Tomorrow marks the milestone of 15 months since my husband died. Since then I have taken most of his clothes to the Good Will store, but cannot yet surrender one of his shirts. A year ago I wrote 3 haiku about 3 special objects that help me live with the hurt.
It's amazing to me how much longer clothes can last than the people who wore them, sometimes. It's 25 years since my mother died. I slept in one of her nightgowns for years. It is now worn out, but a special wool coat that always brings her vividly to mind hangs on my bedpost. I can reach out and rub my hand on it any time during the night.
I too cherish wearing things of my mother's since she died over a decade ago. It feels as if I can still sense her energy and the way she loved me and believed in me. My mother's little poodle came to live with me after my mother's death and when that little dog died at the end of March, it felt as if my mother was slipping even further away. I notice now how my hands with their veins and wrinkles and age spots are becoming my mother's hands, her ring on my left ring finger.
I sit here in my garden in my husband’s chair and listening to the music he loved -he died 2 years ago and his chair and his music wrap themselves around me I throw cool evening breeze
I love this Deborah. I have several shirts myself that remind me of a loved one, even one never worn by that person, but that just reminds me of my loved one, and I could never bear to part with any of them. Sometimes, yes, just wrapping yourself in the long sleeves is enough.
Oh Deborah I feel so sorry and I understand your smiling back. I “speak” to my mother who left 26 years ago, and I do not believe that you should feel you need to surrender that beloved shirt. I would keep it under my pillow forever. You loved him so dearly.
Almost 5 years and I haven't emptied all the drawers, and I guess I don't really intend to do so. I wear a woollen sweater of his, now it is winter here, and a red sleeveless jacket (I have it on now). I can see him in it, but my memory is mostly of when he grew quite ill. It brought him physical comfort, which I suppose is why I wear it now.. and when I put it on I remember him clearly.
I can so relate to this. I have a long-sleeved, striped dress shirt of my father's still in my closet. He died in 2005. The shirt is one he wore to work, now thin and gauzy....it is just so him. I won't ever part with it.
I've gone through a six year period in which I've lost two siblings and several close friends in a variety of sudden, traumatic ways (suicide, disease, heart failure, tragic accidents). My beloved dog (a springer/lab mix) was a steady support throughout it all, and then she died too. An artist friend made a necklace for me depicting my dog jumping over the moon: the necklace is silver, the moon is gold. Reeling from so much complex grief, I put the necklace on and have rarely taken it off again since. It represents all my lost loved ones, as well as my dog, symbolising how closely I carry them all with me as life goes on. I've heard it said that you don't really "heal" from grief; you learn to carry it more lightly. I carry my grief in silver and gold.
Wow. That’s a lot of loss. I am glad you have the necklace; I see it in my mind’s eye. I like how you describe grief-the carrying of it more lightly. To the lightening of the load.
“There is something about a dog. They love freely; they do not judge or blame; they forgive. That's a blessing every day of their lives and you pay for it when they die. It's a pure grief, and it carries all your other griefs along with it and sets them free . . " Lucy Treloar -Wolfe Island.
Really sorry to hear this, Terri. Huge losses. I know how important the dog was to you too.
I have an equivalent necklace, made from an Iona greenstone set in silver, gifted to me (Iona, where I've been running retreats for 25 years, has been a hugely important place for me). The necklace holds griefs of loss of which I've had a few, though not as huge as yours, alongside joy at my still being alive, together in one synthesis.
Roselle, how lovely to see your name here! Thank you for these kind words. I love knowing you remember my beloved dog, and I also love knowing you have an equivalent necklace. I hope our paths cross again one of these days.
A while ago I started collecting fallen bird feathers on walks and placing them on my mantle. 🪶I don’t know why but they represented something about the falling and shedding of hurt and the lightness that could still be found and sometimes carried.
Have you read the book Theo of Golden? What a homeless woman does with the feathers she finds once she is connected and understood by a generous stranger is so wonderful!
Birds, to me, represent freedom and flight. So often in my youth, whenever I had a nightmare, I would take flight in my dream, flying just high enough to be out of reach for whatever was after me. Birds nowadays are kin to me - they invite me into a deeper relationship with Nature and with myself. All that to say, I, too, collect feathers that I find. Over the many years now that I've been walking, I have quite a collection going. It brings me joy just seeing them.
Many phrases resonate, thanks Padraig. You set me thinking about a related term, resolution. My healing is bound up with learning not to put myself in harm's way. So I'm thinking about just how powerful the urge is to gravitate to similar dynamics to those that first informed me. Like trying to shoot the same set of rapids that drowned me until I make it through. Learning to relinquish the fantasy of resolution, or at least one I can fabricate is one of those hard won steps of healing. Contenting myself with smaller acts of ordering: knitting, quilting, weaving, handling colours and textures plays no small part in this.
“Contenting myself with smaller acts…” How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. How do you ascend the 12 step stairway? One step at a time. How do you create a garden? Start with a single seed.
I’m appreciating the framing of these other acts as smaller and ordering.. and then realizing there are no small parts of it, either. Resolution can sound so grand and we can attach our hope to it while turning away from our own genuine pleasures. I so relate to this, thank you.
Beth, I deeply relate to this. “Learning not to put myself in harm's way” and “learning to relinquish the fantasy of resolution” are hard-won lessons. Lessons I need to continue relearning!
Beth, I am also learning the tricky balance of not putting myself in harm’s way and living a life filled with risk-taking and filling my entire being with all of life’s offers. Thank you
I find there are levels or maybe facets if we think in terms of crystals. Just when I think I've learned my lesson, seems there's another way to learn.
The "dynamics that informed me" is a wonderful way to remove the power we give to that which harmed us. Thank you for the fresh perspective that is now folded into the current that lifts me up and moves me through to what is next.
Sitting outside in nature really helps me in ways I can and can’t explain I think sitting in a world that feels bigger than the one in my head grounds me and reminds me that things can and will always change and so long as I choose to focus on that slowly but surely things melt away
On a retreat this past week I had such a powerful experience with a big pine tree at the entrance to the labyrinth. The tree was so tall and strong and beautiful and I could feel it telling me I was all of those things as well. I came home still carrying the upright tree in the core of my body.
I had a similar experience while visiting the redwoods earlier this year. I touched several burned out trees that were still growing strong, I had to strain to see the top bc they were so tall! I felt proud of them for thriving through the fire and I felt like they were proud of me too!
yes, the first object that came to mind for me was a tree because of this dynamic our souls have have with nature. the sights and sounds and smells of nature are inherently made to soothe and calm our nervous system and pint us to the bigger picture in life.
I used to think healing meant one day I’d wake up and the memories would be gone.
They aren’t.
Childhood sexual trauma doesn’t simply disappear. There isn’t a magical pill that erases it or a finish line where you suddenly become the person you were before it happened.
Healing isn’t forgetting.
It’s learning how to live without letting the wound define every step you take.
Some days the current is gentle.
Some days it tries to pull you under.
The work is learning not to fight every wave, but to swallow the current, trust your breath, and keep moving with it instead of letting it drown you.
The scars remain.
Some triggers still find you.
Some nights still feel impossibly heavy.
But every time you choose to stay, to feel, to breathe, to reach for hope instead of hiding, you’re healing.
Not because the trauma is gone—
but because it no longer gets to decide who you are.
If you carry childhood sexual trauma, or any trauma, I see you.
You are not weak because you still struggle.
You are strong because, despite everything that tried to break you, you are still here… learning to flow with a river you never asked to enter.
I have returned over and over to the presence of a deep listener to accompany me through the wounds in my heart. This and poetry, centering prayer, riding my bike, and yesterday a cold plunge into Lake Michigan.
I love the phrase “relinquishing the fantasy of resolution”. This resonates powerfully with me.
"...learning to flow with a river you never asked to enter." Woah! I am in that river after discovering years of my spouses betrayal! The river is raging, full of boulders upon which I am smashed and whirlpools that threaten to take me under. "We don’t erase the river—we learn how to navigate its current." Day by day I am learning how to stay afloat exhausted and and deeply bruised. Though I still believe the ferocious current will one day turn the corner and be calmer. But I am still in the river into which I was thrown. How to make a make a victorious life on the river is my current challenge. I am looking for beauty in the destruction. I love rivers and the challenge of navigating obstacles. I love the surrounding terrain and wildlife. I will look for them. I love the refreshing coolness of the water on a hot day. And trust me the days are like fire right now. I didn't choose this river but if I can look up and around at the beauty, maybe I could love my life again.
Teresa, I feel for you. I was where you are 40 years ago.. I was always so surprised and hurt by my ex-husband's infidelities, and still can't quite understand why it always took me by surprise. Your reflections on the river made me think of this poem my sister sent me recently by Rosemary Wahola Trimmer.
Teresa, having also thrashed thru this raging river of spousal betrayal… may i offer that such rivers often merge with a new confluence, such that the muddy and debris filled waters are left behind. The water now flows fresh and clear, there is new identity, a new course, and a new destiny. Resolution does not necessitate fantasy… sometimes just an honest holding of hope.
I thank you for sharing this. I am so sorry that it was put upon you; it makes my heart hurt. I am very glad you are finding ways to navigate the river and helping others to do so.
Thank you, Karen. I don’t think healing is a destination. I think it’s a practice. It’s waking up each day and deciding that what happened to you won’t have the final word. It’s resilience. It’s learning to carry the weight without letting it bury you. We don’t erase the river—we learn how to navigate its current. And every time we choose to keep moving forward, we become a little stronger than we were the day before.
One day my therapist said to me "Permanent loos is permanent grief". I wrote it down and keep this piece of paper in my notebook. Now it feels such a natural, even logical, dictum. It didn't always. I also thought that the moment of "final repair" would come and breath will be forever easy. Like you, I know that trauma is a wave and allowing myself to grieve permanently is not giving in to trauma is honouring the loss and more than that, the person who the loss belongs to.
As somebody who never really felt like she fitted in anywhere but was desperate to belong anyway, I still remember the profound impact of watching the film “Ordinary People” as a teenager, late one night at home after everyone else had gone to bed. Something about the loneliness and isolation of Timothy Hutton’s character spoke deeply to me, as he and his parents struggled in the aftermath of his brother’s drowning. It was the first time I can remember experiencing the strangely comforting feeling of having my own emotions articulated by another. That recognition is a form of healing, I believe, even if no resolution seems to be in sight. The film’s theme music was a version of Pachelbel’s Canon in D and sparked what has become a lifelong love of baroque music – another source of healing for me… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpeMBikzWtk&list=RDxpeMBikzWtk&start_radio=1
This is a beautiful reflection. I’ve been feeling a nudge to rewatch this over the last several months. Thank you for giving me yet one more reason to do so!
Oh dear, I have too many answers. The sky. A smooth black rock of basalt. My home. Rivers. Any stretching shadow. Any object I perceive as perceiving me as well. But for my real answer, and to echo the unspeakable healing in music, I’ll say my drum set. I never learned to play the drums, but I am a dancer, so I get the rhythm. Last year, I started sitting behind this drum set and found that I can feel rage and be precise, at the same time—and that I can channel my need to control everything into a rhythmic service. And when I’m done feeling anger, I can play. Fuck up. Try again. I can find my heartbeat. I can be the heartbeat. I don’t know if I’ll ever practice enough to get really good, as I am a fairly promiscuous musician - but the freedom there, too, is a healing.
I don't play the drums, but this resonated with me nonetheless. To "...feel the rage and be precise, at the same time..." and, returning to and becoming the heartbeat. These are what healing objects are made for. Bravo, Jo's drumset!
I am a musician; as you know, my main instrument is the piano. I write songs on it and then pass them to my husband, an exceptional jazz pianist who then transforms them beyond my ability to play! Still and all, it’s the creation element, isn’t it? Maybe we need to write a song! Drums, piano, hmm, now we need a bassist and a guitarist from up in here in this gorgeous community Pádraig has fostered, and we are golden.
My gosh! Rage and precision! This is brilliant. I never quite had an awareness of how those could coexist. But I think the one time in my life I was the MOST rage-full, I was ALSO the most clear. Just utter, utter clarity. Thank you so much for sharing here.
Ohhhhh, Jo! Mmmm. I love the idea of playing drums as a raging tool. I could see how satisfying it would be to give that voice to my rage while pounding the drumsticks against the drums. I could easily myself getting worked up to a sweat doing that.
I am curious...do you happen to record yourself in those moments? If so, do you play it back and think to yourself, "Wow...that is what my rage sounds like.."? That would be an extraordinary collection of music, I would think.
I used to enjoy having an afternoon cup of tea with my late mother. Our basic two-storey home, sunny Brisbane afternoon, chillin with my mum over tea. A short moment shared. Tea with people is an object of healing.
I loved this conversation - thank you. And I've ordered the poems! I did a Faber course with Richard a few years ago and was so touched by his kindness in receiving what we wrote together. A precious time. Your question takes me to an exercise we do in online groups sometimes. 'You have 30 seconds to find an object in your room.' Then we invite people to share why it matters to them. The stories are re-sourcing and shared themes arise. This makes me reflect/wonder if everything that surrounds us is a resource for companionship, dialogue, connection and a small portal to healing? If we take the time to offer it our full presence and attention? Which goes to this from David Whyte:
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.
So my unfolding answer is that to live into the kind of attention - to painting, crystal, place, human, whatever - that Richard Scott embodies, is in itself, an orientation to healing?
Naomi, some synchronicity here. I am also in a small group called the Wisdom Workshop where we write, share, talk profoundly. Just yesterday we did that very exercise of finding an object quickly and sharing what it was and why it mattered. And, yes, there was a weaving of what came from that and some shared themes. I think you've hit on something about companionship, connection, presence as a way into healing. Thank you.
Thank you Naomi. I read the entire poem. It and your comment dovetail into last week’s “loneliness” and eases into this week’s “hurt and healing”. Perhaps Padraig’s intent also.
As a hurting child, my instincts took me to the woods, where the loam and moist earth held beneath it, what I believed were objects of my healing. Rocks. Old bottles, some shattered, some whole. Trinkets. A long-gone child's metal toy truck. As an adult, for much too long, I sought quick fixes. I turned to typical snake oil elixers: liquor, religions, drugs, relationships, avoidance. Now, my adjunct therapy is my metal detector. It seems my childhood instincts were spot on. My metal detector takes me to nature. It requires me to seek. It calls me to dig. Everything I find is good. Everything I find heals me.
“The woods, where the loam and moist earth beneath it …” For me as well, a child of the bald prairies, the forest brought elements of healing and connection.
What helps me healing is needle and thread. Sitting down and stitching. Focusing on the movement of my fingers, watching how my steady work covers the quilt top with stitches made with love.
Hello and happy Sunday, everyone! For me, it was the piano. And before that, the clarinet. Polishing its black & silver body, sucking on the reeds, the purple velvet interior of the case cradling each part. Those rituals were medicine.
But the piano became a portal. To something intangible. Something ephemeral. My fingers on the keys, and suddenly my fate seemed no longer to be at the whim of others.
A weeping willow tree in my Godmother’s yard. It was a refuge from the storms of life, a canopy opening to the sun and the stars. I ate home-made cookies there. I could catch my breath. Yes, it was a home-place for my heart.
Tomorrow marks the milestone of 15 months since my husband died. Since then I have taken most of his clothes to the Good Will store, but cannot yet surrender one of his shirts. A year ago I wrote 3 haiku about 3 special objects that help me live with the hurt.
Though you are gone, the
sleeves of your wool shirt wrap your
arms around me still.
Only you know the
joy in the small wooden box
you made just for me.
Your eyes twinkle in
a picture from long ago.
I smile in return.
It's amazing to me how much longer clothes can last than the people who wore them, sometimes. It's 25 years since my mother died. I slept in one of her nightgowns for years. It is now worn out, but a special wool coat that always brings her vividly to mind hangs on my bedpost. I can reach out and rub my hand on it any time during the night.
I too cherish wearing things of my mother's since she died over a decade ago. It feels as if I can still sense her energy and the way she loved me and believed in me. My mother's little poodle came to live with me after my mother's death and when that little dog died at the end of March, it felt as if my mother was slipping even further away. I notice now how my hands with their veins and wrinkles and age spots are becoming my mother's hands, her ring on my left ring finger.
I sit here in my garden in my husband’s chair and listening to the music he loved -he died 2 years ago and his chair and his music wrap themselves around me I throw cool evening breeze
These moved me, thank you for sharing, Deborah
I love this Deborah. I have several shirts myself that remind me of a loved one, even one never worn by that person, but that just reminds me of my loved one, and I could never bear to part with any of them. Sometimes, yes, just wrapping yourself in the long sleeves is enough.
Thank you for sharing! XO
Oh Deborah I feel so sorry and I understand your smiling back. I “speak” to my mother who left 26 years ago, and I do not believe that you should feel you need to surrender that beloved shirt. I would keep it under my pillow forever. You loved him so dearly.
Almost 5 years and I haven't emptied all the drawers, and I guess I don't really intend to do so. I wear a woollen sweater of his, now it is winter here, and a red sleeveless jacket (I have it on now). I can see him in it, but my memory is mostly of when he grew quite ill. It brought him physical comfort, which I suppose is why I wear it now.. and when I put it on I remember him clearly.
I can so relate to this. I have a long-sleeved, striped dress shirt of my father's still in my closet. He died in 2005. The shirt is one he wore to work, now thin and gauzy....it is just so him. I won't ever part with it.
such a beautiful way to traverse the landscapes of greif within you.
I've gone through a six year period in which I've lost two siblings and several close friends in a variety of sudden, traumatic ways (suicide, disease, heart failure, tragic accidents). My beloved dog (a springer/lab mix) was a steady support throughout it all, and then she died too. An artist friend made a necklace for me depicting my dog jumping over the moon: the necklace is silver, the moon is gold. Reeling from so much complex grief, I put the necklace on and have rarely taken it off again since. It represents all my lost loved ones, as well as my dog, symbolising how closely I carry them all with me as life goes on. I've heard it said that you don't really "heal" from grief; you learn to carry it more lightly. I carry my grief in silver and gold.
Wow. That’s a lot of loss. I am glad you have the necklace; I see it in my mind’s eye. I like how you describe grief-the carrying of it more lightly. To the lightening of the load.
Whenever i'm anxious laying in bed morn or night i visualize my 2 dogs maggie and dylan laying beside me and i feel a sense of deep comfort.
hugs
What a story Terri, and the last line of reflection, "I carry my grief in silver and gold, " wow, so moving, so poignant.
“There is something about a dog. They love freely; they do not judge or blame; they forgive. That's a blessing every day of their lives and you pay for it when they die. It's a pure grief, and it carries all your other griefs along with it and sets them free . . " Lucy Treloar -Wolfe Island.
That's a lovely quote, and so very true. Thank you.
Such an intense period of loss! I’m glad you had a friend who was able to give you such a meaningful gift.
Really sorry to hear this, Terri. Huge losses. I know how important the dog was to you too.
I have an equivalent necklace, made from an Iona greenstone set in silver, gifted to me (Iona, where I've been running retreats for 25 years, has been a hugely important place for me). The necklace holds griefs of loss of which I've had a few, though not as huge as yours, alongside joy at my still being alive, together in one synthesis.
Roselle, how lovely to see your name here! Thank you for these kind words. I love knowing you remember my beloved dog, and I also love knowing you have an equivalent necklace. I hope our paths cross again one of these days.
A while ago I started collecting fallen bird feathers on walks and placing them on my mantle. 🪶I don’t know why but they represented something about the falling and shedding of hurt and the lightness that could still be found and sometimes carried.
Kali, I too collect fallen feathers. I think of them as the universe winking at me.
Have you read the book Theo of Golden? What a homeless woman does with the feathers she finds once she is connected and understood by a generous stranger is so wonderful!
I also have a feather collection-and after reading Theo wondered about trying to duplicate the object for feathers!
awesome book!
Beautiful, Kali!
Birds, to me, represent freedom and flight. So often in my youth, whenever I had a nightmare, I would take flight in my dream, flying just high enough to be out of reach for whatever was after me. Birds nowadays are kin to me - they invite me into a deeper relationship with Nature and with myself. All that to say, I, too, collect feathers that I find. Over the many years now that I've been walking, I have quite a collection going. It brings me joy just seeing them.
Thank you for sharing! XO
This is beautiful! Thank you for saying so.
I love that image of the feathers on your windowsill
Many phrases resonate, thanks Padraig. You set me thinking about a related term, resolution. My healing is bound up with learning not to put myself in harm's way. So I'm thinking about just how powerful the urge is to gravitate to similar dynamics to those that first informed me. Like trying to shoot the same set of rapids that drowned me until I make it through. Learning to relinquish the fantasy of resolution, or at least one I can fabricate is one of those hard won steps of healing. Contenting myself with smaller acts of ordering: knitting, quilting, weaving, handling colours and textures plays no small part in this.
“Contenting myself with smaller acts…” How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. How do you ascend the 12 step stairway? One step at a time. How do you create a garden? Start with a single seed.
I’m appreciating the framing of these other acts as smaller and ordering.. and then realizing there are no small parts of it, either. Resolution can sound so grand and we can attach our hope to it while turning away from our own genuine pleasures. I so relate to this, thank you.
I mean I'm not saying resolution can't creep up on you while you are busy doing something else :-)
Indeed, you wisely distinguished the difference between “fabricating” and releasing. Thanks for sharing your healing experience(s).
yes yes yes
Beth, I deeply relate to this. “Learning not to put myself in harm's way” and “learning to relinquish the fantasy of resolution” are hard-won lessons. Lessons I need to continue relearning!
I've found some relief in realising I just get to work at it as I can, there's no final fix. Nice to know you are out there.
Beth, I am also learning the tricky balance of not putting myself in harm’s way and living a life filled with risk-taking and filling my entire being with all of life’s offers. Thank you
Yes. Here's to trusting our better instincts.
“Learning to relinquish the fantasy of resolution” !!! Oh how I wish I could achieve this!
I find there are levels or maybe facets if we think in terms of crystals. Just when I think I've learned my lesson, seems there's another way to learn.
I like that you took time letting go the physical items and still have a few that are deeply meaningful. Lovingly shared with your poem.
“Learning to relinquish
The "dynamics that informed me" is a wonderful way to remove the power we give to that which harmed us. Thank you for the fresh perspective that is now folded into the current that lifts me up and moves me through to what is next.
Beth, your post helped me put words to 2 scenarios I'm wrestling with also. Thank you.
Wishing you grace and courage as you go.
Sitting outside in nature really helps me in ways I can and can’t explain I think sitting in a world that feels bigger than the one in my head grounds me and reminds me that things can and will always change and so long as I choose to focus on that slowly but surely things melt away
The beach, sand, sanderlings scurrying. And, of course, the sea. In and out, in and out the sound of waves soothes me every time
On a retreat this past week I had such a powerful experience with a big pine tree at the entrance to the labyrinth. The tree was so tall and strong and beautiful and I could feel it telling me I was all of those things as well. I came home still carrying the upright tree in the core of my body.
I had a similar experience while visiting the redwoods earlier this year. I touched several burned out trees that were still growing strong, I had to strain to see the top bc they were so tall! I felt proud of them for thriving through the fire and I felt like they were proud of me too!
How beautiful- to carry the strength of the tree in the core of your being. Love that.
yes, the first object that came to mind for me was a tree because of this dynamic our souls have have with nature. the sights and sounds and smells of nature are inherently made to soothe and calm our nervous system and pint us to the bigger picture in life.
I used to think healing meant one day I’d wake up and the memories would be gone.
They aren’t.
Childhood sexual trauma doesn’t simply disappear. There isn’t a magical pill that erases it or a finish line where you suddenly become the person you were before it happened.
Healing isn’t forgetting.
It’s learning how to live without letting the wound define every step you take.
Some days the current is gentle.
Some days it tries to pull you under.
The work is learning not to fight every wave, but to swallow the current, trust your breath, and keep moving with it instead of letting it drown you.
The scars remain.
Some triggers still find you.
Some nights still feel impossibly heavy.
But every time you choose to stay, to feel, to breathe, to reach for hope instead of hiding, you’re healing.
Not because the trauma is gone—
but because it no longer gets to decide who you are.
If you carry childhood sexual trauma, or any trauma, I see you.
You are not weak because you still struggle.
You are strong because, despite everything that tried to break you, you are still here… learning to flow with a river you never asked to enter.
I have returned over and over to the presence of a deep listener to accompany me through the wounds in my heart. This and poetry, centering prayer, riding my bike, and yesterday a cold plunge into Lake Michigan.
I love the phrase “relinquishing the fantasy of resolution”. This resonates powerfully with me.
Ah Yes! Relinquishing the fantasy of resolution is a point I finally had to come to with my 1st born. That phrase gently puts things in perspective!
"...learning to flow with a river you never asked to enter." Woah! I am in that river after discovering years of my spouses betrayal! The river is raging, full of boulders upon which I am smashed and whirlpools that threaten to take me under. "We don’t erase the river—we learn how to navigate its current." Day by day I am learning how to stay afloat exhausted and and deeply bruised. Though I still believe the ferocious current will one day turn the corner and be calmer. But I am still in the river into which I was thrown. How to make a make a victorious life on the river is my current challenge. I am looking for beauty in the destruction. I love rivers and the challenge of navigating obstacles. I love the surrounding terrain and wildlife. I will look for them. I love the refreshing coolness of the water on a hot day. And trust me the days are like fire right now. I didn't choose this river but if I can look up and around at the beauty, maybe I could love my life again.
Teresa, I feel for you. I was where you are 40 years ago.. I was always so surprised and hurt by my ex-husband's infidelities, and still can't quite understand why it always took me by surprise. Your reflections on the river made me think of this poem my sister sent me recently by Rosemary Wahola Trimmer.
The Clearing
Already the river is lighter in color,
less brown, less turbid, more
translucent. Just yesterday
the currents were thick with mud
and logs, needles and sticks
and bits of once-living debris.
Now that the furious flood has lost
its force, the gravel and sand
have begun their settling.
Whatever was floating now rests
on the banks and all that is left
suspended in the water
is what is most fine.
Soon, even that will sink
and the water will be clear again.
I, too, have felt the gift of slowing,
how it invites a sedimentation
of all I try to carry—the silt of my stories,
the muck of the world.
Like a river, the more calm I am,
the more clear I can become.
No magic, just a matter of physics.
How natural it is, the clearing.
Teresa, having also thrashed thru this raging river of spousal betrayal… may i offer that such rivers often merge with a new confluence, such that the muddy and debris filled waters are left behind. The water now flows fresh and clear, there is new identity, a new course, and a new destiny. Resolution does not necessitate fantasy… sometimes just an honest holding of hope.
Beautifully said ♥️❤️♥️
You are not weak because you still struggle. Thank you for this.
I thank you for sharing this. I am so sorry that it was put upon you; it makes my heart hurt. I am very glad you are finding ways to navigate the river and helping others to do so.
Thank you, Karen. I don’t think healing is a destination. I think it’s a practice. It’s waking up each day and deciding that what happened to you won’t have the final word. It’s resilience. It’s learning to carry the weight without letting it bury you. We don’t erase the river—we learn how to navigate its current. And every time we choose to keep moving forward, we become a little stronger than we were the day before.
Practice—resilience—begin again.
I share this with you. You are not alone.
Thank you.
Beautifully felt/said
hugs
One day my therapist said to me "Permanent loos is permanent grief". I wrote it down and keep this piece of paper in my notebook. Now it feels such a natural, even logical, dictum. It didn't always. I also thought that the moment of "final repair" would come and breath will be forever easy. Like you, I know that trauma is a wave and allowing myself to grieve permanently is not giving in to trauma is honouring the loss and more than that, the person who the loss belongs to.
yes!!! great words to describe a fraction of such a monstrous and enormous wounding.
As somebody who never really felt like she fitted in anywhere but was desperate to belong anyway, I still remember the profound impact of watching the film “Ordinary People” as a teenager, late one night at home after everyone else had gone to bed. Something about the loneliness and isolation of Timothy Hutton’s character spoke deeply to me, as he and his parents struggled in the aftermath of his brother’s drowning. It was the first time I can remember experiencing the strangely comforting feeling of having my own emotions articulated by another. That recognition is a form of healing, I believe, even if no resolution seems to be in sight. The film’s theme music was a version of Pachelbel’s Canon in D and sparked what has become a lifelong love of baroque music – another source of healing for me… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpeMBikzWtk&list=RDxpeMBikzWtk&start_radio=1
This is a beautiful reflection. I’ve been feeling a nudge to rewatch this over the last several months. Thank you for giving me yet one more reason to do so!
I might join you in watching "Ordinary People".
Oh dear, I have too many answers. The sky. A smooth black rock of basalt. My home. Rivers. Any stretching shadow. Any object I perceive as perceiving me as well. But for my real answer, and to echo the unspeakable healing in music, I’ll say my drum set. I never learned to play the drums, but I am a dancer, so I get the rhythm. Last year, I started sitting behind this drum set and found that I can feel rage and be precise, at the same time—and that I can channel my need to control everything into a rhythmic service. And when I’m done feeling anger, I can play. Fuck up. Try again. I can find my heartbeat. I can be the heartbeat. I don’t know if I’ll ever practice enough to get really good, as I am a fairly promiscuous musician - but the freedom there, too, is a healing.
I don't play the drums, but this resonated with me nonetheless. To "...feel the rage and be precise, at the same time..." and, returning to and becoming the heartbeat. These are what healing objects are made for. Bravo, Jo's drumset!
Thank you for this! <3
I am a musician; as you know, my main instrument is the piano. I write songs on it and then pass them to my husband, an exceptional jazz pianist who then transforms them beyond my ability to play! Still and all, it’s the creation element, isn’t it? Maybe we need to write a song! Drums, piano, hmm, now we need a bassist and a guitarist from up in here in this gorgeous community Pádraig has fostered, and we are golden.
Yes!
My husband’s on bass!
My gosh! Rage and precision! This is brilliant. I never quite had an awareness of how those could coexist. But I think the one time in my life I was the MOST rage-full, I was ALSO the most clear. Just utter, utter clarity. Thank you so much for sharing here.
Yes, it can really clear the fog!
I don't think it's about getting really good at it. It's using the outlet.
This is true.. but I have the desire to be fluent in every language, as unrealistic as it is, and this translates to instruments too
Jo! I love this. I love working out the anger in order to play. Feeling your heartbeat and being the heartbeat. Your reflection really moved me.
Ohhhhh, Jo! Mmmm. I love the idea of playing drums as a raging tool. I could see how satisfying it would be to give that voice to my rage while pounding the drumsticks against the drums. I could easily myself getting worked up to a sweat doing that.
I am curious...do you happen to record yourself in those moments? If so, do you play it back and think to yourself, "Wow...that is what my rage sounds like.."? That would be an extraordinary collection of music, I would think.
Thank you for sharing! XO
I used to enjoy having an afternoon cup of tea with my late mother. Our basic two-storey home, sunny Brisbane afternoon, chillin with my mum over tea. A short moment shared. Tea with people is an object of healing.
Thank you so much Pádraig for your beautiful words.
Stillness, a pen and a piece of paper help me every time.
That’s exactly my answer too!
And mine.
I loved this conversation - thank you. And I've ordered the poems! I did a Faber course with Richard a few years ago and was so touched by his kindness in receiving what we wrote together. A precious time. Your question takes me to an exercise we do in online groups sometimes. 'You have 30 seconds to find an object in your room.' Then we invite people to share why it matters to them. The stories are re-sourcing and shared themes arise. This makes me reflect/wonder if everything that surrounds us is a resource for companionship, dialogue, connection and a small portal to healing? If we take the time to offer it our full presence and attention? Which goes to this from David Whyte:
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.
So my unfolding answer is that to live into the kind of attention - to painting, crystal, place, human, whatever - that Richard Scott embodies, is in itself, an orientation to healing?
Naomi, some synchronicity here. I am also in a small group called the Wisdom Workshop where we write, share, talk profoundly. Just yesterday we did that very exercise of finding an object quickly and sharing what it was and why it mattered. And, yes, there was a weaving of what came from that and some shared themes. I think you've hit on something about companionship, connection, presence as a way into healing. Thank you.
That’s so cool! Yes - there is wonder in this contact and sharing. Thank you for the companionship here and there 🙏
“A portal to healing” - that is a visual description that opens something for me.
Thank you Naomi. I read the entire poem. It and your comment dovetail into last week’s “loneliness” and eases into this week’s “hurt and healing”. Perhaps Padraig’s intent also.
Thanks Tammy. I must go back to the loneliness theme and explore! 🙏
This is a beautiful reflection--yours and Whyte's. Thank you.
As a hurting child, my instincts took me to the woods, where the loam and moist earth held beneath it, what I believed were objects of my healing. Rocks. Old bottles, some shattered, some whole. Trinkets. A long-gone child's metal toy truck. As an adult, for much too long, I sought quick fixes. I turned to typical snake oil elixers: liquor, religions, drugs, relationships, avoidance. Now, my adjunct therapy is my metal detector. It seems my childhood instincts were spot on. My metal detector takes me to nature. It requires me to seek. It calls me to dig. Everything I find is good. Everything I find heals me.
“The woods, where the loam and moist earth beneath it …” For me as well, a child of the bald prairies, the forest brought elements of healing and connection.
What helps me healing is needle and thread. Sitting down and stitching. Focusing on the movement of my fingers, watching how my steady work covers the quilt top with stitches made with love.
stitching and other craftwork are so transformative. and can hold the stories of our loss and longing as a way to repair.
Books
Not all books, but
books that contain deep wisdom of the human heart,
books with words that jump off of the page,
right into your soul, and hold you, then
whisper that you are not alone.
Hello and happy Sunday, everyone! For me, it was the piano. And before that, the clarinet. Polishing its black & silver body, sucking on the reeds, the purple velvet interior of the case cradling each part. Those rituals were medicine.
But the piano became a portal. To something intangible. Something ephemeral. My fingers on the keys, and suddenly my fate seemed no longer to be at the whim of others.
beneath black night and silver moon
where reeds once swayed in the wind
you swayed with your woodwind
*
piano’s portal to what can’t be seen
that lasts only the moment it’s played
echoes forever in its hearing
*
Lovely, Lisa!
A weeping willow tree in my Godmother’s yard. It was a refuge from the storms of life, a canopy opening to the sun and the stars. I ate home-made cookies there. I could catch my breath. Yes, it was a home-place for my heart.