Moral Solidarity

photo by grassrootsmsw

"There is no profit in curing the body,

if in the process,

we destroy the soul."

City of Hope
Duarte, CA

There are so many fine lines for health care professionals...
We make the commitment to cure and heal, while also making an oath to honor patient self determination and choice.

Above all else, it is our responsibility to remember that we are face to face with human beings who have stories and histories, that define them...long before we have arrived. Every line and mark on their face holds who they are and where they have been. We have a RESPONSIBILITY to recognize and acknowledge this...this is their story, not ours...despite all the knowledge, beliefs, or skills we have to offer. This is about honoring and placing patient and family experiences at the core of our work.

Ann Hartman, LCSW, and Dean of Smith School of Social Work, insightfully stated:

"Because many of our patients and families are powerless and oppressed, their knowledge has been subjugated, and their insights have been excluded from the discourse by those who are empowered to define the 'truth.' We must bring forth their wisdom, their lived experience, and their visions of the world."

THEIR truth...not ours.

Here is a moral obligation, and in a powerful yet soothing way, it is an opening for a creation of human solidarity.

-grassrootsmsw-

Hidden edges...

photo by grassrootsmsw

“Honor uncertainty. It's the seed from which all-knowingness comes…

Give it time.”

Mike Dooley

The Walk of Pandemonium

photo by grassrootsmsw
Stanford University

“I have a great belief in the fact that whenever there is chaos, it creates wonderful thinking. I consider chaos a gift.”

Septima Poinsette Clark

The process of change
in the midst of death and life...
balancing and maneuvering
through sharp twists and turns;
not knowing how or when
the process will end or unfold.

Patience,
intuition,
trust,
belief,
and stamina
keep us moving forwards.

The determination
to stay true to the course
and make a positive difference
rumbles and stirs within us.

Despite a bureaucracy,
which often alienates
and removes itself
from the original 'human factor'
in it's goals and purposes.

We have not yet integrated
the old way of thinking with the new...
This is a significant juncture,
asking for our creativity and strength.


Let's allow the rumbles inside
to be silent "roars" of purpose...
keeping us steady and strong
on our path to change.

-grassrootsmsw-

Celebrating October 1st

B.M. Cahn

"It well may be
that we will never meet again
in this lifetime.
So, let me say before we part, so much of me
is made of what I learned from you.
You'll be with me,
like a handprint on my heart,
and now whatever way our stories end,
I know you have re-written mine...
by being my friend.
Because I knew you,
I have been changed for good."

Elphalba
from
Wicked

Dearest Baaazer...

Holding you close and celebrating you today and many, many, days throughout the year.

So many miss you...each and every memory reminding us that the honor and privilege was ours...

Sending love and laughter to you... always.

Priceless...

photo by grassrootsmsw

“There is a kind of quilt called a friendship quilt, but I imagine all of mine, no matter what their pattern, are emblems of female friendship, that essential thread that has so often kept the pieces of my own life together, and from time to time kept me from falling apart.”

-Author unknown-

Thank you S.G., E.F.S., and A.K. for being all that you are and honoring and toasting my rites of passage. I look forward to adding more to the quilt...

With love and gratitude...

At the bedside...

photo by grassrootsmsw

"If we're not willing to explore our own suffering, then we will only be guessing as we try to understand our patients. It is the exploration of our own suffering that allows us to serve others. This is what allows us to touch another person's pain with compassion instead of fear and pity. And we have to be willing to listen, not only to the patient but to ourselves."

Frank Ostaseski
Founder of Zen Hospice, S.F.

Owning delicious ambiguity...

photo by grassrootmsw

“Everything changed the day they
figured out there was exactly enough
time for the important things in their lives.”

Brian Andreas

Open to the elements

photo by A. Krynen

"The value of our harshest difficulties is how honestly they cause us to question, how they intensify our courage and bring alive our deepest inner purpose, how they reawaken our soul's task on earth. The painful breaking apart of our world is often the precious opportunity our heart has needed to learn to be true to itself."

Jack Kornfield

Finding the map...

photo by grassrootsmsw
Seattle, WA

"Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely.

It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take "everyone on Earth" to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul."

Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Sharing the 13th

photo by Peter Cunningham
NYC

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

The Velveteen Rabbit

I was understood and tended to by a dear friend today...

D-Day could have brought a mix and multitude of emotions.

Instead, it brought gratitude and moments of laughter and insight.

It was REAL, RAW, and FULFILLING.

Thank you S.G. for your nurturing friendship
and presence. Forwards we go, with even greater depth.
Cheers to life and all the unknown adventures waiting.

-grassrootsmsw-

D-Day on the 13th

photo by J.A.S.

"In my end is my beginning."
T.S. Eliot

Beauty, wonder and mystery awaits...
May the unfolding begin.

-grassrootsmsw-

Hypothesis...

photo by grassrootsmsw

"All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions."

Leonardo da Vinci

Origination

photo by grassrootsmsw
Seattle, WA


"You're writing the story of your life one moment at a time."

Doc Childre and Howard Martin

Breaking it open...

photo by grassrootsmsw
Alabama Country Market

“The thing people forget is how good it can feel when you finally set secrets free. Whether good or bad, at least they're out in the open. And once your secrets are out in the open, you don't have to hide behind them anymore. The problem with secrets is even when you think you're in control, you're not.”

Grey’s Anatomy

Chance and possibility...

Cancun, MX
1987

“When you live your life with an
appreciation of coincidences
and their meanings,
you connect with the underlying field of
infinite possibilities.”

Deepak Chopra

Just...being...

photo by grassrootsmsw

“Maybe we're not supposed to be happy. Maybe gratitude has nothing to do with joy. Maybe being grateful means recognizing what you have for what it is. Appreciating small victories. Admiring the struggle it takes simply to be human. Maybe we're thankful for the familiar things we know. And maybe we're thankful for the things we'll never know. At the end of the day, the fact that we have the courage to still be standing is reason enough to celebrate.”

Grey’s Anatomy

Untamed and True

photo by grassrootsmsw

“The only ones for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!”

Jack Kerouac

Lexis

photo by grassrootsmsw
Alabama Country Market

“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way--things I had no words for.”

Georgia O'Keeffe

The Best Within

photo by grassrootsmsw
Rome, GA

" In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved this title. Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind, and a step that travels unlimited roads. Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not at all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible,
it's YOURS."

Ayn Rand

Tributes...

photo by grassrootsmsw

“I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life, but that great consciousness of life.”

Jack Kerouac