Flowers are crying with frost tears. S.A.D. The jewelry box of flowers is closing. Heigh Ho.

Image via Wikipedia

With frost comes sadness. True tears are like the frost on the petals. What does this mean? Could it be flowers are alive and now they are dying. No. It for me is the loss of color and form. Flowers and leaves provide visual creative form that I thrive on.

But what is amazing is that roses burst forth in blossom before the final freeze. Summer builds to a crescendo into the fall flame of colors.

If you have Seasonal Affective Disorder the last blooms are a depressive trigger that the dark time is coming. You sleep later. You are more pensive. You treasure the last jewels of every flower and leaf color and form.

The jewelry box of flowers is closing. I guess that is why I have been looking at my music box as more inviting for the winter snuggle. There are less cat whiskers to climb into my music box with. Even the cats are huddling in and holding their whiskers tighter.

The music box's tune is Heigh Ho from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This sustains me when the loss of the flowers cries like a loon on the lifeless glass lake.

There would be less to unwind of my day's frustrations in the music box if I could have flowers everyday.

Click here for the song & animation of Heigh Ho.

 Related articles

• Seasonal affective disorder - All Information (umm.edu) with many links. great resource w/videos on health topics.
• Seasonal Affective Disorder: Real Solutions to a Real Problem (fyiliving.com)

Pain is a four - letter word. Unifying Theory of Pain where are you?

Image from: http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/10/21/chronic-depression-may-be-related-to-brain-infection/19905.html

Pain is universal. You might consider it a four-letter word. Science, literature and religion study it. However, pain studies me and my reactions. When you have both physical and mental pain it is hard to define pain. It is more than a stimulation of nociceptors in the peripheral nervous system, or by damage to or malfunction of the peripheral or central nervous systems [as Wikipedia says].

The doctors at the University of Michigan Pain Clinic say I must first be on anti-depressant medication before I can begin their pain management program. However, they fail to realize this is a conundrum. Pain depresses people. I ask how can an anti-depressant reduce pain? Yet, a fascinating study just published by the University of California, San Diego, in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Review, proposes a new theory that suggests that chronic depression originates from ancient mechanisms used by the body to deal with physical injury, such as pain, tissue repair and convalescent behavior.

If you think in an evolutionary terms this theory makes sense. An adverse life event prompts neurological processes that physically alter the brain. The neurons remodel in a wound-healing mode. When this adaptive response becomes a habit, pathways are rewired. So if physical pain and mental pain [depression] work on the same mechanism the researchers posit that chronic depression maybe be treated with analgesics.

So if the University of Michigan Pain Clinic says you must first be treated for depression they may be not aware that analgesics might be useful to treat depression that arises from dealing with chronic pain.

It is still a conundrum. When it comes to clinical practice science moves so slow. So what should I do? Until there is a unifying theory of pain doctors will continue to treat separate parts of the body when a holistic approach would be best. Unifying theory of pain where are you?

Here's the link to the Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Review online abstract mentioned:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleListURL&_method=tag&sort=d&sisrterm=&_ArticleListID=1515709826&_chunk=0&count=3&_st=&refsource=&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=8360f8a03ec52937f66eb3674cc4f61f&searchtype=a&originPage=rslt_list&view=f

Related articles

Science blog's article on New theory links depression to chronic brain inflammation

What do you do when you don't know who you are?

Ok. When nothing makes sense and you ask who are you what is your answer? Well, if you are an absorbent personality you won't know who you are. By absorbent personality I mean you act like other people think you should act. You even take on an accent of the people around you or their focus.

So if you don't know who you are you need to find out. How to find out? Very good question.

By Unnamed photographer in employ of National Photo Company [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

If you overthink you could write a book. But what if you really don't know. Then you need to ask critical questions. What kind of critical questions? Where do you start?

Who? That could be descriptive. It could be many things. But who is defining the questions? One could be influenced  by surroundings. So again, your absorbent personality could throw you off. It is like defining a grain of sand thrown about by waves.

One could ask what one wants to be.  No. There is no answer. When one is nebulous there is no who. One could define oneself by one's perimeters. How many children? How long married? Am I not more than these perimeters? Does anyone know who they are? Should the question even be asked?

If life is a a state of being who am I being? Being what others say I am? But if one is absorbent then is it not others who define me? When do I get to be me? If I have never allowed myself to express myself, then am I even able to be defined?

Too many questions. Problem solved. I cannot define myself. Is this just another evasion of knowing who I am? Complex. It would be easy to say I am so and so's daughter, wife, mother... Do I have to know who I am? Why am I asking the question? The world loves labels. Do I need a label? Labels stop thinking. Do I want to stop thinking?

Am I addicted to thinking? Answers don't come late at night. I think I will climb into my music box and unwind my gears there. I'll hold on tight to the cat whiskers. Maybe by observing the animals I can make some sense. No matter how much order I put in my life. The order gives no structure only a more fragmented illusion of someone others think I am. When do I get to be me? Maybe there is no me. Scary. That I am nothing but a mirror. Is life just a series of mirrors? That is sad. Time to stop thinking. If one is trapped by glass how does one ever escape?

Escape to what? Don't want to face that. If all is glass where is . .  .  .   .    .  me?

If you have found who you are describe the process how you got there in the comments.  And share if you care to. Learning is difficult when not shared.


Click here for Elise on Life who doesn't do labels AND quotes Eckhart Tolle.


If you don't do links here's the quote: 


Eckhart Tolle says, “Give up defining yourself – to yourself or to others. You won’t die.You will come to life. And don’t be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it’s their problem.  You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.”