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Musee des Beaux Arts by WH Auden

Posted by Diane Morrow on February 29, 2012 in Blog, Healing Poetry

“It’s like a whole universe unto itself. That’s one of the reasons I really love it.” I first learned about this poem from an art teacher. I was doing an independent study with her and she was trying to get me to see connections between writing and visual art. This was my first assignment—to look at this poem and the painting that had inspired it. The title of Auden’s poem refers to the museum in Brussels where he encountered a painting by Peter Breugel—Landscape with the Fall of Icarus. (The painting is now believed by the museum to be based on a lost original of Breugel’s.) In any case, here is a larger image: (Do you see the legs in the water? Down toward the right lower corner?) Here is the poem: About suffering they were never wrong, The old Masters: how well they understood Its human position: how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood: They never forgot That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree. In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on. I love those first four lines. About suffering they were never wrong. . . And, in the second stanza, I love the sense of being lifted off the ground—taken up into the sky to look at the landscape from a larger perspective. It’s what I remember from first encountering the poem and the painting, and I can feel it again now. A sense of being able to get that wider view—the whole landscape. There’s the disaster of course. Icarus. He has this opportunity to escape Crete with his father. He has these marvelous wings. There’s just that one bit of instruction from his father: don’t go too close . . . But then he does. He has to. It’s part of the myth. He flies too close to the sun, his wings melt, he falls. But in both the poem and the painting we’re not just aware of Icarus dropping through the sky. Nor only of Daedalus, his father, somewhere off-stage, watching horrified. In fact, they’re in the background. In the foreground is that ploughman, moving forward with the day’s work. And there’s a sense, too, of others in the landscape—they’re eating, or making supper, or having an ordinary conversation, or simply walking along. And then there are the ones on that boat—that expensive delicate ship—sailing calmly on. There’s all of that. And this other awareness too— The artist and the...

The Missing Piece Meets the Big O by Shel Silverstein

Posted by Diane Morrow on February 14, 2012 in Blog, Guest House, Healing Books

It’s not quite a poem. Shel Silverstein’s book is more like a fable, but with shapes instead of tortoises or rabbits. Perhaps you’ve read it at one time or another. For some reason I’ve missed it all these years and just recently was delighted to come across it. In the animated version I’ve embedded here, there’s this lovely piano music and it adds to the sense of whimsy and lightness as you watch it unfold—the journey of the missing piece. Sometimes fables can be heavy but this one doesn’t feel heavy to me. It has a wonderful lightness and humor and makes me want to read more of Silverstein than I already have. So much of this story I love—he gets the small moments just right—but I suppose my favorite moment is that moment right smack in the middle when the story shifts. I read recently that John Gardner once said there are only two kinds of stories: a person goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town. At the midpoint of Silverstein’s story—minute 3:09 in this video—“one came along who looked different.” It’s like the perfect meeting of both kinds of stories: a person goes on a journey and then a stranger comes along. At this point the entire story begins to shift. Something new begins to happen . . . I think this has something to do with the guest house–we welcome something or someone new–and then something new happens. Maybe . . . I hope you enjoy! _____________________________________________________ See also: Shel Silverstein’s site...

Listening for the Voice of the Body

Posted by Diane Morrow on February 8, 2012 in Blog

As with the previous task, developing the habit of writing, listening for the voice(s) of the body is a relatively new task I’ve added to the framework of one year of writing and healing. At the core of this task is using a process of writing and imagery to listen more closely to the voice of the body for the purposes of healing. It may be of particular relevance for those who are experiencing difficulty in the body, whether that be the difficulty of cancer or fibromyalgia or chronic pain or any illness that is located in the body. But these strategies also can be used to work with the mind. This is a room I plan to grow and develop. Meanwhile, the best resources I know for healing imagery are those developed by Martin Rossman, a physician who co-founded the Academy for Guided Imagery which is where I learned the process of using interactive guided imagery for healing some fifteen years ago. You can find his book and CD set here. These are similar to resources I used with patients back when I was practicing mind-body medicine. (A touch pricey if you get the CDs but worth considering if you’re drawn to imagery work–and a good deal if they end up being of use. I don’t get any kickback or profits by this link, or any links–if you’re wondering.) You can find a document on research he’s compiled on imagery and healing here. Photo is by Richard Palmer from the Wikimedia Commons: Morning Mist on Lake Mapourika, New Zealand...

Attention Must Be Paid, Part 2

Posted by Diane Morrow on February 1, 2012 in Blog, Healing Books

So this coincidence occurred. The very same day I was reading about attention, rereading what Sharon Begley says about attention in Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain, I also happened to be preparing to teach Death of a Salesman to my seniors. I looked for an excerpt online and downloaded it so we could read it as a preview to reading the entire play. The excerpt is a brief 4 pages. In it I was surprised to come across this, a speech by Willy Loman’s wife, Linda: I don’t say he’s a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person. Here then is the same line Sharon Begley uses as a heading to introduce the notion of attention in her book: attention must be paid. You may already be quite familiar with the play. In it Willy Loman, played by Dustin Hoffman in one of the film versions, is a salesman who has tried to live his version of the American Dream—be well liked, become successful through being well-liked, do whatever it takes to become well liked, and, perhaps most important of all, have well-liked and successful sons. It isn’t working out so well for him. He’s past mid-life and things are falling apart. He’s getting increasingly confused. He’s living in the past, talking to ghosts. In this context, the lines his wife says are so powerful: He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. What struck me in particular about this is the way it got me thinking of what it is we direct our attention to. We’re awash in sensory stimuli—billions of neurons potentially firing—and amidst this sea we’re always choosing where to direct our attention. I’d been thinking of attention as important in directing us toward what’s valuable in our environment—the jewels among the debris—what we want to hang on to and remember and learn. What I’d missed—and what this excerpt reminded me to consider—is the way we also have to direct our attention toward what is painful—toward those who are suffering—and toward those who perhaps have something to teach us in their suffering. The closer I look at Arthur Miller’s play the more I see it as brilliant. Willy Loman was trying to live by a myth he believed in—and the myth is failing him. He’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. Another thing I did with my seniors before starting the play was to ask, Should literature be studied in high school? Why or why not? Out of twelve or so small groups that gave mini-presentations, eleven were in favor of it. (The twelfth group wanted to deal more with song lyrics and films, which could be, depending on your definition, a kind of literature.) A thread running through nearly all of their presentations was the way that reading has the...

Attention Must Be Paid

Posted by Diane Morrow on January 24, 2012 in Blog, Healing Poetry, Healing Resources

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the act of paying attention and what that means. Last year around this same time I came across a cover article in Newsweek entitled Grow Your Mind. It was by Sharon Begley, author of Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain, a book on neuroscience and Buddhism that I read some years ago and liked quite a bit. This past week, I found myself going back to the article because of something I remembered her saying about the act of paying attention. I found this: One of the strongest findings in neuroplasticity, the science of how the brain changes its structure and function in response to input, is that attention is almost magical in its ability to physically alter the brain and enlarge functional circuits. Attention is almost magical. I went back to her book, and found a section in chapter 5: “Attention Must Be Paid.” In it she informs us that any moment, awash as we are in sensory experience, “billions of neurons are being tickled.” Billions! But only a fraction of those neuronal connections register or are stored, even briefly, in our memories. Which of the billion? The ones we direct our attention toward. “Attention,” she says, “pumps up neuronal activity.” It has physical effects. To support this physical effect of attention, she tells of an experiment with monkeys conducted some years ago by Mike Merzenich, a neuroscientist now at UCSF. For six weeks monkeys were simultaneously bombarded with 2 kinds of stimuli: a series of taps on their fingers and a series of sounds coming in through headphones. One group of monkeys was taught to attend to the physical taps through the use of a reward—juice—when the monkey noticed changes in the rhythm of the taps. A second group was taught to attend to the sounds by getting juice whenever they detected a change in the sound pattern. Both groups were receiving identical stimuli—taps and sounds—they were differentiated by which kind of attention was rewarded. When the monkeys’ brains were studied at the end of six weeks it was discovered that those who had attended to their fingers had a 2-3 fold expansion of that part of their brain cortex devoted to fingers—and no change at all in their auditory cortex—even though they’d been exposed to the sounds. The opposite group showed opposite effects—no change in the finger portion of their cortex and significant changes in their auditory cortex. Attention changed what was registered—and processed. Attention changed the physical substrate—and wiring—of the brain. It’s a remarkable finding. Begley quotes Mike Merzenich and his colleague, who make this bold statement in the wake of their findings: Experience coupled with attention leads to physical changes in the structure and future functioning of the nervous system. This leaves us with a clear physiological fact . . . moment by moment we choose and sculpt how our ever-changing minds will work, we choose who we will be the next moment in a very real sense, and these choices are left embossed in physical form on our material selves (159). His words could be a poem: Moment by moment We choose and sculpt Our ever-changing minds. We choose who we will be The next moment— These choices embossed On our selves. This boggles...

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