EnriqueEnriquez
... random musings on Tarot as a neuroplastic tool
Las Friday I watched an interview Bill Moyers did to Maxine Hong Kingston. She is a writer who has spent the last 15 years giving workshops to war veterans. She helps these ex-soldiers to write about their war experiences, so they get some sort of closure. She also works with people affected by war like wives of soldiers, victims, etc.
Not only I find her work powerful, but I think there are certain parallelism between the work she does in her workshops and my intuition about art as an spiritual practice, and about the relationship between divination, neuroplasticity, cognitive shift, etc... Watching the interview had my brain firing some random thoughts I want to share with you, hoping fo some feedback.
Here, I am copying some paragraphs I find relevant to my own work on healing/readings:
MAXINE HONG KINGSTON: Mm-hmm. I think all these people have come back and they are not the same. But my hope is that through art, through telling their stories, by having people hear what they went through, it changes them again, you know. There's the coming home from war, being broken, feeling losses, but then there is a wholeness that takes place if the person were able to write their story, to write their poem, to have people hear them and listen and understand. Then they are changed again.
...
MAXINE HONG KINGSTON: At the very beginning we had this motto, "Tell the truth." It's because people come home, they come home from hell and they have witnessed, they have committed, they have been committed upon, horrendous acts. And then the first instinct is to keep it secret, "Oh, just forget. I'll forget what happened. And I will not visit this upon my children, upon my wife, my husband, I will not tell people about what happened." And holding the story inside creates terrible illness and wrong. And so it was my task to let people know, just let it out, tell me exactly what happened, it's okay.
...
MAXINE HONG KINGSTON: That what I mean is that when people share their stories and they share their hardships, that all of us will listen. We'll help carry the burden. And so, after writing in such a way, in which we release our feelings we take the-- something that happened chaotically in the past. Or it happened so subtly, that at the time, you hardly notice you're-- there's no time to think it over.
But later, 39 years later, putting it into words, slowly-- understanding one's own feelings, and understanding the point of view of others. And shaping what happened into a form and this form is a beautiful form. The form of a story, the form of a poem -- after immersing one's self in all of that, then there comes the understanding, recognition, reconciliation.
...
MAXINE HONG KINGSTON: Uh-huh-- Uh-huh And this healing happens when people are able to tell the truth. And when they are able to tell the truth, when they are able to find words, human words for human experience.
...
BILL MOYERS: What is it about the power of story to change the human psyche? Why do stories do that?
MAXINE HONG KINGSTON: I am trying to come up with a good answer. You know, I keep saying it's magic. Let's see whether I can say it in so many words. Story has a form that brings a certain order, you know, the shape of a finely made story has the same energy as sexual energy, or life energy. It's like the tide, you know, the tide that Sandy Scull wrote about. Of the ebbing and flowing of tide, and of storms. I think this goes through our bodies, it goes through our psyches. And the shape of story takes that same cyclical form. And we are in story, we are able to communicate with another being, another mind. And--
BILL MOYERS: Sometimes within ourselves, right?
MAXINE HONG KINGSTON: Yes, you communicate with yourself, yes.
BILL MOYERS: Well, some of these people-- you-- you-- when I read them, I think they're writing the story for themselves, although they wanted us to see. But it's primarily they're communicating some dead self, that is resurrected by this, what you say the force of sexual energy or psychic energy or the energy of the imagination?
MAXINE HONG KINGSTON: I know that they are writing for themselves but I always held it up as a standard of an ideal that the writer's job is to communicate. And, I tell them, "No diary writing", "No, private writing." These are public acts of communication. And you must tell the story so that you can give it to another person. That you can-- you-- and when you read it aloud, there's mouth to ear transmission. And, we are communicating. And, this way-- we make connections with others and, we also build the community around us. These soldiers come out of war alienated from everyone. They're alienated from their families, from our country, from themselves. And, this communication helps then build a community and a family around them.
Now...
I wonder how these thoughts contrast/relate to some of the findings that surround the concept of neuroplasticity. This is, the idea of our brains being able to re-shape the way they are wired, given the proper exercise/stimuli. For example, I am very interested on understanding how writing our story (or using Tarots to recreate our story) relates to the idea of implicit/procedural memories being "pacified" if they become explicit memories. In that regard, here are three quotes I find thought provoking:
Psychiatrist Norman Doidge says that: "we turn ghost into ancestors when we make our past experiences go from haunting memories to becoming simply part of our past."
and: "Psychotherapy works by going deep into the brain and its neurons, and changing their structure by turning on the right genes."
Psychiatrist/neuroscientist Eric Kandel's thoughts on how psychotherapy "presumably changes people through learning, by produce changes in gene expression that alter the anatomical pattern of connections between nerve cells of the brain."
and Susan Vaughan ("The Talking Cure") who says that: "a psychotherapist is a micro-surgeon of the mind, who helps patients to make the needed alterations in neuronal networks."
All of them think these structural changes are achieved by means of word alone, when in the process of therapy, an unconscious/repressed, memory/urge is brought into consciousness. What they describe in the above quotes is the process that occurs at a neuronal level as a result of that cognitive shift.
Obviously, my interest is to understand how much of this process overlaps what goes on in divination; and specially, if Tarot as an optical language could present advantages when it comes to making tangible/explicit an unconscious need, by means of symbols instead of words, in the act of having a person tell her story.
All these authors, and several others, propose psychotherapy as a neuroplastic therapy, and in wonder, could we see Tarot as a neuroplastic tool?
This day I have been re-reading Italo Calvino "The Castle of Crossed Destinies." For those of you who aren't familiar with it, the book is a compilation of short stories, but more important, it was a creative exercise Calvino impose on himself, about using Tarot cards to structure a set of tales. In the book, Calvino describes a group of strangers who meet at a tavern. They are so exhausted, and damaged by their experiences, that they can't find the right words to talk about them. Instead of that, they make use of a pack of tarots they find laying on a table to communicate with each other. The book shows you the cards forming rows, and the way Calvino used them to compose each story, giving extraordinaire insight on the cards meanings along the way (the insights of a poet of course!). But for me, the most attractive thing about this book is the idea of a group of people telling with the cards what they can't say with words.
Is not precisely the point?
Someone sits with us, mix the cards up, some cards are placed on the table, and we as readers "see" in these cards that person's story. The reading often consist on finding the right words to say aloud the story that is being expressed in symbols. This way, part of the story is "shaped into a form", and also a part of it is brought into conscious awareness.
As I said, I feel this is something that happens naturally when we look at the cards for other people; but sometimes I wonder if a more specific procedure could be designed.
"Here. Take this. Use the cards to tell me your story." Is this something we should say in silence, almost like a prayer to get into the reading mindset? or should we say this aloud? I wonder if that conscious gesture could have healing advantages over trusting silence and randomness.
Now, if the question must be formulated in an explicit way, the key would be precisely how to do so. What story are we talking about? A story that is very present at that moment, and they tend to express in the form of a question? A story that is pressing? urgent? Their whole story? Their family history? Should they illustrate a specific concern with the cards? should them show us their fathers, mothers, sisters, bosses, etc, with the cards?
So far I suspect that the best option is to leave this question open: "Here. Take this. Use the cards to tell me your story. Any story you feel like telling me. You don't have to use all the cards, you can even use only one. Do whatever feels right..." Then, after they have composed a visual tale over the table, we do like Calvino did in his book with his characters: we take over, finding words to say what they are telling us with images.
I have always intuitively felt that there is something “true” in Calvino’s approach to Tarot, even when such approach may even be seen as contrary to what we formally do in a reading.
All of this are scattered thoughts I have on my mind this days. I guess the main question remains: IF telling our story has healing qualities, could Tarot facilitate that process? And then, if the answer ends up being a rotund "yes!" I wonder about the ways to go further on facilitating that process.
I hope that any of this makes sense. But if it doesn’t, you can still enjoy Maxine Hong Kingston interview. Youwill find the entire transcription here: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05252007/transcript1.html and you can watch the interview in video, following the link here: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05252007/profile.html ).
Best,
Enrique Enriquez
Las Friday I watched an interview Bill Moyers did to Maxine Hong Kingston. She is a writer who has spent the last 15 years giving workshops to war veterans. She helps these ex-soldiers to write about their war experiences, so they get some sort of closure. She also works with people affected by war like wives of soldiers, victims, etc.
Not only I find her work powerful, but I think there are certain parallelism between the work she does in her workshops and my intuition about art as an spiritual practice, and about the relationship between divination, neuroplasticity, cognitive shift, etc... Watching the interview had my brain firing some random thoughts I want to share with you, hoping fo some feedback.
Here, I am copying some paragraphs I find relevant to my own work on healing/readings:
MAXINE HONG KINGSTON: Mm-hmm. I think all these people have come back and they are not the same. But my hope is that through art, through telling their stories, by having people hear what they went through, it changes them again, you know. There's the coming home from war, being broken, feeling losses, but then there is a wholeness that takes place if the person were able to write their story, to write their poem, to have people hear them and listen and understand. Then they are changed again.
...
MAXINE HONG KINGSTON: At the very beginning we had this motto, "Tell the truth." It's because people come home, they come home from hell and they have witnessed, they have committed, they have been committed upon, horrendous acts. And then the first instinct is to keep it secret, "Oh, just forget. I'll forget what happened. And I will not visit this upon my children, upon my wife, my husband, I will not tell people about what happened." And holding the story inside creates terrible illness and wrong. And so it was my task to let people know, just let it out, tell me exactly what happened, it's okay.
...
MAXINE HONG KINGSTON: That what I mean is that when people share their stories and they share their hardships, that all of us will listen. We'll help carry the burden. And so, after writing in such a way, in which we release our feelings we take the-- something that happened chaotically in the past. Or it happened so subtly, that at the time, you hardly notice you're-- there's no time to think it over.
But later, 39 years later, putting it into words, slowly-- understanding one's own feelings, and understanding the point of view of others. And shaping what happened into a form and this form is a beautiful form. The form of a story, the form of a poem -- after immersing one's self in all of that, then there comes the understanding, recognition, reconciliation.
...
MAXINE HONG KINGSTON: Uh-huh-- Uh-huh And this healing happens when people are able to tell the truth. And when they are able to tell the truth, when they are able to find words, human words for human experience.
...
BILL MOYERS: What is it about the power of story to change the human psyche? Why do stories do that?
MAXINE HONG KINGSTON: I am trying to come up with a good answer. You know, I keep saying it's magic. Let's see whether I can say it in so many words. Story has a form that brings a certain order, you know, the shape of a finely made story has the same energy as sexual energy, or life energy. It's like the tide, you know, the tide that Sandy Scull wrote about. Of the ebbing and flowing of tide, and of storms. I think this goes through our bodies, it goes through our psyches. And the shape of story takes that same cyclical form. And we are in story, we are able to communicate with another being, another mind. And--
BILL MOYERS: Sometimes within ourselves, right?
MAXINE HONG KINGSTON: Yes, you communicate with yourself, yes.
BILL MOYERS: Well, some of these people-- you-- you-- when I read them, I think they're writing the story for themselves, although they wanted us to see. But it's primarily they're communicating some dead self, that is resurrected by this, what you say the force of sexual energy or psychic energy or the energy of the imagination?
MAXINE HONG KINGSTON: I know that they are writing for themselves but I always held it up as a standard of an ideal that the writer's job is to communicate. And, I tell them, "No diary writing", "No, private writing." These are public acts of communication. And you must tell the story so that you can give it to another person. That you can-- you-- and when you read it aloud, there's mouth to ear transmission. And, we are communicating. And, this way-- we make connections with others and, we also build the community around us. These soldiers come out of war alienated from everyone. They're alienated from their families, from our country, from themselves. And, this communication helps then build a community and a family around them.
Now...
I wonder how these thoughts contrast/relate to some of the findings that surround the concept of neuroplasticity. This is, the idea of our brains being able to re-shape the way they are wired, given the proper exercise/stimuli. For example, I am very interested on understanding how writing our story (or using Tarots to recreate our story) relates to the idea of implicit/procedural memories being "pacified" if they become explicit memories. In that regard, here are three quotes I find thought provoking:
Psychiatrist Norman Doidge says that: "we turn ghost into ancestors when we make our past experiences go from haunting memories to becoming simply part of our past."
and: "Psychotherapy works by going deep into the brain and its neurons, and changing their structure by turning on the right genes."
Psychiatrist/neuroscientist Eric Kandel's thoughts on how psychotherapy "presumably changes people through learning, by produce changes in gene expression that alter the anatomical pattern of connections between nerve cells of the brain."
and Susan Vaughan ("The Talking Cure") who says that: "a psychotherapist is a micro-surgeon of the mind, who helps patients to make the needed alterations in neuronal networks."
All of them think these structural changes are achieved by means of word alone, when in the process of therapy, an unconscious/repressed, memory/urge is brought into consciousness. What they describe in the above quotes is the process that occurs at a neuronal level as a result of that cognitive shift.
Obviously, my interest is to understand how much of this process overlaps what goes on in divination; and specially, if Tarot as an optical language could present advantages when it comes to making tangible/explicit an unconscious need, by means of symbols instead of words, in the act of having a person tell her story.
All these authors, and several others, propose psychotherapy as a neuroplastic therapy, and in wonder, could we see Tarot as a neuroplastic tool?
This day I have been re-reading Italo Calvino "The Castle of Crossed Destinies." For those of you who aren't familiar with it, the book is a compilation of short stories, but more important, it was a creative exercise Calvino impose on himself, about using Tarot cards to structure a set of tales. In the book, Calvino describes a group of strangers who meet at a tavern. They are so exhausted, and damaged by their experiences, that they can't find the right words to talk about them. Instead of that, they make use of a pack of tarots they find laying on a table to communicate with each other. The book shows you the cards forming rows, and the way Calvino used them to compose each story, giving extraordinaire insight on the cards meanings along the way (the insights of a poet of course!). But for me, the most attractive thing about this book is the idea of a group of people telling with the cards what they can't say with words.
Is not precisely the point?
Someone sits with us, mix the cards up, some cards are placed on the table, and we as readers "see" in these cards that person's story. The reading often consist on finding the right words to say aloud the story that is being expressed in symbols. This way, part of the story is "shaped into a form", and also a part of it is brought into conscious awareness.
As I said, I feel this is something that happens naturally when we look at the cards for other people; but sometimes I wonder if a more specific procedure could be designed.
"Here. Take this. Use the cards to tell me your story." Is this something we should say in silence, almost like a prayer to get into the reading mindset? or should we say this aloud? I wonder if that conscious gesture could have healing advantages over trusting silence and randomness.
Now, if the question must be formulated in an explicit way, the key would be precisely how to do so. What story are we talking about? A story that is very present at that moment, and they tend to express in the form of a question? A story that is pressing? urgent? Their whole story? Their family history? Should they illustrate a specific concern with the cards? should them show us their fathers, mothers, sisters, bosses, etc, with the cards?
So far I suspect that the best option is to leave this question open: "Here. Take this. Use the cards to tell me your story. Any story you feel like telling me. You don't have to use all the cards, you can even use only one. Do whatever feels right..." Then, after they have composed a visual tale over the table, we do like Calvino did in his book with his characters: we take over, finding words to say what they are telling us with images.
I have always intuitively felt that there is something “true” in Calvino’s approach to Tarot, even when such approach may even be seen as contrary to what we formally do in a reading.
All of this are scattered thoughts I have on my mind this days. I guess the main question remains: IF telling our story has healing qualities, could Tarot facilitate that process? And then, if the answer ends up being a rotund "yes!" I wonder about the ways to go further on facilitating that process.
I hope that any of this makes sense. But if it doesn’t, you can still enjoy Maxine Hong Kingston interview. Youwill find the entire transcription here: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05252007/transcript1.html and you can watch the interview in video, following the link here: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05252007/profile.html ).
Best,
Enrique Enriquez
It actually sounds like just what I've been looking for.