Sunday, August 30, 2009

the comfort of ritual

I've had occasion recently to use a beautiful hospital chapel as a place of repose and meditation. This particular chapel is full of light and modern wood and air with gorgeous renderings of Madonna and Child in different media. Tall pedestals hold glorious flowers--a bouquet of long stem roses were so lusciously red that I thought they were fake--and vases of wildflowers and branches that reach up to the sky lights.

The first time I walked in, Mass was just ending. Hospital employees were scattered throughout the chairs and the man behind me, 60ish, tall and with a sonorous voice, held a worn ivory rosary that he pressed into my hand as we shook wishing each other peace. The African minister spoke the familiar words in a lovely, musical cadence. And I was surprised at how comforting I found it, having been in rebellion against organized religion and it's restricting and outdated mores for as long as I've been conscious.

I began to sit in the chapel for the 15 minutes after mass, using it to sharpen my meditation against the people who would come in and make noise, the nasally chaplain squawking into his phone, the man with the bicycle and rustling papers, the nuns grouped in whispered conversation at the back. The intent of quiet, the hush of the large space, began to prevail upon me and I felt calmer, breathed a little more deeply, digested my hospital salmon a little better. I found the time I spent sitting alone and the time I spent sitting with the Mass goers peaceful, a natural way to lessen my anxiety.

What I've been focusing on, lately, in my recovery from depression and dysfunction, is modifying black and white thinking to take in and accept the gray areas, to use what's available instead of being in constant rebellion and judgment, to explore the giant well of compassion that one needs to navigate relationships, spirituality, life and this world in the way that I want to. Taking what works from rituals, taking comfort and strength from oft-told stories and liturgies, exploring the depth of quiet, of silence, of whispering nuns I think, will lead to a better understanding and compassion for myself and for others. This doesn't make me a true believer, but it makes for a much better practice toward becoming healthy. I like to think that that's what those who understand essential spirituality developed these rituals for.

When I was a teenager, my BFF, Edie, invited me to First Seder, the meal that begins Passover. We all read from the book, speaking the ancient words, eating the prescribed foods, grinning at each other through the candlelight. Her parents and her sister would pause and explain parts of the ritual that I didn't understand and I realized that sharing this practice was essential to their tradition. I've never forgotten the magic of it, how captivated I was by this living story.

I watched Ted Kennedy's memorial service yesterday in the Mission Church which sits so poignantly in the middle of a ghetto. The high and the low were on hand. Two Black women from Dorchester stood out in the rain for hours to pay their respects. Jesse Jackson let his hair get wet waiting for the hearse. Michelle O seemed to doze, momentarily, in the closeness of the non air conditioned church. And all those Kennedy children. I think all of us probably have some issues with the modern Catholic church, but you couldn't beat the spirituality and comfort of the Catholic liturgy to the family and friends gathered there--the inspired words of our Obama, Teddy's children and grandchildren, his priest, and the words of the Gospel intoned, speaking of what life exists after our time here on earth. It's really interesting to me that Ted was a devout Catholic but still espoused many positions that they opposed. Even one of his grandchildren lead a prayer for people, gay or straight.


So, maybe I'll go sit in a pew or two, breathe in the wood polish and whisper of incense, or turn my face to the multi-colored light refracted through the stained glass or listen to a cantor, or chant and meditate with Buddhists. Maybe I'll take that feeling with me when I contemplate sea and sky. Maybe quiet contemplation, through practice, will become something I can do in the midst of chaos. I'm hopeful things will change, and that I will grow into a more expansive spirit.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

brain

So, my way to deal with anxiety, deep dark feelings, sadness, depression and almost anything that could be distressing is to gather information, and oh, ain't the interweb a boon in this regard. Any unexplained crying jag can be successfully interrupted by searching for depression websites, unrelenting blues can be nipped by a youtube video of a visualized meditation, and getting help when I've exhausted my intellectualism is just a depression group listing away. So I went to my psycopharmacologist today with a list of depression groups and day programs and anti-depressants that I haven't tried yet and website printouts and a stubborn idea of how I came to be in this hole again and how to fix it. Like a tire. Or a cavity.

And she made me cry.

Well not really. She just suggested that maybe all that research and technology and intellectualization might be getting in the way of handling overwhelming feelings. Of acknowledging the pain. Well, fuck, no d'uh but I think what really gets me is the sameness of it all. I want a new spark, a new discovery...why it's the hypothalmus! or an excess of progesterone, or that sweet roll you ate last week! Or that giant hump on your back secreting seretonin inhibiting goop--your dowager hump is causing your depression! Huzzah! Let's remove it, get me some spanx, and I'll be all set.

Oy. the gospel of depression. "You have no reason to be depressed." "Depression is just an indication that something is wrong." "Depression is selfish." "Just pull yourself up by your own bootstraps." "I'd never take medication." "I don't want to be involved with someone who has to take pills to feel good." "You're just lazy." "You wouldn't be depressed if you'd just lose weight--got married--had a baby--got your toes done once a week." "You just can't handle life." Darn tootin'. I can't handle it when my emotional barriers fall and the angst comes pouring in sticking to everything and ruining the carpet. I can't handle it when my prism of perception is so off-kilter that I think my cat hates me. I have trouble when my self-conciousness is so profound that I feel invisible, not important enough to take up space. Waste of flesh.

And it's very, very, very tiring. All those commercials about how depression takes a physical toll are true at least in that regard. Don't you love those ads where a person in sweat clothes with limp hair lies on a couch--all this filmed through a grey filter--while their significant other, or child, or dog, sits nearby looking quizzical and lost--in one the husband is sitting at the kitchen table and you can see the lady on the couch in the foreground. (Hey hubby, get up and fix this woman a chocolate cake). And then, in one fell swoop, the filter lifts, the depressive swallows a pill (must be the size of a horse) and eureka! They are out in the technicolor world playing with their ecstatic child (on ritilan) and their dog (on canine prozac) or reaching across the table to hold thier husband's hand (because he's baked a chocolate cake!) And it's just that instant unless you have the eyes of a leopard and can read the tiny print that runs in the last nanosecond the commercial that says, "this shit may kill you or cause the contents of your ass to fall out and it'll definitely be a few more pain filled weeks on the couch until it works but we can't tell you that until you take it for a while, you human guinea pig."

I now have this cocoon of a cubical at work (temporarily while the annual cube shuffle takes place) and I had the lighting crew take out the flourescent, so it's now a dimly lit den, the computer screen casting blue shadows on my face, and sometimes around 2p in the afternoon, digesting an inadequate and acid inducing lunch, working on a spreadsheet for the nth time, fielding calls that should go to subscriptions, I could swear that I actually disappear. Poof. All that's left is are my glasses and a little pile of dust. Gassy dust.