The Frozen Crystalline State of Ambiguity
Nina Pariser (MA, BFA, BA)
Montreal, QC
Nina Pariser is an art therapist in Montreal, with 18 years prior experience teaching art and high school english in classroom and community settings. Her work includes facilitating community eco-art programming, coordinating an art hive and facilitating group art therapy for a school board.
“Nobody knows how, when and where life began. Moreover, although many authorities have attempted to define it, it has become progressively more and more difficult in recent years to know exactly what we mean by “life.” No one would deny that a dog or a tree is vastly more complicated than a stone or a nail; no one would regard a crystal as alive or a bacteria cell as dead. But it has become necessary to think again about these things, and think more clearly...”
(Ernest Baldwin, 1937)
“[A] new phase of interest began with a rather startling discovery that certain plant viruses can be isolated in crystalline form (...). These substances thus seem to bridge the gap between the living and non-living worlds.”
(Ernest Baldwin, 1937)
I did my final year of training as an art therapist during the COVID-19 pandemic. While I was completing my final research for the art therapy program at Concordia University, I engaged with rituals and art practices that helped me to connect to my grandparents’ ways of creating meaning during their own difficult times. This heuristic research connected both to Perel’s idea of creativity as an antidote to spiritual death (Perel, 2006) and to Duke’s concept of the “intergenerational self” (Fivush, Bohanck, & Duke, 2008).
“The boat he was originally supposed to be on to go to the camp had been torpedoed. He had no way of contacting his family to let them know he was still alive.”
Throughout the end of my program, I had often thought of my grandfather. He had been a prisoner in a work camp for a full year, during which he not only endurebd dangerous living conditions, but his family had also thought he was dead. The boat he was originally supposed to be on to go to the camp had been torpedoed. He had no way of contacting his family to let them know he was still alive. He had immersed himself in the biochemistry textbook that he had managed to bring with him to the camp: “An Introduction to Comparative Biochemistry” by Ernest Baldwin, first published in 1937. The quotes cited above were from the first chapter of this textbook. While existing in this limbo state between life and death, with only a few things keeping him engaged and curious about the world, he read about plant viruses that live in exactly this paradoxical state: neither dead nor alive (Lederman, 2012; Baldwin, 1937).
This frozen crystalline state of ambiguity also brings up the idea of “ambiguous loss,” a term coined by Pauline Boss (1991) to describe the ambiguous space between life and death that can feel so uncomfortable for us. The term “ambiguous loss” was originally used to describe the feeling of grief from the indefinite absence of a loved one, physically (such as in a kidnapping) or mentally (such as someone suffering from Dementia). The term has now been used to describe the grief associated with all the losses we experience due to the pandemic as well (Boss, 1991).
So many of us want closure – to feel something definite and conclusive, to see a sharp distinction between what is and what is not. In 1937, scientists like Ernest Baldwin reviewed their definitions of what life was. They decided that the definition of “life” needed to be further explored, as they could not categorize this liminal space where things that are alive can crystalize and defy conventional definitions. Many traditional cultural practices and healing rituals engage with and honour this space. Yet, it is still not a space we often consider from a Western scientific or day-to-day perspective.
“They decided that the definition of “life” needed to be further explored, as they could not categorize this liminal space where things that are alive can crystalize and defy conventional definitions.”
In reflecting on how my grandfather coped with his surroundings, I thought of polyvagal theorist Dana (2018), who states that when we feel overwhelmed with emotion, we can numb ourselves to the world – but we can also become curious as an antidote to the disconnection we feel. One aim of polyvagal theory can be to gain the flexibility to continually reorient ourselves towards connection and curiosity, so often found in nature and creativity. Much research supports eco-therapy and eco-art therapy practices both prior to and during the pandemic, and the links between creativity and “aliveness” that we find through curiosity and engaging with the natural environment. For instance, “attention restoration theory” (Kaplan, 1995; Kaplan & Berman, 2010) explains that being in an environment that contains “soft fascination” helps people recover from mental fatigue. Nature is filled with the element of “soft fascination” where we can be attracted to different elements of the space, effortlessly and gently. Kuo (2001) also supports this, stating that nature exposure facilitates self-regulatory restoration.
We might find some solace and self-regulation then by noticing the natural world and being curious about its cycles and gently shifting patterns. I imagine that my grandfather memorized the entire biochemistry textbook as a way of distracting himself from his immediate surroundings. At the same time, the very nature of the book brought him closer to another level of reality that existed simultaneously to the dangers and anxieties of the workcamp. It brought him closer to the larger picture of the environment he was in: helped him notice the flickering activity of bugs, the glow of sun through leaves, the geometric shape of spiderwebs, and the dramatic arc of weather patterns. I imagine that the point of noticing both the dangers and the beauty in the world is not to ignore one side at the cost of the other, but to see both.
“Learning to live with ambiguous loss could be thought of as learning to live with this polarity: not obsessing over the grief, but also not ignoring or trying to push it away.”
We are often geared towards throwing ourselves into one side of an ambiguous state to push away the part we feel we feel incapable of interacting with. Still, if we can hold both states simultaneously, it feels like an honest way of experiencing this time filled with ambiguous loss and grief. As we live with so much uncertainty: the sun still rises, the birds sing, the snow still falls.
More recently I wonder about what we release and make space for when we accept the crystalline state of ambiguous loss, much like the plant virus. Learning to live with ambiguous loss could be thought of as learning to live with this polarity: not obsessing over the grief, but also not ignoring or trying to push it away. Noticing life and being curious about the world and our part in it, because our psychological tools for self-regulation can only take us so far if we ignore our interdependence (Poulin, 2021).
“How can we define life in a new way? One that even encompasses the space of ambiguous loss: the frozen trees, the crystalline cells, and know that all these things could simultaneously unfurl, thaw and bloom in their own time?”
It reminds me of the feeling I often get in the winter: staring out my window at a tree across the street, willing it to grow leaves. It is not logical. What good would it do to see a deciduous tree grow leaves in the middle of winter? The leaves will freeze and fall off within minutes. Still, there is something so uncomfortable and frustrating about seeing the street in this dormant state for almost six months out of the year. We forget about the knowledge that exists when we go dormant, when we allow ourselves to exist in liminality. The leaves are still there, they are just below the surface of the branch.
We can think of life only as the experience of growing, moving, blooming – direct and clearly alive. It is easy to forget how limbo states are normal and even necessary states of being throughout our lifetimes. So many natural cycles involve states that defy our understanding of existence, and yet they are integral parts of our experience.
Ernest Baldwin said, “nobody knows how, when and where life began.” And yet the question I find myself asking at this time is how and when can life continue? How can we define life in a new way? One that even encompasses the space of ambiguous loss: the frozen trees, the crystalline cells, and know that all these things could simultaneously unfurl, thaw and bloom in their own time? I pause my laser stare at the bare branches and notice how the snow coats each branch like a soft blanket.
I look at nature the way I look at nature, but also in dialogue with how my grandfather looked at it. By some definitions my grandfather died when he was 20 years old, but also when he was 98– but I was also just talking to him as I wrote this. There is no need for a new definition, we are all just discovering how to hold all the different parts of what living can mean, all together at the same time.
References
Allen, P. B. (2005). Art is a way of knowing: A guide to self-knowledge and spiritual fulfillment through creativity. Shambhala.
Baldin, E. (1937). An Introduction to comparative biochemistry. Cambridge University Press.
Boss, P. (1991). Ambiguous loss. In F. Walsh & M. McGoldrick (Eds.), Living beyond loss: Death in the family (pp. 164–175). W.W. Norton & Company.
Dana, D. (2018). The polyvagal theory in therapy: Engaging the rhythm of regulation. W.W. Norton & Company.
Fivush, R., Bohanek, J. G., & Duke, M. (2008). The intergenerational self: Subjective perspective and family history. In F. Sani (Ed.), Self continuity: Individual and collective perspectives (pp. 131–143). Psychology Press.
Kaplan, S. (1995). The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 15(3), 169–182.
Kaplan, S., & Berman, M. G. (2010). Directed attention as a common resource for executive functioning and self-regulation. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5(1), 43–57.
Kuo, F. E. (2001, January 1). Coping with poverty: Impacts of environment and attention in the inner city. Environment and Behaviour, 33(1), 5–34.
Lederman, M. (2012, July 14). The friends Canada insisted were foes. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved January 20, 2022, from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/the-friends-canada-insisted-were-foes/article4416458/
Perel, E. (2006). Mating in captivity: Unlocking erotic intelligence. HarperCollins.
Poulin, M., Ministero, L., Gabriel, S., Morrison, C., & Naidu, E. (2021). Minding your own business? Mindfulness decreases prosocial behavior for those with independent self-construals. Psychological Science (32)11, 1699-1708.