suffering and pain Archives

Flowing Together Like a Great River

June 4, 2023 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

I grew up caring for animals. Always cats and dogs. Sometimes chickens and ducks. Later horses and cattle. I would feed them, make sure they had water, help build their shelters, and take care of their wounds. I hauled hay, cleaned out stalls, helped pull a calf, and doctored pink eye. Taking care of animals teaches responsibility, selflessness (chores come first), and hard work. I loved it, and I loved them.

I’ve been a little obsessed lately about what people care about and how it seems to be skewed in some odd directions. Can you make a list of things you really care about? And how do you know you really care about something? Spend time doing the work of caring? Spend money in support of the cared about thing? Give energy to the entity, relationship, or cause high on the caring list? And then, what is the outcome of your caring? That’s often even harder to identify and articulate. Certainly we gave time, money, and energy to caring for our animals—in return they gave us food, protection, fun, love, livelihood, and lessons, to name a few.

When looking up the definition of ‘care,’ I was surprised that the first meaning of the noun was ‘suffering of mind: grief.’ The second was ‘a disquieted state of mixed uncertainty, apprehension, and responsibility.’ The third was ‘painstaking or watchful attention.’ The verb care was similar. Only later on the list of meanings for both was desire, regard, interest, or fondness mentioned. The first definition actually gets to the crux of care—if what we really care about is ‘taken away,’ suffering of mind is sure to follow.

Two weeks ago we pulled out of our driveway on the Great River Road and hours later drove the Great River Road into tiny Cassville, Wisconsin. We left the Mississippi River at times to expedite our trip, but the force of it was ever present on our minds. We returned to Cassville to bury Chris’ sister’s remains beside her parents and infant brother. The four and a half months since her death had taken the edge off our grief, but our disquieted minds still desired the closure of a burial. The permanence of a burial, along with prayers and blessings for the deceased and for those caring, grieving people left to live, is a sealing of that chapter of life.

After seeing the flooding the Great River unleashed in our area, we were curious to see what was happening in Cassville at the little resort cabin we had reserved that was the favorite of Chris’ folks. The floodwaters had risen to the edge of the cabins but had started to recede by the time we got there.

Our first visitor to the deck overlooking the River was a tiny Hummingbird. Soon after, we discovered a pair of Robins had a nest in the Birch tree that provided shade from the western sunlight. The male Robin took great care to bring food to his mate who warmed the eggs in the nest they had built.

The receding floodwaters and subsequent mud provided a perfect playground for a pair of Killdeer and their fluffy, long-legged offspring. Their halting scurrying, bobbing, and distinct high-pitched chattering made them endearing neighbors.

The people-free, flooded dock was a great place for the Northern Map Turtles to bask in the sun. I didn’t even see the little ones in the bright sunlight when I was taking the photo of the big one. The next day we saw one floating down the River on a log—I think they are glad for this warm Spring weather, too!

Across the slough on an island was a dead tree that provided the perfect lookout for an ever-watchful Eagle.

It was good to be in Cassville beside the River. The cabin hadn’t changed much since the folks had stayed there, and my mind easily ‘saw’ them standing against the pine-paneled walls or on the deck overlooking the River. These people who we so deeply cared for and loved were home again or still in this River land, in this familiar cabin, and as always, in our hearts. Evening came with softly rippled reflections. The still water seemed ‘alive’ with a humming layer of mosquitoes or other bugs that had the fish jumping. The well-fed fish had little interest in the lures and bait that Chris and Aaron were throwing into the water from the marina dock.

As dusk fell, a Spotted Sandpiper teetered about in the shallow water, and a beaver swam undeterred until Aaron threw his line too close for the rodent’s comfort.

I cared for our animals with diligence and love, and if one of them was injured or died, I suffered their injury or loss. I like the analogy of grief as suffering of mind—it normalizes the pain of loss and gives it a deep container and a long timeline in which to hold it. Time tends to ease a suffering mind in ways that make living a little more doable. I have learned that the next step is to give your suffering mind some watchful attention, some care, some love, so that life becomes more than just doable. If we think about our grief as a palpable display of caring and love, the grieving and the living flow together like a great river. When grief gets dammed up behind a supposedly protective wall, it can easily overwhelm everyday life. It displays as depression, anxiety, lethargy, anger, blame, hate, and violence. Remember, grief is a suffering mind, no matter the cause. I think Mary’s life and death taught me to bind the suffering with joyful living. As a person with Down Syndrome, she needed people to take care of her—there was always uncertainty, apprehension, and responsibility with her care (just as with all children.) And she cared deeply for the people around her, for animals, and for her job—she lived with joy. I can suffer her death and live with a peaceful heart. It takes time, energy, and oftentimes money to really care about someone, a relationship, an entity, or a cause. Caring is the business of lifting up, providing for, giving attention to, and suffering at the loss of the cared-for; it is not a frivolous business. We can all step into the great river of caring and grieving, loving and suffering—it is a force that can change the world.

Bent in Suffering

February 12, 2023 by Denise Brake 4 Comments

“We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.” –Winston Churchill

We cannot escape suffering in our lifetimes. We will all have to endure pain, distress, or hardship in some form. Many of us can get a couple decades under our belts before we know the harsh reality of suffering; others are well aware of it as children. Watching the news this week has once again made me acutely aware of suffering around the world. The earthquakes in Turkey and Syria have caused such extreme physical destruction and pain, and therefore emotional and mental suffering, for hundreds of thousands of people. Like the Russian war on Ukraine did a year ago and continues to inflict. Like the Covid-19 pandemic did in the last three years across the globe. Like the drought is in East Africa. It seems like suffering itself is becoming a pandemic.

Last Sunday was an absolutely beautiful day! The sky was that startlingly pure blue color that lifts spirits into freedom and possibility. The air was clean and clear, nourishing my lungs with each intake. The temperature was a delightful twenty-three degrees, and the sun was bright and warm. We snowshoed at Northland Arboretum in Brainerd that has 7.5 miles of immaculately groomed trails for classic and skating cross-country skiing and over two miles of trails for snowshoeing.

The heavy, wet snow we had had earlier in the season still blanketed large areas of brush and brambles like elaborate snow forts. The small creek was covered with slushy ice after our extreme cold spell the week before.

As we shoed into the area of the Jack Pine Savanna, I noticed some young Pines were completely bent over from the heavy snow that had originally fallen almost two months prior—and then added upon. The weight of the snow had bent their young trunks, not broken them.

Most of the trees had ‘shaken off’ the snow that had hung on them previously, with the help of the sun and wind. Some still carried large ‘snowballs’ on their strong-enough branches.

And yet, size, age, and identity were not the determining factors of who was damaged compared to who ‘shook it off’ and stood strong. Some of the old ones broke. Some of the Oak trees bent.

Not only were most of the bent trees heavy with snow, they were also stuck in the snow where they touched the ground. And once the snow had crushed them down in the unnatural bend, the accumulating snow just added more weight, more distress, more strain, and less chance of a return to ‘normal.’ I wondered how many would be able to ‘spring back’ to where they were before.

The day was beautiful, the snowshoeing was great, and all along the trail, there were trees in distress—so many of them.

In the moment, I observed the large number of trees that were bent and stuck in the snow and made a mental note to return next summer to see if and how they were able to recover. But it wasn’t until a little later that I realized that I was like the struggling trees. When I had Lyme disease in the 90’s, I felt bent in pain and stuck in uncertainty, as doctors were still doubtful that Lyme existed in Missouri so weren’t fluent in helping me. Much suffering. When I subsequently endured depression, I weathered much distress while stuck in sorrow. Recurring Lyme, deaths, losses, people not believing me, believing in me, or helping me all added to my burden, piled on the snow that was already holding me down. And those were not even the worst of my anguished distresses. Those are still too painful to mention. I was frozen in place, looking out at the world around me from my unnatural position, wondering why I was one of those pinned down while all around me stood beings who seemed unaffected by the storms. Like the trees, was it my position or status, was it my environment, did I have a genetic proclivity, was it a previous disease or wound that allowed such suffering or was I just weak? “Bad is never good until worse happens” is a Danish proverb that infused my family culture with our phrase ‘it could be worse.’ Endure, don’t complain, don’t ask for help, suffer, bear the pain and hardship. So I did and continue to do so, but truth be told, I’m not even good enough at that, or I wouldn’t be writing this.

If we are to draw from the heart of suffering, as Churchill says, in order to find and express inspiration and survival, somehow I think I have done that. Nature has been my inspiration for all my life, and it gives me great joy to share that beauty and wisdom with all of you. Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote, “…every struggle is a dance….” The dance includes comfort along with the distress, pleasure along with the pain, peace along with the anguish, delight along with the misery. If I cannot ‘shake off’ the suffering, at least I can reach out and cultivate those qualities that oppose it. So I look up to that pure blue sky to lift my spirit into freedom and possibility. May those of you in suffering do the same.

At the Corner of Deer and Fox

March 13, 2022 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

The world’s suffering makes my heart heavy. When I see the video of all the mothers and children fleeing from their homes in Ukraine, tears stream down my face. The destruction, chaos, and trauma imposed by one unhinged guy is overwhelming and rips a deep tear in my constructed fabric of Goodness. Even here at home where the pandemic has killed nearly one million people—it’s like wiping out all the people who live in South Dakota and then a hundred thousand more. And then there are all the people I know who are suffering with or dying from a cancer diagnosis—is it just me or does that seem to be on the rise? What’s a person to do with all that suffering?

I strapped on my snowshoes and hiked into the snow and cold. Our below normal temperatures this week have preserved the snow cover, beyond the melting of the edges from the strong, March sunlight. The cold felt good on my face, a relief from the hot suffering of people I know and of the millions I do not. Our gathering place around the firepit is still engulfed in snow—only the deer have been wandering through in their quest for food. I followed their path and offered a couple old apples for their browsing brunch. Won’t that be a delightful surprise?!

Deer trails cut through the trees and over fences. The snow reveals some secrets of the other seasons—the travel routes of deer and other animals. They seem to be creatures of habit or perhaps know to take the easiest route—just like us.

My previous snowshoe tracks had been covered with a bit of snow, but the deer had already been using the trail. I felt like I was walking at the Sumac treetops with all the snow that has accumulated over the Winter. Getting off the trail definitely makes ambulating much harder!

In no time at all, at the corner of Deer and Fox (tracks), Nature took over my mind, washing away the thoughts of suffering for the time being.

Rabbit and squirrel tracks zigzagged erratic paths around and to trees, their light little bodies not worrying about sinking through the deep snow.

Last year’s fox den was definitely occupied by someone, with many curious onlookers, including myself.

I’m pretty sure Mr. Possum had been out wandering for food—see his tail track? Maybe he made the old fox den his winter home.

It’s a busy place out there.

Farther along the trail I noticed a dark spot in the snow, so I veered off the trail to investigate. A deer carcass was mostly buried under the snow but had provided many meals for the carnivores of the forest.

There was a deer-sized indentation in the snow where a deer had bedded down for the night, though the bed had a new blanket of snow on it.

I continued on the little road, following one deer trail while others intersected it, coming and going through the trees. A community of animals with their roads, homes, and eating places.

An allee of Pines with its chevron shadows create a perfect corridor for travel.

Spring is already showing its signs, despite the snow and cold. More birds can be heard singing and flitting through the trees, and on the south side of a large Pine tree, the snow has started to melt away from the warm, brown pine needles.

I had added my tracks to those of the woodland creatures as I witnessed the evidence of their Winter lives in the forest. It was a beautiful, brisk day—a perfect day for snowshoeing.

A quote fell into my lap today—timely and serendipitously—from Helen Keller: “Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” While it is important for us to be compassionate witnesses to the realities of war, illness, and suffering, we must also cultivate and elevate the simple acts of ‘overcoming it’ that we see in the world. I appreciate the news outlets that include snippets of that Goodness that mostly go unseen. Those who dwell on and promote the negative and divisive aspects of our society, politics, and culture do a disservice to themselves and to us all. It’s a balancing act to witness and acknowledge the reality of suffering in our world and to do the same with the acts of overcoming it. Nature is a balm for overcoming suffering, as are gathering places of loved ones who lift us up and simple acts of kindness and offering. Spring is a hopeful, uplifting season—every year it overcomes the harshness of Winter and the heaviness of suffering. Food becomes abundant, new life is nourished, and life energy flows with renewed vigor. Isn’t that a delightful surprise?

The Golden Threads of Spider Town

July 25, 2021 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

July is taking a long time. It’s only been three weeks since the 4th holiday, but it seems like so long ago—and we still have another week until we turn the calendar to August. I’ve always been curious about why time seems to move at different speeds. I do know that pain—physical or emotional—s-l-o-w-s d-o-w-n t-i-m-e. There is usually no endpoint in sight—if we knew the pain would end at such and such a time, our minds would be able to skim over the suffering with determination—‘Yep, I can do this.’ With no endpoint to hitch our hope to, our confidence takes a hit, our determination wanes, and time drags on. I’m pretty sure this is where addiction steps in to ‘manage’ the pain…and time. But time can also move slowly when we are waiting—waiting for baby to come, waiting to hear back from the doctor, or waiting for a long anticipated celebration or event. Good or bad, waiting slows time. How about when time goes fast? When one has too much to do within a certain amount of time—deadline crunches crunch time. Time goes fast when ‘spending time’ doing something we love to do or being in the presence of someone we love to be with—especially when that time is short. We want that feeling to continue, but time is fleeting. I do recall days, though they are few and far between, when time was perfect—neither too fast or too slow. Usually those days are busy, but not hurried, fun, but not manic, productive, but not intense, and usually those days are shared with someone I love.

So back to slow July. For me, heat and humidity are days to suffer through, and thankfully air conditioning (such a funny name, really) minimizes my suffering even as it contains me inside when I’d rather be outside. (As I stare longingly out the window…) Add to that a drought, and I just about can’t take it. The suffering of trees, crops, flowers, and garden plants is painful to see. Then, why is there so much drought…and fire…and water shortages…and on the other side, extreme rains…flooding…and excessive storms? We know the reason why. What are we waiting for in a-l-l t-h-i-s s-u-f-f-e-r-i-n-g?

We have a little oasis back in the trees where we have chairs, a fire ring, small table, and this summer, a tent for camping out in cool nights or reading in during breezy afternoons. In July, our oasis has been a desert of sorts. No fires. Match-like mats of bone-dry pine needles. Suffering trees, dying trees. But I go back there still. I found a random Lily growing under a Jack Pine. It provided food for hungry ants. Daisy Fleabane—little yellow-bottomed cups of frilly white petals—and Spotted Knapweed—lavender and purple spikes that curl into a knot when spent—still grew and flowered and provided food and beauty. (Though Knapweed is listed as an invasive, noxious weed.)

One evening when the sun was shining sideways into the trees, I noticed a whole spider-web town on the pine needle floor. Without the sun, I probably wouldn’t have noticed them. Each web-house was unique in size and construct of using sticks, pinecones, and needles to weave their webs around. There were dozens of them shining in the sunlight.

Each web contained a funnel where the Grass Spider could wait for any prey that happened to get too close. I had seen these webs before in the dewy grass of the lawn, but what struck me about these were the glistening colors of the gossamer webs. They were like mini-rainbows but random in their color sequencing. Strands of gold, copper, green, and orange. Hints of red, pink, and blue—like threads of gemstones. Beautiful houses of color!

One hot, dry, July evening, as darkness was falling over the trees, a doe and her mate grazed at the edge of the yard. His velvet-covered antlers were still growing—the ends were tender bulbs, not pointed tips. He had old scars on his shoulder and hip, wounds more likely from an encounter with a car than one with a fence. Survivor.

Just the other day, a walk through the trees showed the drooping, dismal dehydration of even the hardy Sumacs. Their vibrant red flowers had crumbled and dried into brown clumps—the viability of the seeds were desiccated away. The lower leaves had turned red and were withering into dry stalks. Aspen trees were in protection mode also, with leaves turning bright yellow and falling to the ground. Autumn in July.

When pain and suffering strike, we all go into protection mode, whether tree, shrub, spider, deer, or human. We conserve our resources. We hunker down in our self-made funnels. We lose our reserves. We react in erratic-seeming ways. Time slows to a c-r-a-w-l. But hope is an exquisite flower in a drought. It is the sun-dazzled home of a ‘lowly’ spider. Hope is the instinct and desire for a mate. And hope is a nighttime thunder storm that drops an inch of rain. Hope is also awareness. We have a lot to do in a certain amount of time to save our Earth from our own destructive ways. I will not be blind to the damage already done and what will be done before we turn this ship around. We are losing people who should not have died. We are losing bees, butterflies, birds, and trees to harmful practices. There is too much suffering among all species. We cannot survive if Nature doesn’t survive. So every day I find some hope in a flower, a tree, or a spider. Perfect time flows from love.

No One is Exempt

May 3, 2020 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

There is a collective suffering in the world right now. We can’t ignore it like we have conveniently done in the past—when the suffering didn’t affect us or threaten us or kill us or shut down our businesses or make us lose our jobs or change the way we lived our lives. But now…now all of those things are possible or happening. No one is exempt. Some are better off than others, but no one is exempt.

Suffering is personal, even as we do this together as a world. It hurts our bodies, our spirits, our resolve, our bank accounts, our hearts. In the throes of our personal suffering, we slip into survival mode—we become less social, more focused on ourselves. We may lash out at those around us—the very ones we love and adore who are standing up in the shaky boat with us. Or we may project our pain and suffering onto ‘them,’ the ‘others’—the ones making the ‘rules’ to try to keep us from dying, the media who are informing us, our neighbors who aren’t following the ‘rules,’ the ones who think, act, look, or believe differently than we do. ‘They’ are to blame for the pain.

Personal suffering feels like living all alone in a hermit hut in the wilderness—and the roof leaks when it rains—and the cold wind blows in through the cracks—and there’s barely room to lay down—and the food is scarce—and there are creatures lurking about outside and inside the tiny hut….

…and looking out, the world looks bleak and bare.

Chris and I hiked at Saint John’s Arboretum last weekend. We were not very far into our walk before I saw a sight that made my heart so happy—a cluster of Pasque flowers! Lavender sepals with delicate stripes, bright yellow stamens, soft, fuzzy stems to insulate them from the still-cold nights. Pasque flowers are the first prairie flowers to bloom; they signal the end of Winter, as they can bloom surrounded by snow. They are a sign of Spring and hope. (The word Pasque is derived from the Hebrew word for Passover.) So lovely!

Yellow and red-twigged Willows with yellow-flowering catkins burst into life around the lakes.

Red-winged blackbirds sang their joyous melody from their precarious perches on old Cattail stems.

Another early-blooming grassland plant is Prairie Smoke. I scarcely caught sight of the pinkish-red flower buds in the old and new growth of the prairie grasses.

The waterfowl birds were in the predictable, peaceful process of nest-building, mating, and raising a family. The seasonable cycle, the circle of Life. New life among the remains of last season’s life.

Trees at the Arboretum had just begun to bloom—the pinkish-red cloud of Maple tree blossoms…

…and the delicate yellow blooms on my favorite flexible little tree, Leatherwood!

No matter the length or harshness of Winter, when the warming sun of early Spring hits the bare, leaf-covered ground in the forest, the Spring Ephemerals burst into bloom! They grow, flower, and fade away quickly, but they are an important part of the ecosystem being the first food for pollinators.

Life was coming to life again after a cold, seemingly lifeless Winter. It is the way of Mother Nature. The bleak and bare world was an illusion—the life force was hidden for a while, resting, quiet, gathering nutrients and strength, preparing itself for the growth and renewal of Spring.

Mother Nature brokers in miracles.

An acorn germinating to become an Oak tree

What if no one was to blame for the pain and suffering of this virus? Not China or Trump or Democrats or Republicans or immigrants or Pelosi or that woman governor or fill-in-the-blank. That’s not to say that no one has responsibility or that no one has made mistakes or even that no one hasn’t purposely tried to injure or subject another group of people to hardship. In leadership there is accountability, responsibility, and consequences. Blame is a useless act of projection based on trying to get rid of our own very real pain. Suffering is the illusion of a bleak and bare world. It is the winter of our lives. It is living in a hermit hut and hating every minute of our existence. It is lashing out at those we love and those we oppose. What if pain and suffering are actually harnessing our virtuous qualities to pull us away from the perils in the old life? What if we are resting, a needed rest, in order to burst into new growth? What if right beyond our suffering is a blooming, melodious, life-creating world? Nature is the harbinger of miracles. No one is exempt from the Grace.

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