Pen Pen and Ink by Alexander Milov from Ukraine
SEPTEMBER SONG
| Poem of the Week PotW.org Founded August 1996 |
Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)
September
THE golden-rod is yellow;
The corn is turning brown;
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down.
The gentian’s bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun;
In dusty pods the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun.
The sedges flaunt their harvest,
In every meadow nook;
And asters by the brook-side
Make asters in the brook,
From dewy lanes at morning
The grapes’ sweet odors rise;
At noon the roads all flutter
With yellow butterflies.
By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer’s best of weather,
And autumn’s best of cheer.
But none of all this beauty
Which floods the earth and air
Is unto me the secret
Which makes September fair.
‘T is a thing which I remember;
To name it thrills me yet:
One day of one September
I never can forget.
Dreaming in August: “THE ANALYST MUST BE LIKE A PAINTER.”
“If, then, the transformations that interest the analyst are those that nourish and grow the mind, it is important to know how to recognize them for at least two good reasons even when they are not evident. First, because only in this way is it possible to map the analytical field and intuit where to meet the patient; and, second, because the perspective that the unconscious has on things is always richer than that of the conscious since it is much more capable of thinking about infinity………The analyst must be like a painter. As a painter, he must know how to use his palette of colors, his emotions and dreams.”
Giuseppe Civitarese in TRANSFORMATIONAL PROCESSES IN CLINICAL PSYCHOANALYSIS(2019)
Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s (1995) statement that “It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams,” can be paraphrased to apply to psychoanalysis: analyses grow old and stale because the capacity for mutual dreaming between patient and analyst becomes arrested.
In Lawrence Brown’s TRANSFORMATIONAL PROCESSES IN CLINICAL PSYCHOANALYSIS (2019).
When Old Friends Die
Sometimes we haven’t visited with a friend for a long time, but we still think of them and remember them fondly. We decide to google them, wondering if they are on Facebook or Linked In or some other social media that might allow us to track them down. And sometimes, if we are of a certain age, we discover that they have died, and it’s very sad. This happened to me last night when I thought of an old friend who is (was) an artist. The last time I saw her I bought one of her paintings. And now through the very social media I had hoped would reunite us, I discover she is gone. Goodbye Marina Yashina, I am sorry to know you have passed. The world is less interesting without you.
DON’T BE A VICTIM OF LOVE
Betty Ford, the former (click here for her obituary) first lady of the US, who died in 2011, said something fascinating once about her experience of wanting to have a facelift for her ‘new life’ – once she had overcome cancer and addictions She said that many of her previous supporters felt angry with her about her wanting the face lift, supporting her more enthusiastically when she was fighting breast cancer and battling drug addiction. She believed many people prefer to support others when they are down, as opposed to when they are accomplishing goals, expanding their range of experience, or simply enjoying their lives. She thought that people prefer to root for the underdog, for victims, to whom they can feel superior, rather than to support others when they are strong – when they are flourishing and standing up for themselves. I think it’s more complicated than that. I think many people who have trouble supporting people who are thriving, have been raised by parents who had fears about no longer feeling needed, and fears of losing their small children’s affection and attention once their children began to grow up. Some people who have trouble supporting others when they are strong, have been raised by parents with borderline personality disorder, a condition that is related to extreme fears of abandonment. These people themselves were NEVER supported by their parents when they went outside of the parents own comfort zone. So they are only perpetuating the pattern that was passed down to them. It’s unconscious, and often automatic. Many people are not even aware they are doing it and when asked become defensive and accuse the other of being paranoid. It’s not intentional. Nonetheless it can hurt. Sometimes the pattern simply involves people who thrive on feeling needed by others, a very normal situation. We all like to to feel important, needed, and in less danger of being abandoned. Watching loved ones succeed can trigger feelings of fear that the person doing the growing will no longer need us, and that they might move away from us emotionally and no longer be available when WE need them! But whatever the reasons, and there are as many as there are people in the world, , if you find yourself ‘playing small’ in order to feel loved, to seem nonthreatening, to belong within your social group, think again. Crippling yourself solely for a relationship/s is not a good decision. In the long run it will bring you and the people around you down. Allow yourself to stand strong, and to find supporters who support you when you are strong, when you are vulnerable, when you are HOWEVER you might be feeling, who NEVER abandon you no matter WHAT! Those are the people you want in your court!! That way the range of your own and others emotional experience will grow, and growth and change is essential for staying in touch with a meaningful exciting life (as well as a way of avoiding depression).
POLITICAL DIFFERENCES
CAMPING IS MAGICAL-the air, the green, the sun, the stars. Try it for one night.
READING anyone?
I am reading this novel. I make myself read ten pages at a sitting; otherwise my mind wanders to my cell phone and i search for people who have liked my latest political post on Facebook (not good). What I like about this book is the author’s voice and here are some examples from page 36. The context is a young woman describing the world around her.
“So I left him to it, not wanting to shame chef out of his imagination, for there was an awful lot of shaming for playing, shaming for letting your guard down that went on in that place.”
“That was why everybody read minds-had to, otherwise things got complicated. Just as most people here chose not to say what they meant in order to protect themselves, they could also at certain moments, when they knew their mind was being read, learn to present their top most mental level to those who were reading it, whilst in the undergrowth of their consciousness, inform themselves privately of what their true thinking was about.”
PIANO ENERGY
Do you play a musical instrument? Do you want to learn how to play a musical instrument? Music involves traversing new neural pathways. Music is a language. It helps the spirit, it helps transcend trauma, and it supports the brain. Music is energy.
MOODY WEATHER
We have had a cold and rainy spring. Now and again the sun shines.
Like today for instance. What a shock it was to take the umbrella as usual
and not have to use it!.. Feelings are like the weather. They come and they go.
We like some of them, loathe others, and yet if we wait long enough they always give
way to change, to transformation, and life is tolerable, even enjoyable, at times. 
