Day 5 of the Australian Journey 2012

Today is our second day in Warburton with Auntie Jennie and the Karith House of Prayer.   Every morning on the Australian Tour, I get up before the sun and run.   Yesterday I ran along the Upper Yarra River to Martyr Hill (a 27% grade) where I painstakingly ascended to the top, then entered the Donna Buang Trail, a 70 kilometer hike, of which I sampled just the first bit. The songs of the birds spectacularly surrounded me, resembling what I would expect from a rain forest, though in my naivete, I expected monkeys to be part of the auditory scenery.   I had the privilege to see a beautiful red fox, which surprised me since I didn't think foxes lived in Australia.   Later when I asked about the fox, I learned that they had been brought to Australia by the British rulers for their classic fox hunt.   The foxes quickly overran the local wildlife since they had no natural predators and became pests.   (Just like the English, someone at the breakfast table quipped.)   I pointed out that it wasn't actually the fault of the foxes, since they weren't the ones to buy the tickets to Australia and probably didn't enjoy the journey either.   You can get $10 for killing a fox and presenting its pelt.   It's equally not the personal fault of those who have English ancestry for bringing the foxes since they weren't alive when the fox idea was conceived and executed.   I don't think we have to hold guilt for the deeds of our ancestors.   There's enough in the world to make everyone dysfunctional without needing more.   I agree with don Miguel Ruiz and Olivier Clerc that we need to forgive and be forgiven more than we need to blame and be blamed.

This part of Australia superficially resembles Vermont, where I live.   The mountains are a bit higher in Vermont, but that's where the resemblance ends.   There's no rocks here.   The forest floor is thickly filled with ferns and exotic looking plants that resemble large pineapple plants without   the fruit.   The major tree is the eucalyptus or gum.   As one ascends to the higher altitudes, pines appear, but not like any Vermont pine.   Last year we were running when it was still dark and saw a wombat.   I only saw scat this year.   Surprisingly given daylight savings time, the sun rises late in Southeastern Australia.

This morning I took a different route.   I ran up a new road on the same steep hill to get to the O'Shaunessy Aqueduct Trail.   I ran along an old aqueduct for a ways before turning up the hill on the Mt. Victoria Trail.   I wondered how one keeps the water out of the aqueduct even as streams tumbled down the hill beneath it.   Nature was breaking up the concrete and taking back the land.   A short ways up the last trail, I had to turn around and ran back to Karith.   I can vouch that it's quicker to run downhill than uphill but it's harder on the thighs.

Warburton is a small town, barely one row of buildings on either side of the road.   The architecture is one I have only encountered in Australia, a kind of combination between English country homes and Indonesian style.   The closest I have seen elsewhere is the French Quarter in New Orleans.   The Upper Yarra River runs behind one of those rows, flowing all the way to Melbourne and into the ocean there.   I met a woman named Maya who wrote a marvelous book on her hiking journey along the Upper Yarra River from its source to the sea.   I asked her if she was going to honor any other rivers, but she said, "No, this is my homeland.   That is my River.   I wouldn't have authority or permission to write about anyone else's river.   She was obviously aboriginal in her thinking about land and territory.

When we arrived at the Village Hall where we were doing the workshop, the door was locked.   We milled around in front of the movie posters including George Clooney's latest film for the Town Hall doubled as the Village Cinema.   Since "the show must go on", we had to improvise.   Our hosts were frantically trying to track down one of the City employees to open the building.   I suggested we go sit beside the river and at least get started.   We meandered down our side of the river to the Brisbane Bridge and crossed over to the other side where I had spotted a nice grassy area suitable for our group.   Rocky and I proceeded to do the opening song to honor the Four Directions after we had acknowledged the land, the aboriginal people who were attached to this land along with their ancestors, and the spirits who walked upon the land.   Then we did a spirit calling song to make sure that proper notice had been given to the spirits that we were planning to do a ceremony.   Auntie Jennie then spoke some about the importance of men coming into the medicine.   In her family as in mine, there were at least two, if not three, generations which were entirely lacking in men.   All the men were dead or in jail or lost.   My grandfather was the only exception as was Aunt Jennie's.   She continued to talk about the men in her family and her ancestors which inspired me to propose that we do a tobacco ceremony in which we smoke for the spirits and anyone who receives a message from them stands up and delivers it.   This turned out to be a powerful ceremony.   I offered the tobacco and a number of people stood and spoke in Quaker meeting fashion.   In my mind's eye I saw my ancestors crossing the great divide (the Pacific Ocean) and embracing Auntie Jennie's ancestors and all sitting down in a circle and smoking together to signify unity and peacefulness.   One said that war actually hadn't been on the planet all that long and could still be eradicated.   I saw ancestors standing behind each person present.   Several others spoke of similar sightings.   We passed tobacco around the circle for everyone to smoke just as I had seen.   Then one of our hosts appeared and announced that the employee who was supposed to open the hall had finally arrived and we could return.   Many of us did not want to leave the river and its soothing sounds as it moved past the first rocks I had seen in this countryside.

After we settled back into the building, Rocky spoke about the untold and silent stories that become physical illnesses.   These stories need to be elicited.   The organs and the tissues who manifest the diseases need to be engaged in conversation to tell their stories.   The lessons we were learning were not just pertinent to mental health.   He gave an example of working with a woman who was having severe right hip pain.   He used acupuncture and some osteopathy while he encouraged her to let her hip tell its story.   As a surprising but highly relevant story emerged, the pain moved to the left hip, then the left knee, and then left her body.   It had been stuck in her hip.   I suggested Brian Broom's marvelous book, Meaning-full Illness.   Auntie Jennie confirmed that this view was also consistent with what aboriginal people believe and how they heal in her area of Australia.

After lunch we wanted people to experience how ceremony builds community, so we chose a ceremony that I created based upon my readings from ethnographies written before 1900 of a "Welcome to Camp" ceremony.   It hasn't been done since 1880, as far as I can determine.   I can imagine someone getting ready to bristle, so I'll quickly say that I believe it's acceptable to create ceremony for specific purposes as the need arises.   It's not a Native American ceremony because it's not currently done and there's no model to follow or elder to teach it.   It may have some Native American flavor (we can't help infusing our spirituality into the ceremonies we create), but it's really an ecumenical attempt at experiencing some degree of transcendence toward the spiritual, which is exactly what I would call it.   Or, since I'm also a member of the Unitarian-Universalist Church, perhaps I should call it a "U-U greeting ceremony".

   The inspiration for this ceremony comes from Plains peoples of North America, before they were penned into reservations.   In those days, camps frequently moved.   During certain times of the year camps would join each other for celebrations and larger rituals.   A ceremony was done to oversee this process.   In one that I read, seven tipis were set in each of the seven directions so that the person walked a spiral toward the center.   This was done outside and to the East of the main camp.   Those people wanting admission to camp participated in the ceremony along with those who controlled the admissions process.   The supplicant who wished to enter the camp started in the West and passed to each of the directions.   In the original ceremony, the intent was that each person proved that he possessed the virtue of that direction.   In my readings, only men participated, but that may have been a side effect of the gender-nearsightedness of many of the ethnographers writing before 1880 who were often sexist and might not have noticed women even if they outnumbered men.   At each direction, the applicant to the camp tells a story about a deed that exemplifies the virtues of that direction.   In my ceremony, I used courage for the west, strength and endurance for the north, receiving and following a vision for the east, compassion for the south, protecting someone for the sky, and nurturing someone for the earth.   Then he is welcomed in the center and led into camp.   I'm going to guess no one was ever turned away because the incoming group were known and had been previously vetted.   This was just a formal way to say hello.

I use my ceremony with Native American people though, as I said, it is not a traditional Native American ceremony.   I use it especially with people who have drug and alcohol problems because they are not used to saying anything positive about themselves.   The beauty of this ceremony is that it emphasizes one's good traits and deeds.   So many people are quick to tell stories about their faults and misdeeds, but isn't it much harder to tell stories about what we have done well, or times when we have been courageous, or strong, or compassionate, or protected someone or something else?   This ceremony forces people to reflect upon what is good about them and to share it with another person who only listens, standing in the position that symbolically represents one of the Directions.   Participants feel how it changes them to tell good stories instead of bad stories and they feel the camaraderie that comes from being heard without commentary or personal response and being accepted.   Those who have completed the process are led to a nearby part of the room where they can sing, dance, or help each other in some way.   We keep a continual steam of singing and dancing going, because, as a Sari elder told us in Mexico, you can never sing or dance enough for the spirits.   When we did ceremony with her, she would exhort us with "mas bailando; mas cantando".

We did this ceremony with the group and Auntie Jennie agreed that it did succeed in giving them some flavor of the transcendence and sense of group membership that participation in tradition ceremony in community provides.   People also spoke about how difficult it was at first to be positive about oneself and how embarrassed they were.   Isn't it interesting that we are more embarrassed to tell positive stories about ourselves than negative ones?!   They also spoke about how transformative it felt to actually get out the positive story and for it to be accepted. They described the joy of completing the process and being welcomed to the community.   For some that community will continue, since talking circles are held weekly for those who live in the area and efforts are being made to find constructive ways for people to spend time with each other.

Later that evening after the workshop, we talked with our hosts about the problem in aboriginal communities for some people that family gathering was centered around drinking or doing drugs. The physician in our party who worked in the aboriginal community reported that she wasn't permitted by some families to make home visits on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday because of the partying that they didn't want her to see.     In relation to this we talked about the power of ceremony, even the ceremony of drinking together, for it is, after all, a kind of eucharist or communion.   It's no accident that alcohol is called "spirits".   We talked about the necessity of engaging the elders to put healthier ceremonies back into place in communities in such a way that people can notice and can attend.

In Warburton, we finished the day by offering traditional pipe ceremonies for those present.   We left to return to Melbourne to prepare to travel into the East Gippsland countryside early the next morning for Culture Camp 2012.

Day 4 of the Australian Journey 2012: Musings with Auntie Jennie

Today we are in Warburton where we encounter Auntie Jennie, an aboriginal elder from Queensland.   I wrote about Auntie Jennie last year.   She is doing her medicine for her community and much the same way as aboriginal elders in North America.   Our revelation from last year was that we are more similar than different and that continues to be true.   We stayed at Karith, a Catholic retreat center for people of all faiths.   Karith means a place for prayer, and this is what it is, managed by Sister Catherine and Brother Ken.  

We began our workshop/worship in Warburton by singing and calling in the spirits of the land and its original people.   Then we did an introduction process in which each person says what they are called, where they come from, and introduces one of their ancestors to the other person in one quick sentence or so.    I learned that sentences are not quick in Australia and people have much to say and tell.   Introductions took over two hours.   People were starved for the opportunity to tell their stories and to be heard.   After lunch we continued with the theme of hearing the silenced voices, one that is apropos to Australia in which aboriginal people were silenced to ourselves in which we silence the voices within that we don't like or don't appreciate.   In the post-lunch exercise, much as what we did in the Hearing Voices conference, the goal was to meet one or more of our voices that we have silenced and to remove the gag and allow them to talk and be heard.   This turned out to be powerful, too.   So many of our voices have been silenced by the dominant culture, which is one of greed and individuality.   The voices of sustainability and cooperation have been drowned out by the sounds of greed and what Thomas King, the Canadian aboriginal writer, has called the "Ferenghi laws of acquisition (see his collection of stories called A Short History of Indians in Canada".   The Ferenghi are from Star Trek and primarily represent the "all for me, and none for you" point of view.   Allowing the silenced voices to speak is a powerful process.

I went on to talk about the ways in which the mind is a model of the larger social world.   Just as we have marginalized indigenous people in the broader social world, we have marginalized the indigenous voices within us in the social world of our minds.   We need to allow them to be heard.   Here comes dialogical self theory again, which was the topic of my keynote address at the Hearing Voices conference.   Dialogical self theory sees the mind as a collection of voices all of which are speaking at once trying to be heard.   Therapy consists of imposing a kind of order of politeness and respect in which all the voices can be heard and can dialogue with each other.   Richter (author of integraring Existentialism and Narrative Therapy) has written about the many me's within us.   Each "me" manages one of my relationships and carries voices, experiences, and stories for negotiating that relationship.   Some "me's" are more appropriate for some contexts than others.   Social skill consists of knowing which me's to bring out for any given encounter.  

Relevant to this is Marius Romme, Professor of Social Psychiatry at the University of Limburg in Maastricht, The Netherlands, who is credited as being one of the European founders of the Hearing Voices movement, though in my talks, I was quick to add that what Romme proposed has been practiced and believed by aboriginal elders for centuries, perhaps even 43,000 years.   Romme was practicing psychiatry in The Netherlands when one of his patients, Patsy Haagan, said "You believe in a God no one can see, so why don't you believe in the voices which I at least can definitely hear and which are real to me."    Romme thought about her proposition and found that he could agree with it.   Why not?    He accepted the ontological reality of Patsy's voices (just as indigenous elders do). He invited other voice hearers to talk together about their experiences but found that although they could talk they didn't really help each other.    So, he and Patsy appeared on Dutch TV and invited others who heard voices to call into the program.   Four hundred, fifty viewers who heard voices phoned.   Of these, 150 people said they coped without the assistance of psychiatry; indeed some said they were happy to hear voices.   Romme asked, "Could perhaps the techniques used by those who coped well with the voices be used by those who didn't?"   A conference was organized to encourage broader discussion, similar to the conference we had in Melbourne.   From this Healing Voices groups formed around the world.   Ron Coleman, who spoke at the Conference, founded the first one in England 25 years ago.

My proposition was that narrative medicine has much to offer the Hearing Voices movement just as does dialogical self theory and therapy.   Rita Charon, MD, PhD, one of the leaders in the world narrative medicine movement wrote that narrative medicine is "Medicine practiced with narrative competence, that is, the ability to acknowledge, absorb, interpret, and act on the stories and plights of others." (Charon R. Welcome and introduction. Presented at: Narrative Medicine: a colloquium; May 2, 2003; Columbia University, New York, NY). As doctors/, we act on the narratives presented to us daily by patients, their families, and other health care team members.   This is what Romme did.   He accepted the story brought to him by Patsy Haagan and worked within that story.   The late Canadian family physician, Miriam Divinsky wrote that, "[Stories] help us see other ways of doing things that might free us from self-reproach or shame". Hearing and telling stories is comforting and bonds people together."   This is what people had found at the Hearing Voices conference and what we found at the Warburton workshop.   Coming together in circle to tell and hear our stories with each other creates relief and builds community.   Within the Lakota concept of nagi, once we hear another's stories they are forever a part of us.

In Warburton, I spoke about the nagi, which is the swarm surrounding us of all the stories that have ever been told about us, by us, and by those who have influenced us coupled with a part of the spirit of the teller of that story.   Nagi is what forms and shapes us and makes us who and what we are.   It is our legacy.   Once we tell or hear a story that story becomes forever a part of the listeners nagi.   Miriam Divinsky further wrote that "Stories offer insight, understanding, and new perspectives".They educate us and they feed our imaginations." (Divinsky M. Stories for life. Introduction to narrative medicine. Can Fam Physician 2007;53:203-5 (Eng), 209-11 (Fr))      Through story

(1) we structure and interpret our life experiences;

(2) we create a coherent life story;

(3) we construct, display and reinforce our sense of self;

(4) and we manage this self in relation to others in our social worlds.

As I said in Melbourne, story is the default mode of our brains.   It is our best way to store and manage information.   The narrative structure is ubiquitous in human experience and emerges, according to the Scottish developmental psychologist, Colwyn Trevarthan, even in the early exchanges between mother and infant.   In these interactions, infants engage in stories without words or with words supplied by their mothers.   We have the task of creating a coherent life story, often with the help of our family and friends.   Through the use of narrative structures, we invent an "I" to integrate our many me's.   In fact, we know at least one part of the brain located in the mesial pre-frontal cortex which eliminates our ability to tell a coherent "I" story if it is rendered dysfunction by stroke or other damage.   We use story to run countless simulations about what might happen if we behaved in particular ways in future encounters with others.   I gave an example of this in which I asked everyone to remember a time in which he or she had an argument with their spouse or partner and had to leave home for work or another errand before the argument was resolved.   "All the way home," I said, "you are running various "what if"." scenarios in your mind, rehearsing the discussion that will take place when you arrive home.   Depending upon the outcomes of these various simulations, you decide whether to stop for Chinese take-out, flowers, chocolates, or perhaps a drink at the pub."   Everyone could relate to this.

                Then I defined a narrative unit (following the work of Labov) as one containing at least 2 Complicating Action clauses where the verbs are in the past or historic present tense, and where we can infer an order to the clauses.   There are also one or more Orientation clauses setting out who was involved in the events, when and where the events took place, and giving other necessary background information.   I used an example of a short narrative from one of our clients who comes to our complicated minds group.   Mandy said,   "Then there was the time when I killed my boyfriend, except that he didn't die, and there he was at my back, trying to strangle me again."   This actually has three Action clauses.   True to the requirement for an Orientation clause (which can be implicit in the conversation), Mandy added, "That was when we lived in Georgia and I was dealing coke and he was really jealous, but then we broke up and now we're best friends. I know all his girlfriends and all his kids."   I asked everyone if they could feel Mandy's charm as a person from the story and everyone could.   This occurs because we recognize the other aspect of a narrative -- the affective strand of meaning where narrators reveal their feelings about the events they are accounting.   This justifies the telling and shows the kind of person the speaker claims to be: "narrative is a presentation of the self, and the evaluative component in particular establishes the kind of self that is presented".   This illustrates the narrative competence of the speaker in putting together a multi-voice, multi-faceted story in accessible language.   

Next I moved onto illnesses, discussing how narrative competence allows us to Use the different perspectives of storytelling to create a complete picture of the illness and its meaning to the patient.

The narrative of an illness needs to not only give the patient a voice, but also to re-present the dialogue between patient and caregivers, inclusive of the voice of the caregiver or health professional.   I gave the example of the story of the first encounter with the illness being named.   Mandy said, Linda: We fought for 6 hours that day because I fought back.   At one point I was slamming his head into my knee.   I went to the hospital and that's when I found out I was pregnant. That"s when they diagnosed me."   To her credit, Mandy had received every psychiatric diagnosis available from someone.   This is how she came to have a "complicated mind".    Mandy also told habitual stories that illustrate usual activities.   For example, she said, " I get so angry, I mean he would wake me up for no reason, and he knows I can never get to sleep and so I have a 3 hour panic attack because he needs $5, right now, so I would lock him in the basement.   I would just get so sad. I would take all my pills, whatever I had around. I'd still do it but my son put me right, he said he didn't want to be without me. They would call me from the other side, my best friend, my son's father. And he was really good looking."   Mandy was talking about her usual activity of taking all the pills at hand when she was upset.   She was however, entertaining a counter story during her time she had been in the Complicated Minds group -- that her son loved her and would miss her and needed her to stop overdosing on pills.   People also have "reported speech" narratives in which they describe important conversations with others.   Mandy said, "The doctors don't want to hear what I tell them.   They get really nervous when I come in the office. I made one of them brownies but it doesn't help."   Mandy's experiences with physicians were generally negative.   She made them uncomfortable and recognized it.   These stories are important.   During our interactions with health professions decisions are made about the management of the illness and the health practitioners story about the illness is transmitted to the patient. Interactions between patients and health care professionals thus play a major role in the social construction of illness narratives.   We rely upon physicians to tell us what we have and why we have it.   This generates "because narratives" in which we explain ourselves, often in reference and comparison to others, which are called narratives of comparison with others.

                We completed the workshop in Warburton with examples and exercises of people telling each other stories and listening for the smaller narrative units comprising the story, thereby recognizing points of potential intervention.   Then we went across the street to the Polish Jester for a wonderful Polish meal of pickled vegetables, smoked herring, and stuffed cabbage.   I fell asleep immediately upon returning to Karith.

Ontological Status of Plants

My friend wrote, "I love animals, which is why I don't eat them. As a culture we have a lot of room for understanding on this issue, when even people who call themselves vegetarian can't agree on what is or is not meat.I call on animals and they come to me and we talk. They point the way."

Her words inspired me to ponder on historical differences in the ontological status of plants and animals.

I just wanted to add an interesting perspective from my studies of how Lakota and other Native people most likely thought before Christianity and modernity. As best as I can tell, animals, vegetables, and minerals had equal ontological status. The logic behind your argument wouldn't have worked for them because of that different assumption, though it does work in the modern way of thinking, because we give animals higher ontological status than plants. We have a hierarchy of status -- humans are highest, primates next, then furry four leggeds that are cute, then animals that are less cute (rats are way down), then reptiles, then plants. I don't think we even think about status or hierarchy among plants. And, as you probably know, the world's largest living single organism is a fungus that is about 30 km wide and 80 km long in the Pacific Northwest. We don't really think about the status of fungi -- they're just so low. I think the notion of being embedded within nature as a part of nature requires less hierarchy than the Judeo-Christian notion of humans being above nature or in control of nature (though the locals of this continent did an amazing job at shaping nature to fit their needs through controlled burns of forests and prairies and other environmental engineering feats. So as an exercise (I don't actually have an investment in what you eat), try thinking about plants as being equal to animals for a week. Would that change your perspective? What if plants had equal consciousness to animals, just different. A fungus rapidly migrated through a labyrinthian maze, choosing all the correct passageways, to get to some food at the end of the maze. How did it do that? Just some ideas to bat around.