The most obvious confusion between metaphor and reality is when society labels emotional/interpersonal problems/divergence from norms of society as mental illnesses.In the USA childdhood disobedience is now a mental illness and there are many similar crazy notions.Homosexuality was labelled as a mental illness for years but no longer.
Now if you are suffering terrible anguish in various forms it may help to be told it is an illness… or it may make you worse.I am sure that often excess fatigue,personal characteristics like overworking constantly,not eating well,being distressed by the state of the world are very common but there are no blood tests nor any other tests to identify such as being illnesses.Though often physical illnesses casuse mental distress and depression either directly or because of shame and anxiety and other reactions to being ill for a long time.
The writer Thomas Szasz identified this confusion many years ago.If you disagree and say how can medication help unless a person is ill then I’d say that the placebo effect is one reason and another is that if someone is exhausted and needs to rest then medication maybe helpful to give them a little peace. Gerard Manley Hopkins,A Jesuit priest and a poet seemed to be given a job in an Irish University which was exhausting and debilitating but owing to his vow of obedience to his superiors in the Jesuit Order he could not change his life except by dying… so he thought.
The poet Gwyneth Lewis who has been the National Poet for wales wrote a book[Sunbathing in the rain] about her severe bout of depression.In the book she seems to be claiming that there were personal mistakes and decisions in her lifestyle and job which led her into depression.She saw it as necessary for change.However she did use medication in spite of feeling it was a spiritual turning poimt which she needed to get back onto her true path or vocation in life.
Her mother had been depressed frequently when she was a child and so she would have learned by this as a way of problem solving.
Also despite her immense intelligence she had failed to realise that abandoning her strong hopes to have a child [given the age of her husband and the need to earn a living] was going to cause her huge distress.In fact marrying someone who has been sterilised seems unusual for w young woman who wants children.But it is sometimes reversible and maybe she didn’t think so far ahead.
This blindness to our own feelings seems to lead many of us astray.
We sometimes get clues to our hidden feelings in dreams or we could find someone to talk to when going through a major life decision.
Some people don’t know that grief and mourning exist and are stunned when they feel sad and often their families criticise them for “not coping well” Coping here seems to mean remaining happy and calm all the time;this is a selfish demand on a bereaved person or anyone really.
I also noticed over the years that many famous people suffered from depression but when you examine their lives they seem to demand too much from themselves and be afraid to ask for help
.Poor Sylvia Plath wanted to be famous which she is now but alas she is dead. It’s hard to know why she felt the need to work so hard except her upbringing was one where acadenic excellence was valued and why she married someone with no obvious way of providing support either financial or emotional… when it got tough he ran off… but who knows why? The point that interests me is that she was compulsively driven to achieve… and she did so much in her short life… but was it worth it?
We all need to examine our life to see if we are acting stupidly.
But when worn out mentally it seems thinking is a mistake whereas simple manual work is beneficial as is being outdoors or being with kind undemanding friends…. and if a person has few friends coping with emotional trauma is much harder.This affects people who move to another state or country.And older people moving house even can bring on mental confusion.
And if we are people who find friendship and intimacy hard then it’s likely that we will suffer more from any problem we run into.
Finally,is the idea of a vocation for each of us of value?We each have unique gifts plus a need to earn a living.It depends on many factors outside our control whether we can find a job that combines these.Many poets and writers work in menial jobs to earn a living and then they write at night.[Teaching seems to sap creative energy.]
Other people don’t feel they have a calling but train for something they feel will earn a living in a way that suits them.Electricians and plumbers are in great demand…
And apart from finding our own true needs we need to contribute to society in some way.And to have a feeling of enjoying being alive which is perhaps denied those millions in Asia who make our clothes,i phones and other goods.
I knit the rhythmic pattern of my day. the complex stitches make me sure to err and yet i have no fear for on this way I knit or unknit with my calm and care.
With warp and weft both in their rightful place with right and wrong accepted and allowed I knit so slowly,saying no to haste. I worship with my truth and am not cowed.
As I go back to fix a stitch which is not right No longer do I castigate myself.. For in a flash I saw as if in light That to and fro are both a part of health.
For now I know we all at times shall fail And that is part of our life’s measured tale
I am interested in these lines from the poem below…. When thy song is shield and mirror To the fair snake-curlèd Pain, Where thou dar’st affront her terror That on her thou may’st attain Perséan conquest; I think the meaning is that by expressing what is in us creatively in poetry or other forms we can overcome what we are afraid of not by attacking and killing it but indirectly in the manner of Perseus who killed the Medusa Gorgon by locating her and seeing her reflected in the mirror of his shield.Others had been turned to stone by her gaze. Expression is the mirror/shield Read about Perseus below http://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Heroes/Perseus/perseus.html This is where I got the poem………Bartleby.com a good website re which I say go visit. Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917. 240. From ‘The Mistress of Vision’ By Francis Thompson (1859–1907) WHERE is the land of Luthany, Where is the tract of Elenore? I am bound therefor. ‘Pierce thy heart to find the key; With thee take 5 Only what none else would keep; Learn to dream when thou dost wake, Learn to wake when thou dost sleep. Learn to water joy with tears, Learn from fears to vanquish fears; 10 To hope, for thou dar’st not despair, Exult, for that thou dar’st not grieve; Plough thou the rock until it bear; Know, for thou else couldst not believe; Lose, that the lost thou may’st receive; 15 Die, for none other way canst live. When earth and heaven lay down their veil, And that apocalypse turns thee pale; When thy seeing blindeth thee To what thy fellow-mortals see; 20 When their sight to thee is sightless; Their living, death; their light, most lightless; Search no more— Pass the gates of Luthany, tread the region Elenore.’ Where is the land of Luthany, 25 And where the region Elenore? I do faint therefor. ‘When to the new eyes of thee All things by immortal power, Near or far, 30 Hiddenly To each other linkèd are, That thou canst not stir a flower Without troubling of a star; When thy song is shield and mirror 35 To the fair snake-curlèd Pain, Where thou dar’st affront her terror That on her thou may’st attain Perséan conquest; seek no more, O seek no more! 40 Pass the gates of Luthany, tread the region Elenore.
When you struck me,i vibrated like a kettle drum then as smaller percussions and repercussions echoing from all the glassy surfaces creating a balletic geometry of sound tracks in space and time.
When you knocked me down, I fell against her and her and her; we were like a row of skittles and we all went down with the lifeboat; the infinite chain of being is.
When you hit me,the Fall spread across the world Now there is no Vertical All is undivine and graceless. By the Rod it’s ruled
When you left me,I left myself,the world,the rocks,dry land I weighed down sank to the ocean bed with coral eyes gazing.
When you struck my mind I became an instrument of a foreign power Singing a song I didn’t kmow.
When the glass was smashed the splinters flew into all our hearts. You didn’t know what we couldn’t see.
I lay on barren ground and gave birth To my own Creator in the desert. He was not dead at all.
Which swayed in the breeze,
Stepping onto that fragile bridge
Was a difficult moment
Though I could see you far away.
As we traveled,sometimes we walked,
Sometimes we walked too fast,
Or without paying due attention
To the winds that blew across the water.
Sometimes I felt afraid I would fall
As the bridge swayed too much over
The dark sea.Or you might fall or turn back.
Sometimes we stopped walking and stood waiting
As if some portent would appear
To tell us what to do.
Still, we continued, with trust growing
After each difficulty…
All at once, you were near me,
And I recognised your face..
That light in your eyes
And your hands holding the ropes..
So we stood there,over the churning waters,
And all I wanted to do was to smile.
I wanted to smile.
I must have had a wish to write.Because for many years ,I studied books on poetry and creative writing.I began to collect images and events which affected me in a notebook.Then one day I asked,When do I write?I had to start, unconfident as I was. Time was passing Here is the first poem I wrote.[January 2010]
CHRISTMAS SNOW:
Too old for cold,I stand, now ,against the hedge,
Watching the snowflakes in the glare of neon street lights.
Darkness has come early,and I think of country uplands and huddled sheep.
On Salisbury Plain,shepherds watched their flocks
Just as in Bethlehem two thousand years before,
And then ,exactly when?
“Between the wars”,it stopped. Now we know there is no “Between the wars”.
And who decided
To cull the sheep and shepherds and the space for kindness ?
Now that same Plain still exists,but banned
And closed to human-kind,
For bombs ,not wombs
Nor for birth of lamb ,nor gypsy child ,nor Saviour
Where would He go today?
_ ,s
From the first poem, I can see my mind was wondering if there is any space in the world now safe enough for a creative happening.After I wrote this,I was unsure if I’d get any more inspiration but I did
Here is a slightly later poem
SUN PAINTING
Bright sun
Paints a shadow picture
On the white wall
Dried stems
Of Michaelmas daisies
A leaf caught in a cobweb sways
To and fro.
I gaze.
Silence.
I use language here in the form common in the past in a working class mill town in the North of England . We always referred to people as our Mam,our John or mi Mam,mi Dad.
I rode on a horse on the Merry- Go- Round at the New Year Fair,
And every time I came around,our Dad were stood right there.
The horses they went up and down,as we whirled around.
To me,so small, they seemed so high, way up above the ground.
You knew I loved those colourful horses standing up right tall;
So you let me ride on one,though Mam thunk me far too small.
I shall never lose the happiness,riding with a view..
But far more than I loved those horses, Dad, you know that I loved you.
I wish I were a child again and you were with us today.
I think we’d recognize your voice,and be eager for what you’d say.
Why did God take you off,it seemed to be so wrong.?
But thanks,our Dad,for the Merry- Go- Round,and thanks for all your songs.
I think that life’s like a Merry -Go- Round that we are turning on.
And every time it whirls right round.someone else has gone.
We don’t know how long we’ll ride here so merry,and so gay.
So enjoy the Revolution now,and say what you really should say.
The world may be a Merry Go Round and we are nothing but fools
We had so much bounty and yet we break life’s rules.
We strong ones steal and injure as we pass this way,
Will we ever realise…. it’s a serious game that we play?
Thanks our Dad, for the memory and thanks for all your songs.
Now my heart grows weary so I shan’t linger long
I tried to use my talents, like the Bible said.
I trust sweet God to judge me well,when in human terms I’m dead.
Blue hills
Note:I must have been three when this happened.Dad was keen on Fairs and Pantomimes
How my heart sings 