Humble and listening

joy over despair, a love ethic, & five things

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A song I’m loving:

A pop of color, 35mm film

1. — “Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.” ―Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

I choose joy over despair. I choose joy over despair. I choose joy over despair. I have been repeating these words in my mind lately, turning toward them when despair’s grip feels strong. As someone who long naturally oriented toward despair and away from joy, it takes intentional practice to flip the lens. I seek to remember my despair, beyond its temporary presence, offers no solace or gift to the world. Instead, my compassion does; my wonder does; my belief in possibility does; my orientation toward love does; my capacity to forgive does; my listening to all who have been teaching us how to stay with great transformation does; my willingness to feel despair and then let it move me toward who and how I want to be in this world does.

Tomorrow is the inauguration here in the U.S., and instead of sinking into despair, I am opening to joy resting next to it. I am practicing finding all the people who are acting beyond it. I am remembering I get to keep practicing a love ethic, even when it requires my own self-forgiveness time and time again, because “domination cannot exist in any social situation where a love ethic prevails.” I am recognizing all the parts of me that keep me from staying open and turning toward them with compassion, with understanding, knowing this helps me do the same with others. I am tending to my own work in the world, to extending care and kindness wherever possible, to grandmother trees and dancing with my daughter and noticing the first purple hyacinths popping up in my backyard, feeling the tenderness of seeing their beauty return again, even now. I am practicing staying close to the belief that beauty can return again, even now.

Blending in, 35mm film

2 — I have been sick for the last week, as has my daughter. Her fever finally broke yesterday while my tonsils dressed themselves in white. I texted a friend, “it’s hard to feel like I’ve gotten nothing done all week” and, because she is wise, she lovingly reminded me of how much I was doing in the care-taking of myself and my child; of the tender and hard and loving work required to comfort and care for a sick toddler while being sick myself. It’s true; no one sees me lying awake in my daughter’s bed just so she can sleep with the comfort of knowing I’m there. No one sees the temperature checks or the the holding her on the floor while she cries, asking me when her intense coughs will go away. No one sees how many times I whisper I love you, my sweet girl a day, how many snacks I make, how many cartoon impersonations I do just to invoke a giggle. And this is the most central, integral work of my life — so wildly far from “nothing”.

How often do we assume we’re doing “nothing” when in actuality, we’re doing the most important thing? How often do we forget the most important things are so rarely considered productive by the dehumanizing standards of the systems we live within? How often can we return to the bigness of our small, quiet, private care — the landscape of our day-to-day tending no one sees — the work that doesn’t earn us money or praise or attention but instead earns us presence? How can we let it all matter a little bit more?

Through the trees, 35mm film

3 — “We have entered a prolonged season of descent, taking us down into the unknown. In the imagery of myth and fairy tales, we have left the ordinary world and have entered the underworld, a sightless terrain that is shadowy and strange. I have come to call this time of descent, the Long Dark. It may be decades or more likely a few generations before we see the farther shore of this crisis, if we make it. I say this not with a note of despair, or with an attitude of hopelessness, but, instead, recognizing and valuing the necessary work that takes place in the dark. It is the realm of soul—of whispers and dreams, mystery and imagination, death and ancestors. It is an essential territory, both inevitable and required, offering a form of soul gestation that may gradually give shape to our deeper lives, personally and communally. Certain things can happen only in this grotto of darkness. Think of the wild network of roots and microbes, mycelium, and minerals, making possible all that we see in the day world, or the extensive networks within our own bodies, bringing blood, nutrients, oxygen, and thought to our corporeal lives. All of it happening in the darkness.

The requirements for this time are not the familiar ones of achievement and growth, clarity and power. No, this season is asking for a new rhythm, one that is more attuned to humility and listening, stillness and rest. I hope each of you finds little pockets of refuge that support your intimacy with soul.” — Francis Weller

Humility and listening, stillness and rest. How might we approach ourselves, our work, and one another with these ways of being? How might this intentional descent give shape to something better, more true, more life-giving and nurturing for all? How might I stay with this Long Dark, this entering into unknown territory, this emergence of necessity to stay with crisis? I don’t have answers, but many of my teachers do; I’m learning. I don’t have answers, but I know Soul is calling in ways that can’t be yet explained but can be felt. I don’t have answers, but I am willing to meet this next phase of the long dark with an ever-opening heart, humble and listening.

To an expanse, 35mm film

4 — Things I’ve been reminding myself of:
It is safe to soften. It is safe to trust your own heart. It is safe to cease convincing anyone of Who You Are. It is safe to know when you need your shell and when you don’t. It is safe to stay lost longer than socially permissible. It is safe to not know where you’re going. It is safe to just be right here for now. It is safe to remember there is no where else, really.

5 — When you look out at the world and see a swell of grief, know your body is seeing clearly. When you look out at the world and feel a surge of awe in your heart, know your body is seeing clearly. It is possible to hold both. It is human to hold both.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

△ Building a go-bag

△ On leaving platforms behind

△ Thich Nhat Hanh’s walking meditation poems

△ Forgiveness, read by Nick Cave

△ ALOK’s wisdom, humor, magic

△ Somehow found this, watched it, and was as emotionally wrecked as when I first watched it at age seven

△ Picture Flowers in the Midst of Flames

△ On creative retreating

△ Tree visits, tree wisdom, tree comfort, trees

Grateful for this place.

With care,
Lisa