The monster that lurks . . .

It can be profoundly difficult to acknowledge the dark side of our selves.

We’re brought up to be “nice”, “good”, “well-behaved”, and get no instruction as children on how to deal with thoughts that counter those values in constructive ways so we work it out for ourselves. As a result – because we want to please our parents and other adults who are important in our lives – such thoughts can get buried, pushed out of mind, to fester in the deepest darkest resources of our brains. Left unattended, the smallest ‘unacceptable’ thought can grow into a monster, desperate to do what monsters do, and our psyches go to great and often bizarre lengths to keep the monster behind bars.

My partner wrote the following piece about his monster. It takes a lot of courage to acknowledge the monster that is part of us and even more to write about it and be prepared to share that part of our selves with others. I don’t agree with him though, that the monster needs to be banished. In my view it is enough to see it for what it is: a thought that we can simply be aware of, trusting ourselves enough to just let it be.

Frankenstein’s Monster

The monster, with the horns and tails of a devil, lurks in the deepest, dankest dungeons of my mind, eyes burning red, teeth like vampires’ fangs, talons like dragons, hunch-backed, ready to pounce. Saliva drips from its gaping maw, the talons clutch a dagger dripping with blood.

All is dark, the blackness is solid, no light penetrates.

The air is hot, oppressive and stifling.

The smell of death pervades the atmosphere.

The monster is a chimera reflecting all my fears in one being. Its hybrid nature combines all my fears.

The shadow lurks in my unconscious, emitting negative thoughts, amplifying the anxiety.

The dread is unremitting, the torment is ceaseless.

I close my eyes.

I breathe in. Om!

I hold my breath. Ah!

I breathe out slowly. Hum!

I exhale black smoke.

I inhale bright white light.

I visualise the banishment of the monster.

The dread eases; a dim light starts to glow dimly through the dark night.

The monster disappears in a cloud of sulphurous smoke, emitting a shriek of rage and frustration.

The dismal fog clears. I see the sunrise.

(c) Trevor J. Leavesley 2023

Shoes & Boots

I desperately needed a new pair of dog walking boots and have just found the perfect pair at #shoezone.

Also bought some black patent shoes, which made me think of some patent shoes that I had when I was a child, with a buckle. I loved those shoes, as I did a pair of purple patents that I had a while ago.

I loved those purple shoes so much that I wrote a poem about them. Here it is:

Perfectly Purple Patent

No other shoe
Looks quite like you do
Purple patent perfection
You don't just give my feet protection

Your bright shiny uppers
Light up my soul
When I'm out wearing you
I can only be bold

Bright yellow stitching
A statement of strength all around
Air cushioned and confident
A complement of colours profound

I love you purple patent shoes
You're perfect in every patent way
And every time that I wear you
My heart and soul become more purple
And less blue

Time Out

I’m taking some time out this weekend – just me and Lydia – to rest and recharge. I knew I’d run out of steam and, after a bit of searching on #airbnb, found a super dog-friendly place just a couple of hours drive away.

It’s a small converted barn, built in the 19th century and perfect as a peaceful retreat.

I don’t have a coherent plan about what to do while I’m here but it involves eating, drinking, sleeping and catching up on a few things.

There is a secure grassy area so I can let Lydia out whenever she wants.

Yesterday she had a walk in the morning as usual, then I took her to a secure dog park near where we live #poochiepark before we set off to come here. Tomorrow we’re booked into a park near the barn #littlepaddocks. So today it’s a pj day for me.

I think Lydia is OK with this arrangement – she looks pretty chilled to me💕

Potfest 2022

Next weekend I’m taking part in an event called Potfest in Melton Mowbray #potfest. https://potfest.co.uk/potter/maggie-baker/

Maggie Baker

This completes a cycle for me that started many years ago.

Poetry & Pottery: The Perfect Partnership

There is no way I would have completed that cycle without all the help, inspiration and support I’ve had from family and friends.

And the wheel is going to keep on turning!

Hard Core

Breaking big rocks into smaller rocks: the hard core approach to mental health recovery was the title of an article I wrote in 2013. It was published in a journal by the Royal College of Psychiatrists:

I was surprised, though, that there was no follow up from that. Nobody from the world of psychiatry or related fields sought to make further enquiry about the approach I was taking to rehabilitate myself back into a relatively healthy state of mind.

I think maybe it was because what I was doing seemed quite bizarre: undertaking hard physical labour involving a large sledge hammer and a lot of rocks. And yet the improvements I found in my mental well-being were significant, and lasted for several weeks after I returned to my day job, based in an office.

While I don’t believe that all aspects of my complex mental health needs would have been resolved by continuing to do rigorous physical endeavour all day, every day, the experience certainly had a part to play in my overall recovery.

And the principle of breaking things down into smaller chunks is one that I work with every day.

How else do you create hard core?

Tea towels

Trev and I went to a ‘Yes’ concert recently. The music was sensational and he bought himself a very nice hoodie from the merch stand as a memento.

I said it was a shame they didn’t have tea towels in the merch range. Trev said it wouldn’t really be in keeping with the rock band image but I don’t know why.

I’ve been to other music concerts where tea towels were part of the merch range, a favourite being Seth Lakeman. That tea towel is still going strong…

For the first time in my life, I’ve ironed a tea towel!

Whenever I use that tea towel it reminds me of my friend Rosemary, who I went to the concert with. She bought me the tea towel, and it has further sentimental value as she passed away a few years ago.

Ironically, I never dry dishes – only ever wash and drain – but I’ve got a really good collection of tea towels. I’d have bought a ‘Yes’ one though, if they’d had one, to add to my collection.

The midges danced around me … and sometimes they kissed me

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I’d prepared well for my trip to Iceland. But nothing had prepared me for the wild and fragile beauty of the place. And never have I felt more in tune with nature in all its manifestations as when I entered the Jokulsargljufur National Park.

Giant rock formations thrust and thundered their way out of the earth; solid and fluid at the same time. They looked as if they could be there for time immemorial and yet gone tomorrow as the cycle of changes continues to turn. Iceland is a place of mixtures and contrasts; of separateness and unity.

Young beech saplings, richly green, provided a delicate backdrop to purple meadowsweet and long-stalked buttercups. Anemones grew among the rocks and on the open heath, alongside thrift and heather.

Wandering off alone one evening after dinner, I lost myself in order to be replenished with a new sense of awe and wonder for those tiny things that keep singing and smiling and dancing and shining, night after night in that place that beckons and welcomes and yet turns cold and hostile to test the spirit and firm the resolve: the midges; the birds, the flowers.

I walked, I climbed, I turned, I fell, I closed my eyes, I clung
to a rock. I scrambled, I gasped and I grasped. I cried and
breathed and yelled and pleaded. I sought forgiveness. I felt despair (but only for a moment).

The midges guided me and the birds showed me how to flap my wings
to keep warm. I thanked them and rejoiced and sang and danced and
whistled and cried. After many twists and turns and loops and leaps, after crossing snow and stream, diving under branches, scrambling up hard rocks and across soft moss, the path became straight and broad and familiar.

Heading finally for sleeping bag and tent, I peeled off my cold,
damp clothes and piled on layer after layer, breathing warmth back into my bruised body for as long as I needed to.

I had survived but I had changed. Iceland survives but is changing. The change is being managed intuitively and generously, respectful of the needs of the wild and of those who need to escape to the wild to find a fleeting sense of freedom as a reminder of what we are, have been and always can be.

Goodbye midges. And thank you.

Au revoir Iceland. Bon voyage!

I wrote the above in 1995. Not long after that I spent two weeks as a voluntary inpatient in a psychiatric hospital, where my experience was described by a psychiatrist as a ‘psychotic episode’.

I’ve largely had to fight and find my own way through from that point to this, and never knew what to do with the piece that I wrote. In one sense it’s a piece of ‘travel writing’ and, as I feel more settled now in my head and my heart than I’ve ever been, I thought I might as well publish it on this blog.

Food

Photo by Faizan on Pexels.com

My relationship with food has historically been a difficult one.

As a teenager I went on a strict diet – mostly made up of cottage cheese, crispbread, lean meat and fruit – to keep me at 7/71/2 stone. That was the only way I could feel reasonably good about myself and my body.

Even so,  I didn’t think anybody could possibly find me attractive, and I struggled with a very limited life.

If I ever did ‘let go’ and start to eat anything even remotely fattening, my mood plummeted as my weight gained. The only way I could cope was to start restricting my eating again. I had no concept that help or support of any kind might be available; it was a very private and lonely struggle that went on until my mid-40s. After an almost catastrophic catalogue of failed relationships and career stalemate I realised that I had to push through the internal barriers, and keep going until I came out the other side.

20 years on, at 66, I believe I have finally arrived at that point.

I weigh five stone more than I did in my teens, and though I am aiming to steadily lose some weight this won’t be my starving myself – not just of food, but of life.

There are many factors and influences that have helped me to get through, not least in recent years that of my partner, Trev, who makes me feel beautiful just as I am, inside and out. That’s a great gift to get at any age!

I’ve taken on board Buddhist teachings of all kinds, with one fundamental phrase being an enduring fallback: “The mind is a muscle and it can be changed.”

I’ve had to fight and work hard to train and change my brain and was fortunate to find the fight associated with a strong survival instinct when I needed it.

That isn’t to say that I haven’t had moments of self-loathing that threatened to be overwhelming. But I kept looking for and finding ways to be positive, including reaching out to others who were also struggling in the extreme.

I still won’t try clothes on in a shop changing room, and feel no need to put myself through that ordeal. So while this may be evidence of ‘avoidance’ lingering in my psyche, it’s a minor issue as far as I’m concerned, and doesn’t get in the way of me living my life in a full way, including enjoying delicious food.

Bon appetit!

About Time

When I went through a major breakdown in my late thirties, one of the many things I struggled to come to terms with, as I fought my way back to functionality, was the sense of all the ‘wasted time’ that had gone into building a life that at that stage had come to ‘nothing’.

Roll on more than a quarter of a century, and I’ve had a significant shift in mindset. As each day unfolds I feel a strong sense of being gifted with it; of having all the time in the world. ‘Making the most of it’ can mean anything I want it to mean, whether that be resting, walking, making something out of clay, washing up, doing housework, doing nothing.

So, how did I get from where I was to where I am now?

I’m not really sure, because it’s all a bit of a blur, but I know I’ve done a lot of meditating, a lot of searching, a lot of turning myself inside out, of fighting the thoughts that threatened to pull me into despair, a lot of reaching out, falling, getting up again and trying something else.

Sometimes the last push is the hardest and coming to terms with things that I couldn’t change took some doing.  At around the same time that I had a counsellor who was determined to avoid the key issues that I needed to address, I came across a Buddhist teaching that helped me enormously: https://madhyamaka.org/how-to-accept-what-cant-be-changed/.

The lingering sadness associated with not having been able to form a family of my own has taken a different turn recently, in the form of a furry friend.  She’s not a baby, she’s an adult dog. However, she’s done something to my heart that’s filled a gap I never thought could be filled. Time isn’t about what’s past or ‘lost’, it’s about being here and now, with my partner, and our dog.

A Birthday Present

I was at the funeral of a friend yesterday. He’d died unexpectedly at the age of 67.

As it turned out, the day of the funeral was the day of my 66th birthday.

A funeral isn’t the usual expected place to be on a birthday, nor is it where you would expect to receive an unexpected birthday present.  But that is exactly what happened to me yesterday, at my friend Bill’s funeral. It was a gift given to me by Bill’s grieving wife, Deb, in words that she spoke in celebration of her husband’s life.

Deb spoke about the ancient Japanese art and philosophy of Kintsugi. Kintsugi is about celebrating imperfection; not trying to hide what is broken but recognising the place of mending as a thing of beauty in its own right, and highlighting the mend with gold. She referred to her husband as ‘pure gold’. He was.  As was her gift to me in what she said, using words and with passion that I cannot even begin to emulate, nor do I think that I should even try. They were words that could only be spoken by a wife, grieving the loss of the love of her life. 

I do, however, want to acknowledge those words in this post, feeling broken as I continue to feel inside as I continue to hope and try to heal. I realise now that I don’t have to aim to heal back to how I was before I was broken; that the broken parts and the process of healing – that includes reaching out to others who are also struggling – are the pure gold of life.  So I’ll continue to live it in the best way that I can, cracks and all.

As it turns out, I’ve been making some pots recently that are basically balls of solid clay that may well fall apart in the kiln.  I now hope that they do – so that I can mend them in the Kintsugi way.  Amazingly enough, I also got another birthday present yesterday – from another friend. It was a Kintsugi kit! How weird and wonderful is that?