CSS and the Creativity Process

I'm really enjoying the opportunity to be creative. It provides exercise for my right brain that is otherwise dormant. I even went on a canoe excursion last week to "collect" some images. The marsh grasses on my "Psychology of Mindfulness" page are from the Rankin River.

The image on my home page is one I took of the Cirque of the Unclimables from Glacier Lake above the Nahanni River last summer.

Renewal

I am building a place for mindful practice in the backyard beside the pond. There are repairs to be done and the work feels hard. Last night I removed the old bridge and today so far I have tried to locate the leak in the stream. I think I may have found it. It's a spot where roots have worked there way between the seams of the last fix. I can't be sure that this is the place, but it looks promising.

And part way through the work I think, I don't like this, it's tedious. I'd rather be doing something else. It dawns on me as I continue to breath, stretch and exert myself into deeper acceptance of this moment with its accumulation of sediment, mud, rocks and toil. That the place to practice has already been laid carefully before me.

Ecotones

In his book Return to Warden's Grove: Science, Desire, and Lives of Sparrows, Christopher Norment talks about ecotones. In biology these are known as the transition zones between two communities where the species from each community co-exist. In effect they are verge areas, like transition between between states of awareness; becoming aware after a night's sleep.

Spring is akin to an ecotone; a transition between states that sees the remnants of winter leaving and the emergence of new life taking its place within our inner and outer landscapes. There is an anticipation, an excitement and even anxiety in the what the changes will mean. We are jolted into a transition that is ripe with possibilities of anything. Norment quotes part of a poem that captures this feeling nicely and I have reproduced it here in its entirety.

I go among trees and sit still.

All my stirring becomes quiet

around me like circles on water.

My tasks lie in their places

where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes

and lives a while in my sight.

What it fears in me leaves me,

and the fear of me leaves it.

It sings, and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.

I live for a while in its sight.

What I fear in it leaves it,

and the fear of it leaves me.

It sings, and I hear its song.

After days of labor,

mute in my consternations,

I hear my song at last,

and I sing it. As we sing,

the day turns, the trees move.

-Wendell Berry

MBSR Conference -Day Two

6 pm

Drop into the moment that is now. No need to judge, no need to have an agenda as to what will be, no need to say, "I am meditating". Just be here, drink in all that this moment has to offer as if it is the only one that you have - because it truly is. Living fully demands that we pay attention, to this moment, with intention, acceptance and without judgement.

This the message of Jon Kabat-Zinn who led through an hour of practice of attending to this moment. He repeats this message in his important books that serve as introductions to this way of being and the titles are evocative of the importance of the experience of now:

Full Catastrophe Living (1990); Wherever You Go , There You Are (2005); Coming to Our Senses (2006)

Keynote Address: Mark Williams

Saki Santorelli introduced Mark Williams, Oxford Professor of Clinical Psychology, by reading the Rumi poem "Cry Out in Your Weakness". Mark Williams, like Marsha Linehan has spent his career finding ways to alleviate much suffering in the world - finding ways to prevent relapse in depression, that can and often does, lead to increased levels of depression and suicide.

Dr. Williams and is colleagues John Teasdale and Zindel Seigel have been important contributors to the treatment of depression, specifically the prevention of relapse. By combining many of the principles behind cognitive therapy with those of mindfulness practice, a powerful synergy has emerged that offers new hope for those suffering with chronic depression.

Dr. Williams spoke today about the role of the experience of psychological pain in preventing access to the specific episodic memories that are essential to problem solving. In effect the experience of a negative emotional state leads to a rapid flood of painful thoughts that cut off access to specific memories about how to solve the problem facing the individual. What remains are general memories that offer few, if any real solutions. Mark pointed out that mindfulness offers a way to reconnect with, and allow time for, specific memories to re-emerge promoting effective problem resolution and improved mood states.

Miriam "Miv" London, University of Vermont - Mindfulness programs for anxiety and depression for college students:

The effectiveness of a of 7-week mindfulness-based intervention for college students was discussed in this workshop. The net results were that the students benefited from the program through a reduction in their anxiety and depressed symptoms. The challenges with this group of clients was that they often were quite distracted by other priorities in their lives that the commitment to formal practice had often to compete with school work, social opportunities and space and time constraints. Despite this, many of the students were able to deal effectively with their anxiety and depression through incorporating many of the practices into daily life.

Arnold Kozak, University of Vermont - Curriculum course in the Psychology of Mindfulness:

Arnold spoke about a course he has developed and taught now for two years at the University of Vermont. The course includes the 8-week MBSR component, academic work in cognitive therapy, Buddhist psychology and clinical applications of mindfulness in psychology and health. The course includes both experiential and didactic components. The evaluation of the course has been positive, both in terms of student appraisals and in outcome measures that looked at whether students were incorporating the practices into their own lives. I would like to know to what an extent such a course might lower levels of stress for the students at Conestoga College. Anyone interested in working up a proposal with me?


Summary - conference themes in some of the informal discussions:

• Has there been too much emphasis on mindfulness as technique in psychotherapy, when in the end it will be shown to be no more effective than other psychotherapeutic techniques accounting for only 15% of the variance in symptom reduction?
• Is the benefit of mindfulness in its effect on the therapist, making them more empathetic, more non-judgemental, able to build better therapeutic alliances and less reactive? On this point, one meta-analysis shows that non-treatment aspects of the therapy (i.e. therapist listening skills) account for 30% of the symptom reduction.
• What will it take to resolve the fundamental biases that exist within the two different ways of knowing between psychology and mindfulness? There was tension here at times between the agenda of the researchers who wanted to know about the randomized clinical trials and the therapists who were more concerned with the effect on the lives of their clients.
  
• Finally, I sat in on a number of interesting sessions where the focus was on marketing mindfulness as a product. The cost of an eight week MBSR course has currently reached about the $2000 mark. Training of professionals can be substantial as anyone interested to investigate on the internet will find. This means that by the time the program hits the street, it will likely only be available to those who can afford a health club membership. It runs the risk of becoming "spa" treatment for the wealthy. And Buddha winces. So my question, how do we get mindfulness in the hands of those working with some of the most disaffected people in our communities?
• Personal note: I have spent nearly 3 months now, offering my 30 years clinical experience for free, for a year. My sabbatical next year allows me to do this. My price: let me come and learn to hone my mindfulness clinical as part of the team. That means a net saving to your organization one senior clinician's salary and perhaps 20 - 30 clients off the waiting list. Total organizations that have jumped at the offer so far= 0. We need to look seriously, I think, at how we can massage the system to, as George Miller might say, "give mindfulness away". Anyone interested in setting up a volunteer list to assist with referrals for the treatment of depression, anxiety or trauma?
  

Mindfulness Conference - Worcester MA

6 am

The day begins with sitting, walking and stretching in present awareness led by Saki Santorelli. I am slowly letting the flight, the other things to do, the distractions leave the now - but they are persistent in creating "noise". I decide to practice accepting noise - I am more or less successful.

7 am

I am successful in finding friends and colleagues from Waterloo. I am delighted and we have breakfast together. This is a conference on the science of mindfulness and its relationship to healing arts. There is excitement here, a quiet anticipation we all feel about the power of this approach to relieve much suffering. Breakfast conversation is about how the community that this embraces is something like the ripples in a pond that spread ever further out from the centre. And today I am at one of the centres of the movement, the birthplace of MBSR; mindfulness-based stress reduction.

Keynote Address: Marsha Linehan

Dr. Linehan spoke eloquently about her career as a behavioural therapist, scientist and student of Zen and how this led her to the developmental of dialectical behaviour therapy
Her work has been with some of the most troubled individuals, those who have received as diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, people who she points out are the most likely of all psychological disorders to succeed at suicide. One in every ten people with BPD will take their own life.
Using a mindfulness-based approach Linehan invites her clients to practice the art of acceptance in their lives. Clinically sound and scientifically validated over 30 years, her approach offers the most hopeful of all treatment modalities for this complex human response to betrayal trauma, abuse and neglect in childhood.

I found Dr. Linehan to be full of energy, realistic and the embodiment of compassion. As Saki Santorelli described her, "She is a force of nature".


Research Sessions:

Ruth Baer

Ruth Baer has been interested in cognitive therapy and has written an important work that reviews the effectiveness of mindfulness based interventions. Her discussion today was on the relationship between formal mindfulness practice, informal mindfulness activities and psychological wellbeing.




Donald McCown and Diane Reibel

Donald and Diane presented a compelling story about their attempt to market an MBSR program to train people in various workplaces how to reduce stress and to respond as people and as corporations in a more "contemplative" manner. While their program didn't get the funding needed from the university, their were able to run a scaled-down version of the offerings to some pretty impressive organizations. They reported that they are happy doing work they love in the not-for-profit sector.

One of their training programs has been offered to anaesthesia nurses, perhaps the most stressful of all nursing jobs. Students in the course learned methods of being more aware, less stressed and more at ease with themselves with the workplace. I found this talk quite relevant to my work teaching psychology to nursing students

Donald Marks, Alix Sarubbi and Rosanna Sposato

What role does compassion play in healing? There is little doubt that it is significant. Marks et al. presented their research on the relationship between the relief of suffering and active compassion. The results of their work can be summed up by the story Donald told of a woman, so debilitated by pain that she was unable to get out of one particular chair in her house. To add to the suffering, she had been diagnosed with terminal cancer of the spine. This woman, with the help of Marks and his team, was able to do something she'd wanted to do for a long time - volunteer at the school attended by her disabled daughter. The times when she was volunteering, the pain she suffered was less meaningful to her than what she had to offer the children. During these times the pain, became a background in her life, rather than the entire focus of her existence.

As a closing, Mark took us through a mindfulness session where we were encouraged to embody in ourselves "the perfect nurturer". It is from this base of compassion, we are told, that we are able to extend healing into the world.

Day's end:

Today has been busy and exceptional. At the end of the day we had a banquet and danced to the type of music that Geoff Johnstone loves. (Hope you had an ale or two for me on Thursday, brother). Wish all of you could have been here, there is much that is of interest to Liberal Studies folks; culture, philosophy, communications, sociology, economics, psychology, wellness and history to name a few. Even some comparative religion, like how the message of the Buddha and Christ and all religions has been the same since the earliest times - a compassionate heart is the key to peace that begins with ourselves.

As they say here:

metta (lovingkindness):
Barry

Arrival at the Falls - August 3, 2007

Oxbow Lake

We got up early today in anticipation of getting to the falls campground by noon. It took us about two and a half hours to have breakfast and pack up the gear and we were on our way down river by 11:00.

Alex and Tania led the way and at the bend in the river took a detour up the creek leading to the Oxbow lake. The rest of us followed into a quiet creek that wended its way through reeds and grasses hanging with dew, eventually opening into a lake which curved to the right much like an elongated "j". The lake was peaceful and inviting and I wondered whether the campsite we had heard about was at the crook of the "j" about 150 metres to the right.

When I suggested to Glen that we investigate to the end of the lake, he rather vehemently rejected the idea. His rationale was that the rest of the group had not planned this sojourn, and it would be selfish of us to pursue the adventure without consensus. I suggested to him that no one had given Alex and Tania the approval of exploring the creek and the lake in the first place, and that since we were only going to be here this one time, it might be interesting to explore a little further. This was the first time that a dispute had led to hard feelings between Glen and I on this trip; the rancor, however, persisted until we reached the Falls.

Through the next section of the river we followed the Sunblood Mountain range on river left and the Marengo Creek valley on river right. The interpretive maps suggest that on the left, on the mountain slopes there are mineral licks that are an essential part of the habitat for the Dalls' Sheep (see insert, Robert Bateman "The Dalls' Sheep"). These impressive animals visit the mineral licks to lick on the mineral deposits that are a necessary part of their diet. We were unsure whether we had located any of the mineral licks, which would have been more obvious had we the fortune of actually seeing sheep visiting them. The mountain ridges were impressive nonetheless.

Virginia Falls Campsite

About a kilometre before the falls there is a well marked organized campsite and ranger post. We approached the dock in the early afternoon and slipped in beside a De Havilland Beaver bush plane. Arriving at the campgrounds meant that we had to check in at the ranger station, pick a camp spot, unload the canoes and make camp.

The campgrounds were situated along a boardwalk that was suspended above the marshy ground by posts drilled into the permafrost. The main purpose of the boardwalk was the protection of the flora from the trampling feet of the visitors to the park. It also provided a level of accessibility to people who may not be able to explore the area because of the uneven terrain.

We found tent sites side by side the would accommodate our three tents. The sites were wooden platforms that were built into the boardwalk; it was all very neat by comparison to the sites along the river so far. With the tents pitched, we began preparing supper and organizing the gear for our two night stay at the falls.

Moose Can Fly

Just before dinner we became aware, through the park warden, that a cow calf moose had been swept over the falls earlier in the day. The main concern now was that the moose carcass, which had found a final resting place on a gravel bar below the falls, would attract a nearby grizzly bear. Grizzlies, we learned, become very territorial about their food and posed a very real danger to anyone who ventured to close. This meant that the trail to the base of the falls was cordoned off while a helicopter was brought in to remove the carcass to a safer location.

Glen and I were excited to get a good look at the whole operation so we took the trail to the top of the falls. Along the way we met Jenn, a summer patrol officer , and her mother pushing a wheel barrow. They were on their way down to the bottom of the falls to assist in the "rescue". Glen and I eagerly offered to help and between the two of us took over pushing the barrow along the trail. The two of us were just glad to be able to do our duty, as volunteers, in a state of apparent park emergency. We asked Jenn to deputize on the spot, so that we would be official. Jenn informed us that we don't deputize people in Canada, but she would nonetheless accept us as official volunteers. Jenn's mom gladly let us take over and went on her way to where the crowd was gathering for the evening's entertainment. A dead moose being air-lifted out of the canyon!

Once we had safely delivered the wheel barrow and its contents - a sling, yellow "danger" tape, knapsack, 3030 rifle plus ammo (this was a serious potential grizzly terror attack) and other gear - to the end of the boardwalk trail, we were asked to return to the top of the falls. Jenn was not going to let us go any further, despite our dejected looks. Upon returning to the top of the falls, no one seemed to know of the risks we had taken to ensure public safety.

We had time to explore the top of the falls for about an hour and a half before the helicopter arrived. People had gathered with cameras and binoculars not wanting to miss the excitement. We could see a brown object on the sand bar and three park wardens and a pilot working in the spray of the falls. They worked for about 30 minutes securing a sling to the animal's legs. The work seemed to be painstaking and slow because of the spray and the wind in the valley. We were to learn later, as well, that the moose was broken up pretty badly, and that if they hadn't secured the sling just right, blood and entrails would have spilled along the valley floor.

The climax of the incident came when the moose, at the end of the sling rose into the air with the helicopter. The moose was being taken to a marsh up Caribou creek where it would provide food for any scavengers that might find it; it could be monitored there by park staff who could assess its rate of decomposition and what animals might feed on it.

The crowd atop the cliff cheered and applauded as the helicopter lifted into the air. Later people went to greet the heroes; the wardens and the pilot, when they returned to the campground, mission accomplished. When they emerged from the helicopter, the crowd cheered again with even more enthusiasm. It was then that I recognized Jonathan Tetso, the young warden we had met some days earlier at Rabbitkettle lake. The third warden was we were introduced to was Dan.

I was impressed by this group of young men and women in many ways. They were fit and energetic and quite knowledgeable about the ecosystem that they were assigned to protect. They took their responsibilities seriously and acted both in a professional and a friendly manner.

The Slow Descent to the Falls - August 2, 2007

The Oxbows

The Nahanni river is an antecedent river. It meanders much like a slow prairie river might, taking the course of least resistance through the softer sedimentary rock where it can. This is not typical of most mountain rivers, which descend rapidly and on a straight course from high to low. What this means, then, is that the Nahanni did not begin life as a mountain river. Rather, it began life as a plains river wending its way through the sedimentary rock of an ancient ocean bed. It was much later that the mountains began to form by the tectonic forces that created the Rockies. The river carved its way through the mountains as they formed, faster than the mountains rose, hence the sweeping, meandering turns known as oxbows.

Our destination today is a curiosity that sometimes emerges as a result of a change in the river's flow around and oxbow (a hair-pin turn in the river). Sometimes the river will push through a new channel, stranding the outside of the turn in the oxbow, this forms a lake known as an oxbow lake. We were told by Ann, the Warden at Rabbitkettle lake, that the last campsite before Virginia Falls was at Oxbow lake ten kilometres from the falls.

We broke camp today at 11:30, later than expected. It seemed that people were tired from the last day's paddle. While we were having breakfast the "Rub-a-dub 8" rafters passed by on their way to the falls.

The paddle in this section was relatively slow. We managed an average of about 8 - 10 km/hr. The current was not much help to us and we had to work at making any headway. In addition to a slow current, we fought a moderately strong head wind for most of the day.


Last Chance

Our first break was at a campsite on an island called Last Chance. This was a very nice spot with a creek entering from river right. We took advantage of the creek to refill our water bottles and drink. Lunch was leftovers from yesterday's chili supper and today's multi-grain cereal served on tortilla wraps. The resulting concoction had a distinct resemblance to grizzly bear scat, more tasty than it sounds.

Leaving Last Chance we paddled for another three hours until we found a gravel bar about 500 metres upstream from the creek entering from the Oxbow lake. There were dark clouds gathering all around and we anticipated a late afternoon storm. We had just enough time to pitch the tents and put up the rain tarp before the rains came. It was a brief and intense storm that lasted about an hour and was followed by a clear and sunny evening. Our spirits were high knowing that tomorrow morning we would be able to arrive at Virginia Falls in time to enjoy a full day of exploring. We spent the evening enjoying the scenery, playing guitar, singing and telling stories by the campfire.

We had traveled 35 kilometres today and it had felt like 50!