August 20, 2012

 

Dear Friend of Poetic Medicine,

 

Something that Opens the Heart

 

"There can be a transmission between two beings that is so deep that words, any words, would disturb that open-heartedness. This subtle transmission of the heart can be experienced when we are with someone we care for very much. I have experienced this with my children and loved ones, as well as the dying patients I've been working with."

 

~ Stephen Levine (A Gradual Awakening:  Click Here)  

   (from "Spirit in the World")

 

I met Stephen and Ondrea Levine in 1981 at a Conscious Living, Conscious Dying workshop in Nevada City, California.  His book A Gradual Awakening, published in 1979, had made a deep impression on me. The practice of meditation and living this life from a compassionate perspective was presented in such a simple and exquisite way.  Exquisite in that there was a felt sense of a human heart in the book's pages.

 

If a writer is going to use a word like mercy and the phrase the heart we share, it's not asking too much to want to feel what those words actually mean deep under the surface - and Stephen's book did that. I think that's why I am drawn to poetry, because it gets beyond the thin ash-grey agribusiness of our minds and our consumer-soaked world.

 

Poetry communicates that felt sense of rich earth and spirit living deep under the surface of things.

 

We appreciated one another as poets. In fact, this afternoon while writing this letter, I opened my weathered copy of A Gradual Awakening...and inscribed are the words: "For John - your poetry opens my heart. Let it Shine, Stephen"

 

Ah!  Something that opens the heart!  A heart so easily closed shut while traveling life's rough journey.  This is something worth living for. That is exactly what I felt.  My feeling about the open heart didn't begin there but it certainly was affirmed by watching Stephen and Ondrea work with grieving people. The same people who might also be opening to a humor that Stephen so skillfully shares.

 

*To Visit Stephen & Ondrea Levine's Website:  CLICK HERE
*To Read a Review of Stephen's Most Recent Book,
Breaking The Drought:   CLICK HERE

 

Wouldn't People Want to Know?

 

Wouldn't people want to know about something like that? That's what I thought.  How great to have this tool, this modality, this magic, this pathway that can open the heart.  I would say it was that year, 1981, when I set my life most firmly upon the path of poetry as healer. What was more important than opening the heart especially (but not only) in the face of loss?  

                       

John, 1982

Over the next few years Stephen invited me a few times to read poems out loud at some of his longer Conscious Living, Conscious Dying retreats. It was an orthopedic surgeon, Ken Zubrick, attending one of those retreats, who introduced me to Joy Shieman, who became my mentor in the field of poetry therapy in late 1984.

  

One Bright Morning

 

My meeting and connection with Stephen and Ondrea were seeds blown on the winds of other seasons in my life.

 

One bright morning in late July of 1979, I left Cleveland for Sacramento, California by Amtrack train. I was twenty-three. I was traveling to northern California to study yoga and meditation in a three-month training course.

 

I've lived in northern California ever since.  

 

I want to tell you about that morning I left Cleveland but have to begin my story a little earlier.

 

Three years before, in 1976, while attending Bard College, I met the psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross.  It was during these years that she also was a friend and mentor to Stephen Levine, who, as you already know, I would meet five years later.

 

It was 1968 when Elisabeth opened up a revolutionary discussion in America about death and dying.  She presented to America, and in particular to American medicine, our deep denial of death and in a way that had never happened before.  A woman who was dying spoke to medical students about her mortality.  LIFE magazine featured Elisabeth and that woman in the November 21, 1969 issue.

 

I met Elisabeth two years after the amputation of my right leg. I was dealing with physical pain and smoldering feelings I could barely get to the surface as I pretended to be studying in college. Sitting on the grass in front of the Kline Commons, Elisabeth, after hearing a brief sharing about my loss, invited me to attend a five-day workshop she was leading that summer in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I was twenty-one.

 

A Sacred Permission to be Human

 

This retreat showed me powerful expressions of raw human feeling I had no idea existed!  Elisabeth, even with her bird-like stature, projected a dynamic aura that wordlessly gave us a sacred permission to be human.

 

Parents grieving the death of their child screamed out in the midst of 40 other people who sat in witness. A Sister of Charity, Sr. Marion Clare, in her late 70's (and she wore a full habit!) pounded her rage into a mattress with a red rubber hose.  What I witnessed was the full catastrophe of life.  When my turn came, Elisabeth was fierce.  She made me sit next to her on the couch, take off my pants and prosthesis in front of everyone -- and then she invited every single person in the group to come forward to touch my bared stump.

 

It was awful, brilliant and liberating all at once. That experience is folded into my marrow-bone. Poetry had its place on that journey to Halifax. I took with me a volume of poems by Rainer Maria Rilke. The hardcover book was light blue with gold embossed lettering. Rilke, poet of the great human grief cry, the Angel and "to praise is the whole thing."

 

At the end of that retreat I danced, wearing shorts someone had given me, with a woman named Kris. This was not the end of my journey of acceptance but it was a significant step.

 

(See more about the Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Foundation in the Resource Section near the end of this journal). 

 

Back to my story of departing Cleveland...

 

An Appreciation for Her Is What She Welcomed

 

Following graduation from Bard College in 1977, I worked at The Cleveland Clinic hospital as a phlebotomist. During the Spring and Summer of '79, I met a young woman, Janet, who was seriously ill with cancer and was in treatment. Janet was a little younger than I. She and I made a good connection. There was something spiritual in why we had met. I was invited to go out to dinner by Janet with her and some of her friends. I went to her home and met her parents. I remember it was a loud Mexican restaurant on the west side of Cleveland - and we had a great time.  

 

What was it that caused her to invite me? Thinking back all that way, 33 years ago, I'm not sure.  Perhaps it was because I wasn't frightened by her illness?  I found her a lovely human being and the depth of her Christian faith very moving.  She may have felt safe with a lessening of fear around her and an appreciation for her was what she welcomed.

 

I can't help but wonder if my handful of days with Kubler-Ross taught me something about human experience that I gained a great respect for - even if I had many, many years of fully growing into that ahead of me.

 

As I prepared to leave for California that late July of '79, I knew Janet's cancer had returned with a vengeance.  She was back in the hospital. On my way to the train station, I stopped that bright morning to visit her. I remember the brightness. I carried with me a gift for Janet.  It was a book entitled I, Monty by Marcus Bach.

 

(Click Here)

I, Monty is a simple but transcendent illustrated story of that symbol of all symbols of transformation, the butterfly. Sitting by her bedside, together we read that children's book. There was no question how this story related to her situation of being near to death.  

Witnessing, Connection and Friendship

 

Turning the pages together and reading those words was an act of witnessing, connection and friendship. The theme of resurrection that permeated the story resonated with Janet.

 

We said a very kind goodbye and I left to catch the train. I traveled that three or four day train trip to Sacramento and went on to the yoga training course further north. About two weeks later, I received a note from Janet's parents that she had died.  

 

At that time, I thought of Janet and of her faith and what I felt I could learn from how she had departed this life. I wrote a poem for her called Jesus Christ, Always Still Shining.   The poem is large in scope and it honors Janet's life and the meaning of it in a large way.  It came from my listening to her words and from what I heard deep inside myself.

 

You can read that poem and others (in PDF format) on themes of loss and letting go, death and transformation, towards the conclusion of this Poetic Medicine Journal.  Notes appear at the end of the collection to give you an idea of the genesis of these poems and how I've used them. 

 

I Have Lu Melander to Thank

 

I share with adults I wouldn't be able to work with them with such positive results to evoke creativity were it not for the work that I did intensively in the early 90's with children. It is what I learned from children and their poetry - the gifts they give me -- that informs my faith that a creative and healing spark is present within each person no matter what their age is.

 

I have Lu Melander to thank for that!

 

When I got involved with the California Poets in the Schools program in 1991, Lu became my mentor.  During a series of training residencies, I learned from Lu a range of ways to meet children with poetry.  I saw how it nurtured them and acted as a catalyst for their creativity, their voices and their words.

 

The Shortest Distance Between Two Human Beings

 

I want to emphasize to you who Lu was as a person.  I want to stop and pause with just that in writing this letter. I will always feel thanks to her.

Especially these days when success and influence is flaunted as being represented by monetary wealth, Lu was a truly important person who embodied what I believe to be great and successful in a human being. Even though Lu lived on very little money, she was fulfilled!  She carried in her heart a deep respect for children and a fierce love for the natural world. On a daily basis, she lived with a steady commitment to justice and simple living. Lu believed, as Lawrence Ferlenghetti says, "That poetry is the shortest distance between two human beings."

Making Room for the Unknown

 

I knew Lu for a relatively short time and that was 21 years ago. Not a year after we met, Lu received a cancer diagnosis that was fierce and relentless. Even when having to go through all kinds of crap with poor treatment options without health insurance, she put up a good fight.

 

At some point, however, she chose to surrender to what was happening. Lu turned towards making room for the unknown, for a natural unfolding in her body and heart. She stopped pursuing medical treatment.  I don't know why but our relationship became connected in a stronger way at this point.  She asked me if I would read guided meditations by Stephen Levin on pain, grief, loving-kindness and letting go from his book Who Dies.

 

Sitting with her in her living room, I did this for a few months.   Lu would rest on her couch and absorb these meditations.

 

Read That Poem Again! 

 

I was here

in this spot

when that leaf fell

I was here.

~ Lu Melander
(the poem at the end of her unpublished manuscript)

 

One evening at Lytton Gardens, a hospice where she was able to receive care, I read her poems by Rumi.  By this time she was no longer speaking much at all.  She didn't say a word to me. Her cheeks were deeply in drawn, her eyes closed, her face already a frail death mask - and ready to be taken off.

 

The moment I read the last line of a particular poem, I felt a clear and absolutely tangible feeling in myself, in the room, in Lu and in the poem. It was as if with that last line a round stone had dropped into a very still lake.  Yet when the stone hit the water, nothing happened. Except it disappeared. There was not a splash, ripple, not a single wave.  The poem went in and all the way through.

 

Lu Melander

Lu, who had not moved, or spoken, as far as I knew for a long time, lifted her slight shoulders up, turned her riven face toward me and said with a fierce command,"Read that poem again."  

 

I did.

 

I never heard Lu speak again.  I remember a dear friend of hers appeared in the room, Joyce Savre.  Joyce leaned over Lu on the other side of the bed and we held together a few moments of sacred quiet. I felt my time was complete and I bid Joyce and Lu goodbye.  Lu died the next day surrounded by friends.

 

I don't know this but I feel, given how it connected deep inside her, the Rumi poem opened a clear and clean space for Lu, so near to dying to the body, to dive into that whole moment.  It was a blessing to be witness to that. 

* * *

Those Experiences that Burnish Our Hearts 

 

I recall it was in the mid to late 70s I attended a powerful lecture about the fledgling hospice movement given by Dr. Richard Lamerton.  Dr. Lamerton was a close colleague of Dame Cicely Saunders, who is considered the pioneer of the first hospice, founding St. Christopher's Hospice in 1967. His book, Care of the Dying was a very early voice for hospice. 

 

Lamerton's lecture had a lasting impact on me - not so much the words, but a kindness and compassion that I felt from him as a physician.  Since that time I have had the opportunity to become close friends with other people bringing their kindness to medicine. 

 

Meetings with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Ram Dass, Stephen and Ondrea Levine, and Dale Borglum have provided further light on this pathway, threads in the fabric of this experience at the end of life.

 

There is a "fierce grace" that speaks to us - at times, it seems, a lot more fierceness than grace - and then at other times, that grace shows us a face of gentleness and beauty that is almost as unbearable as the pain.

 

I hope that this Poetic Medicine Journal provides you with meaning, inspiration, practical help and generative ideas for how poetry could be useful in your own life, in your relationships, in your work, especially with regards to this essential experience that we all share in the midst of our living and dying.

 

Whether or not you are involed in hospice or palliative care, know someone who is dying, or who are - yourself - looking at mortality and mystery, I believe these stories will help us to be human, to listen deeper to someone else.  This rich issue will give you an in-depth and varied exploration of those experiences that burnish our hearts. 

Kind Regards,

John Fox, CPT

 

P.S.  This journal is generously sized in its excellent content.  If you experience difficulty in opening and reading it (or if the content appears "scrambled"), please note the following technical tips that may prove helpful: 

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My Visit with California Men's Colony Prison  

Hospice Volunteers

by John Fox 

The heart is the treasury

in which God's mysteries are stored;

Seek the purpose of both worlds

through the heart,

for that is the point of it.

~ Lahiji

In June of 2011 and 2012 I had the good fortune to work with men incarcerated at California Men's Colony Prison in San Luis Obispo, CA. Invited by Lorie Adoff, Director of Spiritual Care, I spent four days with fifty men at CMC, working with them with poetry and making poems.

These men, even though they are in prison, have a strong focus and meaningful purpose in their lives. The focus is to be present for and to seek the purpose of both worlds.  They do this on a daily basis with fellow inmates in collaborating teams of seven.

Let me explain. Spiritual Care Services at California Men's Colony prison was founded by Dr. Denise Taylor and Sandy Shelton, LCSW.  Lorie was on the committee that planned and implemented the program.  She then became the director of the hospice care training.  Lorie was teaching these men - nearly all of whom are in prison for life because of a conviction for murder - to be hospice volunteers. 

These men sit with and are companions to fellow inmates who are ill and dying.  In other instances, these men are companions with inmates who suffer from dementia and Alzheimer's. (Please see The New York Times article & video that presents this happening in the prison: CLICK HERE).

As anyone working in hospice learns, such intimate work puts a person in touch with profound edges - and at times, edgelessness. There is raw vulnerability, finding a willingness to allow the heart to break, to find how it may even break open, how it learns to be with what cannot be changed, open to a humility of "not knowing" - and then, with those allies of humility and openness, a surrendering into presence.

I found, with all of these men (many of whom are in prison for life, and only a few with the possibility of parole) an openness of heart and a gut level sensibility for all of this.

My work with them was to support a process of sharing, a level of disclosure that often is not reached in their more professional debriefing as teams of seven serving those in the care of hospice.

In this regard, as in many other ways, this need for a deeper disclosure, was no different than what I experience among hospice workers and volunteers in the public sector.  

I chose poems to serve as prompts and examples, poems that held and expressed a range of energies: grief and loss; a desire for connection - especially when there is intense pain; a fear of letting go; the grace and grit of staying with; the mercy of acceptance; and the longing for the far shore.

Far from being a difficult group of people to introduce to poetry, I felt instant receptivity.  I experienced from these men a welcome for what I offered. They responded beyond defensiveness, evaluation, guardedness, judgment and critique. They sat present, with a willingness to go right to the bone. "Let's get to it!" they said.

Here is a poem by Harold that gets to it:

Listen

If I breakdown and fall to my knees,

         the pain comes from somewhere really deep.

If I shudder and quake,

         If I have looked at my fear, my terror in the face,

If I sob and wail,

         I've come to grips with my loss, if only briefly,

                  and had to release something cherished.

I will not hide this from you;

         I will not wall it off:

I will let you see the deepest part of me.

Harold started into his poem by using some lines I offered to him from a poem called "If I Sing" * by Martin Jude Farawell, suggesting these words: If I, I will not and I will.

Harold wove those phrases into his poem and made them his own. Following my visit I asked him (through Lorie) to share what this poem meant to him. He responded:

"Listen" comes from my most guarded, intimate being. I have so rarely shared "Who" I am and what I feel at my core.  The pains of my life, and the caution their accumulative effect has taught me, make sharing intensely personal.  When I seek the comfort of even just the ear of a valued friend, it is because I cannot hide - I cannot bear to hide - this thing that is so heavy upon my heart; it is a necessary sharing.  It is the cherished place where I, as a ten-year-old child but a week from turning eleven, fell to the ground upon the confirmation of the death of my mother; it is where I could only shudder and quake when, four years later, I would come to grips with being "orphaned" by my father's death while I was in foster care. When I know someone will truly listen, the echo of my heart is to share this treasure - the depth of who I am.

As outsiders to the prison culture what we can't know immediately is that this kind of vulnerability is rare, if not completely absent, in the general population. There are very good reasons for that.  And yet, here in the hospice circle, such vulnerability could be expressed by Harold. In fact, Harold is aware how this expression makes a difference in his hospice work, and he can transfer this to those with whom he sits.

Here is another poem by Virgil G., a CMC hospice volunteer:

In Your presence

The days I spend with you,

Are times I spend outside myself,

Holding your words, your story, your pain,

Embracing your person,

Touching my own humanity because of you.

I wish it were possible to present you with a photograph of Virgil!  It would help you to understand something important about my experience. Virgil is an African American man, probably about 6'5", and to compare him to a mountain is an accurate metaphor.   Virgil beamed with a quality of care that I can't forget. As I read his poem now I feel that the poem is not only made of words, it shows me who he is. Virgil is the practice he writes about. There is no distance between the poem and presence.

Virgil wrote this to me about his poem, "In Your Presence":

"My experience with being a hospice volunteer has allowed me to practice kindness, understanding, empathy, and compassion at a time in life when I believe we are at our most vulnerable to our uncertainties, frailties, and fears. To be seen, heard, and embraced at this time can be a great comfort. I know it would be for me."

I want to say something about my personal situation visiting CMC the first time. I was there not a week after the death of my sister Shelley. Shelley died June 10, 2011 following a series of strokes that occurred throughout the first half of the year. A memorial was scheduled for Shelley later in the summer. I didn't want to miss this work at the prison.

While I was able to present, my truth was that I felt very raw inside. Although Lorie said to me she had shared with the men about my sister's death, there was little or nothing made of this loss and grief during my presentation. I knew I was doing the best I could to withhold what I felt and, strangely here, I was with people who understood perfectly what I was so hesitant to express. Their ease made me more comfortable in this necessary delay of feeling.

Yet I remember on a break talking with Vincent - this man in prison for murdering someone. Vincent is probably close to 65. He and I were standing there, looked off into the middle distance, like men can do, talking about something with one another, his arms gently folded across his chest.

Quietly he said to me, "I heard about your sister's death and I want you to know that I am sorry for your loss."  I cried. This prison was the right place for me to be.  And ever since, I have thought about the word redemption in connection with Virgil, Vincent and Harold.  

I am not arguing for this redemption as a reason for their release. But I know that I felt absolutely safe in their presence and if I were dying, their friendship in that journey would be a grace. It feels important that people know this.

Lorie Adoff has done a remarkable thing. And I would like you to hear her story of creating this hospice volunteer program. She was kind enough to write the following essay for the Poetic Medicine Journal.  The genesis of this program is not about the uses of poetry as healer; however, rooted in the intention and the need that was being met, the call responded to, something that the poet John Keats called "soul-making" was being deeply welcomed by Lorie - and it is poetry that can so well express that soul-making.

The facts Lori provides at the end of her essay are significant, amazing and particularly that no one has returned to prison who was released after participating in this hospice volunteer program.

* For the words to the poem "If I Sing":  (CLICK HERE) 

Supportive Care Services in Prison

by Lorie Adoff, MA

She made her way up the stairs to the hospital floor.  Standing at the nurses' station she overheard the conversation with the medical staff, "Is he dead yet?" "I don't know. He is down in the end room by himself and the last time I checked he was still breathing." Quietly, Dr. Taylor turned to make her way down the shabby hallway to check on her patient who had been declining since last week. When she left for the weekend she wasn't sure if she would see him alive when she returned. When she came to the door of his room it was closed; she looked in through the tiny door window to see him lying very still. She walked in. He had just died. He was still warm. His skin was a waxy pallor; his mouth was open; his empty eyes staring; his hands clenched. He had been hanging on even to the end...alone with his fears and suffering.

She stood by the bed for a few moments and silently breathed a prayer of release in her Buddhist tradition. She quietly left the room to notify custody that inmate Brady had died and they could begin processing his death.  She sighed, preparing herself to make the necessary phone call to family.  As she walked back to her office, alone with her thoughts, an inmate approached her. He had been working up in the hospital that night as a janitor and was anguishing over his friend's death. "Why did he have to die alone? He was so afraid. Can't we do something about how the guys die in prison alone?" "Let me look into it," she replied. Indeed she did...after one year of research and planning meetings and multiple revisions of policies and procedures within the correctional environment, Supportive Care Services was born - a hospice based program that provides emotional and spiritual support for inmates who were given a life limiting diagnosis to assure them that they will not make this last life journey alone.

And now, a decade later, Supportive Care Services has grown and flourishes with over 45 trained volunteer inmates who visit and support inmate patients with a life limiting diagnosis.

Fred, a newly trained SCS volunteer, slowly made his way up the stairs to the hospital preparing himself for his first client. He was anxious and late for his scheduled evening visit. The custody officers had stopped him several times, questioning him and patting him down for possible contraband.  He tried so hard to remember all that he was told in his training: don't bring anything with you, no candy, no tobacco, no notes; only reading glasses if you needed them.  He rang the buzzer to alert the officer that he was waiting to be let into the hospital.  Step out of the room when a nurse comes in.....always be polite...don't talk too much....it's not about me. Geez, what am I going to say to a dying man? Why doesn't the officer answer the door? I've been waiting here forever. The letter I received today from my sister was hard to read. Mom is sick and probably won' t make it to my parole date. 34 years is a long time for her to wait. Wish I could have been there for her when dad died.

Finally, the hospital officer arrives to unlock the door and lets him in, takes his ID, pats him down, and motions to him to find his patient, Jacob.

Earlier in the evening inmate/patient Jacob glanced at the clock and shifted in his bed. The NG tube pulled in his nose and rubbed the back of his throat, making him feel like he was going to throw up. He took a deep breath until the feeling subsided.  

It had been only a month since they told him. Memorial Day... He was watching the NASCAR races when he felt the searing pain. Nothing would make it stop. Collapsing in pain he went to triage and ended up in the community hospital. After a variety of tests, they told him, "Cancer. We are sending you to California Men's Colony where you will be more comfortable." He heard, "You have about two weeks or more. Better get your affairs in order."   

So here he was, in a prison hospital, waiting to die. The pain wasn't so bad anymore.  But that damn tube down his throat was rubbing it raw when he shifted around. No food, only ice chips. When he tried to eat he threw up; couldn't even keep clear liquids down.  A cold soda sounded so good, but a taste or two ended in retching.  A lady came by who said she could have some guys visit him and keep him company.  He didn't know anyone at this prison. He felt alone and tried not to show how afraid he was. He agreed. He heard the door open.

Fred enters the plain room, a small TV is playing, and sitting up in his bed is Jacob, an amiable guy in his late fifties, stocky build with a shock of white hair. He walked in, shook his hand, and introduced himself. "Hi, I'm Fred."

Fred was one of a team of seven Supportive Care Service companions assigned to Jacob. He had visits with them every day. They encouraged him to talk about his life, his fears. The Medical Social Worker did her best to locate his family but it had been so long since he was in contact with them that addresses were lost and all the leads turned cold. His team became his family who cared about him and assured him that when the end came he would not be alone. Over time each team member developed a deep, warm friendship with Jacob.

Jacob lived an additional two months. The SCS volunteers increased their visits to three times a day as Jacob became weaker and weaker. They helped him write down what he wanted done with his simple possessions, donating much of them to his favorite charity since family couldn't be located. Soon their time with him was spent listening to some of his favorite R & B oldies rather than talking very much. An inmate volunteer played the flute for him to ease his pain. When he slipped into a coma the team never left his bedside. Each one took a four hour shift sitting with him, softly reminding him of his memories he had shared with them; praying his familiar prayers with him. They played some of his favorite songs and gradually continued to play the soft music that helped ease his transition.  He died quietly in the early morning hours with a SCS volunteer by his side, holding his hand as he slipped away.

A couple of days later his team gathered to debrief about their experience with Jacob and how he had touched their lives. They recalled his courage, stories, and quick smile. Tears were shed as they spoke of his last hours. Each man placed a small reminder on the table, speaking a phrase or word that embodied their experience with him. Quietly they left the small space pondering their experience, integrating another life remembered that had forever changed their own lives.

The team met again at the monthly memorial service where they listened to the stories of others whose loved ones had died during the last month. Gerald read a poem to Jacob he had written of their times together - his courage, his smile. The music "Stairway to Heaven" began as the team took turns lighting the tea lights that twinkled on the memorial table.  Since Fred was with Jacob when he died, he tied Jacob's ribbon on the ribbon wreath joining the other 225 names of inmates and family members who died since SCS began over 10 years ago.

The inmate volunteers in Supportive Care Services relate how the experience of sitting with the dying have changed their very core - recognizing the intrinsic preciousness of life, becoming a better listener, more humane, more compassionate, caring, and nonjudgmental. These are a few of the many qualities that we strive to cultivate in our daily living. They have come to understand that the dying are truly our best teachers.

Even though they are gone,

The departed are with us,

moving us to live as,

in their higher moments,

they themselves wished to live

We remember them;

They live in our hearts;

They are an abiding blessing.

~ from Yiskor in Yom Kippur Service

Since 2002 to the end of 2011:

*116 inmate volunteers have been trained; 23 have paroled and no SCS volunteer has returned to prison;

*12,467 hospital visits have been made by the volunteers;

*163 teams of volunteers have companioned inmate patients since the beginning of the program

Lorie Adoff, MA, is the Director of Spiritual Care for Supportive Care Services at California Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo, California. She can be reached at: lorieadoff@sbcglobal.net.  John Fox has conducted workshops for the SCS volunteers over the past couple of years, guiding them to give expression to the richness of their experience of being with the dying.

John's Letter to the CMC Volunteers 

I would like to share with you the letter that I wrote to the men who participated in the poetry program at California Men's Colony Prison. I would like you to hear through this letter my feelings about what they gave to me and what I noticed we were able to give to one another. It seems to me that any hospice program would be pleased for such an outcome.

June 24, 2012

Dear Friends in the CMC Hospice Program,

The retreat days we spent making poems are often in my mind.   I picture each of you in the circle we sat in and the informal conversations we had on breaks.

It's important for me to say I can think of your names and your faces, fragments from poems and your unique voices.

What I appreciate about the retreat and the work you did are many things. The gift I carry with me now in my heart is your willingness and commitment to

believe your writing matters

listen to one another

respectfully and empathically

tell your story with conscious awareness

sit with another human being who is ill and dying

with openness and a wish to serve

express creatively what most people avoid:

feelings & perceptions about death and dying

find within your own heart humor & grief,

truth-telling & forgiveness, empathy & frustration,

insight & a call for the help of God

What is amazing is this - that all of these occurred during those retreat days and were expressed in poems we shared!   What is amazing is that men did this together! What is amazing is that in prison circumstances the best of humanity stepped forward!

I hope you will keep writing and consider poetry as something worthwhile. This is my challenge to you, challenge in the sense that it will take effort. We know why. Writing asks a person/man to be present and poetry in particular asks a person/man to be more conscious of feeling. That's a challenge! Yet we did it. You did it.

Here is something else. That you continue to explore poetry and writing is also my hope - because what you may not realize is that spending time with you gives me hope.   As a group working together in service in incredibly difficult circumstances and as individuals, -- you show so much is possible for us as human beings.

You show that rehabilitation and redemption need to be revived words in the vocabulary and politics and spirituality of American culture. The bottom line: the great work you have done in the hospice program Lorie Adoff created is inspiring.

So I don't want to lose that! But don't write because I ask you to, write because it can make a difference for yourself and others.

The challenge and my hope is that you will find ways to establish the making of poems a spiritual practice and even to consider it as a practical way to debrief your hospice experience so you will learn from one another at that unique level poetry offers.

Again, I'm glad for you and what was shared. I wish you blessings and send friendship.

John Fox

The Institute for Poetic Medicine

      

  

Poetry and Hospice in San Luis Obispo California

by Sonnie Brown, Volunteer Director 

  

The call from the palliative care nurse of the local hospital comes in on Friday morning at 9:00 a.m. One of their patients may have less than 48 hours to live. The patient's family members are traveling here from a great distance - can we send in our volunteers, so that they are not alone? Yes. We activate our Vigil Volunteer Program, providing round-the-clock attendance. Most of our volunteers keep a simple bag of supplies packed and ready. A bottle of water, tissues, hand wipes, ID badge, a book of poetry, pen and paper. Volunteers are called and scheduled, the vigil begins.

  

Poetry? Yes. We never know whether our client will appreciate readings from the Bible or less religious words. Poetry can serve without being invasive to an individual's spiritual process.

  

Hospice of SLO County offers services free of charge to the community, providing grief counseling from over a dozen counselors, both licensed and interns; as well as in-home respite care from over 120 trained community volunteers. We emphasize community education to help our neighbors learn more about the process of death, dying and healing. Some of our volunteers offer massage, music, Reiki, pet care, art therapy, or meal preparation. We have many poets in our hospice community, including several on our staff, volunteer team and one on our Board of Directors.

  

In the past year John Fox brought his medicinal poetry practices to our front door twice. We've benefited from an evening poetry workshop and then, a full day of poetry exploration for our staff, counselors and in-home volunteers. While all of us are busily supporting those who are facing the end of life (their own or their loved one's) we are grateful for the time to focus on how poetry can serve as a balm and a bolster - keeping our sense of humor and our sense of wonder firmly intact.

  

Poetry is our friend in joy, in meditation, for momentous occasions, congratulations, gains and losses, pleasures and sadness. The power of poetry is so obvious we are in danger of overlooking it in plain sight. Poetry is so appropriate for every occasion; we may neglect it because it seems too ordinary. Thankfully, John Fox's poetry workshop gives us an opportunity to explore our thoughts, feelings and experiences in depth.

  

When asked, "Why is poetry important in hospice work?" - our participants replied with some insightful responses.  

  

From our grief counselors, J.G. says, "Poems are tangible empathy I can give clients to read when words are most needed. Poems can bridge the client's emotions to a new level, often a healthier level." 

  

E.M. offers, "In poetry, our feelings can be expressed in symbols, images and metaphor. We use language differently in poetry. Poetry can support us and our clients by providing a platform to express an emotion or an experience in a way that we can't in everyday language. Poetry gives the unconscious freedom to express itself which can be magical and surprising."   

 

"...Poetry gives the unconscious freedom to express itself."  Our conscious mind may be grappling with the realities of handling business affairs, talking to friends and relatives about the health status of our dying parent, trying to understand the doctor's instructions and making sure our loved one is comfortable. Meanwhile, what is going on in our unconscious mind? Plenty. That's where we have the time and space to tap the mysteries of life on the shoulder and beckon them to turn around and face us. Our unconscious mind is processing metaphor and fact simultaneously. Our unconscious mind sponsors our beliefs, our hopes and our indefinite fears in some sort of coffee klatch that sorts itself out and invariably guides our behavior.

  

Poetry is a direct avenue to tap into the depths of our unconscious mind. A comment from another workshop participant, C.S., "Poetry resonates with many people and just the right mood or expression in a poem can be the "WOW" that the client needed to say or hear. Poetry matters every day.  Poetry is the collective unconscious calling to us to pay attention, to love deeper, to notice the sunset, and to attach words to experiences that move us."

  

At Hospice SLO we are keenly aware of the need to practice self-care for those of us who are stretching our "compassion muscles" on a daily basis. Compassion fatigue is a very real concern for our counselors, staff and volunteers. In our western culture, the topics of grief and dying are so naturally avoided by the majority that those who will discuss these topics openly become sought after in the community. We must take time for ourselves, and not just time, but time well-spent, time to strengthen and encourage, time to inspire and comfort ourselves. Poetry serves as a short cut. The brief minute it takes to read one powerful poem that can slice through our weariness or discouragement can re-align our spirit just as quickly.

  

Taking the time to take care of ourselves doesn't have to wait until we have a large block of time; we can do it incrementally. One of our grief counselors (see words and photo of Jeanie Greensfelder below) sends out a "poem a day" to a list of 25 recipients associated with Hospice SLO. The few minutes it takes in the morning to read a poem from Hafiz, Rumi, William Stafford, Mary Oliver, Thoreau, or any number of poets who comment on the complexities of life and death with their colorful words and reassuring meter, can and does set a positive tone for the whole day.

  

Answering the question, "How can poetry support us and our clients?" J.G. responds, "Poems speak to the heart of professional and client, allowing them to share tenderness on the page."  

 

In-home volunteer D.G. says, "In Hospice service, poetry is another outlet for people to get in touch with feelings that may be hard to express in normal conversation."  

  

And S.B. writes, "I attended your group today and just wanted to thank you for spending your time guiding and encouraging my inner voice to speak, share, listen and reflect... I enjoy this expression modality and I am excited to continue practicing poetry medicine in my life and in my work!  I was also pleasantly grateful to not only have the opportunity to listen to others but also to listen to my own poems and observe myself settle into and trust my spoken words.  It was a beautiful day that will live on in me for a long time.  My heart is swollen with the joy of being heard!"

 

The hospital room is quiet, resonating with the sound of one voice reading and the labored breathing from another. Reading from the poems of a local hospice spiritual counselor:

 

The Quiet has become

A treasured friend

From whom I am

Becoming inseparable...

 

The nurse steps in, administers the pain medication on time, listens, and leaves. The reading continues, the breathing continues, the vigil continues.

 

Poetry can speak to us without airs, without the weight of a wordy, detailed story. The lightness of a poem can refer to its brevity, even when the ideas are powerful and 'heavy.' The details in a poem may be few but so very effective. One mention of a color can sharpen the whole picture in our mind, one detail of a human attribute - the crooked smile, shrugging shoulder or flick of the wrist can bring a full-fledged person to our mind's eye. Instantly, effortlessly, we can relate.  

 

A recent workshop attendee, A. G. writes, "Poetry can help us process our own thoughts and emotions by accessing, communicating and feeling them in a very unique way."

  

 

Every day offers a variety of ways to support the community, families and friends who receive our services at Hospice SLO. Our "office" building is a large, 100 year-old craftsman-style home with oak doors, stained glass skylights and welcoming, creaky floors. Just inside the front doors is our group room that also houses a library that is open to the public. Outside on the northeast corner of our property is our Memory Tile Garden with engraved names on a wall of individual tiles, encircling two separate patio areas with benches beneath redwood trees and a flower arbor, respectively. On a recent summer day, one of our grief counseling clients arrived on her bicycle and spent 20 minutes enjoying the sunshine, seated on our front porch swing before her appointment, while two women visited the hand-crafted Tiles beneath the redwood trees and a local volunteer at the Boys & Girls Club accessed our library.

Twice a month, three Reiki practitioners set up their massage table and offer treatments to staff, volunteers and clients - for a full day. Two therapy dogs regularly visit our offices, making the rounds and spending time with clients in our reception area. If anyone is crying when those dogs are in the building, they receive some canine comfort. There is laughter in the hallways just as often as you may hear the sound of tissues being pulled from the box. For more than 30 years we have hosted art exhibits, book signings, pot lucks, book review groups, car washes, dance demonstrations and much more at our Hospice SLO Center. Poetry fits right in with everything else we do here.

When poetry workshop participants were asked the question, "When does poetry matter?" the response was one hundred percent "Poetry always matters."

Our Director of Grief Counseling, Tony Huffaker writes, "When doesn't poetry matter?  'Matter' is a pretty broad term. I can think of poetry that has mattered for connecting me to true things and encouraged me in a direct emotional way that I don't think any other way of communicating would.  

I can think of poetry that has connected me to other works I would never have found without the poem. I would never have found Herodotus without first reading 'Gerontion', or listened to Johnny Hartman without first reading Billy Collins' 'Nightclub' - and to contemplate life without Herodotus and Johnny Hartman - ghastly!"

J. G. says, "Poetry matters every day for those of us who take time to turn in, take time for soul food."

During the workshop with John Fox, each participant was encouraged to write and then, as they felt comfortable, to read their poem. D. G. says, after reading one of her poems, "There's more to me than I know about."  

T.H. wrote, "What would happen if we stopped hiding and said, 'Here I am'  - Would everybody say, 'well of course.'"

The vigil volunteer honors the dying with their undivided attention. When family members arrive, the volunteer lets them know the details of the recent hours of their loved one's journey. As needed, we remain involved until the patient's last breath, which often comes in the small hours of the morning. The vigil volunteer places everything back in their bag, says goodnight to the nurses, and drives carefully home.

Experiencing the grieving process is a rich time to use poetry. When getting down to the nitty-gritty truths of our dreams and sorrows feels difficult or even impossible, poetry can bypass our resistance and grant us access. Poetry is medicine. You don't have to wait for a prescription, no one needs to take your temperature or read your personal history first. Poetry is universally palatable. We wish you more poetry in your every day life. If you are a caregiver, we encourage you to include poetry as you can, with those you serve. But we primarily hope you will treat yourself with poetry, poetry that you read and poetry that you write. We highly recommend it here at Hospice SLO.

Sonnie Brown is the Director of Volunteers at Hospice SLO. She has been volunteering with Hospice SLO since 1995, as an In-Home volunteer, event organizer and musician. Sonnie also works with the local NPR Radio Station, where she produced a daily community calendar for 15 years. She continues hosting a program of acoustic, folk music every Saturday afternoon where she enjoys interviewing musicians who play live on the show, as well as producing special episodes like the recent Woody Guthrie Special. She lives in a small bayside town outside of San Luis Obispo, near an ancient oak grove, in a cottage on the creek.

Right Now 

When I come to you in poetry

I wear my comfortable shoes

my favorite jeans

I'm clean but not fussy

my thoughts friendly

loose and free

Right now, that's what we need

with this poetry

bold permission

Permission to howl at the moon

Scratch at the door

Leave the dishes for morning

Because mourning is our daily lot

like as not, there's casserole

and unanswered voice messages

and forget-me-nots

I won't. Don't worry.

Love never forgets.

Sometimes remembering

satisfies regrets

Though bills go unpaid

and appointments unkept

I'm making another cup of tea

for me, to think about you, love

loose and free

with some poetry.

~ Sonnie Brown

Note from Sonnie Brown:  Here's a poem I wrote at the workshop with John.  This came from another poem we heard with the phrase

What If (for Kenny)

Poetry from Jeanie Greensfelder

of Hospice of San Luis Obispo

I am a retired psychologist and, for eleven years, have volunteered at hospice, providing individual grief counseling. Working with people facing the frontiers of living and dying is a privilege. I gathered a notebook of grief poetry for the office, since the right poem at the right moment is medicine. Most days I find a meaningful poem to share via email with staff and volunteers.    

Words in Me
Words hide in my hesitant pause,
words I think, but do not say.
Sometimes others need to talk.
Then my words stay inside,
mine to cherish.

Home Alone  
 
He ghosts about the house,
reminding me to take out the trash,
to push the can for pickup,
find the paper in the bushes,
and to start the coffee.
 
He'd do it, but he's gone on retreat.
We each practice losing the other.
He's stronger, can cope with more,
but odds favor me to be the one
to face loneliness, figure finances,
and master the thermostat.  

Recovering a Sense of Freedom & Surprise

In Your Creative Expression and

For Living Your life 

Presented by John Fox, CPT

Saturday, September 1 - Sunday, September 2, 2012

EUCLID, OH  

Poetry is practiced best and is of most optimum use in our quest for wholeness and meaning when it is deeply treasured and respected for its essential wildness.  When your writing is met deeply and allowed to flourish in ways thoughtful people develop - with extravagant permission and genuine support to risk and try things out, when all of your feelings are welcomed - poetry as healer can take deeper roots.

Creativity does not work well when put into a cage; people might pay to visit a zoo animal in a cage, but everyone knows something isn't quite right.  Those cages are, in this sense, usually constructed of self-judgment and diminishment or the judgment of others built upon hierarchies of arbitrary evaluation.

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

~Rumi

This workshop is not a place to put on display one's literary and analytical acumen - although we will bring to the circle our love for and curiosity about literature, especially poetry.  We will likely meet our doubts about the value of our writing, but as a community we shall help each other to open to the surprise, songs and secrets that emerge from the page.

John Fox will share a holistic vision of poetry as healer that values this wildness and freedom, community and as always, deep listening.

I don't know how or when,

no, they were not voices, they were not

words, nor silence,

but from a street I was summoned,

from the branches of night,

abruptly from others,

among violent fires

or returning alone,

there I was without a face

and it touched me.

~Pablo Neruda 

Location:

25801 Lakeshore Blvd. 

Euclid, OH  44132 

Fee:  $100.00    Student Fee:  $85.00 

Registration is limited to 14.  Refreshments will be provided.  Please bring your own lunch.  A microwave is available. 

Please make checks payable to:   The Institute for Poetic Medicine

Mail to:

Barbara Greenwood

25801 Lakeshore Blvd., Apt. 77

Euclid, OH  44132 

For Information:

Please contact Barb Greenwood with questions & to reserve your space at:  (216) 870-4072   

To Download a Brochure/Registration:   CLICK HERE 

About John Fox and the Workshops:

When I set out for the

workshop, I had no idea

I would be so completely

changed or become so

completely myself again

because of poetry and

you.

~ Shannon Klassel

A very sincere thank you

for being what you teach... embodying the juice!

the mystery is waking up

the rain is falling

everything smells better

time is stopping for these precious tears

it was a gift of good medicine!

~ Risa Diaz

 

   

Poetry comes in unexpected ways. For Iris Llewellyn Angle it came in the middle of the night, first from joy and then from an unbearable loss. John Andrew Denny found poetry unexpectedly on a postcard sent by a friend after the onset of a debilitating illness. Janelle Shantz Hertzler was offered poetry and art in graduate school after losing her husband.  I found it through a small notice in my local paper advertising a community poetry writing group just when I was longing for a stronger sense of self.

Native American poet and writer, Diane Glancy says that poetry is a conversation; that it heals, clarifies, creates, and documents. Writing and publishing books is one of the ways to take part in this conversation. Iris Llewellyn Angle joined in when she wrote Tell Your Story Walking: One Mother's Legacy about coming to terms with the suicide of her son. John Andrew Denny compiled Through Corridors of Light: Poems of Consolation in Time of Illness out of gratitude for the healing balm of poetry and because it is the book he wanted and could not find.  In Seasons of Solace:  A Story of Healing Through Photos and Poems, Janelle Shantz Hertzler tells her story in words and images.

I work for John Fox on special projects, which include preparing book reviews for the IPM website. Like Denny, Hertzler, and Angle, I found John Fox and the Institute of Poetic Medicine after poetry found me. I met John when I went on one of his retreats to Canyon de Chelly.  At the time I was finishing graduate work in depth psychology and writing about what my poems had shown me about myself.  I was also grieving my father's suicide two years before. I had visited Canyon de Chelly on a trip with my father when I was three years old.  Being in the Canyon was deeply quiet and healing.

Carol Katz, IPM volunteer book reviewer, writes about Angle's Tell Your Story Walking: One Mother's Legacy. John asked me to interview John Andrew Denny and to review his anthology.  Melissa Layer, IPM's Constant Contact communication designer (who I also met on the Canyon de Chelly retreat), reviews Seasons of Solace: A Story of Healing Through Photos and Poems.  Like Diane Glancy, John Fox feels strongly about continuing the conversations poetry offers; he hopes you find new friends in the books reviewed here.  So do I. 

~ Rachel McKay

   

TELL YOUR STORY WALKING:  ONE MOTHER'S LEGACY

A HEALING JOURNEY OF GRIEVING, SURVIVING, AND THRIVING

  

by Iris Llewellyn Angle  

West Conshohocken, PA: Infinity Publishing, 2012

 

Carol Katz, Volunteer IPM Book Reviewer  

 

The author's name is "Angle." If we switch the letters, we get "Angel." She mentions angels in several instances: ...angels are with us at all times... in our life struggles, experiences, and healing (p. 57).  And I brought home the angel candle to remind me of him (p. 20-21). Her healing journey, with angels looking after her, changed her life forever.

 

On January 7, 1993 Iris's 20-year-old son, Eric, drove into the Arizona desert and shot himself. His suicide note stated that he was a loser, afraid to face adult life. He begged his mother not to blame herself. He still loved her. Eric had made a decision to die. And Iris chose life. The three words "healing, surviving, thriving" became her mantra.  

  

Iris and Eric

 

A Son's Suicide and a Mother's Grief 

 

The first part of the book is a heart-wrenching description of Iris's shock, anger, and blame.  Why didn't my son ask for help?  Why didn't I notice that something was wrong?  But she found no answers. At that time Eric seemed happy and was always joking.  Iris, her second husband Jim (Eric's stepfather) and her daughter, Laura had no inkling that their son and brother was planning to take his own life. In my own experience, a friend was feeling great and made plans for future projects. She even fooled her psychiatrist. I understand Iris's shock and anger.

 

Iris "Angel" spoke to him in prose, poetry and haiku, sitting on his old baby blanket, at his graveside. It was at this time that she starting journaling. The poem on page iii titled, This Gift, began her healing process. I know you have to leave me again...I see your face and hear your voice. Then my whole body feels you. It was a dream, wasn't it? This gift.

 

Iris shows us the power of journaling, writing poetry and exercise as healing processes. Carolyn Jennings also speaks about the healing power of journaling in her book, Hunger Speaks (see my review on the IPM website:  Click Here) 

 

The funeral was a blur. Iris ached all over and couldn't stop crying. She had extraordinary support from Jim and her friends. She asked her friend, Janet, to be her memory. Through the entire time an astounding theme was laughter. Every five or ten minutes a story about Eric would be told followed by laughter as Eric was always doing something funny. I had a difficult time believing he was so troubled... Eric missed one heck of a party (excerpt from Janet's letter, p. 29-30).

 

Places to Go, People to Meet and a Story to Tell

 

Iris believed that she gained inner strength to keep going from her dead son Eric. He seemed to answer her pleas from his grave. She dreamt that he was urging her to tell her story. She imagined that he was telling her that he loved her and that she has to get back her life. She began to attend "Survivor of Suicide" meetings and to train to become a speaker.  She attended John Fox's workshop at the national conference of poetry therapy.

One morning, several years later, she woke up, her body stiff and crying for exercise. She started walking every day, observing the flora and fauna. This exercise inspired her to compose poems. Maybe the reason that God struck her down was that He chose her to continue the fight against suicide, to get people to talk about it and to erase the taboo.  Iris decided that her mission was to give seminars for teens at risk, urging them to choose life. ...you gave me the gift to help others, especially those who have lost a loved one to suicide (excerpt from her letter to Eric, p. 70).

Iris & Biscuit

In the next two sections, Thriving and Healing, Iris tells her story walking during her 2,000 mile walk and bicycle ride from Chardon, Ohio (where Eric was born, raised and buried) to the Arizona desert, ending at the spot where Eric shot himself. Jim followed in his car with their dog, Biscuit. Along the way, she encountered people who cried with her when they heard her story, thanked her for her encouragement and admired her bravery.

Her walk for Eric would raise awareness for the prevention of suicide. What was the most difficult part of her pilgrimage? Not her aching feet, the heat or the exhaustion, but finding a bathroom!  Dear God... Please help me up this hill!  Please let there be a place for me to pee soon!  Dear God, my rear end hurts! (p.158-159).

My favorite song comes to mind when I read Iris's story:

Whenever I feel afraid 

"I Whistle a Happy Tune" 

from the musical The King and I

Jim & Iris Angle

We stop counting syllables when there are no fingers left

in meditation, and the world has begun without us

I say end when I mean something very different

even if I do not know quite what it is

I say love when no other word will do

~ Stephen Levine

from "I Say" 

I Say Love When No Other Word Will Do 

Iris Llewellyn Angle's healing journey showed her an inner strength that she never imagined she had before her tragedy.  It also changed her life in unbelievable ways. Today, she co-facilitates a survivor of suicide group in Kent, Ohio and is a member of the Portage County Suicide Prevention Coalition.  She gives speeches on suicide and grief to organizations, churches and schools and is a trained facilitator for "Journal to the Self."  She continues to walk, bike, do yoga, journal, write and teach poetry.  She enjoys traveling the country with her husband, Jim and their dog, Biscuit.

Iris's story is a must read for anyone recovering from losing a loved one.  It reads like a suspenseful novel, urging us to find out if she reaches her goal.

Iris, you've joined my angels as the one who looks after those whose lives have been shattered by tragedy.   

To Purchase the Book:   CLICK HERE

To Visit the Book's Website:   CLICK HERE 

To Visit Iris Angle's Journey Website:   CLICK HERE  

 Reviewed by Carol Katz

A native of Montreal, Quebec, Carol lives there with her husband of 42 years.  Carol started writing poetry nine years ago and loves the freedom that writing poetry and stories affords.  She became involved with IPM through a chance remark from her creative writing teacher, which led her to Finding What You Didn't Lose, John Fox's first book.   

To View Carol's Other Reviews on the IPM Website:  

    CLICK HERE 

 

I want to share with you eight poems I've written.  They are my meditations on experiences of grief and loss, a sense of release and celebration, light and a sacred experience of surprise. 

Children's Playground

to Holly

Life is turning to fall,

And we must always reach up

Further to the sun.

One doesn't really adjust,

God only knows about this changing season.

It is peace enough to see

The leaves that fall with such ease

Around the people walking.

I see that the leaves,

Colored with both joy and sorrow,

Make a children's playground.

~ John Fox

To View The Other Seven Poems By John: 

 
For Adobe PDF Version:     CLICK HERE
For Preview PDF Version:   CLICK HERE

Note:  If you experience difficulty with opening or reading either of these PDF versions, please e-mail john at:  john@poeticmedicine.org  and he will send you a Word Document of them!  

 

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