| The fact that there is a greater incidence today of | | | | beneath this tree catching the leaves that float by - |
| Alzheimer's disease than in previous centuries has not | | | | the wisps of thought that float through the inner |
| gone unnoticed by some observers who seek to | | | | landscape. The fragmentation that occurs does so |
| account for its increased presence among the aging, | | | | because in the time in which these mental and |
| one that occurs at great personal cost and with | | | | imaginative fragments were created, the need arose |
| grave consequences for families and loved ones. The | | | | to keep them hidden in order to create barriers of |
| primary cost of Alzheimer's disease lies in the loss of | | | | reason and logic around the functioning of the |
| 'presentness' it brings to the one so afflicted - an | | | | effective personality. And so they remained part of a |
| increasing absence of the known and familiar self | | | | floating and unstable world of inner possibility. And |
| from awareness, reflection, and memory, and an | | | | not just a world of possibility, but a world of |
| increased departure of the interactive self from | | | | fragmented possibility. For among the central |
| relationships that have been significant in the past. | | | | features of Alzheimer's are the strangeness of its |
| Indeed, the loss of presentness that comes with | | | | thought patterns and the sudden changeability of |
| Alzheimer's disease is so great, and the sadness it | | | | their focus. Both features are present in many with |
| brings to those who feel they are losing a dear | | | | Alzheimer's, and both serve the purpose of |
| parent, friend, or partner so pervasive, that it is | | | | dismantling the rational element of functioning in order |
| important to try to find a spiritual meaning and | | | | that the emotional and imaginative elements be given |
| purpose for the sequence of deterioration that | | | | freer reign. Despite the great loss of outer |
| seems to strip one down to the bare bones of | | | | functioning that Alzheimer's brings, one may say that |
| humanity, with sometimes even that being in | | | | within the secret inner world a transformation is |
| question due to the deterioration of physical as well | | | | taking place. Where mental functioning may have |
| as mental and emotional functioning. All that is known | | | | been a priority before, now the functioning of a child |
| about Alzheimer's today has given us some hope for | | | | begins to appear. Where judgment and critical analysis |
| modifying the disastrous effect of its course and for | | | | may have been valued heavily, now innocence begins |
| making the passage gentler, with less distress to | | | | to be given space and room in which to breathe. And |
| those who remain in loving relationship with the one | | | | where unrelatedness to the spiritual world may have |
| who is ill. Yet, these modifications are far from | | | | been present, now the absence of self-definition |
| offering an understanding of what spiritual good | | | | creates a greater sense of oneness with life and a |
| might come from such an illness - what gain to the | | | | kind of innocent spirituality which accepts all that is. |
| soul might equal the significant loss of the familiar self | | | | And what of those for whom Alzheimer's brings |
| which the disorder creates. The truth of the matter | | | | anger, irritability, and extreme outbursts of rage? |
| is that the spiritual world in which Alzheimer's plays a | | | | These, too, are fragments or aspects of self that |
| significant role is a very different world than what | | | | have been previously dormant. In their manifestation, |
| appears on the outside. It is a world in which the play | | | | they offer the opportunity of being experienced by |
| of imagination takes precedence over the function of | | | | the inner witness. As upsetting as these outbursts |
| rationality, and in which the mind becomes the | | | | often are, they nevertheless produce a kind of |
| playground of random thoughts, inner events, and | | | | self-confrontation with aspects of consciousness that |
| memories. These inner movements arise from various | | | | have previously been restricted from awareness. For |
| places - some from bits and pieces of the past; | | | | those who seek to understand the greater spiritual |
| some from wishes that have never been expressed; | | | | good that comes from a situation whose external |
| and some from a place that can only be called the | | | | features appear to involve great loss, limitation, or |
| dream-self - the self that the unconscious mind | | | | hardship, it may be said that accompanying the loss |
| projects upon the physical plane in order to bring | | | | of mental functioning which Alzheimer's brings is a |
| something that has been hidden into the light of day. | | | | reorganization of the basic personality structure so |
| Because of the fragmentation of the images, | | | | that a new birth can take place - one that will have |
| thoughts, and emotions, as well as the uncertainty | | | | positive consequences for the soul in their future |
| concerning their validity, the outside observer can | | | | development and evolution. This new birth does not |
| generally never really tell what is real and true and | | | | come without a price. And yet it comes because of |
| what is fantasy about what is being communicated | | | | the soul's deep wish for healing and wholeness and |
| by someone with Alzheimer's disease. What the | | | | for a bringing together of the fragments of self into |
| outsider witnesses is a unique world, a world of one, | | | | a new configuration. For those who must stand and |
| and others, often to their great sorrow, feel that | | | | watch the progressive deterioration of the |
| they are locked out of it. Here, in the center of this | | | | personality of a loved one, there is a need to be |
| very private world is a great garden of spiritual | | | | gentle with oneself, for many feelings are possible |
| flowers - not flowers of reason or of clear thinking, | | | | and are evoked by this situation. Yet it is important |
| but flowers of impulse and imagination, flowers of | | | | to note that in the midst of sorrow and of |
| emotion that were never given exposure during | | | | progressive loss, there can also be a view of the |
| childhood, during dreams, or during other lifetimes. | | | | emerging new self that is being born. If the eyes of |
| These now wait to be experienced and expressed. | | | | the heart can be focused not only on the pain of loss |
| Because the rational element of communication is | | | | or on the difficulties of care, but also on the |
| largely absent, the imaginings and voices of the | | | | unfoldment of the new, it may be that the inner |
| unexpressed self are revealed mysteriously, without | | | | Tree of Life can be seen under which the loved one |
| any seeming meaning or coherence. And yet in the | | | | sits, gathering the leaves and petals of their own |
| midst of the absence of coherence, a great tree is | | | | imaginative process in order to meld them together |
| being given shape. Beneath its branches are the | | | | into a new fabric of wholeness at some future date. |
| flowers, leaves, and seeds of the collective past of | | | | Julie Redstone is a teacher, writer, and founder of |
| the person who is witnessing them. They are the | | | | Light Omega, a center for spiritual teaching and |
| particles and parts of the unrealized self, the rejected | | | | healing in Massachusetts. The purpose of Light |
| self, the wished for self, the hoped for self, that are | | | | Omega is to create an understanding of the earth's |
| being gathered up in an apron in order to be looked | | | | sacred transition into light and the changes this will |
| at and evaluated imaginatively by the one who sits | | | | bring. |