Startled by the lilac of the sky More blue dilutes the pink I saw before Dark branches stand like fingers pointing high
The little bay tree potted is too dry I gave it drops of tea but it needs more Entranced by softest lilac ,oh, the sky
I see two trees have grown like Russian spies They got stuck in and blossomed then I saw Dark branches,unboned fingers pointing high
Elderberry,cherry, seeds have strayed Don’t tell us that green Nature may have flaws Enhanced by lilac , darkening, goodbye
Soon will come the ending and the prayer The drama is all done, if any care. Dark branches ,boneless fingers, pointing high
We may live, but God it is that stares Like the Langdale Pikes watch Windermere Down beneath the silence of the sky Dark branches stand like judges from on high
The sky is stark, the air is cool and still The black cat’s run, the birds unfold all day I sit down here and with my totty pray Ye cast o’ foolish thoughts, you raped my will. We’ve each enraged the bureaucratic mill. Oh frigid purse, I never meant to pay! The sky ‘s a-spark, the air is warm and shrill The saturnine,
demoted, knelled their way With this feathered pounce, my sample quill, I cite the cheque and date it for next May. Oh, tit for cat, the tiger’s bed ‘s astray. Yer life is settled by a harlot’s will The sky ‘s a shark, the air is sharper still.
You may not believe me that it’s so simple, but we as are both body and mind, this breathing exercise has been very helpful to me when I’m struggling to cope with pain and life and need to feel better.Don’t give up as it needs time to learn but it can transform the way you feel.The only other thing that helps me is total acceptance…again not easy to achieve but it is possible.
If you can’t accept your pain,you can achieve an attitude of being WILLING to accept it.Orr even of being willing to be willing.But you have to really mean it!
And then take a look outside yourself if you can.Even in winter there are clouds and sun and wind on trees.And birds to feed.It’s a wonderful world
The 4-7-8 (or Relaxing Breath) Exercise
This exercise is utterly simple, takes almost no time, requires no equipment and can be done anywhere. Although you can do the exercise in any position, sit with your back straight while learning the exercise. Place the tip of your tongue against the ridge of tissue just behind your upper front teeth, and keep it there through the entire exercise. You will be exhaling through your mouth around your tongue; try pursing your lips slightly if this seems awkward.
Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound.
Close your mouth and inhale quietly through your nose to a mental count of four.
Hold your breath for a count of seven.
Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound to a count of eight.
This is one breath. Now inhale again and repeat the cycle three more times for a total of four breaths.
Note that you always inhale quietly through your nose and exhale audibly through your mouth. The tip of your tongue stays in position the whole time. Exhalation takes twice as long as inhalation. The absolute time you spend on each phase is not important; the ratio of 4:7:8 is important. If you have trouble holding your breath, speed the exercise up but keep to the ratio of 4:7:8 for the three phases. With practice you can slow it all down and get used to inhaling and exhaling more and more deeply.
This exercise is a natural tranquilizer for the nervous system. Unlike tranquilizing drugs, which are often effective when you first take them but then lose their power over time, this exercise is subtle when you first try it but gains in power with repetition and practice. Do it at least twice a day. You cannot do it too frequently. Do not do more than four breaths at one time for the first month of practice. Later, if you wish, you can extend it to eight breaths. If you feel a little lightheaded when you first breathe this way, do not be concerned; it will pass.
Once you develop this technique by practicing it every day, it will be a very useful tool that you will always have with you. Use it whenever anything upsetting happens – before you react. Use it whenever you are aware of internal tension. Use it to help you fall asleep. This exercise cannot be recommended too highly. Everyone can benefit from
I am writing my autobiography.So far I’ve written just the titles of the volumes and that took me three days:
Daddy doesn’t smoke here any more.[ Early to mid childhood]
My family and other criminals [Sibling rivalry]
Nuns are not a jot of fun [School days]
Scholarship and yearnings [Hire Education]
Insane but true [My love life]
The heart has its treasons.[My adult life]
Under the haystack. [How I became a gypsy]
Am I too cold for you ? [Age and its mysteries]
How I double crossed the quiver [ Almost dead but still very trying]
Black eyed floosie [My medical history ]
I saw that life as we know it is just a film but we are too close to spy the hand that turns the roller [Nearer to death and seeing the clouds from above]
A Life offers unprecedentedly direct access to the mind and feelings of an early 20th-century educated working woman. Marion Blackett was 26 when she began the research for the book, in 1926, and 34 when she published it, under the pseudonym Joanna Field. She had completed a degree in psychology and physiology, in 1923, and soon after started working for the National Institute of Industrial Psychology, headed by Charles Samuel Myers, collecting data from various factories and industrial workplaces across England. The winter of 1927–28 was spent in the United States on a Rockefeller scholarship, attending Elton Mayo’s seminars at Harvard Business School.
She had married Dennis Milner just before leaving for the States; their son, John, was born in 1932. Dennis’s chronic illness meant that Marion had to return immediately to work: she taught psychology to the Workers’ Educational Association in the East End of London, and also undertook research for the Girls’ Public Day School Trust (published in 1938 as The Human Problem in Schools). She would eventually begin training with the British psychoanalysis group
Posted on May 14, 2017 Loneliness, the word’s not strong enough For widows and their masculine counterparts. Ripped in half, that’s more the phrase; like, tough.
No arms left now, that never will rebuff. No eager lips which whispering love impart Loneliness, the word’s not strong enough
People say, of course, the going’s rough The coming’s gone and nothing shall gestate Ripped in half, that’s more the phrase; like, tough.
Never more to share cartoons and laughs. Never more to be a chosen mate Loneliness, the word’s not wrong enough.
Did we know the heart of what we had? Did we learn the art of love. of fate? Ripped in half, that’s more the phrase; like, tough.
You have gone and closed now is the gate In a mad ball, I dance with love and hate Loneliness, the word’s not strong enough! Ripped in half, that’s more the phrase; like, tough.
The need for some simple source of relaxation can be seen in the initial surge in popularity of the adult colouring book, as well as last year’s 13.3% increase in sales of books providing spiritual guidance on how to live in a hectic world, and the mindfulness “mega trend” seen in Headspace, the meditation app that has been downloaded more than 15m times. Those of us who spent our money on these products were presumably searching for answers to some of the same questions – and many of us are still looking. The bottom has now dropped out of the colouring book market, with Forbes declaring it “dead” in May, and, in June last year, Headspace laid off 13 staff members.
According to a report by Ofcom this summer: “Most people in the UK are dependent on their digital devices and need a constant connection to the internet.” It found that 78% of us now own a smartphone – rising to 95% of 16- to 24-year-olds. We check these phones on average every 12 minutes of our waking lives, with 54% of us feeling that the devices interrupt our conversations with friends and family, and 43% of us feeling that we spend too much time online. We can’t relax with them, and we don’t know how to relax without them. Seven in 10 of us never turn them off.
The clinical psychologist Rachel Andrew says she sees the problem every day in her consulting room, and it is getting worse. “I’ve noticed a rise in my practice, certainly over the last three to five years, of people finding it increasingly difficult to switch off and relax. And it’s across the lifespan, from age 12 to 70,” she says. The same issues come up again and again: technology, phones, work emails and social media.
Kicking back in front of one screen or another does have its place, says Andrew – but it depends how you do it. “Sometimes people describe not being engaged in what they’re looking at – totally zoning out, not knowing what they’ve done for the last half-hour,” she says. “You can view this almost as dissociation, periods of time when your mind is so exhausted and overwhelmed it takes itself out of the situation. That’s unlikely to be nourishing in any way.” Maybe that is why, after I have spent an evening staring emptily at Twitter, or dropping off in front of the TV – less Netflix and chill, more Netflix and nap – I wake up feeling as if I have eaten a load of junk food. I have confused feeling brain-dead with feeling relaxed.
The psychoanalyst David Morgan, of the Institute of Psychoanalysis, believes that for many of us this deadening retreat to our screens is both a reason for and a consequence of the fact that we no longer know how to relax and enjoy ourselves. Our screens and what we use them for are all techniques of distraction, he says. “People have got so used to looking for distraction that they actually cannot stand an evening with themselves. It is a way of not seeing oneself, because to have insight into oneself requires mental space, and all these distraction techniques are used as a way of avoiding getting close to the self.”
Some of her patients, Andrew explains, simply never get around to thinking about how they want to spend their time. “People say they are so busy doing the ‘shoulds’,” she says – whether that is working, caring for family or being a part of demanding friendships – that by the time an evening or weekend comes around when they might do what they want, there is no energy or motivation left for anything but “flopping out”. She adds: “That’s a difficulty – because how is life enjoyable or satisfying in the long term if you’re only doing what you should do the whole time?”
For others, the notion of being in touch with their own needs and desires is totally alien, says Andrew. People who grew up in a family environment that centred around the needs of a sibling or a parent might have spent their whole lives never being asked about what they wanted to do. “It might genuinely be something they’ve never considered before,” she says. For those people, identifying something they might find enjoyably relaxing, and pursuing it, can be a huge, life-changing shift. “It can be quite dramatic.”
Another problem is that it can be tricky to untangle our own wishes from those of the people around us, says Nina Grunfeld, the founder of Life Clubs, an organisation that aims to help people live more fulfilling lives. It can take a lot of effort to discover where your enjoyment ends and your partner’s begins. “When my husband and I were young,” she says, “we went to Rome on holiday, and he wanted to go to every church, every restaurant, every everything. And I got home completely shattered. It was only after coming to know myself, after thinking about my life without him and what I like as an individual, that I realised that for me to enjoy a holiday and to come back feeling relaxed and refreshed, I need to read and be still. Now we’ll go on holiday and he goes off to do the churches by himself, but I’m very happy just lying by the beach, pool or fire and reading. It’s a real treat. I might join him for the restaurants, though.”
Speaking to Grunfeld and Andrew, and hearing their advice (see ) on how to identify different occupations that might relax and reinvigorate me, I begin to feel optimistic. I think back to how I liked to pass the time when I was young; the quiet times sitting reading a book, the rowdier times baking with friends. I resolve to make more time to do the adult versions of these things over the next year – then realise I am making excuses. If I could redirect the evenings I am already wasting on screens, that would be a good start.
The fact is, I do already do all those ideal things occasionally, but sometimes it feels as if being in the world is too much, and I need to disappear from it by losing myself in a screen. It is as if I crave that brain-dead feeling, even though I know it isn’t good for me.Having psychoanalytic psychotherapy is helping me to think about the reasons why I might do this – and for Morgan, therapy can be an important pathway out of being stuck in a screen-gazing rut, because it is somewhere a person is encouraged to use his or her mind. “The therapeutic space is the opposite of distraction – it’s concentration,” he says. “When people come into my consulting room, they often tell me it’s the first time they have ever felt they have had a space where they can’t run away from things.”
I have found that not running away from things, but confronting them and reflecting on them, can feel as exhausting as the running itself. It is difficult, disturbing work. But in a room with someone who can listen and help me to make sense of things, it can also be a relief. Morgan tells me: “We have all these various ways of distracting ourselves from the most important fact of life – that we live, and then we die. Having a mind to help you think about things, having a person who can think deeply about things with you, is a way to manage this very frightening fact of life.”
The flip side of that frightening fact is, of course, the realisation that since we don’t have much time on this planet, it is a shame to waste any of it voluntarily making ourselves brain-dead.
Top tips: rediscover the lost art of relaxation
• If you are spending time with family or friends over the festive period, Nina Grunfeld recommends assigning each person one hour in which they are in charge of the group’s schedule, when they can choose whichever activity they consider most relaxing. “One of my children might decide we all have to play a video game; another will decide we are all going for a walk; another will make us all bake cakes. That way you all get a bit of ‘me-time’, and you can experience someone else’s – and it’s very relaxing not having to make decisions for the whole day,” she says.
• Try to remember what you most enjoyed doing as a child, then identify the most important aspect of that activity and find the adult version. Grunfeld says: “It might be that you can’t remember, and you have to ask friends or family, or look at old photo albums. There are normally themes in all of our lives, and if we’re missing those themes as an adult, it’s almost as if we’re not a whole person.” If you loved playing in the sandpit, you might want to try pottery, or if you liked building things, you might want to make bread.
• Experiment with looking at the world in a new way. “Allow yourself to explore. Just walk around wherever you are and see what you can find that is completely new. Try to get lost – whenever you get to a turning, ask yourself do you want to go left or right, and see where you end up,” says Grunfeld.
• If you have no idea how to start relaxing, look at the science, says Rachel Andrew. “There is a growing body of research to suggest being out in nature is uplifting and nourishing.”
Q
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The weather in Knittingham was rather hot.Mary was away giving a lecture on Dirac’s thoughts in Oxford and Stan felt lonely.He rang Annie but she was out. So he said to Emile
I am going to bed early.Have you had enough to eat? Definitely,cried Emile,who had just licked all the cream off two meringues in the larder.
So Stan went upstairs.He took off all his clothes and admired his thin body in the mirror. Not bad for 97,he muttered. Now what shall I put on? He found his pyjamas too hot so on an impulse he opened Mary’s wardrobe and found a cotton nightdress.It was a bit big for him but definitely cooler than his pyjamas.He cleaned his teeth and washed himself before falling into bed with,
The Other Ariel a book about Sylvia Plath’s poetry and how Ted Hughes had altered the order of her poems and even removed some from the book .Ariel,which made her name.
The doorbell rang.Each time it played a different tune out of the 90 in its repertoire. He ran downstairs and opened the door.There stood two policemen. They stared a the handsome old man with elegant hands
Hello.Sir.I hope we have not interrupted you? No,I am just reading in bed. on my own.
Do you always wear a nightgown?
This is the first time,he told them humorously.
I felt very hot so I decided to wear my wife’s gown. And just where is your wife?
What’s it got to do with you,he enquired unceremoniously. Just tell us,the older policeman said brusquely She’s at a conference in Oxford giving a talk.About Dirac or Riemann or another nitwit. Can we come in? the policeman said.
May we come in,Stan corrected him;not a good idea on the whole,especially in the USA where the police have guns.
Luckily all our police have here are rubber gloves in case people ask them to wash up after having a cup of tea.
What is wrong? said Stan.
We have found a naked woman walking in the High Street.She says a man stole her clothes.For various reasons we think it might be you.
But if she was in the High Street she’d be in proper clothes not a nightdress,surely ,Stan murmured. But you like women’s clothes….. we can see.
No,I don’t, the old man shouted. I told you I was too hot.And in my own home I can wear anything I like. Sometimes I wear a prayer shawl.
Are you Jewish? they asked. Only a little, but I inherited it from a great grandfather who married out. Out of what? the police asked
He married out of his faith.He was longing for a bacon sandwich. Surely marrying just to eat a bacon sandwich is a bit over the top. Well,that was his story.Maybe he was tired of obeying the Ten Commandments so he broke most of them.
Which ones? He committed adultery once when his wife had a nervous breakdown ; he lost his head and went to bed with his neighbour’s wife. And where was his neighbour? At the psychiatric unit visiting my great grandmother.Stan admitted uneasily. Well,at such times we all do odd things,the older policeman advised him. Thank you for your frankness,Sir.I can see you are not a criminal. Thank the Lord,said Stan as he went into the kitchen and put the kettle on to make a cup of tea to save ringing 999 I am lucky not to be in a cell and Mary would have had to come home.She would have been cross, he told Emile.Anyway monks wear habits. But who had stolen the clothes off the woman in town? A mystery to be studied with Annie when she got home. At last Stan relaxed and went back to bed with his books This is the last time I ever wear a nightdress he whispered to Emile who was by his side. And so hope all of us.
When Mary got home after her Autumn shopping trip. she went into the kitchen where her cat was waiting anxiously What have you bought,Mother, Emile miaowed I got some black patent Mary Janes in Clark’s Sale You had some like that before.You said they were tight Mary put the kettle on.It was copper coloured and cordless Are we having our coffee now, the cat enquired? Yes, but also I have read about a trick with tight shoes.Watch this.She laid the shoes on newspaper and poured boiling water into them Oh,mother, that seems. cruel;
he phoned 999 Hello, my mother has poured boiling water into her shoes Why? Is it to wash her feet? No, but I am worried the shoes might be hurt. We’ll send the ambulance immediately Meanwhile Mary had emptied out the boiling water.She took off her socks and put the new shoes on. There , you see.They will fit now The doorbell rang.Two policemen ran in. We hear you are causing suffering to your shoes Is that illegal ,Mary murmured? Almost.When Boris lets Parliament begin we believe hurting leather shoes will become a crime Is it because we are in the EU? No, it’s only we British people who care about the pain of objects made from dead animals.So as soon as we Leave Boris will pass a new law Is he a dictator,Emile miaowed? We can’t answer that,Sir.You speak good English but where are you really from? What is your first language? Are you implying I am an illegal immigrant? That I swam in up the Humber or swam with seals off North Norfolk before coming to Weybourne a well known way for Conquerers to enter England? I am not Julius Caesar and he landed near Deal.There is a big plaque there.Not put there by him! Yes, are you from the Ukraine or anywhere in Eastern YouRup? Are they like YouTube? Don’t mess with us.We can arrest you.We are the Police and soon we’ll have our own State! But you have no paw-cuffs. have you? We can use string, the policeman said creatively That sounds much more cruel then putting hot water into my shoes,Mary said politely but with a certain edge to her voice. The policeman looked foolish.Yes,madam. And cats can’t have passports, as yet.They go to a Cattery on the North Yorkshire Moors for their holidays.Some go to Cornwall. Am I going, asked Emile? I don’t want to go all by myself. No,I am renting a cottage in Hunstanton where pets are allowed.And the sands are white and the cliffs coloured in three layers Thank you, replied Emile.I am happy to hear that.Can I have a bathing suit,Mother?Are there rock pools? Ask LP Hartley
Suddenly Annie ran in. Why is there a police car outside. she yelled anxiously? Your shoes look very wet,Mary.Is it flooded in here?You should be more careful That is no crime. Not yet.You never know these days. They both began to laugh and squawk and so frightened the police who ran out and drove away at 90mph And so will all of us if this carries on
A lovely dinner…. 2 black sausages and batter that turned into an only partially edible biscuit.The oven was too hot.I never want to see a sausage again! A strange lonely feeling descended onto me like an old dying dog with a thin grey coat.
It was time to give in and read the Weetabix Box with a magnifying glass.
Why I am I here, I pondered.Nobody answered.It would have been a terrible shock if they had done
Stan was annoyed that since the days were getting brighter and longer, the dust on the furniture was becoming more evident..Not that his wife Mary was a tyrant but she was out at work whereas he was free from his purgatory working with gamblers and homeless drug users but had to keep the home clean instead
Of course he had been pleased to be working to improve society ,but enough was enough.He already was helping two people on a voluntary basis at his church, Still Mary was labouring in the lecture hall. explaining how linear algebra might help folk to lead better and more virtuous lives ,especially if they were going into Parliament or the higher reaches of the Civil Service which aided government ministers dealing with strange confusions in the Economy ,and indeed in the entire world.
He picked up his microfibre dusting rag cut from an old towel and started to dust the TV set.After that he sprayed Dettox onto the keyboards of all their laptops,ipads,phones and remote controls.Then he dried them with an old tea towel made of cotton and linen.
Suddenly he heard the back door opening.In ran his beauteous mistress Annie wearing a green and red tracksuit and purple trainers with pink spots on.
Shall I make some lovely coffee,she asked positively.
I have not done much housework yet,Stan cried in alarm.
Let me see,she responded with the ripe interest of the retired and bored.
My, this remote control is very,very clean.
She put it in front of her eyes and glared myopically at it.
All her mind power was concentrated on this one object, which was at this moment in time her whole world;usually myopia is a bad move as it impedes a wider balanced view of life.
You have done brilliantly with this but you do need a break from this tedious and arduous work,she enthused laconically.
Oh, OK then,Stan answered gently.
She poured coffee into two Portmeirion pottery mugs and took them into the conservatory where she admired his potted plants and his herbs.
What’s this here, she called.It wasn’t here last week,
It’s cannabis,he informed her unwilfully.
Are you a user now she enquired tactlessly.
No,I am keeping it for a friend.Stan lied truthfully
That’s what they all say,she riposted jocosely.
Well,I don’t know how to use it.I believe you smoke it so does it have to be drie he asked scientifically?
I guess so,she said like a cowboy from a desert in Alabama on a diet of coke and french fries.
Well,I am not going test it,he said pensively.I don’t even smoke a pipe any more.I suck my thumb instead.It’s free,he continued and needs no licence
Would you like to suck my toes,she asked him lovingly.
After all,the Duchess of York had hers sucked and I am her equal in some ways .
Sucking toes has so far not been part of my repertoire and neither
has whipping women and smacking them either.I prefer to suck their lips and caress their cheeks.
Which cheeks? she asked suspiciously, as if she was an examiner in an oral examination for a law degree.
Sorry,dear..I am happy to caress any part of your warm voluptuous flesh but I need to get on with the housework.
Just ignore it,she ordered him. rudely.I’ll help you after we have been to bed
I didn’t know we were going to bed, he said in a very puzzled tone of voice
Well,you do now,she giggled un-furtively
And so does Emile who is already on the landing from where he can see the mirror opposite the bed.What a naughty boy he is,but what would you do in his position?
I thought so.Ask a missionary at once.You have to believe me… or turn pale with horror at this evil couple.
How my heart speaks 