Today was a snow day and thus an opportunity to explore the wonders of my backyard through this cycle of the seasons. Here’s a slide show of moments that caught my eye.
I read an inspiring story of a doctor Attending to Sick Children Along a Gulf Coast Still in Tatters
Every weekday morning, Dr. Dixon boards a blue Winnebago that goes to schoolyards in the Katrina-ravaged towns along Mississippi?s coast. From the Winnebago ? which is staffed with a nurse, a social worker and two aides ? Dr. Dixon, 42, dispenses routine health care to thousands of youngsters who still suffer the aftereffects of the hurricane.
?This is the kind of pediatrics I?ve always wanted to do,? Dr. Dixon said on a recent morning as her clinic-on-wheels sat outside the Pass/DeLisle Elementary School, not far from where Hurricane Katrina made landfall. ?Here I can treat children who really need my help, and I can also be an advocate for them. This is what real medicine is about.?
and at the same time, this article is a heart clutching article informing me about how others are experiencing life right now:
A child we?ve treated was approached for sex by an adult at the FEMA camp where his family lives. The boy tells us whenever he comes out of his trailer now, he runs; wherever he goes, he?s afraid. In school, he acts out, and they want to expel him.
Frankly, we?re overwhelmed by the number of children needing mental health services. There are quite a few kids where the parents were forced to take jobs elsewhere. We?re seeing 4- or 5-year-olds on the verge of being expelled. I mean, who gets expelled from Head Start? We think this is because of all the separations.
The kids don?t feel secure because the parents aren?t. When I examine kids, I always ask, ?How is your family doing?? It leads to things I need to know, like, ?My dad is upset because he doesn?t have his job anymore,? or ?My brother?s upset because he has to sleep in a room with Grandma.?
You see a lot of depression with the parents… The parents feel like they have no control over their lives.
As I read such an article and sit with other life events of people I know and love and many more people that I don’t know, I feel a pull of my heart that wants to wrap myself around these places of pain and embrace them with life, love, rest, peace, health… And I also feel an icy cold contraction that points to questions of Am I doing enough in my life to serve? Am I adding to the problems by the way I choose to live? Do I live in too isolated of a reality?
And I breathe with both of these responses. Breathing as I watch and feel my reactions.
This takes me to an excerpt from Pema Chodron from The Wisdom of No Escape:
“Seeing when you justify yourself and when you blame others is not a reason to criticize yourself, but actually an opportunity to recognize what all people do and how it imprisons us in a very limited perspective of this world. It’s a chance to see that you’re holding on to your interpretation of reality; it allows you to reflect that that’s all it is — nothing more, nothing less: just your interpretation of reality.”
What is my interpretation of reality right now?
Holding the visceral tension of my responses echoes forth a body memory of the tension expressed by the Sankai Juku dancers. Christy expresses poignantly her experience (and mine as well) from that performance and this line catches me right now:
So much happens in … the expressionless mask broken suddenly open in hilarity or howl (which? or both?).
The swirl of this journey finds it’s way to a resting place of play and joy through images that ignite within me wonder, hope and inspiration. I take three slow breaths before posting these last images (a new practice I’m experimenting with as a way to honor transitions).
