Two weeks ago, a group of us walked, offtrack in wilderness with a guide, through an ancient gorge that insisted we scramble over rocks, climb along ledges, wrap our packs in watertight bags and float and swim in crystal clear water, dry ourselves off and walk again, scramble some more. Some found it very hard to climb and carry their packs, others needed more rest. The guide paired us up to support those that needed it. It was as if we were in a time warp, a 5 hour walk took 11 hours. We emerged from the slender valley late afternoon. The walker I was with said, with despair, 'I cannot get to the camp over the next rise.' I was bone tired and had little reserve. I looked at her, 'We have got each other. You and I are doing this together, one step at a time.' I felt a surge of deep love and care and inner resource. I am crying as I write this because I felt like 'I' had disappeared and there was only us and the two of us made it to the camp before dark and held each other and laughed. I want to make a myth and an interpretation out of it. The valley has it's own story...
Once had a similar experience just a few years ago, my two sons had to help me get to an old place I had visited many times in my younger years. This time though was especially sacred and full.
My husband and I couldn't sleep. We lived in Camaiore (a town near the Mediterranean in Tuscany) Our month-old (first) child was sound asleep, but his father and I were wide awake. We decided to walk up the winding road to Monteggiori (a 1000-year-old town with footpaths only, no cars could go). I bundled the baby into my Snuggly, and off we went into the pitch black Italian summer night. Suddenly, we began feeling little raindrops, but they were gentle, and a little rain never hurt anybody. We decided to keep making our way up. As the rain increased, we were grateful for the canopy of trees over the road, protecting us from the rainfall. Holding hands, we went for about another 15-20 minutes in the 'tree tunnel', then turned around and made our way back home. The rain stopped.
We'd driven that road a hundred times without ever noticing that tunnel of trees. How blind had we been to mother nature?! The next time we drove up that road (a few days later), we realized that there was no 'tunnel of trees' of any kind. Nothing. No branches arching over the road. Not anywhere. So what had happened that night? We'd both experienced it. No answers for that one, and I'm happy to leave it at that.
I was 17, sitting on a wooden pew, listening to a visiting pastor tell a group of privileged prep school kids that they were the first generation to possibly not have a future because of nuclear war. A thunderbolt went through my being. I knew I would not bring children into this world.
Many thunderstorms and thunderbolts later, at 68, I listened to the verdict of the Supreme Court strip away half the wetland protection for the sake of a man who wanted to build on nature’s kidneys.
That began my work for Rights of Nature.
Thanks, Padraig.
Perhaps I do interpret. Yet, the thunderbolt presents as a knowing. Clarity. Inexplicable joy despite the outrage.
I love Helene Cixous; her work is genius. One of my favourite quotes from her is "write yourself, your body must be heard".
I cried regularly for years and feel like I experienced every flavour of weeping during that time. I rarely knew why I was crying; I just learned to go with it.
Raising my 5 children, 2 of whom are young adults. Parenting them is about experiencing them and being present to who they are and who they are becoming. If I do too much interpreting of behavior and speculation of what it means for them, us, and their future, I hamstring the natural rhythms of growth and connection. It’s best to experience their hearts and wholeheartedly take in the precious moments with them.
Ohhhhh, this resonates with me. I really don’t want my brain interpretations to “hamstring the natural rhythms of growth and connection” with my beautiful, complex young adult children. Thank you for sharing Lanie
I have woken many times with the world of dreams still in my eyes, yet I have given up understanding them for sake of the wonder that I can not name but is my constant companion.
A moment I had what I dare not try to interpret happened almost 30 years ago. In a state of deep meditation I encountered something golden and beautiful that I have tried to explain to a select few people. But my explanation has always been insufficient to the experience of the encounter. The encounter has been the background to every action that I have taken since, and though I’ve sought it out, it has never happened again.
Sean, I have also had an experience with golden-yellow light that affected me deeply. There is a poem Ada Limón wrote for her step mother who died of cancer. In her last hours one of the phrases she spoke was, “More yellow.”
I too remember tearless years as a younger man, though now that span is measured in days or perhaps more often hours. Jun soonds laek a graet greet, if you’ll forgive me slipping into Shaetlan.
I also remember catching sunrises, a couple of times (literally), that made me rush up the nearest hill. As I’m typing I feel the instinct to explain, to understand what lay behind and beneath my behaviour, my compulsion. But in that time, there was nothing to be explained, or understood. There was only the sun, the hill and a man.
Winter 1988. All the college choirs in my mid-sized western city were invited to join the symphony chorale in performing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. We rehearsed through a damp November, fragments of the fourth movement only - the conductor spot-checking the entrances and cut-offs we had practiced separately, giving us notes. We watched his downbeats and the swoop of his arm, learning to read this new body. We went home, maybe a little disappointed, having sung no phrase far enough to feel its exhilaration.
On concert night, we wore simple black, remained seated through movements 1, 2, 3; seated when the four soloists stood and blurted loveliness over the edge of the stage like silver balls of mercury, scattering everywhere.
We stood on cue, jammed together, holding our folders behind the head of the person just below. The conductor looked at us, sweaty, a lock of hair loose on his forehead. He beamed at us from inside the music, opened the gate with both arms, and let us enter with him.
We sang Schiller’s words and Beethoven’s melody — Joy, daughter of Elysium … brother … kiss the whole world — in the darkened hall, each one of us somehow sending our voice to alight on the tip of the conductor’s wand.
.
I see myself interpreting with metaphors so you can feel what it was like. This is a challenging exercise. I’ll try again:
Some decades ago I was lying in the grass, looking up at the starry night sky. There came a moment when I became aware that I too was drifting among them, not sure how that had happened. But with that awareness, I began traveling through the stars, faster and faster, until I landed back in my body in the grass, a bit disorientated but feeling deeply content. Thanks for this beautiful question, and the introduction to Helene Cixous.
An event resisting interpretation… an event stumbled upon with a good friend, one night after closing the restaurant I was working in, in (then) West Berlin. We were walking home through Görlitzer Park, when we came upon folx sitting in the street, looking up at the night sky. Hmmm, I thought, commisch. The mood was quiet and yet giddy… I looked up and saw the moon being ‘eaten up’ and slowly turning ember red. Quiet chatter and awe. Sekt and Bier Prosts, as well as laughter, embraces- Beautiful community sharing and appreciation of a moment. Thank you for this prompt- which until now resisted interpretation, for me. Oddly, I dreamt of horses last night- and now this learning about this artist and podcast. Such a gift. Thank you (as well as for the SF Nope photo- a good chuckle as well.)
It was 2009. I had fallen asleep with the tv on. Deep in the middle of the night I was woken by the most beautiful music. Listening thrilled me. It struck me so deeply that I had to get up and sit at my computer until I figured out what I had been listening to: “Kings and Queens” by Jared Leto’s Thirty Seconds to Mars. I sat in my comfy chair and couldn’t even consider going back to bed until I had played it over and over. Finally the sun started coming up. The rest of the day I wasn’t even tired.
Oh, you reminded me of a beautiful experience long ago but never fully forgotten. I was in Yellowknife, sleeping on the floor provided by a few kind strangers, with a few companions waiting to catch a flight the next morning. In the wee hours of being partly awake, partly asleep, the radio seemed to be on somewhere in the largish house, and it began playing the most magical music, indigenous Canadian, weaving soulful drumbeats throughout an intricate lyrical and journeying musical score including many instruments... which I still cannot name. They were each individual voices, clearly separate, yet clearly joining together in a long shared journey. The song went on for hours it seemed, and I could neither wake nor sleep, fully engaged yet inert on the floor. I've never learned what the tune was or who the musicians were, but nobody else seemed to notice it at all so I've left it be standing there, like a long-ago tree always remembered but unseen by others.
"I want the dream to cough up." Wonderful. Yes, this resisting of interpreting dreams, or events, letting them flow into life and change the colour of the air instead.......such a good meditation.....
The other night I was woken in the night with the simple two word phrase, "Something's Coming." That's all. Nothing else. No details. Just that. So I let it sit there for awhile for company. Perhaps it was lonely in its telling, who knows? It simply drifts around the house now making its way to who knows where? Sometimes I think even writing down the dreams is too much interference.
I was in high school, driving somewhere, listening to the radio and the news came on. I don’t remember what international catastrophe was being reported. It was the mid-1960’s. Wars? Children starving? I pulled the car over to get off the street, and I started crying. And crying. And crying. It felt like an existential crisis, whatever that means. I cried for the planet, for humanity, for myself, for my family and friends. I had always been told that I was ‘too sensitive’. That might have been the beginning of ignoring that statement and coming to an understanding that my sensitivity was something called empathy.
I, as well, grew up being told I was too sensitive. It wasn't until I went back to school at 50, for a masters of education in the arts, that I realized my sensitivity was my greatest intelligence, the gift of being able to be aware of and feel things.
I often experience feelings I can't explain. Most recently was the other evening when I suddenly had to get away from my own house...my husband and our visiting grown children, all of whom I love. I went for a long long walk down the boulevard and into the woods and I cried. On the way back home, along the boulevard, I stopped to watch the sunset over Sengekontacket Pond. What sent me out? Am I too sensitive? What am I in search of? Sitting there by the pond, in the stillness, I was able to let my eyes rest on the beauty of what I saw, without interpreting how or why I was there.
I have read this post through several times, and I'm not sure if I understand the quote, or the assignment, but I want to connect.
I once had a very close friend suddenly tell me that we couldn't be friends anymore. I'd crossed a line that I didn't know was there. We haven't talked since - that was twenty years ago. We had so many rich and interesting conversations before that, and times of laughter and silliness as well. I remember baking a cake together, and the instructions said not to open the oven while it was baking, but we really wanted to check on it, so we tiptoed up very quietly and opened the oven and peeked in, crept away again, and then burst into giggles. She gave me some explanation of why she was disconnecting, but I still couldn't really make sense of it, or figure out how to prevent it happening again. I have worries about losing friends, and worries about crossing boundaries because I don't notice them.
Tonight, I was already feeling sad and lonely. I've been stuck at home not able to do much as I am recovering from surgery, and I've reached out to lots of people but not managed to line up much actual connection. Then I had a messenger exchange with a friend. They told me that they need to disconnect and not to message them. This time I understand why. And I think they may reconnect with me when they are able, but I also think there is a chance they will end their life without reconnecting with me.
I'm feeling overwhelmed by sadness in this moment. I really need to sleep because my body is healing but my emotions are full volume and my ADHD brain is full tilt. When I'm feeling like this, I often calm my body and quiet my brain by listening to Poetry Unbound. I recently ran out of episodes so I have been listening to the audio book 50 poems... and tonight of all nights I put it on and it was the start of the acknowledgements at the end. I guess I'll go back to the beginning and listen again.
What a powerful story Fionn -- I feel the weight of decision and not-knowing in the story you shared here. Thank you.
I hope your friend does find a way to reach out. And to stay.
I'm moved that you listen to Poetry Unbound - thank you. I'm often awake in the middle of the night (BBC World Service is a friend, as is the reading of Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy read by Sagar Arya, and also Max Richter's eight-hour piece "Sleep"). I'm with you in the returning to things you know: it helps. And again, I'll return: thank you for writing.
Fionn, do you like music? If so, perhaps "Forslund" by Mike Marshall, Daryl Anger, and the Swedish group, Väsen will resonate with you? I often listen to it when I’m in need of grounding. To me it feels like a song that Winter wrens have written — not humans. Winter wrens are some of the best friends I have in this ancient world.
That is lovely, thank you for the suggestion. I have ever heard a winter wren but I love music and birds. My favourite bird is the kōkako. It's song is another uninterpretable wondrous experience.
Fionn, thank you for sharing this tender story. You articulated something from the heart that I'd never put into words: I too worry about crossing lines with people that I don't know are there, just by being myself. I'm glad that the recent "disconnection" made at least some sense to you. I like the phrase, "go back to the beginning and listen again." The is profound. What will you hear this time round? Sending you much love, Lori.
Alone amid a dark night two months past my mother’s passing, tears overwhelmed breathing. The presence of loss seemed a being of lostness. I sat up in my bed. The crying stopped as abruptly as it had begun: Tiny slow-motion comets of light flowed or streamed or moved as though the tip of a finger touched beneath my closed right eyelid from left to right—-at least seven lights for as long as it is taking me to write this sentence. When they were done. The same slow panacea occurred under my left eyelid like torch-flames weaving mysteriously along a mountainside.
Thank you for the “likes” that are so heartwarming. The metaphysical experience still compels amazement even though it happened 24 years ago. Closer to my mother now than when she was alive, my understanding—the thing that matters most—must have needed time to grow.
I can’t really remember one thing either, but I sense inside that I have experienced them. Lately I’ve been trying to be in the moment and noticing more. Journaling helps as well. Let’s resolve to slow down and let those moments catch us up and settle into our souls.
Two weeks ago, a group of us walked, offtrack in wilderness with a guide, through an ancient gorge that insisted we scramble over rocks, climb along ledges, wrap our packs in watertight bags and float and swim in crystal clear water, dry ourselves off and walk again, scramble some more. Some found it very hard to climb and carry their packs, others needed more rest. The guide paired us up to support those that needed it. It was as if we were in a time warp, a 5 hour walk took 11 hours. We emerged from the slender valley late afternoon. The walker I was with said, with despair, 'I cannot get to the camp over the next rise.' I was bone tired and had little reserve. I looked at her, 'We have got each other. You and I are doing this together, one step at a time.' I felt a surge of deep love and care and inner resource. I am crying as I write this because I felt like 'I' had disappeared and there was only us and the two of us made it to the camp before dark and held each other and laughed. I want to make a myth and an interpretation out of it. The valley has it's own story...
How beautiful that moment sounds Wendy, and beautifully told
Wow, this brings back a life lesson. Don’t look at the mountain, only at the next step you have to take. Each step has its own story, too.
Once had a similar experience just a few years ago, my two sons had to help me get to an old place I had visited many times in my younger years. This time though was especially sacred and full.
This is beautiful. I love "I want to make a myth" out of it. But instead, you just let it live.
My husband and I couldn't sleep. We lived in Camaiore (a town near the Mediterranean in Tuscany) Our month-old (first) child was sound asleep, but his father and I were wide awake. We decided to walk up the winding road to Monteggiori (a 1000-year-old town with footpaths only, no cars could go). I bundled the baby into my Snuggly, and off we went into the pitch black Italian summer night. Suddenly, we began feeling little raindrops, but they were gentle, and a little rain never hurt anybody. We decided to keep making our way up. As the rain increased, we were grateful for the canopy of trees over the road, protecting us from the rainfall. Holding hands, we went for about another 15-20 minutes in the 'tree tunnel', then turned around and made our way back home. The rain stopped.
We'd driven that road a hundred times without ever noticing that tunnel of trees. How blind had we been to mother nature?! The next time we drove up that road (a few days later), we realized that there was no 'tunnel of trees' of any kind. Nothing. No branches arching over the road. Not anywhere. So what had happened that night? We'd both experienced it. No answers for that one, and I'm happy to leave it at that.
Such a powerful image. I will take your tunnel of trees with me today.
I was 17, sitting on a wooden pew, listening to a visiting pastor tell a group of privileged prep school kids that they were the first generation to possibly not have a future because of nuclear war. A thunderbolt went through my being. I knew I would not bring children into this world.
Many thunderstorms and thunderbolts later, at 68, I listened to the verdict of the Supreme Court strip away half the wetland protection for the sake of a man who wanted to build on nature’s kidneys.
That began my work for Rights of Nature.
Thanks, Padraig.
Perhaps I do interpret. Yet, the thunderbolt presents as a knowing. Clarity. Inexplicable joy despite the outrage.
I love Helene Cixous; her work is genius. One of my favourite quotes from her is "write yourself, your body must be heard".
I cried regularly for years and feel like I experienced every flavour of weeping during that time. I rarely knew why I was crying; I just learned to go with it.
Thanks for the quote.
"every flavour of weeping" . yes.
Raising my 5 children, 2 of whom are young adults. Parenting them is about experiencing them and being present to who they are and who they are becoming. If I do too much interpreting of behavior and speculation of what it means for them, us, and their future, I hamstring the natural rhythms of growth and connection. It’s best to experience their hearts and wholeheartedly take in the precious moments with them.
Ohhhhh, this resonates with me. I really don’t want my brain interpretations to “hamstring the natural rhythms of growth and connection” with my beautiful, complex young adult children. Thank you for sharing Lanie
I have woken many times with the world of dreams still in my eyes, yet I have given up understanding them for sake of the wonder that I can not name but is my constant companion.
A moment I had what I dare not try to interpret happened almost 30 years ago. In a state of deep meditation I encountered something golden and beautiful that I have tried to explain to a select few people. But my explanation has always been insufficient to the experience of the encounter. The encounter has been the background to every action that I have taken since, and though I’ve sought it out, it has never happened again.
Sean, I have also had an experience with golden-yellow light that affected me deeply. There is a poem Ada Limón wrote for her step mother who died of cancer. In her last hours one of the phrases she spoke was, “More yellow.”
Thank you Tami. When did you encounter your golden-yellow light? I’m a big fan of Ada Limón, and I’m going to look for that poem today.
This past April, so pretty recent. Here is the poem: https://www.poetryinternational.com/en/poets-poems/poems/poem/103-30716_FORSYTHIA
Amazing
A friend of mine had an experience with a vision of golden light he could never explain—only relate in awe. So interesting to hear your telling!
I too remember tearless years as a younger man, though now that span is measured in days or perhaps more often hours. Jun soonds laek a graet greet, if you’ll forgive me slipping into Shaetlan.
I also remember catching sunrises, a couple of times (literally), that made me rush up the nearest hill. As I’m typing I feel the instinct to explain, to understand what lay behind and beneath my behaviour, my compulsion. But in that time, there was nothing to be explained, or understood. There was only the sun, the hill and a man.
This.... echoes in me the work and words of the late N. Scott Momaday, in his gentle earthquake of a work titled "House Made of Dawn."
Winter 1988. All the college choirs in my mid-sized western city were invited to join the symphony chorale in performing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. We rehearsed through a damp November, fragments of the fourth movement only - the conductor spot-checking the entrances and cut-offs we had practiced separately, giving us notes. We watched his downbeats and the swoop of his arm, learning to read this new body. We went home, maybe a little disappointed, having sung no phrase far enough to feel its exhilaration.
On concert night, we wore simple black, remained seated through movements 1, 2, 3; seated when the four soloists stood and blurted loveliness over the edge of the stage like silver balls of mercury, scattering everywhere.
We stood on cue, jammed together, holding our folders behind the head of the person just below. The conductor looked at us, sweaty, a lock of hair loose on his forehead. He beamed at us from inside the music, opened the gate with both arms, and let us enter with him.
We sang Schiller’s words and Beethoven’s melody — Joy, daughter of Elysium … brother … kiss the whole world — in the darkened hall, each one of us somehow sending our voice to alight on the tip of the conductor’s wand.
.
I see myself interpreting with metaphors so you can feel what it was like. This is a challenging exercise. I’ll try again:
At twenty I sang Beethoven in a numberless choir.
Some decades ago I was lying in the grass, looking up at the starry night sky. There came a moment when I became aware that I too was drifting among them, not sure how that had happened. But with that awareness, I began traveling through the stars, faster and faster, until I landed back in my body in the grass, a bit disorientated but feeling deeply content. Thanks for this beautiful question, and the introduction to Helene Cixous.
An event resisting interpretation… an event stumbled upon with a good friend, one night after closing the restaurant I was working in, in (then) West Berlin. We were walking home through Görlitzer Park, when we came upon folx sitting in the street, looking up at the night sky. Hmmm, I thought, commisch. The mood was quiet and yet giddy… I looked up and saw the moon being ‘eaten up’ and slowly turning ember red. Quiet chatter and awe. Sekt and Bier Prosts, as well as laughter, embraces- Beautiful community sharing and appreciation of a moment. Thank you for this prompt- which until now resisted interpretation, for me. Oddly, I dreamt of horses last night- and now this learning about this artist and podcast. Such a gift. Thank you (as well as for the SF Nope photo- a good chuckle as well.)
It was 2009. I had fallen asleep with the tv on. Deep in the middle of the night I was woken by the most beautiful music. Listening thrilled me. It struck me so deeply that I had to get up and sit at my computer until I figured out what I had been listening to: “Kings and Queens” by Jared Leto’s Thirty Seconds to Mars. I sat in my comfy chair and couldn’t even consider going back to bed until I had played it over and over. Finally the sun started coming up. The rest of the day I wasn’t even tired.
Oh, you reminded me of a beautiful experience long ago but never fully forgotten. I was in Yellowknife, sleeping on the floor provided by a few kind strangers, with a few companions waiting to catch a flight the next morning. In the wee hours of being partly awake, partly asleep, the radio seemed to be on somewhere in the largish house, and it began playing the most magical music, indigenous Canadian, weaving soulful drumbeats throughout an intricate lyrical and journeying musical score including many instruments... which I still cannot name. They were each individual voices, clearly separate, yet clearly joining together in a long shared journey. The song went on for hours it seemed, and I could neither wake nor sleep, fully engaged yet inert on the floor. I've never learned what the tune was or who the musicians were, but nobody else seemed to notice it at all so I've left it be standing there, like a long-ago tree always remembered but unseen by others.
Yes, like soul-swimming in sound ✨
"I want the dream to cough up." Wonderful. Yes, this resisting of interpreting dreams, or events, letting them flow into life and change the colour of the air instead.......such a good meditation.....
The other night I was woken in the night with the simple two word phrase, "Something's Coming." That's all. Nothing else. No details. Just that. So I let it sit there for awhile for company. Perhaps it was lonely in its telling, who knows? It simply drifts around the house now making its way to who knows where? Sometimes I think even writing down the dreams is too much interference.
I was in high school, driving somewhere, listening to the radio and the news came on. I don’t remember what international catastrophe was being reported. It was the mid-1960’s. Wars? Children starving? I pulled the car over to get off the street, and I started crying. And crying. And crying. It felt like an existential crisis, whatever that means. I cried for the planet, for humanity, for myself, for my family and friends. I had always been told that I was ‘too sensitive’. That might have been the beginning of ignoring that statement and coming to an understanding that my sensitivity was something called empathy.
I, as well, grew up being told I was too sensitive. It wasn't until I went back to school at 50, for a masters of education in the arts, that I realized my sensitivity was my greatest intelligence, the gift of being able to be aware of and feel things.
I often experience feelings I can't explain. Most recently was the other evening when I suddenly had to get away from my own house...my husband and our visiting grown children, all of whom I love. I went for a long long walk down the boulevard and into the woods and I cried. On the way back home, along the boulevard, I stopped to watch the sunset over Sengekontacket Pond. What sent me out? Am I too sensitive? What am I in search of? Sitting there by the pond, in the stillness, I was able to let my eyes rest on the beauty of what I saw, without interpreting how or why I was there.
I have read this post through several times, and I'm not sure if I understand the quote, or the assignment, but I want to connect.
I once had a very close friend suddenly tell me that we couldn't be friends anymore. I'd crossed a line that I didn't know was there. We haven't talked since - that was twenty years ago. We had so many rich and interesting conversations before that, and times of laughter and silliness as well. I remember baking a cake together, and the instructions said not to open the oven while it was baking, but we really wanted to check on it, so we tiptoed up very quietly and opened the oven and peeked in, crept away again, and then burst into giggles. She gave me some explanation of why she was disconnecting, but I still couldn't really make sense of it, or figure out how to prevent it happening again. I have worries about losing friends, and worries about crossing boundaries because I don't notice them.
Tonight, I was already feeling sad and lonely. I've been stuck at home not able to do much as I am recovering from surgery, and I've reached out to lots of people but not managed to line up much actual connection. Then I had a messenger exchange with a friend. They told me that they need to disconnect and not to message them. This time I understand why. And I think they may reconnect with me when they are able, but I also think there is a chance they will end their life without reconnecting with me.
I'm feeling overwhelmed by sadness in this moment. I really need to sleep because my body is healing but my emotions are full volume and my ADHD brain is full tilt. When I'm feeling like this, I often calm my body and quiet my brain by listening to Poetry Unbound. I recently ran out of episodes so I have been listening to the audio book 50 poems... and tonight of all nights I put it on and it was the start of the acknowledgements at the end. I guess I'll go back to the beginning and listen again.
What a powerful story Fionn -- I feel the weight of decision and not-knowing in the story you shared here. Thank you.
I hope your friend does find a way to reach out. And to stay.
I'm moved that you listen to Poetry Unbound - thank you. I'm often awake in the middle of the night (BBC World Service is a friend, as is the reading of Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy read by Sagar Arya, and also Max Richter's eight-hour piece "Sleep"). I'm with you in the returning to things you know: it helps. And again, I'll return: thank you for writing.
Fionn, do you like music? If so, perhaps "Forslund" by Mike Marshall, Daryl Anger, and the Swedish group, Väsen will resonate with you? I often listen to it when I’m in need of grounding. To me it feels like a song that Winter wrens have written — not humans. Winter wrens are some of the best friends I have in this ancient world.
That is lovely, thank you for the suggestion. I have ever heard a winter wren but I love music and birds. My favourite bird is the kōkako. It's song is another uninterpretable wondrous experience.
Listen again, Fionn :) Like me, you may hear wise things unnoticed the first time through.
Blessings, friend.
Fionn I hear your sadness and uncertainty. May you sleep and get the connection, comfort and care you need. I wanted to reach out and say, I hear you.
Fionn, thank you for sharing this tender story. You articulated something from the heart that I'd never put into words: I too worry about crossing lines with people that I don't know are there, just by being myself. I'm glad that the recent "disconnection" made at least some sense to you. I like the phrase, "go back to the beginning and listen again." The is profound. What will you hear this time round? Sending you much love, Lori.
Alone amid a dark night two months past my mother’s passing, tears overwhelmed breathing. The presence of loss seemed a being of lostness. I sat up in my bed. The crying stopped as abruptly as it had begun: Tiny slow-motion comets of light flowed or streamed or moved as though the tip of a finger touched beneath my closed right eyelid from left to right—-at least seven lights for as long as it is taking me to write this sentence. When they were done. The same slow panacea occurred under my left eyelid like torch-flames weaving mysteriously along a mountainside.
Thank you for the “likes” that are so heartwarming. The metaphysical experience still compels amazement even though it happened 24 years ago. Closer to my mother now than when she was alive, my understanding—the thing that matters most—must have needed time to grow.
I cannot think of one thing. Does this mean I interpret everything? I don’t know.
I have always wanted to partake interpretive dance. Perhaps my whole life has been one long interpretive dance.
I can’t really remember one thing either, but I sense inside that I have experienced them. Lately I’ve been trying to be in the moment and noticing more. Journaling helps as well. Let’s resolve to slow down and let those moments catch us up and settle into our souls.