I awoke (awakened?) at 3:30 with the images from this morning’s poem and had to get up and write. It was influenced by my reading of Dr. Eric Maisel’s book, The Van Gogh Blues: The Creative Person’s Path Through Depression. Maisel contends that all creatives suffer depression, and that liberation from depression is possible by creating meaning, forcing our lives to mean. He offers a prescription, in fact, consisting of such things as nurturing self-support, opting to matter, braving anxiety.
Maisel acknowledges that there is a role for anti-depressant drugs, and that early trauma is often a contributor to depression. But he clearly believes that creative people are primarily depressed as a result of their need to make meaning of their lives.
Meaningful creating seems to involve working soulfully, a path with heart. How do you create meaning?
You may note that I have changed the tagline of this blog to “words that illuminate the path to understanding.” Still way too many syllables for my taste, but more descriptive of what this blog has turned out to be. How would you say it more concisely?–send suggestions!
I have found so many of those illuminating words lately. It is great to be in a May-long break (is that at all like a bee-loud glade?) from my formal studies, so I can read other things!
I love this book from which today’s words come, in part of course because it validates what I have come to discover over the years and wrote about in my very first post to this blog (that mindfulness is key to God, the universe and everything). I read the research version a while back, and I am glad that the authors have now published a popular edition.
Holidays have always been hard for me, since they involve seeing family. I remember a number of years when it was the end of February before I felt fully recovered from the experience of visiting family at Christmas. Ram Dass (with tongue in cheek) invites anyone who thinks they’re enlightened to spend time with family. At any rate, holidays remind me of family, and family reminds me of this poem.
Yours was the sin of age.
when the children blocked her escape.
you suddenly knew what to do.
Mine was the impotence of youth.
and softly, to your spirit, sing.
There is no better advice for me today. I am bent on being dissatisfied, feeling sorry for myself, dwelling on what isn’t working. It’s time for yoga and meditation. For looking outside my own head. For dissolving, like melting snow.
Depression is so tempting! Familiar, safe, responsibility-free. Furthermore, it’s all about me! And yet a subtle shift in perspective can sometimes have the power to obliterate it. May I find the courage to act.