on the wings of a bird…
HELLO! March Greetings,
Welcome! I am so happy you're here to receive an encouraging sketch, an inspiring idea on occasion from Cypress Treehouse Counseling. Thank you warmly for YOUR interest! Because we're a treetop refuge for healing and discovery through counseling and artistic expression, the perspective of an artist will be shared in these sketches, along with an optional home-practice of participation. I hope you enjoy!
(In previous sketches, we celebrated contrast: light against darkness, curve and line, rough and smooth. Then readers voted to receive a poem about a gentle protection that follows us. Next, we looked at anxiety and recovery through the body, and then we recognized that we can experience peace by seeing 'as is', the shape of things on the horizon.😊Look for previous newsletters under -Sketchbook of Ideas- CypressTreehouseCounseling.com)
Thank goodness for daydreaming! Daydreams are like the wings of a bird. They fold back and down and then lift and release. Without our even realizing, there is effort in gathering in and then freedom in going for a ride. Rhythmically pushing and then reaching from past into future, daydreams comb through the past from root to end and shape into the future as well. Letting myself dream helps prevent burnout. I gather in through my senses the qualities that I miss or long for. My memories set a tone, and then I set them free into a daydream. 'Friends around a fire-pit, the scent of burning pine. My attention is HELD intensely by the fire's light, its dance. The percussive crackles and sparks let the old burn away and give way to the present.’
Quantum physics discovered that we participate in recreating our pasts just as we participate in creating our futures. My daydreams forward and back sculpt around an essence of truth that is alive in me presently. A hurtful shattered time can be woven whole again when kindness toward myself is discovered. Therapeutic partnership supports this process of infusing love and insight into fear and brokenness. With a shared resonance between client and therapist, kindness can be found amidst the rubble and restored to something still in pain or to something in the future that is causing fear.
The nice part about daydreaming in this way, is that much of it can be completely made up. I can experience having a bird’s wings, sending a message on a bird’s wings, riding a bird, or talking to a bird...I can bring my heart and genuine qualities, my signature being, to my daydream and in that way be completely honest and completely fluid at the same time. Here’s an example of this process in writing:
Regarding quarantine, writer, Ira Sukrungruang, journals in his essay, Nesting, "When we are desperate, we look for hope in anything... even in a ‘thing with feathers.' ... I watch the birds instead of being a good dad and playing with my son. I watch the birds because I'm lonely, too. A female house finch flies into a hanging basket above my head. She looks down at me. I look up at her. The finch's beak is wide almost too wide for its small body: necessary for breaking the hull of sunflower seeds. She stays in the basket amoung purple and white pansies... The pansies nod…(I ask) ‘What do you do when you feel down? Because I feel down a lot. I feel helpless. And hopeless. Like I’m failing at everything. I’m a horrendous father, and instead of being better, I let everything make me feel tired and impatient and irrational. You guys are all I’ve got. I watch you and imagine your world, because my world, this world, is falling apart.’
Look, she says, I’m not a therapist, I’m just a bird.
‘I want to be a bird,’ I say. ‘My son wants to be a bird.’
I get it. It’s because we fly.
’And sing...’”
Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) is at work inside each of us. When allowed to be fully expressive, an integrative process begins (AIP), and it takes us towards health and towards kindness. However, it requires that we somehow discover something spontaneous, genuine, and beyond words. It requires that we go for a ride, take flight, surrender to the currents and soar or at least put our prayer on a bird’s wings and wait. It requires that we daydream. (Optional home-practice: talk to the birds or to the pots and pans in your home. Say, hello, tell them the time of day, describe the light in the room, and say something you wish for in your future, past, present, as I wish for that crackling fire-pit surrounded by friends…and then see what happens, maybe you’ll go to where your heart takes you.)
I’m so glad that I get to daydream, and I’m so glad that I get to run and leap with my arms wide open in the dance studio! Let me know if you’d like to join me in exploring an integrative process that uses the imagination or if you’d like traditional counseling and EMDR on Zoom. Write to me at kaaatherine@hotmail.com or text 303-929-1928 to schedule.
A poem that says it all:
Naomi Shihab Nye: “[…] Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.”
Welcome! I am so happy you're here to receive an encouraging sketch, an inspiring idea on occasion from Cypress Treehouse Counseling. Thank you warmly for your interest! Because we're a treetop refuge for healing and discovery through counseling and artistic expression, the perspective of an artist will be shared in these sketches, along with a gentle home-practice of participation. I hope you enjoy! First, we celebrated contrast: light against darkness, curve and line, rough and smooth. Then readers voted to receive a poem about a gentle protection that follows us. Next, we looked at anxiety and recovery through the body, and then we recognized that we can experience peace by seeing 'as is', the shape of things on the horizon. (😊Look for previous newsletters under -Sketchbook of Ideas at CypressTreehouseCounseling.com)
Thank goodness for daydreaming. Daydreams are like the wings of a bird. They fold back and down and then rhythmically lift and release, there is effort in gathering in and then freedom in going for a ride, pushing and reaching from past to future. Daydreams comb through the past from root to end and shape into the future as well. Letting myself dream helps prevent burnout. I gather in through my senses the qualities that I miss or long for. My memories set a tone, and then I set them free. 'Friends around a fire pit in the back yard, the scent of burning pine, my attention is held intensely by the fire's light, its dance, percussive crackles and sparks let the old burn away and give way to the new.
With an essence of truth, my memories sometimes enhance themselves for healing. For mending and healing, missing pieces can be added, more love is added to parts broken or stuck, kindness to something that hurts...That's the nice part about daydreaming, it can be completely made up. I can even ride the bird, become a bird, or talk to a bird...I can bring my genuine qualities, my signature being, to my daydream and in that way be both completely honest and fluid at the same time. This is how memory works AIP
"When we are desperate", Ira Sukrungruang writes, "we look for hope in anything, even, as Emily Dickinson wrote, 'a things with feathers.' ... I watch the birds instead of being a good dad and playing with my son. I watch the birds because I'm lonely, too. A female house finch flies into a hanging basket above my head. She looks down at me. I look up at her. The finch's beak is wide almost too wide for its small body: necessary for breaking the hull of sunflower seeds. She stays in the basket amoung purple and white
pansies. The pansies nod. ETC
AIP
Naomi Shihab Nye: “[…] Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.”
