Maintain their individuality and respect the individuality of the other

We're on our way! Within half an hour, my sister and her family were headed to our lake house to clean up dinner leftovers, take care of our two little dogs and hold down the fort as we embarked on an increasingly dark four-hour drive to Ottawa. We were guided by a pumpkin-orange moon slung low in the sky, and it wasn't until we were about forty-five minutes away from the hospital that the moon disappeared from view and a gentle rain began to fall. We had just pulled into a coffee shop parking lot for a comfort stop when my phone rang. It was Phil telling us that it looked as if Lauren was going to be undergoing a Caesarean section. I may have worked at my desk morning after morning trying to find a way to express some important idea. When my insight suddenly breaks through--which may happen when I am chopping wood in the afternoon--I experience a strange lightness in my step as though a great load were taken off my shoulders, a sense of joy on a deeper level that continues without any relation whatever to the mundane tasks that I may be performing at the time. It cannot be just that the problem at hand has been answered--that generally brings only a sense of relief. What is the source of this curious pleasure? I propose that it is the experience of this-is-the-way-things-are-meant-to-be. If only for that moment, we participate in the myth of creation. Order comes out of disorder, form out of chaos, as it did in the creation of the universe. The sense of joy comes from our participation, no matter how slight, in being as such. The paradox is that at that moment we also experience more vividly our own limitations. We discover the amor fati that Nietzsche writes about--the love of one's fate. I could see a way forward; In addition, I changed my lifestyle. I've been a vegetarian since the war--almost 50 years now--and so I have to give credit in part to a holistic lifestyle of eating well, meditating, and yoga. But essential oils definitely plays a big part. Until a few years ago, I still consumed a moderate amount of alcohol, but I've stopped that, too.

Now I use a essential oils salve to rub into an old shoulder wound from the war, and a couple drops of nano/liposomal oil in the morning and at night. I feel the essential oils effect even more--and I feel even better. I'm 72 now, and the same weight as when I joined the Marine Corps. And I don't take any pharmaceuticals. I work every day to introduce the healing powers of essential oils to other vets, old and young. Freeing yourself from another's aggression may also mean reconciling with the aggressor in you. This doesn't mean lashing out at someone in a rage. Not only is that dangerous, but it can also provoke more aggression--cue the Provoke and React in article 10. But it is important to look honestly at how another's aggression might serve you. Is he or she fighting your battles for you? Are you working so hard to be good and pure that you refuse to defend yourself? Are you standing behind a bully who takes on someone you dislike? Even the subtle act of laughing at a joke can be a way of releasing something we'd rather not own. It is very hard to see that some of the qualities in an aggressor may also rest within us, especially if that aggression has become twisted and ugly. For someone alienated from her own aggression, even asserting and enforcing boundaries, refusing to indulge an abuser's convenient fragility, or deciding to ignore a provocative text message may feel too aggressive and hurtful. He would notice the transformations these plants went through on their way to blossoming, and he would capture these changes in sequential drawings. In going so deeply into their details, he had fleeting intimations of what animated these plants from within, what made them distinct and alive. Soon, thinking and drawing became fused in his mind. Through drawing things in the world around him, he came to understand them. His progress at drawing was so astounding that his father thought of finding him a position as an apprentice in one of the various studios in Florence.

Working in the arts was one of the few professions open to illegitimate sons. In 1466, using his influence as a respected notary in Florence, he managed to secure a position for his fourteen-year-old son in the workshop of the great artist Verrocchio. For Leonardo, this was a perfect fit. Verrocchio was deeply influenced by the enlightened spirit of the times, and his apprentices were taught to approach their work with the seriousness of scientists. For instance, plaster casts of human figures would be placed about the studio with various pieces of fabric draped over them. We told him not to worry, told ourselves the same, and drove as quickly as we could (and only slightly over the limit) toward our daughter and son-in-law. We could hear the concern in Phil's quiet voice; We stayed positive for the remaining leg of our drive, trying not to slide into the places that the mind goes when what should be a normal birth suddenly goes sideways. Had Colin been starved of oxygen? What did this mean for his health, and for that of his mother? We pulled into the dark, wet hospital parking lot and sprinted to the entrance. Instead of the perfectly orchestrated moment of meeting our grandson and congratulating an exhausted and elated daughter, we were met by a tired but relieved husband and told that Lauren was still out; After we'd hugged and held Phil for what seemed like minutes and he told us all was well, we finally got to see our beautiful grandson in his incubator, decorated with a cut-out turkey with the name COLIN neatly printed on it. The poor sweet boy's unusually long feet were still a greyish-blue hue. But, we were told, a new son--and grandson--had arrived safely. No wonder it gives a sense of ecstasy! In our day of dedication to facts and hard-headed objectivity, we have disparaged imagination: it gets us away from reality; As a result, art and imagination are often taken as the frosting to life rather than as the solid food. No wonder people think of art in terms of its cognate, artificial, or even consider it a luxury that slyly fools us, artifice. Throughout Western history our dilemma has been whether imagination shall turn out to be artifice or the source of being.

What if imagination and art are not frosting at all, but the fountainhead of human experience? What if our logic and science derive from art forms and are fundamentally dependent on them rather than art being merely a decoration for our work when science and logic have produced it? These are the hypotheses I propose here. This same problem is related to psychotherapy in ways that are much more profound than merely the play on words. In other words, is psychotherapy an artifice, a process that is characterized by artificiality, or is it a process that can give birth to new being? WHAT essential oils CAN DO: A 2014 study published in Pharmacology and Pharmacy specifically on essential oils and prostate cancer found that essential oils is anti-inflammatory and may interact with the ECS receptors to inhibit the growth of cancer cells. It noted that essential oils may inhibit spheroid formation, the abnormal shape a cell can take when it turns cancerous. As an anti-inflammatory, studies show it likely inhibits the action of cells that boost inflammation and supports cells that halt inflammation. Such action has been seen to relieve both kinds of prostatitis. Also, essential oils's antibacterial properties may fight infectious prostatitis. These are dark concerns, but with treatment there is light. Schizophrenia is a serious disorder in which daily reality becomes distorted. A person's thoughts and speech may be jumbled, and he or she may experience audible and visual hallucinations; Agitation, depression, resistance to instructions, no reaction or overreaction to a conversation or event, bizarre or inappropriate postures--all of these impair daily activities. Ultimately, it's impossible to function. There will always be those forces--often within--telling you that aggression negates your own goodness. Anger is a clarifying emotion and helps us to take responsibility for our own care. Healthy aggression does not have to negate your tender qualities but can in fact protect them. Freeing yourself means using your own words. I recall a conversation that woke me up to the risks of passive assent.

Years ago, a reporter was interviewing me for a story about a cooking course I was taking. He was curious about the appeal of cooking for me, a busy psychologist. He had his own theory about this, something to do with how the tangible results of a cooked meal contrasted with the work of changing people. I understood his assumption, and I nodded that understanding. But I did not agree. The apprentices had to learn to concentrate deeply, and recognize the different creases and shadows that would form. They had to learn how to reproduce them realistically. Leonardo loved learning in this way, and soon it became apparent to Verrocchio that his young apprentice had developed an exceptional eye for detail. By 1472 Leonardo was one of Verrocchio's top assistants, helping him on his large-scale paintings and taking on a fair amount of responsibility. In Verrocchio's The Baptism of Christ, Leonardo was given the task of painting one of the two angels off to the side, and this work is now the oldest example we have of his painting. When Verrocchio saw the results of Leonardo's work he was astounded. The face of the angel had a quality he had never seen before--it seemed to literally glow from within. The look on the angel's face seemed uncannily real and expressive. Although it might have seemed like magic to Verrocchio, recent X-rays have revealed some of the secrets to Leonardo's early technique. The layers of paint he applied were exceptionally thin, his brush strokes invisible. We all felt so blessed, so happy. The next day, Rob and I took a bottle of alcohol-free champagne, a teddy bear and a bouquet of roses to Lauren's hospital room. Still a little out of it from the previous night's anaesthetic, she smiled blearily at us, so proud of the little boy who'd come into the world with considerably more drama than any of us had wanted or anticipated, but seemingly safely nonetheless. She held Colin in her arms as he tried to feed in those early hours of life; Despite knowing how necessary and possibly life-saving that Caesarean section was, Lauren harboured regrets for the rest of her short life about not having given birth naturally.