February 16, 2024
Hello there,
Some words on hurting and liminal spaces of
healing.
Told in five parts.
1.
As I am writing to you this week my heart is hurting. Extra hurting this week, above the base level of grief we carry just being being aware in the world.
Too much news
with too much tragedy. As only happens in America, another mass shooting. On Valentines Day. This broken heart of mine can not reconcile all the talk of love with the reality of so much harm and loss. I can write an obscenely long list of so much more tragedy. Hostages, genocide, rising fascism, transphobia, racism, antisemitism, climate change...there is just so much.
And also, babies are learning to roll over. My roses are putting out the teeniest buds. My husband relocates spiders out of the house, a love language if there ever was one. Art is being made and medical miracles are saving loved ones.
A friend calls at just the right time. First kisses, my god, toe curling first kisses are happening all over the world!
Paradox.
2.
We live in paradox. Love exist, tragedy exists. Innocents are killed, beauty is everywhere.
There is a space in the paradox. A mandorla arises in the pull of opposites, a space opens were the sacred lives. A space where new
possibility arises.
Where we find ourselves and add our medicine to the healing of the world.
Where we grow to hold more love and beauty while our hearts ache ever more deeply, where we discover the threads that connect us all with everything. Where we become more part of the
fabric of the world and less of a bystander or transcender of it.
The place where we grow strong and vulnerable.
3.
I will not pretend to know how it all works. I am no mystic, psychic, theologian, or philosopher. I am a human
woman with less time ahead of than behind her doing her best to send ripples into the world that make it better, not worse.
My mind doesn't know how to find this place of knowing, growing, becoming, within the paradox. But my soul, my soul does and can and every once in a while my mind tags along and learns something more about the potential of love and the power of curiosity. More
about the ripples I am here to make.
Ripples, made from impact and carried by pushes and pulls of elemental forces. Paradox and harmony.
So I tend the places that know. I tend my soul and my inner realms. I tend my emotions and the messages they bring me. And my empathy so it
is strong and responsive and I stay connected rather than frozen. I tend my body where all this converges and my ripples moves out into the world. I tend to those who are seeking the same.
4.
None of this
inner and personal work is about bypassing the tangible actions (calls, donations, volunteering, etc.) we can take to make things better. The "moves out into the world" part is critical. Calls to legislators, voting, donations, volunteering, learning, what ever your personal activism, it is needed. Like breathing, we take in the world and return to it what it needs.
Tangible actions include
the ones that bring joy and hope. The ones that being peace and calm. The ones that inspire and renew. Fulfillment and beauty are worthy ripples to send into the world. Why are we here if not to take and give the gifts of living? There is an art to returning over and over again to what will make the world more just, more beautiful, more loving. It is often gritty but also gorgeous.
The tears of our sorrow water the earth
and the joy of our laughter renew it.
Start where you are, even if it is deep despair. We don't despair over unimportant things. Tend what is important. Repeat. Reminder, knee shaking courage is valiant, as is rest, as is staying present.
Thank you for reading. For witnessing. For holding the paradox of living and feeling into the sacred spaces and
bringing your soul into this world in the ways you do. I love you for that and for so much more.
5.
A blessing for your week:
