Wintry night

Verborgene Gefuhle (Ger. buried feelings)sounds right in my mouth. I would like to add attunement. It feels different in my mouth. Sly. Sometimes a deep loneliness, lostness, despair comes to me, and my thoughts glide anxiously to my lost babies. I wonder what preceded that feeling? In dialetical behavioural theory (Marsha Lenihan)a thought precedes a feeling, and a (hidden) belief underlies the thought. Thus I am urged to explore the powerful feeling overcoming me, and I am afraid of falling into a dark hole with an unknown end, somewhere my mind cannot grasp. I have been there before, and there was no thinking out of it. What is my underlying belief- I have betrayed my heart, and by staying on the edge I will never be able to redeem myself? I don't know, but the edge I am occupying at this moment is superficial, brightened by neon lights, not a real sun. I turn instead to what is gratefully the wintry landscape of February, and it feels real enough. I can abide in its starkness and ancient qualities and be accompanied. This is attunement regulating the nervous sytem. The darkness is a stage I can walk on, and I know I can trust it to not be happy. Not my husband, but simple things; the woodstove, root vegetables, cabbage and potatoes, hot broth and woolly socks wrap me. A commemoration to what I have been left with, a sad yearning I had not expected, '...the uniqueness of an individual's experience being key to the changes mourning brings, only in the details can they and their grief be understood.' (p.17) Attig T. (2010). How we grieve: Relearning the world (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press

Winter walk

Night house, oil on layered wood plywood, 18''x22''