Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, the cycle begins again, the ancient whisper of our own frailty, slipping the fine clothes from our shoulders, taking the crown from our heads, bringing us back to that humble place where it all began and where it will surely end. We are the children of the Earth. Earth born, common as the ground we share, raised up by grace to breathe the mystery, laid back down to sleep the mystery deeper still. Dust to dust, life to life, the great cycle spirals our souls, sends us sailors of time, until we come to rest in our own humility, source of our true dignity.
All those days you felt like dust, like dirt, as if all you had to do was turn your face toward the wind and be scattered to the four corners
or swept away by the smallest breath as insubstantial—
did you not know what the Holy One can do with dust?
This is the day we freely say we are scorched.
This is the hour we are marked by what has made it through the burning.
This is the moment we ask for the blessing that lives within the ancient ashes, that makes its home inside the soil of this sacred earth.
So let us be marked not for sorrow. And let us be marked not for shame. Let us be marked not for false humility or for thinking we are less than we are
but for claiming what God can do within the dust, within the dirt, within the stuff of which the world is made and the stars that blaze in our bones and the galaxies that spiral inside the smudge we bear.
We began our most recent Community Conversation with Lectio Divina, using the first lines of Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese. We laughed, we cried, we shared. One community member contributed David Whyte’s lovely poem to our conversation. l am deeply grateful to you all.
Both poems are potential resources for you who find yourselves walking in a spiritual wilderness. They speak to the loneliness of wandering and the joy of finding home again. And perhaps to the realization that home was there all along. Perhaps even to the realization that the wilderness is home.
Mark your calendars for our next gathering: Thursday, September 30th, at 9:00 am Pacific. We’d love to have you join us. Subscribe here for weekly-ish resources, including links to Community Conversations.
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting— over and over announcing your place in the family of things.
~Mary Oliver
The Well
Be thankful now for having arrived, for the sense of having drunk from a well, for remembering the long drought that preceded your arrival and the years walking in a desert landscape of surfaces looking for a spring hidden from you for so long that even wanting to find it now had gone from your mind until you only remembered the hard pilgrimage that brought you here, the thirst that caught in your throat; the taste of a world just-missed and the dry throat that came from a love you remembered but had never fully wanted for yourself, until finally, after years making the long trek to get here it was as if your whole achievement had become nothing but thirst itself.
But the miracle had come simply from allowing yourself to know that you had found it, that this time someone walking out into the clear air from far inside you had decided not to walk past it anymore; the miracle had come at the roadside in the kneeling to drink and the prayer you said, and the tears you shed and the memory you held and the realization that in this silence you no longer had to keep your eyes and ears averted from the place that could save you, that you had been given the strength to let go of the thirsty dust laden pilgrim-self that brought you here, walking with her bent back, her bowed head and her careful explanations.
No, the miracle had already happened when you stood up, shook off the dust and walked along the road from the well, out of the desert toward the mountain, as if already home again, as if you deserved what you loved all along, as if just remembering the taste of that clear cool spring could lift up your face and set you free.
Resurrection is a discipline. We live in a Good Friday world – patriarchal, consumerist, capitalist, colonialist. This world needs our Easter selves – hopeful, irrational, bursting out of the tomb, aspiring to love and kindness. Here are three poems to support you in your practice of resurrection.
Very little grows on jagged rock. Be ground. Be crumbled, so wildflowers will come up where you are. You’ve been stony for too many years. Try something different. Surrender.
Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks
Let grief be your sister, she will whether or no.
Rise up from the stump of sorrow, and be green also, like the diligent leaves.
A lifetime isn’t long enough for the beauty of this world and the responsibilities of your life.
Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away.
Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance.
Mary Oliver, from The Leaf and the Cloud
When your eyes are tired the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone no part of the world can find you.
Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes to recognize its own.
There you can be sure you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb tonight.
The night will give you a horizon further than you can see.
You must learn one thing. The world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness
I heard a lesser goldfinch sing his spring question and answer melody today. Waking up? he asks. Oh, do, he answers.
Crocuses, daffodils and tulips quicken underneath the snow.
Buds swell on bare trees sturdy as sculptures, though it will be many weeks till tender leaves emerge.
The feast of barely beginning is here!
Weeks of winter left, yes. Yet … Have you noticed the sun rising just a little earlier, shedding golden light on surfaces untouched for months by her rays? Have you noticed her just a little higher in the winter sky? Have you felt the lengthening days?
Earth, barely pregnant with new life, dances in snowy meadows and along forest trails, arrayed in festal white, silver, and the barest hint of spring green, holding her barely bulging belly.
Women walk riverbanks, gather new green willow branches and weave Brigid’s crosses to mark thresholds in this fresh year.
Melt, just a little, in the warmth of Brigid’s fire. Let go. Let yourself dream, dear child, of what could be. Dream, daughter, of what you want to create in the coming long summer days. Courageously dream into being the world you want to live in. And dream, Braveheart, of your heart’s companions in this work.
Bake bread. Make space. Speak true words at the right time. Bravely create the world you yearn for, one seed at a time. One furrow at a time. Row by row.
Set your holy intentions.
Tend your taproot. Feel your roots deep in the Mother wake up and slowly, so slowly, stretch and reach to touch your sisters all around you. Feel how everything you need is here. Feel your immense quiet power, slowly waking, held, supported, nourished by Earth—rich dirt feeds you, fresh cold snowmelt trickles down between your roots, warm sun limbers your branches, bright air infuses every leaf and needle. You have everything you need. Everything you need is here. You are perfectly placed. Be who you are. All will be well.
The Feast of Barely Beginning is here. Be here now, a creature of this glorious barely waking Earth. Be where you are, and come.
Let yourself be moved, just a little. Let yourself be warmed, just a little. Just a little. Let yourself be a peaceful slowly burgeoning miracle, waking, swelling, singing softly, rooting, growing. Just a little.
Just a little.
Just a little.
This poem is about Imbolc. Imbolc is one of eight Celtic celebrations rooted in Earth’s cycles – four solar festivals of solstices and equinoxes, plus four pastoral festivals: Imbolc in February, Beltane in May, Lughnassa (or Lammas) in August, and Samhain in November. These Earth-centric celebrations affirm the birth/death/rebirth cycle in which women especially are embedded by virtue of our menstruating bodies, and for which we have been shamed by patriarchal culture.
Celtic rites are an antidote to Earth-denigrating, patriarchal Christianity which is hostile to women and girls, and not all that kind to men.
At Imbolc (Candlemas, Brigid’s Day, Groundhog Day, the Feast of the Presentation), celebrated at the beginning of February, we begin to see the first stirrings of rebirth after the darkness of Winter Solstice and the longest night. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, days lengthen perceptibly. In Bend, today is an hour longer than it was on December 21st, and the sun is just a little higher in the winter sky. Bird behavior is just beginning to change, as the males begin to preen and sing and vie for female attention, and the females begin to consider their mating options. Buds on trees begin to swell in the growing daylight, although it will be weeks before leaves emerge. Bulbs begin to sprout in the dark dirt under the snow.
The energy of Imbolc feels like beginning. A gentle beginning, not raucous and full of fireworks, but slow, steady, almost imperceptible. Imbolc feels like the first little belly bulge of a new pregnancy. (Imbolc may derive from the Irish Gaelic word for “in the belly,” although the etymology is uncertain.)
Some Imbolc rituals have survived in Ireland for centuries and are rooted in pre-Christian history. Some are probably just invented because they help Earthlings ritualize the passage of time and ground them in Earth’s rhythms. February 1st begins the Feast of Brigid, also called Bride, one face of the Celtic triple goddess composed of maiden, mother, and crone, adopted by the Christian tradition as St. Brigid. Traditional Imbolc celebrations center on Brigid, an icon of holy change.
Imbolc celebrations in Ireland, and around the world for people who have adopted these Earth-honoring practices and made them their own, include some common elements:
White, green, and silver in cloth and candles.
Weaving Brigid’s crosses from local grasses, reeds, and willow branches, hung over doorways to mark thresholds.
Deep cleaning and space clearing, in preparation for new life.
Literal seeds: bake seeded bread or cookies or cake.
Seeds of intention: Make a vision board for 2021. Choose your word of the year if you haven’t already. Let the gentle spaciousness of Imbolc feed your vision, and you may come up with something more whole and healing than what you would have on January 1.
Sheep’s milk or wool: Imbolc in Ireland is when ewes begin to lactate in preparation for giving birth, so eat some ewe’s milk cheese. Tie off your Brigid’s cross with wool.
Light candles. Sit by a fire. It is still winter, after all.
Bird feathers, especially those of the swan, can be used on your cross or your altar.
Snowdrops are the traditional flower of Imbolc, but any white flower will do, if snowdrops are in short supply.
Go easy with yourself. Let the gentle energy of just beginning permeate your February. Sit with what feels good to your barely burgeoning roots and shoots. Brigid won’t mind if you weave her cross next week, or make a vision board later in the month. Be gentle. Watch for rebirth, yours and the Earth’s, barely beginning.
Mabel is a bulldog. She’s brazen, bodacious, bold. She’s one of those brawny, hefty, low-slung bulldogs, built like a brick house. I met her yesterday on my river walk. She’d just come up out of the water, dripping wet and ready for action. A taller dog came around the bend just then to find Mabel ready to go. Much romping ensued, Mabel very much holding her own.
Mabel is beautiful in and of herself. The icing on the cake of Mabel’s Mabel-ness, though, is her collar. She sports a sparkly pink collar studded with rhinestones. When I complimented Mabel, her mom said, “She’s so street, but she’s such a lady.”
Mabel knows she doesn’t have to choose between being “street” and being a lady. Mabel is who Mabel is, period.
You and I can be more than one thing, too. We don’t have to choose. We contain multitudes.
This is the piece I was ready to post last week. And then “A letter from God to her daughters who resist joy” showed up and wanted to be shared instead. Here’s my more cerebral, left-brain answer to the question, “Why do we resist joy?”
Two weeks ago I wrote about how to feel sad, and I heard from a few of you who were grateful for the encouragement and instruction. Today I want to encourage us to feel our joy.
Joy. Why would we resist feeling joyful and happy? It seems like a no-brainer, doesn’t it? Pushing away sadness makes sense. Sadness, grief, sorrow – they hurt. Joy doesn’t hurt, right?
Well. Maybe, maybe not. We might not resist joy like we
resist sadness. We resist joy in different ways – we might rush past joy, not
stopping to take it in. We might hold on
to it with a death grip, grasping and needy, not trusting that there are
moments of joy yet to come.
We might believe that if we let joy in, it will only make our inevitable sorrow more acutely painful.
And we’d be right.
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Kahlil Gibran
Feelings are unpredictable. Feelings ebb and flow. Feelings arrive, fresh-faced or tear-stained, without words, yanking on our skirts and distracting us from our to-do lists. They require our attention at inconvenient times.
Feeling our feelings, all of them, is a choice. We don’t
have to do it. We can numb and distract and talk ourselves out of our feelings
until we die. Many lovely people choose not to feel their feelings. You
probably know a few of them.
Our dominant culture excels at teaching us to ignore our
true feelings.
So, why bother? Why feel at all? Why rock our little human boats that we try so hard to keep afloat and on an even keel? Why make life harder than it already is? Why choose to feel deeply? Why not leave well enough alone?
Why choose to get back in touch with our emotions? Our
emotions live in our bodies. When we cut off our emotional lives, we cut off
our embodied existence. We live from the neck up, dragging our bodies around
like machines controlled by our brains.
You may have vacated your body and moved into your head
at some point, probably in self-defense. It was the best strategy at the time.
Vacating your body was how you got through the painful stuff.
If so, it’s time to come back home.
Why? Because, when you cut off your embodied feelings, you also cut off your connection to Soul. Our souls and bodies are intertwined. Your soul does not live in your brain or your mind.
Feeling your joy and sorrow is how you reconnect with
your body. Reconnecting with your body is how you connect with your soul and
your soul’s Source.
Cutting off your body because it hurts too much and you feel uncomfortable is to cut off your connection to God. Refusing to be in our bodies severs our connection to Holiness. Your holiness. My holiness. Earth’s holiness. Holiness Itself.
Besides, it takes so much energy to keep stuffing and
resisting our feelings! Just think what you could get done if you just let your
feelings move through you and got on with your day?!
If you want a less woo-woo, more sciency reason to feel your feelings, consider the neurobiology adage “Neurons that fire together, wire together.” In the words of Rick Hanson, “Passing mental states become lasting neural traits.” He’s got some good instructions in this 13-minute TED talk.
When we pay conscious attention to joyful moments, experiences, and memories, we heal our brains. A healed brain is more resilient and flexible. A healed brain is more resistant to stress and the cascade of destruction and disease caused by stress.
We inhabit our joy only when we also attend to our sorrow. They walk together.
Mary Oliver:
When loneliness comes stalking, go into the fields, consider
the orderliness of the world. Notice
something you have never noticed before,
like the tambourine sound of the snow cricket
whose pale green body is no longer than your thumb.
Stare hard at the hummingbird, in the summer rain,
shaking the water-sparks from its wings.
Let grief be your sister, she will whether or no.
Rise up from the stump of sorrow, and be green also,
like the diligent leaves.
A lifetime isn’t long enough for the beauty of this world
and the responsibilities of your life.
Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away.
Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance.
Does this resonate? Want to explore further? Contact me to schedule a free no-obligation conversation. I’d love to talk!
Joy feels dangerous. Joy feels vulnerable. Joy feels
disloyal to those who are suffering. And there’s so much suffering, isn’t
there?
You must comprehend this truth. I can only heal you, and
others through you, when you’re willing to inhabit joy and allow sorrow.
When you resist sorrow, you resist joy. When you resist
joy, you flee your body. When you flee your body, you cut off healing.
I heal you and your world through your body. We connect,
you and I, through your flesh. This is what Emmanuel – God with us – means. Me
being with you is not abstract. It’s the most concrete thing of all. Every one
of your cells is holy. Every single one.
Take a deep breath. That’s me.
Feel your heart beating and your blood moving. That’s me.
Wiggle your fingers and your toes. That’s me, too.
I am always here.
You are sacred. You are holy. You are indescribably dear
to me.
Let sorrow flow through you like water. Sorrow will furrow and deepen and make of you a fresh
channel.
Then, let joy flow through you like a river. I promise
there will be more than enough. My rivers are full of water.
Let me feed you with my world – bread and wine, sun and
rain, sky and dirt, lover, sister, friend. Your delight is my delight.
