Category Archives: Mind

Maya Angelou: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”

Mind, Mother, Thought, ,

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings dwn Aug 15, 2015 519putcu+lL._SX330_BO1,204,203,200_  This image from Amazon is the cover of this book by Maya Angelou.  It is a very vivid memoir of her childhood, detailed in its sensory descriptions.

Here is an example of her writing, where she is describing her angry brother leaving her mother and her at about age of sixteen.  The following is a set of quotes by her brother, and her thoughts in the situation, a good illustration of what I think of as mind points in motion.  ( As I imagine, in keeping with the synapses firing at the moment.)

“She wants me out, does she?  Well, I’ll get out of here so fast I’ll leave the air on fire.  She calls herself a mother? Huh!  I’ll be damned.  She’s seen the last of me.  I can make it.  I’ll always make it.”

At some point he noticed me still in the doorway, and his consciousness stretched to remember our relationship.

“Maya, if you want to leave now, come on.  I’ll take care of you.”

He didn’t wait for an answer, but as quickly went back to speaking to his soul.

I love this description of (a young) person,  reach out and grab his relationship with his sister, (then about age 14).  Then the young man’s consciousness included and invited her, and went back to its internal reflections, “speaking to his soul”.

As this issue resolved, the young man’s mind points aligned, and he went confidently off to become a porter on a train.

 

 

Grief Revisited

Brain, Feeling, Health, Mind, Words,

DSC03768 Dr. Victor Sierpina is one of the excellent columnists of the Galveston County Daily News.    His description of the grief process, based in part on Good Grief by Granger Westfield, goes beyond a shorter list of stages.   The first four stages, shock, discussed in his first  column on this subject, are:

  • Shock
  • Emotional pain
  • Depression and loneliness,
  • Physical distress

DSC03769

The next six include the possibility of :

  1.  Panic
  2. Guilt
  3. Anger
  4. Resistance to life without the lost person
  5. Gradually becoming hopeful again
  6. Struggle to affirm reality

This was illuminating to me as I come upon the 50th anniversary of my mother’s death.    I consider all that pertains to her to be in a special set of connections in my brain.   It took me at least three and a half decades to not break into tears when I mentioned her, or somebody else mentioned her to me, even though I did not feel sad in general, and would quickly recover my composure.

 

 

Brain, The Complete Mind by Michael S Sweeney

Books, Brain, Mind, Personal Qualities, , , ,

A National Geographic Book. DSC03644 This book, Brain, The Complete Mind, How It Develops, How It Works, and How To Keep It Sharp, by Michael S Sweeney, covers some of the new neuroscience discoveries, and includes, among much more information, the following. DSC03645 It describes some of the major neurotransmitters.  According to an online search of “How many neurotransmitters are there?”  there may be from at least 60 to over 110 neurotransmitters. DSC03646  On this page we learn something about how Helen Keller managed, and the thoughts of St. Thomas Aquinas on aspects of the working mind. DSC03647 Scattered throughout the book are these sections on “Staying Sharp”.  This book has many other helpful features. DSC03648 Near this sections is one describing how people think, in order to, for example, follow a recipe. DSC03649 This page describes how nuns age. DSC03650  This nicely illustrated book does indeed give “you greater insight into how your mind operates and how you can keep it sharp”.