My local choir is performing Gustav Mahler’s 2nd Symphony later this month, and I’m really looking forward to this concert. This Symphony is often called “The Resurrection Symphony.” The music and the text of the choral movement are so powerful.
Our choir director typically writes in translations for us over the text we’re singing, so we can know its meaning. I love how he translates it in the word order of the sung language rather than phrasing it for English. Because of this, sometimes, the literal phrases grab my attention.
As I was singing in our rehearsal, I had one of those moments with this phrase:
To bloom again were you sown To bloom again were you sown
Perhaps that’s a phrase we might need to hear. And so I’ll cast it out today, letting it mean whatever it needs to mean for each of you.
To bloom again were you sown To bloom again were you sown
A recording will definitely do, but if you can listen to the real birds outside chirping away, even better. Bird songs calm our nervous systems.
Fun Facts: The sounds of birds are lovely, and they remind us of spring (great things). But they’re also calming for evolutionary reasons too. When our early human ancestors heard birds chirping and singing in the trees, that meant there probably weren’t any predators around. So everyone could be more calm and less on guard.
And our bodies remember this. So listen away!
Bird songs, along with other forms of calm, activate our parasympathetic nervous systems. And in times of stress or collective trauma, this is what we need. Our autonomic nervous systems have a 1) sympathetic nervous system which ramps up our ‘fight or flight’ responses, and a 2) parasympathetic nervous system which calms them down.
So in times of stress and trauma, we want all the life hacks we can muster to activate the parasympathetic nervous system.
A red cartoon heart with white arms gives a self-hug.
A Stress Relief Hack:
Give yourself a hug.
Sure, you may feel silly, but try to put that away for a few reasons: 1) It’s good to give yourself self-compassion, 2) no one is watching, and most importantly, 3) this has great health benefits because it releases stress.
When we hug, our brains reduce chemicals like oxytocin and dopamine (big, feel good chemicals) and you know what? While it’s certainly great to hug another person, our brains don’t fully know the difference between an other-people hug and a self-hug, especially if we place good intentions of self care into that hug.
Hugs also stimulate the vagus nerve.When we activate the parasympathetic nervous system, that calms our fight or flight responses. The vagus nerve is a special hack to know about, because it plays a big role in that system. When we hug, we stimulate pressure points in our skin called pacinian corpuscles, and these receptors fire signals to the vagus nerve. Among other things, the vagus nerve plays a role in regulating blood pressure. Hugs, including self-hugs, activate this system and frequently, lower blood pressure.
Trauma often reveals itself as a cluster of reactions, rather than a set of memories.
On Instagram, @Somaticexperiencingint and @igototherapy shared these images about fight, flight, freeze, and fawn reactions in relationships. We might see these emerge in friendships, romantic relationships, among family members, or within workplaces.
As I was walking into the grocery store, a person asked me, “Would you like to buy a paper?”
This man was selling GroundcoverNews, a local newspaper. Their mission statement reads, “Groundcover News exists to create opportunity and a voice for low-income people while taking action to end homelessness and poverty.” We can find folks selling the paper in a number of locations, often downtown on street corners.
I answered him, “Yes. But would it be okay if I did that on the way out?”
“Sure thing,” he said.
I wanted to get some cash when I was checking out. And that’s what I did. I used my debit card to get some cash back, and I brought it back outside.
I handed it to the man, and I said, “I don’t need a paper, but I can give this.”
In all honesty, this was because I was unlikely to read the paper, at least beyond the front cover. Not because it isn’t worth reading, by the way. It is, and there’s some good stuff in there. I just know myself, and I get busy. Why take the wares off of this person if I’m not going to read it? Doesn’t that take one more that he then can’t sell to someone else?
“Actually, I’d like it if you’d take the paper,” he said, “It makes me feel like I’m doing something.”
“Oh, you are. Sure,” I said.
He handed me two.
“Thanks for giving me two,” I added as I began to walk away.
“Well, you bought them.”
I walked to my car, and I thought, Oh… Renee. Sure, I was trying to save his papers so he could keep selling them, but in handing this guy some cash, I was undercutting the fact that this guy has a job. He felt more dignity in selling the paper. Plus, wasn’t I kind of dissing the work that went into the paper?
And his answer was, “Duh, well you bought two.”
This is my confession today: How easy it is when trying to support others, and in trying to “do good,” to just keep the same stratified roles that a paper like this is trying to bust. “I don’t need your paper… but you need my money.” That’s not what I was thinking internally, but that was absolutely the impact. And that’s gross.
A flower growing in the crack of a sidewalk. Wikimedia commons.
An Invitation Oriah Mountain Dreamer
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
Smuggling Grace 