Stillness to Togetherness
Thickets and Brambles
We do great harm, if when introduced to a songbird, we trim its wings to make it fit our existing birdhouse of knowledge. Rather, it is essential that we alter and expand our knowledge and worldview so there is room for the songbird to flutter inside us. ~ Mark Nepo
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Because Human-ing is harder than Adulting. This is a weekly publication for heart-centered warriors, swimming through this thing called Life.
Selected Readings and Sounds:
Thicket, by Atsuro Riley
The Poet with His Face in His Hands, Mary Oliver
Entering the Kingdom, Mary Oliver
Dear Embodied Hearts and Dancing Souls,
What incredible times we are living in. It makes me even more grateful for the caliber of people I am surrounded by.
Marital Straits. Nearly a year after my husband’s hardships began, I can share that I’m quietly celebrating the bliss of watching my partner blossom into the next version of his best self. And better yet, the ineffable joy of resting in this partnership, which is also growing into its next best self, in ways I haven’t before. All hail heart-centered growth and communication. I learned it is more than OK to voice my needs (and listen to his). Being compassionate includes my needs. I guess another way to say it is that we are regrouping around truer versions of each of us. Our straits are straightening out.
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Loving What Is. Byron Katie struggled with severe depression for 10 years. She describes it as a black hole that pulled her deeper in. Every story she tells about her depression is of her lying down, on a bed or floor. The way she tells it, she woke up one February morning and suddenly "recognized that my being had nothing to do with my thinking, but that I could also create a ME with the thoughts I chose to have." It made her laugh as she "observed things were born into this world the moment I identified them." She went on to create her great work from here.
I am struck how truth simply rises. She didn’t need to strive for it or twist herself into a pretzel. We can be completely still and it will rise. Those of us who have climbed into our bodies know...stuff rises up to our awareness from our body. When it rises like that, we know it’s simply true. I have noticed this in relationships through the decades, when people push their judgments on someone’s behavior. Even if I say nothing, the underlying truth in the relationship will make itself known. What if the truth can speak for itself?
The truth always rises. (me)
Prickles and Brambles. Life felt like struggle last week. No better illustration than my walk yesterday. I walked until I felt lost (how I feel). Like a true Mary Oliver, I followed my body nudges (always to the sun), climbing into (and out of) thickets. Also how I feel. The thickets were relentless in my life last week—technology snafus, missed goal posts, until I just wanted to cry Uncle, lay down and lay flat on the floor. Right now, five inches of snow blankets the landscape. I want to crawl under it.
Back to the walk. Nothing like working your way out of a physical entanglement of thorned vines to wake you up. I felt it--that burst of aliveness as my breath let out a wallop of relief and the cold tinged my cheeks. Here I was, alert in the moment. This is when my guides and Being can speak to me. This is when I notice what is...the green shoots emerging from the ground, another mysterious copse of hollow reeds, and later ...the way a small flock of birds began to cheep loudly when a negative train of thought formed in my head. Watch out (!), they seemed to say, as they flew away.
Mark Nepo (as always) has my number. He tells me, Forego the idiotic tendency of expecting to “see” all the time. Instead he counsels:
To pine for a permanent state of enlightenment or to extrapolate our moments of darkness and confusion into a chaotic and fallen world only distract us from mapping the truth of what-is as we constantly move from seeing to not seeing to seeing again. ~ Mark Nepo
He says it’s like walking in the dark with bursts of lightning. And every time we “see”, we simply add it to a map of our knowing (Practice of Seeing and Not Seeing).
I’m trying..? On my map, my points of Knowing feel quite small, surrounded by large swaths of Not Knowing. I feel I’ve broken my brain! For once, my compass seems to have gone quite Still. Peaceful, like the snow, yet Still. What truth will rise?
The I don’t Know Chant. We are in a national and global “I don’t know” situation right now. Have you noticed the accelerated pace of it all? It feels like we are being “re-organized.” At the least, we are all keenly observing our where withal and determining the best use of our energies. It is challenging but necessary to determine our energetic focus. I am not sure my saying Pink is Pink when the regime is insisting Pink is Black is a good use of my energy. A young collaborator in my life and I moved on behalf of our “I don’t knows.” My Spirit guides seem to say: Hey, sounds like a good time to ask for our assistance, don’t cha think?
The destruction curve we are in feels so rocky. But I feel more confident that, at the end, the blatant greed and disrespect for human bodies will become transparent so we can build from a truer center. What is becoming clear feels like this parable Heather Cox Richardson talks about as shared by Abe Lincoln:
The idea of a small government that serves the needs of a few wealthy people, Lincoln warned in his era, is the same old serpent that says, you work and I eat. You toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it. Turn in whatever way you will, whether it come from the mouth of a king, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent.
Glow: All I know is my heart is lit about this Friday’s Glow class. There are 2 times on Friday so check it out! From my current favorite Netflix show, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, “Life is unpredictable. Not everything is under our control. But as long as you are with the right people, you can handle anything.” And you dear lovelies, are definitely the right people. We are here TOGETHER.
To your exquisite unfolding. Stay #heartwoke.
Monisha
When we belong to ourselves, we move freely. ~ Monisha Mittal
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“The truth always rises.” Monisha!!!