The Art Of Emergence

Do you ever get one of those nights where you're restless and don't seem to want to go to bed? I get them quite frequently and more often than not, they're Full Moon nights or nights where there is an energy shift in the air.

I remember quite vividly one of these nights around 15 years ago when, while flicking through the TV channels, I came across a late night film. This was when I only had 5 channels and a telly with a convex screen that weighed a ton and had to be gently encouraged into picture by hitting it on the side. (I still miss that telly, the sound was amazing). I've come across some really great films when the Moon has kept me as sharp as a tack at 1am. One of these films was Papillon, the 1973 film adaptation of Henri Charrière's biography. The film is of the same name as the book, which was Charrière's nickname due to him having a tattoo of a butterfly on his chest (papillon is French for butterfly). He was a prisoner in Devil's Island, a penal colony in French Guiana, on the coast of South America, from 1931 to 1944. The colony was renowned for its hard labour, torture and cruelty, and it was considered impossible to escape from. The horrific treatment of the prisoners led to a death rate of up 75%. Papillon spent 9 years on Salvation Islands, a part of the colony where the prisoners were often placed in solitary confinement.

I was absolutely gripped by this film - I couldn't go to bed until I had watched every minute of it. But if you asked me about it, I couldn't tell you very much. I remember Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman as the main characters but apart from that, the only thing I remember about it was one scene. The reason I remember this one scene was because it was so emotive - it affected me deeply then, as it does now whenever I recall it. I'm sure there are details in my description that are not exactly as it was (what things are ever the same in our memories?), but it is the message that is important. I haven't seen the film again since then because it is one of the most unrelentingly grim films I've seen. But this scene I feel is relevant in understanding our current times and what we will be facing in the future.

Steve McQueen plays Papillon and he is placed in solitary confinement, a stone cell with nothing. They feed him rotten dregs infested with dead rodents and faeces, opening the cast iron door and slamming it shut again. He has no wash facilities and cannot bathe in a prison where tropical diseases kill many. He has no contact with a world outside of this cell. There is a window with bars where he can see the sky and that is all.

In the beginning he is determined to be strong, adamant this won't beat him no matter what. At first this reminded me of Steve McQueen's character in The Great Escape, Captain Virgil Hilts, the all American hero - macho, confident, handsome, rebellious - and I was expecting the same. It is a Hollywood film after all. McQueen was a huge name at the time and Hollywood tends to make sure they keep their big stars in glamorous roles. For Hollywood storylines, adversity for the characters usually means 'ballsy' attitudes with a little bit of dirt smeared on their face. They usually come out of the situation unscathed and often with a taste for vengence (especially the male characters) so generally the experience has not made them any wiser. We cheer the hero and get sentimental about their heroism. But this was not that.

Papillon doesn't know how long his incarceration in solitary confinement will last; that's up to his keepers and they can do whatever they like. They rule his world. He tries to keep himself in a healthy frame of mind by being stoic, trying not to show the guards (and perhaps himself) that he is fearful about what may come. He's trying to keep it together. However, as the time goes on, we see him gradually becoming dishevelled, confused, sick from disease, painfully thin. He has been trying to adapt to his situation in the midst of ongoing fear and unthinkable cruelty. Then another level of torture emerges - the guards half his rations and block off the window. He has to resort to eating insects off the cell floor and there is no light at all.

Time no longer exists for him. He is filthy, covered in sores, his hair is falling out, his body has begun to atrophy; limbs retracting from the world, reflecting his mind. His soul is diminishing. He sits cowering and mumbling in a corner of the cell. He is in a state akin to an infinite purgatory; the pain never ends. He gradually begins to lose control of his mind. We don't understand what he is anymore - he has become a shadow of a human being because he has not been treated like a human being. He is crumbling. At one point we struggle to see him because he himself has almost become part of the cold, hard darkness. Death is not far away, whether from disease or in the parting of the last pieces of his soul.

We are still hoping that things will change for Papillon but we also hope that, should Death come, she will be quick and have mercy with as little pain as possible for him. We wish this for ourselves as much as him, to end the awfulness of how we feel watching him suffer and fade away. A guard enters the cell and moves to unlock the iron screen from the barred window. We feel that our hope may be restored, that perhaps the guards are finally showing some form of humanity. He has been in this cell for 2 years and he has not seen light of any kind in 6 months.

He doesn't know day from night because he no longer knows there is a day or a night. He has been disconnected from the elements of the world and from himself, from everything that gives the world meaning. He has had to create a different world in his mind in order to survive. As the guard slides the screen just a little, a shard of bright sunlight floods the cell. We realise that, as we have been watching Papillon in his world, this light is also shocking to us because our eyes have become acclimatised to the dark too, and it takes us by surprise. But what is more shocking is Papillon's reaction to this shard of light. He is absolutely terrified of it. He scurries as far as he can into the darkest corner of the cell, as close into the corner as he can get, cowering and whimpering, trying to hide from this terrifying thing. He cannot bear the light. Throughout his confinement, we have been willing him to hang in there, be strong, things will change, it's not over yet, you'll get through this, just keep going and a myriad of other things which are intended to keep our hope alive for him. And, as the viewer, this is the point where we realise that all of our hope is lost - we have truly entered his world - and it is a most painful, frightening thing. It is devastating for us to realise that he lost himself long ago and that we were trying to keep hope and humanity alive for him. It is like watching Papillon's death but one where he still remains alive, in some form. He is terrified of encountering life. He has been so psychologically tortured that he has become his own jailer.

Scars Of The Mind

Perhaps you have an inkling of why I am sharing this with you now. With the carrot dangle of lifting restrictions on the horizon, we are facing lots of challenges in our emergence from our own spaces. Many people are sharing with me how fearful they are at the thought of returning to the world, in whatever form we may find it and ourselves. This is a normal response to psychological torture, as this is what we have experienced the past year. This is neither a personal opinion nor a political statement, this is a fact.

Torture...often includes methods that do not physically assault the body or cause actual physical pain – and yet entail severe psychological pain and suffering and profoundly disrupt the senses and personality. Solitary confinement and prolonged sleep deprivation are just two examples of these psychological torture methods. Even psychological methods which do not amount to ill-treatment when considered in isolation, amount to inhuman or degrading treatment or torture, when applied in conjunction with other techniques, cumulatively and/or over a long time. Often they are part and parcel of the whole torture process and constitute a ‘‘background environment’’ of harassment and duress. The ‘‘cumulation over time’’ factor must thus be considered as part of a system of psychological torture. - From 'The Worst Scars Are In The Mind: Psychological Torture' by Dr Herna´n Reyes, MD

Many fields of psychology believe that it is harder to heal from psychological wounds than the wounds of physical harm. This is not to say that physical harm is considered to be less wounding or harmful, most definitely not. They believe that the wounds of physical abuse allow the mind and body to accept the reality of the abuse because there is physical evidence that it happened. We can see it with our eyes, and therefore it is easier to accept that it has happened, that it exists. There is no direct physical evidence of psychological abuse and this in itself can adversely affect the healing process. Not only is it hard for others to believe someone has suffered psychological abuse because there is no physical evidence to suggest abuse, but psychological abuse is intended to affect our minds and its perception of the abuse. Psychological abuse is intended to make the victim their own abuser.

Understanding Our Own Prison

I am not a psychologist, I am a healer and I see abuse from many different perspectives. I consider that, in the last year, one of our senses which has the incredible ability to connect us with each other, heal each other - touch - has been psychically removed from us (the reasons or justifications used for this are not the concern of this post. They are of concern, but just not in this post). Our skin is our largest organ - it is both the barrier to protect us from our environments and the means by which we interact with them. Our skin and its nerve endings are collectors of 'data'; it's how we get our information about the world around us.

When we experience social exclusion, rejection or isolation, our bodies release cortisol - a naturally produced steroid hormone that affects metabolism, bone density and our immune system. Some research* has shown that its effects help us to be more willing to make new friends and build new connections. This stress propels us to find our community, seeking empathetic and compassionate alliances during difficult times.

When we physically reach out to touch and comfort one another - a hug, a reassuring hand hold, an arm around a shoulder - our bodies begin to produce oxytocin, a neurochemical that helps us bond with each other, builds trust and encourages attachment. It's in abundance after childbirth for these very reasons. Bonding with each other makes us feel good. Researchers have shown** that the presence of oxytocin speeds up the healing of physical wounds. By my reckoning, this also means that it has the ability to speed up the healing of all wounds, not just physical, but mental and emotional too.

We have been isolated and excluded from each other during fearful times, creating both distress and stress. We have been prevented from seeking the comfort that would help alleviate this for all of us. As this stress is not alleviated, our bodies are at risk of something called allostatic load which is defined as 'neuroendocrine, cardiovascular, neuroenergetic, and emotional responses become persistently activated so that blood flow [results in] high blood pressure, cognitive dysfunction and depressed mood accelerate disease progression...it also minimises our ability to reduce uncertainty in the future.'*** In other words we get sicker and more fearful than we did from the event or situation that caused the stress in the first place and we are more likely to be fearful of the future and less resilient.

We have been confined, isolated, excluded over a long period of time, encouraged to perceive each other as a danger and fear the loss of our resources (finances, food, shelter, utilities, etc), essentially placing us in survival mode. We have been advised to view each other as a possible source of disease and therefore a threat to our safety and survival, instead of the medicine that will heal what we have suffered, and that is the natural medicine that we can be for each other. In the past 12 months we have been shut out of the world, confined to spending our time in one space. And sometimes that space is not safe, especially for those living with an abuser. The world opened up again for a time and then we were shut out of it again. Every day for the past year our interactions and conversations have been dominated by one single thing, thereby making the presence and energy of it larger and larger. A formless form. We engage with the TV, radio, social media and it is the same broadcasts over and over and over again. We have been psychologically bludgeoned. It is no wonder that we may now feel afraid of the world, and each other, recoiling in fear from life. Just like Papillon, what our minds have suffered has caused us to become our own jailers.

Re-Emerging

Papillon does emerge from his cell. Barely alive, but alive none the less. Not only that, he escapes what was considered the inescapable - he, Henri Charrière (Papillon), escaped many times but was recaptured and subject to even more cruelty. This did not deter him. His final escape resulted in total liberty.

We have been both psychologically tortured and denied our body's natural way of healing from this torture. I understand that this may not be one of my most uplifting posts but I hope you will see a positivity about it. I do not share difficult truths without offering a way of moving towards healing, and this post is no different. While what has caused our pain and the scars that follow has been perpetrated upon us, it is our responsibility for our own healing. Healing can sometimes be confusing, complex and challenging but we must heal our own wounds. So what do we do?

• We cannot fully heal something if we do not fully understand what is causing the wound. Any healing that we do for ourselves must include an insight into the cause of the suffering.

• We must name our experience. This is incredibly important for any healing process. If we cannot name it then we cannot accept it as a reality. To acknowledge that it happened to us is to honour ourselves, the pain we have experienced and what we have been through. If we cannot acknowledge it then we cannot heal from it.

• Speak Truth. We are living in times where there are important changes happening and we need to speak with our hearts. Those truths that have been hidden or that we've been encouraged to be distracted from are coming to the surface (volcanos around the world have been revealing their incredible fire and might in this way for the past few weeks).

• Sit With Fear. Fear is an emotion like any other but it also has the ability to make us afraid of itself, a self affirming cycle. Fear is a communication. It is not separate from us. As a personal example (it is a light hearted one but please don't mistake this for flippancy), I recently spent 2 days sowing seeds in my little temporary greenhouse, the ones you get in the middle aisle of Lidl. They're not built to withstand the high winds on the site in my garden that I've placed it. But this thing has withstood almost 18 months of storms in two winters. It is battered, worn and ripped but it is still standing. Every time there is a high wind, I brace myself and grimace, hoping this won't be the one that finally finishes it off. I dreaded going out to check on the seeds - the winds blow the covering and the shelves, with a very high chance of knocking every seed tray off their shelves, scattering soil and seeds everywhere, unable to use and needing to be bought and sown again. I was afraid of this. A small fear but one none the less. I'd procrastinate, not wanting to unzip the door and find seed/soil carnage. What was I afraid of? Was it the cleaning of the mess, the purchasing of seeds again, the time and labour of doing it all again? No. I sat with the fear and realised that I didn't want to feel disappointment. On exploring this further, it wasn't disappointment that was the root cause of the fear, it was a loss of hope. Hope for new life. After the last year, I had put so much hope in these seeds. I feared that my hope would be destroyed, not seeds. But just like seeds, hope can come again - and if we take care it, we can create more and harvest it. What is your fear trying to communicate to you?

• Re-Connect With Others. There is currently a phenomenon happening that is a result of what we are experiencing. With Trojan Horses and Echo Chambers, we are being presented with things that may appear to be one thing but which are actually another (Trojan Horse) and we are being encouraged to avoid perspectives that are different from our own (Echo Chambers). There is a loss of nuance - subtle differences or distinctions in expression, meaning and responses - and this makes it harder to connect and empathise with each other. This is causing large divisions between us, making it harder to heal. My blog post Just Hang, Man - Tarot For Troubled Times is dedicated to exploring this and how you can identify these.

• BE Nature. Everything that surrounds us in the natural world is ours. That's not to say that we should do with it what we like with no regard for any of the creatures that share it with us, quite the opposite. Not only are we a part of this incredible natural world, we ARE it. We are made from the same raw materials as it is. We are connected to every single bit of it. It is filled with joy, hope, colour, touch, scent, love, soul and life. It's positively brimming with it right now! You can almost taste it in the air. Do not fear it; it is you. And me. And everyone else. The stones, animals, plants, people. We are each other's medicine.

A couple of days ago, as I was sitting at my dining table after breakfast, I looked out the back window and I saw a white feather begin to fall from the sky and drift down towards the ground. Seemingly out of nowhere, this huge white feather gently floated down and I thought that it would be lovely to add to my collection of gifted feathers - every feather that has dropped in my garden is bound into a honouring and hung in the garden.

But as I thought this, a sparrow - half the size of the feather - flew out from the hedge and caught it in its beak in mid air, darting back into the hedge with it. That one incredible sight reminded me that if you want to know what is happening in the world - what's really happening - go outside and connect with the natural medicine of your own kind.

All content Copyright 2021 Flourish and Contributors

References

*Komienko, O., Schaefer, D. R., Weren, S., Hill,. W., & Granger, D. A. (2016). Cortisol and testosterone associations with social network dynamics. Hormones and Behavior, 80, 92-102.

**Gouin JP, Carter CS, Pournajafi-Nazarloo H, Glaser R, Malarkey WB, Loving TJ, Stowell J, Kiecolt-Glaser JK (Aug 2010). Marital behavior, oxytocin, vasopressin, and wound healing. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 35 (7): 1082–90

***https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1559140/1/Peters_Uncertainty_stress_causes_diseases.pdf