Tilting At Windmills

Fall has arrived, and with it the coming of the dark.  For many, it's the beginning of this season rather than Jan.1st that marks the psychological start to a new Year.   It's a good time to take inventory.

A few nights ago, I had a terrible dream.  There had been a murder in an area I was vacationing, and when I came back from hiking to the home where I was staying, the door was ajar. The house was ok, but as I went to secure the back door, the murderer came in, and made clear his intent to harm me.  At some point I remembered what I did for a living, and started talking him down, buying time.  I'll spare you the long winded details, but what was interesting to me in the dream was that as we talked, and I listened to him with genuine curiosity and compassion, he grew smaller and smaller, and I realized I didn't need to fear him at all.

Jung says dreams come to us in service of of Psyche, as letters from the unconscious.  My webmaster pal Hal might say some dreams come in reaction to the pastrami we had for dinner.  This particular dream may have been symptomatic of too much CNN.  But since I'd seen Don Quixote in Ashland the previous weekend-- well, I saw a different possibility.  It seemed a representation of how our fears can become gigantic, hold us hostage.  How they can cause us much more trouble than they are actually capable of inflicting, with our help.  And about how when we face them, with curiosity and compassion, they shrink and lose their power.  I had a very similar dream five years ago.  As before, I'll take it as an invitation to look more closely at what fears might be holding me back in growth.

Resources:  For an interesting article on Jung, check out this week's New York Times Sunday magazine.  Find it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/magazine/20jung-t.html?emc=eta1

Update:  This morning's GT had a sweet article about the local Waldorf school's Michaelmas celebration, echoing the theme of this entry.   Second-grader slays his dragon!

Being the One Less Asshole You Want to See in the World

Warning to the sensitive: Salty Language Alert (a little late for that, though, isn't it?)

A few weeks ago, I was talking with a client about the many opportunities others offer for us to be a jerk. There's the shopping cart commando, blocking you at the grocery aisle. The clerk too busy talking on her cell phone to check you out. The person who curses you in traffic even though they caused the problem, or the friend that says something terribly hurtful. The client noted that at times like that, it seems reasonable to be rude. After all, you have a right to get mad when someone is being an asshole to you.

I agreed. I also agreed we had a right to a tension headache, high blood pressure, and a clenched jaw— but who wants them? What if, even when or even especially when others are assholes, we decide not to be? That would mean one less asshole in the room—and that's always a good thing.

And thus a new world movement was born: One Less Asshole, or OLA, baby, for short.

This isn’t just Pollyanna sentimentality. We’ve reached the world’s carrying capacity for jerkiness. It’s just not that big of a planet. And kindness is good for you. It can turn a situation around in amazing ways.  Even if it doesn’t, there’s still one less asshole in the room.

So do your part, for an hour or a lifetime. Become an OLA supporter. When someone is rude to you, don’t react. As Plato said, “Be kind. Each of us is fighting a hard battle”. It could be your reasonable response is enough to tip their balance in a positive direction. But at minimum, you don’t have to get tipped.

For more information and related links, join the movement at the OLA, BABY facebook group.

Back to the Stacks

More good reads from more good souls:
Maria Camillo's list (photographer, Secret Agent, gourmand)
to kill a mockingbird
the road
sirens of titan
cats cradle
jitterbug perfume
the godfather
love in the time of cholera
the exorcist
stranger in a strange land
cannery row
rebecca
lovely bones
great expectations
les miserables
another roadside attraction

Pete Heitzman's list (Bassist extraordinaire, gearhead, trivial pursuitist)
Their Eyes Were Watching God / Zora Neale Hurston
Salt: A World History / Mark Kurlansky
The Grapes Of Wrath / John Steinbeck
The Once And Future King / T.H. White
Letters From The Earth / Mark Twain
Great Expectations / Charles Dickens
Beloved / Toni Morrison
The Call of The Wild / Jack London
All You Need Is Ears / George Martin
Be Here Now / Ram Das
The New American Trout Fishing / John Merwin
The Education Of Oversoul Seven - Jane Roberts
Stones From The River / Ursula Hehi
Pan / Knut Hamsun
Siddhartha / Herman Hesse

Ann Marchant's List (storyteller, nutritional guru)
The Adventures of Danny Meadow Mouse/Thornton W Burgess
The Sneeches/Dr Seuss
The Hidden Staircase/Carolyn Keene
Tarzan of the Apes/Edgar Rice Burroughs
Tales of the South Pacific/James Michener
Exodos/Leon Uris
All Creatures Great and Small/James Herriot
Let's Eat Right to Stay Fit/Adelle Davis
Autobiography of Mark Twain / Samuel Clemmons
Outlander/ Diana Gabaldon
Small Wonder / Barbara Kingsolver
Guns, Germs & Steel / Jared Diamond
Power of Now / Eckhart Tolle
Loving What Is / Katie Byron
Stumbling on Happiness / Daniel Gilbert

Amy Rogers (indiana joneser of equador, monkey chaser, forest saver, surfer, soul sister)
Where the Sidewalk Ends/ Shel Silverstein
The Prophet/ Kahlil Gibran
House of Spirits/ Isabelle Allende (almost all of her's actually)
Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates/ Tom Robbins (absolutely all of his)
Lord of the Flies/ William Golding
Real Magic/ Wayne Dyer
Tropical Nature/ Adrian Forsyth
Into the Wild/ Jon Krakauer
The Beach/ Alex Garland
The Secret Life of Plants/ Tompkins and Bird
Breaking Open the Head/ Daniel Pinchbeck
Savages/ Joe Kane
Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret/ Judy Blume
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe/ CS Lewis
Out on a Limb/ Shirley MacLaine

Claire Montgomery (beautiful mama, more adjectives to be learned)
A Fable - Faulkner
Them - Joyce Carol Oates
Lolita - Nabokov
The Castle - Kafka
The Tall Book -- a kid's story book
The Good Earth - Buck
LaBas - JK Huysmans
Frankenstein - Shelley
A Distant Mirror: the calamitous 14th century - Tuchman
The Idiot - Dosteovsky
God - Jack Miles
Salem's Lot - Stephen King
It Can't Happen Here - Sinclair Lewis
The Diary of Anne Frank
The Crossing - Cormac McCarthy
The Giving Tree - Shel Silverstein

Marah Cook (world traveler, style queen, boggle maniac)
Siddhartha/ Herman Hesse
100 years of solitude/ Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Where the red fern grows
Where the sidewalk ends/ Shel Silverstein
The Butter Battle Book/ Dr. Seuss
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept/ Paulo Coelho
The Alchemist/ Paulo Coelho
Ishmael/ Daniel Quinn
Heart of Darkness/ Joseph Conrad
The Moral Life/ Louis Pojman
Dinotopia
To Kill A Mockingbird/ Harper Lee
Omnivore's Dilemma/ Michael Pollan
Cat's Cradle/ Kurt Vonnegut
Le Petit Prince/ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Stephen Elsemore's List (poeting partner, Beat Brother, Hemingway/Kerouac/James Dean amalgam)
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Anna Karenina - Tolstoy
E.E. Cummings Complete Poems
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men - James Agee
The Brothers K - David James Duncan
Ragtime - E.L. Doctorow
Corelli's Madolin - Louis De Bernieres
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
The Education of Little Tree - Forrest Carter
The Periodic Table - Primo Levi
Winnie the Pooh -A.A. Milne
Bel Canto - Ann Patchett
Morgan's Passing - Anne Tyler

Boog Highberger (Dadist, Mayoral guy, Mail Art Man)If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler/Italo Calvino
Catch-22/Joseph Heller
Trout Fishing in America/Richard Brautigan
Cat's Cradle/Kurt Vonnegut
The Illustrated Man/Ray Bradbury
Snake’s Nest/Ledo Ivo
In His Own Write/John Lennon
The Lover/Marguerite Duras
Amerika/Franz Kafka
In Patagonia/Bruce Chatwin
Erotism/Georges Bataille
Grist for the Mill/Baba Ram Dass
The Life of the Theater/Julian Beck
Open Secret/Rumi
The Three Christs of Ypsilanti/Milton Rokeach

A Few (Dozen) Good Reads

This is a long one, but there are some real gems in here. A friend of mine asked me to participate in a tag to list 15 books, in a few minutes, that made an impression and stuck with me. My few minute list was more like thirty-- but here it is. I sent the tag to some friends, and noticed that a lot of theirs were on my longer list. But there were also a few I'd never heard of, and now will be checking out. Feel free to add your list. It's been wonderful to see familiar and new titles in these.
I want to be clear my (and your) list isn't perfect-- I've since decided there are others that would bump some off. But do it quick, don't give much thought. I've included the replies I've received thus far from those who ok'd sharing them and will add others as they come in.

Traveling Mercies-- Annie Lamott Ruminations on faith by a Christian who's not afraid to use the F word
Love is a Dog from Hell-- Charles Bukowski Beat poetry
Franny and Zooey-- JD Salinger Family in all its idiosyncratic glory
A Year of Living Biblically--AJ Jacobs Esquire writer's attempt to follow the bible, literally and ludicrously, for 365 days
Yes Man-- Danny Wallace Another experimental year-- saying yes to everything-- funny and poignant
Mushrooms Demystified-- David Arora The be-all, end-all guide to everything fungal
Mr. Bloomfield's Orchard-- Nicholas P. Money A more British take on mycology
Therapy-- David Lodge Hilarious coming-of-middle-age novel
Be Here Now-- Ram Das This was my introduction to mindfulness and present moment, way way back in the day
The Lorax-- Dr. Suess Environmentalism for all ages
In and Out of the Garbage Pail-- Fritz Perls Found this in my dad's bookshelf when I was 12; decided to be a therapist
The Incredible Lightness of Being-- Milan Kundera Beautifully written novel by a great Czech author
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest-- Ken Kesey Local hero Kesey also influenced my career in mental health work
The Collected Works of ee cummings He kills me. Still.
Charlotte's Web-- E. B. White EB White was also an environmentalist, and a very wise man, who wrote of a splendid pig.

Now here are some from fellow travelers of the page, copied/pasted:

Aaron Zee's list
Leopold's Ghost (reading it a second time)
The Jungle
Slaughterhouse Five
Seabiscut
Portnoy's Complaint
Shosha
A Bend In The River
No Longer At Ease
The River
The World According To Garp
The Stranger
Murder in Amsterdam
The Crossing
Poisonwood Bible
A Thousand Acres
Candide

Juliana Zee's list
The bluest eye. Toni Morrison
black like me
Traveling mercies
Fall of the house of usher
girl with the pearl earring
bell jar
bastard out of carolina
an unquiet mind
diary of anne frank
wind in the willows
whats the matter with kansas
sociopath next door
for better or worse
catcher in the rye
the forest people

Ike Reser's list
A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT
THE RIGHT STUFF
DOROTHY DAY (BY ROBERT COLES)
COLD MOUNTAIN
SALVATION ON SAND MOUNTAIN
THE COURTING OF MARCUS DUPREE
THE CHALLENGE OF JESUS
EAT THIS BOOK
UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN
THE OMNIVORE'S DILEMMA
IN DEFENSE OF FOOD
ALL THE KINGS MEN
O JERUSALEM (COLLINS AND LAPIERRE)
LORD OF THE RINGS
U2 (FLANAGAN)
more to come...
Jana

The Grasshopper and The Ant

Remember the story of the ant and the grasshopper?

It was summer, glorious summer. After a cold wet winter, Grasshopper was delighted to be spending the day singing and fiddling, hanging out with his pals, and enjoying spur of the moment sunset hikes up Mary's Peak. He loved laying in his hammock watching the moon rise, and sleeping through the hot parts of the day in the shady cool. He loved hanging out at the farmer's market, sampling the seasonal produce. He loved gleaning at town picnics. And he never turned his kid's requests for a trip to the river to take a dip, or a walk to the park to pitch a ball.

With pity in his eyes, he watched Ant, scurrying back and forth gathering food for the winter. What was the point of wasting such rare and beautiful days on nothing but work? "Hey!", he teased as she heaved past, lugging some morsel to her tunnel. "Stop already! Smell the roses!"

Ant glared at him in disgust. "SOME of us are busy. Some of us have work to do. Winter will come, and then where will you be?" Grasshopper just fiddled a tune and patted his round belly.

Winter did come, along with the drowning rains and then the cold. Grasshopper was fine for a bit, living off the fat he'd packed on during the summer lazy days. But after a while, he grew hungry, and there was nothing to eat. He went looking for Ant.

"Ant", he said, "share some of that food. You have so much."

"Forget it, buster. While you fiddled, ate and lazed, I worked to have food for these hard times. I left my babies to find it. I forsook the contra dances. I missed the sunsets you said were so fantastic on Mary's Peak. I didn't even get to see my kid's baseball games, because I had important work to do. And if you think your lazy butt will profit from all my sacrifice, you got another think coming."

At the end of this soliloquy, Ant keeled over from a sudden and massive coronary.
Grasshopper fully intended to mourn the moment, but was too weak from hunger, and passed out instead.

The moral of the story is:

MODERATION IN ALL THINGS. Including work and play.

Here's to balance--
Jana

Plays Well With Others

"Life is Mysterious
Don't Take it Serious"
(quote on an old rubber stamp)
In several of these blogs, I've talked about the inevitability of suffering.
Enough of that. Let's talk about the power of playfulness.

You may have heard the expression that "Kid's play is kid's work." Play is where kids learn to deal with roles and other people, fine tune communicating their ideas and needs, exercise their bodies and widen their imaginations. Why would we want to give that up as adults? Yet many groan-ups (yes, that was deliberate) see life as one unending have-to-do list. I'm not advocating shirking responsibilities, though I am admittedly expert at it. I'm encouraging righting priorities. Play, laughter, positive thinking, joy have their own rafts of research supporting the idea that a good time is good for you. Laughter really IS good medicine-- it reduces stress hormones that havoc the body and soul. Researchers in Loma Linda found cortisol and epinephrine levels drop, while human growth hormones and beta-endorphins rise when people experience, or even anticipate big fun. Other research shows laughter improves relationships, immunity, increases oxygenation, is cardioprotective, and helps us be more alert and creative.

At least twice a year, I go away to play with my pals at WAR (women's art retreat), where we hold theme dinners in dress up (wedding in Vegas, Beauty Pageant, Circus Night) and write ridiculous bits. For years I participated in an on-line salon where we exchanged thematic haikus, limericks, tom swifties and wrote bad country songs. There's lots of ways to make the ridiculous sublime. A few minutes a day softens the heart and sharpens the brain.

A few links for you:
Laughing Yoga
Laughing Yoga was started by a physician in India who to promote the healing benefits of laughter for the body and soul. Here John Cleese provides a 3 minute intro to the practice.

Global Belly Laugh Day
We're a few months off from the official Day (Jan. 24th), but we can start practicing. This site is also offers a wealth of research and related links.

Positivity research and tools for its practice can be found at Dr. Segilman's site on Authentic Happiness

Want to shop local in Corvallis?
Our own Happy Guru Jean Bonifas offers Right-Brain Fitness and more and is a member of the World Laughter Tour

Even if all the movies that week are dramas or documentaries, a look around the eclectic decor at Darkside Cinema holds grins for most of us. While you're there, pick up one of owner Paul Turner's books of essays or a Prancing Lavender Bunny T-shirt sporting one bad-ass buff biker bunny.

Grassroots Books has the latest McSweeney's collection of public weirdness, humorist/scientist Mary Roach's sex research book "BONK" and other sources of inspiration.

Dancing like a maniac always cheers me up, and there are plenty of opportunities at River Rhythms, contra dances, and our summer festivals (Cherry Poppin' Daddies this Friday!).

And don't forget next week's daVinci Days! The Saturday morning kinetic sculpture parade always brings smiles.

Watch the website for announcements about a Play Weekend during the dark days of winter. We'll need it.

Now, go out there and don't come back until you've had some fun.

Yrs,
Jana

You are not your mood.

One day last week I woke up cranky. Might have stayed up too late, might have been the moon. Maybe I had a bad dream. Whatever the reason, I woke up irritated, and projected it on everything. A series of regular delights and irritations followed:
some things I wanted to happen, didn't, even though I did my part. I had a nice breakfast with a colleague. Someone talking on a cell phone nearly ran me over. I found a present from a stranger. Point being: things happen. Every day. Good things, bad things. But from my half-empty-glass state, my attention wanted to focus on the bad.
That morning, I noticed my mood and decided I would make a real effort to act reasonably even though I don't feel reasonable. In my therapy practice, I talk a lot about acceptance, as in the Serenity Prayer: deal with reality you can't change, change what you can, be smart enough to figure the difference. I figured I may not be in charge of my mood. Feelings aren't facts; they rise up when they want. But how we act on them-- we can take charge of that. It wasn't easy. I wanted to snap at people (and I did, time to time, before I caught it), but for the most part I was intentionally kind and patient, even though some rascally part of me wasn't motivated to that. I want to be clear that I was not denying my mood or feelings. Rather, I was choosing my behavior, on the premise the mood would pass. I thought about the economist I quoted in an earlier blog who noted our future self often would prefer we make different choices than our present self desires. I practiced, in short, being a grown up and doing the hard but right thing.
It was simple, but it was eye opening. The next day, when I inexplicably woke in a good mood, I was able to assess my choices of the day before and feel ok about them.
There's a story I sometimes tell, about a king who was terribly melancholy and searching for a cure. He hired and fired various priests, sages, doctors and wizards. Nothing worked. After a time, he was presented with a ring and told it would do the trick. Inscribed on the ring: "This too will pass."
That's the deal with moods. In his book Don't Sweat the Small Stuff , the late Richard Carlson noted that we wake up different days in completely different moods, despite the same circumstances we had the day before. No sense reworking your life-- or your reactions, or behaviors-- on something so transient.
Good stuff, bad stuff--this too, will pass.
Jana

Big love, big heart

Click the title!
"through music, we can get enlightenment."

Be luminous! The day is over.

Title generated by a robotic poetrix-- but it's not half-bad, especially for a Monday evening mantra.
Except I am lucky. I have a job, and I love my job. I realize not everyone is in that happy boat.
I remember the dip of the mid to late 80's-- people walking away from their 18% mortgages, plants shutting or cutting down left and right. I was working in Southeast Texas. Many of my clients had worked for years on the rigs or at refineries, where no degree at all, not even a high school diploma, was needed to make a family wage and have health insurance. When the Savings and Loans failed, those same folks couldn't even find minimum wage jobs. We didn't wait to see how things turned out. We left our newer, Lone-Star-State scale Texas home on the market for a year and a half at much well under 100K in a town that had boomed, then busted on oil.
The good thing about getting old is watching history rewind and unwind. The market goes up, the market goes down. If you live long enough, or die at the right time, it doesn't matter so much. In a book called "Astonish Yourself! 101 Experiments in the Philosophy of Everyday Life", this is illustrated in No. 55: Invent Headlines. Author Roger-Pol Droit encourages the reader to write an imagined front page full of political changes, scientific advances, crime stories, celebrity tidbits and natural disasters. At the end of the entry, he notes: "Killing time is not the point of this experiment, which is rather to prove to yourself how the flood of news never ceases to repeat itself, and how it is always the same. It shows neither progress or novelty...only confirm(s) that there is nothing less new than the news. All it shows, interminably, is the endless misfortune of man."
That seems rather disheartening. But for every sorrow there are also joys, and guess what? Neither are permanent. There is something to be said for being an observer rather than interpreter of events. I like the old Chinese story about the farmer, out in the field. One day he finds a stray horse. His neighbor tells him, "You are so lucky! Now you have help for harvest." The farmer nods, and says, "Maybe, maybe not." The next day, the farmer's son attempts to ride the wild horse, and is bucked off and breaks both legs. The neighbor comes over to comfort the farmer, saying, "Bad luck! Now your son can't help you with the harvest!" The farmer replies, "Maybe. Maybe not." A day later, the dynasty in power comes searching for any able-bodied young men to go on a suicide mission. The farmer's son is out of commission. The neighbor says, "So lucky for you!" And again the farmer replies: "Maybe, maybe not."
We don't know the ending. We can't know. We can make meaning out of what is offered. We can do the serenity prayer-- change what we can, accept what we can't. We can do, as my grandmother used to say, the best we can do, and that's all we can do. But the answer to most of our worrisome thoughts is: Don't know. While we wait-- try not to suffer in advance.
Jana

What's At Hand

I made a good mental health decision and spent a weekend at the beach and another in the garden. While there are a few hundred other tasks begging for attention, nothing soothes my soul like some time away from things electronic. At the beach I walked for hours, tracked a cougar tracking a deer, and shut up the Chattering Monkey for a bit.
A friend told me about attending a lecture on American Malaise; the speaker talked about the propensity of Nature Deficit Disorder. I'll try to hunt down and credit the speaker. Meanwhile, if you're cranky and preoccupied, try a dose of the woods or beach in spring.

Spring

Things are starting to bust open here in Oregon. Spring reminds us that even after we've been asleep a bit, there is plenty in us that is beautiful, and waiting.

I was premature about the unraveling fear knot. I've turned off the radio alarm because I don't want to wake up to more bad news. The doomsayers are out in full force. Many folks I know-- clients as well as friends-- are dealing with layoffs. What I also notice, but seems to get less press, is that some people are being more patient with themselves and each other, and expanding in their generosity as a result. For some of us, the fear of what will be is a bad story that isn't even happening yet-- but we suffer in advance. I am reminded of an exchange writer Anne Lamott had with her Jesuit friend Father Tom. "How are we going to get through all this craziness?" There was silence for a moment. "Left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe," he said.

When we suffer in advance, suffer for what we fear but has not yet occurred,we suffer needlessly. If it doesn't happen, we suffer for nothing. If it does, we suffer twice. Keep present, keep walking. Use this time to practice kindness, and patience. Learn how to receive if you need to, and give if you can. And let what is asleep in you, but beautiful, open.

Jana

If you're going to break, break open.

Are you starting to feel the knot of fear unravel, or grow tighter?
There's a lot of bad news out there. It's easy to react by holding on more fiercely to our divisions. I attended a beautiful talk this week on reconcilation by Rabbi Benjamin Barnett. He started with the poem at the end of this post. It beautifully addresses how fear closes our hearts.

We're all in this together. Be kind to one another.
Some seed for your journey can be found at
www.loveandforgive.org

The Place Where We Are Right

by Yehuda Amichai

From the place where we are right
Flowers will never grow
In the spring.

The place where we are right
Is hard and trampled
Like a yard.

But doubts and loves
Dig up the world
Like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
Where the ruined
House once stood.

Welcome 2009

As we ready to put 2008 to bed, spend a bit of time figuring out what you're ready to release, and what you want to invite in to your life in 2009. Each day we have the opportunity to fine-tune our lives. May this new year bring you many blessings in love and growth.

---Jana

Let It Snow, Let It Slow

Mother Nature threw me an unexpected gift this week: an enforced slowdown. The Wintry Mix that has coated the roads kept me out of the car the past three days. After 15 years in the temperate valley (and near a decade in SE Texas before that), I no longer trust my ice maneuvering.Walking was no easy feat either. I opted for the grass when possible, avoiding the glazed sidewalks. Still, it was a very slow and careful stroll . I had to look at the ground, I had to go slow, I had to shut up the Chattering Monkey and concentrate on one foot in front of the other. I noticed things I never would have seen at my usual break-neck pace: rabbit tracks in the snow, the colors in the ice. I arrived each day relaxed and happy, grateful for things I ordinarily don't think about: heat in my office. Gloves. Making it across Monroe street without falling down. My 20 year old boots, still waterproofed after all.There's lots going on in the world right now to scare us. I've stopped using my clock radio to wake up, tired of the daily litany of economic horror stories. I don't deny the very real hardships, but I find that slowing down and being grateful for what ISN'T broken keeps the fear weasel from the door, and increases happiness. Research supports that. What we feed, grows. A replicated study found that people who kept a daily gratitude journal for 6 weeks not only were happier at the end of that period than the control group, but remained so six months later-- even when they were no longer keeping the journal. It's a simple but profound notion: we find what we look for in the world.

Worth Watching: Rachel Getting Married

In the early 90's, I taught social work teacher in a small Texas college. I tried to prepare students to get personal with clients by giving them first hand experience in having their psychological closets scrutinized. Seniors were required to do a family genogram (psychological map) of three generations in their family. Each semester before the papers were due, a parade of nervous students came to my office, afraid I would think their family crazy. Leo Tolstoy wrote that all happy families are happy in the same way, whereas unhappy families are all unhappy in their own way. I'm not sure I agree. To nearly a one, families deal with disease, dysfunction or one of a hundred kinds of very real suffering that is part of the human experience.
The award winning Rachel Getting Married is a realistic look at one family's suffering and subsequent (though imperfect) redemption. The haunted and luminous Anne Hathaway plays a junkie home from rehab to see her sister married off. As she jockies to resume her position as the family screw-up, she illustrates how one can be 9 months drug-free and yet far from recovered.
There's no dearth of family-dysfunction pics to be had. What I appreciated about this film was the authentic portrayal of damaged, suffering people doing the best they can, and doing better as they come to consciousness. Unlike typical Hollywood films, the characters here are not good guys or bad guys, but three dimensional beings acting out of their limitations with as much grace as they can muster. Sometimes, like all of us at our worst, not much grace is evident at all.
My theoretical foundation for understanding human behavior is summed up in three words: People are messy. We all hold the capacity for loving and being loved, as well as for wounding and being wounded. When we are acting out, it is usually subconscious and not necessarily related to whoever happened to be nearby at the time. We walk around with our sore spots not even knowing some are there until someone bumps into one or reminds us they exist. That's what therapy is all about-- figuring out why we are stuck repeating our history by understanding it better. We learn to forgive others, and ourselves, for being imperfect and semi-conscious. And as we wake up and learn to tolerate the discomfort we have been running around trying to avoid, we increase our capacity for love.
Rachel Getting Married is now playing at the Darkside in Corvallis. While you are there, grab another dose of wisdom by picking up a copy of owner Paul Turner's fantastic collection of tales and truths, "Prancing Lavender Bunnies".

Xenophobia

2008, a coffeeshop blog--
I'm having a cuppa and enjoying the wifi at a little cafe' in Topeka, Kansas, in between a couple of workshops I'm doing on communication and diversity. The topic is timely: on the heels of a historic election, after a particularly mean-spirited political season, during a period of national anxiety. Americans have been drawing lines vigorously. On both the personal and political levels, we tend to batten down when we're scared, and we get scared when we think our piece of the pie is possibly up for grabs. And when we're scared, we often act direct from our reptilian (read: fight of flight) brains. It's not pretty, but it's pretty common.

When my sister drove me into Topeka from the airport, we made an immediate pilgrimage to the Brown vs. the Board of Education historic site. It’s the only national park site named after a court case. Here in 1954, in the heart of the heartland, the legal segregation of schools by race was ended. I wasn't even born when 7 year old Linda Brown's father sought permission to let his daughter attend her all white neighborhood school, rather than make the mile-long trek across dangerous railroad tracks to the black school. The decision was made in the mid-50's, but years of dissent, marches and bravery were needed before integrated school were mostly a reality. Mostly, because racism persists in subtle and not-so-subtle ways in institutions and in community.

Four months ago I had the privilege of a viewing an exhibition of Civil Rights memorabilia at the High Museum in Atlanta. I was disturbed and deeply moved by the photographs of Rosa Parks’ arrest, nonviolent protesters being hosed and beaten by police, and the little girl walking through a path of angry, threatening grown men scared because she wanted to go to a white school. I was astounded by the courage of so many with so little, and how they changed history.

How do we mend our separations? At the workshop I gave today on diversity, I talked about how we are all viewing the world through our tiny lens, thinking we are seeing the truth. A participant asked how one could enlarge the view. My immediate answer-- stretch your vision. We're scared of what we don't know. And when we align ourselves with like minds, we reinforce our belief that we are the norm. Research on dealing with fear tells us the best way to reduce it through exposure. The philosopher Kierkegaard said it as well-- to grow, move toward what makes you anxious. Expand, don't contract.

We may not all have the same experiences, but we experience the same primal events, of love, fear, suffering. There is much more that unites us than separates us. Jung teaches us that there is nothing we can perceive we have not experienced on some level, so even that we reject has somehow, sometime, been a part of us. When we open up to new ideas and experiences, and seek to understand, we can't help but grow.
--Jana

Although the exhibit at the High has closed, you can read about it here

Lighten Up

The days are darkening here in Corvallis, and it won't be long until what little slanty sun could shine will be thwarted by rain clouds. If you notice yourself getting sleepy, lethargic, or gloomy, you're in good company. Seasonal changes in light have a very real and physiologic effect on mood and energy. Our brains and bodies are set up by evolution to react to long light days with increased energy (work those fields! harvest!) and to cooler, dark days by slowing the system down (sleep! now sleep some more!). Our bodies would be perfectly happy going to bed not long after the sun sets. That probably worked well in days before widespread use of artificial light and 24/7 availability of food and things to do-- but it's unrealistic for most of us now. The result in the split between rapid societal evolution and much slower physiologic evolution can be sleep, energy and mood disorders.

A light box can address both typical and more drastic results of the effects of waning light on the brain and body. Light boxes produce effects similar to sun exposure and can be used in the morning to assist in wakefulness and mood regulation and in the afternoon to increase energy. Exposure is typically between 15-30 minutes at a regular time each a.m. or early afternoon. To be effective, the light source should be at or above face level, with eyes open (although it is not necessary or recommended to look directly at the light)and within 15-30 inches of the light source. Specific instructions vary according to model. There is a great deal of evidence of effectiveness in the use of light boxes to treat seasonal affective disorder, a type of depression linked to low winter light.

Because they have a real--and sometimes profound-- effect, they are best used according to specific directives based on the particular mood or sleep issues one is experiencing. In some cases, use can increase hypomania (agitation, excess energy, and insomnia among other symptoms). Usually a reduction in the exposure time is enough to remedy that. However, I encourage persons considering light therapy to consult their physician or mental health practitioner and have some sort of system in place to track results. Because it isn't completely clear that such intense light exposure is safe over long periods for eyes, light therapy isn't for everyone and the risks as well as benefits should be explored.

I'm a chronically terrible sleeper, and an even worse waker. I noticed that the best sleep I have is when I am camping and rise and go to sleep with the summer sun. Since that time frame is typically also when I rise and wake in the winter, I have found great benefit in the use of a dusk/dawn simulator. The device I use attaches to my bedside lamp and is programmed to turn the (100 watt full spectrum) light down very gradually in the evening and then up again gradually in the morning. I use it from October to May and find I don't even need an alarm clock, as the dawning light creates a gentle alertness over time. I wake up refreshed instead of startled. Research suggests that gradual lightening stimulates a chemical cue to awakening, just as gradual darkness stimulates a chemical cue to drowsiness. I rarely use a light box since I've bought my dawn simulator. They aren't cheap-- mine was $150-- but I find it a bargain for the help it's provided me with sleep and waking.

Meanwhile, if it's a nice day, get out there! I recently read that the average American is getting LESS than the 20 minutes of sun a day needed by the body to manufacture adequate vitamin D. My MD tells me northwesters are often deficient, and the government just doubled the recommended RDA.

For more information on light and mood, see the wonderful website of Dr. James Phelps at www.psycheducation.org. Dr. Phelps is a psychiatrist who has done extensive literature review on the subject of mood disorders and light therapy.