Author: couragetofall

The way of love is not a subtle argument. The door there is devastation. Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom. How do they learn that? They fall, and falling, they’re given wings. --Rumi

Can you see it yet? Are you far enough away?

George Wahl's avatarMystic Morning Blog

Seeing nationally based conflict of our southern cousins.

Far enough away not to take a side

Far enough away to see both sides, siblings, cousins, parents and children throwing sand at one another

Far enough away to see the fear and see the simmering disgust and at times hatred towards one another

Far enough away to see the mind’s of each feeding on the negativity of the other

Far enough away to see the mind’s severe addiction to consuming media streams of separating derogatory thoughts and exaggerated opinions

Far enough away to see the divisiveness growing stronger every four years

Far enough away to see one incident of a few extremists attributed the masses of moderate others and become the basis for judgement on both sides

Far enough away to see the mind’s addiction to judgement like an iron wedge driven between a perceived us and them

Far enough away…

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Years go by

For many years now one of my favourite little hobbies has consisted of searching out trails – out of the way, if possible; little travelled and largely secret to the general population. Yesterday I found one whilst driving aimlessly down every dirt road I could find (in defiance of shelter-in-place suggestions: like most of us, desperate for the outside and a good leg-stretching) 

There was a swampy-edged lake and ancient maples. The path was boggy in places, with evidence of ATV tracks. It’s late spring, but it’s been chilly, so it’s my favourite kind of spring – stretched out and slow. There’s time to absorb each new nuance of newness: the day the grass greens, pussy willows for days, brand new tiny buds daily swelling as if inhaling slowly, slowly, the damp air. This week, baby leaves are just starting to unfurl with that gladness of the brightest, softest green. The best colour in the world; signifying life and emergence and rebirth and second, third, and 64th chances.

A partridge, perfectly unnoticed until then, explodes out of its hiddenness. I stop and watch it go. I stand and absorb the straight line of grandfather and grandmother trees. Someone planted these maples: over a century ago, perhaps, this was a farm. 

20200517_154550I hear Mary Oliver and Annie Dillard in my head. I hear phrasing and language that beats my heart with their authentic, beautiful, specifically personal voices, and am re-inspired. How does one begin to write at 64 years old, when you’ve passed that voice over for decades, most of a life, in favour of being useful? Is using your voice not useful? Or is it that the unconscious refrain of “not good enough” that has run the life since childhood ….was running the life, and shutting down that voice, saying “no one wants to hear it”. After years of therapy and meditation and opening into the hopeful truth that the not good enough “person” does not exist, maybe the voice can begin to express its own authentic, beautiful, specific sense of things.

So many people write. Who are we writing for, and why? For me, it’s not posterity. I’ll be dead, I won’t care. It’s just the now of it, the deep enjoyment of exploration into what wants expression, in praise of not just the burgeoning up into creation of the swampy-edged lakes and ancient maples and exploding-into-air partridges, but to marvel also this specific hologram of consciousness, and the unending unfolding it contains. 

so, what the hell am I doing this for?

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You might well arsk, to quote John Lennon 😀

so many reasons. so many, that I’m having trouble getting my thoughts in order. There’s the image of my chubby little self in grade 5, so enamoured with “Anne of Avonlea” that I wrote a 20 minute long book report that was supposed to be five. There’s the memory of my ex-husband, after reading a note of complaint I’d left lying on the table for him one day 30 years ago, saying “Writing is your genius”, and all the notes from teachers and professors post high school telling me I should write more. There’s that warm glow of intense satisfaction from having an idea circling around and around in my head for days and finally getting it out, and down, as concisely and accurately said as I can manage it. There’s the dawning wake-up call since my 60th birthday last November that, although a bout with cancer at age 37 convinced me that none of us are getting out of here alive, I was now beginning the slide down the other side of the hill. (Inside, I still feel the way I’ve always felt! the mirror is a shock, every day). Suddenly unrealized dreams and some-day’s and I’m-not-good-enough-yets  and familial stay-small-and-stay-safes have forced their way out from sub-consciousness to be heard, and questioned, and met with new found compassion. There is, most poignantly, the relaxing of the fear of being heard. There’s too much to share. I want to connect. With you. With the world. Let’s have some real conversations. Let’s talk about and feel into what it is to be human. Let’s talk about the nitty-gritty, the suffering and quiet joy and finding out what (maybe not who) we really are, with bare-naked honesty and willingness and vulnerability.

What are we, really?