The Dark Red Coat

May 2017

     Thirty years ago I bought a dark red cashmere coat, the coat to end all coats, the last coat I would ever buy – or so I told myself. I wore it confidently for about eight years, and then largely stopped wearing it altogether. It travelled with me across Europe, for sure, and re-emerged every now and again for concerts and outdoor wanderings. It went with me from house to house to house and across the country from my hometown of Perth, WA, to here.

     In truth, though, it wasn’t a final, last purchase of a lifetime, coat. I’ve bought two other coats since.  Dark red, almost maroon in colour, the woollen coat was big and long and lined and had 80s style shoulder pads. I almost disappeared into it. I looked pale and wane, and contrary to the stereotype of pale and wane, I didn’t look particularly interesting. And so it hung in my wardrobe for years gradually developing a status much bigger than its actual coat-dom. It morphed into the coat I would wear in my mind’s eye as a bag lady living on the streets, with all my bags gathered around me and all my leggings and tee shirts worn at once, and everything else hoarded in a shopping trolley, just in case. A coat, I thought, that would serve as blanket, concealer of worldly goods, and tent, if need be. Or even a coat I could trade for the comfort of a bed and a good night’s sleep. Even when I came to realize the bag lady thing wasn’t going to happen, the coat remained a symbol of my fear of letting go, letting be, and allowing my future to express itself, how ever it wished. And I hung on to this dark red coat and my dark imaginings.

     Then came the massive floods of Lismore where many people lost everything. I didn’t. I live up in Lismore Heights, elevated here on the caldera ridge above the town. My water tank filled, my garden grew and blossomed and my trees took on a new flush of growth. People mowed their lawns, and tidied up and we tried to get on with ordinary life, but none of us have been able to (our hearts will not let us), for down in the town was, and still is in some places, devastation. It’s there in the brown dust, and the smell of nasty mustiness hangs like a pall over the town. It’s there on the faces of the people, exhausted by the effort of making right again something that very nearly finished them off. It’s there, in all things.

     People gathered from far and near to help clean the town and clear the water destroyed belongings of businesses and homes. Truckloads of clothing and other essentials came and were distributed. The greatness of spirit was manifest. Yes, there was also looting and stealing and other nastiness, but mostly a wonderful nourishing supportive presence came to be here.

     I listened to the accounts of the townsfolk, knowing that active listening and being heard is the first step to validation (an “it’s ok”) and  healing. Being heard is like being loved. Hearing requires not anticipating, not putting words into the mouths of others, not being distracted by things around us, not planning a response, not judging and not giving advice. It is just being present with the other person. Listening and being present is most important as right now there is exhaustion and a high likelihood of post-traumatic stress disorder settling in.  I suggest we all find someone to listen to us, for we need to speak.

As for the dark red coat, I gathered it, with blankets, shoes, and clothing and gave it away.

Double Play

April 2017

Double Play  by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M. Couns., PhD

     The  doubling up of forms and scents and sounds in the  natural world, like thyme that smells of oranges and lemons, or chocolate flavoured mint plants, or lizards that go around looking like pieces of wood, or lyre birds that sing the song of dogs, is beautiful and intriguing.

     Then there is the phenomenon of simulacra, or pareidolia (when the mind responds to a stimulus by perceiving a familiar pattern where none exists) as in, for instance, seeing Jesus in a piece of toast or dragons in clouds. Again, fascinating, and a tool a sculptor might employ when gazing at a block of stone. Rodin said he could already see the figure in the stone and his job was simply to release it.

     Then there is doubling of experience that we call synchronicity. A term coined by the analytical psychologist, Carl Jung, synchronicity is used to describe meaningful coincidence; a coincidence that seems to have greater purpose than some random act.

     In recent time I have experienced many instances of this phenomenon. I shall only mention two here, though.

     Last week I attended a peer group meeting of various kinds of therapists (psychiatrists, psychologists, psychotherapists/counsellors, social workers and nurse practitioners), something I regularly do. One of us presented a paper and in it had named one of the people in her case histories after the Greek goddess, Artemis (goddess of the moon,  of hunting, mistress of animals and wildthings,  childbirth, and the focus of the archer); an intriguing figure. Just yesterday, one of my clients speaks of Artemis, a goddess she is close to. How often does this happen? Pretty rarely, in my experience. Artemis symbolized for both women a longing for focus, for being her own person, exploring her own purpose, and not compromising herself in any way. This is a particularly feminine style of focus, not weak, not yielding, but strong and centred and one I am keen to promote among my female clients.

     Of course, in these conversation, because of the nature of me, my mind also leapt into thinking of the plant genus Artemesia, of which the silvery fronds of  mugwort, wormwood and sagebush belong. Mugwort is dried and then burnt in  moxa in Traditional Chinese Medicine, to focus heat on particular parts of the body: an arrow treatment that Artemis would be proud.

     Another piece of synchronicity happened recently.  Earlier in the year, my brother handed me a pile of stuff for the book my deceased architect father wanted published on his professional life, a book largely already written, but needing humanizing a bit. I’d been procrastinating, hugely, and then, out of the blue, I received an email from a member of a committee in Canberra responsible for naming streets and public places wanting permission to use my father’s name for a street in a new Canberra suburb. It was suggested that I write a summary of my father’s career. This meant reading his stuff, and doing some of the research I had avoided doing for ages, and getting it down in print.  I might add that my father has been dead 10 years so this coincidence of events is odd.

     The more I read of the nature of synchronicity the less I understand it. It is tempting to say that these coincidences are not random, and that they are connected somehow on some psychic plane, but to do so is to enter very murky waters. I suggest that our propensity for connecting things and making meaning of them is the key. They would be random events if we didn’t join the dots, as it were, and make an account of them that fits our psychological situation. This is a meaning making process and it is one that enriches our world, bringing understanding of our own processes, and a certain delight in the interrelatedness of living together in a world that seems to like double play.