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Hospital ward 111

Some drawings, a meditation practice and a poem

“Live life when you have it. Life is a splendid gift-there is nothing small about it.”
[from Notes on Nursing: What It Is, and What It Is Not by Florence Nightingale}

“Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.”
Florence Nightingale

“No stride is lost when we keep walking!”  Vassilis Vasilikos,  prolofic Greek writer, served as MP and Greece’s ambassador to UNESCO.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My husband has landed himself in hospital for a few days after falling off a ladder while working on a pergola, which resulted in his breaking several ribs.  As a result I’ve spent many hours in a hospital ward with six beds all occupied by men with different health issues, some having undergone surgery and others in the process of going into surgery. While sitting quietly by his bed as he naps I’ve had time to observe and think. Mabel Osgood Wright wrote that there is no greater garden for human-nature study than the flotsam and jetsam of the hospital.  Hospital contexts easily bring us in contact with an inescapable vulnerability that has to do with our often having little control in relation to our health, which is also a significant aspect of our common humanity. Despite our individuality, our diverse identities and backgrounds, experiences, personalities, characters, neuroses and defenses we all share this deep vulnerability and we are all inherently susceptible to suffering.  Hospitals are places where circumstances bring very different people together and where we experience or become witnesses to how things we often take for granted, when we are more or less healthy, like our bodies, our moving our limbs, showering, peeing, getting dressed, eating, breathing, swallowing, can suddenly fail us or may require strenuous effort and assistance from others.

Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, is a clinical professor of medicine and one of the foremost voices in the medical world today, shining an unflinching light on the realities of healthcare and speaking passionately about the doctor-patient relationship. She is also a founder and editor of Bellevue Literary Review, the first and now an award-winning literary journal to arise from a medical setting. It provides a forum for poetry, fiction, and nonfiction about health and healing. Ofri reads poems to patients and hands out free copies of poems and this literary journal to the medical and nursing staff.  One of the poems she often reads is a poem written by John Stone, a cardiologist and poet, for a graduating medical class, who believed that literature could instill in young physicians the importance of their patients’ and their own humanity. He created one of the first medical school courses combining literature and medicine. Below is a short extract from his poem: Gaudeamus Igitur [Therefore, Let us Rejoice]

For the sun is always right on time  / and even that may be reason for a kind of joy

For there are all kinds of / all degrees of joy

For love is the highest joy

For which reason the best hospital is a house of joy

even with rooms of pain and loss    /    exits of misunderstanding

For there is the mortar of faith   /   For it helps to believe

For Mozart can heal and no one knows where he is buried

For penicillin can heal   /  and the word   /   and the knife

For the placebo will work and you will think you know why

For the placebo will have side effects and you will know  /   you do not know why  /

For none of these may heal

For joy is nothing if not mysterious

For your patients will test you for spleen   /   and for the four humors

For they will know the answer   /   For they have the disease

For disease will peer up over the hedge   /    of health, with only its eyes showing……..

I also like to think that in hospital settings for many people on both sides of the fence good wishes for others arise spontaneously.  So, I will end this short piece today with two versions of a loving kindness practice, which cultivates unconditional goodwill for all.

A loving kindness practice / meditation by Sharon Salzberg:

May you live in safety

May you have mental happiness /peace / joy

May you have physical happiness / health / freedom from pain

May you live with ease

A loving kindness practice by Jon Kabat Zinn:

May she, he, they be safe and protected and free from inner and outer harm.

May she, he, they be happy and contented.

May she, he, they be healthy and whole to whatever degree possible.

May she, he, they experience ease of well-being…

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What I’ve been up to….

“For now she knew well that everything blooms with love. And that with love even halves become whole” Tasoula Eptakili, The Teapot that Blooms

“As the carousel repeats / goes round and round, things come from that time, only each time we are asked to process them, to reposition what was old, and not reproduce the exact same, like the horse that goes round and round endlessly and does exactly the same thing…” Savvas Savvopoulos, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, [has for thirty years worked with cancer patients as a psychoanalyst-psychotherapist]

I’ve been weathering a cold and a mild fever so I’ve been a bit sluggish recently. Some of the things I’ve pondered on and engaged with and feel might be worth sharing today are:

1. Some new drawings, one of which has been inspired by Voula Papaioannou’s work. She was an important figure in Greek photography and considered part of the “humanist photography” that was developed as an antidote to the dissolution of human values during WWWII. As I revisited her photographs that capture what the people of Greece lived through during the period between 1940 and 1960 tears welled up and I became viscerally aware of how our own historical contexts, but also those of our ancestors, define our current social realities even though we may be oblivious to it more often than not. The civil war – that tremendous loss, wound and split in the Greek psyche – lives on and even though it mostly lives underground it is reflected in our politics and our viewing of each other. The wound to some extent or other is passed down from one generation to another.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. A “bigger picture” type of reflection exercise

A tapping exercise by Jessica Ortner I listened to this month reminded me of a kind of “all basic areas of life’ inclusive meditation-reflection practice I have engaged with at times. During the process we can reflect or meditate while considering areas of health, money, work, primary relationship, other relationships, and so on. We can also reflect on these by tapping while asking questions and processing related events, emotions and beliefs. In the tapping version mentioned above we are also invited to explore different areas of our body to see where constriction or tension is held.

We might, for instance, start by trying to remember our earliest experience with money, related incidents and feelings. Then we can move on to later experiences all the way up to the present and the future. Whatever area we focus on we will most likely discern a repetitive pattern in terms of feelings, beliefs, thoughts, and bodily responses, which often arise automatically, or a point in time when these were disrupted, hopefully for the better. Along these lines we can explore our first romantic relationship and our current one if we are in one and see patterns, similarities and dynamics across time. Likewise we can explore familial relationships, educational and work contexts, health issues or health care we have received, our prevalent coping strategies when we feel tense, tired, sad, anxious, uncertain or angry. As we do so we gain some insight around contextual factors and dynamics, and our ways of responding or reacting.

The process is quite lengthy, not necessarily easy to do, and it reflects a more holistic picture of our experience. To use a metaphor it’s like looking from the theatre balcony, where we do not only see what’s happening on the stage. Our observation capacity from the balcony is broader than from the orchestra seats. This sort of activity allows us the kind of view that comes from stepping up and back, getting a broader sense of things. To some extent there is some power in this “higher” perspective from an elevated point of observation. Dynamics, events, relationships, decisions, choices come into the foreground, our understanding shifts, deepens, Emotions also come up and possibilities might emerge or disappear. New facts and perceptions, data and paths might emerge. We understand where we have been ignorant or averting our gaze. I read somewhere that perspective shifting and broadening our lens are among the cognitive competencies that we need to develop so that we may more successfully, and safely navigate our complex world, and that actually these are skills that can be learnt and practiced starting from childhood.

Taking in the bigger picture of our life and context is not a one-time thing, it is a process we might need to return to as our understanding shifts and as we encounter more of our experience. The exercise above requires empathy and (self) compassion, as well as, acceptance. It requires a certain capacity to stay with emotions that arise, to titrate the process to avoid overwhelm and to take care of our self, to situate experiences and consider the myriads of factors that influenced events, including  historical wounds that live within us even if we are often oblivious to them. It necessitates our befriending difficult emotions and defenses and appreciating their survival value. As we deepen the process we are asked to reconnect and embrace what some psychologists term as “the exiled parts of the self”.

3. A meditation I have recently enjoyed by Henry Shukman, writer and meditation teacher, involves our sort of taking a break from all our belief systems, identities, roles, even names, shedding them in our imaginations like layers of shirts and – for a little while – resting in a less encumbered sense of being, in a kind of signlessness, namelessness, as he puts it, an experience of simply being alive unhindered momentarily by all else [https://www.rickhanson.net/meditation-talk-finding-a-greater-wholeness/].

4. Over the past several years I’ve mostly been reading e-books in English, for practical mostly reasons, and have not had time to do much reading in Greek, but spending some time in bed with my recent cold I read Κέρμα στον Αέρα / Coin in the Air, a combination of fiction and memoir, by Tasoula Eptakili. Each chapter is a day in a member of a family through historical time, the war in the Albanian mountains in 1940, the civil war, the port of Pireus, where relatives set off for Australia during the years of massive emigration, the last dictatorship, the years that followed, the hope for a better future and the disappointment that came afterwards, the financial crisis. The immigration chapter, Third Class, felt familiar, my parents (and relatives) travelled from Pireus to Australia, some probably on the same ship mentioned in the book. The first to leave was my father in 1956. He invited my mother, her brother and others. I also remember their small 45 records, the same music, by the same record companies mentioned here. Eight decades. Ten people. Eptakili writes: “Moments from the history of a family. It could be mine. It could be yours.”

Α short extract from the last chapter with the title: Roses or mallow?

“How much of what I have recounted are real pieces of my own puzzle of the past and how much is invented? …. Ιs what we remember exactly as we experienced it… Is it as we heard it described to us or as we created it in our imagination?… When we stand in front of a mirror and we look at our image, the space behind us seems completely out of place and strange: the windows and doors are elsewhere, the light comes in from somewhere else, the furniture is in a different position, not where we’re  used to it. We lose our orientation. It is like vertigo. The same thing often happens when we look back in time.”

5. Finally, a book for children, also written by Tasoula Eptakili. The Teapot that Blooms tells us the story of an avid teapot collector, who loves jasmine tea, and how a little girl, found one of the teapots without its lid. The book ends with these sentences: “For now she knew well that everything blooms with love. And that with love even halves become whole.”

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Making the whole world your friend                                                  Edited

“The verb ‘care’ is a medicinal one. I care, I feel concern for the other. The caregiver, through their care for the other, expands the narrow limits of the self. The caregiver becomes multiple. The prison of an entrenched “I” crumbles. You breathe differently.” Fotini Tsalikoglou, professor of clinical psychology and writer

“If you don’t dive you will never know your limits. Without diving, there is no emerging. If you don’t see the bottom, you won’t be able to appreciate the fresh air that will enter your lungs again…” Tasoula Eptakoil (journalist and writer) “Treasures are hidden in the depths, as an island lullaby from Tasoula’s home place says…”. Fotini Tsalikoglou

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new lands but seeing with new eyes.” Marcel Proust, French novelist

“What if I meet some people who don’t like me or don’t like my behavior?” asked the Little Dragon. “Then you must go your own way,” replied the Great Panda. “Better to lose them than yourself.” James Norbury, Big Panda and Tiny Dragon

“It is to go to the balcony. Imagine you’re negotiating on a stage and part of your mind goes to a mental and emotional balcony, a place of calm, perspective, and self-control where you can stay focused on your interests, keep your eyes on the prize.” William Ury, writer and mediator

Today’s post includes a link to a talk by Tara Brach, a poem by Eavan Boland, a link to an article by Dr Todd Kashdan, two books for children and seven new drawings from me. I’ve used pen and paper, coloured pencils, Japanese silkscreened paper, thread and needle.

1. I’ve borrowed the title of today’s post from Tara Brach’s weekly podcast with the same title [https://www.tarabrach.com/making-world-friend/]. Tara Brach is a clinical psychologist and Buddhist meditation teacher. Here she talks about the value of friendliness through an evolutionary lens, about the conditions that predispose a society to be more or less friendly, about friendliness towards strangers and ourselves. She says it is interesting to look at the societies we live in, to see how much friendliness there is, and to consider what might predispose a society to be friendly or to “carry a gun”. Societies have varying degrees of safety or threat. Some factors to consider is how rigidly divided the population is, what historical traumas have not been released, the level of inequity and hierarchy, and so on.

Referring to biologists Dian Fossey and George Schaller’s work with gorillas she says “They entered the territory of these gentle giants and they didn’t carry a gun, with an attitude of friendliness, respect with warmth and the gorillas weren’t threatened…. And as we can sense if we have a gun…. threatening aggression in some way… mistrusting, if we’re judging… it blocks the possibility of connection…” Tara Brach finally invites us to contemplate what kind of world we would have if we centered on friendliness.

2. Recently I’ve been reading poems by Eavan Boland and I’m sharing one of these poems that I really like. Boland was a poet, professor, feminist, historian, woman, mother and wife. Her childhood in Britain, and elsewhere, the Irish emigration and the experiences of those away from the motherland, her experiences as a female, identity, are all topics that informed her work. She has addressed the difficulties related to being a ‘woman poet’. She wrote that “It was like there was a magnetic opposition between the two concepts…” When she became a mother she said she: “felt the powerful necessity of honouring that experience in language, in poetry…..” and that “That subject matter wasn’t really sanctioned at that time in Irish poetry – it was thought of as merely domestic, or even less than that, and so I had to find my own way.”

In her later work, Boland continues to place her life experiences at the centre of her poems, including the personal impact of her time away from Ireland. In 2015 she published a poetry collection, A Woman Without a Country, which she claims is a selection “dedicated to those who lost a country, not by history or inheritance, but through a series of questions to which they could find no answer.” Boland has stated that “National identity is complicated by many things. Mainly I think by who had access to it, and who doesn’t.”  She has also said that “…. there is a real difference between history and the past…. I think many, many women in different societies think of themselves as living in the past rather than in history. It’s because of that, and because of my own family history, that this sequence of poems came about.”

The Emigrant Irish

Here the poet reflects on the sad fact that the many people who were forced to emigrate were soon forgotten like discarded old oil lamps no longer in use or of value.

Like oil lamps, we put them out the back — / of our houses, of our minds. We had lights / better than, newer than and then / a time came, this time and now /
we need them. Their dread, makeshift example:

they would have thrived on our necessities.
What they survived we could not even live.
By their lights now it is time to
imagine how they stood there, what they stood with,
that their possessions may become our power:
Cardboard. Iron. Their hardships parceled in them.
Patience. Fortitude. Long-suffering
in the bruise-colored dusk of the New World.

And all the old songs. And nothing to lose.

  1. An article in Dr Todd Kashdan’s newsletter with the title: On the difference between you and criminals

One of the examples he uses is the breaking of road laws by a great number of drivers….

He writes: “We Are All Criminals. As other people receive punishments in terms of fines, suspended licenses, and prison sentences for breaking road laws, you escaped scrutiny. Luck determined the outcome…. The value of bringing luck to the forefront of the criminal justice system is an installation of compassion, mercy, and forgiveness…”

4. Two books for children I picked up this week at the local book shops.

Mrs. / Ma’am Democracy [Η κυρά Δημοκρατία] is written by Constantina Armeniakou to help children understand what we celebrate in Greece on the 17th of November and to introduce the idea of democracy.

Two short extracts from the book:

“Ma’am Democracy does not want to be a leader who commands everything.She doesn’t want to decide on her own.She doesn’t want to do as she pleases.She opens her big ears and listens to everyone’s ideas, because as she says: TOGETHER, TOGETHER, WE ARE ALWAYS STRONGER.”

“Ma’am Ria** (Dictatorship) has – as she desired – all the power… She hangs signs with orders everywhere: It is forbidden for children to shout! No secrets! Joy, celebrations, festivals are prohibited! It is forbidden to speak your opinion!…  And whoever does not agree goes to prison.”

**Ria is the ending of the word dictatorship in Greek [Ρία – Δικτακτορία]

Bee and Me by Alison Jay explains the truth of humans’ interdependence with animals and their belonging to nature in a way that children can understand. The creator of the book tells a personal story of how she helped a bee fly again and she suggests ways for children to reconnect with nature and help the natural environment.