Bubbling thanks to Jill Pangman and Jennifer Berezan and all the women who journeyed with them on the recent retreat at Primrose Lake… any women searching for more depth and joy in their lives are encouraged to consider one of Jill’s gatherings! www.silasojourns.com
I went to a bookstore sale in February 2012 and treated myself to a book by Mark Nepo, thinking how much I liked some of his articles and poems. When I got home, I had a moment of shock, anger and disappointment to find I had bought a “daybook” requiring me to read slowly, one item a day. A whole year!! How could he expect me to do that? And then the humour kicked in (a beat or two late, as usual) and I have treasured this book every day so far. Sometimes the connections are surreal, where I begin journalling on a topic in the morning before I do the “Nepo reading” and find that the ideas are intertwining. I have no idea whether this book is useful to others, but have deep gratitude to Mark for writing it.
Circles widen of their own accord,
webs don’t need planning
but come from deep within the body
of the spider.
She feeds herself
and silkmaking happens.
Propelled by her instinctive need to live,
she makes a few leaps,
attaching to the flexible support
of the world around her.
She moves through her steady ritual,
patterned steps evolved through natural lineage,
birthing the threads of her own survival.
She mostly sits,
and never needs to see
the intricate beauty she has created.
Notice the rocks that surround you,
boulders you have carried and set down,
piles of gravelly resentful sediment
fortifying your stories and stones.
Sing them down with the deep vibrations
of your longing,
the low rumbling moans
that tremble and gasp and resound again.
Notice the cracks,
the fissures in your fortress,
gaping through the holes
to see how lost you really are.
Invoke the thaw,
the rain and mudslide,
cold creek rising.
Let yourself be bruised by falling rock,
abraded by receding pebbles,
open to the pain of losing what you know.
Sit naked in the mucky silt
when the rocks have tumbled away.
Feel the living trickle of the stream.
Fall back into the current
you have forgotten,
the swelling that will catch your descent,
deep enough to carry you.
Pay homage as you float,
helpless and loved,
in the mother flood.
Take off your shoes,
or maybe your clothes,
and find a way to set yourself aside
without losing the fluid pulsing of your body.
Let the scrambling cease,
allow the fullness of the empty room
to sound like the silence of a cave.
Prepare to descend.
Know that she calls you deep into the earth,
listen to all the reasons you can’t go.
Pack them away like old sweaters you used to love.
Move with the trembling naked grace
of one who could choose another path, but won’t.
Allow the cold wet touch of fear in to your journey.
Lean into your rocks,
the slippery boulders that line your route down.
Know that you are lost.
Listen for the roar of the water,
the deep mother flowing underground,
echoing off the desolate walls of your soul
with an unrelenting invitation to love.
Sometimes you must leap
from your bed
upon hearing rain,
ignore the need to pee,
the fuzzy mouth and hair,
lurch drunkenly for the door
as you see the bright patch of sun
warming the wall.
Move from a place of desperation,
a yearning not to miss
the full colours of the rainbow.
She will not wait,
although she will return.
She will find you again at the borders of your life,
the sideways edges between dark and light.
But oh, today, why hold back from the mad rush?
What keeps you from staggering outside?
Go now,
bathe exultantly
in the resplendence of her serendipitous joy.
The deep hum
takes on a mournful note
when solitudes are silent at the edges
when voices are stilled
as the churches crumble away
and the cadence of community falters
when the falling apart has dropped its icicle shards
and the tinkling music of their smashing
has echoed its thrumming through the land.
The cornerstones that held our families
– hymns, justice, work bees –
have crumbled into necessary dust.
We need new bricks, new tools for building,
interlocking, sustainable,
mounted with flexible intent
by people who pledge allegiance to nothing at all.
These are my people,
the empty ones who make room for space,
who can hold each other as the walls fall down
in order to build with courage
a new tomorrow.
These are my sisters,
the ones who embrace my tears
because they hear the joy below them.
These are my brothers,
who find in their feelings a new honour
and share them with their sons.
These are my missing people,
hiding in the woods,
listening to the wind
so they can find their way.
Humming in the trees
so we can find each other.
Singing new songs in old ways
to celebrate the splendour.