All throughout these months as the shadows have lengthened, this blessing has been gathering itself, making ready, preparing for this night.
It has practiced walking in the dark, traveling with its eyes closed, feeling its way by memory by touch by the pull of the moon even as it wanes.
So believe me when I tell you this blessing will reach you even if you have not light enough to read it; it will find you even though you cannot see it coming.
You will know the moment of its arriving by your release of the breath you have held so long; a loosening of the clenching in your hands, of the clutch around your heart; a thinning of the darkness that had drawn itself around you.
This blessing does not mean to take the night away but it knows its hidden roads, knows the resting spots along the path, knows what it means to travel in the company of a friend.
So when this blessing comes, take its hand. Get up. Set out on the road you cannot see.
This is the night when you can trust that any direction you go, you will be walking toward the dawn.
~ Jan Richardson ~
Wishing you a blessed Solstice, dear friends. With much love and kindest regards…
Isola di Farnese on la Via Francigena, October 2024
I don’t want to to sound out of touch, but I really am exhausted by the word “influencer”
that word suggests trying to have control over somebody else
and there is already too much of that going in the world already
I don’t like the term “clout” either
that word is too fickle for me
whenever I desire power it feels like I’m trying to hold a melting ice cube in my hand
I don’t want to sway anyone
I want to serve them
I don’t want to blaze a path for you
~ I want to get lost with you ~
to crave authority would require me to surrender my amateur status
and I quite love being a newbie here with you here
I don’t want to guide you down this River
I want to enjoy the ride with you until we reach the great waterfall
don’t follow me flow with me
and as we go
let’s not influence each other to be like us
instead
let’s listen to each other
until our ears become shaped like our hearts
~ John Roedel from his upcoming poetry collection “wonderache” ~
Called the Facebook poet, John Roedel has developed a reputation for heartfelt writing, often posting photos of his rough drafts hand-scrawled on lined notebook pages. From his website: “Offering a sincere and very relatable look at his faith crisis, mental health, personal struggles, perception of our world, and even his fashion sense, John’s writing has been shared millions of times across social media and lauded by fans and readers worldwide.”
There’s something touching about this poem for me because it illuminates a tender vulnerability within myself. The shift from having had a career with influence to when, after its abrupt end, I began in earnest to write. Engaging in this mostly solitary endeavour, my sense of community is fragile and self doubt can arise from “the sticky web of personal/with its hurt and its hauntings,” obscuring those occasions when I“become a pure vessel/for what wants to ascend from silence.” (John O’Donohue, “For the Artist at the Start of Day”).
To write as an act of service – not to sway, or blaze a path – is predicated on mutual reciprocity: releasing my poems into the world so that others may read them. Lately, I’ve been caught in the traditional-self publishing dilemma. After working this spring with my wise and thoughtful editor-essayist-poet Jenna Butler, my manuscript sits with three traditional presses whose protocols are precise on prior publications. Hence why I seldom post my own work here or on social media. Recently, I’ve initiated conversations with self-published writers, and with a press who assists, for a fee, writers to publish their own works.
I feel poised on the edge of a “great waterfall.” Vulnerable. Uncertain. But to imagine flowing with, and having my words be read, or heard by others, our eyes and ears becoming “shaped like our hearts,” brings me deep joy. Maybe the nudge to push me over.
Arriving at my desk to write this blog, I opened an email to learn of the sudden passing of my first professional friend. With his wife and young son, they became our first “couple-family” friends when Sig and I made our first home together in small town Ontario. They hosted us for our final nights in Ontario nearly forty-four years ago before we packed up our first dog, Beckey, a few plants (a hosta that still blooms in our dining room window), and some luggage to make the trek across Canada in our little white VW Scirocco sportscar to our new home in Alberta. The vague sadness that has hovered around me for much of this grey, cold and damp day has now found a foothold.
Earlier today, I attended the 4th annual Poets Corner “Reading Rilke,” with Rilke translator-poet Mark S. Burrows in conversation with Padraig O’Tuama and Krista Tippett. Among my notes, the following bore my highlighted underlining:
“I believe in everything that has never been said.” – Rilke
“We are here to listen the world into being and then to share its stories.” – Mark S. Burrows
Consistent among each of them was that much of Rilke’s writing was an embodiment of his famous directive to live into the questions.
Despite my cup feeling full, I don’t have much to write this evening. Questions tinged with sadness. So much that has never been said. Listening into silences. Trusting the infinite possibilities to be found in the unknown.
Remembering how my friend tempered my youthful naievety with his experience and wisdom. For years, throughout every career move, I pinned his handwritten note in front of me to remember: “The world is perfect, including my efforts to change it.” A bit like Rilke.
cliffs and gulls and boats Port Anthony, Newfoundland, 2015
The World Has Need of You everything here seems to need us… – Rilke
I can hardly imagine it as I walk to the lighthouse, feeling the ancient prayer of my arms swinging in counterpoint to my feet. Here I am, suspended between the sidewalk and twilight, the sky dimming so fast it seems alive. What if you felt the invisible tug between you and everything? A boy on a bicycle rides by, his white shirt open, flaring behind him like wings. It’s a hard time to be human. We know too much and too little. Does the breeze need us? The cliffs? The gulls? If you’ve managed to do one good thing, the ocean doesn’t care. But when Newton’s apple fell toward the earth, the earth, ever so slightly, fell toward the apple as well.
– Ellen Bass –
This notion of being reminded…remembering…knowing that we are needed by the world has been a theme in the poetry I’ve chosen for these recent Friday posts. Given that I retrieve many poems from social media, saved in a file for future sharing, apparently, I’m in good company – being reminded and inviting others to this remembering. When I read these poems, I feel soothed. My breath slows and deepens. A spaciousness from which to settle, reset, and choose emerges.
Yes, among many of us, last month’s US election and the subsequent appointments of those who will assume positions of power (over?) have evoked a collective bracing, an autonomic tightening of our bodies. This month, as we (in the Northern Hemisphere) are nudged or tossed into winter’s cold and growing darkness, and into a Holyday season where Hallmark cards and streamed movies consistently and reliably portray “the happily ever after,” and stores are filled to the rafters with Christmas tchotchkes, many of us are living a vastly different reality.
Yes, for many of us right now, it’s a hard time to be human. We know too much and too little. Suffering devastating losses, living in that tension, actually that grief, we may need to be repeatedly reminded – from whomever, wherever, whenever – that the world – animate and inanimate, human and more-than-human – has need of us. That “everything here seems to need us.”
Caretake this moment. Immerse yourself in its particulars. Respond to this person, this challenge, this deed.
Quit the evasions. Stop giving yourself needless trouble. It is time to really live; to fully inhabit the situation you happen to be in now. You are not some disinterested bystander. Exert yourself.
Respect your partnership with providence. Ask yourself often, How may I perform this particular deed such that it would be consistent with and acceptable to the divine will? Heed the answer and get to work.
When your doors are shut and your room is dark you are not alone. The will of nature is within you as your natural genius is within. Listen to its importunings. Follow its directives.
As concerns the art of living, the material is your own life. No great thing is created suddenly. There must be time.
Give your best and always be kind.
~ Epictetus ~
I’m glad to have not only a folder of saved poems for Friday’s photo and poem feature, but ones already crafted and sitting in the draft folder that occasionally fit the mood. Today was my good fortune as after yesterday’s grueling session at the dentist for a root canal (“Hard work,” declared the dentist. “Tell my jaw,” thought I.), all I was up to last night sipping soup, with a side of Tylenol and Advil, was watching the recommended new Netflix series “‘Man on the Inside.”
Epictetus says it. And in a similar vein, John Muth in his classic children’s tale, The Three Questions, a reworking of Leo Tolstoy, here read by Meryl Streep. Too, a verse from Mary Oliver’s poem, Dogfish, that I love:
“…And anyway it’s the same old story – – – a few people just trying, one way or another, to survive.
Mostly, I want to be kind. And nobody, of course, is kind, or mean, for a simple reason.
And nobody gets out of it, having to swim through the fires to stay in this world…”
Better late than never, here it is.
May your Friday be touched by the glow of nature that shines as much from within you as it does from outside. And may we each and all be kindas we caretake the moments of our lives.
…”the greatest gift you could give a child — or the eternal child in you — is ‘a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments… the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.'”
Musing on what I’d write for today’s post, my direction shifted after reading Sunday’s issue of The Marginalian. The above quote and story that followed stirred a memory of responses I’d had during recent walks, during these past weeks fraught with global disenchantments. The unmistakeable sound of Canada geese – flying overhead, landing in the nearby pond, or in formation ready to make their annual southern migration, honking to announce their presence. Whatever I had been thinking up until that point quickly gave way to awe as I gazed up in admiration and remembered the once popular story I’d often read to groups I’d facilitated.
The Sense of a Goose described the group and leadership dynamics of a flock of geese flying south, and how their innate wisdom could be applied to us building teams and making communities. Reading aloud that story, how many times I’d almost be moved to tears. Even recalling it during my recent walks, watching those geese overhead, I had the same visceral, poignant response.
Delving into its edges and source, I realized I had been feeling the longing – that often barely acknowledged human condition – for the deeply rooted sense of wonder as an indefatiguable source of strength; for the feeling of inner safety and outer belonging; for trusting in the reliable support of others. In that story, among the people with whom I worked, and watching overhead now, I felt what the geese and their flying physics illustrated:
…”the physics of any healthy community, any healthy relationship — the physics of vulnerability and trust. Because life always exerts different pressures on each person at different times, internal or external, thriving together is not a matter of always pulling equal weight but of accommodating the ebb and flow of one another’s vulnerability, each trusting the other to shield them in times of depletion, then doing the shielding when replenished. One measure of love may be the willingness to be the lead bird shielding someone dear in their time of struggle, lifting up their wings with your stubborn presence.”
Never more in times of turmoil and chaos, in times of anguish and division, are we this close to the guidance of wisdom. Like standing on the precipice as one thing recedes to make room for something new to exist.
Catastrophe is a clarion call to our highest abilities, but it requires each of us to step more fully into the way of wisdom. We must reconstitute the world through our many small but brave contributions.
So keep going. We need you. You are necessary.
– Toko-pa Turner, “Remaking the World” in Dreamspeak
Not a poem, but writing with a poetic voice, Toko-pa Turner’s timely instruction fit the bill for today’s photo and poem feature.
To remember the clarity and calm found in the eye of the storm…the invitation to wisdom…to persist with our small brave contributions…to know that we are needed and necessary …felt perfectly on point and necessary to share.
I’ve long known that eldest daughters and big sisters might need big sisters in their lives. Being both, I am beyond blessed to have three – Ann, Christina and Sarah. Teachers, mentors, wise women, and friends, each in her way, over the years, has supported and encouraged me to live boldly, courageously, unequivocally committed to my knowing, my voice, and my writing.
A leap of faith…my response to the voice through the door calling me…turning toward what I deeply love…saving myself. (Rumi) An answered prayer, as during one of the Pacific Northwest’s infamous storms, waking with a bellyful of doubt before dawn, I received word I’d won a story writing contest, and later during the week, writing for thirty-six hours in silence, a series of prose-poems, tentatively titled “Love Letters to Timeless Poets,” emerged.
That time with Christina, and her subsequent inspiration and emboldening, together with that of Ann and Sarah, continue to nurture me as writer and poet. And so it is that I use this space now to thank Christina, and Ann and Sarah, and to describe Christina’s most recent literary accomplishment.
The Beekeeper’s Question, Christina’s decade long labor of love, and response to the voice through the door calling, is a work of historical fiction resonant with today’s struggles. Described as –
“Young lovers, old friends, a mountain valley and a North African battlefield: two Montana families face loss, prejudice, violence, and redemption in the uncertainty of 1940s America.”
Christina Baldwin
– it was perfect reading when I returned home from my long-distance walk. One of those “couldn’t put down,” beautifully written books that broached the hard stuff in the lives of its characters and unflinchingly illuminated the settler history of intentional devastation to the indigenous peoples. I was deeply moved by the subtle weaving in of animism and the mysteries and wisdom of the deep feminine. I felt as did one of Christina’s reviewers:
“So richly written that the characters feel like friends and it’s bittersweet when the story ends.”
Molly Guptill Manning, Author When Books Went to War, NYT Bestseller
As darkness and cold begin to envelop you, and looking ahead to the season of gift-giving, The Beekeeper’s Question might be one for your list, and for yourself.
To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you.
To seek joy in the saddest places.
To pursue beauty to its lair.
To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple.
To respect strength, never power.
Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.
~Arundhati Roy from The Cost of Living ~
I’ve taken the liberty to reformat Arundhati Roy’s words, originally written in paragraph, to emphasize the power of her statement. Every line, a simple, clear instruction for living in these times. A potent, unequivocal pointing to how to be, and what action to take, or not. An echoing of the many words, paragraphs, and poems that have been newly crafted or resurrected this past week to console and inspire.
This past Monday, in both Canada and the US, was a day officially designated to remember, to never forget the sacrifices made by millions of men and women who gave (and continue to give) life and limb, heart and mind, in the fight for human rights and freedom, and a democratic way of living. A profound juxtaposition that this day occurred so soon after election results that many fear will, with clear and unequivocal intention, undo and make, at the very least, moot these sacrifices.
For it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep; the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe — should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
In this week’s writing circle,a monthly zoom space where five of us (give or take, depending on life’s other plans) support each other in living a writerly life, despite life’s other plans, I was invited to read my poem, In the Days That Follow, posted here last week. We spoke of the need to take time to fully feel our griefs; to rekindle small communities of support; to intentionally look for evidence of our being enough; to hold onto our individual visions of hope.
Each a way to help us be awake amidst the deep darkness. Each a commitment to never forget.
Yesterday morning a friend posted a poem-blessing by Kate Bowler, “Keeping a Soft Heart When Everything is Broken” in which she wrote, “Blessed are you who see the world as it truly is. Terrible. Beautiful. Fragile.”
To which I responded, “A wise man once told me our task is to learn how to keep our hearts open in hell. Welcome to class. We have a four-year curriculum.”
Again. In addition to the heavy course load of continuing, persistent tragedy and devastation that encompasses our world.
And yet there is beauty. Still and always. Often hidden in plain sight, against all odds.
A Wabi Sabi Life 