Tag: healing

Spring Rituals Remembered

February! Somehow, we’ve made it this far through winter and barely had snow or the cruel temperatures Europe and Russia are enduring. Already, there are signs of spring. On a quick walk through my yard yesterday I discovered green crowns of Hyacinth bravely starting to erupt. And in another sunny corner, spears of Daffodils are torpedoing through the dry leaves and dead grass. Strawberry plants look very green on the slope outside my driveway and there are already weeds encroaching on Lupine territory. Bitter cold and snow are likely still ahead, but days are longer and winter’s end is definitely in sight.

Nothing like flowers as harbingers of spring. In Japan, February is the time for Plum Blossom viewing. Crowds flock to parks or temples to really look at the Plum trees in bloom. When I lived in Kyoto, I used to pedal over to Kitano Shrine, lock my bicycle to a lightpost and join the throngs parading through the trees, admiring and of course, taking pictures of and with, the delicate Ume somehow already in bloom. It’s February remember, and still cold. But even bundled up against a bitter wind, clouds of breath lingering in the air, the promise of spring can be inhaled in those blooms and it’s impossible not to feel warmed and hopeful. A few thimble-size swallows of plum wine with friends helps too.

Also in Japan, February 2-4 is Setsubun; the last day of winter by the lunar calendar. Time for spring cleaning — and that includes getting rid of all the bad luck, illness and misfortune in your house, any remnants of the Oni – a kind of cute devil. Many Japanese in Kyoto visit a temple on the east side of town, Yoshida-jinja with calendars, papers, anything that symbolizes what they want gone, and throw it all into a huge bonfire that makes this usually staid place feel primeval. One year I went back early the next day before clean up, to see the broken, charred chotchke remnants still smoldering in the ashes. Isn’t this a fantastic ritual? A communal purging. I planned on taking care of some overdue house cleaning today anyway and am glad I remembered this festival. Now I feel motivated to clean house and tonight, will stoke up the fire-pit outside for a mini-Setsubun in Connecticut. ‘Oni-wa-soto, Fuku-wa-uchi’ (‘Out with devils, In with luck’)

The Den

After my husband’s suicide, shock and fury masked my sadness for months. Molly propelled me to pay attention to grief one afternoon as I heard a friend ask her where her father was because she hadn’t seen him in awhile. Molly answered, “In England.” She could not speak this new terrible language of death and loss. Shortly after that car ride and 9 months after his death, I began taking 9 year old Molly to The Den for Grieving Kids. She was afraid The Den would require her to talk about feelings and make her cry like the therapist she’d rejected. The Den would be different, I assured her. She’d be with other kids her age who’d lost a loved one and they’d have activities. If she didn’t want to, she need not utter a word.  Immediately, Molly felt at home and marveled she was not the only kid whose parent had died.

There were years we never missed a session. Two Mondays a month, I’d make the drive down to Greenwich where we ate pizza and salad perched on tiny chairs in the pre-school classroom before moving into the big room for introductions. We formed a heartbreakingly large circle. We took turns saying our names and, only if we wanted to, who died.  Or simply: “I pass” because, at first, it was hard to get the words out: my husband, wife, father, mother and worse — child, brother or sister died. But over the weeks, as the realization and pinch of our losses grew into scars, it became easier to share the declaration of these deaths. At least with this group of fellow survivors.

From that very first session, Molly loved going to The Den, easily going off with a group of children her own age. In another room, us parents gathered in a circle, sharing stories, struggles, tears — and laughter, too. Initially, I found myself envying what seemed the tragic but uncomplicated grieving of the others whose spouses died from illness or accidents – not suicide. How could I admit to them, that in the mixed up soup of my emotions I also felt relief? I discovered no shame and much healing. Regardless of anyone’s tale, grief is thorny territory and we were all traversing it together, reluctant members of the same club.  The Den for Grieving Kids eased our travel on this road.

Seven years later, my daughter has decided it is time to say farewell to this amazing place.  For these few hours a month, she and I reflected on N’s death. Then, in the car driving through the dark towards home, the two of us shared stories, carefully paying attention to each other and our healing hearts.

Art Therapy

‘Only in confronting pain can there be real healing’ — I’m paraphrasing something Bosnian actress Vanesa Glodjo said during the Q&A with Angelina Jolie about their recently released movie “In the Land of Blood & Honey“.  She was speaking about the reaction of Bosnians to this film. Glodjo’s comment resonated with with me as I continue to ruminate on this subject.

This morning in the car, a discussion on global conflict resolution came on the radio. A Jean Paul Lederach spoke about the power of music, of sound, as healing: “…it this notion of transportability, we think,is a window into several places in which reconciliation and healing … this idea that vibration touches us… healing is about feeling like a person again…what music does is it permit people to touch again, feel touched by, and to even maybe touch their own sense of personhood and voice…you may not be able to explain, you may not be able to speak your way through certain things, there are times in which music and/or sound may in fact permit that to happen in a much deeper way.”  He goes on to talk about poetry, particularly haiku in the same vein.

This possibility of healing the psyche and soul through, as Lederach says, — the ineffable — through music, through art, fascinates me.  To facilitate recovery from the wounds of war, the damage done by addiction, illness, from violence, the deaths of our loved one, suicide. Time may ease or at least dull an ache, but art can help us to process grief and find a way to the other side.

 

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