Imagery

I find imagery to be more powerful than other forces at times. It comes to me when words won't do, and here I am trying to use words to explain the imagery. Silly me. Maybe imagery shouldn't be dissected and explained and analyzed. Maybe it should simply be felt.

Still, words are my currency, so that's what I do.

There's been a lot of imagery in my dream life lately. And I had wanted to write about the imagery of the cairn, which has become a symbol of my entire life. I don't know where to focus. So I'll start with the cairn.

For those who need a refresher, the night I learned of my dad's death, I was at a writing retreat and we did a guided meditation to build a cairn. It was full of emotion and power for me, and I used that in my talk at my dad's memorial.

The base of the cairn in my meditation was a large granite rock, rounded and eroded from eons of time. Granite symbolizes strength, abundance, and balance. A great foundation for the entire tower, for the entirety of life, for almost everything. There is strength is something as simple as breath and as motionless as a rock. There is strength in the roaring of water and the creation of a star. Abundance to many means material abundance, lots of stuff and money. I am fortunate to have material abundance--at least enough for me and many others. I find abundance to be far more than mere stuff, though. It can mean knowledge, memories, gratitude, love. I think of abundance as a positive word. Balance is the third essence of granite. Balance feels safe. Centered. In tune with the world. At rest, at peace. When I think of strength, abundance, and balance, it reminds me of mountain pose in yoga, which is also foundational.

Now I'll mention the imagery of my recent dreams. One dream indicated a person on a gurney being rolled into an operating theater. The next one was just the image of a drill, such as one you might use to drill a hole in a wall. This one had a huge drill bit. And the third dream was kind of scary. It was a dream of myself dying, knowing it was coming, trying to hold on to life, and then the moment of death itself, everything simply stopped and turned dark. But consciousness was still there. In the dream, I thought, "so this is the afterlife? okay."

Dream imagery is something I love to delve into. You all know it's metaphor, right? I'm not actually dying (well, in a way, we all are dying, but I digress). These three dreams all deal with themes of leaving behind the past in some fashion, ready to start a new phase, drilling down deep, removing old patterns and ways. It's actually really positive stuff, even though the imagery in the dreams is sort of scary. But is it positive? Change is big, it's scary, it's not always something we hope for. Change can be marriage, birth, new jobs, new friends, new work. It can also mean endings, death, things being ripped apart. Change is often uncomfortable, even painful. Even good change.

So this is where strength, abundance, and balance come in. Whatever change, death/rebirth, removal of past patterns or habits, and drilling down that is coming my way, I face it with the foundation of strength, abundance, and balance.

Intersectional

At the Women's March weekend and in several other settings involving activism, I have been hearing this word "intersectional." It seems to be a sort of buzz word of late. At first, I let it just slide past in my hearing, not really thinking about its meaning. But each time I hear it, I think a little harder about what it means, and more specifically what it means to me.

I realized after much thought that the word is so much a part of my way of being in the world, that it never occurred to me that it needed to be called something or defined. But now that I have begun thinking about it, I understand that not everybody thinks of the world this way, and while that's foreign to me, I get that other people go through life differently than I do.

So, I did what I always do--I turned to words, my friends. I think intersectionality is what John Donne meant in his poem:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were:
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; 
It tolls for thee. 


Now, I'm no John Donne, and my poetic attempts may not be so eloquent, but after the march, I wrote this poem to try to express the word, the point of the march, the way I view the world in this respect. 

It's called: 

Intersectional 


As in, our lives intersect so much so that whatever happens to anyone, happens to me;

As in, women's rights are human rights, are LGBT rights, are refugee rights, are immigrants' rights, are black rights, are rights;

As in, violence toward one begets more violence to all;

As in, geographical, political boundaries are myths that cannot divide us; 

As in, we either rise together or we fall together;

As in, we have all been strangers in a strange land, all in need of welcome;

As in, the water in North Dakota, and Flint, and flooding homes, and pushed by tsunamis is all the same water;

As in, we exist as only a tiny part of an enormous ecosytem, but we are soiling our own bed--even dogs know better; 

As in, art and music and literature are how we understand our connectedness; 

As in, educating your child is just as important to me as the education mine already received; 

As in, all religions teach us to love one another, a concept so fundamental that even those with no religion intuitively know this;

As in, social justice for one does not take away anything from another, but expands justice for all; 

As in, there is enough for all when greed gives way to generosity and power gives way to humility; 

As in, we are all dreamers, whether we are laid off coal workers, struggling farmers, loggers, DACA children, corporate giants, or writers; 

As in, we are all formed from the same stardust, and we will all return to it; 

As in, the whisper you start in your heart becomes the rousing roar of the earth; 

As in, if we bring forth what is within us it will save us, and if we do not bring forth what is within us, it will destroy us; 

As in, we exist in an infinite spiral around each other and we can reach out to hug, help, heal, and house the whole world; 

As in, tug on one thread and the whole piece/peace unravels.

Insights into Depression

So I went to church today. Not an unusual event for a Sunday morning; I'm a fairly regular church attender. But the fact that I went today is kind of big. Because I am in the middle of a "flare up" in my depression. That sounds weird, I know. Flare ups are what people with MS or fibromyalgia have, right? Autoimmune disorder type of a thing. But people with chronic illness of any kind, including depression and other mental illnesses, can have them too. Or maybe I should call them flare downs. Or low energy.

I've dedicated myself to being open to talking about my depression, not because I feel so special or anything, but because I want others out there to know they are not alone, that what they are feeling is part of a disease. Sometimes knowing that makes a lot of difference. I don't pretend to speak for a people with mental illness or even all people with depression. I think it's a bit different for everyone.

I've written on this blog several times about depression, so if you want to know more, feel free to read those posts. But what compels me to write today is the realization--for the umpteenth time--that clinical depression, for me anyway, never goes away. It is here 24 hours a day, every day. Even though I take meds, try to eat healthy, try to exercise moderately, get lots of sleep, and try to keep the stress to a minimum, I will never be free of this disease. Sure, the meds keep me functional and temper the depression so it doesn't overwhelm me. And all those other things help. Talking helps. Crying sometimes helps. What helps most is for me to allow it to be what it is and not wish for it to be something different. And to be in nature.

What I want the world to know is this: I am happy, despite my depression. I'm not depressed because I'm not happy. It's not that life has given me a raw deal and it makes me depressed. Nothing bad--seriously bad--is happening to me that is causing my depression. It's just as much a part of me as my green eyes or which toes are longer. During my flare downs, I want to withdraw from the world. Maybe it's a self-protection thing, like if I don't interact with others, you won't be able to notice that I'm not quite myself. Or maybe it's just a desire to be within my own self and not have to explain stuff to others. For sure, there is a hefty dose of feelings of unworthiness and self-deprecation. Even self-loathing. When I am in a downturn, I tend to be grouchy with everyone, and I know it, and I hate that. I don't really want to be that person around others.

Which is why going to church today was a big deal. I wanted to be curled up in my bed, away from the world, separate in myself. One of the scriptures today said that God sees each of us as her masterpiece. That's a feel good thing. I believe it. I feel it. But does it make the depression go away? No. Therefore, the only conclusion I can come to is that I am a masterpiece, and part of that masterpiece is my depression. My dear, long-suffering, patient husband affirms that he loves me, all of me, depression and all. That is certainly comforting. I know love is unconditional. And I'm even pretty good at loving myself unconditionally--most of the time.

Believe me, if it were possible to intellectualize oneself out of this disease, I would have done that by now. I can perform all manner of self-talk and other methods to lift myself up. But it doesn't make the depression go away. I know most of those who spend time around me see a smiling, laughing person who loves being with my friends and family. Which is true. That doesn't mean the depression has left. It just means I'm having a good day. And, thankfully, I often have more good days than down days.

On down days, it takes every ounce of strength, courage, and sheer stubbornness to do something as routine as get dressed and go to church. Even though I know I will be lifted up. Even though I know love will surround me. Even though the music and words soothe my soul.

Is there a point here? I don't know. I don't want pity. I don't want sympathy, even. I want acceptance and understanding. I want people to see mental illness as a disease that is managed to greater or lesser degrees, but a disease nonetheless. A disease that cannot be fought and overcome, but must be accepted and lived with each and every day. And I want people with this disease to know that  it can be part of a happy and productive life, that the struggle is worth it, that even a down day, our existence is still a masterpiece.