GARDEN THERAPY

 

Front Courtyard

Isolated in a country parsonage, after our second child was born, I had the post-partum blues.  Winter in a bungalow without insulation and one icy bathroom, made caring for two in diapers harder than I expected. Sleeping was more like waking.  Anyone else remember days like that?  

As soon as the ground thawed a neighboring farmer plowed a garden for me. Not having any idea that planting was the easy part, I put in more seeds than we could possibly harvest.  Mounds of zucchini, trailing cucumbers, tomatoes that would have lost any competition . . .  I couldn't have had better therapy.  Same for the children.  They rolled around bundled in parkas until the temperatures rose.  

Hoeing and digging, I found out, are mindful--a word we didn't use then.  It takes you out of yourself.  The children felt it too.  Outside they didn't fuss.  They sang songs and shared their toys while the cat chased garden snakes out of the strawberry patch and the dog ran in circles. 

In the next house in a different part of the country I planted flowers and bushes instead of vegetables. But the therapy was the same.  Hours planning beds, pruning bushes and raking leaves.  Mindful repetitive actions that caused stress to evaporate.  While I raked, the kids swung back and forth, pumping up and down in graceful rhythmic motion.  It was one of the best times of life. 

Gardening is still therapy.  If you garden, I bet you agree.  Where but outdoors do our senses lie so open to the quivering universe?  Pain and anxiety--whether physical or emotional--are healed in the garden. Not quickly, but steadily.  The more time we spend in nature, the better we feel. 

There are times that I feel the pull of sadness until I go out; I wonder how many of us feel the same.  Growing older, I may just tidy the courtyard, sweep the paths, hose the deck or dead-head the plants, whatever my unreliable back allows.  Somehow, placing our feet on solid ground, our hands in the loam, our ears and breath straining with the wind in the trees . . . is where perspective settles fears.

Most recently gardening has been an escape from the daily upheaval.  There are no news bulletins where I clean up after a storm.  Intrusive thoughts keep their distance from wildflowers.  Even chronic sorrows diminish.  When we are outdoors, all that we love and appreciate seems to move forward in our hearts. We come inside renewed.  

Therapy is "treatment intended to relieve or heal."  So, yes, gardens do that, and without side-effects or contraindications.  If I were to pray about this, it would be a very simple prayer, "Thank you God for this space of seeds and flowers, herbs and trees, rain and sun and shade.  Thank you for a place where we can step out our door and feel your healing warmth.  Thank you for all the ways we can work in your creation:  planting, watering, weeding, harvesting and just being with all our senses open.  Thank you for in these simple ways relieving our cares and healing our hearts. AMEN."       

                                                               In peace, Nina Naomi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE LURE OF THE HEALING SEA

Atlantic Beach, North Carolina

Miles of sand and a yellow flag yesterday, a color seldom seen, marking a calm ocean.  Water temperature is up to 59° and the sand comfortable for bare feet, not blistering as it will be mid-summer.  Atlantic Beach has been a vacation spot for a hundred years, a town of under 2,500 on the Southern Outer Banks chain of barrier islands.  We are here at Pine Knoll Shores again and I'm thinking about those who answer the call of the sea.  People who live not in cities or ocean front high-rises or even newly built waterfront homes, but those who live in those out-of-the-way spots that others dream about.  And where, sometimes, I too get to visit. 

Inner Hebrides, Scotland

Last fall's post-pandemic trip abroad included the archipelago of islands off the western coast of Scotland, a rugged landscape of towns and fishing villages with a history of kings and clans.  My grandmother was a Chisholm and as a child I learned that the Clan Chisholm migrated to the Scottish Highlands in the 14th century.  Our hunting tartan is brown and the dress plaid red. I've waited a long time to see this part of my heritage. It's doubly exciting that one of our grandsons is going to St Andrews University in the fall.   

I remember (once) being on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, at 1,745 feet elevation, standing high above the sea with the water both distant and hugging the shoreline below.  That trip felt like magical realism to me; yes, it was real, but oh the undercurrent of magic.  When I round a corner and hear the long slow notes of a bagpiper standing at the edge of a cliff shrouded by cloud, the fantastical has slipped into my ordinary day. Far out a whale rises up from the deep and I wish I could lift gently from the earth to float with arms outspread like I do in my dreams.  

Cape Bretoners number around 135,000 and for someone drawn to the sea like I am, I can't imagine a place more attuned to nature, with a crenulated coastline, lowlands and highlands rising south to north. Sometimes you're so high it feels like heaven.  

Today on our Atlantic coast the ocean is wilder, white caps all the way to the horizon but still a mild cloudy afternoon. Water doesn't have to be calm to heal us.  The sea's negative ions boost our moods, the rise and fall of the waves relaxes us and the sea releases our feel-good hormones, dopamine and oxytocin.  At the same time, we are restless like the waves.  Scientists (or maybe poets) have called the sea the planet's heartbeat.  I can see that.  No, I'm not one of the lucky who lives remotely by the mothering sea, but I am lucky enough.  Yesterday and today are perfect.  Tomorrow will be too; I'm pledged to that.  Nina Naomi

SOME DAYS ARE BETTER (IN VERSE)

 

Verse #5 for Today

Thank you, God, for this small day.

For our bodies wrapped as the daystar rose.

For the whistling train as one we slept.

For the blessings that you wrestle

From time now past,

From the mystery of the history of what could not last.

For the folds of safety, balm of breath,

But mostly thank you, God, for this:

For bravery when life shattered.

Nothing else mattered. 

Verse #6 for Today

We all know something and I know this: 

You can heal without forgetting.

You can heal though memories track you down like prey. 

You heal because God is Love. 

Let no one tell you else. 

DEEP PAIN, DEEP HEALING

 

Sometimes a pain is so deep that we have to repeatedly cleanse the wound.  This is what Letting go is about.  not denying a hurt or the reality of what caused it.  That doesn't work.  We can reframe a narrative but not without admitting, "Someone or something hurt me. Something I thought would never happen did happen. I can't change that fact."  

Letting go is a mental state where we no longer cause ourselves extra suffering.  A reminder, or trigger, is a stimulus that causes a painful memory to resurface. We don't bring them on ourselves.  They just happen. When they do, it can pull the past forward so that our body may react as it did then. If this has happened to you, you know how your breath changes, you lose focus, you may retreat.   

As time goes on, each reminder may reach deeper levels of sadness or trauma which we then let go by facing the mental weight of the former pain and letting it pass.  Miraculously all emotions do pass.  Such is how we are made.  We know that happiness and joy don't last forever, but sadness, fear, anger the same.  Yes, they may recur, but we let them dissipate again.  

This is not as bad as it seems.  It is not hopeless. Not at all. In fact, it can be transformative.  We note how the heavy weight of an event lessons.  Reminders that may have stalled us for days or weeks do not.  Our mental reserves replenish more quickly.  If we don't fight what is happening, we conserve energy; mental tension does not consume us.  We recognize how we feel but give it only the space it needs to move on.  we do not feed the flames.  We promise not to make ourselves feel worse.  It is a promise we can keep; we each have so many ways to cope.  (This writing is one.)

Letting go does not mean forgetting, not of what we wish we could forget nor of what we wish to hold dear.  For those of us who have lost someone, forgetting is what we most fear.  But letting go of grief is not letting go of those dearest to us.  For years I had a mantra I used with my despair over the death of our son whose name is Adam:  "More Adam, Less Grief."  Focus on him not my (and, Dear God, his) loss.  (Yes, writing this my breath has changed.) 

In a different scenario, if you have forgiven someone their hurt, let that thought come forward.  There is a reason you forgave (or were yourself forgiven).  It was a choice you made listening to your heart and to God.  That's where the transformation comes in.  That's where the narrative can be reframed, and honestly so.  "I was brave when I took the steps that led to forgiveness."  "I save what matters most to me."  "Dear God, thank you."

There may also be something to forgive yourself for and heal.  I would like to forgive myself for not sitting with my father the entire day that he died. His last months were hard on him but on me too.  the death of a Parent can be like that.  Sometimes neither of you is much good at comforting the other. When I returned to his side at 3 pm it was hard to tell death from life.  After an hour and a half of checking, the hospice nurse said he was gone.  

So, we have deep pain and need deep healing from many things in many ways.  We have wounds to cleanse and emotions to survive.  And we do.  We know that just a sigh can be a prayer that is answered.  We don't deny or avoid our feelings and we don't accept minimization from others.  In these ways we follow the nature God has given us.  

And we do so much more than survive.  We become role models.  We nurture others.  We take care of ourselves.  We take every gift we have been given and use it for good.  We count our blessings and at the end of the day live in joy.  

I think I will say, Thanks be to God.        Nina Naomi

 

EVERY DAY WE BECOME BETTER

                                  

A Path to Follow

Have you noticed?  Every day we become better and better.  This doesn't mean that everything is perfect. Not at all. In fact, isn't it true that your life isn't really what you expected it to be?  No one's is. 

Maybe we haven't found the right partner.  Or the right job.  Maybe my best friend has breast cancer.  Or I do.  Maybe I never really knew my dad.  Or have a sibling who died.  Maybe someone we love is chronically depressed.  Or on parole, or in jail.  Wow!  These are the everyday problems of everyday people--you, me, us.  And I've only named a fraction.  We can all list life situations we weren't counting on.  Some good, too. I live in a house in the woods, which I never planned on.  I became a lawyer, which I didn't predict either.     

For the hard things, is there a silver lining?  Well, no.  Sometimes all we can do is wade through.  But this is also true.   That every day we become better and better.  You know the saying, "This too shall pass?"  Well, no, again.  Objective facts don't pass.  My friend may die of cancer. A person I love may remain imprisoned by mental illness.  It may be too late for this or that. Time for amends may have passed. Some things can't be changed, or at least not by us.

BUT. . . EVERYTHING CAN BE MADE BETTER.  Healing is as much a part of life as suffering. What does pass is our anxiety, our despair, our whatever-emotion-is-keeping-us-down.  Time, counseling, prayer, perhaps medication, or just new circumstances--all these and more make us better and better at being the person we need to be.  God is on our side, always.  Our friends are on our side.  We are on our side.  There is Good News, there are good people and there are good things everywhere.  We not only bloom where we are planted, we bloom in spite of almost every adverse condition we can imagine.

So, have you become someone you never thought you would be?  A single parent? Divorced? Never married? Fighting an illness? Well-to-do or struggling?  A person who has survived a loss beyond all contemplation. Or someone with a good marriage or remarriage, a successful career.  A grandparent?  And I bet you're doing well at being that person.  I bet you have done things that have made your life better, and the lives of others too:  gotten an education, helped raise a child, helped those less fortunate, crafted a job and a life, cherished those who love you, never given up, had fun, been awesome. . ..  Am I right?  Am I right?

A 17th CENTURY POEM by Nina Naomi

 

 A darkness falls upon her breast.

Her memories hence reprise.

How sweet when vanished from her view.

they fill her soul with sighs.

That flesh she treasures silent kept.

"There's nothing there," once said.

But love is there and that's enough. 

inside Her pierced heart bled. 

no haven left, time's weight at risk. 

her mind askew, she's sure.

It was her keenest earthly woe,

Their faith to be impure. 

now turns from her with words unkind

And little knows her fears,

That their one life should rend in two.

swift leaves her to her tears. 

She cries in secret crouched and sore

Till she can cry no more.

then lo! her instinct leads her to

A brave determined shore. 

Unmixed with caution or with doubt,

she will confront the sin,

To tell it so that eyes can see

That they can new begin. 

they have and now the years have passed

And yet she makes this plea:

"When memories like deep waves persist,

Dear God from these save me!"   

by nina naomi  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

REINVENTION

Matisse "Nude in an Armchair" 1920

I was meant for reinvention.

Never stopping, always falling.

Falling in love, falling in grace.

Changing my place, facing my fears.

Keeping my years cherished and clear.

Healing my brokenness,

New everyday.

This is the way

Of reinvention.

     Nina Naomi 

 

 

A MYSTERY AT WATER'S EDGE

A Mystery

At the water's edge on the deck of a dream clinging to space

The woman felt depression lift, perhaps only by a centimeter, but lift it did. 

She knew the past made love precarious for all that had happened here.

Her presence could smother remains of the pain that was birthed in this place

Where looking and seeing and saving began.

An exorcism if you will, of what (or who) did not belong.

And now?  Love is not so precarious as it was, please God.

Not at all.   

BEST BOOK FOR SPRING,PART II

"MISTAKING ILLUSION FOR REALITY IS SAID TO BE 

THE ROOT CAUSE  OF OUR SUFFERING"

"Integrity usually comes to people slowly and takes them unawares, as part of a natural process of maturing or through the need to be there for someone else who is counting on them.  But it can appear full-blown in times of crisis or loss."  

Dr. Rachel Naomi Ramen has learned these truisms through her years as a medical doctor counseling cancer patients.  Her book is their stories, her story and, miraculously, often our story as well.  My copy of Kitchen Table Wisdom is filled with marginalia.  After the first quotation above I wrote a simple "Wow."  A wonderful person we love has an illness that when untreated causes delusion.  This mistaking of an illusion for reality brings great hardship. Everyone suffers, together and separately.   

The second quotation also brought an event about loved ones to mind.  When his grandparents were hospitalized our son intervened and met with the doctors.  He wanted to step up.  He was young.  Then he turned to me where I was waiting down the hall.  "See, I'll be able to take care of you when you need it," he said.  He wanted me to see his maturity.  By being competent in this crisis he was instilling confidence in his readiness for the next one. Ramen says that sometimes it takes a crisis to initiate growth.  

She also writes about anger, not giving it the bad press it usually gets.  I remember my mother being angry just about every time we went to the doctor's. Angry and unreasonable.  If you're a care-taker, that may be your experience too.  My mother  had cancer.  She could have used a counselor like Dr. Ramen. "Anger is just a demand for change," Ramen says, "a passionate wish for things to be different."  It can be a way to assert personal worth in the face of a trauma.  Anger can flare if we are sad, fearful or in despair--difficult emotions we all share.  But the book addresses this as well.  Over time, Dr. Ramen says, she realized that some things that can never be fixed can still be healed.  We all need this promise, don't we?  

The book is full of promises.  "Listening is the oldest and perhaps the most powerful tool of healing."  And it is something we all can provide.  We can listen generously, to ourselves as well to others.  We can create listening sanctuaries.  We can be mindful of our own needs and the needs of others.  

This book dovetails so well with the loving kindness I'm learning about in mindfulness and meditation training. At this stage my life has been both better and worse than I expected.  This may be true for each of us.  Wonders we never expected have helped us bear hardships we could not have foreseen.  For me some of the wonders have come from prayer.  

"WHEN WE PRAY, WE DON'T CHANGE THE WORLD,

WE CHANGE OURSELVES."

"WHEN WE PRAY, 

WE STOP TRYING TO CONTROL LIFE

AND REMEMBER THAT WE BELONG TO LIFE."

Aren't these thoughts helpful?  Dr. Ramen says that with prayer we can relinquish our attachments, our attachment to fear, for example, and even our attachment to hope. The most beautiful prayer I ever heard was, "Dear God, please protect the one I love."  A prayer like that goes a long way toward healing anything doesn't it?  With love, Nina Naomi 

 

    

BEST BOOK FOR SPRING --"Anything good you've ever been given is yours forever."

Dr. Rachel Naomi Ramen ends her book with this sentence.  I wrote about her book My Grandfather's Blessings in the Post "Best Book for the Holidays about Blessings (12/8/18).  Now I have read her earlier book, Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal.  It is a perfect Spring read because Spring is a time to open our hearts and embrace life, to perennially renew ourselves with the trees and the grass and the flowers, to heal with the warm sun and a soft breeze. 

This book has so much to offer.  Some gems are just snippets.  In her Preface she says that writers are people born to write, while authors are people who do something else and then write about it.  Where do diarists fall, or those of us who journal or blog I wonder? Probably some in one category and some in the other.  Or a bit of cross-over.  But an interesting distinction.  Dr. Ramen says, "Because I am not a writer, when I sat down to write, all I had were my memories."  Isn't that encouraging?  

We all have memories that are stories to be savored and celebrated, especially if we pause in our minds to interpret them, to remember them fully.  And then perhaps tell them or write them down.  Even a painful memory may include something to celebrate:  our bravery, our perseverance, our survival, the way we behaved under pressure, those who helped us, those who love us through thick and thin, how we have grown to help others. . . .

Some issues stay with us our whole life.  Living with chronic illness is one.  Losing someone at a young age is another.  Our children's suffering.  An insecure childhood.  Our own limitations.  Each time we pass through these issues we understand more.  "Most of us live lives that are far richer and more meaningful than we appreciate," Ramen says. 

Because she is a physician, much of the book is about healing.  Not being cured . . . being healed.  And about grieving and loss.  Protecting ourselves from loss by avoiding grief is not the route to healing, she thinks. Avoiding grief distances ourselves from life.  Professionally it leads to burnout.  Grieving, she believes, is a way of self-care even in a work setting.  I've found this in my law practice.  As a lawyer I've met people catastrophically injured by preventable medical errors.  I remember the baby born after prolonged oxygen deprivation; the nurse failed to notice the alarming signs on the fetal heart monitor strip.  The doctor said she wished the nurse had called her earlier.  I cannot forget being racked with sobs over that baby's future.  "We burn out not because we don't care but because we don't grieve," Dr. Ramen says. Grieving is healing.

She also explains that for our wholeness, approval is just as destructive as criticism.  I did not understand that before.  But it rings true.  

"To seek approval is to have no resting place. . .

Like all judgment, approval encourages a constant striving. 

This is as true of the approval we give ourselves as it is of the approval we offer others.

Approval can't be trusted.

It can be withdrawn at any time. . . .

Yet many of us spend our lives pursuing it." 

Ramen also explains that our wholeness can be whittled down by family, cultural beliefs (boys don't cry; neither do professionals; girls don't speak their minds), or spiritual beliefs. It made me question whether I have to judge myself against a yardstick of Christian acceptability that always finds me short.  I expect God never intended that.  Such a blessing to outlive our self-judgments, to let go of a standard of excellence.  All love is unconditional Ramen states.  Anything else is just approval.  What a message for us parents, spouses, lovers, friends. . . . 

According to Talmudic teaching, we do not see things as they are, but as we are.  The author calls this a trap.  "Life usually offers us far more than our biases and preferences will allow," she says.  Isn't that wise?  This book is full of wisdom.  Inner peace as a spiritual quality rather than a mental quality.  This fits with the way I practice mindfulness and meditation.  It fits with our weekly liturgy that includes the prayer for the "peace that passes all understanding." 

I am only touching the surface of the life-affirming nature of this book.  This post needs a Part II.  Buy or borrow the book if you wish.  Or just ponder what is written here.  Like My Grandfather's Blessings this book is a slow read.  So much to absorb.  To enjoy this Spring.      Nina Naomi