Category Archives: Spirituality

A Fork in the Road: Prepared for the Journey

05 Sunday Apr 2015

Posted by in abusive relationships, healing, recovery, sexual abuse, Spirituality, Uncategorized

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yellow jessamine

Spring is a time of renewal. We hear that all the time. Those of you who have enjoyed my nature photography may be surprised to learn that I used to dread the approach of spring. I loved winter. Give me some grey, cold skies, the silence that comes with a blanket of snow. I could relate to this, but spring, with its jubilant nature, its explosion of color and new life, was uncomfortable for me. I could never really put my finger on a reason, nothing specific that happened as the season turned each April or May. Nevertheless, I would literally bear down on my emotions and wait for it to pass.

As some of you are aware, I am a survivor of mother-daughter sexual abuse. I have written about it over the years, mostly for myself, as part of the therapeutic process, and more recently have shared two essays with all who desire to read them. If you wish to access the first one immediately, you can go here, and you can readily find Part Two at the website. https://visionsofsong.com/2013/09/04/on-forgiveness-trust-and-desire-part-one/

A couple of years ago, I learned about an organization called Making Daughters Safe Again. MDSA is led by Dr. Christine Hatchard, Psy.D, a practicing clinical psychologist who also teaches at Monmouth University in New Jersey. From their mission statement: The mission of Making Daughters Safe Again (MDSA) is to support and advocate for survivors of mother-daughter sexual abuse (mdsa), to educate professionals and the general public, and to inspire action, knowledge, healing and hope. You can read much more at the website: http://mdsa-online.org/

I am both thrilled and terrified by the notion that women who have had this experience come together at retreats and workshops to share with and support each other. Last year, I purchased a copy of a DVD that was created with the support of MDSA staff, Who Will Love Me? It’s an incredible effort, with four woman sharing frankly and with a tremendous amount of courage their experiences of mother-daughter sexual abuse. I was aware that though each story was unique, there were some commons threads, themes, and I immediately recognized them. I have a story, too.

In a few weeks, I’ll be attending a special weekend retreat with MDSA. It was no surprise to me that as soon as I was confirmed for attendance, my body started sending me signals. First, there was the harsh thump to my chest, sort of near the upper esophagus, the place where I have historically gotten “choked up” when I am under stress. I worked with that through deep breathing and other techniques. For a long time in my life I would read my body’s pain signals as meaning: AVOID! I know my body well, now, and recognize some of the pain I feel in different parts of it right now as related to the processing of what I am about to embark on, this journey towards greater wellness.

It’s going to be really nerve-wracking and scary. I’m just putting that out there because although I want to do it, and I’m ready to go even though it’s still a few weeks away, I hold that it’s important to be more up front about how I feel. Fear and trust can live together, and knowing this allows me to take steps that would have been impossible at other times in my life.

I think I will have a lot to say about the experience once I’ve returned and processed it. It’s hard to know if I’ll share that right away, or if I’ll sit with it a while. I do look forward to sharing some of my thoughts and feelings about it with you.

Oh, and it’s good to be able to enjoy the days of spring. They really are gifts.

redbud

 

 

Repost at Stir Journal: On Forgiveness, Trust, and Desire (Part One)

28 Friday Nov 2014

Posted by in abusive relationships, healing, recovery, sexual abuse, Spirituality

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I was pleased to have my essay included in the conversation around forgiveness and the culture of forgiveness in Stir Journal last week. Part Two will run as well.

There were some marvelous comments offered by readers. My two-fold intention for putting this out there is for myself, my healing work, and to offer connection, even hope, to others who live with the impact of abuse in their lives and the lives of loved ones.

Stir Journal is doing some incredible work. From their Facebook page, about Stir Journal: STIR Journal is committed to exploring the gray areas of controversial issues. We provide a space for constructive and productive conversation.

http://www.stirjournal.com/

http://www.stirjournal.com/2014/11/20/my-stir-on-forgiveness-trust-and-desire-part-one/

Traveling on the M57

19 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by in Cochlear Implant and Hearing, death and dying, recovery, Spirituality, Travel

≈ 8 Comments

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I was casually checking email the other night when I came upon one with the subject line “The Passing of Arthur”. Sent to a small group of Artie’s friends, his son sent an email to let us know that a few nights earlier, Artie had been riding a bus near home when he went into cardiac arrest. Efforts by doctors at the nearby hospital failed to revive him.

“Thank you for knowing and loving my father” he wrote at the end of his message, which brings on a fresh batch of tears every time I think about it.

Knowing and loving Artie, in the manner that I did for 11 years, was one of the grandest chapters of my life. It started out in an unorthodox manner, and for some, was and may remain verboten. I long ago quit caring about that, although it troubled me at the start, to the extent that it became a habit to reference him constantly and yet rarely mention him by name as the years went by.

Artie and I met one afternoon in his apartment in New York City. I was a case worker for an agency that served brain injury survivors. Artie was a brain injury survivor, a three-time stroke survivor. I remember running all over the city on that overcast day, and wishing I didn’t have that one last stop to make before heading home for the evening. He lived a long walk from the subway, and as I never liked waiting on the cross-town bus, I hustled towards Tenth Avenue. I got to the building, climbed the front steps and rang the doorbell. Being severely hard of hearing, I never knew for sure when the tenant was buzzing me through the locked doors. I felt the door frame for the vibration and after a couple of false starts; I got into the lobby and made my way up the stairs. In the doorway of 2B I saw a man who looked older than the stated age on the paperwork, just shy of his 57th birthday. About 5’7”, pale skin, light strawberry blonde hair, and large, shining blue eyes. He was neither unfriendly nor especially welcoming as he allowed me into his apartment. The living room was rather dark, the blinds drawn. Up on a wooden platform was a cat. Sparkle was completely white with blue eyes, and entirely deaf, but otherwise able-bodied and very intelligent.

I began my intake process in the usual fashion, to determine the need for services and supports. I was intrigued with some of the artwork he had up on the walls and asked about them. Pictures of people and scenes of far off places, and one was a photograph of a woman lying on her side, her breasts exposed. It was a very intimate and sensuous image. I learned that he had taken that picture–an old girlfriend of his—along with most of the others on the walls. There was a story to go with every one of them, and I was fascinated in part because I am a wanderer, a traveler, and I enjoy hearing about the adventures of others. He had traveled wide and long, and often said that if he could have he would have just traveled on and on. Ultimately, the intake took about a half an hour, for he was not interested in accessing an intensive level of supports, though he eventually acknowledged the need for some daily help. The rest of the visit went on for a couple more hours, as we talked about all sorts of topics: art, spirituality, psychology, history, music. There were many interests that we shared, but that is not so unusual on its own. The feeling that was there made no sense to me and yet I was compelled to touch it; the awareness of interconnectedness with my friend, this man I had just met that afternoon. We recognized it intuitively then, and learned to articulate it later, there was a meeting of soul mates that day. I did not know it right away, but I learned that though he had many friends, he rarely had guests into his home, and yet he continued to welcome me. I felt deeply honored by that alone.

I struggled with the fact of my role in his life. Although I wasn’t providing therapeutic or clinical services to him, there was and is an ingrained message I carry with me about the people I serve in my work through the years: that regardless of anything else, there is an inherent imbalance of power when one is the provider of a service, the other is a recipient. There have been many instances in which I have gone above and beyond to provide supports to individuals I serve. I am aware that altruism always carries a measure of selfishness, and I see no dichotomy in that. Anyone who says such acts are entirely selfless is deceiving themselves. I played this role in his life for about a year and a half. I moved away, and we continued to email regularly and exchange cards at various holidays. He is one of the few people I continued to get birthday cards from via snail mail. He was the most Jewish Gentile I have ever met, a product of growing up along the J train line in Brooklyn, combined with an intense curiosity about everything. The first time I heard him use the word shul (Yiddish for synagogue) I almost fell out of my chair laughing. He understood the culture so well; he could send the most hilariously nuanced holiday cards of anyone I knew.

I could write pages and pages of stories about him and our friendship, the long walks in Central Park, wandering around the medieval architecture of the Cloisters. Meals in Indian restaurants around the city, hangouts in a place that served us coffee while we sat surrounded by greenery. He knew so much about the city of his birth, his life, and though he loved to explore the far corners of India and Africa, he always came home. He loved his children and grandchildren, and no little drama like the Great Blackout of 2003 was going to prevent him from getting from Manhattan to Newark to Colorado, where his son and daughter-in-law had brought their first child into the world. I still don’t know how he managed that, for most fully able-bodied individuals could barely figure out how to survive those difficult days, but he just pushed past all kinds of limitations and did what he wanted to do.

It wasn’t all of those marvelous aspects of our friendship that made him so exceptional to me, why I made sure that no matter what, I fit in a visit with him every time I came back to the city after moving away in 2004. It was love. I loved Artie. I loved him because he had that rare quality of being able to see what is essential, and was generous enough to share what he knew. I loved what I saw in his eyes, how he showed his warmth, his worries, his humor, his ironic view of life. And I loved that he cared for me, and how he was not afraid to show it. He taught me to be a little less afraid of the intensity of my own feelings about many things.  I’m going to miss his stories, his teachings, and his poetic messages about life.

I’m really not sure how long it’s going to take to get used to him not being around anymore.

After the initial shock of the news of Artie’s death passed, I actually smiled when I thought about how utterly fitting it was that the last thing he did in this life was ride the bus. He was traveling—from a meeting, most likely, a core feature of the past 37 years of his life, or perhaps from a meditation evening–and doing his thing. Peace, my old hippie friend. Shalom Aleichem.

Letting Go

04 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by in death and dying, Spirituality

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My father died last Monday. In a couple of hours, it will have been one week since he took his last breath, having done battle against a metastasized melanoma since October. The doctor at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx, a hospice facility, called the time: 2:30 AM. “He’s looking at you” she said. It was a sweet thing to say, though even at that moment I thought that it was rather quaint to suggest he might’ve been looking at me as he died. He WAS faced in the direction that I was sitting most of the evening, on his right side, first in a chair right next to his bed, and then at the end, half sleeping, half dreaming, in a recliner chair a little bit further away, still on his right side. Still, I presume that it is merely a reflex that turned his head from one side to the other.

Not a week earlier, Dad and his wife met with the oncologist at NYU and got the bad news: the immunotherapy treatments that he had gotten monthly between October and January had not impacted the course of the disease. For a couple of weeks prior to this, he’d been experiencing increasing pain and other symptoms, but continued to hold out hope that these were byproducts of the treatments, side effects that would ease with time. In fact, it was the progression of the disease that was causing such difficulty. Up until that point, my father continued to do virtually everything that he did before getting the diagnosis. He undoubtedly tolerated a great deal of pain before he finally acknowledged it out loud. “I have a very high tolerance for pain. You know that if I’m telling you it has me laid up in bed, it’s getting bad.” There was no doubt in my mind that if my father was lying in bed in the middle of the afternoon, something was terribly wrong. Still, we all held out hope that the PET scan would reveal that the tumors had shrunken, and that dad had been given some extra time.

From the moment he was told that the treatment had not helped, and that there were truly no other options besides those that would bring him physical comfort, he began the last phases of dying. Just that same week he was driving with his wife down to the city for his appointments, making phone calls to deal with various business matters. “I’ll drive us” he told his wife, she offering to do so but seeing no need to intervene, as he was still capable. But after the news was digested, he began to not only be given care for his pain, he began his rapid decline. Within two days of hospice support at home, his needs became so great that he was moved to Calvary Hospice House, where he received excellent care. The call from my brother came on Saturday evening: his mom told him that we need to get on a plane and get up there right away. And so we did, he arriving from Colorado on a redeye flight, I making my way up to the Bronx from North Carolina on Sunday morning. Dad had previously expressed the desire to keep visitors limited to his most inner circle. His wife, three of his four children who could be present, his brother, and two of his former NYPD colleagues, one of whom he maintained a strong 42 year friendship, long past and beyond the scope of the job.

I have had some personal experience with hospice and the dying process, and so it was not a surprise to me that once he saw the last person he needed to see, he was almost finished with his process. I also know that there are as many ways of leaving as there are individuals. I was so preoccupied with being present, in the moment, with my dad, that he surprised me at the end.

I had indicated to his wife that I wished to spend the night at hospice with dad. I knew that his youngest son had stayed there with him the previous night. I was concerned that perhaps his son would want to stay with him again and would prefer that I not be there. I needn’t have worried, for his son was exhausted and welcomed the support. I was relieved, because I really needed to be there. I knew this was as much for me as it was for my dad. At about 10 PM, I sat in the recliner chair and promptly fell asleep. Having had about 2 hours sleep the night before, I was exhausted. At 11:30 I awoke, and alternated between sitting and holding my dad’s hand, pacing the room, and drinking the little juice cups the nurse had given me for the evening. Earlier in the day when dad was still somewhat aware of his surroundings, I acted on a suggestion made by a friend, and took a picture of my hand on his with my camera phone. Now as I sat watching and listening to him breathe, I took one of just my own arm, palm up and open. Finally, at about a quarter to two, I decided I should try to get a little rest. I held his hand once more, and kissed it, and stroked his hair. I climbed back into the recliner chair, a little further away from the bed. I fell into a fitful state for about half an hour, dozing and then glancing over at dad, whose breathing was full of crackly sounds. He looked very relaxed, no signs of distress, so I did not worry. I fell into a deeper sleep, and I began to dream that I was in a struggle with someone or something that had a grip on my wrists, on my hands. I did not feel that I was in danger, only that there was a struggle ensuing. I was in that half dream state, you know when you know you’re dreaming but you can’t get yourself out of it? I remember thinking that someone would come and help me. As I fought off the force that had a grip on me, I started to scream. I thought I was screaming so loudly that it was coming out and into the room and that someone would hear me and come to my assistance. I screamed long and loud and yelled let go! Just let go! As I shook myself awake, the door to the room opened, the light was turned on, and a nurse and aides walked into the room. One of them came to me and softly said: we need to call the doctor. He has stopped breathing. I jumped up, fumbling around for my eyeglasses, and said oh my god I just dreamed there was a struggle and I couldn’t get free of it! I looked at my dad, his eyes closed, mouth slightly ajar, but his face looked so peaceful. He had stayed on all the while I was holding his hand. As soon as I moved away, and fell into sleep, he let go. I doubt he was waiting in the sense we usually mean, but there was a sense of closure, like he was just going to hang around until I could let go. And then he let go, too.

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Haunted Dreams

21 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by in Spirituality, Uncategorized

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Trust your dreams, trust your heart, and trust your story.—Neil Gaiman

A couple of weeks ago, I posted this quote on my Facebook page. A friend commented that he liked the quote, but was helping perform exorcisms in his dreams when he woke up that morning, with the implication that he wasn’t altogether sure about trusting in this instance. He shared that he’d fallen asleep watching “The Exorcist”, and presumably carried that with him into his dream life. An aficionado of horror movies, it is not surprising that such images and concepts would infiltrate his sleep. It got me thinking, though: about exorcism, about its roots in a belief of demonic possession and spirits, and the myriad reasons we are drawn to the idea that one might be able to be freed from possession, from that which is negative, harmful, and painful physically and/or spiritually.

Popular culture presents movies in which no exorcism is complete without a full range of cinematic terrors. I confess to a love-hate relationship with such films. This might surprise those with whom I’ve shared that as a rule I do not watch horror flicks, and I never watch them before bedtime unless I have no plans to sleep well that night. The truth is that I am fascinated by the idea that through ritualized action, one might be released from personal terrors. What happens for me in watching such films is that it’s as if every mental pore is opened, the spiritual eye dilated, and I am so overwhelmed by the stimulation that it’s very difficult to wind down afterward.

As a religious practice, exorcism has lost much of its shine as a variety of conditions once seen as the result of possession by the devil—drug abuse and alcoholism, abnormal behavior, illness—became better understood in some instances and more tolerated in others. Having sophisticated explanations for why people do what they do does not necessarily eliminate the need, the urge, to purge oneself of thoughts and behavior that are seemingly detrimental.

After that brief discussion, I found myself thinking about the connections between the intention of the exorcism rites and the deep desire I have experienced to be purged of certain emotional states and thought processes which cut their teeth on painful life experiences. My desire has always been to have an unfettered sense of joy at being alive. I don’t want to hear that it’s a lot to ask! I’ve thought more than once that a good bloodletting might do wonders. It seemed to make a great deal of sense that if something is blocked, something full of pus and carrying disease, then why mightn’t it be a good thing to create an opening, a release? Then again, my thoughts traveled to some of the most remarkable people I have met along the path I have traveled. They carry deep psychic scars that are bandaged up, the protocol for care often a hot-iron burn to cool the flames of the pain lurking underneath the smile, the despondent alcoholic who didn’t even know what pit of hell they were tripping over their own feet into when they picked up the bottle just to bring a little lightness into their life. Some of these friends have had experiences that trump the best the horror flicks can throw at us from the screen.

I discarded the notion of bloodletting a long time ago, and yet the desire to purge remains. It doesn’t seem farfetched to consider expansion of the concept of exorcism from the vantage point of health and strength in body, mind, and spirit. Rituals of cleansing and healing can take many forms. Soaking in a hot springs pool. Paddling along a lake or river. Walking a wooded path. Meditating deeply. Sitting in a 12-step meeting. Talking with a trusted friend about a long hidden wound or scar. Holding a lover close and practicing the art of knowing another deeply. Crying. Being a help to others.

What are you haunted by? What rituals do you engage in so that you might hold the “devil” back? I dream of a life in which nothing is kept at bay, but set to sail depending on need and circumstance. Take a good look at your haunts, and begin to practice those small exorcisms. What shape do they take, what is their heft, their color? One thing I’m sure of is that burying mine in layers of denial simply made them yell louder. I carry within me, along with life’s heaviest burdens, a hopefulness that such practice can lead to that unfettered joy that we each came into the world with, is ours to experience, and which lies just beneath the layers of pain and sorrow.

Sh’ma

19 Sunday Aug 2012

Posted by in Cochlear Implant and Hearing, Spirituality

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I attended Chevra Torah (bible study) at Temple in Greensboro this morning. I don’t get there as often as I’d like, as I currently reside nearly an hour away. I prefer to make the drive with my friend Jayne, so that we can enjoy what I refer to as our post-Chevra session. The group is large and very different from the experience I had with a study partner several years ago. It has many merits but there is not usually the allowance for in-depth discussion of one or two finer points. That is my study preference, and one I can engage in to a greater extent in the car with my friend on the drive home. She could not join me today, so I was left to mull things over without the benefit of friendly discourse.

An aspect of today’s Torah portion that was of great interest to me was consideration of a single word: hear. One of the best known Jewish prayers is the Sh’ma:

Sh’ma Yis’ra’eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad. Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)

The word Sh’ma means to hear. It also can be understood as to obey, as well as to listen. Rabbi Andy led the group in considering the shades of difference between hearing and listening. I was apparently bobbing my head with much more energy than I would have had I been aware of myself. I do not like to draw attention to myself at these gatherings, and with few exceptions am extremely quiet during discussion. This is a product of two factors: fear of tripping over my tongue and not articulating my thoughts well, and tending to focus on one aspect of a discussion and not making rapid transitions from one aspect to another. Even though I can follow a large group discussion with a good deal of accuracy, thanks to my cochlear implanted ears, I still am not a major player in group discussions. But Andy walked over to me and said Yes? I see you’re relating to this? I replied: OH yes, one hundred percent! I live this! I don’t know if he thought I merely meant this in the sense of hearing versus being deaf, and of course there is that element. After all, I am deaf without my cochlear implants and lived the greater part of my life with significant hearing loss. When I was profoundly hard of hearing and without the benefit of cochlear implants (or hearing aids for several years) I was a complete failure at hearing. However, I was an exceptional listener. As a result of using every bit of data available to gather information—beyond hearing whatever I could, reading expressions became my lifeline–I was fairly good at understanding the messages being sent to me.

My exuberant expression of recognition this morning was about more than the functional aspects of hearing and listening. Jokes are often made about certain individuals having “selective” hearing. He or she is accused of hearing what is of interest and conveniently missing the undesirable messages. The ones made at the expense of spouses and partners are usually greeted with loud chuckles and knowing glances. Underneath the smart aleck humor is often a great deal of pain: one does not feel that they are being heard by those closest to them.  I have often been thanked for listening intently to what another is saying. Although the hard of hearing among you may smile with recognition: well of course she does, she has to read their lips! But you know what? I don’t have to anymore, most of the time. I have been given an incredible gift: the ability to hear in reasonably quiet environments without hanging on to the speaker’s every lip movement, every facial expression. However, I find that I connect most deeply with another when I show by my physical actions that I am fully present. I also find that maintaining that practice means a greater chance of being successful at it. I propose to my normal hearing friends that while you may indeed have no difficulty hearing another speak while you have your face averted, you may be unwittingly diverting your attention from the other. In doing so, you may be missing out on the more nuanced aspects of hearing and listening, and depriving not only the other but yourself the deeper connections that make life so rich and satisfactory.  I believe that there are many ways to practice meditation. One needn’t sit cross legged on a cushion to develop the ability to be fully present in the moment.

We also touched upon the concept of seeing versus looking this morning. Andy gave an example of a You Tube video that apparently went viral some time ago. The gist of it was that instruction was given to closely watch some kids playing a game-basketball or volleyball, I think. In the background, but in plain sight, there is an image of a bear walking through the scene.  Apparently there are many people who are so focused on watching the game that they completely miss the bear until a second viewing or until someone points out the fact of the bear in the video. A classic example of missing the forest for the trees! This led me to thinking about what I see when I look up to observe trees silhouetted against the sky. Have you done this? Viewed through one set of “lenses” one can see that there are branches, needles and leaves. Perhaps one notices birds perched or sitting on nests, water droplets and butterflies. Switch the lens and one can see the sky, the clouds, perhaps some fog or drizzle or bright sun. One might observe leaves loosening from branches, falling to earth, or birds taking flight against the blue or grey sky.  Viewed in totality, one can see how all the parts have their place in the scheme. Nothing is superfluous. In the practice of looking and listening comes a greater capacity to see and understand. Everyone needs a reason to get up in the morning. This is mine.