Every day, I make the pilgrimage to Love. I reach for the phone - that "dream-ladder to divinity" (ala poet David Whyte) and go deep within my soul to summon the tenderness, gratitude and joy necessary for the journey with my loved one. I know the voice on the other end will be halting and sometimes completely silent. That stellar, utterly irreplaceable person whose life is intertwined with mine like a twisty strand of DNA doesn't often remember names, the day or the time, words that go together, or that our beloved canine-kin, Wolfie and Albie, have run ahead to await us on the other shore.
Many times, I am aware that within my heart, memory, and identity, like nesting dolls, lie another's heart, memory and identity. We are tethered, inseparable. The ravaged cognitive prowess and desiccated memory stand no chance against the transformative, healing power of Love. That daily phone call reminds me that one whose vulnerability, loves and losses are knit so tenderly in the heart/soul are really my own. And so I make the daily pilgrimage to Love.
For those evolving through their golden years with dementia, the energy signature of Love in the form of family members, friends, care-givers, and creature-kin is paramount. Connection is what insulates and strengthens. That healing presence is well-noted in its positive effects, and most noticeable in its absence.
There are other avenues for coping and healing as well. Music and art therapy evoke powerful healing effects for those affected by dementia. Music particularly helps those with dementia to engage at a deep emotional level, even as their condition progresses. Since music profoundly affects our emotional state, favorite songs connect us with each other, our most treasured memories, and fundamentally, our identity. "Music also lights up nearly all of the brain — including the hippocampus and amygdala, which activate emotional responses to music through memory; the limbic system, which governs pleasure, motivation, and reward; and the body’s motor system." (https://magazine.hms.harvard.edu/articles/how-music-resonates-brain)
Music, as it turns out, is as good for the body as it is for the soul.
The same could be said of Nature therapy. The music of creation animates, connects, and heals us.
Nature is a stalwart ally - truly potent and endemic to human health and well-being - that is waiting right outside the door of our mostly inside-dwelling awareness.
Nature helps. "Outside, My Love!" Fresh air and sunshine for light, oxygen, and so much more.
"Both light and oxygen are essential to the function of our brains, which is one of the biggest users of oxygen in the human body. One of the major ways light and oxygen support our brain is by regulating our circadian rhythms which affect our sleep, alertness and appetite." So-called "happy hormones" and neurotransmitters are activated when we are outside: serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins. Neurotransmitters are also associated with "feelings of pleasure, love and happiness, but they also reduce depression and anxiety and assist with learning, memory, motor system function, and essential processes like heart rate and digestion.
A less well-known fact is that some trees and plants also release chemicals that have benefits to our health, for example pinene which is a type of terpene and helps us to breathe more easily, allowing more air (and oxygen) into the lungs, and therefore the brain. It also has anti-inflammatory effects." https://dementiaadventure.org/resources/the-benefits-of-nature/
Nature stimulates and heals the effects of dementia in many ways:
Renewed attention and focus,
recalibrated circadian rhythm for deeper rest,
improved short-term and working memory,
elevated visuospatial abilities,
strengthened language and verbal fluency,
slower overall cognitive decline,
preserved executive (planning and decision-making) functioning,
mood improvement,
anxiety reduction,
lifting of depression,
soothing agitation,
improved social engagement,
stress reduction, and
overall improved quality of presence.
What we might forget is that we are all on a journey, a pilgrimage to "losing" all we most love, our parents, our children, our friends, our home, our memory, our health, our lives. In our loss is this experience of the profound presence of Love. Love finds us and heals us if we can't find our way out of isolation and sadness. When we connect at a deep level through the healing power of Love, we are aware with our full sensorium that presence is everything. We are in Nature's healing embrace, created by the Love that motivates each pilgrimage.
In the poet David Whyte's poignant words...
"Everything is Waiting for You"
Your great mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone.
As if life were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden transgressions.
To feel abandoned is to deny the intimacy of your surroundings.
Surely, even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding out your solo voice.
You must note the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things to come,
the doors have always been there to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation.
The kettle is singing even as it pours you a drink,
the cooking pots have left their arrogant aloofness
and seen the good in you at last.
All the birds and creatures of the world are unutterably themselves.
Everything is waiting for you.
(-David Whyte, from River Flow, New and Selected Poems, 2012)
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