Tag Archives: sky

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Thanks

And no thanks do I get
for thirty years in medicine
for thirty years of rural work
for working alone without a net
not a whisper from officials

The thanks I get are on the street
in the shops, at live music
at Gallery Walk, at thrift stores
walking through town, from friends
from patients or spouses or mothers or fathers
who thank me and update me

Thank you, Beloved, for my odd career
for leading me rural, leading me to primary care
endless learning daily and people
they are all interesting, all different
all have depths that none would guess
all of your beautiful people, Beloved

Thank you for all of it

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: tiara.

This is one of those poems where I started grumpy and did not know where it was going until it went there. The light at the end of the tunnel photograph is on the Metro in Washington, DC last week.

Tiaras probably quality as stuff.

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Feeling our way

It’s nice to handle emotions with fantasy. “No it’s not,” you shout, “that’s horrid! We should think nice thoughts and feel nice feels!”

I do not agree. I think that we feel what we feel. Emotions are a rainbow and a sunny day and a huge storm and a tornado. Let them all through. However, we do not have to share them or inflict them on others or act them out in person. We can satisfy that anger, that grief, that hurt, that wound, with fantasy. And let the hurt heal through fantasy by acknowledging it.

There is tons of stuff on the internets/books/magazines about how we have to think nice thoughts, we are what we think, and on and on and on. But now wait a minute. Our Creator thinks up some really really horrible things which play out, right? The world has the full range of emotions from really really dark to beautiful and kind. I am like the world, like the ocean, like the Creator. I have the full range too. It is not the feeling that is evil. It is the acting it out in the world. If it’s acted out in fantasy, does that truly harm others?

Perhaps if it’s PTSD, there is harm. But PTSD is not acting out a fantasy, it’s being unable to deal with something terrible, terrible events, horror, war and violence. Those feelings must be dealt with too and it is no shame to need help, to need a listener, to need a safe place. The same with depression and anxiety: sometimes feelings are overwhelming and we are afraid, afraid, afraid. There is help.

I think that Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī’s Guesthouse poem gives a path.

The Guesthouse

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

translation by Coleman Barks

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I read this poem as being about our feelings. A meanness, a dark thought, malice. I think that there is a translation that says that we want each guest to take a good report back to the Beloved, so we must treat each with kindness and hospitality. When a friend dreams of a bear attacking his brother, I ask, “Did you invite the bear in?” “No,” he says, “It’s a bear! They are dangerous!” “But it’s a dream bear,” I say, “I would invite the bear in and listen to it.” “You don’t understand bears,” he says. “It is a dream bear, not a real bear. I always invite the dream monsters to talk to me.” Don’t you? There is a story about a dreamer who dreams about being chased by a monster, a horrible monster, over and over. He runs and runs. Finally he is sick of it and stops. “What do you want!” he shouts at the monster. “Oh, I am so glad you stopped. I was so scared and hoped that you would help me,” says the monster. And the man wakes up.

The giant fruit bat is part of the outdoor pollinator exhibit this holiday season at the US Botanical Gardens.

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Delectable orchid

Orchids are not quite succulents, but this one looks soooo delicious that I am using it for the prompt. Yesterday we went to the United States Botanic Garden in Washington, DC. It is gorgeous indoors and outdoors and has both miniature Washington, DC buildings made from plant material and giant bugs made out of plant material. They are beautifully done. I think they should save all of them for Halloween and then they can have the giant weevil attacking the Capitol and a giant mosquito climbing the Washington Monument. It would be just fabulous.

And you can see the Capitol from the gardens. What a beautiful day! Very Merry Christmas and Winter break and Solstice and everything else to everyone.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: succulent.

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Slack tide

Slack tide is the time when the tide is not going out nor coming in. When it stops. It doesn’t mean the water is quiet because there is still wind and weather. But sometimes it is quiet, as if the ocean is holding its breath.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: slack.

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We make up all the words

My daughter says, “We make up all the words.” Authentic is the word of the year, but what does it mean to you and what does it mean to me? I am reading a book about the brain, The Neuroscience of You, by Chantel Prat PhD, brand new last year and from the library. She talks about nemotodes. A certain species has 302 neurons in the brain. Humans have 86 billion neurons in each brain. The nemotodes have been studied so that each neuron is mapped, but we still cannot predict exactly what an individual nemotode will do when presented with a new situation. Humans, obviously, are worse. She is writing about the wiring we are born with and then how experiences shape and change the wiring. I am very much enjoying this book. I am a science nerd and love fiction and poetry as well. Word nerd. When my daughter and I disagree about what something means, or what words mean, she reminds me: “We make up all the words.” Many diagnoses in medicine are really lists of symptoms and the more things on the list, the more likely it is that diagnosis. However, there is still a “number needed to treat” which tells me how many people have to be on a medicine to help one. That number always makes me a bit gloomy because I don’t think it is ever one. Some illness are pretty clear: a broken bone, a sick appendix. Others are mysterious, we don’t know what causes them and they can take years to diagnose, like multiple sclerosis. And then the behavioral lists, the latest version being the DSM-V. The diagnoses of behavioral health illnesses CHANGED. Well, some did, some didn’t. Words change their meanings, AI listens in, my phone wants me to tell everyone I am at a restaurant (why would you care?) and we pay lip service to authenticity, people being themselves, except then sometimes, no, we don’t like it after all.

And that is my authentic feeling as much as I can put it in to words this minute.

I like this photograph. What will the photographer do? Go out? Jump in? Fall in? Go home for tea? I can be most authentic out in nature when I often am not thinking in words so much as sensory impressions. Wind, cold, water sounds, light, the sunrise, clouds, birds, deer, and what do I see in the water?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: authentic.

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Wild

Mount Baker, seen from Marrowstone Island this week.

The tide was not out very far and was coming in, but an agate showed up anyhow.

A closer look.

Conferences in the wild.

Sections of cliff melting into the beach stones.

Gifts from the sea.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: wilderness.