La Bella Luna
Dedicated to my brother and his favorite, and now my favorite, musician, Cat Stevens/Jusuf, and his song “Moonshadow,” a gift to me from my brother after he passed. The song meant so much to him, and now, with him, to me.
Cow Communication
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Iced Berries no. 2
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Winter Tree Filigree
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formats.
Playful Innocence
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formats.
Reaching for the Stars
“I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree… a tree that looks at God all day and lifts her leafy arms to pray.” The opening lines of the poem,“Trees,” by Joyce Kilmer. Indigenous peoples through the ages have talked of tree spirits and trees as wise ones. Trees are striking as they lift their arms to the Heavens in seemingly permanent prayer, day and night in communication with the Creator, their outstretched arms reaching for the stars.
Reaching for the stars. The image calls to mind a dance of the Kalahari Bushmen who were featured in the movie “The Gods They Must be Crazy.” The Kalahari, the last men born of the Stone Age culture according to Laurens Van Der Post, have no sense of individuality and share all they have. They have a dance of gratitude which Van Der Post describes in his book entitled “A Mantis Carol”: “I never see their dancing without feeling deeply moved and utterly irreverent and blasphemous because of our own incapacity for acknowledging what life will give if only we will let it in.” And then there is their dance of the “great hunger,” a dance that says we do not live by bread alone, a dance at life’s end fraught with longing, with arms outstretched taughtly towards the Heavens as they reach for the stars.
My grandfather reached for the stars. He came here, a 16-year-old peasant stonecutter from the mountains of Sicily, knowing no English. He wound up carving the Lincoln Gettysburg address at the Lincoln Memorial in DC. While working on the Gettysburg Address he studied English at night school. I remember him telling me how he was the laughing-stock of his fellow stone cutters because, inspired by Lincoln’s words, he carved his initials at the top of the monument, “A.L.” for Anthony LaManna (and, of course, for Abraham Lincoln), followed by: “Attorney at Law.” Working his way through school, he actually did eventually become a VA lawyer. He reached for the stars and touched them without ever forgetting where he came from. And he was childlike as he took care of me, as we danced to records on the victrola, or as he played the mandolin and sang to me. I always think of him with a tinge of sadness, for more than anyone, he taught me to reach for the stars.
Reach for the Creator– that is what the trees say. At this time of year I yearn for the days of childhood in which God seemed close. This yearning fully ripens each year at Christmas/Hanukkah when the people brighten their houses with festive lights. It is a time of year in which we light up our hearts and look to the heavens and sing songs of love to a babe born not so very long ago, or in which we give thanks for the oil to light the lights of the temple for eight days. We are all really seeking the love that motivated the Kalahari Bushmen to do their dance. We are seeking a savior, and yearning for the Light in this overlit, commercialized, complicated world in which the inspiring simplicity of the Bushmen, the peasant, is rapidly disappearing. And the trees touch my heart in their upward reach for the Heavens. For at this time so many millions of them are sacrificed as they become our Christmas trees and Hanukkah bushes, to be discarded after the holidays are over.
May we enter this holy season with a simpler yearning, not for presents and parties and hoopla, but with our hearts full of gratitude, taking lessons from the trees, from the Kalahari Bushmen, from our ancestors, and seek the Light, in whatever form it takes in our souls.
Mourning Mania and the Only Path to Take
I once had the fire, raging within, unchecked and veering out of control. Now it glows like a pile of burning embers I sift through periodically, as if panning for gold. Once a cauldron of creativity, ideas bubbled around inside my head at break-neck speed, spinning like a troop of whirling dervishes. But far more valuable, the flames fueled what can only be called the presence of God within, being at one with Jesus. Such beautiful states were sparked by the same fire that also torched a living hell within—for such were the cycles of my mania and depression.
The danger of mania drew nigh when the flames scorched what was left of my reason and my perception of the world, sending me into a morphing reality where I could no longer tell what was real and what wasn’t. This alternative/alternating consciousness clouded my vision as I ran up against the walls of mania and depression, like a little girl, lost in a house of mirrors, not knowing how far she was from the light of day.
To say I could not function is a huge understatement and was a by-product of my living in another dimension. I remember once not being able to respond to a store clerk simply asking if he could help me. That question had always been troublesome for my Aspie nature, but in a Bipolar mania I was unable to open my mouth to speak, and this sent me running out the doors of the store, seeking a hiding place for my tears. One of the many times I lost my speech.
To make matters worse the fire would rage and then die out suddenly and completely, leaving me like a trapeze artist suddenly finding there was no safety net below. Despair was total—no creative juices, no God and a mind replete with self-loathing in a totally black, bleak void. I was a dead tree in the depths of winter, with decaying stumps where branches used to be. There was no future and I had no access to any of the goodness of things past.
Alternating between these two ways of being in the world was exhausting, confusing and totally disorienting. And then I had a breakdown and psychosis spewed forth from the detritus of my mind. I was reborn into a the world that was totally overwhelming and hellishly over-stimulating. I had to learn the lessons of childhood all over again, starting from square one. This time with professional help and MEDICATION! Not the self-medication of alcohol. Psych meds. Heavy duty ones of the Thorazine variety. Anti-psychotics.
At first, it seemed I was now wrapped the “cotton-wool” Virginia Woolf described as her moments of “non-being.” My cotton-wool was more of a mental straight-jacket. The medication had toned down the world outside and inside as if I were under water in John Lilly’s immersion tank. Clearly medication adjustments had to be made and they continued to be made over and over again until my doc and I found a balance—the Golden Mean of medication, with me as a willing patient since I could no longer function at all without it. Medication meant that I didn’t have to go to hospital. Medication meant that I didn’t have to kill myself. Medication meant that therapy could now teach me how to live and, more importantly, how to love. I had been seeking love all my life but was too dazed by the blaze within me to see it, feel it or return it when given. Now, at long last I could.
Most Bipolars are not med-compliant and go off their meds when things get better. And then they veer into the vertiginous descent to hell once more and wind up in hospital/jail/homeless/dead. There is no virtue in my med compliance. I have tried stopping the meds a few times resulting in a reality so painful, that, humbled, I go crawling back to them. Life events have necessitated raising the dosage now and then. Like when my father was dying of cancer and later my mother and, just a year and a half ago, my brother.
Every so often I lament the loss of the raging fire of creativity and the burning desire for communion with God but now my thoughts are slowed down enough that I can sift through the embers and find little sparks which inspire poetry/prose/paintings/photographs/prayer. I find smoldering embers of religious feeling and have to work hard to fan the fire, it’s true. But now I can channel the creativity and religious feeling into works of art that I can be shared with others. Not torn up, destroyed or desecrated in a sudden descent into depression. Now I have to work harder to pray and have practiced meditation to find real religious feeling. Despite the loss of mystical states, I find myself more motivated to become a better person in God’s eyes without the former pseudo-spiritual feeling possessing me and my ego. Most importantly now I can love: people, God, and even myself at times.
Slowing down is not boring. It enables one to function/produce/LOVE. I have accomplished more in every facet of my life after being medicated and treated than I ever did before my breakdown. The same ideas are there but now I can use them as building blocks of art/faith/relationships. I think myself more materialistic and self-seeking than I was when I was totally out of my mind. Yes, it is true that I am, but paradoxically that makes me better able to try to give something back to the world, to love others and to pray harder to God. I have lost the effortlessness of it all and I have to pedal harder to get somewhere where treasured feelings are deeper, and more lasting. I could not love before—not myself, not others.
Sometimes I mourn the manias, until I am reminded of their undesirable attributes as they occasionally race through my mind scaling the protective walls of medication. Now I finally know them for what they are. Dangerous. Scary. Out of control. And I now know they will be followed by a crash. When I mourn the days of raging fire, others remind me that the middle road is far better. I remember my Sicilian grandfather whom I adored, preaching the “Middle Path,” which I think he got from reading Marcus Aurelius. And I wonder if he said this from his own experience of some sort of psychological problems he may have had. His daughter, my Mom, certainly had a mood disorder, if not Bipolar Disorder itself. Maybe he did, too.
My husband is my biggest reminder of the importance of medication. A clinical social worker, he knows well of what he speaks, the bulk of his knowledge coming from 23 years of living with, and loving me through my suicidal depressions and my florid manias. And these days, he is the man I adore. I am still constantly amazed that I am able to give love to a real other, another human being, however imperfectly. In the days when passion fanned the terrifying, tumultuous flames of phantasms of love built upon superficial desire, I could not. Nor did I think I would ever be able to love or be loved.
Medication, therapy and my husband have helped me stay sane and walk the middle road. And the middle road is the only path to take.
Lamb in a Manger
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formats.
Moonrise Filigree
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Compassionate Communicator, One Lovely Blog, Reality Blog Awards
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About a month ago I received The One Lovely Blog Award from Kathy at BipolarandBreastless.wordpress.com. I was ill and had just received the Compassionate Communicator Award from Kevin at VoicesofGlass.com (see above) so am only now getting to thanking Kathy, a courageous writer and new friend and passing it on.
Here are the rules:
1. Thank the person who nominated you and link back to their blog.
2. List seven random things about yourself.
3. Nominate other bloggers for the award.
7 random things:
1. I am Bipolar.
2. I have Asperger’s.
3. I have written a memoir about finding love with both of the above disorders called, “Eye-locks and Other Fearsome Things: learning to love as a Bipolar Aspie.”
4. Animals and nature are a passion of mine and I do animal activism online.
5. I do animal and nature photography and writing.
6. I write about being Bipolar and Aspie.
7. I do abstract photography and painting.
Here are my nominations for the One Lovely Blog award:
Genie at APlaceCalledLove.wordpress.com
Bert at WhoisBert.wordpress.com
Mike at Mike585.wordpress.com
Rob at RobSalem.wordpress.com
Blue Girl at BlueGirlPoems.wordpress.com
Tripper at Tripperspot.com
and dear Kevin at Voices of Glass nominated me for the Reality Blog Award which I have yet to formally acknowledge and pass on it though it means the world to me… I, who have been delusional and lived in a different reality and at times in two realities at once find it ironic to be nominated for this award and do not feel able to accept it. And although I wrote a memoir about my experiences I find it near impossible to answer the questions one has to answer to accept this award. But I will in time pass it on to others and I THANK YOU, DEAR KEVIN for awarding it to me.
Bipolar Reflections
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The Poetry of Autumn
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Glowing Reflections
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Humbling and Beyond Our Comprehension
Astronomers decided to point the Hubble Telescope at
a dark spot out in space and they left it there for 10 days. The
results encouraged them to try again for 11 days.
Turn up your sound while you look at the 3-D presentation the astronomers
made:
http://tinyurl.com/rdzpzu
It’s almost more than we can comprehend….
Daubs of Color and Skeleton Trees
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Omens and Miracles
It was a beautiful autumn day. The air was the lovely cool that October brings and the birds and the squirrels were in a feeding frenzy. I barely noticed though because all morning was spent cleaning resistant rust stains with some horrid acid cleaner with all kinds of warnings on it. And I had a low fever and was feeling kind of lousy. A phone call set the afternoon on a downward spiral. It had been an angry phone call. I had called my husband at lunch time and he was showing all the signs of extreme job stress. He is a psychiatric social worker and at times it seems all of his clients act out at once and intakes happen and hospitalizations happen and whatever can go wrong, does. It was one of those kind of days. He proceeded to yell at me, for what seemed like fifteen minutes but was probably only five, about all that went wrong that day. Then suddenly the phone went dead. I called back immediately and got a fast busy signal. I tried again with the same result. And again. I tried the cell but, as usual, his cell was turned off. So there was no getting through. And he had a long commute home and considering his mood and all, I was totally alarmed. I tried him on and off all afternoon and finally left a message on his cell asking him to call me. He didn’t. Until well after the time he should have left work.
“Are you still speaking to me?” he asked right away. “Yes, of course, why do you ask?” “Because I was yelling at you at lunch time.” “I know and I was wondering why but I didn’t hang up. The phone went dead.” “Okay, I am on my way home. It will take some time because I was delayed and traffic is worse at this time.” “Okay,” I said. I didn’t say my usual “Be careful!” or other worried dictums. I was just happy he had called. When I hung up the phone I thanked God he had called and he seemed to have calmed down some since lunchtime. Things were looking better than they had at midday.
And then there was the unmistakable thud on the window. I hoped in vain it was a falling walnut since they bounce off the roof and such at this time of year. But two feathers on the window pane left telltale marks. I was felt ill. We had just put up a wooden bird house with suction cups in the window above to prevent bird collisions (according to the advertisement). I looked out the window on the deck for a body. None. I went outside. No bird. Such a loud thud though was unmistakable. When I turned the corner of the deck on to the lawn, sure enough, I saw the bird. He saw me and seemed too stunned to be afraid so I did a quick form of Japanese energy healing technique known as Reiki on him. Deciding my gigantic presence was probably stressing him out further I went inside. I could see him from the window. I did the symbols for distant healing and sent him the animal healing symbol. He sat there with his head resting on the ground. At least he did not have his beak open in a screech like a wounded blue jay a few months ago but things did not look good.
Now half of me comes from a Sicilian background and it is a strong strain in my psyche. My maternal grandfather was a peasant working in the stone quarries of Sicily when, at 16, he fulfilled his dream of coming to the United States. Here he wound up becoming a lawyer but only after first doing stone work to finance his night schooling. Among his carving work was the Lincoln Gettysburg address at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. He was an exceptional man and I was very close to him as a little girl. His peasant background never left him. This was both good and bad. The bad, he and his wife and my mother were very superstitious. They believed in omens and signs. And this was instilled in me. Now to have this bird fly into the window just after talking to my husband about his long commute home was all too much. I argued in my mind against omens and superstitions but in my gut I was sick.
I kept checking on the bird, wondering if he was dead yet and if I should go bury him so he wouldn’t get eaten. I did more Reiki. I cried. It was not only that this poor little bird was hurt and probably going to die but what he represented. The birds had been in a feeding frenzy these past few days. I had just refilled the bird feeder yesterday and it was half empty not even 24 hours later. And it was bird central. Birds flying like kamikaze planes all over the front yard. When I went to fill the bird feeder a bird stayed on eating to the very last minute, unafraid of my approach. And as soon as I put the feeder back up in the tree he was back, not even waiting for me to leave. In this frantic feeding no wonder there was an accident.
I went back to the window to check the bird again. His head had been resting on the ground and things definitely did not look good! But, did I see his head up now? Yes, he had lifted up his head and he was moving his head right and left and up and down. I prayed in desperation. And I kept watching feeling guardedly hopeful. And next thing I knew he took to the air and flew to the swamp somewhere lost to my eyes. I was ecstatic. I got down on my knees and thanked God. This was truly a miracle. In my pessimism and superstition that I must battle with daily I have lost all faith in miracles. But miracles do happen. The guy at work who was on death’s door after collapsing outside the library and wound up having cancer, was now fully tumor free and working out at the gym. Another miracle. People and birds don’t always die even when things look their bleakest. Sometimes there are miracles. And my husband came home safe and sound and apologized to me and was happy to be home. Sometimes, too, there are happy endings.
Fall Grasses and Trees
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Animal and Landscape Photographs
No.6
Horses and Watercolor Trees
Autumn, the “second spring, where every leaf is a flower.” ~ Albert Camus
No.5 Landscape in a Window
No. 4 Melancholia
No. 3 Fall Reflections
No. 2 Chagall Lambs
No. 1 Lace Highlights
All limited edition original photographs available in different sizes and formats.
Mood Photographs
No. 5 Homage to Rothko
No. 4 Soul Gathering
No. 3 “Moonshadow” no. 2
(Photograph after Cat Stevens/Yusuf)
No. 2 The Rush of Feeling
No. 1 “Moonshadow” (Photograph after Cat Stevens/Jusuf)
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Oh, We of Stardust Made (and Other Interesting Facts by Sergio Toporek)
“Consider that you can see less than 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum and hear less than 1% of the acoustic spectrum. As you read this, you are traveling at 220 km/sec across the galaxy. 90% of the cells in your body carry their own microbial DNA and are not “you.” The atoms in your body are 99.9999999999999999% empty space and none of them are the ones you were born with, but they all originated in the belly of a star. Human beings have 46 chromosomes, 2 less than the common potato. The existence of the rainbow depends on the conical photoreceptors in your eyes; to animals without cones, the rainbow does not exist. So you don’t just look at a rainbow, you create it. This is pretty amazing, especially considering that all the beautiful colors you see represent less than 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum.” –Sergio Toporek
(Click http://www.independentauthornetwork.com/ellen-stockdale-wolfe.html for information on, and to purchase my Bipolar/Asperger’s memoir.)
Asperger’s Romance, a Feature News Item– Inspiring for all Aspies and Auties
(Click http://www.independentauthornetwork.com/ellen-stockdale-wolfe.html for information on, and to purchase my Bipolar/Asperger’s memoir.)
“Never, Never”
“It won’t happen again. Never. Never. Never. It’ll never happen again. No. No. No.”
The words to a song by Yusuf, better known as Cat Stevens, about a love affair gone awry. The words reverberate in my head repeatedly in true Bipolar style, as in true Aspie style, I listen to the song over and over and over and over again. My perseveration on the song fashions the words into a mantra, sending me full throttle into another state of consciousness, like the whirling dervishes of Istanbul who spin until they enter a mystical state. Since I no longer alter my consciousness with alcohol, cigarettes or recreational drugs (was too crazy to go that route), and since I am on anti-psychotic medications which keep me in reality, I have to use music, meditate and take refuge in nature to venture into my much-missed mystical states of being. The states today are washed out versions of the vibrant intensity I was accustomed to earlier in my life. But then, at age 28, my mind, never too strong to begin with, broke down and reality shattered into so many smithereens of glass. “It’s always a trade-off,” the experts say. But (and a “but” with a capital “B”) the psych meds hold me together and, most importantly of all, they allow me to love.
“It will never happen again. No. No. No.”
I can’t say that. My first major manic episode was ignited by a flaming crush at work that catapulted me into the fractionated world of psychosis for a very long time. Some thirty years later I am unsure just how far away that world is. It is not unusual for love to trigger the first manic episode in Bipolars, and I had another when I met the man who was to become my husband. This time the psychosis lost the war– because the love was reciprocated and nurturing– the most stable thing I had ever experienced. And (big “and”) because I was medicated. Though it felt like another break with reality was encroaching on my psyche, it never materialized and has not since.
But there have been close calls now and then. Writing my memoir of madness while working part-time, I would go to my job with all the raw feelings I was writing about whirling around inside me and, seemingly, outside me as well, as though stamped on my forehead. The memories and flashbacks bubbled up from deep inside like a lava flow of feelings. But no breakdown.
Mania is not the only state that flirts with psychosis. So, too, does the underbelly of the beast, depression. Loss of loved ones and caring for my dying mother brought me perilously close to the precipice again but extra medication kept me on the sane side of psychosis.
Even now any highly emotional experience (and being bipolar there are many) can shake the foundations of the self. Beholding great beauty in ecstatic encounters with nature, profound connections between thoughts and ideas, connecting deeply to another person—all these can send me reeling into space wondering if I can make it back to earth. These are all dangers I engage in somewhat recklessly for they make up the majestic magic and mystery of life. Friends and family I have helped keep my feet on the ground, but my husband is my real anchor to reality. Should something happen to Tom, well…
No. Unlike a dead love affair, I can’t say the descent into madness “will never happen again.” As I drift in and out of tantalizing trips into mania and try to flee the inevitable free fall into depression, I hang on for dear life and will not let go.
Enjoy the song sung soulfully by Cat Stevens, “MaybeYou’re Right…”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUnxkW4zeM4&feature=youtube_gdata_player
(Click http://www.independentauthornetwork.com/ellen-stockdale-wolfe.html for information on, and to purchase my Bipolar/Asperger’s memoir.)
Three “Dog Day” Birthdays
It is a “dog day” in August, with the mercury near 90 degrees. It is the weekend and I am sitting in the backyard watching for wildlife. The birds are laying low. Our normally “Grand Central” marsh out back, our playground for the birds who fly hither and thither most of the time, is seemingly empty. The leaves on the trees are still except for the occasional breeze that cools the sweat on the body, and moves leaves on the tree I call the “penny tree” (because its leaves shimmer like so many pennies in the wind). A frog jumps at my feet in the shade taking measured leaps, all too aware of my presence despite my stillness.
Purple Loosestrife is emerging in the late summer marsh, along with Goldenrod and Joe Pie Weed. Bees swarm all over the Joe Pie Weed. Giant yellow swallow-tails flit among the Loosestrife. Every time I try to take a picture of them they are on to new horizons. In fact, no one is moving much except the insects, and they are moving in a frenzied pace as if to make up for lost time.
In torpor, my mind melding with the heat, finally I am driven to move out of the sun to shade in order to see better. Tiny fritillary fly to and fro. I look up at the still trees and feel peace, a soothing peace that my soul hungers for most of the time. It makes me feel guilty though, feeling this peace while so many near and dear to me are in distress. Perhaps I feel guilty because my husband is inside resting, way too tired from a hard week at work, at a hard job, giving therapy to the mentally ill in the South Bronx. He is in a foul mood after a bad week and it is his father’s birthday, the first birthday since his father died last fall. But deep down I know the guilt largely stems from the fact that my brother is dying of cancer. Lung cancer. Stage 3. Inoperable. With 2-4 months left to live. I spoke to him on the phone the afternoon before his first chemo the other day. My macho brother said, “I am scared.” A first for a brother who rarely admits to any feelings at all. And he called me right after the chemo to say he was okay, but I have not heard since. I hope it is because he had a test Friday and has no results yet to share. I fear though that the silence means he is feeling sick from the chemo.
Chemo is different these days. When my best friend, Mom and Dad had chemo 16, 22 and 25 years ago, you could die from it. And it made them very ill. More people are surviving today but as far as chemo goes, things have not progressed that much.
So here I sit contemplating nature, feeling one with God while my brother sits in Michigan with his wife and three adopted kids, dying. Is it fair? No. Will we visit him? Maybe. If I can sedate myself so as not to go to pieces when I see him at 5’7″ and 106 pounds, looking unlike the brother I ever knew. Can he pull through? Possibly. More people are surviving cancer these days. Can it be possible that my kid brother has cancer? It can’t be. Do I cry? On and off. At the most inopportune times. Is my brother brave? Yes. Because he didn’t have health insurance and because he was afraid and because he was in pain, he did not go the doctor for a year. He fought his cancer on his own with ibuprofen! Now he is on morphine. That’s brave and not brave. Making a joke saying, “Well, I STILL have my hair!” just a few hours after his first chemo is funny. It is also brave. My brother didn’t get help until he collapsed one day, bringing up blood. Losing my balance, I had fallen on my face one hour before my brother collapsed. Is there a link between loved ones that operates when one is failing? I think so.
Although I sit writing in the cooling shade, transported to another plane, I am thinking of my brother and my husband and his widowed stepmother and his sister whose birthday is also next week. Susan had a mastectomy last summer. She is just one of the many suffering in our world. The “dog days” of summer are upon us and for some there are nothing but dog days.
I absorb all the life about me, the frog hopping periodically, the catbird whining, the insects flying frantically, gliding butterflies that fly by too fast, and I wonder about this thing called life. How long it seems sometimes, and yet it goes by in a blink of the eye. In the cooling air as the shadows lengthen, bringing more shade and delightful zephyrs, the birds return and a robin eyes me curiously. I give thanks to the Creator for giving us islands of beauty in a sometimes grim world, for the islands of happiness, in devastation, for islands of peace that well up from the soul within, even in the worst of times.
Happy Birthday, Dad! We miss you. Happy Birthday, Susan! May you remain cancer-free. And, most of all, Happy Birthday, Tony! May your birthday next week not be your last! God bless you all!
Note: The above was written in August, 2009. My brother lived another two years and died June 17, 2011. My sister-in-law celebrated her 4th year cancer-free just a month ago.
(Click http://www.independentauthornetwork.com/ellen-stockdale-wolfe.html for information on, and to purchase my Bipolar/Asperger’s memoir.)
Traits of Females with Asperger’s by Samantha Craft
(Click http://www.independentauthornetwork.com/ellen-stockdale-wolfe.html for information on, and to purchase my Bipolar/Asperger’s memoir.)
MOONSIDE 
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