The Return of Yellow

In 1968, right after I graduated from college, I was maid of honor in my best friend’s wedding. I had a really pretty yellow dress for the rehearsal dinner (the less said the better about the dresses we attendants wore for the wedding). Then yellow disappeared. I cannot recall anything yellow I wore for 51 years after that event. The reason? None really though when I “had my colors done” sometime in the late 80s the woman told me I was a winter and that yellow was one of the colors that was not good on me. Or maybe I was afraid it would make me stand out too much – there is nothing subtle about bright yellow. Anyway a month or so ago I saw a bright yellow blouse and fell in love with it, the very blouse you see me wearing there on the right.

It has been as if yellow has returned from exile somewhere, from the Underworld maybe. I have had a big dream about daffodils. In contemplating something I want to knit, yellow was the only color that caught my eye. Looking at the DyeForYarn Etsy shop where I love to find yarn, this skein jumped into my basket and is on its way from Germany to me now –

Yellow of course is a color of spring and of egg yolks, both indicative of new life. Dandelions

There is another aspect of yellow — aging. Think about the yellowing of paper and linen as they age. And another — the yellow we attach to cowardice. Remember the song “Tie a Yellow Ribbon”? Yellow journalism. And there are many other associations one can make to yellow — like the short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilpin, which if you haven’t read, do follow the link where you will find a full text of the story. There are at least 2 film versions of it also.

I am more a writer and knitter than a painter, but even there yellow has stormed in and is demanding time from me. So off I go to sit at my painting table and see what yellow wants to say to me. I suspect it is about Persephone who in getting lost in the yellow of daffodils was abducted by Hades to the  Underworld.

Doors

“The doors to the self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”

Clarissa Pinkola Estés 

Are You Ready for a Journey?

“I thought I found an answer when I was older, meditation, yoga, channeling. A way of making use of a talent, a gift. And now it’s back worse than ever. No, not worse than ever, but it feels like that because I’ve been OK so long. It’s like unfinished business has come back to haunt me.” 

 “The gate that opens and closes can’t close.”

“Two years ago I began medication and it helped, not completely, but relief. Then the sleeplessness started and my doctor suggested I speak with you.” 

 “Are you ready for a therapy journey?” 

              Michael Eigen, Under the Totem: In Search of a Path.

 

So writes Eigen of his beginning work with a patient he calls Rose.

Are you ready for a therapy journey? I want to remember this question, hold it in mind for the next time I begin with someone new. Describing therapy as a journey isn’t unique to Eigen, but I don’t think we say it out loud all that often and not at the beginning.

People come to therapy looking for answers, for solutions to problems in their lives. In an era of “evidence based” medicine, they expect there to be some formula, some evidence based set of things they can do to make themselves feel better. They want assignments, suggestions, techniques — mindfulness, journal writing, drawing all of which are useful tools but do not carry magic. 

It is hard not to respond to this desire for a solution, a fix. Hard not to make suggestions, not to offer something to soothe the longing expressed for relief, for a partner, for happiness. We become therapists at least in part out of a desire to help.

But that kind of therapy is not what Eigen means when he asks his question. The therapy journey is a journey inward, with no predefined end point and often goes into unexpected territory. And on this journey, the therapist is more likely to ask questions than provide answers.

Are you ready for a therapy journey?