Book Review: My Stroke of Insight

MY STROKE OF INSIGHT by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph. D.

It was an internet video by Jill Bolte Taylor, talking about her stroke and what she experienced, that interested me in this book.

Jill was working as a scientist, as part of a team trying to map neural circuits in the human brain. She actually thought it was cool when she woke up one morning, realized she was having a stroke, and decided to take advantage of the chance to study what her own brain was going through.

To try to summarize briefly what Jill tells us, I can say that we have two halves or hemispheres in our brains. The right hemisphere or right side of our brains is the emotional/spiritual side, where our instincts and sensitivity and things like that come from. The left side is the logic and language center, where we have our speech and language and ability to reason.

Jill’s stroke powerfully affected the left side of her brain. Her language capability was going in and out. Her ability to think logically enough to call for help was going in and out. At times the left half of her brain went completely off-line, to use a computer word.

What happened at those times was the part that interested me the most. When the right brain dominated Jill, she became aware that she was part of an enormous flow of energy, and in a state of peace. In her book she calls it Nirvana. A Christian mystic would say she was in a state of unity with God. (Yes, there are Christian mystics. Many of the early saints were mystics. We even have them today. Our beloved Mother Teresa was a mystic.)

Then the left brain would come back into operation, and Jill lost that state of peace but was able to keep trying to call for help. During the stroke, she kept going back and forth between the state of peace and the ability to try to get help. During it all, she remained conscious, and in no fear at all because of the peace that she was in.

It took her eight years to fully recover – physical strength, speech, ability to reason, ability to resume her work as a scientist and teacher.

She gives much information about strokes – what can cause them, what stroke patients need for recovery, how the medical profession should treat stroke patients. She works now to spread this information on behalf of stroke patients.

She also has things to say about the spiritual side of our nature. In most of us, the rational left side of the brain dominates. One of the things we do with the “left mind,” as Jill calls it, is to make judgments. She has a lot to say about how we can live in more happiness and peace by learning how to let our “right mind” be more active within us. She chooses now to be a different person than she had been before the stroke, quieter, less judgmental, less easily frustrated and angered, and more at peace with herself. And she shows us how to do that also.

Parts of the book are fairly technical, with descriptions of how the brain works, but she is a teacher and does a pretty good job of explaining it so that laypersons can understand. I found all of it interesting. The things she says about our spiritual nature, our connection to God, to that flow of energy and source of peace, were what fascinated me the most. If you want to learn about stroke or the needs of stroke patients, or if you want to find out what Jill experienced during her stroke, you will decide to read this book. I heartily recommend it.

Book Review: Dewey

Do you believe in animal angels? No? To be honest, I am not certain that I do either. But after reading this book, I have started to re-think the question.

Dewey Readmore Books was a real cat in a real library in a small town in Iowa. His story is told in DEWEY: THE SMALL-TOWN LIBRARY CAT WHO TOUCHED THE WORLD, written by Vicki Myron with Bret Witter.

Somehow, on a cold night, Dewey found his way into the outdoor book drop of the library in Spencer, Iowa. The next morning he was found by the author, Vicki, who was the chief librarian. The library board and staff adopted him, later the entire town adopted him, and he actually gained a fair amount of worldwide fame.

Dewey took his job as library cat seriously. He gave his attention to the staff members and the library patrons. He had a remarkable ability to identify people who needed his attention – people who were depressed, who needed a laugh, who had some special need. He had an unerring instinct for doing whatever the situation called for to comfort a sore heart, to bring someone out of his social shell, to give a laugh.

The book is about more than Dewey, however. It is about life itself. Life in rural America during the 1980s and 1990s, the ups and downs of farmers and the communities they depend on. It is about Vicki herself and the family and health issues she had to confront. It is about people who struggle and survive, clinging to hope and faith.

But back to the animal angel issue. All of us who have pets know that our animal friends are sensitive to our moods and work to amuse or comfort us when we need them to. But Dewey, card-carrying member of a notoriously free-thinking and independent species of animal (the cat family), seemed to carry this sense to the level of art. I have known many cats but I have never seen one with the instinct that Dewey had. And that does make me wonder if he was an animal angel. That cat certainly had a gift for easing others’ hearts.

There are amusing sidebars in the book to break up the narrative, providing such information as Dewey’s daily routine and his rules on running the library.

I had a little trouble getting into the book at first; the writing seemed stiff. After a while, I didn’t notice it any more.

If you enjoy reading about animals in general or cats in particular, or life in small towns, you should enjoy this book.

"Give" and "Receive" Are Action Words

Well, of course "give" and "receive" are action words. They are verbs, the parts of speech that describe actions. Some actions have things called objects; you read the book, you write the letter, you wash your car. Other actions do not; the sun shines, the dog barks, the rain falls.

But in this post, think of "give" and "receive" as special action words. With capital letters.

I have a friend who is fighting a brain tumor. She's a dear person and a spiritual sister to me. She used to be a nurse, but she is no longer able to work. One of her greatest joys is to give to others. That is the urge that sent her to nurse's training in the first place.

So what do you do, when you itch to give, and you can no longer work as a nurse? You give what you can, where you can, and to whomever is there.


She and I visited the local supermarket briefly last Sunday, after church. We shared the same shopping cart. I got a couple of odds and ends I would need to see me through the week. She was on her way to her mother's place and was looking for some things to take to her, foods the elderly lady would like to eat.

Then my friend's urge to Give hit. "Do you need potato chips?" I had plenty of potato chips at home.

"How about pizza? Do you like pizza?" I do, and again, I had a few in my icebox.

"Hey, do you like ice cream?" Well, of course I do, but I don't eat a lot of it in the winter. And in the summer, I am cautious about keeping it around because I can't stay out of it. And I am trying to control my weight. So I said I do like ice cream, but it's too cold to eat it now.

I can't recall the entire conversation in all its glory and magnificence, but my friend wound up buying two packs of ice cream sandwiches, each a different variety, to take to her mother's. And I agreed to take a few of the sandwiches on to my own place from her mother's. (Her mother and I live in the same apartment house.)

I wound up with three ice cream sandwiches. And yes, I have already eaten one of them and have promised myself I will eat the others only on weekends. (Come on, weekend!) I honestly would have preferred not to take them, to wait until warmer weather, but as surely as they had been spoken to me, words came into my head: "She wants to do this. Let her."

At that point, she Gave and I Received. She Gave out of her urge to share with others, and I Received out of the urge to help her Give.

And when you get right down to it, you can't Give unless there is someone to Receive.

Someone said to me once, speaking of her own difficulty in receiving the gifts of others, that we are taught by Jesus (and many other teachers as well) to give to others. And that it is an act of love and generosity on our part to receive, so that the person who needs to give can do so. Every time my friend with the brain tumor wants to Give me something, I remember what that other person said, and I have to admit I have pride and the desire to be in control. That makes it hard, sometimes, to accept things from others.

So when you accept gifts in spite of pride, or the desire to control, or any other problem you might have with other people giving you stuff, you swallow all that, you understand the other's need to share, and you Receive.

I really did enjoy that ice cream sandwich. And I look foward to eating the others!

Earhquakes, Jobs, and Other Changes

April was a busy month.

I survived the earthquake in Illinois. I started a job. I lost the job. I sort of have another job.

There isn't much to say about the earthquake. What can you say about that anyhow? You wake up, your bed is shaking, you don't hear a train going by. You know that if you get up you will feel even less secure; you're used to trains shaking your furniture, but it feels distinctly scary to have the ground trembling under your feet. You just lie there and hold your breath until it stops, then you heave a great sigh of relief and turn over and go back to sleep.

But there is a lot to say about jobs.

I wound up with two offers. One required a 57-mile one-way commute, the other a 10-mile one-way commute. I took the one with the short commute. I was invited to call the other place back if the job I took didn't work out.

Well, it didn't. It was a classic case of a "bad fit." Generally I can learn a job with sufficient training and practice and time. Those things weren't available for once. A corporation, as long as you show potential, will give you enough time; anywhere from three to six months is what it can take for you to learn a job. But this time, after a little over three weeks, with three hours of training and no experience or direct supervision, I was out.

I know the theories. You don't lose something until you no longer need it. You manifest it, you don't like it, and you decide to manifest again. I know all that. It still felt like I'd had something within my grasp and it was snatched away. It has been hard to deal with.

But it was not a good fit. When friends asked me how my job was going, I would say either "She hasn't fired me yet" or "It feels less strange every week." I was alone in a three-room office, and I felt cramped, confined. I am used to having people around me at work, and there was nobody there but me. I never said, "I don't like this," but I wasn't at peace with it. Even so, with more time and support I could have learned it, could have adjusted.

I'm not sorry I tried it. I guess some types of jobs aren't as learnable as I thought. I learned some things. Heard some interesting stories.

But I took the other place up on their invitation. I called them the next day. There is a place for me, but - as has been the history with this place - I don't know exactly when it will be available. Probably sometime this month, but precisely when is unsure right now. I am almost out of resources and I can only trust it will be sooner rather than later.

A cat, when it falls, will land on its feet. Maybe I have done that myself.

On the other hand, I face such an expensive commuting situation that I am seriously thinking of downsizing. A smaller place to live, lower rent, some of the utilities included in the rent. Losing the garage for my car, losing my lovely backyard that I have enjoyed watching the last year and a half, going back to an apartment. Again, the labor of moving.

But none of that seems as important as the spiritual growth I have experienced here in this tiny house. I am reluctant to leave here and go on to the kind of life I will have with a two-plus-hour drivetime every day and no backyard to come home to. Can I manage to stay in touch with the small moments that have taught me so much? Will my life be all hustle and bustle with no opportunity for the contemplative pursuits that feed me?

And beyond all of that, I have chosen to share my experiences and wisdom (such as they may be) on a full-time basis, somehow, and none of the jobs I agonize about seems to offer me any way to do that. Yet I believe my choices will come to pass. That remains an open question. I was wondering, for a few days, if that will actually happen, but now I am regaining my peace with it.

Stay tuned.

Calendar: March 17

While the rice is cooking, I will ponder this quote from the Dalai Lama: "In children, we find what is natural to be the human character. But as they grow up, they develop a lot of conditioning and wrong attitudes."

Aren't children something else? Frank. Honest. Trusting almost to a fault. Innocent. Spontaneous. Fulf of wonder and awe as they see this world, fascination with animals especially. And music. Children seem naturally drawn to music. They are creative with pencils and crayons too.

What in the world do we do to our children?

Have you noticed? When do they lose the wonder of the natural world? When do they lose that spontaneity? We have to train them for their own safety to be wary of strangers, and that is sad. And what about creativity? When did rules come into it? I'm not kidding. I've had piano students, beginners, eight years old mind you; when I asked them to make up a tune on just three notes, they were afraid to. What if it was wrong? Generally I would manage to coax them into giving it a try, and of course there was nothing wrong. But what has happened to the child who, three or four years before, was bursting with enthusiasm and ideas?

And we have all heard of the "child within." The childlike (not to be confused with childish) element in each of us. It's still there even in adults. I remember a spring afternoon - I won't tell you how old I was, but I was way past the "normal" age to take a volleyball, a low tree branch, and start "dunking" the ball over the branch. I had the time of my life! Most people in creative or artistic fields - I grew up as a music major - manage to remain more in tune with the inner child. It isn't always easy because we are supposed to be grown up. Whatever that means.

Fast-forwarding a number of years, some time later I worked with a young man who clearly did not want to grow up. He was in his mid-twenties, probably, and he thought life should be an endless game. Was he wrong? Or was he right? I've thought a lot about him. Maybe he had a point. I think his main issue was that he did not know when to be serious and when it was time to play.

Is that what the Dalai Lama meant by "wrong" attitudes? That as we grow up we forget to hold onto our inner child?

We do need to be our age. We do take on responsibilities; we don't have to agonize about it, but that is what life seems to be about. But can we choose our responsibilities? Not take on a family before we are ready to? Take jobs that we can like? How can we be "mature" and still enjoy life? How can we be responsible and still have time for the wonder of a glorious sunset, a concert by a mockingbird, the delicate flower petals that open up?

What is it that we do to our children, to ourselves, that we lose the wonder of life itself? One thing I have been working on this past year, though I wasn't thinking of it like this, is the waking up of my inner child. I have been rediscovering the beauty of small moments, taking more time to view sunsets and squirrels chasing each other and birds strutting around in my backyard.

My inner child is awake again. How about yours?

Commentary

There was an item on my home page today about a Dutch film that insults Islam, protests against the film, and so forth. Here we go again.

Or is it different this time?

The person who made the film did make inflammatory remarks.

On the other hand, though, to all the Muslims out there I would like to say this:

Your religion is being hijacked by extremists who are violent. There is no getting around that. You still see Christians in the light of events during the Crusades some 1,000 years ago, and frankly I admit that Christians did some horrendous things during those invasions of your lands. Surely you can understand that Westerners today, and Americans specifically, are seeing Islam in the light of terrorist attacks on innocent people. I'm not just talking about what happened on 9/12/01/. I'm talking about suicide bombers blowing up shoppers in marketplaces, suicide bombers blowing up worshippers at the mosques, Muslims raking school buses with gunfire and killing children. You can't expect us not to hate or fear your religion when we see these things being done in its name.

There are also stories of women being stoned or whipped for things like being outside the house without a male relative escorting them. We don't have such laws or such punishments in our culture, and frankly they don't make your religion look very attractive.

I would like to say first that I believe you are too easily offended about your religion. Any innocent act by someone unfamiliar with your cuture and religion can accidentally do something that offends Islam, and no offense was intended. You might be wise to consider lightening up.

Also I would like to say that if we express hatred or fear of your religion and that offends you, well, do something about it! Teach us whas true Islam is all about. If you believe your religion is loving and compassionate and peaceful, show us that by the way you live and by the way you treat strangers. Do everything in your power to oppose the extremists who are turning Islam into a religion of hatred and violence against innocent people. Don't just sit there and curse the people who don't understand; help us to understand.

We are all on this planet together, and we need to learn to understand each other. We need to live together. We need to work out our problems together, and shooting and bombing each other is not going to do that. But in order to talk together and work out our problems, we have to start by trying to understand each other.

Muslims, if you are willing to try that, so am I.

Hypocrisy? Or Hugely Bad Judgment?

It seems to happen all the time, doesn't it?

We have elected officials who campaign on family values and are cheating on their wives behind everyone's backs. We have elected officials who campaign on an anti-corruption platform and it turns out they accept as many favors as the people they have prosecuted.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer is only the most recent example. He made a name for himself as a crusader against corruption in business and government. It sounds like he was a hard-nosed, blunt, and ruthless crusader for What Is Right.

Now look at him.

What is it about public officials? Why do they make such an issue out of family values or corruption when they fail to live up to their own standards for others? Is it blatant hypocrisy? Is it arrogance? Is it simply bad judgment? Don't they realize what will happen to their families and career if they are caught? Or do they make so many enemies that someone sets out to trap them in their own weaknesses? How are we to know what really happens in these cases?

There is a great hue and cry calling for Gov. Spitzer to resign. If his effectiveness as governor is destroyed, then probably he might as well resign and rebuild his life as best he can.

Then on the other hand, is this worth the destruction of a man's career? In this age of kiss-and-tell, probably not. This is basically a personal mistake, not something that should impair his ability to function as governor of his state. It surely isn't worth impeaching him; the talk of impeachment shows how cynical and bloodthirsty this nation is today. We're like sharks circling a wounded person or animal in the sea. Anyone who ever makes any kind of mistake is fair game, and if he doesn't like being It he shouldn't be alive because anyone who is alive is vulnerable.

I note that the people who are nastiest toward Gov. Spitzer are the people who he was nasty to when he himself had the upper hand. Someone said once, "The person who hasn't committed any wrongs may cast the first stone."

Maybe we should all remember that.

That same someone also said, on another occasion, "Judge not, lest you be judged. For you will be judged the same way you judge others."

That is what is happening now to Gov. Spitzer. Next it will happen to some of the people who are calling for his impeachment. The shoe will be on the other foot again, the game will continue, and the band will keep on playing.

I want to be nasty too. The nerve of this man! He made such an issue out of corruption and then he turned out to be a human being like everyone else.

If he had used a less brutal style, he might have more friends today when he needs friends.

But what the heck. I don't have the right to cast the first stone either. I doubt that anyone does. We have the right to be upset, but let's keep partisan revenge out of it. That's one of the things that fractures our nation. Can we cool down and try to work for healing this time?