"...skeptical head, audacious heart"

Some seasonal thoughts on growing light

Happy December advents, celebrations of light in the year’s darkest days.

Today’s newShrink is a holiday card season-opener roughly in the order of these illustration pictures.

out of darkness, light…

This year’s annual worldwide eight-night celebration of Hanukkah, Judaism’s festival of lights, is this Thursday, December 7th through Friday the 14th.

#1. Hanukkah celebration around the world (Associated Press)

Each of the holiday’s nightly consecutive lighting of the eight-candle menorah (pictured at top left) marks the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem in the 2nd century BC, after a small group of Jewish fighters liberated it from occupying foreign forces.

With the tiny supply of ritually purified oil that they found in the temple, they lit the menorah — and it miraculously stayed lit for eight days.

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Later this month and into the new year the weeklong celebrations of Kwanzaa worldwide celebrate harvest bounty and honor seven traditional African principles: Unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith. Kwanzaa 2023 (pictured at top right) begins Tuesday, December 26, and lasts through New Year’s Day Monday, January 1, 2024.

#2. “When and What is Kwanzaa?” (The Almanac)

During Kwanzaa a candleholder called a kinara (pictured at top right) is adorned with red, green, and black candles. Red is said to represent ancestry and unity; black, the people; and green, the fertile land (Africa). A candle is lit for each day of Kwanzaa and celebrants may also exchange gifts. Though often mistakenly thought of as a substitute for Christmas or Hanukkah, Kwanzaa is not a religious holiday, and families who celebrate Kwanzaa often celebrate it in addition to Christmas, Hanukkah, or another religious holiday.

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In Christian tradition today begins the four-Sunday Advent season of anticipating Christmas. Pictured above at center the first-lit of the evergreen wreath’s four candles represents Hope. (With a nod to some favorite newShrink imagery will note that three of these four Advent candles are the colour purple!)

#3. What is Advent—and why do we mark it with candles and pop-up or treat calendars? (From National Geographic)

The holiday, originally named for the Latin word adventus, meaning arrival, marks the beginning of the Christian liturgical year as well as countdown to the Christian celebration of Jesus’ birth. Advent traditions dating to the fifth century A.D. include the modern Advent wreath with four candles. The first two and fourth — respectively for Hope (today), Peace (next Sunday Dec. 10) and Love (December 24) — are Advent’s traditional colour purple. (The third, pink candle signifies anticipatory Joy, at roughly a halfway point of the Advent Sundays before Christmas Day.

Today’s Hope candle seems well well-timed and welcome. As always, neither season nor news-year is ever all sunny and bright. Photo illustrations across the bottom row above focus on the situation in Gaza and commentary about it. It is just one grave, volatile and complex among the vast array of current news examples.

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…in the light, shadow

#4. Coverage of the Hamas-Israel hostage and prisoner exchange in humanitarian pause through Thursday

(First from CNN)

In photo at bottom left are faces of just a few of the more than 240 hostages taken by Hamas in the October 7 attack. As of Friday the Israeli government reported 137 were still being held in Gaza — among them 126 Israelis and 11 foreign nationals. Fewer than 10 of those are American.

Here are the hostages released by Hamas and those remaining in Gaza (The Washington Post)

From the Palestinian viewpoint, according to USA Today, Palestinian prisoners had been released to secure the return of more than 100 mostly Israeli hostages. Release and joyful homecoming under way for some Palestinian prisoners is pictured at bottom right. Here is an Aljazeera report as of Wednesday night:

Story in Photos: Hamas and Israel exchange more captives for prisoners (Aljazeera)

Israel frees 30 Palestinians after 10 Israelis and two foreigners were released by Hamas in Gaza.

And by late Thursday:

Pause ends and fighting resumes (NBC News)

The Israel Defense Forces has accused Hamas of violating the terms of an agreement that has seen a pause in fighting in Gaza since Nov. 24 and of firing at Israeli territory.

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Inevitably from such polarized times and situations of immense volatility comes intensifying pressure, even dire need — for the somethings beyond and overarching the never-ending-no-win-conflicts. Jung called this the transcendent level or dimension of our conscious minds.

holding “the both” of paradox, becoming the change…

Today’s growing light word-play subtitle points to a call usually attributed to Gandhi, that we look first within ourselves in order to “become [and thereby create] the change we want to see in the world.” (Gandhi’s actual relevant writing was reportedly about how the world of human affairs, in ways both better and worse, mirrors each of us individuals. That does logically suggest, though doesn’t state verbatim, that the familiar converse is also true.)

You may be finding the next cited source and section here surprising. I certainly am!

And that’s despite recent shifts in my view and observations. From newShrink standpoints I’m seeing fine, deep and broad journalism and commentary. More rare is the combination of that with well-argued and researched, complex and consistently wise ideas from the perspectives of depth psychology.

In fact, of late the most eloquent depth psychology voice bringing fresh perspectives of soul, head and heart to bear on current events for meaningful change, is coming from…

#4. “The world feels like an awful place right now… Ancient wisdom has a formula to help us, which you might call skepticism of the head and audacity of the heart…”

(— David Brooks, NYT columnist, The Atlantic essayist and author most recently of How to Know A Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen.)

Yes, really: That David Brooks.

(Today’s title theme is a paraphrase of this quote from his recent Atlantic essay linked below.)

Of late Brooks is consistently writing and speaking — a lot and in different ways and venues — with well-informed confidence and a newly relaxed non-defensive ease on subjects of frequent pressing newShrink focus and concern. Among them:

• psychological and practical importance of our ability to hold paradox, tension of opposing ideas, events or forces…

• increasing psychological and moral maturity throughout adult life…

• owning and integrating our individual and collective shadow (so that projection of it onto evil-others is reduced)…

• and perhaps most pronounced and visible, Brooks’ own individual example — courageous ways his work is increasingly informed by comfortable candor about his own gnarly crises and process of becoming more wholly himself, his individuating, to put it in Jung’s term.

For this section several sources of various depth and length are linked here.

A Humanist Manifesto: (Longer essay developing book themes more fully, in The Atlantic)

Love in Harsh Times & Other Coping Mechanisms: How to Stay Sane in Brutalizing Times (NYT column)

David Brooks on Staying Humane in Inhumane Times (The NYT audio-essay/podcast version).

I now do want and plan to read the recent book from which much of this material is taken, most likely not until after things settle more at the end of January. Meanwhile, I’ll value hearing thoughts from you who have read it or recently followed him closely.

For time- and energy-bandwidth reasons, here today from my first-take notes are favorite quotes and short recap of ideas, in no particular order. Of note to me beyond strong content were some beautiful writing and more lyrical language than I recall of his style.

(From The Atlantic) Brooks calls us to a “humanistic gospel of curiosity and respect for others” and argues that in all life situations, public and private, “leading with respect and curiosity is practical.”

For “at the center of every healthy family, organization or nation is a necessary core humanistic skill: The capacity to see others deeply, to understand them, and to make them feel seen, heard, and understood.”

Brooks is inspiringly statesmanlike — for me another first with him — in arguments for studying the humanities, developing empathy and capacity for deep conversation — as fundamentally necessary for democracy.

Here in a nutshell he captures the “outside-in” of our factual ego-consciousness, along with the “inside-out” felt-experience that’s the focus of depth/soul psychology.

The hard sciences can tell us about our physical realities. Humanism focuses on the subjective realm — the way each person takes events and molds them into a point of view. Big data can help social scientists make generalizations about populations of people. But the humanist tries to see the subjective layer of one particular person, to understand this unique individual who, like you, is probably doing their best to see the world with more understanding, wisdom, humanity, and grace.

Though citing others to make strong points Brooks echoes favorite ideas from Jungian James Hillman, “the quintessential humanist activity is quality conversation.”

Compelling examples in problems-solving and solution-building demonstrate contrast between traditional paradigmic vs the much more powerfully engaging and effective narrative thinking, through stories and storytelling. (These are also fundamental concepts and approaches in most all effective adult psychotherapies, probably because they respond to much in how we humans are wired. Their application far more broadly across societal and news contexts here is well-stated, apt and I have long believed necessary.)

When Brooks asks that we “aspire to be historians of one another,” I could almost hug his neck!

Again he echoes many favorite Hillman themes from his seminal Revisioning Psychology. But most important, Brooks applies the ideas in freshly applicable ways for today’s world in making the case for developing empathy as a world- and individual survival skill.

He posits that empathy must be taught, practiced and well-learned in ways at which most of us are inept today, noting that “the key trait of the dehumanizer is emotional crudity…” Developing empathy requires 3 things:

• mirroring one another so that each is heard, and knows it;

• mentalizing what the other says, in applicable terms that make it real to us; and finally,

• caring about the other. He makes the point most therapists and psychologists understand all too well, that highly developed sociopaths (and their collective equivalent in groups, organizations and nations) are more than adept at applying both mirroring and mentalizing of the other to achieve desired ends. But there is no care for the reality and felt experience of the other.

As may be apparent, a fair amount of ongoing newShrink attention and preriodic focus will likely include David Brooks. Meanwhile, this longer Brooks appearance, interview/discussion this week with Morning Joe (Scarborough) and a solid serious-thinking panel grabbed my attention from another room. It also piqued my interest in some profound changes about Brooks — on TV especially including his physical demeanor, affect and voice-tone… how he carries himself and gestures (and gestures… and gestures… and gestures!?!) See what you think…

Others watching PBS commentary with Jonathan Capehart more regularly than I had commented in passing on finding Brooks’ many hand, head and eye gestures distracting. In the more lively Morning Joe setting his extra-physical, talking-with-hands energy struck me not so much as excessive or inappropriate… as just jarringly no longer what I’d found to be characteristic Brooks. Absent were the clenched jaw, tightly closed body language, often edgy-defensive-whine tone that could surface sometimes to the detriment of some of his best points.

I’m wondering if what’s different may be things so simple yet agonizingly difficult to achieve, something like at last more comfortable in his own skin. Maybe this is just what coming fully into oneself at long last in one’s sixth decade — individuating in such happy-late-life-chapters rare as a unicorn — looks like!

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A theme of home in all its literal, emotional, psychological and symbolic aspects has been pervasive in the week’s news, video footage and personal accounts from Gaza.

It’s echoed as well through several of the week’s reports and eulogizing on the passing — or returning home — of three monumental national figures: Former First Lady Roslynn Carter, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and most recently the first female Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

And David Brooks’s exploration of our more interior human realms situates the idea of home also, as where we live within ourselves.

With a couple more items along this theme before closing today…

smiles for our way home

In news, the consulting rooms of therapy and in life, the image and topic of home is a constant. Surfacing both as future hope and past memory, with the best of ways it’s a present weaving of past and future cords.

Interesting to me, the phrase and idea homeward bound is double edged, carrying both nostalgic longing and stifling entrapment. With home both interior and external space, both anchored in past and pulled by future, it seems vital that there be movement to it… some journey, embodiment, maybe a dance.

Here (pictured at center below) is one such example newly published and just arrived, in which I am just taking first, deliciously well-written bites. After finishing it I’ll return with discussion of book and author, with key aspects of memoir genre and memoir-writing from a depth psychological standpoint.

I’ll value hearing from readers who know Peg, perhaps have already read the memoir — or some who have written endorsements.

Writing-our-way-home, through memoir:

# 5. “Welcome to the CHURCH of i don’t have a clue: My irreverent, post evangelical, sacred life.”

(— From Peg Robarchek, a veteran newspaper journalist, poet, and fiction author trained as a spiritual director and meditation teacher.)

Second among these photo-smiles, from a Charlotte story this week the flower mural house at left, is a heartwarming case of planting homes of memory in all new places we occupy.

#6.These are the colors of my Mexico': Charlotte historic home adds a new, joyful chapter“

(NPR Affiliate WFAE)

In Charlotte’s historic Elizabeth neighborhood, there’s a home that stands out. It’s not the largest or the oldest house on East 8th Street. It’s not even the block’s only historic landmark. But it is the only home painted with bright pink, blue and yellow flowers.

Known by neighbors (and Google Maps) as The Mural House, the property is experiencing a new chapter in its more than 100-year history. That’s thanks to the vision of Mexican artist Rosalía Torres-Weiner — and a family that wanted to bring joy to their neighborhood…

The story, and the house, combine past official historic landmark status as a 1911 Sears house reportedly built by an artist of the period… with transformation of the beige cinder-block structure to a present-day vibrant artist-created mural set in its own colorful growing garden setting. (The full story is a quick read or listen; I highly recommend.)

On a personal note…

This mural house and story packed a delightful personal punch, in that rare lovely way that evokes and connects in the present both past memory and future prospect. Decades ago the Elizabeth neighborhood house, then quite beige nondescript cinder-block, was at the end point turnaround of my neighborhood walking, occasional running, route. At the same street’s other end was my first home where I’d bought, renovated and for four years lived as a 20-something newspaper reporter. (Ever since, such older, more urban neighborhoods have lured with permanent appeal; older construction, or doing the work involved to update it, not so much!)

Timing of the floral-mural story on my old street now was flukey and fun — as lively ideas are floating around home. Not focused on return to same neighborhood — and years from near ready to fully leave lake or for retirement-style living — a Charlotte plan and search is taking shape with eye toward very eventual need to downsize. Present goal is transitional, close-in-city, modest sized weekend getaway condo (vs potentially facing difficult later flying leaps.)

Big draws of the sort of reverse-commute are getting to do weekend events, friend time, cultural stuff and meaningful volunteering without the long drives to and from the lake. A potential sweet-spot is a bit close to both Midtown/cross-town greenway and also trolley stop for heading to uptown events and light rail access. The not-far, wonderfully inclusive/social-justice activist Presby church, where several friends and family attend and love, also has appeal. So many things do, for those of us living for decades at least 30-40 minutes’ drive from anywhere.

Now is total brainstorm, talk-us-down-or up-on-this mode — so please do share thoughts, similar experience or choices. If at all it’s likely a many-months or longer process. With spouse John on the go still thriving in perfect late-career work gig, I’ll be back in city more often for weekday lunch visits with friends, and dogs and I’ll be scouting what “walkable” really means!

To wind up smiles again, pictured above at right is a favorite (not to mention only) Advent cartoon … bringing us full-circle to today’s, er, beginning..

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Per newShrink tradition I’ll leave you now with the week’s annual pervasive musical score from long memory, mind and psyche…

coda

George Winston’s 1982 variations on the classical — particularly with Bach, in Joy, and Pachelbel, in Kanon — are for me exquisite echo of shimmering winter mornings.

And, that is all I have. Talk to you soon.

🦋💙 tish

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… it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
— William Stafford, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other”