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I like this pondering of hell without judgement. I also like thinking that losing our stories is a form of hell, reminding us that remembering who we are, where we come from and our connection to the earth and each other, is a way out of hell

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I confess I've never been much interested in hell as some kind of other, or heaven for that matter either, though I love picturing the angels playing cards and drinking Cosmopolitans. Perhaps that reflects my Protestant ethos, where heaven and hell as extremities were soft pedalled, all a bit too dramatic for a tribe that values the middle ground.

But the hell here and now, this interests me, as do writers, poets and artists who play with the darkness but offer no easy answers, no certitude as you say. The hell of here and now is familiar. And less terrifying as the years pass.

I love that your man carried two things, Padraig, and you don't know what they are! What a surprise poetry is.

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founding

What a moving poem, and all your reflections. Thank you Pádraig. And safe smooth travels!

Reading this, I am reminded of a time years ago when I took a course on death at a local Zen center. One week, we partnered up and shared with our partner what we most feared about death. I responded with some sense of certitude “pain.” A phrase shared by my favorite physiology teacher came to mind, a phrase he used to describe a condition nicknamed the “suicide disease” — “lancinating pain.” So I told my partner, “Pain. I’m afraid of lancinating pain.”

Then it was his turn. He was much older than me. At the time I was in my late 30s or early 40s, and I assume he was in his late 70s or early 80s.

He said, “being alone.”

Ohhhh.

My throat dropped into my heart dropped into my belly dropped into I don’t know where but way waaay down (hell?). THUD. I listened to my partner. After he shared, I thanked him. And then said, somewhat sheepishly but also urgently, as if correcting my words would really make a difference, like changing an order at a restaurant, except with much greater consequences than ginger sauce vs garlic. “I changed my mind. I don’t want to be alone. I can probably be in pain if I’m accompanied….” What I meant at that time was accompanied by another person. Having been recently divorced, that easy assumption of who might be there at the time of my death was absent. And as I read your post now Pádraig, I think, perhaps I’d be okay, so long as I’m accompanied even if by a myth.

The past few months I’ve been going in and out of a hell realm, to use the Buddhist term, psychologically speaking. As I’ve been uprooted from my home due to mold, this saga seems to have taken roots in my system - neuro, immuno, soma, psyche…. who knows it’s exact location, locations, like spores, insidious, innocuous to some, incendiary to others….. this story.

I need a new one.

In the midst of this hell realm I’ve been in and out of since January 9th, I’ve found tremendous support in the words shared in these newsletters, Pádraig. In the radiant smile of young Brian, the nighttime gatekeeper of my temporary shelter, the support of dear beloved friends, the inner encouragement to work with the gatekeepers of my own cells, neurons, my heart-mind, in which the words of so many flow in to offer relief. “A flower in hell, a trickle of water offered as an obeisance, a hare galloping through the underpassages, an echo, a track, a desire-line, a way. A handprint on the wall from someone else.” I’ll allow these words entry, again and again. The hidden streams, the silence, that which no flame devours…. the two things.

I walked into Wilner’s chemist on Thursday looking for a flower to offer some relief from this hell. “Let me read about them,” I thought. “I’ll see if one resonates.” The first in the list, alphabetically, was agrimony. “To soothe all those tormented in body or mind and bring them peace. The restless, the worried, the anxious, the tortured. Those who can find no peace of mind, no rest. There is such a vast army of these sufferers who so often hide their torment under smiles and joviality. They are often the cheeriest of people, and frequently humorists…. They will do anything rather than depress others with their trials. Even in severe illness they will jest and make light of their trials. They are brave people and Agrimony will help them so much.” Sometimes a poem, sometimes a flower.

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Apr 9, 2023Liked by Poetry Unbound

I have never written this nor said it out loud, although I have thought it:

Go to hell.

There!

I’ve gone and said it!

Was not struck by lightning, was not frowned upon, was not cast out (I don’t think!)

Thank you everyone here!

Language did just take me to a place, and glad to be here with fellow journiers.

Best to you all who celebrate Easter, Ramadan, Passover, and/or spring.

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"I’m not looking for certitude in poetry, just a bit of the enough." This. Thank you. On the page, in spoken word, and beyond, I am wary and weary of easy answers. Roughly paraphrasing David Whyte here, but a conversation with the unknown often feels the only one worth having.

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Apr 9, 2023Liked by Poetry Unbound

On I read Dante’s Inferno, I thought, for being a book about the complexities of Hell, it sure was focused on the lives of those who suffered there. It had a lot to say about life.

Can’t live without going to hell. Although I had never thought so before reading your poem, telling someone to “Go to Hell” is a lot like saying “Go to Life” and changes the way I see toasts that say the latter. It is an acknowledgement that you’re going to live.

In life we carry the “flowers” that are beauty as well as the knowledge that “devours.”

Someone I once knew, although pretty old and suffering from health problems that weren’t getting any better, still got up and showered every day. He dressed in casual but very presentable clothes and proceeded to “go to life” each day. His simple actions gave others hope--flowers. It was also easy to see how time was devouring him. He was also a poet but never satisfied with his work.

After reading your interesting poem, Padraig, I think I UNDERstand better the title of your podcast Poetry UNbound. You speak of poetry as centering on conflict, and it does, but with flowers.

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Apr 9, 2023Liked by Poetry Unbound

Your reflection reminds me that language accompanied by humanity can be Emily Dickinson’s little bird of winged hope appearing out of the blue singing out of silence, brightening the landscape, including the most barren and hellish, with a sign of beauty to carry us away. Far away may be next door. Far away may be a book.

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Apr 9, 2023Liked by Poetry Unbound

Wow—this is a really good one. O don’t have anything profound to say other than I appreciate the beauty of your use of language, the way you both challenge and affirm. Thank you for sharing so much of yourself with us.

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Apr 9, 2023Liked by Poetry Unbound

One of my cousins, during one of his famous barroom gospels, would joyfully misquote Mark Twain at full volume, “Go to heaven for the weather, but go to hell for the parties!” This was usually a sign that things were about to get rowdy.

I bring up this memory both as illustration of the absurdity of hell and of our desire to shout at the devil inside each of us. I will choose instead to consider the flowers and walk in wonder on this fine spring day.

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Hells bells

What the Hell ?

Hell of a day

Hell on wheels

It’s Hellish out there

Hell no

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Apr 9, 2023Liked by Poetry Unbound

The language of living hell gives me shivers only to arrive at the gates of a promised heavenly abode, temporal as both may be.

Bringing one’s heart (one of the things) for reassurance to the ragged people and flowers (the other thing) to lay at the alter of life’s mysteries is a bit of enough in poetry and in daily practice.

Perhaps the other two things might be the way we carry reverence and lamentation as we go about our ordinary lives without separating ourselves from others.

Joining with hands together 🙏🏼 in gratitude for friendship and poetry unbound (two things too!)

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For me, hell is an archetypal realm which can go by many names: the underworld, the shadows (psychologically speaking), etc. Each of us has a kind of inner hell which we have to enter at certain times in life - forged in the fire, as they say.

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Apr 9, 2023·edited Apr 9, 2023

I am my own hell when I harshly judge others. I can only crawl out of it when I start stabbing my way back from old hurting and toward language that will free my own heart, carry me out of self righteousness and back to humility and strength of Mystery. The Holidays, especially holidays excite my devil. The path I take to wend my way through is downright murky whether through writing or talking or space allowed in other ways. When the pain surfaces I am so tempted to take a deep dive into that hell which engulfs me in an internal and perpetual distorted music. The freedom from it arrives unexpected and so tender but it's the seeking that redeems me and to know that fragmented music is a messenger.... until I crawl back in again. Rise and Fall....Rise and Fall...themes of the day and week both rich and rife with myth.....whether unleavened bread or Christ! Ha!

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As for hell, I love this: “If you have to go through hell, don’t come out empty handed” (Steve Leder), but no, the lessons were never, ever worth it

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I have identified with so many of these comments today. Thank you Pádraig and community for your weekly posts and incite. I always want to learn more after reading here.

My youngest teen is in hell now being in a relationship with the wrong person, and not being able to see any life without him. That hopelessness and faithlessness to me, were always hell.

Now helplessness is also my hell. The pain she is feeling, and the pain she is causing, her inability or unwillingness to see any other way forward, to accept any other comfort or distraction, his repeated return and inevitable departure are so difficult to watch and experience. I am at a loss at this time. How easily hope and faith can be lost in my pockets, or left behind and never carried at all.

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Like many things about being raised Catholic, though I think of things quite differently now, i can remember what it felt like to believe in Hell. My earliest sense of Hell was bewilderment which, for a child, is perhaps common enough. But as a teenager, Hell formed the "mythic plane" (something Alan Garner describes 'living on' as a child during World War II), that helped me understand my world. For it felt a kind of hell spawned by hell's that i knew existed before me but which I knew only through the scars left on the people around me: "those who've lost their story." And this "loss" was the dark 'gift' of my childhood. For I was left without story even while i sensed an abundance of story that had been locked away, abandoned, forgotten, denied me, with even clues scrubbed into obscurity. The absence of story was, in my teen years, agony so severe I often did not know how i would survive it. But i did survive it. Though only by stepping onto the path of a quest for story. And which has been all kinds of agony (and sometimes joy) as i've gathered story riches to me, even while those stories denied me remain beyond my reach save for the most meagre clues. I have had to learn about "enough," which I never feel that I have found. I yearn and yearn for "enough" and it hurts that it is still beyond me. But, Pádraig, there is solace in your "just a bit of enough." For though the "enough" that I seek remains elusive, perhaps, i need better to appreciate the "bit" that I have found along my winding path.

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