July 2023
Words before Words (a poem written by me and published in 2015)
I want to write about the dark inchoate space that is night.
I want to describe the beginning before the setting out without a plan, guided only occasionally by a snatch of moon and shiny patches of wet on the leafy ground.
I want to write of this before, before, before, because that’s how it feels right now, to write without a clear sense of what I’m writing about. I have only a feeling; nameless and wordless.
Words before words, before even concepts, before even a sense of direction, before the division of light into dark, before the Genesis of God himself, before before before... I saw the movie a Theory of Everything the other day, the movie about the life and work of Stephen Hawking. In the beginning was not even the word, the thought, nor time, nor a beginning shining in darkness, exploding in the night, just an inchoate nothing.
And yet, a mere dot in which all worlds, all words, spawned and into which all will retreat. There is a hum threading each precious bead of wordlessness to words to nothing once more. A snatch of light, a glistening of moon captured in grass, a stumbling, a bird call... and then the night.
…..
And so these were my thoughts this morning as I relaxed into the geothermally heated, mineral saturated hydrotherapy pool down beside the Swan River. As I lay there, rain came: cold drops bouncing off the still surface of the water and I entered into the space between worlds: water from above and water below.
This is what it is like meeting a client for the first time, and for the second time, and all other times. There really is no point having one’s head filled with expectation, theories, strategies; there really is the simple meeting that may, or may not expand into deeper places. For one thing, you might try to drive the therapy session in the way you think it should go, but actually by then, you’ve really missed the boat. The other person, after all, has come to the meeting between us with their mind, their feelings, their intentions, their expectations, their recent and old experiences and want to express these, without hindrance. I provide guidance, for sure, but without obstacles. My job is to listen to them and adapt. To do this, I have to be in a state of knowing nothing… before words, before all else. Then, and only then, does my participation begin to matter. Only then, can my words have any potency.
I’m reminded of a client who had claimed to be one type of personality on the phone prior to us meeting, but came to the session expressing quite another side of herself. If I had designed my work strategy before meeting her, hell bent on driving the session in the way I thought it should go, I would’ve been totally insensitive to her actual needs. Too much prior knowledge really does cloud one’s perceptions.
Space and inner quiet is required in order that any real work is possible. Without such preparation, there is only chaos. No workman can do their job with a bench cluttered up with the bibs and bobs of inessentials. All of us are craftsmen of some kind: we plan our strategy for performing whatever task it is, we clear our space and then we focus on doing the job we’ve set ourselves. There is reflective order here, and a lovely sense of spaciousness.
The longer I do psychotherapy with people, the more I value this preparation time before sessions. I cannot just engage in other activities and drop them and begin working with a client in session; I need a place of contemplation, of meditation, of emptying out my mind of other things. Then, I can be truly present with the person sitting with me.
