by susanna suchak
adapted from “A Blessing for the New Year” by Kayleen Asbo
by susanna suchak
adapted from “A Blessing for the New Year” by Kayleen Asbo
Caregivers are compassionate. It is their nature. For most humans it is their nature and very natural to care. It can be an exhausting job though. Sometimes the compassion well feels pretty dry and empty. Oftentimes, caregivers are not the first to notice the symptoms of empty well or exhaustion until they are just about at the end of the caring rope.
It feels awful. I know. I’ve been there.
But where do you turn?
I turned to counselling. I turned to prescription drugs for depression. But neither were enough.
Until I began searching and seeking for a way that was natural, had no side-effects, and was virtually free, I was flailing. I felt like I was sinking. I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize the face in front of me.
Then over a year, I dug my way out. I found joy and I found the me I remembered. It was so wonderful that I wanted to share my how.
But first I had to develop the step-by-step method. That took me another year and a bit. With the help of my wise woman, academic advisor, Reinekke Lengelle I have developed my methodology into something that others have found as helpful as I did.
I call it “Wordscaping”. Over the next few weeks, I’ll explain with pictures just what it is.
I am trusting that you will find it worthwhile to try it.
It’s a good way to practice self-care even if you are not a frontline caregiver.
Talk soon!
susanna suchak
Clickety, clack, talking back
Crow sits, watches intently
I sit,
We—Sharing secrets
he— Resting in old tree
Me—Sipping cuppa tea
Lone souls he and me
Still, we’re
Good company.
Image found here: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/American_Crow/id
Photo Credit: http://theblissfollower.com/2013/07/02/why-i-say-namaste/
Tomorrow a poem…
“Home is where the light lives.” ~ Kayce Hughlett “As I lay pondering”
I am watching snow pile up, listening to the winds gusting, feeling “tucked-in” and safe and cozy. Though “the weather outside is frightful” the snow does brighten up the view from my window. And I am so very glad to be upright and able to write and make art again after a week of feeling the weight of being one of Grey County’s statistics … we had the rather dubious honour of having the highest incidence of reported cases of influenza over the holidays. Though my case was not reported, I imagine mine was not the only unreported case.
How fitting that my word for 2015 is light … with all its myriad meanings.
I do know that I want more light, lightness and the lilt of laughter this year. Laughter as Anne Lamott explains “is carbonated holiness” which also puts it into the category of lightness for me. Light is airy and gives us just enough contrast and a range of value in our lives to make them interesting and still manageable.
I wish you all the best that 2015 can afford … knowing that there will always be enough light if we each shine in our own little corner… our place of home.
Photo Credit: Jeff Suchak of Mythic Landscape
Twice in the past few days I have read similar versions of the following story (which I paraphrase):
“A troubled pilgrim, exhausted from the journey, asked a sage for help. The sage gazed compassionately into the pilgrim’s eyes and after a time he spoke, “I can offer you one of two things – a map or a boat.”
The pilgrim thought a few moments and then said, “I’ll take the boat.”
The gentle sage kissed him on the forehead saying, “Go then in peace. You are the boat. Life is the river.”
I supposed it resonated with me because I was … am … that pilgrim. Feeling unmoored and adrift, I ache for “home” without knowing exactly where that might be or precisely what it will look like when or if I do find it.
Feeling like I don’t fit, I transpose that feeling onto so many people who are rooted in this place. Rooted and complacent in this organization or that group. Sometimes, I resent their unquestioning acceptance that they belong; that they are at home.
But this story reminds me that home isn’t a place … although it very well might be to some. We carry home within as we journey. And life is a journey.
Yes, we are all pilgrims, on a journey; it behooves us to listen to these words of wisdom from David Foster Wallace…
“Our endless and impossible journey toward home is in fact our home.”
Today it rains. Il pleut.
Interestingly enough in French Il pleut can also mean “he cries” or is it “he is crying/weeping”? At any rate, I think the French have it right … for the rain often makes people a little misty-eyed.
Strangely enough, not me, not today.
Perhaps it is because I have another poem to share with you. Not mine this time. Mine the other day was a very first draft … and we all know about first drafts, don’t we?
Today’s poem is by Antoinette Voûte Roeder
from her book, Still Breathing
Rain.
The drops, the spaces between,
the times when it does not
rain.
Wind.
When it blows, storms, rages,
when it lies down in quiet pools.
Wind.
Body.
When it rises strong and free, entwines with another,
when it loses its luster and begins the long descent.
Body.
Love.
In all its facets, birthing, growing, yearning,
breaking, losing.
Love.
Who is God now?
Far and near.
Here, not here.
Always, all ways.
God.
Although I no longer have a faith community that I meet with regularly … I find this comforting.
Let me know what feelings this poem evokes in you, if you like. Thanks for visiting.
All photos are my own, if you share or use them please link here. Thanks.
Lately, it seems, I am making more time for reflection. Perhaps it is the season; perhaps that I am beginning to find comfort in the artful practice of contemplative photography; perhaps it is just who I am and who I am becoming.
Reflecting requires a high degree of listening. That said, I am beginning to realize how I listen best. I prefer face to face listening … even Skype … rather than the phone. I have always found that the phone was not an optimum method of communication. Texting is really low on my list of communication methods that work for me.
So, I am finding myself leaning into anachronism and outdatedness. Something else to reflect on.
Do more ears help?
Sure, I want to be current and connect with people of all ages, but not at the expense of authentic communication.
Not long ago, one of my sons explained to me that he felt unheard during a telephone conversation. I empathized. I’ve felt that way a great deal.
In this instance, though, it was the technology that was to blame. I liken it to getting used to our toddlers first communication attempts. Our ears are keenly attuned and we “hear” words where others hear a jumble of phonemes.
Folks who use cell phones frequently are in all likelihood, more attuned to the nuances of what comes through the fibre optics, for filling in the blanks, for filtering out the static. Me? Not so much.
It hurt deeply to hear that a very dear person to me felt unheard. It hurt more when my attempts to explain were pushed aside.
But it helped me to listen to what was under the words, to know that I have listened deeply, uncritically, and with patience and will continue to do so.
We need to listen under the words, sometimes, perhaps often. And when we do that with love and patience, we will hear volumes.
A week studying mindfulness in a great deal of silence taught me much.
Dare I say, it has changed me for ever and always. I am deeply grateful for the privilege. I am best able to listen … in stillness, in silence…
We need to hear with our hearts.
And best of all, we need to reflect on what we heard and what we know deeply.
It’s been a week since I journalled … until this morning. Now for some, and for me at other times in my life, this would be no news, a big yawn, a so what kind of revelation. But I am a transformative language coach. In other words, I assist people to become mindful through expressing themselves … often through words, but just as often through a combination of words and images.
You might think I’d feel awful confessing this. You might and I am surprised that this has happened, but I am not contrite or apologetic here. I am just noticing this. I am not even trying to explain it to you or – more astonishingly – to me.
What I have been able to do in this week’s time and space is to halfway finish a pair of socks (winter is breathing down our necks here in this neck of the woods), finish a book (the making of, not the reading of) for my 16 year-old grandson, finish 4 mini-albums, draw in my sketchbook daily and get up early every morning to do yoga and meditate. And yet as I say this I realize that I am not in that space called driven doing. I am doing but I am also noticing, paying attention.
It is a puzzle that my journal has rarely beckoned to me and that I have even more rarely acknowledged that beckoning, but for the moment I am just noticing.
I suppose the only reason I am able to even share this is that I did in fact share some time writing in my journal and plan to do more journal time this weekend when we venture up the Bruce Peninsula for some very grateful together time.
It is Canadian Thanksgiving weekend and though I don’t celebrate the official holiday, there’s never a moment not to be grateful from the soles of my feet to the crown of my head.
These few words are more an invitation to you to practice self-compassion and to be grateful for this present moment … knowing that you are precious and perfect (with much room for improvement as many of our beloved teachers tell us) and that this moment is all we have. Time is fleeting…relish every moment!