wash your spirit clean

The mountains were calling...



I was lucky enough to have spent the past two weeks hiking in Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks under cloudless blue skies with people I love. It would be impossible to put such magnificent beauty and grandeur into words, so I took hundreds of pictures. When I got home, though, I realized that none of the pictures really captured what I saw or communicated what I felt out there. You have to stand on a mountain top, or hike to the base of a waterfall, or look up at a Sequoia to appreciate what that feels like and how it can affect you.

 

"I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded

to stay out till sundown, for going out,

I found, was really going in."

~John Muir~

 

 



I imagine this is what it must feel like for patients when we ask them to describe their illness. How hard it must be for them to express what they feel. To help us understand what they are experiencing and how it affects them physically, psychologically, and emotionally. All of which we need to know in order to help them heal.

 

"Between every two pine trees

there is a door leading

to a new way of life."

~John Muir~

 

 

How does the patient describe the fear he feels when his doctor pronounces the word "cancer"? What does it feel like to survive a major stroke or heart attack? What sadness blankets a parent whose child is suffering?

 

The tests we order, and the x-rays and scans we review help us make the diagnosis but they don't reveal a thing about the patient's experience. Like my pictures, they don't capture the patient's feelings or reactions to his illness. To his treatment. To his sense of helplessness, or, God forbid, his sense of hopelessness.

 

"The clearest way

into the Universe is through

a forest wilderness."

~John Muir~

 

 

 

You have to climb the mountain to see the view. You need to hike in the woods to appreciate the trees. You have to wade in the river to enjoy the water.

 

What do you think it takes to understand a patient's illness? What does it take to heal? 

 

"Keep close to Nature's heart...

and break clear away once in a while,

and climb a mountain or

spend a week in the woods.

Wash your spirit clean."

~John Muir~

 

 jan