jennydeupree.com

Years ago I had a dream of an art installation on a city street. The front wall was angled in, the door was beside that place where they met. It might have been made of black glass. Inside was a big square room, set diagonally so it was at a 45° angle to the grid of the city streets and the other buildings. It was painted a flat ash grey. There was perhaps a bench, and a pile of ashes, and a big pile of shoes. I knew that its name was “The Holocaust Room” and it was a place where women who’d had abortions or miscarriages could go to grieve. I had recently become aware that women who’d had miscarriages didn’t usually give themselves enough time to grieve. I was also concerned for the plight of a woman who has an abortion. Because of the opposition to abortion in this culture, such a woman would not feel safe to grieve. I built a small cardboard model of the Holocaust Room. Later, I thought that it could also be a place where one could mourn uncompleted projects. I have a lot of these, my studio is filled with half-finished pieces. I used to be angry at myself for not having what it took to complete a project. Only when I began to understand the full consequences of early trauma, did I begin to be able to forgive myself. I could see what kept happening: I would start a project with a burst of inspiration and energy and then somewhere along the way I would get triggered into despair or terror. By the time I had weathered that attack, the energy I had for the project was gone, and it would lie on a shelf, gathering dust.

I told Caryn, my trauma therapist, about the Holocaust Room, and my need to mourn the miscarriages and abortions of my creative projects, the ones that never “came to term”. She said “Would it interest you to know that there are other cultures that have such places?” I said “YES!” and she brought out a card of a shrine to Jizo in Japan, and showed me pictures of some of the many that she had seen.
I had found a place along the forest path that I thought would make a great shrine for unfinished projects. It was just off the path, a small circular space with one tree at the center, surrounded by trees, but this one small area was open and covered with moss. So I decided to make a Jizo figure to preside over the shrine. I was taking a pottery class at the Littleton Studio School, and was able to use their kiln and glazes. After I made the big one, I realized I had no idea how to glaze it so I made several smaller ones to practice glaze. Later, I sold a lot of the small ones at the Neskaya Holiday Fair.

I also did some research on Jizo: Jizo began as a bodhisattva in India, named Ksitigarbha. “The name may be translated as “Earth Treasury”, “Earth Store”, “Earth Matrix”, or “Earth Womb.” Ksitigarbha is known for his vow not to achieve Buddhahood until all hells are emptied; therefore, he is regarded as the bodhisattva of hell beings.” [Wikipedia] In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a being who has attained enlightenment, and could go off and live happily in the world of bliss, except that he/she chooses to come back to earth to help all sentient beings to attain enlightenment. (Bodhisattvas are non gender specific, having incarnated as both men and women through countless lives.) “Traditionally, he is seen as the guardian of children, particularly children who died before their parents. Since the 1980s, he has been worshipped as the guardian of the souls of stillborn, miscarried or aborted fetuses.” [Wikipedia] In modern Japan, Jizo is a savior, a friend to all, never frightening even to children, and his/her many manifestations incorporate Taoist, Buddhist, and Shinto elements.

(Written in August 2010)
Feeling pretty blue. At least it got better late yesterday. That’s an old rhythm. Curled up with Bella on the couch, trying to bring comfort to my heavy hurting heart. Then I noticed that the pain seemed to come in waves. I finally decided to get up & have caffeine tea. Now feeling a little better.
Walked the dog on Gov Gallen — got to the picnic table good for me! It was grey & I was still feeling a little down, but I thought as I walked “May my thoughts be a prayer that brings good to the world I love,” “May my vision of compassion bring a blessing to this world I love,” and many more. Modeled after what Sharon Salzberg says the Dalai Lama prays every morning. I’d like to have the actual quote.

The Dalai Lama’s prayer is “May every action I take today be of benefit to all beings.”

Got the mail on the way back & the Healing Dimensions book had come. I started reading it. I like the sound of the guy, he was a priest and an archeologist, also a medical intuitive, he feels with his hands what the patient is feeling. His description of trauma is very similar to Peter Levine’s.
I think having the book helped a lot. It reminded me that the depression is “flashback” to childhood trauma, not something stupid that I’m doing, or something easy that I’m refusing to do. I notice that as I write about it I often say “I’m doing badly” when I’m depressed, as though it were something I did, not something that happened to me. In trying to “be with” the heavy pain in my heart, I try to bring compassion to it, but nothing changes, and I think really deep down I’m still judging myself, angry at myself for being depressed, and that’s not so easy to shift.

Brent Baum: The Healing Dimensions; resolving Trauma in Body, Mind and Spirit
“Initially, frustration motivated my research into trauma resolution approaches. I was baffled by the fact that an inordinate number of my clients returned to therapy, repeating the same stories over and over as though they refused to release them. At times I felt angry, only later realizing that my anger was at myself for my inability to better assist my clients in their pain. My traditional training failed to provide the necessary tools for this work. By continuing to observe survivors, I discovered that their refusal to release the pain was not a conscious one. Their emotional bodies continued to hold the memories of trauma intact, while their mental bodies tried to process them at a safe distance, not wanting to be re-traumatized by having to re-live them. Cognitive therapies produced only minimal success, mostly by providing limited behavioral management for self destructive impulses. The traditional “Rational-Emotive Therapy” of Albert Ellis, for example, succeeded in predisposing the conscious mind for change, particularly when the emotional body was willing to support the reasoning or thoughts, but was clearly unable to resolve the core feelings induced from the trauma. They continued to resurface. Similarly, affirmations were ineffective without the underlying support of the emotional body. They did, however, help to create a predisposition for change and often facilitated the emergence of the trauma memory by fostering safety and intrapersonal strengthening. Effective resolution of the encoded affect, however, was still needed. In order to better grasp the mysterious resistance mechanisms of my clients, I began to explore the nature and depth of the imprinting that occurred at the moment of trauma.” p168
Brent Baum:
A final source of resistance is the feeling: “I’m already too tired to face these overwhelming feelings and memories.” I frequently see this in trauma survivors who have attempted, over many years, numerous trauma resolution therapies. They have become disheartened by approaches that failed, in the end, to provide resolution for their memories. Some achieved a significant degree of resolution in affect, but the “cellular memory” was untouched, leaving the pain syndrome intact. p316