As we face civil rights issues in our country today, people are quoting Martin Luther King & James Baldwin. These are sources that ground us. Sources we can trust.
As I continue to study psychoanalytic literature, the source I start with is Sigmund Freud.
The source for the free associations I utter when on the couch during an analytical session, is my unconscious. I admit, in memoir you can read in October, to planning free associations which of course means that I am not totally trusting the source. It is difficult to trust what comes to mind and speak what appears without censoring the parts that would make me look bad.
At times I have feared that trusting the unconscious might get me lost. Recently I read Freud believed there was no need to be afraid of losing one’s way when free associating because there is internal cohesion secretly governing the flow of associations.
Here’s to internal cohesion! Perhaps that’s what we are looking for when we go to source material. Internal cohesion. Or perhaps that’s why King and Baldwin and Freud are good writers – they have internal cohesion.
Are there “source” materials that you go to for comfort and sustenance? Please share with us what helps you during this challenging time. And if reading the latest NY Times best seller helps, let us know that too!
Scroll down and leave a comment. Take care of yourself
IMAGE: I couldn’t stop looking at the Stupa of Dharmakaya when I was at a workshop in 2011 with Susan Piver at Red Feather Lakes, CO.
4 comments
Well, you probably know what I am going to say…. the source of comfort to me in trying times is my body.
Mind/body is on a continuum. Invariably when I am lost in stressful thoughts….concerns about the past, worries about the future, my awareness has forgotten its connection to the body. Going back to the body, sitting and breathing with what I find there,…with deeply interested curiosity and no judgement…. takes me into stillness and the support and sustenance that that brings. No written material can come close to doing what this does for me.
Anon
I appreciate your words on the body. I notice that when I am writing and sit too long,
my body isn’t happy – but it is – and I am happy when I actually stop when my timer at
27 minutes goes off and move around!
Thanks for reading and commenting!
HI Nicky. For me, there is nothing that speaks to troubling and confusing times better than poetry. Here’s one that I love that’s particularly relevant today and ends with a seed of hope. It’s by Ross Gay, one of my favorites. https://poets.org/poem/small-needful-fact
Wishing everyone peace and contemplations.
Hi Diane – What a great idea to use poetry to calm down and contemplate life.
This is a beautiful poem. Thank you!
Hope you are well. Thanks for reading and commenting!
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