In a week marked by both extreme heat and devastating rainfall across the globe, it seems to me a good Sunday to write about comfort. Not the kind of comfort that promotes complacency, but the comfort that allows self care and gives space for emotional stability. Soothing comfort aids resiliency and strengthens our capacity for positive action in a changing world. What or who brings you comfort?
Learning to self soothe begins when we are babies and continues as we encounter more and more of life's complexities. But an important part of self-soothing is being aware of our external comforts, as well as our inner ways of easing the stress of life. Environment is an aspect of this and environmental research shows that in general, both subjective and biological factors shape our comfort. Our sense of comfort, for example in heat exposure, involves our biologic response to temperature, as well as our personal psychological perspective on what is comfortable. With extreme heat, the physiologic takes over and psychologically we need to be aware of and accept the body's limits. This is why local public health departments strive to educate and warn citizens about extreme temperature changes. It is not just our ideas that contribute to stressors. Each human body has parameters that form consistent, scientifically measurable, collective responses. But our minds add flavor and meaning to that and can modulate, if not regulate, the overall impact. Taking comfort is not a superficial fix; it is an aspect of healing and repair.
Religious scholar Evelyn Underhill wrote, “We mostly spend [our lives] conjugating three verbs: to Want, to Have, and to Do. Craving, clutching, and fussing, on the material, political, social, emotional, intellectual—even on the religious—plane, we are kept in perpetual unrest: forgetting that none of these verbs have any ultimate significance, except so far as they are transcended by and included in, the fundamental verb, to Be: and that Being—not wanting, having, and doing—is the essence of a spiritual life.” What brings comfort to our sense of Being? In Buddhism, the root of suffering is the demand for permanence; comfort comes through the understanding that life is change. It may seem strange to see comfort in impermanence, but whatever may be the situation that disturbs you, "this too shall pass." Hinduism as a complex religious culture with the concepts of karma and maya (the veil that creates illusion, obscuring the real), through multiple deaths and rebirths, offers the comfort of a larger life in the trials of any given lifetime. Islam, Judaism and Christianity offer in different forms, assurances of God's Grace. In all religions, or in our personal practice, ritual, prayer and community offer spiritual comfort.
Yet, there is also the unique Being and personal experience of each of us. As I write, I hear a bird faintly through closed windows. The sound is incredibly sweet. It reminds me despite the frightening heat and storms, there is a sweetness to Nature. The grand myth of Noah's arc and the flood comes to mind. The dove returns, the waters recede, and the rainbow appears as God's promise..."while the earth remains, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." So I have moved from my insulated typing to a faint recognition of beauty as birdsong, and the unspoken mystery behind the world of nature; from individual comfort to an archetypal image of dove and rainbow, with deepening assurance, that although everything changes, and human beings are far from perfect, life is resilient, and from my perspective, beneficent.
Let this day lead you to a new awareness of what brings you comfort and eases your way.
For poetic play on comfort: https://wordsfortheyear.com/.../oatmeal-by-galway-kinnell/ and https://allpoetry.com/Ode-to-My-Socks