Containing Everything Necessary

20th Anniversary Issue

 

So you may not know me well, but I can tell for sure that I am nothing if not resilient. In spite of having lost my mother in 2017, along with four other notable family members that year alone, and within another year, was thrust into a new mode of being the patient! Yes, I was brought low by a diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease (PD), and still have my down days or weeks, but my fighting spirit has come through for myself this time! I will be firing my neurologist soon and looking into a new one as I need to have professionals working on my care that believe in me and my mission in beating this disease. Or at least living as well as possible with it.

Meanwhile,  I carry on in my field of poetry therapy, and I have added in essential oils to that as well, which I offer to individuals, couples, and groups, although I am newer to the realm of essential oils. Poetry therapy is my baseline that everything must come back to. Though it is not a stuck in the mud kind of a baseline, as it involves creativity. Whether someone is comfortable with poetry or not, whether or not they have ever kept a journal, I believe it is possible for someone to come to a session or a group of mine and  leave feeling more creatively alive that they have ever felt before. Despite my being unable to read my own handwriting any longer, and my lower volume of voice, my creative spirit remains strong, and I doubt that PD will ever affect it!!

This is a poem I wrote after attending a class where I made a copper bowl!

 

The Container

I know this bowl;
my hands formed it from a sheet of copper
firing it 5 times in orange/red-hot fire
pounding it with a large, round stone
while it sat on a cut stump
and I sat on another.

Symmetry was in its making and
Symmetry is in its being now.

It is copper-red with spots of black
where the copper burned in those flames.
As the metal heated, it became malleable
and opened itself to a new shape,
a new use in the world,
becoming a container.

Purpose was in its making and
Purpose is in its being now.

Horsehair is bound with copper wire
strewn with beads: green, red, blue, and black,
and two bone disks mated with clear white beads –
symbols for earth, fire, sky, and more.

Symbol was in its making and
Symbolic it becomes for me.

I placed it on a low shelf in my home
and found I had created an altar.
The bowl appears empty and yet
it has become a powerful container
for it holds my wishes, dreams, and memories.
It can also hold my pain and my happiness,
my loves and my losses, my fear and my courage.

A similar bowl
in the pit of my soul,
reverberates
as I hold my hand-made copper bowl.
This is how I hear music.

I am so grateful that my bowl could hold my pain and losses, my fear, and my courage, waning though it may be at times. It is a mighty container, as has been the page. One big goal of mine is to have a book of poems published in 2020. The book is titled The Container.

I hereby declare that you, too, may have a sturdy container for your dreams, wishes, memories, pain, fear, and courage. Put whatever you wish into your container! In future articles I will post more ideas for using your own creativity to fuel your healing, your actions, your plans. After all, isn’t Valerie leading us all into a bright future, fueled by our words!

Copyright 2020 Nessa McCasey. All Rights Reserved.

Share this Article with Your Friends…