Nepenthe

Then Helen, daughter of Zeus, took other counsel.

Straightway she cast into the wine of which they were drinking, a drug to quiet all pain and strife, and bring forgetfulness of every ill.

Homer’s Odyssey mentions the drug of forgetfulness or nepenthe.

Like many in Greek literature and mythology, sorrow comprises much of my real life. But sorrow, like my muse, is needed by me to see that I must make a change. The medicine to make me comfortable with my sorrow is creating something from the depth of that sorrowful emotion, which will be new, it will have the potential to be a promise.

Out of the garden of chaos, new and exciting potentials grow; most become so involved with their distress that they miss the potential. Great changes for the better, start with a sigh, a whimper, and the determination to carry on to a better place.

The Source has made it so that all living things change and renew themselves. Everything is in the process of change and renewal, including things we do not consider to be living such as the Earth itself and the Universe, everything is living. The renewal begins with a small change, as in the smallest change in the DNA of the next new cell growing in my body. If I am uncomfortable with the process of change, nepenthe is a drug, a medicine to help me cope.

Rather than forget my sorrow, I use it as the foundation, the bedrock of the new potential, the new promise. Nepenthe used in this fashion is very restorative.