but I think to truly do away with it, you must want to be engaged, wholly engaged in your life. I can't say that I am right now. There is a lot of busy work in taking care of babies; there are moments of pure tenderness, but there is a lot of space for the mind to play with while the rest of me caters to their every need. This gets me into trouble.
I told my therapist I saw the depression inside me, when I was out for a run. It was a fat, Buddha-like demon that was laughing at me. Laughing, because everything it says is a trick and I fall for it all, take it all so seriously.
When I should be laughing too.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
A Tidbit from Mother T
I used to listen to NPR in the mornings, to all the people doing great things and I thought to myself, "They're safe. They're keeping themselves busy and existential angst is no bee in their bonnet." I came to know existential angst in my twenties; a doctor literally diagnosed me with it. I had no idea what was happening to me then; I knew I only felt dread 24-7. I have since realized that my poor career choice coupled with a slew of failed relationships had made a breeding ground for EA. It was a long, shaky road to find what was meaningful in my life, but I eventually did.
EA started creeping back in recently and this old veteran didn't know what to do with it. I questioned myself, why am I not thrilled with taking care of twin babies everyday morning to night? Where the hell am I going with my career? Why haven't I been on NPR yet? Why does everything seem so tiresome and meaningless? Am I having a midlife crisis?
Well, a brain that's been writing and writing and writing for the past ten years or more is used to stimulating itself. You would think that taking care of twin babies would kill off a few thousand brain cells and EA wouldn't be an issue, but that, sadly, has not been the case. I now spend the days researching different illnesses I might have or torturing myself with anxiety about anxiety.
There's humor in that somewhere.
The one thing that stopped EA in its tracks was a quote I read by Mother Teresa. It says, "In this life, we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love."
I don't know what Sartre would make of this and I don't care because it rang true for me. As a mother, that's what I do, a myriad of small things, but I do them with a great love. And it may not make the day go any easier, but it's something.
EA started creeping back in recently and this old veteran didn't know what to do with it. I questioned myself, why am I not thrilled with taking care of twin babies everyday morning to night? Where the hell am I going with my career? Why haven't I been on NPR yet? Why does everything seem so tiresome and meaningless? Am I having a midlife crisis?
Well, a brain that's been writing and writing and writing for the past ten years or more is used to stimulating itself. You would think that taking care of twin babies would kill off a few thousand brain cells and EA wouldn't be an issue, but that, sadly, has not been the case. I now spend the days researching different illnesses I might have or torturing myself with anxiety about anxiety.
There's humor in that somewhere.
The one thing that stopped EA in its tracks was a quote I read by Mother Teresa. It says, "In this life, we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love."
I don't know what Sartre would make of this and I don't care because it rang true for me. As a mother, that's what I do, a myriad of small things, but I do them with a great love. And it may not make the day go any easier, but it's something.
Monday, April 29, 2013
Debating Hawking's Rational Eye
I sat down and meditated the other day and saw an Egyptian's eye, perfectly almond and outlined in ebony. Other eyes came up. One particular eye I remember is the one trapped behind an angled brow, frigid and piercing. It was Stephen Hawking's eye, when he declared there was no God.
My husband and I watched the documentary on the Science channel one evening a while ago. In one scene, Hawking is in a wheelchair in a hall where there are elegant paintings and wooden floors. There is a narrator who expounds upon Hawking's thoughts and there are graphics of space stuff and black holes shooting toward us on the television. Stephen Hawking's reasoning proceeds as thus: A black hole distorts time; a black hole can stop time. Inside a black hole, time does not exist. Before the universe existed, there was only the black hole. If time does not exist in the black hole, than there is no creator, because a creator would need time to exist and create.
Huh.
He continues, "There is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization; there is probably no heaven and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the Grand Design of the Universe and for that I am extremely grateful."
OK, hold on a minute here. Doesn't Grand Design imply a Grand Designer? I don't want to get into semantics or the Evolution/Creation debate. If you ask me, one of God's grand designs was to set evolution in motion; it's creationism on automatic, but that's another essay entirely. What I want to debate is not only using reason to find God, but attitude. The ego, through science and technology, tempts us into thinking we can build Towers of Babel, but the humbler, more reverent approach to God--which can be found in science and the arts, poetry in particular--is more appropriate for our finite minds.
Hawking uses if-then reasoning in his theory on the non-existence of God, and there's a boatload of established science on black holes, space, and time to back it up. But the tenet overall seems a bit hasty and oversimplified, and I wonder what Einstein would have said of the theory. Einstein claimed that he himself comprehended a tiny portion "of the reason that manifests itself in nature" and he had great reverence for it: "A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestation of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty--it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense and this alone, I am a deeply religious man."
Reverence is the hub around which Mary Oliver's poems revolve: "Of Course! the path to heaven/ doesn't lie down in flat miles./ It's in the imagination/ with which you perceive/ this world,/ and the gestures/ with which you honor it."
So perhaps if reason, for most of us, would fall short in our approach to God, we might try a different route. The imagination that Oliver speaks of in her poem is a separate entity, one that embraces irrationality and emotion--love. God is love is what we are told in nearly every religion. Love! an irrational entity, one that science does not condone, but love and its irrationality is a viable means, an alternative approach. Here is a beautifully irrational poem by Rainer Maria Rilke from The Book of Hours:
I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.
I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I've been circling for thousands of years
and I still don't know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?
We can't reach out across the world, nor can we live a thousand years. But something in us leaps up when reading mystical poetry like this and shouts yes. Yes, that's soul, the rationale-defying part of self. And soul yearns for God, always circling and circling. That act of yearning is sacred and beautiful, like a song, and sometimes massive and overwhelming, like a storm.
Yearning is a prominent theme in The Book of Hours. According to the book's introduction, Rilke wrote the poems in the "persona of a Russian monk living in a cloister, summoned by the bell to the task of seeing and meeting what was most real to him in the world." Rilke had set out to find "the authentic ground to the superstructures of his culture's faith" and in this way established his own belief system and "loved God into being."
Here is another poem that addresses yearning from The Book of Hours:
Why am I reaching again for the brushes?
When I paint your portrait, God,
nothing happens.
But I can choose to feel you.
At my senses' horizon
you appear hesitantly,
like scattered islands.
Yet standing here, peering out,
I'm all the time seen by you.
The choruses of angels use up all of heaven.
There's no more room for you
in all that glory. You're living
in your very last house.
All creation holds its breath, listening within me,
because, to hear you, I keep silent.
I love the lines "at my senses' horizon/ you appear hesitantly/ like scattered islands." Did Rilke recognize a timidity in God? It would make sense that God would respect our finite minds, our limitations, our fearfulness. In the poem "Jesus on the Lean Donkey," Rumi writes that "God's silence is necessary, because of humankind's faintheartedness." Annie Dillard touches upon this as well in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, a book where she stalks the divine in the natural world. She quotes the Old Testament and how Moses asked to see the face of God and God tells him "shall no man see me and live." But God allowed Moses to see his back parts and Moses returned to his people with his face aglow and they feared him. "Just a glimpse, Moses," Dillard writes, "A clift in the rock here, a mountaintop there, and the rest is denial and longing." Part of the reverence and respect for God is admitting that he is elusive and that we long for him. I wrote my own poem on this topic most recently:
There may be openings,
though I spend my life
banging at the door
there may be openings
at my head perhaps
or in the floor.
You subtle good rising
tucked away in some bud
some stone, some afterthought
you dangle, you plunge
you live your life
underneath my tongue;
a thirsted, distant entity
yet intimate
lies within me
a hatchling crying out
to sustenance
to embrace and dance,
to chance, chance, chance.
Flip a coin of mood and
I am staring at you darkly
and you don't move an inch
I cup your riddle
in my hands and sit, investigate
meditate
wait
for a petal to release
for a scent, some sound
but what I don't know
unfolds behind me,
around me, blossoming,
harkening
in petals and sounds abound.
We search, we research, we pray, we feel nowhere with God. We are trapped within the fabrications, limitations of our own minds, as Rilke tells us. Then one morning a dove sits on the sideview mirror of your car when you are frazzled, confused, and wracked with anxiety. It's a very strange place for a dove to be. And so is the railing outside of your therapist's office when you are feeling so torn up inside, over something you can't quite define, and the dove seems to say, "Peace to you." You ask the therapist, "Does a dove normally come to sit on the railing?" And she replies no. A soft, cream colored mourning dove that embodies calm and wildness and freedom. And there it is, a small, simple offering. This is our glimpse.
In this last poem, Rilke talks of finding God in darkness. This is most ironic because we have always associated God with "the light":
You, darkness, of whom I am born-
I love you more than the flame
that limits the world
to the circle it illumines
and excludes all the rest.
But the dark embraces everything:
shapes and shadows, creatures and me,
people, nations - just as they are.
It lets me imagine
a great presence stirring beside me.
I believe in the night.
It is a subtle, subtle slip into consciousness, that hunch of " a great presence stirring." But it counts. It's not something you can calculate but that doesn't mean it isn't true. We yearn for God like we hunger for food, and we know food exists. We yearn for God like we yearn for touch, and we know touching is possible. Our yearnings do mean something; they count, but that doesn't mean they can be written as equations. The only formula that comes close to this is the Universal Law of Gravitation or "Every mass in the universe attracts every other mass." We could easily replace the word "attracts" with the phrase "seeks." One could correlate this to love and togetherness, or to seeking in general. To seek is the action part of yearning."You have to stalk everything," Dillard says. "Everything scatters and gathers; everything comes and goes like fish under a bridge...I am both waiting becalmed in a clift of the rock and banging with all my will, calling like a child beating on a door: come out!...I know you're there."
I champion Stephen Hawking's brilliant mind, but I think he's on the wrong track with pigeon-holing God to a theory. God is an offering, a supreme rationality and irrationality; God is the poem, the hunch, the dove, the primordial tower. The black hole our minds must learn to accept.
Monday, April 15, 2013
Compartmentalizing Richard Parker
It's 6:30 am. I woke up at exactly 1 am and 4 am, just as I do every night. The comforter is tumbled to my side of the bed because of all my fumbling. Outside is a golden haze. I was just dreaming of walking a friend to Salem. She was pushing a baby doll in a carriage. My mother was ahead of us, pushing her own baby doll. We were headed to the ocean where there were large rocks and teal colored waves. It was a beautiful inlet, but there was rumor of a storm coming.
When I wake up at exactly 1 am, I am stricken with panic. I go downstairs and make myself a warm cup of milk, take a half of pill and head back upstairs to bed. I fall asleep, only to wake up at 4 am. This time I eat a piece of bread and take another half of pill. I obsess about my blood sugar at this point, because I am convinced that it is somehow wired to my anxiety and when it is low, I shoot awake. This half-insomnia is causing me a great deal of stress and is virtually usurping my waking life too. I am have no appetite and get pleasure from nothing.
I feel as if my anxiety is Richard Parker, the tiger in The Life of Pi hogging the life boat and I am the Indian boy hanging on to the flimsy make-shift raft. I feed Richard Parker because I know the relationship between blood sugar and anxiety. But its become a chore, always making sure he's fed.
The doctor says stress is causing this madness. I suppose that is true. But something chemical feels involved, as if, perhaps I am going through some sort of postpartum depression (albeit a little late). Or it could be that I have let go of the dream, my dream of being a published, well-respected writer and I am, well, adrift. Or it could be that I am so freakin' bored, I am making up my own dramas.
When I decided to write this blog, I opted for honesty. I know there have been quite a few posts on fear and well, that's what's real for me now. (I am slightly embarrassed by it, as if I should have it more together). I am hoping others will share their stories of anxiety so that I will feel less alone. Because I tell you one thing, in the middle of the night, when I've got Richard Parker breathing down my neck and I'm looking into his mesmerizing eyes, I feel very alone.
I suppose one must practice having balls in a situation like this. So here it goes: Listen Richard Parker, move the fuck over. I'm the captain of this boat. You need to get below deck, descend to the depths of my subconscious and romp around with the rest of the animals down there. This place of consciousness is my domain, goddamnit.
When I wake up at exactly 1 am, I am stricken with panic. I go downstairs and make myself a warm cup of milk, take a half of pill and head back upstairs to bed. I fall asleep, only to wake up at 4 am. This time I eat a piece of bread and take another half of pill. I obsess about my blood sugar at this point, because I am convinced that it is somehow wired to my anxiety and when it is low, I shoot awake. This half-insomnia is causing me a great deal of stress and is virtually usurping my waking life too. I am have no appetite and get pleasure from nothing.
I feel as if my anxiety is Richard Parker, the tiger in The Life of Pi hogging the life boat and I am the Indian boy hanging on to the flimsy make-shift raft. I feed Richard Parker because I know the relationship between blood sugar and anxiety. But its become a chore, always making sure he's fed.
The doctor says stress is causing this madness. I suppose that is true. But something chemical feels involved, as if, perhaps I am going through some sort of postpartum depression (albeit a little late). Or it could be that I have let go of the dream, my dream of being a published, well-respected writer and I am, well, adrift. Or it could be that I am so freakin' bored, I am making up my own dramas.
When I decided to write this blog, I opted for honesty. I know there have been quite a few posts on fear and well, that's what's real for me now. (I am slightly embarrassed by it, as if I should have it more together). I am hoping others will share their stories of anxiety so that I will feel less alone. Because I tell you one thing, in the middle of the night, when I've got Richard Parker breathing down my neck and I'm looking into his mesmerizing eyes, I feel very alone.
I suppose one must practice having balls in a situation like this. So here it goes: Listen Richard Parker, move the fuck over. I'm the captain of this boat. You need to get below deck, descend to the depths of my subconscious and romp around with the rest of the animals down there. This place of consciousness is my domain, goddamnit.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)