Pain and suffering is universal, but the ways in which human beings recover from hardship and adversity differ signficantly. Nowadays people turn to drugs, alcohol, antidepressants - anything that provides instant gratification - in order to feel release. But these methods are band-aids for deeper emotional sores, for such problems often require greater attention and motivation in order to recover fully. If you have ever studied art history, religion, or medieval literature, you will know that traditional artistic paradigms attributed remedial powers to divinity, the cosmos, or the combined forces of both: that is, humans pled both to Mother Mary and Mother Nature for release from suffering. Of course, Religion and Nature have competed for superior remedial status throughout time, yet both themes have remained in artistic, poetic, and literary depictions to this day.
Now, I'm not much of a believer in things I cannot see. I grew up going to church, was baptized and confirmed an Episcopalian, but never really carved myself a strong foothold in religion. As a sheltered child, I had no idea why most people turned to religion. I simply sang hymns and memorized prayers, with no true understanding of the reasons I was doing either. The arrival of adolescence, however, shook my entire existential foundation. Protected or not as a child, we all inevitably confront our own mortality. This realization of finality can send anyone into the comforting arms of religion, especially with the promise of immortal life after death, and the sparkling image of Heaven to keep all of our fears at bay. I suddenly understood why people flocked to the same austere building every Sunday. Images of God and Heaven helped people through their pain, through their own existential suffering, through their daily hardships. To them, it was okay to hurt now, for they would eventually be released from total suffering and rewarded in the afterlife. Trust me, I felt comforted by this idea of an afterlife for a short time as well, but couldn't fully wrap my mind around the idea of faith. That freedom from death mandated an unwavering belief in something invisible was not a prescription to which I could subscribe.
And so I entered high school and college, open to alternative avenues for tolerating the fear of death and the pain of daily hardship and insecurity. I took a poetry course one summer and found great inspiration in the poetry of William Wordsworth. His words truly opened my eyes to the power of Nature to heal and relieve. I want to share with you one of my favorite poems that he wrote in 1804, "Daffodils":
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
I began to believe in the spiritual and regenerative qualities of nature. I realized that simply sitting outside on a beautiful sunny day, walking through a garden, sitting on the beach, hiking up a mountain, or looking up at a night sky full of stars could do wonders for the human body, mind, and spirit. If I were feeling down, worried, anxious, I could retreat to nature physically (or, like Wordsworth, only in my mind) and feel comforted. There seemed to exist such simplicity, beauty, energy, and innocence in the universe. This world order could harness and ground the ugliness, unruliness, and complexity of my thoughts; could deflate my self-importance and make me feel like a humbled creature, born to appreciate life instead of examining and criticizing it so intensely. Seeing, smelling, and hearing the natural world was more comforting to me in my despair than envisioning the Heavenly delights that awaited me after death.
But we all know that nature is not always kind. For every sunny day, clear sky, and cool breeze, there is an equal amount of rain, frost, ice, and snow. Which makes me wonder: do the torrential, unpredictable, and potentially fatal elements of nature impede healing and recovery for human beings? Or can humans reach grander emotional, spiritual, philosophical, or artistic heights after losing their footing over a jagged precipice? Perhaps the allure of nature for the sufferer is not always the protective shade of a large oak tree, but the destructive throes of a storm. Nature's promise of danger or certain death has the ability to thrust an individual not into the arms of religion, but humbly alongside the organisms that depend upon rain in order to grow, evolve, and survive. Sunshine, rain, joy, and pain are the essences of existence and longevity - we must experience, not escape, from both. If we constantly retreat from hardship or stormy weather in our minds, we will never fully grow. Maybe if we turn not to Heaven or Daffodils, but to the Eye of the Storm in our time of need, we will emerge cleansed and with renewed zest for life.
One article that summed this idea up well for me was featured in the September 2008 Smithsonian magazine. In popular conversations about Seattle, most people will tell you that the constant rain brings about bouts of depression and unhappiness. The writer Charles Johnson, on the other hand, believes that the stormy and gray Seattle environment actually fosters creativity, inspiration, and spiritual awakening:
"...Art, philosophy and spiritual contemplation...are enriched by the misty, meditative mood invoked by the Northwest's most talked about feature—rain—and the wet evening air that causes portions of the geography to gleam and hazes other parts, sfumato, from November through February, in an atmosphere that is a perfect externalization of the brooding inner climate of the creative imagination...With weather like this, it's easy to stay inside, reading and writing, until spring."
My question to you all is, what brings you out of yourself? Is it sunshine or rain? Are you healed more by the rays of the sun or the tear-shaped drops of rain? Do you find inspiration looking out your window at a cloudless sky or a foggy mist? Does your state of mind need to be reflected in nature, in order to feel comforted?
Hope your week has been going well :)
Love, AT
Now, I'm not much of a believer in things I cannot see. I grew up going to church, was baptized and confirmed an Episcopalian, but never really carved myself a strong foothold in religion. As a sheltered child, I had no idea why most people turned to religion. I simply sang hymns and memorized prayers, with no true understanding of the reasons I was doing either. The arrival of adolescence, however, shook my entire existential foundation. Protected or not as a child, we all inevitably confront our own mortality. This realization of finality can send anyone into the comforting arms of religion, especially with the promise of immortal life after death, and the sparkling image of Heaven to keep all of our fears at bay. I suddenly understood why people flocked to the same austere building every Sunday. Images of God and Heaven helped people through their pain, through their own existential suffering, through their daily hardships. To them, it was okay to hurt now, for they would eventually be released from total suffering and rewarded in the afterlife. Trust me, I felt comforted by this idea of an afterlife for a short time as well, but couldn't fully wrap my mind around the idea of faith. That freedom from death mandated an unwavering belief in something invisible was not a prescription to which I could subscribe.
And so I entered high school and college, open to alternative avenues for tolerating the fear of death and the pain of daily hardship and insecurity. I took a poetry course one summer and found great inspiration in the poetry of William Wordsworth. His words truly opened my eyes to the power of Nature to heal and relieve. I want to share with you one of my favorite poems that he wrote in 1804, "Daffodils":
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
I began to believe in the spiritual and regenerative qualities of nature. I realized that simply sitting outside on a beautiful sunny day, walking through a garden, sitting on the beach, hiking up a mountain, or looking up at a night sky full of stars could do wonders for the human body, mind, and spirit. If I were feeling down, worried, anxious, I could retreat to nature physically (or, like Wordsworth, only in my mind) and feel comforted. There seemed to exist such simplicity, beauty, energy, and innocence in the universe. This world order could harness and ground the ugliness, unruliness, and complexity of my thoughts; could deflate my self-importance and make me feel like a humbled creature, born to appreciate life instead of examining and criticizing it so intensely. Seeing, smelling, and hearing the natural world was more comforting to me in my despair than envisioning the Heavenly delights that awaited me after death.
But we all know that nature is not always kind. For every sunny day, clear sky, and cool breeze, there is an equal amount of rain, frost, ice, and snow. Which makes me wonder: do the torrential, unpredictable, and potentially fatal elements of nature impede healing and recovery for human beings? Or can humans reach grander emotional, spiritual, philosophical, or artistic heights after losing their footing over a jagged precipice? Perhaps the allure of nature for the sufferer is not always the protective shade of a large oak tree, but the destructive throes of a storm. Nature's promise of danger or certain death has the ability to thrust an individual not into the arms of religion, but humbly alongside the organisms that depend upon rain in order to grow, evolve, and survive. Sunshine, rain, joy, and pain are the essences of existence and longevity - we must experience, not escape, from both. If we constantly retreat from hardship or stormy weather in our minds, we will never fully grow. Maybe if we turn not to Heaven or Daffodils, but to the Eye of the Storm in our time of need, we will emerge cleansed and with renewed zest for life.
One article that summed this idea up well for me was featured in the September 2008 Smithsonian magazine. In popular conversations about Seattle, most people will tell you that the constant rain brings about bouts of depression and unhappiness. The writer Charles Johnson, on the other hand, believes that the stormy and gray Seattle environment actually fosters creativity, inspiration, and spiritual awakening:
"...Art, philosophy and spiritual contemplation...are enriched by the misty, meditative mood invoked by the Northwest's most talked about feature—rain—and the wet evening air that causes portions of the geography to gleam and hazes other parts, sfumato, from November through February, in an atmosphere that is a perfect externalization of the brooding inner climate of the creative imagination...With weather like this, it's easy to stay inside, reading and writing, until spring."
My question to you all is, what brings you out of yourself? Is it sunshine or rain? Are you healed more by the rays of the sun or the tear-shaped drops of rain? Do you find inspiration looking out your window at a cloudless sky or a foggy mist? Does your state of mind need to be reflected in nature, in order to feel comforted?
Hope your week has been going well :)
Love, AT
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