In the October e-newsletter*, we explore issues of sleep. We see a lot of people at Willow who say they can’t sleep—or conversely, sleep too much. People with depression typically describe falling asleep OK, at times with a sleeping pill, but then waking up at 2 or 3 in the morning, unable to go back to sleep right away. They might get into patterns of staying up, then sleeping during the day to try to catch up. People with anxiety talk about “racing thoughts” and an inability to quiet the mind enough to sleep; they also might wake in the middle of the night, sometimes in a sweaty panic. Both might have nightmares, some meaningful, some just odd.
When poets are sleepless, naturally, they write poems. In the e-newsletter, we introduce a wonderful little collection of “insomnia poems” entitled Acquainted with the Night. Collected by Lisa Russ Spaar, the poems range from Shakespeare to modern verse, and beautifully capture sleep’s seeming elusiveness and the different ways that people experience its absence—from frustration, loss, despair, fear, longing, isolation, betrayal, loneliness, numbing, exhaustion … to wonder, excitement, imagination, peace, even full awakeness to life and to the fertile space where the boundaries run thin between dream and reality, spirit and earth, life and death.
The editor writes, “Poets remind us that insomnia, in all its insufferable and fruitful manifestations, is an experience shared across temporal and cultural boundaries; it can make us more aware of our own sleeping places, our own lit windows, our own watching and the dark we watch against. And who better to speak of this complicated experience than the poets among us?”
Here are a couple of poems that caught my attention; perhaps they’d (and others in the book) be good company the next time you find yourself sleepless.
Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed
by William Shakespeare
Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired,
But then begins a journey in my head
To work my mind when body’s work’s expired;
For then my thoughts, from far where I abide,
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my dropping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see;
Save that my soul’s imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
Makes black night beauteous and her old
face new.
Lo, thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,
For thee and for myself no quiet find.
A Clear Midnight
by Walt Whitman
This is thy hour, O Soul, thy free flight into the
wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day
erased, the
lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing,
pondering the
themes thou lovest best,
Night, sleep, death and the stars.
* Sign up for the e-newsletter at www.willowwellness.com
