What would you put in this empty jar?
The art of reflecting with the medical students gave me hope on Inauguration Day
To feel and see hope
When it’s just too difficult
To feel and see hope
When we are tired to see
We find hope in community!—Mukta Panda
Our first regular time of rest and respite with the medical students in 2021 was scheduled for the afternoon of January 20th, Inauguration Day. This session is part of well-being curriculum (I call it the How to Live curriculum) developed to create a safe space for students to reflect and unpack their thoughts and emotions as they journey through their medical school. It offers an opportunity to give meaning and reconnect with their purpose in the medical profession. It is a time to recharge and recover, to build resilience in community. This is co-facilitated by me and my two colleagues and dear friends, Adera Causey, Curator of Education at the Hunter Museum of Arts Chattanooga and by Laurie Melnik Allen, the Lyndhurst Chair of Excellence and Executive Director, Arts Based Collaborative, UTC.
Given the significance of this Inauguration Day preceded by the recent events in our country, I reached out to Adera. I expressed my concern about whether we should take caution and postpone the session. As she assured me that all safety precautions were being taken and also affirmed my own belief that perhaps this group-reflection time would be the most needed time for us all. Selfishly, this felt a relief and reassurance; I needed this time too.
We gathered in our circle of trust, reaffirming and reconnecting with our shared touchstones that remind us of the sacredness of the space, of the invitation to be who we are, to show up with what we need in that time, to show up with the invitation to be held carefully and gently by each other in silence or if we so choose, with our voice to be respected, heard and spoken.
We sat in a circle facing a painting by Whitfield Lovell, Hope, 1999. As curator, Adera wrote this description: “Using old black and white photographs of anonymous sitters, Whitfield Lovell pays tribute to his African American ancestors. Lovell found a picture of the woman in this artwork at a flea market.”
As we looked at this beautiful painting, we invited the students to share aloud what they observed. Some students shared the delicacy of her face. Others called attention to the expression in her eyes voiced as hope, lost, confidence, conviction, sadness and purpose. Some commented on the beauty of her delicately embroidered shawl giving away perhaps a hint of affluence.
It did not escape our attention that here in the gallery, she was surrounded by more traditional portraits of white men and women, slave owners, clearly distinct in physical appearance and body language.
As “Hope” looked at us, she commanded a sense of respect that was spontaneous and authentic, a feeling of connection at the human level, one that tugged at my heart.
And then we turned our attention to the mason jars place on a wooden ledge in front of her. The jars are filled with items that had symbolic meaning for the artist. There were coins from 1968, a piece of fabric from his great-grandmother’s suitcase; red soil from a graveyard where his ancestors are buried; hair from the artist and his relatives; dried flowers; and rock salt. The final jar stood closed however empty!
I found my mind wandering back to that period of time, to the picture of a family surrounded by love, to the artist collecting the items with a purpose, to the stories that surrounded each item. As Adera shared the items and mentioned the year 1968, we were reminded of the significant events in our country then. It was the year Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated. I pictured the great-grandmother, perhaps the matriarch of the family leading her loved ones on a train for a new better life. What would she say today? What wisdom would she share?
I halted my inner journey and turned to share with the students our gentle invitation to reflect on these questions, however each felt called to do:
What would you put in the empty jar?
What is your hope for the new era, new season in your life, or the nation and world in this time of transition?
We all sat in silence, occupied with our thoughts (we all participate together). My mind kept oscillating between the 1960’s and 2020-2021.
I had had a busy day precepting in the outpatient setting. I knew that I was not going to be able to watch any of the inauguration events, although I had already heard Amanda Gorman’s interview on NPR and had read excerpts of her poem she was going to recite at the ceremony. As I reflected on what I would put in the jar, I wondered how the lady in the painting or the artist’s great-grandmother would respond to Amanda Gorman’s invitation—to be brave enough to see the light and be brave enough to be the light? How would they define being brave, what light would they refer to? What could I learn from them?
I could not decide on any one thing that I would put in the jar. I knew I did not want to close the jar. I knew I needed the past, present and hope for the future to be present. I kept coming back to these words: faith, courage, human dignity, human kindness. I reflected and scribbled these words around a sketch of a candle flame. Then I realized it was time to unpack our thoughts in our shared community circle.
The shared learning that emerged was beautiful, insightful, thought-provoking and provided strength, courage and hope. I paraphrase what my students would put in that empty jar:
A watch to remind that time is fleeting and all things come to the end. A reminder that life is best spent in the moment, not in the future or the past.
Peace and understanding in the jar.
Voting stickers with the hope that all those empowered to use their voices in one of the darkest times in their life would continue to do so and be heard.
The insecurities and inequality; preserving human decency, the American democracy and dream.
A book or a piece of wood representing stability and world peace.
Finally, someone said they would leave the jar empty, keeping it open for the future as a sign of faith in constant change and belief in progress.
As I listened in silence, I felt my heart fill up with such warmth and gratitude. I could feel a sense of belonging to this community of young students who have so much wisdom, courage, foresight and such hope to carry on what is right and what gives meaning.
I stared at the empty jar for a long time and imagined it filled with the different things shared. I felt smile on my face, warmth in my heart, and filled with hope.
I continue to carry the invitation to reflect as a ritual for myself and with my community of relationships as to what would I put in the empty jar. What do I need to do to make it happen?
#REFLECT: What would YOU put in the empty jar?
Online Retreat Coming in March
Reframing Resilience, Renewing Leadership: An Online Retreat for Weaving Joy and Meaning with Courage. Reclaim joy and meaning with courage, exploring in a Circle of Trust® how to weave your life’s threads into life and work as 2021 unfolds. A few spots are still open for the weekend option, March 5-6. You can also sign up for a four-week series on Thursday evenings that begins Thursday, March 18. Learn more and register here.
As we enter 2021, how will you tend to self-care, community and resilience? I will continue posting reflections on these themes and invite you to join in the conversation here or on Twitter or Instagram with your thoughts or what you are doing for self-care and care of others. My book explores such ideas too: Resilient Threads: Weaving Joy and Meaning into Well-Being.
This post is the perfect one to start the new year. I did watch the live broadcast of Presidential inauguration, including the meaningful recitation of the young poet, which marked the new phase that may affect the life of many Americans.
Looking at the picture of the post for the first time, the simple, innocent and indigenous looks of the woman in the painting as well as the incongruity of the jars and their contents was obvious. I did not appreciate that a jar was empty.
When I read the whole text of the post, I looked again and tried to explain the meaning of empty jar. My thoughts started running as usual, in philosophical and spiritual directions.
I recalled an episode in my life more than six decades ago. I had organized an art exhibition for the annual day celebrations of my medical college in 1958. One of my colleagues wanted to exhibit a painting and when he asked me for the theme, I left it for his own judgement. Next day his painting won the first prize. When all other exhibiters have painted something, this colleague of mine had painted just, ‘nothing’. It was a blank clean sheet of white paper signed in one corner and duly framed. It is the caption that captured the imagination of everybody, it simply said, ‘the soul’. Looking back now, I can decipher the message, that there is always a place for the apparent yet unseen ‘void’ everywhere, in time and space. In life too, the importance of nothing, leaving once in a while, the canvas of mind and body, clean, pure, unetched, and serene, cannot be underestimated. Perhaps that is the purpose of meditation, and even the definition of salvation, when mind is withdrawn from everything, just leaving the void which can be filled with the ecstasy of enlightenment, the brilliance of the supreme knowledge.
Coming to think of it, even The Creator has emphasized the importance of void. The creation confirms the concept of absolute versus relativity. If some-thing has been created, no-thing too must exist. The universe therefore has plenty of void, unknown, antimatter, dark matter, whatever scientists call it. The importance of known can only be appreciated in the background of unknown.
There is another dimension of the empty jar in the painting. It conforms the continuity. It shows that the destination or the end point is yet to be reached. There can never be an end to anything, there would always be something beyond to look for, to hope for, to live for. The void, the space, the empty jar indicates that living problems perhaps are better than the dead certainty.
Indian philosophy of the path of devotion too confirms the importance of journey more than that of reaching the destination. While the path of devotion makes you keep looking at, and thinking of, the Supreme Power, the path of knowledge leads to merging your identity with The Supreme. While later is The End, leaving no more empty jars, the former is The Path holding empty jars to fill with the knowledge and beauty of creation.
In many ancient cultures, it was a tradition to always leave one place unoccupied during feasts, one fully served plate set aside, for the ancestral souls, or as an offering for the unseen but omnipresent Supreme.
The emptiness, the void, the Shoonya, the concept of Zero or nothingness is perhaps the greatest gift of Indian culture to the world.
To answer the prompt for the reflection therefore, I would prefer to leave the last jar empty, that will give me the hope, the impetus, and the purpose in life, that of attempting to fill it with selective good thoughts and deeds, with positivity and joy.