This week's Weekword is 'therapeutic'. You'll find links to other posts listed here on Domestic Scribbles. The dictionary defines it: of or relating to the treatment of disease; curative. Yet, many of us regularly refer to our hobbies as therapy. Why is that? Is life a disease? The stresses of life can cause disease. Autoimmune diseases are becoming more prevalent today partly because of these stresses.
The dictionary defines hobbies as an activity pursued in spare time for pleasure or relaxation. Yet for me, my hobbies have become a very necessary part of my routine for staying healthy. Like exercise and eating healthy, they have become needed therapy rather than a spare time pursuit.
One of my hobbies is photography. Last Friday, I went to the arboretum to take these pictures. The walk in the woods left me feeling so serene, that the obnoxious rush hour traffic on the way home didn't bother me like it usually does.
Of course not all therapy is pretty. I've got to vent some of the bad stuff too, which is usually the case with most of my poetry.
scolding darkness
pointing cold rigidity
at my chest
as if to blame
I wait numbly trepid for
bony rapping on my chest bone
unknown impact
wafts through memory pillars
and cobweb dreams
stripping reality
from a marble library
concentration dissipates
the blow never comes
just disbelief
gawking at the bloody muscle
ripped from my chest
oozing through frigid phalanges
afraid to breath
afraid to discover
I’m no longer able
outside the library
primal forces compel exhalation
awareness materializes
how am I breathing without a heart?
the pool of blood crackles
but the sound is within
slow and faint
a new one pumps
barely able to catch my breath
fingers and feet still numb
struggling to remain conscious
the only warmth
deep inside me
A prolific trip to the arboretum! The butterfly resting on the leaves is an awesome shot!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful photos and poem!
ReplyDeletePowerful words and beautiful pictures. The first is my favorite! B.
ReplyDeleteHello! Great photos here! I especially like the butterfly and the berries. The color really grabs your eye. The last image is really interesting. Was it done on your computer? the red and the wing together seem to create a curious tension.
ReplyDeleteWhat great photographs and the poem is very powerful, great post.
ReplyDeleteyour photography is amazing! Learning to use my camera is frustrating at times, but downloading the pics & using them in my crafts or on my blog is therapeutic!!! I too wonder how you took the last picture... would you share your secret??
ReplyDeleteIt's exciting having new WEEKWORD participants - I hope you'll continue to play??
Thanks so much everyone! Your comments are so encouraging. I had to follow the butterfly around a little while to get that pic. I was so surprised to find one in January.
ReplyDeleteThe picture on the bottom, I made with a program called Apophysis that I downloaded for free here:
http://www.apophysis.org/downloads.html. I tried to make the images [called fractals] look like a hand and a bleeding heart, and then combined them in my photo editing software. Thanks for asking, Justahumblebee. I'm glad you could see the tension in it.
Christine, we must have been commenting at the same time. I get frustrated with my camera, too. But then, a shot [like the berries] just happens, and I'm addicted all over again. No secret to that last pic. Try the link I left in my previous comment for the program's download. It's a lot of fun. If you like, I have links for free photo editing software as well.
ReplyDeleteforgive me, I thought your hand was a wing. the effect makes it seem feathery to me :)
ReplyDeleteyes yes yes, the therapeutic hobby become the necessary work that keeps us alive. that warmth deep inside you, that is the lifeforce itself. it is stronger even than our will to live.
ReplyDeletei just read a wonderful text by a very young man who said, "knowledge, identity and purposefulness are the nature of happiness." i thought, perhaps the hardest to come by for many of us is identity, we who did not have the mirroring as young children that we needed to form healthy identities. a counselor once said to me, "if anyone asks you what your condition is, tell them, 'ontological insecurity'." oh how right he wss, and that is why most of my poetry deals with the subject of identity. my love of knowledge and sense of purpose seem to come more easily. but even here, knowledge (being a lifelong student) and sense of purpose (for me, my writing) continues to form my identity. i guess we are like clay... but at the core, we are life itself. "to be or not to be?" knowledge, identity and purpose...
i love your photography, bleu, and your poetic themes. keep on truckin', mon amie. :>>))) xoxoox
ps. your wing/hand is now my fond d'écran. i love it. xoxoxoxo
ReplyDeleteverification word: hertless :>>))
LOL Don't worry about it. My boyfriend thought the heart was a shark. It's interesting to me how everybody sees something different. In fact, since you mentioned it, it does look like a wing to me, and I might end out using it again in another piece.
ReplyDeleteThanks Laura! 'ontological insecurity' - I love it! I'm like you, identity is the hardest for me as well. So let's see, we're insecure about the nature of our existence, because we didn't have the mirroring needed to form healthy identities. Man, there's a really good poem in there somewhere ;]. You inspire me! Let's see if we can't change the hand that rips the heart out into a wing that sets it free;]. Thanks so much for stopping by. Hope your feeling better!
ReplyDeleteWhen I see such pretty nature photos, I wish I were a better photographer! Thanks for sharing these, as nature is very therapeutic to me :-)
ReplyDeleteI found your photos very therapeutic, well, up to the snake since I have a phobia but that works, too. :-)
ReplyDeleteGreat poem.
Nature is incredibly therapeutic-it's something so primal in our very essence as organisms attached to this world-it's a collective deep sigh of relief. I absolutely adore your beautiful photos and your keen eye for the aesthetics of living things. Thank you so much for a wonderful wonderful post!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the comments as much as the words and photos - you are so very talented - and lucky for me
ReplyDeletethe one above is me - I goofed on the id
ReplyDeleteThanks Heniemavis! I wish I were better, too, and having a digital camera has really helped. I probably took over 100 photos that day.
ReplyDeleteThanks Junebug! I don't blame you for your phobia. Fortunately, I knew that one was harmless.
Thanks Biomouse! You're so right about nature. A friend of mine told me once that researches now think that, like the oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange between plants and animals, there is also an exchange of a hormone like substance [I forgot the name she gave me] that actually improves our health and well being as well as theirs.
Thanks Sue! and lucky for me, I have friends like you!
Your photos and art are absolutely gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteLove love love those first two. They are all great!
the poetry is deep and primal!!
ReplyDeleteThanks Mary! Those are my favorites, too.
ReplyDeleteI love the lighting in the top picture and the reflection in the second one. I also love the moon in the grass above and the fish scales fascinate me.
ReplyDelete