step it out, catch a breath make a space, take a rest let it go, let it come carry on, get it done
take a break, break a pattern blast the rules, what’s the matter? tune it out, turn it off, jump down, land soft
watch the sky, pray for rain quiet your heart, quiet your brain relax your shoulders, stretch your back take time off, get back on track
“Choosing to be honest is the first step in the process of love. There is no practitioner of love who deceives. Once the choice has been made to be honest, then the next step on love’s path is communication.” ― bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions ***** “Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps because I am afraid, and he gives me courage.” ―Gandalf ***** “A lot will be lost that way, of course. But you can’t make people listen. They have to come ‘round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up under them. It can’t last.” —Granger, in Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury ***** “When I stopped trying to change you, you changed me.” ―Rachel Macy Stafford ***** “When will the change begin? When will it start to happen? We have waited so long and prayed so long, when will the light begin to shine in this conflicted world? Our answer is: when we each begin to see it in ourselves. When we believe and not despair, when we love and not fear, when we give and not take – then we will see the change start to happen, and happen all around us. The answer is already here, within, waiting for us to find it.” —Steven Charleston ***** “When Teresa of Avila was asked what she did in prayer, she replied, ‘I just allow myself to be loved.'” —Anthony de Mello ***** “I never lose. I either win or I learn.” —Nelson Mandela ***** “If you have never been called an incorrigible, defiant, impossible woman… have faith. There is yet time.” —Clarissa Pinkola Estes
I only learned today about how the Taliban this August banned the sound of women’s voices in public places. As I searched for poetry by Afghan women, I came across this powerful couplet by a poet who went by the name Muska, a young Afghan woman of Helmand Province. In translation into English, the poem loses the syllabic and sound structures of its form, the landay, which is a 22-syllable folk poem of Pashtun women of Afghanistan. My own attempt at the syllable count is certainly no landay, but seeks to echo it in lament of Muska, who died two weeks after setting herself on fire after her brothers beat her when they discovered her poetry, and the women of Afghanistan, who have had their voices stolen from them.
I call. You’re stone. One day you’ll look and find I’m gone. —by the Afghan poet Muska (Zarmina) of Helmand Province, who set herself on fire in 2012 after being beaten by her brothers when they discovered her poetry
Her laughter drifts no more like jasmine over the garden wall and into the marketplace.
Who will sing the songs of the women whose voices lie hidden at the bottom of the well?
The moon is rising over the wall silently as the woman sitting in the courtyard.
“Through a process of perpetual discernment and “prayer unceasing” we may dive into the well of each faith and emerge with the treasure that connects us all.” —Mirabai Starr
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” —Carl Sagan
“If the Rhine, the Yellow, the Mississippi rivers are changed to poison, so too are the rivers in the trees, in the birds, and in the humans changed to poison, almost simultaneously. There is only one river on the planet Earth and it has multiple tributaries, many of which flow through the veins of sentient creatures.” —Thomas Berry
“A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.” —Kurt Vonnegut
”So much of bird flight is really expert falling, slipping into that delicate space within the argument between gravity and air resistance. That natural alchemy transforms a plummet into a glide. Someday, I hope to learn to fail like birds fall.” —Jarod K. Anderson, The Cryptonaturalist
“Reading and writing cannot be separated. Reading is breathing in; writing is breathing out.”
“For a Star to be born, there is one thing that must happen; a nebula must collapse. So collapse. Crumble. This is not your Destruction. This is your birth.” —Zoe Skylar
Today is the last of my three days of posting reflections on the Mysteries of the Dark Novena for Way of the Rose. Here are my thoughts:
Mysteries of the Darkness Novena
Day 41. Sorrowful Mysteries:
Walking in the Dark.
I have always felt compelled towards shadow work, looking deeply within, trying to understand my impulses and compulsions, my vices and my rages, the way desire flows and obsession grows.
Mystery, mysticism, paradox, counterpoint, magic, surrealism—that which is beyond the ken of daylight sight. Like the way you have to look to the side of the Pleiades to see them clearly.
When I was a teenager, if I was the last person downstairs at night, I used to hate those seconds after I had turned off the light before I got to the top of the stairs. The darkness behind me was too overwhelming. But today, when I get up in the night, I like to find my way through the dark house by feel, sensing where I am in the room, honing my dark-sight.
Even so, I struggle with the encroaching darkness of the last few weeks before the Winter Solstice. I just can’t make my peace. My energy flags with the dying day, and my brain gets dull and fuzzy. In a season when grades need to be updated for students and Thanksgiving plans made, and then Christmas and Yule, I want to emulate the bears, go underground, feel the quiet rhythms, be still and silent. And so instead I groan when the day dies early, when the light has left like the wild geese for the south.
I need to keep giving myself pockets of intentional retreat, hours here and there where I step out of the bustle to write and reflect, to say the rosary slowly—savoring every word instead of the daily push to make sure it gets done in the schedule, walk or bike on the woods trail, stand under the stars. It’s a form of self-care—spiritual self-care. Not down-time for down-time’s sake (though that is absolutely essential to my mental health), but unlike other forms of self-care in which the intent is to disconnect, the intent here is to re-connect to something beyond myself. Dark-time self-care is about keeping an intentional inner focus amid the outer distractions.
How do you do spiritual self-care in tumultuous times?
The Heart’s Desire Prayer I have been praying during this novena is:
Oh Antlered One who calls me home to live within the garden of myself, help me to find the still point in the maelstrom of my anxious fears, to follow where the sacred tug of grief and rages will guide me to the wisdom I will write upon the pages of these my croning years.
This was Fun! And a lot of hard work! A few days ago, I asked friends on Facebook to offer their tools for the resistance as we work to meet the challenges of the coming days. I was unprepared for the magnitude of the response. I received 119 comments on the thread. Some comments included several ideas which I unwove into different lines. Others echoed each other, and I wove those together as I could. I decided to let the actual phrasings stand as written in as many cases as possible, though I often only pulled out shorter phrases from longer sentences to make the points succinct. I printed out four pages of about 110 lines of poem, sliced the lines apart, and arranged them in a flow that felt good to me. Here is the finished poem, with great gratitude to my beloved community:
Tools for the Resistance: A Crowd-Sourced Poem by Beth Weaver-Kreider and friends
Strengthen yourselves for what is to come. Set your boundaries, clearly and effectively. Strengthen your resolve. Practice resilience. Stay visible. Wear black. Harness that bone-deep disappointment to determination. Mourn. Invite people to mourn with you. Scream. Invite people to scream with you. Use the tool of your voice. Use reason. Pay attention. Prepare yourself for when you will be needed. Resist tyranny. Don’t hide. Don’t obey in advance. Teach the history of non-resistance and civil disobedience. Do civil disobedience. Push back. Refuse to follow unethical instructions. Carry forward our history of resistance. Mobilize the angelic warriors. Get your cell phone camera ready. Get your boots on the ground. Put on your pink hat. March! Find joy in action!
Gather facts and information, knowledge and experience. Read. Research and read. Think critically. Practice intelligence. Practice bravery. Educate. Make sure people know how the system works. Teach the privileged to be allies. Unlearn the whitewashing of history. Disempower ignorance. Tell the truth. Share it boldly and without rancor. Confront your elitism and privilege. Stop recycling old arguments. Examine your assumptions. Be humble. Be an active ally: Say, “What can I do?” Come alongside. Check in. Hold space. Greet the ones others look away from. Actively love the disenfranchised. Actively listen to them, and follow the marginalized ones. Follow the directions of the young ones. Walk with your elders. Connect. Coresist.
Boycott. Buy local. Buy independent. Vote with your money. Know where your dollars are going. Volunteer. Gather folks who care. Create adaptable support systems. Teach basic skills. Teach people to make things for themselves. Grow the movement. Draw people in. Share ideas and plan actions. Look to your sisters. Learn the value of true friendship. Hold on to each other. Give care to those in your sphere. Practice breathing together Share your gentleness.
Aid in the collective healing work. Midwife one another. Extend gifts of listening. Listen selflessly. Listen to and hear each other’s stories. Tell stories of hope and resistance Have hard conversations. Make eye contact.
Make music. Send sound soaring to the heavens. Make music without words. Memorize music and poetry. Sing songs about equity, freedom, and democracy. Sing songs of peace with children. Teach music to children. Use humor: Humor has always been a tool of resistance. Have fun! Be creative! Make art, make art, make art. Dance!
Walk with friends. Walk in the woods. Sit by streams. Gaze at the stars. Find stillness in nature. Soak in the beauty. Save seeds. Share seeds and plants. Plant seeds. Find new seeds. Plant community gardens. Use herbs and words together to incant and pray and sing. Find wisdom from the flowers. Take inspiration from strong sturdy trees. Grow your community of trees. Remember the roots that connect us all. Keep your eye on beauty instead of disorder. Keep your eye on peace, standing shoulder to shoulder. Practice courageous kindness. Hold onto hope.
Practice resistance as a spiritual act. Practice gratitude. Practice radical self-care. Practice slowness, enchantment, being, and noticing. Upgrade consciousness. Meditate. Be fully present in the moment that is. Practice reflection. Recharge. Use magic. Cast spells. Hold sacred circles. Create the Yes. Pray: “Love, make me an instrument of your peace.” Continue to show up for mercy and peace and justice Continue to show up for kindness and compassion Continue to show up for wisdom and safety Remember: You are not alone. Let your little light shine. Shine it into the shadows. Be a beacon of light and hope.
Gratitude List: 1. Co-poeming 2. Taking a group of students to a nursing home today to interview their elders. Beautiful interactions. I am incredibly proud of these young people. 3. Self-care. I had been neglecting my careful lunch creation in the past week (a bit depressed, I think), and so spent some good time this evening cooking a pot of grains, sauteing kale and carrots, and roasting soybeans for the rest of the week. 4. How the little pothos cuttings grow roots, and then push out new leaves. 5. Good stories. May we walk in Beauty!
This is the second of three pieces of writing on the rosary, which I am doing this week for The Way of the Rose Dark Mysteries Novena. Today is the Joyful Mysteries.
Mysteries of the Darkness Novena Day 40. Joyful Mysteries:
Everything seems to begin in a garden.
In the traditional narrative of the Mysteries, both Sorrow and Glory begin in gardens. I imagine the Garden of Sorrows to be an arboretum of sorts, with lined pathways and small groves of trees covering the hillside. And in my imagination the Garden of Resurrection—perhaps its my childhood experience of Easter and its daffodils and amaryllis and sprays of flowering tree branches—is filled with flowers. And I have chosen to place the first step in the Joyful Mysteries, the moment of contact between maiden and angel, in a garden, a Garden of Yes, a place where I, the one about to embark on the journey, get to choose whether I will accept the tasks ahead of me. Because to do inner work, to make my spiritual practices live beyond the mere rote doing and saying of them, is to consent to the constant journey of transformation.
A garden is a space somewhere between wilderness and domesticity, with even the most carefully pruned and shaped garden remaining ungovernable at some level. I like the wilder looking ones, where there is evidence of human interaction with the wild, but the plants also seem to be offering their opinion on how the space should be.
My heart, too, is a garden, a space between the wildlands and the tame, where emotions and dreams grow not entirely wild. I tend them, shape them, and honor their presence, but I do not bully them or subjugate them, at least when I am at my most open-hearted. And they have a say in what my garden becomes.
And these myths and stories of Mystery which we use to anchor the decades of our daily practice are also gardens. As we individually take up the care of them, each one’s garden will look different. Each telling is transformed a little, as when the light hits in just a certain way in a mostly shaded corner of a garden.
In the Joyful Mysteries, whether you call it the Annunciation or Yes or The Budding, we begin again, fresh in the knowledge that while we cannot choose the circumstances of our lives, we do get to consent to the tasks we take upon us for the journey.
I enter the garden. There is a shining light, or a purple shadow against the grass, or a little bird, or a sound of bells, and a Question: Will you take this journey? Will you let it transform you, knowing there will be wonders ahead and discoveries to make, sorrows aplenty, and enlightenment on the other side?
This is a little oracle draw I did yesterday from Nick Bantock’s Archeo deck: The Healer, The Jester, The Trickster. Here we enter the fray as Healers. What do we have to offer as healing? What sustenance and repair can we spread to our communities in this time of anxious uncertainty? And then those two cousins, Jester and Trickster, both! The Jester uses humor and drama to show us our social shadows. The Trickster turns the jesting upon our personal egos. Not only must I take a careful look at the problems of society, but I must look at my own ego-bound nature. And laugh and dance and caper. These capering fools might offend, but in the service of learning and the greater good. What does the Trickster have to teach me, even as I am searching for ways to join the Jester in unpacking our wider social troubles?
I have crowd-sourced Tools for the Resistance on a Facebook thread, and will turn that into a poem. This is not yet that poem. This is just cracking the codes in some words.
Secret Codes for the Resistance by Beth Weaver-Kreider
Take the spa out of despair. At least don’t pair it with your idea of self-protection. And unweave the silence from resilience— share your arc of hope in the bounce-back.
But keep, perhaps, the rage in courage in this age of rampant anxieties. Keep both the fierce and fearsome lion and the summoning bell inside your bold rebellion, and oh Dear Sisters and Resisters: Let love lie lightly (although in reverse) in this hopeful revolution, like a secret rose, waiting to bloom.
Gratitude List: 1. Watching deer on the hillside in the bosque across the road with the kid this morning. 2. Family and spending time with relatives we haven’t seen in a long time 3. The many colors of red on the hillside 4. Chocolate as medicine (I think I have said that one already a time or two in recent days) 5. Rhythms and cycles, wheels and spirals, knowing that the turning will always come May we walk in Beauty!
“We’ve got to be as clear-headed about human beings as possible, because we are still each other’s only hope.” ―James Baldwin
“Poets are kind of like—it’s a bad metaphor, but—canaries in a coal mine. They have a sense for things that are in the air. Partly because that’s what they do—they think about things that are going on—but partly because they take their own personal experience and see how that fits in with what they see in the world. A lot of people might think that poetry is very abstract, or that it has to do with having your head in the clouds, but poets, actually, walk on the earth. They’re grounded, feet-first, pointing forward. They’re moving around and paying attention at every moment.” —Don Share
“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.” —Toni Morrison
“…Accept what comes from silence. Make the best you can of it. Of the little words that come out of the silence, like prayers prayed back to the one who prays, make a poem that does not disturb the silence from which it came.” —from “How to Be a Poet (to remind myself)” by Wendell Berry
Morning Prayer by Phillip Newell In the silence of the morning your Spirit hovers over the brink of the day and a new light pieces the darkness of the night. In the silence of the morning life begins to stir around me and I listen for the day’s utterances. In earth, sea and sky and in the landscape of my own soul I listen for utterances of your love, O God. I listen for utterances of your love.
For the next three days, I am writing the posts for the 54-Day Mysteries of the Dark Novena at Way of the Rose. I’ll post those here on the blog, and do separate posts for the daily November poems.
Mysteries of the Darkness Novena
Day 39. Glorious Mysteries:
Oh how the rhythm of these three days keeps me grounded, knowing there is within the Joyful Mysteries the shadow of Sorrows to come, and within the Sorrows, the seed of Glory waiting.
Sometimes it drives me a little crazy, if I am to be honest. Today I want to wallow in the Sorrows, rage and cry, feel all the Big and Overwhelming Feelings. And sometimes during the Sorrowful Mysteries, I want to keep riding the hopeful waves of discovery and fresh awareness of Joy, or rush to rise up from the grave on the day of Glory and shout I’m Back! Some days I dread the shadows in the valleys of Sorrow.
Yet the days roll onward inexorably, reminding me how the shadows bring definition to the sunshine of joy, how the glory lingers all through the cycle, to offer the hope of comfort on the most sorrowful of days.
And so today I leap into the joyful sunlight, remembering that I am Alive! Knowing I have work to do. And deeply aware that sorrow will always cycle back to find me, even when my soul clenches with the thought of it.
And what if the Soul has trouble catching up, caught in the sloughs of the sorrowful path? When I get stuck in sorrow as I am today, resisting the glory—I gather my tools. I crowd-source ideas from friends on social media (“What do you do when you feel this way?”), I take a little longer at my morning grounding, sigh between Hail Marys, count the shades of red on the hillside, remember my dreams.
In last night’s dream, I was nursing other people’s starving babies, though I am in my time of croning. I felt the latch, felt the milk drop, felt the satisfaction that this one—at this moment—would be provided for.
Instead of answering how I can step from the shadowed pathway of the sorrow-road into the glorious light of rebirth, my dream asks me what sustenance I can find within myself to offer outward. Instead of always asking how I will be sustained to make the journey out of the tomb, today I am being asked to find that sustenance within myself and offer it outward. I do not know yet what form this will take.
We are complex organisms, we humans, and we can carry within us simultaneously the joy and the sorrow, the tragedy and the glory. Open the bowl of your heart ever wider to take it all in.
Wake up! A new day is dawning! Be ready for the task of building a new world. The sorrows will always be with us. There will always be another child needing sustenance and protection, another soul to care for. And just as surely will the work of awakening be arriving on the train of the coming day, followed by the promise of fresh surprises on the horizon.
What wakes you up today and makes your senses come alive?
What draws your spirit from the shadowy valleys and underground passages of sorrow into the light of a new day?
What glory can you pass along, like a life-line, to your neighbors today?
This is not intended to shame anyone for feeling despair or numbness or fear. It’s me telling myself to prepare to resist fascism more openly and energetically.
The Regime Would Like to Request Your Compliance in the Following Matters: by Beth Weaver-Kreider
Curl up in a ball of despair and stay there. Allow that slow-seeping sense of helplessness to invade every pore of your being. Practice extreme numbness. Scroll mindlessly through your phones at all times. Do not look out your windows. Better yet, keep your blinds drawn. Stay away from nature: It won’t be around much longer anyway. Stop making things. Buy stuff. Be good little consumers. Distrust all your neighbors. Exercise suspicion. Tell us everything you can about your neighbors. Stop reading books! Especially history books! Better yet, join our book-burnings, every other Thursday on the public square. Read instead these memes created by the Russian bots, and listen to the news vetted by our own minister of liberty management. Do not complain. Do not organize. Do not resist.
Gratitude List: 1. A golden chilly bike ride this morning on the Rail Trail 2. All four of us under one roof for two nights 3. The people who are stepping up and leading the way 4. Feeling the Big Feelings even when they aren’t fun 5. Bluuuuuuuuuuuuuuue sky! May we walk in Beauty!
“We must do what they fear— tell the truth, spread the truth. This is the most powerful weapon.” —Alexei Navalny
“For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.” —Carl Sagan
“But this moment, you’re alive. So you can just dial up the magic of that at any time.” —Joanna Macy
“I tell you the more I think, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.” —Vincent van Gogh
“The most vital right is the right to love and be loved.” —Emma Goldman
“Love imperfectly. Be a love idiot. Let yourself forget any love ideal.” —Sark
“Everything I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything exists, only because I love.” —Leo Tolstoy
“Love is a great beautifier.” —Louisa May Alcott
“Love is everything it’s cracked up to be. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don’t risk everything, you risk even more.” —Erica Jong
“Fall in love over and over again every day. Love your family, your neighbors, your enemies, and yourself. And don’t stop with humans. Love animals, plants, stones, even galaxies.” —Frederic and Mary Ann Brussa
“I will start from here. That is an interesting spiritual statement when you stop to think about it. It means that whatever happened before, and whatever may happen in time to come, the past and the future are not the sacred space I actually inhabit. That space is right here, right now, in whatever condition I find myself. This is what I have to work with. This is where change and hope begin for me. Recognizing my location on the map of the holy is one more way that I claim my place of blessing and announce to the universe: I will start from here.” —Steven Charleston
” ‘They kept going, because they were holding onto something.’ ‘What are we holding onto, Sam?’ ‘There’s still good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.’ “ —Frodo and Sam
“Somewhere deep in the forest of grief there is a waterfall where all your tears may flow over mossy rocks, under watchful pines.” —Beth Weaver-Kreider
“Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.” —E. B. White
“There are certain things, often very little things, like the little peanut, the little piece of clay, the little flower that cause you to look WITHIN – and then it is that you see the soul of things.” —George Washington Carver
This Poem May Be a Cheat Because I Leaned on the Thesaurus by Beth Weaver-Kreider
Oooh, I got a lotta big, big stuff to feel now, Babes. I needed a thesaurus to find me all the names for the shades of rage I’m roiling through. Here goes:
acerbity, acrimony, agitation, animosity apoplexy, bitterness, blowup, asperity, bluster, choler, convulsion, eruption dander, exasperation, excitement, explosion ferment, fireworks, furor, ferocity fury and gall and heat and frenzy hemorrhage, huff, hysterics, indignation ire and madness, mania, irritation obsession, outburst, passion, paroxysm rampage, raving, resentment and spasm spleen and squall, temper and storm umbrage, uproar, upset, tantrum wrath and vehemence havoc and incandescence
Whew! That feels better.
Gratitude List: 1. How that golden boat of a moon rested so gently on the sea of the southwestern ridge of the hollow 2. People gathering to share their stories and grief and outrage 3. How momentum is gathering at the grassroots to protect and empower people who are vulnerable to the impending fascist threat 4. How being with others helps me to gather my own energy for the work ahead 5. Powerful, strong, compassionate, and wise women May we walk in Beauty!
“Tyrants fear the poet.” —Amanda Gorman
“Don’t be ashamed to weep; ’tis right to grieve. Tears are only water, and flowers, trees, and fruit cannot grow without water. But there must be sunlight also. A wounded heart will heal in time, and when it does, the memory and love of our lost ones is sealed inside to comfort us.” ―Brian Jacques
“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.” Toni Morrison
“Men find it easier to believe they have been swindled by a witch than outwitted by a woman.” —Amina Al-Sirafi (in the novel The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty)
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the Earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.” ―Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder
“Love is the bridge between you and everything.” ―Rumi
“Come senators, congressmen Please heed the call Don’t stand in the doorway Don’t block up the hall For he that gets hurt Will be he who has stalled There’s a battle outside And it is ragin’ It’ll soon shake your windows And rattle your walls For the times they are a-changin’.” ―Bob Dylan
“To open our eyes, to see with our inner fire and light, is what saves us. Even if it makes us vulnerable. Opening the eyes is the job of storytellers, witnesses, and the keepers of accounts. The stories we know and tell are reservoirs of light and fire that brighten and illuminate the darkness of human night, the unseen. They throw down a certain slant of light across the floor each morning, and they throw down also its shadow.” —Linda Hogan
What do you do when the gods of the dreamings offer you maps for the journey?
How will you answer when the night-folk cry out: “Give us the hope of our meanings!” ―Beth Weaver-Kreider
The ghost of an old enemy appeared in the night, during a bout of anxious insomnia, in the form of an attack written on a friend’s vulnerable social media post. His response was rife with privilege, entitlement, and barely-masked bigotry couched first in the form of seemingly innocent questions, and then in disdainful and contemptuous put-downs.
Get Ready by Beth Weaver-Kreider
When the bigot blows in with his bombast, his bluster and menace and gall, will you stand between him and the trans girl walking to school, the small boy called Dreamer, the young woman whose face shows the strength of her Navajo ancestors, the man whose accent dances from his tongue with a salsa or merengue beat?
Will you let yourself be counted among them, among those at the dagger-end of his vitriol: the laws he will make to cage them and demean them, the bloody trail of his deportations, the snarling and biting of his vicious hounds?
Will you stand with those on the edge of the page, offer your strength, build the resistance, focus your rage and your grief for their safety?
Can you be stronger than the waves of exhaustion which threaten to engulf you and pull you under? Fiercer than the raw bite of winter, but with love in your heart, and a tender eye? Can you be true to the stories you’ve lived by, now when the tales are being told in real time?
Gratitude List: 1. Watching my Middle Schoolers interact with elders from a local nursing home yesterday 2. How the circles are gathering 3. A salty bite of peanuts for an energy boost mid-morning 4. Coaches–these folks really invest their time and heart in helping my son’s team be healthy in body, mind, and spirit 5. Blue blue blue blue sky May we walk in Beauty!
“The stories I’m trying to write, and which I want to promote, are stories that contribute to the stability of my own culture, stories that elevate, that keep things from flying apart.” —Barry Lopez
“What the world wants, and people need, are people who believe in Something—Something that will lead them to the good, the beautiful, the true, and the universal.” —Richard Rohr
“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word “love” here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace – not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin
“I am not talking about giving our hearts over to despair. I wonder if we can train our hearts, intentionally, like athletes who train for a marathon, to bear the load without crumpling under the weight. I think that’s what the children need from us, for us to bear them, bear the stories, hold them as though they were our own, to be prepared to act at any moment for any one of them within our reach. I think the times call for hearts strong enough to be tender, to bleed without weakening, to rage and protect and pray and hope without numbing out.
“I don’t think it has to be a choice. We don’t have to choose between the closed heart and the broken heart. We can be awake and yet not despair. It’s worth a try.” —Beth Weaver-Kreider
“If we are going to see real development in the world, then our best investment is in women.” —Desmond Tutu
“Activism is the rent I pay for living on this planet.” —Alice Walker
“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive—to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” —Marcus Aurelius
Found on a T-shirt: “I am totally happy and not dangerous mostly.”
“Part of the tragedy of our present culture is that all our attention is on the outer, the physical world. And yes, outer nature needs our attention; we need to act before it is too late, before we ravage and pollute the whole ecosystem. We need to save the seeds of life’s diversity. But there is an inner mystery to a human being, and this too needs to be rescued from our present wasteland; we need to keep alive the stories that nourish our souls. If we lose these seeds we will have lost a connection to life’s deeper meaning—then we will be left with an inner desolation as real as the outer.” —Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Adrienne Rich: “When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility of more truth around her.”
“I have been in Sorrow’s kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and sword in my hands.” —Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road
Mockingbird Chronicles 