Celebrating the Winter Solstice!

Happy Winter Solstice! Nature celebrated this difficult year for many by arranging a Lunar Eclipse as the Earth began it's turn toward light. Regardless of how dark or cold (or, in Dallas, how hot) these bleak days are, all we have to do is keep waking up to new days that will be a tad brighter. No night will be as long as last night.

This has been a particularly difficult year for many people who have crossed my path. In the last months, many close to me have lost loved ones, weathered anniversaries of other losses and made transitions that were very hard. As hard as I try, I still tend to ask, "How much more can they endure?" A quiet voice inside me responds, "Only as much as they have strength to stand."

For many, this year has been like a cold, hard, emotional winter that doesn't seem to end. I have no doubt that, in those darkest, most frigid nights, the sense that it will never end cannot be ignored. When these moments come for me, I am usually reminded of the amazing winter of the tulip. Buried in the soil, beneath the snow and in the dry, hard ground, the bulb lies dormant. I would imagine that, if it could think it like we do, it would probably ruminate as it faded into dormancy, something like, "I'm never going to survive this! It's too cold." Yet, it is that very dormancy that prepares the bulb to explode into flower when spring and the equinox approach. Without the dormancy, it would be a lovely blade, if it grew at all.

Today is the instant in which all that begins to shift. At an imperceptible creep, the days will gradually become longer and the nights shorter. Though we have many days of snow and freezing weather ahead, Nature has begun its journey to Spring. Today, somewhere in the Energy of Nature, a celebration has begun. I have a friend in the Northeast who has horses. This has been a torturous year for her. She shared with many of us recently that, in the grind of routine horse care, she was brushing the day's layers of dirt from the horses, when she noticed that she was coming up with hair that was shedding. This was not alarming, though. It is time. One of her horses always begins shedding on or about the Solstice. Even before the deepest of winter and the heaviest of snows, they begin preparing to shed their coat and run free in the spring grass and warmth. In a moment of heartache and loss, she stumbled onto nature's "postcard" to remind her that the world is turning towards hope.

I know it doesn't make the cold any less chilling and the short days ahead feel any longer. Yet, being reminded that the Universe is moving forward into Spring is a thought that brings something comfortable and warm to mind. It is, in a way, a reminder that we can get lost in the chill and pain of our Emotional Winter. In a subtle way, the Lunar Eclipse adds the message that the darkness of night is temporary. Just as the changes on the moon are not the result of the moon becoming dark or red, but because the Earth gets in the way of the Sun. Likewise, we often cannot see that our natural, normal emotional "orbit" is the very thing that takes away the light and blocks the reflection of hope in our lives.

Combining this image with the message of the Solstice, we can't help be reminded that we can't change these facts. Our "orbit" is carefully designed and perfectly in place, whether we feel it or not. (Remember, a shift of just about 6 degrees, yes, a mere six degree shift in the axis of the Earth's rotation would freeze or fry the earth and wipe us all out!) If we will just feel the pull of Hope keeping us in that balance, the cold may just be a bit easier to tolerate.

So, grab a cup of something warm and find a fire or a comforter or someone you love and feel the warmth that comes from within each. Be reminded that the path toward Spring just started unfolding before you. If it is still well hidden in the "snow" of emotions and darkness, be patient and gentle. Even if it means a bit of emotional dormancy and stillness. Nature has shifted and done so with a display of grandeur.

It's old (though some may have not heard it!) and maybe a bit tired, but take a moment and think of the words Amanda McBroom, sung by Bette Midler and find some peace:

Just remember in the winter

Far beneath the bitter snow

Lies the seed

That with the sun's love, in the spring

Becomes the rose.

Happy Holidays, including the Winter Solstice!

(BTW, check out the story behind "The Rose." http://theroselyrics.com/ )

You Can’t Get Grapes at Eckerd’s

Raymond had finally managed to establish boundaries with his family. In fact, he had not spoken to any of them in over six months. He had refused to send money to siblings when they made their quarterly pleas for cash. He simply did not answer the phone for the weeks it took for them to actually hear his message: “I’ll call you when I’m ready. Until then, I’m asking you to just give me some space.”

Raymond had been clean and sober from drugs and alcohol for just over five years, a monumental feat. They continued to offer him drinks and question his “diagnosis.” He had to sneak out of family gatherings to go to Twelve Step meetings, which were the foundation of his sobriety. Since he left home after high school, he had struggled with either depression or anxiety. At one point, he was on an average of seven psychiatric medications to be able to function and get through a day. They told him he just needed a hobby and to get outside more. When he was released from the hospital with medical complications of his last overdose, they invited him to visit with them “to rest.” He was greeted with one day of rest and being served like a king. This was followed by a “family meeting” aimed at getting him to see that his psychiatrist (me) was the problem and he needed to quit therapy, stop blaming his childhood trauma, and get off those medications. Over and over, they had performed the emotional “bait and switch” maneuver of offering love and giving him demands and betrayal.

This time looked different. Raymond needed time and space to focus on his family and primary relationship. He also had to face surgery and recuperation, something in which he wanted his blood relatives to have no knowledge, input, or participation. The six months had been exquisite. His therapy moved forward in ways that had not happened before. His sleep improved after surgery corrected a painful orthopedic condition. He grieved the fact that his family could not be supportive and was ready to think about how to handle the holidays. He could envision maintaining emotional boundaries.

Then, it happened. The phone rang. Caller ID indicated that it was the “safest” of his siblings. The only one who understood half way alcoholism and had not completely canonized his parents and denied the dysfunctional childhood they shared. He answered the phone. The conversation was very nice. They talked about the season and gardens. Only when the question of Raymond’s health arose, did he slip and mention his surgery. The loving tone on the other end of the phone vanished. A deluge of questions, challenges, “How could you’s” and, finally, shaming insults followed. When the phone line finally went silent, Raymond was devastated.

This was a Bumper Sticker Session. (I just realized that the abbreviation of this would be a “BS Session.” What a hoot!) Raymond had spent his life, like many, trying to be “good” enough to be able to get the unconditional positive regard we all crave from our families of origin.

MORAL: “You can’t get grapes at Eckerd’s.” (If you never lived in the South, Eckerd’s was a chain pharmacy like CVS or Walgreen’s.)

If you go to the drug store and demand fresh, plump seedless grapes, you will go away empty handed. On a good day, you can get raisins (shriveled, dried grapes), chocolate covered raisins, grape juice, and artificial grape drink. You can complain, picket the store, beat up the manager and even spray graffiti on the walls. However, you can’t get grapes at Eckerd’s. Even if you buy the chain and put in grapes, it will have to be licensed as a grocery or produce store and will no longer be the thing from which you sought what would have satisfied that deep, painful longing. In the end, you have to leave the pharmacy as it is, go down the street to the grocery store to get the grapes you need. That may be a violation of “all the rules.” However, it’s the only way to get grapes.

So many times, we end up frustrated, hurt, and even battered when we try to make those we love and are bound to by genetics or marriage, or some other life-long commitment to give us something we need. The grief that goes with seeing them as incapable (not bad or wrong) of doing so taps into the inborn drive a child has to cling to “his or her adults” in order to be able to stay alive. To violate that relationship is life threatening. To lose the relationship, regardless of the rationale is excruciating. However, in the end,

You just can’t get grapes at Eckerd’s.